Oh-ho.
Xie Huaixue was awake.
Li Jin’an immediately pulled her wrist free. Her gaze flickered for a moment, then quickly became self-righteous as she cast a sidelong glance at Xie Huaixue. “Immortal Venerable Qingxiao, shall we talk about the cold poison in your spiritual root?”
She wasn’t afraid at all, not even remotely afraid after doing something bad!
She would ask what she wanted to ask. If Xie Huaixue dared to lie to her, she guaranteed that Xie Huaixue’s cave abode wouldn’t exist today!
Seeing Xie Huaixue staring at her without speaking, Li Jin’an, feeling like a troublesome guest, got up and strolled around. She found that Xie Huaixue’s cave abode hadn’t changed. The outer reception hall had only a row of chairs and bare stone walls. The bedroom was a bit better, with some furniture Yinyue Monarch had placed, but it wasn’t much better; mostly, there were two rows of bookshelves filled to the brim with books and jade slips.
The only thing in the bedroom that didn’t fit the simple and bare style was a wooden box on a stone platform. It was fully inlaid with red gems, its flamboyant aesthetics an eyesore, like a nouveau riche displaying their wealth by cramming all fire-attributed blazing stones onto it.
At a glance, one would feel their eyes would be blinded.
Very familiar.
So familiar that Li Jin’an knew whose item it was without thinking.
Li Jin’an immediately reached for it, opened it, and exclaimed, “You still kept all this junk?”
She looked back, and Xie Huaixue was quietly watching her.
The Immortal Venerable, her face slightly flushed, leaned against the headboard. Her long hair splayed across her white robes, and in the ultimate contrast of black and white, her skin appeared as delicate as white jade. Her dark eyes quietly and silently watched the red-robed Sword Sovereign darting around the room.
For some reason, Li Jin’an felt a bit uncomfortable under Xie Huaixue’s gaze. Soon, she turned the tables. “Hmph, you kept all this junk, didn’t you, to open it up and look at it often?”
Xie Huaixue didn’t answer, so Li Jin’an instantly teleported in front of her, bending down face-to-face. They seemed to be able to hear each other’s shallow breathing and heartbeats.
“Is it?” Li Jin’an was determined to make her answer. “Speak!”
Xie Huaixue lowered her gaze. “Yes.”
Li Jin’an abruptly stood up, gritting her teeth. “I knew it! These are all evidence of me losing to you! You collected all this junk just to prove how many times you defeated me! You have ulterior motives!”
She glared angrily at Xie Huaixue, furious.
Xie Huaixue looked back, not saying whether her guess was right or wrong.
The Immortal Venerable was always like this. It wasn’t that she was inarticulate; she just habitually remained silent, quietly watching the Sword Sovereign fuss around. What she thought, what she said, and what she actually did were never consistent, making it difficult to guess her thoughts. Fortunately, the Sword Sovereign always found a way to make her speak.
Suddenly remembering something, Li Jin’an glared at Xie Huaixue again. “Oh right, you didn’t show this box to anyone else, did you?”
“No.”
“That’s good.” Li Jin’an lightly coughed. “Consider yourself having a conscience.”
If Xie Huaixue dared to show the small box to others, she would absolutely never be done with Xie Huaixue.
She looked at the neatly arranged items in the box, then at the meticulously organized books and jade slips on the bookshelf. “Little stick-in-the-mud… no, you’re an old stick-in-the-mud.”
Unlike the Sword Sovereign, who had been scatterbrained and threw things around since childhood, the Immortal Venerable had long developed the habit of tidying her own things. She simply liked to arrange all items one by one according to her own rules, with every row and column having to be neat.
Li Jin’an would intentionally mess up the order of items. Xie Huaixue wouldn’t get angry; she would just silently restore the items, then try to reform Li Jin’an in the same way. Li Jin’an would immediately surrender and stop messing around.
Chixin Sword Lord even said that little Huaixue had a unique way of dealing with Li Jin’an.
The items in the box were all “ransom” Li Jin’an had to give after losing fights with Xie Huaixue. Upholding the principle of “what is borrowed is returned, so borrowing again isn’t difficult,” she gave the “ransom,” and next time she came to fight Xie Huaixue, others wouldn’t have much to say.
A few low-grade, mid-grade, and high-grade spiritual stones; two sword tassels; a handkerchief embroidered with small swords; the baby teeth the young Sword Sovereign shed; the malt candy the young Sword Sovereign loved most, now lifelike; the teenage Sword Sovereign’s hair tie; the discarded pills the teenage Sword Sovereign refined; the books the adult Sword Sovereign disliked; a flower the adult Sword Sovereign casually plucked from Jijin Peak…
Even the wooden box inlaid with blazing stones was the young Sword Sovereign’s treasure box, used to hold all the junk she collected everywhere. After growing up and realizing her childishness, she casually gave the box to Xie Huaixue.
Although the wooden box had changed owners, its function remained unchanged: it was still used to hold the Sword Sovereign’s junk.
Li Jin’an fell into deep thought. “Why are my baby teeth still here?”
Xie Huaixue glanced at her and said lightly, “When I threw away your unfinished spiritual fruit, you said I hated you and were annoyed by your things. You feigned tears to make Master coax you, and then used that as an excuse to make me peel the skins of the thousand-seed fruit for you. That day, you ate so much thousand-seed fruit you got indigestion.”
It was clear why she didn’t throw away the baby teeth; Li Jin’an had no clue in her heart.
The ‘Master’ in her words was naturally not Chixin Sword Lord, but Yinyue Monarch.
The thousand-seed fruit was plump, large, and sweet, but its skin was difficult to peel. The young Sword Sovereign loved to eat it but hated peeling it, so she used all sorts of tricks to get others to do the work.
Li Jin’an frowned, then said casually, “Nonsense, I didn’t get indigestion from eating thousand-seed fruit.”
And what was “using it as an excuse”? She really couldn’t talk properly. No wonder her sworn enemy in the book inexplicably became an old friend. It just showed how bad this person’s social skills were, all because she spoke unpleasantly.
She already said she hated four-character idioms, yet she deliberately offended. Bad person.
Xie Huaixue withdrew her gaze. “Not just thousand-seed fruit, but other spiritual fruits I peeled for you too.”
Li Jin’an’s gaze drifted. Who told little Xie Huaixue she was so easy to fool? Of course, it was also possible that Xie Huaixue saw through it but didn’t expose it, after all, this person was a direct descendant of the Dao Sect, intelligent from a young age. But she wouldn’t accept this possibility.
“Don’t change the topic!” She raised an eyebrow and pointed her finger, her black hair and snow-white skin radiating vitality. “We’re talking about what’s wrong with your body now.”
“Mm.” Xie Huaixue responded concisely.
Li Jin’an looked utterly bewildered, then became furious. “I’m talking about the heavens, you’re talking about the earth! I’m asking you a question, why are you just ‘mm-ing’?”
“There is cold poison.”
Xie Huaixue shifted her gaze back to Li Jin’an. Li Jin’an didn’t know if it was her illusion, but she always felt there was a hint of scrutiny in that gaze, and a touch of surprise.
As if wondering when Li Jin’an had become enlightened enough to care about other matters. Wasn’t she always either practicing sword or fighting?
If she wasn’t so familiar with Xie Huaixue, an ordinary person probably wouldn’t even be able to discern the first emotion.
Li Jin’an crossed her arms and cast a sidelong glare.
She realized that she had just blurted out the matter of the cold poison. In the cavern, she might have noticed Xie Huaixue’s physical condition was off, but she shouldn’t have so accurately spoken the words “cold poison.”
In summary, Xie Huaixue thought that with Li Jin’an’s thought process, she wouldn’t be able to think of the spiritual root having cold poison.
It wasn’t that she thought Li Jin’an was stupid, but rather that she was accustomed to solving problems with force and wouldn’t dig deeper.
To be honest, if not for the Heavenly Tome, even if today’s events occurred, Li Jin’an truly wouldn’t have thought of it.
But!
This wasn’t a reason for Xie Huaixue to doubt her!
“Do you have any opinions about me?”
The Sword Sovereign said, leaning against the wall. Her deep, sharp eyes narrowed, and sword energy faintly emanated from her body.
Qingxiao Peak’s summit and cave abode were the Immortal Venerable’s absolute domain, with only her aura present. Even Jingting Dao Lord, whose cultivation and status were higher than hers, wouldn’t release spiritual sense to probe. But now, the Sword Sovereign’s aura and sword energy were wildly spreading.
Li Jin’an had no intention of hiding herself. The sword energy’s presence was too strong, and it was soon sensed by Lan Ci and Zhong Fei, who were constantly monitoring the cave abode from outside, along with Ning Zhufeng, who was pretending to be several beats slower. The three had different thoughts but were united against the outside, wanting to defeat the three obstacles in front of them.
Three against three.
Perhaps it was because they were directly under the eyes of their own master and the opposing Immortal Venerable, the three disciples of Jijin Peak, to gain face for their family, all brought out their signature skills, firmly guarding the Immortal Venerable’s cave abode entrance.
No matter what their master intended to do to the Immortal Venerable on her territory, they certainly wouldn’t yield the way!
The roles of attacker and defender had swapped; the people of Qingxiao Peak couldn’t even meet their master now.
Let alone Lan Ci and Zhong Fei, even Ning Zhufeng, who had just joined Qingxiao Peak, was furious, feeling that Jijin Sword Sovereign and her disciples had ruined her plans.
However, Ning Zhufeng was in a disguised identity. After all, she was still in front of the Immortal Venerable and the Sword Sovereign. To avoid exposing herself, she didn’t even dare to make a secret move; she could only display the combat level of a malnourished ten-year-old child, not only unable to help, but also dragging them down.
Qi Lingzi, Tan Yanyi, and Ling Qiu’s eyes gleamed, and they fought with even greater enthusiasm.
It was rare for a fight to go so smoothly; they were even more unwilling to give up.
In an instant, a chaotic ruckus erupted, and the clamor was endless.
Without Li Jin’an needing to instruct them, they had already launched into an all-out brawl.
In the bedroom.
“No.” Xie Huaixue sat up, her expression composed, her tone cool and gentle. “Aren’t you going out to take a look?”
“Heh.” Li Jin’an sneered, reached out and pushed Xie Huaixue back onto the bed, pressing her down firmly.
In this position, Xie Huaixue calmly watched her.
Li Jin’an paid no attention to the commotion outside. Those three naughty brats couldn’t get in anyway. Did they really think she was a pushover? As if those three naughty brats were worthy of interfering in matters between her and Xie Huaixue.
The next instant, a fierce and overbearing gust of wind burst forth from inside the room, sweeping away the three individuals—no, three brutes—who were brawling outside.
Naturally, she was gentler with her own disciples, while those three brutes spun head over heels in the air before being flung onto the distant ground, covered in dust.
Li Jin’an came back to her senses. She thought to herself, it seems that not breaking the skin doesn’t count as direct harm, so the Heavenly Dao hasn’t warned her.
The Heavenly Dao’s bottom line is quite flexible.
She turned to Xie Huaixue, and said firmly, “Can you speak now?”
Nice chapter
So close yet feigning enmity