Chapter 54 Apricot, Stone, and Sword Spirit

Li Jinshuang did not wake up until dawn.

Yu Sui and Xue Mushi stared at her and noticed that she was frowning and covered in sweat. It seemed that she had many worries in her dream, which made her fearful and scared. She was whispering from time to time.

“She needs to change her habit of talking in her sleep,” Yu Sui said.

Xue Mushi nodded in agreement.

Yu Sui then asked, "Guess what her sword spirit's problem is?"

Xue Mushi racked his brains, thinking, "The reason they don't want to be controlled by their master is probably because they look down on him."

Yu Sui then asked, "What do you think makes her look down on?"

Xue Mushi was truly stumped this time.

He scratched his head, thought hard, and finally shook his head: "I can't think of anything. I don't see anything about her that fits the bill."

Yu Sui changed her question: "Then where do you think she's likely to be looked down upon by the sword spirit?"

Xue Mushi thought carefully: "There are very few sword spirits that can think for themselves. Sword spirits are always obedient to their masters and they don't have their own thoughts."

Yu Sui nodded: "Now there's a sword spirit that can think for itself and can see what it doesn't like about Li Jinshuang?"

Xue Mushi frowned and looked distressed, as if he was very tired, but he had to cheer up. In the end, he shook his head in frustration: "I can't think of anything."

Yu Sui sighed, "If only Li Jinshuang's sword spirit were like yours."

Xue Mushi remained silent. Was this a compliment?

The dazzling morning light shone on the earth. Xue Mushi had class today, and seeing that it was almost time, he said goodbye to Yu Sui and left first.

After daybreak, Yu Sui felt a little better. Seeing that Li Jinshuang was still unconscious, she propped her head up with one hand and planned to rest for a while. But she had only closed her eyes for a short while when the wind chime went off.

It was a keyword monitoring alert she set up; the keyword was "different fire".

This was the first time she had heard any monitoring about the strange fire since arriving in Taiyi. Yu Sui opened her eyes and immediately took out the Listening Wind Ruler to check:

"After six days and six nights of fortune-telling, you still can't find a single name for a stone. What use are fortune tellers? Quickly, have the strange fire burn all the stones in the Leisure Pool! Leisure, my foot! Let's see which stone dares to be leisurely!"

Yu Sui: "..."

She glanced at the message and saw it was from a disciple of a famous master named Yan Xiaochuan, who was sending a message to his friend to vent his anger.

"Burn them all with the strange fire, you hear me? Burn them all, leave no one alive!"

"If I can't name a single stone in six days, I'll laugh myself to death. Destroy it! Let the strange fire start burning it up, first burn the stones in the Free and Easy Pool!"

"Any stone whose name I can't determine shall die!"

Yu Sui silently put away the Listening Wind Ruler. He was a disciple who had been driven mad by the trials of famous masters and had developed a desire to destroy the world. He had been excited for nothing.

When Li Jinshuang woke up, she saw the dazzling sky, which made her subconsciously turn her head away to avoid the scorching sunlight.

Turning her head slightly, she saw Yu Sui, who was playing with the wind-listening ruler. Yu Sui was squatting beside her, her body curled up, her fingers flying across the ruler. She noticed Yu Sui's awakening immediately, glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, and said, "You're awake!"

Li Jinshuang felt dizzy for a moment, then her vision gradually cleared and her consciousness returned. Remembering what happened last night, she sat up with a pale face.

Without looking up, Yu Sui asked, "How are you feeling? Is anything bothering you? Should you go see a doctor?"

Li Jinshuang sat up, sheathed her longsword, stretched out and bent her legs, and remained silent.

Yu Sui didn't rush to press her for answers, patiently waiting for her to speak on her own.

Li Jinshuang raised her hand to press her aching eyebrows and eyes, and after a moment she said in a hoarse voice, "I'm sorry."

"Hmm?" Yu Sui made a sound through her nose, the last syllable rising in pitch, carrying a hint of doubt.

“It doesn’t distinguish between friend and foe, and it hurt you too,” Li Jinshuang said.

"I'm fine, I'm not injured. Xue Mushi got a cut on his face, but the wound isn't deep, it's alright, it won't leave a scar," Yu Sui said softly. "No need to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong. On the contrary, your sword spirit is very strong, but it seems that it's not impossible for Xue Mushi and I to cooperate and suppress your sword spirit."

Li Jinshuang was taken aback. Yu Sui looked at her and blinked gently: "Thanks to you, I reached the third level of Soul Control last night."

"So you haven't caused any trouble, no need to apologize."

Although Li Jinshuang didn't say it, Yu Sui's words made her feel much better. She instantly felt that Princess Qingyang was not only cute but also very gentle, and her wariness of others relaxed again and again.

Yu Sui wanted to spar with Li Jinshuang's sword spirit a few more times to test the power and skills of Shenji Tianmu, so she took the initiative to ask, "How is your communication with your sword spirit going?"

"How did you..." know?

Li Jinshuang stared blankly at Yu Sui.

Yu Sui sighed, "You always talk in your sleep when you're not fully conscious."

This damn experience felt so familiar.

Li Jinshuang couldn't help but reach out and pinch her brow again.

Yu Sui didn't say that Xue Mushi had heard it, and she was afraid that Li Jinshuang would get up and leave in a fit of anger, missing the opportunity to have a heart-to-heart talk.

"I swear, I didn't overhear on purpose." Yu Sui raised her hand, her expression serious.

Li Jinshuang gave a slight smile: "...It's nothing."

"Would you like to talk?" Yu Sui asked softly, her watery eyes looking at Li Jinshuang with a touch of tenderness, gently enveloping her vulnerability. "You can talk about your family or your sword spirit."

Li Jinshuang lowered her eyes, unwilling and afraid to look at Yu Sui. Her heart was beating fast, and the urge to confide reached its peak at that moment, but she habitually suppressed it, feeling that it would be useless to say it, and that she shouldn't say it.

Yu Sui waited patiently. Seeing that Li Jinshuang was truly patient, he sighed inwardly, stood up with his hands on his knees, looked down at Li Jinshuang who was still sitting on the ground, and said, "Alright, it's okay if you don't want to talk now. You can send a message to me when you want to talk to me."

See you tonight.

The two parted ways at the Yin-Yang Five Elements Field. Yu Sui returned to the Ghost Dao Clan. As a new disciple of the Ghost Dao Clan, she also had some basic courses that she had to attend, which were taught by different instructors from the Thirteen Realms.

Yu Sui sat in the last row, listening attentively to the lesson.

But the wind-listening scale kept buzzing, all of which were alerts from keyword monitoring.

Yu Sui quietly clicked to check, and saw that it was still Yan Xiaochuan, a disciple of the Ming family, frantically shouting that the strange fire would destroy the world, first burning the stones in the Free and Easy Pool, and then burning the entire Ming family.

She looked it up and found out that the Famous Families were currently conducting a Five Elements Naming Trial, which was a cultivation trial for the Famous Families' Class B disciples. It was supervised and scored by Class A disciples, and Yu Sui's third brother, Sheng Fei, was one of the Class A disciples supervising the trial.

Today is the seventh day of the "Five Elements Naming" trial. If you cannot give the correct name to the stone in the Free and Easy Pool within ten days, you will fail in your cultivation.

Yu Sui was originally listening attentively to the lesson, but she became distracted by Yan Xiaochuan's prayer for the strange fire. The instructor noticed and called on her, but she knew nothing when asked. In return, the instructor simply told her to "get out," and she stood in the corridor in a daze.

"..."

Yan Xiaochuan, right?

If you're going to use the strange fire to burn down the Ghost Daoist sect, then burn the named stones in the Free and Easy Pool.

After finishing her daytime classes, Yu Sui returned to the Ghost Path Holy Hall to chat with her master for a while. She had picked almost all the apricots off the tree, leaving only one yellow-red apricot at the top, bathed in the bright moonlight.

At the hour of Hai (9-11 PM), Yu Sui arrived at the Yin-Yang School as promised.

Li Jinshuang was the first to arrive. Yu Sui and Xue Mushi came from different directions and, seeing Li Jinshuang standing in the sea of ​​stars, both wondered if she hadn't left.

"Have you stayed here the whole time?" Yu Sui asked.

Li Jinshuang gently shook her head: "No."

I don't know if it's true or not.

Yu Sui didn't press further, simply nodding and asking, "Shall we continue with the formation?"

Li Jinshuang lowered her head and said, "Mm."

Yu Sui then opened the star map and entered the formation.

It was the familiar starlight in the dark night.

Each time they entered the Asura Hell, the three of them would be terrified by the city's guardian general. It was a fear and panic that rose from the bottom of their hearts. Only by maintaining a safe distance from the general could they alleviate this fear to some extent.

Yu Sui said to Li Jinshuang, "Don't feel guilty. Even if you release the sword spirit, we can handle it."

She gave Xue Mushi a wink, and Xue Mushi nodded in agreement.

Li Jinshuang nodded to indicate that she understood.

But tonight, no matter how Li Jinshuang summoned it, the sword spirit ignored her and refused to reveal itself, leaving her to fight the evil spirits in the armored formation alone.

Without the help of the sword spirit to beat up the evil spirits of the armored formation, the three of them looked rather disheveled that night. In the end, they left the armored formation covered in dust and dirt, looking at each other in the dazzling morning light.

Xue Mushi scratched his head and said, "As expected of a top-tier armored formation, impressive."

The awkward topic did nothing to ease the tension.

Yu Sui glanced at Li Jinshuang, whose face looked tired. Her battle tonight had been very unstable, and she seemed to be troubled by the problem with the sword spirit. The sword spirit appeared unsummoned, which made her mind even more chaotic.

Li Jinshuang tightened her grip on the sword, her face turning deathly pale.

Xue Mushi and Yu Sui exchanged a glance and felt that this person was in a very bad state, as if her mentality had collapsed. If they let her continue like this, they would only be able to go through the formations together in the future.

"Li Jinshuang," Yu Sui said softly, "Take a rest. You look very tired and need to recharge."

Xue Mushi chimed in, "Yes, yes."

Li Jinshuang's hand holding the sword trembled slightly. She walked to the edge of the Yin-Yang Five Elements arena, as if all her strength had been drained. She sat down by the side of the arena and slowly raised her eyes to look at the two people standing in front of her.

"When I was twelve, I cultivated to the third realm and gave birth to a sword spirit. At that time, it was fine. But when I was fourteen, it began to have its own thoughts and no longer obeyed my commands."

Li Jinshuang lowered her eyelashes, casting a momentary shadow on her face. Her voice was low and hoarse, and she spoke slowly and laboredly: "After that, my sword spirit became more and more difficult to control each year. Until last year, it started to hurt people indiscriminately, and I couldn't control it."

Sometimes, even the Blade Spirit could injure her.

It was as if there was something opposing between them.

It was as if she wasn't the master of the sword spirit.

The sword spirit believed that he was not its master.

As dawn broke, Mei Liangyu finished her work, handed over the items, and left the Mechanical Island, rushing back to Taiyi Academy to say goodbye to that wretched place.

The herbal tea was too awful. I've been drinking it for days, and now it's so bland that I feel terrible. I wanted something sweet, so Mei Liangyu decided to go to the Ghost Path Temple to pick two apricots before returning to her quarters to wash up.

Dazzling golden beams of dawn fell upon the sanctuary, from the roof tiles to the stone steps and fruit trees. The beams shone on the tops of the fruit trees, perfectly illuminating the ripe apricot, which Mei Liangyu spotted at a glance.

He stood beside the tree, looking up at the tall apricot tree, its branches full of green, with hardly a trace of yellow or red.

It wasn't the tree laden with fruit that he remembered.

Mei Liangyu blinked, his gaze sweeping over the branches without fruit, then slowly looking upwards until he confirmed that there was only one apricot left. He then took out the Listening Wind Ruler and opened his junior sister's inscription interface.

Yu Sui: "Then I'll save one for you, Senior Brother."

Their conversation ended with that sentence from a few days ago.

Mei Liangyu's fingers, slightly roughened from working, gently pressed the words on the Wind Listening Ruler. Then, staring at the last remaining apricot on the tree, he gave a silent, cold laugh and sent a message to Yu Sui: "Where are you?"

When Yu Sui received the message, she was listening to Li Jinshuang recount her long-standing entanglement with the sword spirit. She glanced at the sky and guessed that her senior brother had returned from the Mechanized Island and might have even seen Xingzi from the Holy Temple.

So she replied slowly, "Not in this world for now."

[Author's Note]

Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!