Before it was even ten o’clock at night, Lou Yue had made her way to the covered bridge by the teleportation array.
Liufeng Xin was nowhere to be seen. At the spot where they had agreed to meet, a firefly was hovering. It circled Lou Yue twice, then flew out over the bridge. Lou Yue followed after it.
The Langhua Liufeng Clan occupied the fertile Langhua Valley in the west. Spring lasted there all year round, with spiritual herbs and flowers growing everywhere. In addition to alchemy, they were also highly skilled at controlling spirit insects and Gu beasts.
This firefly was Liufeng Xin’s eyes. Not only could she command it, she could also see everything it saw.
Sure enough, the firefly led Lou Yue to a secluded forest in one corner of Xuantian City before flying onto Liufeng Xin’s shoulder, where she sat on a tree branch.
Lou Yue leaped up into the tree and sat down beside her without the slightest hesitation. Resting both hands against the rough bark, she sighed, “I never thought there’d be more than one modern person in this world.”
Liufeng Xin said nothing. With a white veil covering her eyes, she stood beneath the bright full moon, cold and aloof as a Goddess.
“You’re making this so exhausting.” Lou Yue tilted her head back to look at her.
Liufeng Xin remained silent, but at least she sat down beside Lou Yue.
Lou Yue swung her legs and tilted her head. “How long ago did you transmigrate?”
“Two years.”
“Hmm, longer than me. It’s only been a month or so for me.”
No one spoke. The silence was absolute.
Liufeng Xin really was ice-cold. Lou Yue couldn’t tell whether she had always been like this before transmigrating, or if she had changed after arriving here.
“So how did you transmigrate?” Lou Yue asked.
Liufeng Xin was silent at first. After a while, she answered in her cool, detached voice, “There was a typhoon. I wanted to get home early, but I was blown here instead.”
“...That’s a pretty lame joke.”
Liufeng Xin turned her face toward her. “It wasn’t a joke.”
“I was swept into the sky. When I landed, I had become Liufeng Xin,” she said calmly.
Lou Yue burst out laughing at her utterly matter-of-fact delivery. “Then you were pretty lucky. At least you didn’t land dead on arrival.”
“Mm.”
“Did you know you’d transmigrated into a book?”
“Mm.”
“Then what did you think when you met your Prince Charming today?”
Liufeng Xin’s lips curved faintly. “He’s handsome, but I don’t ship him with Liufeng Xin.”
“Ship? What does that mean?”
Liufeng Xin seemed to consider how best to explain. After a moment, she said, “I have no interest in him and Liufeng Xin as a couple.”
“Then who are you interested in?” Lou Yue asked, following the opening.
Through the thin veil, Liufeng Xin stared fixedly at her. Her voice remained utterly calm. “I’m a heretic.”
Lou Yue looked at her, waiting for the rest.
“I ship him with you.”
Lou Yue was confused at first. Then she understood what Liufeng Xin meant and couldn’t help laughing helplessly. “Girl, this body is male.”
“Mm...?” Liufeng Xin caught the implication in Lou Yue’s words and asked, “You were a woman before you transmigrated?”
Lou Yue nodded. “Obviously. I’m not nearly as lucky as you.”
Liufeng Xin showed the first smile of the night, though it was no more than the slightest lift at the corners of her lips.
Lou Yue said frankly, “Sigh. Even now, I still can’t accept that I’ve become a man.”
Liufeng Xin said nothing, but Lou Yue no longer felt the conversation sinking into awkward silence. She continued, “Do you know, I even bathe with my clothes on?”
Liufeng Xin pressed her lips together, looking faintly uncomfortable. Lou Yue was just about to ask why when the aloof Goddess in front of her suddenly raised a hand and pulled off the veil covering her eyes.
Those eyes were as beautiful and pure as the book had described, breathtakingly holy. Yet in an instant, that holiness transformed into a look brimming with mischievous amusement.
“I couldn’t hold it in anymore,” the Goddess said.
“...?”
Lou Yue felt as though her brain had become a little sluggish.
With her otherworldly face, Liufeng Xin leaned closer. “Girl, how unlucky can you be? You actually transmigrated into a man.”
When she saw Lou Yue staring blankly, a smug smile spread across her face. “I love seeing that expression—the one that says, ‘Who is she? Where’s my saintess?’”
Lou Yue stared at her for a long moment before finally finding her voice. She pointed at the veil in Liufeng Xin’s hand. “Is there some kind of seal on that?”
Liufeng Xin froze for a moment, then laughed so hard she nearly fell sideways. Wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes, she said, “You’re hilarious! I was pretending to be like that.”
“It was killing me. Everyone around me is there to keep an eye on me. The moment I do anything that doesn’t fit the saintess persona, they nag me endlessly.”
Lou Yue had already figured that out. The talkative one between them had become Liufeng Xin.
But she seemed to prefer Liufeng Xin like this—lively, radiant, and full of laughter.
“Even if we’re both transmigrators, aren’t you afraid I might have ulterior motives? I could expose your true nature, you know.” Lou Yue smiled.
Liufeng Xin tilted her head. “You won’t.”
She turned her head away. Her voice was still cool, but it no longer carried that forbidding distance. “Besides, I’ve had enough of living like this. I didn’t come out tonight intending to go back.”
In the book, Liufeng Xin had only been able to break away from the Langhua Liufeng Clan after Long Aotian had forcibly subdued them with his overwhelming strength. The saintess held extraordinary significance for the Liufeng clan. If Liufeng Xin wanted to leave by relying on her own strength, it would be incredibly difficult.
“What can I do to help you?” Lou Yue asked directly.
A flicker of surprise crossed Liufeng Xin’s eyes. Then she smiled. “With you saying that—”
She suddenly stopped. Her pupils shimmered with a kaleidoscope of colors, then returned to normal in an instant. She leaned toward Lou Yue and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Shh. Don’t move. Long Aotian is here, about thirty or forty meters behind us.”
Lou Yue froze. Why had Xiao Rangchen come?
“He concealed his aura. If it weren’t for the firefly, I wouldn’t have noticed him either.”
Lou Yue’s lips moved as she whispered, “Did he come looking for you?”
Liufeng Xin rolled her saintly, cool eyes. “When we ran into each other this morning, the way he looked at me...” She paused, searching for the right words. “It was as if I’d stolen his home.”
Lou Yue couldn’t help letting out a muffled laugh.
Liufeng Xin looked helpless. “I’m serious. It was that kind of look—the sort that says he wants to stab me a few times and wishes I would disappear immediately. That’s no way to look at a lost love. He looked at me like I was his mortal enemy.”
As she spoke, the colors in her pupils shimmered again. Lou Yue knew she was using the firefly’s eyes to observe him.
“I have a theory,” Liufeng Xin said.
“What is it?”
“He followed you here. If he were looking for me, he wouldn’t have waited until now to come. Besides, I don’t think someone who looks at me with such murderous intent would follow me unless he intended to assassinate me.”
Lou Yue considered this. “Hmm. I did offend him this afternoon. He might have come to assassinate me.”
“Should we test him?”
“How?”
Liufeng Xin hooked an arm around Lou Yue’s neck and leaned her whole body against her. Lou Yue immediately understood and lowered her head cooperatively.
Liufeng Xin continued watching through the firefly’s eyes as she quietly directed Lou Yue. “Quick, put your arms around me. Pretend we’re making out.”
Lou Yue laughed inwardly but slipped an arm around her waist, applying just enough pressure to make it look from behind as though she were holding Liufeng Xin tightly against her.
Liufeng Xin adjusted the angle of her face so that Lou Yue completely blocked it from view. Her voice was teasing. “He’s here. That murderous look has finally arrived, right on schedule.”
“Tsk, tsk. This is getting serious. Judging by the way he’s coming, he’ll be charging over any second now.”
“...Wait. Why do I feel like he’s looking at us the way a husband catches his wife cheating?”
Lou Yue struggled not to laugh. The experience was far too novel for her. It was a shame she couldn’t see Xiao Rangchen’s expression herself and could only watch through Liufeng Xin’s live commentary.
“I’m going to fan the flames a little more.”
Then Lou Yue suddenly heard an ambiguous sound escape Liufeng Xin’s lips.
“Mm... ah...”
Lou Yue: “...”
Liufeng Xin’s acting was nothing short of masterful. Her voice was hazy and heated, with just the slightest tremor, every note perfectly measured. If Lou Yue hadn’t known she was acting, hearing only those sounds would have made anyone think they’d stumbled upon an indecent scene.
Lou Yue laughed and mouthed, “That’s enough. Don’t overdo it.”
“Mm...”
Before long, Liufeng Xin said, sounding somewhat disappointed, “Tsk, he’s gone.”
Her pupils returned to normal as she rose from Lou Yue’s arms, still wearing an unfulfilled look of regret.
“I thought he was going to charge over. Who knew he’d actually leave?”
“If he didn’t leave, was he supposed to keep watching you and me make out?” Lou Yue was genuinely impressed by her. Who would have thought that beneath the outwardly aloof and untouchable Liufeng clan’s saintess lurked such a shameless drama queen?
Liufeng Xin fell silent for a moment, seemingly recalling something. After a while, a mischievous smile appeared on her face.
“I have a bold guess.” She turned to Lou Yue. “Do you want to hear it?”
“No.”
The moment Lou Yue saw that expression, she knew it couldn’t be anything good. She leaped down from the tree, making her refusal perfectly clear.
Liufeng Xin jumped down after her and tugged at her sleeve. “Oh, come on, listen. I’m kind of excited.”
“No. It’s late. We should go back. Aren’t you afraid the people watching over you will be searching everywhere for you?”
At once, Liufeng Xin deflated.
Lou Yue took the veil from her hand and draped it over her eyes. “I’ll come find you tomorrow. You said you don’t want to be the saintess anymore, right? I have a way to help.”
“What way?” Liufeng Xin immediately perked up.
“You’ll find out tomorrow.”
“Still being mysterious.” Liufeng Xin curved her lips. “But I like it.”
The two walked side by side toward the exit. When they passed a tree, Liufeng Xin grabbed Lou Yue’s arm.
“Long Aotian was standing behind this tree just now.”
As she spoke, she imitated Xiao Rangchen’s stance and raised a hand to brace it against the trunk. But the instant her palm touched the bark—
Boom!
The enormous tree, which would have taken two people to encircle with their arms, exploded right in front of them and turned to ash.
Lou Yue: “...”
Liufeng Xin stared blankly at the empty pit where the tree had been. Then she murmured, “I think... I may have shipped a real couple...”
**
Baichuan Hall was the temporary residence the Lou clan had prepared for its guests. Built against the mountains and beside the water, it consisted of five pavilions arranged one after another.
Each floor held two rooms, and it was only after leaving her room that morning that Lou Yue discovered Yue Qi was staying next door.
She disliked the way Yue Qi looked at her. His gaze was sticky and cold, and whenever he drew near, a strange scent would drift over and burrow into her mind, like some kind of cheap perfume that made her feel sick.
Lou Yue hurried downstairs to get away from him. After she left, several black, glassy bead-like objects rolled out from Yue Qi’s sleeve. The moment they touched the wall, they silently sank into it without leaving a trace.
Yue Qi gazed in the direction she had disappeared, his eyes narrowing slightly. Open madness and viciousness flashed within them.
Lou Yue had no idea what Yue Qi had done. She encountered Liufeng Xin just as the latter was leaving the second pavilion.
When no one was paying attention, Liufeng Xin crooked a finger at her, clearly urging her to keep the promise they had made the night before. Lou Yue looked at her with curved brows and shook her head.
Liufeng Xin turned away with an icy, haughty air. Lou Yue chuckled, but before the smile had faded from her face, she ran straight into another cold gaze.
Xiao Rangchen glanced at her, expressionless, then turned and headed down another path.
To be honest, when she woke that morning and didn’t find Xiao Rangchen in her room as she had before, Lou Yue had felt relieved. After all, they had only just declared that they were going their separate ways yesterday. Hugging each other first thing the next morning would have been far too embarrassing.
This was better. Strangers crossing paths, pretending not to see each other—that was what their relationship ought to look like.
Lou Yue stepped onto her own path.
Today’s matches were open only to cultivators below the Mahayana stage. The top three winners would be allowed to enter the Lou clan’s treasure vault, Que Yunsheng, and choose one magical artifact. Their rankings would determine which floor they could enter.
The item that served as her cheat was on the second floor, so Lou Yue set her sights on finishing in the top two.
The matches were decided by drawing lots. After fighting only two rounds, she received a series of byes. Xiao Rangchen, meanwhile, had beaten nearly everyone else so thoroughly that they gave up on the remaining matches altogether.
At first, the spectators had been indignant, feeling that the arrangement was unfair. But by the end, they could only watch in silence as one battered and disheveled contestant after another came down from the platform, while Lou Yue somehow made it into the top three.
She and Xiao Rangchen were in the first match of the finals. Whether he was tired or deliberately trying to repay the favor he owed her, Xiao Rangchen no longer attacked with the decisiveness and ferocity he had shown earlier. Most of his moves were defensive.
“Are you looking down on me? I told you not to hold back.”
Xiao Rangchen dodged the ice spikes she conjured, then thrust his black spear straight at her. Lou Yue hurled spell after spell, but he broke through every one of them.
She knew she couldn’t let a body-refining cultivator like Xiao Rangchen get close. Yet Xiao Rangchen kept defending, and if the fight dragged on, she would be the one to lose once her spiritual energy ran dry.
She planned to unleash her strongest offensive spell at the instant Xiao Rangchen came within striking distance and settle the match in one decisive blow.
She wasn’t particularly confident in the move. After watching his earlier matches, she knew it would be extremely difficult for her to win.
What she hadn’t expected was that, after closing in, Xiao Rangchen would actually lose focus and allow her spell to strike him head-on, sending him tumbling off the platform.
Lou Yue: ??
The next match began. Lou Yue watched from below as the man onstage beat the Cangya cultivator so badly that he was practically questioning his entire life. Then, belatedly, she touched her own lips.
There was a narrow split in the middle of her lower lip. She had caused it the previous night in bed while talking to Xuanba, when she had failed to catch a falling piece of ice.
Had Xiao Rangchen lost focus just now because he was looking at that cut?