Missing Thoughts Literature

Gu Gan and his group made quite a spectacle as they arrived, drawing plenty of attention. They seemed to be heading for the Dining Hall too.

Zhongli Shan and the others looked at Gu Gan outside, then at Mei Chengyu, exchanging puzzled looks.

Mei Chengyu lifted his eyelids, wearing an expression that said, "Why are you looking at me?"

"He came in," Zhongli Shan reminded him.

Mei Chengyu let out a faint, cold laugh.

"Didn't you say they'd shut him out and he couldn't get in?" Xing Chun asked as he ate.

Mei Chengyu replied without changing expression, "Obviously, she found a way in."

Cang Shu spoke slowly. "The Saint Hall's doors and windows are protected by Grade A spells or higher, aren't they?"

Zhongli Shan asked him too, "Could Old Man Chang have opened the door?"

Mei Chengyu lowered his head and ate. "Master can't open it."

Xing Chun gave a short laugh. "Then she must've opened it. You called her a Normal Practitioner, and now you've finally misjudged someone."

Mei Chengyu smiled without warmth. "If this Normal Practitioner didn't have something special about her, would she be my Junior Martial Sister?"

"Honestly, no matter what I say, you always come out on top." Xing Chun made no secret of his disdain for Mei Chengyu's shamelessness, then leaned over to peer downstairs. "Which one down there is your Junior Martial Sister?"

Mei Chengyu answered casually, "The prettiest one."

Xing Chun scanned the floor below. "Which one's the prettiest?"

"Whichever one you think is the prettiest."

"That one!"

"Which one?"

"That one!"

"Not her."

Zhongli Shan and Cang Shu silently drew their bowls closer to their chests, turning aside to hide their faces as they ate. They couldn't bear the embarrassing reality that they knew those two.

They couldn't help thinking that when Gu Gan came upstairs and slammed his fist on Mei Chengyu's table, Mei Chengyu would probably still be playing that childish game with Xing Chun, trying to guess which one was his Junior Martial Sister.

Fortunately, Gu Gan didn't come up to the second floor. He bought a few things on the first floor of the Dining Hall and then returned to the Disciple Dormitory. As Gu Gan put it, he'd been locked up for several days and stank to high heaven. No matter how important the matter was, he needed to go back, shower, and change into clean clothes first.

He'd only stopped at the Dining Hall to buy Yu Sui something to eat.

Yu Sui didn't mention that she'd seen Mei Chengyu upstairs. If Gu Gan knew, he'd certainly go up to the second floor and "exchange pleasantries" with him.

The Disciple Dormitory was the accommodation Taiyi Academy provided for its students.

Taiyi Academy advocated ignoring class distinctions and treating everyone equally, regardless of status or wealth. So the Disciple Dormitory wasn't divided into grades A, B, C, and D. Disciples of all four grades could live together.

While Black Beard helped Yu Sui with her enrollment, he'd asked whether she wanted to live in the Disciple Dormitory or in the outer city.

Yu Sui had answered without hesitation that she wanted to live in the Disciple Dormitory.

She was sure she'd learn more by living inside the academy.

So Black Beard helped her collect the key to the Disciple Dormitory.

Peach Blossom Forest surrounded the Disciple Dormitory, its slopes blanketed in pink and white. The round building stood amid the Hundred-Mile Peach Forest, rising hundreds of stories into the sky. Just looking at it was breathtaking.

The only four great mechanical clans left on the Xuangu Continent were all at Taiyi Academy.

Taiyi Academy was as vast as a country, and one-third of its buildings had been constructed by the Four Great Mechanical Clans. Each was an ingenious work of exquisite craftsmanship.

Looking at its sheer size and the capabilities it possessed, Yu Sui felt it shouldn't be called an academy at all. It ought to be called the "Taiyi Kingdom."

The black, round building before them served as Taiyi's Disciple Dormitory and housed every disciple in the academy.

Although all the students lived there, the academy wasn't so insane as to put boys and girls in the same room.

Each room housed four people and was divided into four private quarters. There was also a shared area, and the residents could eat, sleep, and bathe inside.

The rooms were numbered from Zero Zero One all the way to Three Six Zero Zero at the very top. There were plenty of numbers, but not every room was occupied.

Getting around the dormitory depended on whether students had learned the Wind Riding Technique. Those who hadn't could use the Dragon Ladder.

The Dragon Ladder was like a Dragon Car: a golden dragon that traveled up and down through the dormitory. The black doors were covered in ink-colored runes that activated it, and anyone who wanted to ride had to learn how to draw those runes.

Disciples who occasionally didn't feel like using the Wind Riding Technique to get around would also take the Dragon Ladder.

Gu Gan told the others to go ahead while he took Yu Sui up in the Dragon Ladder.

Inside, finely crafted wooden mechanisms lined every side, while glowing Moonlight Pearls set into the walls bathed the cramped space in warm light.

Yu Sui looked around curiously. Once the doors closed, Gu Gan drew a rune and wrote the number sixty-six.

Leaning against the wall, Gu Gan seemed to finally relax. When he looked at Yu Sui, his gaze held a smile, and the fierce aura of a beast had softened.

"The dormitory's so tall. What if this suddenly fell?" Yu Sui held the food box and rapped her knuckles against the wall. It gave a dull thud.

"There are plenty of ways to deal with that," Gu Gan said. "The simplest is to use the Wind Riding Technique to stay in the air."

Yu Sui tilted her head and looked at him.

Gu Gan smiled. "I'm happy to see you."

Yu Sui smiled too. "Third Brother wouldn't save you, so Father had no choice but to send me."

Gu Gan rubbed his chin and teased her. "Suisui, you always show up right when I need someone to pull me out of a bind. I really don't know what I'd do without you."

Yu Sui meant it when she said, "You still have my father and mother."

Neither of them would stand by and do nothing if Gu Gan got into trouble.

Gu Gan: ""

"Anyway, Brother Gu, I came this time because Father said I should help you find the Futuo Tower." Yu Sui looked at him, her bright eyes full of curiosity. "Were the trouble and your trial in the Hanging Moon Cave connected to the Futuo Tower?"

Gu Gan's expression shifted slightly. "I can't say they had nothing to do with it. A fragment of the Futuo Tower is in the Hanging Moon Cave."

Yu Sui's eyes widened a little.

Gu Gan suddenly looked at her. "Do you know what the Futuo Tower is?"

Yu Sui: "..."

That old man Nangong Ming hadn't told her either.

Gu Gan laughed at her suddenly bewildered expression. He wanted to reach out and ruffle her hair like he had when she was little, but consciously held himself back.

He said, "The Prince sent you here without telling you anything?"

Yu Sui nodded. "That's right."

Gu Gan scolded him. "He really is irresponsible, letting you come along on something this dangerous."

"How can it be dangerous? It's been a long time since I last saw you, Brother Gu." Yu Sui smiled up at him.

The rising Dragon Ladder stopped just then. Gu Gan headed for the door. "Let's go inside and talk."

Yu Sui followed behind him.

The corridors wound through the dormitory, with numbered doors on both sides every so often. The numbers were jumbled, though: one door might be 367, another 1009.

Gu Gan lived in room 807.

He opened the door and went in. The room was lit, clean, and tidy. Paper and Brush sat on the table, and a tiered flower stand stood by the window, its different blooms in full flower.

Ji Meng and Huo Xiao were both there.

"Wenyang hasn't come back yet," Ji Meng said. "Go wash up first. You really do stink."

Gu Gan glanced back at Yu Sui. She smiled without saying a word and elegantly covered her nose for a moment.

Gu Gan fell silent at once, grabbed some clothes, and went to wash up.

Yu Sui stood by the window and opened the food box. She'd barely eaten anything on the Cloud Vehicle Dragon, and she was a little hungry now.

Gu Gan had bought her nothing but meat dishes, all of them her favorites.

Huo Xiao went back to his room and shut the door. No one knew what he was doing. Ji Meng glanced at Yu Sui by the window, not sure what to say.

He and Yu Sui weren't very close.

Before, Gu Gan's situation had given them a natural topic to talk about. Now that Gu Gan had been rescued, what was there to say?

The window wasn't open, but through the lattice Yu Sui could just make out the broad stretch of pink outside. She ate a meatball, then lowered her head to smell the flower by the window. It had masses of large petals and a faint fragrance.

Yu Sui asked, "What kind of flower is this? I've never seen one before. It's beautiful."

Ji Meng, sitting at the table and pretending to read, froze. He looked up and saw the Double-petaled Blue Flower Yu Sui was pointing at. "It's called Wuxiang Ling. It's a medicinal flower I cultivated."

"Are they all yours?" Yu Sui looked at the other flowers on the long stand. Nearly all of them looked like Wuxiang Ling, only in different colors.

"They are. I'm trying to advance this year and take a shot at becoming a Grade A Disciple. The medical exam requires you to have cultivated at least five medicinal flowers with different effects." Ji Meng stood and went over, gently supporting the slender leaves of the Double-petaled Blue Flower. "This was the first one I cultivated."

"It's so pretty." Yu Sui reached out to touch the petals. A Five Elements Light Core quietly slipped into their folds.

Hearing someone praise them made Ji Meng happy, so he asked her on his own initiative, "Are you planning to live in the outer city or the dormitory?"

"The dormitory. I've already got a key," Yu Sui said.

Ji Meng asked, "Which room?"

Yu Sui took out the key and checked. "The sixtieth floor, room 607."

Ji Meng stared at her in shock. "That's Xun Zhiya's—"

Yu Sui looked up at him. Ji Meng coughed softly and started again. "Xun Zhiya lives there too. Only two people live in 607: her and Shu Chujun."

"That's great. I know them both." Yu Sui smiled, looking innocent and harmless.

Ji Meng felt Yu Sui had a point. Gu Gan wasn't worried, so why should he be? Besides, Xun Zhiya wasn't the sort to have a bad temper or cause trouble for people without reason.

As Yu Sui listened to Ji Meng talk about the medicinal flowers he'd cultivated, she seemed to be paying close attention. The corner of her eye, however, was taking in the room around her.

A while later, Gu Gan came out after washing up, dressed in clean, fresh clothes. Only the loose strands of hair at his forehead were still wet, clinging to his skin. He sat down at the table and casually brushed them aside.

"Why are you standing there eating? Come sit over here," Gu Gan told Yu Sui.

Yu Sui carried the food box over. "I was looking at the medicinal flowers Ji Meng cultivated."

Gu Gan said, exasperated, "Don't listen to him brag. If they haven't poisoned anyone to death, he considers them good flowers."

Ji Meng watered his treasured Medicinal Flowers and gave a snort, but didn't argue.

Watching Yu Sui eat, Gu Gan picked up the Paper and Brush beside him and sketched something. His first question was, "Do you know about the Six Nations Non-War Covenant?"

"Mm-hm!" Yu Sui nodded.

Gu Gan drew a small, delicate tower on the paper. It had seven tiers, each one stacked atop the last.

"Several thousand years ago, when the six nations divided up the Xuangu Continent, they established the Non-War Covenant. The six nations weren't allowed to plunder or invade one another. Even the world's most powerful Nine Schools Techniques and the mightiest Nine Streams Saints would die if they used their power to wage war and seize another nation's land."

"Even the strongest armies of the six nations couldn't cross the borders to attack another country. Some invisible force would always stop them, crushing any power that tried to break the Non-War Covenant."

As the six nations grew rich and comfortable in the early days, each grew powerful. There was no such thing as a weak nation. But in time, people's ambitions expanded, their desires could not be sated, and they began to greedily covet every inch of land on the continent.

The Non-War Covenant was the stumbling block to the six nations' unification of the world, their greatest obstacle.

"According to the rumors, the Futuo Tower is the key to breaking the Six Nations Non-War Covenant. If all its fragments are found and the tower is restored, the covenant inside it can be undone." Gu Gan's brows drew together as he spoke, his expression turning serious. "The six nations have been searching for the Futuo Tower for centuries. I heard it was broken into seven pieces, three of which are in Taiyi."

Yu Sui propped her face up with one hand, listening attentively, though she didn't care much about it.

What did the conflicts between the six nations have to do with someone as insignificant as her? Never mind the six nations each wanting to fight and claim dominion over the world. Once her identity as the World Destroyer was exposed, they would be united as one happy family, hunting her down to the ends of the earth.

All Yu Sui wanted to know was which corner of Taiyi held the Tianzi Text, what it looked like, and how she could use it to remove the Strange Fire Mark inside her.

And she needed to figure out how to separate the soil-breath without dying.

Only after she'd escaped those two threats could she live a little more freely.

As for this "Non-War Covenant," it seemed to be the thing Nangong Ming had threatened Lady Su into doing. Lady Su served Nangong Ming, searching for a way to break the Non-War Covenant.

Who did Qingyang want to attack? Or did everyone want to fight everyone else?

Gu Gan said, "We found the Futuo Tower to seal it again, so the other three nations wouldn't get the chance to break the covenant."

Huh?

Yu Sui kept her expression unchanged, but inside, she was astonished.

"Which three nations?" Yu Sui asked, confused.

"Zhou, Dan, and Yan." Gu Gan set down his brush and tapped the drawing on the table. "Of the four known fragments of the Futuo Tower, one is in Taiyuan, one in Qingyang, and one in Nanjing. Qingyang has two."

Yu Sui asked in surprise, "Those three are working together to seal the Futuo Tower?"

Gu Gan nodded. "That's right."

Yu Sui's gaze flicked past Ji Meng, who'd finished watering the flowers, and Huo Xiao, who'd come out to listen for a while, then back to Gu Gan. If the three of them weren't fools, they were taking her for one.

"I see." Yu Sui nodded, her expression earnest. "Don't worry, Brother Gu. I'll do everything I can to help you."