Deng Caiying suffered from insomnia on the very first night he stayed here.
Because the owner of the residence played the zither all night long.
If it had been ordinary zither music, Deng Caiying, exhausted from days of traveling, would have been able to fall asleep. However, he had no idea how Young Heroine Wu had practiced her zither skills; the sound practically drilled straight into his ears. He couldn't ignore it even if he wanted to.
Moreover, it stirred up his emotions far too much.
During the latter half of the night, the tune changed, suddenly becoming deep and sorrowful. Hearing it, Deng Caiying, who had finally let go of the blood feud he had been carrying, cried for the entire night, only stopping when dawn broke the next day.
Deng Caiying was too embarrassed to present himself to his benefactor looking like such a mess. He took great care to wash and tidy himself up before going to greet Wu Zhen.
Wu Zhen was no longer playing the zither. She was sitting quietly beneath a pear tree, reading a book. Even though she had also stayed up all night, she showed no signs of fatigue. Seeing this, Deng Caiying couldn't help but sigh in admiration—she was indeed a master capable of killing the Life-Claiming Saber.
After exchanging greetings, Deng Caiying suddenly found himself with nothing to do. Previously, he had been constantly driven by his family's blood feud, and for the past month, he had exhausted himself searching for Wu Zhen. Now that he had suddenly relaxed, he was at a loss for what to do next.
But Wu Zhen did not care about the reason for his hesitation. She completely ignored the stationary NPC and proceeded to make poison according to her daily schedule.
She first went to her small herb garden, only to find that the herbs had already been harvested and sorted into categories on a nearby shelf. She wasn't surprised. Ever since they returned from the city and he asked her to heal his injuries, Jiang Zhenxue had silently started doing these chores.
She took the herbs she needed. Just as she was brewing the medicine, Deng Caiying approached her and asked, "Young Heroine Wu, is there anything I can help with?"
He had come at just the right time.
Wu Zhen turned her head and said, "Then take this bowl of medicine to Jiang Zhenxue."
Wu Zhen added, "The person you saw last night."
Deng Caiying was slightly startled, not expecting that such a small action last night could be noticed. His respect for Wu Zhen deepened even further.
However... was this Young Master Jiang ill?
Knowing his boundaries, he didn't ask any further questions. He carefully carried the bowl of medicine and walked forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wu Zhen casually dumping out the medicine dregs.
Then, from the patch of soil that came into contact with the dregs, an ominous, sizzling sound instantly arose.
Taking another look, the flowers and grass on that patch of land were corroding away at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Deng Caiying: ...
Wait, wait a minute.
Deng Caiying's hands trembled slightly. He stared fixedly at the thick, dark liquid in the bowl, almost unable to believe his own eyes.
...Was this really not some kind of lethal poison that killed on contact?
Why did he feel like it was even more toxic than a corpse-dissolving potion!
Was this really meant to cure Young Master Jiang, and not to murder him?
He didn't dare to ask at all, but Wu Zhen called out to stop him.
"Never mind, I'll deliver it myself."
She took the medicine bowl from Deng Caiying's hands.
She walked ahead. Deng Caiying hesitated for two seconds before silently following her.
Wu Zhen's pace was steady and quite fast; Deng Caiying even had to use a bit of his lightweight martial arts just to keep up with her.
She arrived at a secluded, tranquil courtyard, pushed open the door, and entered the room. A black-haired young man was sitting by a desk, looking through a scroll that appeared to be a map.
His eyelids were lowered, and his unbound black hair cascaded down like splashed ink, falling smoothly over the thin and somewhat loose plain-colored Daoist robe he wore, rising and falling slightly with his breathing.
Noticing someone approaching, he looked up. With a sweep of his sleeve, even though he clearly hadn't touched anything, the scroll rolled itself up from one side.
Wu Zhen was already immune to this person's increasingly alluring beauty. Looking straight ahead, she said, "Today's medicine."
Her expression remained as calm as usual, no different from when she was playing the zither.
Deng Caiying hesitated, wanting to say something but stopping himself.
Morality and his trust in his benefactor fought a battle in his heart. But in that brief moment of hesitation, Jiang Zhenxue took the medicine without a shred of suspicion and drank it all in one gulp without changing his expression.
Deng Caiying's brow twitched violently. By the time he thought about stopping him again, it was entirely too late. His face stiffened for a moment.
Wu Zhen tilted her head and asked, "How does it feel?"
Jiang Zhenxue replied, "Immediate results. The medicine's efficacy is astonishing."
Both of them were very calm and collected.
Leaving only Deng Caiying: ...??
Are you serious??
Or was it that peerless martial arts masters nowadays were all invulnerable to poisons to such an extent?
Deng Caiying felt a little dazed.
He had already begun to suspect that the highly toxic substance he had seen earlier was merely a hallucination caused by his lack of sleep.
Unable to wrap his head around it, Deng Caiying steadied his mind. He cupped his fists toward Jiang Zhenxue, whom he hadn't formally met yet, and said, "I am Deng Caiying. I have long admired Young Master Jiang's great name."
Jiang Zhenxue smiled and said, "You are too polite, young warrior. I am merely a traveling companion receiving Miss Wu's care. I am not worthy of such high praise."
His tone was humble, steady, and gentle, but Deng Caiying didn't believe a word of it.
Putting aside the fact that anyone traveling with Young Heroine Wu couldn't possibly be a simple character, he had always been sharp. The very first time he saw this man from afar last night, his intuition had been screaming warnings.
Although this Young Master Jiang spoke gently, he was surrounded by an unapproachable, distant coldness.
Moreover, he was absolutely, without a doubt, a very dangerous person.
He was just pondering how to respond when he saw Wu Zhen turn her head to look over, as if her attention had been drawn by their conversation. Only then did her eyes reflect his existence.
Wu Zhen looked Deng Caiying up and down.
Having looked too much at Jiang Zhenxue, a beautiful guy whose art style was completely different from the mortal realm, she was almost becoming unaccustomed to the character portraits and modeling styles of other NPCs. Slowly, she was even starting to develop face blindness.
Looking at him today, she realized that Deng Caiying was actually quite handsome and dignified.
Since his family's blood feud had been resolved by her, and he had come alone to find her to repay the debt of gratitude, he should be all by himself with simple social ties.
She tilted her head slightly and asked out of the blue, "Speaking of which, do you really have no other relatives left in your family? No elders or other attachments... Is that right?"
Jiang Zhenxue's movements paused for a moment.
His gaze still rested quietly on the black-haired young woman, holding a gentle smile, though it had faded by an imperceptible fraction.
Although Deng Caiying was a bit puzzled, he answered, "Yes, there are no elders in my family. The aunt who once lent a helping hand also passed away two years ago."
For some unknown reason, when he said this, Deng Caiying suddenly felt an illusory chill.
He subconsciously raised his head, looking in Jiang Zhenxue's direction almost by instinct.
The young man had lowered his eyelids at some point, hiding the misty gray tones that originally mingled in his pupils, leaving only a deep blackness cast in the shadow of his eyelashes.
The smiling expression on his face remained unchanged, yet the tone of his voice became increasingly patient and steady.
"Miss Wu," he mentioned gently, "today on the western courtyard wall, I seemed to have seen a white bird. I wonder if it might be the one you accidentally lost?"
Hearing these words, Wu Zhen's eyes immediately lit up, directly pushing the matter she had just been thinking about to the back of her mind.
"Is it Xiaoxue? I'll go take a look!"
Before her voice even faded, she swept out the door like a light breeze. Instantly, the atmosphere in the room grew unusually quiet.
Deng Caiying had a lingering sense that something was amiss, though his intuition did not send strong warning signals. This Young Master Jiang did not seem like the type to intentionally make things difficult.
"Miss Wu has always been straightforward and speaks her mind. If you find her hard to understand at times, young hero, please do not take it to heart."
It was not until the black-haired young woman's back had completely disappeared from sight that Jiang Zhenxue finally retracted his gaze and spoke with a smile.
Deng Caiying nodded and cupped his hands in a salute. "I understand. Thank you for the reminder, young master."
Jiang Zhenxue dropped the subject.
He tilted his head slightly and said, "It seems we have guests... Why don't you come with me, young hero, to see who has arrived?"
.
Meanwhile, outside the courtyard of the Wu family's ancestral estate.
Over a dozen people stumbled through the bamboo grove, covered in dirt and grime, their clothes torn and ragged. Upon seeing the main gate ahead, expressions of pure relief involuntarily washed over their faces.
"Didn't they say she had no master? Why is there such a formidable Qimen array outside this Wu family estate?"
A man with a full beard wiped his face and gritted his teeth as he spoke.
The people gathered here were not from the same group, nor had they arrived at the same time. Many of them even held grudges against one another. Yet, because of this bizarre bamboo array, regardless of who arrived first or last, they had all been forcefully trapped until now.
Had it not been for the later arrival of a descendant of an array master, they likely would have been trapped there until they died!
"I am afraid we have been used as someone else's blade," another person said bitterly, his face dark.
"Since we have already forcefully broken the array and forged a feud, there is no use regretting it now. We might as well think about how to cover up the news once we get our hands on the item," the array master's descendant said coldly.
She looked up, sizing up the tightly shut gates of the Wu estate, her words carrying a deeper meaning. "...Besides, the treasures inside might be far more than we imagined."
Behind the crowd, an old man stroked his beard and laughed in agreement. "Exactly. If there were no treasures, or if the owner of said treasures was truly powerful, why would they go to such lengths to set up an array here?"
At those words, everyone's eyes immediately burned with greed.
However, they had only bumped into each other by chance and had no intention of working together. Thus, they scattered to find their preferred vantage points, preparing to scale the walls.
Of course, there were also those supremely confident in their own strength, such as two other demonic cultivators. They marched straight for the main gate, planning to make heads roll inside first to avenge the Life-Claiming Saber who had died at the hands of that Wu Zhen.
Right at that moment, Deng Caiying had just reached the doors inside.
As a genuine first-rate expert in the martial world, he merely tilted his ear to listen and instantly knew there was a sizable group of highly skilled individuals outside. His expression shifted slightly, realizing things had taken a bad turn.
He turned his head to say something, only to see the young Daoist master who had walked over at a leisurely pace standing quietly beneath the eaves. The youth was looking up intently in a certain direction. There was not a shred of worry on his face; instead, his eyes curved into a gentle smile.
Deng Caiying froze for a second.
He subconsciously turned his head, looking in the same direction...
But before his eyes could land on anything concrete, he first heard a familiar, brisk female voice that carried an eerie, chilling quality.
That voice said,
"How fascinating. Even flower fertilizer knows how to climb walls."
