"It wasn't worth it."
Jing Jiu meant how, at the final moment, Liu Ci had stood in front of Yin San, covering the sky with his palm and blocking that expanse of lightning and fire.
Even if Liu Ci was the mole, he should not have done that. It was not something a Daoist cultivator should do.
Aboard the Sword Boat, Liu Ci had spoken to Mochi about the relationship between Green Mountain and the words "couldn't help it," but he had not offered Jing Jiu that explanation.
He knew that even if Jing Jiu understood, he would not approve.
Back when he first climbed Shangde Peak, he had lingered over the sea of pines and arrived a few steps later than Yuan Qijing, thus becoming the junior disciple.
True Person Taiping had not been angry. He had rather liked it, while Jing Jiu had shown no reaction at all.
The first time Liu Ci saw him, he was sitting beside the cliff, staring blankly at the sea of clouds.
After that, he was always staring blankly, whether beside the cliff, inside his cave abode, at the game table, or over a hotpot.
At the time, True Person Daoyuan was dead, as was the founding master. The position of Sect Master had fallen into other hands, and Shangde Peak was under tremendous pressure.
Yet that young man seemed to feel none of it. He simply sat there, staring into space.
Liu Ci had wondered whether this Junior Uncle-Master had cultivated himself senseless.
Only later, when True Person Taiping took them for a hotpot meal and then set off toward Mocheng Peak through fierce winds and torrential rain, and he saw with his own eyes how many elders his Junior Uncle-Master killed, did he realize that he himself was the fool-for