Chapter 313 : A Narrative Unfolds
From the moment they had set foot on the Merperson Island, events had occurred one after another. Even when opportunities for temporary rest arose, the environment made it difficult to truly relax. Now, although the group was within the Nine Abyss Sect's territory, perhaps due to the vastness and sparse population, or perhaps because of the sense of security provided by the portable pavilion, everyone was able to momentarily unwind.
By the time Zhu Baiyi had produced the pavilion, the day was already late, so they didn't delay further. After a simple allocation of rooms, they all separated.
Jiang Mo and Yun Qingyue were staying on the first floor, with adjacent rooms separated only by a wall... Jiang Mo very much wanted to visit next door, preferably to linger there, but after some consideration, she was still eager to go.
Once the door closed, the sealed room was still spacious, furnished with a complete set of tables, chairs, and bed. The external wall had windows, and although the formation had been activated, making the pavilion invisible from the outside, those inside could easily see the exterior scenery through the windows.
Jiang Mo walked to the window and looked out. Night had fallen, and in the gathering dusk, not a trace of stars or moon could be seen.
The Outer Domain was like this—scenery monotonous to the extreme, everything seemingly shrouded in blackness, the underlying principle forming this environment unknown. Fortunately, it was the Nine Abyss Sect that had taken root here; only these demonic cultivators could live here for extended periods. Otherwise, even an ordinary person with sufficient food and drink would be driven mad by such surroundings.
Jiang Mo disliked this landscape as well. After looking for a moment, she turned away from the window. She sat in the chair by the table and arranged all the items she had exchanged from the Mission Hall that afternoon, examining each one again.
However, she had already inspected these items before the exchange, and not just her—Yun Qingyue, Zhu Baiyi, and Qingyu had all handled them as well. The insights of the other three far exceeded her own, yet none of them had recognized anything special about these items. Looking at them again now made no difference; she still couldn't identify the problem.
After a quarter hour, she set the items down and called out: "System."
The system appeared at her summons, the small ball of light still in its familiar form, hovering before Jiang Mo: "Host."
Jiang Mo pointed at the items on the table and asked directly: "Which one of these is the critical item? Is your system becoming increasingly unreliable, not even providing such basic information?" If there was no hint, you shouldn't have spoken up in the first place.
The light sphere floated to the table and wavered, perhaps scanning something. After a moment, it addressed Jiang Mo: "Host, there's no peculiar energy on these items. I've checked the map, and based on the terrain, it seems to be somewhere around North Abyss... I think you'll go north eventually, so keeping this map might be useful—perhaps you can take a look when the time comes."
Jiang Mo's brow furrowed as she picked up the map to examine it once more before putting it away. As for the remaining items, after reviewing them again without discovering anything, she simply left them on the table without storing them.
After this delay, the night grew deeper.
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Though the pavilion appeared modest, its interior was meticulously arranged.
Upon entering her room, Yun Qingyue immediately noticed that everything from the furniture to the teacups was of exquisite quality. Even the window gauze was made of merperson silk—having been to the Southern Sea, she understood all too well that the merpeople had begun sacrificial rituals ten thousand years ago and likely had no interest in producing silk since then. This material was a treasure at least ten thousand years old, yet here it served merely as window dressing.
Of course, more significant than these decorative elements was the pavilion's spirit-gathering formation in addition to its defensive and concealment arrays—and it was an exceptional spirit-gathering formation at that. Even in this spiritually depleted Outer Domain, the concentration of spiritual energy in the room rivaled that of several main peaks in the Xuanqing Sect.
In a different location, the spiritual energy inside might condense into mist, but here it was somewhat problematic—not only was the Outer Domain inherently lacking in spiritual energy, but perhaps due to the Nine Abyss Sect's influence, the local spiritual energy contained traces of netherworld force. This minute amount of netherworld force was insufficient even for Nine Abyss Sect disciples' cultivation needs, but it created issues for outsiders. Especially under the enhancement of the spirit-gathering formation, that small quantity of netherworld force was concentrated to a level impossible to ignore.
In short, while spiritual energy was abundant in the pavilion, it was unsuitable for cultivation.
Entering the room with nothing to do, Yun Qingyue briefly experimented and discovered that her Ice Soul Condensation Pearl lacked the ability to filter netherworld force, so she immediately abandoned cultivation. Instead, she had to expend considerable effort dispelling the small amount of netherworld force she had inadvertently absorbed.
Midway through her seated meditation, she heard a knock at her door and knew without guessing who it was: "Come in."
Sure enough, as the door opened, Jiang Mo's head peeked in: "Senior Sister, are you cultivating?"
Yun Qingyue was sitting cross-legged but shook her head: "The spiritual energy here isn't suitable for cultivation."
Jiang Mo then pushed the door fully open and entered, habitually settling beside Yun Qingyue and sitting shoulder to shoulder with her: "I see, that's fine too. Senior Sister, you shouldn't always focus on cultivation—you should rest occasionally."
Yun Qingyue offered no comment, turning to look at her: "Why have you come?"
Jiang Mo blinked: "Well, nothing really. I was bored alone in my room, so I thought I'd come find you." Immediately, she thought of an excuse: "Oh, right, Senior Sister, I need to help you remove your makeup—it must be uncomfortable to keep it on."
Hearing this, Yun Qingyue gave her an odd look, then waved her hand across her face. Not only did she dispel the transformation technique, but her face was also left perfectly clean without a trace of cosmetics—right, this was the cultivation world, where there was nothing a simple cleaning spell couldn't resolve. This was far cleaner and more efficient than Jiang Mo's manual makeup removal, making her excuse rather flimsy.
Seeing this, Jiang Mo wanted to say something to save face but ultimately decided against it. Suddenly, she reached out and placed something in Yun Qingyue's mouth. The latter wasn't without caution, but as soon as Jiang Mo's hand approached, she recognized what it was.
Cool and refreshing, with a familiar fragrance—what else could it be but the ice lotus seeds from the pool in Master's private garden on Mount Tianyang?
That ice lotus had been specifically planted by her master for her. As she grew older and lost interest in snacks, she had stopped collecting those lotus seeds for many years. Now, after eighty years apart, tasting this flavor again induced a momentary sense of both disorientation and nostalgia.
Yun Qingyue found herself missing her home on Mount Mingxia and feeling nostalgic for her past life of focused cultivation.
In the night, people tend to be more sentimental, especially when unable to cultivate, with idle time leading to more reflective thoughts.
Jiang Mo gave Yun Qingyue another small handful of ice lotus seeds, though this time she wasn't bold enough to feed her directly, instead placing them in her hand. The coolness in her palm brought her back to the present, and after such a long reunion, she finally asked: "How has the sect been these years? After I left, how... how have you been at the sect?"
Jianbing's status was extraordinary, so naturally, no one would dare mistreat her, nor could anyone implicate her because of Yun Qingyue. But the little white tiger had been brought back by her, and once such a clingy tiger cub—had she been happy or not during these years of separation?
Jiang Mo didn't conceal anything, tilting her head slightly to rest on Yun Qingyue's shoulder: "Not very well. I missed you a lot."
Hearing her speak this way, Yun Qingyue felt a slight stirring in her heart—she had traveled for eighty years, having been away from the Xuanqing Sect for more than twice as long as she had been there. By now, she should have forgotten the sect entirely. Yet childhood memories are particularly vivid; she had thought of the sect, thought of her master, thought of her junior brothers and sisters, and even more of the tiger cub she had raised.
But she couldn't go back, didn't dare go back, and faced with Jiang Mo's directness, she found herself momentarily speechless.
After waiting a while without response, Jiang Mo persisted: "Senior Sister, have you forgotten? You said you would leave the sect to travel for a year, then return after exploring the secret realm. But what happened? If I hadn't followed Peak Master to the Canglán Secret Realm, I probably wouldn't have even seen you—you would have left the sect and disappeared completely." She added with a murmur of complaint: "If you wanted to leave, you never thought about taking me with you."
Hearing this, Yun Qingyue didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Back then, it wasn't that she wanted to leave; she had clearly been captured by the Nine Abyss Sect Leader. Had her birth mother not rescued her in time, her fate would be uncertain—perhaps she wouldn't even be alive today.
However, Yun Qingyue had no intention of sharing this with others. She raised her hand to stroke Jiang Mo's hair: "You are Xuanqing Sect's Jianbing. I couldn't take you with me."
This wasn't merely a statement, nor was it simply because the Xuanqing Sect would never let her go. More importantly, from the moment Jiang Mo had agreed to accept the sect's nurturing, she had formed a karmic connection with the Xuanqing Sect... There had never been any record of a sect's guardian divine beast betraying its sect, nor had any guardian divine beast ever separated from its sect, for the consequences would be unbearable.
Jiang Mo naturally understood this reasoning but still pouted in objection: "I could just leave the sect for a casual trip, like now."
Yun Qingyue smiled slightly, not wishing to dwell on this topic. Casually changing the subject, she asked about the changes in the Xuanqing Sect over these years, and how the tiger cub had spent the past eighty years.
Jiang Mo's past eighty years had been rather uneventful, essentially just cultivation, advancement, more cultivation, and more advancement—otherwise, how could she have matured so quickly? But that made for a boring story, summarizable in a single sentence, so she had to rack her brains to think of a few incidents worth mentioning. Like how she would visit her master's private garden twice a year to pick all the newly formed lotus seeds. Or how in the new round of the Three Sect Martial Arts Competition, several Xuanqing Sect members had distinguished themselves.
The two had been separated for decades, and there was some initial awkwardness, but as the conversation opened up, they gradually had more to say. Under Jiang Mo's guidance, Yun Qingyue became the more talkative one, gradually narrating her experiences over these years.
As for Jiang Mo, she occasionally offered witty responses, providing another handful of ice lotus seeds, listening to the stories with evident enjoyment.
As the hour grew later, apart from the cool voice recounting the past, the pavilion was completely still... Though nothing inappropriate occurred, Jiang Mo had successfully managed to stay in her Senior Sister's room for the night.