Nan Zhu’s words sounded a bit arrogant.
Yu Qing tilted his head and gestured, “Talk about eating your fill later. Let’s sort out today’s portion first.”
“Don’t just talk about today. I’ll sort out the next few days for you first.” Nan Zhu looked utterly confident and hopped back into the cave in the cliff face.
They had dug the cave entrance about ten feet above the ground, and had even built it out like a terrace.
The sound of digging soon came from inside the cave again. Yu Qing left it for now and first scaled the cliff face up the mountain to observe the surrounding terrain from above the basin.
When he returned after wandering about for a while, he happened to see smoke coming from the newly dug opening and hurried over to look. The smoke grew thicker and thicker, billowing out in thick clouds.
Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie were both outside the cave, looking up at the smoke-billowing entrance.
Yu Qing didn’t need to guess to know this was another of Nan Zhu’s bright ideas. He walked over and asked, “What are you doing?”
Nan Zhu was perfectly at ease and chuckled, “Nothing much. You’ll find out later.”
Seeing him play coy, Yu Qing had no choice but to wait patiently. Instead of getting an answer, however, he ended up waiting for Xu Juening to arrive.
Xu Juening also came running and asked, “What are you lot doing? We can see the smoke from your place all the way from that mountain over there.”
Nan Zhu replied, “The cave is a bit damp. We put some firewood inside to burn off the moisture.”
Xu Juening was speechless.
Once the thick smoke had cleared and the fire inside had completely died out, Nan Zhu ran back inside to clean up. Xu Juening even went in specially to take a look and found the cave stained black with soot, with Nan Zhu scraping the blackness off the walls.
Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, Xu Juening chatted briefly and then left.
In the evening, Nan Zhu called out from the cave entrance. Yu Qing and Mu Aotie went inside to look and found a new small hole at the far end of the cave. Inside, there appeared to be a pile of at least a hundred peaches.
“Hurry up and eat. We’ll take turns eating and keeping watch. I’ve already eaten my fill, so I’ll keep an eye out for you.” Nan Zhu chuckled and turned to go to the entrance.
Yu Qing and Mu Aotie exchanged glances without a word, roughly understanding what had happened.
Everything else could wait. They were here for the immortal peaches, so there was no need for politeness. The two pulled the peaches out of the cave and started eating.
They couldn’t actually eat that much. Each of them was full after just two peaches.
Yu Qing turned and called Nan Zhu inside. Nan Zhu immediately moved the stone slab they had prepared to use as an indoor table back to block the small opening.
“Right, let’s not use such a complicated method in future. It attracts attention and it’s exhausting. Seventh, stop using that sword practice tree-chopping method too. Don’t spend a year here and chop all the peach branches off. From now on, we’ll pick peaches at night under cover of darkness. One person picks while two keep watch around the perimeter, taking turns. Don’t keep hitting the same tree, and we’ll be fine.”
Yu Qing gave these instructions, providing a straightforward approach. He handed the peach pit in his hand to Datou on his shoulder. Knowing this creature liked hard things, he wanted to test it out.
It was indeed worth trying more opportunities to see if Datou would eat anything else. The limited variety of food was a real problem, as shown when they had been imprisoned recently and the creature had simply gone hungry.
Its consumption of spirit rice and bones had also been discovered by accident. These were definitely not things Datou naturally ate.
In a way, after learning that Datou had gone to fetch help and saved them, they had become more attentive to the creature’s basic needs.
Crack. Datou tried a bite, then let out a “wail” and spat out a few sparks, essentially spitting it out to show it wouldn’t eat it.
“Ah, don’t spit fire everywhere, will you? I’ve only got half a shirt left.”
Smoke was rising from the clothing on his shoulder. Yu Qing sighed and patted it out, leaving a few burnt-through black spots.
He channelled his inner power and squeezed the peach pit. Crack. The extremely hard pit split open. He peeled out the kernel inside and popped it into his own mouth to chew and eat.
Datou tilted its head watching him.
“Not bad actually. Huh, the spiritual energy in this peach kernel is even richer.”
Yu Qing exclaimed in surprise. He then crushed another pit, peeled out the kernel and placed it on the stone table, before taking Datou down from his shoulder and placing it beside the kernel.
Datou took a bite, let out another wail, and spat sparks again. Still wouldn’t eat it.
Yu Qing picked it up and ate it himself. He found some spirit rice and put it on the stone table, and only then did Datou crunch away happily.
Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie followed suit, peeling kernels to taste, and found they were indeed quite good…
A few days later, in the early morning, Yu Qing and Nan Zhu sat on the terrace drinking tea. Actually, it wasn’t tea at all. It was water heated by Datou.
Since learning that drinking water heated by Datou could ward off evil, the three martial brothers drank it every day. After all, they were living in this blasted place full of evil energy.
In the morning sunlight, the peach orchard before them was lush and green, dotted with tender pink peaches. It was a delightful sight, and there was the scent of peaches too.
From inside the cave, there suddenly came a series of dull popping sounds from joints. Yu Qing looked back, got up, and walked inside.
Inside, Mu Aotie, who had been sitting cross-legged in meditation, let out a long breath. An uncontrollable look of joy appeared on his face, and then he slowly stood up.
Yu Qing looked at him and asked, “You broke through?”
Mu Aotie slowly clenched both fists, looking left and right at them, and affirmed, “Yes. Finally broke through.”
“Good news.” Yu Qing chuckled and slowly drank from his stone cup, feeling incredibly pleased, even happier than if he himself had broken through.
At this moment, he suddenly felt all the risks had been worth it.
Each time he had previously faced life-threatening danger, he had wondered whether he had been wrong to bring his two martial brothers out on this adventure.
Now seeing tangible results, he felt he had not failed as sect leader. He had finally raised the entire sect’s cultivation level rapidly.
Joy shared is joy doubled. He turned and called out, “Seventh, Ninth has broken through. Seventh…”
The two inside the cave noticed Nan Zhu sitting in a daze on the terrace outside. They exchanged glances and then walked over together.
When they reached Nan Zhu’s side, they realised he was staring blankly at a peach tree beside the cave entrance.
It was a relatively small peach tree, only about twenty feet tall. Its canopy just extended past the cave entrance here. It grew at the foot of the mountain, somewhat deformed and not very vigorous. Judging from the growth of all the peach trees in the orchard, this one had probably grown from a peach that fell to the ground and took root on its own.
The two couldn’t see anything about this peach tree worth staring at. Yu Qing nudged Nan Zhu’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Only then did Nan Zhu slowly stand up and say in a low voice, “Look carefully at this tree’s leaves and see what difference there is from the other peach trees.”
Yu Qing and Mu Aotie immediately fixed their gazes on it and observed carefully.
After looking for a while, Yu Qing asked Mu Aotie beside him, “Can you see any difference?”
Mu Aotie shook his head.
Nan Zhu spoke again. “Look at the leaves with sunlight shining through them. Compare them with the leaves on other trees with sunlight shining through.”
With this reminder, the two looked again carefully and soon discovered the difference.
The leaves of the other peach trees, under sunlight, clearly showed black veins inside. This was normal because they had been contaminated by evil energy.
What was abnormal was the deformed peach tree beside the cave. Under sunlight, the veins inside its leaves clearly resembled those of plants from the outside world, as if they had not been contaminated by evil energy.
Yu Qing walked to the cave side, reached out and grabbed a branch. It took considerable effort to twist off the tough, resilient branch, bringing a peach with it. He turned back, directly plucked a leaf and tore it open to look at the break. Indeed, there were no signs of evil energy contamination inside.
He then directly squeezed open the immortal peach. Juice dripped down. The flesh inside was tender, moist, and glistening. The veins in the flesh were completely clean, with not the slightest trace of evil energy contamination. A rich peach fragrance assailed his nostrils.
He looked again at the cross-section of the twisted-off branch and similarly found no signs of evil energy contamination.
The three looked at each other in astonishment. Yu Qing then threw away the squeezed-open immortal peach in his hand, or rather, smashed it forcefully onto the ground. He wasted it rather than keep it.
There was no choice. What if someone saw it?
Anyone could openly pick peaches to play with, but they couldn’t be caught keeping them.
Staring at the peach tree and pondering for a while, Yu Qing muttered to himself, “How can this be? Why can this tree remain unaffected by evil energy? Could there be some treasure buried beneath it?”
Nan Zhu hmm-ed, “I was thinking the same. There must be something under that tree that suppresses evil energy. It’s just not easy to dig up. We’d easily be discovered.”
Mu Aotie suddenly spoke up. “Overthinking it. There’s no treasure under the tree.”
Yu Qing and Nan Zhu both turned to look at him. Nan Zhu asked in surprise, “How can you tell?”
Mu Aotie said calmly, “These past few days, I’ve been casually pouring the first batch of water Datou boiled over this way. It just happened to be poured under the tree.”
They had a habit when using Datou to heat water. Since they thought Datou was dirty, crawling and flying about randomly, they always boiled a first batch to rinse and wash. No one drank this water. It was all poured away.
“…”
Seventh and Fifteenth were both speechless, because they instantly understood what Ninth meant.
Nan Zhu muttered under his breath, “Is it that potent? If people drink it to ward off evil, can tree roots absorbing it also drive evil from the whole tree?”
Mu Aotie reminded them, “It should be just enough to suppress evil energy. You both saw how Yun Xi’s evil body collapsed.”
The scenes of Yun Xi’s evil body spreading and collapsing immediately appeared in Yu and Nan’s minds. They had to admit that Datou was truly the bane of evil things, something even Yun Xi feared.
Nan Zhu whispered again, “To confirm whether it’s really that simple, just try it on another tree.”
Yu Qing crossed his arms, stroked his small beard, squinted and muttered, “If it really works… that means if we can get peach trees out and plant them, even if we can’t enter Little Cloud Realm in future, we can grow immortal peaches outside to sell…”
Nan Zhu shook his head. “How would we manage that? Leaving aside whether they’d even let us, the tall trees are over a hundred feet high, with canopies just as wide. It would be hard enough for us to get even one tree out.”
Yu Qing said, “Aren’t there small ones too? If we can’t get the big ones out, we can take more small ones… Just don’t know how many years it takes for these immortal peaches to ripen.”
Seeing this fellow’s eyes gleaming, Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie exchanged speechless glances. They all knew Fifteenth’s idea wasn’t very realistic. Leaving aside how many years to ripen, first of all the owners might not even give them any. Even if they got them out, transport along the way, finding somewhere to plant them, who knew how to grow these things?
If immortal peaches really grew, that would be the real trouble. They might not end up in their own stomachs.
As the saying goes, a common man is not guilty, but treasuring a jade becomes his crime.
Yu Qing suddenly exclaimed, “Eh, that’s not right. We’re being a bit short-sighted. Even if we can’t dispel the evil energy from the peach trees, once they’re grown, we can eat them ourselves.”
Nan and Mu could tell that Fifteenth had probably really set his mind on getting the immortal peach trees out too. Previously he had only been thinking about the peaches, but now he actually wanted to uproot the trees and take them out.