“Eh?!”
Frozen.
Stunned.
The wild joy on Gantang’s face instantly stiffened, replaced by a heavy sense of guilt and panic. “Se-Senior Brother, you, you heard that?!”
“I’m not deaf.”
Lu Qiancha replied flatly, then raised her hand and lightly but firmly tapped that pink head.
“Look at your lack of backbone.” Lu Qiancha’s voice held a trace of helplessness and reprimand. “Using spiritual power to clear the snow only takes the time of a cup of tea.”
“Guu~”
Gantang held her slightly aching forehead, letting out a pitiful whimper.
Then, suddenly remembering something, she cautiously looked up and asked, “Senior Brother, are you going out again later?”
“Not before early spring next year.”
Lu Qiancha shook her head.
The journey to Beijulu Continent was long and couldn’t be made in a moment; it couldn’t interfere with the New Year festivities.
Besides, the wild spiritual energy within her, formed from the heart demon’s cultivation, huge and chaotic like an accumulated glacier, had begun to show signs of instability.
She needed to settle down and enter seclusion to thoroughly refine and gather it, or else the consequences would be unpredictable.
“Ah!” Gantang suddenly exclaimed, pointing outside the corridor with delight. “Senior Brother, look! The snow has stopped!”
“Mm.” Lu Qiancha responded, stepping first toward the small storage room where the snow-clearing tools were kept. “Let’s go, clear the path.”
She swept the courtyard roads with spiritual power, easily pushing the piled snow to the sides.
Stepping out of the courtyard, she cleared along the main mountain path of Tianquan Peak.
After some work, combined with the exhaustion from days of travel, the spiritual power needed for her Mirage Art was almost drained, a trickling stream on the verge of collapse.
Lu Qiancha’s footsteps paused slightly. She looked up at the silent, empty Shanyin Xiaojing.
Rather than let her spiritual power run out later, causing her disguise to suddenly break and her true form to be embarrassingly revealed, it was better to take the initiative to lift it now.
At least she could maintain a composed appearance.
Moreover, her master had long known there was such a little wolf cub living on the peak, hadn’t she?
Her mind made up.
Pff~
With a faint sound of spiritual power shifting, the refined figure of a young boy blurred like ink in water and dispersed quietly, leaving behind only a small wolf girl with deep blue ears shaking off the chilly air just after the snow had cleared.
Back in the courtyard.
Lu Qiancha’s gaze involuntarily fell on the pile of snow she had just cleared to the side, thick and soft like a small hill.
Deep within her azure pupils, an indescribable glimmer flickered barely perceptible.
Lu Qiancha casually turned her head, her voice calm and even. “Gantang, you go inside first. I’ll sit here in the courtyard for a while.”
Gantang nodded as instructed, but then her footsteps froze, her eyes showing clear confusion and worry as she glanced up and down at Lu Qiancha’s light attire.
“Senior Brother, aren’t you dressed a bit too lightly?”
She pointed at the sailor-style top Lu Qiancha wore, its skirt hem barely reaching her knees, her slender waist and slightly exposed belly visible, and the thin stockings that covered her calves, almost like a second skin.
In the biting cold right after the first snow, just looking at it gave one goosebumps.
Though cultivators could resist extreme cold with their deep cultivation and wouldn’t be frostbitten or frozen to death, the sensation of cold was an instinctive physical feeling, one that couldn’t be wiped away just by having a “high realm.”
Lu Qiancha followed Gantang’s gaze downward.
The thin, airy, chilly fabric clung to her skin, yet it did not discomfort her.
Deep within her bloodline, some dormant instinct quietly awakened under the pure snowy atmosphere.
A subtle refreshing and pleasant sensation quietly rose along her spine.
She shook her head and replied calmly, a hint of instinctive assurance in her tone: “Not cold.”
Gantang remained doubtful, repeatedly glancing back as she warned, “If you do feel cold, don’t force yourself. I have a new Yangrong padded jacket……”
“Swallow.”
Lu Qiancha answered shortly.
Watching Gantang’s figure disappear inside the door, Lu Qiancha quickly retracted her gaze.
Her deep blue wolf eyes fixed on the thick snow mound sparkling with a tempting shimmer under the morning light.
No hesitation now.
The small figure darted forward like an arrow released from a bow and suddenly pounced onto the snow mound.
“Crash—! Pfft!”
The entire wolf instantly sank into the depths of the snow, leaving behind a puff of fine snow dust.
“Umm~”
The fluffy, icy snow grains immediately enveloped her whole body.
The feeling was like pressing one’s cheek against ice cubes on a scorching summer day.
Every pore sighed in relief.
She couldn’t help but roll contentedly in the snow.
Her paws dug nimbly into the cold, smooth snow inside the mound and quickly formed a small snowball, holding it in her palm.
After tumbling and frolicking in that white embrace for a while, the joy surging from deep within her bloodline nearly made Lu Qiancha forget everything.
Just as she was about to dive even deeper, her left ankle was suddenly gripped tightly by a cold yet incredibly firm force.
The next moment.
A huge sense of weightlessness overwhelmed her.
She felt as if pulled out like a freshly uprooted radish, abruptly torn away from the snow’s embrace.
The world flipped sharply; the scenery rapidly rewound.
When Lu Qiancha focused again, the world was upside down.
Staring back into her slightly dazed deep blue wolf eyes was a familiar face—cold and clear as jade, black hair hanging down, slightly frowning at this moment—
Her master, Xuanya!
Xuanya’s expression was unreadable as she held Lu Qiancha’s struggling ankle with her right hand, suspending her in the icy air.
Her gaze carried scrutiny mixed with a faint, barely perceptible helplessness as she swept over the little wolf cub, snowflakes stuck to her all over, scantily dressed.
The air was filled with silence, seeming to freeze for a moment.
Finally.
Xuanya’s cool voice broke the quiet, tinged with confusion. “Little one, you’ve been crawling in the snow…”
She paused, as if searching for the right words, then gave a helpless look instead. “…what for?”
“Umm~ Put me down…”
Lu Qiancha struggled uncomfortably, feet up, head down, feeling a bit dizzy.
Xuanya didn’t intend to make things difficult for her; she set her down and then squatted calmly, looking into her eyes and asking, “Little one, what’s your name?”
Without hesitation, Lu Qiancha threw out the false name she had used to fool Shangguan Yunzhu.
The next moment, Xuanya suddenly said something unexpected: “Full name is Lu Qianqian, right?”
Lu Qiancha’s face was full of shock. She looked up at Xuanya’s face, wondering if her master had seen through something.
Seeing Lu Qianqian’s surprised expression, Xuanya’s heart settled.
She then spoke gently, “Little Qianqian, can you tell me why you just dove into the snow pile?”
Lu Qianqian didn’t answer because even she didn’t know why she had done it… and it was embarrassing to be caught doing it.