Who is spreading rumors that my filial piety towards them has changed?

Moving either side doesn't seem quite right...

But it would be a loss to retreat now.

The two women on the embroidered couch were in no hurry. They simply lay there embracing and waiting for him. While Chu Mingkong was struggling to make a decision, the two of them playfully teased each other.

Finally, Chu Mingkong decided to resort to a trick. He shrunk down, crawled on three legs to Zuo Qiuchi and Feng Ying, and shamelessly begged, "Can you help me?"

Zuo Qiuchi replied with a smile, "After I help you, who will you ask for water if you get thirsty later?"

Chu Mingkong: "..."

----------

The next morning, dawn broke.

Chu Mingkong lay sprawled out, surrounded by Zuo Qiuchi and Feng Ying, his body covered in kiss marks from their kisses. As Chu Mingkong circulated his internal energy to recover, the kiss marks on his skin disappeared.

Just as he shrunk back to his normal size, Zuo Qiuchi slapped him on the buttocks, mumbling incoherently in his sleep:

"Shrink back to a smaller size, it's too heavy now."

Feng Ying was sleeping comfortably, with one arm around him and the other stroking Zuo Qiuchi.

This time, she didn't jump out to argue with Zuo Qiuchi or say anything like "Da Mingkong is better," which made Chu Mingkong a little sad.

Chu Mingkong slunk away and shrank back down, letting the two women hold him for a while longer, until the sky was fully bright and the sounds of doors opening and people moving around on the boat could be heard. Only then did he grow back to his original size.

After pulling the blankets up for his two masters to prevent others from seeing an indecent sight, Chu Mingkong busied himself pouring tea and water and preparing breakfast for the two of them before leaving the room.

"I really can't believe we can play all night long just by kissing each other..."

To be honest, Chu Mingkong wanted to go a little deeper, but unfortunately, the night was too short. By the time they had finished their mutual kissing, the bed was a mess and it was almost dawn. If they continued, they would only be interrupted by someone knocking on the door before they could finish their fun.

I simply changed the bedding and lay down to rest.

More than half of the women on the boat were awake, but some were still in bed. After having breakfast with them, Chu Mingkong took out a note to contact his master's wife:

【Master's wife, my spaceship has arrived near your sect. May I enter now?】

[Sure, the gatekeeper didn't tell me there was a spaceship parked near the sect?]

This is where we have to rely on the skill of Daoist Yun Nongyu. After she boarded the ship, she pasted several talismans around the spaceship and then simply set up an array that could isolate the secrets of heaven, making it essentially an invisible spaceship.

This is something neither he nor Fengying could do; they could only hide the people around them, but there was no way to do that on such a large ship.

The spaceship only reappeared normally after those few talismans failed.

Chu Mingkong explained, and Shen Xuejun didn't dwell on such a trivial matter. The communication in the paper message went silent for a while, and then the icy, aloof, busty beauty appeared on the deck of the spaceship.

When Wei Qingning, who was accompanying his brother, saw this beautiful woman who seemed to exude an icy aura, he was immediately overwhelmed by her chest and felt a little breathless.

What's going on? Why are all the women around my brother so fat?!

"Master's wife, why did you come directly here? We'll be going in in a moment, there's no need for you to come out and greet me," Chu Mingkong said as he stepped forward.

Shen Xuejun nodded gently in response to Chu Mingkong's greeting: "It's alright, no trouble at all. Just bring the spaceship into my sect."

The spaceship started up, its hull swayed briefly, and then began to sail into the sacred grounds of the Wenqing Pavilion.

Chu Mingkong, preoccupied with the matter of invoking the gods, said:

"Master's wife, may I buy some materials from your sect and borrow a place to try out the ritual?"

Chapter 162 White Silk Pavilion (14.5/18)

Shen Xuejun did not refuse. This was a trivial matter for her. Many sects had similar experimental sites to test newly created formations and combat techniques. It was similar to lending a training ground to someone else.

"Which ancestral spirit should we invite in the ritual of inviting the gods?" Shen Xuejun asked calmly.

Chu Mingkong still had a thousand words he wanted to say to her, such as about the map. However, when his master's wife inquired about the ceremony, he temporarily put aside his thoughts and replied:

"Uh, it's not really about inviting gods, but rather about using this ceremony to bring back the existence of someone before they lost their memory, namely the former Empress Dowager of the Tianji Empire, Madam Zhen."

"Madam Zhen?"

Looking at the mountains and the horizon, Shen Xuejun pondered for a moment and then said:

"From her personal status, she is not high enough to be invited by the ritual of summoning gods. It is more likely that your master will be invited than her. But if she is invited, she will most likely benefit from the dragon vein, and there is also the possibility that she is mixed with the resentment of the remnants of the Golden Crow Phoenix Body from past generations. It cannot be said that she is really the Lady Zhen of that year."

Chu Mingkong had anticipated this result. He had only intended to try his luck with the mindset of buying lottery tickets. In any case, it wouldn't take up too much of his energy and cultivation techniques, so failure was no big deal.

However, he was somewhat interested in what his teacher's wife had said.

"My master can be summoned by spirits?"

"That's unlikely. If we could actually invite her, what if someone used that to target her personally? Besides, the key reason for whether we can invite her isn't her strength, but whether she becomes known. Zuo Qiuchi's cultivation level is very high, but overall she's quite low-key, and no one talks about her or knows about her. I think the most crucial thing is faith."

Humanity has no shortage of people who worship and believe in heaven and gods, but when it comes down to it, the faith in ancestors is still more prevalent. These heroes and valiant figures, worshipped and remembered by the common people, are the ones most easily summoned by witchcraft.

"Master's wife also has some knowledge of this?" Chu Mingkong asked in surprise. He then pulled over the depressed Wei Qingning and introduced her, "I almost forgot to introduce you. Qingning, this is your sister Yunhan's master, Senior Shen... This is my sister, Wei Qingning from the Wei family of Xiling. Her family is a family that has inherited witchcraft."

Wei Qingning was just preoccupied with strange questions like "It's too much to only be fat in the chest... Why is she called 'Master's Wife'? Who is 'Master'?" when she suddenly heard Chu Mingkong still introduce her as "the Wei family of Xiling," and she was touched.

"Greetings, Senior Shen!"

"No need to be so formal. You can call me 'Master's Wife' as your brother does. In the past, the Wei family focused on the method of invoking gods. It was very powerful and no one dared to underestimate it. However, this method caused the family to be involved in many karmic consequences and their lifespan was shortened. Your great-grandfather once consulted my late master. Now your family probably doesn't allow its descendants to specialize in the sorcery of invoking gods anymore, right?"

Wei Qingning respectfully bowed and replied, "Yes, I've only learned a little bit. Now I'm focusing more on studying soul-binding techniques."

"In that case... then your great-grandfather must have omitted the auspicious and inauspicious times for inviting the gods. If one wanted to invite Empress Zhen at her peak... she was not worthy of an auspicious position, so one could only invite her at an inauspicious time, which would be perfect for borrowing the resentment of the Golden Crow and Phoenix bodies of past generations."

Mingkong, try again at midnight; your chances of success might be higher then.

Is it really okay to invite someone with an inauspicious name?

Chu Mingkong was a little afraid that his master's wife would trick him, but then he thought, it's not that bad, so he might as well be a little fierce.

As the spaceship passed the sect's grand formation at the Wenqing Pavilion, a continuous range of snow-capped mountains came into view. Thousands of palaces, pavilions, and bridges stood in the sky, shrouded in drifting clouds and mist, resembling a fairyland. Buildings were also built on the snow-capped peaks, where male and female disciples appeared and disappeared, and spirit beasts appeared and disappeared intermittently.

In the middle of the mountains lies a plain and forest, with the branches covered in lush green snow. In the heart of the forest is a tranquil lake where snow falls but the lake remains unfrozen, and beside the lake stands a simple pavilion.

Chu Mingkong's female relatives came out of the cabin one after another, praising the breathtaking scenery. Wei Qingning leaned on the railing and looked out, feeling refreshed and happy.

Chu Mingkong asked curiously:

"Master's wife, why does this look different from when I came last time?"

"You see different things depending on where you enter. What sect can you see at a glance?"

Who lives in the house by the lake in the lower part of the text?

"If I am not active on the main peak, I am cultivating in the house by the lake."

"Although the scenery is indeed beautiful, I thought my master's wife would choose a high place to overlook the sect. I didn't expect her to choose a place by the lake, where she is constantly being looked down upon. Doesn't that feel a little strange?"

Shen Xuejun showed no impatience whatsoever with Chu Mingkong's barrage of questions, perhaps a benefit of her gentle nature. She calmly replied:

"I remember Yunhan said you wrote an essay called 'Ode to a Humble Abode' while you were in the Chu Prince's residence?"

"I didn't write it. I just heard it by chance, remembered it by chance, and then wrote it down from memory." After Chu Mingkong finished speaking, he tried to recall whether he had mentioned it at the Xiling Teahouse or by the old man by the river.

However, Shen Xuejun did not ask in the direction he expected, but instead said:

"Then you should understand that external dwellings and clothing do not determine status; one's own abilities are everything."

No matter how lowly I live, my disciples still need to lower themselves to pay their respects if they want to see me. If I were an ordinary person, no matter how high I lived, no one would pay me any attention.

Above the sect, passing disciples saw Shen Xuejun on the deck of the spaceship and stopped to pay their respects. No matter how high they flew on their swords, they would slowly descend, not daring to be disrespectful or overstep their bounds.

However, Chu Mingkong was more interested in the female disciples of Wenqing Pavilion... so many beautiful legs in white stockings.

Xiaoxiang Qin Academy, the Women's Courtyard; Wenqing Pavilion, the White Silk Pavilion...

The spaceship was brought to a mountain and landed. Shen Xuejun personally led Chu Mingkong's female relatives to stay temporarily at the guest peak.

Chu Mingkong and Wei Qingning discussed going to Xiao Yunhan's Immortal Peak to see if they could run into her after she broke through her seclusion.

Seeing that Shen Xuejun's attention was elsewhere, Wei Qingning quietly asked:

"Brother, why do you call Senior Shen 'Master's Wife'?"

She had barely finished speaking when she heard Zuo Qiuchi's voice from behind. She had just come out of the room, saw Shen Xuejun, and said:

"My lady! My wife! Come quickly and give your husband a kiss!"

"???" Wei Qingning was speechless.

…（⊙＿⊙；）

Seeing that he didn't seem to need an explanation, Chu Mingkong skipped the topic and went with her to stroll around near Xiao Yunhan's Immortal Peak.

The barrier sealing the mountain has weakened considerably, which is good news, indicating that Xiao Yunhan will soon be able to end her long period of seclusion to consolidate her cultivation.

But this "soon" is also an unknown. Inspiration may suddenly strike, and then one may need to calm down and reflect, and who knows how much time may pass.

"I wonder what I was busy with when Yunhan came out? Maybe I had already finished dealing with matters in the Crescent Moon Kingdom?"

"Sister Yunhan should also be able to sense that my brother is getting close to me, and she will come out to find us soon," Wei Qingning comforted her.

“That’s right. Let’s go to the market in Wenqing Pavilion and get the materials you need. We’ll try the invocation ritual tonight.”

Chapter 163 Summoning the Evil God During an Ominous Time (14.8/18)

The procurement went exceptionally smoothly; the market in the sect's sacred ground was indeed similar in nature to a school canteen.

Most of them are run by the sect itself. Outer disciples may be assigned to manage these shops in their work. Some are only run by elders and the spouses or family members of outstanding disciples. Ordinary people can't do it even if they want to; it all depends on connections.

However, it's understandable. Sects are not like schools. While schools can make a living by selling groceries, sect shops have to guard against infighting among other sects, and the possibility of internal spies selling substandard materials. They might also cause their alchemy furnaces to explode every few days, producing highly toxic pills that could cause endless harm.

These benefits really need to be provided by trusted associates.

As for Chu Mingkong and Wei Qingning, these two outsiders to the sect, they did not encounter any troublemakers or xenophobic individuals while traveling around. At most, people would occasionally come up to inquire about their origins.

When this happened, Chu Mingkong took out the Elder's Token and the Sect Master's Guest Token of Xiaoxiang Qin Academy, as well as the Sister's Token and Master's Wife Token of Wenqing Pavilion. He asked about the identity of the man, who was stunned by what he saw. He then cupped his hands and left.

"This is a bit unexpected..." Chu Mingkong muttered, stroking his chin.

Women are more or less interested in shopping, and Wei Qingning bought a bunch of materials. Although they weren't particularly rare, the feeling of returning home with a full load made her quite satisfied.

Wei Qingning, who was carrying a basket of materials, heard her brother muttering and asked curiously: