CHAPTER 7

— Yuan Qiongshuang —

Tong Tong walked toward the group of disciples practicing with a bright smile plastered on her face, thinking to herself: Even though she was over two hours late, it wasn't really her fault... After all, that Qingfeng guy yesterday hadn't told her the way! As the saying goes, you don't hit a smiling person—smiling was always the right move! This was the first rule of workplace survival passed down to her by the old-timers!

But soon, Tong Tong's smile began to falter.

What was going on? Why were they leaving as soon as they saw her? Hey, wait! She hadn't even asked her question yet! Did they have to leave one by one like this? She wasn't that scary-looking, was she...

Finally, one person didn't react too strongly to her approach. She remained seated cross-legged, eyes slightly lowered, calm and composed.

Tong Tong put on her most confident smile again, leaned down sweetly, and said, "Senior Sister, may I ask..."

No response.

Tong Tong's smile froze for a moment, then widened even further. She leaned in a little closer, almost touching the other's nose—from this distance, she could clearly count the faint freckles on either side of her nostrils—and repeated, "Excuse me, I'd like to..."

Still no response.

Tong Tong silently straightened up. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the furtive glances from the surrounding crowd—some gloating, others dismissive. In a sudden surge of frustration, she took a deep breath, gathered her energy, and shouted at the person, "Why aren't you answering me? Are you deaf or something!" The last syllable dragged on for nearly four measures, shaking the vast auspicious clouds in the sky, collapsing several unstable mountain peaks, and startling a few nests of not-so-bright spirit birds—and finally jolting the unresponsive person into opening her eyes, glaring at Tong Tong with a mix of shock and anger.

"This Seat is not deaf..." The person Tong Tong had startled awake was a 'fairy.' Her features weren't particularly striking, but they were as precise as if carved, giving her a stern appearance. The main reason Tong Tong had chosen her wasn't because she hadn't immediately fled, nor because she sat there calmly and mysteriously, but because of her distinctive deep purple outer robe.

T/N: [This Seat (本座 /ben zuo): This is a specialized way for powerful characters, like sect masters, to say "I" while speaking in the third person. It's a major power move—using it constantly shows that the character is very aware of their high status and is quite proud of their position.]

She remembered Young Master Ding mentioning that in the Chonghua Sect, to tell if someone had connections, you just had to look at the color of their clothes—a single spot of purple in a sea of cyan, how could it not stand out?

Of course, the naive young Tong Tong hadn't considered that a person's status was often directly proportional to their level of arrogance. The more influential the person she picked, the harder it would naturally be to win them over.

The purple-robed woman had plain features, but her eyes were exceptionally beautiful, like two black crystals embedded with countless stars, radiant and captivating.

Expressionlessly, she wiped her face with her sleeve, removing the saliva Tong Tong had sprayed, and asked, suppressing her anger, "Who are you? To think you would dare offend this Seat—state your name at once!"

Startled by the sudden surge of her imposing aura, Tong Tong took a big step back, her face instinctively breaking into a foolish grin. "H-hello, Senior! I'm Tong Tong, the new disciple. The headmaster sent me to report to the training ground! But I got lost this morning and only just found my way here... Heh, hehehe..." As she spoke, she tugged nervously at the hem of her robe, putting on an act of shyness and obedience.

"Oh, so you're that Tong Tong..." The woman's anger subsided slightly, though her expression remained impassive. "This Seat is Yuan Qiongshuang, the second-generation cultivation elder of Chonghua, responsible for teaching body-forging techniques."

T/N: [In the world of cultivation, Body-Forging (锻体 - Duàn Tǐ) refers to the practice of tempering the physical flesh, bones, bl0od, and meridians to turn the human body into a vessel capable of housing immense spiritual energy (Qi).]

She stood up, smoothed her robes, and gave Tong Tong a once-over—her gaze reminiscent of a brothel madam sizing up a new girl—frowning slightly. "Under this Seat's command, tardiness is not tolerated! Since this is your first offense, I'll go easy on you."

She beckoned, and immediately, a tall, burly male disciple stepped forward. Tong Tong's eyes instantly glued themselves to his robust physique, which even his loose robes couldn't conceal—wow! Those pectorals were bigger than her bra size! Those arms were thicker than her thighs!

Just as she was lost in fantasies about the six-pack abs hidden beneath his robes, a dull thud echoed. The muscular gentleman tossed a stone block into the air, letting it graze the tip of Tong Tong's nose and ruffle a few strands of her bangs before it crashed heavily into the ground, leaving a deep crater.

"Gasp—" Just a fraction of a centimeter closer, and that stone block would have made intimate contact with her petite frame!

Tong Tong felt every hair on her body stand on end as if electrified.

"Carry it back and forth ten times." Tong Tong swallowed hard, glanced at the massive stone block, then at Yuan Qiongshuang's expressionless face. She pointed a trembling, delicate finger at herself—the other woman nodded impatiently, shattering her last shred of hope.

With a twitching mouth, Tong Tong walked over to the stone block, bent down, grabbed the handle on its back, took a deep breath, and lifted!

The stone block—didn't budge an inch.

Tong Tong's face flushed crimson with embarrassment.

She stole a glance at Yuan Qiongshuang—good, still the same icy, deadpan expression, unreadable. But the disciples behind her, especially the muscular gentleman Tong Tong had admired earlier, were grinning widely, revealing rows of gleaming white teeth. It made her want to punch them!

'Hmph, what's so funny? Clearly, he's the epitome of "all brawn, no brains," a fool whose mind is nothing but muscle! Cultivation demands an immortal's grace and scholarly elegance! What's the point of all those muscles—to burst out of his robes or what? Idiot, idiot, idiot!'

She must have hit her head earlier to think this guy was impressive...

Provoked by the open and veiled mockery, Tong Tong's stubborn, competitive nature flared up. Casting aside any pretense of ladylike decorum, she rolled up her sleeves, mustered all her strength, and tried lifting it again—this time, she put every ounce of effort she had into it.

At last, she managed to lift the enormous stone block—about ankle-high.

Just as she was about to turn her head with great difficulty to boast to Yuan Qiongshuang, before she could even open her mouth, the woman casually remarked, "Hmm, now carry it over to that tree."

Following her gaze, Tong Tong strained to turn her neck back and finally saw the target she was indicating—over a thousand meters beyond the vast, open training ground stood a solitary towering tree, its branches swaying gently in the wind as if waving a friendly hello to Tong Tong.

"Thud—" "Thump—" The first sound was the stone weight slipping from her hands and hitting the ground, while the second was Tong Tong collapsing onto the ground, startled by Yuan Qiongshuang's words.

Just lifting this stone weight had already drained half her life force, and now she had to carry it all that way?

Oh heavens, strike her down with lightning!

Or better yet, strike down Yuan Qiongshuang!

As Tong Tong, with every ounce of her strength, inched forward at a snail's pace of five micrometers per second while lugging the dead-heavy stone weight, she heard Yuan Qiongshuang's flat, monotonous voice drifting lazily over: "Don't forget, ten round trips."

Tong Tong's already weak hands trembled, nearly dropping the stone weight on her feet. A little voice inside her roared: Why is Su Yan, with his equally icy and expressionless face, ten thousand times more pleasant to look at than this woman? It's definitely not because she's judging by appearances! What kind of 'transmission elder' is this, calling herself 'this Seat'? In all her life, she had only ever heard one person refer to themselves as 'this Seat' with such natural, overwhelming authority—and that person was Dongfang Bubai!

After assigning the task, perhaps finding it unbearable to have been drenched in Tong Tong's saliva, Elder Yuan Qiongshuang flicked her sleeves and went off to tend to her personal hygiene, leaving behind a muscular gentleman whom Tong Tong had taken a dislike to as the supervisor.

The man with a mouthful of gleaming white teeth but a sly, mischievous grin somehow produced another stone weight twice the size of the one in Tong Tong's hands, effortlessly tossing it up and down a couple of times before juggling it between his left and right hands like a circus performer with a small rubber ball.

Using one percent of her remaining strength to roll her eyes, Tong Tong decided to ignore him.

Just as she had exerted more effort than moving nine bulls and two tigers—adding up to a double ten—and had inched two or three meters closer to her dream destination, a man with a small nose, narrow eyes, and a shifty, untrustworthy appearance hunched his back, rubbed his hands together, and tiptoed alongside Tong Tong, fawningly smiling as he said, "Junior Sister Tong, I heard you're quite close with Senior Brother Su?"

It wasn't that Tong Tong didn't want to respond—she considered herself a polite child—but she simply had no energy left to answer his question, or even to glance at him by turning her eyes.

The man, however, was somewhat perceptive. He formed his hand into a sword gesture, pointed at the stone weight, made a hand seal, and murmured an incantation. Tong Tong only understood one word: "Rise!"

Something magical happened! Tong Tong felt the weight in her hands suddenly lighten, as if an invisible hand had lifted the stone weight for her.

"Wow! You're amazing, buddy!" Overjoyed, Tong Tong didn't forget to seize the opportunity and dashed toward her destination in a quick sprint to lighten her burden.

"Hehe, it's nothing, nothing..." The man, seeing this, cleverly followed along with a light jog. Though he wore a broad smile, his complexion was slightly pale. "You flatter me, Junior Sister Tong! Actually, I've long admired Senior Brother Su and was hoping you could introduce me to him..." Before he could finish speaking, the spiritual energy in his hands faltered, and the stone weight in Tong Tong's grasp regained its bone-crushing heaviness.

Tong Tong once again had no energy or attention left to listen to him.

The man left dejectedly.

Not long after, Tong Tong felt another person approach—if this person, drenched in a perfume potent enough to suffocate every insect within a hundred-meter radius, were a man, then his heart must surely harbor the soul of a melancholy woman. The scent tickled her nose, making her sneeze twice in quick succession. She nearly lost her grip and flung the stone stool from her hands.

Yet her misfortune was far from over. The woman followed her at a leisurely pace, unleashing a torrent of verbal attacks like venomous poison, relentlessly aimed at her. The damage inflicted was even more potent than the strong perfume by threefold!

Tong Tong spared another one percent of her attention to listen. Summing it up, the woman repeated the same few phrases over and over, roughly warning her: Su Yan was so noble, so aloof, so perfect, so pure—a top-tier boyfriend candidate like him was not for someone as short, poor, and plain as her to even dream of coveting! Otherwise, she would surely meet a terrible end, and so on...

The most infuriating part was that while speaking, the woman also made hand gestures. Just as Tong Tong was convinced the other was helping to lighten her load and comforted herself with the thought that enduring a scolding to save some effort on the journey was worth it, she suddenly felt the stone block in her hands grow several tons heavier, as if an elephant had been added to it!

Unable to recover in time, the stone block slammed heavily onto the ground, and Tong Tong, who had been carrying it, collapsed with exhaustion, gasping for breath and barely able to move.

Seeing her in such a pitiful state, the female disciple who had secretly tampered with the stone was startled and dared not pull any more tricks. She threw out a few typical villainous threats, bluffed for a moment, and hurried away.

Left alone, Tong Tong sprawled over the stone block, clutching her aching back and biting her sleeve in speechless despair: a handsome man brings trouble, an unwarranted disaster... all because of Jiya! She was innocent, okay? It felt like she would never love again...

Two hours passed in the blink of an eye. Carrying the large stone block, Tong Tong was still one-third of the way from reaching the tree.

She strained her eyes to look into the distance and saw the muscular senior already dozing off against his own stone block. Seizing the opportunity, she plopped down on the ground to steal a moment of rest, mentally cursing Yuan Qiongshuang a thousand times over.

Suddenly, a figure in a purple robe flickered before her eyes, appearing so abruptly that it caught her completely off guard.

"Who gave you permission to rest?" The clear, cold voice clashed like swords, carrying a metallic chill that made her sense a hint of danger.

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