You've only been cultivating for a few years, and you're already talking about cultivating

The flute player nodded and took over the conversation.

"After each service to the immortal master, he would preach to us. When he spoke of the profound mysteries of the Great Dao, he would slam his fist on the table and become extremely excited."

She looked at Qi Fei with a hint of expectation in her eyes.

"If the immortal master wants to know, we will tell him while we serve him."

Qi Fei: "..."

"No, I don't want to hear it, and I don't want you to serve me." Qi Fei shook his head, interrupting them. "I'm not on his side."

Chuixiao and Nuanyang exchanged a glance, a complex look flashing in their eyes.

In their minds, receiving guidance from a celestial master required a sacrifice. They had long understood that there was no such thing as a free path to enlightenment.

"Then... what does the immortal master want?" Chuixiao asked tentatively.

Qi Fei looked at them.

"All I want is for you to let the caravan pass," he said, "and then you will stop blocking the road and eating people."

The flute player's expression changed.

Even the warm sun fell silent.

"This..." Chuixiao opened his mouth, his face full of hesitation.

Qi Fei looked at her, waiting for her answer.

Nuanyang suddenly spoke, her voice tinged with bitterness.

"Master, we don't really want to eat people either," she said, "but... we can't control ourselves."

"Can't control it?" Qi Fei frowned slightly.

Chuixiao nodded and took over the conversation.

"I can't control the urge to eat people." Her voice lowered, carrying a complex emotion she couldn't quite explain. "Humans really taste good. Much better than those furry, horned wild beasts in the mountains."

She paused, as if savoring something.

"Once you've tasted it, you'll never forget it."

Nuanyang's gaze drifted into the distance, as if recalling a distant memory. A mixture of nostalgia and greed surfaced on her face—a longing for human flesh.

Qi Fei looked at them without saying a word.

The flute player suddenly raised his head, looked at him, and said:

"But that immortal master once told us that if we want to achieve anything, we must become human. To become human, we must stop eating people."

Her voice became serious.

He said that overcoming one's desires is the first step in spiritual cultivation. Spiritual cultivation is not about indulging in desires, but about conquering them.

Qi Fei remained expressionless.

He was just a novice cultivator who had only practiced for three years and knew only one chapter of the "Shadow God Technique." He had never seen the concept of "desire" in the scriptures, nor did he know how cultivators in this world viewed it.

He found a stone chair in the cave and sat down.

"You can tell me your story with that immortal master," he said. "Perhaps I can find the root of the problem."

Chuixiao and Nuanyang exchanged a glance.

They didn't speak, but swayed their bodies and came to Qi Fei, sitting down on the stone stool opposite him. Their graceful, serpentine bodies were very close, and their two exquisite faces, one on each side, were looking at Qi Fei at the same time.

"Actually..." the flute player began, "In the beginning, I only had one head."

Nuanyang took over the conversation, her tone becoming ethereal, as if she were recalling something from a very, very long time ago.

"That was a long, long time ago. Back then, I was still a naive child, and all I did every day was hunt for food and use my brain to lure passersby."

"When they get hungry, they go out to find food, and when they are full, they come back and curl up in the immortal master's cave, sleeping with the immortal master's body around them."

The two women spoke back and forth, as if they were telling the same story. Their tone and expressions made it seem as if they were truly just a snake, not a two-headed serpent.

"Suddenly one day, the immortal master began chanting scriptures."

The sound of the flute softened.

"I couldn't understand the scriptures, but the sound... it was like something had entered my heart. I sat cross-legged on the stone bed, listening, and suddenly..."

She paused for a moment, then said, "I suddenly realized 'myself'."

"I am a beautiful python," Nuanyang continued, her voice tinged with confusion. "A beautiful python that lures its prey according to instinct. I only ever have the instinct to survive; I've never had the concept of 'I'."

"At that moment, I felt like the sky was falling and the earth was splitting apart," Chuixiao said. "It was like something exploded in my brain. I felt like... I came back to life."

"When I came to my senses, I had an extra head," Nuanyang said.

The two of them looked at Qi Fei at the same time.

"That was the day the immortal master gave us our names."

Qi Fei nodded without interrupting.

"And then?" he asked.

"Later..." Chuixiao thought for a moment, "Every time we finished serving the immortal master, he would start talking to himself. He would talk about the Great Dao, about cultivation, about tribulations. We couldn't understand him, but we loved to listen."

Nuanyang continued, "Once, after he finished, he suddenly looked at us and said, 'If you want to go any further, you have to become human. You have to shed this two-headed serpent's body and transform into a human.'"

"Or, grow another head," Chuixiao added, "to find a third 'me' and become a three-headed beautiful python."

"We were very confused at the time," Nuanyang said. "Does a person have three 'selves'?"

"The immortal master's words were profound and mysterious, beyond our comprehension. But we remember them."

"And then..." The sound of the flute faded away.

"The Immortal Master has disappeared," Nuanyang said.

The two remained silent for a moment.

"He must have gone to undergo tribulation." Chui Xiao raised his head and looked at Qi Fei. "He always says that he is facing many tribulations, and he came here to avoid them."

"We've been here ever since he left," Nuanyang said, "guarding this cave and waiting for him to come back."

The cave became quiet.

Qi Fei sat on the stone chair, lost in thought.

Oh, I see...

So these are the three "me"s!

He looked at the two stunningly beautiful faces before him and said, "You clearly don't want to eat people, but you can't help but want to. You're not unaware of this, you just can't do it."

"This is because another 'me' is at work."

The words had barely left her lips when Nuanyang's face turned cold, her gaze piercing like a knife as she looked at Chuixiao: "I knew it! It was definitely you who wanted to eat it!"

The flute player, undeterred, coldly glared back: "It's clearly you who wants to eat it!"

The two faces drew closer and closer, their expressions growing colder and colder.

Suddenly, both mouths opened at the same time!

It wasn't a human mouth, but the gaping maw of a python, with sharp fangs and a hissing tongue, ready to bite!

"Stop, stop, stop!"

Qi Fei was both annoyed and amused, and he called them to stop.

The two snake heads reluctantly retreated, transforming back into human faces, but still glaring angrily at each other.

Qi Fei looked at them and shook his head: "You are all aware of 'yourselves,' but you are not aware that there is another 'me' inside your bodies."

He held up three fingers.

"Not only you, but even humans have three 'selves' inside their bodies."

"The first 'I' is the self of physical instincts."

He paused, organizing his thoughts:

"Whether it's humans or animals, they are all driven by hormones, nerves, and biological instincts."

"Just like humans, there are many organs in the human body that secrete hormones, and those things affect a person's emotions."