Chapter 23: The Destined-to-be-Abandoned Good-for-Nothing (3) p2
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Midnight.
The night watchman’s voice echoed through the streets and alleys, and the entire town fell silent, except for the bustling red-light district.
At this moment, a slender figure lay by the side of an alley, pale and exhausted. But when she looked at the shadow beside her, there was no resentment or hatred in her eyes. She only replied earnestly: “Master, I… finished running.”
Su Mingxiu estimated that the poison had been mostly expelled. She originally wanted to take Gui Mian directly back to Mount Lingyu, but Gui Mian never complained about hardship. Seeing her face so pale and miserable, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy.
Unfamiliar with the town, she grabbed Gui Mian’s collar and chose a nearby inn.
However, as she walked past the courtesans and followed the attendant into the room, she was immediately blinded by the countless red threads hanging from the beams, crisscrossing the entire room.
At first glance, Su Mingxiu thought she had fallen into a ball of yarn.
The attendant chuckled behind her fan, meeting Su Mingxiu’s cold gaze, and explained with a smile: “Oh, these were left by the previous guest. That guest had some rather unique preferences. If you don’t like them, I’ll have someone remove them.”
Su Mingxiu stared at Gui Mian in her hand, her expression impassive as she considered whether her current frail body could withstand a night of freezing temperatures on the icy peak of Mount Lingyu.
The conclusion was no.
So she coldly refused the attendant’s offer. After closing the door, she was about to raise her hand and burn the red threads to ashes, but before she could do so, Gui Mian, who had just been put down, took a step forward and fell onto the tangled mess of threads. Like a fly caught in a spiderweb, she spread her limbs, perfectly supported by the threads.
As if finding support meant she no longer had to walk to the bed herself, Gui Mian rolled over, half-leaning on the chaotic red threads in mid-air. Facing Su Mingxiu, she asked curiously: “Master, what is this?”
Because she didn’t understand love or desire, she was curious about everything in the human world. It was as if she believed that if she learned and imitated enough, she could become like any other normal person, laughing when she should laugh, crying when she should cry.
Su Mingxiu, with her high cultivation level, didn’t need to practice like mortals. Now, seeing Gui Mian ignoring the bed and fiddling with the red threads, her slender, white wrists and ankles marked by the threads, she subconsciously closed her eyes, exhaled a turbid breath, and said softly: “Filthy things.”
She said: “Stay away from them.”
Gui Mian trusted her words completely. Hearing that they were filthy, she gathered her strength and moved away, walking weakly to the door. She opened the door and instructed someone to bring in water, wanting to wash herself clean after touching those filthy things.
The sound of water trickling in the room, coming from behind the screen, disturbed Su Mingxiu’s cultivation.
The original owner’s meridians still bore the scars from her tribulation, as if the celestial lightning had taken root and sprouted within her bones. Every time she channeled spiritual energy and circulated it through her body, the residual injuries would be aggravated.
Every time she cultivated, she had to endure the pain of countless wounds being torn open and then healing again. Only after being washed by spiritual energy thousands of times would the agonizing pain slightly subside.
So she set up a barrier around her, blocking all outside sounds, and focused on her cultivation.
Until midnight, when the moonlight streamed in through the window.
The person sitting on the wooden chair opened her eyes slightly. As she exhaled, she saw a pair of focused eyes staring at her from outside the barrier. She was stunned for a moment, then came back to her senses, dispelled the barrier, and asked: “What is it?”
Gui Mian, who had been fighting sleepiness for hours, looked at her with her black eyes, her face pressed against the table, and replied in a soft voice: “My senior sisters said…”
“If there’s a barrier, it means the person inside needs to be protected.”
Su Mingxiu’s eyelashes trembled.
Her throat moved. She suddenly wanted to reach out and touch Gui Mian’s neck, asking why her voice was so hoarse, as if it had been injured.
But thinking of the system in her mind, she only lowered her eyelids and replied coldly: “I don’t need your protection.”
Gui Mian took all her words as gospel and nodded obediently. “Oh, I’ll remember that.”
After a pause, she said: “I won’t do that next time, Master, don’t be angry.”
Gui Mian also remembered that her senior sisters had said that if their words were refuted by their masters, it meant they lacked understanding and had misinterpreted the meaning. And masters who discovered they had taken in stupid disciples would be angry.
“I…”
Su Mingxiu wanted to say that she wasn’t angry, but thinking about how Gui Mian currently lacked any understanding of emotions and desires, she figured the little one wouldn’t be able to tell even if she said it. So, in a rare moment, she started to speak but didn’t finish.
Her eyes fell on the person who was so sleepy that she couldn’t even lift her head from the table. After a while, she urged softly: “Aren’t you going to rest?”
Gui Mian rubbed her eyes, got up from the table, and scratched the wounds she had gotten during the day. The wounds under her clothes had quickly scabbed over but were very itchy.
With a large movement, a ball of red thread accidentally fell from her sleeve. Gui Mian followed the movement and looked at the table. Suddenly remembering something, she picked up the red thread and handed it to Su Mingxiu.
Her tone was as earnest as ever: “I just told them that those were dirty and asked them to replace them with new ones.”
Then, she asked Su Mingxiu cautiously: “Master, how do you use the new ones?”
The little girl innocently treated this thing as a human necessity, her persistent questioning giving Su Mingxiu a rare headache.
Faced with such pure innocence, she couldn’t utter a single word of those indecent explanations.
She looked at the red thread for a while, then finally took it from Gui Mian. Her slender, white fingers casually tied a knot at both ends, then stretched the thread out. With a flick of her wrist, she created a beautiful string figure.
The little girl sitting across from her watched intently, thinking it was some important cultivation technique, trying her best to memorize it.
A moment later, she recreated the same string figure with the red thread that Su Mingxiu had returned to her, her eager gaze seeking approval.
Su Mingxiu: “…”
For some inexplicable reason, she reached out and took the string figure, then, using countless variations, she actually spent the entire night making string figures with Gui Mian in the room.
The next day at noon.
The red-light district was exceptionally quiet, while the market outside was bustling with the cries of vendors.
Su Mingxiu estimated that Gui Mian had gotten enough sleep before waking her up, preparing to leave the town and return to Mount Lingyu.
The little girl yawned, her head drooping as she followed behind Su Mingxiu. She didn’t forget to bring the red thread from last night. Afraid of losing it in her pocket and not having a money pouch, she thought for a moment and tied it around her wrist.
Now, that faintly visible wrist caught the eye of the attendant from last night.
The woman, who was also drowsy, was startled awake and looked at Su Mingxiu’s back in astonishment. Then, she looked at Gui Mian, who was still sleepy and yawning, her eyes filled with disapproval:
To think that such a beastly woman exists in this world.
Looking so immortal, she must be cultivating some evil technique!
She was experienced and knew that there were also those who found pleasure between women. But the child following her didn’t look very old. Last night, a whole room of red threads wasn’t enough, and she even asked for another bundle.
And they had been at it until the sun was high in the sky!
That was bad enough, but now she even let the child wear the evidence…
Tsk.
She glanced at Su Mingxiu’s profile again and thought, It’s true that the more beautiful a woman is, the more poisonous her heart.
Bah!
A wolf in sheep’s clothing!
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