Being beautiful was an absolute plus in her eyes, and the current Linglong was truly, very beautiful.
‘Damn it, I actually feel a bit of a heart-flutter.’ Hua Jian lightly pressed her hand against her chest, feeling as though she could hear her heartbeat becoming heavy and rapid.
Linglong didn’t say anything, but looking at the expression on her face, she seemed a bit shy as well.
“Hey… come back to earth!” Walking to Hua Jian’s side, Linglong used the tip of her tail to lightly sweep across Hua Jian’s face.
The slightly cool sensation gave Hua Jian a jolt, finally waking her from her daze.
‘I almost finished thinking of names for our daughter.’
“A true beauty is a disaster,” she whispered.
Linglong’s gaze toward Hua Jian became increasingly helpless. At a time like this, shouldn’t she be praised for her beauty?
How could this girl always pick the most unpleasant option among several responses? Was she doing it on purpose?
“I’ll change my clothes, and then we’ll go to the place I told you about the other day.”
“Oh, okay.”
This time, Linglong’s ‘changing clothes’ really was just changing her clothes; she didn’t put the Disguise Spell back on.
After changing into more casual clothing, the visual impact she gave wasn’t as strong, and Hua Jian could finally speak normally in front of her.
Shiqi had already slipped out of the room, leaving the space to Hua Jian and Linglong. In other words, this was now their private space.
“You really like me looking like this, don’t you?” the dressed-up Linglong suddenly asked.
“Who wouldn’t like a girl as beautiful as you?” Hua Jian swallowed and forced herself to look away. “But it’s not that much better than me.”
She admitted that the current Linglong was better looking than her, but their situations were different.
Her own beauty was still in a sealed stage, while Linglong’s was in an unsealed state.
If it were the version of her in the Godsoul Space, her appearance wouldn’t be much different from Linglong’s.
Hearing this somewhat defiant sentence, Linglong laughed out loud. Hua Jian’s ‘brave on the outside, cowardly on the inside’ look was quite cute, making one want to continue teasing her.
“Oh? Is that so? Then how about you also go out with me in your most beautiful form?”
Hua Jian’s face turned sour. Was her most beautiful form fit to be seen in public?
She would probably be caught by the Senior Sisters of the Jade Pool and severely ‘educated’ as a spy from Wanhuagu the moment she stepped out.
“Fine, fine, I admit you’re the most beautiful right now.”
“I was already beautiful. Come on, let’s go.”
Linglong took Hua Jian’s hand and led her out of the room.
Being led onto a cloud by Linglong, Hua Jian asked softly with a hint of anxiety, “Where are we going?”
Linglong hadn’t mentioned a specific location when she invited her, only saying she would take her to a good place today.
Even now, Hua Jian still didn’t know their destination.
“You’ll know when we get there. It’s not very far.” Linglong had actually learned to be mysterious.
“You’ve turned bad! You weren’t like this before!”
Hua Jian still remembered her first encounter with the Little Dragon Girl.
Back then, the Little Dragon Girl was a genuine ice-cold beauty, but now the ice had melted and black water was starting to seep out.
What made it even harder for her to accept was that Linglong was still her old self in front of others, yet she used all her mischievous ideas on her.
This was definitely discrimination!
“One takes on the color of one’s company. I’ve been closest to you these days, so I’ve become most like you.”
Linglong’s skill at passing the blame was very smooth, already possessing a few degrees of Hua Jian’s own power.
Hua Jian, hit by her own tactics, was suddenly dissatisfied, but after thinking about it, she couldn’t find any words to refute her.
She could only choose between being miserable or being angry; she chose to be miserably angry.
The Jade Pool residence didn’t change during the festival, except for the drifting snowflakes.
The snow was also a prop used by the Cultivators in the residence to set the atmosphere. By tomorrow, the snow would stop.
Hua Jian turned her head to look at the Jade Pool residence within the sea of clouds. It was draped in silver, looking like a beautiful scene from a painting.
Ahead, a magnificent, golden pavilion slowly grew larger in her eyes.
‘Could our destination be here? Then Linglong really spent a lot…’ Before Hua Jian’s thought could fully form, Linglong steered the cloud in a sharp turn, bypassing the large building and landing in front of a much smaller courtyard.
“I thought you would like this place more.” Linglong pushed open the courtyard door, and a scene teeming with flowers and life unfolded before Hua Jian’s eyes.
This time, Linglong was right.
Compared to the golden building next door, Hua Jian indeed preferred this place, enjoying the feeling of being surrounded by flowers.
Stepping into the courtyard, Linglong stated that she had rented this place for the day. They could play here until dawn tomorrow without anyone disturbing them.
“I also prepared a lot of your favorite foods and bought flower nectar wine from Penglai…” Linglong counted her preparations on her fingers.
As she named each item, Hua Jian’s heart felt increasingly uneasy. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. For Linglong to treat her this way, there must be a terrifying purpose!
“Tell me the truth, are you planning to make a move on me here!” Covering her chest with both hands, Hua Jian asked with a look of vigilance.
Maybe this Little Dragon Girl liked things wild and was going to ‘execute justice’ on her right here?
“Don’t think so poorly of me,” Linglong explained helplessly, seeing Hua Jian start to hiss in reaction.
She really didn’t have any desire for Hua Jian’s body. The Little Dragon Girl was an upright person; she only wanted Hua Jian’s heart, not her body.
Bah, she only wanted Hua Jian to give her heart to the Jade Pool!
Everything she was doing now was to turn Hua Jian into her true Junior Sister. She had absolutely no intention of turning her Junior Sister into a partner.
“Besides, who would like a sharp-tongued little thing like you? If I were really with you, I’d probably lose hundreds of years of my life from anger.”
Linglong pointed at Hua Jian’s mouth, indicating she wasn’t willing to be the unlucky person who lost hundreds of years of life.
The Little Dragon Girl didn’t have those mundane desires; don’t lump her in with those shallow humans.
“I don’t believe it. If you just wanted me to be your Junior Sister, there’s no need to be this good to me. Wouldn’t it be enough to treat me like Senior Sister Luo Yingying and the others do?” Hua Jian still didn’t believe Linglong’s words.
The Wanling Sect’s recruitment and solicitation of her were very typical.
Those Senior Sisters were very kind to her, but Hua Jian could clearly feel that this kindness was the sort shown toward a highly talented junior.
But Linglong’s kindness was completely different. It had caused her to misunderstand so many times; that couldn’t be entirely Hua Jian’s fault, could it?
Hua Jian might overthink things sometimes, but after overthinking once or twice, she could usually figure out a person’s true feelings for her.
The fact that Linglong was still a top-ranked ‘dangerous person’ in her mind was enough to prove something.
Perhaps Linglong didn’t have those thoughts subjectively, but objectively, what she did was very easy for Hua Jian to misunderstand.
Or rather, she herself didn’t realize that her feelings for Hua Jian weren’t those of an ordinary senior sister toward a junior sister.
“I suspect you might like me… in a ‘man and woman’… no, ‘woman and woman’ romantic way,” Hua Jian said seriously to Linglong.
Linglong was still bewildered. Why didn’t she feel that way?
The Little Dragon Girl wasn’t someone completely detached from the mortal world. As a child, she had read various books, and she had seen descriptions of feelings there.
The feelings she currently had for Hua Jian were completely different from the love described in those books.
“I don’t think I like you like that,” Linglong replied seriously.
The two of them stared at each other for a long while. Neither side looked away guiltily, which meant they both believed they weren’t lying.
Hua Jian truly believed Linglong liked her, and Linglong firmly believed she didn’t like Hua Jian.
In the end, it was Hua Jian who began to doubt herself. After all, she wasn’t a mind-reader; she didn’t know what Linglong was thinking.
No, she had even read Linglong’s thoughts about her, and there indeed weren’t any parts that could be misunderstood.
But why did she feel that Linglong’s attitude toward her was wrong? It was truly strange.
“Maybe I just felt wrong.” Hua Jian was the first to look away, but her mouth remained stubborn. “But I won’t lower my guard!”
Linglong was speechless. She also didn’t understand why Hua Jian had such thoughts. Wasn’t her attitude toward Hua Jian the normal attitude of a senior sister toward her junior?
At most, as a senior sister, she might be more biased toward this junior sister, which was also normal.
With her good looks and strong talent, it was perfectly fine for her to value Hua Jian more.
Wanting to pull her into the Jade Pool, to have Hua Jian as her junior sister for a lifetime, to meet often to talk, to gather together when they were free, and to share the joys and sorrows of life—that was also very normal.
Leading Hua Jian to the center of the courtyard, there stood a gazebo of just the right size. The items Linglong had prepared were already placed there.
As the two of them sat down, a subtle wave of Spiritual Power spread out, completely hiding the small courtyard.
This way, no one would know what was happening here.
The two of them could also speak words they wouldn’t dare say normally without any reservations.
“How is the Wanling Sect treating you?” Linglong poured herself a cup of spirit wine, and then filled the cup in front of Hua Jian.
Hua Jian picked up the cup and took a sip. She had some idea of her alcohol tolerance; she couldn’t be called a heavy drinker, but she wasn’t a ‘small fry’ who would pass out after one sip either.
As for why she had fainted after one sip before, that was a problem with the wine, not with her.
The spirit wine Linglong prepared for her naturally wasn’t the kind that made one very drunk.
After one sip, Hua Jian only felt a lingering fragrance between her teeth. After savoring it carefully, she couldn’t even detect the smell of alcohol.
It made one wonder if what she was drinking was actually wine.
“They treat me very well. I’ve learned a lot of knowledge from Senior Sister Qiao, and I even grew a very beautiful potted plant myself. From the seed to the soil, every aspect of it was handled by me…”
Speaking of this, Hua Jian opened up and showed off to Linglong, saying how impressive she was now.
She could already keep a beautiful little flower alive and help it grow strong.
“Senior Sister Qiao said that once I grow that potted plant to the flowering stage, I can take it a step further and try to cultivate even more precious plants.”
Linglong also took a gulp of spirit wine. It should have been sweet-tasting, but in her mouth, it developed a hint of bitterness.
The joy in Hua Jian’s voice told her that Hua Jian really liked the Wanling Sect. She liked the things there, while the Jade Pool seemed to hold no attraction for her.
Thinking carefully, Linglong realized this seemed quite normal. What was the specialty of the Jade Pool?
It was a comprehensive Sect, just more inclined toward the water and wood attributes.
As long as they were female Cultivators with those two attributes, entering the Jade Pool wouldn’t be a problem.
But Hua Jian was different. Her preferences were very clear. Currently, she was a spiritual flower herself, and her hobby was tending to flowers.
Therefore, the Wanling Sect was obviously more suited to her interests.
Even though she had made her move much earlier than the Wanling Sect, in the end, she still couldn’t snatch Hua Jian back from their hands.
In her depressed mood, Linglong drank another cup of wine and looked at Hua Jian with hazy eyes. “So, do you want to go to the Wanling Sect more now?”
Hua Jian remained silent for a moment before nodding slightly under Linglong’s somewhat expectant gaze.
“Although I also really like the Senior Sisters of the Jade Pool, Lingcai Peak seems more attractive to me.”
Previously, she had indeed found it hard to choose, but the situation was different now.
She had truly experienced what Lingcai Peak and the Jade Pool could offer her, and her heart told her she preferred Lingcai Peak.
Giving such a clear answer also required some courage. Fortunately, there was wine here. With a cup of wine in her belly, Hua Jian’s courage gradually grew.
She felt she had to make things clear with Linglong. Continuing to handle things vaguely would be bad for both of them.
“I like you a lot, and I like the Jade Pool a lot, but I can’t give up my ideals because of that.”
“If you want to call me shameless, then go ahead. I know I’m being shameless, but I won’t change.”
She had been eating Linglong’s food and using her resources, yet in the end, she was going to leave her. Hua Jian herself felt a bit embarrassed.
But she didn’t want to force herself to do something she didn’t like because of those things. Therefore, she would rather become a villain in Linglong’s eyes.
“List everything I owe you; I’ll work hard to pay you back!”
Seeing Hua Jian looking as if she were ready for anything, a sudden flare of anger rose in Linglong’s heart.
It wasn’t because she was angry about Hua Jian eating and using her things only to choose the Wanling Sect; she was angry that Hua Jian thought she was such a petty person.
Slamming the table hard, Linglong pointed at Hua Jian’s nose and scolded, “In your eyes, am I really such a petty person! Do you think you can even afford to pay back what you owe me!”
Linglong might have forgotten to look at the label when buying the wine. Some wines might not taste strong, but their after-effects were quite significant.
Especially the spirit wine from Penglai—this kind of situation often occurred.
Now was about the time for the alcohol to kick in. What would happen between two drunk girls… that was hard to say.