Chapter 21 – Magical Artifact

The candlelight flickered, illuminating a scene that the mortal world would never accept.

Chu Li was still immersed in her surging emotions and hadn’t noticed that the person beneath her had her long lashes trembling slightly as she slowly opened her eyes.

A soft push landed on her shoulder. To Chu Li at that moment, it felt as heavy as a thousand catties. She jerked backward abruptly. Her face instantly turned deathly pale as shame and fear rapidly took over her heart.

Xue Zhao’s eyes still carried the haziness of just waking from unconsciousness. Everything happening before her filled her gaze with undisguised shock. Even her lips were trembling slightly.

“You… what are you doing?” Her voice was dry and weak.

Xue Zhao’s shock, confusion, and the emotion Chu Li couldn’t identify — and didn’t dare to examine further — perhaps anger, perhaps disgust, made her heart ache unbearably. This question made her feel even more ashamed. She didn’t dare meet those eyes. Her already tear-filled gaze lowered, and two more clear tears slid down.

Xue Zhao struggled to prop herself up and lean half against the headboard. When her tightly furrowed brows touched the still-wet tear tracks and rolling teardrops on Chu Li’s face, they relaxed imperceptibly. Her tone softened involuntarily as she let out a soft sigh: “Why are you crying like this…”

Chu Li kept her head lowered, her shoulders trembling. She didn’t speak, only letting her tears flow even more fiercely.

She knew her feelings were unacceptable to the mortal world, and her actions were even more transgressive and shameless. Yet even though she had desecrated her like this, her master was still supporting her sickly body and showing concern for her.

Tears kept rolling down, sliding over her pale cheeks and dripping onto her collar, staining it with dark marks.

A slightly cool hand gently wiped away her tears ​read the original at bailiantales.com​and lifted her chin. There were even traces of her tears on Xue Zhao’s lips. Her expression was full of confusion.

“Is this how your master usually teaches you?” Xue Zhao’s voice remained gentle and calm as always — her usual composure that never lost its dignity. Deliberately using this self-reference, the warning was obvious.

Chu Li was forced to look up at her. For a moment, she couldn’t tell whether her master was referring to the desecration she had just committed, her current avoidance through crying, or both.

“Today’s matter, I will pretend it never happened.” Xue Zhao’s gaze was calm as she looked straight into her eyes. Her voice was soft and slow but left no room for doubt. “Do not forget the original intention of your cultivation and the promise you made when you entered the palace.”

From the initial haziness upon waking, to the shock of discovery, and now to this calmness — Xue Zhao adjusted her emotions extremely quickly. As the leader of a sect, once she understood the situation, she swiftly took control.

Chu Li thought in a daze that her master’s current gaze was so similar to Xuan Zhi’s. That seemingly gentle and compassionate look, which actually saw through worldly affairs and carried immense pressure, was clearly inherited from the same source.

But when her master was young, she hadn’t seemed so detached and calm. Had the young Xue Zhao’s arrogance and stubbornness been extinguished in the bloody storms of the deep palace struggles, or had she deliberately erased it in Xuanji Palace by modeling herself after Xuan Zhi?

The more she thought about it, the more her heart ached unbearably.

Even though her master’s words and gaze at this moment pained her deeply.

But she didn’t want to defy her, and she couldn’t bear to see her distressed. Since her master had offered a way out, she would simply follow it.

Chu Li took a deep breath, suppressed her turbulent emotions, and made a promise to her: “Li’er… will not forget the promise I made to Master to take protecting all living beings in the world as my own duty.”

A trace of satisfied smile appeared at the corners of Xue Zhao’s lips.

This scene looked simple on the surface, with no major emotional outbursts or conflicts between the characters. However, the master and disciple’s inner emotions were full of twists and turns, with undercurrents surging. The calmer the surface appearance, the more it required the actors to portray the hidden turbulent waves beneath.

Even though Chu Li had long been aware that she harbored unusual feelings for Xue Zhao, at that time Xue Zhao was like a high-hanging bright moon in her heart — sacred and untouchable. After learning about that sealed past, the divine shell around Xue Zhao was stripped away in her heart. She couldn’t help thinking about how Xue Zhao had step by step become the calm and composed Palace Master of Xuanji Palace today. That pity grew uncontrollably.

The highest state of loving someone is to feel heartache for them.

Whether it was the initial script reading or the later discussions, this scene had always been regarded as one of the most important. Wei Lan, who already had strict requirements, took this scene to the level of nitpicking.

Even though both leads were in very good condition and coordination today, they still shot several versions before it passed.

Finally, when Wei Lan was satisfied, Song Feici collapsed on the edge of the bed and chatted with Yu Shuinao.

Song Feici blinked and started gossiping: “Was that your first kiss?”

Yu Shuinao shook her head. “No.”

Song Feici: “Of course, a great beauty like our Sister Shuinao must have been in a relationship before.”

Her eyes rolled, and she added a qualifier without giving up: “Then was I your on-screen first kiss?”

Yu Shuinao poked her cheek. “Didn’t you say you’ve liked me for a long time? You don’t ​read the original at bailiantales.com​even know this? So you were lying to me again.”

Song Feici acted shamelessly: “Aiya, that’s not it! I just forgot! Sister, tell me~ Was it? Was it?”

Unable to withstand her soft pleading, Yu Shuinao gave a soft “Mm.”

Song Feici immediately covered her face in exaggerated shyness, only revealing a pair of eyes that sparkled as she looked at Yu Shuinao. “What should I do?”

Yu Shuinao: “What do you mean ‘what should I do’?”

Song Feici: “I’m shy now.”

Yu Shuinao laughed helplessly. “Why are you shy? Shouldn’t I be the one who’s shy?”

“Then you should be shy too.” Song Feici put down her hands and smiled with curved eyes. “I stole the goddess’s on-screen first kiss. I’m going to brag about it for ten years.”

Yu Shuinao’s lips carried a faint smile as she listened to her vividly describe how everyone at school liked her, how jealous they were when they learned she was going to work with the goddess — it was like a one-woman stand-up comedy.

At the end, Song Feici even gave her evaluation: “Mmm… it was very soft.”

Yu Shuinao’s lips curved again, but her thoughts unconsciously drifted far away, landing on that brief, gentle kiss that had lingered at the corner of her lips.

Very soft.

“If you record that last part and send it out, your PR department can start handling your sexual harassment scandal tonight.” Wei Lan somehow walked over and interjected coolly.

Song Feici immediately jumped up. “What kind of sexual harassment is that?!”

Wei Lan’s expression was blank. “Verbal sexual harassment is still sexual harassment. Same-sex sexual harassment is still sexual harassment.”

Song Feici argued with reason: “What sexual harassment? I was just sincerely complimenting her, okay? Sure enough, dirty hearts see everything as dirty.”

Wei Lan nodded. “Yes, exactly. Go tell that to the judge and the netizens.”

These two bickered whenever they had free time on set. If not for Song Feici swearing that she absolutely did not like Wei Lan — even saying that if Wei Lan were the only woman left in the world, she still wouldn’t like her — Yu Shuinao would have continued misunderstanding that there was something between the two of them.

…

The first half of *Asking the Heart* focused on plot setup, while the second half intertwined the plot with the emotional line. During this period, there were large stretches of emotional scenes. One protagonist was restrained and enduring, the other deeply affectionate and hard to suppress. To perform them well required not only a profound understanding of the characters but also acting skills capable of clearly layering the complex, overlapping emotions. During these scenes, not only did Yu Shuinao frequently NG, but Song Feici also got stuck quite a few times.

It was unclear whether it was because the smooth progress in the previous period had put Wei Lan in a better mood, or because she knew how difficult the second half was and had learned to comfort the actors. Lately on set she had restrained her temper. Even when there were many NGs, she didn’t lose her temper. She explained the scenes in a gentle and patient voice and sometimes even proactively called for a stop to let the actors adjust their state.

Song Feici looked at her as if she had seen a ghost and told Yu Shuinao that if Wei Lan could always be like this, she would definitely be the director with the best reputation in the industry.

Gentle, and very good at training actors — she really was the dream director.

In the plot, Xue Zhao’s injuries gradually improved. Although Chu Li had outwardly followed the step her master offered and agreed, the word “love,” once it surged, could no longer be suppressed just because one said so. When you love someone, how could you not hope for a response from the other party — even if this emotion was unacceptable to the world, even if the hope was slim?

Especially after that day, her inner emotions became even more turbulent and hard to suppress.

If not for fearing that Xue Zhao would be criticized by the world, Chu Li wouldn’t even want to maintain the surface-level restraint.

But saying “I love you” with words alone was too light and too pale. She only wanted to share her burdens and didn’t want to see her worried anymore.

The top priority was to unravel the secret of the purest bloodline, eliminate the demonic cultivators, and resolve the great calamity facing the mortal world.

Only then could she peacefully stay by her master’s side forever. There was still a long future ahead — she was not in a hurry.

However, before setting off again to explore the clues in Jin Luan, an unexpected event allowed Chu Li to learn the truth behind her sect’s extermination.

At the time of the massacre, she had been young and ignorant, unable to recognize the killers who slaughtered her entire family. Later, through secret investigations, she learned it was the locally renowned sword sect, Clear River Sect. What angered her even more was that Clear River Sect actually claimed it was “justified.” They declared that the Chu family had been secretly colluding with demonic cultivators, and Clear River Sect had acted righteously to purge the sect.

How could the Chu family have been colluding with demonic cultivators?

During this trip to Jin Luan, she accidentally saved a traitor who was being hunted by Clear River Sect.

From her mouth, Chu Li learned the horrifying truth: the massacre of the Chu family by Clear River Sect back then was not justified at all — it was actually done out of guilt! The sect leader of Clear River Sect, Feng Cheng, had been stuck at a bottleneck in his cultivation for many years and began seeking crooked paths. A mysterious demonic cultivator taught him a cultivation method. After learning the demonic arts, Feng Cheng’s strength advanced by leaps and bounds, and his status in the martial world rose accordingly. From then on, he became addicted. He grew increasingly dependent on that [Read on BaiLianTales]demonic cultivator. The demonic cultivator naturally had conditions for helping him. He gave Feng Cheng a magical artifact and ordered him to find the person who could make the artifact change color.

Over the years, Clear River Sect had widely recruited disciples largely to complete this task given by the demonic cultivator. However, one day this magical artifact mysteriously disappeared. And Feng Cheng’s secret conversation with the demonic cultivator happened to be overheard by Chu Li’s mother on that very day. Feng Cheng didn’t dare report the disappearance of the artifact to the demonic cultivator, and Chu Li’s mother became his primary suspect.

The massacre was partly to prevent the matter of colluding with the demonic cultivator from leaking out, and partly to recover the artifact.

As for what it meant for the artifact to change color, or what finding the person who could make it change color could achieve — probably no one knew except that demonic cultivator.

So… the red bell they interrogated her about that day — was that the missing magical artifact?