Li Qingshan pursed his lips. She’d almost cheated him. What pursuit of freedom, she was clearly seeking a life of comfort without work, trying to get an even more extravagant life. He wanted to ask about the nine-tailed fox empress and the demon kings, but she’d already changed the topic back to how adorable she was to have the nine-tailed empress take a fancy to her and invite her to the Dragon province. She absolutely didn’t let Li Qingshan interrupt.
She talked until she became tired. “It’s late, time to sleep!” She took out a giant cat basket from the small bell with a thick of layer of swan’s down laid inside. She comfortably lay down and curled in it.
Li Qingshan said, “It’s still daytime right now!”
Halfmoon waved her hand and extinguished the treasure pearl. “Daytime is made for sleep, we set out at night.”
Li Qingshan watched her sleeping posture. Long overlapping eyelashes, a slightly tilted jasper nose, lip petals folded close. Her curled stature seemed all the more dainty and nimble, with much less of her usual headstrong unruliness. She seemed so weak and tender that people couldn’t help but give rise to a protective impulse from the bottom of their hearts.
He suddenly shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to appreciate beauties. She wasn’t a romantic interest who required his protection and whom he could pursue either.
They were still in a hostile state to a certain extent. How could he be confused by her, better raise his vigilance!
Li Qingshan breathed out and exchanged a glance with Little An. He felt that today’s experience was really too strange. He glanced at the young girl inside the cat basket then sat down in a corner of the cave abode in meditation, continuing his painstaking cultivation of the [Spirit Turtle Sea Guarding Secrets]. Little An also sat down beside him in meditation.
Halfmoon tossed a few times inside the cat basket and said suddenly, “Big Black, sing a song for me.”
Li Qingshan said categorically, “Don’t know how!”
“What use are you in that case?!” Halfmoon opened her eyes.
“Better let me leave then!”
“Whatever, let meow teach you.”
Li Qingshan put his hand on his forehead. He didn’t have any time to speak yet that Halfmoon had already started singing, minding her own business. “Little Meowmeow, Clever Meowmeow, Go to sleep somehow…”
The graceful singing voice drifted inside the cave, but Li Qingshan pulled a face even if it was pleasant to hear. It was clearly a lullaby made to coax children. He thought that concubine Serenity was probably the type of person who raised her cats like her children. But it was indeed very pleasant to the ears when spitted out from her mouth, with a lazy and lovable flavor.
Blood fire surged in Little An’s eyes when he heard, endless turbulences raging in his heart. But there was a film separating him from his memories no matter how he tried, and he couldn’t understand where this feeling came from.
“Done singing, you sing!”
“I haven’t learned it yet, you sing again!” Li Qingshan thought, “I’m a solemn ten feet tall male walking on a road of violence, how can I sing this kind of song?”
“It’s so simple but you still can’t learn?”
Li Qingshan said, “I’m a monster from the countryside, both naive and dumb. Of course I don’t understand, I can’t remember no matter how I try.”
Halfmoon resigned herself and sang once again, but the result was still the same and Li Qingshan still couldn’t remember. Halfmoon wanted to get angry, but her thoughts waved in circle inside her mind and she said with a smile, fiddling with a spirit pill, “There are spirit pills to eat if you sing!”
“Little Meowmeow, Clever Meowmeow, Go to sleep somehow!” Li Qingshan released his voice and sang out loud. Why not sing if there were benefits, he was selling his art and not selling his body anyway. The great leader chairman Mao said that the working people were the most glorious. His voice was deep and hoa.r.s.e however, like the hum of metal, and he was shouting with at the top of his lungs on top of that. The perfectly nice lullaby seemed to be a rock’n roll song when he sang it.
“Stop singing, so noisy!” Halfmoon threw the spirit pill inside Li Qingshan’s mouth.
Li Qingshan laughed mischievously and swallowed the spirit pill down, then continued to sit in meditation and cultivation. He didn’t know the spirit pill’s name, but the effects of each spill seemed to make him shed his mortal body and be reborn. The effectiveness was unimaginable. These spirit pills were probably treasures hard to obtain for ordinary people or even cultivators, but now he only had to make a few roars to obtain it. It was simply a heaven-sent opportunity.
Halfmoon had been disturbed by his noise and her sleepiness had gone away. She said with great curiosity, “What’s it about this appearance of yours? Let me guess, your mother is a tigress, your father is a bull?”
Li Qingshan didn’t answer. It sounded just like swearing to him no matter how he listened to it. But he thought again that she was an animal as well, and could only bear with it patiently.
“Or else your father is a tiger, your mother is a cow?”
Li Qingshan barely forced out an “En.”
Halfmoon said, “I was saying. No wonder you can transform when still so weak. Turns out your parents are both monsters, they shouldn’t have been weak monsters either. That’s right, where did they go?”
Li Qingshan calmly said, “Dead.” Those he thought of were his parents in this present life.
Halfmoon stayed silent a moment. “Sorry.” She stayed quiet another while. “Mine too.”
Li Qingshan watched her with surprise. Halfmoon said a “Goodnight!” and turned her back to him, no breathing a word anymore.
Li Qingshan sighed gently, suddenly singing in a soft voice, “Little Meowmeow, Clever Meowmeow, Go to sleep somehow…”
Halfmoon’s ears twitched. Little An also listened quietly. No other sound came from inside the cave in the s.p.a.ce of a moment.
Hundred miles away, an old man dropped down from the sky and landed on the Dragon Gate mountain. He frowned as he took in the collapsed buildings all toppled over.
His gray-white hair was worn in a bun, with the wisp of a beard left behind, trimmed without a hair loose. His pair of eyes were full of understated liveliness, not letting their radiance through.
His style was unexpectedly greatly similar to the portrait of the Soaring Dragon Swordsman 1, but it’d been a long time already since he’d last been a down and out swordsman of the martial world. Now he was the Soaring Dragon Elder of the Hidden Sword Palace instead.
He closed his eyes and induced his senses, his brows wrinkling tighter. Did the Peach Wood Prayer Divine Sword left behind fail to kill the incoming enemy?
The Peach Wood Prayer Divine Sword was a secret art of the [Hidden Sword Palace]. It required a peach wood sword to be worshiped by burning incense day and night. It couldn’t be interrupted a single day. It would collect enormous power from thoughts and wishes as days turned into months, and its might was unstoppable once used.
Soaring Dragon Elder decided after some thoughts to temporarily leave this matter aside. The Dragon Gate Sect was but a small incense fire he’d left burning behind during his travels in the secular world. Hundred years had gone by in the wink of an eye, and he didn’t take it to heart very much. Better to sort out proper business first before searching for that person and just killing him in one strike of the sword.
He was about to leave when the pupils of his eyes suddenly shrank. He fiercely looked up. A white figure dropped from the sky.
Gu Yanying said with a smile, “Soaring Dragon Elder, long time no see.” There was no shred of smile inside her mind however. The Hidden Sword Palace had actually sent out a golden core elder, it was truly a little th.o.r.n.y. The two concubines of Verdant province, concubine Serenity and concubine Brightness, had an enmity of life and death between them. Concubine Brightness came from the Hidden Sword Sect, and she wouldn’t let the other party stay at ease as long as there was any opportunity.
Soaring Dragon Elder said, “So it turns out to be famous constable Gu. Why did you come to such a remote place?” He was likewise vigilant inside. She was the most difficult one to handle out of all the White Eagle captains in the Verdant province. Moreover, she was usually very intimate with that d.a.m.n woman concubine Serenity. Even her backing was tough, and he couldn’t easily make an enemy out of her.
Gu Yanying said, “I was entrusted with a mission by the lady concubine Serenity and came to do a little thing. Then I unexpectedly met with Soaring Dragon Elder and thought to invite you to drink a cup.” Her thoughts circled inside her mind and she made a decision. As long as she held this old man behind, she might as well allow that cat to run to the Dragon province. That cat had already caused a lot of troubles for herself during all these years, she really didn’t want to see her again.
But she couldn’t help heaving a heavy sigh when she considered concubine Serenity’s feelings. She could only let her father negotiate with the nine-tailed fox empress in due time.
1. The Soaring Dragon Sword is the legacy sword pa.s.sed down to the leader of the Dragon Gate Sect in case you forgot. The Soaring Dragon Swordsman presumably refers to the founder of the sect.