After My Thoughts Were Read, My Master Led Me to Change My Fate - Chapter 5

Helan Mianmian looked at the young girl before her, feeling deeply conflicted.

A Middle Grade Water Spiritual Root was compatible with her, but the grade was barely enough for the inner sect. If she took her in, it would simply be another mouth to feed on the peak. Given the girl’s emaciated appearance, it would likely take a long time for her to recover.

She really didn’t want to take on another minor disciple who couldn’t become a core disciple.

She hesitated for a moment and then said, “I’m sorry, but could you please lift your head? Let me see you.”

The girl’s fragile neck supported her small head, and she looked up at Elder Helan.

Emaciated and sickly would be an understatement. On a remarkably frail face, her eyes were exceptionally bright, filled with resolve and courage.

Helan Mianmian was afraid the girl would collapse the next second. She stepped forward and supported the child’s shoulders. “You must stand up first.”

“I dare not until the Elder gives the order.”

“This Venerable One orders you to stand up now. Lean on my arm.”

Luo Sheng was stunned by this sudden emergence of authority. She swallowed, held onto the Sixth Elder’s arm, stood up, and kept her head bowed, waiting for instructions.

“Middle Grade Water Spiritual Root, correct?” Helan sighed faintly. “Fine, come with this Venerable One.”

She had softened her heart again.

“Middle Grade? How can it be Middle Grade? Wasn’t Luo Sheng a Heavenly Grade Water Spiritual Root in the plot? Damn it, why is this author writing things incorrectly?”

Ning Songwu, who was clinging to the hall door and listening intently to the situation inside, froze. She racked her memory, carefully tapping her head, failing to notice the person gradually approaching behind her.

Almost at the exact moment Luo Sheng exclaimed “Master” with surprise, a shriek came from outside the hall.

“Níng Martial Niece!” Cen Ran was startled and about to rush out, but the white-haired woman beside her stopped her.

Ran Fanyin slightly shook her head, gesturing with her eyes for her not to move. She lightly coughed twice, covered her lips with her folding fan, and slowly walked to the side of the slightly trembling girl. “Lin Martial Niece, what is the meaning of this?”

Lin Yuxue tightly gripped a corner of her garment. Since she was not an Outer Sect disciple, she wore her own expensive, beautiful clothing, which spoke volumes of her noble origin.

“What a pity. The person is a bit foolish.”

With a heavy sound, the girl immediately knelt down, her head hitting the steps heavily. “Elder Ran, Ning Daoist friend was contemplating here just now, and was too focused. She didn’t even notice that she had stepped into the air. I wanted to warn her, but instead, I startled her. I… I failed to hold her.”

“Oh, is that so? Fortunately, this Venerable One caught her,” Ran Fanyin said, her face slightly darkened, her tone calm and concealing her mood.

The scarlet Vermillion Bird flew up, clutching Ning Songwu. The maiden in its claws was still shaken and looked at Lin Yuxue with an added degree of coldness.

“She scared me to death! If Master hadn’t had the foresight to send the Vermillion Bird to follow me, I really would have died today. Sob. Does this count as avoiding my death calamity? Let me check the ending… Damn it, why hasn’t it changed? Liu Ruoying’s has changed back to ‘Uncertain,’ though. That’s good, that’s good.”

The young girl lightly pressed her chest, calming herself for a moment. She jumped off the Vermillion Bird and stood to the side, saying calmly, “Junior Martial Sister Lin truly wanted to warn me. I should thank you.”

“Mar—Martial Sister, it’s good that you are unharmed,” Lin Yuxue said meekly, clutching her skirt.

This subtle confrontation allowed even a fool to see that Lin Yuxue was likely concealing a deep secret. Cen Ran looked at her profoundly, intentions forming in her heart.

Ran Fanyin flicked her sleeve, creating a gust of wind from nowhere. She leaped onto the Vermillion Bird’s back in one step, pulling Ning Songwu up with her.

“Cultivate diligently, and harbor no other thoughts.” The ethereal voice drifted from the sky, faint as smoke.

Lin Yuxue bit her lower lip. After a long time, she muttered, “Thank you for the guidance, Martial Uncle.”

Whatever else might happen on Zhaoyun Hall was momentarily irrelevant.

On the back of the Vermillion Bird, one person stood quietly while the other lay prone, tightly grasping the bird’s feathers, terrified of slipping off.

They appeared very quiet, but Ran Fanyin’s mind was filled with the child’s incessant murmuring.

“So, there really was a problem with the book. Why wouldn’t my Master save me?”

“I escaped one calamity, only to face another. Heavens, are you determined to crush this character to death? Am I blocking your wealth?”

Ran Fanyin had been listening to her rambling. Hearing that last sentence, she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“This child is truly amusing. How could she link this matter to wealth? And why would the Dao of Heaven covet such meager riches?”

But, she had to admit, the girl’s words had indeed come true. Lin Yuxue had indeed tried to harm her in a foolish way, pushing her off Zhaoyun Hall, just as she had said.

Even thinking about it now, it seemed incredibly foolish.

“How could I, the one in the book, have accepted such a foolish disciple?”

Unlike this little darling beside her—even if she couldn’t hear her thoughts—she was still trembling and restrained, like a cute young animal. It would be very interesting to raise her.

Moreover, she could hear the young animal’s inner thoughts, and this little thing seemed to have the ability to glimpse the future. Although she didn’t know how true it was, one part had already been verified. With a long life ahead, she could slowly verify the rest.

“I have truly picked up a treasure.”

A faint, ethereal laugh entered Ning Songwu’s ears. The person tightly gripping the great bird’s feathers slowly released one hand, touched her ear, and then looked up at the figure standing tall. The light purple long robe gently fluttered in the wind, and the line of her lips was straight—she didn’t look like she had laughed.

“Strange. Did I just hear Master laugh? Master, let me see what you look like when you smile! It was barely written in the book!”

The depiction of Ran Fanyin in the book was always cool and detached, at most a slight curl of her lips, with no genuine smile ever reaching her eyes. She was especially strict when instructing disciples.

In the beginning, Lin Yuxue’s hands were often swollen. As a fellow sword cultivator, Ran Fanyin knew how to punish a disciple while avoiding serious injury, so Lin Yuxue often had swollen hands but still had to practice her sword diligently every day.

A chill suddenly shot up her tailbone, instantly jolting Ning Songwu awake from her fantasy of “Master must look beautiful when she smiles.”

“Oh no. I didn’t think of it just now. It must be my turn for punishment now, right? Wuwuwuwu…”

Punishment? What punishment?

Ran Fanyin looked down in confusion at the person whose entire face was buried in the Vermillion Bird’s feathers. The little girl seemed to be thinking of something tragic, as her body was lightly trembling.

She pricked up her ears, but the child’s inner voice fell silent, leaving only soft, whimpering sobs.

Ran Fanyin swept aside the long hair falling forward, breathing out silently in her heart.

She wanted to see who, besides the Sect Master, could punish her little disciple in Shangyun Sect.

The two people on the bird’s back exchanged no words, yet they mysteriously understood a lot about each other, and in this manner, they proceeded toward Chaomu Peak.

“Shangyun Sect is located in the central part of the Nine Provinces Continent, with snowy winters, rainy summers, and distinct spring and autumn seasons. Furthermore, Ran Fanyin’s Chaomu Peak is located in the northwest corner of Shangyun Sect, where the four seasons are even more pronounced. The southern side is rainy in summer, and the northern side is snowy in winter…”

When a piece of “subtitle”—the name Ning Songwu gave her golden finger, since that was its only function—surfaced, Ning Songwu knew they had arrived.

The ceremony had lasted all day. It was now approaching evening, and it was a rainy summer day. It had rained on Chaomu Peak not long ago, but now the clouds were gone, the rain had cleared, and the sky was distinctly bright. The distance seemed to be painted with a gentle, soft purple hue, blooming from the boundary between the sky and the earth, coloring half the sky with the last rays of sunlight.

Ning Songwu, who had been tightly grasping the great bird’s feathers because of her fear of heights, now relaxed her grip, straightened up, and gazed into the distance, momentarily captivated.

She had never seen a sunset from this angle, a view with only a slight upward gaze, as if she could reach out and touch this gentle and mesmerizing sky.

“If Wáng Bó could witness this scene, he might write poetry a thousand times better than ‘The setting sun and lonely geese fly together; the autumn water shares the same color as the long sky,’ right?”

She had always been limited to looking up at the sky. During countless high school evenings after class, she couldn’t rush to get food, so she would perch on the classroom’s small balcony, eating the instant noodles she had bought at noon. She would gaze at the distant sky, watching the light purple or pale gold unfold from a corner of the heaven and earth, bit by bit coloring her eyes, and then, through her pen, transforming into words on paper.

Ran Fanyin had accidentally read the poem the young girl was reciting in her mind a long time ago. Now that it was mentioned again, she knew Ning Songwu must especially love this scenery. She simply let the Vermillion Bird hover quietly in the air, accompanying the maiden as she watched the sunset—a sight Ran Fanyin herself had seen for hundreds of years.

And she had to admit, there was indeed a hint of a different color this time.

Ning Songwu realized the great bird was no longer flying, knowing Ran Fanyin had done something. She turned her head, her eyes meeting another kind of unique pale purple. Following the robe upwards, she met a pair of slightly curved phoenix eyes, containing a smile more captivating and fluid than the sunset itself. Her red lips were slightly lifted, seeming happy as well.

“Master truly… is so beautiful…”

“A beauty like a poem, like a painting, like the ten miles of spring breeze in Yangzhou, stirring the heartstrings.”

Ning Songwu remembered this soft purple for a long, long time. Many years later, when she met those eyes full of liquid laughter again, she would still recall the purple she saw on the Vermillion Bird’s back, remembering her ten miles of spring breeze.

Ran Fanyin, praised so unintentionally, felt her mood lift even more, and her smile widened. Consequently, Ning Songwu was even more absorbed, her heart fluttering and aching from the rapid beating.

The Vermillion Bird carried the two until the twilight deepened and the soft purple faded. Only then did it land. On the mountaintop, candlelight flickered, illuminating the area.

Standing on solid ground, Ning Songwu gradually regained her composure. Finally, she reluctantly looked up at the completely dark sky, letting out a faint sigh. The young girl, who had barely spoken in front of Ran Fanyin all day, paused and then asked, “Master, when can I fly up here by myself?”

Her voice was still somewhat tender and remarkably clear, slightly different from her inner voice.

Ran Fanyin lightly patted her shoulder. “Perhaps, you’ll need another two or three years.”

Ning Songwu widened her eyes. “Why so long?”

“I remember the original text said that Golden Core cultivators could practice the spell for treading on clouds, and it would be even more convenient with a sword. I am already in the Foundation Establishment stage, so why would it take so long?”

“Because all the cultivation you currently possess needs to be discarded, and you must start over.”

Ran Fanyin’s voice was calm, as if speaking of an insignificant minor detail.

To her, it truly was insignificant.

To Ning Songwu, this was nothing less than the sky falling. Although the little bit of cultivation wasn’t hers, she was perfectly willing to reap the benefits! She didn’t want to start over…

“Isn’t this just like making me go back to high school and repeat my studies after spending two years in university and forgetting everything?”

Ning Songwu blinked. In moments, her eyes were filled with moisture, and she asked with a trembling voice, “Why?”

Elder Ran remained composed. “You are a Heavenly Grade Spiritual Root, but the cultivation technique you practiced in the outer sect is too low-grade. Your magic power is impure, which would harm your future cultivation. This step is unavoidable.”

“…” Drat it, original body! Why didn’t you test your spiritual root when you first entered the sect? Then we wouldn’t have to go through this hardship again!

Wait, the original body was an orphan, it seems. Perhaps she didn’t even have the chance to be tested.

Alas, I am truly miserable.

Ning Songwu inwardly lit another candle for the original body.

Ran Fanyin led her into the house, letting her choose a room in the large dwelling. She chose the room next to Ran Fanyin’s, and then the woman led her into a purification chamber.

Ran Fanyin lowered her eyes and said calmly, “Alright, take off your clothes.”