Chapter 409: Walking Among Three People, Each Must Harbor Ulterior Motives

Translator: yikaii Editor: yikaii

(TL Note: This isn’t the actual saying. The original is by Confucious who said “Walking among three people, I find my teacher among them.” What it means is that there is always something you can learn from others and that no one knows everything. Also I copied the TL Note from chapter 50 lol https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1106152-walking-among-three-people-i-find-my-teacher-among-them)

Perhaps because his streak of romantic encounters had finally run out, this time along the journey, Lu Yang didn’t run into any rich young ladies being blocked on their way, no female knights escorting goods being robbed, and certainly no martial arts competitions for marriage.

Those martial arts competitions for marriage were the most troublesome. If Lu Yang encountered one, he’d have no choice but to avoid it. If he participated and lost, the Invincible Core wouldn’t allow it. If he won, he’d end up with a wife he didn’t even know out of nowhere.

No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t worth it.

“Oh, clear skies?”

As Lu Yang was nearing the location of the carriage, he noticed the mountainous skies were clear for ten thousand miles, and finally, it had stopped raining.

“Maybe Old Meng has given up on going to the city.”

Not far away, Lu Yang saw four figures, coincidentally on the path he had to take to return.

He quickened his pace and upon closer inspection, realized that the four figures were not all people; there were three cultivators and one Living Corpse.

Their voices, carried by the wind, reached Lu Yang’s ears.

“I’ve told you, we’ve tried to pass through this place several times, but all sorts of strange incidents keep blocking us. This is a warning! There’s great danger ahead, we shouldn’t go any further!” exclaimed a delicate-looking cultivator, trying to stop his companions from moving forward.

“Brother Ye, this is just a series of coincidences. The world is vast, and coincidences happen. I’ve never heard of any warning signs like this before,” replied another, with bronze skin and short hair, who seemed carefree. He turned to ask the third companion, “Brother Zhao, you’ve traveled far and wide. Have you ever seen something like this?”

The one called Brother Zhao had a well-proportioned build, but his face was paler than normal, giving him a sickly appearance.

Brother Zhao frowned deeply, as if he had heard of such things before but couldn’t quite recall the details.

Lu Yang silently skirted around the three and continued walking ahead.

“Hey, hey, hey! Brother, you can’t go any further!” The short-haired youth called out to Lu Yang.

“Can’t go any further?”

“There seems to be something strange up ahead, some kind of ghostly presence. The three of us kept encountering strange incidents that stopped us from moving forward.”

The delicate-looking cultivator chimed in, “What Brother Wenren said is true. For instance, just a moment ago, as I was about to move forward, my cultivation technique suddenly malfunctioned, and I had to sit in meditation for nearly half an hour to get it back under control.”

“After we got our techniques working again, we ran into an old man who had lost his way, and we took him back home.”

“When we returned here, we realized we had left something at the old man’s house, so we had to run back to retrieve it.”

“And when we came back again, several huge boulders rolled down from the distance, blocking our path. It took all three of us to move the rocks, but then we realized something was wrong. It felt like there was an invisible force blocking the way.”

Suddenly, Brother Zhao seemed to recall something and exclaimed, “I remember now!”

“What did you remember?” his two companions asked eagerly.

“I’ve heard the elders mention something like this before. When powerful cultivators gather to discuss the Dao or engage in combat, they sometimes set up formations to drive away bystanders. No one else can pass through the area and has to go around. But this is quite rare, since fighting in the mountains requires restoring the area afterward, which is troublesome. Fighting on the plains or in the sky is much more common.”

“There must be a great battle ahead! Didn’t we just see it? The dark clouds, the flashes of lightning—those are signs that a powerful cultivator is using the forces of heaven and earth to engage in battle!” Brother Zhao spoke with increasing seriousness, convinced his analysis was reasonable.

The delicate-looking cultivator and the short-haired youth, knowing Brother Zhao’s impressive background, nodded in agreement with his explanation.

“If it’s really a battle between powerful cultivators, we should definitely avoid it. Since we can’t pass through the mountains, we’ll have to take a detour.”

Lu Yang stared at the three for a long time before suddenly asking, “Which one of you three is disguised as a man?”

Upon hearing this, the delicate-looking cultivator, called Brother Ye, had a sudden change in expression. His face went through various emotions as he met Lu Yang’s determined gaze and eventually conceded, “How did you figure it out?”

“Brother Ye, you…” The other two stared at the delicate cultivator in shock.

Brother Ye smiled bitterly, removed a jade pendant from his neck, and smoothed down his Adam’s apple. His formerly delicate appearance became alluring, with large, watery eyes, his hair lengthening to his waist, and his chest becoming full.

Seeing Brother Ye transform from a man into a woman, the two companions were even more astonished.

The three of them hadn’t known each other for very long; they had met during their travels through the martial world. Feeling that it was safer to journey with companions, and since their personalities got along, they decided to travel together.

But after going through so much together, who would have thought that Brother Ye was actually a woman?!

“No wonder, Brother Ye, you never bathed with us, always insisting that we book separate rooms when staying overnight. And when we told bawdy jokes, you would blush and ask us to stop!”

“Wait a minute, that night by the lake… I saw a woman bathing there—was that you?!”

Brother Wenren suddenly realized something. While camping outdoors, late at night, he had gone to the lake to relieve himself. Under the moonlight, he had seen a graceful woman bathing in the water, resembling a lake fairy. Unfortunately, the conditions had prevented him from seeing her face clearly.

The next day, when he mentioned it to his companions, Brother Ye had laughed and said he must have been dreaming.

“I lied. I’m actually from the Liangzhou Ye Family,” said Brother Ye—or rather, Miss Ye, with embarrassment. She had disguised herself as a man, traveling from Liangzhou to the Desolate Lands, and had met these two companions along the way.

The Liangzhou Ye Family was a famous noble family in Liangzhou, with ancestors who had been powerful cultivators and high-ranking officials.

“This jade pendant was given to me by my mother. She told me that when she roamed the martial world in her youth, she disguised herself as a man and met my father, relying on this very jade pendant to remain undiscovered. No one ever saw through her disguise—until today, when this brother here somehow managed to see right through it.”

Lu Yang smiled but said nothing, unwilling to expose Meng Jingzhou as the one who gave him the hint.

To Miss Ye, however, his smile seemed mysterious.

Miss Ye sighed inwardly. The martial world was indeed full of unfathomable experts. You could meet a random traveler on the road, and they could easily see through your disguise.

Now that her identity was revealed, Miss Ye decided not to dwell on it and turned to Brother Wenren, her gaze filled with affection.

“Brother Wenren, I’ve fallen for you. Do you remember when we were ambushed by those robbers, and you took a knife for me, saving my life? From that moment, I fell in love with you!”

Brother Wenren hadn’t expected his good buddy, Brother Ye, to suddenly confess in this way and was momentarily at a loss.

Fortunately, he quickly regained his composure, sighed softly, and removed his ring.

His body began to change—his arms grew slender, his short hair lengthened into shoulder-length tresses, and his chest filled out, making his clothes tight and revealing a full, round bosom.

The only thing that didn’t change was his bronze-colored skin, which still looked as healthy as ever.

“Sorry, but I’m also a woman disguised as a man.”

“Do you remember after I took that knife for you, I refused your help to heal my wound and insisted on treating myself? This was the reason.”

Miss Ye: “…”

Heartbreak had come swiftly.

Lu Yang, Miss Ye, and Miss Wenren all turned to look at the sickly-looking Brother Zhao, the meaning clear in their eyes. It was his turn.

Brother Zhao flew into a rage, “I’m a man!”

So out of the three of them, he was the only one who had been truthful all along!

(End of the chapter)