Spectating the Angsty Romance of the Master and Disciple from the Sect Next Door Chapter 124

Her heartbeat recognized her Dao companion even before Li Jin’an did. In those few moments of stunned silence, Xie Huaixue, who had put away her Glimmering Sword, pulled Li Jin’an forward, dashing. The world behind them was continuously collapsing. Xie Huaixue led Li Jin’an, fleeing by stepping on spatial fragments floating in the void. The timeline behind them was rapidly crumbling, leaving them no solid ground. They could only leap from one shattered spatial fragment to another. Spatial lines, twisted into thin threads, attacked them. They dodged clumsily.
Li Jin’an dared not be careless, meticulously following Xie Huaixue’s rhythm as she leaped.
“What’s going on?” Li Jin’an, fearing her voice wouldn’t carry in the void, could only shout loudly. Weren’t you supposed to take me home? Why are we running as if ghosts are chasing us?
Xie Huaixue, without turning her head, seemed to let out a soft chuckle. Her tone was calm and unruffled, yet what she said shocked the Sword Sovereign for ten thousand years. “I disturbed the timeline, and now it’s hunting us.”
“Wow!” Li Jin’an exclaimed, looking at her Dao companion with immense admiration, blurting out, “Xie Huaixue, you’re amazing!” As the ‘troublemaker’ and ‘unlucky disciple’ in Chixin Sword Lord’s words, Li Jin’an at most caused mischief and did bad deeds on the Lancang Continent. She never expected her Dao companion to have already extended her reach beyond the Lancang Continent! What a magnificent feat! If someone was stronger than Li Jin’an in terms of martial strength and cultivation realm, she might not feel much, nor would she be impressed; she would only be eager to defeat them. But if someone was even more mischievous than her, then she truly admired them beyond compare, as it was genuinely not easy.
“Mm.” Xie Huaixue, while leading Li Jin’an in their escape, accepted Li Jin’an’s praise with a smile.
“If the timeline is disturbed, can we still find our own timeline?” Li Jin’an was overjoyed to see her dear Dao companion, becoming incredibly talkative. Her worry lasted less than a second, and she instantly brightened up. “Even if we can’t find it, it’s fine. As long as we’re together, we can brave even mountains of blades and seas of fire.” Although Xie Huaixue from every timeline was wonderful, she still loved her own Dao companion the most. The moment she saw her, her restless heart would settle… Wait, why am I making it sound complicated again?
“We will find it. I had previously set anchor points outside the timeline,” Xie Huaixue retorted, her tone neither warm nor cold. “But An’an, won’t you feel disappointed?”
Because the question was too abrupt, Li Jin’an didn’t realize the hidden dangerous meaning behind it. Though completely baffled, she still answered seriously, “No, I’m not disappointed. Why would you ask that?” She was overjoyed to return to her own timeline; why would she be disappointed?
“I thought you wouldn’t want to leave Huaihuai and Ah Huai.”
“…Huh?!?”
What’s going on? Weren’t each timeline and spatial dimension supposed to be independent? How does Xie Huaixue have memories from my side of the timeline? Doesn’t that mean Xie Huaixue knows everything I did in the space-time turbulence? Then why don’t I have Xie Huaixue’s memories from her side? Why?! She considered herself to have done nothing bad, but considering Xie Huaixue’s talent for being jealous of herself…
Li Jin’an turned pale with fright, her pupils dilated with shock. Just as she was about to argue, her eyes suddenly sharpened. She wrapped her arms around Xie Huaixue’s waist and leaped forward abruptly, barely dodging a spatial fragment hurtling towards them from the side. Xie Huaixue cooperated perfectly with her. The moment Li Jin’an embraced her waist, she leaped forward, jumping into a normal timeline that hadn’t twisted into thin threads.
Heaven and earth inverted, all things tilted. All senses and divine thoughts became ethereal, save for Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue’s firm grasp on each other’s hands, which remained real. Li Jin’an completely lost her perception of time. An instant, or perhaps eons, she had no idea how much time had passed. She only felt that in the next second, the sky brightened dramatically. She raised a hand to shield herself and Xie Huaixue from the light.
“This is…” Li Jin’an’s mind was a blur. She opened her eyes, trying to discern her surroundings.
The familiar voice, always quick to interject, answered her question. “Central Sovereign Domain, welcome home.”
Jingting Daoist, clad in majestic Daoist robes, watched Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue with a relaxed smile. Behind her stood Chixin Sword Lord, Jiang Fengmian, Jie Yunjin, Shang Dangge, Sword Lord Xiaoxiang, Sword Lord Junxing… and a host of others, all smiling warmly as they looked at them.
Qi Lingzi, Tan Yanyi, and Ling Qiu watched them with tear-filled eyes, hurrying to rush towards them.
“This Venerable is back?” Li Jin’an asked, putting her hands on her hips proudly.
Xie Huaixue tilted her head, watching her with a smile.
“Master, Mistress, you’re really back!” The three silly children surrounded them, cheering and chattering about how much they had missed them. While unconscious, the three of them had been well protected by Chixin Sword Lord. The second before the spatial dimension became chaotic, they were thrown into a Mustard Seed Space. They woke up to be told that their Master and Mistress had been swept into the space-time turbulence to save them! The sky had fallen, hadn’t it?! One moment they closed their eyes, the next they opened them to be homeless wanderers! If their Grandmaster hadn’t made them stick to her side, they would have long since gone to fight Lan Ci to the death. That dog-thief deserves to die a thousand deaths! Give our Master and Mistress back! They had been terrified for a whole year and finally, finally, their Master and Mistress had returned. If it weren’t for the crowd, the three of them would have wanted to perform a lion dance in human form for their Master and Mistress to express their intense emotions.
Li Jin’an gently pushed them aside, one with each hand, and looked at Jingting Daoist and the others. “How are you all here?” Everyone still looked menacing and filled with killing intent, as if they had just returned from a demon battlefield. Aside from her and Xie Huaixue’s Binding Ceremony, she had truly never seen so many people gathered.
“Oh, you mean that,” Jingting Daoist said nonchalantly, full of indifference. “The Dao Sect and Sword Sect, along with several other immortal sects, jointly besieged Futu Valley. Not long after it ended, we discovered changes in the space-time turbulence at Immortal Soothing Pool, so we all came together.”
“Oh… huh?” Li Jin’an’s eyes instantly widened. She suddenly remembered Jingting Daoist’s disdainful and scornful expression when talking about Futu Valley in the first timeline. So, she really hadn’t been lying. Truly worthy of an elder; their efficiency was indeed swift.
“How was it? With you making a move, little Futu Valley must have been immediately captured.” Li Jin’an’s body was exceptionally tired, but her spirit was ecstatic. She was especially like a child who had played too much, unwilling to go to sleep, pretending to be a little deaf child who hadn’t heard Chixin Sword Lord’s urging voice.
Chixin Sword Lord said grumpily, “Even after a trip through the space-time turbulence, you still haven’t changed your ways. Can’t you wait until we get back to talk about it?” There were so many people; they couldn’t all wait here for them to finish talking.
Li Jin’an looked at Jingting Daoist. Jingting Daoist’s gaze drifted, pretending not to see her eyes. Li Jin’an scornfully looked away. And they call her the cultivation world’s tyrant? How embarrassing.
Xie Huaixue took her hand, telling her not to get too excited. “Let’s go back first.”
Li Jin’an immediately changed her tune. “Right, right, right, let’s go back first. We must ask Rejuvenation Valley’s Grand Elder to thoroughly examine you.” No amount of grand gossip or excitement could outweigh the importance of her Dao companion’s health. When it came to Xie Huaixue, Li Jin’an even looked down on Elder Yin of Ancient Life Peak’s medical skills. After all, Elder Yin couldn’t even discern the strange nature of vile creatures, making him unsuitable to treat Xie Huaixue.
“Alright, this isn’t something you need to worry about anymore.” On matters unrelated to Yinyue Monarch and Chixin Sword Lord, Jingting Daoist was still quite authoritative. Could she not find good medical cultivators to treat them both?
Li Jin’an rolled her eyes, released Xie Huaixue’s hand, and flopped onto Chixin Sword Lord’s back. Yawning, she closed her extremely sleepy eyes. “Call me when we get there.” She couldn’t bear to tire her Dao companion, so she could only tire her master. Fortunately, her master was family; she wouldn’t just throw her off. She could only grudgingly carry her. Li Jin’an was utterly exhausted. The moment she climbed onto her master’s back, she fell into a deep sleep without a single delay.
Xie Huaixue automatically locked onto Li Jin’an’s figure, walking beside Chixin Sword Lord, her gaze closely following Li Jin’an on Chixin Sword Lord’s back.
Jingting Daoist, whose mouth was never idle, clicked her tongue in wonder. “Truly a family, always sticking together like this. But the spiritual ship has rooms, you don’t need to sleep on her back.”
The Dao Sect, even when marching to war, maintained its inherent dignity. Their expeditions naturally required majestic spiritual ships, proudly displaying the Sect’s banners as they openly and righteously initiated a sect war. After all, a throng of cultivators going to kill couldn’t simply swarm around flying on swords, could they?
Chixin Sword Lord gave her a light, exceedingly cold glance.
Jingting Dao Lord immediately shut her mouth, secretly deciding not to interact with the annoying master and disciple pair for the next three hours.
Hmm, it takes approximately three hours to return from the Central Sovereign Domain to the Ringed Jade Domain.
Jiang Fengmian, standing nearby, kept her gaze downcast, feigning ignorance of her Sect Master’s embarrassing display, being rolled eyes at and disdained in so many ways. She truly couldn’t understand her Sect Master’s hobbies. When purging Futu Valley, she was utterly ruthless, effortlessly eradicating a major power in the cultivation world. Yet, knowing full well that Li Jin’an and Chixin Sword Lord had bad tempers, she still went out of her way to provoke them.
Perhaps this was the Sect Master’s unknown pleasure and little secret.
…
Returning to the familiar Lancang Continent, sleeping on her master’s back with her dao companion’s aura nearby, there was no moment more reassuring than this.
Chixin Sword Lord carried Li Jin’an on her back, standing on the spiritual ship for a long while before finally placing her on the bed. Her gaze swept over her unfortunate disciple, finally settling on Li Jin’an’s pale face. She shook her head, a mix of exasperation and amusement, and handed a bottle of spirit-nourishing Void Spirit Pills to Xie Huaixue.
“You two take one Void Spirit Pill every half hour,” Chixin Sword Lord said fiercely. “If she’s asleep, just shove it directly into her mouth.”
Xie Huaixue chuckled in response, thoughtfully not pointing out Chixin Sword Lord’s tough exterior and soft heart. “I will.”
Only then did Chixin Sword Lord walk out of the room, letting out a heavy sigh of relief on the deck. An immense sense of gratitude welled up in her heart.
She had almost lost her child after losing her wife. Even an unyielding sword cultivator like her couldn’t accept such a tragic outcome. Fortunately, fortunately.
Jingting Dao Lord, appearing out of nowhere, walked up to her side. Without looking at Chixin Sword Lord, she gazed straight ahead and said, “I told you nothing would happen.”
A year ago, when Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue were first swept into the Immortal Soothing Pool, the first thing Jingting Dao Lord did upon arriving in the Central Sovereign Domain was being forced to fight Chixin Sword Lord. Things kept happening right under Jingting Dao Lord’s nose—first Yinyue Monarch, now Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue. How could Chixin Sword Lord not be enraged? Although sword cultivators didn’t rely on their brains to think, they possessed a precise intuition. She knew that Jingting Dao Lord had known what was happening from beginning to end but had chosen to watch coldly from the sidelines.