Su Qingyue saw this, her ears burning hot. Her hand gripping the sword tightened violently, and her eyes narrowed slightly.
Mu Zhiming was clearly blind, yet she glanced at her anyway. What did that mean?
The meaning was obvious without words.
Su Qingyue glared back fiercely, but by then, that water-blue figure had already walked far away.
“Just now… Su Qingyue was looking at you.”
“Do you two have… some kind of relationship I don’t know about?”
Amid the Cloud Sea, Mu Zhiming stood before the Flying Sword without turning back. Her voice was still as stiff as ever, as natural as usual.
But those words landing on Ji Wangshu’s ears were anything but natural.
Cold sweat was already starting to bead on his back.
“No way, what relationship could I have with her? Today was the first time I ever met her. I just thought, since you’re already this tall, she’s actually even taller than you…”
“Oh… so you’re admitting you looked at her?”
Ji Wangshu’s legs were already starting to tremble upon hearing that.
Man, how am I supposed to answer this?
All those couple videos I watched in my past life were fun and games, but now the boomerang’s hitting me in the face.
His brain was spinning at full speed, fine beads of sweat forming on his forehead. It was still late winter with no sign of early spring, yet he felt unbearably hot.
His killer instincts kicked in.
He had no idea how to respond, but one thing he was certain of: he couldn’t just follow Mu Zhiming’s lead on this. No matter how he answered, it would be wrong. So the only thing he could do was…
“Are your eyes better now? Otherwise, how would you know I was looking at her?”
“Oh, I can’t see. I was just guessing.”
That reply landed on Ji Wangshu’s ears. Her voice was still stiff, impossible to read.
But where he couldn’t see, a faint smile had quietly curled up at the corner of Mu Zhiming’s lips ahead of him.
This fool. One test and he cracked.
Look at him all nervous. It’s not like I’m going to eat him.
At most, I’d just confine him to his room for ten or fifteen days, locked away without a single ray of light.
At that thought, Mu Zhiming’s smile grew a little wider, and she said nothing more.
Ji Wangshu also let out a sigh of relief, letting the cold wind blow through his body.
On the distant Snow Mountain, the heavy snow continued, though somehow, some of the accumulated snow had melted slightly under the winter sun.
…………
The evening sunlight spilled into the Plum Blossom Courtyard as the two descended gracefully.
“Tsk.” Ji Wangshu looked at the strands of hair in front of Mu Zhiming and let out a soft sigh.
The hair that had been neatly pinned up with the Plum Blossom Hairpin just a few sticks of incense ago was loose again, looking like it could fall apart at any moment.
What’s been going on these past few days? Every time we come back, the hairpin comes loose.
And it just so happens to be exactly when Chen Miao isn’t around.
Which means it falls to him to fix it.
Every time this happened, Ji Wangshu resisted, but seeing those Three Thousand Green Threads hang naturally down, falling across Mu Zhiming’s forehead and making her look so disheveled, he couldn’t bear it.
So every time, he reluctantly tied it back up, and the next time, it would come loose the same way again.
Maybe the hairpin is just no good. Come to think of it, those wandering Cultivators mentioned that the Flower Festival is in a couple of days. I’ll go up there and buy Wood Head a new one, Ji Wangshu mused to himself.
“Today… I’m going to wash up first.”
“I’ll do my hair… in a bit.”
Mu Zhiming turned around ahead of him, the black Eye Veil facing directly toward Ji Wangshu’s eyes as she spoke stiffly.
“Oh? Oh. Sure!” Ji Wangshu was startled for a moment.
Then he sat down on the stone bench beneath the Plum Blossom Tree and watched the woman walk toward the back of the house.
There was a Clear Spring back there, the kind where men and women bathed together. Ji Wangshu often soaked there himself.
But right now, he was stunned.
Because Mu Zhiming was unbinding her Water Blue Daoist Robe as she walked. The robe fell naturally onto the bluestone path. Her tall figure was turned away from Ji Wangshu, yet it revealed a snow-white, slender back.
Beneath the robe was a pale white chest wrap. A thin white ribbon threaded from behind her to the front, where he couldn’t see. Beneath the wrap, her Butterfly Bone was faintly visible.
Below that was a sheer silk bottom that hugged her hips. Her snow-white thighs were wrapped in a hazy veil, extending down to transparent white silk over her calves, with faint hints of pink showing beneath her lotus feet.
Seeing this, Ji Wangshu subconsciously touched his nose and averted his gaze.
In the courtyard, Plum Blossom petals scattered and fell, landing on the bluestone path, dotting the water-blue and pink.
An hour later, when Ji Wangshu looked back again, a faint floral fragrance mixed with the woman’s lingering scent drifted to his nose.
He raised his eyes. Mu Zhiming had finished bathing and was now wearing an Ice Silkworm Silk Garment.
It was still a bit revealing, but with no one else around in private, it was enough to shield her soft, graceful figure.
Mu Zhiming sat down on the stone bench in front of him, her back turned to him, holding the Plum Blossom Hairpin in her hand. She spoke naturally:
“Help me… tie it.”
Everything was natural. So natural it felt like a Dao Companion of many years, leaving Ji Wangshu no room to refuse.
But Ji Wangshu knew they weren’t really Dao Companions.
He was just a real Flower Goblin pretending to be a Childhood Friend, and Mu Zhiming was a true Sword Immortal who had given her heart to the wrong person.
He felt like the kind of person in a love story—
The one who hesitates in moments together, letting the ambiguous atmosphere heat up, stirring countless feelings in the other person. Under the moonlight among the flowers, when the woman asks him, “What are we?” he stays silent and unwilling to answer.
This was why he didn’t want to tie her hair, didn’t want to watch her undress in front of him, didn’t want to apply medicine for her in the small room.
“We’re just ordinary friends. Better to keep some distance.” The male lead in love stories often finally says this to the woman at the end, and then the female lead bursts into tears, pitiful beyond measure.
But he couldn’t say those words either.
At first, it really was for the System Task. But now… he didn’t know anymore.
Ji Wangshu’s mood showed in his hair-tying movements. The pressure in his hands increased as he pressed down on the strands of hair. Mu Zhiming’s willow-like brows furrowed slightly.
“What… are you thinking about?” Mu Zhiming’s voice came out stiffly.
Ji Wangshu snapped back to reality. He looked at the tangled mess of hair in his hands, stared at it for a long moment, and let out a sigh.
“Nothing.”
If it were the old Mu Zhiming, she would have stopped there.
But today, she was like the woman in those love stories who takes the initiative, stepping forward one more step to ask:
“You… liar.”
Ji Wangshu was also taken aback. He thought to himself that he couldn’t avoid answering, but he also couldn’t say it directly. So he could only use the same trick he’d used a few sticks of incense earlier—
Let her ask what she asks; you say what you say.
“Oh, I was thinking that the mortal realm is holding the Flower Festival in two days. I want to go check it out. But you have the finals in three days, plus you don’t like moving around much, so I figured you probably wouldn’t want to…”
Ji Wangshu rattled off a whole pile of words.
When a person talks a lot, it’s usually when their mind is the heaviest.
“Wangshu.”
“Hm?”
Hearing Mu Zhiming call his name—something she rarely did—Ji Wangshu raised his eyes to look at her.
Then, in the next moment, Mu Zhiming stood up. Her delicate jade-like fingers touched his cheek, then reached around to behind his ear.
Ji Wangshu’s pupils instinctively widened. He looked up at Mu Zhiming, who was half a head taller than him, only to meet the black Eye Veil head-on.
In that instant, their gazes intersected.
Behind that black Eye Veil, her gray-white pupils seemed to shimmer with a fleeting light, reflecting the brilliance of the Plum Blossom Tree.
The scent of her body after bathing, mixed with the fragrance of petals, drifted once more to his nose.
“I’m willing, you know… as long as it’s a request from you.”
Mu Zhiming’s fair, jade-like hand gently caressed his cheek as her cool, clear voice landed by his ear.
His ears burned hot, his face flushed crimson, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak.
He supposed that the male lead in those love stories, the one who never speaks up, though he resists all the way… by the end of the story, even he would have his heart moved a little…
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