Lady Cultivator

Chapter 254: Senior Martial Brother Qin... or Senior Martial Brother Shoujing?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After quite a long silence, Mo Tiange finally shook her head. “I wasn’t humbling myself; I was just stating the facts. I know how big the gap is between the peak stage of the Core Formation realm and the late stage of the Foundation Building realm. No matter how terrific my abilities are, I’m still a mere Foundation Building cultivator until my core or soul-formation.”

Upon hearing what Mo Tiange said, Lord Daoist Jinghe simply sighed. “Master really doesn’t know whether you have a clear understanding of reality or whether you’re just demanding too much of yourself.” None of his other disciples were like her—she was already a disciple of a Nascent Soul cultivator but still considered herself an ordinary Foundation Building cultivator.

Mo Tiange raised her head and showed a smile. “Master, when have I ever looked down on myself? At Xuanqing School, I can almost do anything I want. It’s just that while I can overlook our statuses, I can never overlook our mentalities.”

“...” A long while passed before Lord Daoist Jinghe finally spoke: “You’re very smart. Although you’re not Master’s most talented disciple, you’re the smartest one.” She clearly knew where she stood and what she wanted to do; this was also a type of wisdom.

Lord Daoist Jinghe continued on by throwing out another question: “You think you’re not in a position to decide whether to forgive him or not, so what’s your attitude towards him then?”

Mo Tiange once again sank into silence. There were some matters that she herself wasn’t sure about...

“Master, I... Senior Martial Brother Shoujing and my father were friends, so I should view him as my elder, but... when I first met him, I only thought he was an ordinary Aura Refining disciple...”

Lord Daoist Jinghe, who heard the hesitation and indecisiveness behind her words, couldn’t help but say: “When your father met Xi’er, he was almost three hundred years old, wasn’t he?”

“En...”

“If we’re talking about age, your father was also older than him by one hundred, almost two hundred years. Furthermore, they just happened to fall into misfortune together, nothing more—how can you use a generational gap to set yourselves apart? Besides, us cultivators have never been constrained by age or generation; it isn’t entirely unheard of even between master and disciple.”

“...” Mo Tiange hung her head and said nothing. She didn’t really feel constrained by their differences in seniority. She just wanted to find an excuse for herself.

“After all these years, I can also see that if you didn’t have him in your heart, you wouldn’t have been unwilling to mention him even a bit for several dozen years—”

“Master!” Mo Tiange hurriedly called out and looked up to briefly glance at Lord Daoist Jinghe. She then lowered her head again and said slowly, “Don’t talk nonsense. I... I don’t have such thoughts.”

Lord Daoist Jinghe was silent for a second, but he then said rather anxiously, “How could you have no such thoughts? You clearly—”

“Master!” Mo Tiange once again cut him off; her brows were wrinkled. “What are you talking about?”

Lord Daoist Jinghe, who heard the rebuke behind her words, gave it a moment’s thought then decided to drop the subject. Girls were always quite troublesome. It wouldn’t be good if she felt ashamed because he said too much.

“... Alright,” Lord Daoist Jinghe said with defeat. “Master’s not going to bring up this matter again. Regarding the two of you, one’s going to form his Nascent Soul, while the other’s going to form her Gold Core; now is not the time for this. Oh! If you’re fine now, you should help out in healing your senior martial brother. Right now, his spiritual aura is already back inside his meridians, but his injuries have yet to heal. Your spiritual aura is most suitable for healing him—you don’t have to worry about something going wrong; his spiritual aura is already flowing smoothly, so he won’t forcefully absorb yours again.”

Mo Tiange wanted to refuse, but Lord Daoist Jinghe didn’t give her the opportunity to. Right after he finished speaking, he immediately assumed a cultivating position and closed his eyes. “Go quickly. The sooner you go, the sooner you finish.”

She debated the matter for a while but at last, she still obediently walked out of Shangqing Palace.

Once she left, Lord Daoist Jinghe opened his eyes and muttered: “This kind of matter, you two better talk it out on your own. That brat’s going to wake up soon—let’s see what your luck’s like.”

Mo Tiange’s mind was in a complete mess. She stood in a daze at Shangqing Palace’s gate for quite a while before she finally moved to send a Summoning Talisman.

Soon afterward, Ye Zhenji rushed over, saying delightedly, “Auntie, you’re all better now?”

“En...” Mo Tiange smiled somewhat absent-mindedly. “How’s your master?”

“Master’s alright; he just hasn’t woken up.” Ye Zhenji was a bit confused. Did she specifically call him over just to ask this? She could’ve just asked him through the Summoning Talisman!

“... Take me to see him.”

“Huh?”

Mo Tiange made up her mind then said, “Your grandmaster ordered me to help with your master’s healing.”

Ye Zhenji was dumbfounded, but he immediately understood Lord Daoist Jinghe’s intentions. He wanted to say something but felt it was hard to say it, so he could only swallow back his words. “I understand. Auntie, follow me.”

The two of them flew to a deserted mountain top then Ye Zhenji took the lead during landing.

Mo Tiange looked around, feeling that this place was very familiar. She saw Ye Zhenji walk towards a bare rock wall, make a bunch of hand seals then use a jade talisman to open the formation. At that moment, it felt as if a spiritual light suddenly flashed inside her mind, making her realize why this place felt so familiar to her.

This was the place she rejected Bai Yanfei that year after he continuously pestered her!

“Auntie?” Ye Zhenji called out in bewilderment as he watched Mo Tiange’s complexion turn white then red.

Ye Zhenji’s call snapped her out of her thoughts. After wiping off the sweat on her forehead and forcing herself to calm down, she made her way into the cave. Forget it. It was something that happened ages ago. Although she remembered, that person very likely didn’t.

This Immortal’s Cave was similar to how Mingxin Residence originally looked like; there were no finely engraved or embellished pillars or beams, and there was also none of those gorgeous and grandeur decorations—it was just extremely spacious. As for spiritual aura, this place could also be considered a spiritual ground on Clear Spring Peak, and it wasn’t much inferior to Shangqing Palace.

Master was fond of luxury, but none of his disciples were like him. From Martial Uncle Xuanyin to Senior Martial Sister Suxin, or from maybe Senior Martial Brother Shoujing to herself, none of them liked gaudiness. This was actually one interesting phenomenon... As her mind wandered around, she realized she was already standing in front of the innermost stone room as Ye Zhenji led her. After a set of hand seals from Ye Zhenji, the stone door was opened.

This stone room was very simple. At a glance, she could already spot Qin Xi who’d been laid on a cold jade bed.

His clothes had been changed; they weren’t miserable-looking like that day, but his complexion was still pale. He just lay there in complete silence.

Mo Tiange slowly walked over, staring at the face she hadn’t seen in a long time.

He was, in fact, very handsome. Even in the cultivation world, where handsome men were everywhere, he wasn’t inferior to anyone. He had elegant eyebrows and a chiseled face. Presumably, even when he got older, he’d be just like Lord Daoist Jinghe, who still gave off a domineering heroic vibe even now.

Nevertheless, she still missed the completely inconspicuous Qin Xi from Mount Yunwu who, despite being rather handsome, wore the uniform of Mount Yunwu’s low level disciples.

Even though at that time, he didn’t have even a bit of the elegance he had now. Even though at that time, his cultivation level was low.

Right now, she admitted the past forty years hadn’t at all worn down her affection. Although they hadn’t seen each other for thirty years, this face was still deeply engraved inside her heart.

She still didn’t really know what love actually was, but she remembered that when she faced the Five Hindrances Overturning Senses inside the Ten Thousand Laws of Nature Formation, the man she fell in love with looked exactly like him.

But so what if she admitted it? During the two months they were together, she developed a good impression of him. In the following years, her feelings gradually faded, but she suddenly discovered his deceit, causing her to often remember him and feel restless from that moment on. The more she remembered him, the more she missed him—she couldn’t be like before, erasing him from her heart bit by bit.

For some emotions, one could never clearly tell how they started, and for other emotions, one could never understand how they progressed.

She tried hard to make herself forget but failed, so she’d been telling herself that she should feel happy if she could obtain him, but she shouldn’t keep thinking about it if she couldn’t.

It’d been thirty years; she managed to do what she told herself, but she still had to admit—she wanted to stand at the top of the world and hold the world in her hands, but she still hoped he would also be there standing next to her.

Just like in that dream.

“Auntie?” Ye Zhenji’s voice rang in her ears. Mo Tiange regained her train of thought then saw the confusion on his face.

She felt her face was getting rather hot, so she looked away. Without meeting Ye Zhenji’s eyes, she said, “I want to heal your master; you may leave.”

“... Yes.” Ye Zhenji hesitated for a moment, but he eventually listened to her and left the room.

Mo Tiange felt her nerves loosening. After pulling herself together, she propped Qin Xi up and sat behind him, placing her palm on the Lingtai Point on his back.

Spiritual aura slowly stretched forward into his body, and it moved very smoothly without any hindrance at all. When it entered his meridians, she still felt a kind of sucking force, but it wasn’t as strong as it was the other day. She slowly controlled her spiritual aura, adding it into Qin Xi’s spiritual aura. Yin and Yang spiritual auras naturally blended together and eventually, he took away the control over her spiritual aura.

Although he still took away her spiritual aura this time, the process was indeed slow, and it wasn’t with great force. In addition, healing others was already a process that would consume spiritual aura.

However, Mo Tiange had no idea that when she was unconscious and Qin Xi nursed her, not only did he not exhaust his spiritual aura, but it even increased to some extent. This happened because the gap between their cultivation levels was too large. For Qin Xi, healing her and nourishing her body didn’t consume a lot of spiritual aura at all, and he more or less obtained some spiritual aura from her instead. But compared to his spiritual aura, the amount Mo Tiange had was meager. The spiritual aura Qin Xi automatically absorbed from her now was too much so she experienced a decrease, not an increase in spiritual aura.

A while later when she’d exhausted half the spiritual aura inside her body, Mo Tiange promptly decided to stop transferring her spiritual aura.

If too much of her spiritual aura was absorbed, she wouldn’t be able to stop even if she wanted to.

She once again laid Qin Xi down. She wanted to take another look at his face, but she was completely shocked once she did so.

She saw Qin Xi gradually opening his eyes—he was waking up!

Although she already acknowledged the matter to Lord Daoist Jinghe, Mo Tiange still wasn’t prepared to face him. After a moment of shock, she immediately turned around to leave.

Nonetheless, her wrist was grasped, rendering her incapable of moving further.

“Tiange.” His hoarse voice came through. “You...”

Mo Tiange stood there. She didn’t move and didn’t go, but she also didn’t want to turn around.

Confusion emerged on Qin Xi’s face as he discovered the Yin spiritual aura in his body felt both familiar and unfamiliar while circulating inside his meridians. After a long time, he finally spoke with a tone that sounded as if he was sighing: “You knew...”

It was only a short sentence, but it made her feel as if tears were bubbling up in her eyes.

The two of them were both silent. He didn’t let her go, but she also didn’t turn around.

This was the first time he faced her as Qin Shoujing. This time, he didn’t hide his cultivation level or his status.

“What should I call you?” He heard her soft voice. “Senior Martial Brother Qin... or Senior Martial Brother Shoujing?”

“...” He remained quiet as he was at a loss for what to say.

In the end, she finally turned around, staring at him with a kind of distant and unfamiliar gaze. “Tell me—what should I call you?”

“... Who I am... is it important?” He looked up, fixating his gaze on her. “Qin Xi’s me; Qin Shoujing’s also me—whether it’s Qin Xi or Qin Shoujing, both are the same person.”

“Yes, they’re the same person,” Mo Tiange said while looking at him. A smile slowly bloomed on her face, but her gaze was ice-cold. “But the meaning is completely different.”

He stiffened upon seeing the indifference and alienation in her gaze, but he couldn’t help but ask back: “Why is the meaning different?”

Mo Tiange smiled, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Senior Martial Brother Shoujing, there are some words that don’t need to be said too clearly.”

“...” A mere appellation already showed her attitude.

Qin Xi didn’t say anything.

She softly freed herself of his hold then turned around and walked away.