Phoenix Ridge City, Nine Prisons Mountain.
Two men were carrying a large wooden chest along a rugged mountain path.
Both wore gray Daoist robes with dharma rulers tucked into their waists and fly-whisks strapped to their backs. One was tall and the other short, one thin and the other fat; the tall one resembled a bamboo pole, while the short one looked like a winter melon.
Winter Melon led the way while Bamboo Pole followed. They walked with brisk steps, conversing in low voices.
Winter Melon: "Senior Brother, why has that little babe stopped crying? You don't think she's suffocated, do you?"
Bamboo Pole glanced at the chest. "I left air holes; she won't die that easily. She’s probably just cried herself to sleep."
Winter Melon spoke again: "Senior Brother, is this little babe really worth a hundred thousand spiritual stones? Her scent is so faint; you don't think Master misjudged her, do you?"
Bamboo Pole let out a scoff. "What do you know? This kind of top-tier quality has an internal 'wind gate.' Usually, it doesn't show, but when the time comes... hehe..."
Winter Melon swallowed hard, his expression lewd. "I really want a taste of that soul-shattering flavor..."
Bamboo Pole spat on the ground. "Bah, clear your mind of that. With your cultivation, you wouldn't be able to handle her even if you refined for another thousand years. Who knows who would be harvesting whom. However..."
His tone shifted. "When we reach a resting spot, I’ll let you have a little bit of fun to satisfy your craving. Just don't break her. If she’s unsellable, it won't be easy to answer to Master."
As soon as he finished speaking, several muffled thumps came from inside the chest.
Winter Melon licked his lips obscenely. "Heh, the little babe is awake."
Xiao Ding woke up to find her surroundings pitch black, cramped, and constantly swaying.
She was a bit disoriented.
Just a moment ago, she was a refining cauldron in the Ninth Heaven. She had been a fine artifact spirit and was on the verge of cultivating a human form when she somehow triggered a lightning tribulation. A bolt of heavenly lightning had nearly blasted her soul into non-existence.
Fortunately, her master, Immortal Qingming, was quick-acting. At the critical moment, he stuffed her into one of the three thousand small worlds to take refuge.
Each small world was a book. A voice had urged her to pick one, and in her haste, she hadn't looked closely. Seeing a picture of a cauldron on a cover, she had dove straight in.
Then she was stunned—wasn't she supposed to turn into a refining cauldron? Why had she become a living creature?
The voice only warned her not to reveal the "heavenly secrets" within the book, and then it fell silent.
Xiao Ding delved into her spiritual dwelling. There, she found her original body—shrunk small and scorched black by the lightning—along with a book.
The title was I Am Shizun’s Top-Tier Cauldron.
She picked up the book, intending to study it.
However, before she could even turn the first page, she encountered a difficulty: out of the nine characters in the title, she didn't recognize six of them.
As a cauldron, her literacy level was somewhat low.
Aside from the few dozen seal script inscriptions on her original body, she only recognized a few dozen common characters, most of which she had learned while the Immortal told her stories.
Who could have predicted that one day a cauldron would need to read!
This book was also very strange. Not only was it written horizontally, but many characters were missing limbs and heads.
Xiao Ding flipped through it for a long time. Through a mix of guessing and intuition, she roughly understood: the Xiao Ding in the book was a mortal.
How could a mortal be a cauldron?
While wondering, she continued to flip. Her eyes felt like spinning incense coils until she finally grasped a key point: to change back into a cauldron, she first had to find the person in the book called "Master [blank]"—she didn't recognize the character following "Master."
Regardless, as long as she found this "Master [blank]," she could return to her happy life of being burned by fierce flames every day.
Xiao Ding put the book down and let out a long sigh of relief.
Whether her original form was a human or a cauldron didn't matter, as long as she could go back to her old trade.
With the biggest problem solved, she felt slightly more at ease and decided to get used to this new body.
When she was an artifact spirit, she had no physical form, only a cloud of radiant mist. Her original cauldron body was even more incapable of movement. This was her first time possessing a physical frame.
She tried lifting her hand, finding it very novel. She touched her face; it was smooth. She gave it a poke; it was soft and bouncy. Not bad.
At that moment, a series of gurgles came from her stomach.
She patted her belly, froze for a moment, and almost let out a wail.
Her belly was gone!
What Xiao Ding loved most was her own belly. It was round, thick, and bulging. It was shiny and bright; when illuminated by the Samadhi True Fire, it would give off a magnificent seven-colored treasure light!
She had decided early on that once she had a human body, she absolutely could not lack a beautiful, perfectly round belly—something like Maitreya Buddha's would be very suitable.
Who knew this belly would be so flat? Not only was it not bulging, but both sides even curved inward.
With tears in her eyes, Xiao Ding continued to explore, and the more she felt, the more her heart chilled.
In this new body of hers, the places that should bulge were sunken, and the places that should be flat had two high, large lumps sticking out. It was uneven, sticking out here and caving in there; it was truly quite ugly.
Xiao Ding moped for a while before pulling herself together—after all, she was forged from Kyushu tribute gold and was exceptionally resilient.
The priority was to figure out where she was, then find a way to locate the "Master [blank]" from the book.
She reached out and felt a hard board in front of her. She curled her fingers and knocked. A man's voice came from outside: "Heh, the little babe is awake."
Xiao Ding frowned. Though she couldn't see the person, the voice was greasy; it was unpleasant just to hear.
She knocked again. "Who... are you? Let... me... out..." She had always heard the Immortal speak human language, but this was her first time speaking, and her speech was not very fluid.
Another shrill voice said, "Don't be anxious. We'll let you out once we reach the destination."
Xiao Ding had no other options, so she simply closed her eyes and took a nap.
She didn't know how long she slept before she was suddenly jolted awake by a loud thud.
The two cultivators set the chest down. Bamboo Pole looked around the small, dilapidated temple filled with cobwebs and dust. "We'll stay here for the night to conserve our energy. Tomorrow we'll reach the territory of the Guicang Sect."
Xiao Ding quickly pressed her ear against the chest. In the book, the "Gui [blank] Sect" appeared frequently—she didn't recognize the middle character, but the "Guicang Sect" they mentioned was likely it.
Winter Melon's voice trembled: "Is... is that Lian... really that powerful?"
Bamboo Pole rolled his eyes. "Lian Shanjun. Look at your pathetic, cowardly state; you don't even dare to say his Daoist name."
Xiao Ding was now more certain that this "Lian Shanjun" was the name of the person who would use her to refine pills.
Bamboo Pole continued: "Fame is often harder to live up to than reality. They talk it up to high heaven, but who has actually seen the man? We don't even know if he's human or ghost..."
Despite his words, his own voice sounded hollow.
Winter Melon grew even more timid. "Didn't they say... no one who sees him survives? I heard people say he flays skins to make lanterns, and those thousands of lamps in the Guicang Sect are all fueled by human oil... As the old saying goes, 'don't speak of people by day, don't speak of ghosts by night.' We are on their turf; you can't be too careful..."
Bamboo Pole: "Pah, pah, pah, you crow! Stop saying such unlucky things. Weren't you looking for some fun?"
The two exchanged a lewd look. Winter Melon rubbed his hands together and walked eagerly toward the large wooden chest.
Xiao Ding heard footsteps drawing closer. Before she could turn around, she heard a clatter and a creak. The lid opened, and a large face appeared before her.
The sudden light made her squint.
"Who... are you?" Her voice was soft, sweet, and sticky, as if it could be pulled into threads.
This wasn't the first time Winter Melon had seen her, but facing that glamorous face, he still couldn't help but swallow his spit. He reached out a short, fat hand and involuntarily softened his voice: "Little sweetheart, you must be starving, right? Don't worry, Big Brother will feed you right now."
Xiao Ding recognized this as the greasy one. His face was oily and covered in bumps; she didn't want to eat his food at all.
The other voice spoke impatiently: "What are you rambling for? Drag her out... Wait, footsteps. Someone's coming. Shhh, close it first..."
With a creak, the chest lid closed again.
The two cultivators drew their dharma rulers, standing ready. In the fading light of the sunset, a young man dressed in white slowly approached.
Seeing the newcomer's appearance, the two breathed a sigh of relief. First, this person carried no magical artifacts; second, they couldn't sense a shred of spiritual power from him; and third, he was skin and bones with a faltering step, looking so sickly it seemed he was clinging to life by a single breath.
Winter Melon: "Che, look at you getting all jumpy. He's just a mortal weakling."
Bamboo Pole smacked his lips. "Sickly or not, that little face and figure are truly elegant..."
The two looked at each other with mutual understanding and began to laugh obscenely.
Many cultivators were not picky about their tastes, regardless of gender. To them, mortals were nothing more than ants or blades of grass.
The man in white, however, seemed not to notice the malice and lust on their faces. He walked close and leaned casually against the doorframe.
His every gesture was indescribably graceful, resembling a young master from a noble family; he managed to make a dilapidated doorframe look like the entrance to a vermilion-gated mansion.
Winter Melon could no longer restrain himself. "What business does the little young master have here?"
Before his voice faded, the man in white suddenly held onto the doorframe and began to cough. He coughed until a faint flush appeared at the corners of his long eyes.
He wore white clothes and had ink-black hair; his complexion was pale and his thin lips were light in color. It seemed as if the only color on his entire body was that flush at the corner of his eyes.
The man in white caught his breath and lifted his slightly lowered eyelids. His voice was like a river of ice thawing in early February: "I'd like to borrow some lamp oil from you two."
The Winter Melon cultivator didn't catch the meaning for a moment. He said with a lecherous grin, "Borrow? Big Brother will give you whatever you want..."
Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly felt a chill at his neck, as if a cool breeze had brushed past. The man in white before him, along with the doorframe he was leaning on, suddenly seemed to fly upward together.
Without anyone noticing, a sword had appeared in the man's hand. The blade was as thin as if it were weightless, and silver light flowed faintly over the metal, as if a section of moonlight had been captured.
Winter Melon quickly realized that the man hadn't flown up; rather, his own head had fallen off his neck.
With a thud, the head hit the ground. His wide-open eyes were filled with terror and the resentment of an unjust death.
Only then did his headless body collapse forward, as blood erupted from the stump of his neck.
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