There Is No Romance Between Me And My Junior Sister - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was nearly the hour of the Ox (midnight). Most of the lights in Yanyang City had been extinguished, with only a few scattered sparks remaining.

“The sugar cake stalls are all closed.” Shang Can grumbled with regret as she passed the stall where she’d bought a cake on her first day. “That place was actually good. I thought since I finally managed to get out, I’d buy a few more… Lord of the Clouds, are you hungry?”

“No.”

“I see. But you’re too thin; I think it’s better to eat more.”

The remark received no response. Shang Can turned her head to see Yun Duan standing silently beside her, her ink-colored eyes distant, lost in unknown thoughts.

Sigh, after all these years, her mind has become even harder to read.

The two of them had already left Tianwaitian and were heading toward the Yanyang outskirts together.

Even now, Shang Can didn’t understand why Yun Duan had agreed to let her go so easily, only to follow her out as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The behavior was so seamless that Shang Can had barely had time to react.

‘…Is the Lord of the Clouds heading out on business?‘

‘Yes.‘

Although Yun Duan had given a simple affirmative to her inquiry, her current behavior suggested she was plainly just following Shang Can. She even followed along when Shang Can intentionally stalled for time looking for a cake stall, waiting considerately by the roadside.

Shang Can decided she couldn’t keep dragging her feet. Since they were already out, it was best to get the job done.

Setting her resolve, she stepped up beside Yun Duan, glanced toward the outskirts, and spoke candidly.

“Shall we fly?”

Seeing Yun Duan look over at the abrupt question, Shang Can dropped the act. She arched an eyebrow: “The Lord of the Clouds knows where I’m going, doesn’t she?”

Yun Duan remained silent. Shang Can noted the slight tightening of her lips and smiled knowingly, her eyes harboring a probe.

“…Is the Lord of the Clouds following because you’re interested in Canzhe, or—” She paused, leaning in with mock flirtatiousness, her voice a soft whisper like a lover’s, though the smile in her eyes vanished. “—because you’re interested in me?”

The moment the words left her mouth, Shang Can’s shoulder was met with a firm thud from a hard sword hilt, forcing her back a step.

Yun Duan had used Wuyou to push her away. Her elegant face was devoid of expression, radiating a cold aura of “keep your distance” that made it hard to look directly at her.

“I have heard the name ‘Canzhe’ many times,” Yun Duan said, her voice as cold as clashing metal. “But I have never exchanged blows with her.”

“Tianwaitian has many night patrols. They do not lack for one like me.”

Having spoken, Yun Duan fell silent, retracted Wuyou, and re-fastened it to her waist.

Ah, so she’s explaining that she’s interested in Canzhe.

Though the two options were essentially the same thing, Shang Can thought as she rubbed her aching shoulder, feeling slightly relieved. Any reason Yun Duan had was fine, as long as she wasn’t interested in the person currently standing before her.

“Just a joke. My apologies if I offended you, Lord of the Clouds.” Shang Can put on a look of sincere trepidation, bowing slowly and deeply. When she looked up, she acted as if nothing had happened. “Then, shall we fly by sword?”

Yun Duan nodded. In a flash, Wuyou unsheathed with a burst of light, which only subsided once Yun Duan stepped onto the blade.

Meanwhile, Shang Can exerted a great deal of effort just to levitate the ordinary iron sword at her waist. She stood precariously in the air, wobbling dangerously enough that even Yun Duan couldn’t help but cast a few extra glances.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It’ll be better once we’re moving.”

Shang Can laughed it off, leading the way in a zig-zagging flight toward the outskirts. Yun Duan followed effortlessly, keeping a measured distance as if ready to catch her if she fell.

When it finally came time to land, Shang Can jumped down safely, but her sword ignored her command and shot forward, embedding itself straight into a tree trunk. She sighed with a headache, walked over to pull it out, and returned it to her waist.

“Ah, I’ve truly made a fool of myself in front of you. Haha, haha.”

She apologized for her terrible sword-flying skills without a hint of a blush. Yun Duan’s gaze lingered on her waist for a long moment before she suddenly spoke: “That sword of yours is nothing but common iron.”

Of course it was common iron. She’d bought it for three silver pieces at a random stall in Yanyang before going to Tianwaitian.

Shang Can immediately started spinning a tale: “The Lord of the Clouds wouldn’t know, but this sword has an ‘internalized brilliance.’ It looks like common iron now, but in another twenty years, the sword-embryo will manifest, and it will be a peerless blade.”

“If it were truly common iron, how could I fly it? I’d have to exert massive effort just to manipulate the object and stay balanced. I would have fallen long ago.”

Yun Duan blinked and stared at the “peerless blade” for a long while, appearing to hesitate, but ultimately she just moved her gaze away without saying a word.

Sigh, I should have found a way to get a spirit sword first. This is exhausting.

Shang Can focused her mind and looked around. They had arrived at the Yanyang outskirts. Unlike the bustling city, the outskirts were undeveloped—a wild expanse of overgrown weeds and thickets. In the dead of night, it felt somewhat eerie.

“Is the Lord of the Clouds afraid of the dark?”

“No.”

Perhaps having grown accustomed to Shang Can asking irrelevant questions, Yun Duan answered flatly. Shang Can nodded understandingly. “I’m actually quite afraid of it.”

Yun Duan turned to look at her. Shang Can could almost see the confusion in those clear eyes and chuckled inwardly before turning serious.

“Does the Lord of the Clouds think Canzhe is afraid of the dark?”

“…Rumor says Canzhe is a master of Heavenly Fire. She likely doesn’t have much reason to fear the dark.”

Yun Duan quickly caught the hidden meaning. Her voice remained flat, but her hand had already moved to the hilt of Wuyou, staring intently into the deep forest.

“True. If it’s dark, she can just light a fire.” Though it was useless, Shang Can followed suit to keep up appearances, gripping the hilt of her junk sword and peering into the woods. She smiled. “Not only does it provide light, but it can also scare off certain… reckless cultivators.”

“A pity.”

Her eyes reflected several clusters of white flames approaching through the dark trees with unshielded killing intent. Her voice even sounded a bit cheerful.

“You’ve hit a steel wall! Idiots!”

Almost the instant her words fell, a peerlessly sharp white sword light charged out. The surrounding temperature seemed to plummet instantly; a scent as crisp and cold as fresh snow brushed past them. Though it was spring, the leaves of the plants were suddenly coated in a thin layer of frost.

It was a strike faster than the eye could follow. Against such heaven-defying sword intent, those clusters of ghostly white flames were rendered utterly dull.

“…Tsk.”

“What are you ‘tsking’ for? Is this all the level Canzhe has?”

The person hidden behind the ghost fire finally realized that Shang Can, who had been standing next to Yun Duan a second ago, had vanished. They twisted their body rapidly, but they weren’t fast enough. Shang Can’s blade sliced through their right arm as easily as a hot knife through butter.

Having landed a hit, Shang Can’s brow furrowed deeply. Despite being in mid-air, she somehow pivoted using thin air as a foothold, swinging a second strike from bottom to top.

The figure, however, bent backward like a wraith, dodging Shang Can’s sword with a twisted posture no human should be capable of. They then retreated at high speed, seemingly unaffected by the injury.

Shang Can knew that if she landed to give chase, it would turn into a pursuit that would inevitably alert the other cultivators searching for Canzhe. In that split second of thought, a familiar sword light broke through the air, chasing the figure’s back with precision.

The figure used that bizarre movement technique again, but Wuyou seemed to have predicted it, pursuing with agility. With a thrum, the sword pierced the figure’s shoulder, its momentum carrying it through to pin the person firmly to the ground.

All this happened in a heartbeat. Shang Can let out a long breath and turned to Yun Duan, who was also looking at her. Seeing her gaze, Yun Duan nodded and took the lead in walking toward the struggling figure.

However, after only two steps, she stiffened. By the time she reached the spot, it was too late.

Shang Can saw it clearly too. She walked up to where Wuyou was planted, her expression turning grave.

On the ground lay only a set of night-traveler clothes missing the right sleeve, with a white jade mask lying beside them.

The figure who had been wearing these clothes and pinned to the ground just moments ago had, in that very instant, dissolved into the air like a bubble.

Before the official Tianwaitian cultivators could be drawn in by the sound of combat, the two “irregular” participants gathered the items and fled the scene, stopping only after they were ten miles away.

The mystery still swirled in Shang Can’s mind. She and Yun Duan had been silent the whole way. Finding an open space to stop, she spoke first: “An illusion?”

“An illusion capable of deceiving both of us simultaneously is no ordinary spell. I felt no fluctuation of spiritual energy.”

“True. Then it can only be that there’s something wrong with the person.”

“Canzhe?”

“Ah, right. Canzhe.”

Having subconsciously used “that person” to refer to her, Shang Can quickly corrected herself and changed the subject. “When I cut off her right hand, I felt it was too light. There was no resistance at all.”

“Moreover…” She tilted her head, looking disgusted. “She was too weak.”

 Yun Duan silently accepted this evaluation before adding, “The reason she appeared so quickly was likely because she heard the… noise of your sword flight.”

For Yun Duan, this was an exceptionally tactful way of putting it. Shang Can understood: because her flying was so loud and clumsy, the fake Canzhe thought she was an easy target and rushed out, only to run into two monsters.

Shang Can nodded without a blush. “Indeed. Good thing I was there.”

Yun Duan said nothing but followed along with a nod.

Shang Can’s mood lifted, and the slight worry over failing to catch the imposter temporarily dissipated. She had actually been a bit terrified when Yun Duan struck first.

It was likely an old habit. Even though Yun Duan had grown into the widely admired Lord of the Clouds, Shang Can always felt she should stay far away from such danger—at least, when Shang Can was present, she should be hiding behind her.

Fortunately, that “Canzhe” was a fraud and very weak. If Yun Duan had been hurt, she really would have—

The thought gave Shang Can a lingering fear. She decided she had to figure this out on her own and stop dragging the unsuspecting Yun Duan into danger.

She patted her stomach and casually changed the subject.

“Does the Lord of the Clouds like roast chicken?”

Worldly affairs are truly unpredictable. When Shang Can first saw Yun Duan at Tianwaitian, she never expected that a few days later, she’d be in the middle of a desolate mountain range making roast chicken with her.

The chicken she’d swiped from the kitchen finally came in handy—though it failed as an alibi for her night outing, it tasted quite good.

The roast chicken was split in half. Shang Can ate voraciously, feeling very satisfied. Yun Duan’s eating habits, however, were refined; by the time Shang Can was nearly finished, Yun Duan was still slowly nibbling on a drumstick.

With nothing left to do after finishing, Shang Can washed her hands and propped her face up to stare at Yun Duan.

She stared so openly that Yun Duan couldn’t ignore it. She raised her watery, glass-like eyes to meet hers and asked: “What is it?”

“I didn’t think the Lord of the Clouds would agree to making roast chicken in a place like this.”

Shang Can retracted her gaze, using a long wooden stick to poke the fire, making it burn brighter.

She had only asked casually, but Yun Duan had nodded solemnly and then used Wuyou to fetch a pile of perfectly chopped firewood.

Yun Duan had even hesitated for a long while upon learning neither had fire-starting talismans. She’d then sharpened a small stick and began rubbing it against another piece of wood with some clumsy effort.

A bewildered Shang Can asked what she was doing. Yun Duan raised her face, looking as pure as an immortal, and answered seriously that she was “drilling wood for fire.”

…By the time she gets a spark, the two of us will be the subjects of a city-wide search by Tianwaitian. Shang Can had no choice but to loudly exclaim, “Oh look, I found a fire talisman! Haha!” and then surreptitiously use her own Heavenly Fire to ignite the wood when Yun Duan wasn’t looking.

Shang Can handled the actual roasting herself. Yun Duan clearly wanted to help, but there was nothing for her to do, so Shang Can instructed her to watch the fire (which was summoned in such a way that it wouldn’t go out unless she willed it) to make sure it didn’t die.

When Shang Can had finished prepping the chicken for the fire, Yun Duan was still staring at the flames with such focus she didn’t even blink. It was only when Shang Can walked over that she nodded with a sense of relief, as if she had successfully fulfilled a heavy burden.

Yun Duan’s level of cooperation was so high it left Shang Can a bit confused—was Yun Duan just hungry?

“Was it not you who said it?” Yun Duan finally finished her drumstick slowly and looked at her steadily. “That I am too thin, and it is better to eat more.”

“…Right.”

She remembered such a casual comment quite clearly. Shang Can muttered that she could have just eaten back at Tianwaitian, then joked: “I didn’t expect you to take it to heart. Or does the Lord of the Clouds actually share that realization?”

It was just a throwaway topic, but Yun Duan stopped her movements, her eyes drooping slightly.

“No.”

“I just… always feel like I’ve heard similar words before. But I can’t quite remember who said them.”

“I don’t know why, but I felt that I should listen.”

It was rare for Yun Duan to say so much at once. Having finished, she fell into a startled silence.

Shang Can continued to poke the fire, her response leisurely.

“Anyone who dares say such things to the Lord of the Clouds must be a reckless soul similar to myself.”

“Such people usually just speak on a whim.”

“If you’ve forgotten, you’ve forgotten. It’s no matter.”

The fire crackled. Shang Can finally felt Yun Duan’s cold gaze drift away. She looked up as if waking from a dream, staring at the nearly extinguished fire for a long moment before inconspicuously letting it flare back to life.