Chapter 9

Once this thought appeared, Xu Yizhuo inexplicably felt as if she had taken on a heavy responsibility.

But in reality, Xu Yizhuo was standing in the shadow at the base of the wall, slightly standing on tiptoe and peeking outside. No matter what, she refused to come out from there.

Logically speaking, with her family background, she should have seen plenty of scenes before… but Xu Yizhuo was just a salted fish who lazed around all day. She had not made any questionable friends, and whenever she got tired from learning all sorts of miscellaneous things, she would lie on her bed and pretend to be dead.

She really had never seen a scene like this.

Perhaps the atmosphere was too ambiguous, because the blush on Xu Yizhuo’s face had not faded at all. She carefully used her round fan to cover most of her face, revealing only a pair of eyes as she looked outside.

When she saw some scenes unsuitable for children, the fan could not help moving upward and covering even her eyes.

I really am a proper person.

Xu Yizhuo thought to herself.

But the moment she lowered the fan, she saw someone who was clearly even more proper and absolutely should not have appeared here.

Xu Yizhuo saw a disciple of Shiwai Tower trapped between two women, her face flushed red [bailiantales.com]as if she wished she could shrink into the ground.

It was already summer, and they were in a place like this. The two older sisters were dressed rather coolly. Their eyes were sharp, and they immediately saw that the “young man” trapped between them was actually a young girl disguised as a man. Once they realized that, they felt even less psychological pressure when teasing her.

The young girl had only just dodged one sister’s fair arm when another sister wrapped an arm around her slender waist. A dignified cultivator from Shiwai Tower was actually forced into complete helplessness by two mortal women, almost fleeing in panic.

Tsk, tsk. How embarrassing.

Xu Yizhuo thought this, but her body honestly shrank farther back.

Who would have known that with this movement, the cornered young girl’s eyes would suddenly light up? She forcefully broke free from the two women and ran toward Xu Yizhuo, reaching out her hand as she shouted, “This young lady—”

Xu Yizhuo froze.

She looked around, then pointed at herself blankly.

The young girl looked as if she had seen her lifesaving straw and nodded hard.

Xu Yizhuo was stunned. When had her invisibility spell failed?

Xu Yizhuo suddenly realized that she might be one of the rare properly dressed, decent people here. Even the young girl’s bailiantales.comclothes were disheveled, and she was missing an outer garment—though that had not been the work of the two women. She had accidentally lost it herself while fleeing in a panic.

In the young girl’s eyes, Xu Yizhuo was her lifeline.

Before Xu Yizhuo could react, her arm was grabbed and hugged tightly. The young girl wished she could stick her entire body onto Xu Yizhuo.

“Ladies, please stop here. I’ll just have her accompany me!”

The older sister in blue covered her mouth and laughed. “Little young master, this younger sister is not one of Willow Alley’s people.”

“Ah?” The young girl froze.

“I didn’t expect so many young ladies to be interested in our place.” Another woman in pink stepped forward and gently took Xu Yizhuo’s hand. “Little sister, this place is not somewhere good. If you come here alone and encounter danger, that would be terrible.”

Xu Yizhuo wished she could cover her entire face completely.

It would have been one thing if she had secretly stayed here using an invisibility spell, unnoticed by gods or ghosts… but how had she ended up being discovered?

Now she could not even secretly slip away.

“Drunken men often come to the back courtyard. Little sister, be careful not to be offended by anyone.” The woman in pink said, “Both little sisters should come to my room first. Once the two of us are free, we’ll send you out of Willow Alley.”

Xu Yizhuo nodded while using her fan to cover her face.

The fool beside her, who was still clinging to her and refusing to let go, looked around stupidly. “Where are the two young ladies?”

Xu Yizhuo really wanted to hit her with the fan and tell her to stop embarrassing herself.

The fool did not get hit on the head. Instead, the woman in blue pinched her cheek.

“‘Little young master,’ if you dress as a man in the future, remember to disguise your face too. Don’t just put on a man’s clothes and come to a place like this.”

The fool suddenly learned the terrible news that her disguise did not look convincing at all, and she froze on the spot.

Xu Yizhuo practically dragged her to the woman in pink’s room.

The two women were very busy at night. After sending them to the room, they left.

Only Xu Yizhuo and the fool remained, sitting on opposite sides of the table and staring at each other.

The atmosphere was too awkward. The young girl was the first one unable [bailiantales.com]to endure it. She coughed lightly twice and asked, “This young lady, why did you come to such a place of romance alone? Isn’t it far too dangerous?”

Xu Yizhuo was expressionless. “How exactly do you have the standing to say that to me?”

“I-I’m different!” The young girl’s face immediately turned red. “I’m…”

The rest of her words got stuck in her throat.

The young girl wanted to say that she was a cultivator, but just as the words were about to leave her mouth, she remembered that this kind of thing should not be casually said to mortals.

The Lidan River divided the worlds of cultivators and mortals. The two worlds had many unwritten rules, and one very important rule was that cultivators could not interfere with the lives of mortals.

In fact, even without this rule, the vast majority of cultivators did not want to get involved in cause and effect with mortals and affect their cultivation.

When they had no choice but to travel on the Eastern Continent for certain reasons, cultivators would hide their identities well.

Xu Yizhuo knew what the young girl wanted to say, but she had not forgotten the sorry state the girl had been in earlier when surrounded by those two women. She could not help looking at her with sympathy.

The young girl: “…”

What an irritating look.

The young girl finally thought of a point she could use to counterattack and said loudly, “I didn’t come here alone!”

Xu Yizhuo paused.

Cultivators even came to this kind of place in groups?

Although she knew that the Shiwai Tower cultivators had absolutely not come to Willow Alley to do that sort of thing, no matter how she thought about it, a group of cultivators coming together to a pleasure house still felt very strange.

If the young girl had not come alone, then… Jun Yu couldn’t have come too, right?

Xu Yizhuo shook her head and drove this absurd thought out of her mind.

Even if there was something they had to do in Willow Alley, they could just let the disciples of Shiwai Tower come. Jun Yu’s nature was noble and pure, untouched by dust. She definitely would not personally come to this sort of place.

Seeing Xu Yizhuo shake her head, the young girl widened her eyes. “You don’t believe me?”

Xu Yizhuo shook her head again. “It’s not that I don’t believe you…”

Before Xu Yizhuo could finish speaking, she was interrupted by a piercing scream outside. No one knew what had happened outside, [unauthorized copy]but everything suddenly descended into chaos. While Xu Yizhuo was still at a loss, she heard a woman shriek—

“Help! Someone’s dead!!”

The young girl’s expression changed abruptly. She shot to her feet and rushed out through the door. Xu Yizhuo could not even grab the corner of her sleeve.

Listening to the commotion outside, Xu Yizhuo lifted her skirt and quickly ran out of the woman in pink’s room as well.

Figures moved chaotically before her eyes.

“Excuse me, please let me through—”

Screams, cries of surprise, and all sorts of panicked questions drowned out Xu Yizhuo’s voice.

The small path in front of her was almost completely blocked. No matter what she did, she could not reach the place where the body had been found.

Relying on her small stature, Xu Yizhuo struggled to squeeze through the gaps in the human wall. Without her even noticing, her hairpin was squeezed loose and fell away. Her hair, which had already only been fixed in place by a single hairpin, came undone and scattered down.

Some strands of hair were caught on something unknown. Only when they were pulled and snapped did Xu Yizhuo feel the pain.

“Hiss…”

Xu Yizhuo sucked in a cold breath. In a moment of carelessness, she was bumped into by a drunkard and knocked off balance.

Xu Yizhuo staggered and fell forward.

In this world that seemed wrapped in the smell of alcohol, a faint fragrance suddenly appeared. Xu Yizhuo could not describe what scent it was. She only felt that it was a clear and elegant woody fragrance.

Xu Yizhuo fell into a soft embrace.

While apologizing, she hurriedly tried to stand up, but ended up stepping on the hem of her own skirt and falling again.

…So stupid.

Xu Yizhuo felt somewhat hopeless.

She had already crashed into the girl in front of her twice.

Xu Yizhuo felt a hand gently pat her back. Right after that, a familiar voice came from above her head.

“Don’t rush. Be careful.”

…It was Jun Yu’s voice.

Xu Yizhuo completely became a salted fish that did not dare move.