Spectating the Angsty Romance of the Master and Disciple from the Sect Next Door Chapter 168

Strictly speaking, the moment ‘Xie Wushen’ and ‘Liu Xinshu’ below perished, including Li Jin’an, they were all time stowaways. Using this as an excuse, the Heavenly Dao could turn its back on them and send down heavenly lightning to strike them dead.
But alas, the Lancang Continent’s largest resistance force had betrayed them and colluded with them.
Seeing Xie Wushen about to speak, Li Jin’an squeezed the black butterfly’s spiritual body, forcibly making their three spiritual bodies linger a while longer in this timeline.
There’s no time to lose flattering my newly recognized mothers and fathers; I must seize every moment!
The drooping spiritual butterfly listlessly glanced at Li Jin’an, then obediently began its work, the light on its spiritual body dimming somewhat.
As expected of the butterfly captured by Li Jin’an, taken over by Xie Huaixue, and then doubly modified by the Heavenly Dao and the Eye of the Outer Realm Totem — it’s truly sturdy.
“Can we save Gongyu?” Xie Wushen asked tearfully. In that moment, even the sweet and naive one desperately started thinking for her close friend, quickly coming up with an ingenious idea. “Let’s replace this Gongyu with a puppet and take her with us.”
Liu Xinshu looked at his wife with some surprise, thinking she was truly amazing to come up with such a win-win solution.
Then he also immediately looked at Li Jin’an with expectation.
Those two sweet and naive ones showed no shame or embarrassment about being elders who placed their hopes on a junior.
These two were indifferent to their own predetermined deaths, focused solely on ensuring their close friend wouldn’t suffer so much. After all, in the battle on Three Realms Mountain, they had already anticipated their own fate. They cared more about their close friend and daughter.
It was precisely because they had suffered no hardship in either cultivation or anything else, their lives smoother than even Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue’s, with sect elders to protect them, a Dao companion they enjoyed spending time with, and a close friend to look after them, that they had no worries at all. Thus, they could empathize more when they saw others suffering.
The spiritual butterfly, noticing their gazes also falling upon it, retracted its wings and huddled into itself in self-isolation.
The black butterfly, which once wielded its power in Purple Leaf Town, could never have imagined that one day, it, a tiny spirit beast, would become an immortal in the eyes of powerful cultivators it once looked up to, as if wishing upon it could make dreams come true…
If it truly could, its first wish would absolutely be for the Lancang Continent to be destroyed, and for everyone to die together!
Li Jin’an’s mood was also complex. She had thought her newly recognized mother and father wanted to tell her something else.
She really wanted to agree. Could she bear to watch Yinyue Monarch painstakingly scheme for hundreds of years? What’s more, having known Xie Huaixue’s parents for less than a day and failing to fulfill their request would truly hinder their future interactions.
“I don’t have any objections, and I don’t care about being struck by lightning, but I don’t know if… it will agree.” When speaking of the Heavenly Dao, Li Jin’an subtly pointed upwards, not uttering the words ‘Heavenly Dao’.
It wasn’t that she feared the Heavenly Dao. The main reason was that she wasn’t on her home ground, making it easy for certain unscrupulous dog-like things to manipulate her. So, even someone as arrogant as Jijin Sword Sovereign had to endure humiliation and shoulder heavy burdens.
The spiritual butterfly, which had become almost transparent, suddenly flared with blinding light, forcibly pulling away the three stubborn ones.
The Heavenly Dao indeed couldn’t personally intervene, but the black butterfly had been personally modified by the Heavenly Dao, so it could naturally be controlled.
Now it was settled. No need to agonize over whether or not to be struck by heavenly lightning. The Heavenly Dao had directly responded with action—scram as far as you can!
It was already good enough that they were allowed to bring back the spiritual bodies of Ming Gongyu, Xie Wushen, and Liu Xinshu. Where did all these greedy and insatiable demands come from?!
The root of breaking the Heavenly Tome lay with the three villainous protagonists: Lan Ci, Zhong Fei, and Wu Zhaoxing. Ming Gongyu, Xie Wushen, and Liu Xinshu, who had almost no presence in the Heavenly Tome’s plot, whether they lived or died, had no impact on the Tome itself.
The reason it agreed to let Li Jin’an rescue the three was purely a transaction with the Dao Sect.
Xie Huaixue, Jingting Dao Lord, and Dao Venerable—these three were more troublesome than the last. Either they’d keep mentioning the Heavenly Tome, or they’d bring up ‘merging with the Dao.’ Their audacity was utterly detestable. Even the Heavenly Dao had to grudgingly accept their exorbitant demands.
These damned, cunning individuals, even denser than a beehive!
…
Li Jin’an’s figure flickered into the formation. The moment she opened her eyes, her gaze met that of her own cunning ones. Just as she was about to pounce, she saw Jingting Dao Lord hurrying over with two Twelve-petal Lotus Platforms.
Right, her newly recognized mother and father had returned with her!
The two spiritual bodies curiously looked at the Dao Sect a thousand years later, and at their daughter, who had grown up, unlike them or Ming Gongyu, to be clear, cool, and incomparably beautiful.
“Mother’s Huaixue!” Xie Wushen didn’t even glance at the Sect Master, excitedly floating towards Xie Huaixue.
Heavens, she recognized her own daughter at first glance!
“Goodness, I’m a Father!” Liu Xinshu, tears in his tiger eyes, circled his wife and daughter.
Li Jin’an and Chixin Sword Lord also eagerly joined the commotion, one coaxing this one, another coaxing that one. The scene was utterly chaotic!
Jingting Dao Lord, holding the Twelve-petal Lotus Platforms to reconstruct their bodies, paused, looking up at the sky, speechless.
To this day, she finally understood the feelings of the Sword Sect Master next door, who wanted to abdicate.
Seeing these people, she felt as if the sect would collapse any second. To avoid being the ruler of a fallen state, wanting to abdicate was quite understandable.
Jingting Dao Lord gritted her teeth, forcibly parting the layers of people surrounding Xie Huaixue, and pulled out Xie Wushen and Liu Xinshu’s spiritual bodies, “What is it you have to say right now? Are you planning to say it all at once and then have your souls scatter?”
“Sect Master’s demeanor is as graceful as ever,” Xie Wushen said, completely unfazed by the scolding, her eyes sparkling as she looked at Jingting Dao Lord. “I meet you again in the season of falling blossoms. To be able to see you again, Wushen is truly overjoyed.”
The reason why sweet and naive people could remain sweet and naive isn’t just because they are fair and pretty, but also because they are sweet to the heart.
Aside from those sleeping Tribulation Transcendence cultivators, the highest-ranking person in the cultivation world was Jingting Dao Lord because she had lived for so long, even a generation older than Xie Wushen and Liu Xinshu’s parents. One could say she had watched Xie Wushen and Liu Xinshu, Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue grow up. So, Xie Wushen acting spoiled with her was not out of place.
We rarely meet in life, like the stars Shen and Shang; what night is this, that we share this lamplight?
It was still daytime; there was no lamplight. The weather was perfect, a warm sun shining on everyone. Even their spiritual bodies could feel the present world’s warmth and gentleness.
Even without personally experiencing the past twelve hundred years, Xie Wushen still felt immensely fortunate to meet again, knowing how rare this opportunity was.
Xie Wushen, unbiased, also waved to Chixin Sword Lord. “Daoist friend Tan, Gongyu will be back soon. Don’t worry. We can wait together.”
Chixin Sword Lord first responded with a dazed “Okay,” then turned to Li Jin’an, who was leaning on Xie Huaixue and watching the commotion. “Reconstructing Daoist friend Xie and Daoist friend Liu’s bodies doesn’t require you. What are you still doing here?”
Li Jin’an was about to complain when she saw all the elders except Xie Huaixue looking at her.
… Fine.
Aside from her, the people present were Yinyue Monarch’s disciple, Dao companion, close friend, and collaborator.
The reason these people could gather happily was because of Yinyue Monarch. Now that the central figure wasn’t here, it was indeed rather uninteresting, and reminiscing felt dull.
Fortunately, Xie Huaixue quietly took Li Jin’an’s hand and gently squeezed it.
Li Jin’an was immediately appeased. With great vigor and spirit, she pushed aside Chixin Sword Lord and Jingting Dao Lord who were blocking her path. “Don’t bother me while I’m doing serious work.”
She jumped back into the time reversal formation, concentrating on the time node she wanted to return to. She said with great spirit, “Once I bring Yinyue Monarch back, don’t miss us too much!”
The black butterfly in the formation core once again released a spiritual butterfly to lock onto Li Jin’an, and the azure light converged on her again.
…
Li Jin’an just opened her eyes and felt that her vision was off. Looking down, she was indeed floating in the air in the form of a spiritual body.
However, she didn’t panic. She was just thinking that Xie Huaixue had predicted everything perfectly, guessing accurately every time. As expected of her Dao companion.
Just as the Heavenly Dao had played tricks to make her return to when she was sixteen and compete for her body with younger Li Jin’an, two Li Jin’ans were not allowed in one timeline. Either they shared a body, or one had to hide as a spiritual body, not appearing before others.
However, at this time, Li Jin’an was still frantically collecting treasures in the secret realm to improve herself, only rushing back after Yinyue Monarch’s demise. She couldn’t be relied upon at all.
Without a physical body, fighting was one thing, but the most crucial part was that her storage ring and other items couldn’t come with her.
But fortunately, before the Dao Venerable merged with the Dao, she had given Li Jin’an a gift. At the time, she hadn’t had a chance to look at it until Xie Huaixue and Jingting Dao Lord were carving the formation. Only then did she learn what the gift was.
—A storage space bound to her spiritual body.
The space wasn’t large enough to store everything, but it was more than enough to hold a formation plate.
Moreover, as far as she knew, Xie Huaixue and Jingting Dao Lord’s gifts were also related to formations. Otherwise, the formation on Qingxiao Peak and the formation plate in her hand wouldn’t have been so easy to bring out.
After all, it was an act against Heaven’s will. Even if Heaven was on their side, it wouldn’t help them accomplish everything in one go. This was when the cunning ones needed to play their part.
These old seniors truly were something. They calculated everything so precisely, every detail fitting perfectly, proving themselves to be incredibly cunning, each more so than the last.
If all the cunning in the cultivation world were summed up, the Dao Sect alone seemed to possess the lion’s share and then some, making everyone else appear utterly guileless. The only ones truly devoid of cunning were Xie Wushen and Liu Xinshu, who accounted for what little cunning remained.
Li Jin’an gleefully thought of her elders’ jokes. Relying on her current spiritual body state, she took an unconventional path, passing through the wall and floating on the rafter, looking down from above.
Before she could listen to Yinyue Monarch and Xie Huaixue’s conversation, she saw snow falling softly outside the window.
Right, Yinyue Monarch had perished on a snowy night.
She turned to look at Yinyue Monarch, who was leaning against the headboard, her face pale yet gentle and composed. Li Jin’an felt a heavy feeling in her heart.
They were about to meet again so soon.
Looking at the bleak and silent night, Li Jin’an finally understood the reason for her unease.
The person lying there was Yinyue Monarch, who had avenged her close friend, worried about her juniors and Dao companion, and could only entrust everything to Jingting Dao Lord.
Not Ming Gongyu, who had been accompanied by Xie Wushen and Liu Xinshu on Three Realms Mountain, mischievously smiling and saying she didn’t seem like someone who would be close friends with others.
Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue, who was quietly listening to her master speak below, simultaneously lowered their eyelids. In the lamplight, their long, dark eyelashes cast a shadow, concealing their sad expressions.