An Eight-Year-Old Child Enjoys His Leisure

Spring turned to autumn, and eight years passed in the blink of an eye for cultivators.

It was early summer once more, at the height of noon. Bright sunlight bathed the island.

The Saint Water Palace stood majestically, surrounded by the Seventy-two Earthly Fiend Wards in its outer ring and the Thirty-six Heavenly Star Wards in its inner ring.

At this very moment, it was mealtime for the disciples of the Saint Water Palace.

The Earth’s Hero Ward, aptly named to signify rising above others and becoming an outstanding figure, housed the Saint Water Palace’s main dining hall.

Unlike other sects with their rigid hierarchies, the Saint Water Palace had eschewed such elaborate rules since its founding. Outer disciples and inner disciples had always lived together.

Consequently, it was not uncommon for Golden Core and Nascent Soul stage disciples to dine here. Naturally, outer and lower-ranked disciples seized every opportunity to seek guidance from their seniors.

Thus, at this hour each day, the dining hall in the Earth’s Hero Ward transformed into the most bustling place within the Saint Water Palace.

“Clang, clatter, crash…”

A cacophony of pots, pans, and dishes colliding and falling echoed from the kitchen. The sharp sounds suggested that quite a few plates had met their demise.

This was immediately followed by a barrage of furious curses. “You damn rascals, look at the food you’re wasting! Don’t let me catch you! You bastards…”

“Bang!”

A short-legged, scruffy tiger burst through the kitchen door, a large ham clutched in its mouth. Despite its stout build, the tiger moved with astonishing agility, twisting and turning with ease.

Perched atop the tiger’s back was a boy, his face radiant with a bright smile, his complexion as smooth as jade—a clear sign of excellent care from his family. In his hands, he precariously balanced a large bowl of steaming lamb noodles. Yet, the boy neither flinched from the heat nor spilled a single drop of soup, suggesting he had practiced some form of body tempering since childhood.

“Whoosh!”

“Thump! Thump!”

Another yellow creature, moving with incredible speed, dodged two flying plates before leaping into the air and landing gracefully on the boy’s head, a piece of steaming chicken breast firmly clamped in its mouth.

“Old Man Xing, your cooking is so terrible! I’m just taste-testing for the Saint Water Palace disciples!”

The moment the tiger landed, the boy seized the opportunity to slurp some soup, then licked his lips, shaking his head in disapproval. The small fox on his head mirrored his actions, nodding in apparent agreement with the boy’s assessment.

“Nonsense! You brat, if it’s so bad, why do you come every day?!” Old Man Xing chased after them, fuming. He limped slightly on his right foot, having accidentally kicked a table leg moments before, and had yet to recover.

“You’re the only dining hall in the entire Saint Water Palace! I’d love to try something else, but I have no choice!” The boy waved his hand dismissively at Old Man Xing, then patted the short-legged tiger’s rump, signaling for them to make a quick escape.

“What’s wrong with my cooking? If you can’t explain yourself today, I… I’ll report you to the Enforcement Hall!” Old Man Xing racked his brain for a solution, finally settling on this one, though a flicker of unease remained in his heart. He knew full well that a report would likely be useless.

No one knew the boy’s true origins, only that his name was Wugou. A year prior, Wugou began sneaking food from the dining hall. Old Man Xing, mobilizing thousands of disciples, finally managed to capture the greedy thief. Yet, less than half an hour after being escorted to the Enforcement Hall, the boy was released unharmed.

When questioned, the Enforcement Hall disciples claimed ignorance, only stating they were acting on the orders of Hall Master Ning.

Hall Master Ning, a peak Nascent Soul cultivator, wielded disciplinary power due to her position. Her vast combat experience meant her actual fighting prowess far surpassed that of ordinary Nascent Soul Old Ancestors. Known for her swift, precise, strict, and ruthless enforcement, she commanded the Palace Master’s unwavering trust, ensuring no one in the Saint Water Palace dared to cross her.

Rumors circulated that the boy was Hall Master Ning’s illegitimate son. Hall Master Ning occasionally left the island for enforcement duties, apprehending errant disciples, and it was plausible she might encounter a compatible suitor while away. The fact that Hall Master Ning never offered a single explanation after these rumors spread only solidified people’s belief in their truth.

Thus, the boy was like a devil king within the Saint Water Palace, someone no one dared to provoke. Even as the boy and Old Man Xing caused such a commotion, the disciples in the dining hall merely glanced at each other, then shook their heads, no longer paying attention.

‘After all, he’s a second-generation heir,’ they thought.

“Old Man Xing, do you truly want me to critique your cooking today? I fear you won’t be able to bear it, and you’ll be too ashamed to show your face afterward~”

Wugou had already reached the entrance when he heard Old Man Xing’s lingering defiance from behind him. ‘A joke!’ he thought. ‘In one of my past lives, anyone who dared to question my evaluations would have been thrown out of the Imperial Kitchen long ago.’

Old Man Xing, of course, didn’t believe him. His culinary skills had been passed down for nearly eighteen generations, and never had anyone found fault with them. Not only him, but the disciples of the Saint Water Palace in the dining hall also found it hard to believe Old Man Xing’s cooking could be bad, having eaten his food for so many years without ever noticing anything amiss.

Old Man Xing, enraged, flung his chef’s hat to the ground, suppressing a string of vulgarities that threatened to burst forth. “Go on, then, speak your mind! If your critique has no merit, even if I can’t punish you, I’ll still curse you to death!”

“Heh heh! I’m too lazy to discuss your cooking methods, so I’ll just talk about your ingredient preparation.” Wugou tapped the bowl in his hand. “Take your lamb noodles, for example: you don’t even crush the lamb bones before throwing them in whole to make the broth. No flavor extracted—failure! The broth simmered for too short a time—failure! The lamb slices are too thick, making them overly gamey and unappetizing—failure! Even the noodles are problematic; they’re soaked for too long, completely losing their chewiness—a failure among failures!”

Having delivered his scathing review, Wugou took another large gulp of the broth, then let out a satisfied burp, patting his stomach as if already half-full.

Old Man Xing had been about to retort, but then he heard Wugou’s perfectly reasoned arguments. It wasn’t that Old Man Xing was unaware of these points; it was simply that with so many people in the dining hall, such meticulous preparation would leave everyone starving.

Yet, for the boy to articulate these points, he must indeed possess some insight. ‘Could my cooking truly have some flaws?’ he wondered.

Just as he was about to speak and inquire further, he saw the boy, the tiger, and the fox had already exited the dining hall.

The surrounding disciples, who had been watching the spectacle, were dumbfounded. ‘Just a bowl of lamb noodles, and there’s so much to it?’ they thought. Though they couldn’t verify the claims, Old Man Xing’s expression suggested there was truth to Wugou’s words.

‘He truly lives up to his reputation as a privileged heir, being so particular about even a simple bowl of noodles,’ they mused. ‘But to find such elaborate faults in something so ordinary, doesn’t that further prove this kid’s extraordinary background?’

Some inner disciples silently resolved to avoid provoking him if possible. Meanwhile, certain outer disciples began discreetly inquiring about Wugou’s hobbies and usual haunts, preparing to pull strings and climb the social ladder.

“Are you really not doing your homework today? Aren’t you afraid Palace Master Luo will beat you?” A-wu sounded genuinely worried for Wugou. The psychological trauma Luo Bingyan had inflicted years ago had never faded; even now, A-wu trembled involuntarily whenever they saw her.

“It… shouldn’t be a problem, right?” Although Miaomiao, his ‘little mother,’ usually intervened, there was no guarantee Luo Bingyan wouldn’t secretly retaliate. For the past eight years, Luo Bingyan had often observed him when Miaomiao was absent, making his skin crawl every time. He had no idea what she was planning.

Take, for instance, the ‘homework’ she assigned him. The Saint Water Palace was renowned across the continent for its sword arts and magic, yet she made him practice body tempering every day—and a rather low-level form at that. It offered little more than cosmetic shaping, with negligible improvements to strength.

He truly didn’t know what she was trying to achieve. Given that she hadn’t taught him anything substantial, they hadn’t even performed a master-disciple ceremony.

Wugou hadn’t originally intended to cultivate immortality in this life. Over the past eight years, he had gradually come to understand the peculiarities of this world. Everyone here aspired to immortal cultivation, and while the continent’s spiritual energy was indeed much richer than in his previous world, the people here suffered from a significant flaw in their cultivation.

Their spiritual roots were incomplete, lacking all five elements. Most people here possessed only one of the five elements in their spiritual roots, which, in Wugou’s original world, wouldn’t even qualify them to cultivate immortality.

Despite this, the people of this world were remarkably clever. They had devised an entire system of what they called “cultivation,” forcefully elevating their spiritual power to reach the world’s power limit. Afterward, they would ascend to the Heavenly Realm by passing through a threshold known as the “Heavenly Tribulation.”

However, in Wugou’s common understanding, possessing all five elements was the prerequisite for having an ‘immortal destiny.’ Ascension would then naturally follow through enlightenment.

Just like his master, Pure Yang Ancestor Lu Dongbin, who attained the Dao after a “dream of yellow millet,” then traveled the world slaying demons and devils, finally ascending to immortality atop the Yellow Crane Tower.

Wugou himself had solely comprehended the Sword Dao among the Three Thousand Great Daos, achieving daytime ascension in merely a dozen years. Afterward, he became a disciple of Pure Yang Ancestor Lu Dongbin, and his cultivation progressed by leaps and bounds, quickly reaching the realm of a Grand Unity Golden Immortal.

His cultivation had been so effortless that he had always been arrogant and overbearing. He had no idea which deity he might have offended, but it led to the Jade Emperor issuing an imperial decree, bestowing upon him an official position. And that, in turn, led to his current life.

Wugou had, in fact, wondered if this world was still the same as his original one. Yet, through his own practice, he discovered that the ‘Dao’ remained unchanged.

Indeed, due to the abundant spiritual energy in this world, cultivation was even easier for him. However, one concern still weighed heavily on his mind.

It was the threshold of his eighteenth birthday. In all eight of his previous lives, he had met a violent death precisely when he turned eighteen.

‘This life will probably be no different,’ he thought. ‘Given how handsome I am, I might very well be ravished to death by some female demon at eighteen.’ Recalling the bizarre ways he had died in his previous eight lives, Wugou found this particular demise quite plausible.

‘If that’s the case, why bother cultivating?’ he mused. ‘I might as well enjoy this life to the fullest and simply wait ten years to regain my golden body.’

As he pondered, he found himself, without realizing it, back at the edge of the Soul-Snatching Cold Pond. There, Luo Bingyan was watching him with a smiling face.

Wugou shivered involuntarily. ‘What does that smile mean? I have a bad feeling about this…’

“You’re back~” Palace Master Luo’s voice was exceedingly gentle. Yet, Wugou’s right eyelid twitched uncontrollably.