Liu Xiu: Are You Sure She Isn't the One Refining Me into a Furnace Cauldron?

【A bone-piercing yin wind struck you full in the face. Every fine hair on your body stood on end. In a single instant you realized you were no match for this female ghost, even though you had already learned palm thunder. The moment you raised your eyes and took in her face and figure, you secretly resolved that, when the clash came, you would find an opening, quietly confine the female ghost, and later refine her into your own furnace cauldron to aid your cultivation, and so make her the wedge with which you would dominate the cultivation world!】 "......" You're sure it isn't the other side confining me? Sure it isn't the other side turning me into a furnace cauldron? Huh. Put like that, there doesn't seem to be much difference!? At his first sight of the red-robed female ghost, whose effects were lavish enough to be a little frightening, Liu Xiu recalled in his heart the voice of the narration cheat. The narration cheat's voice had only just ended when Liu Xiu's vision suddenly went black. As his consciousness sank into darkness, he abruptly felt that this thing of his that only grew firmer with age, solid as bedrock, didn't seem all that reliable! ...... "Who am I, where did I come from, and where am I going..." The instant Liu Xiu's consciousness returned, he blurted out the three questions of the soul. At the same time that he knew he was Liu Xiu, a female voice he couldn't quite describe kept repeating beside his ear. "Your name is Zhou Sheng. You are a scholar on the way to the examinations..." "Your name is Zhou Sheng. You are a schol..." "Your name is Zhou Sheng. You are a..." The voice repeated, and repeated, and repeated again. Liu Xiu only felt his ears itch. Then a character profile that would not bear close inspection was added to his mind. In short, he was now called Zhou Sheng, a poor scholar in the sixteenth year of Jiaqing, about to sit the provincial examination. And at this moment he was on the road to the exams! When he had finished the last piece of information, the blurry scene before his eyes changed, and he appeared in a town. "The neighboring town from a hundred years ago?" Brows lifted, Liu Xiu looked at the townsfolk coming and going in the street and at the buildings with their faintly antique air. His gaze went to the bridge under his feet, the one called Anping, particular to neighboring Lianshui Town. He knew this was the neighboring town chiefly because the original body and his childhood companions had groped for fish and bathed under this Anping Bridge. Just as Liu Xiu was wondering whether this was an illusion or something else, a man beside him suddenly shouted. "Bad news! Someone's fallen in the water!" "Quick, save them!" "Hurry, hurry, hurry! Somebody who can swim!" The townsfolk's voices rang in his ears. Liu Xiu looked into the river at a female ghost of whom one could not say she looked identical to the female ghost from the Tan household. One could only say she looked identical. He muttered inwardly. "A water ghost, too?" Liu Xiu muttered to himself, and once he had muttered, he turned and walked off. Nothing to be done. As everyone knew, he couldn't swim. He didn't know the first thing about water! Besides, groping for shrimp and taking baths did not amount to knowing how to swim! And his cultivation was entirely gone now. If he stepped in, and the other side got a hold on him and refined him into a furnace cauldron, what then! But he had barely taken a step when the surroundings went abruptly still. Everything between heaven and earth seemed to have had the pause button pressed. Frozen where he stood, Liu Xiu felt his vision go suddenly black. When he opened his eyes, he was on an official road. "Help..." A woman's voice, full of terror, rose from ahead on the road. Liu Xiu watched with a slight frown as several big men chased a woman. Right. It was still that female ghost from the Tan household! "Not a water ghost?" He muttered inwardly. His gaze paused a moment on the female ghost's neat clothes, and on the way her face was not flushed and her breath was not short. "Young master, save—" Seeing that Liu Xiu had not left at the first moment, the female ghost seemed to seize a lifeline and shouted. She had not finished before she fell silent. Bewilderment came over her face. The female ghost stared blankly at Liu Xiu, who had flung down his book basket, turned, and run, not even stopping to pick up the shoe that had fallen off. Utterly lost, she turned her head to the four chang ghosts who had halted behind her. "Am I not beautiful?" "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful..." ×4 The four, who had changed from hulking men into the likeness of maidservants, said it at once. The female ghost frowned, not understanding. "Then why did he run?" "This..." "Because his surname is Liu, maybe..." "Could be, could be..." "After all, running away is a tradition of the old Liu family..." ...... 【Damn it, why has this female ghost who will not disperse fixed on you of all people? Hmm? Understood. This female ghost must have been drawn by your masculine charms. Heh heh heh. You secretly resolve to turn her own scheme against her, pretending to tempt her with your looks. Once you have her infatuated out of her very soul, you will seize the moment to strike, confine her, and refine her into a furnace cauldron. With the aid of this pure-yin resentful soul furnace cauldron, your cultivation is sure to advance a thousand li in a day. In no more than a few years it can reach great completion. Once you have stored up enough foundation and power, you can sweep aside every great sect under heaven and dominate the cultivation world!】 "Dominate your mother!" Tell your daddy how to get out of this illusion! Feeling his vision go black again, Liu Xiu cursed the narration cheat in his heart. When his sight returned, the surroundings had changed once more. The narration cheat's voice did not sound. Realizing he was in the kitchen of an official's residence, Liu Xiu saw one of several old fellows in official robes open his mouth and ask: "I wonder, is Zhou Sheng yet betrothed? If he is not, I have a daughter, just sixteen, a perfect match for Zhou Sheng... Hey, what are you running for..." The old fellow had not finished before he saw Liu Xiu rise and run, charging straight for the kitchen door. From behind the screen, the female ghost in the form of a young woman came out in a daze. Uncomprehending, she watched Liu Xiu, who once again would not pick up the shoe he had lost, then looked blankly at the maidservants who had come to her side. "Is he... sick in the head?" "This..." The maidservants looked at one another, not knowing what to make of it. These things had lived more than a hundred years. What scene had they not seen? But today's was truly a first. "Perhaps... he prefers men?" One maidservant said it meekly, though her eyes burned. The female ghost heard her with a face full of astonishment, and said, her expression odd: "That... shouldn't be, right?!" "Of course not. Miss, when you fell into the water earlier, his eyes were on your chest the whole time. How could he be fond of men!" "Exactly. Just now he was even looking at my thighs!" "That's right, that's right!" Several maidservant ghosts spoke up. A middle-aged maidservant frowned as she listened. "Could it be his memory is still there? That he still remembers that you, Miss, are a female ghost? That shouldn't be..." But the female ghost did not bother answering this maidservant. She only looked toward Liu Xiu, who was nearly at the gate. Interest lit her eyes as she turned and vanished. Elsewhere, Liu Xiu had run to the gate of Willow Manor and was just about to ask after the narration cheat's mother, when the scene before his eyes suddenly went black and his consciousness blurred again. When his sight returned, what met his eyes was a little mountain village. A moonlit little mountain village. And once again, the female ghost's cry for help. Only this time Liu Xiu did not turn and leave at once. He merely knit his brows and said nothing, watching a band of horse bandits burning, killing, and looting in the village. As if because he had appeared, the horse bandits all stopped what they were doing. One of them, a One-Eyed Dragon carrying a nine-ring broadsword, looked at Liu Xiu with a savage grin. "Where'd this poor scholar come from? Perfect. I'll butcher you in passing and have you for a dish with my wine!" As he spoke, One-Eyed Dragon grinned savagely, hefted the nine-ring broadsword, and lunged. His stride shot toward Liu Xiu, several meters away. Those meters vanished in a flash. Just as One-Eyed Dragon's nine-ring broadsword was about to come down on Liu Xiu's neck— Just as bloodthirsty smiles broke over the horse bandits' faces, Liu Xiu still stood there like a fool, not moving. The sight of Liu Xiu looking so scared he had gone stupid made the horse bandits ready to laugh. But their smiles had only begun to rise when they broke off short, stopped by the sudden move Liu Xiu made. Turn. Sidestep. Jab to the waist. Seize the blade—swing! A perilous cold glint flashed in One-Eyed Dragon's disbelieving eyes. He clutched his neck, and a wet heh-heh gurgled from his bleeding mouth. Thud— "Good thing I know a little of the Six Gentlemanly Arts... for instance, the she among li, yue, she, yu, shu, and suan—archery, that is..." Liu Xiu said mildly, the nine-ring broadsword hanging from one hand.