IVYSCP - Chapter 55

Chapter 55

This sleep was deep for Ling Qingyue. When she opened her eyes contentedly, what she saw was the familiar bed canopy.

Her room in Water Cloud Dwelling.

There was no pain anywhere. If not for the sudden increase in spiritual energy within her body, Ling Qingyue might have thought she'd dreamed being struck by lightning without actually undergoing tribulation transcendence.

She blinked. Consciousness fully awake, some memories gradually became whole.

Pei Si was Pei Yin. She and Pei Yin had engaged in spiritual communion within her spiritual platform...

She bolted upright, her ears burning bright red. She raised her hands and covered her face, unable to face it.

What on earth was all this.

How could she have ended up falling asleep in Pei Yin's spiritual platform!

"Awake?"

Ling Qingyue's breath caught. She didn't take her hands off her face. She sensed someone sitting beside her, reaching out to gently squeeze the back of her neck.

After spiritual communion, she was especially sensitive to the other's aura. A numbing, tingling sensation traveled from her nape to her lower back. Ling Qingyue gave a little shudder and hastily tugged the blanket around her as she shrank into the corner of the bed, dodging that hand. The words blurted out: "Don't touch me."

After her identity was exposed, the other was still using Pei Si's face. The half-extended hand curled inward, then withdrew. The woman's eyes were half-lowered, the corners of her mouth pressed together.

Ling Qingyue realized she had overreacted and opened her mouth to explain: "I, I didn't mean it like that."

After explaining, she felt it was a bit pointless. She'd been lied to for so long. Wasn't she justified in being angry!

From the corner of her eye, she saw the other still looked despondent. Ling Qingyue stretched her leg out and nudged her.

Pei Yin looked up. She still wore Pei Si's appearance.

Ling Qingyue said, awkwardly: "I know everything now. Why are you still keeping this disguise up?"

Pei Yin raised a hand and touched her face. Spiritual energy dissolved at her fingertips. Her features grew detached, cold, and indifferent: "Don't you... like that one?"

Seeing Pei Yin's face again, Ling Qingyue was still hopelessly charmed for a moment, but she quickly recovered. At Pei Yin's words, she stretched out her leg and kicked her, annoyed: "Do you think I like you just for that face?"

Pei Yin's eyes brightened. She repeated Ling Qingyue's words: "You like me."

Ling Qingyue: "..."

Was that really the point?

Ling Qingyue turned her head away and gave a huff. "Who doesn't like the Immortal Venerable. Beautiful, powerful. Everyone wants to take her home and enshrine her."

She'd once told the fake Pei Si that array cultivators were just as crucial to the immortal sects as medical cultivators, an array cultivator skilled in formations was the immortal sect's final safeguard, so sects would go crazy over her.

These words carried annoyance, and Pei Yin could hear it.

Ling Qingyue saw Pei Yin lean closer, but she had no more room to retreat.

This scene inexplicably resembled the one in her spiritual platform. Ling Qingyue recalled the pleasure that had directly struck her very soul, and her lower belly clenched sourly. She stammered: "Wh-what are you doing?"

Pei Yin leaned forward, cupped her face in both hands, and murmured: "Coaxing you."

Ling Qingyue was baffled. "Huh? ... Mmph!"

The familiar cold fragrance rushed into her nose. On her lips was cool softness, careful pecking kisses, trailing from the corner of her mouth to the center, then the tentative licking of a tongue tip. It truly carried an ingratiating edge of coaxing.

Ling Qingyue remembered the conversation she'd had with Pei Si before.

"But if I get angry, you can coax me."

"How do I coax you?"

"Like this."

Although the appearance had changed, this was still the person she knew.

Ling Qingyue reached out and hooked her arms around Pei Yin's neck, obediently parting her lips and lightly sucking on her tongue tip.

This response was an enormous, delightful surprise for Pei Yin. She opened her eyes and saw Ling Qingyue's eyes gently shut, so she closed her own eyes and deepened the kiss.

Their lips grew wet and scorching. Tongues curled and tangled, sucking at each other. The suggestive sounds of their breathing made ears burn and hearts race.

The touch of their bodies was utterly different from spiritual communion, yet just as deeply intoxicating.

Ling Qingyue's fingers once again brushed that burning red mole. Her dazed, blurred gaze slowly cleared. She pulled her head back, ending the kiss.

Pei Yin lowered her head and nuzzled the tip of her nose, her breathing a little heavy.

"Pei Yin, I'm still angry."

Pei Yin pressed her moist lips together and made as if to kiss her again, but Ling Qingyue raised a hand to block her.

Ling Qingyue held one hand over her mouth. The other stroked back and forth over her red mole. Her breathing unsteady, she asked: "Pei Yin, tell me. When you used Emotion Transference on yourself, whose feelings were you transferring?"

Instinct told Ling Qingyue this mole was no ordinary mole. It had heated up repeatedly, but Pei Yin had seemed utterly unaware. That left only one possibility. She knew.

Pei Yin looked down at her and said nothing.

But Ling Qingyue could read the meaning in her eyes. Pei Yin had used Emotion Transference on herself... because of her.

The ultimate goal of Emotion Transference was to forget feelings. Pei Yin's original intent had been to forget her feelings for her. And the prerequisite for that was that Pei Yin had always had feelings for her.

"You..." Ling Qingyue's words stuck in her throat. It took a long while before she could say them. "You liked me even before, didn't you?"

If she had heard this before, she would never have believed it. But now the truth was laid out right in front of her.

"Yes." Pei Yin's words were muffled against Ling Qingyue's palm. Her voice trembled slightly. She reached up and pulled Ling Qingyue's hand down, then leaned in and embraced her tightly. "I liked you, Ling Qingyue. You didn't know. You didn't like me."

Ling Qingyue blinked, and tears fell.

So it was true after all.

One of the reasons she had been so desperate to form a Dao bond with Pei Si was because she didn't understand why Pei Si could love her so much. Their start had been so muddled. At that time, her consciousness hadn't even fully awakened within this body. Ling Qingyue had felt an unease deep inside, but Pei Si's love for her was so incredibly obvious. A person of such cold temperament, yet her love was so fervent.

She had even thought to herself before, thank goodness it wasn't the case that Pei Si had liked her before. Otherwise, how much pain would she have suffered over these hundred years?

But now she was being told, she really had liked her all along.

Ling Qingyue's heart ached unbearably. She sniffled, then began to cry softly.

Pei Yin heard her crying and started to loosen her embrace, but a pair of arms wrapped around her waist.

Ling Qingyue wiped her tears on her clothes, sniffling as she sobbed: "Who acts like you? Who likes someone the way you do? If you liked me back then, why were you so mean to me, never a kind look on your face. Did you like me? The way I saw it, you wanted to beat me up."

Pei Yin set her hand on her hair and rubbed it gently. She quietly explained: "You had so many people close to you back then. Yue Shouming, Yu Liuli. You'd throw your arms around them and walk shoulder to shoulder without a care. But when you came to me, you were distant and formal, saying little. I was unhappy. Did you expect me to smile at you?"

What Pei Yin didn't say was, back then she really had wanted to beat her up. Who kissed someone and then turned around and was all over other people without any sense of boundaries or propriety.

Ling Qingyue's crying stopped. She lifted her head, eyes brimming with tears, and snapped at her fiercely: "So you're blaming me!?"

Talking like that while crying, there was no intimidation in it at all.

Pei Yin reached up to wipe her tears and gently soothed: "I'm not blaming you."

After crying, Ling Qingyue felt a bit embarrassed. But whenever this body cried, her nose would sting, and she couldn't help sniffling and hiccupping.

"Then what will you do?"

The rims of Ling Qingyue's eyes were red from crying. Pei Yin raised a hand and channeled spiritual energy over them, rubbing gently: "What do you mean, what will I do?"

"The Emotion Transference." Ling Qingyue murmured. "If you don't undo the Emotion Transference, won't the Seven Gates and Three Acupoints have to stay sealed forever."

If she undid it, she'd have to forget these feelings.

Ling Qingyue suddenly remembered. Pei Yin hadn't originally cultivated the Supreme Detachment Path. She'd switched paths midway.

Could it be... it was because of her too.

Ling Qingyue raised a hand and rubbed her ear. Pei Yin's feelings for her all along had really reached such a level.

"I will undo it."

At those words, Ling Qingyue grabbed her hand. She couldn't bring herself to tell her not to undo it, yet she couldn't accept it either. In the end, she said through gritted teeth: "Fine. But before you undo it, you have to form a Dao bond with me first."

Even if it meant tying her down, she had to keep this person at her side.

Pei Yin stilled, then lowered her eyes and laughed.

And then it was Ling Qingyue who froze. This was the first time she'd seen Pei Yin laugh like this. She didn't know if it was because Pei Si's appearance was a disguise, but when Pei Si smiled, Ling Qingyue couldn't help looking at her eyes. But when Pei Yin herself smiled, Ling Qingyue found it even more vivid. What she saw wasn't only her eyes.

"You thought I wanted to forget you?" Pei Yin asked softly.

Ling Qingyue came back to herself. "Isn't that the case?"

She'd meant it as in, undoing Emotion Transference means forgetting feelings, but to Pei Yin's ears, it meant something else.

Pei Yin's smile slowly faded. She asked in return, "Will you blame me? For using Emotion Transference on myself, wanting... to forget you."

Ling Qingyue reached out and smacked her. Not too hard, not too soft, but the sound was audible.

"At that time, I was dead anyway. Why should you have to keep remembering me forever? I'd rather you'd used this thing to forget from the very start."

If these feelings hadn't affected her so deeply, Pei Yin wouldn't have wanted to use Emotion Transference to force herself to forget.

Thinking this, Ling Qingyue's eyes grew hot again. Her heart ached terribly for her.

Seeing she was about to cry again, Pei Yin answered her earlier question: "There's another way to undo Emotion Transference. It doesn't require forgetting."

"Oh." Ling Qingyue's lips curled up slightly. "It can be like that too, huh."

That was good.

"Then at the start, you..."

Ling Qingyue stopped halfway through her question. She'd been about to ask if Pei Yin had known she was in Linshui Town from the beginning. Then she suddenly remembered that Pei Yin had only learned of her resurrection upon seeing her soul within her spiritual platform.

So her initial reason for coming to Linshui Town wasn't for her, but for... Ah Xi.

An icy chill suddenly washed over Ling Qingyue's entire body.

She had been deliberately resurrected in Linshui Town by someone. Then Pei Yin...

Ling Qingyue switched to a question she'd asked before: "Why did you go to Linshui Town?"

Back then, when she'd asked Pei Si, Pei Si had said she wanted some peace and quiet. Thinking back on it now, that answer had been very dismissive.

"For a fated tribulation." Pei Yin answered truthfully. "The Hidden Moon Lord said you once asked her to divine a heavenly secret for me. That I would face a tribulation. That jade slip had been kept for a hundred years. A few months ago, it suddenly began emitting an aura of blood and ill omen. The Hidden Moon Lord said it was the sign of a fated tribulation."

"The fated tribulation is... Ah Xi?"

Ling Qingyue finished speaking, then belatedly looked at her, puzzled. "When did I ask her to divine your heavenly secret?"

Pei Yin's gaze paused. "You didn't?"

"No." Ling Qingyue said with certainty. "Back then Xiao Yue's Heavenly Divination Art only worked for bad things and not good. Liuli and I both refused to let her do any divinations."

Every divination brought nothing but trouble.

"And besides, why would I ask her to do a divination for you?" Ling Qingyue muttered.

Pei Yin suddenly laughed. "Then it seems I was indeed schemed into this."

Ling Qingyue looked at her, uncomprehending. "What's there to be happy about, being schemed against? A person with such deep, calculating schemes, what good could they be."

Pei Yin didn't speak. She just looked at her.

Ling Qingyue pressed her lips together, turned her head away and refused to look at her. Her exposed ears were bright red.

She was happy she'd been schemed into coming to her side.

A long while later, Ling Qingyue suddenly sighed. "Xiao Yue must have been schemed against too. Otherwise she'd definitely know I never did any divination for you."

Pei Yin's mind turned slightly.

The Hidden Moon Lord.

Yue Shouming...

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