After doing my best to calmly listen to Little Spring’s story that was, frankly, poorly told and out of chronological order, I had the urge to drag that fucking no-good Ghosty McGhostface out of his soul gem and let the sun’s yang energy burn him to death.

How dare he let Little Spring — a damn child — risk his life just so he could consume that guy!

But that would be for later.

I didn’t allow my fury to show on my face and merely did my best to pay attention and look interested in what the kid had to say.

“So...” Little Spring hedged as he started taking down the papers I’d left up in the small cave. “I want to cook Immortal dishes.”

I blinked. He wanted to learn Immortal cooking? As far as I knew, Bloodsword had never touched that field—though one of his wives was an Immortal Chef.

And that reminded me that at one point I’d secretly come up with a game called, Harem Bingo. I’d listed each of the various types of cultivators and placed them randomly on a few cards. Every time he came home with a new wife I’d place a dot on the square she matched.

I think it took me 300 years to get bingo.

“Alright! You can learn to cook Immortal dishes. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to help you much aside from gathering or planting ingredients.”

“I know,” he said with so much confidence that I wanted to cry. I guess my lack of cooking skills were well known to him by now. “But that’s one of the most important parts,” he said almost comfortingly.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t learn to cook... It was that I refused to! There was a difference!

“Well. Read the manual and tell me what dish you’d like to make. We can gather the ingredients together.”

He nodded then hesitated, his cheeks turned a little red. “I’d like to make something now.”

I paused for a bit as I stared at him.

He fidgeted. “Aren't you tired? You looked tired earlier.”

“I’m fine now!”

Well, he did rest a bit while telling me his story.

“Okay. Find a simple recipe and we’ll see.”

He looked excited and started furiously reviewing the recipes in the beginning of the thick book.

This... seemed like it would take a while.

Well, since he was doing that I could start to put some things in order.

Events that happened in my past life started to add up.

Most had been so small that I hadn’t given them much thought. Plus, he became an asshole I wanted nothing to do with — so there was that.

When Bloodsword was 15 — and before he took up his daoist title — I noticed him in our peak’s Scripture Pavilion researching the soul. Every day. Like clockwork. For months. But I thought he was just trying to get ahead of himself.

But what if, he’d gone on a sect mission to this area and encountered this inheritance. Something he obviously had fate with if Little Spring encountered it in this timeline—and far before he was supposed to!

To line events up in a chronological order, I had to start at the beginning...

Two years before we were picked up by the sect recruiting team Bloodsword’s mother died. I supposed that happened around a month or two before I transmigrated as I’d never actually seen her alive.

The little guy lived in our village and, besides getting leftovers from kind neighbors, he was mostly a loner.

Of course, during this time I was still freaking out and learning the language better. I hadn't even known I was in a goddamn Xianxia universe yet (which I still think is much better than being stuck in mundane ancient China).

During this time where we were still innocent kids living in the village, the Sect Leader was poisoned by the leader of a demonic sect.

Unyielding, Justice, Jujube, Glittering Iron, and Third Peach made their way into Three Kings’ Forest to find the rare spiritual herbs to cure him. Unfortunately, only Glittering Iron and Jujube made it out alive. But they were still successful!

They brought the plants to Alchemy Peak where they were put in a pill to cure the Sect Leader.

And the antidote worked!

However, having heard about the death of Unyielding, our Sect Leader was plunged into a deep depression.

A year and a few months later sect members came around with talent measuring orbs, searching for those who had fate with immortality.

I'd learned the language well enough to know most of what was happening to us. But I was too young to have a say in whether I went or not. And Bloodsword had just been another fellow kid being abducted by weirdos in pretty robes.

Our kidnappers.... I mean, escorts, brought us directly to the trial where we challenged various tests and even fought with fellow prospective disciples. In the end, both of us earned spots as Fairy Verdant Bamboo’s first disciples.

And around this time, on Violet Seal(Ghosty)’s advice, Bloodsword started practicing that horrible technique that would leave him wide open to takeovers from other souls.

When we were around 14 and 16 years old, Fairy Verdant Bamboo threw us out to go do sect missions to gain experience. Since Three Kings Forest was a spot our sect sometimes collected spiritual plants or spirit beast bodies from, Bloodsword and the weak Violet Seal (Ghosty) must have come here at one point and encountered this inheritance space. They went through the various trials, collected treasures, and reached the end where Bloody Crimson Sword Edge waited—trap set.

The corrupting shit mosquito tried to take over Bloodsword’s body, but Violet Seal attempted to protect him at the last moment.

Instead of consuming the weak-ass dickhead, Violet Seal (who wasn't that strong himself) partially failed. He just couldn’t completely eradicate that Bloody Crimson Sword Edge no matter how much he shredded him.

Now. I wasn’t entirely sure what happened. But I think, somehow, bits of their injured souls infiltrated the very open to other souls Bloodsword... And merged.

But it didn’t happen all at once. The kid fought off being absorbed by these two partial souls for a long time. He did a lot of research into souls to figure it out... But in the end, likely to gain power or to survive, he merged his soul with theirs.

This created a different person.

One who was talented, had godly luck, attracted women like honey did flies, and who was a complete and utter asshole.

Of course, this didn't mean that Little Spring couldn't get corrupted by bad influences and turn into an asshole at some later date... So I still needed to make sure he was taught properly. But this did explain how he turned into that gross-ass shit for brains in my last life.

It helped that, since he was using my perfected technique, Bloody Crimson wouldn't have been able to enter Little Spring without his permission. Something the kid was too smart to give.

Now that I considered this whole merging thing... While I didn’t know exactly when the final merge happened I could guess. Extrapolating from the assumption that he was corrupted at the age of 15 (when I saw him researching souls) I think it may have been completed around when he married his first wife but possibly before he met the second.

“Fairy Lin!” Little Spring’s voice broke me out of my reverie.

He pointed to a page where a simple vegetarian dish was described. It required several different spiritual roots that were common enough. So common that we could probably find them around here.

I’d have to get this kid some actual spiritual cooking equipment that could handle the spiritual energy of the plants he’d work with in the future but for a recipe this low level, mundane equipment would work fine.

Let’s see. A Spiritual Lotus Root, Spiritual Garlic, Humming Wood Ear Mushroom, Mushroom Essence Oil, Shimmering Ginkgo Nuts, Wild Creeping Carrots, Dried Fire Chili Peppers and Verdant Snow Peas. And all of this will go over Spiritual Rice. Which we happened to have a few bags of.

Simple my ass!

Shouldn’t a simple recipe be, like three or four ingredients? Like eggs, sugar, tomatoes, and rice?

I glared at Little Spring.

He shrugged. “It sounds good. And if we keep the seeds we can plant more of the ingredients in the space so we can make it again.”

I sighed. “Alright.” I spread out my divine sense and as I suspected. Everything we needed was close by... Well, within a few square miles.

“Come on. Let’s quickly gather the ingredients then come back.”

***

We collected the Mushrooms that we needed to make the Essence Oil, right near the cave. Then we had to go a half-mile out to find the Humming Wood Ear Mushroom.

They were dark, weird, ear-looking mushrooms, attached to a massive moss-covered tree root. Each shroom vibrated suspiciously but this was definitely the right fungus. I knew about these since they were also beginner alchemy ingredients.

Just as I took out my sword to dig around the tree’s roots in an effort to take the whole thing into the space, Little Spring spoke up. “Fairy Lin! We can’t use the space right now.”

Right. Somewhere in his awkwardly told story, he’d mentioned that he picked up a treasure to improve the space but this locked us out for the next couple of weeks—or however long it took.

I sighed.

Well, we could always gather them again somewhere else.

With a few slices of my sword, I collected the Mushrooms into a jade box.

***

Next was the Lotus Root. There was a small stream that winded its way through the forest. It emptied into a small pond where several large lotus flowers managed to take root. While most of these were either mundane or too young, there was one that was perfect for our use.

I didn't bother wading into the water, instead, I sent a hand made of spiritual energy into the pool and pulled the whole lotus out of the water.

With a few deft slashes, I collected the root and stored the rest of the plant in one of the larger jade boxes.

Then I took a few dozen steps into the forest and pulled up a plant that looked a bit like a tall weed. A Wild Spiritual Garlic bulb appeared, attached to the plant.

Did we need to dry this before use or something?

I glanced at Little Spring who stared at me with glittering eyes.

Awkwardly, I rubbed the tip of my nose... This was bad. I may have given him the impression that the world was our garden by how casually I found everything so far.

“We’re lucky that these are all very common in this area.”

He nodded.

“And spiritual vegetables are usually prevalent in forests like this. While all spirit beasts fight each other to consume their enemy’s core, not all spirit beasts consume the leftover meat to survive. A fair number of them survive on plants like these.”

I picked out a clove from the thick wild spiritual garlic — leaving some of its papery husk on — then I stuffed it back into the ground and poured a bit of the spiritual spring water on top.

I found pleasure in doing little things like this to help keep the forest thriving. Though I couldn’t do this all the time, doing it when I could made things just a little better.

Plus, in a universe where Karma and Fate was a real fucking thing that affected cultivation, every little bit of good I did to offset the bad helped.

***

Next I brought us to a clearing. It was obvious that this place hadn’t always been a rough meadow like this. There were signs of battle between massive spiritual beasts, likely at the fourth or fifth level. This had possibly happened decades ago since most of the uneven ground was covered in grasses and white flowers.

I casually pulled up a handful of the flowers and showed Little Spring the pale Wild Creeping Carrots. The roots still attached to the main carrot part wiggled as if trying to escape. But it didn’t have any actual intelligence. Just spiritual energy and instinct. I threw them into one of the few empty jade boxes I had left.

Little Spring crouched down to look at one of the still planted creeping carrots. He poked it, and it literally pulled itself out of the ground and crept away.

His eyes grew wide.

Yeah. It was fuckin’ weird. There were plenty of things in this messed up world that I hated—its strange vegetation was not one of them.

***

Next I found a Spiritual Maidenhair Tree that had clusters of Shimmering Ginkgo Nuts clinging to its branches high above. In the dim lighting, they almost looked like clusters of golden green grapes. But the smell was startlingly terrible. Like bad dog shit or really good cheese.

I eyed them.

“Fairy Lin! Do you want me to help you up?”

I grinned at the kid. Then I pulled out my sword and a jade box,

I sent a slash of sword Qi at a bunch then dashed up and caught them in the box before putting them away. Easy. A little too easy.

But life wasn’t all running from spirit beasts and stopping murderers. Sometimes, it was collecting stinky fruit with an adopted family member and peacefully walking through a dangerous forest.

I used my divine sense to double check that the way was clear, and once again we ran to the next two items on the list.

***

These next plants were the most difficult to collect. They tended to grow next to each other but also clashed as their natures were the polar opposite. Fire Chili Peppers and Verdant Snow Peas.

However, that clash, much like grapes growing in the desert, made them taste better. At least that was what I’d heard.

Fire Chili Peppers was a low level alchemy ingredient as well, used in pills that a cultivator would turn into powder and then thrown at an opponent to burn them. Since I could have used these as well, I decided to collect double the amount.

When we reached the plants, I noticed that they were very small and young. The pepper plant had gorgeous red chili peppers hanging on it. Each one seemed to pulse with energy and heat.

Meanwhile, the small snow pea plant appeared to have ice crystals forming on the tips of its leaves. The green pea pods even appeared a bit chilled, as if someone had stuck them in the freezer for a half hour.

Unfortunately, the two plants I found were very small and young. They did not produce many peppers and pea pods, and half of that was already eaten by the wild life.

I sighed.

Little Spring started toward the bushes.

“Stop!”

He paused, then looked back at me.

“Never assume that a plant is completely safe. Not unless you know it inside and out and have scanned the area around it for possible spiritual beasts.”

He nodded seriously.

“Notice how the ground around the pepper is brown and black as if something had caught fire.”

“Yes! And the area around the Snow Peas is a little white, as if it’s covered in a thin layer of snow.”

“Good job!” I grinned and patted his head. He scowled at me. ”There is a trick to collecting these.”

“Aren’t you just going to use sword Qi to cut off the peppers and pea pods?”

I raised a brow at him. “Do you think everything is that easy to collect? Also, do you know how much skill and how precise you need to be to cut a small pepper from a distance without harming the plant itself?”

“You can do it.”

I straightened my spine and crossed my arms. “Of course I can. But that doesn't mean that it’s the correct way to collect these two.”

“Then how?”

I grinned. “I’m not collecting them. You need to learn this, so you’re doing it.”

His eyes widened.