Jiu’er!
Mu Mu snapped his head upward. In the moonlight, the rooftops spread out before him, still and silent — nothing there at all.
No Jiu’er. Not even a single shadow. Yet why — why had that powerful sense of her presence just now been so overwhelming?
Where was Jiu’er? He had clearly sensed her presence!
“Young Master, what is it?” A subordinate walking behind him asked quietly.
Mu Mu said nothing. His lips pressed into a thin line, and he suddenly strode in great steps toward that inn.
He had distinctly sensed Jiu’er’s presence. It had to be Jiu’er!
That girl was so sharp-witted — she certainly knew what it meant that the most dangerous place was the safest. That was why she had dared to swagger right into Phoenix City, wasn’t it?
Yet she had overlooked one thing: some perceptions simply could not be reasoned away with ordinary logic!
He had distinctly sensed Jiu’er’s presence!
…
Bang. The door to Xue Gu’s room was kicked open in one blow, and Mu Mu burst in. “Jiu’er!”
He had clearly sensed it just now — Jiu’er had been directly above this room. She had to still be inside!
There were two people in the room, both in bed. Xue Gu yanked the curtain aside and glared furiously at the man who had forced his way in. “Who are you? What is the meaning of this?”
A middle-aged woman he didn’t recognize! Mu Mu didn’t know Xue Gu’s true face — yet there was plainly another person in that bed!
His face cold and harsh, he walked forward and moved to pull open the other half of the curtain.
Xue Gu thrust a palm at him. “How dare you be so insolent!”
Mu Mu’s mind was not on fighting. He deflected the strike halfheartedly and reached for the curtain again.
Xue Gu seemed not to have anticipated that the intruder’s martial arts would run this deep. She was swept aside by Mu Mu’s palm and barely managed to steady herself.
On the bed, there was indeed another person. Mu Mu’s heart leapt with anticipation, and he pulled the covers back in one motion. “Jiu’er!”
But he froze — and was utterly dumbstruck.
It was not Jiu’er. It was… a young man?
“You—”
“Don’t touch him!” Xue Gu rushed forward at once and thrust another palm at Mu Mu, straining to protect the young man in her bed.
Mu Mu’s heart sank into disappointment, and with no desire to fight at all, he retreated casually with a single step and backed far away.
It was not Jiu’er. It was actually… not her.
“My apologies for the disturbance.” He turned to leave.
Xue Gu said angrily, “You barge in here with such brutishness, disturb someone, and then simply walk away like this?”
“This… this senior—” Mu Mu’s subordinate wasn’t sure how to address Xue Gu. She was a middle-aged woman, yet the person sharing her bed was such a young man — this was…
After a moment’s consideration, the subordinate said, “Senior, this was nothing more than a misunderstanding, and we truly beg your forgiveness. I offer you my sincerest apologies.”
He took out his own money pouch and, without picking through it, handed the entire thing directly to Xue Gu.
“We are truly sorry. Our master was desperate to find someone and lost his head a little — please forgive us, we are so very sorry!”
Xue Gu weighed the money pouch in her hand, then gave a cold snort of displeasure. “Get out of my sight, the lot of you.”
Mu Mu had already left. Several subordinates followed him out the door. Having barged in on someone’s private moment, of course they all felt ill at ease — though with the Young Master looking so utterly crestfallen, they felt wretched for him in their own way as well.
After they left, the young man in the bed — who had clearly been frightened out of his wits — sat up and was about to say something.
Xue Gu raised a single long finger, and the young man’s mute acupoint was sealed from a distance with a flick of her inner energy. He could only make muffled sounds in his throat.
Xue Gu said coolly, “Be quiet. Or they will come back.”
In the next room over, Qiao Mu and Xiao Yingtao were both a little tense — but neither dared to make any rash move. They feared that Mu Mu might detect something and suddenly return.
Mu Mu’s alertness was so sharp that until they were certain he had truly gone far away, no one dared do anything careless — including Feng Jiu’er, in the adjoining room on the other side.
She had only spotted Mu Mu sweeping past below on the street — and before he had so much as lifted his head to look this way, she had already pressed herself flat and concealed herself among the rooftop tiles.
What she hadn’t counted on was that Mu Mu would still find his way here!
She had originally believed that the most dangerous place was the safest — yet she had overlooked one thing: the most dangerous place could sometimes also be a place where coincidences happened.
After waiting for what felt like a long while longer, once she was certain Mu Mu had truly departed, Jiu’er climbed down from the adjacent rooftop and returned to Xue Gu’s room.
“How was it?” Xue Gu looked at her.
Jiu’er shook her head. “Fine.”
She then looked at the bed, where the young man she had hastily pulled over from the next room was now lying rigid, his acupoint sealed, staring at the two of them with eyes full of indignation.
“What are you glaring at? You won’t be shortchanged.” Jiu’er walked over and raised her hand, letting fall from her fingers some powder — she didn’t know exactly what kind.
The young man inhaled once, and immediately sank into a deep sleep.
“I’ll take him back to the next room. If there’s nothing else, rest early and don’t wander off again.”
Xue Gu lifted the young man up, tucked the money pouch that Mu Mu’s subordinate had given her into the young man’s coat pocket, and carried him out.
When she returned, Feng Jiu’er was already lying in the bed, still and silent, as though asleep.
This time, it was Xue Gu’s turn to be unable to sleep. She lay on the long chair, watching the shape of the figure under the covers on the bed, silent.
Just now, while that girl had been on the rooftop, her head had hurt again!
Over these past few days of staying by her side, how could she not have noticed — that girl had headaches from time to time. Sometimes when she was asleep and dreaming, the moment she called out the three words “Ninth Imperial Uncle,” the pain would come.
To feel pain even in her dreams — that told you how violent the suffering truly was!
Afterward, she had secretly made herself a small needle pouch. Whenever the pain came on, she would grip that small needle pouch with its outward-pointing tips with all her strength, using the sensation to ease the pain in her head.
This girl… what a fool. Just like that person from before — both of them, equally foolish.
Xue Gu let out a quiet sigh and turned over, intending not to look at her. Yet in the end, she couldn’t help but turn back, her gaze fixed on Jiu’er’s figure.
After a long, long while, she said softly, “I know something of the arts of Gu sorcery. When you have a chance to settle somewhere, I’ll teach you.”
The eyes that Jiu’er had just closed flew open all at once, and she turned to look at her. “How did you know…”
“You’ve forgotten who I am a teacher to?” What Hu Xiaodié knew — did she not know as well?
She simply had no fondness for using Gu sorcery to harm people, and so over all these years she had never continued to study it further. Were it otherwise, her level of mastery would put even a Hu Xiaodié to shame.
At last, a faint glimmer of hope lit up in Jiu’er’s eyes. “Alright.”
Whatever Xue Gu said she could do, the skill behind it would be no ordinary thing. She had always been such an understated person.
Given this, perhaps Xue Gu could help her break the heartless Gu Poison. Even if she couldn’t break it entirely, studying it more would still be of benefit to her in the future.
Even learning a method to suppress this headache was something to be grateful for.
And as for the art of Gu sorcery — while Jiu’er very much disliked it, in this era, knowing a little might serve as self-protection.
Being ambushed by someone’s Gu poison out of nowhere was an unpleasant enough thing on its own. Once she mastered it herself, she would absolutely never give those people another chance to harm her again!