Don't Cause Trouble Chapter 14: Broke Cultivators

No one knew what had happened. In the blink of an eye, they had all been thrown out of the secret realm, left staring blankly at the people waiting outside.

"What’s going on?"

"Why are we out here?"

The cultivators around them broke into chaos, all talking at once in confusion.

"This secret realm must’ve had something unusual going on. It probably opened early—and ended early too."

"I didn’t see an exit at all."

"Same here."

"I heard that in some secret realms, if someone takes the treasure that anchors the realm, it automatically kicks everyone else out."

……

The voices around them weren’t quiet. Standing among the disciples of Wu Yin Sect, Ning Qianyao silently reached into her Qiankun bag. Inside was a small box—something she had secretly taken from the pillar on the highest platform while no one was paying attention.

The box clearly looked valuable. Could it be the treasure that anchors the secret realm?

Ning Qianyao grew nervous, anxiously fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. She didn’t really understand what an anchoring treasure did, but her instincts told her it was something important.

"Where are Senior Sister and Fourth Junior Brother?" Xiyu frowned, looking around.

Lu Jiu paused for a moment. "Fellow Daoist Ye was just beside me a moment ago."

Ming Liu Sha lowered his head, trying to contact Senior Sister using a transmission jade, but got no response. He looked up at Xiyu and said, "I’ll go look for her."

After circling around, he came back without finding Ye Su—but he did return with Xia'er.

Earlier, while they had been talking, Xia'er had run off to collect beast corpses. That’s why he wasn’t with the group when they were all thrown out of the realm.

Now that the three of them were reunited, their expressions were no longer relaxed.

"Could Senior Sister still be inside the secret realm?" Xia'er asked anxiously. "Can we go back in?"

Although Xin Xin didn’t like these Qianji Sect disciples, he still spoke up: "If someone really did take the realm’s anchor, the secret realm won’t open again. Ye Su is as good as dead."

Xiyu immediately scowled. "Don’t talk nonsense!"

The three of them clearly panicked, and quickly planned to split up to search through the crowd again.

"Xiyu, stay here and take care of Junior Brother. Xia'er and I will keep looking for Senior Sister," Ming Liu Sha said, stepping up to take the role of Second Senior Brother in Ye Su’s absence. He pulled out a bottle of healing pills from his pouch and handed it to Yi Xuan.

Ye Su had bought these the night before entering the secret realm, spending her own spirit stones. She’d given two bottles to each of them, worried they might get hurt since it was their first time in such a place.

Yi Xuan lowered his eyes to the bottle in his hand. He wanted to say he’d go help search too, but what came out instead was, "I don’t need anyone looking after me."

His voice was stiff and cold, the kind that most people would take as rejection.

Ming Liu Sha acted as if he hadn’t heard. Senior Sister had said it already: Junior Brother might be pretty, but he only had one track in his head.

"I’ll go help find Fellow Daoist Ye as well," Lu Jiu said, watching the two leave.

Though she hadn’t gained much from the secret realm, meeting this group had still felt like fate.

Xiyu nodded at her. "Thank you."

Lu Jiu waved her hand and disappeared into the crowd.

Yi Xuan was covered in wounds. Despite her worry for Ye Su, Xiyu still helped him sit by a nearby tree, watching as he took the healing pills.

"…Why did you all enter the secret realm?" Yi Xuan finally asked. He was pale from blood loss, and the red mark on his forehead looked even more vivid than usual.

"There’s spiritual energy in the secret realm," Xiyu said, still scanning the crowd. By now, people were beginning to leave in small groups. "It helped us form our foundation."

That’s when Yi Xuan noticed—Xiyu had already successfully reached Foundation Establishment.

"Senior Brother Xin, could you help look for my Senior Sister?" Ning Qianyao asked, biting her lip, her voice trembling as though she might cry at any moment. She cast a glance toward Xiyu. "If something happens to Senior Sister, everyone will be heartbroken."

"Troublemakers live long. Ye Su isn’t someone who would die that easily," Xin Xin said gruffly, clearly annoyed at the mention of her. After a pause, he turned to the other Wu Yin Sect disciples and said, "Split up and search. We’ll meet back here in an hour."

Ning Qianyao also said she wanted to help search. She entered the crowd from one side and slipped out from another, heading toward a more secluded area.

Once there, she carefully pulled out the small box from her Qiankun bag, holding her breath. Is this really the realm’s anchor?

She tried to suppress her excitement as she slowly opened the box, wanting to see what treasure lay inside.

But as she got a clear look at its contents, her expression darkened—until she finally threw the box to the ground.

……

The once noisy secret realm had become eerily quiet. You Fushi rested his chin on one hand, casually watching the person asleep on the ground.

Earlier, he had caught the scent of high-level spirit beasts and entered the secret realm. He took everything that caught his eye, and as for those powerful beasts—they’d already become his nourishment.

It was only because he touched the realm's anchoring treasure that he was pulled into this illusionary space. But he wasn't in a hurry to leave. Instead, he wandered around the illusion for a long while.

However, after staring at the stone forest for too long, it started to make him dizzy and irritable. So with a flick of his hand, he destroyed the secret realm. The cultivators outside were instantly thrown out, and as for this person…

She must have been dragged in when a crack formed at the moment he destroyed the realm outside.

You Fushi suddenly leaned down, his long, dark hair falling onto Ye Su’s neck, the motion unintentionally intimate. But one was unconscious, and the other didn’t care. With only the towering stone forest around them, no one else saw a thing.

He sniffed her scent lightly. Something about it felt oddly familiar.

But… he didn’t recognize her.

You Fushi tugged at her clothes a little. They looked vaguely familiar, but no memories came to mind.

Since he couldn't figure it out, he didn’t bother thinking more. He sat up, no longer looking at the woman on the ground, and instead toyed with a bead in his hand—something he had taken earlier from a small box.

The bead, once crystal clear, now shimmered even more strangely in contrast to his cool, jade-like fingers.

But after playing with it for a while, You Fushi grew bored. Lazily, he leaned back against the woman’s body and, out of curiosity, pulled off her Qiankun bag. With a tap of his finger, he broke the seal on it and glanced inside.

—A poor cultivator. Not a single decent item.

He lost all interest. Casually, he tossed the unwanted bead into the pouch and threw it back beside the person on the ground.

Now that the secret realm had been destroyed, this illusionary space probably wouldn’t last much longer either. When it collapsed, this broke cultivator would naturally be ejected.

He had other things to take care of—people to settle scores with.

You Fushi stood up, and in the blink of an eye, turned into a stream of light and vanished.

……

When Ye Su opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was an ominous blood-red sky. She frowned and sat up, her palms pressing into the ground, feeling the soft earth mixed with a sticky dampness.

She pulled her hands back, but strangely, there was no dirt on them. Instinctively, she stood up, and that was when her Qiankun bag slipped to the ground.

Ye Su picked it up and fastened it back at her waist, finding nothing unusual about it.

She vaguely remembered seeing the back of someone who looked like her junior brother before she passed out. But now, it seemed she was the only one left in this place.

This had to be some kind of illusion. The sight, the touch, even the smells felt incredibly real—yet none of it actually clung to her body.

Ye Su finally stepped into the eerie, towering stone forest. She paused in front of a tall stone pillar and looked up. Its surface was carved with extremely intricate patterns. Just staring at them for too long made her dizzy.

Yet the longer she looked, the clearer those markings became.

She couldn’t make sense of the patterns, but after unconsciously reading through them, she found them etched deep into her memory.

As she walked through the stone forest, Ye Su memorized the markings on each stone surface. But she still couldn’t find an exit.

She couldn’t die in a place like this. She had no idea how her junior brothers and sisters were doing.

Ye Su even began climbing one of the tall stones, hoping to get a better view and locate an exit from the secret realm.

But she saw nothing—except… what was that?

She suddenly noticed something strange about the way the stone forest was arranged, as if there was a hidden meaning or formation. But just as she was about to take a closer look, she was suddenly thrown out.

……

She had entered suddenly—and now exited just as abruptly.

Before Ye Su could fully focus her eyes, she heard a tired yet excited voice from nearby: "Senior Sister!"

"Xia'er?" Ye Su rubbed her temples as she looked around. "You’re the only one here? Where are the others?"

"Second Senior Brother and Third Senior Sister are guarding the north and south sides. Junior Brother is watching the west, and I’ve been waiting here in the east," Xia'er said, eyes slightly red. "If Master hadn’t sent word that your soul tablet was still intact, we…"

Ye Su’s expression shifted slightly. "You all got out… and have been waiting for me outside?"

Xia'er nodded hard. "Second Senior Brother told us to sell all those beast corpses and split the spirit stones with Fellow Cultivator Lu. She even stayed in Dinghai City for an extra month to help look for you. But later, Second Senior Brother said we couldn’t delay her cultivation anymore, so she left."

"You’ve been out for a month?" Ye Su caught that detail in his words.

Xia'er shook his head. "Senior Sister, you’ve been gone almost three months. Junior Sister already left with the Silent Sect."

Ye Su frowned. It hadn’t felt like more than a few days in the stone forest—how could nearly three months have passed outside?

"Second Senior Brother, Senior Sister is back!"
"Third Senior Sister, Senior Sister is back!"
"Junior Brother, Senior Sister is back!"

Xia'er sent three voice transmissions in a row using his messaging jade.

Ye Su: "..."

This reminded her of Zhu Bajie yelling about his master being captured.

"Senior Sister!" Not long after, Xiyu’s voice echoed from the distance.

But the one who arrived first—unsurprisingly—was her sword-flying Junior Brother.

"You didn’t leave with Junior Sister?" Ye Su asked, slightly surprised.

Yi Xuan answered expressionlessly, "I’m not part of Silent Sect."

"Se-nior Sis-ter!" Ming Liu Sha returned as well.

Ye Su suddenly remembered something and asked Xia'er, "You said you’ve been out nearly three months already—what day is it now? Has the entry list for the Poyuan Sect preliminary trials been released?"

Xia'er, Ming Liu Sha, and Xiyu looked at each other. They had been so focused on waiting for her that they had completely forgotten about it.

"I think… maybe… possibly… it’s today," Xiyu said hesitantly, sounding oddly like Ming Liu Sha.

Once the list came out, artifact refiners needed to prepare to enter Poyuan Sect. If no one claimed a spot in time, the chance would be forfeited.

"What are you all standing around for?" Ye Su drew her sword. "Get on."

Xiyu and Xia'er quickly hopped on. Having already built their foundations and flown with Junior Brother’s sword before, they could now balance steadily on a sword.

Yi Xuan silently rose into the air with his sword, reaching down to Second Senior Brother.

Ming Liu Sha grabbed his hand and jumped up with his help. At the crucial moment, his speech sped up: "Junior Brother, go full speed!"