Chapter 11: Little Junior Brother

Many of the estates and courtyards in Kunwu City were built into the surrounding mountain range, protected by array formations. To facilitate operations, the City Lord's estate had created many spatial passageways connecting various areas—some leading to cultivation caves and spirit fields, others to the treasure vault or the beast court. Otherwise, there wouldn't be enough room to fit all these buildings within the estate. Tang Yue often used these passageways to reach the Scripture Pavilion. To protect the precious texts, the estate had constructed a dedicated corridor to the pavilion. If anyone tried to steal the scriptures, Tang Wenhua and other high-level cultivators residing in the estate could arrive immediately to defend the treasured manuals and scrolls.

That night, unable to sleep, Tang Yue decided to visit the Scripture Pavilion to study the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams. She frequently visited the pavilion at night, so the night watch cultivators were used to it, assuming the City Lord's second daughter wanted to secretly work hard and one day astonish everyone.

Recently, she had become obsessed with studying the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams, combining them with the Nine Palaces divination system. If used correctly, they could help derive exquisitely complex formations. When reading, she liked to prepare small snacks for herself. Tonight's treat was peach crisps made with the spirit peach leaves she'd obtained from the Falling Blossom Valley, infused with peach juice and milk. Fragrant, crispy, sweet, and filled with spiritual energy, they also had nourishing effects.

Engrossed in her studies, she reached for another peach crisp, only to notice the number was off—some seemed to be missing. She set her book aside to investigate, and sure enough, crumbs were scattered all over the floor. Tang Yue wasn't the type to make a mess when eating—she'd be careful not to drop crumbs so she wouldn't have to clean up afterward.

So who dropped these?

Following the trail of crumbs, she reached a row of bookshelves and found a small child crouching behind the last one, quietly munching on a peach crisp.

"Little thief!" Tang Yue said, amused, wanting to see who this child was who dared sneak into the Scripture Pavilion to steal food in the middle of the night.

The child turned around—he had a delicate, snow-like face, cheeks stuffed full of peach crisps, crumbs falling from his mouth. His big, bright eyes looked up at her as he mumbled, "I'm not a thief."

Tang Yue found his face oddly familiar. After a moment, she recalled—wasn't this Mu Chongyun, the future sweetheart of Yue Yanling? In the original novel, he was a genius with a supreme-grade metal spiritual root and a natural-born sword body, making him extremely suited to the sword path. But he always came second to the protagonist Chu Tianshu, becoming little more than a stepping stone.

The future genius Mu Chongyun was now just a little boy secretly eating snacks and making a mess—what a stark contrast. "Little junior brother, making a mess while stealing food—that's not right," she said, walking over to scoop him up and set him at a small table so his crumbs would land there. She then went to clean up the floor.

Mu Chongyun would eventually become one of Tang Wan's backup love interests, and his relationship with the original Tang Yue wasn't good—they often clashed. As he grew stronger, she had become wary of this junior brother who clearly disliked her.

But right now, Mu Chongyun was only three years old, at his most adorable. She couldn't bring herself to kick out such a beautiful child. The lethality of human cubs was just too high.

Mu Chongyun reached for another peach crisp and, in his haste, nearly choked. He quickly poured himself some fruit tea to wash it down.

Tang Yue chuckled. "Junior brother, taking without asking is stealing. How could you just help yourself to my snacks?"

"I was hungry. I couldn't find anything to eat in the middle of the night," he said with a touch of grievance. Though born a Qi Condensation cultivator, he was still a child and needed food to grow. Young children didn't have fixed hunger patterns—he hadn't eaten properly during the day and now was starving with no one to prepare food for him.

Tang Yue felt a bit sorry for him. His parents, wanting to curry favor with the City Lord and elevate their family's status, had sent him to the estate upon discovering his natural sword body. The City Lord believed in "self-reliance," and rarely assigned personal servants to disciples, so no one had been assigned to care for young Mu Chongyun.

"You get along well with Senior Sister Tang Wan, don't you? Why didn't you go to her?" Tang Yue was curious. In the novel, Tang Wan often cared for the young Mu Chongyun, which was how he eventually developed feelings for her.

She didn't realize that Zhuang Qiaohui, with her petty scheming, was overly cautious about potential threats and locked the West Wing tightly at night, not allowing anyone to enter. Mu Chongyun had indeed gone there first, but when he couldn't get in, he wandered near the Scripture Pavilion and happened to see Tang Yue carrying a food basket through the corridor—so he followed.

Thinking of how he'd stood outside Tang Wan's courtyard for a long while with no one answering, Mu Chongyun felt even more wronged. "I wanted to eat your food, you bad woman!" he said defiantly.

Tang Yue's fondness dropped a few points. She picked up the plate of snacks and tea and stood. "Bad women don't feed little thieves."

Mu Chongyun panicked—he wasn't full yet—and lunged for the snacks. As expected of a natural-born cultivator, he was agile, and Tang Yue nearly lost her grip on the plate. Fortunately, her half-year of martial training and physical advantage helped her hold on.

The two tumbled about playfully and failed to notice a large vase that had appeared beside them. Tang Yue leaned back without realizing and knocked it over, sending porcelain shards scattering across the floor.

"That was you, bad woman! Had nothing to do with me!" Mu Chongyun declared immediately.

Tang Yue shot him a glance, then turned toward the vase. Something felt wrong—she was sure this spot had never had a vase before.

Just as she was trying to figure it out, the scenery before her eyes suddenly changed. The rows of bookshelves vanished, and she now stood in a small garden. The view wasn't as elegant as Lady Shui's landscape garden, but it had a charm of its own.

She had clearly entered some sort of illusion or pocket realm. Tang Yue grew worried for her little junior brother—how could a three-year-old survive in such an unpredictable environment? She needed to find a way out fast and see whether Mu Chongyun had also been dragged into the formation. If so, she had to get him out.

She inspected the surroundings—a three-courtyard compound—but she couldn't leave the little garden. It was completely empty and eerily quiet, with nothing moving except her.

She figured she had to find a solution within this space. Upon arriving, she'd already noticed a clump of uprooted chrysanthemums on the ground. Remembering some old ghost stories, she wondered if maybe she needed to replant the flowers.

Thankfully, she'd learned a bit of the planting techniques from Foundations of Spiritual Power, so she carefully replanted the chrysanthemums, trimmed the withered branches, and transmitted a bit of spiritual energy to the roots. As long as the root system survived, the flowers would too.

After watering them from a well, the chrysanthemums revived and quickly bloomed into several differently colored blossoms, each glistening with crystal-like droplets—stunning. If she had a phone, she would've definitely posted a photo online.

Just then, the space transformed again. Now she stood by a vast ocean, under blue skies and white clouds—beautiful and refreshing. But after wandering for some time and failing to find a clue, she sat down to play with the sand and think.

A while later, a small red bird with a patterned crest flew in from over the sea, holding a stone in its beak and a twig in its claws. It dropped them into the sea and repeated the process over and over.

Tang Yue broke into a sweat—was this supposed to be Jingwei trying to fill the sea? She suspected this illusion was based on her own memories, since the story didn't exist in Liuzhou; she must've seen it in the modern world.

With no other ideas, she helped the bird fill the sea—months passed like this, and she'd nearly stripped a whole forest. As a fourth-level Qi Condensation cultivator, she couldn't move mountains, only collect rocks bit by bit. She could only hope the little junior brother was holding out.

The ocean, of course, remained unchanged. Perhaps this trial was meant to test her patience.

She didn't worry too much—she treated it as a chance to train her spiritual power. One day, just as she was about to strip another mountain, the scene finally shifted again—this time to a landscape of rivers and plains.

But the environment was volatile—floodwaters surged, and wildfires raged on land. Looking up, she saw beams of golden light bursting from cracks in the sky. Wherever they shone, wildfires ignited.

Suddenly, a beam shot down right at her. She dodged in time—barely.

As she ran and observed the terrain, she spotted a creek in the east. The golden light hadn't touched that area, and it felt oddly peaceful in contrast to the chaos around it.

She ran toward it and saw that the creekbed was paved with colorful stones—the Five-Color Stones of Heaven's Mending.

But she didn't know how to fly. That was a technique for Foundation Establishment cultivators—any lower and you'd fall off your flying artifact due to insufficient spiritual energy.

Just as she picked up a stone to examine it, she felt something stir within her. The sky seemed suddenly close—close enough that she could reach up and place the stone in the crack above. It was a strange feeling—she seemed to enter a mysterious state, forgetting everything else, focused only on patching the sky.

As she placed more stones, the crack slowly closed. Who knew how long had passed—eventually, the sky was whole again. She held the final stone in her hand, and in the next moment, the illusion vanished.

Back in the Scripture Pavilion, she was still a little dazed when a brilliant light flared from her chest. The multicolored stone flew into the spell ring.

Tang Yue was speechless—at least let her see it clearly first!

Peering inward at the ring on her chest, she found that it was no longer murky black-grey, but pure black with a lustrous, fine texture—a major upgrade.

The icy pain in her body had vanished. The spell ring sent a message: It had leveled up. It could now completely suppress negative energy—and please stop calling it a "spell ring." It wanted to be called Treasure Ring.

Tang Yue: …Fine. It's still a good thing. But she wasn't going to call it that out loud.

Most of the broken porcelain shards on the floor were gone, leaving only one fragment. Mu Chongyun was nowhere to be seen. Alarmed, she picked up the shard. On it was a painting of a mountain of blades—with a tiny boy trapped in it, clearly her junior brother.

This damned vase—what kind of cruel artifact throws a three-year-old into a blade-filled hell?

At that thought, she felt a tug in her heart—and the next instant, she appeared in the mountain of blades, right beside her junior brother.

Mu Chongyun wasn't panicking, just slowly dodging the blades. When he saw Tang Yue appear, he immediately ran to grab her sleeve—clearly frightened.

Tang Yue held his hand and asked, "Junior brother, are you hurt? How long have you been in here?"

"I just came in, Sister Tang. I've been dodging the blades—I'm not hurt," he answered obediently.

It seemed time flowed differently in the illusion. Not much time had passed outside either.

"Did you notice anything unusual in here?" she asked.