Recognition

Before a small waterside pavilion, a beauty in ancient dress stood quietly, lost in thought.

The mischievous spring breeze set her sleeves fluttering and her dark hair dancing wildly. She truly looked like a fairy floating down from the heavens.

Quite a few tourists pretended to pass by casually, when they were really sneaking glances at her.

Many even took out their phones to snap secret photos, whispering excitedly to their friends.

Who could resist a beauty?

When Duanmu Ren heard Vice Mayor Qian's words, he felt a headache coming on.

Besides being as greedy for money as he was, Vice Mayor Qian also had a reputation for lust.

Whenever he saw a woman with a little beauty, he could hardly tear himself away.

Hua Chunning's looks, and especially her bearing, were exactly Vice Mayor Qian's type.

Duanmu Ren could not help thinking in despair, Why don't I just stand by and watch coldly while he goes looking for death?

Better yet, Daoist Li could point a finger at him too, so someone else can experience the mental torture of having their soul shattered.

But Duanmu Ren was, after all, a mature and rational bureaucrat.

Fairy Hua was a secluded cultivator with no reverence for secular morality or law. She really might kill someone.

If things truly spiraled out of control, Daoist Li and Fairy Hua could easily extricate themselves, but he would have nowhere to run.

More importantly, if he really ruined Fairy Hua's plans, he probably would not escape blame either.

Duanmu Ren also knew how to deal with people whose hearts burned with lust. He lowered his voice and said, "To be frank, sir, this project was actually approved specifically for her."

"Oh?!" Vice Mayor Qian stopped, suppressing his restless heart, and glanced around. "A project with this much investment, just for..."

"I understand." Halfway through, he nodded in sudden realization and frowned. "Why didn't you say so earlier?!"

No wonder Duanmu Ren, that wily old fox with such hidden depths, had insisted on pushing it through even at the cost of offending everyone. It turned out he was trying to curry favor with an important person.

Director Jia, standing beside them, also pricked up his ears.

Duanmu Ren sighed and explained in a low voice, "This sort of thing can be done, but it can't be spoken of. It would make... unhappy!"

"True." Vice Mayor Qian came to his senses and asked quietly, "Whose family is she from? Someone at the provincial level?"

It was no secret that Duanmu Ren, a county magistrate no less, had made plenty of trips to the provincial hospital to show filial devotion to his godfather.

Duanmu Ren shook his head.

Vice Mayor Qian immediately straightened up. "From the capital?!"

Duanmu Ren shook his head again and pointed upward.

"Hiss!" Vice Mayor Qian drew a sharp breath, glanced up at the sky, and said in a trembling voice, "F-from up above?!"

Duanmu Ren nodded silently, his face solemn.

"No wonder, no wonder!" Vice Mayor Qian had seen through everything. Still a little shaken, he said, "With those looks and that bearing, she could only be someone from up above."

He just did not know whose woman she was, or whose daughter.

Although Vice Mayor Qian was greedy and lustful, he knew perfectly well that the reason he could have a family in every district and county was the chair beneath his backside.

But that chair could be occupied by anyone.

For those important people up above, a puff of breath would be enough to cast him down into the dust.

Vice Mayor Qian glanced again at the beauty's back in front of the waterside pavilion. She seemed to sense something and turned to look at him. Startled, he instinctively put on a fawning smile.

The beauty in ancient dress swept a cool gaze over him and nodded slightly in greeting. Then she looked into the distance again, continuing to serve as the sub-courtyard's loveliest sight.

Hua Chunning had carefully savored the three seasonal phases of the beginning of spring, using them to gather Spring Qi and enhance her Manifestation. She felt she had gained quite a lot.

When the sub-courtyard opened to visitors today, she had a different experience.

To love beauty and delight oneself in it was human nature.

Most of the tourists entering the garden now were simply in the leisurely mood to enjoy spring and admire the flowers, with none of the sullied thoughts of petty scheming.

As a result, there was not much Mortal World Turbid Qi in the sub-courtyard.

As the tourists walked back and forth, their pure feelings subtly stirred the spiritual atmosphere, bringing much more freshness and vitality to the Spring Qi that had once been remote and desolate.

The spiritual atmosphere was good before, but it could only be called [Desolate Spring] and [Wild Spring].

Now that it's linked to the vitality of humanity, it should finally be the [Living Spring] the sect master spoke of.

Something seemed to dawn on Hua Chunning, and she felt that her understanding of Spring Qi had improved considerably.

The rosy dawn clouds in the east dispersed, the lesser yang Qi gradually faded, and the bright yang light of day grew strong. It had already strayed from the Manifestation Hua Chunning wanted to gather.

Hua Chunning rose and left, following a gravel path to rest in the waterside pavilion.

Tourists along the way stopped to admire her and took out their phones to film.

Anyone who saw her would be moved to sigh, "Faint as a light cloud veiling the moon, drifting as snow whirled by a passing breeze."

A young man with an innocent look came toward her and happened to meet her eyes. Her beauty struck him so hard that he forgot to watch where he was going, and he stumbled headfirst into the water.

Zhao Xiaojun had made a complete fool of himself.

He had returned home for his university break and was so bored that even playing on his phone had lost its appeal. On top of that, his parents kept nagging him and complaining about him.

At breakfast, he heard his parents discussing county news. The Lijiawa Subsidence Area had been turned into a tourist resort, and it apparently involved a power struggle in the county. Everyone was talking about it.

Zhao Xiaojun curled his lip to himself.

His hometown was a tiny, backwater county town, full of bankrupt coal mines and subsidence areas. Only a fool would come here for a vacation.

It had to be another money-making scheme by corrupt officials.

Listening more closely, he learned that Duanmu Ren was behind it.

That settled it.

Back then, Duanmu Ren had offended someone and been assigned to an impoverished township, where he suffered all kinds of bullying. Finally, he had hardened his heart and embezzled poverty relief funds to buy an official post, take a godfather, and become a live-in son-in-law. Only then had he soared through the ranks to become county magistrate. He was a notoriously corrupt official.

All the locals knew his story.

Many people cursed corrupt officials and said they deserved to die, while many others said there was no one who did not take bribes, so it was enough if he got things done.

After eating, Zhao Xiaojun started scrolling through his phone.

Someone in his university dorm group sent a video and tagged him. "Old Zhao, isn't Stone Ridge County your hometown? Haven't you gone to see the super-popular fairy in ancient dress?!"

Puzzled, Zhao Xiaojun opened the video and finally understood.

It was the very tourist resort his parents had just been talking about. A visitor had gone there and said the surroundings were nice. Most importantly, there was an incredibly beautiful fairy in ancient dress, as if she had stepped straight out of a tale.

Zhao Xiaojun took a look. She really was beautiful.

But it could have been a filter.

There was a minor internet celebrity in Zhao Xiaojun's university class. In her videos, she was a gorgeous beauty with fair skin, but offline she was just a short, skinny ordinary person.

So Zhao Xiaojun jokingly gave it a scathing review.

To his surprise, his university roommate was a die-hard fan. He angrily argued back, swearing that his goddess definitely was not some heavily edited fake, and told Zhao Xiaojun to look up her older videos.

Zhao Xiaojun searched for them and immediately scoffed.

It turned out this beauty in ancient dress was the unlicensed female miracle doctor who had caused such a stir a year ago by curing terminal pneumoconiosis.

"No, I have to go expose this fraud!"

Zhao Xiaojun's rebellious streak flared up. He could not let someone like that tarnish his hometown's reputation. He threw on a piece of clothing at random and hurried out.

He had meant to take a taxi, but then he saw promotional posters for the tourist resort on roadside billboards. There was even a free shuttle.

"Supreme Mystery Sub-Courtyard, what a lousy name."

Zhao Xiaojun put away his phone and stood beneath the bus stop sign to wait for the free shuttle.

Only a fool would pass up a freebie.

Fortunately, it was not too far. Thirty minutes later, Zhao Xiaojun arrived.

"I messed up. I dressed too lightly."

When Zhao Xiaojun got off the bus, a cold gust made him shiver. He looked at the gradually rising sun and felt its faint warmth before setting off.

The place had just opened, and admission was free.

After entering, Zhao Xiaojun took a deep breath and said in surprise, "The air here is pretty fresh, and there's even a floral fragrance."

As a local, Zhao Xiaojun was used to a gray, hazy sky and the strange smell in the air, a mixture of floating coal dust and truck exhaust.

"Not bad at all."

Zhao Xiaojun wandered around and, to his surprise, saw none of the sausage stalls or snack streets every tourist attraction was supposed to have. Instead, there were various carefully designed flower gardens.

Most of the flowers had yet to bloom.

Some aunties were already crouching among the winter jasmine bushes to take photos.

Some young women had broken off plum blossoms and tucked them into their hair.

Though Zhao Xiaojun was ordinary-looking, he was a sucker for good looks. He glanced at them and, after confirming they were average-looking, shook his head. "No manners at all!"

The place really was nice.

Zhao Xiaojun approved of the designer's taste, but he also suspected the designer had a wicked heart.

The paths wound around and around like a maze.

Zhao Xiaojun was panting from walking, but he still had not found the attraction's NPC.

He had already complained bitterly in the group several times and was growing impatient. Then he hurried around a turn and saw a beauty in ancient dress walking straight toward him.

As a sucker for good looks, Zhao Xiaojun's mind went blank, and his heart disappointingly began to race.

My heartbeat, my instincts-they recognized your beauty even before my brain and reason did!

"She really is a fairy descended to the mortal world!"

Zhao Xiaojun's goddess was nicknamed "Heavenly Fairy."

But a nickname was just a nickname.

The one before him was a genuine heavenly fairy descended to the mortal world!

Zhao Xiaojun stared at her peerless beauty without stopping. By the time he came to his senses, he gave a miserable cry and plunged headfirst into the lake beside the path.

Spring had only just begun, and there was still a thin layer of ice on the lake. The water was close to freezing, and it woke Zhao Xiaojun right up.

Fortunately, the lake was not deep, and there were plenty of tourists nearby. They all pitched in and pulled Zhao Xiaojun out.

The tourists around him snickered quietly.

Zhao Xiaojun was so embarrassed he wanted to die. All he wanted was to escape the scene of his social death, but as soon as he stood up, a sharp pain shot through his ankle.

A fragile university student indeed!

He had actually sprained his ankle.

This was way too humiliating!

Zhao Xiaojun wanted to turn around and jump back into the lake and die.

Li Jiabao hurried over after hearing what had happened and immediately called to arrange a car, preparing to rush him to the hospital.

Someone had been injured on the first day of business. If the matter blew up and people made a bigger issue of it, the consequences would be unimaginable. They might even have to shut down for rectification.

"No need for the trouble."

A cool voice rang out. The fairy seemed to see through Zhao Xiaojun's embarrassment and broke into a smile. "Make way. Let me take a look."

The surrounding tourists made room and took out their phones in unison to film.

The fairy came over, crouched down, and took a look. "It's only a minor injury."

Struck by her beauty at close range, with a faint fragrance drifting into his nose, Zhao Xiaojun was completely dazed.

Not only did his sprained ankle stop hurting, he even secretly regretted not breaking his leg, so that Fairy Sister could give it a thorough examination.

Fairy Sister reached out with slender, jade-white fingers and gently pinched his ankle.

Zhao Xiaojun felt as if he had been struck by lightning. There was only one thought in his mind: Fairy Sister touched me!