I

“Before anything else, Duo Lan,” Hao Zhen said, “I want to know where you were last night.” After seeing Duo Lan suddenly appear in the clearing, his heart had almost jumped out of his chest. Thankfully, he had been prepared for it and had managed to stop her from freaking out on them.

Duo Lan gave him a blank look, as if she didn’t understand what he was talking about. Then her eyes widened. “Are you… Are you trying to say I had something to do with this?” She bristled, glaring at him.

Her glare was something else, all right. Hao Zhen had no idea how Tian Jin could stand being on the receiving end of it so often. Duo Lan’s appearance wasn’t anything special. In fact, Hao Zhen would even go as far as to say she was rather plain-looking, if not unremarkable. She was, however, the tallest girl he had ever seen in his current life, standing only an inch or so shorter than him, and her glare was fiercely intense. She could be nothing short of intimidating when she wanted. Still, he stood his ground. He couldn’t back down now.

Hao Zhen glanced at Tian Jin. Thankfully, Tian Jin seemed to get the message and took a step forward, slightly raising the sword in his hand, preparing himself for a fight.

At that, Duo Lan looked between the two of them, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening, an incredulous look on her face. Then she gritted her teeth. “All right, I understand. You want to know where I was last night, right?”

“Yes. We agreed to meet up at the clearing in the center of the valley by nightfall. I arrived there at the agreed time, but even after waiting for a while, nobody appeared. I then found Tian Jin and Ke Li fighting each other, so their absence is explained. Yours isn’t.”

Hao Zhen didn’t think Duo Lan was involved. Du Qing hadn’t mentioned her in the jade slip, nor had Ke Li so much as spoken her name or insinuated some sort of connection between them last night. That didn’t change the fact that her absence last night was suspicious, however. Hao Zhen wasn’t about to take any chances.

“I was…” Duo Lan hesitated. She glanced at Tian Jin, and her cheeks reddened slightly. She looked down. “I was… I was gathering magical plants. I spent the entire night looking for them.”

Hao Zhen frowned. That wasn’t the explanation he had been expecting. Then again, it wasn’t as if he had been expecting anything in particular, but this was just too weak of a reason. What she said didn’t make that much sense, either, and her reaction was also rather odd. Glancing at Tian Jin, Hao Zhen saw that he was also frowning.

“And why exactly were you doing that?” Hao Zhen finally asked. “Did you have a hard time finding any?” That was the only reason he could think of.“No, I found plenty.” Duo Lan shook her head, before murmuring something he couldn’t hear.

Hao Zhen frowned. “What was that?”

Duo Lan glared at him, gritting her teeth. “I wanted to make sure I had gotten more than Tian Jin,” she said, all in one breath, practically vomiting the words.

Hao Zhen blinked, confused. He exchanged glances with Tian Jin, who looked similarly bemused.

Tian Jin took a step forward, then asked, “Why?”

“Because… Because I wanted to win,” Duo Lan said, looking away. Her cheeks were clearly red now. “I wanted to gather more magical plants than you.”

Tian Jin stared at her blankly for a few moments. Then, his expression turning wry, he shook his head. Turning to Hao Zhen, he said, “I think she’s telling the truth.”magic

Looking at the embarrassed Duo Lan, Hao Zhen found himself agreeing. This was in line with her behavior so far. Duo Lan was terribly competitive, and she seemed obsessed with being better than Tian Jin.

The three of them had entered the sect at the same time, Duo Lan getting second place in the entrance examinations, and in the two months since they had become outer disciples, she built quite a reputation for herself. Rumor had it that, so far, she had already defeated an inner disciple in a duel, exposed a corrupt outer elder, and beaten one of the most talented disciples of the alchemy division in a contest. She had also supposedly already reached the second level of the Red Spiritual Realm, like Tian Jin, even though all the other new outer disciples were still stuck at the first level.

However, while Duo Lan might have made a name for herself in the Outer Court, she was completely overshadowed by Tian Jin, with whom she seemed to have some kind of feud. Hao Zhen didn’t know the story behind it; all he knew was that the conflict between the two was mostly one-sided. As far as he could tell, the problem lay with Duo Lan, who seemed determined to antagonize Tian Jin as much as possible. Tian Jin, on the other hand, just appeared to be exasperated with her antics and did his best to ignore her.

Duo Lan had been antagonistic toward Tian Jin from the moment their team met up for the first time just outside the residential area of the Outer Court. Where she had looked at Hao Zhen with clear disinterest when he introduced himself, she had glared at Tian Jin, who had been the last one to arrive, with blatant hostility. Later on, when they were on their way to the Gentle Green Valley, flying on Ke Li’s magical cloud, Duo Lan tried again and again to rile Tian Jin up. At one point, Ke Li even had to step in to stop a fight from starting.

Nevertheless, that wasn’t enough to believe what she was saying now. There was just too much at stake.

“Can you prove it?” Hao Zhen asked. If Duo Lan was telling the truth, there’d be an easy way to prove it.

Without a word, Duo Lan closed her eyes. Then, the spatial ring on her hand flashed, and in front of her, a large pile of plants appeared. Hao Zhen’s eyes went wide. There had to be over a hundred magical plants in there.

“You gathered all of these?” Hao Zhen asked, not doing anything to mask his disbelief.

Still not looking at them, Duo Lan nodded her head.

Hao Zhen looked more closely at the pile and confirmed that most of the magical plants in it were deathpetal orchids and shadowseeker daffodils, proving that these weren’t magical plants she just happened to have in her spatial ring.“I…” Hao Zhen turned to Tian Jin, who also looked incredulous. “All right,” he finally managed to say. “We believe you.”

“I told you,” Duo Lan muttered. Her spatial ring flashed again, and the pile of magical plants in front of her disappeared. “Anyway,” she said, straightening her back as she raised her head, once again looking straight at them, “what exactly happened yesterday?”

“I’ll explain,” Tian Jin said. Hao Zhen nodded his head and silently stood to the side as Tian Jin gave a summary of last night’s events similar to the one he had given to Hao Zhen not too long ago. When Tian Jin revealed that he had a spiritual skill, Duo Lan gave him a sharp look, but the other boy pointedly ignored her, continuing his story. By the time Tian Jin was done, Duo Lan didn’t appear taken aback. Instead, she looked outright incensed.

“Du Qing won’t get away with this,” she said, her jaw clenched, clearly convinced now that the contents of the jade slip were real. “We need to return to the sect immediately to settle this.” Her surprise at Tian Jin having a spiritual skill seemed to have already faded away, supplanted by indignation.

Hao Zhen suppressed the urge to groan. Although he had been hoping that this wouldn’t be the case, Duo Lan was reacting almost the same way Tian Jin had after being shown the incriminating jade slip. Then again, he had been expecting this; Du Qing had after all arranged for Ke Li to kill her, and Duo Lan didn’t strike him as the kind of girl who took attempts on her life lightly.

Sighing, Hao Zhen stepped forward and cleared his throat, drawing Duo Lan’s attention. He then gave her the same explanation he had given Tian Jin. He did his best to convince her that they couldn’t simply trust the elders of the sect and that the jade slip wouldn’t be enough to get Du Qing in trouble. As it turned out, Duo Lan wasn’t nearly as easy to convince as Tian Jin, but he ultimately managed to get her to accept that simply charging into the sect demanding justice wasn’t a particularly good plan.

“So what’s your idea?” she snapped, looking at him challengingly. She clearly didn’t think he had managed to come up with anything good.

Unfortunately, she was right.

“I’m not sure,” Hao Zhen admitted. At that, Duo Lan’s expression turned vicious, but before she could say anything, he quickly added, “And that is why I think we should spend some time considering our options and coming up with plans. In any case, we’re not in a hurry to return, and I don’t think we should do so before we have a plan.”

“I agree,” Tian Jin said, and Duo Lan snapped her head in his direction, looking at him intently. “We’ll make Du Qing pay, but Hao Zhen’s right. We need a proper plan first. We can’t just rush in and expect everything to work out.”

Hao Zhen thought to himself. Tian Jin was learning—and, more importantly, Tian Jin had just proved that he learn. As far as Hao Zhen could tell, after regaining his memories, he stopped being affected by whatever it was that was making everyone act like characters of a cultivation novel.

Hao Zhen could recall instances in which he believed that he had been pretty much stripped of his will—in which his actions were directly dictated by a higher power. In contrast, what had happened a short while ago, when he realized he had been forgetting something but dismissed it, hadn’t been the result of some external influence acting on him. Or at least he didn’t think that was the case. As far as he could tell, that had simply been something he had been conditioned to do by the world because of the constant manipulation.

What Hao Zhen hadn’t been certain about was whether he could influence others into also ignoring this external influence. Thankfully, Tian Jin had just proved that such a thing was possible; if it wasn't, Tian Jin would have insisted on returning to the sect and directly confronting Du Qing, as he had originally intended.

Truthfully, if the events of the world really replicated that of the plot of a cultivation novel—if Tian Jin’s fate was indeed analogous to that of the storyline of a cultivation novel protagonist—then even if he did confront Du Qing without making any plans, he’d probably end up triumphing in the end somehow. After all, that was how it always went for cultivation novel protagonists, constantly diving headfirst into trouble without a second thought and somehow coming out a winner in the end, against all odds.

Hao Zhen wasn’t about to take any chances, however. He didn’t know whether any of his theories were correct, and he wasn’t just going to put his life on the line just like that. Even if he was just wasting his time, he had to do this. Moreover, while it was true that cultivation novel protagonists always came out on top, the same couldn’t be said for their companions. Sometimes, sacrifices were made so that the protagonist could succeed, and Hao Zhen didn’t fancy being one.

If they returned to the sect with Tian Jin alive and Ke Li dead, there was no doubt that Du Qing would suspect that his plans had been revealed and so would try to silence everyone involved. In the first place, he had already been planning on killing the three of them. To stay alive, Hao Zhen needed to ensure that Du Qing would be dealt with.

“All right,” Duo Lan said, though she didn’t look entirely convinced. “I guess it can’t hurt to think of something.”

Hao Zhen let out a breath of relief. He had been worried he and Tian Jin would have had to hold Duo Lan down. All things considered, so far things were going rather well. Now they just needed to come up with a proper plan of action, and based on what they came up with, he’d figure out his own short-term plans.