Cultivating Immortality by Raising a Cat (GL) Chapter 17

No. Or rather, it was not only the testing stone Cangming Mountain had brought out back then that had been wrong. It was that those testing stones could not detect Yuan Zhaoyang’s demon bloodline at all.
Back then, Yuan Zhaoyang had only recently taken human form. She brought A-Bai, who was still a little rabbit kit, to join Cangming Mountain. For some reason, the testing stone showed that Yuan Zhaoyang was human. The cat and the rabbit were both shocked, but with perfect understanding, they hid their reactions and did not voice a single question.
Possessing a treasure can itself become a crime. Even a beginner who had just stepped into the cultivation world knew that much.
The Northern Territory had many demons too. But compared with the Southern Union, where humans and demons lived together in relative peace and quite a few sects accepted both races, relations between humans and demons in the Northern Territory were not especially harmonious. Sects willing to accept both human and demon disciples were even rarer.
Cangming Mountain counted as one of the top three major sects in the Northern Territory. More importantly, it was one of the few sects there that accepted disciples from both races. At the time, Yuan Zhaoyang and A-Bai had just offended a powerful demon faction in the Northern Territory. Pure demon sects were no longer safe for them, so they chose Cangming Mountain.
Several decades had passed since then. They had gone through plenty at Cangming Mountain, and whether that old choice had truly been right was now hard to say. But for them at the time, Cangming Mountain might really have been the best choice.
Although Cangming Mountain was willing to recruit both human and demon disciples, humans still made up the main force of the sect. The two races mostly kept to their own groups. It was nowhere near as harmonious as the Five Elements Sect was now.
The testing stone had mistaken Yuan Zhaoyang for human, and neither the cat nor the rabbit asked about it.
First, they could not tell whether the problem was with the testing stone or with Yuan Zhaoyang. At Cangming Mountain’s disciple recruitment site, there had also been a Nascent Soul lord present, yet that person had raised no objection to Yuan Zhaoyang being “human.” The cat and the rabbit had felt at the time that the problem was probably with Yuan Zhaoyang herself. If that was true, asking about it would only invite disaster.
Second, although Cangming Mountain had disciples from both races, the elders, sect master, and even grand elders with higher cultivation were clearly mostly human. Human disciples held more advantages. Demon disciples were not openly bullied or suppressed, but most of them were treated as dependents. A-Bai did not need to be tested. Anyone could tell from one look that she was a demon. Yuan Zhaoyang being tested as human, on the other hand, actually helped the cat and rabbit live more easily at Cangming Mountain.
Facts later proved that Yuan Zhaoyang and A-Bai had been very right to keep silent.
After they returned to Cangming Mountain, Yuan Zhaoyang found chances to get her hands on several more testing stones. Every single one showed that she was human. As for the masters and lords at Cangming Mountain whose cultivation was higher than hers, none of them ever noticed that the gifted young seedling who quickly began to stand out in the sect was actually a cat.
From then on, Yuan Zhaoyang walked through the cultivation world under a human identity. Only A-Bai knew that she was a cat demon.
Testing stones really could be wrong.
A-Bai, who had spoken too quickly and denied that testing stones could make mistakes, wanted to change her answer. But Yuan Zhaoyang’s matter could not be told to anyone else.
“No matter what kind of starting point you have, many changes can happen along the way. What the finish line looks like is something we only know once we reach it.” A-Bai tried hard to remember the comforting words she had heard old fellows say in the past. She lifted a paw, wanting to scratch her head, then quickly found that her paw was a little too short. Embarrassed, she touched the fur on her face instead. “Anyway, testing stones might not be all that reliable. Just forget about it.”
The first sip of this motivational soup had been brewed pretty well, but it had been watered down in a hurry and poured out in a mess. Looking at the little white rabbit, who seemed a bit awkward, Lin Mianmian felt warm inside. She did not care how messy the soup was. She drank it all in one gulp, smiled, and nodded to show she had listened.
A-Bai let out a huge sigh of relief. She slapped her golden bell and stuffed a big bun into Lin Mianmian’s hands. “Eat a bun and cheer up!”
Looking at the fair, tender little girl before her, who obediently began to nibble on the bun, A-Bai suddenly remembered the tiny green dot shaped like grass on the testing stone. Aptitude that bad was practically impossible to find in the entire Southern Union… no, even with the whole Northern Territory added in. She was clearly a single spiritual root, yet all her aptitude added together was only that tiny bit, and it could even gather into a pattern. Then there was the fragrance Yuan Zhaoyang had described so vaguely, and the special attention she paid to this little girl. Somehow, A-Bai felt that this little girl was not simple.
A-Bai’s pink three-petaled mouth moved slightly, but in the end, she asked nothing.
Everyone had secrets. Yuan Zhaoyang had an identity as a cat demon that could not be tested or seen through. A-Bai herself had Core Formation cultivation that was not even as useful as Foundation Establishment and had kept her from transforming for so long. Perhaps Lin Mianmian also had that tiny, unusually patterned spiritual-root aptitude chart.
A-Bai only hoped that, in the end, Lin Mianmian’s secret would not put her on the opposite side from herself and Yuan Zhaoyang. Seeing Lin Mianmian eat so happily, A-Bai could not resist touching her golden bell. She took out a bun too and began to gnaw.
Otherwise, it would be such a pity…
A-Bai lowered her eyes.
Lin Mianmian had no idea that A-Bai had thought so much in the time it took her to eat one bun. She was only sighing over how much she could eat. Not only could she eat, she was greedy too, as if she wanted to make up in one day for all the food she had missed during seven years of the apocalypse and a hundred years as grass.
Still, the dough-making skill of this era seemed a little lacking. The bun skin was not fluffy enough. The filling, though, was truly delicious. Fine shreds of radish mixed with little dried shrimp and strips of meat, with what seemed like some lard stirred in. One bite was juicy, fresh, and savory. It beat the shredded-radish buns from breakfast shops before the apocalypse by hundreds of streets.
Lin Mianmian sank into the delicious shredded-radish filling. Before she knew it… she had left behind an entire bun skin.
Well, when someone else was treating, eating like this was a little embarrassing. Lin Mianmian glanced at A-Bai, who was seriously eating both skin and filling beside her. But she really did not want to eat the skin…
Lin Mianmian discovered something terrible. She could eat. She wanted to eat. And she was picky? Add that terrible spiritual-root aptitude, and this was practically cultivation on hard mode.
There was a saying: if you had never eaten anything good, you could still eat something bad. Turn it around, and once you knew there was something better, the worse thing was naturally not so easy to swallow.
Lin Mianmian, embarrassed about leaving the bun skin, described what a good bun skin should feel like. After listening, A-Bai suddenly felt that she did not want to eat this bun skin either.
Yuan Zhaoyang, who was reciting the heart-clearing mantra, had kept her divine sense spread outside and following A-Bai and Lin Mianmian. It was not that she listened to everything the human and rabbit said at every moment. She had only divided off a little attention to follow them. And so Yuan Zhaoyang saw the human and rabbit go out for a turn, then return to the noodle stall. They did not eat noodles. Instead, they asked for two big bowls and began digging bun filling out. They dug out two bowls of shredded radish, threw away a pile of bun skins, and then the human and rabbit began eating whole bowls of radish filling. As for the bun skins, rich A-Bai declared that they could be taken back to feed the small creatures in the outer valley.
Yuan Zhaoyang had long known A-Bai was greedy, but eating like this was still…
Yuan Zhaoyang really could not bear it anymore and sent a voice transmission calling A-Bai into the little wooden house.
The little rabbit earnestly licked up the last shred of radish in the bowl, greatly praised Lin Mianmian by saying that eating it this way really was much better than eating the whole bun and felt wonderful, and only then hopped back to the little wooden house.
“How much have you eaten today?” Yuan Zhaoyang looked at A-Bai, whose oily mouth had not even been wiped, and felt deeply tired. Her tone grew a bit heavier. “Food from the mortal world does not benefit you at all. If you have this much appetite…”
“If I have this much appetite, I might as well go eat at Qingxin Hall?” A-Bai made a soft nest appear, flopped into it belly-up, and did not forget to cover herself with a small pink blanket embroidered with a blessing character. Then she turned over comfortably and snorted. “If I went to Qingxin Hall, I would have no appetite at all. So what if the ingredients are useful? Only a fool would eat plain-boiled food every day.”
Yuan Zhaoyang frowned. “It is not all plain boiled. They do make some of it with sauce.”
The little white rabbit flipped one paw and pulled the blanket over her head. “Oh, please don’t mention that. That sauce, is that sauce? Isn’t it just dye? You go taste it. One bite will make you retch for half a year, all right? How can it compare to my shredded-radish bun… well, the filling inside it!”
“Then when are you planning to transform?” Yuan Zhaoyang did not want to argue with professional foodie A-Bai about taste, so she went straight to the point. She took a large basin of steamed meat from her storage bag and set it before A-Bai’s nest. “I brought this from Qingxin Hall. Aren’t you able to eat? Eat this before you go back out.”
“Hmph, you just look down on me! You look down on me because my Core Formation is not as strong as Foundation Establishment! How pitiful! My Core Formation is worse than a dog!” Under the blessing blanket, the little rabbit rolled around and threw a tantrum.
Yuan Zhaoyang gave a cold snort and pointed. The little blessing blanket flew up at once and stuck to the wall of the wooden house. “Who are you calling a dog?”
A-Bai’s tantrum failed. She looked at the little blanket stuck so firmly to the wall that it could not be peeled off and drooped her ears. “Fine. My Core Formation is worse than a cat. I can’t help it. How would I know why I formed a core and still can’t transform? How would I know why my Core Formation cultivation is still worse than Foundation Establishment? Sob, sob… You said it was because my body can’t keep up with my cultivation, but that was just what you said. I want to transform too. I want to be a normal Core Formation cultivator too… sob, sob, sob… I’m so miserable…”
The little white rabbit was tiny. With her ears drooping, she curled up in the soft nest and cried with her head buried, her shoulders shaking. If Lin Mianmian had seen it, she might have clutched her chest from heartache.
Unfortunately, the person in the room was Yuan Zhaoyang.
“I was not the one who said your body can’t keep up with your cultivation. Star-Grasping Tower said that, and we spent a huge sum of spirit stones to ask.” Yuan Zhaoyang was clearly immune to the little white rabbit selling misery. Expressionless, she pushed the basin of steamed meat closer to A-Bai. “Eat. This is today’s portion. Once you finish it, you can go eat other things.”
Demons could eat a lot, but food made from spiritual ingredients still filled the stomach. After this huge basin of steamed meat, what else could she eat today? Nothing. She could not even eat air.
She had wanted to come out and wander for three days, changing her taste for a while. Who would have thought that on the first day, she would have to eat this stuff again?
“Can I add some sauce?” A-Bai looked at her pitifully.
“Sauces from the mortal world will not blend with spiritual ingredients…” Yuan Zhaoyang frowned. “You know that.”
A-Bai took out a bowl of sauce she had scooped from the Qiao family’s young man earlier and poured it over the steamed meat. She sighed. “I know. I just want to look at it. It’s so white. Who can eat that?”
But in fact, with one bite, the sauce and the meat seemed forever separated by something. Even when chewed together in the mouth, they each kept their own taste. One side was shockingly bland, the other salty enough to make her thirsty.
Sigh. She deserved this. A-Bai pulled a bitter face and ate the sauce and meat one bite at a time. It tasted even worse than the original steamed meat.
“Qingxin Hall really should develop some new flavors. At least make some new seasonings,” A-Bai said after eating half the basin, feeling as if five years of appetite had been destroyed.
“Other than you, who would be picky about taste? Qingxin Hall grades its ingredients, keeps the prices low, and makes sure the disciples can afford them. These foods benefit the body and cultivation. Only you still fuss over them.” Yuan Zhaoyang closed her eyes, unwilling to look at A-Bai suffering so badly she seemed about to shed fur.
Yuan Zhaoyang had often said this before, but today A-Bai was not convinced. “How can I be the only picky eater? Forget other people. That little girl you have your eye on is very picky too. She would not even eat bun skin that wasn’t soft enough. She probably won’t even want to look at Qingxin Hall’s food.”
Yuan Zhaoyang had opened her eyes as soon as A-Bai mentioned Lin Mianmian.
A-Bai naturally sensed Yuan Zhaoyang’s concern and attention. She bared her teeth and swallowed another bite of awful steamed meat. Then the little white rabbit’s eyes turned, and she slapped her golden bell. A handful of black fur like wooden thorns and a small clump of yellow fur appeared before Yuan Zhaoyang.
“But it’s fine. Look, these are greeting gifts for her from the bear and cow of the Ten Thousand Demons Sect. She’s pretty welcome there. If she can’t stand Qingxin Hall’s food later, she can switch to the Ten Thousand Demons Sect and freeload meals there. Look at this Giant-Palm Bear fur. Black fur, oh. Black fur that only grows once every twenty years. Impressive, right? That bear just gave it to her.” A-Bai, the tormented foodie, decided to step on Yuan Zhaoyang’s sore spot. Black fur from a Giant-Palm Bear only grew once every twenty years and fell off after one month. It was an excellent artifact-refining material, much more precious than ordinary white bear fur. It was perfect for reminding Yuan Zhaoyang how welcome Lin Mianmian was at the Ten Thousand Demons Sect.
Yuan Zhaoyang did not need A-Bai to remind her. She could tell that the bear fur was genuine. Not only was it black fur, it came from the hardest part of the giant palm.
The Ten Thousand Demons Sect…
Yuan Zhaoyang narrowed her eyes.
Hmm… wait… maybe… had she stepped on that sore spot too hard? A-Bai, who had half a piece of meat in her mouth, silently shrank toward the door.
The sixth sense of a small creature was quite sharp. Yuan Zhaoyang only frowned, and a basin of steamed meat twice as large as the last one slammed down between A-Bai and the wooden door, cutting off A-Bai’s retreat.
“Eat. Your other ration for today.” Yuan Zhaoyang’s face showed neither joy nor anger, but with a wave of her hand, she put away the two clumps of fur.
“Liar!” She had finally eaten half, and now double the steamed meat had appeared. The little white rabbit’s fur was about to explode.
Yuan Zhaoyang said nothing. She only cast a ring of talismans onto the wooden door.
“No…” A-Bai could not believe Yuan Zhaoyang was being this extravagant just to trap her into eating meat.
After scolding, pretending to be pitiful, acting cute, throwing tantrums, and every other method failed, A-Bai accepted her fate and collapsed into the second basin of meat. In a faint voice, she said, “Yuan Zhaoyang, do you remember Gou Ersheng, the black dog demon from the northern suburbs of Cangming Mountain?”
“Why bring him up…” Yuan Zhaoyang, who had ignored all of A-Bai’s earlier attempts, looked a little sour when she heard that name. “You mention him while eating. Do you think that will make the food taste better?”
“Mentioning a dog demon who used urine to mark territory, set a goal to mark the entire northern suburb, and spent years putting that goal into action… of course that won’t make my food taste better.” A-Bai patted the mountain of steamed meat beside her, but her gaze circled Yuan Zhaoyang. “But don’t you think you look a lot like him right now?” She had only mentioned that Lin Mianmian was welcome at the Ten Thousand Demons Sect. Did Yuan Zhaoyang need to retaliate this hard? Hmph! Was this the part where she started claiming people as territory?
Yuan Zhaoyang: “…”