Many things today caught people off guard.

At this moment, looking at the lights on the river’s surface and listening to others’ joyful laughter, Ling Luo enjoyed a moment of tranquility.

Chang Fei sat by the riverbank, arms wrapped around his knees, chin resting on top, and said softly, “Thank you all, truly.”

“What’s there to thank?” Song Yuanyuan stared at the river’s surface without blinking. “I still owe you a lot of money I haven’t paid back. I must naturally be diligent and dedicated to my creditor.”

Chang Fei tilted his head up to look at him. “Right, when are you going to pay me back?”

Song Yuanyuan: “You should just go die.”

“The stone jade person who killed the Founding Master wasn’t you, and it was executed on the spot anyway.” Xu Shen said softly. “After thousands of years, I really can’t inherit this hatred.”

Not to mention that this stone jade person was his good friend.

Ling Luo was playing with passing redfish, her hand dipping in the river water. Hearing this, she laughed, “Besides, even if you were discovered by the Sect Leader and others, they wouldn’t kill you immediately. They’d lock you up and use countless methods to uncover all the secrets of the stone jade people.”

Chang Fei froze upon hearing this, then lowered his head again.

He was naturally delicate-featured, and in the firelight, had somewhat of a soft, feminine appearance. When he was lively and boisterous, it wasn’t noticeable, but once he quieted down, the contrast became apparent.

“I… am not truly a stone jade person.” Chang Fei said troubledly. “When I was five years old, I often liked to follow my father when he went to fetch water from the river. That day, I accidentally fell from the bridge into the water. I couldn’t swim, let alone with something grabbing my foot and pulling me down…”

Song Yuanyuan shuddered as he listened, turning back to look at him with chills running down his spine.

Chang Fei covered his face with one hand, his voice full of bitterness: “It grabbed me and came closer, then I saw white hair and snow-colored eyes… I don’t remember what happened next. When I woke up, my father said it had been seven days.”

“From that day on, I felt something strange about my body but couldn’t explain it. Later, drought and famine came together; the earth cracked, and my father was so starved he became skin and bones, bedridden. I was ten then but discovered I couldn’t feel hunger.”

Song Yuanyuan’s eyes widened in shock: “You don’t get hungry yet you’re always fighting me for food?!”

Chang Fei wiped his face and looked at him with complicated emotions: “Why did you have to ruin the atmosphere!”

“Continue, continue,” Song Yuanyuan quickly waved his hands.

“I only discovered I had spiritual power after my father died when bandits raided our village and I found out while fighting them. I wandered outside for several years until I met Xu Shen and entered Tianji with him to cultivate.”

Chang Fei muttered, “When entering the sect, as the Master recited the rules, I even asked Xu Shen what a stone jade person was. I had no idea.”

“I wondered how a stone jade person would dare come to Tianji to cultivate, so that’s what happened.” Song Yuanyuan turned his eyes thoughtfully. “So actually when you fell into the water that year, the stone jade person took advantage and attached itself to you?”

Chang Fei lowered his head: “I’m not clear myself.”

Xu Shen said, “For now, let’s assume that’s what happened. In the future, you must be extremely careful and absolutely cannot let it emerge again.”

Chang Fei nodded heavily.

“But stone jade people can possess others… that’s quite interesting,” Song Yuanyuan mused.

Ling Luo thought to herself that it wasn’t just the possession that was interesting—the age also matched exactly with the stone jade person who killed the Founding Master.

She circled her finger in the water, and the redfish followed the movement until it seemed a bit dizzy, sinking lower and swimming away.

Finding it boring, she withdrew her hand and stood up, saying, “I should go back. We didn’t catch Bai Linglong, so you all should avoid wandering outside too. Go back and rest early.”

“Hey—” Chang Fei quickly stood up and called out, “Ling Luo…”

Ling Luo turned to look at him.

Chang Fei’s face reddened with embarrassment as he stammered, “I-I… thank you for sparing my life!”

Earlier when Ling Luo had drawn Yingxi, he truly thought he was done for.

“If you want to thank someone, thank Senior Brother.” Ling Luo glanced at Yue Liangze, who was still watching the lanterns. “He has quick hands.”

Yue Liangze turned his head upon hearing this, blinking his eyes.

“Yes, my little father saved your life, which, all things considered, means you owe him a life. I owe you quite a bit of money, so let’s just cancel each other out, shall we?” Song Yuanyuan put his arm around Yue Liangze’s shoulder and smiled at everyone.

Chang Fei’s temple twitched slightly as he heard this. “No way!”

“Why not!”

“What does the life I owe Senior Brother have to do with the money you owe me!”

“That’s my little father!”

“Get lost! Senior Brother doesn’t have such an unfilial son like you!”

Song Yuanyuan: “I stole three bags of rice from the evening meal hall for my little father!”

Chang Fei: “…”

Damn it! He beat him to it!

Chang Fei added, “Senior Brother, just wait. Tomorrow I’ll bring you three times more rice than he did!”

Yue Liangze held his forehead: “Who told you to steal rice?”

“Ling Luo did.” Song Yuanyuan blinked his eyes. “She said little father you had no rice left and told us to bring our rice when we came to freeload. So what choice did we have but to steal from the evening meal hall?”

Yue Liangze looked for Ling Luo, only to find she had already slipped away.

Ling Luo didn’t pay much attention to the matter of the Second Hall Master.

Two days later, Tianji announced the Second Hall Master’s death but did not reveal he had been killed by Bai Linglong.

That same night, the Mountain Watch Hall captured a man, confirmed to be a member of Bai Linglong who killed the Second Hall Master and threw him into the Samsara Realm to suffer imprisonment.

Ling Luo returned to Qingshi Ward to recover, spending her time reading in the book pavilion.

Chu Yi, annoyed by Mu Ya’s pestering, also returned to Qingshi Ward to hide away.

The two unexpectedly met in the book pavilion. After the tall and small figures stared at each other for a moment, Chu Yi asked, “What are you reading?”

“Strange tales.” Ling Luo sat by the window, sprawled on the table with her book propped up, lazily flipping through pages.

Chu Yi casually pulled a book from the shelf, standing opposite her by the window, and said, “What’s it about?”

“It’s about…” Ling Luo had just turned a page, squinting at the content, then tilted her head to examine Chu Yi across from her.

Chu Yi looked down at her calmly, waiting for an answer.

Ling Luo cleared her throat lightly, narrowed her eyes, and said in a languid voice: “It’s about a noble family’s daughter who goes out for a spring outing, encounters bandits, suffers humiliation, and just as she’s about to take her own life, is fortunately rescued by a hunter.”

Chu Yi: “Boring.”

Ling Luo continued: “The two develop mutual affection while fleeing together. To protect the noble daughter, the hunter temporarily loses his sight, which deeply moves her.”

Chu Yi placed the book on the table and said: “Clichéd.”

Ignoring him, Ling Luo continued: “When the noble daughter tells the hunter she’s willing to marry him and spend her life with him, her brother arrives with family soldiers and finds her.”

“The daughter says she wants to bring the hunter back with her, but her brother refuses, saying they have different social standings, they’re mismatched, and the hunter isn’t worthy of her. The brother is forceful, but the daughter is stubborn too, saying her purity has been ruined and only the hunter is willing to accept her.”

After listening, Chu Yi frowned at her: “When you grow up, I hope you don’t share the same thinking as this noble daughter.”

Ling Luo asked curiously: “What thinking?”

“How one’s purity and reputation are damaged shouldn’t be determined by others’ opinions or used to devalue yourself,” Chu Yi said.

Ling Luo smiled slightly and asked with deeper meaning: “But could you accept it, Senior Brother?”

Chu Yi raised an eyebrow and smirked: “If it’s someone I love, what wouldn’t I accept?”

“But not everyone in the world is like you, Senior Brother. When people look down on something, they just do—even with love, they still look down.” Ling Luo turned another page and said leisurely, “Though the hunter didn’t mind and loved the noble daughter dearly, the brother firmly disagreed, separated the two, and took the daughter away, leaving the hunter behind.”

Chu Yi said: “Let me guess, the ending is the brother forces the daughter to marry someone else, she refuses to the death, and chooses either hanging herself or poison?”

“Senior Brother, thinking like that ruins the fun.” Ling Luo straightened up and said, “The hunter loved her so much, of course, he would desperately go to save the noble daughter, then escape with her, living a good life in hiding under new identities.”

Chu Yi laughed coldly: “And this vulgar story deserves to be published in a book?”

Ling Luo laughed heartily at his response, then asked: “Senior Brother, what’s wrong with this ending? Lovers united, both brave and unwavering—how beautiful is that?”

“Utterly boring, without a shred of originality,” Chu Yi criticized.

Ling Luo: “You don’t like it?”

Chu Yi looked out the window and said flatly: “What do you think?”

“It doesn’t matter, you’ll come to like it later.” Ling Luo closed the book, resting her chin on one hand as she looked at him with smiling eyes.

Chu Yi turned his head toward her and crooked his finger to gesture for her to hand over the book.

Ling Luo passed him the book and asked: “What brings Senior Brother here?”

“With your aptitude and strength, you’re ready to go down the mountain for training.” Chu Yi flipped through the book, speaking as if casually: “Bai Linglong has offended Tianji, and Master will have to leave the mountain because of this.”

“Wasn’t someone already captured?” Ling Luo asked.

“There were two Bai Linglong members at Tianji. One was captured, and one escaped,” Chu Yi said. “The one who escaped was the one who killed the Second Hall Master.”

Ling Luo stood up and stretched lazily, leaning out the window to look outside, spotting Yu Xiu and Yun Shouxi walking on the suspension bridge.

“When will Master leave?”

“Tonight.” Chu Yi looked up at her. “Before coming, I discussed with Master that I would take you down the mountain for training.”

Ling Luo made a sound of acknowledgment.

She wasn’t surprised at all.

It was the same in her previous life.

“Will we leave tonight too?” Ling Luo asked.

Chu Yi smiled enigmatically: “When would you prefer?”

“Whenever Senior Brother says.” Ling Luo played with her jade pendant while sending a message, glancing at Chu Yi, who was also looking at her.

Then Ling Luo walked away with her jade pendant before continuing to send the message.

Chu Yi: “…”

Still guarding against him sending messages? Would he, the great Senior Brother of Tianji, stoop to the level of peeking at someone’s messages?

Chu Yi scoffed inwardly and lowered his head to read the book.

After skimming through the entire book, he expressionlessly looked up to find Ling Luo, only to discover she had disappeared.

The book contained a pile of strange and peculiar stories, but none was the tale of the noble daughter and hunter that she had described.

Ling Luo avoided Yun Shouxi and left Qingshi Ward for the outer section.

When Yun Shouxi arrived at the book pavilion and found only Chu Yi, he asked: “Ling Luo isn’t here?”

“She was just here, but she’s run off now.” Chu Yi put the book back and turned around, saying, “I already told her about the training trip. She’s probably gone to pack her things.”

Yun Shouxi didn’t ask further.

Ling Luo had originally intended to find Yue Liangze in the outer section.

She was going down the mountain for training, which would take two months, so she wouldn’t be able to find Yue Liangze to practice sword fighting and torment him.

She wanted to torment him once before leaving, in case he wouldn’t be at Tianji when she returned.

After all, she didn’t know when Yue Liangze had become a disciple of the Holy Sword Sect.

However, when she arrived, Yue Liangze was nowhere to be found. She used her symbiotic spirit to borrow a sacred spirit bird to search the entire outer section but couldn’t find him. She even went to the Discipline Hall to inquire without success.

By nightfall, it was time to leave.

Ling Luo had no choice but to return to Qingshi Ward to meet with her sect members.

Chu Yi stood before the torii gate, his expression haughty as he looked Ling Luo up and down when she returned: “If you had come back any later, I wouldn’t know what to tell Master if he asked.”

Ling Luo hung her head and replied: “Say whatever you want to say.”

“Little Junior Sister,” Chu Yi teased her, “if someone upset you, go find them. Don’t just take it out on anyone randomly.”

Ling Luo lazily raised her eyelids slightly but said nothing.

Chu Yi asked again: “Who gave you the cold shoulder?”

Ling Luo: “No one.”

“Let me guess, your Senior Sister Mu’s verbal skills can’t match yours, so it’s not her.” Chu Yi played with the cloud fan in his hand, speaking casually. “Could it be that outer section junior brother who was drying a basket of wild fruits in the courtyard the other day? I saw you were quite practiced at bullying him.”

Ling Luo: “…”

She was about to explode when she saw Yun Shouxi and Yu Xiu approaching from behind, so she held back.

Yun Shouxi said: “Tonight there’s hanging clouds, not favorable for sword flight. The sea vessel is waiting at the Mountain Sea Dock.”

Tianji was vast, like tens of thousands of great mountains. At first glance, it occupied a large piece of land, but in reality, it was in the middle of the ocean.

Tianji and East Sea City were separated by a blue sea. This boundless sea was like a defensive line, marking the boundary between the world of cultivators and that of ordinary people.

Hanging clouds accompanied by heavy fog, especially at sea, would cause cultivators to lose their direction, making sword flight inadvisable.

When Ling Luo arrived at Mountain Sea Dock, lanterns were lit, and numerous merchant ships were anchored there. People from the evening meal hall were handling transfers with the merchant ship stewards and workers.

The sea vessel was Tianji’s transport for East Island outings. When sect members couldn’t use sword flight to leave on business, these vessels would take them.

As Ling Luo walked toward the sea vessel, she happened to encounter a merchant ship unloading cargo. Workers carrying or hugging boxes of goods were walking in line, and because she was a step too slow, she was separated by the queue and stopped in place to let them pass first.

As a result, among these people, she saw Yue Liangze carrying a cargo box.

Both were surprised to see each other here.

The young man was sweating from his labor, his sleeves rolled up, revealing the slender lines of his forearms, his whole appearance showing diligence and steadiness.

Yue Liangze walked toward her, and as the distance between them narrowed, Ling Luo was about to call out to him when she heard Yun Shouxi say: “Ling Luo.”

She closed her mouth.

Yun Shouxi came up behind her, took her hand to guide her around the queue, and said: “Are you hungry? You can eat something on the ship later to hold you over.”

He led Ling Luo past Yue Liangze.

Yue Liangze stopped in his tracks, pushing back the words that had already reached his lips.