Chapter 17: His Shi Feng Is Eating Shit?!

This area was so remote that only the two of them and Bai Chen had chosen to live here.

After settling in, they visited each other's rooms to get acquainted and decided to head out together to familiarize themselves with the place.

When they left, the two had also gone to find Bai Chen, but unfortunately he had been at the Steward Hall and wasn't around.

So the two of them set off together, took a long winding route, then went to the dining hall for a meal before heading back.

They had just returned and hadn't even reached their quarters yet when a strange odor hit them both square in the face, carried on the wind.

Both men stopped dead in their tracks and simultaneously covered their mouths and noses.

"Damn it, what is that smell?"

The millet and coarse rice mixed with pickled vegetables he'd just eaten churned violently in his stomach. Zhou Shi bent over and dry-heaved twice, tears streaming from his eyes.

"It's fishy and burnt, and there's a stench like an outhouse — it's absolutely suffocating!"

Fang He pinched his nose and stepped back two paces, not daring to breathe too deeply.

He glanced in the direction the smell was coming from, then quickly looked away and squeezed his eyes shut.

Damn it, it was burning his eyes!

"The wind is blowing from the bamboo grove over there. Besides the two of us, who else lives around here?"

As they spoke, the two exchanged a glance, and both thought of the same person.

Bai Chen!

Besides the two of them, Bai Chen also lived in this area.

Zhou Shi straightened up and glanced toward Bai Chen's wooden cabin, vaguely making out wisps of white smoke drifting from the window.

The smoke drifted over on the wind, and the foul stench became even more distinct.

Zhou Shi was so furious he ground his teeth.

"It's definitely that Bai Chen! Instead of properly figuring out how to draw in Qi, he's holed up in his room cooking God knows what?!"

Fang He covered his nose, his expression full of disgust. "We just moved in today and he's already pulling this. How are we supposed to live here going forward? Forget cultivating tomorrow — we won't even be able to sleep tonight!"

The two of them had reached their limit. The stench clung to their nostrils and wouldn't go away, and the churning in their stomachs hadn't stopped for a moment.

Zhou Shi grabbed Fang He by the arm.

"Come on, let's go to the Steward Hall! This guy is clearly fouling up the living quarters. We can't just put up with this — let's get a steward to deal with him!"

Fang He nodded, and the two immediately covered their mouths and noses and jogged all the way to the Steward Hall.

The two burst into the Steward Hall, panting. Inside, candles burned brightly. The steward on duty was not Wang Kun, but a middle-aged cultivator in steward's robes with a lean, gaunt face.

Liu Yan was sitting with his head bowed, flipping through the Outer Sect Disciples' attendance register. Lying at his feet was a Gale-Wind Moon-Devouring Hound with gray-and-white mottled fur and a few strands of dark black hair tipping its tail.

The spiritual beasts of the Xuancang Continent were divided into five tiers: Common, Spirit, Earth, Heaven, and Immortal.

The Common tier was the most frequently encountered low-grade spiritual beast in the cultivation world, further subdivided into nine ranks.

The higher the rank, the stronger the beast's intelligence and innate talent.

Spirit tier and above meant the beast had awakened its intelligence and could communicate with humans — only cultivators at the Foundation Establishment Stage or higher could form a contract with them.

This was because such beasts considered themselves to be "people" as well, and would never submit to being enslaved.

The Demon Race on the Xuancang Continent had once been spiritual beasts that had awakened their intelligence.

Liu Yan's Gale-Wind Moon-Devouring Hound was a Common-tier Rank Seven spiritual beast.

Though it had not yet reached the Spirit tier, it was born with a keen sense of smell and an agile physique, and its temperament was remarkably human-like — making it one of the most commonly contracted companion beasts.

Before Zhou Shi and Fang He had fully stepped into the Steward Hall, the Gale-Wind Moon-Devouring Hound — which had been lazily dozing with its eyes closed — suddenly pricked up its ears. Its pair of amber eyes snapped open and fixed on the doorway, its nose twitching as it sniffed at something.

Liu Yan was startled by its reaction and looked at it with puzzlement.

"What's the matter, Shi Feng?"

Before he could finish asking, Zhou Shi came charging in and interrupted his confusion with an urgent shout.

"Steward! Steward!"

Liu Yan's brow instantly furrowed. His gaze, which had been resting on Shi Feng, lifted and swept sharply over the two of them.

"Disciples of Hexu Sect should carry themselves with composure. What is all this shouting and hollering? Have you no decorum?"

The Gale-Wind Moon-Devouring Hound's amber eyes swept over Zhou Shi and Fang He, and as its nose twitched, its dark, fluffy tail began to wag.

Liu Yan noticed and looked at it with a puzzled frown.

Was there something on these two that was attracting Shi Feng?

Zhou Shi felt a jolt of apprehension under Liu Yan's imposing manner and quickly bowed in salute.

"This disciple knows his error. I lost my composure in a moment of urgency — please forgive me, Steward!"

"What exactly has you in such a panic?"

Liu Yan set aside his thoughts, gave a brief acknowledgment, and casually picked up the teacup beside him for a sip.

Zhou Shi blurted out urgently: "In the wooden cabin by the short bamboo grove on the western side of Yugu — Bai Chen is cooking shit in his room!"

"Pfft!"

A mouthful of tea sprayed out. Liu Yan looked up at the two of them in astonishment, his face twitching involuntarily.

"Cooking... shit? In his room?"

"Yes, that's right!"

Liu Yan's mouth twitched.

These two were new disciples who had just joined the sect today, and the Bai Chen they mentioned was likewise a new disciple.

They were all newcomers with no grudges between them — why would they slander someone like this?

But... if he went to check and the lie fell apart, the two of them would certainly be punished. So why would they tell such a lie?

Liu Yan set down his teacup and said in a stern voice: "Do you know what crime it is to slander a fellow disciple? If there is even a half-word of falsehood, the light punishment is copying the sect rules, and the heavy punishment is expulsion from the sect."

Zhou Shi and Fang He immediately bowed. "This disciple would not dare to lie!"

Seeing the sincerity in their words, Liu Yan nodded and rose to his feet. "Then let's go take a look."

The moment he said that, Shi Feng at his feet leaped up and bolted out the door faster than Liu Yan himself, trotting ahead toward the short bamboo grove in Yugu.

Liu Yan was astonished once more.

His Gale-Wind Moon-Devouring Hound was usually rather lazy and rarely showed this kind of excitement.

What on earth had gotten into it today?

Liu Yan shook his head and quickened his pace to follow.

The three people and one hound followed the path and made their way swiftly toward Yugu. Before long, they were approaching the area of the short bamboo grove.

Shi Feng suddenly stopped, sniffed at the air, and then charged like a maddog toward the innermost wooden cabin.

"Shi Feng!"

Liu Yan was startled by Shi Feng's reaction and immediately called out to stop it.

But Shi Feng didn't stop — in the blink of an eye it had already reached Bai Chen's wooden cabin.

"Shi Feng, come back!"

Shi Feng had never disobeyed a command like this before, and Liu Yan was deeply shocked.

And then something even more shocking happened right after.

Upon reaching the door of the wooden cabin, Shi Feng immediately reared up on its hind legs and slammed both front paws hard against the wooden door.

The cabin door was locked, but under Shi Feng's fierce impact, the door let out a thunderous bang and was instantly kicked wide open, sending splinters of wood flying.

The fishy, scorched stench inside surged out in an instant, hitting Liu Yan — who had been chasing after Shi Feng — full in the face.

The smell was nothing like ordinary rot or sourness; it was a putrid, fishy, charred reek all mixed together.

Like the festering filth from the outhouse behind the mountain blended with scorched grass and wood — stifling and sharp, drilling straight into the nostrils and down the throat.

Even Liu Yan, who was already at the Mid Foundation Establishment Stage, caught an unexpected lungful and felt his throat tighten, nearly vomiting on the spot.

His eyes were stung by the foul air until they ached and watered.

Liu Yan was driven back three involuntary steps before he steadied himself. He blinked away the tears that had welled up and finally looked into the room.

At that sight, Liu Yan's pupils contracted sharply, and all the blood in his body seemed to rush to the top of his head.

He saw his Shi Feng with its head buried in a stone pot, its throat rumbling with a deep gurgling sound, frantically licking at the sticky, grayish-brown murky substance inside.

A young man with a coarse cloth covering his mouth and nose had his arms wrapped tightly around Shi Feng's neck, desperately trying to stop it.

But how could a young man who had not yet drawn Qi into his body possibly overpower a Common-tier Rank Seven Shi Feng?

The boy's meager strength was no match for Shi Feng at all — instead, he was being dragged along with the stone pot, stumbling forward two steps, looking utterly wretched.

The rim of the stone pot was also smeared with a good amount of the same sticky substance — dark, murky, and soft — and the foul stench was emanating from that very stone pot.

Liu Yan's head buzzed and his vision swam with waves of darkness.

If this stuff wasn't shit, then what was it?!

Someone had actually been cooking shit in a wooden cabin?!

And his Shi Feng was eating it!