My Senior Sister Says She Will Marry No One But Me - Chapter 43.1

Just as this thought flashed through Du Yunge’s mind like lightning, she was suddenly knocked to the ground by a powerful force from the front. At that very moment, the wolf behind her pounced, opening its bloodthirsty maw to bite into her.

Instinctively, Du Yunge tightly shut her eyes, bracing for the pain of sharp fangs and claws tearing through her flesh. However, the expected agony never came. Instead, she found herself enveloped in a warm embrace and heard a voice, still distinctly tinged with the accent of the northern tribes:

“Don’t move. Don’t run.”

Du Yunge recognized the voice immediately, it was her senior sister, Xue Shuyan, coming to her rescue. Only then, in her dazed state, did she realize why Xue Shuyan had tackled her to the ground. The path she had been rushing toward was not a clear one but a deeply concealed, treacherous chasm, hidden so well amidst the lush grass that it was nearly impossible to spot from any other angle.

Before she could even catch her breath, a warm, bloody rain drenched her face. Xue Shuyan, gritting her teeth and pressing her lips together, endured the wolf’s claws tearing into her slender back, yet she never loosened her grip on the dagger. With a swift, backward thrust, the gleaming blade plunged deep into the wolf’s belly!

Her gaze was fierce yet calm, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the wolf’s own ferocity.

In that instant, Du Yunge suddenly understood why, even years after the turmoil of the Five Barbarians, people still shunned those of northern descent, and why even someone of mixed heritage like Xue Shuyan received no kindness.

It wasn’t just because of her cold, detached eyes that seemed to hold nothing dear. The moment Xue Shuyan killed the wolf with her dagger, their faces were so close that a slight lean forward would have brought their lips together. In that shared breath, Du Yunge noticed that despite such grievous injuries, Xue Shuyan’s breathing remained perfectly steady, as if she hadn’t just fought a life-or-death battle but had merely enjoyed a casual snack.

In other words, her mixed-heritage senior sister, in the moment she saved her, had truly disregarded her own life.

Only after confirming that the wolf behind her was completely dead did Xue Shuyan shove its corpse to the ground with a forceful push, her expression as indifferent as if she hadn’t just brushed shoulders with death. She leaned on her knees, breathing heavily for a few moments, before straightening up and saying to Du Yunge succinctly:

“Let’s go. Spring Guardian is looking for you to come back for dinner.”

For a moment, Du Yunge was speechless. Whether it was the present Du Yunge or the younger one from her dreams, her vision swam, and her mind was in chaos, as if countless tiny figures were stirring it with sticks, preventing her from thinking clearly. After a long pause, she finally managed to stammer out a complete sentence:

“…Your injuries! They need to be bandaged!”

Xue Shuyan looked up at her with evident confusion, and Du Yunge realized that this version of Xue Shuyan was even younger than in her previous dream. Her Hu accent was much more pronounced, and neither her wolf-slaying technique nor the swift movement with which she had pinned Du Yunge to the ground resembled any of the martial arts taught in the Miaoyin Sect. This meant that this younger Xue Shuyan had only recently arrived at Mount Wangyou. For some unknown reason, Feng Chengchun and Yun Anxue hadn’t even taught her the most basic skills of the sect. Otherwise, with Xue Shuyan’s natural talent for martial arts, even a few months of training would have prevented her from struggling so much to kill a single wolf.

When Xue Shuyan spoke, her distinctly non-Han accent, with its heavy nasal tones, became even more apparent:
“Why bandage it?”

Du Yunge thought it was common sense to bandage a wound leaving it exposed could lead to infection, pus, and even death. But as she opened her mouth to speak, she suddenly remembered something and swallowed her words.

In the eyes of many, the lives of mixed-blood individuals like Xue Shuyan were hardly considered lives at all. Even Du Yunge, who had grown up sheltered on Mount Wangyou and should have been ignorant of such worldly matters, had occasionally overheard conversations among the servants and disciples.

The Han people’s attitude toward mixed-blood individuals was slightly better, at least cloaked in the Confucian ideals of benevolence and righteousness, which prevented them from going too far. But the Hu people were different. They treated mixed-blood individuals like livestock, herding them with cattle and sheep to graze during pasture time. During their brief incursions into the Central Plains, they had committed unspeakable atrocities using humans as footstools, to pull plows, or to haul carts. Such acts of cruelty and inhumanity became the favorite justification for those who condemned the Hu people and advocated for military action:

Outwardly, they bear the appearance of men, but inwardly, they are beasts. Their deeds are heinous beyond measure. Civilizing them is futile, only force can stop them!

Xue Shuyan, weakened by blood loss, staggered with every step, nearly collapsing to her knees to rest each time. Du Yunge felt a desperate urge to cry, but she knew that if she broke down now, she would only prove herself useless and a burden. Worse, she might even cost Xue Shuyan her life. Clenching her teeth, she blinked back the tears welling in her eyes and tried to drape Xue Shuyan’s arm over her shoulder. Half-supporting, half-embracing her, she choked out,
“Hold on tight. I’ll take you back.”

In the end, Du Yunge managed to bring Xue Shuyan back to the Miaoyin Sect using her rudimentary qinggong skills. The moment they entered, she burst into sobs, pointing at the horrifying, crisscrossed wounds on Xue Shuyan’s back as she cried to Feng Chengchun,
“I was wrong!”

“I’ll never wander off to the back mountain again. It’s my fault, I’ve failed her! Do we have any good medicine? Please, use it on her quickly.”

Before she could finish her last sentence, she was cut off by a sob that choked her words. Feng Chengchun was momentarily torn between feeling sorry for her, being amused by her, or tending to Xue Shuyan’s wounds first. In the end, it was Xia Yecheng who sternly brought a basin of clean water to tend to Xue Shuyan’s injuries. As she worked, her brows gradually furrowed tightly.

Xia Yecheng, the most skilled in medicine within the Miaoyin Sect, lived up to her reputation. Even with a face as dark as a pot that hadn’t been scrubbed for ten days or half a month, her hands moved swiftly and gently, like the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings. In less time than it takes for an incense stick to burn, she had wrapped the petite Xue Shuyan up like a zongzi.

“Done. Rest well, and the scars left behind will be lighter.”

Though Du Yunge was young at the time, her love for beauty was already evident. The moment she heard the word “scar,” she panicked. “Oh heavens, how can this be?” she anxiously pressed, “Elder Xia, Elder Xia, I know you’re the best! Is there any way to prevent scars from forming? She’s so beautiful, it would be such a pity if she were left with scars. How would she ever get married?”

No one noticed the subtle, almost imperceptible softening in Xue Shuyan’s expression when Du Yunge blurted out such sincere, unreserved words of concern.

Xia Yecheng was first flattered by the compliment, feeling thoroughly pleased. But upon hearing Du Yunge’s detailed request, she nearly choked on her anger, as if she were about to spit blood in fury.

“My dear Sect Leader. Do you think snatching someone back from the King of Hell is an easy task? If this were any other sect without substantial resources, forget about just leaving scars with injuries this severe, surviving at all would be a miracle.”

Seeing that Du Yunge still looked uneasy, Xia Yecheng patted her head and comforted her, “Besides, the children of the grasslands don’t rely on their looks to get by. Even if she’s left with scars, it won’t matter, it won’t affect her marriage prospects. If her future partner minds something like this, then it’s not genuine love, right?”

Du Yunge thought it over and found the reasoning sound. She leaned against Xue Shuyan’s bedside, chattering away, but soon grew upset again, feeling deeply inadequate in her lack of skill. Yet, it wasn’t as if she were lazy or slacking off she truly couldn’t grasp it!

Among the disciples under Yun Anxue, there were many with exceptional talent who could master a basic sword technique in just a few days. But her? Months had passed, and she was still learning how to wield a sword. Among Feng Chengchun’s disciples, there were those with photographic memories. While others had moved on to profound martial arts texts after starting with the same foundational book, Du Yunge was still burning the midnight oil, struggling with the basics.

Both Feng Chengchun and Yun Anxue had tried to console her, saying that everyone has their own path and she shouldn’t force it. Du Yunge knew she might genuinely lack talent in this area, to put it bluntly, she was “seven apertures open out of eight,” meaning she understood nothing. Usually, she took it in stride, but faced with the bloody consequences of her own inadequacy, she felt an unprecedented wave of self-blame and self-loathing.

“It’s all my fault.”

Before she could finish speaking, tears welled up in her eyes again. The glistening drops fell onto the white gauze wrapped around Xue Shuyan, instantly soaking in and leaving only dark, circular stains.

Xue Shuyan watched Du Yunge, who was sobbing uncontrollably, and suddenly asked:

“Why are you crying for me?”

She was injured so badly that there wasn’t a single patch of unblemished skin left on her body. Especially while protecting Du Yunge, she had thrown herself over the younger girl, leaving her back torn and bloodied by the fierce wolf’s claws. She could only lie on her stomach or sit up intermittently.

If it were anyone else her age, suffering such severe injuries, they would surely have cried out or shed tears to ease their heartache. And with injuries so grave they nearly cost her half her life, no one would begrudge her for weeping.

Yet even so, the cold, detached, almost unfeeling expression on her face remained largely unchanged by the intense pain. She simply stared fixedly at Du Yunge, with no intention of crying at all. When she fixed her pitch-black eyes on someone, even an adult would feel a chill under the gaze of this lone wolf cub. But Du Yunge, crying her heart out with tear-blurred eyes, naturally paid no attention to this.

Sniffling, Du Yunge said, “It’s all my fault. I’m not skilled enough, yet I still went to play in the back hills. You shouldn’t have come to save me. The mistakes I made shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

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