Xie Buchen didn’t want to stay at an inn.

Almost all inns were prepared for ordinary people, and having initially had no intention of settling here, they had no need to linger in this place, let alone stay at an inn.

His brows furrowed slightly, but his answer ultimately never emerged.

Because Jian Chou had no intention of listening to his response at all, having already turned direction and walked toward this dilapidated inn with a rather leisurely air.

At this moment, the little girl behind the counter who had been watching her immediately showed a delighted expression.

Those originally pure and clear eyes sparkled with moving brilliance. Her entire body straightened, and with some joy and excitement, she asked with a radiant face: “Are you here to stay at the inn?”

She was actually quite happy because she finally had a customer.

Since they had already seen the site where Yashan and Kunwu had their incident, and temporarily had no more leads, her journey with Xie Buchen was more about investigating the various movements of the snow region’s esoteric sects and the conspiracies hidden behind them, so their itinerary wasn’t as urgent as it had been initially.

Even delaying a day on the road wouldn’t matter much.

Jian Chou stopped and entered only because of that earlier glance’s impression—she found this girl very pleasant to look at, and the girl seemed to be looking forward to a new guest staying.

So Jian Chou stood before the counter and smiled slightly: “Yes, to stay at the inn.”

The round-faced little girl’s eyes immediately became even brighter.

She immediately wanted to lead Jian Chou to the guest rooms, but at this moment Xie Buchen also walked in. When she turned her head and saw him, she suddenly felt that this old and even somewhat dilapidated little inn of hers couldn’t contain the radiance of these two people standing side by side.

“Oh, you—”

“Two people, two rooms.”

Still not waiting for Xie Buchen to speak, Jian Chou directly made the decision for him.

Xie Buchen glanced at her and simply said nothing at all.

The round-faced little girl was a native of the snow region who didn’t understand much about the ways of the outside world, but she could still tell that the atmosphere between this man and woman seemed to carry something ineffably strange.

But she didn’t think much about it. When she heard Jian Chou say they wanted two rooms, she smiled sweetly.

“That’s wonderful! My inn hasn’t had guests for several months.”

The inn hadn’t had guests for several months?

To open an inn, one must surely have considered the customer base.

So generally speaking, reasoning backwards, places with inns usually had good customer sources and shouldn’t experience the situation this little girl described.

The little girl led the way ahead, and Jian Chou followed her upstairs with her hands behind her back, casually asking: “No guests for several months?”

“Yes.”

When she walked, she still carried the childlike nature of someone not yet grown up, her steps bouncing, making people feel she was innocent and simple.

“I heard that the masters had fights, and even the temple here had several battles, so fewer and fewer people came. Father went on pilgrimage last month and hasn’t returned yet.”

The masters had fights?

This must refer to the struggles between the new and old factions of the esoteric sect. But for cultivators’ affairs to reach the point where even ordinary people knew about them was quite significant.

Moreover…

“Pilgrimage?”

“Yes, Father got sick. Master Diyi from the temple said that as long as one is devout, the Buddha will guide and deliver him, resolving his illness and suffering. So Father left last month, and if he’s quick, he can reach the Holy Temple in another half month!”

The little girl spoke as she walked upstairs.

The ornaments hanging on her bright skirt knocked against each other, making clear and pleasant sounds like her voice.

But these words, when heard by Jian Chou, had an indescribably harsh quality.

She slowly frowned but ultimately asked no more questions.

The entire inn was very small, and after just a few steps upstairs, they had basically reached the end.

The little girl stood in the narrow corridor, with a room on each side: “These are the two best rooms in our inn. You can stay here first, and just pay the room fee when you leave.”

There had been prices hanging behind the inn’s counter earlier, which Jian Chou had glanced at.

Because Jiushijiu Zhou had cultivators numerous as cattle, spirit stones had become the most common “currency,” but in places where non-cultivators or those with negligible cultivation lived, gold and silver still prevailed.

Here in the snow region, ordinary people’s daily transactions used a silver coin called “Maoha.”

Jian Chou naturally didn’t have such things.

But she had gold and silver.

With her cultivation level, and based on Huaijie’s memories, creating a few silver coins was hardly worth mentioning.

So Jian Chou nodded with a normal expression: “Thank you for the trouble.”

“No trouble at all. If you need anything to eat or drink, just come down and call me.” The little girl was still happy about making a business deal. Only when she was about to leave did she remember: “Oh right, I’m called Ciren Sangyang, just call me Sangyang!”

She was a very lively and quite careless little girl.

Looking at her happily departing figure, Jian Chou couldn’t quite describe what she felt in her heart. She just stood at the door and said in a low voice: “Legend has it that those with exceptional bones and natural disposition are born with pure and transparent hearts, untainted by worldly dust. If they step onto the path of cultivation, advancing a thousand li in one day is commonplace. It’s rare that this little girl not only has exceptional bones but has grown up while maintaining such a clean heart.”

Clean?

Regarding exceptional bones, Xie Buchen agreed, but as for “clean,” he wasn’t so convinced. So he turned his head to look at Jian Chou and inexplicably laughed once.

Although they hadn’t truly contacted the core of the snow region yet, just wandering around the periphery had already revealed many things.

The entire snow region was vastly different from the Central Region.

Ordinary people in the Central Region, if they didn’t cultivate, lived their own normal lives, no different from isolated islands in the human world. But in the snow region, even those who didn’t cultivate were almost all followers of the esoteric sect.

Here, he really didn’t see anything clean.

What he saw was only domination, deception, and the ignorance of the masses…

Though he hadn’t said a word, just this one laugh already revealed much.

Jian Chou had never been stupid or ignorant. Almost the instant she heard this laugh, she understood what Xie Buchen was thinking and feeling, but she didn’t want to change her own view.

“Human kindness is without fault. Those who exploit human kindness to commit evil are more evil. The common people, the masses, bear no fault.”

Standing at different angles, the methods and results of viewing things were also different.

There was no need to argue about this point.

Moreover, Xie Buchen never wasted time on such inconsequential details, so he merely walked toward his door and asked: “How many days shall we linger here?”

“It was just a whim to come in and rest briefly. Let’s rest one day and leave tomorrow.” Jian Chou had a plan in mind, but after pausing, she added, “The temple in this town is where Huaijie worshipped Master Diyi. We might explore it.”

“Then let’s wait until nightfall,” Xie Buchen said after pondering for a moment.

Jian Chou had no objection.

Stopping for a while was also good. A few days ago in the canyon, she had initially tested the Burning Lamp Sword and had already realized this sword’s extraordinary nature. But because she had been traveling with Xie Buchen all along and their journey was quite hurried, it wasn’t convenient to research it deeply.

Now, even if she could stop for most of a day, it naturally gave her the opportunity.

Thinking this way, Jian Chou placed her hand on the door, about to push it open.

But at this instant, she felt very uncomfortable.

Because she wanted to know Xie Buchen’s true purpose in coming to the snow region, she had been forcibly suppressing her killing intent throughout the journey, discussing and conversing with Xie Buchen as normal. But treating someone who had once killed her and who certainly still harbored murderous intent toward her with such apparent lack of grudge—wasn’t this…

a bit too magnanimous?

Her steps suddenly stopped.

In these brief moments, Jian Chou thought of many things, but when all the complexity dispersed, only that sentence that had left an extremely deep impression on her remained.

So she suddenly turned around and called out: “Friend Xie.”

Xie Buchen’s hand was already on his door. He seemed not to have expected her sudden call, so his hand’s movement paused as he turned to look at her.

“Does Friend Jian Chou have something to say?”

“Nothing major.”

Jian Chou wore a smile at the corners of her lips, but her gaze landed lightly on him, her eyes concealing a trace of quiet hostility. Her tone was casual, as if asking about the weather.

“I just suddenly remembered that Friend Xie has always been broadly learned and knowledgeable. I wonder—have you ever heard of ‘Seven Souls’?”

“…”

“Crack crack.”

The moment the three words “Seven Souls” fell, the door panel that Xie Buchen’s fingertips were lightly pressing against instantly split open with several cracks! It looked as if it had been crushed by suddenly uncontrolled force!

Xie Buchen’s slender fingers, elegant as jade bamboo, had taut lines.

Even with his current state of mind and composure, he couldn’t maintain calm and pretense at this moment. So much so that this “loss of composure” that should never appear before others, especially before Jian Chou, had occurred!

Simply because the three words “Seven Souls” had come from her mouth.

From beginning to end, he had never anticipated this.

Since entering Kunwu, everyone had only regarded it as an ordinary sword. Almost no one knew its name, and even that True Person Hengxu, who could calculate heavenly secrets, rarely cast his gaze upon this sword.

Under his fingertips was the rough and prickly texture of the cracked door panel.

Xie Buchen lowered his eyes, finally slowly removing his hand. On his handsome face remained only eternal coldness and indifference as he silently watched Jian Chou—

If this was a probe, then she had succeeded.

Because this was the greatest and most unspeakable secret of his life.