Liu Ruyin waited for the span of a finger-flick, but her senior sister remained in that same wretched state. The bite mark on the side of her neck was still seeping blood, yet she didn't wipe it away or cover it up, simply staring at her with a pitiful look.
She averted her eyes.
If she kept looking, she really wouldn't be able to resist tying this person up and hanging her from the rafters to punish her.
“Lanyi is your eldest disciple,” Liu Ruyin reminded her again, suppressing her anger.
Jinglian said in a muffled voice, “Wife, my entire net worth is inside that ring.”
Liu Ruyin's eyes wavered.
Giving her that storage ring hadn't been some mere supplement; it was her entire net worth. Her senior sister had emptied out all her savings for her, only to turn around and cry poverty in front of her disciple.
Acting like a big spender in front of her, yet being utterly stingy in front of her own disciple?
Bastard senior sister!
Go spend the rest of your life hugging your natal sword!
Liu Ruyin swept her divine sense into her own storage ring, rummaging through the bottom of her overflowing personal treasury to find a few old items she had used back in her Nascent Soul stage.
Selecting a bracer, she levitated it with her spiritual energy and sent it floating before Ji Lanyi.
The bracer was a dark brown color, its opening designed to fit snugly around the wrist.
Entwining floral patterns were engraved on the surface, while a ring of silver-gray array runes was inlaid on the inside, locking the spiritual energy within the artifact itself.
“The Thousand-Jun Heavy Armor Bracer,” Liu Ruyin announced the name, putting on a gentle and elegant demeanor. “A pseudo-Earth-grade artifact. Once worn, your body's load will double. It starts at twice your weight, but with a single thought, you can increase it to ten times, twenty times...”
“Don't take it off even for daily walking, practicing your swordplay, breathing exercises... or even bathing. Once you can swing your sword twenty-six thousand times while wearing it, and your sword momentum remains perfectly steady, the bottleneck of the Nascent Soul realm will shatter naturally without you having to force a breakthrough.”
Ji Lanyi received the bracer with both hands, knelt down again, and knocked her forehead heavily against the floor tiles.
With a sharp crack, three of the floor tiles split.
“Lanyi thanks Martial Mother for the reward!”
She raised her head, the corners of her lips curving slightly. The smile vanished in an instant, her expression returning to its usual coldness.
Liu Ruyin looked at that face, then glanced at her senior sister, who was still playing the victim beside her.
Master and disciple were truly cast from the same mold.
Fortunately, Lanyi was entirely dedicated to the Dao; otherwise, there was no telling how many female cultivators would have fallen for that cold face of hers.
Her senior sister was not a bad master, and she was a good Peak Master, but as a Dao companion, she was absolutely terrible.
Her heart was filled with too many things; love only occupied a tiny corner of it.
“Your little junior sister is currently in the quiet room in the west wing,” Liu Ruyin said, wanting nothing more than to send Lanyi away. “You two sisters haven't met yet, so go catch up. Your martial uncle and your master still have things to discuss.”
Ji Lanyi stood up, took three steps back, and turned to step over the threshold. Walking out to the corridor, she paused and called back into the hall, “Martial Mother, this disciple shall take her leave.”
The hall doors were gone, with only shattered wooden splinters still hanging from the doorframe.
Liu Ruyin watched Ji Lanyi walk away, then turned back, her face instantly turning cold.
“Abandon you? You certainly know how to turn the tables, Senior Sister.”
She no longer had the patience to play this game of push-and-pull with her senior sister.
Her spiritual energy condensed into a red rope, wrapping around Jinglian's shoulders and back, binding her waist and abdomen several times. Her arms were pinned to her sides, and her ankles were bound together...
As the red rope tightened, she was bound securely from head to toe.
Liu Ruyin grabbed the end of the rope, pushed open the back window, and leapt out.
Above Wanjian Peak, a streak of emerald-green light shot across the sky, heading straight in the direction of Biluo Peak.
A disciple looked up and muttered, “Was that Peak Master Liu flying past just now? What was she carrying in her hand?”
Another person squinted for a moment and said hesitantly, “It looked like a person.”
“Who did Peak Master Liu kidnap?”
“I couldn't see clearly, they were wrapped up like a zongzi with a red rope.”
“It was probably some blind rogue cultivator who provoked Peak Master Liu.”
“Probably.”
Ji Lanyi leaned against the stone railing, watching her master get carried away through the air by her martial mother.
The memory of her martial uncle smashing her master's cave dwelling when she was a child overlapped with everything happening today.
She wasn't entirely oblivious.
Around her hair-pinning age, she had already guessed a thing or two, but fearing that A-Yuan would overthink it, she had kept it bottled up inside, telling no one.
Seeing her master act so shamelessly just now was shocking, but it wasn't completely unacceptable.
She was only slightly worried that her master would be locked up by her martial mother.
After all, that was how it was always written in Qin Shisan's novels.
If she were locked up for a few years, the sect shouldn't fall into chaos. The personal disciples of Biluo Peak were reliable, and by carrying the burden together with her for a few years, they could manage.
Having calculated everything clearly in her mind, Ji Lanyi retracted her gaze and walked toward the west wing.
Arriving at the door of the quiet room, she raised her hand and knocked.
The door opened from within, and Shen Qingci stood inside, freezing for a brief second.
“Eldest Senior Sister?”
She sized up the figure standing at the door.
Ji Lanyi was slightly taller than she appeared in portraits, her shoulders straight, and her aura completely restrained.
The person standing before her had completely hidden her sharp edges, looking more like an ordinary older sister.
“Yes, I'm back,” Ji Lanyi said, stepping inside. Her divine sense paused on the sword marks on the wall.
Those marks varied in depth and direction.
The deepest one was cut half an inch into the wall, its edges charred—an imprint left by the explosion of lightning spiritual energy.
The shallow ones were as thin as hair, their paths crooked; the one practicing her swordplay was clearly still figuring out the direction of her sword momentum.
She stared at that deepest charred mark for a moment.
Her little junior sister had only just established her foundation, yet she had already grasped the rudimentary form of sword intent for the first style of the Seven Styles of Awakening.
Top-tier background, top-tier aptitude, and her character was sturdy enough to back it up.
Yes, she was a great match for A-Yuan.
Ji Lanyi retracted her divine sense and sat down on the only chair in the room.
Standing where she was, Shen Qingci felt a rare touch of restraint after being swept by her eldest senior sister's divine sense.
Her master had said that her eldest senior sister was a woman of few words, so she couldn't just wait for the other to speak first.
“Eldest Senior Sister, you spent several years in the Desolate Ancient Ruins. Did you ever get injured?”
“I did, but I've already healed.”
Shen Qingci waited for a few breaths, but as expected, there was no follow-up. She changed the subject: “Eldest Senior Sister, have you seen Master and Martial Aunt Liu?”
“I have. Master was tied up and carried away by Martial Uncle.”
Shen Qingci's lips trembled slightly, but she ultimately clamped them shut.
She really wanted to know what exactly had happened in the side hall, but her eldest senior sister's taciturn attitude made her a highly unsuitable storyteller.
Ji Lanyi's gaze swept over her little junior sister. Knowing that she was also curious, she added, “Master did it on purpose.”
Shen Qingci silently filled in the blanks in her mind.
Master played the victim, Martial Aunt Liu couldn't hold back and tied her up to take her back to Biluo Peak.
And then, a whole bunch of indescribable events...
Ji Lanyi took out a storage bag from her sleeve and placed it on the table. “Found these in the secret realm. There are a few lightning-attribute spiritual materials that you should find useful.”
Shen Qingci took it and swept her divine sense inside, a look of astonishment flashing across her face.
Her eldest senior sister was so generous to her???
The storage bag was packed to the brim: lightning beast marrow cores, purple lightning beast scales, and bone fragments of lightning-cap beasts—all of which could only be obtained from lightning-attribute demon beasts at the Golden Core realm or above.
Taking any single piece out would be enough to make Golden Core cultivators fight to the death over it. She had clearly spent a long time carefully gathering them, yet she spoke of it so casually.
“Eldest Senior Sister, this is really too much.”
“Is it?” Ji Lanyi's tone didn't sound like a rhetorical question; she genuinely didn't think it was much.
Rate on N.U.
