Don't Cause Trouble Chapter 57: Sandstorm

The basket was swaying violently, and the surrounding light was so bright that nothing could be seen clearly.

The moment Ye Su felt her wrist being held, she immediately knew it was her little junior brother—his hand was always a bit cool to the touch.

Once the white light faded, everyone could finally see their surroundings. Ye Su lowered her eyes to look at the slender, pale hand holding hers. She raised an eyebrow slightly—the Mistflower Fang wrapped around his wrist did look quite beautiful.

The extreme contrast of black and white intertwined, and the faint blue veins on the back of his hand seemed to extend from the bracelet. It didn’t look out of place at all—on the contrary, it was strikingly beautiful, carrying an odd sense of allure.

Ye Su raised her hand and lightly tapped the Mistflower Fang’s snake-like body, signaling You Fushi that he could let go now. In response, her little junior brother quickly let go, rubbed the spot where she had tapped him, and shot her a slightly annoyed look.

Ye Su thought to herself, "...Isn’t the Mistflower Fang still mine?"

"Is that the boundary down there?" Lu Jiu asked as he looked below.

Everyone followed his gaze. The bottom was no longer an endless abyss of blackness—it was now barren gray earth under a misty sky.

Lian Lian supported Cheng Huaian and helped him sit up, feeding him several pills in a row. His spiritual core had taken heavy damage, and he had forced a breakthrough for too long—it had drained him badly.

"The Endless Abyss really is just a passage to the realm," Cheng Huaian said as he raised his hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth. "We just never triggered the opportunity, so we kept falling and never saw the bottom."

Lian Lian tossed a bottle of pills to Ye Su. "There’s one pill left. It’s yours."

Cheng Huaian frowned and looked at Ye Su, only to realize her complexion wasn’t much better than his.

Earlier, he had been kneeling on one knee to control the talisman array, head down, while Lian Lian placed her hand on his shoulder to boost his spiritual power.

He had assumed it was Lian Lian drawing the talismans. He had even thought his senior sister had overcome her inner demons and managed to draw talismans at the critical moment.

"Senior Sister… the Realm-Linking Talisman and the Three-Array Talisman were…"

"I showed her the talisman book and asked her to draw them," Lian Lian replied casually.

Cheng Huaian went quiet for a moment before saying, "Those are secret techniques of the Wuxing Sect."

Lian Lian looked at him. "So what if they are?"

"…It’s nothing," Cheng Huaian replied. He knew how much she disliked the Sect Master's rules, so he changed the subject and asked Ye Su, "You only looked at them once and could already draw them?"

She managed to draw them in such a short time?

Even for him, drawing a single talisman during Core Formation stage would take several days of study before it could be done properly.

"Just lucky," Ye Su replied humbly. She opened the pill bottle and poured out the last pill. It was a bluish-green color and gave off a faintly fresh scent.

"The Realm-Linking and Three-Array Talismans aren’t something you can draw just by being lucky," Cheng Huaian said, staring at her. At first, he only thought she had a unique approach to using talismans—but now, he could clearly feel the pressure Ye Su brought.

No talisman cultivator could achieve this level—not someone like her, a self-taught, non-sect-trained wild talisman user.

Ye Su popped the pill into her mouth, chewed it, and swallowed. A cool sensation instantly spread through her spiritual core, soothing the burning pain. She looked downward. "We’re about to fall."

Just as she finished speaking, the basket crashed hard into the barren ground. With the added force of the Weight Talisman, they sank deep into the earth, and dirt from above came raining down on them.

While everyone else was still trying to find something to hold on to and steady themselves, Ye Su had already pulled You Fushi close and raised a shield of spiritual energy to block the gray mud falling from the hole in the canopy above.

They had finally landed. The group looked at each other.

Zhou Yun gripped her sword, took a few leaps, and said, "I’ll go take a look."

"I’ll go too," Lu Jiu followed.

Before long, the two of them were calling out from above, telling the others to come up.

Ye Su waited for them to go first, then collected everything left in the pit. Only then did she bring up You Fushi—who still hadn’t moved at all—along with her.

Her little junior brother’s cultivation had risen… but it was basically a wasted breakthrough. He wasn’t even using it.

……

Everyone climbed ashore and looked at the gray, barren land stretching out before them. They couldn’t help but fall silent—there was barely any spiritual energy in this place.

But to Ye Su, this kind of environment felt familiar. After all, the thin spiritual energy in the Qianji Sect wasn’t much different from this.

"This place looks more like the real Wasteland Secret Realm," Ma Congqiu said as he walked a circle around the area. He found nothing—only endless, empty plains.

Xu Chengyu stood still with his sword in hand, releasing his divine sense. It spread rapidly into the distance to scout the area.

After a long pause, Xu Chengyu withdrew his divine sense. "There’s something up ahead."

"Senior Brother, what is it?" Zhou Yun asked.

Xu Chengyu shook his head. "Something’s blocking my divine sense."

With nothing else around but barren land, the only way forward was toward whatever was obstructing his senses—maybe there they’d find an exit.

"Let’s go," Xu Chengyu said, leading the way toward the spot.

Ye Su followed behind and casually pulled out a bottle of Fasting Pills from her storage pouch. She offered it to her junior brother. "Want one?"

You Fushi silently reached out and took it. Sometimes, this mortal wasn’t too bad—though the pills tasted awful.

"Is my pen any good?" Lian Lian suddenly walked up behind her and asked.

Ye Su looked at her, a bit surprised. "It works well."

Lian Lian scoffed. "The jade-and-gold pen is a spiritual tool. The one you were using is trash."

"Yeah, just a cheap one," Ye Su admitted easily. She’d bought a set of ten for 5,000 low-grade spirit stones. Seven were already broken.

"…" Lian Lian was left completely speechless.

She pulled out the jade-and-gold pen and tossed it to Ye Su with a look of disdain. "I don’t use pens that other people have touched. Since you’ve used this one, it’s yours now."

Behind them, Cheng Huaian suddenly looked up at Lian Lian. The jade-and-gold pen was a high-grade spiritual tool. She had won it five years ago for placing first in the Talisman Master Tournament.

Those were Lian Lian’s most glorious years—she had even outshone Cheng Huaian. But her success had been short-lived, like a flash of lightning. Afterward, she declined rapidly, and many began to believe her tournament win had been rigged.

After all, she had only been twelve or thirteen years old. How could she have surpassed fully trained adult talisman masters?

"Senior Sister…" Cheng Huaian started to speak, trying to stop her, but Lian Lian turned and shot him a sharp glare.

Ye Su looked at the jade-and-gold pen in her hand and asked, "What will you use?"

Lian Lian fished another pen out of her pouch. "I’ve got plenty of talisman pens."

As an artifact refiner, Ye Su had a sharp sense for magical tools, even ones she hadn’t worked with before.

This jade-and-gold pen had smooth, warm jade—clearly a high-grade warming jade. The shaft was not assembled from pieces but carved from a single piece of long jade. Three gold bands around the shaft were etched with intricate talisman patterns.

Ye Su could tell right away: whatever pen Lian Lian had just pulled out, it couldn’t compare to the jade-and-gold one now in her hand.

"Do you look down on me?" Lian Lian’s bright eyes narrowed, and she looked annoyed. "Do you think my pen isn’t good enough for you?"

Ye Su blinked. "Huh?"

"Now that you’ve touched my pen, you have to take it!"

"…How much do you want for it?" Ye Su asked.

Lian Lian choked on her own words. She couldn’t believe Ye Su had asked that. Did Ye Su really think she was trying to force a sale?

"Fellow Daoist Ye," Cheng Huaian stepped forward. "If you don’t mind, please accept it. It’s of no use sitting around with my senior sister."

"Ye Su, if she wants to give it to you, just take it," Zhou Yun added, turning around. "The Wuxing Sect’s Master has plenty of good stuff. Lian Lian doesn’t lack anything."

Lian Lian scoffed at Zhou Yun. "Mind your own business."

In the end, Ye Su put the jade-and-gold pen away but didn’t say she accepted it—she just said she’d hold on to it for now.

After the others caught up, Cheng Huaian turned to look at Lian Lian. "Senior Sister."

Lian Lian met his gaze, visibly awkward. "What are you looking at? I just didn’t want that pen anymore. It’s not like I couldn’t use it."

Cheng Huaian smiled. "If Senior Sister doesn’t mind, you can use mine."

"No need," Lian Lian declined. "It doesn’t feel right in my hand."

The spiritual energy here was too thin. If they used sword flight, it would burn through too much energy—so they simply walked.

The group had been walking for a long time but kept circling the same barren land.

"It’s getting dark really fast," Ma Congqiu said, looking back at the sky. "Senior Brother, when are we going to get there?"

Xu Chengyu replied, "…It’s not getting dark."

Ma Congqiu let out an "ah" and looked up. "Isn’t the sky dark?"

Zhou Yun shook his head. "The sky went dark all of a sudden. Senior Brother, it was bright just a moment ago."

"It’s like a black sandstorm," Lu Jiu said, staring at the dark mass behind them. "I ran into something like this once before, but it didn’t spread this fast."

"What happened that time?" Xu Chengyu asked.

"Eighty to ninety percent casualties," Lu Jiu answered.

Ye Su grabbed her junior brother’s hand and quickly took off running. Her voice echoed from afar: "We need to run!"

Everyone stared blankly for a moment at the two streaking figures, then immediately turned and ran after them.

Behind them, the darkness thickened—it looked as if it was ready to swallow everything in its path.

While running, Ma Congqiu managed to glance back—and what he saw startled him. A dozen sandstorms were tearing through everything like a tidal wave: "It is a sandstorm!"

And it wasn’t just behind them. Sandstorms had suddenly risen on both sides too, sweeping toward them from the ground.

At this point, even flying on swords was useless. It would only get them swept away.

"There’s a high slope ahead!" Ye Su, who was in the lead, shouted.

Through the dim, swirling sand in the air, she had caught a vague glimpse of some hills in the distance. She immediately called out to the others behind her.

The group sprinted wildly. Ye Su was the first to arrive. She quickly pulled You Fushi over the slope.

She pushed him to the ground. "Lie down here. Don’t move around."

Then Ye Su got up and ran back out. Flames lit up in her palm—red spiritual fire. It wasn’t very visible in the dark sandstorm, but it was enough for Xu Chengyu to notice.

"Over here," Xu Chengyu called, grabbing Ma Congqiu with one hand and Lu Jiu with the other, dragging them up and over the slope.

Ye Su stepped aside and reached out to grab Zhou Yun from behind. "Climb up!"

Once Zhou Yun was over, she continued using her spiritual fire to signal. "Fellow Daoist Cheng? Fellow Daoist Lian?"

The black sandstorm raged violently. Everything ahead was a blur of gray. The sand stung their faces, making it impossible to keep their eyes open.

"Ye Su! Get down!"

Just as she was still trying to spot signs of Cheng Huaian and Lian Lian in the distance, Xu Chengyu suddenly yanked Ye Su down and raised a protective barrier.

He wasn’t the only one. Everyone lying on the ground had raised their own barriers too. Together, they formed a large spiritual shield that covered them all.

The sand slammed against the barrier with terrifying force. Even with the hill cutting the storm’s strength in half, the impact still made the entire shield tremble.

Everyone inside the barrier felt a sinking feeling—Cheng Huaian and Lian Lian hadn’t made it in. They were still outside.

Xu Chengyu’s hand pressed firmly against Ye Su’s back, holding her down. She turned her head with effort—but didn’t see her junior brother, who was supposed to be lying there.

She forced herself to stay calm and scanned the area again. Still no sign of him. "You Fushi?"

No answer.

"Brother Xu, when you came in—did you see my junior brother?" Ye Su turned and asked.

Xu Chengyu frowned. "He’s not here."

Ye Su’s heart sank. That couldn’t be. She had personally pushed him down here…