Life as a Rogue Cultivator

Chapter 291: Tianmu Mountain

The young man Zhou Tong had this crazy wet dream. He was tangled up with some girl for what felt like forever. It was hot, then cool; she was close, then far away. Sometimes she’d whisper in his ear, sometimes she'd wrap her arms and legs around him tight. Every single feeling was pure freaking bliss.But the weird thing was… that woman’s face kind of looked like his Seventh Aunt’s.

Just as he was freaking out, trying to wrap his head around it, suddenly this bearded old man appeared out of nowhere, standing right by the bed. He was swinging a mattock straight down at Zhou Tong’s head. And it was none other than his uncle; Seventh Aunt’s husband!

Zhou Tong jolted awake, bolting upright in bed. It had been all just a dream. When he came to, his clothes were soaked through with sweat... and more.

It was the middle of the night. He had no hope of falling asleep again, so he got up and went to the main hall. He sat cross-legged beneath the statue for a good long while. Once his heart finally settled and his mind went quiet, he cast a divination using yarrow stalks. The result pointed to misfortune turning into good luck, which left him a little stunned.

He calculated again and again, and what he discovered startled him. For reasons he could not understand, he had actually been trapped in a wet dream for seven whole days and nights.

What was that supposed to mean?

Zhou Tong simply couldn’t make sense of it.

He walked out of the Xingde Hall and headed toward the cliff at the edge of the temple grounds. Staring out at the pitch-black mountains, his mind wandered all over the place.

He had no idea that somewhere out there in the darkness he was gazing into, the one responsible for everything was quietly making his way forward. Before long, Liu Xiaolou slipped beyond Zhou Tong’s line of sight and left the Taoyuan mountain range behind.

Just before dawn, he arrived at the foot of Tianmu Mountain.

Tianmu Mountain had nineteen peaks, each one dangerously steep. The Lu Clan's main compound was up there somewhere in the Yuntai area. That place was a whole maze of pavilions and towers... who knew how many of their top experts were holed up in there? On top of that, it was protected by a mountain-guarding formation that had been set up centuries ago. Liu Xiaolou wouldn't dare go anywhere near that place.

On an ordinary day, he wouldn’t have even stepped near the outskirts of Tianmu Mountain, let alone Yuntai. But right now, he had no choice but to take the risk.

He entered the mountain from a narrow trail in the northeast, keeping to the most deserted paths. He didn’t know the terrain at all, so he moved carefully the whole way, afraid he might trigger some kind of mechanism.

From the moment he stepped into the mountain, he had slipped the Jade Pendant Concealment onto his wrist. Better safe than sorry. The pendant was excellent at masking his aura and could even block techniques that tracked a person’s spirit. If he didn’t wear it and Tianmu Mountain happened to have soul-tracing techniques like those used by the Qingyu Sect, or had gotten their hands on a similar formation, talisman, or tool, his whereabouts could easily be exposed.

He kept to the western foothills, skirting a wide perimeter around the nineteen peaks. Up ahead he heard the gentle babble of a stream. Looking up, he could just make out several peaks rising and falling like layered petals, blooming under the moonlight.

A wave of calm washed over his spiritual sense. And a strange, sweet fragrance drifted toward him.

Liu Xiaolou suddenly remembered something Wei Hongqing had mentioned years ago. This must be Lotus Peak, a place of blessing within Tianmu Mountain. The flowers there released a spiritual fragrance that soothed the mind, and it was one of the Lu Clan cultivators’ favorite places to rest and recover.

He hadn’t expected to stumble right into it.

The Lotus Peak sat diagonally above him, maybe a couple hundred yards off. Liu Xiaolou held his breath and focused, straining to catch any hint of movement or sound from there.

But it was too far. He couldn’t pick up anything.

He shifted his perspective and examined the terrain the way a formation master would. Sure enough, the place formed an excellent feng shui layout. He found several spots where the formation’s nodes might be, and with a bit of probing he broke into a cold sweat.

There really was a formation here, and he was already standing inside it.

It was a pretty sizable, medium-grade setup. It covered a good hundred zhang all around, centered right on top of Lotus Peak. What was surprising was that it actually had four formation nodes.

Liu Xiaolou had never seen a layout like this. It was simple and straightforward, with a primitive, ancient feel to it. Definitely wasn’t something set up in the last century. No wonder he walked into it without noticing.

He was still just skimming the outer edge of the formation. If he tried to go any farther in, the killing traps hidden inside would probably start firing one after another.

His entering the formation had no doubt alerted the Lu clan. Maybe because he was wearing the Jade Pendant Concealment, they hadn’t pinpointed his exact location yet. Or perhaps there was no one on Lotus Peak today, and they were rushing over from Yuntai?

All those possibilities flashed through his mind in a second. He instantly picked the safest way out, didn’t overthink it, and just started moving along the route he’d chosen.

He slipped around a few old locust trees, crawled under two sprawling pines, then veered nine zhang to the right before throwing himself straight at a boulder twice his height.

All at once, the dim world around him seemed to waver. He never hit the rock at all. Instead, he slipped straight through it without feeling a thing.

He was out of the formation!

He didn't dare to waste any time, though. He shot up into the thick canopy of the locust tree and fixed his eyes on the formation below.

A moment later, a woman slipped soundlessly out of the boulder, ghostlike in the moonlight. She looked around, then leapt onto the top of the rock and scanned the surroundings again. At one point, her gaze landed directly on where Liu Xiaolou was hiding.

She paused.

They were less than ten zhang apart. She kept glancing around while tilting her head to listen.

Liu Xiaolou was peering through the thick leaves and watching her too.

She had a slim, graceful build. He had seen her before. It was Lu Yan, Wei Hongqing’s old flame.

She had reached Foundation Establishment ten years ago. Who knew how far she’d advanced since then?

Liu Xiaolou almost stopped breathing. His entire focus locked on every move she made, and his own pounding heartbeat filled his ears. His thoughts spun, yet for the moment he had no idea what to do.

The gap between Qi Refinement and Foundation Establishment was enormous, something you simply couldn’t bridge. With the skills he had now, there wasn’t a single thing he could rely on to survive.

He held still for what felt like several breaths. Lu Yan tilted her head slightly, then slipped off toward the left.

Liu Xiaolou waited for what felt like the time it takes to finish a cup of tea. When he felt the formation shake again, guessing that Lu Yan had returned, he finally let out the breath he’d been holding."

If he hadn’t had that Jade Pendant Concealment, she probably would’ve found him already.

After waiting a little longer, he climbed down as quietly as possible and slipped away, continuing to move around. This time, he stayed farther out, keeping to the outer edges.

He skirted a hill covered in patchy bamboo, followed a creek upstream, and passed between sheer cliffs where the trees grew thick and the streambed was cluttered with strange rocks and layered pools and falls.

Six years ago, he and the others from Wulong Mountain had talked over and over about storming the Yuntai of Tianmu Mountain and avenging their fallen friends. They’d come up with all kinds of imagined attack routes. It had all been talk to let off steam, but those routes were at least close to something workable.

The route through Dragon Pool was something one of his fellow cultivators had suggested back then, and Liu Xiaolou still remembered it vaguely.

After what had just happened, he was even more careful this time. By the time dawn was close, he had only managed to move a bit more than three li up the ravine.

Suddenly he caught sight of two large characters carved into the cliff face: “Dragon Pool.” His heart tightened at once.

A dozen or so zhang farther on, he stopped at a fork in the creek.

Beyond that little stream, there was a formation shielding the area. He couldn’t go in any farther.

Fighting back a mix of jittery excitement and dread, he spotted a thick grove nearby, scrambled up into the branches, and hid himself deep in the leaves.

Daylight’s no good; he'd wait for the dark, windless night.