Chapter 12: A Sword’s Startling Appearance
“I am not a jealous medical cultivator.”
Ning Ruoque didn’t resist in the slightest.
If she got hit, she got hit. It wasn’t like Yin Buran’s punches hurt anyway. She just treated it as being scratched by a cat.
Although cultivating with a divided mind wasn’t very efficient, it was better than nothing. Her most important task right now was to improve her cultivation, and…
Ning Ruoque glanced at the expression on the person’s face before her and asked dryly, “Yin Buran, do you have any news about my life-bound sword?”
Yin Buran almost laughed out of anger.
Should she praise her for still knowing how to be considerate of her feelings, or scold her for having a mind full of nothing but cultivation and swords?
Her eyelids half-closed, and the corners of her mouth drooped.
“It’s probably shattered. A few years ago, a suspected fragment even appeared at Ruyi Pavilion’s auction.”
Recently, the auction houses had been hyping up “relics of the Sword Venerable.”
Every broken sword of mysterious origin could be claimed to be the Sword Venerable’s life-bound sword, and yet most of them still sold for sky-high prices.
Ning Ruoque was not unprepared for this outcome.
A sword cultivator and their life-bound sword were closely connected. If the person was alive, the sword was intact; if the person died, the sword was destroyed. Perhaps the moment she plunged her sword into the Demon God’s head, her life-bound sword had already disintegrated.
But her chest still felt tight and uncomfortable. Her sword had accompanied her from obscurity to world-renowned fame, pulling her back from the brink of death countless times.
To her, it was no longer just a cold weapon.
The sunlight dappled on the mahogany table. Ning Ruoque stared blankly at one of the light spots, letting her mind go empty.
Until a dark green storage bag was tossed through the air, thrown with poor aim.
It was about to hit the floor when Ning Ruoque reached out and caught it.
“What is this?”
Yin Buran lifted her chin at her, signaling for her to open it and see. “A gift for you.”
Ning Ruoque hesitated for a moment, then sent her spiritual sense into the storage bag.
For a moment, she thought Yin Buran was going to give her a fragment of her life-bound sword.
But she quickly dismissed the idea.
She and Yin Buran were just old acquaintances. Why would she go through so much trouble, spending money and energy to find her sword for her?
Ning Ruoque’s spiritual sense swept through it once, and she reached in to take it out. The storage bag was not large, and there was only one thing inside—
The plum blossom cakes made by Qingtong.
A certain pampered person didn’t want to torture her own tongue, so she had thrown all the supplements she had accumulated for several days to her.
Ning Ruoque was speechless, but for various reasons, she couldn’t resist and could only obediently accept this great gift.
Yin Buran saw the frustrated expression on her face and, under the cover of drinking tea, smiled faintly.
But when the teacup was lowered, her eyes were filled with a profound meaning. “You seem to care a lot about that little girl?”
In such a chaotic situation, she still didn’t forget to protect her and even tried to remind herself to bring her back.
Ning Ruoque swallowed the pastry in her mouth with difficulty, frowning at the strange sour and bitter taste.
“Are you talking about Yan Lingge? We met by chance. I just accepted her commission.”
She quickly skipped over this part. “That’s not the point. The abnormality at the Grand Immortal Selection today, I suspect it’s related to her. Her constitution is very special; it attracts demons and ghosts.”
The chaos had started right after Yan Lingge was injured, and Tang Jin’s behavior was also very obvious.
She, or rather the “person” controlling her, wanted to eat Yan Lingge.
Ning Ruoque explained her speculation in detail.
Finally, she asked one more question, “Her constitution, do you have any way to deal with it?”
Yin Buran stroked the teacup absently.
“So that’s how it is. I understand. Most people like her have wide spiritual veins, and their cultivation speed is faster than others. But the higher their cultivation, the greater their attraction to demons and ghosts.”
“There is no cure for this kind of situation. As a mortal, it would be difficult for her to live to adulthood. Embarking on the path of immortality might give her a chance.”
Ning Ruoque nodded, unable to help but ponder how to properly place Yan Lingge.
Her friends often commented that she was nosy and soft-hearted.
But Ning Ruoque didn’t think she was wrong.
If she still had the strength, she would not watch a living person disappear before her eyes.
After thinking for a while, Ning Ruoque suddenly looked up and spoke nervously and haltingly.
“I didn’t mean to pay special attention to her. I just happened to meet her, so I helped to ask.”
She spoke too fast, and her tongue was a little tied.
“Why are you explaining so much?” Yin Buran raised an eyebrow slightly.
“I am not a jealous medical cultivator. Even if you went to see her in the middle of the night, I wouldn’t add coptis root to your water.”
Ning Ruoque: “…”
She coughed guiltily a few times and quickly lowered her head to look for water to drink. Because she was too hasty, she successfully choked and turned red in the face.
Her skin was already thin, and now she wished she could find a sword manual to bury herself in.
Yin Buran turned a deaf ear to this, yawned, and leaned lazily against the soft pillow. “After this is over, you will come back to Azurefall Creek with me to get married.”
Ning Ruoque refused without thinking, her face serious. “No.”
Before the matter was investigated clearly, she was just an old acquaintance of Yin Buran’s. They absolutely could not take it a step further.
“Oh?”
Yin Buran sneered, “Do you still have the right to refuse me?”
Ning Ruoque glanced at her quickly and answered silently in her heart.
She couldn’t possibly fight Yin Buran, but she still had the ability to run away.
Just then, an urgent knock came from the door.
Yin Buran reluctantly let go of the soft pillow and sat up straight. “Come in.”
Just as Qingtong’s skirt appeared outside the screen, her voice arrived first. “Little Senior Sister, our messages can’t get through. Neither the Immortal Alliance nor Azurefall Creek is responding to the transmission talismans.”
Ning Ruoque was shocked. This was not a small problem.
Blocking transmission talismans was not something everyone could do.
For this situation to occur, it could only mean that this place was already enveloped by the formation of some great power.
Was it to catch a turtle in a jar, or a cornered beast fighting back?
But Yin Buran was still very calm. “Then burn incense to send a message. Have Azurefall Creek bring more people.”
Qingtong trotted off to carry out her orders.
Ning Ruoque couldn’t help but look at Yin Buran several times.
Her skin was like condensed snow, her clothes like tailored clouds, her posture as indifferent as that branch of wintersweet plum blossoms.
She was still the same Yin Buran as before.
Composed, decisive, and thoughtful. Even if her constitution was too frail, she was by no means a flower that needed to depend on others.
Seeing Ning Ruoque frequently turning her head, her expression hesitant, Yin Buran knew she couldn’t sit still.
She didn’t intend to hide it and said slowly, “Before coming to Brightlight Pavilion, Qingtong and I first went to Linjiang City and checked the records for the past month. Living corpses have been appearing frequently here, and hundreds of people have gone missing or died.”
“Where do you think these mutated living corpses came from?”
In an instant, a thousand thoughts raced through Ning Ruoque’s mind.
She thought of the living corpse on the Qushui River that had been crushed to dust by Xu Chuo, and then she thought of Tang Jin’s junior brother.
She wasn’t sure. “Brightlight Pavilion has a corpse pit? But the living corpse yesterday was—”
It was one of Brightlight Pavilion’s own disciples.
Ning Ruoque was stunned for a moment and subconsciously wanted to reach for her sword. But her hand was empty, so it naturally turned into a fist.
Yin Buran took out the Mirage Pearl from her sleeve. “I have already determined the reason for Tang Jin’s abnormality. Next, I need to verify it. If I’m not mistaken, Xu Chuo should be coming to us for people.”
The pearl emitted a cold mist, enveloping the two of them. From the outside, they seemed to have disappeared into thin air, even their auras were completely concealed.
Yin Buran very naturally grabbed Ning Ruoque’s wrist. “We’ll follow her and see what she’s up to, being in such a hurry to hold the Grand Immortal Selection.”
The moment the cool but soft hand touched hers, Ning Ruoque wanted to shake it off and get further away from Yin Buran.
However, Yin Buran warned coldly, “Don’t move. The pearl’s concealment range is only this large.”
Ning Ruoque had no choice but to pretend that this arm of hers didn’t exist, forcefully suppressing the uncomfortable feeling.
Fortunately, Xu Chuo came quickly. They didn’t have to wait long after leaving the room.
She exchanged a few polite words with Qingtong and asked about Yin Buran’s recent condition.
Qingtong spouted nonsense, “Little Senior Sister is tired and needs to rest. The person you’re looking for is indeed with us.”
As she spoke, she called Yan Lingge out and, without much hesitation, pushed her to Xu Chuo.
But Ning Ruoque’s sharp eyes saw that she had secretly stuffed a small, exquisite sachet into Yan Lingge’s hand.
The two of them trailed behind Xu Chuo at a distance, not too far and not too close. Fearing that they would be discovered, they didn’t speak the entire time.
They watched as Xu Chuo led a large group of newly admitted young men and women, bypassing the exquisite pavilions and heading towards a cave deep in the back mountains.
She even said, “This is a sacred place for cultivation in our pavilion. The spiritual energy is abundant, and it can quickly help you all to induce spirit into your bodies.”
Most of the people had experienced the recent abnormality and were extremely tense at this moment. There were even sharp retorts.
Xu Chuo turned a deaf ear. With a chime of a bell, everyone suddenly lost their senses and could only follow her into the cave in a daze.
The outside of the cave was already chillingly cold. Relying on her keen senses, Ning Ruoque could even hear the sticky sound of water inside the cave.
She felt very uncomfortable.
The entrance to the cave was much higher than the flat ground.
In order not to startle Xu Chuo by using spiritual energy, she logically broke free from Yin Buran and vaulted up with a push of her hands.
When she turned around, Yin Buran was holding the willow-leaf knife that she had swiped from Ning Ruoque at some point.
She lowered her voice, “Carry me.”
Ning Ruoque, who had been thinking of shaking her off and going by herself: “…”
After a few seconds of stalemate, Ning Ruoque, like lifting a kitten, put her hands under Yin Buran’s arms and easily lifted her up and set her down.
Then, with lightning speed, she snatched back the willow-leaf knife and, using the same trick, lifted Yin Buran back down.
Yin Buran: ?
In that back and forth, she even looked up in a daze, maintaining her original posture, looking at herself, then at Ning Ruoque.
Ning Ruoque said righteously, “This trip is too dangerous. I’ll go alone.”
She turned around resolutely. Just as she took a step, something hit her in the back.
The Mirage Pearl rolled on the ground and then turned into a stream of light, returning to its master’s hand.
Yin Buran was clearly angry. Her tone was chilling as she said, word by word:
“Carry me. Up.”
Yin Buran wants uppies, do not disappoint her.