My Disciple Wants to Tease Me Every Day - Chapter 54

: Key
Along with the noise, the stone tablet sank down into the floor. What replaced it was not a coffin, but a small black door, sunk flat into the ground. The door was not large, and it was carved with an intricate pattern, locked tightly under six silvery-white chains the thickness of an arm. Ning Guang bent down and tried to tear away the chains.

But no matter how hard she pulled, the chains would fight back just as hard. Caught off guard, she was thrown a few steps back.

“Ning Guang, be careful.” Di Jiufeng reached out to catch her. Then, she followed beside her and walked up to the black door. She inspected it carefully. Right in the middle of the door was a small lock, swaying from the chains.

“This is… a Nine Dragons Heaven and Earth Lock?” Ning Guang bent down, holding up the lock to look.

When she got a closer look at the pattern carved onto it, her brows furrowed. “A-Feng, we have to go find the key. This sort of lock is called a ‘heavenly lock’. Without the key, even the most brilliant locksmith under the heavens cannot open it. But, the Nine Dragons Heaven and Earth Lock…”

There was an account of this thing in the Shenzhou Records.

But on the page about it, there was only one lonely sentence.

––No information could be found, disappeared without a trace.

The Nine Dragons Heaven and Earth Lock had vanished long ago, no one even knew what it looked like anymore, not to speak of where its key could be found. Ning Guang felt that finding the key to open the door was impossible, and a waste of energy too. They might as well find some other way to enter this door.

Ning Guang had already given up on finding the key, but Di Jiufeng did not think the same.

Even though the plotline of this novel had already twisted out of shape, the System had said that all the major plot points would not change. The ancient witch would find the key in the demon realm, she would find it with a goal and a direction.

Di Jiufeng had a headache. Why didn’t she read the novel properly? If she had read it carefully, she wouldn’t be fumbling blind, she could accurately lead Ning Guang away from every disaster. She pressed on her temples in frustration. She wanted to call out the System and ask, even if the chance that it knew something was not large. After all, this System that only knew how to play cute knew nothing outside of the main mission.

She called out a couple of times, but the System had long ran off after Qing Yu, leaving only an unresponsive empty metal shell.

“If only we knew who locked this door,” Di Jiufeng sighed.

But hearing her speak, Ning Guang’s eyes widened. “Right, if only we knew who locked this door.” She stomped her foot, and the little fuzzy ball that had disappeared into the array was scared out by this earthshaking stomp.

With a huff, it rolled around on the ground and stumbled over a rock, flying up to crash down by Ning Guang’s feet.

The little fuzzy ball tumbled around on the ground. Irritated by the stupid thing, Ning Guang pressed her foot on its head.

Ning Guang pressed it flat into a pancake, the soft fur spread limply on the ground.

“Do you know who locked this door?” Ning Guang pointed at the Nine Dragons Heaven and Earth Lock.

The little fuzzy ball looked where she was pointing and sprung up from the ground, tremblingly shaking out its fur. It huffed twice, fumbling out a piece of paper from its fur.

The little fuzzy ball swiped at the paper a couple of times with its short plump arms, and then raised the paper high above its own head to give it to Ning Guang.

Ning Guang took the paper, looked at it, only a single glance, then tore it up.

“Are you playing with me?” Ning Guang asked coldly.

The little fuzzy ball jumped in fright at her gaze, trembling all over, black fuzz flying in all directions.

“Ning Guang, don’t scare it.”

Amused by its frightened appearance, Di Jiufeng walked up and slowly tugged the drawing from Ning Guang’s hands.

It was a very abstract scrawl: the character ‘米’ drawn inside a little black rectangle, and a tall person with six fingers hanging the lock onto it. In the next drawing, the black rectangle was gone, and the person had collapsed on the ground, a wisp of smoke rising from their head. The key in their hand fell to the ground, then was swept away by a long-horned ball of black mist.

Di Jiufeng thought, looked at the fuzzy ball, then said, “Listen to me, if what I say is correct, nod your head, if not, shake your head, okay?”

The little fuzzy ball snuck a glance at her. Thinking her gaze really was quite gentle, it swung its head up and down, and puffing up its small body, hopped over to her feet.

Di Jiufeng: “This black rectangle is the door, the character ‘米’ is the chains, they were locked by this six-fingered witch tribe person. They were going to guard this place, but unfortunately, they died. Before they died, they were able to hide the black door, but the key fell to the ground. Later, a long-horned demonic cultivator came here and stole the key. Am I correct?”

The little fuzzy ball nodded its head.

Di Jiufeng put away the drawing and turned to look at Ning Guang. “Then it’s very clear. The long-horned demonic cultivator has the key. As far as I know, only the descendants of Chi You grow horns on their foreheads.”

[T/N: 蚩尤 (chi1 you2), the legendary creator of metalworking and weapons.]

Ning Guang thought for a while, then said, “If we are just looking for a descendant of Chi You, Xueshen Sect’s Sect Leader is one, but I do not know if he is the person who took the key. In addition, the demonic realm is not easy to access.”

Cultivators and demons would always fight to the last breath. They avoided meeting whenever possible, because as long as they met, the fighting would only stop when one side died out.

In order to avoid seeing these annoyances, humans and demons made their first pact. They worked together to set a barrier, forcibly splitting the cultivation mainland into two parts. Neither race could go back and forth, no one could ever cross the barrier. The power of the barrier alone would give them quite the bite to swallow.

Di Jiufeng had not reached that sort of level, of course she had no way to force her way through the barrier. But ever since ancient times, the more forbidden something was, the more it would arouse people’s rebellious spirit. Ever since this barrier had been constructed, the curtains had opened on never-before-seen romances between humans and demons.

So that they could spend the rest of their lives together, they had built alternate paths and opened a road through the barrier.

And of course, Di Jiufeng knew about this road because in the novel, the ancient witch had snuck into the lost treasure lands and found the map to the witch tribe’s mausoleum, accidentally manifested the ghostly form spiritual body, and ended up pursued by the masses. After a bitter battle, not only had she killed all her pursuers, she had discovered the road to the demonic realm.

It was a road constructed out of ghostly energy, most suited to allowing the ancient witch to pass.

“It is not too difficult to go to the demonic realm, we can think about it later. Right now, the most important task is to go to the lost treasure lands. I do not know how long we have been here, we must not miss the chance to enter the lost treasure lands.”

After ordering the black fuzzy ball to hide the door, Di Jiufeng and Ning Guang walked out of the cave, side by side.

Upon taking the first step out of the stone cave, Di Jiufeng stared in shock! When they had arrived, this was a sunsoaked forest, but within such a short time, not only had the sun set, even the plants had disappeared without a trace.

The whole world was enveloped in white fog. As far as the eye could see, there was only crumbling stone and dust covering the ground.

Ning Guang said, “A-Feng, this is very normal. What we just saw was a lingering desire, and now, the lingering desire has dispersed. It’s not strange that everything has returned to normal.”

But Di Jiufeng shook her head. She looked carefully at their surroundings, her brows creasing tighter and tighter. “Lingering desires will stay at their source. Even if it has dispersed, we would not have gone far. But Ning Guang, look, the cave is gone, the sea is gone, look closely at this place, where are we?”

Looking closely at their surroundings as Di Jiufeng instructed, Ning Guang reached out again, catching a wisp of the white fog.

Pure spiritual energy mixed with a strange and precious aura trickled into Ning Guang’s body from the white fog.

She seemed to have realized something. She opened her eyes wide and turned to look at Di Jiufeng, “This place, it’s the perimeter of the lost treasure lands!” Despite Ning Guang’s usual calm, she was inevitably a bit shocked. She could not understand, they had gone to find Gui Hun island, why would they be at the lost treasure lands? And if they really had come here, what was that lingering desire? Was it a dream?

Ning Guang opened her palm to look, the Reincarnation Pill was still there. Seeing that lustrous white glow, her heart calmed.

“A-Feng, that lingering desire was not fake, and the ancient witch’s body is real too. We really went to that place, but why would we be at the lost treasure lands as soon as we walked out the door?”

Di Jiufeng shook her head. She muttered to herself, then tried, “Maybe it’s a result of the water ghouls clearing the way? Ning Guang, something is strange. I wanted the Reincarnation Pill, so it gave me the Reincarnation Pill, I wanted to get to the lost treasure lands quickly, and we really ended up here, it’s too much of a coincidence.”

“It really is too much of a coincidence. A-Feng, do you think…”

“Yes.” Di Jiufeng was certain.

“Who do you think it is?”

Di Jiufeng shook her head. “I do not know.”

Ning Guang took her hand. Spiritual energy swirled around her body, one careful inspection, but she did not discover any tracking arrays. Ning Guang had to ask, “A-Feng, could it be you’re thinking too much? It’s hard to say, maybe our luck is just good.”

Di Jiufeng absent-mindedly nodded, but her expression was still a bit gloomy. “Perhaps. But Ning Guang, I can’t stop thinking…”

As they spoke, scattered footsteps began to sound through the spiritual energy-filled fog. At first, it was only a few, but gradually, more and more mixed in, along with the faint sound of voices.

A serious expression falling over Di Jiufeng’s face, she cut herself off and switched to a telepathic communication spell. “We can talk about the rest later, let’s first think of a way to sneak into the lost treasure lands.”

In the novel, Ning Guang had killed the tenth person and stolen their identity to enter the lost treasure lands.

But this time, they had come straight here, there was no chance to take someone’s place. And, even if there was the opportunity, Di Jiufeng could not kill an innocent person. She thought, then pulled Ning Guang into Shen City. “I will find someone and hang Shen City on their body. This is a spiritual device, it should not be affected even after we enter.

Wait until we enter the lost treasure lands, then we can go find Sui Ying. She hurt you before, we can steal her place.”

Notes:

This chapter was translated by Lily.