Chapter 159: Double Agent Deal

By now it was already club activity time.
I returned to the club building.

This time the reception desk was manned by Xu Shan, Gui Cheng, and Bai Shi.
There seemed to be even more students coming than in the morning—
all consulting about their wealth luck, love luck,
or the supernatural incidents they had encountered.

I couldn’t help but feel that the supernatural consultation business
was starting to resemble some shady, unregulated little clinic:
patients come knocking,
and they casually prescribe dubious remedies that might work,
might do nothing,
or might even be harmful.

Mo Qingyan and Bai Yue were probably still over at the Supernatural Events Department.
I didn’t want to deal with classmates asking me all sorts of questions,
so I went straight there.

The invisible door opened.
Sure enough, Mo Qingyan, Bai Yue, and Xiao Qing were all inside.
Mo Qingyan seemed to be giving Xiao Qing some pointers.
I saw the surrounding baleful qi gathering toward Xiao Qing’s arm,
only to fail to condense and scatter immediately.

“Eh! Still no good?”

Ou Zhiqing sighed.
Mo Qingyan comforted her:

“It’s okay. Take it slow.
Practice for a few days and you’ll probably get it.”

“Hm? Yu Bing is back.
Why did it take you so long?”

Mo Qingyan looked up at me,
then pushed up her glasses in surprise
and studied me seriously:

“Your blood and qi have been replenished?
What happened?”

Bai Yue also looked at me with puzzlement.
Even taking me to the cafeteria to eat human flesh and drink human blood
hadn’t restored my blood and qi.
How had it recovered now?

“I went to see the safety consultant.
He transferred some vital essence to me,
which finally helped restore my blood and qi.
He also taught me a set of Taiji Quan.”

I recounted everything that had happened.

“He helped you that much?
And taught you Taiji Quan?
He seems to come from orthodox Daoist lineage.
The Taiji Quan he practices must be different from the versions circulating outside.
Can you tell me exactly how he taught you?”

Mo Qingyan asked eagerly.

“He said it’s actually no different from the ones outside.
He just taught me some acupoints and breathing & qi circulation techniques.”

I repeated what Yi Zhiqiu had taught me.

“Yes! That’s it!
The authentic orthodox Daoist breathing and qi circulation method—
a secret transmission that absolutely cannot be found in the outside world.
I never expected him to be willing to teach it to you.
What price did you pay to get him to teach you this?”

Mo Qingyan asked excitedly.

“Huh? Is it really that precious?
I didn’t give him anything…
I just agreed to help him inquire about ghost stories among the female students.”

I said, genuinely surprised.
I had thought the breathing method was something anyone could learn.

“He asked you to inquire about ghost stories related to this school?
What happened?”

Mo Qingyan’s expression turned serious at once.
She stopped asking about Taiji Quan.

“I heard that a girl heard crying in the restroom,
got possessed,
and after he exorcised her,
he suspects there are ghost stories existing in the school.”

As I spoke, I couldn’t help glancing at Bai Yue.
After all, she had directly taken me to experience one of those ghost stories firsthand.

Bai Yue gave me a slight shake of her head,
signaling that the fact she had taken me to the ghost story location
could not be told to Mo Qingyan—
and certainly not to Yi Zhiqiu.

“I see.”

Mo Qingyan rested her chin on her hand and thought for a moment before saying:

“Alright. You can go ahead and inquire.
Tell Yi Zhiqiu whatever you find out.
Or if you prefer, I can feed you some things to tell him.
In exchange, try to coax the complete Taiji Quan manual out of him.”

“Huh?”

Suddenly I felt like I had been turned into a double agent.

Bai Yue spoke up:

“Is that okay?
Telling Yi Zhiqiu about the ghost stories…
those ghost stories—”

“Don’t worry.
Back then Senior Brother Liang didn’t complete every single ghost story.
There are still a few incomplete, half-finished test subjects.
We can let Yi Zhiqiu ‘resolve’ those.
It’s perfectly worth trading them for an authentic Taiji Quan manual.
Plus, it will make him lower his guard.”

Mo Qingyan said with a smile.

“As for the truly completed ghost stories,
there’s no way he can find them.
Even if Yu Bing tells him everything,
he’ll never actually encounter them—
after all, he’s also a cultivator.”

The conversation between Mo Qingyan and Bai Yue left me utterly shocked.
There was way too much information packed into those sentences.
The ghost stories were created by Senior Brother Liang?
And Yi Zhiqiu can never find the real ones?

While I was still trying to process everything,
Mo Qingyan turned back to me and said:

“Yu Bing, if you can obtain the complete Taiji Quan manual from Yi Zhiqiu and hand it over to me,
according to department rules, you will receive an equivalent reward.
What would you like?”

I was stunned again.
Sure enough, this was Mo Qingyan’s usual style—
everything had to be an equivalent exchange,
or at least appear fair on the surface.

I could only say:

“I don’t even know what I could ask for…”

“From an equivalent value perspective,
if you obtain one martial art,
I should reward you with one martial art in return—
or possibly two or three,
depending on how Senior Brother Liang evaluates the value of the complete Taiji Quan manual.”

Mo Qingyan said.

“Uh… I can’t even perform Taiji Quan properly.
Yi Zhiqiu said it would take me several years to cultivate true qi.
Even if you give me other martial arts, it won’t be useful right now.”

I said with a troubled expression.

“Hehe.
If you follow the normal step-by-step training,
of course you can’t produce true qi quickly.
But if you want the reward,
we do have a method to let you cultivate true qi immediately—
and without side effects.”

Mo Qingyan smiled.

My heart skipped a beat.
I didn’t fully believe the “no side effects” part,
but the idea of producing true qi in a short time
was extremely tempting.

Yi Zhiqiu had indeed mentioned that there were multiple ways to speed up true qi cultivation,
but clearly he wouldn’t teach me those methods.
Yet Mo Qingyan had them—
and was willing to teach me.

“Besides, Yi Zhiqiu most likely won’t teach you offensive techniques.
The Taiji Quan he’s teaching you is only meant to help you protect yourself.
He won’t give you anything attack-oriented.
But I can reward you with offensive moves.”

Mo Qingyan added.

“Really?!”

That caught my attention even more.
Yi Zhiqiu had already indicated that the authorities wouldn’t teach offensive techniques,
and judging from his personality,
he really didn’t seem like someone who would.
His goal in teaching me Taiji Quan was purely to help me nourish my blood and qi.

“Of course.
I’ve already taught Xiao Qing some.
Ask her if you don’t believe me.”

Mo Qingyan said.
Xiao Qing nodded shyly:

“Senior Sister Mo did teach me a few small tricks…
but I haven’t mastered them yet.”

“Mm.
Although I’m not particularly skilled in martial arts,
all methods share the same principles.
I can demonstrate for you.”

Mo Qingyan said.
She picked up a pencil.

This wasn’t the red pencil she used to summon Bixian—
just an ordinary pencil.
Mo Qingyan raised it and assumed a throwing posture.

In an instant,
the surrounding baleful qi converged onto the pencil.
With a casual flick of her wrist,
she threw it.
The pencil shot forward like a dart,
pierced straight through the wall,
leaving a small hole,
and disappeared who-knows-where.

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