A Man's Pride

Lu Qingchen's brow throbbed fiercely.

He and the ugly bird stared each other down.

The ugly bird was so excited it wanted to throw its wings around Lu Qingchen and kiss him over and over.

Lu Qingchen was utterly disgusted and wanted only to throw the ugly bird out.

Ning Xiang was delighted, even humming a little tune. Soon, however, she had nothing to be delighted about-

Lu Qingchen decided that she had grown too lax lately and neglected her cultivation. As punishment, she had to rise every day between three and five in the morning, practice swordsmanship with Su Lang and Xie Feihong for four hours, then attend his lessons at Chengfeng Courtyard. In the afternoon, she would take sect missions and head down the mountain to gain experience.

A veteran master of time management.

And so, before dawn the next morning, Ning Xiang arrived at Brightheart Hall beneath a sky full of stars. Xie Feihong looked as though he had seen a ghost, while Su Lang remained composed, not the least distracted by her arrival.

Ning Xiang quietly moved a hundred feet away from the two of them to practice.

Xie Feihong poked Su Lang. "Senior Brother, did the sun rise in the west today? Why would Ning Xiang come here to train?"

"Don't let yourself get distracted," Su Lang said gently.

Despite that, Xie Feihong kept turning to look at Ning Xiang.

Then...

"Ah!" Xie Feihong threw out his back.

Hearing Xie Feihong's agonized cry, Ning Xiang stopped practicing and came over.

"Second Senior Brother, why are you holding your lower back?"

Xie Feihong sucked in a sharp breath. "I threw it out."

"Should I fetch a healer to examine you? A man needs to take good care of his back. If something goes wrong with it, Second Senior Brother, your future cultivation partner..."

"Enough!" Two suspicious patches of red rose on Xie Feihong's bronze cheeks. "You're a girl! How can you toss around remarks like that?"

For some reason, Xie Feihong recalled what he had heard outside Chengfeng Courtyard a few days earlier. Just what sort of fiend was this junior sister of his, and why did everything out of her mouth shock him?

Ning Xiang gave him an "I understand, I understand" look. "We're all fellow disciples here, Second Senior Brother. Why stand on ceremony with me? It's not as if I'd spread it around. Senior Brother, you be the judge. Am I right or not?"

Where had this girl found the nerve to sully their senior brother's ears with something like this?

To Xie Feihong's surprise, their senior brother actually nodded. "Feihong, since you're injured, go back and rest. There's no need to rush your training."

Xie Feihong was furious. Hmph! I'm not leaving today!

He raised his forty-meter... no, he raised his sword. Today, he would train for a full twenty-six hours before going back!

Xie Feihong wanted to show off, but he couldn't keep it up for even three seconds. He had barely performed a sword move when a searing pain in his lower back left him afraid to move at all.

Tsk, did Second Senior Brother throw out his brain too?

Ning Xiang looked at Xie Feihong sympathetically.

Holding his lower back, Xie Feihong glared at her.

"Why are you looking at me?" Ning Xiang asked innocently. "I warned you. You were the one who wouldn't listen."

"That's enough, Feihong. I'll take you back. Junior Sister, stay here and keep practicing."

"All right," Ning Xiang said with a bright smile. She waved at Xie Feihong. "Second Senior Brother, get some rest. I'll visit you once I finish training."

Oh, never mind. I should protect Second Senior Brother's pride. He definitely won't want to see me. After something like this, any man would feel humiliated.

"Don't stop me! I can still train!" Xie Feihong declared.

Ning Xiang watched Su Lang drag Xie Feihong onto the Langhua Sword and fly away on the wind. Just as she turned to resume practicing, she noticed Lu Qingchen standing nearby, with the ugly bird at his feet.

"Master!" Ning Xiang walked over.

He looked... as though he had endured some tremendous ordeal?

Surely not? Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her.

"Master, have you come to guide my practice?"

Lu Qingchen nodded. "First, demonstrate the Fire Dance Sunflame Sword Art for me."

"All right."

Ning Xiang was not intimidated. She lifted her wrist and thrust, her sword slicing through the wind. To make training easier, she had dressed in a smart, unencumbered vermilion outfit today. Her figure was slender, her willow waist small enough to encircle with a hand, supple and delicate without seeming overly frail.

The girl moved with the lithe grace of a roaming dragon, without the slightest hesitation or wasted motion-a world apart from her affected mannerisms of the past.

Her sword moves were swift as lightning one moment and graceful as a startled swan the next. She blended power and fluidity to perfection.

Ning Xiang was far more gifted than he had imagined.

She had just performed the first three forms of the Fire Dance Sunflame Sword Art. As she began the fourth, Ning Xiang poured spiritual energy into the Azure Sea Sword. Its blade instantly burst with brilliant rainbow light, dazzling to behold. Yet even more radiant than the Azure Sea Sword was the girl who wielded it.

Ning Xiang's eyes shone like a myriad of stars. Perhaps even she did not realize how dazzling she was at that moment.

Her Sword Qi resembled a fiery dragon, yet she wielded it effortlessly, sending it forward and back, sweeping it across and along, granting and seizing at will.

The fourth form...

The fifth form...

The eighth form...

Lu Qingchen still remembered that, when Ning Xiang sparred with Su Lang a year ago, she had mastered only the sixth form and won by a stroke of luck. Worried that victory would make her arrogant, complacent, and unrestrained, he had offered only a few casual words of praise.

Had she actually mastered eight levels of the sword art in just one year?

In fact...

This was the result of Ning Xiang deliberately concealing her ability.

She had lost herself in her sword practice just now and almost failed to stop in time.

"Master, has my swordsmanship improved?" Ning Xiang put away her sword and walked up to Lu Qingchen, lifting her head as she waited for his appraisal.

"You've improved a great deal. Has anyone else guided you over the past year?"

Ning Xiang was astonished. She had never expected Lu Qingchen to praise her. In his eyes, surely only Su Lang, his foremost disciple, truly pleased him and deserved praise.

"My father gave me quite a bit of guidance."

Could the sun really have risen in the west, just as Second Senior Brother said? Iceberg Lu actually knows how to praise someone? Doesn't he dislike everyone except Senior Brother? Oh, and Jiang Miaomiao.

Lu Qingchen wondered whether his disciple truly saw him as such an outrageously biased master.

Besides, Ning Xiang far surpassed Jiang Miaomiao in both talent and cultivation. Why did she always insist on comparing herself to Jiang Miaomiao?

On this point, however, Lu Qingchen had misunderstood. If Jiang Miaomiao had not been the female lead, Ning Xiang would never have paid her any mind. From beginning to end, Ning Xiang had never considered Jiang Miaomiao a rival, merely a fictional character on a page.

Before Lu Qingchen could speak, Ning Xiang asked, "Master, did you come specifically to guide my practice?" She glanced at the ugly bird hopping along the ground. "It seems you've developed quite a bond with your beloved pet. You take it everywhere you go."

The ugly bird lifted its head proudly and let out a spirited, swaggering cry.

Who wants to bond with a bird that's both stupid and ugly? Lu Qingchen thought.

"I brought it here to return it to you," he said. "It hasn't settled into Chengfeng Courtyard and misses you terribly."

The next second, the ugly bird that "missed Ning Xiang terribly" wrapped its wings tightly around Lu Qingchen's calf, refuting his words with its actions.