Volume 3, Chapter 410 – How Can You Be Chi Muxue?

“Chi Muxue.”

Hearing that name, Chi Xiyan froze on the spot, instinctively repeating it under her breath.

She suppressed the shock rising in her chest, her voice turning hoarse. “What did you just say.”

As she spoke, the fist hidden in her sleeve clenched unnaturally. “You just said your name is Chi Muxue?”

“How can you be Chi Muxue?!”

The girl who called herself Chi Muxue tilted her head slightly at the question. “Yes, I’ve had this name since the day I was born.”

“Is something wrong?”

The girl before her spoke gently, her smile sweet and endearing.

But Chi Xiyan found her own body trembling without pause.

Chi Muxue. How could she be Chi Muxue.

Chi Muxue, she isn’t.

Chi Xiyan slowly raised her hand, as though struggling to believe what she was seeing.

Hesitantly, she reached toward the girl’s cheek.

The sweet, lovely girl did not resist, letting Chi Xiyan cup her face in her hands.

A familiar warmth spread through her fingertips, and Chi Xiyan’s heart surged like crashing waves in an instant.

That’s it. This is Muxue’s face.

She hadn’t recognized it before because right now this girl was only nine years old.

Chi Xiyan had never seen a nine year old Chi Muxue.

When she had first brought Chi Muxue home, Chi Muxue had already been seventeen.

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At once, as though struck by lightning, Chi Xiyan let go of Chi Muxue’s face.

“Hm?” Chi Muxue looked at her, puzzled.

Facing the girl’s questioning gaze, Chi Xiyan forced the words out. “How can it be you.”

“Huh?” Chi Muxue tilted her head slightly, her eyes practically forming two question marks. “What do you mean?”

“No. What I mean is.” Chi Xiyan pressed her lips together. “Are you really Chi Muxue?”

The young girl blinked and let out a soft laugh. “Who else would I be?”

She reached out and grabbed Chi Xiyan’s hand. “Didn’t you just touch my face? Could this face possibly be fake?”

“If you don’t believe me, you can touch it a few more times.”

“You’re not dreaming, you know! Little Xiyan!”

“No. There’s no need.” Chi Xiyan yanked her hand back forcefully.

She didn’t need any more confirmation. She was already certain that the girl before her was not the real Chi Muxue.

That flippant tone, that playful manner of speech. This was not something the Muxue she knew would say.

But she could not understand why she would see Chi Muxue here, of all places. And more than that, why Chi Muxue had become the eldest miss of the Chi family.

“Illusory heart formation. Face your fears. Cater to your desires. Question your true heart.”

“Chi Muxue. Why would you appear in my trial?”

“Is this my desire. Or my fear.”

No one could answer Chi Xiyan’s question.

Chi Xiyan understood that this was her own dream, that everything here was an illusion constructed by the formation based on her own subconscious.

It was a secret buried deep within her own mind.

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Everything before her, only she herself could see. No one else could ever know of it.

“Heh.” Chi Xiyan let out a self mocking laugh. “Illusory heart formation… Illusory. What does this really mean.”

“And how am I supposed to break out of it.”

Chi Xiyan asked herself. No matter how terrifying the things she saw were, and no matter how tempting they might be, she had always been able to hold onto her true heart, unshaken, and cut through it all with a single strike of her sword.

But the appearance of the girl before her left her feeling utterly lost.

This was nothing she had ever experienced, and she couldn’t even begin to say whether it was fear, or something else entirely.

In truth, Chi Xiyan herself could not imagine what she would be afraid of.

If there was one thing that had ever stirred up her heart, it was the instant Chi Muxue had been captured during their escape from the Chi family, a single moment of panic and tension.

But Chi Xiyan did not believe that could really be called fear.

It was simply that, after everything she had planned, she hadn’t wanted to fail at the very last step in a place like that.

“Little Xiyan, what’s wrong with you?”

The nine year old Chi Muxue reached out and touched Chi Xiyan’s cheek.

Her large eyes were full of suspicion.

“You have such an awful expression.”

Those soft, tender little fingertips gently pressed against Chi Xiyan’s brow, as though trying to smooth out the furrow between her eyebrows.

“You’re only nine years old. You can’t make a face like that!”

“It’s aging you ten years!”

Chi Xiyan felt a wave of helplessness and reached up to grasp Chi Muxue’s wrist.

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She had long since come of age. She was no nine year old child.

Even less did she want to be comforted like a little sister by her own nine year old sister.

“I’m not small.” She lifted her head and said, “I’m older than you. I’m the older sister here.”

Chi Muxue poked a finger against Chi Xiyan’s forehead and said in her childish voice, “So childish.”

Chi Xiyan’s expression turned strange.

She had never imagined there would come a day when a nine year old girl would poke her on the forehead and call her childish.

“Have you forgotten again? Little Xiyan, we’re the same age,” Chi Muxue said. “But in the Chi family, I’m the eldest, so I’m the older sister!”

Chi Xiyan realized that arguing over seniority with a nine year old girl was indeed rather childish.

Though, this girl hadn’t looked anything like a nine year old when she was disciplining those family boys earlier.

Chi Xiyan decided she shouldn’t argue over this title any further.

She looked down at her injured leg, her eyes narrowing.

“You understand medicine?”

Even by the standards of Chi Xiyan, a disciple of Medical Immortal Valley herself, she couldn’t find a single flaw.

Whether it was cleaning the wound or applying the bandage and medicine, this girl’s skill was on par with her own.

And she was only nine years old.

Chi Muxue blinked. “Little Xiyan has forgotten again. I’m a disciple of Medical Immortal Valley too. My teacher is Fairy Luo of Medical Immortal Valley. I’ve been studying alchemy there all this time, and I only just came back to the Chi family recently.”

“And the moment I got back, I came straight to find you.”

“I never expected that little Xiyan would forget all about me. That really hurts my feelings!”

As she spoke, Chi Muxue put on a wounded expression.

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Chi Xiyan fell silent.

That’s right. This is my own dream. Whatever appears here, none of it should be strange.

So that’s why she took my place here in my dream.

She became me, and I became her.

If I’m meeting her within the formation, it must be because I fear her appearing.

Do I fear that she’ll take back what belongs to her, in reality?

Is it because everything I now have was always supposed to be hers to begin with.

And am I the true villain, the one who stole her life for my own?

Chi Xiyan let out a soft sigh. “Stop it.”

Chi Muxue wiped away tears that weren’t actually there. “I’m so hurt. Little Xiyan not only forgot me, she won’t even call me older sister.”

Chi Xiyan felt as though two dark lines had dropped over her forehead.

Why hadn’t she noticed before just how annoying this girl’s temperament was?

“Thank you. Sis… ter.”

She tilted her head and forced out that unfamiliar term with great difficulty.

“Thank you for helping treat my leg.”

The girl before her turned her tears into a smile at once. “Little Xiyan, you’re finally willing to call me older sister!”

“I’m not small,” Chi Xiyan protested.

Though, she had a feeling that no matter how much she protested, the girl before her had no intention of changing her tune.