Chapter 4
Wanqi Yu walked ahead at an unhurried pace, patiently allowing Mo Shuangshuang to trail behind her the entire way. When they reached the entrance of the inn and were about to part ways, Wanqi Yu finally turned to her and said, “We’re here.”
Mo Shuangshuang snapped out of her daze. Staring blankly at the vermilion threshold of the inn’s entrance, she murmured an absentminded “Oh.” When she looked up and saw that Wanqi Yu was about to leave, she hurriedly called out, “Sister Wanqi Yu!”
Wanqi Yu stopped and turned to look at her. The smile remained on her jade-like face, as warm and gentle as a spring breeze. “What is it?”
Seeing her like this made Mo Shuangshuang feel that she resembled her eldest sister even more. And she would never willingly deceive her eldest sister.
Her lips moved, and she was just about to say something when a gentle female voice came from the inn’s main hall. “Junior Sister Wanqi?”
Mo Shuangshuang turned her head and saw a graceful female cultivator in white emerging from the hall. Her attire was almost identical to Wanqi Yu’s, except for an exquisitely crafted plum-blossom jade hairpin adorning her bun. Although her appearance was not as beautiful or refined as Wanqi Yu’s, she possessed an open and confident bearing that made it difficult for anyone to underestimate her.
Naturally, Mo Shuangshuang couldn’t discern all these subtleties. She merely remembered seeing this woman before and knew that she was Ji Xing, the eldest senior sister of the Cangyu Sect, who seemed to be on fairly good terms with Wanqi Yu.
Ji Xing placed a hand on Wanqi Yu’s shoulder, glanced curiously at Mo Shuangshuang, and asked with a smile, “Where did you go just now?”
Wanqi Yu shifted her shoulder slightly and stepped aside, avoiding Ji Xing’s touch. The corners of her lips curved upward, but there was little amusement in her dark eyes. She replied indifferently, “Nowhere in particular. I just went out to look for Red Blood Stones.”
Ji Xing was already accustomed to Wanqi Yu’s peculiar aversion to physical contact. Hearing this, she merely shrugged, then directed an amused glance at Mo Shuangshuang. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
Wanqi Yu smiled faintly. “Just a child from next door. Eldest Senior Sister, did you come out specifically to wait for me? Is something the matter?”
Mo Shuangshuang quietly watched the two fellow disciples chat for a while. Seeing that neither of them was paying attention to her, she could only lower her head and leave.
In the end, she hadn’t dared to tell Wanqi Yu the truth. Now that the right opportunity had passed, she no longer had the courage to speak up. In fact, she desperately wanted to tell her that her name wasn’t Fu Xinhan and that she wasn’t a boy. Her name was Mo Shuangshuang, and she was a girl. She wanted to become friends with Wanqi Yu as her true self.
After returning to her room, Mo Shuangshuang felt terribly dejected. In her fifteen years of life, although she couldn’t claim to have never made mistakes, she had never knowingly done something wrong against her conscience. And now, the person she was wronging was none other than Sister Wanqi Yu, whom she liked so much.
Second Sister always called her a little dummy, but even if she was foolish, she could still sense Sister Wanqi Yu’s gentleness and tolerance.
Earlier that day, Wanqi Yu hadn’t needed to escort her back at all. Although she might be nothing more than a vaguely familiar child from next door in the other woman’s eyes, the concern Wanqi Yu had shown her was genuine. Yet she had repaid that kindness with deception.
Seeing how downcast she was, Siming tried to comfort her. “How can you call what you did a bad thing? Think about it. What was your goal, and what have you actually done so far?”
Mo Shuangshuang sat on the steps in the courtyard, resting her chin in her hands as she thought carefully. Her goal was to become friends with Sister Wanqi Yu. As for what she had done so far, she had given her a peach, then stood up against injustice and played the hero rescuing a beauty?
Seeing the little girl’s eyes brighten, Siming patiently guided her. “See? I told you. You haven’t done anything bad, so there’s no need to blame yourself.”
Mo Shuangshuang opened her mouth, but something suddenly flashed through her mind, and she immediately wilted again. “No, that’s not right. I lied to Sister Wanqi Yu. I’m not…”
Before she could finish speaking, Siming hurriedly covered her mouth with a hand. Raising her index finger in front of Mo Shuangshuang’s eyes, she made a shushing sound and warned, “Don’t you dare say it! You absolutely, absolutely mustn’t tell her the truth! Otherwise, you’ll really be making a terrible mistake!”
Afraid that Mo Shuangshuang would ruin everything, Siming immediately added, “Don’t forget why I came looking for you in the first place. If you hadn’t caused Fu Xinhan’s death, would a goddess like me have come to ask you to impersonate him?”
At the mention of what had happened a month ago, a visible shadow fell over Mo Shuangshuang’s fair little face. She lowered her head dejectedly and said, “I-I only saw that big brother collapse by the roadside, so I wanted to help him move somewhere he could rest.”
Siming looked utterly distressed. “Has no one ever told you not to casually help cultivators who have collapsed by the roadside? What if they happen to be undergoing a heart-demon tribulation? If you touch them at a moment like that, they could drop dead on the spot!”
Mo Shuangshuang hesitated for a long time before weakly protesting, “But when I helped that big brother, he was still perfectly fine.”
“He was fine at the time, but the moment he went back, he dropped dead! Otherwise, why would I have come looking for you?”
Mo Shuangshuang was at a loss for words. She wanted to explain herself, but she couldn’t help feeling that it really was her fault. Her lips turned down in a pitiful pout, and her eyes immediately reddened.
The sound of a door opening came from behind her. It was Mo Wenxue. “Little dummy, what are you doing sitting in front of the door? And why are you secretly wearing my men’s clothes?”
Mo Shuangshuang didn’t want her second sister to see her in such a miserable state. Hearing her voice, she hurriedly covered her face, mumbled “Second Sister,” and ran away.
Mo Wenxue remained frozen in the act of opening the door, staring dumbfounded as Mo Shuangshuang sprang up like an agile rabbit and vanished in an instant. Only after a long moment did she thoughtfully stroke her chin and murmur to herself, “Something’s going on. Could it be that…?”
Mo Shuangshuang fled straight back to her room in one breath. Only after realizing that her second sister hadn’t followed her did she finally breathe a sigh of relief.
She thought about Wanqi Yu and the unfamiliar young man who had died because of her. She thought about them so much that she couldn’t sleep the entire night. When she finally managed to drift off in a daze, she began having nightmares in the middle of the night.
In her dreams, not only did she relive what had happened that day, but she even dreamed that the young man had turned into a vengeful ghost seeking her life. The nightmare continued until she woke up in terror.
Siming was a goddess and had no need to sleep, but she didn’t stay beside Mo Shuangshuang every moment either. At that time, she had disappeared to who knew where.
Mo Shuangshuang sat on her bed, hugging her knees as she stared blankly at the moon outside the window. The moon was shaped like a silver hook, half-hidden behind a dark cloud, much like her own gloomy mood.
The door creaked open. Mo Aoshuang had heard the disturbance and specially come to check on her. She asked worriedly, “Shuang’er, what’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?”
Mo Shuangshuang knew that whenever her eldest sister returned home, she would instinctively come to her room to check on her, so she wasn’t surprised. She merely stared at the patch of moonlight near the window and murmured, “Eldest Sister, if I did something bad, what should I do?”
The mattress dipped as Mo Aoshuang sat down beside her. Gently stroking her head, she asked tenderly, “Then did Shuang’er do it on purpose?”
Mo Shuangshuang hurriedly raised her head and denied it. “No! I didn’t do it on purpose! It was an accident!”
Mo Aoshuang smiled. “You know yourself that it was an accident, so why are you blaming yourself?”
Mo Shuangshuang was speechless for a moment. She lowered her head again and murmured, “Because even though Shuang’er didn’t mean to do it, it caused something terrible to happen.”
Mo Aoshuang studied her carefully for quite some time. Thinking about what her little sister had said, she chose her words before asking, “In that case, have you thought of a way to make amends?”
“I…” Mo Shuangshuang remembered what Siming had told her. If she played Fu Xinhan’s role properly, not only would Sister Wanqi Yu be able to live out her life peacefully, but Big Brother Fu Xinhan would also be reborn into a good family in his next life. She had originally intended to do exactly that. But even so, lying to someone was still wrong.
Yet if she didn’t lie, Sister Wanqi Yu wouldn’t have a good ending, and Big Brother Fu Xinhan would lose his chance at a good next life. For the first time, Mo Shuangshuang found herself facing such a difficult dilemma, torn between two choices. Her brows knitted so tightly that the crease between them could have crushed a mosquito.
Mo Aoshuang gently touched the space between her eyebrows with a fingertip and said with an amused smile, “It seems you’re really troubled. Can you tell Eldest Sister what’s bothering you?”
Siming’s face surfaced in Mo Shuangshuang’s mind. She bit her lip in distress. “Eldest Sister, I…”
“All right, all right. If you don’t want to talk about it, then you don’t have to.” Mo Aoshuang affectionately patted her head and said indulgently, “No matter what happens, you must remember that your eldest and second sisters will always be by your side. If you encounter something you truly can’t solve, don’t try to bear it all alone. Tell us, and we’ll solve it for you.”
Mo Shuangshuang’s heart swelled with a bittersweet warmth, and she answered with a loud “Mm!” Looking at her eldest sister’s face, which appeared even more beautiful beneath the moonlight, she suddenly felt a sense of clarity. Although the problem hadn’t been resolved at all, she somehow felt as though she had gained endless courage.
Once she became someone important, once everything was over, she would confess the entire truth to Sister Wanqi Yu. Whether Wanqi Yu wanted to kill her or punish her, she would leave the decision entirely in her hands and wouldn’t utter a single word of complaint. After all, she was the one who had deceived her first.
“It’s late. Go to sleep.”
Mo Shuangshuang nodded vigorously. Under Mo Aoshuang’s gentle gaze, she promptly lay down and closed her eyes. Before long, her breathing grew steady, and she fell asleep.
Mo Aoshuang gazed at her little sister’s carefree sleeping face, tucked the blanket around her, then stood up and quietly left the room.
The next morning, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Mo Shuangshuang was hurriedly woken by Siming. Siming told her that Wanqi Yu had gone out the previous night and hadn’t returned. At that very moment, she was lying unconscious in a cave, her life hanging by a thread.
Mo Shuangshuang immediately forgot all about her self-pity. Without even eating breakfast, she grabbed her Wushuang Saber and rushed out in a panic.
——
When her eldest sister, Mo Aoshuang, opened the door and found her little sister missing, she was just wondering where she had gone when she saw Mo Wenxue leaning against a doorpost with a solemn expression.
Mo Aoshuang glanced at her. “Where did Shuang’er go?”
Mo Wenxue narrowed her eyes and rubbed her chin before saying something that left Mo Aoshuang utterly shocked. “Probably off to meet her sweetheart. No, wait. She’s wearing men’s clothing, so the other person must be a woman?”
Mo Aoshuang’s expression changed drastically. “What did you say?”
——
Mo Shuangshuang ran all the way to the forest outside Piling Town before suddenly realizing something. If even someone with Wanqi Yu’s cultivation couldn’t deal with the person or demonic beast that had attacked her, then wouldn’t going there with her own cultivation level be nothing short of throwing her life away?
She began to lose her nerve and was about to turn back to get reinforcements when Siming stopped her. “Why are you thinking so much? I already told you that you’re the only one who can save her! There definitely won’t be any danger!”
“If you keep hesitating, Wanqi Yu will bleed to death!”
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