Cultivating Immortality by Raising a Cat (GL) Chapter 18

A-Bai went into the little wooden house like a meat bun thrown at a dog: gone and never coming back.
After Lin Mianmian finished the last spoonful of shredded-radish bun filling and licked her lips, she looked at the busy Five Elements Sect recruitment area, where people came and went, and suddenly felt a lost, helpless loneliness.
Before this, she had either been dragged around by the little rabbit or fed all kinds of food by the little rabbit. Everything had been messy and lively. Now that the rabbit had left, the space beside her suddenly quieted down, and Lin Mianmian really was not used to it.
Still, if that little white rabbit had already taken human form, Lin Mianmian probably would not have gotten familiar with her so quickly…
Quite some time had passed since noon. Many of the first group of people and demons sent into the city center to seek immortal sects had already walked through the sect recruitment grounds on the square in a quick, surface-level tour.
It was like choosing a school. After getting a rough understanding, the next step was a focused inspection.
The recruitment area of the Five Elements Sect, one of the major sects of the Southern Union, naturally became busier and busier.
As a member of the Five Elements Sect, Lin Mianmian should by all rights have felt proud that the sect was so popular. At the very least, she should have felt a little excited.
But she did not.
In the distance, Ying Fu was counting the children who wanted to join the Five Elements Sect, having them line up so he could take them into the little wooden house together to test their spiritual roots and aptitude.
Lin Mianmian looked at these children, who were about to become her fellow disciples, and felt confused.
What kind of place was the Five Elements Sect? What kind of days would they live after going there? The road of cultivation was rough and hard. How far could the people here walk on it?
The crowd bustled, all drawn by profit… Would today’s fellow disciples become tomorrow’s enemies? Would today’s sect become… another base that pushed people out in exchange for benefits?
Lin Mianmian’s thoughts sank lower and lower. Her eyes became a little hollow.
“Mianmian…”
With a soft call, someone gently patted Lin Mianmian’s shoulder, pulling her out of the layers of heavy negative feeling that had wrapped around her.
Lin Mianmian turned her head and saw Tian Xiaoyu standing behind her.
“Mianmian, I… I think I saw my parents again…” Tian Xiaoyu’s voice could not hide its nervousness.
“That can’t be, can it? Weren’t they teleported out? Without you bringing them, they can’t come in.” Lin Mianmian looked in the direction Tian Xiaoyu pointed. In the Seven Treasures Pavilion area beside the Five Elements Sect, she really did see Tian Dali and Madam Cui.
Tian Xiaoyu lowered her eyes. “It’s my younger brother, Jinbao. He’s old enough to seek an immortal sect this year too. They went and brought Jinbao in.”
The Tian family had finally gotten a son and treasured him like the apple of their eye. They clearly knew the benefits of seeking an immortal sect, yet they had been reluctant to let Tian Jinbao go and had decided to keep their son at home to continue the family line. Why had they changed their minds? Lin Mianmian did not have time to ask before a commotion broke out near the little wooden house. Something seemed to be calling weakly, “Mee-mee… hm… was it Mianmian?”
Lin Mianmian looked toward the sound and, well, she happened to see Yuan Zhaoyang bend down, catch the little rabbit that was about to rush out the door, grab her up, and throw her back into the wooden house.
Tsk… so this was a Core Formation rabbit…
Lin Mianmian watched a streak of silver-white arc through the air and vanish into the darkness inside the wooden house.
That female immortal looked rather angry. Who knew what bad thing A-Bai had done inside? Lin Mianmian secretly glanced at Yuan Zhaoyang’s dissatisfied face, only to meet Yuan Zhaoyang’s slightly angry eyes head-on.
Although this female immortal had a different kind of proud beauty when angry, Lin Mianmian clearly did not want to take blame for the rabbit. She quickly turned her gaze away as if nothing had happened, pretending she had seen nothing and was still chatting with Tian Xiaoyu.
Fortunately, from the corner of her eye, Lin Mianmian soon saw Ying Fu leading a group of children of different heights into the little wooden house. Yuan Zhaoyang went in after them and shut the door behind her. Only then did Lin Mianmian let out a breath. Actually, she did not quite understand what she had been nervous about. For now, she might as well say a silent prayer for the rabbit.
Yuan Zhaoyang shut the door a little heavily. Ying Fu looked at her in confusion, received no response, and then began searching the little wooden house for A-Bai.
In one corner of the little wooden house, several large basins filled with white meat had been arranged in a circle. The little white rabbit lay belly-up in the middle of the circle, with several talismans covering her belly…
Talismans?
Tsk, how pitiful… and also funny. Hahahaha! Ying Fu, who was often angered by A-Bai but could never bear to blame the little white rabbit, felt a hidden burst of satisfaction.
Yuan Zhaoyang did not notice Ying Fu’s round face almost puffing up from holding back laughter. Right now, she was angry.
Earlier, inside the house, she had finally made A-Bai give in and start eating meat properly. But before one basin was finished, Yuan Zhaoyang suddenly felt the strange scent in the air rapidly fade. Yet through her divine sense, she saw Lin Mianmian outside still sitting perfectly well at the noodle stall. Yuan Zhaoyang did not know what had gone wrong, so she quickly moved the rabbit and the basin away from the door and removed the talismans on it.
Because of that short delay, by the time Yuan Zhaoyang opened the door, she had already sensed that the strange scent had returned to its earlier strength. But she still could not set her mind at ease, so she opened the door to look with her own eyes.
And the result? Lin Mianmian was naturally perfectly fine. But Yuan Zhaoyang also saw her looking close with that Tian Xiaoyu as they talked. Once Lin Mianmian left, she would go thousands of miles away, and from then on immortal and mortal would be separate. They were only chance acquaintances. What was there to talk about? If they kept talking until feelings formed, and Lin Mianmian gained more worldly attachments in the mortal world, it would only block her Dao heart for no reason. What was there to be happy about?
And that hand on her shoulder was unpleasant to look at too. Such a fragrant person, and Yuan Zhaoyang herself had not even gotten to touch her properly. How could someone else casually touch her? Yuan Zhaoyang rubbed the fingers of her right hand. The tingling feeling from when she had touched Lin Mianmian earlier had long passed. Thinking of that made her even angrier. Yuan Zhaoyang could not help thinking of Gou Ersheng. It was all A-Bai’s fault. What kind of awful comparison had she made?
“Senior Sister Yuan…” Seeing Yuan Zhaoyang standing by the door with an unhappy face and apparently not noticing the children waiting to have their spiritual roots tested, Ying Fu could not help cupping his hands and reminding her in a low voice, “Should we start testing their spiritual roots and aptitude?”
Yuan Zhaoyang pressed her lips together. Her almond eyes narrowed slightly as her gaze swept over the children crowded together. Then she nodded.
So angry! And yet she still had to work. That made her even angrier.
Years later, when the disciples who joined the Five Elements Sect on this day remembered the important moment when they were officially led onto the cultivation path, they always thought of the corner of that little wooden house, where a little white rabbit swept through several basins of steamed meat like an autumn wind scattering fallen leaves.
For the human disciples, this was the first time they had felt the terror of demon cultivators from such a close distance, and the first time they were so glad they were human. Because being a demon cultivator was really, really, really too expensive.
For the demon disciples, this was the first time they felt the gap between themselves and a rabbit demon. It was a gulf as wide as a chasm: a gap in appetite.
Inside the wooden door, the atmosphere of the spiritual-root test was strange. Outside the wooden door, Lin Mianmian looked at Tian Dali and Madam Cui standing far away in the Seven Treasures Pavilion area and waving toward them. The helpless feeling of not knowing where to begin complaining was also hard to describe.
Of course, the Tian couple were not waving and calling to Lin Mianmian. They were calling to Tian Xiaoyu beside her.
“Are you going over?” Lin Mianmian frowned. She had not missed the way the couple’s faces had quickly changed from joy to anger when they looked over and saw Tian Xiaoyu.
They did not dare cross the boundary, so smoothly seeing their target, Tian Xiaoyu, naturally made them happy. But the words “Return Home” over Tian Xiaoyu’s head were naturally the reason they could not stay happy.
“If I go over now, they will definitely take me back…” Tian Xiaoyu bit her lip hard and shook her head. “I can’t go back. If I go back now, they might not even be willing to wait for Sixth Brother. They might just promise me to someone else right away.”
Lin Mianmian nodded in agreement. “Right. At the very least, you should wait and go back with the Qiao family’s young man.”
With Lin Mianmian’s agreement, Tian Xiaoyu visibly let out a breath. She stopped herself from looking at the Seven Treasures Pavilion side again. After a long while, she said hesitantly, “Do you think they will let my brother seek an immortal sect too? Before, they couldn’t bear to let Jinbao cultivate because they thought they might not have another son and wanted Jinbao to continue the Tian family line. Now that I am… like this, will they let Jinbao seek an immortal sect?”
“Whether they let your brother seek an immortal sect has nothing to do with your current situation, does it? Either way, they had already made plans for whether you could join a sect or not. Now they are only borrowing your brother’s name to enter the square again. Can’t you guess what they came for?” Lin Mianmian tidied the table a little and gestured for Tian Xiaoyu to sit.
Tian Xiaoyu sat down with a bitter smile and shook her head slightly. “They’re just afraid I succeeded in joining an immortal sect but did not send them the five hundred taels.”
It was good that she saw it clearly. Lin Mianmian did not know how to comfort her. The words turned in her mouth, but what came out was, “You should think about what to do after you go back, now that you have seen them but are not going over.”
“…” How could Tian Xiaoyu not know? Losing the five hundred taels had already disappointed her family greatly. Now that she was avoiding them like this, things would probably be even harder after she left.
Seeing Tian Xiaoyu’s troubled expression, Lin Mianmian could not help thinking that it would be good if A-Bai were here. Lin Mianmian had not the slightest bit of cultivation. Even with the words “Five Elements Sect” above her head, she did not know if she could suppress the Tian family. If it were A-Bai, releasing two ice spikes at random would scare them so badly they would never dare manipulate Tian Xiaoyu’s marriage again.
Just as Lin Mianmian thought this, she suddenly saw the Tian couple seem ready to cross the boundary between the Seven Treasures Pavilion and the Five Elements Sect and come this way.
Lin Mianmian’s heart tightened. She looked around. A-Bai was not here. Ying Fu, who had spoken a few words with her before, was not here either. Zihui, who had previously forced the Tian couple to be teleported out, was busy with several Five Elements Sect disciples, surrounded by a crowd asking questions and doing proper work. As for Tian Xiaoyu… with the words “Return Home” over Tian Xiaoyu’s head, the Five Elements Sect probably would not interfere in something as natural as her being taken away by her parents.
The Qiao family’s young man…
Lin Mianmian glanced at the Qiao family’s young man, who was cleaning up at the noodle stall. After weighing things briefly, she grabbed Tian Xiaoyu and ran toward the wooden house.
So angry. And she still had to work.
So angry. She had been testing for half the day, and several were still not done.
So angry. A-Bai was eating meat so quietly that Yuan Zhaoyang felt no sense of achievement from educating the rabbit.
So angry. The fragrance was growing stronger and stronger.
Huh? The fragrance was growing stronger and stronger?
Before Yuan Zhaoyang could pay attention to her divine sense spread outside, she heard a knock at the door.