Chapter 222: Knowledge Changes Destiny

Chapter 222 -151: Knowledge Changes Destiny

Su Wuxiang patted the Ape Demon’s horse and grabbed two discarded bamboo hats from nearby. “Let’s go. Since the Champion Scholar’s lackeys have shown their faces, he must have appeared as well. He’s supposedly going to the brothel to snatch one of their girls, so he must be there now.”

With a single leap, Su Wuxiang mounted the horse. He added, “The Ghost Daoist killed my horse, so I’ll use this one for now. You get on your horse too. We’re going to the brothel. I have a feeling that Champion Scholar won’t be easy to deal with.”

Lu Changyuan put on a bamboo hat without a word and also mounted a white horse.

~~~~~~~~~~

“He got away!”

The Little Fairy in a White Skirt gritted her teeth in frustration.

She and Qiu Yuehan had planned to team up and teach Lu Changyuan a lesson, but unexpectedly, Lu Changyuan sensed something was off and left Miao Yu Palace.

The two of them came up empty-handed that night.

Qiu Yuehan smoothed out her soft, silky hair. She wasn’t angry, she was just thinking.

‘With your terrifying methods, Junior Sister, any man would run away.’

“Senior Sister?”

The Black Skirt Fairy turned her head and said softly, “Junior Sister, tell me more of your stories about him.”

Qiu Yuehan wanted to know what Lu Changyuan was like as a mortal—if he had the same carefree, detached air, and was just as handsome and unhelpful back then.

Xia Lianxue didn’t hold anything back.

“Back then, he was… a very kind person. He was a Physician who opened a clinic in town and cured many people. For those who couldn’t afford treatment, he would even diagnose them and prescribe medicine for free.”

An image couldn’t help but form in Qiu Yuehan’s mind: a handsome young man, leisurely and meticulously wrapping herbs in the afternoon.

‘He was rather kind.’

Xia Lianxue pouted. “And he was so clever! The patients he treated for free had to repay their medical fees with their labor. Sometimes they would help him dry herbs, other times they’d go with him to the mountains to gather them. Oh, and he wouldn’t let me get near the medicinal herbs, saying some of them were bad for a girl’s health.”

The Little Fairy seemed to add, “But most of the time, he would be reading in a rocking chair under an old tree. Even though he was just a young man back then, he acted like a little old man.”

As Qiu Yuehan listened, a warmth slowly blossomed within her, dispelling the lingering chill from Lu Changyuan’s departure.

Even the ever-cool Moon Fairy couldn’t help but let the corners of her lips curve up. “He seems like the type of person who would do that.”

“I even bought him many books back then, hoping he would study for the imperial exams and earn a title.”

“Him? Study for the exams?”

Lu Changyuan never had the worries of a poor scholar. After all, Xia Yutang’s family was extremely wealthy back then; whatever book he wanted, the girl next door would buy for him.

Xia Lianxue rested her chin on her hand, recalling a memory from long ago. “Then one night, I secretly snuck into his house and saw him reading by candlelight late into the night.”

The candlelight cast his silhouette onto the paper-paned window. The young man’s shadow held a book, and after a long moment, gently turned a page.

Xia Lianxue gave a helpless laugh. “But when I pushed open the door, I discovered he wasn’t holding the scholarly books I’d bought for him, but a few storybooks—tales of love, hate, passion, and revenge.”

The Little Fairy’s voice was tinged with disappointment. “He said he wasn’t cut out for studying, that reading books was like trying to read gibberish. I even used to dream that he’d become the Champion Scholar, come back to marry me, with a wedding procession stretching for miles.”

Qiu Yuehan didn’t quite understand the Little Fairy’s way of thinking.

‘A man like Lu Changyuan just didn’t seem the scholarly type, no matter how you looked at it. He was the kind of person who should carve a path through a chaotic world with a single sword.’

‘It’s a good thing he didn’t study. If he had, the Chang’an Daoist would have been dead in the womb.’

‘Knowledge really does change one’s destiny.’

Qiu Yuehan felt a twinge of envy that Xia Lianxue had been able to spend over a decade of mortal life with Lu Changyuan.

“Junior Sister, you really had dreams like that?”

“Of course! Champion Scholars are so magnificent. Where I used to live, they said a Champion Scholar was like a star descended to the mortal world.” The Little Fairy spoke as if it were fact, as if she could truly picture Lu Changyuan as the Champion Scholar.

Qiu Yuehan seemed to recall something. “A few years ago, I went to the Wei Dynasty on a demon-slaying mission. As it happened, I met that year’s Champion Scholar.”

Xia Lianxue’s interest was piqued. “What was he like? Was he riding a tall horse, with a red flower on his chest and a champion’s cap on his head, parading through the streets? That’s what he looked like in my dreams.”

Qiu Yuehan shook her head. “Right after the results were posted, that Champion Scholar achieved Entering the Dao through his literary accomplishments. But he was then corrupted by a Desire Demon. I was originally there to eliminate a Dog Demon and just happened to encounter him as he had Fallen into Demon.”

“You killed him?”

“Yes.” Qiu Yuehan recalled, “That Champion Scholar came from a poor background and was supported by a woman from a brothel. Later, after he won the title…”

“He abandoned the woman from the brothel? That’s how it always happens in the stories he told me.”

Qiu Yuehan remembered the incident clearly. “No, that wasn’t it. After the parade, the Champion Scholar went to the brothel that night with the reward money from the Emperor, intending to buy the woman’s freedom.”

‘Scholars are often so heartless. But this Champion Scholar was unlike the others. Even knowing that marrying a woman from a brothel would affect his official career, he was still determined to fulfill his past promise.’

Then why did the Champion Scholar Fall into Demon?

“While I was hunting that Dog Demon, I overheard the Madam telling the scholar that the woman had already been married off to a merchant so as not to affect his career. She claimed the woman left with the merchant willingly. In reality, the woman had fallen into a river and died the day before the exam results were announced. The Champion Scholar didn’t believe her and eventually uncovered the truth.”

Qiu Yuehan sighed. “He didn’t have a proper master or lineage. He hastily stepped onto the Immortal Path without a Heart Method to cultivate. Then, right after starting, he encountered this tragedy. And so, he Fell into Demon.”

The difficulty for Loose Cultivators is their lack of a Heart Method, which makes them susceptible to corruption by Desire Demons.