After the Ancestral Ceremony ended, Mu Hengtian and the three elders hurried to join Yun Shouxi.
While the adults talked, the younger generation retreated to the side.
In the corridor outside, Ling Luo stood beside Yu Xiu and quietly yawned, feeling tired and wanting to go back to sleep.
Mu Ya, carrying a plate of pastries, gave her a cold glance, silently reproaching her for being lax and not knowing the gravity of the situation.
Ling Luo ignored her.
Mu Ya walked to Chu Yi’s side and said, “Senior Brother, you must be tired from your investigation. I noticed you haven’t eaten much today, so I brought you some date cakes.”
Chu Yi looked straight ahead without turning his gaze and said indifferently, “How kind of Junior Sister Mu, but I’m not hungry. Yu Xiu, take them to our little junior sister. Look at her, she’s so hungry she can barely stand.”
Both Yu Xiu and Ling Luo pretended they hadn’t heard anything.
Mu Ya was embarrassed by his words, her fingers gripping the edge of the plate tightly, her fingertips turning white.
Ling Luo’s lips curved slightly as she shifted to hide behind Yu Xiu, secretly enjoying Mu Ya’s discomfort.
Mu Ya was proud and spoiled, but Chu Yi was even more so. He was also the first man to defeat Tianji’s young mistress. With his handsome appearance, wayward personality, and nonconformity to conventions, he had caught the young mistress’s eye.
For the past two years, she had been chasing after Chu Yi, but he showed no interest in her whatsoever.
Ling Luo knew well that this senior brother had extremely high standards.
He loved the moon in the sky.
A forbidden love, not viewed favorably by the world, and certainly not recognized by the immortal sects.
Yet Chu Yi loved that woman desperately.
Chu Yi was willing to abandon his pride for his moon in the sky, kneeling and kowtowing, being trampled into the mud and tortured without caring.
That night on Mount Qi, a light rain was falling.
At that time, she was still the pride of the immortal sects.
Ling Luo had charged into the formation with her dual blades. With each barrier she passed, Mount Qi lit a beacon tower. All one hundred and thirty-six beacon towers of Mount Qi blazed, announcing the invader had reached the pavilion at the mountaintop.
That senior brother who had never gotten along with her, whom she had mutually disdained, yet who had also gone through trials and killed enemies and demons with her, was now being trampled underfoot by the Master of Mount Qi, who laughed uproariously.
His face was covered in blood and grime, no longer resembling heaven’s favored son, the renowned senior brother of Eastern Island’s Tianji, but more like a filthy beggar slave.
The Master of Mount Qi laughed arrogantly and shouted at Chu Yi: “Kneel again!”
Chu Yi uncontrollably coughed blood. He collapsed to the ground, with no strength left, yet driven by the conviction in his heart, his trembling fingers clenched into fists as he slowly got up from the ground and knelt again.
Kneel again.
The Master of Mount Qi landed another punch, easily knocking him to the ground, then raised his foot and kicked him viciously.
He laughed wildly, his excitement overflowing.
When Ling Luo arrived, the Master of Mount Qi had his foot on the man’s face, laughing: “The senior brother of Eastern Island’s Tianji, the chief disciple of True Lord Canxi, only amounts to this! A worthless piece of trash who has no strength to fight back when I step on him!”
“He may be trash, but don’t say that in front of me,” Ling Luo strolled toward the platform, her body surrounded by surging, restless spiritual energy, causing even the light rain to avoid her.
She glanced at the blood-covered man lying motionless on the ground, twirled the curved blade in her hand, and pointed it at the Master of Mount Qi, raising her chin and saying: “Saying I have a worthless senior brother is an insult to me.”
In that battle on Mount Qi, she rescued him.
While descending the mountain, Ling Luo asked Chu Yi: “Was it worth it?”
He merely wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and answered with a single word, weak yet resolute.
“Yes.”
Ling Luo still couldn’t understand it to this day.
At that time, her mind was occupied with the Dao and hatred.
Therefore, she had no interest in matters of love.
Looking now at Mu Ya trying to persuade Chu Yi to eat a date cake or two, Ling Luo found it all boring.
In front of Chu Yi, Mu Ya’s usually proud young mistress demeanor had taken on a girlish coquettishness: “Senior Brother, you’ve been away on worldly training for several months. It’s so hard for me to even see you once.”
Chu Yi: “What’s so difficult? If you want to see me, just go down the mountain.”
“But I can’t just go down the mountain whenever I want… Senior Brother, next time you enter the world for training, could you take me with you?” Mu Ya looked at him as she asked.
Chu Yi said with an unchanged expression: “No.”
Mu Ya bit her lip, unwilling to give up: “Why not? I’ll be ready to enter the world next year!”
Chu Yi raised an eyebrow and said: “I heard when I returned that you couldn’t even defeat our little junior sister. How could you possibly be ready to enter the world next year?”
Ling Luo mentioned again, blinked, and took a deep breath, certain that her senior brother was doing this deliberately.
He just wanted to dump the troublesome Mu Ya onto her!
Before Mu Ya could rebut, Chu Yi had already added mercilessly: “If you can’t even beat our little junior sister, at your level, you should study for another three to five years.”
Mu Ya’s aura turned gloomy as she looked at Ling Luo.
Ling Luo tugged at the corner of Yu Xiu’s clothes.
Yu Xiu said: “Senior Brother, we’ll go first. You all continue your chat.”