After traveling for nearly a full day—keeping well off the main road to avoid drawing attention with their entourage of spirit beasts—the group finally found a suitable place to rest. The clearing they chose was nestled between ancient oaks, their gnarled branches forming a natural canopy. The sky was clear, with no hint of rain on the horizon, but Kai wasn’t one to take chances. He set up additional tarps and tents, ensuring everyone would stay dry if the weather turned.

  With camp secured, it was time for training. One of the few advantages of having disciples, Kai mused, was delegation. The first disciple was always the hardest to teach—but once you had one, they could help instruct the others. It was an efficient system.

  "Lu Bu," Kai called. "Go over the basics with Chen Gong."

  Lu Bu nodded eagerly, cracking his knuckles. "Yes, Uncle Kai!"

  Chen Gong, however, looked less than thrilled. The scholar adjusted his glasses, eyeing the much younger Lu Bu with visible skepticism. But, he obliged, following Lu Bu to a nearby clearing where the boy began demonstrating basic stances and meditation forms. A cluster of spirit beasts lounged nearby, some watching with lazy disinterest, others with keen fascination—particularly a trio of dog-like creatures who mimicked the movements with surprising accuracy.

  Meanwhile, Gin had already claimed the most comfortable spot in camp, sprawled out on his bedroll with a gourd in hand. "Ahhh, finally some rest," he sighed, taking a long swig.

  Lulu sat cross-legged on her own bedroll, absorbed in a weathered tome. Her fingers traced the pages with deliberate care, her brow furrowed in concentration.

  Kai approached her. "You said you had the Falcon Rock Crushing Movement manual, right? Mind if I borrow it? I’ll return it when I’m done."

  Lulu glanced up, blinking as if pulled from deep thought. "Right now?" She sighed, snapping the book shut. "Fine. Give me a moment."

  To Kai’s surprise, she reached into her storage ring—and pulled out an entire table and chair, followed by a stack of papers, an inkwell, and a quill.

  Kai’s eyebrows shot up. Storage rings were rare enough, but the sheer capacity of Lulu’s was staggering. His own ring had limited storage space, certainly not something he would waste on furniture. Just how much space does she have in there? And why does she need a full desk?

  Gin, mid-sip, nearly choked. "Whoa! Where the hell did that come from?!" he sputtered, wine dribbling down his chin.

  Lulu ignored him, seating herself gracefully before dipping her quill into the ink.

  Kai crossed his arms. "Uh… what are you doing?"

  "Writing the manual you asked for," Lulu said matter-of-factly, her quill scratching across the parchment with practiced precision.

  Kai blinked. "Wait—but you said you had the manual back in Biragawa?"

  Lulu didn’t look up from her work. "I do. It’s up here." She tapped her temple with the end of her quill before returning to her transcription. "Eternal Memory Physique, remember? I can recall anything I’ve experienced in perfect detail—including every book I’ve ever read. I’m rewriting Falcon Rock Crushing Movement word for word because I’d rather not spend time trying to explain it to you piecemeal. Now you’ll have your own copy to reference."

  Gin let out a low whistle. "Damn. So that’s how it works?" He rubbed his chin, impressed despite himself. "Never would’ve guessed the crazy woman who tied me up had so many books crammed in her head. Wait—does that mean…?"

  Lulu smirked. "The Manual of the Intoxication Path I gave you was also a copy. I don’t carry originals. Just the supplies to reproduce them if needed." She gestured to the inkwell and stack of blank papers beside her. "Unfortunately, cultivator manuals aren’t worth much in Zan. So I’ve been making a living by using the Earthly Illusionary Delights technique—putting men into a dreamlike state where they experience… vivid fantasies."

  Gin’s eyebrows shot up. "So you were scamming people."

  Lulu’s smile turned sly. "Those men didn’t feel scammed. To them, it felt very real."

  Kai exhaled sharply, equal parts disturbed and intrigued. "Huh. Fascinating. So… just how many books have you memorized?"

  Lulu paused, tilting her head as if mentally skimming through shelves of invisible tomes. "Oh, I don’t know the exact number. It’s tens of thousands, at this point."

  "Tens of thousands?!" Kai and Gin blurted in unison.

  Gin nearly dropped his gourd. "That’s impossible! No one can remember that much!"

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Lulu arched her brow. "And yet, here I am." She flourished the freshly inked page before setting it aside to dry.

  Gin made an obnoxious grin. "So… you got any interesting books memorized? Maybe something with pictures?"

  Lulu rolled her eyes. "If you’re asking if I’ve memorized erotic literature, the answer is yes—but I’m not sharing."

  As Gin and Lulu continued their exchange, Kai turned the revelations over in his mind. The idea that Lulu had memorized tens of thousands of books—word for word, diagram for diagram—was staggering. It wasn’t just impressive; it was impossible for anyone without either a unique physique or specialized cultivation.

  His initial theory—that she was some kind of rogue courtesan from Jinsu—crumbled under the weight of new evidence. Now that he looked closer, the signs had been there all along.

  When they first met, she had attacked him with a scroll. Not a dagger, not a fan, not any conventional weapon—a scroll. Only a scholarly cultivator would think to wield knowledge as a weapon. Then there was the sheer volume of texts she claimed to have memorized. That wasn’t just the work of a casual reader; it spoke of someone who had spent years, perhaps decades, immersed in a library—and not just any library. The fact that she knew manuals from his former sect meant she had access to rare, guarded knowledge.

  But the final clue was the quill in her hand.

  Most cultivators wrote with brushes—elegant, flowing strokes suited for talismans and poetry. Quills, with their sharp, precise lines, were different. They were the tool only a few scholars still used. And there was one place known for its scholars who wielded quills like blades, who hoarded knowledge like dragons hoarded gold.

  Kai’s eyes narrowed.

  "You’re… from the Silver Quill University," he said.

  The scratching of Lulu’s quill stopped mid-stroke.

  Slowly, she looked up at him, her expression unreadable at first—then shifting into something sharper. Surprise. Interest. And beneath it, something darker. Something bitter.

  "I was part of the Silver Quill University," she corrected, her voice cool but edged with something jagged. "Past tense."

  "Wait—THE Silver Quill University?!" Gin's voice cracked with disbelief as he nearly choked on his wine. "As in, the massive collection of scholarly sects that hoards untold amounts of knowledge? The greatest repository of texts, forbidden arts, and lost histories in the world?! And—oh, let’s not forget—one of the Great Eight?!"

  His outburst was loud enough that even Lu Bu and Chen Gong paused their training, glancing over in confusion. Kai waved a hand at them, signaling to ignore the commotion and keep practicing. Lu Bu shrugged and immediately went back to correcting Chen Gong’s sloppy stance, while the scholar grumbled.

  Lulu didn’t look up from her writing, though her quill hesitated for the briefest moment. "Yes, that Silver Quill University," she confirmed. "I was part of it once."

  Gin whistled low. "Damn. So what, you were some kind of librarian?"

  "Try ‘Living Archive’," Lulu corrected, finally lifting her gaze. There was a sharpness in her eyes now, the kind that came from memories best left undisturbed. "Most cultivators who want to memorize texts like me have to develop a specialized Dao to do it—and even then, their capacity is limited by their cultivation realm. But me?" She tapped her temple again. "I was born with an innate ability. No Dao required. I could memorize entire libraries just by reading them once. The University saw that and decided I’d be their next great ‘Living Archive’—a walking repository of knowledge, able to recite any text, any manual, any secret they shoved into my head."

  Kai studied her. That kind of ability was beyond rare—it was the kind of gift the Silver Quill University would covenant. "So why leave?" he asked. "I can’t imagine the Silver Quill just let you walk away."

  Lulu’s lips curled into a humorless smile. "Oh, they didn’t want to. But they also take the laws of the Righteous Alliance seriously. And they really didn’t appreciate me breaking them."

  Gin leaned forward, intrigued. "What’d you do? Steal some forbidden technique? Sabotage a rival scholar? Seduce the headmaster?"

  Lulu shot him a withering look. "I sold cultivation manuals to rogue cultivators. Not out of greed—I needed the funds to buy dream-suppressing pills." Her fingers tightened around the quill. "The University refused to give them to me. Said the pills would ‘ruin my cultivation.’ They’d rather I suffer through the nightmares—let my mind fracture—than risk harming their ‘Living Archive’, their property,” she said bitterly.

  "So you defied them," Kai said.

  "I survived," Lulu corrected coldly. "They wanted a perfect Living Archive? Fine. But I wasn’t going to let their dogma destroy me in the process. I ran away from them before they could hand me over to the Faceless Judges."

  Kai exhaled slowly. "Well," he said at last, "their loss."

  Lulu smirked, though it didn’t reach her eyes. "Damn right. Though…they were correct about the pills. I was once at a foundation establishment realm, almost golden core, but now have been reduced to qi gathering because of those pills."

  Then, without another word, she returned to her writing—the scratch of her quill the only sound in the clearing.

  Kai watched her for a moment longer, his perception of her shifting like sand beneath a receding tide. Just hours ago, he had seen her as little more than a cunning thief—a sleep-deprived rogue with quick hands and a sharper tongue. But now?

  She was a scholar.

  Not just any scholar, but a Living Archive—a title that carried weight even among the most elite cultivators. And yet here she was, transcribing manuals in the middle of the wilderness with the same ease as someone scribbling a grocery list.

  You really can’t judge a book by its cover, Kai mused.

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