Inside the guest room, as her cultivation realm broke through, Gong Shangyu’s mind was the first to become clear.
She violently shook her head, trying to dispel the chaotic, blush-inducing images and sensations swirling in her brain.
Then, an even more alarming thought struck her like a bucket of ice water!
It was Jian Mingzi!
That fox-spirit, Jian Mingzi, who was suspected of being a woman disguised as a man, was talking with Master right now!
Jian Mingzi was alone with Master, together with Master!
Thinking of this, Gong Shangyu couldn’t sit still for a second.
“Hey! Junior Sister!”
Gong Shangyu nudged the still-unconscious Gu Qingying beside her, who was smacking her lips and savoring something, with an unprecedented tone of seriousness and urgency.
“Hey! Something terrible has happened!”
Gu Qingying lazily lifted her eyelids, her purple eyes shimmering with moisture, carrying a hint of dissatisfaction.
“What is it now, Second Senior Sister? We just finished ‘cultivating.’ Let me catch my breath, will you?”
She deliberately emphasized the word “cultivating,” with a touch of complaint.
“Still catching your breath?! If you catch any more, Master will be snatched away by someone!”
Gong Shangyu lowered her voice, speaking almost through gritted teeth.
“Have you forgotten that ‘Jian Mingzi’ who barged in earlier?”
Gu Qingying frowned, trying to recall.
“Oh… that person in white? What about them? Didn’t Master go out with them to discuss something?”
“Discuss something? I doubt it!”
A light named “sense of crisis” flashed in Gong Shangyu’s pink pupils.
She leaned closer to Gu Qingying, her voice dropping even lower.
“Didn’t I just say… I seriously suspect… that Jian Mingzi isn’t a man at all!”
“Ah?”
Gu Qingying was stunned for a moment, then chuckled.
“Senior Sister, have you been ‘cultivated’ silly by Master? They’re wearing a veiled hat, and their voice doesn’t give away their gender. How could you possibly know?”
“Intuition! A woman’s intuition!”
Gong Shangyu interrupted her, her tone firm.
“And think about it, what normal male cultivator would take a Daoist name like ‘Jian Mingzi’? It sounds so pretentious! And their figure, even though they’re wearing a loose robe, the moment they charged in with their sword earlier, that waist… hmph! I bet it’s definitely a fox-spirit disguised as a man! Here specifically to seduce Master!”
Looking at Gong Shangyu’s appearance, as if facing a great enemy and speaking with such conviction, Gu Qingying just found it funny.
She leaned lazily against the bed frame behind her, speaking nonchalantly.
“Senior Sister, I think you’re overthinking it. Master is pure-hearted and desires little, and he cultivates the Emotion-Severing Dao. How could he be so easily seduced? Besides, even if it really is a woman, what does it have to do with us?”
“What does it have to do with us?!”
Gong Shangyu was so angry she almost jumped up, pointing at Gu Qingying’s nose.
“You, you, you… you heartless girl! If Master gets tricked away by that fox-spirit, what will be left for us? Why do you think I’ve been enduring and hiding my identity to stay by Master’s side? For what?!”
“In short, we can’t just leave it be! We must go keep an eye on them!”
Gu Qingying rolled her eyes, unmoved.
“If you want to go, you go. I just finished ‘cultivating,’ I’m exhausted, I don’t have the energy—”
Gong Shangyu was infuriated by her stubborn attitude.
“You lazybones! Do you think I’m lying to you? If you don’t go now and something really happens, all the good stuff will belong to someone else, and you’ll be left crying!”
Gu Qingying was annoyed by her words, especially that last phrase, “all the good stuff will belong to someone else,” which faintly plucked a string deep in her heart named possessiveness.
Gu Qingying pouted.
Although she still felt Gong Shangyu was exaggerating and being paranoid, seeing her so anxious she was about to combust, and considering she really had nothing to do at the moment, she figured going out for a stroll wouldn’t hurt.
It would be a good way to stretch her sore and soft limbs.
“Alright, alright, stop nagging.”
Gu Qingying propped up her somewhat weak body, straightened her disheveled robes, and said with annoyance, “I’ll go, I’ll go, is that okay? Really, you’re like an old nanny… I want to see what kind of heavenly immortal has descended to scare you like this, Senior Sister.”
Her tone was full of reluctance, as if she was just going to complete a troublesome chore.
Seeing her finally relent, Gong Shangyu breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly urged, “Go quickly! Be careful, don’t get caught! The important thing is to see if that ‘Jian Mingzi’ is making any moves on Master or saying anything ambiguous!”
“Got it~”
Gu Qingying dragged out her tone, as if coaxing a sulky child, moving her feet unwillingly, pouting, and slowly walking out of the guest room.
The cool air outside refreshed her slightly, and the feeling of internal heat dissipated quite a bit.
Following the direction in which Lu Li and that “Jian Mingzi” had left in her memory, she headed towards the main courtyard where Lu Li resided.
However, just as she approached the vicinity of the main courtyard, Gu Qingying keenly sensed something unusual—the surrounding spiritual energy seemed to be subtly flowing towards the main courtyard, carrying a restless, uneasy meaning.
And outside the main courtyard gate, a white figure stood quietly.
It was that veiled-hat-wearing “Jian Mingzi”!
Gu Qingying paused her steps, a trace of confusion flashing in her purple eyes.
‘Huh?
Why is this person standing outside alone?
Where’s Master?
Didn’t they come out together?’
She instinctively hid her figure in the shadow of a nearby tree, observing from afar.
She saw that Jian Mingzi standing tall and straight like a pine tree, quietly positioned outside the courtyard gate, one hand lightly resting on the sword hilt at their waist.
Though motionless, they exuded an aura of profound depth and stability, like a loyal stone guardian statue.
An intangible barrier of sword intent faintly emanated from their body, enveloping the entire small courtyard.
They were clearly… standing guard?
‘Standing guard? What is Master doing inside that requires someone to stand guard?’
The confusion in Gu Qingying’s heart grew.
She scrutinized the white figure closely, and the more she looked, the more she felt… it did seem somewhat familiar.
Not just because she had seen them briefly in the guest room earlier.
‘This figure… this posture… I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before…’
Gu Qingying searched hard in her memory.
Suddenly, an image flashed into her mind like lightning!
It was from not long ago, at the Dharma Assembly!
During the final struggle for the last remaining stone casket containing the precious secret treasure!
It was this person, dressed all in white and wearing a veiled hat, who, using an extremely tricky and bizarre movement technique, swept past like a ghost the moment she was about to succeed.
Not only did they snatch the stone casket one step ahead, but the sole of their boot… even insultingly used the top of her head as a stepping stone!
Making her lose all face in front of so many fellow cultivators!
“So… it’s you! No wonder when Gong Shangyu was just going on about Jian Mingzi, it kept sounding familiar to me…”
Two flames of anger instantly ignited in Gu Qingying’s purple eyes!
Old grudges and new hatred surged into her heart!
Thoughts of fox-spirits, of keeping an eye on Master, were all temporarily thrown to the back of her mind!
All she wanted now was to drag out this bastard who had stepped on her head and settle this score properly!
Gu Qingying could no longer restrain herself.
She also forgot Gong Shangyu’s warning to “be careful and stay hidden.”
She walked directly out from her hiding place and strode straight towards Feng Lingshuang, her tone anything but friendly.
“Hey! You with the hat in front!”
Feng Lingshuang was fully focused on standing guard for Lu Li, who was breaking through inside the room.
Her spiritual sense was spread all around; any rustle of grass couldn’t escape her perception.
She had already noticed Gu Qingying the moment she stepped out from behind the foliage.
Hearing that angry, slightly childish yet deliberately fierce voice, she turned slightly.
Her gaze from beneath the veiled hat passed through the white gauze and landed on Gu Qingying, who was storming over angrily.
Seeing it was Gu Qingying, the tension in Feng Lingshuang’s heart, originally taut from standing guard, involuntarily relaxed for a moment.
Even a trace of soft ripples, which she herself hadn’t noticed, welled up in her heart.
‘It’s her…’
In those chaotic yet incredibly real dream memories of hers, this black-haired, purple-eyed junior sister was the one, besides Master, who left the deepest and most cherished impression on her.
Clearly the youngest, yet she always liked to put on a stern face, pretending to be mature and steady.
It was unbearably cute.
Especially when she focused on practicing swordplay, that serious little look was exactly like a proud black cat she had fed in the mortal world as a child.
And every time she found tasty snacks, those purple eyes of hers would instantly light up.
She would eat in small, quick bites, her cheeks stuffed full, exactly like a little hamster stealing food.
It made people unable to resist wanting to feed her and tease her.
Now, looking at Gu Qingying’s slightly puffed-up cheeks from anger, her beautiful purple eyes glaring, and her charging over with such momentum, Feng Lingshuang not only didn’t get angry at the other’s rudeness, but instead felt an indescribable sense of familiarity and… an impulse to pat her head.
‘Still so full of vitality… that’s good.’
She even ignored Gu Qingying’s clearly hostile attitude, feeling only that this junior sister was so… vivid and interesting even when angry.
Compared to the sometimes melancholic, sometimes obsessive figure from the later stages of her dreams, this junior sister before her eyes, who would glare and puff her cheeks, made her feel more at ease and filled with affection.
Gu Qingying rushed up to Feng Lingshuang in a few steps, raised her head, pointed at her, and said angrily, “I finally found you! You’re the bastard who stole my stone casket and stepped on my head at the Dharma Assembly, aren’t you? Hiding your head and showing your tail, dare to do but not dare to admit it?”
Looking at the angrily puffed-up Gu Qingying who had charged up to her, the corner of Feng Lingshuang’s mouth beneath the veiled hat unconsciously lifted slightly, sketching a faint, soft arc she herself hadn’t noticed.
Facing that gunpowder-filled interrogation, she not only didn’t get angry, but instead felt this junior sister’s claws-out appearance was exactly like the memory of that black cat that would puff up its tail and hiss when provoked.
It was terribly cute.
She nodded slightly, her voice coming through the white gauze, carrying a hint of just right apology, yet also containing a trace of an indescribable gentleness: “My apologies, my apologies. So it was you, fellow Daoist, who was competing with me for the stone casket that day at the Dharma Assembly?”
Feng Lingshuang’s gaze, separated by the white gauze, fell on Gu Qingying.
Her tone continued naturally, “I didn’t realize you were Senior Lu’s disciple. It truly is… fate. That day, the situation was urgent. If there was any offense, I hope you can be magnanimous.”
Feng Lingshuang’s apology seemed polite and courteous, her posture was kept very low, as if it really was just an unintentional clash.
However, Gu Qingying keenly captured a key address in her words—”Senior Lu”?
‘This person… is very familiar with my Master? Addressing him so… respectfully? And with a bit of an indescribable, unclear meaning?’
The alarm bells in Gu Qingying’s heart immediately rang loudly.
The suspicion in her purple eyes grew thicker.
She put her hands on her hips, like a little beast guarding its food, and continued to press.
“Hmph! Don’t try to get chummy! What exactly is your relationship with my Master? Sneaking around to find my Master, what business do you really have?”
Feng Lingshuang was stumped by her question.
She couldn’t very well tell the truth—that she was here to discuss confidential, important matters about opposing the Yin Ji Sect with Lu Li.
Both the Jin Emperor and Lu Li had explicitly instructed that this matter needed to be kept secret from the disciples below for now, to avoid alerting the enemy and causing unnecessary panic.
Her mind raced.
She could only fall back on the excuse she had given Lu Li earlier, which Lu Li had tacitly approved, just slightly adjusting it to sound more like a pure exchange between cultivators.
Feng Lingshuang’s voice remained steady, carrying a sense of devotion towards the Sword Dao.
“Fellow Daoist Gu, you misunderstand. I… was not previously acquainted with Senior Lu. It was only last night, by chance encounter in the city, that I witnessed Senior Lu demonstrating exquisite sword techniques. I was immediately filled with admiration, my heart yearning for Senior Lu’s Sword Dao cultivation. Therefore, I took the liberty to visit today, hoping only to receive a pointer or two from Senior Lu, to discuss some principles of the sword. I have no other intentions.”
“Chance encounter last night?”
Gu Qingying’s purple eyes instantly narrowed.
Her mind immediately conjured up the faint, unfamiliar cold fragrance that had clung to Lu Li’s body last night while they were out shopping, as well as Master’s casual mention of “running into a fellow Daoist who was in a bit of trouble on the road, I just gave them a hand.”
‘Could it be… the person in trouble Master mentioned last night is this head-hiding, tail-showing ‘Jian Mingzi’?!’
Once this thought arose, it grew wildly like vines.
Gu Qingying sized up Feng Lingshuang up and down, her gaze increasingly sharp, trying to pierce through that hateful white gauze.
‘And… this person’s voice… is it a man’s or a woman’s?’
Gu Qingying listened intently.
This Jian Mingzi’s voice was deliberately lowered, neutral, hard to distinguish at first listen.
But perhaps because their tone had softened slightly during the apology, or perhaps because they needed to be more careful in their disguise when facing interrogation now, the voice seemed to faintly reveal a very subtle, clear and crisp quality belonging to a woman.
Though trying hard to cover it up, under Gu Qingying’s deliberate investigation, it still revealed a trace of something there yet not there.
Looking at their posture again, although wearing a loose white Daoist robe and deliberately straightening their back to appear tall and straight, the contours in certain subtle places, especially those fingers resting on the sword hilt, were slender and long, the knuckles not thick and large…
‘That Gong Shangyu… could she actually be right this time?’
‘This person… I’m afraid really is a woman disguised as a man!’
‘A person suspected to be a female cultivator, who “chanced upon” Master last night, and comes to the door today to “discuss the Sword Dao”? And so coincidentally standing guard outside Master’s courtyard?’
The clouds of suspicion in Gu Qingying’s heart not only didn’t dissipate because of the other’s explanation, but instead became even more dense.
She looked at Feng Lingshuang, her purple eyes flashing with scrutiny, vigilance, and a trace of displeasure, similar to when one’s territory is encroached upon, which she herself hadn’t fully realized.
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