Chu Xisheng found no one in Chu Yunyun's room.
Just as he was wondering about it, he heard a slight noise behind the courtyard. His brows rose, and he immediately followed the sound.
When he stepped into the back courtyard, he saw Chu Yunyun standing beside an earthen stove ahead. She lifted her head from the iron wok and looked at him, her face covered in soot.
Chu Yunyun's eyes were utterly embarrassed, but she tossed the spatula back into the wok as though nothing had happened.
"I got back late from the Daoist Temple, and the dining hall was already closed. So I bought some vegetables to cook myself, but I burned the potatoes."
Looking at her face, as black as the bottom of a pot, Chu Xisheng burst out laughing, taking delight in her misfortune.
But then he saw several strips of blue cloth hanging from the clothesline in the corner, fluttering in the night breeze.
Those strips looked very familiar-
Chu Xisheng could no longer laugh. His face immediately darkened. "You washed clothes again? Ruining your own is one thing, but why did you touch mine?"
"I saw them in your room, so I washed them while I was at it."
Chu Yunyun scratched her face with a finger and guiltily turned her gaze elsewhere. "Don't look at me like that. These clothes can still be used after a little mending. As for those two strange bellybands and underpants of yours, I'll take an escort job the day after tomorrow and pay you back."
She had already condensed her Spirit Seed and felt that her self-control was much stronger than before.
Chu Yunyun had been brimming with confidence then, believing she could manage it, but now it seemed she had still been too naive.
Yet she had no trouble at all fighting people to the death.
Chu Xisheng's face twitched. "You ruined my undershirts and underwear too?"
Men in ancient times all wore bellybands. Chu Xisheng simply could not get used to them, so he had bought some cloth to cut and sew himself.
Poor him-a master's student from Nanjing University who had never touched a needle and thread in his life. He had spent ages figuring out how to make those sets of men's underwear. It had taken an enormous amount of effort.
After fuming for a while, Chu Xisheng realized there was nothing he could do to Chu Yunyun.
Could he possibly beat her up?
He should burn incense in gratitude if Chu Yunyun did not beat him up.
He sighed and could only reach helplessly for the kitchen knife. "Go fetch water and wash up. I'll cook."
He saw that there were still quite a few vegetables left beside her.
As for the earthen stove, Chu Xisheng had personally directed its construction on the day they moved in, while Chu Yunyun had provided the labor to build it.
Now it seemed there were still quite a few places where flames leaked and smoke escaped, requiring further repairs, but it was fine for temporary use.
Chu Xisheng picked up a washed potato to cut, but the more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He slammed the knife down on the chopping board with a heavy thunk.
"Chu Yunyun! I'm telling you, you're not allowed to touch the clothes again without my permission, or else-"
Chu Yunyun had already picked up the carrying pole from the corner. At his words, she looked over at Chu Xisheng in puzzlement.
Chu Xisheng's heart suddenly tightened.
As this sister of his looked back with the carrying pole in hand, she somehow possessed the imposing might of a warrior astride a horse with saber leveled, her spirit swallowing ten thousand miles.
Even the carrying pole in her hand looked like a peerless weapon of slaughter, on par with Lord Guan's Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
Chu Xisheng swallowed and suppressed his fear.
He absolutely could not back down before Chu Yunyun, or this woman would become even more lawless. How would the two of them live together then?
His thoughts raced. Mustering all his force, Chu Xisheng widened his eyes and glared back. "Believe it or not, I won't make stir-fried potatoes with green peppers for half a month! No! A whole month!"
Scared now?
For some reason, this world actually had potatoes, which had only reached China in the sixteenth century.
They were Chu Yunyun's favorite food. Every time, she insisted on picking the very last piece of green pepper and the very last shred of potato from her bowl into her mouth.
Chu Yunyun smiled, then pouted aggrievedly before shouldering the water buckets and heading out.
A quarter of an hour later, the siblings sat at the table, eating the meat-stuffed flatbreads in their bowls with a plate of shredded potatoes and green peppers and a plate of scrambled eggs with chives.
Only after cutting the vegetables had Chu Xisheng discovered that more than half the rice Chu Yunyun had cooked was burned too.
He could not be bothered to cook rice again. As it happened, the dozen or so meat-stuffed flatbreads he had taken to the Library Tower were all untouched, so he simply steamed them together and ate them with the dishes.
It was July, and the weather was sweltering. After three days, these meat-stuffed flatbreads had gone a little sour.
Still, Chu Xisheng could not bear to throw them away. After all, they were food bought with a tael of demon silver. Normally, they only ate plain steamed buns, unwilling to spend on food stuffed with meat.
"Just where did that Yazi Diagram in the Library Tower come from?"
Chu Xisheng's words were muffled. He was ravenous too, asking as he wolfed down his food, "There was actually saber intent hidden inside it."
Chu Yunyun's hand paused as she picked up food, and she glanced at Chu Xisheng in surprise.
Still, she finished her meal sitting perfectly upright. Only after setting down her bowl and chopsticks did she answer him. "You could sense the saber intent? It seems your comprehension is much better than I thought."
Chu Xisheng looked at her in puzzlement. "I didn't just sense it. I gained some understanding too. Why do you say my comprehension is good?"
"The saber intent in that diagram is hidden very deeply. Even people with excellent comprehension cannot detect it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have hung in the Zhengyang Martial Academy's Library Tower for centuries with so few people seeing its true nature."
Chu Yunyun explained calmly, "That's why I told you to devote all your effort to memorizing its patterns, lines, and structure. As long as you memorize roughly eighty percent of the entire diagram and engrave it in your heart, you can trigger the saber intent during visualization."
Chu Xisheng could not help raising his brows. He judged that it certainly was not because he had good comprehension.
Rather, his Eagle Eye had allowed him to notice every detail of the Yazi Diagram, deepening his memory of it.
And was this sister of his boasting about her own comprehension in a roundabout way?
If even people with excellent comprehension could not detect it, then Chu Yunyun's comprehension must be exceptionally, exceptionally good.
"You still haven't told me where this diagram came from, or why you said it was crucial to us, a matter of life and death. I heard Ye Zhiqiu say there's more than one. Every one of the seventy-two martial academies under the Formless Divine Sect has one."
This time, Chu Yunyun did not evade the question. After a moment's thought, she answered calmly, "About thirteen hundred years ago, a renegade disciple emerged from the Formless Divine Sect, known as the Blood-Yazi Saber Lord. He created the Divine-Intent Death-Touching Saber himself and once reached first place on the Heavenly Ranking. For a hundred and seventy years, he strode unchecked through his era, without an equal. This diagram came from his hand, recording the essence of his lifetime's saber intent.
"After betraying the sect, he became its irreconcilable enemy and accumulated debts of blood. Yet upon his passing, he left the saber intent diagrams he had inscribed and the Divine-Intent Death-Touching Saber to the Formless Divine Sect. There are eight diagrams in total, progressing step by step. More than a hundred copies were made of the first diagram and kept in the various martial academies. Only the most outstanding Three-Leaf Inner Disciples of the academies can access the second. As for why it's so important-"
Chu Yunyun paused, then reached out her fair little hand and pressed it against the left side of Chu Xisheng's chest.
The youth's heart was beating steadily, but at a much slower rate than a normal person's. His skin temperature was also lower than most people's.
She had these characteristics too, exactly the same.
"The reason we're alive is the Six Yin Soul-Returning Incantation. Returning the soul through six yin means defying heaven to borrow life. What is borrowed must be repaid. Every day, a certain amount of our yang qi disperses into the void. If one day you and I lose the ability to repay that debt, we will surely return to dust and earth.
"There are only two ways to prolong our lives. One is to practice an origin-energy secret method approaching pure yang, such as the Origin-Nourishing Art; the other is to use our own Martial Dao Divine Intent to dispel the yin baleful cold poison. But merely prolonging our lives isn't enough. Have you ever wondered who cast this Six Yin Soul-Returning Incantation?"
Chu Xisheng's heart jolted, and his expression grew cold and grim.
How could he not have wondered?
Their resurrection in the Overlord Martial King's Tomb had been full of mysteries. They had inexplicably come back to life, without knowing why.
Still less did they know whose handiwork this Six Yin Soul-Returning Incantation was.
"I'm grateful to the person who brought me back from death, and I'm willing to repay them, but I'm unwilling to be under their control."
A gleam flashed through Chu Yunyun's eyes as she withdrew her hand. "These eight Yazi Diagrams are a shortcut to freeing ourselves from the person who cast the technique. Speaking of Yazi, what comes to mind?"
Chu Xisheng concentrated and thought for a moment. "Yazi repays even the slightest grievance?"
"The word 'repay' there means revenge, but it also means retribution."
Chu Yunyun nodded. "Retribution is a great divine ability bordering on cause and effect. At his peak, the Blood-Yazi Saber Lord could kill a third-grade martial cultivator with a single glance. That's why his saber was called the Divine-Intent Death-Touching Saber-death upon contact. But what I want to draw upon is Yazi's power of retaliation. Yazi can retaliate against and reverse all divine abilities and unusual powers, turning them upon the enemy.
"As the saying goes, 'The kindness of a single meal must be repaid, the grievance of a single glare must be avenged, and vengeance cannot avoid bloody slaughter.' That is Yazi, the dragon's second son! You only need to cultivate Yazi saber intent to the sixth diagram, and the person who cast the incantation will find it very difficult to do anything to us."
Hearing the word "retaliation," Chu Xisheng recalled the scene in the Yazi Diagram's illusion where the middle-aged man reflected the giant's lightning and strength back upon the giant himself.
"Yazi saber intent is actually very difficult to master. Although the Blood-Yazi Saber Lord left the saber intent diagrams to the Formless Divine Sect, no one to this day has cultivated the Yazi Diagrams to the fifth. Even I gave up in the past. But soon, a great opportunity will arise at the Zhengyang Martial Academy."
Chu Yunyun turned her head and looked in a certain direction. "As long as you obtain that thing, not only will your talent and foundation catch up with those geniuses born into great aristocratic clans, but you'll also have a chance to master the Divine-Intent Death-Touching Saber in the future."
Chu Xisheng's curiosity was stirred once again.
He wanted to ask for the details, but Chu Yunyun remained silent and rose to clear away the bowls and chopsticks.
How could Chu Xisheng dare let her touch them?
This was someone who could get so nervous just picking up shredded potatoes that she snapped her chopsticks.
He hurriedly stopped her, and his expression shifted. "Right, there's one more thing."
He took the two bronze waist tokens from his sleeve and placed them on the table.
At the sight of those waist tokens, Chu Yunyun's expression grew slightly grave as well.