As Ning Sujin's weak voice sounded, Li Ji'an had felt only the warm, soft touch of her lips. Now, a cool, damp heat and slickness joined it.
"Sister Jin, I..." He had just tried to explain, but the moment he opened his mouth, the sensation grew even stronger.
Ning Sujin's eyes flew wide. The faint color that had just returned to her face surged, and her cheeks immediately flushed scarlet.
Realizing their predicament, neither of them spoke again. They waited in silence for the medicine to wear off.
It was not until dawn that their lips finally parted. Ning Sujin turned her head away as far as she could.
At last, Li Ji'an could move his neck a little.
"Before the Immortal Master appeared, I tried to sense it once on my own. It was still an omen of great misfortune. I don't know whether that changed after the Immortal Master descended." To ease the awkwardness, Ning Sujin went straight to what Li Ji'an cared about most.
Li Ji'an nodded slowly.
Ning Sujin's ability only worked at close range, so it was no surprise she could not sense it now.
Besides, since this so-called Immortal Master was merely a cultivator who still needed an airship to travel between the mortal world and elsewhere, he probably did not yet possess the power to alter someone's fate.
The omen of great misfortune surrounding Ning Yutan had most likely not changed.
Looking at it that way, following the Immortal Master to the Cultivation World was probably the source of the omen.
"Is the danger coming from the Cultivation World, or from that Immortal Master?" Li Ji'an had no way of knowing. He felt more wary of the path of cultivation.
"Sister Jin, can you foresee whether it would be auspicious or inauspicious for you to become an Immortal Seedling?"
Ning Sujin shook her head. "I can only foresee things that are certain to happen, and how far ahead I can see depends on the matter."
"After this, the old emperor will probably set much higher standards for the next Immortal Ceremony. You and I will need at least great completion in Organ Refining to have a chance. Whether either of us can become an Immortal Seedling in this lifetime is still unknown."
Li Ji'an noticed that Ning Sujin's attitude toward the emperor had clearly changed, and smiled knowingly.
After seeing with her own eyes how he acted before the Immortal Master, the emperor's lofty dignity and image had naturally crumbled.
Especially since the royal family's very first message to the people had been that the Immortal Masters protected the Zhao Imperial Clan, and that the emperor had been appointed by an Immortal Master. To defy the royal family was to defy the Immortals above.
"Where there's a will, there's a way!" Li Ji'an was not concerned with whether he could become an Immortal Seedling in this life. He tossed out the reassuring platitude without a second thought.
Encouraged by Li Ji'an, Ning Sujin stopped worrying about the Immortal Ceremony ten years away. Instead, unable to hold back, she asked, "What do you think of the Immortal Master?"
Li Ji'an pondered for a moment, then offered a tentative thought. "Perhaps he's much like a master of martial arts."
"You think so too?" Ning Sujin's beautiful eyes suddenly sharpened. She stared at Li Ji'an in surprise, as though she had found a kindred spirit.
"Why do you think that?" Li Ji'an was curious about how she had reached that conclusion. Unlike him, she had not come from another world and read countless stories about cultivators.
"Immortal Masters descended to the mortal world over a hundred years ago, yet natural disasters have never stopped. The wicked still do evil, and the suffering still suffer. I've never seen an Immortal Master summon divine thunder from the highest heavens to punish the wicked and uphold justice... Apart from not knowing where they come from, flying through the sky and burrowing underground, and controlling treasures, how are they any different from mortals?" Ning Sujin answered bluntly.
Li Ji'an looked at her with even greater admiration.
"So that's why you took the initiative to teach Yutan that movement technique? You think mortal martial arts might be able to stand against the Immortal Masters and turn danger into safety?"
Ning Sujin nodded slowly.
What a clever woman!
By the next morning, the medicine had almost completely worn off.
Ning Sujin forced herself upright and sat up, finally leaving Li Ji'an's chest.
But when she tried to lift her lower body off him, something hard got in her way. Her already unsteady footing faltered, and she dropped back down.
"Ah—" Li Ji'an felt as if his bones were about to snap. He sucked in a sharp breath and instinctively sat up.
Ning Sujin was also in pain from the bump, as if she were about to split apart. She pitched forward and fell back into Li Ji'an's arms.
After staring into each other's eyes for a moment, Ning Sujin came to her senses.
"Pah! Beast!" Her face instantly turned scarlet. She spat at him angrily, shoved him away with one hand, and staggered out of the compartment.
"..." Li Ji'an gave a wry smile. He couldn't be blamed for this; it was a purely physical reaction. His mind might have been mature, but his body was still in the full flush of youth.
--
Having seen an "Immortal" with his own eyes, and with Ning Sujin's "Auspiciousness and Inauspiciousness Avoidance" watching over him, Li Ji'an spent the days that followed focused entirely on cultivation, as he always had.
Thanks to the Immortal Master's dissatisfaction with this batch of Immortal Seedlings, the Immortal Palace greatly increased its investment in them promising candidates.
No matter how the outside world was squeezed and exploited, Li Ji'an truly had resources in abundance within the Immortal Palace.
Two years later, Li Ji'an reached Blood Transformation Perfection.
"I've fully mastered the essence of the Blood Transformation Realm. Even if my Root Bone doesn't improve in my next life, I'll still be able to cut the time by thirty percent." After reflecting on it for a while, delight spread across Li Ji'an's face.
He had just finished his training when familiar footsteps sounded outside.
"Brother Li, you have a letter." Zhao Yunsheng, who had been confined to the Immortal Palace despite having no martial arts talent, still liked to seek Li Ji'an out to play.
"I've finished that puzzle lock too. Here, take it." Li Ji'an accepted the letter and tossed over the puzzle lock Xiao Yunsheng had been asking him to make for days.
Xiao Yunsheng had neither martial arts talent nor a heart for martial arts. He was only interested in carpentry. As it happened, Li Ji'an had been experimenting with controlling his qi and blood to trigger mechanisms in his spare time, so he had made the lock for him.
"So this is the mechanical craftsmanship you told me about? Thank you, Brother Li!" Zhao Yunsheng was overjoyed.
After watching Xiao Yunsheng leave, Li Ji'an opened the letter.
"Hmm? It isn't from Senior Brother? This is bad..." When he saw Qingyun's handwriting on the envelope, Li Ji'an had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, the letter brought terrible news: Senior Brother Liu Deshan was sick.
He was too ill to hold a brush, so he had asked Qingyun to write for him.
"Senior Brother is... He's only a year away from turning sixty. Is he not going to make it?" Though he had lived through three lives and knew he had to accept the deaths of those close to him, the imminent passing of the second-closest person to him in his previous life still left Li Ji'an feeling a little desolate.
Most of Liu Deshan's letter was about his previous life as "Li Jichang," reminiscing about their struggles and looking back on the past.
Every single event, every last detail, was heartfelt and vivid. Li Ji'an remembered it all clearly.
At the end of the letter, Liu Deshan wrote that he had never seen "Li Jichang" one last time, and that he had always regretted it. Before he left this world, he hoped he could see Li Ji'an again.
But, ever considerate of others, he had added a caveat: if it was a critical moment, or if it would affect Li Ji'an's path to immortality, he need not come back.
Li Ji'an folded the letter, his heart heavy, and slowly walked over to the bookshelf. Just as he was about to put it away, he changed his mind, took it back to the desk, and carefully spread the paper flat...
Early the next morning, Li Ji'an went to the women's dormitory and waited quietly.
"Imperial Son-in-law, here to see Princess Wenjin again?"
"Imperial Son-in-law, our princess has been scowling all morning. Better watch out for punishment under the household rules."
"Could it really be Princess Wenjin who set those household rules for you? Do you have to pay your respects every day?"
As the female students gradually left their dormitories, the usual teasing rang out.
A year earlier, Prince Yun had defied the emperor's decree to come to the capital alone, claiming he needed to suppress a rebellion in the northwest. He had then used the same excuse to refuse to hand over command of the northwestern army, driving the emperor's relationship with him to a breaking point.
Three months later, Duke Dingguo, who had been secretly ordered to investigate Prince Yun ever since the attempted assassination at the Immortal Ceremony, had long maintained a firm stance against him. He defeated the palace's two-faced faction and became the emperor's capable agent in his covert struggle with Prince Yun, earning the emperor's trust.
Ning Sujin, a candidate Immortal Seedling, and Ning Yutan, who had already ascended to the Immortal Realm, were both granted princess titles by the emperor.
And since Ning Sujin only ever kept company with Li Ji'an, and he often sought her out to ask about his fortunes, rumors between them had naturally sprung up.
Before you continue