Most of the periphery of Danding Peak consisted of stalls selling various kinds of medicinal pills. Lu Qingning cast a glance and estimated there were dozens of small vendors, and even more people browsing around, with three or four customers gathered in front of every stall inspecting the quality of the pills.
"Oh~ So bustling."
Of course, bustling was relative. Lu Qingning was someone who had seen bustling metropolises; she called this place bustling simply because Qingzhu Peak was far too desolate, with only three people living in the entire mountain.
Xiao Hongyu walked over to Lu Qingning's side and said, "This is the pill trading market. Disciples from the outer and inner sects of all peaks come here to buy pills."
Lu Qingning parted her lips in an "oh": "Oh~ What about personal disciples?"
"Personal disciples receive a certain allotment of high-quality pills every month for cultivation—though I exchanged all of yours for herbs to use in medicinal baths."
Xiao Hongyu paused and said.
Lu Qingning suddenly understood.
So she was a medicine-guzzling invalid who had been taking pills for half a year after all.
Lu Qingning didn't think much of this; after all, since she was a personal disciple, if she didn't have some special privileges, she wouldn't deserve to be called a personal disciple at all.
Lu Qingning walked forward, feeling secretly pleased in her heart.
Every passing disciple would bow and salute Lu Qingning and Xiao Hongyu, saying, "Greetings, Senior Sister."
Seeing that some of the disciples were clearly in their thirties with unkempt beards yet still calling her Senior Sister, Lu Qingning felt somewhat uncomfortable.
She leaned close to Xiao Hongyu and asked in a low voice, "Senior Sister, why do they all call us Senior Sister?"
Xiao Hongyu transmitted her voice: "According to sect rules, personal disciples of the elders are the senior brothers and senior sisters of all inner and outer sect disciples, and they also wear specially made personal disciple sect attire."
Lu Qingning suddenly understood. So the "couple outfits" she and Senior Sister were wearing were standard sect uniforms?
Only then did Lu Qingning have the chance to pay attention to the surrounding people's clothing. Just as Xiao Hongyu had said, most other people wore attire alternating between cyan-green and white, with an occasional mixture of blue and white, but robes like theirs with alternating red and white were nowhere to be found.
So that was how it was!
Lu Qingning suddenly understood. Wouldn't that mean she was already above thousands of people?
Xiao Hongyu seemed to perceive the joyful and bouncy look in Lu Qingning's eyes, and continued transmitting her voice: "Personal disciples are also ranked as senior brothers and senior sisters according to the order in which they entered each elder's tutelage."
Lu Qingning finally came back to her senses.
Oh right, there were other elders too, so she probably still had a dozen or so senior brothers and senior sisters above her.
"However, the personal disciples under some elders live in seclusion and are rarely seen. Even the ones you can frequently see number fewer than seven."
Lu Qingning walked alongside Xiao Hongyu, listening intently to her words.
"Among the nine elders of the Tianjian Sect, most cultivate on their own peaks. Aside from times when they are away on tasks, they are mostly around the rest of the time, so if you need to find any elder for something, they are quite easy to locate."
Lu Qingning listened quietly. The minority among the "most" in this case was presumably her own master. She had no idea what kind of person her master was, but she felt like Senior Sister didn't seem to like Master very much.
Passing through the pill trading market, Lu Qingning saw two towering buildings in the distance.
"This is where the disciples of our sect eat," Xiao Hongyu introduced.
Lu Qingning: "?"
Then what about the Bigu Pills I ate for half a year?
Lu Qingning's small eyes were filled with huge confusion: "Senior Sister?"
Xiao Hongyu knew what Lu Qingning was thinking, so she smiled and said, "Junior Sister, just follow me and you'll see."
"Huh?"
Lu Qingning curiously followed Xiao Hongyu into the dining hall on the left.
As they walked, Xiao Hongyu introduced: "There are two dining halls in total. This dining hall... the food here is very distinctive, but its advantage is that it is high quality and inexpensive, so there are still disciples who come to eat."
With a single glance, Lu Qingning understood what "there are still disciples who come to eat" actually meant.
The entire dining hall could seat over a thousand people, yet there were fewer than a hundred people sitting inside right now.
And this was during mealtime.
Lu Qingning was puzzled.
Xiao Hongyu naturally saw her confusion as well, and smiled faintly: "Junior Sister, how about I order a couple of dishes for you to try?"
Seeing Xiao Hongyu personally ordering food for her, Lu Qingning was naturally willing: "Yes, yes! Just right to sample the culinary skills of our Tianjian Sect dining hall!"
And she could eat with Senior Sister too!
For half a year, she had eaten nothing but Bigu Pills. Even with over a dozen different flavors, Lu Qingning had grown sick of them. Xiao Hongyu, on the other hand, had long since stopped needing to eat, so every time she chewed those Bigu Pills all by herself, completely lacking any romantic ambiance of dining together.
Twenty minutes later
Lu Qingning stared at the five dishes before her and fell into deep contemplation.
Lu Qingning finally understood why there were so few people coming to eat in such a huge dining hall.
Now she felt that having even a hundred people come here to eat was a bit of an exaggeration.
Sour, sweet, and fishy-smelling braised fish; bitter and astringent stir-fried vegetables; sweet, salty, and sour tofu; plus a bowl of vegetable soup that carried a purely sour taste. The only thing with decent presentation was the steamed corn bun—who would have thought that the corn bun tasted bitter when eaten?!
Lu Qingning twisted her face into a grimace, as if all her strength had been put into her expression.
Xiao Hongyu asked with a straight face, "How does Junior Sister find the culinary skills of the Tianjian Sect dining hall?"
With a bitter expression, Lu Qingning meticulously picked up some food with her chopsticks and ate it, forcibly swallowing down her physical discomfort as she said, "Mhm... Delicious, simply delicious, Senior Sister."
Seeing that her junior sister "loved eating" it so much, Xiao Hongyu smiled and said, "Since Junior Sister loves it so much, you can have it all."
Hearing this, Lu Qingning hurriedly said, "You should eat too, Senior Sister! There's too much here, I can't finish it all!"
Xiao Hongyu waved her hand with a completely serious expression and said, "I achieved Body Integration long ago and have no need for such mortal sustenance."
Holding her chopsticks and the corn bun, Lu Qingning stared blankly at Xiao Hongyu: "?"
Could Senior Sister be messing with me?
No way, right? Senior Sister shouldn't be that bad, should she? Well, she probably just wanted to let me experience the culinary skills of the Tianjian Sect dining hall.
And so, Lu Qingning forcibly suppressed her physical discomfort and ate half the meal, after which she made the excuse that she was full and dragged Xiao Hongyu outside.
As soon as they stepped out of the dining hall, Lu Qingning had barely taken two steps before retching: "Ugh—"
Xiao Hongyu stepped forward with concern and asked, "What's wrong with Junior Sister? Is something making you uncomfortable?"
Lu Qingning wiped her mouth and smiled weakly: "Nothing, I just ate a bit too much earlier, so I'm stuffed and need to throw up a little to relieve it."
Xiao Hongyu nodded understandingly and said, "I see. Then follow me and let's check out the other dining hall."
Lu Qingning obediently took small steps forward, following closely behind Xiao Hongyu.
I knew it! Senior Sister cares about me so much, how could she possibly have intentionally ordered unpalatable food for me!
"The second dining hall is run jointly by the disciples of the Artifact-Refining Peak and Danding Peak, so... um, it's a bit different from the previous one."
A bit different?
As soon as Lu Qingning stepped into the dining hall, she felt a wave of heat wash over her, and the surrounding temperature instantly rose by several degrees. Lu Qingning felt as though she had walked into a bustling barbecue restaurant.
The layout of this dining hall was more like a collection of many small vendor stalls, giving off the vibe of a snack street.
However, the things being sold left Lu Qingning somewhat bewildered.
"Deep-fried dough sticks of love stronger than gold?"
"Unbreakably tough giant flatbread?"
"Passionate-as-fire meat buns?"
Lu Qingning looked confusedly at Xiao Hongyu. Pointing at the dishes on those signs, she asked in perplexity, "What on earth... are these things?"
Xiao Hongyu pursed her lips and pondered: "The disciples of the Artifact-Refining Peak believe that carrying weapons on oneself puts enemies on guard, but if you carry food instead, it lowers the enemy's guard so you can launch a sneak attack. So they developed these foods.
Later, after the disciples of Danding Peak found out about it, they all copied the idea, but they never managed to make them as refined as what the Artifact-Refining Peak disciples created. So the Danding Peak disciples hired the Artifact-Refining Peak disciples to come to Danding Peak to make this food, promising to use medicinal pills as wages."
Lu Qingning's mouth parted slightly, looking rather dazed: "Then... can these things even be eaten?"
Xiao Hongyu mused, "Logically speaking, they are edible. At the very least, after being improved by the disciples of Danding Peak, the taste is much better than the original version. Of course, I've only heard about it and have never tried these foods myself."
Looking at this snack street, which was twice as lively as the previous dining hall, Lu Qingning couldn't help but begin to ponder the dietary situation of the entire Tianjian Sect.