Don't Cause Trouble Chapter 41: Wendong Materials Shop

In less than a moment, the entire secret realm began to collapse, and all the cultivators were ejected from it.

As soon as they landed, Xu Chengyu coughed up another mouthful of blood. Failing a breakthrough left a cultivator seriously injured—and if their mental state was affected, it could make future advancement nearly impossible.

"Senior Brother!" Zhou Yun called out anxiously.

Xu Chengyu raised his hand to wipe the blood from his lips, glanced at the other cultivators who had also been expelled, then met Ye Su’s gaze and said, "Let’s leave first."

……

The group returned to their residence in Jidong City. Ye Su stood beside the bed, looking down at You Fushi, who was still unconscious. At this moment, he seemed completely defenseless—his long hair disheveled and spread across the bedding, still not waking up, though his breathing was steady.

This character, You Fushi, had never appeared in the original novel. Yet he not only possessed the Qianji Token, he also knew the Earth Illusion Lotus needed to be placed into the Four-Sided Earth Treasury Staff. Who exactly was he? And what could the Qianji Sect be plotting?

After a long while, she suddenly reached out and placed her hand on his slender neck, gently tightening her grip.

"Senior Sister," Xia Er said as she entered through the door, "This is the medical cultivator Fellow Daoist Ma invited. They came to check on Junior Brother."

"How is Xu Chengyu?" Ye Su withdrew her hand casually, stepping aside. "Thank you, healer."

Xia Er replied, "He’s injured, but his mental state wasn’t harmed. Forming his Nascent Soul is only a matter of time."

Ye Su nodded. That his mind remained intact was a great relief.

The medical cultivator stepped forward to examine You Fushi. After a while, they said, "He’s not seriously hurt. His spiritual energy is just completely depleted—he’ll need a good period of rest."

"Does Junior Brother even have spiritual energy?" Xia Er muttered beside them. They’d hardly ever seen him cultivate—Senior Sister couldn’t even keep him in line.

"You stay here and watch him," Ye Su told Xia Er. "I’m going to see Xu Chengyu."

On the other side, Xu Chengyu had just listened to Zhou Yun recount what had happened after they entered their meditative state. He learned that, at the end, only two people had remained conscious in the boundary eye.

"Ye Su stood on the lotus platform for quite a while," Zhou Yun said, a bit puzzled. "I don’t know what she did after crouching down, but then she placed the Earth Illusion Lotus into the Four-Faced Staff, and the boundary eye stopped draining your spiritual energy."

Ma Congqiu recalled something: "Didn’t You Fushi mention that? Was he speaking in code back then?"

"No," Ye Su’s voice came faintly from outside the door. A moment later, she walked in and pushed the door open.

Xu Chengyu sat halfway up in bed and nodded to Ye Su. "How is Fellow Daoist You?"

"He’s fine." Ye Su pulled over a stool and sat down at the table. "There was a formation on the lotus platform. I didn’t recognize it, but I had to gamble that I could disrupt it."

Xu Chengyu didn’t doubt her words. Grand formations were hard to interact with and usually contained vast, powerful intent. If one were set inside a minor secret realm, it wouldn’t take long for the major sects to notice it.

"Disciples of major sects usually have their own sect-assigned trial grounds. Only low-level cultivators go to these small secret realms. And the intervals between their openings are short—some reopen every few years." Xu Chengyu speculated, "Someone deliberately planted a formation in that small realm, using the Four-Sided Earth Treasury Staff as the formation’s core, to continuously absorb the spiritual energy of cultivators over the years."

Especially since secret realms were known to be high-risk places. It was common for people to die inside them—no one, sects included, would question it.

"It could be the work of a demonic cultivator," Ma Congqiu said. "I’ve heard some demonic cultivators learn forbidden arts and set up formations before they die. If the opportunity is right, they can seize a new body and come back to life."

"That’s not impossible either," Xu Chengyu said, turning to Ye Su. "Do you have any theories?"

"Spiritual energy," Ye Su said. "I suspect there’s a source outside the boundary eye that’s channeling spiritual energy into it."

After the formation stones under the pond were revealed, she had started wondering where all that spiritual energy inside the boundary eye came from. The density of that energy was at least at the level of a high-grade cultivation cave, not something that should appear in a minor secret realm.

Xu Chengyu was silent for a moment before he said, "While I was forming my Nascent Soul, my divine sense expanded, and I came into contact with… something."

Below the Nascent Soul realm, cultivators only have spiritual awareness. Upon reaching that realm, divine sense begins to take form and can extend to cover miles.

But all he did was brush against it—he hadn’t even seen it clearly—yet his newly formed Nascent Soul shattered on the spot.

"I’ve already reported this to the Sword Sect. But since the secret realm collapsed, no one can go back in." Xu Chengyu didn’t care much about failing to form his Nascent Soul. He was more concerned about whatever it was that his divine sense had touched.

Unfortunately, once a secret realm collapses, it disappears from the cultivation world and can no longer be entered. No one can investigate what was inside anymore.

Ye Su took out the Four-Sided Earth Treasury Staff. The shaft was white jade, the three-tiered lotus head carved from black jade. At the center platform, two lotus buds of the Earth Illusion Lotus swayed faintly. The whole thing gave off a strange and unsettling feeling—neither fully righteous nor fully sinister.

She looked at the lotus platform on the staff’s head and said slowly, "Perhaps the Ten Thousand Buddhas Sect knows more about this."

"If we get the chance, let’s visit them," Xu Chengyu said.

"Alright."

……

At night, Ye Su sat cross-legged on her bed in meditation. Although she hadn’t broken through in the secret realm, her spiritual reservoir had already absorbed a large amount of energy—it just hadn’t been refined yet.

The Foundation Establishment stage is when a cultivator stabilizes and expands their spiritual reservoir.

The larger the reservoir, the more vast and pure their spiritual power will be in the future, and the stronger they’ll become.

Ye Su closed her eyes and turned her focus inward. With her hands folded over her abdomen, she began refining the spiritual energy into her own power, then used it to expand her reservoir.

The dark edges of her spiritual sea were gradually lit up by the refined power. The newly illuminated areas came under her control one by one.

Ye Su opened her eyes with a slightly puzzled expression—something seemed to be flowing beneath her spiritual reservoir.

But when she used her spiritual sense to scan the area again, she found nothing unusual.

The next morning, everyone had more or less recovered—only You Fushi was still unconscious. Ye Su went to his room to check on him. Seeing that her junior brother was breathing steadily, she turned and went downstairs.

Downstairs in the inn, two tables had been pushed together. The three members of the Qianji Sect and Lü Jiu sat on one side, while Xu Chengyu, Ma Congqiu, and Zhou Yun sat on the other.

"Mid-Nascent Soul stage? That’s insanely fast!"

Ye Su had just come downstairs when she heard Ma Congqiu exclaim in disbelief.

She pulled over the middle stool and asked, "What are you talking about?"

Xia Er replied, "The entire cultivation world is buzzing—Lu Chenhan from the Kunlun Sect has advanced to the mid-Nascent Soul stage. He’s now considered the number one cultivator of the younger generation on the Floating World Continent."

"Nineteen years old, and already mid-Nascent Soul," Xu Chengyu said as he poured a cup of tea and handed it to Ye Su. "And he killed a Heavenly Demon a month ago—he fully deserves the title."

Lu Chenhan?

Ye Su was briefly stunned. She had been disconnected from the main characters for so long that she had nearly forgotten about them.

"What’s a Heavenly Demon?" Ye Su asked. In the original novel, she only remembered Yi Xuan advancing from Lesser Demon to Demon Lord, then becoming Demon Sovereign, and eventually the Demon Master.

"In the Demon Realm, there’s a difference between Human Demons and Heavenly Demons. A cultivator who falls into demonic cultivation becomes a Human Demon. But Heavenly Demons are born in the Demon Realm—they come into the world already able to rival Nascent Soul cultivators," Xu Chengyu explained from across the table. "Normally, it takes a cultivator at the late Nascent Soul stage to kill one. Which means Lu Chenhan can fight opponents above his level."

"But he vanished for a while during a Kunlun trial two years ago," Xu Chengyu added thoughtfully. "No one knows what happened."

Zhou Yun guessed, "Maybe he had a lucky encounter."

At the edge of the table, Ma Congqiu glanced at her and said, "Almost forgot—Junior Sister Zhou has a crush on Lu Chenhan."

Zhou Yun blushed. "He’s from Kunlun, handsome, and insanely talented. What’s wrong with liking him?"

"Even better-looking than the two junior brothers from Qianji Sect?" Lü Jiu asked curiously. She was a loose cultivator with average skills and had never interacted with disciples from major sects before.

Zhou Yun froze, thought it over seriously, then suddenly looked a little disillusioned. "…He’s just a bit stronger."

Xu Chengyu watched her expression and couldn’t help but shake his head with a laugh. His junior sister’s crush really was only skin-deep.

"I’m heading out this afternoon," Ye Su said, turning to the others. "You all stay here and keep an eye on our junior brother."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Earlier, in the secret realm, Ye Su had arranged a meeting with Huang Erqian. After lunch, she disassembled the talisman gun again to demonstrate it to her junior brothers and sisters.

"Senior Sister, why don’t we modify it a bit?" Ming Liu Sha said as he held the talisman gun.

He was best at crafting small magic tools. He immediately suggested adding hidden weapons inside the gun—so when someone tried to open it, it would injure their hands or eyes.

Ming Liu Sha spoke slowly and deliberately: "I’ve… thought… it… all… through."

Ye Su replied, "...No hidden weapons. Just destroy the internal structure if someone tampers with it."

That afternoon, she followed the address Huang Erqian had given her and arrived at the entrance to a quiet alley. Looking up at the wobbly old sign hanging above, she showed a trace of surprise in her eyes.

—It was Wendong Materials Shop.

Ye Su stepped into the dusty shop, its doorframe strung with cobwebs. Inside, piles of items were scattered messily, and not a single person was in sight.

On the only halfway-decent old counter sat a bell, with a note stuck next to it: Ring if you need anything.

Ye Su walked over, reached out, and rang the bell.

Before long, a skinny cultivator in a yellow robe came out from the back. "Coming, coming!"

"Fellow Daoist Huang," Ye Su said, lowering the bell and turning to face Huang Erqian.

"Fellow Daoist Ye," Huang Erqian greeted her warmly with a smile and pulled out a broken chair from the pile of clutter. "Have a seat. Want something to drink?"

"No need," Ye Su replied, eyeing the large tear in the chair’s seat. "I didn’t see you at the core of the secret realm. Where did you go, Brother Huang?"

She remembered during the first secret realm, he was darting around during the fights just to sell talismans.

"Oh, I was… in another part of the secret realm," Huang Erqian replied with a cheerful grin.

"You have a magic item that let you leave the secret realm early?" Ye Su glanced at him. "Just curious—no need to answer."

Huang Erqian neither confirmed nor denied it. "Fellow Daoist Ye, about the talisman gun?"

"I’ll bring over a batch in a few days," Ye Su said, pointing to the three characters on her robe. "Who would've thought—hundreds of years later, we’re still doing business together."

Huang Erqian smiled, this time a little more sincerely. "One sect barely hanging on, one business nearly shut down—we help each other survive."

"I have a suggestion," Ye Su suddenly said. "Why not have Wendong Materials officially join Qianji Sect?"

Huang Erqian was stunned, then politely declined. "Wendong is just a private business."

"At least Quan Dian Hall and Zhanjin Sect don’t see it that way," Ye Su said, tilting her head toward him. "The moment you started trading with Qianji Sect, you were tied to us completely."

Huang Erqian lowered his head. She wasn’t wrong. Because Wendong supplied materials to Qianji Sect, it had been suppressed until only one full store remained—and this place was just a hidden outpost.

"Even if Wendong joins Qianji Sect, you can still keep your name," Ye Su offered. "Profits split seventy-thirty. Our sect’s artifact forgers will regularly supply materials and magic tools to you. We won’t restrict your growth."

"Magic artifacts?" Huang Erqian looked up at her.

Ye Su chuckled. "Why else do you resell talismans and talisman guns? I thought you were ambitious, but maybe you’re just trying to survive."

Huang Erqian’s hand twitched slightly without realizing it. As the heir of Wendong Materials, he’d long harbored deep resentment toward Quan Dian Hall and Zhanjin Sect. He didn’t just want to revive Wendong—he wanted to surpass Quan Dian, to truly hold his head high.

That’s why he dabbled in every kind of trade, searching for the right resources.

He just didn’t expect to end up cornered by a disciple of Qianji Sect.

"Your reselling business won’t last," Ye Su said seriously. "Wendong’s decline was because of Qianji Sect. So why not fully tie your fate to us? If one prospers, we all do. If one suffers, we all do."

Ever since she saw the Wendong shop sign, she had started thinking about this.

Only then would she feel at ease doing business with Wendong.