The Diligent Xiao Luan

Watching his mother’s transformation, Liu Yunan would sometimes think that if nothing had gone wrong with her family back then, she might have married into a wealthy household by now—or taken in a matrilocal husband and become the head of the family herself. She would probably have grown into this same dignified figure, commanding respect without ever needing to raise her voice.

Seeing how his mother had changed, he was sincerely happy for her from the bottom of his heart.

Their Lingxian Sect really was wonderful.

As for who had changed the least, that would probably be Old Master Lin, the Spirit Field Elder, and all the people working under him.

After all, their daily lives had been more or less the same as before.

The only difference now was that they had a person in charge. Previously, everyone had simply discussed and arranged matters among themselves.

Ever since the kitchen and dining hall had been built on the floating island, everyone in Lingxian Sect had eaten three proper meals a day without fail. Aside from joining everyone in the cultivation room each morning, Jiang Youfu spent nearly all his time in the kitchen.

On this trip to the cultivation world, he and Lin Xiao had brought back all sorts of strange and novel ingredients. Recently, he had been enthusiastically experimenting with different combinations and flavors.

The meat of the demon beasts from the Beast Garden behind the mountain was also an area he had never explored before.

Because of that, Little Luan—who had always had a good relationship with him—now began muttering the moment it saw him. Every time he went to the Beast Garden to claim a demon beast, Little Luan would hold him up for ages.

Whenever he encountered a demon beast with a particularly long growth cycle, Little Luan became extremely strict about guarding it. No matter how much he pleaded or coaxed, it refused to agree.

It just went to show that when you left a supposedly unreliable child in charge of everything, it suddenly knew how to behave responsibly.

Lin Xiao had initially been somewhat uneasy about handing the Beast Garden over to Little Luan. He had even considered taking back the position of Beast Garden Keeper if it proved too unreliable.

He had also been worried because Little Luan was a demon beast itself, while the demon beasts raised in the sect’s Beast Garden were clearly intended to be sold or used as food.

He was afraid that watching the sect handle those demon beasts might cause Little Luan to empathize with them and develop negative feelings.

He was not the only one who had such concerns. Everyone in the sect was at least a little worried.

Yet the way things turned out was completely beyond everyone’s expectations.

After receiving the position, Little Luan seemed to become an entirely different chicken. It completely shed its former reputation for being unreliable.

The first thing it did was use its identity token to study how the Beast Garden was operated. It went in and out repeatedly, practicing over and over.

During that period, it also became more diligent than ever before, joining everyone in the cultivation room every day and rapidly digesting the demon core of the Silverfrost Python it had swallowed.

It completely abandoned its former lazy and careless attitude toward cultivation. Despite possessing a Nascent Soul–stage demon core and having access to a cultivation room overflowing with spiritual energy, it had taken more than a year just to reach the ninth layer of the Spirit Awakening stage.

But in a mere dozen or so days, it gave birth to a demon core no larger than a grain of rice and successfully advanced to the Core Formation stage.

Afterward, Little Luan went to Liu Yunan and asked for a small notebook and a charcoal pencil. It hung them around its neck, then swaggered into the Beast Garden alone, its chicken feet marching with the confidence of someone who cared nothing for anyone else’s opinion.

Using the basic arithmetic it had recently learned from Yang Jinshu, it began keeping records—records that only it could understand.

Once it had counted the number of demon beasts and figured out each species’ habits and routines, it picked up a large pile of feed seeds and went to negotiate with Old Master Lin, asking him to plant them in the spirit fields.

Its reason was that the Beast Garden’s naturally growing food supply was unreliable and could not provide the demon beasts with a steady source of proper nutrition.

The situation at the time had gone something like this.

Little Luan came before Old Master Lin, who looked at it kindly and asked in his still somewhat clumsy version of Beast Speech:

“Little Luan, what can I do for you?”

Little Luan then pulled a large bag of saplings from the storage pouch Lin Xiao had hung around its neck.

Pointing at the bag with shining eyes, it said:

“Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck!”

It meant that it wanted Old Master Lin to plant food for the demon beasts. It wanted to create a balanced diet for them so that the beasts sent out from the Beast Garden would grow more meat and contain more spiritual energy.

Old Master Lin was utterly baffled.

After all, he had never raised demon beasts. He had not expected Little Luan to understand so much. He assumed it was simply because demon beasts naturally understood other demon beasts better, and thought that his grandson had made the right decision in handing the Beast Garden over to Little Luan.

He even praised it:

“Oh my, so raising demon beasts is such a learned undertaking! Little Luan, you’re truly impressive!”

Little Luan’s chicken rump immediately stuck up in the air. It was so pleased that it practically wanted to point its tail at the heavens.

It then began chattering away to Old Master Lin about even more matters.

Old Master Lin was happy to listen to this knowledge about animal husbandry, and he listened with great interest.

Whenever the subject turned to raising demon beasts, Little Luan puffed out its chest and spoke at length, its words flowing like a running stream.

The old man and the chicken seemed like longtime friends.

After sorting out the matter of planting feed, Little Luan also spent every day arguing with the Finance Hall and the sect kitchen whenever they came to request ingredients.

No one could expect to take even a single extra demon beast from the Beast Garden.

Perhaps it was because it had suddenly begun communicating with people much more often. Or perhaps it was because it had advanced to the Core Formation stage. Whatever the reason, Little Luan’s speech had become far more fluent. Before, it often stumbled when trying to communicate with people, but now it could speak smoothly.

It had even taken a copy of the sect’s Beast Speech and begun studying it on its own, working hard to adjust its vocalizations. Every now and then, a few single-syllable words would pop out of its little chicken beak.

For a time, Little Luan left everyone else behind and became the hardest-working member of Lingxian Sect.

Lin Xiao and the others were deeply puzzled by the change.

What had happened to Little Luan all of a sudden?

Had someone replaced its chicken brain?

It was not until Sun Yigao, who had since become the Archive Master, explained the matter that everyone found out the truth.

Back when the Archive Pavilion had first been established—before the sect’s Second Assembly—Little Luan had borrowed two books from it.

One was titled How to Tame Demon Beasts and Become the Lord of Ten Thousand Demons!

The other was titled Postpartum Care for Sow Demons.

Sun Yigao had only learned about it because Little Luan had returned the books the day before.

After explaining this, he knew everyone would be curious about the two books. Without another word, he took them out from inside his robes and passed them around for everyone to read.

And so, the mystery behind Little Luan’s transformation was finally solved.

Upon learning the truth, Da Tao silently enshrined the two books in its heart as sacred texts—the sacred texts that had transformed its master.

It also secretly swore an oath.

It, Da Tao, would study hard!

It would learn to write!

One day, it would copy these two books by the dozens!

It would ensure that their wisdom was passed down and spread far and wide!

And thus, the second hardworking chicken of Lingxian Sect was born.

On this particular day, Liao Pantu, who spent nearly all his time in the Yaoguang Minor World except when he was eating, invited everyone at the dinner table:

“Does everyone have time tomorrow? Why don’t you come visit the minor world?”

Hearing this, Lin Xiao paused with a piece of food halfway to his mouth and asked:

“You’ve finished setting everything up there? We can take a look now?”

Only then did he put the food into his mouth and savor it carefully.