Saving the White Moonlight Chapter 3

The steward did not say yes or no. His gaze turned once around the others, then fell back on Yan Zhuguang. “Every spiritual field that has already been planted with spiritual rice has an owner. I have no extra field to give you.”
“Whose field do you want to use for your trial?”
“Steward!” The delicate girl who had rushed over earlier to mock Yan Zhuguang, only to be half-killed by anger in return, had also run back. Hearing the steward’s words, she was not convinced. “Yan Zhuguang failed to guard her spiritual field. Why won’t you punish her? Why give her another field?”
The steward’s expression sharpened. The delicate girl immediately fell silent.
“When did this steward’s work become yours to manage?”
After saying that, he looked at Yan Zhuguang again. “Have you thought it through?”
Yan Zhuguang said, “Steward, as for whose spiritual field it should be, if you open the image stone you gave me, won’t we know?”
The steward frowned, then nodded. “Bring it here.”
Yan Zhuguang turned and went to her spiritual field.
The group of servant disciples watched her move. They discussed the words “image stone” among themselves, confusion showing on their faces.
Only one person quietly clenched her hands into fists. She was so nervous that she trembled.
Yan Zhuguang searched around on the ridge of the spiritual field for a few moments. No one knew what she found, but soon she came back and handed a black, muddy stone to the steward.
The steward’s face showed dislike. He formed a spell, and a stream of clear water sprang from his fingertips, washing both the black stone and the muddy claws holding it clean.
“Wow, the Clear Spring Spell!”
“Spiritual energy released outside the body!”
“As expected of the steward. So impressive.”
The servant disciples cried out a few times. They worshiped this spell of the steward’s very much. Only Yan Zhuguang, who had faced the direct force of the spell, showed no change in expression.
The steward looked again at Yan Zhuguang’s appearance before slowly taking the black stone. He pressed two fingers together on his other hand and gathered a point of four-colored light. After drawing twice in the air over the black stone, a palm-sized image appeared above it.
Some people watched from far away and could vaguely make out the spiritual field in the image.
So this was to catch the person who had destroyed the field.
No one had expected Yan Zhuguang to have such a trick. Even like this, she could turn the situation around. They had thought she was doomed this time.
Now it seemed Yan Zhuguang would not be doomed at all. Instead, the person who had caused the damage was the one in trouble.
Although some of them felt it was a pity that Yan Zhuguang had not been brought down, they did not sympathize with the person who had ruined the spiritual field. If that person could attack Yan Zhuguang’s field, who could say they would not attack theirs just because they disliked them?
Who among them had Yan Zhuguang’s ability to ask the steward for an image stone and prove their innocence?
Keeping such a person nearby made it hard to eat or sleep in peace. It was better to clear her out.
The steward used a few methods, and the image stone’s recording soon finished playing. The image stone in his hand also turned into a handful of ash.
An image stone was a treasure tool that could record a cultivator’s moves and insights. Treasure tools also had high and low grades. This image stone was among the lowest grade. It could only record some images. It could not even capture the most basic spiritual energy fluctuations, and it could only be used once.
Even so, this lowest-grade image stone was not something the steward could take out casually. Now that it had been wasted on this kind of matter, his mood was naturally very bad.
When he was in a bad mood, someone had to bear his anger. After watching the image, the steward brushed away the ashes and said to Yan Zhuguang, “Tao Zhi’s spiritual field is yours.”
All the servant disciples looked at the person named Tao Zhi in surprise. They immediately felt that people really could not be judged by their faces. How could it be her?
“Steward! How can you -”
The one named Tao Zhi was the very almond-eyed girl who had been the first, and the only one, to come close to Yan Zhuguang and speak to her when she returned to the spiritual fields.
Yan Zhuguang was not surprised by this result at all.
It had been like this in her last life too. She did not know whether it was fate, but the people who approached her had never come with good intentions. When she was young and did not understand the world, she had suffered a few losses. Later, she learned. At the same time, she wrapped her heart in more and more coldness.
If she kept her sincerity only for herself, she would not be hurt.
“Host,” the system said weakly, “I promise I do not have bad intentions.”
Yan Zhuguang neither agreed nor denied it.
“Also, Host can try opening her heart to Senior Sister. Senior Sister absolutely will not betray Host.”
We will see later.
“Oh. Host really can think about it.”
The steward suppressed Tao Zhi’s objection. “From today onward, there is no servant disciple named Tao Zhi in Yimiao Sect. The extra spiritual field will be handed to Yan Zhuguang.”
Seeing that the steward’s side would not work, Tao Zhi turned to Yan Zhuguang. Tears trembled in her almond eyes, about to fall but not falling. She knew that whenever she showed this look in the past, Yan Zhuguang would soften.
“Zhu’er, I…”
Yan Zhuguang did not look at her. She said to the steward, “Please grant me another image stone.”
The steward looked pained. From a dusty gray pouch, he carefully took out a black stone. “Do not let something like this happen again.”
He said it to Yan Zhuguang, and also to all the other servant disciples present.
No one pleaded for Tao Zhi. The matter was settled. The guilty Tao Zhi was taken away by the steward, and most of the servant disciples scattered.
The delicate girl who disliked Yan Zhuguang very much curled her lip at her. “You were just lucky.”
Yan Zhuguang ignored her. She walked toward the spiritual field that had originally belonged to Tao Zhi. In front of the servant disciples who had not yet left, she placed the image stone there.
Some disciples were very curious about the riddle between Yan Zhuguang and the steward. But they were not familiar with Yan Zhuguang, and they were somewhat afraid of her methods. After hesitating for a while, they still did not dare ask rashly. They could only leave full of questions.
The ones who knew the reason behind this matter, apart from Yan Zhuguang and the steward, were only the system that had watched from beginning to end.
“No wonder Host went to offer that annoying steward a plan. So you already expected this.”
Yun Mixue’s lecture in Yimiao Sect had two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The sect master and elders of Yimiao Sect also knew that Yimiao Sect’s disciples were not very strong. They would not understand anything too deep. This schedule was fairly suitable.
Yan Zhuguang had shown early on that she was interested in the lecture. But when the day came, she did not go to the Lecture Platform right away. Instead, she took one ear of her own spiritual grain to find the steward, saying she had a method to improve the quality of the spiritual grain and wanted to offer it to him.
Yimiao Sect had planted spiritual grain for many years and had already worked out the most suitable process. The steward wanted to make some achievement and earn a promotion, but he had never found a breakthrough. Now Yan Zhuguang said she had a way to improve quality, and even showed him finished spiritual grain. Naturally, the steward was tempted.
Yan Zhuguang took the chance to ask him for an image stone, saying she would demonstrate the method for improving the quality. The steward agreed without thinking.
After Yan Zhuguang asked for the image stone, she secretly placed it in the spiritual field and left. The system watched in confusion. It found it strange, but did not dare ask.
At noon, while the disciples were resting between sessions, Yan Zhuguang slipped into the Lecture Platform area and hid in the crown of a large tree.
Only when the afternoon lecture began did Yan Zhuguang finally see that legendary senior sister. That was how the opening scene had happened.
Yan Zhuguang said, “I was only preparing for rain before the clouds came. She was too impatient.”
The system was speechless.
Host was usually so careful that there was no chance to strike. Today she finally showed a flaw, so of course the other person had to act quickly. Who would know it was a trap?
In any case, Tao Zhi was unimportant. The system complained inwardly for a moment and then ignored her.
“Host, you have not forgotten what you promised me earlier, right?”
“Hm? What did I promise you?”
“Host, QAQ.” The system sobbed. “You cannot abandon me after using me and then refuse to admit it.”
Yan Zhuguang curved her lips. “We will talk after I go back.”
Hearing the meaning in her words, the system revived at full strength. “Good, good. Go quickly, go quickly.”
The servant disciples’ houses stood on both sides of the spiritual fields. Yan Zhuguang’s room was at the very edge and looked rather run-down. After entering, however, one could see that the inside had been cleaned very well. The windows did not leak wind, and the roof did not leak light. It was a place where someone could live.
The system felt a little sad looking at it.
When Host first came, it had not been like this. The senior sister who led her in disliked her and had arranged her in this location. At that time, the room had been as shabby inside as it looked outside. Its current state was something Host had fixed bit by bit afterward.
“What sort of things do your so-called quest rewards include?”
The system was pulled back from its thoughts by Yan Zhuguang. It said proudly, “Anything Host can imagine!”
Yan Zhuguang said, “I want poisonous objects of the metal, water, fire, and earth attributes. Do you have them?”
“Poisonous objects? What does Host want poisonous objects for?”
Yan Zhuguang asked again, “Do you have them?”
“Yes,” the system said obediently. “To handle future plot developments, my warehouse has prepared poisonous things.” After all, the white moonlight was killed by poison. If some host wanted to pay tooth for tooth, what then?
Yan Zhuguang nodded with satisfaction. “Do you have a wood-attribute poisonous object? Something of higher quality, the kind that can serve as a life-bound spiritual object.”
“Yes, but because that kind of thing would accompany Host for a long time, it requires completing a more difficult quest before it can be rewarded.”
“Mm.”
“Host,” the system asked curiously, “what do you want those poisonous objects for?”
“You will know when the time comes.”
When she was alone, Yan Zhuguang turned off thought communication. The system could not read her mind, so curiosity scratched at it until it almost could not stand it.
“All right,” Yan Zhuguang said. “Bring out that main quest. I will accept it.”
The system did not react for a moment. When it did, it was so happy it nearly flew.
That strange, cold voice appeared again.
“Do you accept the main quest: Save the White Moonlight?”
“Yes/No.”
“Yes.”
“Congratulations to Host 021 for successfully binding with the Save the White Moonlight System. We wish you a pleasant life.”
A long string of dinging sounds rang wildly.
“Turn off the sound.”
The world became quiet.
Not long after, a huge pile of words appeared in front of Yan Zhuguang’s eyes.
[Host, Host, you turned off my voice. Sob.]
“Too noisy.”
[Host, you can try ‘turn off sound effects.’ It is not the same as muting everything.]
Yan Zhuguang adjusted it for a while, and the system’s soft, limp voice came back. “Hoo. I was suffocating.”
It quickly adjusted itself and said to Yan Zhuguang, “Host, you completed so many quests. Even teaching that Tao Zhi a lesson just now counted as a side quest.”
Yan Zhuguang did not waste words with it. “Exchange all quest rewards for the four-attribute poisonous objects I mentioned earlier.”
“Oh.”
As the system operated, it asked again, “In a few days, Senior Sister will leave. Host, how are you planning to get close to Senior Sister?”