The Red-Clad Woman recognized it as a fifth-grade magical treasure and rose as well. She looked it over, then looked at Shi Chun. "What do you mean?"
Shi Chun pointed at the Black Lotus Avatar. "Let's see whether it's the tune I heard. If it is, he should recognize it."
The Red-Clad Woman was surprised. "He can understand music? Could this be a spirit-venerable treasure, one that holds its spirit supreme?"
Her words left Shi Chun startled instead. "If it can understand music, that makes it a spirit-venerable treasure?"
He had heard of spirit-venerable treasures, but did not know how to distinguish them. Her reminder brought something back to him, though: this treasure really was different from the others. Of all the treasures struck into slumber by lightning, it was the only one that had awakened on its own.
At his ignorance, the Red-Clad Woman merely rolled her eyes and said nothing more. She turned the end-blown flute in her hand and put it away into thin air, then conjured a purple bamboo flute with a jade-like sheen and toyed with it. "You said you heard a flute before. This tune was indeed originally played on a flute. Later, I felt a flute couldn't convey emotion as well as an end-blown flute, so after that old friend passed away, I switched."
The sight of the flute sent Shi Chun's thoughts drifting for a moment. He felt as though he had seen it somewhere before, yet was certain he never had.
The Red-Clad Woman stroked the flute, seemingly lost in some recollection herself, then slowly raised it across her lips and began to play.
There was no denying the flute's clear, penetrating sound, but it lacked the low, tender murmur of the end-blown flute. At first hearing, they sounded like two