Dao Of The Salted Fish (Salted Fish Cultivator)

50. Reincarnator meets transmigrator!...?

Lin Yijun was passing through on his way out of the sect when he noticed the tell-tale qi fluctuations of a fight between two inner sect cultivators. He didn’t pay any attention until one of them suddenly broke into Golden Core.

Levelling up in the middle of a fight was almost unheard of. Even he himself had died in the last life attempting it.

Lin Yijun went closer to investigate. His eyes narrowed when he noticed a peculiar qi aura around a particular person spectating the fight.

Disciple Wen Zhihao.
This qi aura was the same as the one on the stabilising stone that Disciple Sun carried around. Lin Yijun was Nascent Soul, so this Cultivator Wen’s qi aura did not affect him. But he suddenly realised that the aura was qi-suppressing.

Lin Yijun hadn’t noticed it before. He had to take a closer look.
Wen Zhihao’s suppression was not the complete absence or blockage like qi-suppressing chains and constraints. Instead, it pulled the surrounding qi into its influence. Furthermore, Lin Yijun could see how the qi from the sun was drawn to Wen Zhihao in waves, as though pulled in by a qi-collecting device.

That such an aura could be constantly maintained like this…was this Wen Zhihao truly an outer sect disciple?
Lin Yijun’s lips tightened. Such a person should not have gone unnoticed, but he had no recollection of this in his past life.
Disciple Wen was the one who stopped Disciple Sun from undergoing qi deviation in this second life.

...Was Wen Zhihao also reborn?

It couldn’t be, why would the Heavens favour such a person with no background?
But, Wen Zhihao’s changes were too big.
Lin Yijun also remembered when Wen Zhihao was around the Clear Heart Hot Springs, despite not having an admittance token. Adding all these discrepancies together, there was something off about Wen Zhihao.

This needed to be investigated further.

Unfortunately, Lin Yijun was in a hurry. Someone had reported a sighting of a potential demonic cultivator in a nearby mortal town. What if it was Zhou Sheng? Lin Yijun had to personally check, just in case.
His heart felt painful thinking about Zhou Sheng. In the last many months since Lin Yijun had been reborn, had Zhou Sheng been tortured out there by the demonic cults?

Another day, another dead end. Lin Yijun’s short temper scared more than one cultivator in the sect. Eventually, his father became irritated and forced his mother to give him a token to visit the Clear Heart Hot Springs.

Lin Yijun’s expression became even worse at the implication of needing to go, but he accepted the token and went to the springs alone.

Dark thoughts clouded his head. It was getting closer and closer to that incident in which Zhou Sheng murdered an entire group of people and became irredeemable in Lin Yijun’s eyes.
In the worst-case scenario, Lin Yijun would have to intercept Zhou Sheng right before the incident at the location where it had occurred in his past life. However, he never expected that he might actually have to fall back on this very last plan.
Where could Zhou Sheng be? Why was he never in the Blood Sect whenever Lin Yijun checked there?
With increasingly circular thoughts, Lin Yijun soon approached where the Hot Springs should lie. The token in his hand cleared the mind-redirecting haze that protected the hot springs. The pool of steaming clear water, framed with rich qi herbs, appeared in a clearing below him.

Lin Yijun’s expression darkened when he saw an unauthorised figure crouching next to the hot springs.
Wen Zhihao!

Lin Yijun descended quickly, landing with a noticeable thump behind the disciple Wen.
“Why are you here?” Lin Yijun demanded.

Wen Zhihao startled, his brows tightened a little at the harsh tone. He had been innocently and carefully testing the qi in the water to see if he could figure out why the hot springs had once again appeared when he least expected it.
Wen Zhihao stood up and saluted politely to the older cultivator. “This junior disciple came here by accident,” Wen Zhihao said truthfully. “Does this area belong to you? If so, I apologise for trespassing.”

If it did belong to this high-and-mighty cultivator, then he should put a fence around it! Or at least a sign ba!

Lin Yijun’s eyes narrowed. This Disciple Wen was a Middle-Stage Golden Core disciple and did not appear to have the raw power required to break the array around the hot springs. Given how the token in his hand had reacted, Lin Yijun knew that the protective array still worked.

Could it be that he really stumbled here by accident? If so, there was a major security flaw in the protective array around the Clear Heart Hot Springs. If Wen Zhihao had been bathing in these springs over the last few months, it would explain why his cultivation level rose yet his aptitude for cultivation stagnated.

Nonetheless, it was very suspicious, especially since Lin Yijun suspected that this Wen Zhihao had been reborn. If he had, then it was possible that in the past life, Wen Zhihao had survived the righteous sect v.s. demonic sect war, rose up the cultivation levels, and determined a method to bypass the array around the hot springs without a token.

Wen Zhihao didn’t know what Lin Yijun was thinking about, and he didn’t really care either. Seeing as Lin Yijun didn’t like the look of him, Wen Zhihao asked politely. “Requesting senior to allow this junior disciple to leave.”

“No.”
Wen Zhihao blinked. No?
Lin Yijun subtly took out a magical treasure from inside his spatial pendant, hiding it within the folds of his robes. Its magic quickly and subtly surrounded the two of them. Under its influence, answers had to be truthful, and the contents of the conversation could not be repeated to others unless one was in possession of the magical treasure.

Lin Yijun’s tone now lightened. “Tell me exactly how you came here and your purpose.”