Spectating the Angsty Romance of the Master and Disciple from the Sect Next Door Chapter 69

The next day, the sky was clear and refreshing, a bright and sunny day.
Thirty disciples gathered beneath the Dao Sect’s Founding Patriarch’s statue, their faces solemn, listening to the Young Sect Master of the Dao Sect motivate them.
Li Jin’an stood beside Xie Huaixue, and on her other side was Jie Yunjin, whom she had invited. The three of them looked down in unison.
She lightly raised a hand, catching a wisp of clear breeze, and sighed languidly, saying dispassionately, “The wind has risen.”
It was truly a fine day today, with a clear blue sky as far as the eye could see.
Clear clouds drifted gently, and the peaks were as still as a calm sea.
Li Jin’an stood high above, taking in everything below, including the subtle shifts in everyone’s expressions.
There wasn’t much to say about her three little blockheads at home. Tan Yanyi and Ling Qiu were again invigorated by Qi Lingzi defeating Lan Ci and winning first place. They held their heads high, brimming with pride, their expressions a little sneaky, probably thinking about scamming Lan Ci and the others out of a huge sum.
As for the expressions of Lan Ci, Zhong Fei, and Ning Zhufeng, those three troublesome brats, they were intriguing. All were gloomy, but due to the auspiciousness of the day, they had to hide their gloom and put on a calm facade.
The surrounding disciples occasionally glanced at Lan Ci, thinking they were being subtle, which made Lan Ci recall, time and again, the fact that she had lost to Qi Lingzi. Moreover, the three from Jijin Peak were celebrating joyfully, which made her even more irritable, her eyes filled with impatience.
In truth, she was completely overthinking it. The surrounding disciples weren’t looking at her because she lost to Qi Lingzi. While that indeed was shocking, winning and losing were common in battle. True immortals like Immortal Venerable Qingxiao, who had never suffered a defeat, were actually a minority in the cultivation world.
The surrounding disciples looked at Lan Ci because of the complete collapse of her image on the arena days earlier. They believed she had shamed Immortal Venerable Qingxiao.
One must know that those three troublesome brats from Qingxiao Peak were excellent at putting on an act. If anyone so much as mentioned that they resembled Immortal Venerable Qingxiao in any way, they would be extremely happy and shyly ask, “Is that really true?” Their reputation among both elders and disciples was excellent.
But now, people could only feel that Lan Ci was deeply scheming and malicious in her methods, that her past disguise had been too perfect, and now her true face had finally been exposed.
Then the surrounding disciples would wonder if, besides Lan Ci, Zhong Fei and Ning Zhufeng were also two-faced.
Lan Ci was blind to the larger picture, but Ning Zhufeng was not. Being implicated made her increasingly annoyed and impatient, and she even found her past vigilance and wariness towards Lan Ci somewhat amusing.
This senior disciple, whose eyes saw no one but her master and who looked down on everything, was accustomed to things going smoothly. Because she valued her master too much, and to be worthy of her, she had overly inflated her own self-importance, becoming overambitious and lacking practical skill. When she was suddenly brought back down to earth, she couldn’t bear it and completely broke down.
The more Ning Zhufeng thought about it, the more amused she felt. A human prodigy like Lan Ci wasn’t any better than her, a member of the demonic race.
So Ning Zhufeng relaxed her posture, and her occasional glances at Lan Ci became increasingly contemplative.
Suddenly, Li Jin’an, from her elevated position, retracted her gaze and let out a soft chuckle, in high spirits.
Jie Yunjin, who was observing Zhong Fei, was startled by her. “Why are you so jumpy?”
“When one feels joyful, one should laugh more,” Li Jin’an replied, then looked at Xie Huaixue. “Right?”
Xie Huaixue seemed to agree with Li Jin’an, and she too smiled serenely. “Right.”
Jie Yunjin’s lips were practically twisted to the sky. She deeply felt that these two were quite skilled at tormenting people. Before, a ten-mile radius around them was a battlefield; now, it was even worse. Wife echoing wife, they ganged up on her together, both utterly disregarding others’ well-being.
The Young Sect Master finished speaking and walked to Jingting Dao Lord’s side, quietly reporting something.
Such a minor matter didn’t require Jingting Dao Lord to make an appearance, but she had come today to see how her matchmade couple’s relationship was progressing.
Jingting Dao Lord nodded casually. “Go. Go early, return early.”
The Young Sect Master gently bowed, then addressed the crowd. “Depart! May you all return unharmed and laden with treasures!”
The thirty disciples bowed in unison.
Just as the elders of the Sword Sect and Dao Sect were about to lead their disciples onto the spirit boat to the Solitary Mountain Secret Realm, Li Jin’an let out a soft “tsk” sound, clearly audible in everyone’s ears.
Qi Lingzi instantly turned her head to look at Tan Yanyi and Ling Qiu, trying to confirm what year it was. From the identical confusion in her two junior sisters’ eyes, she could tell they hadn’t returned to the disciple acceptance ceremony of that day. But why was the déjà vu so strong?
Another instance of tsk-ing everywhere.
Their relaxed hearts finally tensed up.
It wasn’t that they didn’t trust their master, but rather that they had too much faith in her ability to stir up trouble. They felt certain that today’s trip to the secret realm would not go smoothly.
The Immortal Venerable is their Master’s Wife now. Master wouldn’t use any malicious tricks or schemes against Master’s Wife… right?
Jingting Dao Lord thought the same, saying with a chuckle, “Last time at the disciple acceptance ceremony, you ‘tsk’ed and became family with Qingxiao. What are you ‘tsk’ing about now? There’s no second Immortal Venerable Qingxiao for you to ‘tsk’ home. Are you perhaps saying one Qingxiao isn’t enough?”
Noticing Xie Huaixue’s gaze, Li Jin’an’s serious demeanor instantly broke, and she explained with a mysterious weariness, “…I didn’t! I ‘tsk’ed for a reason.”
“What reason?”
At this critical moment, Xie Huaixue was the most reliable, following Li Jin’an’s lead and asking.
As for Jingting Dao Lord, she just wanted to watch the show and profit from Li Jin’an’s troubles. Sometimes Li Jin’an suspected that Jingting Dao Lord hadn’t been beaten to death yet only because of her profound cultivation, not because others didn’t want to ambush her.
Li Jin’an straightened her face and gestured to Jie Yunjin, who was watching the commotion beside her. “This is my friend, Jie Yunjin, a great demon powerhouse. She just informed me of a very astonishing piece of news via sound transmission. I’m quite shocked, and I believe you all will be equally shocked when you hear it.”
“Let’s hear this news first, then the disciples can proceed to the Solitary Mountain Secret Realm. There’s no rush.”
As Li Jin’an introduced her friend, Jie Yunjin cooperated by raising her chin slightly, perfectly portraying the arrogant, condescending air of a great demon powerhouse.
Li Jin’an and Jie Yunjin had indeed exchanged sound transmissions earlier, but they were talking about the Dao Sect’s scenery. Jie Yunjin had been marveling at how, thanks to Li Jin’an, she, a snake demon, could openly enter Dao Sect territory.
Jingting Dao Lord, the only one present who could decipher their sound transmission, remained silent, her eyebrows twitching slightly.
The Young Sect Master understood Jingting Dao Lord’s meaning and raised a hand, signaling the others to halt. There was no harm in waiting for Jijin Sword Sovereign to finish her commotion before departing.
Anyway, Jijin Sword Sovereign wasn’t going to slash down the Dao Sect’s Founding Patriarch’s statue with her sword. They might as well just listen to her astonishing news.
Jijin Sword Sovereign had stirred up trouble in the Dao Sect plenty of times before; this was just another instance. The Young Sect Master treated it as practice for the difficult matters she might encounter after taking charge.
Everyone reacted differently.
Sword sovereign Xiaoxiang and Sword sovereign Junxing exchanged glances, both sighing heavily with troubled expressions. Didn’t they say trouble doesn’t happen more than three times? Why is it one after another for them, with no end in sight?
If they continued to rely on each other like this, they’d almost fall in love.
Because only they could truly empathize with each other; no one else could.
Lan Ci and Ning Zhufeng felt a sense of both inevitability and expectation. They were very impatient but not surprised, only filled with endless numbness, adopting a “broken pot, broken again” attitude. They thought Jijin Sword Sovereign’s methods of torment were all the same. At most, they’d have to publicly address Jijin Sword Sovereign as “Master’s Wife.”
Only Zhong Fei stared intently at the figures of Li Jin’an, Xie Huaixue, and Jie Yunjin standing side by side. The moment Li Jin’an introduced Jie Yunjin’s identity as a great demon, Zhong Fei was filled with terror and unease. She kept trying to convince herself that cultivators below the Integration Stage couldn’t detect her, that even Jingting Dao Lord couldn’t discern her half-yao identity. Could just any great demon really see through it?
But despite her best efforts to convince herself, Zhong Fei inexplicably felt that this was aimed directly at her.
Zhong Fei swallowed hard, her body tense and rigid. She tightly clutched a dark-colored jade token in her hand until her palms grew sweaty, and a cold breeze sent shivers down her spine.
At this moment, Li Jin’an, conversely, was in no hurry. If it weren’t for hundreds of pairs of eyes staring intently at her, she would truly want to pull out a table and fruit platter, brew some hot tea, and slowly tell the story while eating and drinking.
But that would be too irritating.
Li Jin’an had no choice but to abandon this enticing idea because Xie Huaixue was also looking at her. So she pointed to Jie Yunjin, “You’re the expert. You tell them.”
Jie Yunjin twitched her lips in exasperation. Under the gaze of the cultivation world’s most distinguished elders and disciples, she briefly introduced herself.
“Some people present here might know my story: how I transformed from a pure human into a pure demon. That’s not important. What’s important is that for a period, I researched how to transform from a pure demon into a pure human—of course, that research failed. Then I shifted to researching how to conceal demonic energy and suppress aura, and how demons can appear as pure humans in others’ eyes. That’s why Jijin Sword Sovereign says I’m an expert in this field.”
It also wasn’t important that all of Jie Yunjin’s research had failed, but it sounded very impressive.
Li Jin’an had sought her out precisely for this authority.
If not for their Sword Cultivator sect’s credit having been ruined with the Divine Mechanism Sect and the Spring Rejuvenation Valley, she would have definitely invited a few alchemy maniacs and medical cultivators proficient in human and demonic bodies to lend credibility.
Below, Zhong Fei’s heart pounded like a drum. As Jie Yunjin spoke of her research, Zhong Fei’s face grew paler, but she still felt a sense of relief and chose to remain still.
Even Lan Ci and Ning Zhufeng, who were beside her, noticed her abnormality. They weren’t foolish and began to ponder, already realizing that Jijin Sword Sovereign was targeting Zhong Fei. Did Zhong Fei have demonic bloodline?
If it was merely a trace of diluted bloodline, it might be fine. But if she truly had a direct connection to the demonic race, Zhong Fei would likely be…
This surprised Ning Zhufeng somewhat. She hadn’t expected the supposedly most foolish Zhong Fei to harbor such a great secret. However, she had no intention of standing up for Zhong Fei. Instead, she thought that since Zhong Fei was useless and couldn’t even maintain her disguise, there was no need for her to remain on Qingxiao Peak. She certainly didn’t want to be implicated.
Jie Yunjin glanced at Li Jin’an, then, without any warning and while everyone was utterly bewildered, she directly revealed the truth.