No Way He Could Have Found Out It Was Me

This disciple was rather rebellious and disrespectful.

Su Fuxi frowned slightly.

Only after circulating her spiritual power through three complete cycles did she suppress the cold poison that had stirred restlessly from her earlier spell. She opened her eyes, the white silk ribbon fluttering behind her in the wind, and rose to her feet with perfect composure, leisurely flicking her sleeves.

"Disciple," she called deliberately, looking at Lin Sui, who stood barely ten feet away. "How did you find your way here?"

At those two words, Lin Sui's expression froze for a moment. He actually found himself quite unaccustomed to hearing them.

"...Master, I... this disciple received word that you were at Ink Hill and came as soon as I could."

"Mm, you've already reached the Golden Core Stage. You've advanced quickly."

He kept his eyes fixed on Su Fuxi without blinking, his gaze so dark and lingering that it gave her goosebumps. Her fingers pinched together surreptitiously at her side. She held out a hand. "Let me see the Red Robe Daoist's storage bag."

Without another word, Lin Sui presented a pile of storage bags with both hands. Red Robe had killed many cultivators and acquired many bags. Su Fuxi picked out the dark red one in the middle, which carried the aura of a soul imprint, and drew it into her hand from a distance.

This was the Red Robe Daoist's storage bag. She probed it with her divine sense and, sure enough, found Zha Wuren's teleportation artifact. She took it out at once.

Aside from spirit stones, artifacts, and other miscellaneous items, Su Fuxi found a jade box in a pile of materials that soon caught her attention as she searched. She seized it with her divine sense and drew it out to float before her.

The jade box was sealed with a strip of yellow paper, revealing not the slightest trace of its aura, nor any fluctuation of spiritual power.

Her divine sense could not see what was inside. She pondered for a while. She had only seen a similar yellow seal on Lin Sui's sword, but there were still differences between the two, and the methods for undoing them were entirely different.

Rather than touch the yellow paper rashly, she put the jade box in her own storage bag. Presumably, it was no ordinary object. She planned to look for a way to break the seal after leaving the secret realm.

"Take this." Having taken only the teleportation artifact and the jade box, Su Fuxi waved her hand and tossed the storage bag to Lin Sui.

She picked up two other, rather ordinary storage bags, each with a tiny insect pattern on the bottom. A probe with her divine sense revealed the golden cicada and the gray mist insects inside.

Presumably, the two did not get along very well, so Red Robe had kept them in separate storage bags. The golden cicada was lying atop a mountain of gold, absorbing a golden pill to heal its injuries.

The gray mist, meanwhile, rested atop a pile of spirit stones, densely packed points of light flickering like fireflies.

Su Fuxi raised an eyebrow. These two kinds of spirit insects seemed to be gold-gobbling beasts in every sense of the word. An ordinary person could never afford to raise them.

Still, she looked at the enormous golden cicada, sorely tempted. Its defenses were extraordinarily powerful, enough to withstand the force of an exploding artifact, and its flying speed probably wasn't bad either. It could easily replace a flying sword for travel!

"These are the Spirit-Corroding Insects. These little things can dissolve spiritual power defenses. They're only second-tier, yet they're already quite powerful. Take them and raise them, and make them your own." She handed Lin Sui the storage bag containing the mist insects.

"I'm very fond of this golden cicada. You can have everything else." With that, she turned around. "The Gold-Birth Fruits are ripe. It's time to collect them."

Paying no attention to the stunned Lin Sui, Su Fuxi flew straight into the golden sinkhole a thousand feet away, muttering to herself, Surely he couldn't have recognized me as the person who coerced him into curing the poison just by what he felt in the dark?

No, no, no, absolutely impossible!

That simply won't do!

Shaking her head vehemently in her mind, she felt both utterly speechless and absurdly flustered. She wasn't stupid, of course she had noticed something was a little off with Lin Sui. Could it be that cultivating a physical furnace had made him develop feelings for her too?

Master and disciple and all that is far too frightening... It's one thing in secret, but it absolutely can't be brought out into the open!

How did I never notice before that there was something off about that boy Lin Sui?

Apart from that ridiculous poison-curing business, where did things go wrong?

No, no, I won't hear it. I only had a fleeting romance with him while disguised as a stranger. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the way I taught him.

In any case, since she couldn't figure it out, she would pass the blame first. Su Fuxi had no time to dwell on it for now.

She flew to the bottom of the sinkhole and surveyed a steep, golden-tinged rock face. Before her was a mass of emerald-gold vines growing in a tangled knot, all sprouting from a single old root as thick as a fist.

Dozens of golden fruits hung from the vines, rich with fragrance but giving off a slightly sharp aura, their spiritual radiance shimmering in waves. These were the Gold-Birth Fruits, which ripened once every hundred years. Within twelve hours of ripening, they would fall back to the roots and nourish them.

The older the root system, the better the quality of its fruit, making it a fine material for refining artifacts. Su Fuxi formed a hand seal to undo the restriction she had placed years ago, then reached out and drew all the fruit into her grasp.

She turned to leave, but caught sight of the old root streaked with golden patterns from the corner of her eye. She stopped abruptly and used the Embroidered Gold Sword to dig up half the root system.

The root contained the essence of the whole plant. It was called the Gold Essence Root, and its quality was even better than the fruit's.

"Lin Sui, take this to feed your sword, and take this too." Su Fuxi tossed the Gold Essence Root and the spirit bamboo root to Lin Sui. She did feel a little bad, after all, so she offered them as compensation.

"Yes, thank you, Master!" Lin Sui immediately perked up, his eyes brightening. He felt she hadn't changed and was still very good to him.

Su Fuxi sighed inwardly, avoiding the puppy-dog eyes that were so at odds with his tall figure. She rubbed her face and stepped aside. "I'm going to tame the golden cicada. Go cultivate on your own."

Lin Sui nodded obediently and carried his pile of resources off to find a cave, where he would temper the No Falsehood Sword, which had already grown restless.

Su Fuxi, meanwhile, happily took out the storage bag. A faint light flashed from the bag in her hand, and an enormous golden cicada appeared before her in an instant. It was in somewhat better condition, but its wings were still injured, leaving it unable to fly. It could only lie on the ground.

Sensing the familiar pressure emanating from Su Fuxi, it lowered its head in some fear and assumed a submissive posture. Su Fuxi had thought she would have to put in more effort to subdue it completely.

"At least you know what's good for you." She tossed it a Gold-Birth Fruit. The golden cicada understood, opening its mouthparts and using their feelers to grasp the fruit before devouring it at great speed. Light rippled through the glazed, red eyes on its head; it was clearly delighted.

"Want more?" Su Fuxi held out another fruit. "Acknowledge me as your master, and I'll give you fruit to heal your injuries."

The golden cicada was of no low rank and clearly possessed intelligence. It nodded its entire head and lowered its body further, emitting a muffled buzz from its abdomen.

Su Fuxi seized the chance to extend her divine sense to the golden cicada's head. She completely erased the soul imprint Red Robe had left and branded it with her own divine sense, making it easier to summon the cicada in the future. True enough, it offered no resistance.

"Good cicada! Here, have some fruit." Standing before the golden cicada, which was several dozen feet tall, Su Fuxi looked especially petite. With a wave of her hand, she tossed it three more fruits. The cicada caught them one by one with the feelers around its mouthparts, devouring and absorbing them.

Seeing this, Su Fuxi took out several healing pills and tossed them to it as well. After the golden cicada swallowed them, the injuries on its body gradually healed.

A short while later, the wound around its mouth and the cracks in its wings quickly closed and vanished. After it had devoured ten fruits and five pills in all, the missing parts of its wings visibly grew back, becoming even tougher than before.

"Tsk, a gold-gobbling beast indeed," Su Fuxi muttered. She reached out to stroke its forehead, then suddenly leaped onto its back. "Come on, let's go find that hotheaded young fool over there."

The golden cicada spread its wings, and a single beat stirred up a powerful current of air. With a burst of speed, it carried Su Fuxi swiftly and steadily over a mountain peak.