The urgent voice rang directly inside Mu Yunran’s mind. She opened her eyes after the first warning.
In an unfamiliar world, she had not dared to sleep deeply or lower her guard. As the system repeated its alarm, Mu Yunran quickly sat up and caught the little orb. It had not even noticed that she was awake and was still shouting inside her head.
Without speaking, she gave it a flat look and raised one finger to her lips. Her dark eyes showed no emotion, as though the people outside the temple did not concern her at all.
Faced with such a calm host, the orb’s light dimmed. It fell silent, afraid both of annoying her and of making a noise that the newcomers might hear.
Once the alarm stopped, Mu Yunran released the orb and let it hover beside her, paying it no further attention.
The system studied the little beggar with her still-messy hair and felt an unmistakable sense that something was wrong. Usually, a host who had just entered a new world should not adapt this quickly. Even someone highly adaptable ought to feel at least a little nervous in this situation.
The orb blinked. It could not sense the slightest tension from its host. Then it remembered what had happened when it first bound itself to Mu Yunran, and everything became clear.
Its host was not normal. Ordinary rules did not apply to her.
Mu Yunran had no idea what the orb was thinking and no time to care. Moving quietly, she gripped one corner of the statue and peered around it toward the entrance.
Footsteps and conversation came from outside. There seemed to be quite a few people.
Mu Yunran withdrew, deliberately mussed her hair even more, then lay down on the dry grass and curled into a ball.
There was nowhere to hide in the ruined temple. If the newcomers had come for any reason beyond taking a short rest, they would discover her sooner or later. Even travelers seeking shelter might inspect the place to make sure it was safe.
Since hiding was impossible, she might as well pretend to be a little beggar who was still asleep. In this world, there was nothing unusual about a beggar living in an abandoned temple.
Mu Yunran closed her eyes and feigned sleep. The floating orb stared in confusion. Unable to understand her plan, it started fussing inside her mind again.
*Host, what are you doing? Shouldn’t you hurry and find somewhere to hide? Why are you going back to sleep? Host, get up!*
Mu Yunran offered no explanation. She caught the orb, stuffed it against her chest, and whispered, “Quiet.”
The temple door opened, and a group entered.
At their head was a young woman dressed in white. Her long black hair fell freely down her back, held only by an ice-blue ribbon. Her sole ornament was a half-moon jade pendant at her waist.
Three young disciples of about the same age followed her, two young men and a young woman, all dressed in white.
The remaining four were powerfully built men whose clothes differed in both color and style.
“So this is the temple of the Radiant Feather Divine Lord. Who would’ve thought it was hidden in such a deserted dump? What a miserable ruin. Dry grass everywhere and not even one offering. Can a place like this really hold anything valuable?”
The brown-robed man leading the four scratched his head. He complained without pause as he searched the temple with his eyes.
The expressions of the three disciples behind the young woman stiffened.
A younger man approached the brown-robed speaker and tugged his sleeve.
“Careful, Big Brother. The Clearcloud Sect disciples are right here.”
Hu San stroked his beard and laughed. “My apologies. I’m a rough speaker, so I must sound foolish to you fellow cultivators. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
The young woman in white gently shook her head. “Don’t concern yourself, Brother Hu. We all know you’re merely a forthright man.”
She stepped forward, looked up at the towering statue, and bowed with sincere reverence.
The three disciples accompanying her exchanged glances. They followed their senior sister’s example and bowed to the statue.
As the youths turned their backs, a vicious look crossed Hu San’s face. He signaled the man by the door.
Understanding at once, the man quietly shut the temple door and cast a spell upon it.
The preparations complete, Hu San regarded the four young disciples on their training journey as lambs waiting for slaughter.
“Miss Lu, have you finished paying your respects? If you have, why don’t you tell us brothers what treasures are hidden in this divine lord’s temple?”
Hu San struck first. With a wave of his hand, he summoned a long sword and sent it flying at Lu Qingran.
She had sensed his malicious gaze even before he spoke. Already prepared, she formed a hand seal. As she turned, a sword of ice collided with the incoming steel blade. Bitter cold surged from the ice sword on contact. In the blink of an eye, Hu San’s sword froze solid and crashed to the floor.
Hu San stared at his ice-covered bonded weapon in disbelief. A dreadful realization swept over him.
They might have kicked an iron wall.
The three disciples beside Lu Qingran spun around and summoned their own bonded weapons without hesitation. They were not as perceptive as their senior sister, but they were no fools. Each stole a quick glance at her, thinking that she must have noticed the danger long ago.
Lu Qingran regarded Hu San calmly. “Brother Hu, what is the meaning of this?”
There was neither anger nor fear in her voice. His sudden attack did not seem to surprise her.
Hu San called his sword back. Red spiritual energy flowed from his palm, melting the ice within moments. He sneered at the young woman for asking a question whose answer she already knew.
“Stop pretending. Tell us everything you know, and perhaps we brothers will give all four of you quick deaths.”
The other three men brandished various weapons. One also held a yellow talisman. The dark-red markings on its paper did not look as if they had been drawn with cinnabar. They looked like blood.
Lu Qingran’s expression darkened when she saw it.
“We may have encountered what Master warned us about,” she told her junior sister and brothers. “Be careful and avoid injury, especially from that talisman cultivator.”
The three tightened their grips on their swords. None dared underestimate their opponents.
Behind the statue, Mu Yunran opened her eyes a sliver. Events had unfolded almost exactly as she expected. Two groups had come to a ruined temple in search of treasure. Of course they would fight. She did not even need to look to picture the scene before the statue.
Before coming to this world, her terrible friend had written novels while Mu Yunran drew comics. Both knew how to tell stories. She listened impassively to the man surnamed Hu recite his stale villain’s lines, then slowly sat up.
There was no point pretending to sleep now. With a battle raging a few steps away, no one would believe she could sleep through it.
All she could do was wait and hope the young woman with the pleasant voice won.
The system remained perfectly still in Mu Yunran’s hand. The original novel’s plot began much later than this, so it could offer her no information. Unwilling to admit how useless it was, the orb spoke into her mind and offered to scan the temple for the treasure the man had mentioned.
Mu Yunran considered it, then gave a slight nod.
Before the statue, Hu San poured spiritual energy into his sword until flames rose along its blade. He swung, sending blazing sword energy straight at Lu Qingran.
She had just cut apart a talisman aimed at her junior brother and had no time to block. Instead, she shoved him aside, and both barely evaded the killing strike.
The sword energy missed Lu Qingran and struck the statue. The golden figure was not damaged. Instead, it absorbed the fire-filled attack.
Hu San saw this, and a daring guess entered his mind. To test it, he launched several more waves of sword energy—not at the disciples, but at the statue.
Lu Qingran understood his purpose immediately. When his third volley flew toward the statue, she blocked every strike.
Eight people fought inside the temple, and many spells had hit the statue. Yet only Hu San’s fiery sword energy had been absorbed.
Lu Qingran recalled what she had read about the Radiant Feather Divine Lord in her sect’s library, and understanding dawned.
The divine lord commanded fire and belonged to the avian race. Her true form was believed to be a fire swallow, and every open flame beneath the heavens fell under her authority. The old records could confirm only that her family name was Yan—a name that also meant “swallow.” From this, scholars had concluded that she had probably taken her surname from her true form.
It was hardly surprising that a statue inside her temple could absorb fire-aligned spiritual energy.
Lu Qingran sensed another secret within the statue. The treasure their master had said the divine lord left in the mortal world was probably hidden inside it. She could not allow it to fall into the hands of Hu San and his men.
She stopped holding back. With a gesture, she ordered her junior disciples to withdraw behind her and raise a protective barrier together.
Hu San saw this and knew something was wrong.
“Brothers, lend me your strength!” he shouted.
The other three lined up behind him and channeled their spiritual energy into his body.
Lu Qingran’s gaze turned colder. She leaped forward and swung her sword. Ice-blue sword energy met the blazing force Hu San released. Wild currents burst in every direction, and the resulting wave of heat knocked several people from their feet.
More than half of the scattered attacks struck the statue. Every trace of fire-aligned energy vanished into it.
“Senior Sister!”
The three Clearcloud disciples ran to Lu Qingran, who was kneeling on one knee. They helped her up and anxiously asked whether she was hurt.
Lu Qingran swallowed the metallic sweetness rising in her throat and smiled as she shook her head.
“I’m fine. What about you?”
All three assured her that they were unhurt.
Hu San and his men were in far worse condition. The technique that funneled their spiritual energy into one person already harmed their bodies. After being struck by Lu Qingran’s freezing sword energy, Hu San trembled uncontrollably with cold.
The two groups remained wary of each other. No one noticed the change behind the statue.
Mu Yunran stared in puzzlement at the fiery red pearl that had suddenly emerged from the statue’s backside.
The system was equally bewildered. The moment it detected the treasure inside the statue, the pearl had popped out and struck Mu Yunran on the head.
“System, do you know what this is?” Mu Yunran whispered. Her dark eyes remained calm.
The system desperately wanted to answer, but its database contained nothing about the pearl.
It lay still in Mu Yunran’s palm for more than ten seconds. Then, as if it understood her confusion, it stirred and floated up before her face. It looked left and right, studying the impassive little beggar as though confirming something.
A few seconds later, it made its decision.
The pearl shot forward and smacked Mu Yunran’s right cheek. Her lips parted in surprise, and it seized the chance to dart into her mouth.
The system almost screamed. It hurried in front of her and whispered, “Host, are you all right?”
The orb was terrified that its newly bound host might choke to death on a moving pearl.
Inside Mu Yunran’s mouth, the pearl rapidly shrank. Her body grew warm as a gentle, strangely familiar current of spiritual energy moved through her. At last, the energy gathered in the center of her lower abdomen.
After a short while, she said, “I’m fine.”
The system sighed in relief, then remembered the pearl.
“Spit it out quickly, Host! Let me scan it again and find out what it is.”
After the pearl had attacked its host, the system did not like it one bit.
Mu Yunran helplessly shook her head and spread her small hands.
“I can’t. The moment it entered my mouth, it melted like candy.”
A shriek exploded inside her head as soon as she finished speaking. Before she could ask what was wrong, the green orb flew above her. It shook once, then surrounded her with a green barrier.
One second later, cracks raced across the golden statue that had concealed her.
“Senior Sister, the statue is breaking!”
Lu Qingran looked toward it, and her heart sank. As if recalling something, she sprang forward. Her light figure swept toward the statue like a flower petal carried on the wind.
Hu San and his men also noticed the change. While Lu Qingran was distracted, Hu San slashed several times, attacking the statue with all his strength. Behind him, the talisman cultivator sent three talismans flying at her.
“Senior Sister, watch out!”
Lu Qingran had meant to pull the person hiding behind the statue to safety. At her junior sister’s warning, she had no choice but to turn and defend herself.
Her ice sword cut apart two talismans. The third grazed her arm and sliced her smooth, pale skin.
She had no time to examine the wound. The ground shook violently beneath her feet. The statue, which had shown only a few cracks a moment before, shattered and exploded with a deafening crash.
“No!”
Lu Qingran swept the flying rubble aside with her sword. Without slowing, she stepped onto a falling stone and leaped.
Protected by the system, Mu Yunran remained unharmed on the bed of dry grass. Sensing something, she looked up and saw the white-robed young woman descending from above.
Their eyes met in the middle of the crisis. Starlight appeared in Mu Yunran’s usually indifferent gaze, untouched by the storm of broken stone around them.
Lu Qingran said nothing. With sharp eyes and quick hands, she caught the back of the little beggar’s collar. She swept one jade-white hand through the air, releasing ice-blue spiritual energy that enveloped them both.
The system had turned invisible the moment Lu Qingran approached. Only a few seconds had passed between the first crack and the statue’s destruction. Its barrier vanished just as Lu Qingran “rescued” Mu Yunran.
By the time they landed safely, almost nothing remained of the statue.
The three Clearcloud disciples rushed to Lu Qingran. They asked whether she was hurt while staring at the little beggar.
Apart from Lu Qingran, none of the seven people present had noticed anyone behind the statue. Hu San and his men were surprised too. As they looked at the filthy child, murderous intent rose in their hearts.
No one in the temple could be allowed to live except the four brothers.
Hu San exchanged a glance with his second brother, then launched the first attack. The four brothers could not defeat Lu Qingran together, but they did not fear the other three disciples. Their plan was simple: kill the three weaker ones first, then surround Lu Qingran.
There was no time for questions. Lu Qingran handed Mu Yunran to her junior sister, then led the other two disciples against the Hu brothers.
…
When the vicious battle ended, one Hu brother was dead. The other three lay badly wounded on the floor, unable to move. The four Clearcloud disciples had fared little better. Every one of them was injured.
“Good thing Senior Sister activated the protective talisman Master gave us. Otherwise, that talisman cultivator’s killing strike would have finished us.”
The dark-skinned young man clutched the wound in his abdomen and spoke between ragged breaths.
Lu Qingran gave a quiet acknowledgment. Training journeys beyond the mountain always brought unexpected dangers. No one could promise that every disciple would return safely. At least this attack had taught all four of them an important lesson.
She distributed healing pills and looked over her companions.
“Treat your wounds first.”
The three obeyed. Silence settled over the temple, broken only by an occasional hiss of pain.
Forgotten to one side, Mu Yunran quietly observed the Clearcloud disciples. In her mind, the three weaker ones became Nameless Extras One, Two, and Three. One glance was enough for them.
The remaining disciple was far more interesting.
About fifteen minutes later, Lu Qingran finished treating her wounds and opened her eyes. Instead of checking on her junior disciples first, she turned and smiled at the little beggar, who had not pulled her gaze away in time.
The smile dazzled Mu Yunran. For once, she did not know how to react. She lowered her head to hide her uncertainty—and the faint blush spreading across her face.
Her cheeks felt warm. So did her lower abdomen.
The sensation was real. Mu Yunran pressed one hand to her stomach as the warmth grew stronger. It was not painful. In fact, it felt remarkably comfortable.
Lu Qingran noticed the child’s movement. She walked over and sat beside her.
“Are you feeling unwell?”
Her voice was much gentler now. Her manner was warm, and her bright black eyes held open concern.
If anyone else had acted this way, Mu Yunran might have found it false. But from Lu Qingran, such warmth and kindness felt completely natural—especially when directed toward her.
Mu Yunran’s thoughts drifted for a moment. Then she caught herself and realized she was not only imagining too much, but also becoming rather shameless.
*A kind person probably gives everyone this illusion.*
Returning to her senses, Mu Yunran shook her head. She abandoned the indifference she showed everything else and spoke in the sweetest voice she had ever used.
“I’m all right, Big Sister. I’m just a little hungry.”
Her soft voice even held a timid tremble.
It was an easy lie. She did not want anyone to know she had swallowed a mysterious pearl.
Before Lu Qingran could answer, the system cried out inside Mu Yunran’s mind.
*Good heavens, Host! You… You can speak in such an adorable voice?*
The system was stunned. It could not believe that a voice even sweeter than its own had come from its host. What was it hearing now? What had it heard before? How could the difference be so enormous?
It kept complaining, accusing Mu Yunran of blatant favoritism.
Mu Yunran snorted inwardly and told it to be quiet.
*Why do you treat us so differently? Is it because I’m not as pretty as the heroine? Am I not worthy of hearing you call my name in that sweet voice?*
Mu Yunran held out her hands. Lu Qingran used a spell to wash them, then dried them for her. Mu Yunran accepted the cake Lu Qingran offered, thanked her softly, and took a bite before replying to the system in her mind.
*You may consider this favoritism a survival technique.*
Just as the system decided Mu Yunran was a gifted actress, she asked, *Why didn’t you tell me at once that she was the heroine?*
The little orb froze in midair. Its green light flickered weakly, advertising its guilt.
The system did not want its host to know that it had identified the white-robed young woman only a minute or two ago. It could not admit its poor professional ability, nor did it want Mu Yunran to suspect bad intentions. Silence seemed safest.
Mu Yunran ignored it and continued eating as she spoke with Lu Qingran.
Lu Qingran tucked a loose lock of hair behind Mu Yunran’s ear. She dampened a cloth with a spell and handed it to her to clean her face. Only then did she gently ask the child’s name.
Mu Yunran thought for two seconds and decided to give her real name.
To survive, she first needed a powerful protector. The heroine was the best one available at this stage. Mu Yunran planned to win her affection and secure her support. Then, when she entered the Clearcloud Sect in the future, no one would dare bully her casually.
“My name is Mu Yunran. Big Sister, what’s yours?”
Lu Qingran looked at the innocent, lovable child before her, and something stirred in her heart. Before meeting her master, she too had been an unwanted child.
Their similar pasts awakened her compassion. She glanced toward her junior disciples, who had finished treating their wounds and now waited by the entrance. Then she took Mu Yunran’s hand and led the ragged little beggar toward the door.
Sunlight streamed down over Lu Qingran, making her look gentler still. She smiled.
“My name is Lu Qingran. Remember it well.”
