Cui Hao's Natural Enemy

"There are many dangers on the path to immortality, but the most dangerous of all is impetuousness."

"To grow anxious when one's cultivation stagnates, or to harbor resentment when watching others break through to the next realm."

Zhang Miaoyu stood with her hands behind her back. Sitting quietly before her were Zhou Ping and Ye Wanzhou. She spoke and instructed them in a calm tone.

The Outer Sect could now be considered to be booming. The number of disciples had fully doubled—even though they could still be counted on just two fingers.

Fortunately, this meant she had finally moved past the phase of painstaking one-on-one instruction.

Zhang Miaoyu's guidance for Zhou Ping was basically limited to cultivation, but she rarely needed to answer his questions. Firstly, Zhou Ping's cultivation was still in its initial stages, and secondly, cultivation itself was rather dry, simply repeating the same thing constantly.

Until he reached the next realm or encountered a bottleneck, he was essentially left to his own devices, with only the occasional sparring session to guide his moves.

Moreover, Zhou Ping was deeply engrossed in alchemy, something Zhang Miaoyu was not skilled at. He spent most of his time studying at the Alchemy Peak of the Tianyan Sect. Fortunately, their Sect Leader had enough face that just mentioning his name earned Zhou Ping quite meticulous training.

As a result, Zhang Miaoyu didn't even have many opportunities to spar with him.

Consequently, Zhang Miaoyu had not truly experienced what it felt like to teach a disciple.

Though she was supposedly an Outer Sect Elder teaching disciples, she spent most of her time acting as a little secretary for Li Yingling.

While this job was not bad, it made her title of Outer Sect Elder seem somewhat unearned.

Fortunately, Ye Wanzhou was completely different.

She truly allowed Zhang Miaoyu to experience what it was like to be an Outer Sect Elder instructing a disciple.

Although the first step wasn't teaching Ye Wanzhou how to cultivate, but rather teaching her how to read.

Earlier, it was Cui Hao who had taught Zhou Ping how to read. Even though the process nearly drove Cui Hao to the brink of a breakdown, he had done a genuinely good job. By the time Zhou Ping was handed over to Zhang Miaoyu, he had already caught on and basically needed no further instruction.

Although there were illiterate cultivators in the cultivation world, they eventually either had to learn to read or resign themselves to remaining at the very bottom of the hierarchy forever.

Back in the day, Zhang Miaoyu herself was illiterate and had to find a teacher to study bitterly.

Ye Wanzhou had the advantage of being clever and not at all dull-witted. At the very least, Zhang Miaoyu found her smart; many concepts only needed to be taught twice before she fully grasped them.

Zhang Miaoyu stood up and looked at the two of them, saying,

"The path of cultivation is distant, fraught with obstacles and endlessly long. Only by holding true to your original heart can you reach the pinnacle."

This was considered part of the morning lecture and didn't contain any practical instruction.

It was an additional curriculum established based on Li Yingling's teaching policy for Outer Sect disciples: you can be weak, but you cannot be wicked.

Every few days, Zhang Miaoyu would hold a special morning lecture focusing on these principles.

Whether it actually had any effect was currently unknown, but doing it was always better than doing nothing.

With those words, the morning lecture came to an end.

Zhou Ping and Ye Wanzhou stood up together, cupped their hands toward Zhang Miaoyu, and said,

"Thank you for your teachings, Elder."

Zhang Miaoyu nodded slightly. Just as she was about to dismiss the class and call Ye Wanzhou over for some instruction, she saw their Sect Leader walking in through the doorway, chatting and laughing with Cui Hao.

"Sect Leader," Zhang Miaoyu stepped forward to greet him, hastily cupping her hands.

Chu Xingchen nodded slightly. "There is no need to be so polite."

Zhou Ping was fairly well-acquainted with Chu Xingchen. After all, it was Chu Xingchen who had given him his foundational introduction to alchemy, even though he was nearly deterred by his Sect Leader's formidable alchemy skills.

He also stood up, cupped his hands, and bowed. "Greetings, Sect Leader."

Ye Wanzhou looked a bit nervous. She first bowed in greeting before raising her eyes to look at Chu Xingchen.

Although Zhang Miaoyu always said that everyone in the sect was easy to get along with, she understood a simple truth: wherever there are people, there will be conflict.

If there wasn't any, it just meant there were too few people.

For example, the current Outer Sect, which had a grand total of three people, including the elder and the disciples.

But could a sect that managed to establish roots on such a vast immortal mountain truly be a simple one?

After all, the awe-inspiring sights outside the sect gates were hard for Ye Wanzhou to believe. She had also seen quite a few disciples wearing matching uniforms outside the mountain gate, and their numbers were definitely not small.

Chu Xingchen chuckled and nodded. His gaze naturally fell upon Ye Wanzhou, whose skin was still slightly tanned, and he asked,

"You must be the new Outer Sect disciple, right?"

Ye Wanzhou immediately replied,

"Yes, I am."

"Your aptitude isn't bad. Cultivate well." As Chu Xingchen spoke, he took out several protective spiritual treasures from his spatial ring. "Although you are in the Outer Sect, you are still a member of our sect. If you are ever bullied, you can find anyone for help. Don't just keep it bottled up inside."

Standing beside his master, Cui Hao nodded in strong agreement and said,

"We cultivators endure bitter training along our path. Aside from pursuing the Great Dao, we are nothing if not fiercely protective of our own!"

"Huh?" Hearing this, Ye Wanzhou looked at the self-righteous Cui Hao.

How was this so different from what the Elder had taught?

Chu Xingchen also cast a calm glance his way.

Cui Hao hastily let out a light cough and corrected himself,

"I mean, we protect the people we want to protect."

Ye Wanzhou hurriedly nodded to show her agreement. At Zhang Miaoyu's gesture, she accepted the defensive spiritual treasures from Chu Xingchen's hands. At the same time, she marveled inwardly at Cui Hao's corrected statement—as expected of a cultivator, his way with words was truly clever.

Zhou Ping's expression remained calm.

As Cui Hao's neighbor, he knew that the casual chats they had whenever Cui Hao was bored and came over for a drink were truly explosive.

Cui Hao's specialty was rambling from the deep south to the far north, and every time he opened his mouth, out came shocking remarks.

Occasionally, when Li Xingtian joined them for a drink and listened in, even someone who was usually as expressionless as him would end up contorting his face and shaking his head repeatedly.

In the beginning, Zhou Ping barely dared to respond. But later on, he could treat Cui Hao's nonsense as nothing more than an appetizer to go with his wine.

After experiencing it so many times, he had simply gotten used to it.

Chu Xingchen chatted casually with Ye Wanzhou for a bit and also asked Zhou Ping how he had been doing lately.

Zhou Ping answered naturally with a relaxed expression. After all, apart from needing to be cautious around his alchemy, there was nothing else to worry about with their Sect Leader.

Perhaps Zhou Ping's demeanor also infected Ye Wanzhou.

The atmosphere remained quite pleasant.

Not to mention, they had Cui Hao, who never let the conversation die.

After chatting for a while and learning a bit about Ye Wanzhou's life experiences, Cui Hao very familiarly slung an arm around Zhou Ping's shoulder and started talking to Ye Wanzhou about how to cast a net to catch fish.

As Cui Hao explained the techniques, he quoted classics and cited historical records, making it sound as if he had actually spent a decade fishing by the river.

He detailed the techniques of selling fish even more thoroughly, vividly describing how to collude with the boatmen to drive up the price of fish.

Just by listening, Chu Xingchen knew that at least half of Cui Hao's so-called citations were pure nonsense meant to bluff people.

But it was more than enough to leave Ye Wanzhou completely dumbfounded and hanging on his every word.

She simply felt that, as expected of immortals, they truly had experienced everything.

The more Cui Hao talked, the more energetic he became, soon entering into a full stand-up comedy mode.

Ye Wanzhou felt that something wasn't quite right, but she still listened earnestly, unconsciously asking a question or two.

Perhaps relationships could be drawn very close through such casual chatter.

Ye Wanzhou's expression was no longer as nervous as before.

Seeing this, Chu Xingchen let Cui Hao continue his performance.

However, just as Cui Hao was performing with the utmost enthusiasm,

Chen Baiqing also walked in from outside the door.

The moment Cui Hao saw Chen Baiqing's figure, his rambling mouth instantly ground to a halt.

Out of all the people in the sect,

Aside from his own master, only this Third Senior Sister could accurately put Cui Hao in his place.

Even the First Senior Sister was sometimes fooled by his bluffs.

Only the Third Senior Sister never missed and never let him off the hook.

She practically belonged to the category of Cui Hao's natural predators.

Chen Baiqing cast a puzzled look at Cui Hao, who looked as if someone had grabbed him by the throat, and said bluntly,

"Keep talking. I'm not here for you."

"Oh... oh..."