When Mo Tianliao saw that the lamb chops were not enough, he poked Zi Mo who was enthusiastically stuffing his face beside him. “Go lend a hand.”
“Why don’t you go yourself?” Zi Mo said carelessly, a bone still in his mouth.
“I want to serve Master.” As he spoke, Mo Tianliao separated the meat from the bone with a small jade knife, cut it into small pieces, and put it in a jade bowl so Qingtong could eat it with chopsticks.
Qingtong picked up a piece of mutton and put it in his mouth, he chewed it carefully and glanced sideways at Zi Mo. “This Excellency wants to eat grilled fish.”
“Yes, shishu.” Zi Mo picked up a lamb chop and, while still chewing on it, fled like the wind.
Yu Li, who had heard Qingtong’s words, could not help shivering.
The Leader of the Woyun Sect, who was regarded as a person of noble character and high prestige, would not ignore his guests even while eating, so Yun Song and the others had intended to have a chat with Tianlang in order to distract him. However, Tianlang Zhenren turned out to be the one who was most focused on eating. The glassy jade chopsticks could not grip the bones at all so Tianlang Zhenren, who did not have a dutiful disciple like Mo Tianliao to cut his food for him, casually ate with his hands.
One hand held the lamb chop, the other pressed down his beard so as to avoid getting it dirty. The gestures were elegant and natural, they were also quite fast, in the blink of an eye a whole rack of lamb had been completely devoured.
“Erm…” Yun Song, who wanted to take this opportunity to say something, saw Tianlang pick up a second rack of lamb.
After the excruciating meal, the people from Woyun Sect began to serve tea.
Tianlang Zhenren drank a cup of tea, choked down a satisfied burp, then sighed and said, “About today’s matter, actually, as recently as a few hundred years ago, Seniors from both the Qingyun Sect and the Liuyun Sect also knew about it.”
Yun Song, Yun Yuan and Liu Bi were all confused by this puzzling sentence.
“It is a matter of great importance, so it can only be known by the Elders.” Tianlang’s grave eyes swept over the disciples behind them.
“Is what you have to say something that must be kept under wraps?” Liu Bi took out her handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of her mouth, she and Yun Song traded glances.
Yun Song contemplated for a moment, then raised his hand to indicate that his disciples should wait outside the hall. The corners of Bi Li’s mouth lifted in derision, but seeing that Yun Song had done so, she also waved towards the door. Zi Mo and the others also left, seemingly tactful. In reality, they stayed right outside the door, spying.
After the disciples of both Qingyun Sect and Liuyun Sect had retired, Tianlang suddenly raised his hand and set up a sound insulation barrier which covered the whole hall.
The faces of Yun Song and the rest unconsciously turned a bit more serious.
There were many secrets that could not be known by disciples, things only the Elders were qualified to know. At such a moment, Mo Tianliao who remained firmly in his seat, looked particularly incongruous.
Yun Song could not help staring at Mo Tianliao.
“Don’t mind him, this secret is known to all the direct disciples of the Woyun Sect.” Tianlang waved his hand carelessly. After he said this, Yan Lie appeared beside him and gave him a cup of tea.
Yun Song immediately felt like he had been fooled. He released his divine sense and noticed that there were two people still at the back of the hall, his expression changed. The were three Half-Immortal cultivators from Woyun Sect in the hall, well-matched to his own group of three when it came to strength, but there were also two Nascent Soul cultivators, Yan Lie and Mo Tianliao, and two additional Golden Core cultivators at the back. If they all joined forces, things could turn very ugly.
Yun Yuan sitting beside him, on the other hand, was very calm. She tried to put her shixiong’s mind at ease, insisting that they were already in the other sect’s territory, so if Tianlang wanted to deal with them, he had no need to resort to tricks. Her shixiong was really too mistrustful.
“What is the secret?” Liu Bi could not stand it anymore and asked.
“As you all know, the Spirit Beasts of Woyun Sect have always been comparatively stronger,” Tianlang Zhenren said unhurriedly, taking a sip of tea. “Not necessarily better at sorting out internal demons, but more effective than ordinary Spirit Beasts during a fight.”
Yun Yuan nodded slightly, indeed; this had been demonstrated during the recent Three Sects Conference. Spirit Beasts were usually used to sooth the soul, but they could also help in battle. She thought back to that disciple named Bai Luo, during one of the fights, his opponent had suddenly summoned his golden python Spirit Beast and Bai Luo had had to throw his own sable Spirit Beast at it, it had bit the golden python’s weak point in one second.
“This is thanks to the secret technique only known to our Woyun Sect,” Tianlang Zhenren said with a sigh.
Hearing the words “secret technique only known to our Woyun Sect,” Yun Song and the rest could not help pricking up their ears.
Mo Tianliao pressed his lips together and bowed his head, cutting spiritual fruit for Master.
According to Tianlang Zhenren, the Woyun Sect had a set of secret taming techniques, which only their direct disciples were allowed to learn. Apparently, it allowed for communication between unbound Demonic Beasts and people, this in turn enabled people to teach Demonic Beasts a cultivation method, which let Demonic Beasts cultivate. When the Demonic Beasts had cultivated enough to attain human shape, only then could the blood pact be made.
The higher their cultivation level, the higher their selling price, and shape-shifting Beast cultivators sold for exorbitant amounts, this was because the later the blood pact was made, the stronger the Spirit Beast would be. A cat raised in a greenhouse was certainly not as good as a tiger who had grown in the wilderness.
Usually, when people obtained a Demonic Beast, they tended to make a pact quickly, one reason for this was that they feared that their Demonic Beast would be stolen, another reason was that unbound Demonic Beasts could not communicate with people, so a suitable cultivation method could not be imparted to them. Consequently, their cultivation advanced extremely slowly and their growth was sluggish, it was impossible to know how long it would take them to reach a level of cultivation high enough to match their owner.
“Is this really true?” Liu Bi’s eyes shone. Her own sect spent all their time breeding Demonic Beasts, if they could obtain this kind of taming technique, all the unbound Demonic Beasts in her sect could be grown until they could shape-shift, then the amount of lingshi they could possibly obtain would be…
“This method has its drawbacks,” Tianlang said after a pause, knowing what these people were thinking of without even having to look at them. “For this method of taming to work, the cultivator must not have made a blood pact with another Demonic Beast and they must also be very close with the Demonic Beast, they must drink together and live together.”
Everyone understood now, no wonder Qingtong wanted to raise the tiger as his disciple, he was trying to cover up their overly-intimate behaviour.
Liu Bi felt a bit disappointed, according to Tianlang, when using this secret technique, a cultivator could only raise one Demonic Beast and they must make a blood pact only with this Demonic Beast. It would be of little use to her sect.
Mo Tianliao was a little unhappy when he heard this. He grabbed Qingtong’s hand under the cover of their sleeves. My cat is mine! He doesn’t drink together nor live together with any tiger!
Qingtong glared at him, then he turned his hand and scratched Mo Tianliao’s palm, indicating that he should behave himself. Mo Tianliao grabbed one of his fingers and slid his fist slowly up and down over it. Evil disciple, you dare to sexually harass your Master!
The pair of them fought under the table, completely failing to listen to Tianlang’s bullshit.
“Now that I think about it, Master also mentioned this before.” Yun Yuan suddenly remembered that many years ago, her Master seemed to have mentioned a few vague words about this, it was just that at the time she had not understood what he had meant, so she had not paid it much attention. After hearing what Tianlang had said, she remembered it.
The corners of Mo Tianliao’s mouth twitched upwards. It turned out that this bullshit had been said many a time and had deceived generation after generation of fellow cultivators.
“Is Sect Leader Tianlang’s spiritual pet also still unbound?” Yun Song still had some doubts. Everyone knew that Tianlang Zhenren‘s spiritual pet was a wolf, but no one had ever seen it.
“Ahh, this is a little embarrassing,” Tianlang sighed helplessly. “My spiritual pet is still unbound. I was afraid to let people see him because he was too young, but now he is already able to shape-shift.”
After he said this, a young man dressed in a black and white Taoist robe came walking from the back, his face was cold and resolute yet still slightly immature, he looked like he was about fifteen or sixteen years old. On seeing everyone, he raised his hands in a salute, then without waiting for anyone to respond, he went to stand beside Tianlang, expressionless.
Mo Tianliao glanced at the young man, if he was not mistaken, he should be Lang Zi, the youngest disciple of Tianlang Zhenren and also his son. The Sect Leader… he’s not really going to make his own son pretend to be his spiritual pet. Right?
But sure enough, Tianlang opened his mouth and said, “This is my spiritual pet.”
After this statement, he signalled Lang Zi to change shape for everyone to see.
The boy turned his head and looked blankly at his unreasonable father, then turned back slowly, ignoring him.
“This boy is unbound?” Liu Bi stood up in surprise, she extended a hand to touch the boy’s face but the youth quickly dodged, his inky pupils became a deep green and he glared at her fiercely.
Liu Bi got a fright and reflexively tried to attack him.
“What are you doing?!” With a wave of his hand, Tianlang pushed Liu Bi away and pulled his son close to him.
Lang Zi shook off his father’s hand and jumped aside.
“He’s really wild and hard to manage,” Yun Yuan lamented.
“With the unbound Demonic Beast being this aggressive, this raising method of the Woyun Sect is really not work the effort.” Yun Song saw how fierce Lang Zi was an he could not help shaking his head.
“He can be made to obey by using the secret technique.” Tianlang gesticulated theatrically for a long while, then Lang Zi slowly turned to look at his father, stepped back two steps, slowly squatted down, and became a little wolf cub.
“Waah!” Yun Yuan could not help exclaiming.
Mo Tianliao’s eyes lit up, he stared closely at the fluffy black and white little wolf. He had a pair of big and alert ears on his round head and his large round dark green eyes were the same as those of Lang Zi. It was just that, when the eyes that looked aggressive on the stern-faced youth were placed on the baby puppy’s furry face, well…
“Awoooo” The little wolf pup howled threateningly at the noisy Yun Yuan, baring his unevenly grown milk teeth at her.
“He’s unbound so he still bites.” Tianlang rushed over and picked up the puppy. “Mo Xiong, come and take shidi away.”
The burly Mo Xiong hurried over, his thumping steps making the floor shake. He replied in a booming voice, “Yes, Master.” Then took the little puppy and escaped, accompanied by more thumps.
Tianlang removed the barrier, and before the people could even react to the “big secret” they had just been told, a disciple from Woqing Abode hurried forward and whispered a few words in Mo Tianliao’s ear.
The hall was noisy so no one else could hear what the disciple had said, but they saw Qingtong Zhenren and Mo Tianliao stand up and walk away immediately.
Yun Song frowned slightly, ordering a couple of his disciples to go and have a look.
What the disciple had reported just now was that they had found a big tiger aboard the Qingyun Sect’s ship. Several disciples of Qingyun Sect followed the two, and when they saw the pair flying directly to the suspension bridge, they felt that something was wrong. One of them went back to inform the Elders while the others followed them.
The suspension bridge was five li long and one could not use a sword to cross it.
However, Qingtong was a Half-Immortal cultivator, he could manipulate qi and just float over it. As for Mo Tianliao, he had had a lot of practice, so he ran on the suspension bridge as if it were flat ground, from time to time he also used qi to jump, making his pace very fast.
The Qingyun Sect’s people were not so impressive, they walked slowly on the suspension bridge, quaking with fear.
Leaving the Qingyun Sect’s people behind, the pair arrived at the parked flying ship.
“Who–” Before the words could be finished, several Qingyun Sect disciples guarding the flying ship were knocked unconscious by Qingtong’s slap. These were just Foundation stage cultivators so they were easy to take care of.
“Shishu, shizu!” Su Heng jumped out from a corner. “Master is in that cell over there, but the array is too powerful, we disciples can’t get close.”
When Su Heng and the others had suddenly learnt that their Master was a Demonic Beast, it had taken them a while to accept it, but after being given a talking to by Yan Lie shibo, they had already come round. When all was said and done, he was still their Master, no matter if he was a person or a Beast. What was more, he was Qingtong’s spiritual pet, so it was not unreasonable to have him teach them, it was said that Lord Shi Di’s demonic pet could command his men after all.
Mo Tianliao nodded slightly and pulled Qingtong to the little room.
“Miss, contact between males and females is forbidden, I won’t allow it!” As soon as they got to the door, they heard Meng Hu’s voice.
“Halt!” There were two Golden Core cultivators in front of the door.
“Get out of the way unless you want to die.” Qingtong narrowed his eyes and did not move.
“Respect, Zhenren.” The two Golden Core cultivators saw that he was a powerful Half-Immortal and immediately bowed in greeting, they did not have the slightest intention of courting their own death.
Qingtong waved a hand, indicating that they should get lost and they immediately vanished. They needed to go inform the people from Qingyun Sect quickly.
“Wah! Stay back, stay back!” Meng Hu shrank into a corner. The array in this room was specifically targeted at Demonic Beasts and it was suppressing his cultivation. A striped black and yellow female tiger with a muscular figure kept circling around him, waiting for an opportunity to pounce on him.
At the end of his rope, Meng Hu suddenly turned into an enormous tiger and flipped the tigress over with one strike of his paw.
Rather than being angry, the tigress showed her belly in an act of submission.
The big tiger immediately let go of the tigress and shrank into the corner again, but the tigress came over and rubbed his face with her tail. His face, hidden under his fur, suddenly turned green.
“Ha ha ha…” Mo Tianliao laughed unkindly.
Hearing the voice of Mo Tianliao, the tiger immediately looked up and leaped to the door. He turned into a human and, sounding like a widow at a funeral, howled, “Master, help!”
The array on the cell was quite complex. The outer layer was an alarm array, once it was touched, it would immediately inform Yun Song and the others. The inner layer was a restraining array, which was specially designed for Demonic Beasts and worked by suppressing their cultivation. Although it was quite brilliant, it was not complicated enough to stump Mo Tianliao. It was absolutely possible to break open the array without alerting Yun Song, it would just take a lot of time.
“Yun Song, that old thief, must already know that you were coming. So what does it matter?” Meng Hu was lying against the door’s iron bars, a woebegone look on his face. Behind him, the tigress was striving to rub her body against his thigh.
Mo Tianliao clenched his fist and pressed it next to his lips, chuckling. “What’s the rush, da-shixiong? You’re rarely so lucky with women…”
Su Heng looked at his Master, he wanted to laugh but did not dare to do so. His face was flushed with suppressed mirth.
“Bastard, can’t you see that this tigress is extremely ugly?” Meng Hu could not take it anymore and let loose a stream of invective.
The tigress seemed to understand a little of what was said and roared at Meng Hu. Mo Tianliao looked at the tigress. The face is completely covered in fur. How can you tell whether its beautiful or ugly? In his opinion, all tigers looked the same.
In the middle of Meng Hu’s curses, there came a loud and clear “crack,” and the iron bars broke under him, he fell out, landing on the ground with a thump. When Mo Tianliao was laughing at him before, he had been also crudely destroying the array.
Before Meng Hu had even gotten up, Yun Song and Yun Yuan arrived.
“Qingtong Zhenren, what do you mean by setting foot on someone else’s flying ship without permission?” Yun Song immediately waved a hand and set up a barrier to prevent the tigress from escaping.
Qingtong completely ignored him and led Meng Hu away.
“Stop!” Yun Song reached out his hand to block him but was pulled back by a Yun Yuan.
“Shixiong, this tiger is not ours, Qingtong shixiong has the right to take it away,” Yun Yuan said with a smile. Then she turned to Qingtong and said, “This tigress has good spiritual roots, since Qingtong shixiong‘s tiger is still unbound, I wonder if you’d oblige me… by joining our families forever in marriage.”
When Yun Yuan said this, her cheeks flushed red.
“Yun Yuan Zhenren, you phrased that in such an odd way. If someone else were to hear you speak, they would think that it was you who wished to be bred,” Mo Tianliao said with an evil smile.
“You…” People from the Righteous Path paid particular attention to elegance and dignity. Yun Yuan had never heard such vulgar words before, her face went red and white, and she was so infuriated that she could not even speak. Her pair of tearful eyes looked at Qingtong, full of grievance.
“This tiger of mine has Divine Beast ancestry, if you want him to breed, I’ll need thirty thousand top-grade lingshi,” Qingtong said indifferently.
Thirty thousand top-grade lingshi, it was much higher than the asking price of some of the highest-quality Beasts sold on the black market.
Paying no mind to the two Qingyun Sect Elders who were trembling with anger, Qingtong led his disciples joyfully back to Woqing Abode.
Since their guests had travelled such a long distance, the Woyun Sect would naturally treat them cordially. The departure to the Mo Palace was scheduled for the third day of the coming month. There were still a few days for Mo Tianliao to finish taking care of the affairs of Woqing Abode.
When Meng Hu’s identity had been exposed, some disciples had not been able to deal with the fact that their Master was a Demonic Beast, so they were all kicked out by Mo Tianliao and gone to the Thousand Buds Heaven to become ordinary inner disciples. Some people had not been willing to go, so they had pretended to respect Meng Hu, but they could not fool Mo Tianliao, an old devil who had met countless people in his life, he saw through them at once.
After a careful selection, there were less than ten second-generation disciples left in Woqing Abode. It had become very quiet all of a sudden.
Qingtong sat in a rocking chair, slowly eating the Wenyu fruit that Mo Tianliao cut. The big tiger lay dejectedly on the ground.
Seeing his stupid disciple’s listless appearance, Qingtong raised his hand and threw a piece of Wenyu fruit to him.
The big tiger looked at the glittering and translucent fruit flesh in front of him, but did not even get up, he just sluggishly turned his head and used his tongue to roll the fruit into his mouth.
“Da-shixiong, did that tigress hurt you?” Mo Tianliao looked at him funny, then he suddenly remembered something. He pulled Qingtong’s wrist and took the little female fox out. Earlier, he had gone to the entrance to the mountain and let Shuang Ren go in by himself, but since no one in the sect knew her, Shuang Hua had stayed in Qingtong’s storage bracelet.
The little fox shook her squashed fur and looked at the big tiger with some apprehension.
“Da-shixiong, take a good look at this beautiful girl and cheer up.” Mo Tianliao teased him.
After eating all the Wenyu fruit on the plate, Qingtong turned into a snow-coloured kitten, jumped on the back of the big tiger, stretched himself, and lay down on the fluffy fur.
The big tiger glanced at the little fox and then looked away again. She was not a tiger; how could he tell whether her furry face was beautiful or ugly?
“This is a beautiful girl, Big fatty just can’t see it.” Yan Lie’s voice came from the bamboo forest. Then, the Sect Leader’s first disciple, who was wearing a bright red long-sleeved robe, came walking with a smile. He was followed by the burly Mo Xiong, and the stoic Lang Zi.
“I greet shishu.” Mo Xiong and Lang Zi both saluted. They should have come to pay their respects immediately after coming back to the sect, but first Qingtong was away, and when he came back again the whole thing with Meng Hu had happened, so it was delayed until now.
“Meow,” Qingtong responded and waved his paws to signal that they need not stand on ceremony.
Their elder was now in his tiny form so it was rude to talk standing up, Mo Xiong squatted down, while Lang Zi simply turned into a little wolf cub, blinking his big dark green eyes and watching Qingtong curiously.
“Lang Zi, this is your youngest shishu, you met him when you were a child,” Mo Xiong said to the puppy with a smile.
The little wolf circled around the cat several times, his eyes were as cold and fierce as when he was in human form, but his tail wagged merrily without pause.
The snow-coloured kitten lazily lifted his paws and grabbed the puppy’s head, the puppy stopped circling him at once. Then the puppy clung to the tiger and stood up on his front paws, leaning close with his tiny pink nose to sniff at him.
The cat, who had always had a bad temper, was unusually patient with him, instead of scratching him, he slowly leaned over and licked the puppy’s head.
Unedited, please point out any mistakes
Here is a link with a couple of fanart images of this novel that I found using Google, including some of the official covers.