Chapter 6: Strange Occurrence

As the morning sun rose, Su Rong would usually still be asleep at this hour.

But today was somewhat different.

Qing Xian looked at the smoke-green figure standing at the door and asked in surprise, “Did I wake you?”

Su Rong, as if just noticing the person in the courtyard, shifted her gaze to him and replied, “It has nothing to do with you.”

“Hm?” Qing Xian stepped forward and asked, “Your class today is in the afternoon, is there something you need to do now that you’re up?”

Su Rong frowned, not wanting to answer his questioning.

“I have some business to attend to outside today,” she explained.

“I see, then can I…”

“No, you can’t,” Su Rong interrupted him. “Stay at the academy and take care of your own meals.”

“Oh,” Qing Xian responded.

Visibly a bit disappointed.

Su Rong sighed helplessly, instinctively reaching out to ruffle his hair: “I’ll be back soon.”

A hint of a smile flashed in Qing Xian’s eyes, realizing that acting fragile actually worked.

He didn’t press further, content with this much.

Su Rong found Shan Zhang to explain that she needed to take a day off and then went down the mountain alone.

Shortly after Su Rong left, Long Ling came to find Qing Xian.

“Cousin? Are you here?”

Qing Xian was reading.

Amusingly, although Su Rong didn’t seem to love books, she had quite a few here.

He put down the book in his hand and looked towards Long Ling.

When Su Rong wasn’t around, Qing Xian seemed to become a different person.

Cold and unperturbed, with a face like polished jade, as if he was once again that Crown Prince of the Divine Realm, second only to one and above ten thousand.

He raised his eyes and gazed over quietly, his gaze calm and indifferent.

Unlike Su Rong’s indifference towards all things in the world, his indifference had a temperature to it.

Qing Xian’s indifference came from his certainty and calmness towards things, of course, this didn’t include Su Rong.

When facing Su Rong, Qing Xian was a young man who could love, feel shy, and be hurt, but when facing matters and people other than Su Rong, Qing Xian was the lofty Crown Prince of the Divine Realm.

Long Ling was more familiar with this version of Qing Xian.

Having been each other’s companions for tens of thousands of years, he was more accustomed to his calm control over everything and his impressive composure. The Your Highness from a few days ago was actually the one he wasn’t familiar with.

If it weren’t for his unchanged aura, he might have wondered if he had found the wrong person.

Seeing Qing Xian like this, Long Ling also calmed down internally.

He walked up to Qing Xian and said, “I felt some strange movements in the southwest direction while I was meditating earlier.”

Qing Xian frowned in thought, and after a moment said, “Long Ling, I need to borrow your body.”

“Alright,” Long Ling agreed without a second thought.

Qing Xian said, “I have no spiritual power and am in a mortal body, I’m troubling you.”

Long Ling said, “Your Highness, you saved Long Ling’s life, you have given Long Ling a new lease on life. This is nothing.”

Qing Xian didn’t say anything more and closed his eyes.

Long Ling muttered some words, and after a moment, “Long Ling” opened his eyes.

“Your Highness…” Long Ling said from within Qing Xian’s body, “My abilities are limited, I can only support this for half an incense stick’s time.”

“Mm,” Qing Xian nodded and closed his eyes again.

An immortal’s body is a spiritual body, able to sense some impure things.

But Long Ling’s cultivation wasn’t enough, he couldn’t see some things.

Qing Xian, on the other hand, was one of the rare individuals who cultivated both body and soul, and his spirit was very powerful, only constrained by that body, unable to manifest.

Now his spirit was borrowing Long Ling’s immortal body, although there was still some sense of constraint, it was much better than being in that body.

He closed his eyes and quietly sensed the surroundings.

From the mountain path to the academy ahead and extending down the mountain.

Soon, he locked onto the location of the anomaly, and his spirit returned to his own body.

“How was it? What did you see?” Long Ling asked.

“There’s a Five Path Temple in the southwest, it’s where mortals worship immortals, and it’s unusually desolate inside,” Qing Xian said.

“I’ve heard there’s a Five Path Monastery nearby,” Long Ling said.

“These two places are only similar in name, but actually completely different,” Qing Xian explained. “Monasteries worship Buddha, usually have monks, and don’t have much to do with us.”

“While temples worship ghosts and gods, many immortals rely on the incense offerings from temples to survive.”

“So what’s strange about this Five Path Temple?” Long Ling asked.

“There seems to be ghosts around this Five Path Temple,” Qing Xian said.

“Ah? How can that be?” Long Ling asked in surprise.

It’s not strange for him to be surprised, because a few hundred years ago, the Ghost Realm got a new Ghost King.

The new Ghost King was a coward, only inheriting the throne through connections.

Since she took power, she strictly required the Ghost Realm not to provoke people from the other five realms, let alone bully them.

Ghosts were humans before death, so they were especially friendly to humans.

Some small ghosts in the Ghost Realm had resentment before death, so the Ghost King sent people to settle them properly. Now the ghosts in the Ghost Realm lived in peace and harmony, even more harmonious than the human realm.

How could there suddenly be ghosts causing disturbances?

Disturbances that could be sensed were usually caused by excessive resentment harming nearby mortals, which would make the anger and fear of the mortals materialize to a degree that could be sensed by nearby ghosts and gods.

Qing Xian’s expression turned cold, he said to Long Ling: “Let’s go there.”

“Ah? But, your body…” Long Ling didn’t finish the rest of his sentence, but Qing Xian could understand his meaning.

With his current body, let alone subduing ghosts, he might not even be able to see them.

Qing Xian’s eyes darkened, and he finally said: “Let’s go see the situation first, at least comfort the nearby mortals. As for the rest… worst case, I’ll return to the Heavenly Court early to request orders.”

Long Ling looked at Qing Xian, gradually calming down in his heart. He knew Qing Xian wouldn’t abandon the mortals.

Humans and gods were the two races with the closest relationship. Mortals believed in them, and they protected mortals.

This was the agreement that both sides had carefully kept for tens of thousands of years.

Protecting mortals was also Qing Xian’s duty and responsibility as the Crown Prince of the Divine Realm.

Without telling anyone, the two headed straight down the mountain.

…

Su Rong had also sensed the disturbance and set out from the mountain.

She didn’t have any kind intentions to save people, she just didn’t want the current balance of the six realms to be broken.

As long as people from one race started causing trouble, it would trigger a chain reaction.

As someone who hated trouble, Su Rong was used to nipping problems in the bud.

When Su Rong walked halfway down the mountain, there were two men coming up the mountain in front of her.

Possibly people coming to worship at the Five Path Monastery, she had no intention of talking much with people and wanted to just bypass the two.

But she heard one of the men say: “Teacher Su.”

Su Rong’s steps paused slightly as she looked towards the two.

They were unfamiliar faces, probably not people she had met before.

After confirming she didn’t know the two, she nodded and was about to leave.

Then she heard the man standing in front say: “Teacher Su, I’m Zhou Xu.”

“Mm.” Several days had passed, and Su Rong had long forgotten who Zhou Xu was, so she had no reaction.

Seeing her expressionless face, clearly not taking him seriously, the man couldn’t help but feel angry.

It was this person who had made him wait in the rain for an entire afternoon that day, and now meeting face to face, she wouldn’t even greet him.

He was, after all, the nephew of Shan Zhang, and these past few days at the academy he had been cared for by the teachers and students. For a moment, he couldn’t stand the difference in treatment from Su Rong.

Feeling both angry and wronged in his heart, this person must look down on him.

During this time at the academy, although Zhou Xu hadn’t suffered any grievances, he always had a feeling of living under someone else’s roof.

When encountering Su Rong and being provoked by her attitude, he started crying and whimpering.

Seeing this, his attendant immediately stood up for his master, saying to Su Rong: “Teacher Su, you are after all a well-read person, how can you treat my young master like this!”

Su Rong was about to leave, but suddenly faced with this question, she was a bit bewildered, had she done something unforgivable?

“My young master is Shan Zhang’s nephew. It’s one thing not to greet him when you see him, but to directly ignore him, aren’t you not taking Shan Zhang seriously?” The attendant continued speaking, as his young master cried even more pitifully, as if he had suffered a great injustice.

“That day, it was you who left our young master at the foot of the mountain, making him wait for several hours. Are you even a woman?”

“If you don’t apologize to our young master today, don’t think about leaving. If we tell Shan Zhang about this, you might lose your job.”

Su Rong finally knew who these two were, regretting for the first time that she had been too lazy to use magic to directly reach the Five Path Temple to avoid trouble.

Because this had brought her even more trouble.

She looked at the two men, one crying and one angry, feeling completely unmoved.

As the Crown Princess of the Demon Race, who would dare to cry and whine in front of Su Rong?

Who were these people to open their mouths demanding an apology from her?

Su Rong coldly looked at them, considering their relationship with Shan Zhang, she said expressionlessly: “So what do you want now? Why not just block me here halfway up the mountain for a few hours?”

Hearing this, Zhou Xu felt even more wronged. How could there be such a woman in the world? She was clearly in the wrong first, not even offering an apology, and now directly ignoring him.

But he didn’t know that Su Rong indeed wasn’t a woman of this world, she was a demon through and through.

She could be “kind”, she could “know etiquette”, but all of this was premised on her willingness.

If she wasn’t willing to do these things, then no one could force her.

She had been following the rules of the mortal world before, but that was because she wanted to avoid trouble.

Now looking at these two men, she only felt annoyed, not even willing to pretend.

“Su Rong?” Suddenly, Qing Xian’s voice sounded from up the mountain, “Why are you here?”

He looked at the two crying men and asked, “Who are they?”

Long Ling beside him said: “This is Shan Zhang’s nephew.”

Qing Xian nodded upon hearing this, looking at the scene before him with some confusion.

Long Ling wasn’t surprised. He had been living with these two men for the past few days, and this young master was just like this.

He cried when happy, cried when sad, like a weak willow in the wind, making him want to avoid them whenever he saw them.

Seeing them reminded him of his mother king’s small attendants, making Long Ling feel uncomfortable.

Long Ling was just the most inconspicuous among the many sons of the Dragon King, anyone could bully him. If it weren’t for Qing Xian saving him, he might have been played to death by those people in the Dragon Palace by now.

So now seeing such people made him feel a bit uneasy.

“Are you the man Su Rong picked up to be her small attendant?” Zhou Xu asked, his gaze seemingly innocent but actually filled with malice and jealousy.

He wasn’t in a good mood today, so these people shouldn’t expect to have it easy either.

His peripheral vision caught several shadows behind a big tree, his smile innocent and confused.

Su Rong’s expression turned somewhat cold, while Qing Xian’s was even more so.