After a long silence, Ji Tongzhou coughed lightly. Given the unusual circumstances, they couldn't just remain silent. As a prince, it was his duty to set an example. Now that they had all fallen into the Restricted Area together, they were essentially in the same boat. They had to set aside past grievances for now and focus on figuring things out.
"Let's start by explaining how each of us fell down."
Ji Tongzhou used the hem of his robe to cover his right leg, tidying his appearance slightly. He had always been particular about such things, striving to maintain neatness no matter the situation.
"I'll go first. I was flying on my sword to the Martial Training Field when someone knocked me down. Considering this is the Academy, the likelihood of an assassination attempt is low. I believe it was an accident. What about you?"
Li Fei stared at Lei Xiuyuan, who remained expressionless, sitting silently in a corner. Even now, he was still pretending to be oblivious! A surge of anger rose in her heart, and she coldly said, "I was also knocked down. After being hit, I collided with someone else. Since there are only the three of us here now, it seems the prince was dragged into this because of me, and the real culprit is Lei Xiuyuan. Lei Xiuyuan, I ask you—why did you suddenly fall?"
Ji Tongzhou immediately glared at Lei Xiuyuan. "So it was you again!"
This was a debt that couldn't be settled! He already harbored deep dislike for Lei Xiuyuan. First, their fights had ended in stalemates, and then their cultivation progress had been neck and neck. A mere beggar, yet he dared to compete with him! And now, he had even knocked him into the Restricted Area. This was absolutely unforgivable!
Lei Xiuyuan glanced at him indifferently and said, "Because someone wanted to silence me. They tampered with the Stone Sword."
Huh? He—he was actually willing to talk?! Li Fei froze in shock, while Ji Tongzhou was startled. "What?! Silence you? What do you mean? This is the Academy! Who would dare to attack you? You can't just say things like that without proof!"
Lei Xiuyuan smiled faintly. "Then consider it as me talking nonsense."
"You—" Ji Tongzhou flared up instantly. How dare this lowly beggar mock him?!
"How we got here isn't important," Lei Xiuyuan said calmly. "What matters now is how we get out. There's very little spiritual energy here. Even if someone comes to rescue us from above, without sword flying or the ability to use Immortal Techniques or Curse Seals, it would take them a long time to find us. Rather than waiting for rescue, we should save ourselves."
These solemn words left even Ji Tongzhou feeling somewhat embarrassed to press further with accusations. Lei Xiuyuan continued, "Your Highness's right leg must be inconvenient to move. It would be best to rest in the cave for now and recover your strength before moving on."
He—he was actually concerned about him? Ji Tongzhou coughed lightly. He couldn't let himself be swayed by this beggar's sweet talk!
"This cave still carries traces of Demon Qi. Staying here for too long might invite trouble." Ji Tongzhou decided to let go of past grudges for now. Lei Xiuyuan was right—getting out was the most urgent matter. The three of them were stuck together whether they liked it or not, and this wasn't the time for petty conflicts. "It's still daylight, and the monsters in the cave haven't returned. But what if they come back at night?""The scent of this Demon Qi is quite ancient," Lei Xiuyuan murmured as he lightly brushed his fingers along the cave wall. "When I woke in the Restricted Area earlier, I noticed this direction had the least visibility and Demon Qi, so I assumed it would be a safe place. But the entrance is littered with fallen leaves and dry branches, and the dust inside is inches thick—it seems nothing has entered here for a long time. Staying here shouldn’t pose any danger."
Ji Tongzhou observed his clear reasoning and composed speech, feeling an inexplicable surge of admiration—though he quickly suppressed it.
The cave was dimly lit, and the three children each found a corner to sit in. The silence was profound, broken only by the alternating heavy breaths of Ji Tongzhou and Lei Xiuyuan. Li Fei glanced at Lei Xiuyuan, noticing the sweat beading on his forehead and his pallid complexion. He seemed to be struggling. "Has your cold not gotten better yet?" she asked.
Lei Xiuyuan gave a faint, bitter smile. "Don’t you feel it? The Miasma here is terrifyingly thick."
Li Fei shook her head silently. She shifted closer to him and sat down. "Do you feel any better now?"
Lei Xiuyuan looked startled. "The pressure suddenly eased... Do you have an Amulet Bead on you?"
Again, she shook her head without speaking. Just as he had his secrets, she too had countless things she couldn’t reveal.
Time passed in the silent, lightless cave. Ji Tongzhou felt his body burning up, drowsiness overtaking him. He had vomited everything he ate that morning and now was parched and starving. His throat was dry, and his entire body ached as if on the verge of cracking. Though the Amulet Bead Jiang Li Fei had given him could block the Miasma, it couldn’t draw Spiritual energy into his body. His fractured bones still throbbed with pain. Having never endured such hardship before, he had gritted his teeth through it earlier, but now, in his half-conscious state, he couldn’t help but let out low moans.
In his daze, he felt someone gently lift his head and pour cold water into his mouth. Revitalized, he drank greedily, as if tasting sweet rain. A voice above him said, "Don’t drink too much. There’s only one waterskin left."
Ji Tongzhou forced his feverish, swollen eyes open to see a girl’s face. Whether due to the dim light or something else, her skin appeared soft and fair, her eyes deep and serene. Though not strikingly beautiful, there was a delicate charm to her. The face looked familiar, and as he blinked away the haze, he realized—it was Jiang Li Fei.
He choked on the water, coughing so violently he nearly passed out. Li Fei hastily pulled the waterskin away. With so little water left, she couldn’t afford to waste it on his carelessness!
"You... you..." Ji Tongzhou tried to speak between coughs. He must be hallucinating. Wasn’t Jiang Li Fei just a beggar? Dark-skinned, scrawny, rough-handed—almost like a boy. This couldn’t be real!
"'You' what?" Li Fei frowned. "If you’ve got the energy to talk, you should sleep instead. We’ll need to move once you’ve rested! How long do you plan to stay here anyway?"Ji Tongzhou was furious again. Even if Jiang Lifei had suddenly turned into a celestial maiden today, in his heart she would always remain that detestable, unruly beggar! He turned over, closed his eyes, and drifted back into a deep slumber. For some reason, her face floated before him once more. So, she really was a girl. Somehow, the realization that she was female made him feel inexplicably unsettled. It seemed all their past fights and quarrels had been utterly pointless. As the illustrious Prince Ying of Yue, how could he have stooped to bickering with a girl? It was beneath his dignity!
Then another thought struck him—if she was a girl, didn’t that mean he couldn’t even measure up to a mere female?
Thus, Ji Tongzhou gradually fell asleep amidst his tangled frustrations. Li Fei tilted her head, listening to his breathing as it slowly steadied, confirming he was truly asleep before walking over to Lei Xiuyuan and tossing him the water pouch.
“This is the Academy. There’s no shortage of food here, and no one would harm you. Yet you still carry a water pouch and provisions at all times. Should I say you’re prescient, or should I thank this coincidence?” Li Fei regarded him coldly.
Lei Xiuyuan stowed the water pouch away and glanced at the sleeping Ji Tongzhou before murmuring, “You waited until he was asleep to interrogate me, didn’t you?”
No wonder she hadn’t said a word earlier while Ji Tongzhou was awake.
“I figured you wouldn’t want more people to know,” Li Fei said, sitting beside him and fixing him with a stare. “Now, can you tell me? I believe you when you say someone wants to silence you. If they failed this time, there’ll be a next time, and another after that. If you say nothing, you’ll die carrying your secrets. Are you really okay with that?”
Lei Xiuyuan touched his chest, lost in thought for a long moment before finally speaking. “The miasma here is thick, and spiritual energy is nearly nonexistent. The Celestial Sound Word Spirit’s effects are practically nullified. Indeed, this is the perfect place to reveal everything—right timing, right location, right circumstances.”
“Go ahead. I’m all ears.”
Yet Lei Xiuyuan merely looked weary, as if sighing silently. “Let me ask you this—what will you do once you know everything? Rush off to confront him? Or hide your wariness and plot revenge for later? Can you guarantee you’ll face him with the same calm as before? Sometimes, the less insignificant people know, the safer they are.”
Those words sounded familiar—Ri Yan had said something similar. Knowing too much could shorten one’s life. Everyone was like this, adopting an attitude of “you don’t need to know.” Master was like that, Ri Yan was like that, and now Lei Xiuyuan too.
Li Fei spoke slowly. “You said this matter started because of me, so I have the right to know everything. As for whether I’ll regret it or what decisions I’ll make afterward—that’s my business. I don’t want to be kept in the dark, pretending ignorance while living my life.”
Lei Xiuyuan gave her a faint smile. “Still so righteous with your words.”
“Enough. Who’s trying to kill you? It seems they don’t just want you dead—Chang Yue’s sword was tampered with too. Does he want both of you dead?”
“Her innate ability has always been trouble. She overhears too many things she shouldn’t. Sooner or later, it would’ve gotten her killed.”
Overhearing? Did that mean Chang Yue had exceptionally sharp hearing? Li Fei fell into thought. She had only recently learned of Baili Changyue’s natural gift—she could easily detect others’ heartbeats. Within a certain range, no matter how softly someone spoke, even if it was nearly a whisper, she could hear every word clearly. Lei Xiuyuan’s act had been exposed so quickly precisely because her keen hearing had caught his inconsistencies."...She heard about your situation. Did you have a hand in it?"
Lei Xiuyuan sneered mockingly: "If I had the ability to sever the spiritual energy veins of the Stone Sword, I wouldn't be in this state."
"Then who was it?"
After a long silence, Lei Xiuyuan suddenly spoke: "After Baili Changyue discovered me and chose to abandon me, I had a vague premonition that he would surely silence me. So I made many preparations, including water pouches and food. I just never expected he would come directly to the Academy and target both me and Baili Changyue... Perhaps it was too blatant, making it harder for others to pin the blame on him."
Come to the Academy? Li Fei was shocked, nearly jumping up: "You mean—Zhen Yunzi?!"
Lei Xiuyuan said calmly, "You can shout louder and wake up this foolish prince. His royal relative is a member of Star Rectitude Hall."
Li Fei immediately shut her mouth, waving her hands for a while before finally letting them drop in defeat: "He made you follow me? Harm me? Why? I only met him once before! What grudge could there be?"
Lei Xiuyuan said, "Do you know? Becoming a Celestial doesn’t mean all worries vanish. Celestials also have their strengths and weaknesses. Once you embark on the path of cultivation, there’s no stopping—you either advance or regress. And if you regress to the point of no return, your fate will be worse than a mortal’s. Zhen Yunzi is currently at a bottleneck. Over fifty years have passed, and he’s made no progress. In a prestigious sect like Star Rectitude Hall, where talents emerge constantly, how can one maintain a high position without progress in cultivation? He urgently needed a powerful Demon to refine a Mystical Treasure. Eventually, he found the most suitable one—a Nine-tailed Fox Demon."
Memories from months ago flowed through Li Fei’s mind like water. Back then, she had been full of ambition, planning to leave Green Mound for No Moon Court to find her senior brother. But then she encountered Ri Yan, who was being hunted, and the Celestials pursuing him. Later, Ri Yan transformed into one of her hairs, using some method to evade the Celestials’ detection. Though disappointed and unwilling, the Celestials had no choice but to give up and disperse—
"It was during the incident at Green Mound, when the Fox Demon suddenly vanished..." Her mind was in chaos as she pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to recall every detail. "Zhen Yunzi used Celestial Sound Word Spirit on me, forcing me to reveal the Fox Demon’s whereabouts..."
At the time, his actions had drawn disapproval from the other Celestials. Fortunately, Dongyang Zhenren intervened, or the situation could have escalated.
"He pursued the Nine-tailed Fox Demon’s trail for over a decade, then exhausted all means to persuade high-ranking members of other sects to join the hunt. Just when success seemed within reach, the Fox Demon suddenly disappeared. If you were him, would you accept that?"
No wonder she had found his words detestable and terrifying back then. But he had left the fastest, so she hadn’t dwelled on it. Had he deliberately left quickly to strike from behind? With the Fox Demon gone and the most determined hunter departed, the others—who had only joined at his urging—had no reason to stay."He followed you all the way, hoping to extract the whereabouts of the Fox Demon from you. He always suspected that the Fox Demon's disappearance was related to you—how could he give up this sole lead? However, Dongyang Zhenren remained by your side and sent you to the Academy, leaving him with no means to act. So he sought me out—all I had to do was get close to you, observe whether you bore traces of the Fox Demon, and then find an opportunity to have you expelled from the Academy. Zhen Yunzi was waiting not far from the Academy all along—otherwise, how could Mo Yanfan have found and brought him back so quickly?"
So that was it! The truth was finally clear! Li Fei felt her palms drenched in cold sweat. All the things she hadn’t understood before now made perfect sense.
Ri Yan’s words—"Where profit leads, human nature follows"—suddenly surfaced in her mind. Celestials were even more driven by fame and gain than mortals. Ri Yan, as a millennia-old Nine-tailed Fox Demon, had fur, marrow, and even Demon Qi that were priceless treasures to these Celestials. With hope right before their eyes, how could they easily give up? All beings under heaven were merely toiling for profit.
She also recalled Ri Yan mentioning that the more Zhen Yunzi desired the Nine-tailed Fox, the more his cultivation would stagnate. The Celestial Sound Word Spirit Great Art and the Word Spirit Nightmare Art were overwhelmingly powerful—such formidable Immortal Techniques surely demanded equally arduous cultivation. The so-called "sever emotions and cut off desires" to achieve mastery—did it mean abandoning worldly ambitions and attachments? No wonder so few in Star Rectitude Hall were willing to practice these two techniques now. It was a dead end. To advance in cultivation, yet unable to renounce everything—Zhen Yunzi was trapped in this dead end. No wonder he couldn’t resist coming to the Academy to take a desperate gamble.
"You said Chang Yue overheard something she shouldn’t have, so Zhen Yunzi wanted to kill her too?"
Lei Xiuyuan seemed exhausted, closing his eyes and leaning against the cave wall as he replied indifferently, "No matter how special her abilities, they were mere trifles in the eyes of a major sect’s elder. At the time, Zhen Yunzi was discussing this matter with me in my room using the Word Spirit Art—even Mo Yanfan couldn’t detect anything amiss. Yet she was eavesdropping—how could Zhen Yunzi not notice? The man is inherently paranoid and impulsive. Now that your extraordinary talents have made you sought after by all the Immortal Sects, he can’t afford even the slightest slip. Otherwise, why would he repeatedly try to silence me to cover his tracks? Before your wings have fully grown, you should conceal your brilliance—or else it will bring fatal disaster."
Having said this, he suddenly opened his eyes and gave her a mocking smile. "I’ve told you everything you wanted to know. Now you can no longer pretend ignorance. But aside from adding to your troubles, what else can you do?"
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