Chapter 91: Girl in the Bottle (Part 5): Why Not Just Go Ask Xiao Xian Directly?

Shang Shan didn’t believe it and brought the two paintings closer together. Her gaze acted like a ruler as she compared every stroke’s turn and direction one by one. In the end, she discovered that whether it was a light dot or a heavy stroke, the wound widths were completely identical!

What was going on?

People deeply loved Xiao Xian, who had overthrown the oppressive Three Venerables. They admired her loyalty in avenging her family and her courage in challenging the heavenly gods, so they followed her by shaving their heads and carving characters. But this fanaticism only affected a very small portion of people. Compared to deliberately harming their bodies after deep thought, it was more likely done impulsively in a heat of blood.

Whether self-carving in front of a mirror or asking someone else to help, the handwriting and force would differ, leading to different results. Even if they carved according to Xiao Xian’s head, they couldn’t reach that level of hatred from losing all their family, lacking that resoluteness. In short, it was impossible to achieve such similarity!

Could the characters on Little Baldy’s forehead have been carved by Xiao Xian herself?

But even the same person would have slight differences in handwriting under different states, making it hard to produce exact matches.

Digging deeper, an inconceivable guess surfaced in her mind…

Could this Little Baldy actually be Xiao Xian herself?

This idea stirred up huge waves in her mind. Shang Shan rapidly moved her throat and swallowed her surprise before continuing to observe. This time, she examined the facial features. Xiao Xian’s painting was a circle larger than Little Baldy’s, with richer details. At first glance, she spotted several brown freckles along the girl’s nose bridge. Looking back at the painting in her hand, though not very clear, there were brown spots in the exact same position along the nose bridge edge.

Shang Shan pressed one hand to her forehead as her gaze traced the face shapes again.

The two paintings depicted girls at different ages—one around ten years old, the other about twenty. One was childish and cute, the other mature and sharp. At first glance, no one would connect them. But once she suspected they might be the same person, everywhere started looking similar. The eye shapes were similar, the mouths similar, the noses similar—everything was similar!

This was clearly the same person!

Shang Shan set down the painting scroll and slowly retreated a step, blinking her eyes.

This search for a person wasn’t complicated at first—just troublesome in the process. But this discovery suddenly made everything strange. Her thoughts stalled. She scratched her head and looked toward the woman behind her. “Master.”

Mu Qian Tan sat with her legs crossed and spared a glance. “Hm?”

Shang Shan said, “I don’t get it.”

If this was true and Little Baldy was Xiao Xian, then who was the one in the sky right now?

Little Baldy’s ghost soul was just over ten years old, which meant she had died at that age. So when the Qi family was wiped out by heavenly punishment, had she died along with them?

If so, why did everyone believe it was Qi Xiaoxiao who overthrew the Three Venerables?

Did someone else use her identity? Or was there another possibility?

Too many guesses swirled without conclusion. Her mind turned chaotic like rolling porridge, unable to form a single clear thought. She squatted down, hugged her head, and said, “My head hurts. I can’t figure it out.”

Mu Qian Tan quietly glanced at her.

Her qi aperture only lacked the trunk stage to be fully opened. Signs of her bloodline gradually awakening had already appeared. Besides unclear consciousness, her emotions were also irritable and prone to anger. The negative effects from the scorching dragon blood were even more severe than before.

Quite some time had passed since her last episode of madness, and the heat had always been suppressed. But just now, that one unresolved thought made her stall suddenly—like a machine overloading and crashing. It ignited the fuse that had been dormant for nearly a year, and now it was unstoppable.

“Master….” The girl madly scratched at her hair and neck. Her eyes filled with agitation, and her breathing grew rapid and uneasy. “What’s wrong with me?”

Scratches from her nails had already appeared on her neck. Her mouth lowly called out for people, like a small animal seeking comfort. She looked extremely pitiful. Yet Mu Qian Tan offered no response, not even changing her gaze much. She seemed to be pondering or perhaps lost in a daze.

Shang Shan slowly bent at the waist and knelt on the ground. She supported herself against the bookshelf, gasping in big mouthfuls like someone drowning. Her ears buzzed nonstop. Her jumping vision gradually flooded with pure red. Amid that sheet of red, she saw the white jade fingers dangling from the woman’s knee.

Her five senses suddenly sharpened. Her heart pounded against her chest like mad. A fire-burning hunger flared in her abdomen.

She smelled the faint floral scent on the woman, along with another unclear, lingering aroma. Like a cat that had caught the scent of food, she inched closer in small steps. Her voice came out hoarse and drawn out. “Master….”

Her red tongue tip poked out past her lips and teeth, strikingly bright in the dim room. It was about to touch the woman’s hand when that jade-white finger slightly curled and pulled away.

Tormented until the backs of her ears turned red, Shang Shan felt dry fire ignite in her heart as well. Seeing the dodge, she flared with anger and was about to lunge regardless and bite. In the next instant, her vision shifted abruptly. Her cheek slammed into the bookshelf with a bang, the huge sound ringing out as stars burst before her eyes.

Tan Que cried out, “What!” She tossed aside her book, took two steps forward, and leaned out. “This, this, this—what’s going on?”

She had only looked away for a moment, and now the master and disciple were fighting?

Once her vision cleared a bit, Shang Shan rolled her eyes nearly halfway around. They slid to the corner of her right eye, where she saw the very hand that had aroused her appetite earlier, now pressing down on her hard.

“You really are….” Mu Qian Tan sighed and lifted her other hand. White qi gathered in her palm, condensing into a glass-like little ice ball. “Troublesome.”

Her words carried contempt mixed with reproach. Shang Shan’s mind exploded into blankness. She struggled violently, wanting to pin this arrogant woman down and devour her! But then came a chill on her lips. Something bumped against the gap in her teeth with a faint click before sliding into her mouth. It released a piercing cold that made even her bones tremble.

The hand pressing her cheek loosened. Cool fingertips trailed past her ear and downward, stopping at her chin. They picked it up slightly, helping to close her mouth. Mu Qian Tan leaned down and peered into those agitated eyes. Her pink lips parted and closed. “Hold it.”

Shang Shan’s eyes widened, but her pupils shrank. Her focus locked onto those thin lips so close by. The two words flowed into her ears like demonic sound, sparking tiny bolts of lightning at the tip of her heart and bringing waves of numbness.

She difficultly moved her throat. The little ice ball slowly melted in her mouth, relieving the thirst in her throat.

In the original story, the male protagonist used flute sounds with a demon-taming method to soothe the female protagonist’s blood frenzy. It took tremendous effort, with trial and adjustment over half a day before succeeding. Mu Qian Tan wasn’t a music cultivator. Even if she could play the flute, her flute sounds had no effect—they were just pure music, so that method wouldn’t work.

She had dazed just now while pondering other approaches. After thinking for a while with no suitable idea, she spotted that glimpse of tongue tip and realized the solution. She herself possessed ice spiritual power—cooling her down was the simplest thing! Just feed this stupid dragon some ice!

The little ice ball contained a few strands of spiritual power. Once the surface melted, it immediately formed a new layer of ice, providing a continuous supply—enough to last her half a day.

Her tongue subconsciously nudged the little ice ball in her mouth. The heat fog in Shang Shan’s mind receded, and her eyes gradually cleared. She cupped her cheeks and said, “I love this so much!”

Her recovery was far faster than in the original story. Mu Qian Tan sat back down, feeling inevitably a bit proud. She hadn’t expected this trick to be so effective. Even if the stupid dragon’s bloodline fully awakened and she went mad again later, there would be no need to worry. As she thought this, she saw Tan Que eyeing the scene with cautious longing. Tan Que rubbed at her clothes hem and said, “I wanna try it too. What’s that?”

“…” Mu Qian Tan fell silent for a moment before condensing a new little ice ball and tossing it over. Tan Que caught it in her mouth. Her cheeks bulged out in one spot as she nodded repeatedly. “Yummy.”

It was clearly just ice—what was yummy about it…

Over there, Shang Shan had already climbed up from the ground. She seemed to have forgotten what happened, patting the dust off her clothes. While pushing her messy hair back, she looked toward the painting on the wall.

She stared for a while before letting out an “ah,” remembering her earlier discovery. She pulled Tan Que over and shared all her various guesses. Tan Que was shocked. “Such a thing? If it’s really her, why couldn’t those people recognize their own immortal?”

If Little Baldy really was Xiao Xian, it meant the two of them had spent the morning running around the streets with Xiao Xian’s own painting in hand, asking locals to identify her. That alone wasn’t funny enough—the funny part was that not a single one recognized her! Instead, they harvested a whole basket of heroic praises and reverent words about Xiao Xian.

These people held the Pot God in such high regard, yet they couldn’t recognize their god even when she was right in front of them?

Shang Shan said, “Exactly. Forget the immortal I like—even a friend I’ve only seen a few times, even after years apart and even if she’s grown and changed appearance, I could still recognize her!”

Tan Que said, “I’m not that good. My memory’s hey, pretty bad! I’m even afraid I won’t recognize you next time.”

Shang Shan said nonchalantly, “No worries. I remember you. If we separate and reunite later, I’ll tell you who I am, and you’ll remember me too.”

“Good! Hehe.” Tan Que grinned in her honest way before turning a bit more serious. She hugged Lingdang as she pondered. After a moment, she guessed, “I wanna ask—could it be possible that Little Baldy is actually that Xiao Xian’s clone? Can immortals split themselves in two? Like those earthworms crawling in the dirt—split into two halves, and both can still move.”

What kind of example was that? Using an earthworm of all things made Mu Qian Tan’s mind conjure up that flesh-colored, wriggling long worm. Disgusted, she said speechlessly, “…This is called transformation arts or cloning techniques—not just anyone can do them.”

For example, she couldn’t, but that dog of a You Lianmeng could. It looked simple but actually required tremendous effort to cultivate. She had seen it mentioned in a book recently and originally thought to learn it for escaping or going undercover. But it was too difficult and too time-consuming, so she gave up.

Shang Shan asked, “Then could it be part of her soul? Like what happened before in East City.”

Back in East City, to inquire about glamour corpse news, they had hooked out a fragment of the male host’s soul after scaring him. Maybe Little Baldy was something like that?

They had already checked all the death records within the normal timeframe, and nothing matched. This indirectly proved Little Baldy’s identity was special. Either her death wasn’t recorded, or she had died even earlier. Or another possibility: she wasn’t dead at all, and she was just one of the lost soul shards of that mysterious Xiao Xian!

The more she thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Shang Shan felt like she had grasped a new key point, but how could she confirm if it was true?

She paced in circles on the spot and pondered for a moment before exclaiming excitedly, “I got it! Let’s go up to the heavens and just ask Xiao Xian directly!”

Right at that moment, footsteps sounded from outside the door, along with a few people talking. It was government officials—they had noticed something was off!