Chapter 47: Power of Will
Chu Xingchen's gaze flicked over briefly before turning away again.
First of all, one must not panic when encountering trouble, even if Yaoqin's forced smile indeed looked rather terrifying.
Strictly speaking, there was no real relationship between him and Yaoqin.
She had no reason to interfere with him. As long as his heart did not waver, he was not in the wrong.
Most importantly, bootlickers never meet a good end — better to die than to grovel.
There was absolutely no reason to admit fault.
However, it was clear that Yaoqin did not think the same way.
She stepped forward twice, and the women surrounding Chu Xingchen instinctively moved aside.
Yaoqin's eyes locked onto him as she spoke coldly, "Didn't you say you were taking your disciple to visit the temple fair today?"
As Yaoqin approached, the women nearby suddenly realized that a stunningly beautiful woman had come over.
Moreover, she seemed to know the handsome young man before them.
But so what if they knew each other?
The young woman standing close to Chu Xingchen was unwilling to back down and said softly, "The master said he would teach us palm reading. We're all his disciples~"
Yaoqin's cold eyes shifted toward the speaker.
Under that gaze, the woman felt her entire body freeze and her soul tremble.
It was as if there existed a difference at the level of the soul itself.
Yaoqin said coldly, "Leave."
The woman dared not utter a word more. Lifting her skirt, she pushed through the crowd and fled in panic.
The remaining women realized the situation was turning bad.
Though the young man was attractive, their lives were far more important.
The woman before them was likely a cultivator — how could mere mortals afford to provoke someone who could soar through the skies?
Reluctant as they were, they quickly dispersed.
In an instant, the space around Chu Xingchen became empty.
Yaoqin's gaze once again fixed upon him as she repeated her question.
"Didn't you say you were taking your disciple to the temple fair today?"
Chu Xingchen pointed to the ground. "This is the temple fair."
Then he gestured toward two wayward disciples not far away who had not even greeted him.
"Add those two disciples over there — isn't that me taking disciples to the temple fair?"
Yaoqin stared at him, her grip tightening on the jade-handled fan.
"Why are you here too?" Chu Xingchen asked with a light smile. "I remember you dislike crowds like this. Could it be that you came looking for me?"
"Bah! Who would come looking for you?" Yaoqin turned aside. "Who do you think you are?"
"An old friend, of course." Chu Xingchen brushed his sleeve and placed his hands on his hips. "How does this outfit look on me?"
Yaoqin's eyes swept up and down. She had to admit, clothes did make the man. Compared to the sloppy Chu Xingchen of before, his current bearing had indeed improved by leaps and bounds.
"Who bought you this outfit?"
"Why, my eldest disciple, of course."
Yaoqin sneered. "Hmph, wearing this at least makes you look somewhat human."
"Thanks for the compliment," Chu Xingchen replied carefreely.
Just then, Li Yingling approached with a bright smile, waving her little fan as she called out cheerfully, "Master~"
Chu Xingchen shot an exasperated glare at his troublesome disciple, then turned his eyes toward Li Yingling's senior brother, Li Xingtian, silently demanding why he had not warned him in advance.
Li Xingtian looked completely innocent and signaled with his eyes — it was senior sister's order!
Although Yaoqin's tone was cold, she was not truly angry.
She knew Chu Xingchen's temperament well. In his own shameless words — "With a face like mine, they think they can enjoy it without paying?"
Even before she met him, Yaoqin had heard that Chu Xingchen was a frequent visitor to the pleasure quarters.
His usual trick was to rely on his looks to freeload, so a scene like this was nothing unusual.
Still, she found it somewhat irritating. He was already at the Mysterious Dan Realm, yet showed not the slightest dignity of one.
What kind of cultivator at that level would sit with mortals, holding hands and reading palms?
Yaoqin lightly waved her fan, her voice soft as a breeze. "The Water Forest Dharma Assembly today is worth seeing."
Li Yingling, ever quick to grow familiar, hooked her arm through Yaoqin's and asked curiously, "Sister Yaoqin, does this Water Forest Dharma Assembly really have something special?"
Chu Xingchen deliberately interjected, "What sister? Call her Aunt-Master Yaoqin."
Without hesitation, Yaoqin raised her fan and struck him once, sneering coldly. "Do you not want spirit stones anymore?"
At those words, Chu Xingchen immediately forgot what he had just said and replied with feigned innocence, "Sister Yaoqin, is there something unusual about today's Water Forest Dharma Assembly?"
At present, Chu Xingchen was so poor that he only had silver and gold left — not a single usable spirit stone.
If his blood-essence spirit stones were truly irreversible, then the spirit stone reward Yaoqin had promised was the only hope for his Spirit Gathering Array.
Before spirit stones, what did dignity matter?
"Master… please, spare your disciple some face," Li Yingling sighed helplessly. "At this rate, I won't dare go out with you anymore."
She felt that her master's sense of shame was far too flexible, especially when spirit stones were involved.
Chu Xingchen said irritably, "Good disciple, from now on, don't ask your master for spirit stones again!"
"Master! I was wrong!" Li Yingling instantly admitted defeat.
Li Xingtian quietly sighed in his heart.
His senior sister had inherited her master's shamelessness completely.
If she went out one day and revealed their sect, others would surely recognize her — "Ah, so you're from that shameless sect!"
Yaoqin looked at the pair, feeling a bit helpless. Indeed, like master, like disciple.
She then explained, "The Water Forest Dharma Assembly isn't merely a gathering for fun. The Zen Forest Temple uses this event to absorb the power of mortal wishes."
Upon hearing this, Chu Xingchen and Li Xingtian immediately lost interest. Even if wish power were given to them for free, they would refuse it.
In this world, the path of cultivation was the one and only true way.
However, the world was vast, and besides the great road, a few smaller paths also existed.
For instance, the martial path of warriors who tempered their own bodies until they themselves became worlds.
Or the scholarly Dao of Confucians who pursued enlightenment through knowledge.
Wish power was one such path — a unique kind of spiritual force.
Yet even demonic cultivators disdained it.
Any power taken without payment always came with a price, and that truth was most evident in wish power.
Perhaps it was because wish power required neither spiritual roots nor aptitude — even mountain spirits and forest demons could draw upon it.
Most of those wild creatures occasionally awakened intelligence but lacked cultivation methods.
Even with exceptional talent, merely breathing spiritual energy without a method would never let them break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Thus, wish power became the clearest path they could choose.
But the price was steep.
Once cultivation was enhanced through wish power, one could never again part from it.
If they stopped absorbing wish power, their cultivation — gained through it — would fall rapidly.
And this decline was almost irreversible. A fall from the Mysterious Dan Realm to Foundation Establishment meant one could never again reach the former height.
To use wish power was, in the end, to be trapped within it.
Moreover, maintaining the constant supply of wish power required fulfilling the believers' desires.
After all, who would keep believing in you for nothing?
Therefore, it was essentially an unreliable and troublesome path.
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