Saving the White Moonlight Chapter 1

She was a beauty.
A beauty so gentle that she carried no edge at all, so beautiful that it was almost impossible to feel jealous of her.
She stood on the high platform as if she had been born to stand there, apart from the world like a snow-covered mountain, admired by thousands and not to be defiled.
Her black hair fell almost to her knees. It was tied high with a simple silver hair clasp, then spilled down behind her. As she spoke, it swayed softly.
She wore white robes from head to toe. Only two smooth strands of hair hung beside her temples, adding a trace of color to the pale clothing. Her wide sleeves and hem snapped in the wind on the platform. She looked like an immortal from the moon palace, as if the next gust would carry her into the sky and away from the mortal world.
She was, in fact, an immortal.
She was the eldest senior sister of Fenghua Immortal Sect, Lianji Immortal Yun Mixue.
A cold, snow-like air circled her body, making people stop at a distance. Yet her expression was gentle, as if the snow on her might melt into water at any moment.
She was not the bitter snow of deep winter, cold enough to cut bone. She was the bit of melting snow on a new plum blossom in early spring. Cool, yes, but close and kind.
Who would not like such a person?
So she was loved by many.
Under the high platform was a thick crowd of disciples. How many had truly come only to hear the main sect’s senior sister guide their cultivation? And how many had come only for Lianji Immortal?
Perhaps only the disciples staring fixedly at the platform knew the answer.
Yun Mixue spoke at an even pace. Her soft lips opened and closed lightly, and her voice brushed past the ear like a spring breeze. A faint coolness sank into the heart. It felt as if listening a little longer might raise one’s realm by a whole level.
Perhaps that was not an illusion.
For the titled eldest senior sister of the main sect, a Nascent Soul cultivator from Fenghua Immortal Sect, to come lecture to this group from Yimiao Sect, a small subordinate sect whose strongest disciples had not even reached Core Formation, was truly using a priceless blade to cut grass.
It was almost unheard of.
But since it happened with Lianji Immortal, perhaps it was not strange after all. She was exactly the kind of woman people respected from the bottom of their hearts.
Even Yan Zhuguang had to admit that if Yun Mixue was truly as bright and noble as she appeared, then she deserved that respect.
“Of course it’s true! She is everyone’s white moonlight! The real thing, pure and perfect! How could she not be good?”
“But she still died.”
“Please don’t poke the wound, Host. QAQ.”
Yan Zhuguang felt that this thing called a system was far too noisy. After one sentence sent it back to lick its wounds, she kept watching the person on the platform.
From the moment she first learned about Yun Mixue, Yan Zhuguang had drawn her image countless times in her mind. Only after seeing the real person today did she realize those earlier images were thin, pale paper.
As expected of someone called a white moonlight. Right now, her whole body seemed to glow. And in her eyes, there seemed to be stars.
“No, not stars. She is looking over here, Host. You’ve been found!”
That was true. Yan Zhuguang belatedly realized that from where she hid, she should not have been able to see the front of the platform. Yet now that face, carved as if from ice and snow, had turned toward her. Those dark eyes, dotted with starlight, were looking gently in her direction.
Perhaps Yan Zhuguang had forgotten to hide her gaze just now. A Nascent Soul cultivator’s senses were very sharp. Even without opening her spiritual sense, she could not fail to notice such a stare.
“It won’t be fun if I’m found. Time to go.”
“Ah!” The system’s late cry rang through her mind. “Senior Sister’s gaze! I feel so excited I could fly. Host, pinch me awake!”
“It wasn’t an illusion. You really were flying just now.”
Yan Zhuguang had just jumped down from the crown of the huge tree where she had been hiding. Was that not a brief taste of flight?
After landing, Yan Zhuguang did not hesitate. She turned and ran. The thin bit of spiritual energy she had worked so hard to gather poured into her feet without the slightest stinginess. Her whole body became like a swallow skimming close to the ground as she slipped away lightly.
The tall tree crown blocked her figure. By the time Yun Mixue could really see her, there was only a retreating back.
A little girl. How mischievous.
“A servant disciple?”
“A mere servant disciple dares sneak over to listen to the lecture?” the woman in green behind Yun Mixue said coldly. “Senior Sister, shall I catch her for you?”
Yun Mixue shook her head. “No need. Since she is a disciple of Yimiao Sect, no matter her status, she has the right to listen.”
“Senior Sister, your temper is far too good. Even a servant disciple dares act wild in front of you. Isn’t it only because she knows you won’t punish her?”
“Enough.” Yun Mixue stopped the woman in green. “Leave her be. They are doing practical drills now. I will go down and look.”
“Why should Senior Sister go? Let me do it.”
“I agreed to give this lecture. You already came with me, Junior Sister, and I feel bad enough for that. How could I trouble you further?”
The woman in green still wanted to speak, but Yun Mixue had already raised her sword and flown down from the platform to patrol the square.
The woman in green’s face fell a little. She sighed. “Alas.”
On this side, Yan Zhuguang had already run far from the Lecture Platform. She was circling around a small hill, heading for the back of it. That was where she should be – the servant disciples’ area.
“Host, why did you run? I wanted to look longer. My Senior Sister!”
“Look longer? Aren’t you afraid your host will have her tendons pulled out and her skin peeled off?”
“How could that happen? Senior Sister is the white moonlight. She would surely forgive you.”
She might forgive me. The main sect disciples beside her and those ‘excellent disciples’ of Yimiao Sect below the platform would not!
Yan Zhuguang was not stupid.
“Host, I protest. You turned off thought communication again. I can’t hear your thoughts.”
Good. Better that you can’t hear them.
Yan Zhuguang ignored it and kept running.
“Host!”
“Host!”
“Host!”
The system nagged in Yan Zhuguang’s mind until Yan Zhuguang said, “Call me again and I will turn off your voice too.”
The system paused. Then it suddenly made a strange sound.
“Ding-dong.”
A cold voice replaced the system’s soft, cute one. “Do you accept the main quest: Save the White Moonlight?”
“Yes/No.”
“No.”
Yan Zhuguang had heard this voice many times. She was no longer as startled as she had been at first. She refused without even thinking. Then the cold voice vanished, and the system returned to its sweet, clingy tone.
“Why? QAQ.”
The system’s voice was frantic. “Host, I really don’t understand you.”
“If you don’t want to accept the main quest, then why did you come to Yimiao Sect? Host, even though your five spiritual roots are rotten beyond belief, you could still become an outer sect disciple in a small sect. If you were lucky, you might even scrape by as an inner sect disciple. Why come here to suffer?”
“People climb upward. If others want to be the head of a chicken, why can’t I insist on being the tail of a phoenix?”
“It’s not impossible,” the system said. If it had a body, it would probably be clawing at its head. “But this isn’t a phoenix tail. Yimiao Sect is just a lower sect. At most, this is the backside of a chicken… If you want to be a phoenix tail, you should go to the main sect, Fenghua Immortal Sect.”
“Didn’t you say before that even if I squeezed into Fenghua Immortal Sect by luck as a servant disciple, I might not see Senior Sister once in an entire year? This Yimiao Sect, on the other hand, received an old promise from Senior Sister, so the chance would be much, much higher.”
“Host, do you dare say you didn’t come to Yimiao Sect because I said Senior Sister would lecture here?”
Yan Zhuguang neither admitted nor denied it.
The system took that as a yes. “Since Host came to Yimiao Sect for Senior Sister, why won’t you accept the main quest? QAQ!”
“I’m not looking down on you, Host, but your five spiritual roots really are too awful. If all five roots were equally thick, that would be the rare blessing of all five fortunes arriving at once. But yours aren’t. One is thick on its own, and the others are all uneven. That is the worst kind of spiritual root. It is only a tiny bit better than having none at all.”
“Host, do you plan to walk through the cultivation world with spiritual roots like these?”
Yan Zhuguang said, “You were the one who put my soul into this body.”
The system grew guilty. “I… I only found this one body that matched Host’s soul at the time. Within a hundred miles, she was the only one who had just died. She was still fresh.”
Yan Zhuguang snorted inwardly. At the time? She was not stupid. Since the system could carry her through time and space, if it truly wanted to find her a body with enough talent, would that be hard?
It was only afraid it would not be able to control her. That was why it had deliberately chosen a body with spiritual roots at the very bottom, forcing her to rely on the system to survive. Yan Zhuguang understood the system’s little schemes very clearly.
The system defended itself. “Although Host’s spiritual roots are bad, I have a way to improve them!”
That was the system’s method. If she had not come from somewhere else, she might have already been tempted by it. She might have foolishly agreed to its terms and sold her life to it. How else could she be like this now, slowly prying so much information out of its mouth?
The method she had used just now to shut off one-sided thought communication with the system was something she had worked out during this period. Otherwise, if the system knew everything she thought, what capital would she have to bargain with it?
Yes. Yan Zhuguang had refused the main quest again and again only to test the system’s bottom line.
Yan Zhuguang had always known what she wanted. With help like the system, her future cultivation path would be much easier. Of course she would not let it go. It was only saving a person. In her last life, for the sake of increasing her strength, had she done so few things?
Besides, she was already a lonely soul revived by the system. If she completely refused it, who knew whether the system would throw her out of this body and turn her back into a wandering ghost?
It was just that Yan Zhuguang was used to keeping everything in her own hands. To her, the system was a strange thing. She had to test its bottom line clearly before she could agree.
That was why she had refused the system’s quest while still following its directions to Yimiao Sect to meet Yun Mixue.
The system muttered, “Originally, I planned to prepare a few easy little quests for Host after you accepted the main quest, then reward you with some treasures to improve your spiritual roots. Once your spiritual roots improved a little, at least to four roots, you could enter Yimiao Sect’s outer sect and have a chance to approach Senior Sister. You wouldn’t have to sneak around like this.”
Oh? So the system could freely control those so-called quests and rewards. It also had quite a lot of treasures. It could even casually take out treasures that purified spiritual roots.
The system could not read its host’s thoughts, and that made it panic. But seeing Yan Zhuguang’s indifferent manner also made it feel like it might die from anger. “Host, what exactly do you want? Please, give me a clear answer. QAQ.”