Volume 3, Chapter 62 – Let My Little Sister Taste Pain

This wasn’t the first time Bai Zhuqing had gone into seclusion to cultivate with Bai Xiang, but instinct told her this time would feel different.

Is it because the way Sister Xiang looks at me isn’t the same as before?

Bai Zhuqing couldn’t put her finger on it, she just had that feeling.

Uneasy, she handed over her “routine affairs” duties to Shen Xuelan. Shen Xuelan also noticed her mental state was off, and kindly remarked that she really did need some rest, saying, “Everything that’s happened lately has been way beyond your syllabus, Zhuqing.”

Shen Xuelan had a lot of admiration for Bai Zhuqing. As an elder, she truly hadn’t expected the younger generation in the family to perform this well in one major incident after another, to the point that even her husband Bai Lianzhou had been completely outshone. That was no small thing.

The kids themselves might not understand what these achievements meant, but she and Zhu Ying did: the influence any great clan had in a region was never only about wealth and martial strength. It also depended on whether their existence made things more convenient for other powers.

With the Fengchang Directorate’s endorsement, the younger Bai generation together with the Shenming Sword Dao had earned lavish praise from many noble houses and scholar-gentry clans for how they’d acted during this disaster.

All of that was reputation, something that could at any moment be converted into benefits and political capital.

Unfortunately…

Seeming to think of certain signs she’d only recently begun to notice, Shen Xuelan sighed and didn’t say more, merely soothing Bai Zhuqing and urging her upstairs to rest well.

“Your mother and I will help handle matters outside, you know? Alright, don’t just stand there in a daze, hurry and go keep your Sister Xiang company.”

Once the front door closed, the whole Listening-to-Rain Tower felt like a sealed-off space. Only the hazy lamplight lit the great wooden Buddha carvings on the walls, giving the place a faint touch of a religious hall.

Bai Zhuqing felt a little out of sorts. She knew that “Bai Xiang going into seclusion” was still the thing everyone cared about most right now, but the relationship that had always been carefully covered up somehow getting “arranged” like this by coincidence left her feeling awkward.

I wanted to be openly and properly together with Sister Xiang, not to be misunderstood and treated like some little companion reader brought in to please her…

Maybe that thought was too precious and fussy, but that was just the kind of person she was.

If not, she wouldn’t have turned down Bai Xiang’s invitation to let her play with her feet back then.

Compared to “whether she could do something,” she cared more about “why she was doing it.” She had no idea whether that sort of thinking, which ran counter to pure pragmatism, could be called “naive.” Bai Zhuqing felt that if she were to say it outright, Bai Xiang definitely wouldn’t agree with her.

After all, Bai Xiang really was more pragmatic. Even though Bai Zhuqing was very sure her place in Bai Xiang’s heart was different from that of anyone else, she still wasn’t confident she could fully see through Bai Xiang’s thoughts.

So she suddenly sank into pessimism again, feeling she’d been utterly delusional to think that Sister Xiang asking her to go into seclusion together had some special meaning.

This tangled mindset showed perfectly in the pace of her climb upstairs—she still walked up at a calm, unhurried pace, thinking that she had better not show her worst side in front of Bai Xiang, and at the very least shouldn’t make her angry again.

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Until she reached the fifth floor and saw Bai Xiang hanging in midair.

As the disaster faded, it was as if it had also taken away the last trace of the cold winter wind. Recently the temperature had begun to warm, and Bai Zhuqing had already seen some women on the streets changing into lighter clothes.

As someone handling routine affairs, Bai Zhuqing knew that the number of refugees the Zhen’nan Circuit had taken in wasn’t two million, but three million. One million villagers and small-town folk had been overlooked even by Fang Xiaochun.

She wasn’t clear on the exact details, only that both Bai Shengju and Grandmaster Xiang Xian took these people very seriously. They had promised them the treatment of “first-class citizens” in exchange for them throwing themselves into building up the areas around Zhen’nan.

In short, the circuit city was full of people now.

Everyone’s nerves had been strung far too taut and needed a channel for release. So those women had rushed to welcome the spring breeze with summer skirts, and some bold couples were daring to flirt and whisper right in the corners of the streets and alleys.

Bai Zhuqing knew all this and had personally seen it more than once.

She could swear that no matter what kind of skirt those women put on, how they did their hair and makeup, the charm they showed in the spring light of the third month could not compare to even a shred of what Bai Xiang was showing right now.

Bai Xiang was practically not wearing any clothes.

She seemed to have just bathed. Her white hair was casually piled atop her head. Her whole body wore only a pair of black thigh-high stockings; aside from that, the only thing covering her was a strip of semi-transparent black gauze falling from her chest.

With eyes like a keen-eyed sage, Bai Zhuqing immediately saw that this “sleepwear” was the set she herself had secretly tucked away in a cabinet.

Wh-what is Auntie even trying to do here…

“Zhuqing.” Bai Xiang happened to open her eyes. She maintained her sword contemplation posture, sitting cross-legged on one leg suspended in midair, and simply used her gaze to urge on her flustered little sister. “Come here, I have something to say to you.”

Bai Zhuqing was so nervous she had no idea where to put her hands. She first folded them together in front of her, then dropped them to her sides, and almost walked over with arms and legs moving in tandem.

“Sit.”

There was no way Bai Zhuqing could copy that high-difficulty posture, so she just obediently sat cross-legged on the floor.

Oh my god…

The moment she sat down, she screamed inwardly.

It had already been overwhelming just to look before, but from this fresh angle after sitting down…

I’m way too blessed right now.

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“Does it look good?” Bai Xiang asked her.

Bai Zhuqing’s head bobbed up and down.

It looked insanely good.

“Do you like it?”

She kept nodding.

She liked it to death.

“Then that proves you’re still not qualified.”

Bai Zhuqing reflexively started to nod again, then suddenly realized something was off about those words.

“Auntie?” She stared wide-eyed at Bai Xiang. “What do you mean by that?”

“This disaster was the work of certain schemers and conspirators who wanted to resurrect an ancient giant demon,” Bai Xiang said. “They actually did succeed. What I killed this time wasn’t a demon tide, but the ancient demon ‘Shiling’ they revived by blood-sacrificing the demon tide and using the power of the sea of blood.”

“‘Shiling’?” Bai Zhuqing also liked reading Buddhist scriptures. She had seen descriptions of it in some texts. “Is that the ‘Shiling’ that ‘gnaws away the years and devours the decrees, overturning yin and yang’?”

Bai Xiang nodded. “The very same.”

Bai Zhuqing was shocked at first, and the expression that followed could be interpreted as “Auntie is amazing.”

Wasn’t she?

That was a monster out of myth.

“Shiling had an extremely powerful Illusory God ability. I only managed to kill it by sheer luck.” Bai Xiang looked at her. “At the final moment, it even transformed into your appearance. Guess why I was able to come back alive?”

Bai Zhuqing thought for a bit and sulkily guessed, “Auntie, you killed that ‘me’?”

Bai Xiang nodded again. “Exactly.”

Wait, is this really the kind of thing you should be saying in our current atmosphere?

Bai Zhuqing was completely dumbfounded.

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She didn’t understand. Shouldn’t a normal person at least soften it a bit, or simply hide that part of the story?

Could you at least pretend to care about my feelings a little?

“Caring about your feelings, will that spare you a life-and-death tribulation?” This time it was Bai Xiang’s turn to be perfectly justified. “Your fatal weakness is undoubtedly me. If a similar Illusory God were used on you and the opponent transformed into my appearance, you definitely wouldn’t be able to see through it.”

Bai Zhuqing protested stubbornly, “Auntie is underestimating me again…”

Bai Xiang said nothing, lowering the black-stockinged foot she’d had raised and lifting it in front of her little sister, her toes gently flexing inside the nylon.

Bai Zhuqing’s attention was instantly captured. She couldn’t stop herself from staring hard.

Smack!

“Ow!”

“Use your Clear-Heart Formula!”

Remotely controlling Feixiang Heaven to knock once on her little sister’s head, Bai Xiang closed her eyes again.

“Reward, trial… think of it however you like.”

“My requirement is that you cultivate while looking at me.”

“…Do not disappoint me.”

Time flowed on, and the first day of seclusion neared its end.

Bai Xiang’s harvest for the day was to take the several new techniques she’d just received— God-Descent Calisthenics , Vacuum Meditation Method , Illusory-Spirit Breathing Method , Sun-Chasing Scripture , and Wind-Riding Frightened-Bamboo Sky-Evasion Sword Scripture —and reorganize and summarize them, confirming the sequence in which she’d cultivate them next.

Bai Zhuqing, on the other hand, was miserable… You had to know that Bai Xiang’s body had been further reshaped using “soul-illumined reflection” together with secret medicines. Normally, because she liked wearing loose clothes, it didn’t show. Add to that her ever-cold temperament, which blocked others from focusing on it, and it rarely drew notice.

But this time was different…

Cold temperament plus a “decisive-battle outfit”—the contrast alone stirred up such restlessness that not even the Clear-Heart Formula could suppress it. Only Heaven knew how Bai Zhuqing had gotten through this day.

At night, when they rested, Bai Xiang even “heartlessly” tested her on her cultivation progress, and unsurprisingly discovered that not only had she failed to show any improvement, she had actually regressed a little.

Of course she regressed…

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Bai Zhuqing felt utterly wronged.

Sister Xiang had no idea how attractive she was. I’m a normal person, not a monk.

Sigh.

She sighed inwardly.

She was almost certain she was going to be punished.

Sure enough, the power she’d lost thanks to her distracted mind, Bai Xiang forcibly helped her make up by using the Vibration Art on the acupoints on the soles of her feet.

“Same thing tomorrow.”

“You’d best show me some improvement.”

With that, Bai Xiang lay down beside her.

It was worth mentioning that after bathing, she truly hadn’t put on any clothes at all, lying there completely bare.

On a normal day, Bai Zhuqing definitely wouldn’t have been able to resist sitting up to drink in the sight, but today it was impossible… She was so exhausted she didn’t even have the strength to wiggle a pinky.

All she could do was glare hatefully at the ceiling, inwardly vowing that tomorrow she would tough it out properly and fight to save some face in front of Bai Xiang.

The thought was beautiful, reality was harsh.

The next day, before Bai Xiang had even taken her place, Bai Zhuqing was already seated where she should be. She silently chanted the Clear-Heart Formula’s incantation over and over in her mind, occasionally mixing in various stabilizing Buddhist scriptures.

Bai Xiang’s outfit was the same as yesterday; the only difference was her hairstyle, her long white hair now loose around her shoulders.

It was still hard to endure this time, but Bai Zhuqing felt sure she’d do better than she had yesterday.

However, today Bai Xiang began cultivating in earnest.

The technique she chose to start with was God-Descent Calisthenics .