Chapter 22

In her previous life, Su Jiu had focused on Water-Type Arts, with the sword as a secondary pursuit, so she could only be considered competent in swordsmanship, not proficient. In this life, her previous experience had quietly freed up a great deal of time. Over the past year, she had made considerable progress with the sword while stabilizing her Cultivation Level.

In her previous life, perhaps because of her water spirit root, her swordplay had tended toward softness and suppleness. Now, influenced by her ice spiritual root, she had taken a perfectly good, yielding Water-Type Sword Formula and given it a sharpness that chilled to the bone.

Watching from the shadows, Chu Mojin frowned inwardly at Su Jiu's swordplay. The other Outer Gate disciples did not recognize this sword art, but he knew it all too well.

It was called the Water-Wisdom Sword Art, the signature sword formula of the Azure Tide Sect's sect leader, taught only to his Personal Disciples. Yet judging by Su Jiu's current proficiency, she was probably no worse than the sect leader's two Personal Disciples.

Had the sect leader been secretly meeting with Su Jiu? If so, that old man was utterly shameless. Not only shameless, but leading a promising disciple astray.

Su Jiu gathered spiritual energy and poured it into her Flying Sword, making the blade emit a faint, pale blue glow. She opened with a fierce sequence of attacks. Because her Cultivation Level was still low, she could not yet unleash the sword art's full power, but among cultivators of the same level, it was enough to stand proudly above the rest.

Chu Mojin watched with mixed feelings. He had to admit that Su Jiu's posture and sword moves were exceptionally precise. No matter how he looked at it, reaching this level in a year truly marked her as a genius. She must have put considerable effort into her swordsmanship.

But someone with an ice spiritual root practicing a water-type sword art still left him deeply displeased.

Su Jiu performed the Water-Wisdom Sword Art like drifting clouds and flowing water, every stroke brimming with ice spiritual energy.

"Su Jiu!" The woman's voice seethed with fury.

Her voice arrived before she did. Of course, Su Jiu knew who it was. She merely raised an eyebrow, surprised that Yu Yin had only now come looking for her.

Yu Yin stormed toward her and raised a hand to slap her.

Su Jiu was hardly going to stand there obediently. She immediately knocked Yu Yin's hand aside with her scabbard.

"Yu Yin, you really should break that habit of slapping people."

Yu Yin's eyes reddened as she roared, "Qi Fei and I broke up! Are you satisfied now?"

Su Jiu smiled. "That's between the two of you. What does it have to do with me?"

"Yu Yin, you should also break that habit of pinning blame on others the moment something displeases you."

Yu Yin clenched both fists, her eyes wide with fury. "If you hadn't set me up, how would Qi Fei and I have broken up over this?"

Yu Yin's voice rose well beyond a normal volume. Su Jiu distinctly felt inquisitive gazes coming from the courtyard's other two windows.

Su Jiu gave a soft scoff and sheathed her sword before looking at her. "Oh? You stole my assignment first, and now you're claiming I set you up? Yu Yin, that's not how reason works."

Yu Yin took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "Enough, Su Jiu. Stop pretending. I'll chalk it up to bad luck that you managed to trap me this time. I don't believe you can stay this lucky forever. You'll get what's coming to you."

Yu Yin gave Su Jiu a long look, then turned to leave.

"Let me guess why you and Qi Fei broke up. Surely it wasn't over that two-hundred-spirit-stone fine? Qi Fei asked you to pay, but you refused and accused him instead, so he covered the shortfall himself?"

Yu Yin stopped in her tracks and turned back, looking at Su Jiu suspiciously. "Were you there?"

Su Jiu shook her head. "I simply learned what sort of person you are."

With that, Su Jiu returned to her distant, unapproachable indifference.

Su Jiu went back to her room, and the two streams of divine sense naturally withdrew as well.

Chu Mojin muttered to himself, "Tsk. The little one usually looks so cool and aloof. Who would have thought she had a dark heart and knew how to trap people?"

But that woman had deserved it. She dared bully someone from our Ice Veil Peak? Hah! Chu Mojin's gaze grew steadily colder as he looked at Yu Yin.

"Why does Senior Sister Yu always insist on picking on Su Jiu?" Xia Meng sighed. Since she and Su Jiu had joined the sect together, even after Su Jiu's Cultivation Level surpassed hers, she had never felt like a senior to her. They still treated each other as equals, so the way she addressed Su Jiu had never changed.

Mu Zihan shook her head. She could not understand it either. This hostility had started abruptly, seemingly without any cause at all.

The people on the other side saw things much more clearly.

Perhaps because she had some experience under her belt, Sun Wei answered when Qian Ling asked the same question.

"In the cultivation world, there aren't so many reasons for disliking someone. It's simply jealousy."

"Aptitude, opportunities, Cultivation Level."

Qian Ling paused. "I understand aptitude and Cultivation Level, but what do you mean by opportunities?"

Sun Wei had gotten along reasonably well with Qian Ling over the past year, and generally answered her harmless little questions patiently.

"Look around the Outer Gate. Who else got a Magical Artifact in their first year, let alone a mid-grade Magical Artifact?"

Thinking of Su Jiu's Flying Sword, Qian Ling pressed her lips together. Indeed, when she had first learned that Su Jiu had a Magical Artifact, she had secretly envied her for a long time.

But although she had been jealous, she had gradually come to terms with it. People were different, after all. Those like Su Jiu were a minority in the Outer Gate; most disciples simply completed assignments and saved up contribution points to exchange for Magical Artifacts.

There were plenty of people worse off than them, such as those who could not enter a sect at all, or the gray-robed Laborer Disciples.

Qian Ling sighed, then gave a bitter smile. Someone like Su Jiu was destined to be different from them. In the near future, even feeling jealous of her would probably become an extravagant hope.

Sun Wei had joined the sect ten years before Qian Ling, so she had long since seen everything within it clearly and felt little else about it.

But not everyone could keep their temperament well in hand. Yu Yin, for instance.

Sun Wei even felt that if Yu Yin continued like this, she might develop an inner demon when she reached foundation establishment.

Yu Ying had not gone with Yu Yin to pick up assignments today. Since she was only at the first level of qi refining, hunting assignments were clearly out of the question, so she had accepted a task watering the Spirit Garden. Naturally, it was not the Spirit Garden on Ice Veil Peak.

She had just collected her pay and returned, feeling rather pleased, only to come home and find her sister's face covered in storm clouds.

"Sister?"

Hearing Yu Ying's voice, Yu Yin merely gave her a cold glance, then turned away and continued meditating.

Yu Ying pursed her lips.

"Do you think I'm ridiculous too?" Yu Yin asked coldly.

As though suddenly realizing something, Yu Ying asked, "Did you go looking for trouble with Su Jiu again?"

Yu Yin said nothing.

Yu Ying was nearly in tears with anxiety. "Sister, she isn't even in the same world as us. Why do you insist on picking on her? She's never done anything to you!"

Yu Yin sneered. "You certainly see things clearly. What, are you afraid she'll take revenge on me once her Cultivation Level rises and drag you into it?"

Yu Ying was beginning to find her own sister incomprehensible.

"That depends on whether she lives long enough to reach that point."

The vicious look on Yu Yin's face as she said this made Yu Ying shudder involuntarily.

"Sister..." Yu Ying's lips moved as though she wanted to say something, but in the end, she said nothing. Only the bitterness in her mouth grew stronger.

No one noticed the flash of red light that flickered through Yu Yin's eyes.