Soon, Mo Yanfan's cold and clear voice sounded outside the cave. Those from Star Rectitude Hall who practiced Celestial Sound Word Spirit all seemed to speak this way, though Mo Yanfan was probably too young and lacked sufficient cultivation to carry the bone-chilling coldness in Zhen Yunzi's voice.
"Your injuries are only superficial. Don't move around and apply the medicine properly."
Superficial injuries? Medicine? The children's excited footsteps halted abruptly as they exchanged bewildered glances. Lei Xiuyuan whispered, "Is it that woman impersonating Lin You?"
Ji Tongzhou frowned. "That woman posed as an Academy teacher and even used Star Rectitude Hall's Nightmare Art to harm people. How could Mo Yanfan—"
Li Fei blinked. By now, she naturally knew this woman had been framed by Zhen Yunzi. Earlier, Chang Yue had also mentioned that Mo Yanfan seemed to have some ambiguous relationship with her. Moreover, she remembered the black-veiled woman had descended with Mo Yanfan—where was she? Had Mo Yanfan found this woman first without her knowledge? Then his plea to Zuoqiu Xiansheng to let him search the Restricted area wasn't to capture her but to save her.
"They seem to have some hidden circumstances. Let's listen for a while." Lei Xiuyuan's suggestion was met with agreement from the other two. The children crouched by the cave wall, straining their ears to eavesdrop.
The woman began to sneer, "These injuries were all given by your precious uncle! The Mountain Sect's Star Rectitude Hall—ha! Such a grand reputation! Framing and blaming others so casually! Do you think the Eastern Sea Myriad Immortals Assembly would be afraid?! I don't need your hypocritical concern! You and your uncle are birds of a feather! A real man owns up to his actions! Since you dared to tell him about me, don't come back pretending to be the good guy!"
She rattled off like a string of firecrackers, but by the end, her wounds must have been aggravated as she sucked in sharp breaths from the pain.
Mo Yanfan sounded like he was smiling bitterly. "Does it hurt? I told you not to move."
"Stop touching me! Get lost!" A crisp slap echoed.
Silence followed on the other side. After a long pause, Mo Yanfan finally spoke calmly, "I didn't tell Zhen Yunzi about you, nor did I deliberately bring him to the Academy to expose you. Whether you believe me or not is up to you. If you truly hate me, at least heal your wounds and leave the Restricted area first. Afterward, you can kill or flay me as you wish."
"Ridiculous! If you didn't tell him, how would he know? I doubt his Celestial Sound Word Spirit is so formidable that he could force a confession from you!"
Mo Yanfan replied, "Zhen Yunzi has encountered a bottleneck in his cultivation these past years. The power of his Celestial Sound Word Spirit and Word Spirit Nightmare Art has greatly diminished—otherwise, do you think you could have escaped so easily? As for how he found out, he simply tricked you into revealing it yourself. You flew into a rage and confessed everything. The Academy already had disciples involved with Nightmare Art linked to Star Rectitude Hall—admitting you knew Celestial Sound Word Spirit only gave him concrete evidence."
The woman fumed, "So you're saying it's my fault?!"
"No, A Jiao, you're just too reckless." He sighed softly. "Why impersonate Lin You and come to the Academy? If discovered, this matter would end badly, and it would only widen the rift between the Mountain and Ocean Sects."
The woman called A Jiao retorted petulantly, "I felt like it! What's it to you?!"
Ji Tongzhou, already displeased by her aggressive and rude demeanor, frowned and muttered irritably, "This woman is utterly shameless! Hmph! A grown man being bullied by some little girl—how pathetic!"This young lord seemed utterly unable to accept a woman dominating a man. Li Fei asked curiously, "Isn't she bullying him? Aren't they a loving couple?"
"A loving couple?" Ji Tongzhou scoffed. "What nonsense! Mo Yanfan is an elite disciple of Star Rectitude Hall's Profound School! The Profound School specializes in Celestial Sound Word Spirit and Word Spirit Nightmare Art—how could they take cultivation partners? Even if they did, they wouldn't choose such a hot-tempered woman!"
He was certain Mo Yanfan would defend the dignity of an elite disciple from Star Rectitude Hall and would soon turn cold-hearted, arresting this woman.
Mo Yanfan said calmly, "Today's incident is partly your own fault. When I first met you, you weren't this reckless. Regarding my martial uncle's matter, I apologize on his behalf. Once your injuries heal, leave the Academy quickly. I'll clarify your situation to my martial uncle."
A Jiao's voice suddenly carried a hint of choking emotion: "Do you... regret meeting me?"
Mo Yanfan replied, "No, but you harmed Lin You without reason just to infiltrate the Academy. Your teaching was also a mess, delaying those children's progress. Such selfish behavior—I truly cannot condone it."
A Jiao suddenly burst into tears: "Yanfan, I know what I did was wrong, but you... after you left half a year ago, I never saw you again. I just couldn't help it..."
He sighed again and after a long pause, said softly, "Let's not talk about this now. Let's tend to your wounds."
The turn of events clearly far exceeded Ji Tongzhou's expectations. He stood dumbfounded for a long while, then remembered this woman had been beaten bloody by Zhen Yunzi. Dressing her wounds would likely require removing all her clothes. His face suddenly flushed crimson as he muttered, "Hmph! Broad daylight! Shameless!"
This young lord was so noisy—couldn't he eavesdrop quietly? Li Fei gave him a helpless glance. Ji Tongzhou felt awkward, torn between wanting to look and not daring to peek outside, his entire body stiff with discomfort. When he noticed Li Fei looking at him, he recalled how she'd slept on Lei Xiuyuan's bed last time. Hmph! Shameless people, all of them!
After a long while, A Jiao's voice became gentle again, even carrying a coquettish playfulness: "Last time it was like this too, except you were injured and I tended your wounds. Yanfan, do you remember?"
He seemed to chuckle softly but didn't answer.
"How did I become so infatuated with you back then? So stiff and pretending to be proper—completely different from our straightforward Eastern Sea men! No matter how much I flirted, you remained unmoved! So frustrating!"
"Do you regret it?"
"Guess?"
Again he didn't answer. A Jiao suddenly added, "Hmph, still blaming me? Did you really think I'd kill Lin You? I don't kill people randomly!"
Mo Yanfan asked curiously, "Then where did you hide her?"
"I'll tell you later—she's not in any danger! Once I recover, I'll let her go! Who wants to be this lousy Academy teacher anyway! And you wronged me—I wasn't teaching nonsense, it's just that your Mountain Sect's cultivation methods are completely different from ours!"
He laughed in spite of himself: "Two months just to learn Ice Condensation? Is this how you cultivate at the Eastern Sea Myriad Immortals Assembly?"A Jiao's voice suddenly turned serious: "You Mountain Sect disciples always think only Advanced Immortal Techniques have power, but that's not necessarily true. The lower-level Five Elements Immortal Methods can harness purer natural power. At our East Sea Myriad Immortals Assembly, new disciples spend their first five years practicing only basic Five Elements techniques daily—look at that tree. It would take you three breaths to freeze it with Ice Condensation Technique, forming only three inches of ice. But our disciples can execute the same technique in half a breath, creating ice over ten feet thick."
Mo Yanfan pondered for a long moment: "This cultivation method is truly unheard of, yet makes perfect sense."
A Jiao laughed: "The world is vast with countless cultivation methods. Your Mountain Sect's ways aren't necessarily orthodox. That shifty, vicious uncle of yours with his narrow vision actually called me a demoness! I bet he'll never break through his bottleneck!"
"Sharp tongue," Mo Yanfan's voice carried rare warmth, "But uncle has indeed been acting strangely recently... His temper grows more peculiar each year. I originally planned to return to ask Master, but then I encountered uncle near the academy. Though I didn't mention the Nightmare Art, he seemed to guess and questioned me. Unable to hide it, I had to tell him."
A Jiao sneered: "If you ask me, that precious uncle of yours might be the perpetrator!"
"Don't speak carelessly. A Jiao, you can be as unruly as you like with me, but don't be so willful next time."
A Jiao's voice softened to dripping tenderness: "Alright, I'll listen to you."
This eavesdropping session had taken dramatic turns—the woman who'd been murderously furious moments ago had turned gentle as water. Oblivious, the two adults exchanged sweet nothings while the three children behind them squirmed in discomfort.
"Maybe... we should stop listening?" Li Fei coughed, "Should we go out and greet Mr. Mo now?"
Ji Tongzhou's face burned crimson. Lei Xiuyuan said, "Wait longer."
Mo Yanfan suddenly spoke: "The demon qi here is extremely strong—this must be where the academy founders sealed monstrous creatures through generations. We shouldn't linger. I deliberately avoided that black-veiled woman, but she'll find this place eventually. Fortunately, spiritual energy is sparse in restricted areas, making sword flying and other techniques unusable, which works to our advantage. Let's go."
A place where academy founders sealed demons? Meaning behind that stone door were sealed monstrous creatures? Ji Tongzhou couldn't resist glancing back, but what he saw nearly made him faint—less than three feet behind them loomed a mass of inky darkness. As he opened his mouth to scream, the shadowy mass coiled around him like a giant serpent, sealing his mouth and nose. Excruciating pain wracked his body as if being torn apart.
"Go now!" Lei Xiuyuan reached to push Ji Tongzhou but grasped empty air. Turning in shock, he saw a massive dark mass constricting Ji Tongzhou, dragging him deeper into the cave.
"Ji Tongzhou!" Li Fei shouted desperately, giving chase. But the shadowy mass retreated with terrifying speed, vanishing down a branching tunnel in an instant. The two children sprinted after it just in time to see Ji Tongzhou being pulled through the stone door, swallowed completely by darkness.The two were about to rush through the stone gate when Mo Yanfan suddenly blocked their path from behind. His usually icy expression now showed a rare mix of shock and awkwardness as he urgently asked, "Why are you here? How long have you been here?"
Li Fei cried out anxiously, "Our friend was taken by a demon! We have to save him!"
Seeing them still trying to charge forward, Mo Yanfan stopped them again. "This is a sealed area for monstrous creatures. It's extremely dangerous. With your low cultivation, you mustn't enter recklessly."
"Ji Tongzhou was captured by a demon!" Li Fei flared up. "Are you just going to watch him die?!"
Mo Yanfan shook his head. "I'll go. You two wait here. A Jiao, keep an eye on them."
He swiftly entered the gate, while the purple-robed beauty behind him stepped forward to block the entrance. Smirking at them, she said, "Little brats with bad habits, always eavesdropping from behind. It was you two at the academy last time too, wasn't it? I let it slide then, but now you're here again. This is your academy's restricted area—how did you get here? If you don't explain, I'll twist your ears off."
Her purple attire was unusually styled, revealing jade-like shoulders, with ink-black hair cascading down her back. Her striking beauty was a stark contrast to the plain and unremarkable Lin You.
Lei Xiuyuan calmly replied, "While sword flying, our spiritual energy suddenly became unstable, and all three of us fell."
A Jiao pondered for a moment before saying, "For a sword flight to fail, the spiritual energy veins inside the stone sword must have been disrupted. Only someone with profound cultivation could do such a thing... Hmph, it must be that bastard Zhen Yunzi! He's been sneaking around doing who knows what, but he pins all the blame on me!"
She then scrutinized Lei Xiuyuan. "You're the one who was hit by the Word Spirit Nightmare Art, aren't you? First, he failed to harm you, and now he cuts off your stone sword's spiritual energy veins—he's determined to kill you! And you just let that bastard slander you! You kids are just as annoying!"
Before she could finish, an earth-shaking roar erupted from beyond the stone gate—a beastly cry unlike anything they'd ever heard. A Jiao's expression instantly changed, and without another word, she dashed through the gate. Li Fei and Lei Xiuyuan exchanged glances, and Lei Xiuyuan nodded. "Let's go in and see. If anything goes wrong, we leave immediately."
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