Don't Cause Trouble Chapter 118: Nemesis

At the Sword Sect’s residence.

Everyone followed Zhou Yun and Ma Congqiu together to Xu Chengyu’s room.

Xu Chengyu’s injuries were severe, a sword strike across the chest had sent him flying. Even though Ma Congqiu tried to catch him, he couldn’t manage it in time. Lu Chenhan’s sword intent had been aimed to take his life.

Fortunately, there were plenty of healing cultivators within Kunlun’s territory. At the time, Xin Shenzi had also channeled spiritual power into him to stabilize his spiritual core, and the treatment was given in time.

When Ye Su and the others went inside, Xu Chengyu had just woken up. Seeing them, a faint smile appeared on his pale face. "How did the matches go?"

"I made it into the top eight," Zhou Yun said, lowering his head.

"You can represent Sword Sect at the Rotating Tower now. You should be happy," Xu Chengyu said seriously.

Zhou Yun gave an "Mm," forced his eyes open wide to make himself act normal, then looked up and said, "I am happy!"

Xu Chengyu asked Ye Su, "Who else made it into the top eight?"

"Three from Qianji Sect, Lian Lian from Wuxing Sect, Mei Chouren from Hehuan Sect, Gu Liangtian from Wanfo Sect, and Lu Chenhan from Kunlun," Ye Su replied.

Xu Chengyu looked at Yan Hao, who didn’t seem upset at all. "You didn’t make the top eight? Who did you face?"

"I fought Ye Su," Yan Hao said casually with a wave of her hand. "I still have another chance tomorrow."

"The ones who lost aren’t strong?" Xu Chengyu guessed, seeing her so confident.

"Not exactly. Hong Yongye from Kunlun is tricky, but my senior brother just beat him today," Yan Hao said, glancing at Lu Jiu. "Hopefully we meet in the final round tomorrow."

Lu Jiu held her sword and nodded. "Let’s hope so."

"You don’t know," Yan Hao said, standing by Xu Chengyu’s bed, her smile practically impossible to hide. "There’s also Ning Qianyao, she has a lot of good stuff on her. Today she even pulled out a Hidden Spirit Pearl, but You Fushi stomped it to pieces with one step."

Xu Chengyu was surprised. "Ning Qianyao fought Young Master You?"

He could already imagine her mood. Anyone facing Young Master You would probably feel a wave of helplessness.

"You’re so happy about it, aren’t you afraid of offending Ning Qianyao?" Lian Lian stood a bit farther away, leaning against a pillar inside the room. "She’s quite the hot commodity."

Yan Hao’s mouth turned down. "The Xuanyin body is useless to our Hehuan Sect. We don’t benefit from her at all."

"Xuanyin body…" Xu Chengyu thought for a moment, then asked, "Ning Qianyao has the Xuanyin body?"

Yan Hao nodded. "You’ve missed a lot. That Jian Hu is also a nine-tailed fox. My master says she’s a demon lord, and she’ll be going to Wanfo Sect to heal."

"De-demon lord?" Lu Jiu was shocked. She had once been a rogue cultivator and had read plenty of stories about cultivators and demons especially fox demons.

Yesterday had already been surprising enough, and now it turned out that nine-tailed fox was actually a demon lord.

Yi Xuan’s eyes also showed surprise. He had gone straight into meditation after returning yesterday and hadn’t heard anyone mention Ning Qianyao.

From the other side, Mei Chouren spoke up: "My master says she’s absurdly lucky. She saved the demon lord and even signed a life-bond contract. Once the demon lord recovers and returns to her peak, Ning Qianyao’s cultivation level will rise along with her."

"She also saved Lu Chenhan. Add in her Xuanyin body, and there’s no way the Kunlun sect master won’t protect her," Yan Hao said with a shake of her head. "That kind of luck… there’s nothing to say."

"No matter how lucky you are, doesn’t it all shatter when you meet a certain someone?" Yi Xuan suddenly glanced sideways at You Fushi.

"That’s true," Yan Hao said, cupping her hands toward You Fushi. "You’re a natural nemesis to people!"

Everyone: "…" What kind of thing is that to say?

Xu Chengyu coughed a few times and asked Mei Chouren, "Why do you all seem to dislike Ning Qianyao so much? I don’t recall Hehuan Sect having any dealings with her."

"Ugly is a crime," Mei Chouren said. With a flick of his fingers, a flower appeared between them. Tilting his head back dramatically toward the ceiling beam, he said, "My ultimate pursuit in cultivation is a world without ugly people!"

Xu Chengyu thought back to Ning Qianyao’s appearance, it was far from ugly.

"She’s just… strange," Yan Hao said, resting her powder-feather fan against her chin.

The Hehuan Sect specialized in illusions, and the key to that art was observing all beings in the world. The first time Yan Hao saw Ning Qianyao, she felt an instant dislike, something about her was simply unpleasant.

Yi Xuan stood nearby, listening to them talk, and an odd feeling arose in his heart.

Back in the Qianji Sect, he had always thought his junior sister was the kindest one, always paying attention to him. In contrast, the other disciples under the same master, like Ye Su and Ming Liu Sha, would spend their time bickering after training.

But ever since they’d descended the mountain, things had changed.

Looking back now, with the fox king and Lu Chenhan’s matters in mind, Yi Xuan even felt that his time spent with his junior sister after leaving the mountain had been… deliberate.

That kind of carefully crafted concern never truly touched reality.

Ye Su broke Yi Xuan’s train of thought by changing the subject. She asked Mei Chouren, "Can you tell us about Hong Yongye?"

"Of course," Mei Chouren said, looking at Lu Jiu and Yan Hao. "Watch out for his sword recall. Also, he doesn’t just use a sword, he uses magical artifacts as well."

They stayed in Xu Chengyu’s room until evening before coming out.

Ye Su and the others went back to their own quarters, while Yi Xuan was kept behind by Xin Shenzi for some extra guidance late into the night.

After returning to his room, You Fushi sat on the edge of his bed, his face expressionless, lost in thought, while the Chongming Sword flew restlessly around the room.

"Little junior brother," Ye Su knocked on the door from outside. "Your second senior brother brought back some spirit vegetables from the outer city. Want to eat?"

You Fushi got up and opened the door, leaning lazily against the frame. His eyes went to the food box in Ye Su’s hands. "What is it?"

Ye Su walked in. "Steamed squab, and some pastries."

Ming Liu Sha spoke too slowly for her patience, so she had simply carried the food box over herself.

Ye Su took out all the dishes, laid them out on the table, and ladled a bowl of soup. She turned and handed it to You Fushi, who was now seated, and asked, "Why did you crush that Hidden Spirit Pearl today?"

From what she knew of him, her little junior brother usually thought smashing something like that was too much trouble and effort, he’d just step over it instead.

With others present earlier, she hadn’t been able to ask.

Back at the courtyard, she thought about it and finally decided to bring it up.

Ye Su couldn’t recall any interaction between Ning Qianyao and You Fushi, apart from those two times the little junior sister had reached out to grab her arm, which had made him move the Chongming Sword.

In fact, those two incidents had already sparked a faint suspicion in her mind.

Other people had pulled at her arm before, Zhou Yun, Yan Hao, and a few others.

She had never seen You Fushi react that way to any of them.

"The pearl was dirty." You Fushi reached for a pastry, bit into it, and mumbled around the mouthful.

Ye Su froze for a second, then remembered that the pearl had rolled onto the arena floor, it really was dirty.

"You could’ve used a cleaning spell." She said it, then immediately felt it was wrong, You Fushi’s idea of "dirty" only applied to his own things.

For example, if his qiankun bag had once held a beast’s corpse, he wouldn’t bother cleaning it with a spell, he’d just throw it away.

The room was unusually quiet, the only sound the faint stirring of soup from You Fushi’s spoon.

Ye Su voiced a thought so far-fetched even she found it strange: "That Hidden Spirit Pearl was yours?"

You Fushi’s long lashes lowered, casting a shadow over the bridge of his high, clean nose. He scooped up a spoonful of soup and drank it slowly, without answering.

She knew this routine all too well—silence, no denial.

That meant You Fushi was admitting the Hidden Spirit Pearl was his.

Ye Su rested her hand on the table. Normally her mind worked fast, but right now it was completely blank.

"So you must be some great cultivator who failed a tribulation and reincarnated," she said after a long pause. "Ning Qianyao must have found your belongings in some secret realm or hidden cave."

In the original story, Ye Su didn’t remember Ning Qianyao going to any special secret realm or hidden cave before the sect competition.

Suddenly, You Fushi reached out and lightly touched Ye Su’s hand on the table.

Noticing, she looked down and saw him hook her finger with his own, even as his right hand still held the spoon and he kept drinking his soup.

After a while, he set the spoon down, looked up at her, and slowly shook his head. He raised his index finger and pointed at the sky for a moment, then brought it to his lips.

—A gesture to keep quiet.

They looked at each other for a long time. Then Ye Su clasped his hand in return and looked at the pastries on the table. "Which one do you like? After the sect competition, we’ll go to the outer city and buy more."

You Fushi pointed to the plate in the very middle. "That one."

Ye Su stayed in his room eating with him for quite a while before coming out, where she ran into Xiyu sharpening a blade in the courtyard.

"What are you doing?" Ye Su asked her.

"Oh, my hands have been feeling off lately. I want to get my old feel back." Xiyu craned her neck to glance behind Ye Su. "Senior sister, you stayed in little junior brother’s room for a long time today."

Usually, she would come out after just a short while.

Ye Su sat down beside her, looking up at the pitch-black night sky. "What do you think of little junior sister?"

"Little junior sister?" Xiyu wiped her hands on her clothes and touched the dagger-hairpin in her hair, looking puzzled. "In what way?"

"Any way," Ye Su said, leaning back on her hands.

"Hmm… little junior sister likes to avoid… no, now it’s fifth junior brother, and show off in front of us," Xiyu said seriously, ticking off the points on her fingers. "She used to treat little junior brother especially well, and she has a lot of things we don’t have."

After a few more remarks, Xiyu stopped. "Anyway, even though little junior sister lives better than us, now we can earn spirit stones, refine weapons, and get onto the Baiqing Rankings. We’ll definitely keep getting better in the future."

"I hope she doesn’t make it into the top ten of the sect competition," Ye Su said, still gazing up. "I don’t want to see her in the Rotating Tower."

Before, Ye Su had thought that if she just stayed away from Ning Qianyao, didn’t get too tangled up with the male and female leads, and worked hard to improve herself and her sect, they could coexist in peace.

Now that others had gotten involved, she suddenly felt an inexplicable irritation.

Ning Qianyao was like a ticking time bomb, you never knew when she might explode.

Xiyu was stunned. This was the first time she had ever heard her senior sister openly show such dislike for someone.

Hesitant, Xiyu asked, "What happened to little junior sister?"

Ye Su laughed softly without answering. She just reached over, ran her hand along the blade Xiyu was sharpening, and said, "The edge is too thin at the front, it’ll break easily. Be more careful next time."

Xiyu lowered her head to check the blade, and when she finally looked up again, she saw only her senior sister’s retreating figure.