Whether it was fake wasn't a question of whether it could happen, but whether people were willing to believe it.
"And then?" Xuan Ming asked.
"Just suspicions, without evidence? Then can I suspect that the earlier friction between Heaven Dou and the Star Luo Empire was secretly orchestrated by the Barak Royal Family? Or by the other kingdoms? To wear down the Heaven Dou Imperial Family's strength?"
"What nonsense. You open your mouth and all you have are suspicions. What damn good are suspicions?"
Qian Renxue was momentarily at a loss for words.
She had been too sensitive.
"But if someone asks how you survived in Sunset Forest, how will you explain it?" Qian Renxue asked.
"Explain, my ass!" Xuan Ming looked utterly speechless.
"I'm a six-year-old kid. If I survived in a hellhole like that, any normal person would just think I was lucky and hard to kill."
"Only a woman with something wrong with her head like you would immediately interrogate me about how I survived, as if you wished I'd died in there."
Qian Renxue's expression froze. "I..."
"You, you, you-what about you? I'll just say I was scared senseless and forgot. What can they do? Kill me?" Xuan Ming turned away, truly unwilling to deal with this woman whose head was full of schemes.
"Ahem." Snake Lance Douluo couldn't quite bear to watch anymore. He stood and led Qian Renxue some distance away.
"Young mistress, he's only six."
No one with a functioning brain would suspect anything of a six-year-old child.
After all, what was there to suspect?
"Six..." Qian Renxue looked a little awkward.
She had actually forgotten that Xuan Ming was only six.
"Young mistress, you're rushing things," Snake Lance Douluo said.
"Your first encounter wasn't friendly to begin with. If you want him to listen to you, you should first remove the thorn in his heart, not pursue him relentlessly like this."
Xuan Ming already felt hostility toward Qian Renxue because of what had happened at the Worship Hall. Even if she wanted to win him over, she should take it slowly.
Even now, Qian Renxue and Xuan Ming were still practically strangers!
Had he been an ordinary child, Qian Renxue would surely have won him over long ago with such initiative.
But this boy was different. Given what he'd been through, the more initiative Qian Renxue took, the more wary he would become!
"Young mistress, your heart is in turmoil," Snake Lance Douluo said.
The Qian Renxue of before would never have been so rash.
That she could play the role of Xue Qinghe so well proved there was nothing wrong with her cunning or methods.
Qian Renxue was indeed interested in this boy, but a mere genius wasn't enough to leave her scrambling like this.
Ultimately, it was because of the Pope.
Xuan Ming had spent several months in the Pope's Palace, and according to the Great Enshrined, he had spent most of that time with Bibi Dong. This had given Qian Renxue far too great a sense of crisis, making her so anxious that she lost her sense of proportion.
Qian Renxue cared so much about Xuan Ming largely because of Bibi Dong, because of her own competitive spirit.
It was because the Pope wanted him that Qian Renxue cared so much.
Otherwise, if she truly couldn't control him, she could simply destroy him. It would be of little consequence.
"I understand." Qian Renxue sighed.
She had indeed grown excessively worried because that woman had spent so much time with Xuan Ming. Especially when Xuan Ming argued back, she instinctively felt that woman was responsible, even completely forgetting that Xuan Ming had never been someone who trusted others easily.
Night fell.
It was winter, and this place was in the north. Once night came, the temperature dropped noticeably.
"Aren't you cold?" Sitting beside the fire, Qian Renxue looked toward Xuan Ming, who was reclining against a tree.
"I'm used to it," Xuan Ming said.
"I know you have a terrible impression of me, so I won't explain myself here. You wouldn't believe me anyway," Qian Renxue said.
"As for what comes next in Heaven Dou City, Xue Qinghe will tell you. I won't say any more."
"Snake Lance Douluo will also stay here from now on. If you need anything, you can go to him."
"Mm," Xuan Ming answered.
Qian Renxue walked over in puzzlement. "Are you meditating?"
When Soul Masters cultivated, faint fluctuations of Soul Power would emanate from their bodies.
Xuan Ming had spent the entire afternoon reclining against the tree, and she had thought he was sleeping.
Only now did she notice the fluctuations of Soul Power coming from him.
"Mm," Xuan Ming answered, his eyes still closed.
"You need to sit cross-legged when you meditate. Otherwise, you can't fully concentrate, and your Soul Power won't circulate completely," Qian Renxue said.
"No need for all that trouble. I can do it standing up too," Xuan Ming said.
"Standing up?" The corner of Qian Renxue's eye twitched.
"Who taught you that?"
Meditation required complete concentration, sensing and controlling one's own Soul Power and absorbing the various forms of energy between heaven and earth.
Thus, when meditating, one had to maintain a posture that could remain stable for a long time and allow one to focus: sitting cross-legged.
This posture also helped improve the efficiency of Soul Power circulation.
Sitting casually like this, his cultivation efficiency could only be described as absurdly low!
And...
Wait! You're meditating and talking to me?
Chapter 60: Your flower crown is beautiful
"How... did you do that?"
Qian Renxue couldn't quite understand anymore.
Never mind that he wasn't sitting cross-legged to concentrate to the fullest-he was even distracting himself by talking to her. He called this meditation?
"Talent," Xuan Ming said.
"What talent?" Qian Renxue asked in confusion.
She had never heard of such a talent.
"Don't tell me you mean splitting your attention between two tasks?" Qian Renxue said.
"There's no such thing as splitting your attention during meditation. You have to devote yourself fully, with absolute concentration."
"I have two minds," Xuan Ming said.
Qian Renxue froze. "Two minds?"
"Just think of it as my Beast Martial Soul mutating and giving me a split personality," Xuan Ming said.
Normal people had only one train of thought, so they couldn't do anything else while meditating.
The slightest stray thought would interrupt their meditation.
But he had two trains of thought. In theory, he could concentrate on two completely unrelated things at the same time.
For instance, he could meditate and cultivate with complete concentration while talking to someone.
He could even fight someone while meditating with complete concentration to recover.
It was like draining a swimming pool while filling it, except his rate of filling it fell far short of his rate of draining it.
Still, with this ability, against an evenly matched opponent, he would certainly last longer.
"A split personality..." Qian Renxue looked a little awkward.
"Haven't you only been cultivating for a few months? You can control two trains of thought at once?"
Controlling two trains of thought at once sounded far harder than splitting one's attention between two tasks, no matter how she looked at it.
Someone who had only just begun cultivating probably hadn't even fully grasped Soul Power circulation. Where would they find the time to study this?
"The Pope taught me," Xuan Ming said.
Bibi Dong could split her attention between two tasks, which was similar in principle to his two trains of thought.
Following the method Bibi Dong had taught him, he had tried controlling both trains of thought and barely succeeded. It simply wasn't very efficient, with a clear distinction between primary and secondary.
When he devoted one train of thought entirely to meditation, the other could only perform simple tasks. He couldn't even think too much, or it would interfere with his meditation.
This was not merely a matter of proficiency, but also of mental power.
"The Pope..." Qian Renxue frowned slightly.
"Going to say she harbors sinister intentions toward me again?" Xuan Ming opened his eyes and stopped cultivating.
"She harbors sinister intentions toward me, but she helped me, both where she should have and where she didn't have to."
"She gave me what she should have given me, and what she didn't have to give me."
"Even if she was only trying to win me over, even if she had ulterior motives, at least she was actually trying to win me over and gave me what I needed."
"What about you?"
"I know what you'll say. I'm still young. I don't understand. Just because someone gives me candy doesn't mean they're good to me. Maybe the candy is poisoned, and eating it will kill me."
"But to someone who's starving to death, does it matter whether the candy is poisoned?"
He knew perfectly well that Bibi Dong's attitude toward him was by no means straightforward, but how different was Qian Renxue?
Before, he had been like a wounded man dying in bed. Bibi Dong had come up, given him anesthetic, and operated on him. Though she'd beaten him up along the way, she had saved him.
But Qian Renxue? She hadn't done anything practical. She had simply stood there cheering him on, pouring chicken soup for the soul down the throat of a grievously wounded man on the brink of death: I'll stay with you. You have to believe in yourself. The person who just operated on you has bad intentions toward you. Whatever you do, don't trust her!
Was this a joke?!
He was wounded! He was dying!
What did he need?
What Qian Renxue did was like those people who went to construction sites shouting slogans: I've got a twenty-billion project, just get on the bus-and then turned around and took everyone to a cinema to watch fucking Ne Zha!
Was she wrong? She wasn't!
But what he needed right now wasn't fucking Ne Zha!
"I know you mean me no harm. I also know you want to help me. But you have no idea what I need. You don't even deign to find out. You just look down from on high, offering your self-righteous empathy," Xuan Ming said.
"I know you were born in the sky. I don't expect you to understand how someone like me, born struggling in the mire, stays alive."
"But please don't make a flower crown you think is beautiful and put it on my head. I'm still in the mire. I'm still struggling. Even tossing me a broken plank so I could lie on it and rest for a moment would be good."
"Your flower crown is beautiful, but it doesn't suit me."
"..."
Qian Renxue remained silent, truly unsure what else she could say.
It seemed that everything she had done was nothing more than a useless flower crown to Xuan Ming.
The night passed without another word. When Xuan Ming opened his eyes again, dawn had already broken, and Qian Renxue was gone.
The morning air was especially cold, carrying a bone-piercing chill. Fortunately, he was a Beast Soul Master with a sturdy body and could just about endure it.
The clatter of hooves sounded in the distance. Xuan Ming turned to look, and a large, pale-yellow carriage trimmed with gold slowly approached.
Qian Renxue had donned her disguise. Xue Qinghe had arrived.
"Xuan Ming!"
Before the carriage reached him, Xue Qinghe poked his head out and called over.