Chapter 81 Locking the Phoenix Tree (XIV) A meticulously detailed fire-avoidance diagram...

Song Qiling picked up her chopsticks as if nothing had happened and continued to eat, her face relaxed, as if the shocking words she had just uttered were just Gu Lianzhou's hallucination.

After a moment of silence, Gu Lianzhou also picked up his chopsticks and said, "If that's the case, then the Prince of Nancheng must not be a good person either."

Although his senior brother was vague and unwilling to reveal the truth, he still spoke with certainty, as if Zhao Yu had really done something heinous.

Upon hearing this, Song Qiling raised an eyebrow and glanced at her junior brother: "You don't even want to ask me what grudge I have with the Prince of Nancheng? And why did I break into his bedroom at night?"

But Gu Lianzhou's lips curled into a slight smile, and he said with a self-deprecating laugh, "If you wanted to say it, you would have said it long ago. Why would you need to hide it from me? If you don't want to say it, then you don't trust me. Why should I ask again?"

Hey, even this clay figure like Gu Lianzhou still has a bit of earthy charm.

Feeling obligated to someone who pays the bills, Song Qiling placed a chicken leg in his bowl, softening her tone as she looked at her gloomy junior brother: "I've been keeping many secrets from you, are you unhappy?"

Gu Lianzhou looked down at the chicken leg that had suddenly appeared in his bowl and remained silent for a moment.

After a long pause, he finally looked up at Song Qiling, his gaze heavy, mixed with a slight annoyance at being dismissed: "Senior brother, I am not upset because you concealed the truth, but because you are going into danger alone, I am afraid that you will have no one to help you if something happens, I am afraid that you will feel that you have no one to entrust with your life, not even me...."

The lamplight flickered, casting the two shadows onto the mottled wall, swaying gently with the candle wick.

The room was so quiet that only the faint sound of the wind outside the window could be heard.

Gu Lianzhou froze as soon as he spoke.

Such revealing words seem to have overstepped the proper boundaries between fellow disciples.

He lowered his eyes to avoid his senior brother's astonished gaze, his knuckles slightly curled, and a silent regret filled his chest.

Song Qiling was also taken aback, a rare look of bewilderment flashing across her eyes.

The resentment in her junior brother's words was like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, landing squarely on the most hidden part of her heart, stirring up unfamiliar ripples that made her feel flustered and uneasy, making her almost instinctively want to retreat.

In the past, she would have just thought Gu Lianzhou was being childish, but after witnessing that facade, her junior brother's words took on a completely different meaning.

Little did she know that her junior brother would be so dependent on her.

"Haha..." She suddenly chuckled twice, breaking the brief silence, "What nonsense are you talking about? What entrustment or not, it's so cheesy."

She spoke hurriedly, her fingers holding the chopsticks trembling slightly, urging him, "Eat quickly, eat quickly, the food is getting cold."

After saying that, he picked up a piece of green vegetable with his chopsticks and started eating, as if the conversation had never happened.

Gu Lianzhou pursed his lips slightly, and finally just gave a soft "hmm".

Then came a long silence.

At the dinner table, only the faint crisp sound of chopsticks lightly touching bowls and plates, and the almost inaudible sound of chewing could be heard.

The candle flame popped open with a "pop," creating a small flower.

In the sudden burst of firelight, neither of them looked up in tacit agreement.

After finishing his meal, Gu Lianzhou packed his clothes and moved to the neighboring courtyard. Because of the previous awkward silence, he didn't say much, only leaving behind the words "Senior brother, please rest well" before turning and stepping into the deepening twilight outside the courtyard.

After seeing her junior brother off, the expected ease did not arrive as promised. Song Qiling bolted the door shut, returned to the couch, and lay down, staring blankly at the gray walls.

She didn't take off her shoes; her calves dangled over the edge of the bed. She remained in this listless position for a long while before letting out a long sigh.

What exactly did my junior brother mean by what he said at the dinner table? Is this the kind of intimate and confidential relationship that is common between fellow disciples?

Recalling her time with Senior Brother Wujiu at Tianji Sect, Song Qiling felt even more depressed.

As a junior sister at that time, she always kept her distance from her senior brother. Because of Chu Yue's strict discipline, the two could barely exchange a few words, let alone develop a deeper friendship.

Gu Lianzhou, however, was different.

They had grown quite close along the way, not only sharing a bed in Joyful Village, but also later she even unsuspectingly spent the night drunk in his room.

Could it be... that because of her carelessness, her junior brother has developed feelings for her that he cannot share with outsiders?

The moment this thought entered her mind, Song Qiling could no longer hold back. She grabbed the blanket from the side, covered her head and face with it, and howled for a while as if venting her anger.

She gripped the corner of the blanket tightly, her ears burning.

"How could that be? He couldn't possibly have really fallen for me, could he?" She suddenly seemed to remember something, and moved her hand down to cover her chest. She gently pinched it through her clothes and felt the soft silk against her skin. The texture was different from the softness before; instead, it was closer to the firm texture of her skin.

She had concealed herself so meticulously, even carrying the Wuxiang Knot to cover her figure, making it impossible to discern her feminine characteristics from the outside. If Gu Lianzhou were to fall for her, the only reason would probably be his homosexuality.

"..." That can't be right.

The moment the thought flashed through her mind, Song Qiling felt as if the wrinkles in her brain had become much smoother.

After staring silently into the darkness for a moment, she finally lifted the covers and breathed in the cool air outside.

This is incredible; she seems to have discovered her junior brother's secret.

"I knew he always looked at me strangely, like he had a thing for men..." She suddenly shut her mouth, kicked off her shoes and socks, and rolled around on the bed.

As she moved, the wound on her shoulder aggravated her pain, causing Song Qiling to grimace and contort her face in agony.

She lay sprawled out, the blankets piled beneath her, and a flame suddenly ignited in her eyes.

No, she couldn't let her junior brother continue down the wrong path.

-

Gu Lianzhou noticed that his senior brother's behavior had been very strange lately.

His gaze darted away, and he stammered as he spoke, saying things like "fellow disciples should observe etiquette and uphold integrity." Whenever he tried to approach, his senior brother would find an excuse to avoid him.

She put on a cool and aloof demeanor, unaware that to others, it appeared too deliberate.

Gu Lianzhou frowned slightly, crossed his arms, and leaned against the door watching the porters carry the wooden cabinet into his senior brother's room. His gaze swept over his senior brother, who was sitting uneasily to the side, and he couldn't help but say, "Do I have thorns on me? Why are you standing so far away?"

Knowing that his senior brother was only staying temporarily and couldn't bear to spend money to rent a nicer courtyard, he paid out of his own pocket to have two wooden storage cabinets made and asked someone to deliver them into the house.

But his senior brother bowed to him from a distance and thanked him, showing no distance at all!

Gu Lianzhou almost laughed out of anger. Even after the porter left, his gaze remained fixed on his senior brother. "Is Senior Brother not going to talk to me?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Song Qiling finally reacted, but she glanced at him timidly, then said "You wait," before turning and going into the house under Gu Lianzhou's bewildered gaze.

A moment later, she walked towards him carrying a heavy mahogany box, stopped a foot away from him, and said solemnly, "You moved into the courtyard a few days ago, and I didn't have time to prepare a housewarming gift. As luck would have it, the books I ordered from 'Juzhenfang' arrived yesterday, and I'm giving them to you today to congratulate you on your housewarming."

She lifted the lid of the box, revealing a blue book cover underneath, and said to herself, "My senior brother can barely read, but he doesn't like reading the Four Books and Five Classics. He prefers these folk tales. Don't be disgusted by them. Take them and read them carefully to relieve your boredom."

Gu Lianzhou took a few steps forward with suspicion, stopped in front of Song Qiling, his gaze falling on the book cover, and read out word by word: "Fair-faced scholar...pretty widow?"

He slowly frowned, but saw that his senior brother looked open and honest, his eyes full of appreciation for this kind of storybook: "Turn the pages down, there are even more interesting ones."

At her repeated urging, Gu Lianzhou picked up several books and read them one by one.

"The cold-faced general fell in love with me..."

"A few unspeakable matters concerning the current prime minister..."

"The innocent heiress is fiery hot..."

"What is all this?" He looked up at his senior, his eyes showing no thirst for knowledge, only utter confusion.

Song Qiling knew that this person had wasted all these years in Huaidu, and said with a hint of disappointment, "What your senior brother prepared for you is naturally a good thing. You should put it away quickly, so that others don't see it and become envious."

Finally, she added, "These are all unique copies, and they are very valuable."

Song Qiling licked her lips guiltily.

These were items she bought for fifty copper coins. They were said to contain vulgar and obscene content, describing the pleasures of men and women, yet they were widely circulated among the common people, making them perfect for someone like Gu Lianzhou, whose yin and yang were imbalanced, to study.

The junior brother forced a smile and said, "Senior brother, you've gone to so much trouble."

As he spoke, he put several books into the box and reached out to take them.

Whether it was due to the strong wind or something else, Song Qiling was already far from her junior brother. When she stretched out her hand to hand over the book box, her wrist trembled, and Gu Lianzhou barely managed to take it, but it tilted to one side, causing the books inside to spill out.

"Oh dear!" Song Qiling exclaimed as she picked up the scattered storybooks from the ground.

"Under the Skirt", "My Wolfish Encounters with the Butcher at the East End of the Village", "My Cousin's Blessings"... Every time Song Qiling picked up a book, he would silently recite the title in his mind. When his eyes swept over the book "The Pretty Prince Consort Disguised as a Man", his body trembled.

This book is not for reading.

She deftly snatched the joke book, tucked it into her sleeve under Gu Lianzhou's astonished gaze, and chuckled sheepishly, "Senior brother was itching to read it, so I kept a copy for amusement."

She chuckled a few times, then saw Gu Lianzhou squat down to help her tidy up.

"If you like it, senior brother, feel free to take it and read it. I can't finish reading all of these in a day anyway."

Since they were in the courtyard, the books inevitably had some dirt, sand, and withered leaves on them. Gu Lianzhou held a stack of books and shook them out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sheet of blueprint flutter down, like an autumn leaf falling, swirling between the two of them before finally landing at Gu Lianzhou's feet.

"Tsk, this book is so poorly bound, it's all torn apart." Song Qiling stuffed the book into the box with a look of disgust, bent down to pick up the drawing page, blew the dust off it, and unfolded it in front of her.

The paper feels crisp to the touch, with smooth, silky lines drawn in ink, a base of ochre, and then tinted with white, pink, and vibrant vermilion, creating a meticulously detailed fire-avoidance picture.

Song Qiling: "..."

Gu Lianzhou: "..."

Holding a sheet of paper with trembling fingers, Song Qiling silently stared at the "two little figures playing" on it. She felt that she had lost all face as the senior brother today, and her integrity had been trampled underfoot, leaving not a trace of it.

She stiffly looked up at her junior brother, and under his frozen gaze, she gave an awkward laugh and blurted out, "The owner of this bookstore is too kind, giving away everything. Look how lifelike this little painting is! Senior brother likes it so much that he kept it... um, to admire it closely... You shouldn't mind, right?"

As she spoke, without caring whether Gu Lianzhou minded or not, she hurriedly stuffed the item into her bosom, looking quite eager.

After a while, I suddenly heard my junior brother's light laughter above me.

"So, Senior Brother likes this..."

Song Qiling keenly sensed something unusual, her eyebrows lifted slightly, and her heart pounded wildly.

What does it mean to "like this"? Who doesn't like this?