Lei Xiuyuan stared at her face for a while longer before casually averting his gaze. “You’ve changed a lot. I couldn’t help but look a few times.”
Change a lot again? She unconsciously touched her face. Since childhood, she had looked like she was carved from the same mold as her master. If her master wasn’t good-looking, how could she be? Knowing she wasn’t attractive, she rarely looked in mirrors. Who would want to stare at a face as dark as coal?
Later, perhaps because life had become more comfortable and she was no longer exposed to wind and sun, her skin had lightened a bit. Could this be called changing a lot?
Li Fei suddenly remembered the boy who had been sneaking glances at her in the restaurant yesterday. When she caught him, he had blushed. She had only seen that kind of expression on the faces of Bai Gelin’s male disciples. Could it be…?
She jolted, not sure whether to be happy or disbelieving. “Are you saying I’ve become good-looking?”
Lei Xiuyuan turned his head away, letting out a light snort. His voice was ice-cold: “You’ve changed to become like a stranger. It’s not as good as before.”
Li Fei felt a bit annoyed. “You’re the one who’s changed the most! And you’re talking about others! Mine is just a girl’s natural transformation, yours is a personality distortion!”
He chuckled. A girl’s transformation? In just a few months?
What’s so funny? Li Fei grew more irritated. Although she no longer held any grudges against him, she felt they couldn’t get along harmoniously. He had an aura that discouraged fools from approaching, and this aura made everyone feel like a fool in his eyes.
The swelling on his ankle was quickly healed. Li Fei retracted her healing net and said coldly, “It’s done. You can get up now.”
Lei Xiuyuan moved his ankle slightly and said softly, “It still hurts.”
“How is that possible!” Li Fei flared up. Was he questioning her healing net? “It’s already healed! It can’t hurt!”
He looked at her innocently. “It hurts. You’re not me, so of course you don’t believe it.”
Was he deliberately picking a fight? Li Fei angrily made a snowball and threw it at him, shouting, “Then you can sit there by yourself!”
She turned to fly away on her sword, but unexpectedly, he retaliated. A snowball hit the back of her head, and the cold snow slid down her neck. Despite her immortal protection, she still shivered. Li Fei turned back in disbelief to see him sitting in the snow, holding two large snowballs, seemingly challenging her.
This guy was asking for trouble!
Li Fei’s mind went blank, forgetting all about the test. She immediately made an even bigger snowball and threw it back at him hard. He returned the favor without hesitation, making an even larger one for her. The two exchanged blows, you hit me once, I hit you once, and soon they were both covered in snow. Li Fei was panting heavily, and seeing him about to bend down to make another snowball, she simply pounced on him. The two rolled in the snow several times.
She used the strength she had learned from street brawls, firmly pinning down his hands, and grinned fiercely, “Do you give up?!”
Lei Xiuyuan was also breathing heavily, his pale skin flushed. His already wet eyes were now shimmering even more. No wonder he used to pretend to be pitiful, fooling everyone. With this delicate appearance, he looked more like a girl than she did.
“I don’t,” he said softly, trying to get up with a flip. Li Fei almost couldn’t hold him down. She grabbed two handfuls of snow and rubbed them on his face. Unexpectedly, he also threw a handful of snow on her face. She was momentarily blinded, and he pushed her over. The two wrestled in the snow for a while, sometimes throwing snowballs, sometimes stuffing snow into each other’s collars.
Li Fei had been in many fights since childhood, but she had never played like this with her peers. As they fought, she found it incredibly fun. The two children, covered in snow like two snowmen, rolled around on the snowy plain for a long time until they were finally too tired to move.
Li Fei was panting so hard she almost fainted. It was both fun and novel. She said, “This is my first time having a snowball fight.”
Lei Xiuyuan said softly, “It’s my first time too.”
Li Fei snorted, “I see your movements were quite agile. Does your foot still hurt?”
He seemed to smile a little. “Mm, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
I knew he was faking it! If she had any energy left, she wanted to keep slapping snowballs on his face.
Li Fei spread her arms and legs, lying on her back in the snow. With her immortal protection, the raging wind and snow felt like a gentle spring breeze on her face. Perhaps it was because of their recent playful fight, but she suddenly felt that Lei Xiuyuan no longer had that aloof and superior air. No matter how awkward, he was still a child about her age.
“Lei Xiuyuan, which month is your birthday?” She asked randomly. They had known each other for a while, but she knew very little about him.
He replied calmly, “What about you?”
“I’ll be eleven years old on the sixteenth of this month.”
He blinked. “I turned twelve in October, little kid.”
This was the last straw! Li Fei jumped up, grabbed a handful of snow, and was about to cover his face again, but he blocked it with a laugh. “Let’s go, we’re still in the test.”
Right, they were still being tested. They had to leave Jiangjia Mountain before the hour of Wei, and immortal disciples must know how to prioritize. Li Fei felt a bit annoyed with him, unwilling to admit defeat, and slightly reluctant to end their playful fight. At this moment, she didn’t find him as hateful as before.
Lei Xiuyuan shook off the remaining snow from his body. Seeing her glaring at him like a little dog, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Let’s pass the test first,” he reached out and gently patted the snow off her shoulders. “We have plenty of time in the future.”
The two once again flew on their swords, crossing the vast snowy plain. They didn’t know where the end of this test was. After flying for a long time, they felt that the scenery seemed to be repeating. Lei Xiuyuan suddenly stopped and pondered, “This isn’t right. If we keep flying like this, we won’t be able to get out even by the hour of Wei. There must be a barrier here, making us go in circles.”
Li Fei had noticed it too. She looked around. Below was an endless snowy plain with several treacherous peaks standing on it. The wind and snow were fierce, and not a blade of grass grew. They were supposed to leave Jiangjia Mountain, but so far, they hadn’t seen any mountains. These treacherous peaks could hardly be called “mountains.”
“Should we go up and take a look?” she suggested. Perhaps they would make some unexpected discovery at the top of the peaks.
Flying upwards against the wind and snow for a while, Li Fei’s sharp eyes caught something glittering on top of a distant peak. As they got closer, they saw it was a brilliantly shining golden door, identical to the one they had used to leave the forest during the second selection.
“Is this… how we get out?” Li Fei found it unbelievable. Could such an important test from the academy be this simple?
Lei Xiuyuan didn’t speak. He landed in front of the door, circled it once, and said softly, “I guess this door might not lead to the academy. The law of teleportation can open to any place. Since we’ve been flying here for so long without finding any other way out, we can preliminarily conclude that this door is one of the exits. Let’s try it.”
Li Fei nodded. The two children flew through the golden door one after another. In an instant, the vast expanse of snow suddenly changed to deep and light green. Behind the door was a small pond, about a zhang in diameter, with emerald water. This seemed to be a not-so-spacious cave, several zhang high, with various vines densely covering the cave walls. Brilliant sunlight poured into the cave, a stark contrast to the icy snow world they had just left.
Li Fei took a deep breath. Besides the astringent smell of the pond water, there was also a unique scent of mountain forests from outside the cave. It seemed that there should be a forest outside, and this place was likely the real Jiangjia Mountain.
The two were about to fly out of the cave entrance when they suddenly hit what felt like an invisible wall. Caught off guard, they fell from their swords. Fortunately, the cave wasn’t deep, so the fall wasn’t painful. Li Fei jumped up in confusion and looked up. Why couldn’t they fly out? Nothing was blocking the cave entrance!
Lei Xiuyuan flew up on his sword again, but this time very slowly. As he approached the entrance, he gently touched it with his fingertips. His fingers could only reach the level of the cave entrance and couldn’t go up even a bit further, as if something invisible was blocking it.
He closed his eyes in concentration, and countless golden rays suddenly shot towards the entrance. There was a clattering sound, and the golden light of the Tai’a Technique was all deflected. The expressions of the two children immediately became serious. It’s worth noting that the Tai’a Technique is the strongest attack among the five basic immortal techniques, capable of breaking through anything. The fact that even the Tai’a Technique couldn’t break through the barrier at the cave entrance only indicated that they couldn’t break out with their current abilities.
“Could it be downwards? Through the pond? There might be a waterway leading outside, right?” Li Fei tried to step into the pond, but to her surprise, she couldn’t even touch the water. There was a barrier on the pond too?
Lei Xiuyuan pondered for a while and said, “The academy wouldn’t arrange a completely unbreakable situation for us. Is there some condition we haven’t met? Did we not kill all the monsters on the snowy plain? Did we enter the wrong door?”
Li Fei stared blankly for a while, then suddenly had an idea: “Could it be that not everyone is here?”
Lei Xiuyuan’s eyes lit up. “That’s very possible. We’re in the same group, and we met in the same barrier. If it’s a coincidence, it’s too much of a coincidence. Maybe Ji Tongzhou and Bai Gelin are still trapped in that barrier looking for a way out. We can only wait for them to come. Perhaps only when all four of us are gathered can we leave.”
What if they keep wandering on that snowy plain and don’t find their way here by the hour of Wei? What then?
Li Fei didn’t voice her concerns. She guessed Lei Xiuyuan could probably figure out this hidden worry too. Saying it out loud would be meaningless and only increase anxiety and frustration. She walked around the cave once, looked up at the sunlight outside the cave, and judged from the color of the sun that it was almost noon. There was still about an hour left. She wondered if they would make it in time.
Looking back at Lei Xiuyuan, she saw him sitting quietly on the ground. Earlier, they had covered themselves in snow, which had now all melted. His hair and clothes were soaking wet, and she guessed she probably didn’t look much better. Since they were just waiting anxiously anyway, they might as well talk.
Li Fei sat down beside him and asked, “Lei Xiuyuan, how old is Brother Lu? What does he look like?”
But he didn’t answer. He glanced at her with a half-smile and said, “You’re asking so many questions. Are you interested in me?”
It seemed she was indeed a bit interested, but Li Fei felt that if she admitted it, he would mock her. She had never met a boy like him before. Among the people she knew, Ye Ye was as steady as an adult, Ji Tongzhou was arrogant and conceited, and the other male disciples she occasionally interacted with were either naive or taciturn. In any case, none of them were like him.
“Can’t you tell me?” she asked.
He turned his head to look at her. “What about you? You said you used to live in Qingqiu. What’s the scenery like in Qingqiu?”
She was the one asking him questions, but somehow it always turned into him questioning her. Li Fei was about to speak when she suddenly saw a figure flash on the other side of the pond. Bai Gelin appeared out of thin air in front of them. She looked a bit dazed, staring blankly at Li Fei and Lei Xiuyuan for a while, then looking around the cave. Suddenly, she exclaimed in surprise, “Li Fei? You… Where is this? Haven’t we passed the test?”
Li Fei hurriedly went to meet her. It seemed their guess was correct – all four of them needed to be together to leave.
She quickly explained the situation, and Bai Gelin cried out, “You mean we still have to wait for that little prince? How long will that take?!”
Just as she finished speaking, they saw another figure flash on the opposite side. Ji Tongzhou appeared before everyone with the same bewildered expression on his face.