My virtue is above yours.

The eldest brother suddenly pounced into Chen Jingxuan's arms and kept licking his face.

Chen Jingxuan laughed and backed away, saying, "Senior Brother, don't be like that, you're being too enthusiastic."

"Woof woof!" The eldest brother excitedly circled around on the ground, wagging his tail incessantly.

Chen Jingxuan patted his senior brother's yellow dog head: "Did your senior sister pick you up? I'll go find her."

When the maid Chunhong saw Chen Jingxuan enter the inner room, she leaned against the door and looked at the yellow dog in the yard with a surprised expression.

"Why does Master Chen call that dog 'Senior Brother'?"

The maidservant Dongyue said in a serious tone, "I heard from storytellers that highly skilled cultivators can transform into countless forms. Maybe it's because the senior brothers of the Taoist priests like to transform into the appearance of a yellow dog."

"Shouldn't we go say hello? After all, we'll be serving this senior brother in the future."

The two maids exchanged glances and immediately walked towards the center of the courtyard.

The eldest brother was lying in the sun, letting the warm sunlight bask on his belly. When he saw two little girls walking over, he jumped up excitedly and wagged his tail enthusiastically at them.

The maids bowed somewhat awkwardly: "Greetings, Senior Brother. We are maids from the courtyard. My name is Chunhong, and this is Dongyue. Please take good care of us in the future."

The eldest brother excitedly bent down, a gesture a dog makes when inviting someone to play, which looks like a person kneeling on the ground.

Chunhong was immediately startled and pulled Dongyue down to her knees with a thud: "Senior Brother, there's no need for such a grand gesture. This servant cannot accept it. Please rise, please rise!"

The eldest brother suddenly sat up again, cupped his hands and bowed to the two of them. This was something Chen Jingxuan had taught him before; whenever he bowed like this, he would get food.

Chunhong and her companion quickly clasped their hands and bowed to their senior brother, saying, "Daoist Master, please don't do this. We can't accept it!"

Chen Jingxuan and Lu Yunci came out of the house and saw a yellow dog and two maids kneeling and bowing to each other in the courtyard.

The yellow dog smiled broadly, while the maid looked terrified.

The two of them couldn't help but burst out laughing.

The laughter attracted the attention of the maids, who looked at him with pleading eyes: "Two Taoist priests, please persuade our senior brother quickly, we really can't bear to see him like this."

The two women pulled the maids up and explained, "You've misunderstood. Senior Brother isn't a powerful cultivator; it's just the dog's name. Because we dogs entered the sect before us, Master insisted that the dog be Senior Brother, so we just followed suit. This is the second generation Senior Brother; the previous one was its father."

"I see." The maids blushed with embarrassment after hearing this.

Chen Jingxuan took a piece of corn and handed it to her senior brother, who excitedly started munching on it: "Senior sister, when did you bring senior brother over?"

Lu Yunci looked bewildered: "I didn't answer it. I thought you picked it up? Could it be that Senior Brother came over on his own?"

"It's me!" Zhu Lingyun's voice came from the rooftop. He jumped down and landed in the courtyard.

Chen Jingxuan asked, "You're back so soon? I walked this road for three days straight without sleep."

"I can fly. When I got back, I found that Master wasn't at the temple. I searched all the widows' houses in the surrounding villages, but he wasn't there. I didn't know where he was, so I left a note, hoping he would see it when he returned. My eldest brother is alone at the temple with his dog, and I was afraid no one would take care of him, so I brought him along." Zhu Lingyun patted his eldest brother's dog's head. "Junior brother, there's something else. Something happened in Qingyuan Village."

"What?" Chen Jingxuan grabbed his senior brother anxiously. "What happened?"

"Don't worry. When I passed through that area, there was a rat infestation. A kind of rat demon with a pig's snout was rampaging, appearing in swarms and devouring all the local grain and crops. But don't worry, I've already dealt with the demon. I left some fasting pills for the villagers, which should last them a while. I had Liu Zi buy winter food, and it's already been sent over."

Chen Jingxuan finally breathed a sigh of relief and sat down: "Senior brother, you handled this matter efficiently, thank you very much. I will pay you back later."

Zhu Lingyun took a sip of tea: "No need to pay it back. It was your money; I withdrew fifty taels of silver from Qingluan Pavilion's account."

"What? I only have fifty taels left in my account, and you've spent it all?" Lu Yunci shouted.

"Yeah. I was worried it wouldn't be enough, so I took some of my own money from your room and had Liu Zi take it too." Zhu Lingyun looked at the two of them with blank expressions, and was also completely bewildered.

"That money was meant for the academy to house the children," Lu Yunci slumped into her seat. "Forget it, Qingyuan Village is Xiaoquan'er's home. It's all about saving lives, it doesn't matter who we save. We're out of money now, so you'll have to find a way to raise funds."

Chen Jingxuan hugged his senior brother tightly: "It's not a big problem. Continue with the plan. I'll take you to the academy to find the contract, my senior sister will contact the young master of Qingluan Pavilion, and you go back to Luoxia Lane to raise funds; there are many wealthy people there."

Zhu Lingyun's face turned bright red to her ears: "Me, go fundraising?"

"What else? You can trade with us if you want. You can negotiate with the organizer, or you can search for something in front of dozens of children and choose one?"

"Let's just do the fundraising. I'll stay silent."

"So how will you raise funds?"

"I have my own way."

Chen Jingxuan patted his senior brother's head, then immediately separated a wisp of his divine consciousness and took over his senior brother's mind. Countless strong scents rushed into his mind, making it difficult for him to accept them for a moment.

The smells of moss mixed with soil, the stench of the outhouse, the smell of firewood in the kitchen, the musty smell of the wooden beams, the dog smell on the eldest brother, and the smell of photinia flowers on the street all rushed in at once. All the smells were incredibly clear and distinct, and you could even smell the shape of the things.

Chen Jingxuan suppressed the urge to vomit and endured the pain caused by his olfactory senses, which were beyond the limits of human susceptibility.

He could smell the faint fragrance of the maid in the next room. It was the first time he realized that even the same person could have different body odors, with subtle differences in the smell of each part of the body. This allowed him to tell without looking that the maid was lying in bed picking her toes, and that she was picking at her feet because they were a little sour.

In his previous life, he had read related reports that well-trained search and rescue dogs could determine a person's posture and whether they needed rescue based on the distribution of scents.

I never expected that my senior brother could act like a search and rescue dog. Perhaps it's a talent, or perhaps my divine sense has enhanced his senses.

He could clearly smell the scents of his senior brothers and sisters.

My senior brother didn't have a trace of scent on him, which might be related to his path in cultivation.

His senior sister, on the other hand, had a rich, milky scent. It was through the scent that he discovered that beneath her wide robes and sleeves, she possessed such a graceful figure.

No, no, no, that's not right. One should not hear what is improper.

Chen Jingxuan pulled his senior brother away quickly. As they walked through the streets and alleys, all sorts of strange smells kept wafting into their noses, and they couldn't stop them.

On the street, a woman was holding her husband's arm, the two showing their deep affection.

But he could clearly smell the scent of a third party on both of them.

The widow on East Street even smelled of a wandering monk.

The monk had several different scents on him, including an unfamiliar masculine smell.

"I can no longer look anyone in the eye on the street."

When Chen Jingxuan returned to Shengyang Academy with his senior brother, they were immediately surrounded by the children who had finished class.

Everyone excitedly came up to pet the dog, and Chen Jingxuan felt countless hands groping his senior brother's body, as if he were being violated.

A child excitedly pulled his senior brother towards the inner courtyard, shouting excitedly, "Big Yellow, I'll treat you to something delicious! Don't be shy!"

Through the dog's nose, Chen Jingxuan smelled a strong odor of rice.

He quickly picked up his senior brother, saying, "I'm here to find clues to the book's contents. You guys keep this good stuff for yourselves."

He squeezed through the children's circle while holding the dog, using the dog's nose to record the scent of everyone in the academy.

The eldest disciple searched everywhere in the academy, not missing a single corner. Chen Jingxuan gradually got used to the dog's perspective and the senses full of smells, and could basically distinguish what smells came from people.

Try to avoid the interference of human scents and focus on the smell of stale ink and paper.

He and his senior brother entered the abbot's dilapidated study and opened a pile of moldy wooden cabinets.

Suddenly, I smelled a faint human scent in one of the cabinets.