Volume Three: Walking Beyond Freedom, Chapter Eighty-Five

Shining Honor had been a pampered young master of a wealthy family and held considerable standing within the inner mountain. In such a moment, how could he possibly stomach this humiliation? He strode forward, seized Geng Yuan by the collar, and clenched his other hand into a fist.

“What did you say? Say it again.”

Geng Yuan showed no fear at all. Glancing over his shoulder at Tu Su Chun, who was trembling and too frightened to utter a word, his eyes were full of scorn.

“And what if I do?”

Seeing the boy before him so utterly unafraid, yet brimming with provocation, Shining Honor raised his fist to smash it into his face. The blow landed. Geng Yuan’s body was far too frail at the moment, and one punch was enough to knock him to the ground.

Behind him, Tu Su Chun did not say a single word to stop them. Not one word of pleading, not one word to tell him to cease.

No explanation. Only tears.

A useless woman.

At once, Jinli turned into a wisp of cloud and appeared before them. Shining Honor was startled, and with two fingers Jinli froze him in place.

She helped Geng Yuan up, then looked into the terror in Shining Honor’s eyes.

Neither he nor the disciples behind him could speak.

Unhurriedly, she walked to Tu Su Chun’s side and studied her. This woman’s fate was bleak; after marriage, she would likely not live a month before dying in rage.

Tu Su Chun was now equally stricken with fear.

How could she have so many tears?

Just as she had thought that if she acted, Geng Yuan would stop her, she had not expected the young man to do nothing but keep his gaze fixed on her, light burning in those eyes.

“You... you’re back.”

In the end, Jinli still did not strike. Shining Honor would die of sudden collapse, while Tu Su Chun would take her own life in humiliation.

Everything would leave traces. Everything was only a matter of time.

If only she could calculate the hour, but unfortunately that kind of art was something only Sang Li could do.

She turned around, intending to cast a divination for Geng Yuan, but his omen was most strange.

He had already stepped into the gate of death, and yet it was also the gate of life.

A double reading?

Jinli smiled. “What, are you surprised to see me again?”

“No.”

She had appeared, just as before.

With a solemn face, she turned to face those men and fixed her gaze on Shining Honor, saying coldly, “Who do you call a waste? Your own woman is out there entangling herself with another family’s disciple, crying as though her heart would break, yet also hiding behind others like a little girl. To have such a fickle woman at your side must be no easy thing for you.”

Then, ignoring Shining Honor’s angry and stunned expression, she turned to Tu Su Chun and said, “If you want to marry, you want someone of equal standing. But then you also want a beautiful man by your side. Wanting this and that both at once, miss, your appetite is rather large. Aren’t you afraid you’ll choke?”

Tu Su Chun’s face turned exceedingly ugly. Having had her thoughts exposed, she wanted to be angry but did not dare.

The young man behind her wore a faint smile, his gaze gentle as it settled on Jinli.

Just then, the disciples of Black-Not-White Mountain also came out in a noisy stream. Jinli pulled Geng Yuan behind her and looked at those disciples.

“...Aunt... Aunt?”

The young man inclined his head. The inner-mountain disciples were all startled. Tu Su Chun looked at Jinli with deep meaning, then shifted her gaze to Geng Yuan behind her.

The inner-mountain disciples were punished and taken back up the mountain.

Hua Xiu always acted with great efficiency. Before long, everything had been settled. He even ordered some disciples to station themselves at the four corners of Summer Capital and began preparing to catch the turtle in its own jar.

There was a demon tonight. Jinli glanced over and found that it was not really a demon, merely a fleeing spirit-creature. There was no need for her to act tonight. With lips flushed and bright, the girl curved them into a smile. “I still have matters to attend to tonight, so I’ll be leaving first.”

“You’re leaving?”

Hearing the young man ask that, Jinli did not find it surprising in the least. Instead, she smiled lightly. “What, not leaving... staying to watch the show?”

Geng Yuan was stumped for a moment and lowered his eyes. But then a voice sounded behind Jinli, and that voice instantly changed the young man’s expression.

The girl turned back with a smile. “Senior Brother.”

Out from the crowd stepped a man of extraordinary bearing. Wearing a coronet, with bright eyes and white teeth and a clear, noble brow.

Sang Li.

Jinli walked to his side. Standing together, the two of them were like a perfect painting. On this full-moon night, with lanterns glowing brilliantly and the streets teeming with people, they seemed like a matched pair of exquisite jade amid all the lively splendor.

The boy’s chest seemed to be blocked at once, as though someone had seized his throat and left him unable to breathe. Faint resentment and fury surged and swelled in his heart. His hand slowly tightened beneath his sleeve.

By now, he and Sang Li truly were as far apart as clouds and mud.

To say he was not jealous would be a lie. He was almost mad with jealousy. He wanted nothing more than to rush over at once, hold Jinli in his arms, and tell her everything, to say he was Geng Yuan, the Geng Yuan who loved her and would die for her willingly. But who would believe that the Sea Lord, famed throughout the four seas, was now nothing more than a mere failure in cultivation?

How long could beauty’s favor last?

Jinli had not expected Sang Li to truly come down today. By rights, he was now the Crown Prince and should have been buried in official business.

“How did you come down?”

Sang Li smiled gently. “Since today is Mid-Autumn, with osmanthus perfuming the air and the full moon so fine, how could I bear to miss such a scene?”

“As expected of Senior Brother.”

Sang Li smiled and reached out to touch her head.

At that moment, a boy’s voice sounded softly behind them. “Sister, this is...?”

Jinli was startled. The hand Sang Li had just lifted froze in midair. Seeing the young man behind Jinli, he withdrew his hand. The boy still wore a smile, but his eyes were cold as they fixed on Sang Li.

It was the look of someone on guard against something.

Jinli smiled. “This is my senior brother... you may need to call him...”

“I am Huai Gui.”

Before Jinli could finish, Geng Yuan cut her off. The gesture caused Sang Li’s brows to knit slightly. His gaze remained on Geng Yuan, as if examining something, or perhaps discovering something.

“Why does this divine lord look at me so intently? What are you trying to see?”

“Who was it that tutored Immortal Lord Huai Gui?”

Geng Yuan’s expression remained natural, with not the slightest trace of timidity. Smiling, he replied, “My master is True Person Green Pine of Black-Not-White Mountain.”

Sang Li nodded, then said with a smile, “True Person Green Pine’s methods are wondrous indeed, and he is truly a man of talent.”

Geng Yuan did not answer again, only smiled, though the chill in his eyes was icy. In the eyes of a seventeen-year-old boy there was emotion no longer fitting for his years.

Jinli teased them. “Watching the two of you probe one another like this, one would think you had old grievances.”

Sang Li smiled with warmth. “No. The Immortal Lord and I are meeting for the first time.”

“That’s right, the first time.”

The handsome young man smiled at Jinli. The light in his eyes gradually grew warm, and a little tender. Sang Li noticed that gaze and frowned slightly, the color of his eyes shifting.

This boy’s approach to Jinli was not pure.