Chapter 5

Neither Wen Zhuqing nor Fu Sheng could make sense of so many questions, so they simply stopped thinking about them.

“Are you still tired now?” Wen Zhuqing asked cautiously.

“Not while I’m in here,” Fu Sheng answered honestly.

She then sat down beside Wen Zhuqing. “Can you tell me what happened over the past five years?”

“That’s far too much to cover.” Faced with such a sudden question, Wen Zhuqing did not even know where to begin. Quite a lot had happened over five years.

“Then start with yourself. Just tell me whatever comes to mind.” Fu Sheng turned toward her, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

Wen Zhuqing sighed. “You certainly know how to make things difficult for someone.”

Fu Sheng scratched her head. “If it’s too difficult to explain, then forget it.”

After hearing her say that, how could Wen Zhuqing possibly claim it was too difficult?

“Give me a moment. Let me organize my thoughts.” Wen Zhuqing carefully thought back over the past five years.

“Actually, there isn’t much to say. I simply did the same things you used to do—cultivate, go on missions, then return and cultivate again. Your esteemed lady mother, the city lord, wouldn’t let you become involved in the affairs of the city lord’s residence. Occasionally, some tactless people would try to curry favor with you, but I mostly ignored them. Your mother didn’t want you concerning yourself with too many trivial matters either, so life was fairly uncomplicated.”

“At first, I was terrified someone might discover the truth, so I openly and discreetly asked people about your preferences and how you usually conducted yourself. But it seems the young city lord wasn’t particularly good at socializing and offended quite a few people. Of course, none of them were worth befriending anyway.” Wen Zhuqing stretched and sat up.

She turned to look at Fu Sheng. Although she had worn this face for five years, this was the first time she had ever viewed it like this.

She had to admit that Fu Sheng was indeed an exquisitely beautiful young woman with a cool, ethereal air.

But now that Fu Sheng was before her, she merely seemed somewhat aloof. She did not possess that icy, unapproachable presence, which only made Wen Zhuqing like her even more.

Fu Sheng looked slightly embarrassed when Wen Zhuqing said she was not good at socializing.

Nevertheless, she still replied awkwardly, “They were the ones who insisted on provoking me.”

Hearing the stubborn, tsundere note in her voice, Wen Zhuqing chuckled. “That’s why I said they weren’t worth befriending. They weren’t worthy of being close to our young city lord.”

Although they had known each other for only a few hours, Fu Sheng felt that the woman before her understood her better than the people she had lived alongside for fifteen years.

But that made sense. This person had occupied her body for five years. She would have had to understand Fu Sheng even if she had not wanted to.

“In any case, I avoided those people over the years, so there isn’t much to say about interpersonal relationships. I didn’t handle them much better than you did, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“There are a few people I should tell you about, though. The first is Duan Yujing, the daughter of Changhuai Sect’s sect master. She’s quite formidable—both talented and intelligent. She’s now one of the core members of your team and can be trusted. I’ve never met her father. Her mother is the sect master of Changhuai Sect. However, Duan Yujing entered the city lord’s residence and became a nominal disciple of your mother, so she hardly involves herself in the sect’s affairs.”

“Then there’s Lu Yuan. His talent is slightly inferior, and although he’s very intelligent, he’s also self-serving and shouldn’t be trusted too much. The others are fellow disciples who grew up with you. I assume you still understand them.”

After Wen Zhuqing finished, Fu Sheng blinked in confusion. “What am I supposed to understand?”

“Their conduct, personalities, and temperaments, of course. Your mother only officially assigned them to my side after I came to this world, but they still grew up alongside you. Don’t you understand them at all?” Fu Sheng’s question left Wen Zhuqing baffled.

“Oh, you mean those things. I don’t really understand them either.” Fu Sheng sighed softly. “If I didn’t understand them, I wouldn’t become too close to them, nor would I unconsciously begin feeling reluctant to hurt them. These fellow disciples may nominally be Mother’s students, but in her eyes, they’re no different from the guards of Beiliang City. They merely have the title of master and disciple so that they will work harder for her in the future.”

Wen Zhuqing opened her mouth, but ultimately closed it without saying anything. She had never investigated such matters too deeply.

“Mother said I would inherit the position of city lord one day. She always told me that these people were merely my pawns. How could the player develop feelings for the pieces on the board? Unnecessary emotions would interfere with my judgment of the situation. The Northern Wastes doesn’t need a city lord with a strong capacity for empathy. All it needs is a powerful and decisive city lord who can lead its people in surviving beneath the Central Continent’s oppression.”

Wen Zhuqing turned her gaze toward the distant lake, unsure of what to say. From the perspective of an ordinary mortal or cultivator, she might have thought the same way.

The distribution of resources across the continent was far too unequal. The Central Continent possessed the finest resources and the most abundant spiritual energy. The foundations of any minor clan there might be stronger than those of a mid-sized sect in the Northern Wastes.

The Central Continent had countless powerful cultivators, the Ten Great Sects, the Four Great Clans, and the Human Sovereign to govern it. It possessed every advantage of timing, geography, and unity.

As for the Four Wastes beyond the Central Continent, the Northern Wastes remained cold throughout the year, with most of its land buried beneath Read on BaiLianTalesice and snow that never melted. Eighty percent of the Western Wastes was desert. The Southern Wastes was filled with miasma, insects, and snakes, making survival difficult. The Eastern Wastes was somewhat better, consisting mostly of islands with relatively abundant spiritual energy, but conditions at sea were equally harsh. The powerful Sea Clan dominated the ocean, making survival just as difficult for humans. As a result, the Eastern Wastes was mostly inhabited by the demon race.

The lands under the Central Continent’s Human Sovereign and the demon race of the Eastern Wastes had opposed one another for a thousand years.

Leaving the Eastern Wastes aside for now, every region outside the Central Continent was overrun with demonic beasts. Spiritual energy was scarce, making cultivation far more difficult for humans.

At twenty years old, Beiliang City’s young city lord was only one step away from the Refining Qi into Spirit realm. In a place like the Northern Wastes, she was already an astonishing, once-in-a-generation genius blessed by the heavens. But Wen Zhuqing knew that talent like hers could be found everywhere in the Central Continent.

This alone demonstrated the vast difference between the Northern Wastes and the Central Continent.

Yet even under such circumstances, the Northern Wastes was not united.

On the contrary, the major sects and clans were constantly fighting over their limited resources.

It was not until a century ago, when Beiliang City produced a powerful and ruthlessly decisive city lord who appeared poised to unite the Northern Wastes, that the conflicts finally began to subside. Life also became much easier for ordinary cultivators and mortals.

That city lord was Fu Sheng’s mother, Fu Wen. Wen Zhuqing’s impression of her could be summarized in two phrases: lofty and untouchable, cold-blooded and merciless.

Yet Wen Zhuqing sometimes could not help wondering whether someone capable of ending so much killing and warfare could truly be heartless.

She did not know. After all, she had always felt guilty and therefore never dared to pry carelessly into Fu Wen’s thoughts. Most of the time, Wen Zhuqing simply did whatever Fu Wen instructed her to do.

But as time passed, she inevitably found her life oppressive and tedious. Presumably, Fu Sheng had felt the same way.

Even Wen Zhuqing, the false daughter, had found it unbearable. Fu Sheng had lived beneath that pressure since childhood, so it was no wonder she had developed such a personality.

“What do you think about it?” Wen Zhuqing asked softly.

Fu Sheng shook her head and sighed. “I don’t like it, but I don’t dare defy Mother.”

This was the first time she had ever revealed her true feelings to anyone. Fu Sheng looked at Wen Zhuqing. “Can I trust you completely?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere, but Wen Zhuqing laughed. “You can.”

“As long as you dare to.”

Fu Sheng said nothing more. Wen Zhuqing lay back down and continued, “I heard from your mother that, in principle, you should’ve been capable of defeating the demonic beast that injured you if you fought with all your strength. Or at the very least, you shouldn’t have been so severely wounded. At the time, I explained that the beast had developed intelligence and was extremely cunning, so you fell into its trap after momentarily lowering your guard.”

“Your mother scolded me, but at least I managed to muddle my way through. Still, I’ve always been curious. Was it truly an accident?” Wen Zhuqing genuinely wanted to know.

Based on what she had learned about Fu Sheng over the years, as well as their interactions during the past few hours, Fu Sheng did not seem like such a careless person.

Wen Zhuqing had also investigated the demonic beast’s strength. After thinking about it many times, she concluded that if Fu Sheng had fought desperately, she should have been able to create a slim chance of survival for herself.

Sitting beside her, Fu Sheng lowered her head slightly and met Wen Zhuqing’s gaze. After a long silence, she asked, “You spent five years as Beiliang City’s young city lord. Why don’t you guess why I sought death?”

Wen Zhuqing: …

Why did this awkward girl enjoy making people guess everything?

After thinking for a long while, Wen Zhuqing said, “You couldn’t keep up the act anymore?”

“You had to pretend to be aloof every day, your life was oppressive, and you had no one to confide in about how miserable you felt. You bottled everything up until you couldn’t bear it anymore, so a rebellious young woman decided to rebel for once and teach her lofty, self-important mother a lesson?” Wen Zhuqing began inventing a story. She had been an artist in her previous life and had occasionally drawn comic strips, so she was at least capable of making up this much nonsense.

Fu Sheng heaved a heavy sigh. “Exactly.”

Fortunately, Wen Zhuqing had not been drinking water, or she would have choked. She had not expected the young city lord to have genuinely rebelled.

“But it wasn’t because I wanted to teach Mother a lesson. Mother is extremely powerful, and I know I cannot compare to her. It merely seemed that no matter what I did, I could never meet her expectations. She always appeared disappointed in me. I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do. Moreover, my cultivation had reached an impasse during that period, which affected my state of mind. I wanted to leave Beiliang City and the Northern Wastes. I planned to fake my death and secretly escape. There’s no need to explain the details of the plan now. But an accident occurred, the plan failed, and I truly did nearly die.” Fu Sheng smiled bitterly.

Wen Zhuqing sat up and rubbed her head. “That wasn’t a good thing to do. Nothing is more important than staying alive. Don’t worry—Big Sis will help you from now on. If anything makes you unhappy, you can tell me. Don’t keep everything bottled up inside.”

After being comforted by Wen Zhuqing, Fu Sheng’s lips finally curved into a rare smile, and the coldness surrounding her completely dispersed. She lay down beside Wen Zhuqing. “But aren’t you already inside my heart, Big Sister?”

The words sounded rather strange. However, determined to be a caring older sister, Wen Zhuqing decided to refute her in a lighter tone. “I’m inside your soul sea, and your soul sea is inside your head. How does that count as being inside your heart? Don’t talk nonsense.”

Her half-joking retort successfully amused Fu Sheng, who gave a rare, relaxed laugh.

“Also, you should stop calling me Big Sister. It feels strange. My name is Wen Zhuqing.”

“Then what should I call you?” Fu Sheng looked confused, as though Wen Zhuqing had presented her with another difficult problem.

Wen Zhuqing suddenly remembered that her friends in her previous life had all called her Zhuzi, but the thought of Fu Sheng calling her that felt strangely awkward.

“Zhuzi~” Fu Sheng seemed to have read Wen Zhuqing’s thoughts again.

The moment Wen Zhuqing heard her say it, she nearly bristled.

Fu Sheng innocently raised her hands. “I didn’t do it deliberately.”

“Zhu?”

Wen Zhuqing: …

One tiny slip of the tongue and it would become zhu—“pig.”

For the first time, Wen Zhuqing realized how difficult her name was to address.

“Just call me by my full name,” Wen Zhuqing said wearily.

“It’s impolite to address someone directly by their full name.”

“You don’t like it when I call you Young City Lord, and it’s impolite for me to call you Fu Sheng. Since both are impolite, two negatives make a positive, which means it becomes polite.”

A trace of confusion appeared in Fu Sheng’s eyes. What kind of logic was that?