Chapter 37 The Heavenly Court trial card is about to expire. ...
Upon reaching the outside of Lianxin Residence, one could faintly hear voices inside.
Jiang Huaisu was half a step ahead of Nezha when she entered the moon gate. She saw a little girl, about five or six years old, perched on a tree, stretching out her hand to steal bird eggs.
The fairies anxiously gathered under the tree, "Princess, come down quickly!"
Li Zhenying pouted: "Keep your voices down. If you disturb the spirit bird, how am I supposed to steal the eggs?"
She had already imagined her as a quiet and pitiful girl, but looking at her now, Zhenying is actually quite lively!
Meeting Jiang Huaisu's gaze, Nezha explained helplessly, "She wasn't like this when I was around."
As they spoke, the sharp-eyed Li Zhenying noticed the two people standing by the moon gate. Her face stiffened, and she obediently climbed down from the tree, so nervous she almost stumbled over her own feet. The fairy maidens breathed a sigh of relief, bowed, and then withdrew.
"Third Brother." Li Zhenying walked up to Nezha, her fingers unconsciously fidgeting in her sleeve, a hint of unease on her face. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have taken the bird eggs."
"It's okay, just do it if you like."
Nezha genuinely didn't care. Stealing bird eggs was nothing; he was much more mischievous when he was a kid. Besides, his little sister wasn't an ordinary person; she wouldn't break so easily.
But he was puzzled by his younger sister's fearful and apprehensive appearance. Was he really that scary?
"Oh, right, let me introduce you. This lady next to me is..." Nezha paused, seemingly unable to find the right words in his mind.
Jiang Huaisu naturally took over the conversation: "My name is Jiang Huaisu, greetings, Fourth Princess!"
Li Zhenying's gaze darted back and forth between Jiang Huaisu and Nezha. She raised her little face and smiled sweetly, saying, "Sister, you can just call me Zhenying."
Jiang Huaisu smiled, though she could tell that Li Zhenying's obedience was probably just an act. But she still liked the clever little girl in front of her and squatted down to straighten her crooked hair.
How old are you?
"I'm almost six years old," the little girl answered in a clear voice.
"Six years old is the perfect age to steal bird eggs."
Li Zhenying glanced timidly at Nezha: "But Mother said that Third Brother didn't steal bird eggs when he was little."
Nezha: "I won't take the bird eggs, but I will extract the dragon's tendons."
These words immediately diverted Jiang Huaisu's attention. After hesitating for a long time, she finally couldn't help but ask, "Actually, I've been curious for a long time about the structure of a dragon's body..."
"The body is very long and the scales are hard, but the dragon horns are easy to break and cannot be broken by force."
As the only animal in the Chinese zodiac that Jiang Huaisu had never seen before, she harbored immense curiosity about the dragon. She imagined it to be similar to a snake, but snakes didn't have tendons.
Seeing that Nezha didn't resist the topic, she tentatively asked another question that had been puzzling her for a long time: "When you get a cramp, do you just pull it from your back?"
"Pretty much. Although it's not visible to the naked eye, it's actually quite easy to find the location by hand."
"What does it feel like to touch?"
"It's smooth and very sturdy."
The two men veered off-topic with their question-and-answer session, leaving Li Zhenying confused. Did they actually encourage her to steal bird eggs?
Her mother was always very strict with her. She would always stop her when she was being naughty and would often use her older brothers as positive examples to keep her in check.
She'd heard so many stories about her brothers that she'd become numb to them. But a seed of reverence had been planted in her young heart for this third brother, whom she barely knew. It had nothing to do with whether or not he stole bird eggs; it was simply because her mother always sighed uncontrollably when she mentioned him, saying she hadn't disciplined him enough when he was little...
When we get to this point, my mother stops.
Li Zhenying knew exactly what her mother's unfulfilled regrets were; after all, her third brother's past was so legendary that it was impossible for her not to know. And as Nezha's sister, she was more perceptive than others of the estrangement between her third brother and their parents.
This is something that can't be made up for, after all, the third brother can't turn back into a small size and be raised by his mother again.
Li Zhenying glanced at Jiang Huaisu, who was discussing the effects and value of dragon tendons with Nezha. In a few words, the topic shifted to the feasibility of dragon tendons as food.
Nezha: "Eating it is probably not an option. It's hard to chew, and it definitely won't taste good."
Jiang Huaisu: "It's a pity there's no pressure cooker here."
Nezha: "What is a pressure cooker?"
Jiang Huaisu: "Uh... it's a kind of device that can cook food until it's very soft through high temperature and pressure in a sealed space."
Nezha: "It sounds a bit like Laozi's alchemy furnace."
Jiang Huaisu: "That's still far from enough. You can't refine pills in a pressure cooker."
Listening to the conversation between the two, Li Zhenying couldn't help but feel a secret respect for Jiang Huaisu.
The dragon tendon isn't important; what matters is the event it represents! She never dared to bring this up with her third brother, for fear of upsetting him.
Noticing that Li Zhenying had been quiet for a while, Jiang Huaisu lowered her head and met Zhenying's cautious gaze. She suddenly felt ashamed. As an adult, she should set a good example and act more mature and composed. Instead, she had been talking to herself and neglecting the child's feelings.
"Ahem." She cleared her throat, ending the conversation about the pressure cooker, then squatted down and said to Li Zhenying, "Zhenying, what do you usually like to play? Shall I play with you?"
"I usually enjoy reading."
Jiang Huaisu: "..." Having witnessed Li Zhenying climbing a tree to steal bird nests, she couldn't quite believe this explanation.
"Besides reading, do you have any other hobbies?" Jiang Huaisu thought for a moment and then added, "Reading is a good habit, but it's more suitable for doing alone than for two people. If you only want to read, I won't bother you."
"I, I..." Li Zhenying stammered for a while, unable to get a coherent answer.
No matter how mature Lee Jung-young may appear on the surface, she is still just a child at heart.
Right now, the older sister is taking the initiative to send her friendly signals and wants to play with her, which is really hard to refuse!
Li Zhenying, with a stern face and an old-fashioned wrinkle on her nose, said, "I also like playing chess."
Jiang Huaisu's smile froze. This was embarrassing. She only knew how to play checkers and Gomoku, maybe tic-tac-toe at most. Zhenying was probably talking about Go or Chinese chess, right? She didn't know how to play!
But her adult pride got the better of her, and Jiang Huaisu didn't show any fear on her face. Instead, she coaxed him gently, "How about we play Connect Four? If you don't know how, I'll teach you."
Zhenying blinked curiously: "Okay. Is Gomoku difficult? My mother never taught me."
"It's very simple."
The fairy maid brought over a chessboard, and the two sat down in the courtyard to play chess.
After Jiang Huaisu briefly explained the game rules, Zhenying was able to pick it up almost immediately, without needing any further demonstrations. After two rounds, she was already able to go toe-to-toe with Jiang Huaisu and was thoroughly enjoying herself.
However, another problem arises. No matter the game, only two people can play, meaning Nezha is destined to be excluded.
He chose to take a bath in the lotus pond.
A large lotus flower, seemingly Nezha's true form, emerged from the water and swayed in the wind.
With her third brother out of sight, Li Zhenying relaxed considerably, her bottom becoming restless as she swayed back and forth. A sly glint appeared in her eyes as she struck up a conversation with Jiang Huaisu.
"Have you known your sister and third brother for a long time?"
"Not long ago. You should know about when your third brother split his soul and descended to the mortal realm, right? That's when we met."
Lee Jung-young's eyes widened. "Back then?"
"Yes, later a friend of mine went to heaven to become an official, and I followed him. So, I ran into your third brother again in heaven."
Jiang Huaisu skipped over the part about the conquest of Huaguo Mountain, but Li Zhenying's information network was more advanced than she had imagined, so she immediately asked, "The one who recently ascended to heaven to take office must be the one who looks after the Peach Garden?"
“That’s right.” Jiang Huaisu nodded, simultaneously taking a white piece to block Zhenying’s path. That was close; she almost let her opponent form a five-in-a-row. Luckily, Li Zhenying had been distracted talking to her and missed her chance to win.
“Sun Wukong,” Li Zhenying uttered the name. “I know him. Back then, Father and Third Brother were ordered to besiege Flower Fruit Mountain…”
She paused, her eyes darting around as if she were imagining something. Suddenly, she lowered her voice mysteriously, leaning her entire upper body over the chessboard and moving closer to Jiang Huaisu.
"Sister, since you're Sun Wukong's friend, you must have been on Flower Fruit Mountain back then. That was your first reunion after Third Brother returned to his divine position, right? Did you two fight? Did old friends turn against each other? How did you reconcile later?"
In just a few words, she had already filled in a magnificent emotional drama in her mind. She had previously peeked at the folk tales her mother collected, and this kind of drama seemed boring in books, but it felt very novel when applied to her third brother.
Compared to her eldest brother, she always felt that her third brother might be more suitable to enter the Buddhist order, because he seemed so emotionless! It turned out that she was wrong. Her third brother had also had various entanglements with others outside of Yunlou Palace, but she just didn't know it.
Jiang Huaisu pointed a finger at Li Zhenying's forehead, pushing her back to her original position, and corrected her, "Your third brother was ordered to capture Sun Wukong, not me. He only fought Sun Wukong, not me. There was no scene of old friends turning against each other. After the fight, everyone went home."
Lee Jung-young looked somewhat disappointed: "That's it? You didn't even get to talk to each other back then?"
A cool hand lifted Lee Jung-young by the back of her neck.
Nezha said quietly from behind his little sister, "If you want to know these things, why don't you ask your third brother?"
Lee Jung-young shrank her neck, feeling the chill on her neck, and her eyes instantly widened in terror.
A wise person knows when to yield. Zhenying drooped her head like a wilted eggplant and shamelessly begged for forgiveness: "I'm sorry, Third Brother, I won't ask around anymore!"
Nezha loosened his grip. "Why are you so nervous? I'm not angry. It's fine to tell you; we did run into each other and even spoke. Do you want to know what happened?"
Lee Jung-young hesitated for a moment, then struggled to suppress her curiosity and shook her head.
Nezha: "I was going to say something, but since you're not interested, then forget it."
Teasing your sister like that will only make her dislike you! Jiang Huaisu tried to signal to Nezha with her eyes, but Nezha completely missed her point. He watched the conflicted look on Li Zhenying's face for a while before slowly saying:
"She was hiding in the grass peeking at me when I spotted her."
Lee Jung-young: "......"
Then what?
Why don't you continue?
"After that... never mind, it's no fun for a kid like you to hear about these things." Nezha reached out and rearranged the chessboard. "Let's continue playing. Who won just now?"
Lee Jung-young glanced at the messy chessboard, unable to recall where she had placed her piece in the previous move.
Finally, Jiang Huaisu, seeing her younger sister's dazed state, tormented by curiosity, felt a pang of pity. Recalling her encounter with Nezha on Flower Fruit Mountain, she took the initiative to reveal the answer:
“Your brother didn’t recognize me at the time. The first thing he asked me was, ‘Have we met before?’ I thought he had amnesia.” Jiang Huaisu glanced quickly at Nezha’s face. “Nothing else happened after that. We chatted for a bit and then he ran off to fight Sun Wukong. I just watched from the side.”
After finishing her explanation in one breath, Jiang Huaisu breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that there was nothing to hesitate about. After all, the main focus at the time was not on her conversation with Nezha at all; the later fight scenes were the climax of the story. Unfortunately, the battle scenes were not easy to describe in words, and it was only interesting to see them in person.
What Jiang Huaisu described differed slightly from the scene Li Zhenying had imagined, leaving her somewhat disappointed. It bore no resemblance to what was written in the storybook. However, since her curiosity had been satisfied, she sensibly refrained from asking further questions and instead flashed Jiang Huaisu a sweet smile:
"Thank you for telling me all this, sister." Glancing at her silent third brother, Li Zhenying mustered her courage and tugged at Jiang Huaisu's sleeve. "Sister, let's continue playing chess."
The two reorganized the black and white pieces, and Lee Jung-young made the first move.
The game of chess began, but Nezha stood by and didn't move. After a while, he suddenly spoke up: "No."
Jiang Huaisu looked up: "Huh?"
"To correct you, I recognized you back then."
Not quite understanding his nitpicking over details, Jiang Huaisu replied perfunctorily, "Oh, I see."
Nezha emphasized: "...I recognized you, but I couldn't confirm it immediately. Your appearance had changed at the time."
Jiang Huaisu pursed her lips and casually said, "Sun Wukong could recognize me at a glance, which means your eyesight is still a bit lacking."
"hehe."
After letting out a cold laugh, Nezha fell silent, and the atmosphere suddenly became quiet, with only the dull thud of chess pieces falling onto the chessboard.
The glazed green tiles shimmered with a soft glow, and wisps of cloud swirled around her. Jiang Huaisu shivered almost imperceptibly; although the actual temperature was pleasant, the atmosphere gave her the illusion of being in an ice cave.
Her fingertips traced the smooth chess pieces, a chill seemingly seeping into her skin. For no reason, she felt uneasy. Surely Nezha wouldn't get angry over a mere joke? He hadn't even recognized her immediately!
Judging from the prolonged silence, he must have gone back into the lotus pond. Not hearing the splashing of water for some reason, she became increasingly distracted. Seeing that it was her turn, she hesitated slightly before placing her white piece.
Zhenying lifted her eyelids to glance at her and reminded her, "Sister, you lost."
In one corner of the chessboard, Zhenying had already connected four pieces in a row, a flaw that Jiang Huaisu hadn't even noticed. The unconvinced loser instantly perked up: "Let's play again!"
This time, Jiang Huaisu was completely focused, carefully considering each move. Soon, the chessboard was filled with black and white pieces, and the game became a stalemate.
In the end, Jiang Huaisu narrowly won by a single move. He deliberately exposed a weakness to lure Li Zhenying into blocking the black stones. When it was his turn, he made his final move on the already formed path in the lower right corner, and said with a sigh of relief, "I won!"
There was no shame on his face from giving his all against a six-year-old; only the excitement of winning the game.
After tidying up the chess pieces, Jiang Huaisu put on a serious face and said, "We've had enough fun for today. I'll come find you another day, and we can play something else then."
"Yes! My sister can come and play with me anytime."
Zhenying gently fanned herself with her hand. She had been very focused during the game, and a thin layer of sweat had appeared on her forehead by the end.
"Father said that the Queen Mother of the West is going to hold a banquet at Yaochi soon." Li Zhenying recalled this and asked Jiang Huaisu with anticipation, "Will you go, sister?"
Jiang Huaisu's throat tightened, and she swallowed hard. The Empress was holding a banquet at Yaochi, which must be the Peach Banquet! She hadn't expected the main plot to come so quickly. She panicked and suddenly stood up, accidentally knocking the chess set to the ground. She quickly squatted down to pick it up.
"Hmm...that depends on what the Queen Mother of the West thinks." She answered Li Zhenying's question perfunctorily while tidying up the chess pieces scattered on the ground. In her heart, however, she knew perfectly well that since the Queen Mother hadn't even invited Sun Wukong, she certainly wouldn't invite her!
After putting the chess set away again, Jiang Huaisu casually asked Zhenying, "By the way, Fourth Princess, do you know when this banquet starts?"
Zhenying shook her head: "I'm not quite sure, but it's been around for a while now."
Alright. Jiang Huaisu thought sadly, Zhenying's information must be correct; her Heavenly Court trial card was really about to expire. Should she go back to Flower Fruit Mountain in advance to make arrangements and meet Sun Wukong?
Before leaving Lianxin Residence, it would be proper to say goodbye to the owner of the villa, but Nezha was nowhere to be found. Jiang Huaisu glanced around, but couldn't see the boy, and too lazy to search further, she shouted into the air, "Nezha, I'm leaving!"
He then bid farewell to Li Zhenying and walked out with heavy steps.
On the way back to Qitian Palace, Jiang Huaisu admired the scenery along the way. Knowing that she would soon be moving away from this place, she couldn't help but feel a little reluctant to leave this beautiful heavenly palace.
Riding slowly back on the clouds, the gate of Qitian Mansion could be seen in the distance, its vermilion gate and red paint gleaming in the bright sunlight.
As Jiang Huaisu drew closer, the radiance grew brighter and brighter.
......wrong!
Jiang Huaisu rubbed her eyes. What glow? It was clearly firelight! It illuminated the doorposts in a bright red glow, and a scorching heat wave hit her face, blowing her bangs away.
Was the yard on fire? She lifted her skirt and hurriedly ran towards the brightest spot, leaping onto the wall before finally seeing what was happening inside.
The two seemed to have consciously kept the battlefield within this area, but the flowers and plants in the yard were burned down to bare roots.
Jiang Huaisu wanted to stop them but dared not get close. The two were engrossed in their fight, throwing spells around like they were free, their fighting spirit surging, completely disregarding their own injuries, and their moves were tinged with murderous intent.
But both of them looked excited and showed no sign of stopping, having already escalated from exchanging blows with weapons to engaging in close combat.
Jiang Huaisu squatted on the eaves, feeling utterly overwhelmed. This reckless behavior made her feel that anyone who entered the battlefield would be torn to pieces!
“Sun Wukong!” she shouted.
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