Once all the impossible options had been eliminated, the one left, no matter how absurd, was the correct answer.
She swallowed, suppressing her immense shock as she asked, "The father of this child is... Sword Venerable Mingxiao?"
Song Zhizhi glanced at Liu Changfei and nodded. "Mm."
Liu Changfei:!!!
The shocking revelation made Liu Changfei's brain crash for several seconds. How had she not thought of it?! She had only guessed that Sword Venerable Mingxiao might harbor unusual feelings for Zhizhi, but she had never imagined that the child in Zhizhi's belly was Sword Venerable Mingxiao's!
Good heavens! Was this something she was supposed to know?
Liu Changfei took a moment to compose herself, then waved a hand. "Give me a moment to digest this."
The child's father was Sword Venerable Mingxiao. Judging by how far along she was, the two of them must have known each other before Song Zhizhi entered the Sword Sect. Had Song Zhizhi joined the Sword Sect to find Sword Venerable Mingxiao?
Zhizhi was pregnant but did not dare tell the Sword Venerable, silently enduring the hardship of carrying a child alone. Could it be because the Sword Venerable was a scumbag who started something only to abandon it, who put his pants back on and refused to acknowledge anything?
Liu Changfei's expression was a kaleidoscope of emotions. The image of Sword Venerable Mingxiao as the Cultivation World's number one male idol was crumbling in her mind. One moment, her face was full of righteous indignation; the next, she looked at Song Zhizhi with pity and sympathy.
She hugged Song Zhizhi and declared indignantly, "Zhizhi, don't be afraid. I'll get justice for you! Even if he's a Sword Venerable, he can't be a heartless man who starts something only to abandon it."
Song Zhizhi: ? Had Feifei misunderstood something?
She looked utterly bewildered. "What heartless man? He hasn't done anything to wrong me."
If anyone had started something only to abandon it, then between her and Xie Xiuji, she seemed to be the one who had done that.
Song Zhizhi recalled how she had deceived Xie Xiuji that day in order to cure her poison, and suddenly felt a little guilty. She gave a light cough, her gaze drifting as she defended Xie Xiuji. "My relationship with him isn't what you think."
"Um..." Under Liu Changfei's blazing gaze, Song Zhizhi skipped over the matter of her transmigration and explained, "I was poisoned by Spring Day Powder back then, and that was the only way to cure it. He did it to detoxify me, so... cough. I didn't know he was the Sword Venerable at the time. It was only after I joined the Sword Sect that I discovered he was here."
Liu Changfei breathed a sigh of relief. "So that's how it was. I knew it. The Sword Venerable is noble and upright; there's no way he could be the sort of man who starts something only to abandon it."
After revealing this secret, Song Zhizhi felt much lighter. She wanted to ask Liu Changfei's opinion. "Feifei, he kindly helped cure my poison back then. This child was an accident. I don't know how to bring it up with him. I'm afraid he won't accept this child."
That was the reason Song Zhizhi had kept putting off confessing to Xie Xiuji.
Song Zhizhi knew that many men did not mind a night of romance with a girl they had just met, but if a child suddenly appeared, many of them would not be able to accept it right away.
Liu Changfei pondered for a while. Thinking of Sword Venerable Mingxiao's indulgence and concern for Song Zhizhi, she felt Song Zhizhi's worries might be unnecessary.
But pregnant women experienced great emotional fluctuations and were prone to taking a pessimistic view of certain matters, becoming trapped in their own feelings. It was perfectly normal for Song Zhizhi to think this way.
After considering it, Liu Changfei suggested, "Why don't you test the waters indirectly first? Ask whether he likes children? You could..."
Liu Changfei leaned close and whispered a string of suggestions into Song Zhizhi's ear.
*
When Sword Venerable Mingxiao arrived at Clear Snow Peak carrying a food box, he found that Song Zhizhi was not in the courtyard. Faint sounds came from inside the room.
Sword Venerable Mingxiao raised a hand and knocked on the door.
"Come in." Song Zhizhi's voice came from within. Perhaps because it was muffled by the door, it sounded somewhat dull.
Sword Venerable Mingxiao pushed open the door and entered. He found Song Zhizhi sitting by the bed, holding an exquisite rattle drum. His entrance made a slight sound, but she did not even lift her head. With her eyes lowered, she stared blankly at the rattle drum.
Sword Venerable Mingxiao examined the rattle drum in her hand. It had a red base and a white face, and the Phoenix carved upon its drumhead was particularly exquisite and lifelike, as though it might fly out of the drum the next instant and spread its wings into the sky.
"Isn't it pretty?" Song Zhizhi suddenly looked up and asked Xie Xiuji.
"This drum is very finely made, and the Phoenix pattern on its face is lifelike." After studying it for a moment, Sword Venerable Mingxiao gave an objective assessment. "It's just that the formation array on it is too crude. It might be better if it were altered."
Song Zhizhi picked up the rattle drum and gently shook it. Cheerful, pleasant music rang out. A smile touched her brows as she said softly, "Right? I think it's pretty too. The moment I saw it back then, I thought it was perfectly suitable."
"Suitable for what?" Sword Venerable Mingxiao felt that Song Zhizhi's words carried hidden meaning today. Vaguely, he sensed that she might have something important to tell him.
"Did something happen?" Sword Venerable Mingxiao asked softly, frowning.
"Xie Xiuji." Song Zhizhi shook her head. After so many days, this was the first time she had called him so formally by his full name—not the distant Sword Venerable Mingxiao, nor the somewhat removed Senior Brother Mingxiao, but the name he had told her before. His name.
"Mm?" Sword Venerable Mingxiao responded in a low voice. Somewhere deep inside, he felt that what Song Zhizhi wanted to say had something to do with the rattle drum in her hand.
Song Zhizhi gripped the rattle drum and took a deep breath. At last, she gathered her courage and asked, "Do you like children?"
Sword Venerable Mingxiao froze. Children?
Most cultivators chose to remain alone. Even if they married, they found it difficult to have descendants, and the higher their cultivation, the more so. None of Sword Venerable Mingxiao's peers had ever had children. He recalled the most profound impression children had left in his memory.
That was several decades ago, when he had been out on a mission and passed through a mortal village. He had seen a group of children with mud on their clothes, soot and snot smeared over their faces. The snot dangling beneath their noses, and the black and yellow streaks of dust and mud on their faces, had left a deep impression on Sword Venerable Mingxiao, a man with a cleanliness obsession.
Several decades had passed. Perhaps those children from back then had already reached their twilight years, but when Sword Venerable Mingxiao thought of that scene, he still could not help frowning. Children were too dirty.