18 "I Think I Am In Great Danger" (2/2)
”Did it work?! Is she dead?”
Liu Qing bit her top lip and bowed deeply before answering. She didn't need to as Chu Erlong turned her back to her.
Liu Qing was surprised for a second, waiting for a scolding, which would usually happen. Instead, Chu Erlong didn't say a word but started to tremble.
At first, she trembled just a bit but after a few seconds, her shaking was visible to the three girls present.
A short girl with a round face reacted before Liu Qing did. Her name was Fan Cai and her voice was disturbingly high pitched as she asked ”Are you okay Big Sister Chu?”
Her voice clearly held tones of surprise mixed with fear. Her question was cut short and she produced a loud 'gulp' when Chu Erlong turned again to look at her followers.
”That... little... RASCAL!” she screamed, not caring about being heard from outside of the abandoned courtyard.
Liu Qing and the other followers were all stunned. Extreme agitation was visible on Chu Erlong's face.
”Liu Qing, tell me everything you saw. Don't leave any detail out” she asked her, finally seeming to recover a bit.
Liu Qing swallowed uncomfortably and recounted all of the recent events from when she was spying on Shin Sumi. Even after she stopped talking Chu Erlong stayed silent, judging the situation in her head.
”She... she is really good. Acting like a red robed disciple with no talent. Even a green talented disciple shouldn't have been able to discover the Clover Prison Seed that my grandfather specially grafted himself” she said. ”What am I going to say to grandfather after this? I wasted a lot of resources on this plan, but that unassuming twit ruined it just like that?!”
The girls in front of the orange robed youth didn't dare say a word. Although they were usually not spared a second glance from Chu Erlong, she still trusted them and confided in them. They understood immediately what she meant.
Chu Erlong had told them weeks ago what she thought. Ever since she had seen Shin Sumi trying to spy on them in this exact courtyard, she had been suspicious of her. She had asked Liu Qing to follow her.
Liu Qing had kind of a natural talent in being stealthy. Maybe because she had been invisible during most of her life. She had easily spotted Shin Sumi going to her courtyard. She had seen her using her own identification medallion to open the gates. There were no doubts to be had, Shin Sumi was not a red robed disciple.
Liu Qing had first proposed Chu Erlong to befriend Shin Sumi, but the orange robed girl had laughed at her face ”And then what? Do you think she will help us? Considering her talent she would just use us as stepping stones until she reaches the next level. If she really has such a monstrous talent, she'll become a star before we even have a chance at touching the clouds.”
Liu Qing clearly remembered the words of Chu Erlong that day, when for the first time her friend had given her shivers.
”We must destroy her. She should be OUR stepping stone. A big enough one for all of us. We absolutely can't let her reach a level where she can easily defeat us and make us look like dog shit next to her.”
That was how it began. After that Liu Qing had spent most of her days following Shin Sumi everywhere, trying not to be shaken off by the green talented girl's seemingly random actions.
Finally Chu Erlong had prepared a plan. She had contacted her grandfather through gritted teeth, asking for a big favor.
Chu Xuanba was the Great Elder of the sect, standing above all the other Elders, responding only to the Sect Patriarch and the mysterious experts of the Dark Sky Starry Sect.
He was a gentle looking old man but with deep eyes capable of rendering a Liquid Realm cultivator unconscious with a single glance. As a mid Core Development cultivator, nobody in the sect would dare look at him sideways. Even as the first daughter of his first son, Chu Erlong was careful when talking to him.
She had used his favors to get a dangerous plant that could kill a Liquid Realm disciple in the blink of an eye. But even that wasn't enough.
”We have to destroy her!” said Chu Erlong once more, bringing Liu Qing back to reality.
”Actually I have an idea, Big Sister Chu...” said Liu Qing in a whisper.
***
Shin Sumi walked faster than usual. Even though she wanted to appear unaffected by her near death experience, she found it really hard to act normal.
For once, she seemed to remark all of the disciples from the Affairs Pavilion, visible with a pin on the front of their robes.
There were many disciples like Lan Hui, acting like some sort of law enforcer in the lower valley, but usually they would go almost unnoticed. Shin Sumi wondered how many of them knew who they were working for.
”A monster. Elder Zhu is a monster” she said to herself.
She then wondered how many of them had been tasked to follow her.
Shaking her head, Shin Sumi laughed unconvincingly.
”Come on Sumi, don't be too paranoid. Focus on what you're doing. The nut will protect you.”
Shin Sumi had initially decided to go back to her secret farm in the dark chasm but decided against it.
”I'm probably safer in the middle of the sect and traps could await me in the jungle” she said to herself.
Still carefully looking around her, she tried her best to keep a low profile as she headed to the Cultivation Plaza. Lan Hui had many friends, some of whom he trusted with his life, as he had told her once, so when she stumbled upon one on her way, she asked him to send Lan Hui a message.
Shin Sumi arrived at the Cultivation Plaza not so long after and she settled on top of the middle platform.
She was surrounded by disciples meditating, with only a few groups of people chatting instead of focussing on cultivation.
She finally felt safe once again. Nobody would dare to do anything to her in the middle of the Plaza, which was one of the most frequented places in the lower valley.
She tried cultivating for a while, to calm her heart as much as to do actual progress in cultivation. To her dismay, she found that the Shinsoo in this place, although in higher concentration than somewhere else, was simply not dense enough to make the spark inside her dantian flare up to life.
Lan Hui arrived not too long after, his friend having told him about the urgency he had sensed in Shin Sumi's voice.
He had been rushing to get to the Cultivation Plaza as soon as possible, only to find a calm and smiling Shin Sumi.
Lan Hui sat down in front of her after bowing rapidly.
”Brother Lan, I'm happy to see you” Shin Sumi started after bowing herself.
”Sister Shin, what is going on? Du Le told me to meet you quickly, is everything alright?” Lan Hui answered with a concerned expression.
Shin Sumi's cristalline laugh resounded quietly, trying to be as natural as possible.
She dispelled most of his concern in a few words before changing the subject. Shin Sumi told him about her first real success in cultivation and about how she had felt the Shinsoo in her dantian.
Lan Hui congratulated her and offered a few pointers, although Shin Sumi appeared to be listening with only one ear.
”With the little bit of Shinsoo I have accumulated inside me, can I use the jade medallion to communicate?” she interrupted him.
Lan Hui was silent for a moment before answering ”Well, it depends if you have enough Shinsoo inside you. You are still not fully into Shinsoo Gathering, you need to forcibly absorb Shinsoo first and then at some point your body will become naturally able to gather the energy you spent.”
”So if someone uses Shinsoo, their body will return back to peak condition by itself?”
”Exactly, although it takes time, especially since we Honorary Disciples don't have much Shinsoo to begin with. Shinsoo Gathering is a long process and I advise you to spend as little of your energy as possible.”
Shin Sumi bobbed her head up and down as she understood more and more. Nevertheless, she didn't give up on learning the way of communicating via jade slips.
Lan Hui explained it to her, agreeing that it was something important to know in case of urgency for example, even if a few messages could leave a disciple completely without Shinsoo.
By using the identification jade she had been given, Shin Sumi learned how to register other people's personal jade, as well as how to condense Shinsoo to form a mental connection with the jade.
A new world of possibilities opened up before her as she now understood how to read and imprint information on jade slips.
She seemed very happy with that and thanked Lan Hui profusely, even standing up in order to bow deeply. Lan Hui departed with a smile on his face, although it hid the fact that something didn't feel right to him.
He hadn't walked more than thirty meters, having just gone down the stairs of the cultivation platform, when he felt a familiar vibration in his bag of holding. Taking out his identification jade, he pressed his forehead against it because it was the simplest way of accessing the information.
”Brother Lan, please act normal and forgive me for being so strange earlier. I think that I am in great danger.”