In front of the Royal Post House, the lanterns hanging from the eaves swayed gently in the night breeze, casting warm, yellow circles of light.
Feng Lingshuang stopped walking and turned to Lu Li.
She solemnly cupped her hands and bowed.
The voice that came from beneath her veiled hat, though still deliberately disguised, was noticeably clearer and more relieved than before.
“Listening to Immortal Lu’s words tonight has truly cleared my mind, more than reading books for ten years.”
“Many doubts and confusions that have been tangled in my heart, difficult to resolve, finally seem to have found a direction. I… know how to proceed from now on.”
Hearing this, Lu Li looked at the person before him, whose aura seemed to have quietly undergone a subtle change.
Although he still couldn’t see the other’s expression, he could clearly sense that the heavy, lingering gloom, depression, and faint anxiety that had surrounded Jian Mingzi before had indeed dissipated for the most part.
In its place was a kind of settled calm and a trace of resolve after breaking through the fog.
Seeing this, Lu Li felt a sense of gratification in his heart.
He smiled slightly and nodded.
“It is best if you can figure it out on your own, my friend. Many of the world’s troubles sometimes truly cannot be rushed. They require a calm heart to face, progressing step by step.”
Then, Lu Li and Feng Lingshuang exchanged a smile.
The sense of closeness that had been drawn between them during their late-night heart-to-heart talk transformed at this moment into a tacit understanding that needed no words.
After bidding farewell with a cupped-hand salute, Feng Lingshuang turned and her figure quickly melted into the night outside the courier station, her steps seeming a bit lighter.
Lu Li stood in place, watching that figure disappear, and couldn’t help but feel a bit more relaxed in his heart.
Being able to resolve another’s worries was, after all, a pleasant thing.
Lu Li turned and entered the post house.
When he returned to the courtyard where he was temporarily staying, his mood was quite good.
Even his thoughts about the Yinhu Sect’s conspiracy were temporarily diluted.
‘Indeed, after a busy day, what you need is a nice, comfortable hot bath…’
Lu Li sighed with contentment as he pushed open the door to his room.
He didn’t disturb his two disciples, who seemed to have already fallen asleep in the room next door, and went straight into the attached bathroom.
Soon, the faint sound of water could be heard inside the bathroom.
Lu Li immersed his entire body in the large wooden bathtub.
The warm water enveloped his weary form, the perfect temperature seeming to seep into every limb and pore, slowly melting away the day’s running about and mental tension.
Lu Li closed his eyes and let out a satisfied sigh.
“Indeed, bathing is the most healing thing. It feels like even the soul is being cleansed, almost sublimated…”
While enjoying this rare moment of relaxation, Lu Li let his thoughts drift back to serious matters, sorting through the various bits of information he had gathered tonight in his mind.
‘Sigh… What exactly are those Yinhu Sect guys after, going to such lengths to open the Gate of the Demon Realm?’
‘Logically speaking, the barrier between the two realms is still solid and the distance is vast. Even if they forcibly open a temporary passage, it couldn’t possibly support a large-scale descent of demonic cultivators…’
‘Unless… they have another goal, or perhaps… they’ve mastered some method we don’t know about?’
Just as Lu Li was immersed in the hot water and his thoughts, in the bedroom next door, separated only by a single wall…
Gu Qingying and Gong Shangyu, who had been pretending to sleep ever since returning from outside, almost simultaneously opened their eyes in the darkness.
They had obviously heard the commotion of Lu Li returning to the courtyard earlier and had been listening intently to their master’s movements.
When they heard Lu Li not return to the bedroom but go directly into the bathroom, and the clear sound of water coming from the adjacent bathroom, the two girls frowned in unison.
Gu Qingying’s heart bubbled with suspicion.
‘Strange… According to the time estimate Gong Shangyu and I secretly noted earlier, after the Time Stop was lifted, it shouldn’t have taken Master this long to walk back to the post house from the intersection where he parted ways with us…’
‘So… where did he go during that extra time? What did he do?’
Gong Shangyu was also full of doubts.
‘Master heads straight for the bath as soon as he returns? This isn’t his usual habit! Normally, if he’s tired, he usually meditates and regulates his breathing in the room for a while first…’
‘Hmm… Something’s off! Very off! Ten points, or even nine points off!’
Then, a thought that made their hearts tighten suddenly and uncontrollably surfaced.
‘Could it be… that Master… secretly met someone outside? Especially… a woman?!’
Once such an idea took root, it rapidly wrapped around their hearts like vines.
The faces of Gu Qingying and Gong Shangyu instantly darkened, looking as if they could wring out water.
But immediately after, they subconsciously shook their heads, trying to deny this terrifying speculation.
‘No way! Master is an upright person, open and aboveboard. His mind is mostly on cultivation and teaching us. How could he possibly fool around outside?’
‘Our master is so righteous. How could he be easily seduced by wildflowers outside?’
However… another voice suddenly rang out in their minds.
‘But for a man like Master, with such profound cultivation, handsome and elegant appearance, and outstanding temperament… even if he himself has no such intentions, how can he stop others from admiring and pursuing him?’
‘With Master’s qualities, isn’t it normal for him to have a marriage partner or female admirers?’
‘After all, Master’s strength is so great, and his appearance is so outstanding…’
Recalling Lu Li’s handsome profile, his gentle eyes, and the occasionally revealed, slightly helpless, tender expression…
Gu Qingying and Gong Shangyu’s cheeks unconsciously flushed with waves of red.
Pink steam seemed almost ready to materialize above their heads, and they both momentarily transformed into worried “steam engines.”
However, Gong Shangyu and Gu Qingying’s brief fantasies were soon covered by deeper worries.
‘What if… what if Master really has another… woman we don’t know about outside…? What should we do then?’
The two girls looked at each other in the darkness, seeing the same gloom and a trace of difficult to detect, almost paranoid sharpness in each other’s eyes.
In this deathly silence, Gong Shangyu’s voice, thin as a thread, accurately was transmitted into Gu Qingying’s ear, carrying unconcealed anxiety and probing.
“Hey! Junior Sister!”
“You say… should we go out now, go next door to… care for Master?”
“Ask him where he went just now, and why he lingered outside for so long before returning?”
A cold glint flashed in Gu Qingying’s purple pupils in the dark.
She likewise responded via voice transmission, her tone carrying obvious sarcasm.
“Hah… Idiot! You want to rush out and ask now? Isn’t that just blatantly telling Master that the two of us weren’t peacefully sleeping in our room earlier, and might have even followed him out?”
“How would you explain how we know the specific time he should have returned? If he investigates deeply and our system secrets are exposed before him, leading to us being erased by the System, or our identities exposed and Master finding out we’re girls and expelling us from the sect… can you bear that kind of consequence?”
After saying this, Gu Qingying paused, forcibly suppressing the suspicion and sourness in her own heart that was identical to Gong Shangyu’s.
She tried to use reason to convince herself, and also seemed to be trying to convince her Second Senior Sister.
“Besides… Master is an open and aboveboard person, of noble character. How could he be someone easily deluded by external things? So I think… we’d better not speculate wildly and just rest peacefully in our room.”
“After all… trust is a beautiful virtue. I think we should believe in Master’s character.”
“Hmph… Open and aboveboard? Noble character?”
Gong Shangyu’s voice transmission was full of sarcasm and dismissal.
“My good Junior Sister, have you forgotten there are also words like ‘unable to restrain oneself’ and ‘mad bees and wanton butterflies’ in this world?”
“Besides, I didn’t say I don’t trust Master!”
“Master is naturally good, but he can’t stop those shameless women outside from throwing themselves at him!”
Having said that, Gong Shangyu changed the subject.
Her voice carried a faint, seemingly worldly-wise coldness as she continued the voice transmission.
“Junior Sister, do you know what a man fears most when he returns home after having another woman outside?”
Gu Qingying subconsciously followed up, “What?”
“I heard from Aunt Wu at Danyi Pavilion before… after a man strays…”
“What he fears most is letting his family smell the scent of another woman lingering on him!”
Gong Shangyu’s voice was decisive, carrying a kind of triumphant satisfaction at exposing the truth.
“So, the first thing they often do after returning home from a secret date is rush into the bathroom, eager to wash away all traces and smells!”
Hearing Gong Shangyu’s words, Gu Qingying’s heart felt as if gripped by an invisible hand.
She couldn’t help but glance at the wall from which the drizzling water sounds kept coming.
Her little face darkened several shades further.
Yet even so, she still tried to defend Lu Li.
Her voice transmission voice carried a trace of difficult to detect wavering.
“Master… Master has been running about outside all day. Earlier, he also fought fiercely with demon sect rebels. Covered in dust from the journey, bathing and cleansing upon return is the most normal thing…”
Before she could finish, Gong Shangyu’s voice transmission, carrying a hint of smugness, cut her off again.
“Oh? Is that so? Then let me ask you, Junior Sister… have you ever heard Master hum a tune while bathing before?”
Gu Qingying was stunned.
“Hum a tune?”
“That’s right!”
Gong Shangyu’s voice grew more certain.
“Aunt Wu also said that men who are in a good mood, especially after meeting their lover, often feel relaxed and happy when bathing alone, and might unconsciously hum a little tune!”
As if to confirm Gong Shangyu’s words, at that very moment, a faint, obviously cheerful, and completely out-of-tune humming drifted over from the adjacent bathroom.
“I love bathing, my skin feels good~ I love bathing, the turtle falls down~”
“Huh?” x2
The faces of Gu Qingying and Gong Shangyu simultaneously turned as black as the bottom of a pot!
Gu Qingying’s fingernails almost dug into her palms.
She took a deep breath and, clinging to her last shred of hope, continued with the voice transmission, her voice even becoming a bit choked.
“Is… is there more?”
Gong Shangyu seemed to be thinking.
After a moment, her voice transmission, carrying a bit of awkwardness but also incomparably certain, rang out.
“Oh… right! Aunt Wu also told me!”
“If a man has a sweetheart outside, he’ll always feel suddenly much younger, full of energy with nowhere to vent, his whole body as if it has endless strength.”
“He might even… inexplicably do some strange things in the room, like… making some odd noises in the bathroom?”
As if by the will of heaven in the dark, or as if Lu Li was destined to “solidify” this baseless accusation tonight…
Before Gong Shangyu’s words had completely faded from Gu Qingying’s mind, from the adjacent bathroom came the clear sound of Lu Li suppressing a sharp intake of breath!
“Hss—Ha—!”
Immediately following was a series of slightly hurried, carrying a bit of pain yet seemingly enduring something water splashing sounds and blurred gasping!
In truth, if the two girls had gone to the bathroom to look, they would have realized Lu Li’s panting was actually from being stimulated by the hot water’s temperature.
But Gu Qingying and Gong Shangyu, upon hearing Lu Li’s “hss ha” panting, thought he was doing push-ups in the adjacent bathroom.
Lu Li’s this one pant was like the last straw that broke the camel’s back!
The string named “reason” in Gu Qingying’s mind instantly snapped right there!
All thoughts of defending her master, all trust in her master’s character, crumbled before this string of “ironclad evidence”! Replacing them was the searing anger of being deceived, of being betrayed by Lu Li, and a heart-piercing, bone-chilling sourness and panic!
“Shing!”
A crisp sword cry suddenly rang out in the darkness!
Gu Qingying suddenly bounced up from the bed, her eyes bloodshot, her surrounding killing intent almost condensing into substance.
She grabbed the spirit sword by her pillow, pointing the tip directly at the adjacent direction.
Her voice was twisted and sharp with extreme anger.
“Lu Li! You heartless man! Tell me! Who is that vixen outside? Who has bewitched you so completely you’ve lost your soul? If you don’t make it clear today, I… I won’t let this go!!”
As she spoke, Gu Qingying actually seemed ready to charge toward the bathroom with her sword, regardless of everything!
“Hey! Are you crazy?!”
Gong Shangyu was also startled by Gu Qingying’s sudden outburst and hurriedly got up to try and stop her.
Although she was also furious, directly confronting Master would have unimaginable consequences!
As Gu Qingying shouted, she quickly set up a soundproof barrier.
Then, she decisively reached out, trying to cover her Junior Sister’s loudly shouting mouth.
She was clearly afraid Gu Qingying’s yelling would be heard by Master, who was bathing next door.
But Gu Qingying, in her intense anger, where would she listen to Gong Shangyu’s advice?
At this moment, Gu Qingying’s mind was filled with only one thought: to drag out that “vixen” who dared lay a finger on her Master, and make her pay the price!
Thus, this small post house bedroom instantly descended into chaos.
Gu Qingying wanted to rush out to “catch them in the act,” while Gong Shangyu desperately tried to block her.
Sword light and low roars intertwined, forming an extremely chaotic and absurd picture alongside the still faintly audible, misunderstood “hss ha” panting sounds from next door.
And in the bathtub next door, completely unaware of all this, Lu Li had just accidentally splashed hot water onto a small wound he had inadvertently scratched during the earlier fight, and was currently there wincing in pain.
He had no idea that a laughable storm, caused by him, was violently brewing just a single wall away.
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