Chapter 4. Meeting Bad Guys

When they reached the place where they found Hong Mei, they opened her cage.

"From here on, leave and don't come back to the human world, this place is very dangerous for a fox spirit like you," said Xiao Yang as he opened the iron cage that Lan Bingyue had placed on the ground.

Hong Mei in her fox form came out carefully, looking at Lan Bingyue and Xiao Yang alternately. "Kaing ..." (Thank you).

Lan Bingyue just stared at Hong Mei intently, his heart felt reluctant and didn't want to let Hong Mei go so easily. However, not wanting to take any chances, he had to let go of the 50,000 spiritual stones worth of money that ran from in front of him and disappeared into the darkness of the night.

"Haahhh" Lan Bingyue sighed heavily, climbed his flying sword in silence, and flew back towards the sect. Xiao Yang then followed him too, but he felt wary because not far in front of them the seniors and sect teachers had gathered and were combing the area.

Then the two of them decided to enter from the front gate of the sect because they had just returned from a mission.

In the morning...

Lan Bingyue and Xiao Yang were on trial in the elder's hall.

A white-haired adult man with heterochromia eyes, one black and one red, with a scar running from his forehead to his cheek, age 400 years old with an appearance of around 30 years old in the human world was interrogating the two young men about what they did last night and trying to extract more information about the ghost aura that managed to penetrate the sect's protective layer spell last night.

This man named Xian Yinhe, a genius teacher in this sect who had entered the core cultivation realm at a young age which was one step closer to the yingyang cultivation realm.

In this hall, there were only four people, namely Lan Bingyue, Xiao Yang, Xian Yinhe, and Ren Jianqiang who was also a teacher assigned to investigate this matter. Since Lan Bingyue and Xiao Yang were people who entered and exited the sect for reasons that were still unclear, they were asked about this.

"No one saw you two go out before, who gave you the mission? I didn't find any records of your mission" Interrogate Xian Yinhe.

"Lan Bingyue, Xiao Yang, the situation is very critical now, there is a spirit trying to attack the sect and we can't find any trace of it. I'm afraid the spirit has mixed with one of the students in this sect and we will be attacked from within, I don't want any lies about this important thing"

Master Xian Yinhe said with a censuring intonation and master Ren Jianqiang who was next to him watched their reactions carefully.

"Master, I don't want to lie"

"Xiao Yang!" Lan Bingyue glared at Xiao Yang as he expressed his distrust of his colleague.

"Tell me Xiao Yang!" Master Ren Jianqiang said in a forceful tone.

"Actually... we found a fox outside the sect and brought it back into the sect without actually knowing that the fox was a spirit"

"Why didn't you report it?!" Master Ren Jianqiang was furious and slammed the table. Startling everyone around him.

"We don't know master, we planned to sell the fox secretly in the city and when we wanted to take it out, the fox attacked us and managed to escape from the sect. We wanted to chase it but the fox disappeared, we didn't dare to report it to the sect because we were afraid of being scolded to the fact that we failed to catch the fox spirit"

"Is it true Bingyue?," Master Xian Yunhe turned his face to Lan Bingyue. 

"... Yes, Master please believe us! Im in agony right now, I lost 50,000 of my spiritual stones just like that!" Lan Bingyue tried to look very annoyed.

"Okay then that's what happened, but you still have to be punished for lying last night. For the next 5 days you must kneel in front of the ancestral hall, now go!"

"Yes master please forgive us!" Xiao Yang and Lan Bingyue said in unison.

"Enough, Enough!"

The matter was then over.

Lan Bingyue and Xiao Yang returned to Lan Bingyue's room and tried to process what had just happened.

"Ah, Xiao Yang my heart almost jumped out, I thought you would tell the truth earlier!" Lan Bingyue said with a little annoyance pretending to be disappointed.

"I'm not that stupid, luckily they believed us, otherwise we would be finished."

"But I'm still upset and unwilling," Lan Bingyue said unenthusiastically.

"Why?"

"I just lost my money"

"Ahhh, dont think about it anymore luckily we are just having a light punishment, just forget about it for now... I'll just- I will go back to my room, cheer up for tomorrow, our knees will definitely be numb after 5 days"

"What else can we do". 

"Haaaaahh" both sighed heavily. 

Somewhere deep in the forest, Hong Mei was walking in her one-tailed fox form calmly. She was in no hurry to return to her spirit realm because she was not yet satisfied exploring the human world. Xiao Yang words to her were just considered a passing wind and her promise to Lan Bingyue was forgotten so quickly.

She planned to go to the human world in her human form, because apparently, her fox body was appreciated very expensive in the human world and she didn't want to risk being caught a second time. Moreover, her goal of training her body with human cultivation knowledge had not been realized even though the book she read from Lan Bingyue room made her understand a little but it was not enough, what is the meaning of theory without practice she thought.

Hong Mei walked around the forest again but with her human body, last night she slept in a bear cave peacefully because the bear was defeated temporarily. Hong Mei went down the mountain and continued walking until she reached the edge of the forest and saw a small village in front of her. Her clothes and the clothes of the villagers were very different from her then with her magic she changed clothes to resemble the style of the female villagers she saw.

She walked down the road to the village calmly thinking that she was very clever and brilliant because she could blend in with humans. Her appearance did look normal but her beauty was so abnormal that people who saw her couldn't take their eyes off her when they looked at her. However, Hong Mei didn't realize it because she was only thinking about what she wanted to eat this morning because she was very hungry.

In the village there is an inn and restaurant called Lanhua Inn. Hong Mei entered it and her eyes wandered looking for an empty table, even though this village was small but there were many people in this inn even though on average what was seen was only men and only a few women.

Hong Mei immediately sat in one of the empty chairs and called the waiter "Excuse me!" She called with a raised hand.

A fat man with a friendly face smiled and immediately approached her, his eyes looked in disbelief at the beauty who called him, all the men in this inn glanced at her and some stayed without taking their eyes off this beautiful girl.

"I'll order 2 bowls of noodles with chicken and eggs and a cup of tea" she said to the innkeeper. The fat man immediately agreed and said "All 2 liang" Hong Mei didn't understand how much 2 liang was so she took out a small piece of gold from her pocket and gave it to the owner.

The man's eyes sparkled again and said happily because he knew that this beautiful lady who was traveling alone was someone rich. A walking treasure. "What else do you need, miss?"

"That's all for now" Hong Mei answered then the innkeeper enthusiastically went to the kitchen while a middle-aged woman sitting behind the counter stared at Hong Mei with an unhappy face.

Hong Mei looked around the people around her and realized that people were staring at her periodically, she felt strange and wondered if there was something strange about her appearance but when she felt nothing different from what she was wearing right now, she tried to act indifferent even though she felt uncomfortable.

A group of people wearing imperial armor entered the inn, they had serious faces and looked around the inn scanning the faces inside before starting to enter and sit in an empty chair adjacent to Hong Mei's chair. Right now Hong Mei was eating her noodles quietly but the soldiers who saw her couldn't take their eyes off her. This unique and refined beauty.

One of the men in armor who looked like a leader because he had different clothing attributes from the others stood up and approached Hong Mei's table.

"Beautiful girl, what are you doing here alone?"

Hong Mei who didn't know that the question was for her just focused on eating her food quietly. The armored man was impatient and slammed the girl's table, making her cutlery vibrate and startling Hong Mei. Hong Mei then raised her face to see an adult man wearing armor with a bronze helmet on his head. She looked at the man with a confused face and her pupils dilated.

"What? Why?" She was very surprised by the man who suddenly scolded her like this without any wind or rain. No one dared to disturb her eating like this in Qing Qu, who was this brave human man.

The man moved his face closer to Hong Mei, fascinated by her delicate beauty and said in a commanding tone.

"You have to come with me"

"Who are you? Why should I go with you?" Hong Mei was even more surprised.

The man smiled slyly, "because from now on you are my woman"

"Huh?" Hong Mei replied in disbelief.

Who is this crazy man who suddenly said this crazy thing to her?

"You're crazy, I don't want to deal with you, get away while I'm eating," Hong Mei said uninterested.

The man laughed and told his group mates to laughed along.

"Hahaha Little girl you have no choice, you have to come with me whether you want to or not" then he grabbed Hong Mei's wrist trying to pull her.

Hong Mei brushed him off not liking it.

"presumptuous"

she refused loudly and got up from her seat in a hurry which caused her cutlery and her second bowl of noodles that had not been touched to fall to the inn floor.

The impatient man immediately pulled his sword from its sheath and placed it on the girl's slender neck. Everyone in the inn who saw the commotion gasped but no one dared to help the poor girl because the one she was facing was an imperial soldier who was famous for causing trouble and being arbitrary to the common people.

"Come with me!"

Hong Mei tried to calm down and be silent for a moment, she wanted to use her magic but was afraid that the people here would see her and panic. So when the man asked the innkeeper which room was empty and handed over the rent he who placed his sword on the girl's neck pulled the girl up the stairs to her room. Hong Mei pretended to be helpless and followed him to the upper room.

To be continue.