Duosheng Danyuan

"Is it an illusion? When?"

As I walked towards the next location, I thought to myself. From the moment I left the Refining Heart Hall until now, I had thoroughly searched my entire body and discovered that I was indeed just a child of about ten years old; to say the least, I hadn't even grown any pubic hair yet. So, I temporarily abandoned the idea that I was under an illusion.

Of course, shrinking in size isn't something unacceptable. After all, for me, the experience of being transported to such a strange place with a cultivation setting is bizarre enough, so a little bit of rejuvenation isn't unacceptable either; I guess it's something I'm not surprised by.

What truly shocked and even terrified me was that I was completely unaware of the changes in my body. Until I saw myself through the window, I had always thought of myself as a twenty-two-year-old adult.

"A sociable person is not blinded by their own mind"—these eight words inexplicably began flashing through my mind. Could it be that I was blinded by my own lack of sociability, which is why I hadn't noticed I'd shrunk? But when did I become unsociable? From the very beginning, I hadn't even realized my body was that of a child...

"Am I the only one who shrunk, or did everyone shrink? No wonder I felt that the old man was ridiculously tall! ...Could it be because I was being targeted by that strange senior brother?" Lost in thought, we unknowingly arrived at the second place.

"This is 'Yangyuanzhai,' a place where disciples eat. You will dine here from now on," Elder Jianshan said calmly, and was the first to walk through the gate of Yangyuanzhai.

Following the crowd, I entered Yangyuanzhai, only to find that it was already occupied.

"Yangyuanzhai eats according to class, and since you're newcomers today, you bumped into them. It's alright, you'll eat separately starting tomorrow," Elder Jianshan explained. "Alright, it's almost time to eat, I'll just grab a bite here."

"..."

"You can eat here too. After you finish eating, we'll go to the next place."

"...yes."

"Please answer in a more uniform manner."

"Yes."

A moment later, Elder Shan served the food. We could clearly see the plate he was carrying: a seemingly ordinary bowl of porridge with a piece of black meat that was definitely strange and still wriggling.

"You all should have some too. Take only what you can eat, and don't waste a single bit, understand?"

"..."

"And the answer?"

"Yes."

Although we verbally agreed, none of us took any action. Even the big guy who had been the first to act suddenly disappeared.

"Tsk."

Seeing us standing there dumbfounded, Elder Jianshan's expression was clearly displeased. He sat down at the table, tapping the surface with his dry, brittle knuckles. After a moment's thought, he pointed at one of us and said, "You go first, then line up in order. Yes, it's you. Don't look around... Why aren't you coming out yet, hmm?"

Amidst Elder Jianshan's noticeably harsher questioning, the lucky person who had been pointed at finally trembled as he stepped out of the crowd and headed towards the food area. He was a thin fellow wearing glasses; in reality, I would definitely think he was malnourished.

"Those behind, line up and follow." Seeing that this lucky person was obedient, Elder Jianshan softened his tone and began to eat his meal.

With someone taking the lead, the big guy who had been so active seemed to have gained confidence and lined up behind the skinny guy with glasses, and then we all joined the queue.

The Yangyuanzhai was just the right size, perfectly accommodating our group of twenty. There was no wasted space, nor did it feel cramped. Like the Lianxin Hall, its interior was far less grand than it appeared from the outside.

I don't think it's a coincidence, but there's nothing to verify it right now, so I'll just keep this discovery to myself.

There were six dining tables: four for four people and two for two people. Elder Jianshan was sitting at one of the two-person tables.

In other words, one of us would definitely sit with Elder Jianshan. Standing at the end of the line, I was relieved I wasn't the last one to get food. I didn't believe anyone would volunteer to eat with him; this unfortunate task would surely fall to the last person to get food and choose a seat.

"Hey, sit with me."

"What?"

I said, "Sit with me."

"..."

"What? You don't want to?"

"..."

To my surprise, this elder was unreasonable and directly asked the bespectacled boy from before to sit with him.

"Sit down quickly, or the food will get cold." Elder Jianshan wiped his mouth, revealing a smear of dark sauce at the corner of his dry lips, which looked quite creepy.

Despite his reluctance, Glasses sat down, because no one wanted to offend this strange old man unless absolutely necessary.

Soon, everyone had finished getting their food and sat down. After witnessing Elder Jianshan's wriggling, black flesh, everyone unanimously opted for the thin, watery porridge, and not a single person was willing to add the pickled vegetables that were served to us on the side.

After all, Jianshan said he would only take as much as he could eat, and given the current situation, few people would have an appetite.

However, although everyone sat down, no one touched their chopsticks. This was normal; just now in the Refining Heart Hall, they were simply sitting with their fellow disciples, but now they were about to eat something clearly abnormal—there was no comparison between the two.

Seeing that none of us were touching our chopsticks, Elder Jianshan said in a deep voice, "Aren't you going to eat?"

"Ah, I, I'll eat right away."

"Soon? At least five minutes have passed since you sat down, and you haven't touched your food at all!"

"...I want to wait until the porridge cools down a bit before I eat it..."

"Let's eat now, and then we'll go to the next place."

"I..."

"quick!"

"**, don't keep nagging me like this..." Glasses thought to himself, but dared not show any displeasure on his face, and could only continue to smile apologetically.

However, he still didn't dare to eat what was in his bowl; at least, even if he were to eat, he wouldn't dare to be the first to do so.

"Who knows what the hell is in this bowl? Nobody else is eating it, so why should I be the first to eat it?" Glasses looked at the thin porridge in front of him, swallowed hard, and couldn't bring himself to eat it.

He knew in his heart that the first person to eat the porridge was being used as a trial and error tool. Whether they would survive or die after eating it, nobody knew. Why should he risk his life to save others? He wasn't some big, simple-minded guy...

So, no matter how much Elder Jianshan urged him, Glasses did not put a single drop of the thin porridge in his mouth.

"Disobedient? Fine, you'll regret it." Seeing that Glasses was determined to be stubborn to the end, Elder Jianshan grinned, slammed his hand on the table, and his left hand flew forward, grabbing Glasses' throat tightly in the blink of an eye.

"Ugh! Waaah, mmm! Ugh!" Feeling the excruciating pain of his neck being about to be snapped, Glasses frantically clawed at the elder's hands, but couldn't break free at all.

"..." Seeing everything that had suddenly happened, we were all speechless with fear, not daring to take a single step forward. Naturally, the senior students around us who were also having their meal turned a blind eye to what had happened.

What old man could lift a ten-year-old child by the neck with one hand and hold him above his head? Even though Glasses looks thin, he must weigh at least 20 or 30 kilograms, yet he was lifted up like a chick, completely powerless to fight back.

However, Elder Jianshan did not intend to kill Glasses. Under the watchful eyes of all of us, he pulled Glasses in front of him, and his left hand, which was originally strangling his neck, slowly rose a little, turning into a grip on Glasses' chin.

"Ha! Huff... Ha, ha... Huff..." The brief moment of suffocation caused Glasses to gasp for breath as his throat loosened, completely oblivious to the fact that Elder Jianshan had forcibly pried his mouth open.

"If you don't want to eat, I'll feed you." With his right hand, Elder Shan picked up the white porridge and poured the icy porridge into Glasses' mouth along with the cold porridge. He gurgled but didn't swallow. In just a few seconds, he finished the porridge completely.

After all the porridge was fed into Glasses' mouth, Elder Shan moved his left hand again, pressing down hard on Glasses' mouth, and pinched his nose with his right hand. After a few more seconds, the elder finally released his grip.

"Ha! Ha...ha..." To breathe, Glasses was forced to swallow all the porridge in his mouth. The intense impact left him no time to think about anything.

"You, aren't you going to drink?" Elder Jianshan coldly swept his gaze over the remaining eight of us and said in a deep voice.

It was that same big guy again. He picked up the bowl first, hesitated for a moment, and then slowly put the porridge into his mouth. Seeing this, the others learned their lesson and began to slowly drink their porridge one by one.

I picked up the bowl and held it to the rim with my lips, pretending to drink the porridge but not actually putting it in my mouth. If the porridge was indeed poisonous, it might not be an instantaneous poison; it was always good to delay and see how things went.

"It seems these people are in the same situation as me, otherwise the old man wouldn't have treated this guy with glasses like that, and the others wouldn't have been so cautious."

Before long, more and more people began to put down their empty bowls, and the bespectacled guy who was the first to drink the porridge didn't look any worse than he was going to die. So, I also quickly swallowed the porridge.

"You've all finished drinking? You should have done this earlier. Come on, let's go to the next place." After saying this, Elder Jianshan snorted coldly and led us out of Yangyuanzhai.

The next place was "Mingling Residence". According to Elder Jianshan, this place was a study place for us to practice in seclusion. Strangely, he did not let us go in for a visit this time. He only said that we could come and go at any time and did not need to participate in activities in class groups.

"Does this mean that both eating and studying must be done in class units? Cultivation is fine, but eating... something feels off." I pondered as I headed to the next location.

This journey was different from the previous ones; it was the longest stretch. However, perhaps because my body had changed after transmigrating, I didn't feel tired at all, and none of the people around me were out of breath either.

Only when the sky had completely darkened, leaving no trace of twilight around us, and the faint green lights began to appear on both sides of the road, did Elder Jianshan, who was in front of the crowd, slowly stop and say, "We've arrived."

Under the flickering candlelight, the four characters "Gu Dan Jing Lou" (Ancient Alchemy Pavilion) were distorted and carved on the rocks not far from us, seemingly having endured a long period of wind and frost.