Chapter 53

Song Yi’s economic sanctions strategy had hit a setback, but she still remembered to analyze the reason. She carefully observed those demon beasts and summed up her experience. “I probably wasn’t fierce enough.”

She had only shown her cute side.

Just like Li Wenwen had said, what she liked were these “fierce-but-cute” rare demon beasts. Cute alone was not enough.

Fortunately, the people of this cultivation world still admired strength.

Song Yi pondered. “Should I perform an impressive sword technique?”

It was very difficult to make her admit the fact that “humans were inferior to beasts.”

Lin Ze was afraid she would get stuck on this, and even more afraid she would use a sword technique and be judged as attacking, so he immediately said, “I don’t think that’s the main reason.”

Lin Ze patted the head of the child who was a head shorter than him. “After all, everyone came here today for the rare demon beasts. But it’s fine. Other people have no taste, but I do. I’ll buy your cuteness.”

With some heartache, he transferred money to Song Yi.

Song Yi glanced at her balance and widened her eyes. “You mean I’m only worth one coin?”

Yes, the stingy Lin Ze had transferred her one spirit coin. From the look on his face, anyone who did not know better would think he had transferred one million.

The tiny bit of emotion that had just risen in her heart vanished like smoke.

Lin Ze said without the slightest guilt, “Don’t look down on this one spirit coin. My one spirit coin isn’t the same thing as other people’s one spirit coin. Because it’s rare, it becomes precious. Look, the demon beasts here have sold so much cuteness, but they haven’t managed to earn a single coin from me…”

His silver tongue nearly wrapped Song Yi into his logic.

Song Yi shook her dizzy head and came back to her senses: but no matter what he said, it was still only one spirit coin!

Just then, Li Wenwen came running over on a white tiger. She had remembered the two little friends she had thrown to the back of her mind. “Little Yi, profiteer, do you want to pet it? It’s really comfortable!”

There was reasonable suspicion that after the white tiger discovered Li Wenwen, this major spender, it was preparing to empty her wallet completely.

The two children, one who had only just earned one coin and one who had just lost one coin, refused decisively. “No.”

Although their reasons were different, Song Yi and Lin Ze shared the same mentality: spending money to pet a demon beast was impossible. It would be more like it if the demon beast paid them instead.

Before Li Wenwen had time to express regret, the white tiger carried her away.

Song Yi and Lin Ze had crouched here for so long that they even attracted their homeroom teacher’s attention: these children were the most likely to cause trouble, so they needed extra watching.

Lin Ze secretly put away their price signs.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you going to play? If you don’t like the white tiger zone, you can go somewhere else. A lot of people have gone to the blue sparrow zone now. The blue sparrows’ feathering is very beautiful.”

Song Yi directly voiced the confusion in her heart. “Teacher, is this really okay? I think demon beasts can be used by us, but if things go on like this, we’ll become their tool people instead.”

Children like Li Wenwen were right at the age when their views were being formed. Weren’t the demon beasts here numbing and twisting their understanding?

The homeroom teacher sat down beside the two of them and said, “Student Song Yi, actually, to the entire cultivation world, whether humans or demon beasts occupy the dominant position is not important.”

“You’re very good at arrays, so you should be able to understand what I mean. The entire cultivation world is like one array, and both we humans and demon beasts are small parts within it. But arrays are like this. If one small part is destroyed, the entire array will stop working.”

“But they’re dangerous.” Song Yi felt that the initiative should be held in human hands.

“Of course they’re dangerous. That’s why we still have to grasp power. But restraining them doesn’t only mean suppressing them with force. If they accept spirit coins and accept our culture, that’s also a form of restraint. We need them, and they need us. Mutual benefit is also restraint.”

The homeroom teacher added, “And besides, some demon beasts really are very cute. Go play with them a little. Maybe you’ll end up liking them.”

The best way to eliminate prejudice was to let them come into contact for themselves.

Demon beasts preferred cubs. Likewise, cubs basically had no resistance to these strange and wondrous demon beasts.

Song Yi said firmly, “We sword cultivators of this generation, how could we indulge in external things?”

She could accept the homeroom teacher’s words and not obstruct interactions between humans and demon beasts.

But asking her to get close to demon beasts like an ordinary child? She still could not do that. In any case, those demon beasts did not like her either. Don’t think she had not seen those few sticking their backsides at her!

The homeroom teacher did not believe her nonsense. “I remember a few days ago you were calling yourself a pill cultivator. Later, you said you were interested in arrays… and now you’ve changed back into a sword cultivator?”

Calling herself a certain kind of cultivator was all this child’s shield.

“In short, walk around properly. Don’t end up unable to write anything for your essay later. Lin Ze, you too. I don’t want to read ‘A Statistical Analysis of Business Opportunities During Spring Outing.’”

“Teacher, why can’t I write that?” Lin Ze was very regretful.

“Because I’m a Literature and History teacher! Not an economics teacher!” The homeroom teacher wore a smile as she concealed her irritation. The weather was very nice today; it was not suitable for getting angry.

For the sake of today’s good mood, the homeroom teacher waved her sleeves and went to check on the other students. “Although there’s no roast meat here, there are still lots of specialty foods and fun things. Don’t miss them.”

For example, beautiful and dazzling blankets woven from the feathers shed by blue sparrows, refreshing cloud-mist spiritual tea that grew alongside Nine Heavens pythons, rainbow wine and rainbow candy brewed by rainbow worms…

The entire Mystic Wonder Secret Realm was like a lotus flower, with each zone arranged like petals around the central zone. The entrance and exit used by ordinary pocket realms were also in the central zone.

Song Yi and the others decided to go take a look. As they were walking, they suddenly heard a distant cry from behind them. “Little Yi, Lin Ze, help!”

Li Wenwen ran at the very front, with a white tiger chasing close behind her.

It was not hard to tell that the one chasing her was the white tiger that had just been on duty.

They were all wearing swift-walking boots today, but there was definitely no way they could outrun a high-rank white tiger. It chased after them mockingly, like a cat playing with a mouse.

Song Yi accidentally produced a bit of suspicion: could Wenwen have freeloaded?

“Wuwuwu, I didn’t! I just saw it eating that special-grade exclusive food so deliciously, and I couldn’t help tasting some too.”

Snatching food from a tiger’s mouth. She really dared.

She had not only snatched it, but also thought it tasted pretty good, so she wanted to let her little friends have a taste and incidentally split the firepower.

Please believe in her character. That latter reason was absolutely only incidental.

Li Wenwen rushed over at high speed and stuffed a piece of pitch-black food into the two of their mouths. All right, everyone could share blessings and bear hardships together now.

Thus, the number of people sprinting across the open field became three.

Song Yi did not forget to smack her lips a little. This exclusive food really was different. The texture was like meat but not meat, and it had a lot of chew.

What these demon beasts usually ate was no worse than what they ate. Some foods were specially developed by certain sects and could not necessarily be bought outside.

So Song Yi did not regret eating the food at all. Her only regret was: why wasn’t there more?

“We’re about to get caught. Split up!”

The three children immediately shot off in different directions. The white tiger stopped and hesitated for a moment, then decisively chased after Song Yi.

Song Yi: ???

No way. It still chose me?

So sword cultivators just aren’t liked, huh?

“Little Yi, maybe it heard you say there wasn’t enough and that you wanted to snatch more!” Li Wenwen shouted.

Even after running far away, Lin Ze did not forget to send a voice transmission over. “Don’t be sad. It’s not targeting you. It’s because your legs are the shortest, so objectively speaking, chasing you saves the most effort.”

Song Yi: …

Splitting up with them was the worst choice! She should have taken them down with her!

She circulated spiritual power to her feet, her speed soared, and she headed toward the iron-eating beast zone up ahead.

Song Yi’s mind was also turning rapidly. She and her inner demon thought of a technique at almost the same time: “Sound Roar Technique!”

She could imitate beast roars! This technique had helped Song Yi quite a bit when her cultivation was not high. Later, when her rank rose and she no longer needed to play tricks, she did not use it much anymore.

She suddenly had a bold idea…

The moment she stepped into the iron-eating beast zone, Song Yi’s mouth abruptly released an enraged white tiger roar.

The white tiger chasing her froze: Huh? Am I chasing one of my own kind? No, wait, I’m chasing a human…

Before it could react, the cry of an iron-eating beast cub came out of Song Yi’s throat.

From the sound, it seemed as if an iron-eating beast cub had suffered cruel persecution at the hands of a white tiger.

After transmitting the sound, Song Yi took advantage of the white tiger not having recovered and slipped off in another direction.

The white tiger clearly sensed there was a trap here. No matter what, it had to catch that human cub first!

But several black-and-white iron-eating beasts descended from the sky and surrounded it. Threatening growls rumbled from their throats. Naturally, they had heard the sound just now. A white tiger had come to their door to provoke them and bully their cubs. Could they tolerate that?

Although there was something strange about the cry, they did not have time to think carefully. Fight first.

Iron-eating beasts were usually lazy, and even cultivation was something they did by sitting around and waiting for their bloodline power to take effect and automatically level them up, but in truth, their tempers were as big as their strength.

The white tiger gave an awuu to show its harmlessness: buddies, that sound just now had nothing to do with me! I was framed by a human cub!

Afraid that these buddies would not understand what it meant, its white paw swiped and a light screen appeared. But before it could input anything on the light screen, an impatient buddy had already slapped the light screen away with one paw.

On Song Yi’s side, she saw a staff member and immediately pointed in that direction. “Auntie, the iron-eating beasts and white tiger over there are about to start fighting.”

The staff member, who did not know the truth, had no resistance against an obedient cub like Song Yi. She patted Song Yi’s little head and even gave her some snacks. “Thank you, little friend.”

Only then did she hurry over to handle the neighborhood conflict.

Demon beasts fighting with each other was not exactly rare, even if the demon beasts here all had fairly high spiritual intelligence. People could still argue even when living next to each other, let alone demon beasts. Besides, they had thick hides and tough flesh, so ordinary fights were like warm-ups to them.

The staff member was very experienced.

Song Yi had already felt her way to the place where the iron-eating beasts ate.

What they ate was a little different from what the white tiger ate. Their special food was bamboo-tube rice packed with spiritual energy.

The bamboo was the spirit bamboo that accompanied iron-eating beasts, green with faint traces of purple within it. When the bamboo tube was split open, the crystal-clear grains also carried a layer of pale purple, mixed with neatly cut cubes of beast meat. A wave of clear fragrance rushed straight at her.

When she bit down, rich textures bloomed between her lips and teeth. It had its own merits compared to the white tiger’s rations.

Song Yi had previously thought the cafeteria food was pretty good, but now she could not help shaking her head. “Humans really are inferior to demon beasts.”

She understood now. The homeroom teacher had said there was good food here too, and she really had not been wrong. It just required “exploration.”

Song Yi glanced at the iron-eating beast cubs’ living area. In the end, she did not go taste their food—cubs did not make things difficult for cubs.

She hesitated for a moment over whether she should bring some for Lin Ze and Li Wenwen, then thought about how fast they had run. As their “good friend,” she could not lead disaster over to their side. Song Yi decided to shoulder this heavy burden alone and tearfully finish off the bamboo-tube rice in her hands.

After finishing it off like a sweeping storm, Song Yi felt a little regretful: this plan had been too rushed, and there were still a few loopholes. If she had petted the white tiger just now and rubbed a bit of its aura from it, then concealed her own aura, it would have been perfect.

But erasing her own aura now worked the same.

She had been targeted by the white tiger because it had personally seen Li Wenwen feed them the food, so there had been no time to tamper with anything. But if Song Yi personally made a move, she could absolutely wipe herself clean.

After that, Song Yi prepared to grease the soles of her feet and run.

She pushed her movement technique to the fullest, quickly putting distance between herself and the iron-eating beast zone.

Just then, she heard two little chirping cries.

Song Yi’s steps paused.

As if lagging, she lowered her head and saw a scene that nearly made her suffocate: an iron-eating beast cub was hanging from her left leg.

Earlier, it had probably only been loosely clinging to her, but after Song Yi discovered it, it stopped pretending. Song Yi felt her pants tug downward and almost get pulled off.

With a stiff expression, Song Yi lifted it up. “When did you follow me?”

No matter how careless she was, she would not fail to notice such a living creature following her. That meant there was something strange about this iron-eating beast.

It gave two soft and innocent cries.

However, this trick was useless against a stone-hearted sword cultivator. She narrowed her eyes. “Since you know everything, I can’t show mercy.”

The iron-eating beast was not afraid and curiously looked her over.

Song Yi chuckled. “You know nothing about how terrifying sword cultivators are.”

The iron-eating beast tilted its head and watched Song Yi put on an act.

Song Yi: …

Her opponent would not cooperate, so she could not even scare it. She really could not keep acting.

Silencing it was impossible. It had followed her all the way here, so how could they not trace it back to her? Besides, secretly eating the iron-eating beasts’ rations and silencing a witness were completely different levels of trouble.

Song Yi pried it off herself. “Whether you understand me or not, listen carefully. What I did has already been exposed, and you succeeded, so hurry up and go back. Stop clinging to me.”

But it seemed to understand Song Yi’s meaning in reverse. It directly grabbed onto Song Yi’s pants leg and rubbed against her leg.

Was this expressing affection toward her?

But she did not think there was anything about her that could attract it.

This iron-eating beast cub might be a bit stupid. Any demon beast with even slightly sharp senses would not get too close to her—unless it was when they wanted to attack her.

Song Yi simply brought out her sword. This way, the sword intent around her body became even more obvious. She then used the hilt to prod it twice, trying to push it a little farther away.

It simply sprawled on Song Yi’s sword, as if it felt no discomfort at all.

Song Yi discovered, strangely, that some of her sword qi had been eaten by it, and then vanished.

It could eat even this?

Was her current sword qi that weak?

Even if it no longer had the sharpness of sweeping aside everything like before, and even if iron-eating beasts ate everything, this should not be on an iron-eating beast’s menu, right?

No wonder it was not afraid of her if it could even swallow her sword qi…

It rolled onto the ground again, exposing its white belly.

With a stern little face, Song Yi thought: was this asking her to pet it?

She had no interest in that whatsoever. But since it absolutely insisted on having her pet it, she could only reluctantly go along with it…

Song Yi crouched down and first stretched out two fingers experimentally to touch it. It was soft, warm, and carried a sense of living rise and fall.

This feeling was subtle and complicated, but also made people like it a little.

After confirming that neither the iron-eating beast cub nor she would be hurt, Song Yi changed to placing her entire hand on it. She did not even notice that her eyes had narrowed happily. So comfortable!

Before long, Lin Ze and Li Wenwen ran over one after the other. They looked around and confirmed that the white tiger was not nearby, then immediately became overjoyed. “Little Yi, you shook that one off? That’s great!”

They had come by following Song Yi’s location.

Then they saw that Song Yi was patiently feeding a little dumpling, and could not help being shocked.

“Bah! What evil creature dares seize our Little Yi’s body!”

The expression on her face was completely different from usual. It felt as if her whole person had softened, just like the black-and-white dumpling in front of her.

A certain person had said not long ago that she had not the slightest interest in demon beasts, and even if she fell into a pile of fluffy creatures, she would be too lazy to pet them!

A certain person had also said that as a sword cultivator, what she liked most was her sword, and she absolutely would not waver because of external things! Now even her sword hilt was being held by the little dumpling.

The expression on Song Yi’s face instantly withdrew, and she turned back into that calm and detached big-shot face.

“Ahem. I’m studying and understanding the body structure of iron-eating beasts, and learning their weak points. This will make it easier for me to defeat them in one move when I face them in the future.” She kept her round eyes open and said this without changing expression.

Lin Ze and Li Wenwen’s expressions immediately became complicated beyond words.

“What are those expressions supposed to mean?” Song Yi protested.

“Nothing. We just discovered that for sword cultivators, from person to sword, the hardest thing is still the mouth.”

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