Lady Cultivator

After being forced to agree, Mo Tiange discovered that the person who was half dead just now became full of life and vigor all of a sudden.

The cave was so small that they couldn’t lie down, so Qin Xi took out his flying sword and cut off a chunk of rock, creating a space that was big enough for at least two people.

Mo Tiange witnessed the whole process and was dumbfounded.

Qin Xi put the cut stone into his Qiankun Bag as he noticed the way she looked at him. “What’s going on?”

“These stones can be cut?!”

Qin Xi rubbed his nose and avoided her eyes. “Well… Although these stones are made of special materials, my sword isn’t an ordinary sword…”

“Then why didn’t you do it yesterday?!” The two of them were crowded in such a small place and couldn’t even move, so he took great advantage of her!

“It was unnecessary yesterday!” Qin Xi revealed an innocent expression. “We were just taking a break, so was it necessary to build an open cave abode? But now we’re both injured and have to stay here for a few days, so I just wanted to make ourselves comfortable.”

“…” Mo Tiange had to eat dirt. “You swear you weren’t plotting something?”

“Of course not,” he said firmly, “just think about it. When I was here with your father back in those days, we didn’t waste our physical strength to do that. These stones on Demonic Mountain aren’t normal. Look, I cut this stone and even want to take it with me. At least it could be used to refine tools!”

“…” Why did she feel somewhat wronged? She always felt like she was being tricked.

“Okay, don’t overthink it,” Qin Xi said. “Put away your things quickly, and, you know, you should change this habit of hitting people.” Or was she too repressed? If she wanted to vent her feelings, she could’ve just slapped him. Why did she like to hit people?

“… You asked for so much!”

“I did it for my own safety…” He changed his topic in the middle of the sentence. “You have a lot of medicinal pills.”

Most of the bottles he picked up were jade bottles. He opened and sniffed them, and they all contained medicinal pills. But he always felt something wasn’t right. The quality of these medicinal pills was too good to be true, and he even thought he wouldn’t be able to refine them himself even with his pill-concocting skills. He again remembered the medicinal pills he exchanged from Ye Zhenji that were fed to Xiaohuo.

As he thought for a moment, the medicinal pills in his hand were immediately stolen by Mo Tiange. She plugged the bottle and stored it in her Qiankun Bag.

Since she didn’t say anything, he didn’t ask. There couldn’t be no secrets between two people, not to mention that their relationship wasn’t that close.

They collected their things in silence…

After a while, the first to break the silence was Mo Tiange.

She suddenly asked, “Why did you change your attitude so suddenly today? Didn’t you say you thought I didn’t have feelings for you anymore?”

Upon hearing this sentence, Qin Xi just laughed.

Mo Tiange got more and more curious about his laughter and couldn’t help but glare at him. “Just say it!”

“I’m telling you…” He suppressed his laugh.

But he stopped after only half a sentence. Mo Tiange couldn’t stand it and rushed over to choke him. “Don’t keep me in suspense—tell me now!”

“Okay okay okay, I’ll tell you now!” He took her in his arms with a backhand, and as he laughed, he said, “You… You must not know that you talk in your sleep.”

Mo Tiange was stunned. “Sleep talk? Me?”

“En!”

Sleep talk? Cultivators seldom slept, and when they occasionally fell asleep, there was usually no one around, so she had no idea of such a concept. Thinking about it, she was a little nervous. “What did I say?”

Qin Xi still smiled with his lips pressed together. He lowered his head and kissed her lips very lightly then said, “Well, I won’t tell you that.”

“Speak now!” He knew what she said, but he wouldn’t tell her. This gave Mo Tiange an awful feeling. Did she say something… very cheesy?

“No.” He held his tongue in a determined silence.

“Will you tell me or not?”

“No, no no no!”

“Tell me!”

“Ahem, if you throw yourself into my arms now, I can give it a second thought.”

After a moment’s silence, things began to fly in the little cave again. “Go to hell!”

Mo Tiange tried hard yet failed to pry open his mouth after quite some time. There weren’t many things left for her to throw, and his wound split open again.

She had to stop and bind up his wound again. Then the two of them continued to pick up things separately.

Suddenly, Qin Xi paused for a moment and picked up a stone the size of a child’s fist. It was obviously a piece of ore. Its whole body was white but it had many natural cracks on the surface, and it looked like just an ordinary stone.

He looked at it for a moment, then suddenly spread out his right hand. Flames shot up in his palm and they surrounded the whole piece of ore.

“What are you doing?” Mo Tiange was startled.

Qin Xi shook his head and didn’t say anything. He just focused on the ore in his palm.

After a while, the ore changed at last and the cracks on it turned into clouds!

Mo Tiange changed her expression.

Qin Xi put away the flames then passed the ore to her. “It’s a Qiyun Stone. Where did you get it?”

“Qiyun Stone?” Mo Tiange took it and was totally dumbfounded. “This is a Qiyun Stone?!”

“Yes, I don’t think I misidentified it.” Qin Xi was also a little surprised. “We’ve been looking for this for so long but found nothing. Where did you get it?”

“I, uh…” Mo Tiange scratched her head. She got the stone after splitting the spoils with Daoist Fangzheng in Ziwei’s Immortal Cave. This was actually a Qiyun Stone that they only heard about but had never seen?! So shouldn’t there be hope for her natal magic weapon? She had the Qiyun Stone now, and the thousand-year-old Chalcedony wasn’t hard to get. As long as they found the Heavenly Aromatic Bean on Demonic Mountain, they could exchange it for the Chalcedony.

“I got this on my last trip…” She told him about what happened in Ziwei’s Immortal Cave slowly, including the fact that Wanderer Ziwei left imprints in both her and Daoist Fangzheng’s seas of knowledge, requiring them to find Xiao Zilan’s remains in two hundred years and bury her with him before the imprints would be erased.

She didn’t take the whole thing to heart because she wasn’t strong enough and couldn’t help Wanderer Ziwei finish what he asked.

After hearing the story, Qin Xi’s expression became quite serious. “So you have an imprint in your brain with a deadline of two hundred years?”

Mo Tiange thought about it for a while. “It’s been there for 49 years, so it should show its effect in 151 years.”

He nodded, said nothing, and bent his head in thought.

Mo Tiange played with the Qiyun Stone in her hand and said, “I still have 151 years left. Not to mention my Nascent Soul, but I should at least enter the late stage of the Core Formation realm, right? I’ll go do the task then and may have more confidence.”

But Qin Xi shook his head and said while pulling her hands over, “It’s not good to leave an imprint in your brain. When we go back, just ask Master to see whether it can be removed. If not, we’ll have to think of some ways to finish the task that Wanderer Ziwei requested.”

“… I take care of it myself.”

She said this with the obvious intention of refusing him. Qin Xi was silent for a long time and then said to her with a sigh, “Tiange, can you stop treating me like a stranger?”

“I’m… not.” If he were a stranger, she never would’ve said something like that.

“Then why…” He paused, trying to choose a more proper way to continue. “I don’t think you trust me very much. You always make your own decisions and don’t want to listen to me.”

Mo Tiange was stunned a little. She drew her hands back and turned around, silently sorting out other things scattered in the cave. After putting all her stuff into the Qiankun Bag, she said, “You… maybe you don’t realize it, but you love to take initiative too much. When I’m with you, I… I hardly need to think for myself; I just follow you.”

“…” Qin Xi went blank. This… He indeed hadn’t realized that.

After thinking for a long while, he then said, “But what’s wrong with that? There are some things you don’t know that I know…”

He had hardly finished his sentence when she interrupted him with a light laugh. It definitely wasn’t an easy laugh, but it was mixed with a little helplessness and worry.

She nodded and said, “You’re right. There’s nothing wrong with that. If we were only companions, I’d think you were the best partner. But it’s not just this one instance. The fundamental problem between us is that you’re much higher than me in cultivation level and you have much more experience than me. I still have to learn how to deal with some things, but you’ve already gone through those stages… But have you ever thought about this: if I stay with you like this, would I still need to grow up in the future? Everything is up to you, so what about me? I just need to follow you… Isn’t that just like being a human furnace?”

He was stunned. He then said, “You… You can grow even when you’re with me. When we face any obstacles, you’ll naturally know what to do.”

“It’s not that I won’t grow, but there will be no need for me to do that,” she said quietly. “You think I just didn’t want to ask? No. I didn’t dare to. Whatever your answer is, I didn’t dare to ask. Just as you said, you said you like me, and I’m happy to hear that, but… even so, what should I do in the future? If we stay together, it won’t just… be about relationship issues…”

Qin Xi’s face grew darker and darker, then he said softly after a long time, “Are you going to leave me because of that?”

Silence pervaded in the cave. Mo Tiange kept her head down and remained silent.

Her attitude made him increasingly restless. He took her by the wrist and reproached her in a low voice, “What do you want then? After what you’ve said, do you want me to let go?”

Mo Tiange shook her head lightly. “No, you should let me think about it. I don’t know what to do yet. Just let me figure it out…”

Although she didn’t refuse him directly, he was disappointed. Because it represented a possibility—the one he feared most.

The most terrible possibility wasn’t losing something, but losing it after having it. He thought about the story she just told about Wanderer Ziwei. Although he hadn’t experienced it personally, he understood the reason why this predecessor from thousands of years ago, who had finished her last journey thousands of years ago, still lingered and refused to leave. It was because she once had it then lost it, and she couldn’t see her lover for the rest of her life… She never forgot till death do them part.

If he hadn’t discovered her affection and he had never received it, not knowing the feeling of resonance between two lovers, perhaps he would’ve slowly let go and gone on the road towards immortality. But, but…

“No way,” he said in a low voice, “don’t do that.”

“I haven’t…”

“But you’re thinking it!” He suddenly raised his voice and looked at her with deep eyes.

“What do you want me to do?” Mo Tiange also raised her voice. “I can’t do nothing!”

“What if you just follow me? Can’t I protect you? Why do you have to be on your own? This is what we’re doing now. I can help you, and you can cultivate all the time. Your Nascent Soul, and even Deification Realm, is within reach!”

Mo Tiange didn’t respond. She looked up at him with the look of a stranger and said nothing.

This kind of silence made him angry and even more uneasy. After a long time, he reached out and gently tugged at her sleeves. “Tiange, can you say something? Okay?”

She finally smiled, but it was a cold, fake smile, and it frightened him.

And she said, “Sure enough, you know nothing.”