Chapter 25: Injured

Lu Shiyuan had never imagined that someone in this world could handle her so perfectly—neither provoking her rebellious side nor making her submit willingly.

After today, she owed Shang Si yet another debt of gratitude. Added to the three years from before, she probably wouldn’t be able to repay it in her lifetime.

That night, Lu Shiyuan tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, that final sentence echoed in her mind: “You can’t be mad at me anymore…” How could she possibly be mad at Shang Si? From start to finish, she had only been angry with herself.

Her chaotic thoughts tangled in her mind throughout the night. Just as drowsiness finally overtook her at dawn, a rhythmic knock sounded at the door. “This is an outer disciple of the Kunlun Sect, sent by the Great-Grandmaster to invite the Ye Lord to Azure Light Hall for a discussion. Is the Ye Lord present?”

A respectful and courteous voice came from outside the door.

Shang Si glanced at the still drowsy Lu Shiyuan. As if reading her mind, she raised her hand and gently pressed the woman who was about to rise back down. “Sleep a little longer. It must be Yun Feng who reported the Nightingale Demons matter. I’ll go see what’s going on.”

With the spiritual medicine now in hand, the purpose of their trip to Kunlun had been fulfilled. The only lingering issue was the Strangling Killing Array they had stumbled into. Who had set it up, and when? How had it evaded detection by the Kunlun Sect elders? These were critical questions.

Then there was the matter of the Nightingale clan they had uncovered by accident the day before.

Where there was one, there could be two. The Demon Realm had been unusually calm these past three years. For so many hidden matters to suddenly surface all at once—it was bound to raise suspicions.

Reassured by Shang Si’s words, Lu Shiyuan drifted off to sleep.

She slept deeply this time. Fragmented scenes flashed through her dreams: moments from her modern life before transmigrating, events after her arrival in this world, scattered glimpses of the Cold Mountain Courtyard, but mostly cherished snippets of time spent with Shang Si. She didn’t wake until past noon, stirring groggily.

Shortly after Lu Shiyuan awoke, Shang Si returned from Azure Light Hall.

The door creaked open, and harsh light flooded the room. The woman on the bed instinctively squinted against the sudden glare.

“When did you wake up?” Shang Si closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed.

In that brief moment of disorientation, Lu Shiyuan found herself face-to-face with an enlarged version of Shang Si’s features.

Perhaps because they were too close, or because she had only just woken and hadn’t shaken off the fog, Lu Shiyuan blinked slowly. “Just before you got back.”

The words slipped out before she clapped a hand over her mouth.

What was wrong with her voice?!

Likely because she had just woken up, even Lu Shiyuan herself hadn’t noticed the change—a soft, lazy lilt that sounded like deliberate coquetry.

She shot Shang Si a guilty glance and found her eyes brimming with mirth.

In an instant, Lu Shiyuan felt her cheeks grow warm.

The room fell silent. Neither woman spoke; only the chirping of birds drifted in from the courtyard outside. For some reason, being stared at so intently from such close range by Shang Si made Lu Shiyuan feel distinctly uneasy.

She shifted restlessly, slowly curling the hand over her mouth into a fist. With deliberate emphasis, she cleared her throat. “Ahem… I just, um… wasn’t fully awake yet.”

After her quick explanation, she abruptly changed the subject. “By the way, Senior Lin kept you away for so long. Did he say anything important?”

Shang Si pretended not to notice the forced pivot. “He did.”

She lowered her gaze to conceal her amusement, her clear, melodious voice flowing like a gentle stream. “Yun Feng reported the Nightingale Demons. Yun Qing sent disciples overnight to bring those two little demons from the ruined temple back for more questioning. Then they’ll contact the Immortal Cloud Sect—Jiangnan has always been their territory, after all.”

Though the Nightingales were minor demons, the unprovoked extermination of their entire clan was no small matter.

Moreover, over the past month, the Kunlun Sect had faced pressure from all sides and conducted multiple investigations at the site where the array had been triggered that day. They had finally uncovered some clues, all of which pointed to one place: the Fire Phoenix Clan.

When it came to mastery of arrays in the modern world, the first name that came to mind was Elder Qingyue of Purple Firmament. But she had been gravely wounded in this incident, and Purple Firmament had always been on friendly terms with Kunlun Sect. They could not possibly be the perpetrators.

That left only the Demon Realm’s second-largest clan: the Fire Phoenix Clan.

—A reclusive group that rarely ventured out, rumored to be a branch descended from the ancient divine beast, the Phoenix.

Their bloodline was so potent that their offspring were few and far between, yet their strength placed them second among all Demon Realm clans. Even so, they kept an extremely low profile, with scarcely any negative rumors about them circulating through the Three Realms in nearly a thousand years.

“Fire Phoenix Clan?” Upon hearing that the matter involved this mysterious clan after all, Lu Shiyuan wrinkled her nose and sank into thought. “I remember you saying before, A Si, that to restore the spirit veins that were crippled inside me, we’d need the Soul-Protecting Pill as an aid to safeguard my soul first. And besides the Ten-Thousand-Year He Shou Wu we already have in hand, we’ll still need a stalk of Fire Spirit Spike, right?”

“That’s right,” Shang Si said, her eyes lowering slightly as she took Lu Shiyuan’s hand from atop the bedding and cradled it gently in her own palm. “But you needn’t worry. Back when Eldest Sister held power, she granted their current clan leader, Qin Lan, an immense favor. Before we left Yedu, I burned a Spirit Talisman to send word to Qin Lan. She agreed to repay that debt from all those years ago with a single Fire Spirit Spike.”

Fire Spirit Spikes were exceedingly rare in the world, for such spiritual medicines did not grow anywhere within the Three Realms. They were the Companion Grass of the Fire Phoenix Clan—a race with potent bloodlines and scant numbers, where new lives emerged only once every few hundred or thousand years. The fact that a favor from the past could so readily secure one from the Fire Phoenix Clan spoke volumes about its magnitude.

Of course, it also meant Lu Shiyuan’s full restoration was imminent.

The Kunlun Sect maintained a Teleportation Array specially constructed for travel to the Demon Realm, and from there, the journey to the Fire Phoenix Clan’s secluded homeland required only a few days.

At the thought, Lu Shiyuan’s breath hitched for an instant. Shang Si noticed the slight curl of the fingertips in the hand she held.

At most a month from now, Lu Shiyuan’s crippled spirit veins could be mended. It was not hard to imagine her emotions in this moment—whoever tumbled from the heights of a mountain peak into the depths of a valley, only to claw their way back up inch by inch, would surely feel the same.

What was lost and regained must never be lost again.

She paused, an inexplicable pang of tenderness stirring unbidden in her heart. Then she closed her fingers around Lu Shiyuan’s hand, holding it fast. “It’s almost time, Shiyuan. Soon, you’ll cast off the label of cripple for good. Then the Three Realms will be yours to wander at will. Wherever you wish to go, I will accompany you.”

Shang Si’s lovely eyes gleamed with a misty softness, her voice light and indulgent.

These past two days, she didn’t know what had come over her, but her attentiveness toward Lu Shiyuan had deepened beyond what it had been before.

She had always cared, of course, but not like this—not with every word and gesture from the other woman tugging at her heartstrings, not with her own needs always coming second, to the point of voicing something as bold as “I’ll go wherever you go.”

Something fundamental had shifted within her, Shang Si realized. “That said, we’ll still need to linger in Kunlun for a short while longer. The clans of the Demon Realm will soon be arriving here to collect their people.” She quietly tamped down the surging emotions in her chest and spoke measuredly.

“You plan to stay hidden and probe them for anything suspicious, don’t you?” Lu Shiyuan tilted her head abruptly.

Shang Si’s lips curved into a smile. “No one knows me like you do, Shiyuan.”

Their gazes met, and they shared a smile born of perfect understanding.

Shang Si’s words had struck straight to Lu Shiyuan’s heart. Like a contented cat, she narrowed her eyes in satisfaction.

Three years of never being apart had given Lu Shiyuan a keen sense of Shang Si’s innermost thoughts.

She knew not only that Shang Si meant to remain in Kunlun briefly to investigate the major Demon Realm clans implicated in this affair, but also that when they later journeyed to the Fire Phoenix Clan for the Fire Spirit Spike, Shang Si would surely have a thorough discussion with Qin Lan about the whole business.

Yedu might appear aloof from the Three Realms’ troubles, but when truly dire matters arose, the Ye Lord herself would have no choice but to intervene.

After all, the threads of this incident wove through far too much—not merely the immortal cultivation sects of the Human Realm, but the Demon Race as well.

And with her own cultivation poised for recovery soon—not that she expected to be overwhelmingly powerful right away, but at least she could lend Shang Si a hand, shoulder some burdens, do something useful—and after that… she would cultivate diligently, make up for the lost years, grow stronger step by step, inch by inch, until she was worthy to stand at Shang Si’s side.

In that single instant, a torrent of thoughts flooded Lu Shiyuan’s mind.

Yet just then, Shang Si released her hand, rose from the bedside, and turned away. “But that’s only part of it. There’s also… something else I left in Lin Xiao’s possession that I still need to retrieve. In a couple of days, I’ll go collect it from him.”

From Lu Shiyuan’s angle, she couldn’t see Shang Si’s expression as she spoke, and so she had no inkling that the “something” in question actually concerned her.

It was not long before the Kunlun Mountains stirred to life.

At first, Lu Shiyuan had merely been dozing in her room when a rising clamor drifted in from beyond the courtyard. Curious, she stepped outside and saw clusters of Kunlun Sect disciples gathering excitedly, all streaming toward the main peak in the rear mountains.

She grabbed one passing disciple at random and asked what was happening.

The youth clearly didn’t know her and explained in a rush. “You haven’t heard? Great-Grandmaster and that Female Lord from Yedu have agreed to a duel. They’re clashing right now near the main peak in the back mountains—I’m off to watch!”

Shang Si and Lin Xiao were fighting.

Hearing this, Lu Shiyuan’s heart tightened. She immediately recalled Shang Si mentioning two days earlier that she had left something with Lin Xiao and needed to retrieve it. Without another word, she shook off that inner sect disciple and raced to the main peak in the back mountains ahead of him.

By now, the back mountain plaza was packed with spectators.

When Lu Shiyuan arrived, a thick wall of people blocked the way ahead. No matter how many times she tried to push through, she couldn’t make it. Yun Feng, with his sharp eyes, spotted her in the crowd. “Junior Sister Lu, over here.”

He waved her over from a distance.

As one of the sect’s foremost young talents, Yun Feng had only to speak, and the impenetrable throng immediately parted to form a narrow path for one person.

At a time like this, Lu Shiyuan wasn’t about to stand on ceremony.

“I rushed here as soon as I heard the news, Senior Brother Yun Feng. What exactly is going on?” Drawing closer, Lu Shiyuan took a deep breath before raising her eyes to peer into the invisible barrier hovering in midair.

Inside, two figures clashed fiercely, evenly matched.

Evidently to contain the battle’s fallout, the combatants had erected a sturdy barrier beforehand. The onlookers outside could sense the wild spiritual energy surges within but remained untouched by the attacks raging inside.

Even so, it was clear to everyone that Lin Xiao was gradually losing ground, his control slipping.

“You don’t know?” Yun Feng was astonished that Lu Shiyuan had to ask.

He paused to think, then gave her a concise explanation. “Word is, the Great-Grandmaster hit a cultivation bottleneck, so he invited the Ye Lord for a spar, hoping this intense clash might spark a breakthrough.”

“Is that right?” Lu Shiyuan blinked in momentary surprise.

So it was for breaking through a bottleneck?

She exhaled slowly in relief—but then second thoughts crept in. Would Shang Si really waste her time playing sparring partner?

Frowning, Lu Shiyuan parted her lips again. “But Senior Brother Yun Feng…”

Her words had barely begun when a tremendous clash of spiritual energies erupted within the aerial barrier. Her voice drowned in the crowd’s gasps of alarm as hairline cracks spiderwebbed across the barrier’s surface. Someone in the throng bellowed, “Back up! Everyone retreat!!”

The next instant, the barrier shattered. A ferocious shockwave blasted outward from the two fighters at its center, toppling people left and right. Even a hundred meters away, golden tiles tore free from a grand hall’s roof and shattered in all directions.

At the same time, one figure plummeted like a shooting star toward the central plaza, slamming into the ground hard enough to nearly bury itself.

As the dust cleared, the crowd edged closer, peering cautiously into the crater.

There lay a dirt-smeared, handsome youth in tattered robes, blood trickling from his mouth. He struggled shakily to his feet, muttering curses. “Damn it… Shang Si, you damn girl, you hit way too hard… cough cough…”

“Grandmaster!!” Shouts of dismay erupted one after another.

Yun Qing, the sect leader himself, vaulted into the pit at the sight, his hands trembling as he supported the master who looked several generations his junior.

It went without saying that Lin Xiao’s battered state had everything to do with Shang Si.

Sparring could get rough, of course—but Lin Xiao’s injuries made it clear she’d gone overboard.

Once the man was helped out of the pit, Lu Shiyuan hurried forward with concern. “Senior, how bad are your injuries?” In public, she and Shang Si were a pair; even if it was just for appearances, she ought to check on this senior.

To her shock, Lin Xiao reacted to her question by hacking up another gush of blood. “Wah—” Weakly, he lifted his gaze to the Lu Shiyuan at his side. “You little girl… at least you’ve got a heart. Unlike that Shang Si…”

A crisp, cold female voice cut his feeble words short from behind.

“Shiyuan, I’m injured too.” Shang Si stood alone at the crowd’s edge. While Lin Xiao was mobbed by well-wishers, she cut a lonely figure. Her outfit remained pristine from before the fight—save for her right sleeve, sliced open at some point.

Lu Shiyuan turned.

Their eyes met, and Shang Si raised her right hand, rolling back her sleeve to reveal the bloody gash beneath. She repeated herself.

This time, her voice dipped lower, laced with a faint, almost imperceptible grievance. “I’m injured too.”

Lin Xiao: ???

“A Si…” How could Lu Shiyuan spare Lin Xiao another thought?

She released her hold on him without hesitation and hurried to Shang Si’s side.

Poor Lin Xiao, still gravely wounded and unsteady on his feet, staggered and nearly tumbled right back into the dirt.

He flew into a towering rage, his heart-wrenching curses now ringing out with full venom: “Not a single good soul in the Shang Family!!”