"I—"
Hearing what his junior sister said, and thinking back to their sparring match just now, how could Linghu Chong fail to understand what she meant?
So he panicked at once and hurriedly tried to explain, flustered and fumbling over his words:
"Junior Sister!"
"The sword techniques I used just now really were from the Huashan Sect. I swear!"
That was indeed true. They had been taught to him by Feng Qingyang, the Huashan Sect's grand-uncle martial patriarch. Feng Qingyang was a senior uncle of the Huashan Sect, so the sword techniques he had taught Linghu Chong naturally belonged to the Huashan Sect. There was nothing to argue about.
"But..."
"As for what sword techniques they were, or who taught them to me, I'm not really at liberty to say."
"You wouldn't know who it was anyway!"
Linghu Chong was certain he hadn't betrayed his master and ancestors, secretly learned another sect's martial arts, or broken any of the Huashan Sect's rules!
Although Feng Qingyang, his grand-uncle martial patriarch, had been a senior figure in the Sword Sect back in the day, his master, Yue Buqun, the current leader of the Qi Sect, had never said that Qi Sect disciples couldn't learn Sword Sect techniques. Nor had he ever said that the Sword Sect's techniques didn't count as Huashan Sect martial arts. So Linghu Chong didn't think he'd done anything wrong.
"..."
Hearing her senior brother's answer, Yue Lingshan furrowed her brow suspiciously. Then she looked him up and down again and, after a long pause, asked:
"Not at liberty to say?"
"And I wouldn't know who it was?"
"In other words, Annie didn't teach you those sword techniques?"
If it wasn't Annie, and it wasn't the Evil-Warding Sword Manual, Yue Lingshan couldn't imagine what kind of sword techniques could