Having cultivated myself into an immortal, all I want to do is raise female disciples.

"Oh."

The old woman snorted coldly, "If you're so capable, why don't you just cross the river yourself?"

"Don't joke with me. I've rowed a boat before, and you know what happened..."

"Ha." The old woman rolled her eyes at Yunping. "Seventy years."

This time it was Yunping's turn to be surprised: "So expensive?"

"Take it or leave."

Well, judging from this attitude, it seems there's no way to continue the discussion.

"Alright, seventy years it is."

"it is good."

Yunping was aware of his own lifespan. Although he had given the old woman 120 years of lifespan over time, in reality, at Yunping's current level, a hundred years was just a blink of an eye.

So many years have passed, and he's lived this long, so he no longer cares about these so-called years.

After giving up seventy years of her lifespan to the old woman, the old woman, who looked even younger, finally looked better. She slowly returned to the house, took a tattered piece of yellow paper from the dilapidated thatched hut, and threw it to Yunping.

Taking the yellow paper, which was worth seventy years of lifespan, Yunping smiled and said as he turned to leave, "Thanks."

"Wait a minute."

But the old woman's voice made Yunping stop in his tracks.

He turned around and stared at the old woman curiously: "What's wrong? Is there something else? Do you want me to have another bowl?"

"If you don't like it, you don't have to drink it."

The old woman flicked her sleeve, her expression indifferent.

"Is there anything else?"

"..."

The old woman paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

The night wind was always cold, and it blew up her full head of white hair.

She parted her pale lips and asked in a low voice, "Is he still there?"

Yunping paused, glanced at the sky, then at her, and nodded.

"exist."

Are his descendants still well?

"well."

"really?"

Yunping nodded solemnly, "It's true."

“His descendants are now the overlords of the Desolate Sky Domain and the masters of the empire. They are doing very well now, so you don’t need to worry.”

Her sorrowful face relaxed slightly, and a faint smile appeared on the old woman's lips: "The Empire... ah, such a prosperous age, just as he wished."

“Yes,” Yunping echoed in a low voice.

"What about him?"

"He's like an ancestor, and life is pretty good, quite happy."

"That's good."

The old woman smiled, said nothing more, and silently returned to the chair in front of the thatched hut, where she sat down quietly.

Beside her was another chair, but it was empty, and it was unclear who it was reserved for.

Yun Ping stared at the old woman, his mind involuntarily recalling a long, long time ago, a little maid who had always followed him and Chu Lantian around...

He smiled and shook his head, saying nothing more, before turning and leaving the thatched hut.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

I have exams coming up, so I'll probably resume updating twice a week around the 5th.

Let's start using our monthly passes now, no need to hold back! (laughs)

29. Carp King!

What's past is past.

Yunping didn't care too much about the people from his past life, but he knew that the little maid from back then, now this old woman, cherished those memories that were incredibly precious to her.

That's why he lied.

He clenched the yellowed, withered paper in his hand, glanced at the endless, silent sea, sighed inwardly, and then called to Ye Yuchan and Zhang Ruoxue: "Let's go, it's time for us to get going."

"So we're really going to hit the road..."

Ye Yuchan's delicate body trembled slightly, her eyes filled with fear—now, the mere mention of the words "on the road" involuntarily brought to mind the terrifying scene of demons and monsters flying everywhere she had witnessed earlier.

Compared to Ye Yuchan, who was naturally timid, Zhang Ruoxue seemed more composed: "So, teacher, 'going on the road' doesn't really mean going to hell or anything, right?"

Yunping approached the two of them, a warm smile on his face like the winter sun, and his tone was quite gentle:

"Actually, we're going to hell."

Ye Yuchan was so frightened she almost jumped out of her wheelchair: "Don't say such heartbreaking things with such a warm expression!"

"We're not only going to hell later, but we also have to make a deal with Ox-Head and Horse-Face, giving them half of our souls first, so they'll let you pass."

"What?! It needs to be separated into the soul?!" Even Zhang Ruoxue was utterly shocked. "Isn't that equivalent to losing half of the soul?!"

“That makes sense.” The young man in white nodded very seriously, then held up a finger, his tone particularly heavy. “However, that doesn’t really matter. The most important thing is that once you get to the underworld, especially after you meet King Yama, you must be careful with your words. If you say something wrong, you might be punished by King Yama.”

The horrifying image of being thrown into a deep fryer and roasted alive automatically surfaced in Ye Yuchan's mind. Even while sitting in a wheelchair, she still felt as if countless evil spirits were laughing maniacally around her.

Ye Yuchan, her skin crawling with goosebumps, shuddered and stammered, "Sentencing? It couldn't be......"

"It's probably just some fairly painful torture, like the eighteen levels of hell?"

"Alas!"

—It let out a squeak like a startled rabbit.

"And the King of Hell isn't the most troublesome one. We might also have to meet a big shot called the Eastern Peak Emperor. That big shot is in charge of life and death, a powerful being who is on par with the Heavenly Dao. Moreover, he has a very eccentric personality. If you displease him, you might be reincarnated as a slime in your next life, or you might be reincarnated directly as a sentient skeleton~"

"Of course, it's also possible to die on the spot."

"Alas!!"

—This time it was the rabbit's scream that almost scared it to death.

"and……"

Yunping smiled mysteriously, looking at the two girls in front of him who were already somewhat nervous from his words, and helplessly spread his hands.

"And everything I said above is nonsense. Just take it as a joke."

……

What?

joke?

Ye Yuchan blinked blankly for a moment before finally realizing what was happening.

"You, you, you..." she angrily pointed at the young man in white shirt who had his arms crossed and a smile on his face, "You old pervert, are you playing us?!"

"I was just joking, don't get worked up, don't get worked up~"

He let out his signature smirk, seemingly pleased to see Ye Yuchan's panicked expression.

Meanwhile, our Yu Chan girl puffed out her cheeks, bit her lower lip, and glared at Lao Yun with dissatisfaction, like a little goldfish.

"Are you happy with this little prank?!"

"Yes." Yunping nodded sincerely. "I am quite happy."

"you--"

Ye Yuchan felt that if she hadn't been so easygoing, she probably would have been driven to death by Yunping, that old bastard, that old rogue, that shameless old man.

Who treats their apprentice like that?!

"teacher……"

Now, not only Ye Yuchan, but even Zhang Ruoxue is starting to emit black aura.

It seems this silly girl really took everything she said to heart...

Realizing that if things continued this way, their female apprentice might start a rebellion, Yunping quickly changed the subject—

"Alright, alright, let's not talk about that now. Let's cross the river first."

"Hmph." Ye Yuchan snorted coldly, turned her head to the wooden bridge extending from the side of the thatched hut not far away, and said, "I just looked, there are a few small wooden boats over there. Are we going to take a boat across?"

Yunping smiled and glanced at Ye Yuchan. "Or do you want to swim across?"

Ye Yuchan: "...You old rogue, what should I do if I really want to hit you right now?"

"Then come and fight."

The old rogue's sly smile made Ye Yuchan really want to jump up from her wheelchair and smash his head in—but thinking about it carefully, she realized she couldn't jump up from the wheelchair, nor could she smash Yunping's head in.

So she could only suppress her anger, feeling very wronged.

In the end, the three of them, still arguing, arrived at the edge of the wooden bridge.

As Ye Yuchan said, and as Yun Ping thought, there were indeed several wooden boats here. However, these wooden boats did not look very big, nor could they be called luxurious. They were just ordinary wooden boats that could carry about seven or eight people.

Most importantly, there were no oars or boatmen on it, just an empty wooden boat.

"This..." Ye Yuchan slowly moved her wheelchair to the edge of the wooden bridge, looking at the few wooden boats moored below, her expression somewhat strange: "No oars, are we supposed to row ourselves?"

"How could that be?"

Yunping smiled and waved his hand, "Someone like me never uses oars to row a boat, I rely entirely on the waves."

A gentle breeze swept by, ruffling Yunping's black hair, but it couldn't stir the endless, silent sea of ​​darkness, nor could it move the few wooden boats that were stilled beneath the bridge.