That night, the mountain forest was silent, dotted with a canopy of bright stars.
Lu Bei stood up and stretched his stiff torso. Seeing that Bai Jin had not yet returned, he fished a flint from his side pouch, gathered some dry grass and firewood in the front courtyard, and lit a bonfire to provide light and warmth.
After finishing a meal of steamed buns and cured meat, Lu Bei thought of the lonely little shrine box next door and hurriedly placed three steamed buns on the offering table, lest Mo Buxiu manifest in the middle of the night to chat with him about showing filial piety to one's elders.
Once his hunger was sated, Lu Bei added more firewood to the fire, swallowed two Enlightenment Pills, and closed his eyes to meditate once again.
A moment later, a rustling sound came from the offering table. Lu Bei frowned slightly, and a drop of cold sweat slid down his forehead.
Though his eyes were closed, he could imagine that, if his guess was correct, there were people all around him.
"In the dead of night, the scariest thing is scaring yourself. Don't think too much, with Senior Sister's formation up, there shouldn't be any major problems." Lu Bei took a deep breath, slowly opened his eyes, and used the firelight to inspect the situation at the offering table.
The buns were gone.
"No major problem, the box is still there."
Lu Bei said expressionlessly, raising his hand to take two more buns to calm his nerves, because the more he tried not to think about it, the more he thought about it, leading him to conclude that there was definitely someone standing right behind him.
Well, hopefully it was a person.
Just then, two blue lights lit up in the corner of the wall—haunting and dim, flickering on and off. A strange, piercing chill made the back of Lu Bei's neck tingle with numbness.
Crack!
The sound of bursting firewood was grating. Lu Bei shuddered and tremblingly reached into his cloth pouch for another bun.
To calm his nerves!
Out of respect for ghosts, his shaking hand failed to hold a steady grip on the bun, which struck Lu Bei's knee, spun around, rolled right out of the area covered by the formation diagram, wobbled in a circle on the spot, and came to a stop at the base of the offering table.
The eerie, cold light suddenly dimmed. Immediately following, a red figure darted out from the side, swiftly reached the bun, and used both hands and mouth to push it back into the shadows of the corner.
Lu Bei: "......"
He saw it very clearly: it was a little fox.
At that moment, noisy chatter broke out by the corner of the wall, and the cold gleam of the two blue lights flared fiercely as they tried to restore order to the chaotic scene.
It was completely useless. Regardless of what was going on in the corner, Lu Bei wasn't panicked anymore. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow, feeling a mixture of shame for his previous cowardice while using chopsticks to pick up a slice of cured beef and toss it outside the formation diagram.
The corner of the wall instantly grew quiet.
The temptation of cooked food far outweighed that of steamed buns; the blue light lost its luster in despair and faded out entirely. At the same time, four little foxes darted out from the shadows, snatched up the meat slices, and tumbled away into the distance.
On Lu Bei's end, another piece of cured beef was tossed out. Without watching the four little foxes fighting among themselves, he kept his eyes fixed on the shadows in the corner—one mastermind supporting four no-hopers, and there was still one fox that hadn't shown its face yet.
The eerie gaze from earlier indicated that this fox had not only attained sentience, but could also use magic to scare people.
Wild animals shouldn't be fed cooked food, because once they eat it, they get hooked. After continuously eating a few mouthfuls of cured beef and tasting the salt, the four little foxes couldn't stop themselves, and their snatching and fighting grew increasingly fierce.
The owner of the blue light in the corner of the wall couldn't sit still any longer. It strode out in a rage, coming face-to-face with its four useless teammates.
Like the four little foxes, its fur was red, but it was a size larger, with spiritual light faintly flickering in its eyes—it was indeed a little demon fox that had attained sentience.
Whack, whack, whack!
With four consecutive slaps of its paw, the little foxes cringed flat against the ground and whimpered. After glaring angrily at them a few times, the little demon fox turned around and looked at Lu Bei inside the formation diagram.
In its gaze were three parts fierceness, three parts fear, and four parts yearning. The fear was toward the formation diagram, and the yearning was for the food.
As for the fierceness...
Acting fierce at this point was completely useless.
"Heh heh."
The corners of Lu Bei's mouth curled up. Under the little demon fox's somewhat surprised gaze, he picked up a few pieces of cured beef...
and stuffed them into his own mouth.
The little demon fox: "......"
The four little ones: "......"
"Ah, it tastes rather average. Is it because I ate too much?" Lu Bei shook his head with a sigh. Seeing the little demon fox glaring with wide, glowing blue eyes, he grabbed a bun and tossed... tore off half of it and threw it over.
"Eat up! Who says I'm not kind-hearted!"
The little demon fox trembled all over, its red fur standing on end. The most pathetic part was that its teammates were truly unreliable; although the four little foxes found the white bun bland and tasteless, they still rolled into a tangled ball fighting over it.
Seeing this, the little demon fox instantly lost all its imposing aura. Deflated and crestfallen, it came before the formation diagram, imitated a human bowing gesture by stacking its front paws on the ground, and pressed its head tightly against them.
How impressive!
Lu Bei's eyes lit up. Seeing that it was reasonably well-behaved and sensible, he put away his mischievous impulses and tossed a portion of the cured food and buns out of the formation diagram.
The four little foxes swarmed forward, while the little demon fox stood vigilantly to the side, waiting for them to finish before swallowing the remaining scraps.
Having finished foraging, the four little foxes slipped through the hole they came from and vanished into the shadows by the corner of the wall. Not so for the little demon fox, which once again bowed in salute and began yapping and chattering away.
"We're complete strangers, one meal was enough. You still expect me to stuff you until you're full?"
"Yap, yap, yap."
"Wait, you can understand what I'm saying?!"
Lu Bei raised an eyebrow in great astonishment. Following the little demon fox's gaze, he lowered his head and fixed his eyes on the porcelain bottle at his feet.
The Enlightenment Pill.
Lu Bei picked up the porcelain bottle and gave it a shake. The Enlightenment Pills were the size of soybeans, and there had been a total of twelve pills in the bottle. He had previously consumed ten, leaving only two behind.
"It's not that I won't give it to you, it's just that there aren't many left."
Lu Bei poured out the final two Enlightenment Pills and raised an eyebrow, saying, "If I'm not mistaken, you're asking for the pills for those four little foxes. They really don't seem very smart, but there are only two pills here. Inequality breeds grievances rather than want, so if I actually gave them to you, wouldn't I be harming you?"
The little demon fox let out a couple of yips, bowed, and lowered its head, refusing to get up.
"How about this, come back at this time tomorrow. My senior sister definitely has stock on hand, I'll have her split them evenly—hey, don't run off! We can still negotiate! I don't have any ulterior motives, I won't hurt you!"
The moment Lu Bei mentioned Bai Jin, the little demon fox immediately grew vigilant, cautiously retreating into the shadows at the corner of the wall. No matter what Lu Bei said, it bolted away without a trace.
"Junior Brother Lu, what are you doing?"
Fluttering down in white robes, Bai Jin drifted back to Lu Bei's side from Dasheng Pass as if she were weightless. Dispersing the formation diagram, she glanced toward the corner of the wall.
"There's a litter of foxes in the mountain gate, and one of them has attained sentience. It came to me begging for an Enlightenment Pill, so I thought it was amusing and teased it for a bit," Lu Bei offered sheepishly by way of explanation.
"Cultivation must not be neglected. Do not get distracted by idle matters," Bai Jin reminded him. She didn't pay the sentience-attained little fox any mind, and instead asked about his progress in polishing his foundational strength.
Lu Bei answered truthfully, saying, "Senior Sister Bai, didn't you say you'd be back before nightfall? Was this trip not going smoothly?"
"I caught up with an acquaintance, which delayed some time."
Bai Jin said, "The trip went very smoothly. With her help, the official documents and registry filings have all been properly settled."
With that, Bai Jin handed him the sect master's seal and the land deeds of the Feathering Sect, along with the official documents bearing Lu Bei's name.
Lu Bei took them in hand, swept his gaze over them, and simultaneously opened his personal interface. His wealth and faction status had already been updated.
On the wealth interface, aside from currencies like gold and silver, there were also categories for magical treasures and medicinal pills, with the land deeds included among them. As for factions, the Feathering Sect belonged to the Nine Bamboo Mountain lineage and defaulted to the Wu Zhou faction, with its merit points and influence both resting at zero.
With this, officially recognized, in black and white, and with records on file, Lu Bei was now the true sect master of the Feathering Sect.