Off to School

The next day.

On a long street in Green Vine District, two young women stood outside Lu Zhen's courtyard gate.

Both wore moon-white academy uniforms, their figures slender and graceful. Their features were seventy or eighty percent alike, and both were beautiful. Clearly, they were sisters.

Yet their temperaments were completely different.

The older sister, Liu Jingshu, wore her hair in a high ponytail, her brows and eyes carrying a hint of aloofness.

The younger sister, Liu Jingyi, had her hair in a bun, her large eyes darting around restlessly.

Standing outside the vermilion courtyard gates, Liu Jingshu's eyes flashed with coldness.

She ranked near the top of the academy's elite class.

But in the vast Liu Family, she was merely from a collateral branch.

When she was young, her family had struggled to make ends meet.

Only after she had distinguished herself in the clan tournament did the main branch spare them a trickle of resources.

Her parents had regarded it as an immense blessing.

Liu Jingshu could never forget how they had groveled before the main family's stewards, fawning as if they wanted to dig out their hearts for them.

What grated on her even more were her parents' day-after-day naggings.

"Dear, you're talented. In the future, you must marry into a powerful main family branch. Then our line will truly rise!"

Marriage? Climbing the social ladder?

Liu Jingshu found it disgusting.

The sword in her hand was meant to cut through thorns, not earn herself a dowry.

And this time.

Ancestor Liu Bowen had personally ordered her to serve as the "study companion" of some native who had just arrived from the lower realm.

The hints buried in her parents' words last night had irritated her beyond measure.

"This Lu Zhen has caught the ancestor's eye. His