Volume 3, Chapter 285 – Oh, It’s Her

Almost the instant Lu Zhuxin’s countdown ended, Bu Lianshuang planted her retreating foot and stopped dead.

A crude dagger appeared in her hand.

Her expression turned sharp, and killing intent blazed in her eyes. Merging in that moment with the killing aura of an Eighth Realm great demon that Lu Zhuxin had released.

Following Lu Zhuxin’s instructions, Bu Lianshuang gave Song Shixuan virtually no time to react.

The tip of the dagger shot straight for Song Shixuan’s throat.

In the split second that Song Shixuan’s focus broke, the blade closed to within mere inches of her vital point.

In an instant, Song Shixuan’s mind went cold with dread.

She could feel Bu Lianshuang’s killing intent.

This maidservant wasn’t holding back at all. She was genuinely trying to kill her!

Why?!

Song Shixuan couldn’t understand it, but there was no time left to think.

Between life and death lies a great terror.

In that single instant, her body moved on instinct.

Spiritual power flooded through her entire frame, and her form dissolved into a formless streak of ink.

The next moment, Bu Lianshuang’s dagger pierced through Song Shixuan’s throat with perfect precision.

Ink splattered in all directions.

From somewhere in the distance, an aged voice exploded: “Stop!”

Bu Lianshuang’s eyes darkened.

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The sensation in her hand told her the strike hadn’t caught Song Shixuan’s physical body.

She didn’t know what the little fox miss had done, but somehow Song Shixuan had been left wide open in the middle of their fight.

That opening had been created by the little fox miss at great effort. She couldn’t just let her slip away that easily!

The wolf clan was fierce by nature. As one of the four great demon clans, they carried an innate instinct for battle.

Tracking by scent, even though Song Shixuan had vanished using some secret technique, Bu Lianshuang could still roughly determine which direction she had fled.

She adjusted her footing and charged forward again.

Directly ahead, Song Shixuan was slowly materializing back into view.

Seeing Bu Lianshuang coming after her again without pause, Song Shixuan’s heart reeled with shock.

“Stop!!”

The aged voice called out again.

Bu Lianshuang heard nothing. In her eyes, there was only one option: beating Song Shixuan’s face into a pig’s head.

The one shouting for her to stop was a Fifth Realm elder from the Chi family’s study hall.

After two consecutive calls went completely ignored, genuine anger lit in his eyes.

He had been watching the earlier spar from the start.

When the Third Realm maidservant launched herself at the Young Sect Master of Lingxiao Sword Sect, he had privately laughed to himself. Second Miss’s attendant didn’t know the height of the sky or the depth of the earth, throwing herself forward just because she had a little cultivation. She’d learn her lesson soon enough.

But what followed had thrown all his expectations straight out the window.

Young Sect Master Song had suppressed his cultivation to match the maidservant’s level, and then showed a flaw in the middle of combat, driven into a desperate corner.

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Setting aside the question of how the Young Sect Master of Lingxiao Sword Sect could have lost to a simple maidservant, Song Shixuan was the pride of the Song family and a prized disciple of Immortal Venerable Qingzhi herself. If something happened to him on Chi family grounds, the Chi family could not escape responsibility.

The trouble it would bring down on them would be endless.

So, Song Shixuan absolutely could not have an accident on Chi family territory!

Bu Lianshuang knew none of this. All she knew was that cornering Song Shixuan was what the little fox miss had asked for—and so she had to see it done.

Just as Bu Lianshuang caught up to Song Shixuan and was preparing to follow up with another strike, she heard the little fox miss cry out in alarm.

“Shuang’er! Stop!”

“That’s my sister’s fiancé! Don’t hurt him!”

Surprise flickered through Bu Lianshuang’s eyes. Her hand faltered for just a beat.

Song Shixuan took the opening and broke away.

Bu Lianshuang felt the threat on instinct and stepped back.

A palm strike came sweeping toward her.

The force behind it was no higher than early Fifth Realm, nothing that posed a real threat to Bu Lianshuang.

But her apparent strength, on the surface, was only the Third Realm. So she didn’t fully evade the blow.

She took the strike head-on with half her body, and then spat a mouthful of blood as she went flying.

Injured again.

Two days in the Chi residence and she’d been hurt twice already.

Bu Lianshuang thought this to herself.

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She had expected to hit the ground hard, but instead, she fell into a warm, fragrant embrace.

Lu Zhuxin had lurched forward and caught her, barely managing to keep from being knocked down herself.

Wrapped in that intoxicating warmth, Bu Lianshuang suddenly felt this injury was entirely worth it.

Under ordinary circumstances, she rarely had a chance to get this close to the little fox miss.

With the Chi family elder intervening, the small commotion settled.

The entire brief exchange had been witnessed from beginning to end by the students in the study hall. Now, those young Chi disciples were staring at each other, eyes full of disbelief.

“Young Master Song… just lost, didn’t he?”

“The Young Sect Master of Lingxiao Sword Sect lost to a maidservant?”

“You’re joking! The Young Sect Master is Eldest Miss’s fiancé. How did he lose to Second Miss’s attendant in a spar?!”

“What are you all even talking about?!” someone pushed back. “Didn’t you see? Young Master Song was only using Third Realm cultivation the entire time. That’s nowhere near his real strength.”

“And did any of you notice? He never once drew his sword. He never used a single Lingxiao Sword Sect technique.”

“He was holding back to match the maidservant’s level, and she took advantage of that opening. That’s all that happened!”

The crowd buzzed with speculation.

The spar had come out of nowhere and hadn’t been particularly spectacular. But the outcome was more surprising than anyone could have expected.

No one had anticipated Song Shixuan actually losing.

The Chi family elder’s expression was dark.

A treasured son of the Song family losing to a Chi family maidservant. On the surface, it might sound like a point of pride for the Chi family, proof of their strength.

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But Song Shixuan’s standing was too significant. What had just happened was essentially the same as slapping the Song family and Lingxiao Sword Sect across the face.

This was going to be a problem.

The Chi family elder’s expression had gone sour.

He was already regretting not stepping in sooner.

Lu Zhuxin kept an arm around Bu Lianshuang, turning over what had just happened in her mind.

When Song Shixuan had been cornered and needed to escape, the technique she had used was nothing from Lingxiao Sword Sect’s movement arts, nor from any Song family technique.

A sword cultivator, in a life-or-death moment, not drawing her sword, but instead evading through a spell.

That had laid her true background completely bare.

Her face and voice were an exact replica of Song Shixuan’s, but in terms of real ability and combat experience, she fell far short of Song Shixuan, the Heaven-Mandated Male Lead.

Combat experience, after all, was one thing that could not be faked.

But then…what exactly was the technique she had just used?

Lu Zhuxin turned the scene over and over in her mind.

With her Eighth Realm cultivation, she was dealing with these minor cultivators on an entirely different level of existence. She had been able to capture every single one of Song Shixuan’s movements with perfect clarity.

The body technique, the dissolving into formlessness… and the ink…

These elements felt oddly familiar.

Lu Zhuxin’s brow furrowed slightly, then smoothed out.

Oh. It’s her.