IVYSCP - Chapter 18
Chapter 18
If one were to say that she glimpsed traces of Ling Qingyue in Ah Xi's mannerisms, it could still be attributed to the influence of the Emotion Transference. As Ling Qingyue's emotions were delivered into Ah Xi, she had unconsciously begun to treat Ah Xi as Ling Qingyue.
But these things had nothing to do with Ah Xi. She would not be subject to that kind of influence.
The Seven Gates and Three Acupoints were sealed, but she had not lost all five senses. She had truly, genuinely heard Ah Xi say Ling Qingyue's name.
Ling Qingyue, you are truly... utterly absurd.
And when she recalled Ah Xi's unusual reaction that morning when they had discussed Ling Qingyue, it was enough to prove that Ling Qingyue was not a stranger to Ah Xi. There was a connection between them.
Pei Si lowered her eyes and gave a cold laugh.
A hundred years ago, her Heart Demon had been Ling Qingyue. Now, her fated tribulation was also subtly entangled with Ling Qingyue.
Ling Qingyue, how can you be so insufferable?
The woman was already dead, yet she was still tormenting her.
"Well... that..."
Ling Qingyue's eyes darted around. Her fingers fidgeted, reaching instinctively for her waist. When they closed on empty air, they veered off course and clutched at her own clothes.
Pei Si observed everything, her gaze deepening.
Ling Qingyue thought of a reason. Her eyes lit up briefly, and she raised her head. "Just now I was thinking about a book I saw in the study this morning, and that made me think of Ling Qingyue. She really is utterly absurd!"
Pei Si looked at her steadily. "But you told me not to believe it. You said it was all nonsense."
Ling Qingyue: "..."
After a moment of silence, Ling Qingyue could only steel herself and say, "Actually..."
Pei Si raised an eyebrow, waiting for what came next.
"Actually, ever since I was little, I've deeply admired Ling Qingyue. I heard many stories about her, and I've also read many books about her. She grew up in Shangtianqiong, learned the sword under the foremost master of the Sword Dao, and became famous young. Her temperament was pure and good. She acted with openness and honor, and did many deeds of vanquishing evil and promoting good. I wanted to become someone like her. When I saw that book this morning, what it wrote was different from the person I'd heard about since childhood. I couldn't believe it, and I was also afraid what the book said was true, so I got angry and cursed her." Ling Qingyue spoke without a blush or a quickened heartbeat, feeling that this reason of hers was absolutely perfect. How could there be anyone as clever as her?
Pei Si: "..."
Ling Qingyue was nothing like what she described. She was clearly a scoundrel.
"You admire her that much?" Pei Si asked.
A whole string of words, and more than half of them were praising Ling Qingyue.
Ling Qingyue nodded firmly.
"Which book did you read it in? I'd like to see it too."
Ling Qingyue: "..."
Where was she supposed to find that?
"Alright, I'll look for it in a bit." Ling Qingyue tried to brush it off vaguely.
Pei Si nodded. "Mm. Hearing you talk about her, I've actually grown a bit interested in her."
Ling Qingyue's fingers, which had been pinching at her clothes, stopped. Her heartbeat couldn't help but quicken.
Pei Si... was interested in her.
That evening, Ling Qingyue made an excuse to go to the woodwork room to do some carving. Pei Si tried to dissuade her, given that her shoulder was still injured from the day.
"It's fine. The medicine Lu Yao gave is very effective. It doesn't hurt anymore. See, I can move it freely now." Ling Qingyue moved her left shoulder to prove it.
Seeing this, Pei Si didn't say much else, only telling her not to stay up too late.
Ling Qingyue agreed. The moment she closed the bedroom door, she dashed to the study, found some paper, and began cutting it.
The flame danced. Ling Qingyue stacked the cut paper together, then sat down and began to write.
She wrote about her life, about her glorious past deeds, about the way she shone brightly.
In a place Ling Qingyue could not perceive, Pei Si stepped upon a formation, concealing her form, and sat down right across from her, watching her grind ink and move the brush.
A cold laugh rose in her heart. She wanted to see just what she could write.
"Where should I start..." Ling Qingyue pondered.
Pei Si thought coldly: Where else could she start? The most written-about and most famous thing about Ling Qingyue was her single sword strike that brought her fame at the Heavenly Ranking's Ranking Tournament, after which she was called the "Little Sword Venerable" of Shangtianqiong.
She saw the person at the desk's eyes brighten, the brush tip descend. The handwriting was neat and strong, quite proper. It was very similar to the handwriting of the person she was writing about.
The more Pei Si looked, the colder the aura around her grew, the tighter her lips pressed. What was written on that paper were matters of Ling Qingyue's youth, so detailed they included what she liked to do and eat as a child, which elder she disliked and which dish she couldn't stand. It even wrote about what kind of senior sister Ling Qingyue liked when her heart first stirred with spring feelings.
These matters, unless Ling Qingyue had told others herself, no one else could possibly know. Why would Ah Xi know them, and know them in such exhaustive detail? What was her relationship with Ling Qingyue?
And also...
Pei Si's eyes turned frosty as she stared at the words written on the paper: It is said that Ling Qingyue greatly liked people who smiled at her gently and cared about her.
Smiled gently, cared about her...
Ha.
This was talking about Yue Shouming, wasn't it?
Pei Si thought of the time at Shangtianqiong, when she had often watched Ling Qingyue from afar. Ling Qingyue, Yue Shouming, and Yu Liuli, the three of them together without the slightest sense of propriety, especially Ling Qingyue and Yue Shouming, shoulders leaning together, heads touching. Yue Shouming would smile and raise a hand to pat Ling Qingyue's head.
At those times, she would always coldly and irritably shift her gaze away, unable to suppress the sourness rising in her heart, wanting to pull Ling Qingyue over and beat her up.
"She got along well with everyone and really liked making friends."
Pei Si's gaze was indifferent: Wrong. Ling Qingyue just wouldn't be friends with her.
"She was also very good to the people around her. Whenever she had tasty food or fun things, she would share them all."
Pei Si couldn't help but glance sideways: She had never once given any to her.
"Her manners were proper, her self-cultivation was excellent, and she did not easily exchange harsh words with others."
Pei Si lowered her eyes and remembered a certain person whose eyes had once reddened with anger as she roared at her fiercely: Pei Yin! I hate you! I especially hate you! I hate you most of all!
Pei Si looked at the words praising Ling Qingyue on the paper. For every line she wrote, Pei Si refuted it in her heart.
Wrong, wrong, all wrong. Ling Qingyue was a scoundrel who had done every bad deed imaginable!
Feeling her emotions fluctuating too violently, Pei Si feared that her unstable state of mind might disturb the formation concealing her form and lead to discovery, so she rose and left the study.
Back in the bedroom, Pei Si began to meditate and regulate her breathing, but her mind could not help but recall fragments of the past, all filled with Ling Qingyue's figure.
So she still remembered so clearly after all.
A night passed. Ling Qingyue looked with satisfaction at the Personal Biography of Ling Qingyue she had written.
She flipped through it herself, the curve of her lips rising higher and higher as she read.
After Pei Si read this, she was certain to change her view of her.
When she was writing, Ling Qingyue had also harbored a small, private scheme. She had written about what kind of person she liked, secretly and subtly inserting Pei Si into it, writing about her figure and bearing here, her facial features and appearance there. Pieced together, it formed a picture of Pei Si.
Ling Qingyue furrowed her brow, a little worried that she might have written it too obviously. Pei Si was so clever. What if she saw through it?
Probably... not, right?
Ling Qingyue felt somewhat uneasy inside.
The faint sound of footsteps came from outside the door. Ling Qingyue hurriedly tidied the desk and, at the same time, crumpled the freshly completed Personal Biography, then threw it on the ground and stomped on it twice.
This was called making it look old.
Just as she bent over to pick it up, Pei Si opened the door.
Ling Qingyue raised her head and smiled at her. "Pei Si, morning."
"Morning." Pei Si's gaze shifted downward, playing along. "What is this?"
"This, I just dug it out. Didn't you say yesterday you were interested in Ling Qingyue?" Ling Qingyue handed the book over.
On the cover were two overlapping, dusty footprints, plain as day.
Seeing Pei Si not take it, Ling Qingyue raised her hand and wiped the dusty footprints off, muttering to herself, "Aiya, this book has been lying around too long. It's all covered in dust."
Pei Si: "..."
She took the book and opened it. Some of the ink stains on top were not yet dry and had imprinted onto the opposite page.
Pei Si: "..."
Ling Qingyue: "..."
"Mm..." Ling Qingyue explained, "Too damp."
Having watched a portion of it being written live the night before, Pei Si turned the pages very quickly.
Ling Qingyue grew anxious at the side. Slow down, slow down! Didn't she say she was interested? How could she look at it so carelessly?
As she read on, the truth was that Pei Si already knew most of the events. She shut the book with a sharp snap, pressing her lips together unhappily.
Ling Qingyue watched her nervously.
Why wasn't it like what she had imagined? There was no praise, no deep feeling. Why did she seem angry?
"This book says that among Ling Qingyue's close friends were Yue Shouming and Yu Liuli. Were there truly no others?" Pei Si stared at her intently.
The only way Ah Xi could know all this so clearly was if Ling Qingyue had told her personally. There were many people mentioned in the book, her master, her senior sister, Yue Shouming, Yu Liuli, even several fellow disciples, but not her. Only not her.
Ling Qingyue's eyes shifted. She racked her brains, then said blankly, "Who else is there?"
Pei Si: "..."
Judging by her expression, Ling Qingyue probably hadn't even mentioned her.
Ling Qingyue!
Her teeth clenched tightly, and Pei Si's breathing grew heavy.
Ling Qingyue watched as a trace of red crept to the corners of the woman's eyes and immediately became flustered.
What, what, what was happening?!
Pei Si drew a deep breath, trying her best to keep her tone even. "I once read in other books that Ling Qingyue and Pei Yin shared the bond of fellow disciples for a time. Were they not... friends?"
Pei Yin...
Ling Qingyue pressed her lips together. A pair of icy, indifferent eyes instantly surfaced in her mind.
Even now, Ling Qingyue still remembered the way she had looked at her, full of anger and disgust, her words cold enough to freeze a person. That person had always found fault with her, often saying to her with a cold face: "Ling Qingyue, can't you behave properly?"
For a moment, the study fell silent. Ling Qingyue's memories had been stirred, and only now did she realize why she had felt a faint familiarity with Pei Si earlier.
Pei Si and Pei Yin not only shared the same surname, but the feeling they gave others was also very similar.
Yet inside, they were worlds apart. Pei Yin's brows and eyes were colder, her aura more frigid, keeping people at a thousand miles' distance. In all the days they spent together, Ling Qingyue had never seen her smile at her. Before she could even greet her upon meeting, she would be inexplicably glared at. For a long time, Ling Qingyue had avoided walking anywhere near her.
Pei Si was different. Pei Si could smile, a very gentle and beautiful smile. She would worry and show concern, giving people a very warm feeling that made them want to draw close.
"Pei Yin, huh."
"Ling Qingyue didn't like her."
Ling Qingyue shook her head. The next moment, she heard a muffled thud against the floor.
"Hey! Pei Si!"
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