Page 49

Still, everyone needed spirit plants and spirit fish to help them cultivate and grow stronger before their sect was destroyed. So Ye Qingyao devoted herself to farming each day, painstakingly tending the spirit flowers and spirit herbs. Nourished by the Seven-Colored Heaven-Mending Stone's spiritual energy, the plants flourished and spread everywhere. One became two, two became four—a sight that filled her with delight.

For his junior sister's fish-breeding plan, Ye Qingchuan spent his days either practicing swordsmanship or tending the sea fish pond. Twice a day, he crushed Ye Qingyao's spirit herbs and fed them to the fish. They grew plumper by the day, their flesh ever more delicious. Rich in spiritual energy, a single fish could replenish a great deal of it.

Some fish ate spirit herbs with healing properties and became even more effective at curing illness and saving lives. Others digested herbs that boosted cultivation and grew better at increasing cultivation in turn. This gave Ye Zhenzhen a new idea. She divided the pond into sections and fed the fish in each area plants with different properties, giving each group a distinct benefit.

I really am an utterly ordinary little fish-raising genius. Little Glutinous Rice Ball's eyes nearly vanished with laughter.

Ye Qingchuan narrowed his Auspicious Phoenix Eyes. Since he could not help with anything else, he would give his junior sister some of his strange homemade talismans and cook her a fish every few days. Sometimes he made soup, sometimes he grilled it. However she wanted to eat it, he made it that way.

When it came to doting on their junior sister, they meant business.

Ever since Ye Qinghui won the Immortal Sects Grand Tournament, Ye Ruheng and Xie Jingshu had believed in their daughter's powers even more. Not only did they refrain from stopping the children, they added several more barriers to conceal their movements and keep outsiders from discovering their Secret Base.

They planted spirit herbs, raised spirit fish, and improved their cultivation while waiting for Divine Descent three months later. Then they could go in, find the Xuandu Glazed Hammer, and reclaim their eldest senior brother's Inner Core.

But before Divine Descent arrived, a young woman came to propose marriage.

That day, Cloudsky Mountain saw a snowfall the likes of which came only once in a century. Snowflakes danced on the cold wind, dressing mountain and wilderness alike in silver. In the Plum Grove, blossoms defied the bitter cold and bloomed proudly on their branches. Everything looked as beautiful as an immortal realm.

Ye Zhenzhen, bundled in a warm yellow padded coat and round as a sweet rice ball, pestered Ye Qingyao to take her out to play in the snow.

Ye Qingyao enthusiastically tied her hair into three little tufts with hair ties bought from the Spirit Treasure Pavilion. Like tiny rainbows, they shimmered with neon colors against the snow.

"So cute!" Ye Qingyao watched her junior sister, who had only just learned to take a few steps. In fluffy rabbit shoes, with three pretty little rainbows atop her head, she waddled like a penguin and left a short trail of footprints, some deep and some shallow, in the snow.

The mischievous Ye Qingchuan suddenly appeared behind Ye Zhenzhen and slipped a tiny snowball down the back of her collar. Shivering so hard her teeth chattered, she scolded him through a mouthful of tangled words: "Thi... brother... bad..."

Infants in the Cultivation World developed faster than ordinary children, and Ye Zhenzhen was exceptionally clever. Before she was ten months old, she could already stand and take a few steps, and a few words could tumble from her little mouth.

With Ye Qingyao's help, she finally managed to pick up a snowball and lobbed it weakly at Ye Qingchuan. He dodged with ease and taunted her. "Junior sister, you can't hit me at all!"

"Come on, try again!" The boy's Auspicious Phoenix Eyes gleamed with unrestrained delight, as though light danced within them.

How awful! Third Senior Brother only knows how to bully a weak, helpless little baby like me. Little Glutinous Rice Ball gnashed her teeth in fury and waved her tiny fists with all the fierceness a baby could muster.

Before she could hit Ye Qingchuan, she saw a woman in vivid red descend from the sky like a scarlet plum blossom. The sight immediately drew her gaze.

The woman's luminous, water-bright eyes swept the surroundings before settling on someone beside the Plum Grove.

Ye Qinghui.

He had left his hair unbound that day. Dressed in a long white robe, his ink-dark hair spilling over his shoulders, he danced through the snow with the Flowing Light Sword. Every move was graceful and free, elegant and unrestrained. His sword's radiance blossomed like a myriad flying flowers, tracing streaks of blue light through the air.

A call of "Senior Brother Ye" broke his concentration. He abruptly drew back his sword, sending fallen plum blossoms swirling around him.

"Who are you? Jiang Wan." He was startled to see Jiang Wan, the Cultivation World's famously aloof beauty, smiling warmly before him. Yet his expression remained composed and cool. "Junior Sister Jiang, what brings you here?"

"I..." The young woman, usually so sharp-tongued, suddenly grew shy. She gazed at the man before her, beautiful as a banished immortal, with smoldering eyes, but could not get a word out.

"If there's nothing else, I'll continue practicing." Ye Qinghui spoke lightly, yet his low voice had a magnetic pull. Like snowflakes falling into her heart, it stirred ripples across the sea of her feelings.

A faint blush colored Jiang Wan's cheeks. Summoning her courage, she finally spoke the words she had long rehearsed in her heart—blunt, passionate, and bold. "Ye Qinghui, I like you. Will you become my Dao Companion?"

All her life, countless men had fallen at her feet, gazing up at her as a goddess with fair skin, a lovely face, and long legs. Yet she had never thought highly of any of them—until he saved her from Fallen Blossom Slash at the Immortal Sects Grand Tournament.

For days, that moment had played over and over in her mind. She could not forget his otherworldly bearing.

She had come to confess her feelings regardless of the consequences, encouraged by her sisters in Immortal-Ending Hall and risking expulsion from her sect. Though fiery by nature and decisive in action, she had never done anything so bold or rebellious before. She looked at him with burning eyes, hoping he would return her feelings.

Yet Ye Qinghui's face showed no flicker of emotion. His cool, distant voice delivered her death sentence in a single line. "I'm sorry, Junior Sister Jiang. My Dao Heart has never wavered, and I've never thought of finding a Dao Companion."

"Just because you haven't yet doesn't mean you never will." Jiang Wan still wanted to fight for him. Before coming, she had resolved to cling to him even if he refused. Otherwise, she might never again meet someone who moved her heart this way.

"I'm sorry."

Ye Qinghui gave the same answer, still unmoved by the beauty before him.

Ranking list

|

Transmigration into a book

Wish-fulfillment fiction

Cannon fodder

Everyone's darling