Lu Jinshuang rode after her on a white horse and couldn’t help letting out a soft laugh. “Little Yue, you’re riding a mule, while I’m riding a horse.”
But after chasing her for a while, Lu Jinshuang realized something was wrong. No matter how hard she urged her horse on, there was always a certain distance between her and the mule ahead.
She was puzzled. “Strange. Is this horse possessed? Even among the powerful families in the capital, this horse’s speed is considered one of the best. How could it possibly be slower than a mule? Are mules really this fast?”
By the time she reached the foot of Golden Crow Mountain, Xi Qingyue had already been there for some time and was sitting beneath a sunshade, taking a rest.
The mule had lowered its head and was drinking water nearby. When it heard the approaching sounds, it lifted its head and cast Lu Jinshuang a glance before lowering it again and drinking even faster, as though afraid someone might steal its water.
Lu Jinshuang looked utterly baffled. Could she have seen that wrong?
It was one thing for a mule to guard its food, but it was clearly only drinking water. Did it really think she was going to fight it for a drink?
She nimbly leapt down from the white horse and walked over to Xi Qingyue. Before she could say anything, the white horse suddenly charged toward the mule, its target being the basin of water on the ground.
Tafeng sensed that something was trying to compete with her for the spirit spring water and immediately flew into a rage. She raised her front hooves and was just about to kick the white horse.
Xi Qingyue spoke calmly. “That’s enough. It’s only a basin of water. Is it really necessary? We’re all on the same side, so there’s enough for everyone.”
The next moment, another basin of water appeared on the ground. When Tafeng saw that it was filled to the brim, she hurried over. The white horse, meanwhile, drank from the basin Tafeng had already used.
Lu Jinshuang stared in astonishment. She pointed at Tafeng, then at the white horse, and finally turned to Xi Qingyue. “Little Yue, don’t tell me all the animals you keep are demons? They’ve actually become sentient! And why are they fighting over water?”
Xi Qingyue stood up and put away the chair and sunshade before storing both Tafeng and the white horse inside her space.
She gave Lu Jinshuang a faint smile. “You’re overthinking it. Where would demons come from in this world? As for the water, you should have a bowl too. It’ll make things more convenient once we enter the mountains.”
As she spoke, she handed Lu Jinshuang a bowl of water.
Lu Jinshuang accepted it and drank without hesitation. The instant the water entered her mouth, the fatigue from riding vanished, and she felt refreshed and full of energy.
She finished the entire bowl in one breath, then extended it with a beaming smile. “It’s delicious. It’s cool and sweet, and it makes my whole body feel refreshed. Give me another bowl.”
She knew the water was extraordinary, but Tafeng and the white horse could drink it by the basinful. Xi Qingyue clearly wasn’t short of it, so having two bowls shouldn’t be a problem.
Xi Qingyue smiled and directly replaced the bowl with a large one, filling it to the brim for her.
Only after Lu Jinshuang finished drinking did the two of them begin making their way up the mountain.
Very few people came to Golden Crow Mountain for sightseeing. Unlike other mountains, its paths had not been built into broad, spacious roads. Forget carriages—even walking uphill was difficult on the rough, uneven terrain.
Xi Qingyue chose a narrow trail. As she walked, she cleared away the weeds and thorny vines ahead of them, accomplishing almost everything in the blink of an eye.
Everywhere she passed, the trees and weeds seemed to come alive and make way for her. Even the uneven, muddy ground automatically became flat. She was practically a human road-building machine, rapidly carving out a path through the mountain forest.
Lu Jinshuang was so shocked that she was nearly speechless. Was this really something a human could do?
She swallowed nervously and looked at Xi Qingyue. “Little Yue, you’ve revealed this much in front of me. You’re not planning to kill me to keep me quiet, are you?”
Xi Qingyue rolled her eyes. “Do I look like that kind of person?”
Lu Jinshuang patted her chest. “That’s good. I thought I was going to be your next victim. You nearly scared me to death.”
Xi Qingyue burst out laughing. “You’re really getting addicted to the act, aren’t you? If you keep this up, I’ll hang you from a tree and go to Sunset Valley by myself.”
Lu Jinshuang hurried forward and hooked an arm around her shoulders, laughing. “Don’t! Who are you kidding? We’re practically sisters. I was only joking. How boring would it be for you to go to Sunset Valley alone, without even a sister to talk to? You’d die of boredom.”
As she spoke, she even winked at Xi Qingyue, looking every bit like a spoiled young noblewoman.
Xi Qingyue shook her head with a serious expression. “I won’t be bored. Lan’er should be waking up soon. I’ll bring her along—she’ll be thrilled.”
Still keeping an arm around Xi Qingyue as they walked, Lu Jinshuang continued, “Little Yue, Lan’er isn’t here anyway. Wouldn’t it be troublesome to go back and get her? I can accompany you instead. It’ll be just as good.”
She didn’t believe Xi Qingyue would actually go back and bring someone else along. She assumed Xi Qingyue was merely teasing her.
Xi Qingyue suddenly stopped and looked at her strangely. “Who said I was going back to get Lan’er? Have you forgotten how Tafeng came out?”
At those words, Lu Jinshuang’s mind exploded. She stood rooted to the spot, completely disoriented.
She seemed to have genuinely overlooked that point. Tafeng was alive, yet she could be stored inside a sleeve. If that was possible for an animal, then people should be able to be stored away as well.
Lu Jinshuang had been asleep the previous night and hadn’t known that Xi Qingyue had stored both a person and a carriage inside her space. Nan Yun wasn’t the sort to volunteer information, either. Only now did she realize that Xi Qingyue was far more extraordinary than she had imagined.
She looked at Xi Qingyue and suddenly asked seriously, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll expose your secret? That would be very dangerous for you.”
Xi Qingyue smiled indifferently. “It’s fine. I’m not afraid anymore. With a single thought, I could have you pierced by ten thousand arrows. Do you really think I’d be afraid of anyone?”
As she spoke, she pointed ahead. The weeds and thorny vines growing from the ground instantly transformed into sharp spikes and shot forward, punching a large hole through a tree.
She pointed toward the hollow in the tree and slowly said, “See? I’m not refusing to openly kill the Ninth Prince because I’m afraid. I simply want to live a leisurely life, and I don’t want to cause trouble for Big Sister Lu. Great Jing should be grateful that I met Big Sister Lu, and that I encountered you in Cloud City. Otherwise, you can imagine what the capital would have become.”
A wave of lingering fear swept over Lu Jinshuang when she heard this.
If Lu Qianning and her sister hadn’t crossed paths with Xi Qingyue on the road, and if they hadn’t given her the jade pendant, then Lu Jinshuang would never have misunderstood the situation and gone to Cloud City to find them.
Back when she was in the capital, even with her identity shielding them, plenty of people had still gone looking for trouble with the sisters while they were staying at her princess’s residence. She didn’t even dare imagine what would have happened if no one had known them. Would the capital have been flooded with blood—or transformed into an actual river of blood?
Xi Qingyue couldn’t help rolling her eyes at Lu Jinshuang’s ever-changing expression. “Look at how frightened you are. It’s not as if I’m going to eat you. Hurry up. Let’s go see what this paradise beyond the mortal world looks like.”
With that, she resumed clearing a path as she walked.
Half an hour later, Xi Qingyue and Lu Jinshuang stood at the entrance of a mountain cave. The entrance was completely blocked by thorny vines.
Without her special ability, it would have been difficult to discover that there was a cave here at all.
Xi Qingyue looked at the vegetation surrounding the cave and clicked her tongue in amazement. “No wonder ordinary people don’t know about this place. These plants have hallucinogenic properties, and there are also plenty of poisonous weeds, snakes, insects, and other deadly creatures nearby. Unless someone has a certain level of skill or knows medicine, they wouldn’t even know how they died.”
Lu Jinshuang nodded in agreement. “Exactly. If I hadn’t followed you up here, the consequences would have been hard to predict. I don’t know anything about medicine, so I could easily have fallen victim.”
Xi Qingyue swept her right hand, sending the thorny brambles blocking the cave entrance flying aside and revealing an opening wide enough for four or five people to pass through.
She took out a powerful flashlight and shone it inside. “We’ve finally made it. Come on, let’s go take a look.”
