"You know Brother Ji?"
Mu Xueyao's eyes lit up. She stepped half a pace closer, her voice full of delight.
The words "Brother Ji" reached Feng Zhitáo's ears.
The smile on her face froze.
A trace of wariness and scrutiny entered her once-warm gaze.
She had stepped in because she couldn't stand seeing three Nascent Soul Cultivators gang up on one woman.
She had simply seen an injustice and acted.
But that intimate form of address stirred an unease in her she couldn't put into words.
The Hundred-Blossom Immortal was one thing. They had been through life and death together.
How was there another woman on the Abyssal Continent calling him Brother Ji?
And one who had just achieved Nascent Soul Formation, with looks and a figure to match.
Feng Zhitáo's guard went straight up, though little showed on her face. She merely raised an eyebrow and did not answer at once.
Just then, Yun Qianzai's voice sounded in her Sea of Consciousness.
"Looks like another romantic debt our little junior brother picked up out there."
Feng Zhitáo's ears warmed. She shot Yun Qianzai a glare and replied through their mental link, "Don't talk nonsense."
Yet despite what she said, she couldn't help wondering.
Her little junior brother had said he had no time to think about finding a Dao companion.
So why did women with tangled ties to him keep turning up wherever they went?
She pushed down her churning thoughts and looked at Mu Xueyao again. Her tone remained hearty, though some of its earlier warmth was gone. "Of course we know him. I'm Feng Zhitáo, his third senior sister. This is Yun Qianzai, his second senior brother. We all come from the same sect."
At that, some of the delight faded from Mu Xueyao's face, replaced by