The Gluttonous Junior Brother’s Immortal-Cultivation Meal Ticket

Su Xiaoman was born with a useless spiritual root and was told she wouldn't live past twenty. Her gluttony led her to accidentally break the seal on an ancient Taotie.

The awakening of her special destiny caused strange phenomena throughout heaven and earth. An elder in charge of the dining hall at Tianyan Sect picked her up as reserve rations.

"These buns are so good!" Su Xiaoman squatted on the bluestone steps, her fair cheeks puffed out like a hamster's as crumbs sprinkled onto her patched robe. A long line had formed outside Tianyan Sect's mountain gate. He was the only one happily eating from a bamboo basket, drawing frequent glances from the youths around him.

A steward in purple robes suddenly swept his horsetail whisk across the path to block him. "Chubby, you couldn't even light up a spirit stone. Why are you still hanging around?"

Su Xiaoman blinked his round almond eyes and took a paper-wrapped parcel from his robes. "But... my mother said I can't go home until I've eaten ten servings of the sect's poria cakes." His pink tongue licked the sugar from his fingertips as he counted on his fingers. "I've had seven so far, so I still need three osmanthus-flavored ones and two sesame..."

"What nonsense!" The steward in purple robes was so angry his beard trembled. A green glow gathered in his palm. "Is Tianyan Sect a dining hall?" Before he could finish speaking, the bamboo basket in Su Xiaoman's arms suddenly burst with golden light. Crumbs from the leftover buns floated into the air and formed the pattern of a Taotie.

The entire Stairway of Self-Reflection shook with a rumble, and a deafening beast's roar rang out from the sea of clouds. Su Xiaoman felt the back of his neck grow hot, and the blurry image of a broken bronze mirror appeared in his sea of consciousness. When he opened his eyes again, a bronze Taotie mark had appeared in his palm, and his stomach was growling.

"I'm hungry..." he grumbled, rubbing his belly, completely unaware of the deathly silence around him. The white-haired elder in charge of teaching flew in on a cloud. He stared at the shadow beneath Su Xiaoman's robe and drew a sharp breath: the dark mist was unmistakably shaped like an ancient ferocious beast.