Chapter 65 – Long Tao’s Fun Adventure (II)

Chapter 65

Long Tao’s Fun Adventure (II)

“What’s your name?” Long Tao asked, taking a bite of a recently cooked rabbit leg.

The captured old man was sitting politely on his knees, back upright, a look of wonderment and terror on his face.

“This lowly one’s name is Hou Lan, o’ Great One!” he all but shouted, prompting Long Tao to frown.

“Quiet down.”

“Yes, the Great One!”

“Why were you following me?”

“Orders, the Great One!”

“Whose?”

“Sect Master’s!”

“Sect Master of the Fire Sun Sect?”

“Yes!”

“Hm,” Long Tao took another bite, eyeing the man’s expression for a moment before continuing. “Why the hell is he ordering you guys to tail kids?”

“I… I’m not sure,” Hou Lan said. “I’ve heard… rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“You may not know this, O ‘Great One, but the core cultivation method of our Sect, though amazing, comes with some… side effects. The higher one’s cultivation realm, the more prominent they are.”

“…” Long Tao remained silent for a moment, considering. He didn’t actually know what method they practiced, but he had enough experience to stitch together an approximate–an ostensibly Yang cultivation method without a counteractive force was a death sentence for practically everyone without a special physique. Ordinarily, due to the low ranks of methods like these, side effects tend to peak at the ‘bad temper’, but if the method is pushed further… “Go on.”

“Ever since our Sect Master broke through to the Void Transformation Realm, he’s… changed.”

“Changed how?”

“I, I only heard this from some of my seniors,” Hou Lan’s voice, strangely, turned into a whisper, as though he was divulging the world’s greatest secret. “Sect Master has always had a… taste for women. However, ever since his breakthrough, all women that go in… don’t come out.”

It wasn’t odd; even if the man wasn’t consciously killing them, copulating while cultivating a method that one lost control over was purely animalistic behavior.

“The rumor is that, uh, it helps him stay calm.” It tracked still. Excess fire energy was expelled temporarily–however, that was also easily achievable by just soaking oneself inside a Yin bath.

“That still doesn’t explain why he ordered you to follow us. For starters, despite my heavenly looks, I am not a woman.”

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“That… is why we followed you…” The man’s voice turned strangely melancholic as he hung his head low, prompting Long Tao to frown.

“Meaning?”

“… it would buy us time,” he said. “Our plan was to claim you dressed as a woman to sneak out of the sect, but when we caught up to you, we realized you were a boy. Not knowing what to do, we decided to deliver you to the Sect Master for judgment.”

“Ah,” Long Tao understood, feeling even a twinge of sympathy toward the man. Though the world of cultivation was one of vile monsters and rancid souls, there were still things the vast majority of the cultivators were unwilling to do.