Don't Cause Trouble Chapter 76: Knocking on the Wooden Fish

The senior sister, who had been deep in thought about the sword spirit's potential backlash, looked at the slender wrist suddenly held out in front of her: "…"

A certain junior disciple was blatantly faking an injury, clearly up to something but she pretended not to notice and looked up. "So?"

"My hand hurts," You Fushi said, continuing to shove his wrist in front of this mortal so she could clearly see the faint red mark on it. "I can’t write."

Her gaze unconsciously lowered. The hand in front of her was pale and smooth like porcelain, the fingers faintly tinged with pink, yet the few visible blue veins on the back made it clear it was a man’s hand.

—Beautiful.

That was the only word Ye Su could think of.

Maybe dissatisfied with her silence, You Fushi waved his hand in front of her eyes. "Ye Su, I’m not writing anymore."

"Mhm." Ye Su turned her gaze away and responded casually.

"Then lend me the Mistflower Fang," You Fushi immediately followed up with his true purpose.

"Keep wearing it," Ye Su said after glancing briefly at the black-gold bracelet on his wrist. "I still need to cultivate. I’m leaving."

You Fushi watched Ye Su’s back as she walked away, slightly surprised. This mortal was surprisingly easy to talk to today.

And so, the ancient demon who had lived for thousands of years began to muse and shamelessly thought: If I’d known, I would’ve just asked her to give me the Mistflower Fang.

……

Each of the four regions had 1,000 available spots to participate in the sect competition. Among them, the eastern region was the most competitive, because both Guizong City and Tushou City were classified under the eastern region meaning talisman cultivators and sword cultivators had to compete for the same 1,000 passes.

Additionally, the western region was slightly more relaxed, since the Kunlun Sect had its own dedicated spots and didn’t take part in the preliminary rounds. Moreover, the Ten Thousand Buddhas Sect only allowed 300 disciples to participate each time to leave room for other sects, which made western region quotas relatively easier. However, this also attracted many rogue cultivators who came to compete, so it remained just as popular.

In short, no matter which region, the competition was intense.

As the March preliminaries approached, the disciples of the Sword Sect grew increasingly nervous. Practicing swordsmanship day and night, meditating…

Even the sect master and elders could feel the burning passion for cultivation throughout the sect.

"This batch of disciples is much more hardworking than the previous ones," said Zhou Qi, seated in the main hall of Zhongnan Peak. He had passed by the sword training field several times and never once saw an empty dueling platform.

An elder to his left gently sipped his tea and said, "I even heard that some disciples trained so hard day and night that they collapsed on the sword field from exhaustion."

"Seriously?" Zhou Qi was quite surprised.

"That’s not even the worst of it," another elder shook his head. "The medical hall has been packed lately. Every day, disciples are being carried in. There's absolutely no restraint."

Zhou Qi asked, "What’s causing this?"

"It’s those few outer sect disciples setting the tone," the elder with the tea said helplessly. "A few of them aren’t even participating in the competition, yet they still train like madmen. The other disciples see this and now everyone’s going all-out."

At the sword training field, Sword Sect disciples could see Yi Xuan, Lu Jiu, and Xu Chengyu constantly sparring. They’d leave with fluttering robes by day and return covered in bruises by night.

Just being around that influenced everyone to take their training more seriously. And if they weren’t at the training grounds, they were meditating in the spiritual energy rooms, only to find the disciples from Qianji Sect going just as crazy refining artifacts.

Sure, they weren’t sword cultivators but they were still refining weapons!

Every few days, loud explosions echoed from the spiritual energy rooms. If someone didn’t know better, they might think alchemists had just moved into Sword Sect.

Sometimes, those people even walked out covered head to toe in black soot, looking exactly like alchemists who’d just blown up their cauldrons.

Though there was no fighting inside the individual spiritual energy rooms, only spirit-gathering arrays for focused meditation—these people acted even more fanatically than the ones training with swords. Word had it they were pulling all-nighters endlessly experimenting with material combinations.

Eventually, the few spiritual rooms used by Qianji Sect disciples became completely isolated, no one else dared to use the nearby rooms. Sword disciples preferred practicing sword techniques over risking getting caught in a potential explosion.

The key point: those Qianji disciples had only recently reached early-stage Golden Core, and now, just a short while later, two of them had advanced to mid-stage!

With everyone going so crazy, the surrounding disciples got caught up in it too, who wouldn’t want a breakthrough?

Of course, amid all this intense training, there was still one person who went his own way, sleeping all day like usual.

Every time You Fushi followed Ye Su to the spiritual energy room, he would either sleep or play. When he woke up, he’d start aiming the Mistflower Fang at the attacking Chongming Sword.

"Ye Su." You Fushi stepped out of his own spiritual room and walked to the door of the one next door. When no one answered from inside, he simply pushed it open.

If anyone saw this, they’d be shocked—every spiritual energy room was sealed with a boundary, and once closed from the inside, no cultivator below the Soul Formation stage could break in. Yet he opened it effortlessly.

You Fushi walked in and casually closed the door behind him. He saw Ye Su sitting cross-legged in meditation at the center of the spirit-gathering array. Next to her were several refined magical artifacts and scattered crafting materials.

He sat across from her, bored—touching this, poking that and finally just stared blankly at Ye Su’s face.

Inside the dark realm, Ye Su was unaware of anything happening outside.

She had just completed drawing all three of the flashing talismans from before, and now, three talisman walls appeared within the space.

When Ye Su finished the last symbol, all the walls darkened.

The three walls and the hundreds of talismans had all been learned, and her basic level in talisman techniques had greatly improved.

Standing in the dark realm, Ye Su didn’t move at all. She was waiting, waiting to see what would happen next.

As expected, the space inside suddenly changed. The three walls quickly shifted positions, standing apart and surrounding Ye Su. The surfaces of the walls also began to change. At the same time, symbols lit up beneath her feet in all directions, each one a talisman.

Ye Su slightly tilted her head upward and saw several talismans appearing directly above her as well.

Had she entered a talisman formation?

She scanned the talismans one by one. The small symbols that had been on the walls earlier had all disappeared, leaving behind only incomprehensible patterns.

Ye Su tried to step forward, but couldn’t move, it was as if she were blocked by an invisible barrier. Even reaching out, she couldn’t touch any of the talismans.

She tried to exit the dark realm, but sure enough, she couldn’t.

—She was trapped.

Ye Su didn’t recognize any of these talismans and couldn’t touch them either.

If she couldn’t break the formation, she would be stuck here indefinitely, which meant certain death.

She stared at the talismans again and again, her mind beginning to drift.

Refiners always paid great attention to materials. Different combinations of the same materials could produce artifacts with vastly different effects. Sometimes materials could be substituted; other times, they were completely incompatible.

When opposites cancel each other out, refiners would sometimes use completely opposing materials to eliminate the remnants of old ones.

Could talismans work the same way?

Ye Su sat down on the floor and closed her eyes. In her spiritual consciousness, hundreds of talismans appeared at once. She intentionally forgot their names and functions, observing only their structure. She deconstructed every symbol into individual components and analyzed them.

Talismans were already complex, and deconstructing them made it even harder. Many were formed with a single stroke. Breaking them apart was extremely difficult. Sometimes halfway through categorizing, she’d discover a new structure, which would invalidate an entire group. But she had immense patience and kept trying again and again.

No one knew how much time passed, but Ye Su dismantled and reassembled those hundreds of talismans over and over. Eventually, she became so familiar with them that she finally found some patterns.

Ye Su opened her eyes and once again swept her gaze across the talismans in the dark realm. She was now able to recognize talismans whose structure directly opposed those on the talisman walls.

Without hesitation, she stood up and used her spiritual power to draw a counteracting talisman in midair. Once it was completed, she sent it flying toward the talisman in the southeast direction.

It felt as though something invisible had shattered in the dark realm. The talisman she hit instantly dispersed. Ye Su stepped tentatively toward the southeast—it worked, she could move. But after two steps, she was stuck again.

It worked! But she’d need to break the entire formation.

Ye Su felt a slight relief in her chest and began scanning each talisman that had appeared again, identifying the counteracting ones on the talisman walls.

She already knew how to draw those wall talismans. With practiced ease, she began drawing and striking one talisman after another, targeting those above and below. As they disappeared, Ye Su finally gained full mobility.

The three walls then moved and came together, standing upright in front of her.

Ye Su watched as the patterns on the wall faded away again. Then, the talismans she had just dispersed reappeared. At the same time, a line of text appeared at the bottom.

"End of Chapter One" — meaning there were more chapters to follow.

Ye Su reached out and tapped one of the unknown talismans that had reappeared on the wall. The next moment, the talisman solution appeared.

She tapped and reviewed each one. Once she knew what these talismans were, she didn’t immediately draw them. Instead, she chose to exit the dark realm.

As soon as she opened her eyes, Ye Su noticed something felt off, her shoulder felt heavy.

She had already pulled out an attack talisman, but when she turned her head, she realized it was You Fushi leaning on her shoulder.

"…"

Putting the talisman away, Ye Su gave her junior brother a push. "Wake up."

You Fushi frowned and opened his eyes, sitting up in the direction she nudged him.

Earlier, he had been sitting across from her, staring for a long time. This mortal still hadn’t woken up. He got tired waiting, wanted to sleep, but didn’t feel like going back. So in the end, he just moved next to her and dozed off leaning on her shoulder.

"How did you get in here?" Ye Su glanced at the door to the spiritual energy room and asked.

You Fushi had always been good at ignoring other people’s questions. He spoke to Ye Su as if continuing his own train of thought: "I want a wooden fish."

Ye Su: "?"

The spiritual energy room suddenly fell silent. Ye Su spent quite a while wondering if there was something wrong with her hearing.

"What do you want?" Ye Su decided to ask again.

"A wooden fish." You Fushi’s voice still carried a sleepy laziness. "I want a wooden fish."

The usually calm and composed senior sister: "…"

After a long pause, Ye Su finally found her voice: "You want to become a Buddhist cultivator?"

Her junior brother inexplicably wanted to knock on a wooden fish. Senior sister didn’t understand and was utterly confused.

"No." You Fushi simply said, "Wooden fish."

Ye Su got up and pulled him outside. Coincidentally, a few junior disciples were returning. She asked all of them, but none had mentioned a wooden fish in front of the junior brother.

"Junior Brother, what do you want a wooden fish for?" Xia Er also didn’t get it, wooden fish were something Buddhist cultivators used.

Surprisingly, You Fushi answered him: "To knock."

Everyone: "…"

Ye Su couldn’t get a reason out of him. In the end, having no other option, she just casually carved him a wooden fish.

And so, from that day on, the sound of a wooden fish being knocked began to echo frequently around Sword Sect—especially during the dead of night.

Sometimes, when Ye Su went to find You Fushi and wanted to ask him to stop, she would see him half-kneeling, knocking on the wooden fish with deep focus, exuding a distinctly Zen-like calm.

Standing outside and listening for a while, it even began to faintly soothe the mind.

She walked away, still baffled: Could it be that her junior brother’s final path… is becoming a Buddhist cultivator?