He Was Different

Inside a small tavern in Peaceful Town...

"Senior Sister, our mission this time was to recruit Ye Ningshuang. Why did we take in someone else?"

One of the Divine Firmament Sword Sect disciples asked, his face full of confusion.

Lü Qingyi sat by the window. Hearing her junior brother's question, she gazed outside without expression.

After a period of silence, Lü Qingyi finally said, "They both have spiritual roots anyway. One more outer disciple or one fewer makes no difference!"

The disciple who had asked smiled at her words.

"You have a point, Senior Sister. But the way Ye Ningshuang looks at that man named Ying Huaixu seems rather unusual. That isn't a good thing!"

At those words, Lü Qingyi could not help frowning.

Ye Ningshuang was the bearer of destiny foretold by the ancestor, someone who could reshape the future.

If someone like her developed romantic feelings for a person with a low-grade spiritual root, it would not be a good thing.

Of course, that was looking at it in terms of the bigger picture.

As far as Lü Qingyi was concerned, what bigger picture? If developing feelings for someone could affect this so-called bigger picture, then it was far too fragile.

Although she thought that way, all she could do in the end was grumble.

Lü Qingyi sighed.

"There's some truth to that. After all, Ye Ningshuang is a bearer of destiny. Someone without comparable destiny cannot bear the karma that comes with it. That would be bad for Ying Huaixu. Bearers of destiny often end up alone, after all!"

The disciples were all speechless.

Shouldn't the normal concern be that Ying Huaixu would hold Ye Ningshuang back?

Why did you make it sound like Ye Ningshuang would harm Ying Huaixu instead?

Just then, a streak of spiritual light suddenly descended toward Lü Qingyi.

Lü Qingyi raised her hand and caught it.

The spiritual light landed in her palm and transformed into a jade token in an instant.

The jade token contained information about Ying Huaixu.

Lü Qingyi extended her spiritual sense into the token and skimmed through Ying Huaixu's information rather casually.

But the more she read, the more peculiar her expression became.

She even found it somewhat absurd.

Ying Huaixu's background could be investigated quite thoroughly.

His parents had died when he was young, and he was a descendant of a fallen clan. Later, he had joined a martial arts school and trained there for several years.

His aptitude for martial arts was supposedly poor, and nobody thought much of his prospects, yet Ying Huaixu always managed to make breakthroughs remarkably quickly.

In the end, he had been unlucky enough to encounter the Evil Fiend, who chased him relentlessly. He had later fallen off a cliff and been rescued by Ye Ningshuang.

"Give me Ye Ningshuang's information!"

Lü Qingyi spoke hurriedly.

As soon as she finished speaking, a disciple handed her a jade token.

Lü Qingyi quickly swept her spiritual sense through it.

Finally, a doubtful expression appeared on her face!

"What is it, Senior Sister?"

The disciple who had questioned her earlier asked again.

Lü Qingyi did not answer immediately. Instead, she studied the information on both of them, doubts stirring in her mind.

Without thinking, she asked,

"Has the ancestor's prophecy ever been wrong?"

The disciple shook his head.

"Never!"

Lü Qingyi was beginning to doubt that now.

Comparing their backgrounds, she suddenly felt that Ying Huaixu seemed more like a bearer of destiny.

An orphan with lost memories and many things about him that defied understanding.

That fit the usual profile of a bearer of destiny perfectly.

Then there was Ye Ningshuang.

Although she was also an orphan, her life had been quite unremarkable.

The only part of her experience that matched a bearer of destiny was her ability to turn danger into good fortune every time.

But was Ying Huaixu any different in that regard?

Lü Qingyi drummed her fingers on the table, sinking into thought.

She could not help taking out three copper coins.

The three coins hovered and circled between her fingers. With a light flick, they fell onto the table in a random pattern.

Lü Qingyi looked down and raised an eyebrow.

She had performed the divination using Ying Huaixu's birth date and time.

She wanted to see what he would achieve in the future.

The resulting reading was: utterly ordinary!

Lü Qingyi did not believe it. She manipulated the coins and performed the divination seriously this time.

But this time, the reading changed.

From "utterly ordinary" to "utterly, ordinary"!

"Huh?"

Lü Qingyi was dumbfounded.

What kind of reading was this? And what was that pause supposed to mean?

Refusing to accept it, Lü Qingyi tried again.

This time, it changed once more.

"Utterly ordinary!"

Lü Qingyi immediately felt a headache coming on!

She had never doubted her own skill.

There was simply no reason to doubt it.

Her Divination Arts might not rival the ancestor's, but she was still second to none beneath the ancestor.

Yet Ying Huaixu's readings had truly left her at a loss.

How could "utterly ordinary" come out in so many different forms?

The crucial point was that Lü Qingyi had no choice but to believe it, because divining Ying Huaixu's future had exacted no price at all.

After some thought, Lü Qingyi divined Ye Ningshuang's future achievements.

The result made her rub her temples again.

It was so dazzling that it nearly blinded her.

Shoring up a world on the brink of collapse, passing judgment across the eight wildernesses, ending the age of darkness, becoming an empress without equal throughout the ages, through the ages...

There was far too much information.

The Divine Firmament Sword Sect disciple looked at the two divination results and smiled.

"I told you the grandmaster has never been wrong. You've confirmed it yourself this time, haven't you, Senior Sister?"

"Why don't we have Ye Ningshuang and Ying Huaixu break things off?"

Lü Qingyi waved a hand.

"Do not bring this up again. I have already accepted Ying Huaixu as a disciple of the Divine Firmament Sword Sect. Since he is one of our disciples, I will not tolerate anyone mocking or humiliating him!"

"If Ye Ningshuang or Ying Huaixu decides in the future that they aren't right for each other, that decision is theirs to make. It is not our place to tear a couple apart!"

The disciple hurriedly bowed.

"You are right to admonish me, Senior Sister."

He dared not disobey.

Although Lü Qingyi was the youngest core disciple in the Divine Firmament Sword Sect, her authority was equal to that of the sect leader.

Sometimes, even the sect leader's words did not carry as much weight as hers.

Of course, she had reached that position because she was extremely dependable, and many policies that benefited the Divine Firmament Sword Sect's development had been established by her.

The grandmaster's prophecy had even stated that Lü Qingyi held up half the sky in the Hongmeng World!

That was an astonishing appraisal.

As for why they still needed Ye Ningshuang when Lü Qingyi was already so formidable...

It was because Ye Ningshuang was even more extraordinary.

What they did not know, however, was that Lü Qingyi still had a lingering feeling.

Ying Huaixu was different.

She could not say exactly how, but her intuition told her that Ying Huaixu truly was different.

"All right. Wait here for three days. We'll depart after that..."

The Divine Firmament Sword Sect disciples all bowed.

Lü Qingyi continued gazing out of the window.

Then she froze.

She had just witnessed a truly ridiculous scene.