Chapter 40: Feelings

Ziying smiled and asked, "How is it? You like it, don't you?"

The little girl nodded like a pounding pestle, "Aunt Zi, I like it, I really do."

Pulling the two children close to her side, the woman in the purple dress asked seemingly casually, "What cultivation lessons do you practice every day?"

The two children reported honestly.

Actually, their master had given instructions not to speak of these things to outsiders, but they figured their master and Aunt Zi were on such good terms that he certainly wouldn't mind.

Xiaoyu spoke up first, "Every day we practice meditation and Qi refinement for one hour, and I also need to practice swordsmanship for an extra half hour, followed by reading sword scriptures for another half hour."

Yu Chi lowered his head and said, "I have to practice thunder magic for one hour."

Aunt Zi nodded slightly, though inwardly she was secretly astonished. The two children were only about ten years old; in her own sect, children of that age only needed to practice Qi refinement for half an hour under the guidance of a preceptor.

Second-thought arose, however, and realizing they were his direct disciples, she was not quite as surprised.

After leading the two children to their respective rooms, Ziying turned back.

Upon entering the room, she still asked with some lingering unease, "With Xiaoyu and the others being so young, won't something go wrong with practicing like this?"

Zhou You instantly understood; those two little imps must have spilled the details of their cultivation routine.

He sighed, "Did they tell you everything?"

Sensing that he might be somewhat angry, Ziying said softly, "I asked them proactively, so please don't blame them."

Zhou You nodded, "Only you. If you were to pour your heart out to others like this, you would surely suffer plenty of hardships in the future."

He continued, "These two children possess remarkable innate bones. Even on my home mountain, they would be considered exceptionally talented; apart from my two youngest junior brothers and sisters, no one can surpass them."

"Therefore, the standard routine of ordinary cultivators has little effect on them, and would instead bind the advancement of their Great Dao in the future."

At this, he smiled faintly and handed a peach wood charm to her, "We may still disturb you for a few more days, and having nothing else to repay you with, I can only offer you a peach wood charm to ward off evil."

The woman smiled and said, "You don't know how many times you saved me on the road during our travels back then; there is no need to be so formal."

Yet, under the man's insistence, she accepted the peach wood charm nonetheless.

Zhou You spoke as if it were a matter of no consequence, but Ziying certainly didn't really believe this peach wood charm was just some ordinary magical artifact.

A century ago, after concluding their travels and on the verge of parting ways, Zhou You had once given her a peach wood charm. At the time, Ziying merely regarded it as an ordinary farewell gift, but on her way back to the sect, as she stayed overnight in a desolate mountain, she unexpectedly stumbled into the dwelling of a great demon and disturbed its secluded cultivation.

In its fury, the great demon pursued her for a full thousand miles. At the critical moment, she deployed this peach wood charm, and a single trace of its aura actually forced the great demon back several hundred miles.

Ever since then, Ziying had treasured the peach wood charm like a precious heirloom, almost never displaying it in front of outsiders except in emergencies.

Suddenly, Ziying bit her lip and gazed at him infatuatedly, "Zhou You, do you really not understand my feelings?"

Zhou You merely looked dull-witted; he was not truly a blockhead who understood nothing. He naturally understood the feelings of the woman beside him—he had understood them as far back as a century ago when they had agreed to travel together.

However, turbulent times were about to begin, and the disciples of Wuwang Mountain had their own missions.

Besides, in the face of such a great tribulation, even those high-level cultivators who had hopes of attaining the Dao and ascending could not guarantee they would make it through safely, let alone him.

Once he perished, it would only leave the fair lady in endless sorrow.

Her attentive care for the two children was simply an extension of her affection for him.

The man stood up and said softly, "Fellow Daoist Ziying, I have always regarded you as a close friend of the mountains with an unbreakable bond, and I harbour no improper thoughts whatsoever. Please do not misunderstand."

Hearing this, the woman's eyes gradually lost their focus, and a strange sourness gripped her nose. Falling across the table, she could not help but burst into tears.

Zhou You reached out to console her, but halfway there he retracted his hand as if struck by lightning, and immediately turned and left.

In the room, hearing the sound of the door closing, Ziying abruptly raised her head, but the figure of that person was already gone. She panicked and chased after him into the courtyard, yet she could not see him anywhere.

Gritting her teeth, she cursed angrily on the spot, "Coward, if you have the guts, don't ever come back!"

Meanwhile, Zhou You, having walked out of Miaoyin Pavilion, did not head straight for Dyeing Clothes Lane.

Instead, he found a wine stall by the street, ordered a pot of common fiery liquor found everywhere in the marketplace, and began to drink by himself.

Tonight's moonlight was enchanting; a round moon hung high in the distance, and countless stars dotted the pitch-black night sky, making it all the more brilliant.

The man simply drank cup after cup in silence. His facial expression was blank, but any passerby who caught sight of him would feel that he was an exceedingly lonely man.

In Dyeing Clothes Lane, even in the dead of night, the area remained brightly lit.

Inside a small hall in the back courtyard, two rows of seats were set up, where several fierce-looking individuals had gathered.

An elderly man clad in white robes sat at the place of honour, while the grey-robed man Lu Zhi appeared unremarkable among them, able only to occupy the lowest seat in humility.

The white-robed elder said indifferently, "Has everyone arrived?"

Beside him, a man in purple robes with a majestic visage spoke respectfully, "Reporting to the Patriarch, everyone who can come is here, and some others are on their way back."

The elder nodded slightly, his eagle-like eyes fixing upon the person sitting at the very back.

In an instant, several piercing gazes converged on him almost simultaneously.

The atmosphere within the small hall instantly turned somewhat chilling.

Stared at by so many pairs of eyes, Lu Zhi instantly stiffened his body. Cold sweat drenched his back, making him feel as though he had fallen into an ice cave in the dead of winter, and a heavy sense of suffocation swept over him.

After a long while, the elder slowly spoke, "Little Lu, this old man truly misjudged you. You brat have really given me a surprise."

The grey-robed man was left with only a bitter smile on his face; he truly had grievances that were hard to voice.

Who could have imagined that simply executing a routine mission at a ruined temple in a desolate mountain over in Lingzhou would bring such a towering disaster upon the entire Dyeing Clothes Lane?

Ever since he had an audience with the Patriarch during the day, the entire Dyeing Clothes Lane had begun operating at high speed, wanting to figure out why the senior expert in Miaoyin Pavilion had come in the first place.

Yet after investigating for a long time, they still found nothing. At this moment, several senior figures of Dyeing Clothes Lane had gathered together, discussing animatedly.

"Our Dyeing Clothes Lane certainly has some reputation among the surrounding nations, but to say anyone has the qualification to provoke a senior of that caliber—that would be a laughingstock."

"Who is to say otherwise? We are assassins, it is true, but our brains haven't been kicked by a donkey to go courting death."

Right at that moment, someone suddenly piped up, "Could it be that one of our past missions offended someone close to them, such as a sect junior or the like, and we simply were unaware of the connection between them?"

It was precisely these words that served as a wake-up call to the dreamers.

Everyone hurriedly began flipping through the ledgers of past missions.