Wanxi Rebirth - Chapter 19

Yue Tingxi felt her timing was truly fortunate. Miss Qin had just finished demonstrating a set of knife techniques to the disciples below and gracefully leaped down from the high platform, walking calmly towards her.

“Tingxi, why are you up so early?” Qin Suiliu asked with a smile as she approached. “Could it be you have morning lessons too?”

“I just had something on my mind and couldn’t sleep well, so I decided to get up and walk around,” Yue Tingxi said, her words sounding self-righteous in her current identity as a distinguished guest of the young lady. Yesterday, Qin Yingguang had also shown her around most of the Qin mansion.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” Qin Suiliu gestured for her to follow and instructed the butler waiting by the side, “Have breakfast sent to the Fish-Viewing Pavilion.”

Yue Tingxi followed her, still organizing her thoughts.

Although it was just breakfast, the table was still laden with food: fried buns, steamed buns, steamed cakes, glutinous rice, various kinds of porridge and soup, and even four small dishes for picking.

After patiently waiting for all the serving attendants to leave, Yue Tingxi finally spoke, “Did anything happen last night?”

She asked tactfully. If she hadn’t offended the young lady last night, the question would only be understood as an inquiry about the night’s investigation of the Necromancer’s residence.

“Two things,” Qin Suiliu said while picking up a fried bun and dipping it in a saucer of vinegar. “First, the team that went to investigate Heshen’s residence confiscated all suspicious tools and the peach-wood boxes containing the living puppets. They have now been transported to a warehouse specially for dangerous magical artifacts, and the identities of the victims are still being confirmed.”

“Second, Lin Fengqing sent a message saying that she used the gray moth I gave her to find Lin Chaoyao at the Falling Sword Platform of the Linlang Pavilion with two highly respected elders and brought him back to Qingxu Sect.”

“So, that bastard Lin came away with nothing this time?” Yue Tingxi’s eyes lit up, then she frowned in thought. “But Miss Lin found him at the Falling Sword Platform. What was he planning to do after leaving Heshen’s stronghold?”

“If he still hasn’t given up on finding a replacement for his new wife, he would have likely gone to the Red Dust Pavilion,” Qin Suiliu said while biting into a fried bun. “He would either offer great rewards or directly poison and control a replacement, as long as the substitute could obediently act as a puppet.”

Yue Tingxi, however, had no appetite for breakfast.

In her previous life, she only knew until her death that the Necromancer was involved in the destruction of the Qin family, but she knew nothing about the Red Dust Pavilion. Lin Chaoyao had always publicly claimed they were a “loving couple,” so he naturally wouldn’t go to such a place of debauchery, and there were no records of such an event in the Book of Worldly Affairs.

But in this life, ever since she escaped from the Qingxu Sect, all sorts of people and places that should not have appeared were surfacing.

And this was just the beginning.

“Tingxi, no matter what happens, it’s all what Lin Chaoyao brought upon himself; it has nothing to do with you,” Qin Suiliu’s voice pulled Yue Tingxi out of her thoughts. “You are just one of many victims. If you don’t want to see such incidents happen again, you only need to focus on solving the root cause.”

“Do you remember what Lin Chaoyao said to ‘Heshen’? He wants to unite the human realm using the demon disaster, gathering the power of the strongest cultivators to open the gate to the Upper Realm. If that’s the case, he will definitely try to incite conflict between the two races, even going so far as to collude with the demon realm.”

Yue Tingxi steadied herself, thinking this was indeed true. No wonder Miss Qin insisted on keeping Heshen alive; perhaps this person held the secret of how to access the demon realm.

Killing him would solve the problem once and for all, but the clues related to the demon realm would also be severed. In that case, they wouldn’t be able to follow the trail to find the demons who truly wanted to conspire with human realm cultivators to break the seal from within.

“I have an idea,” she suggested. “Since capturing or killing Lin Chaoyao in the human realm would attract investigation from the Immortal Alliance, what if he were to die by accident in a Secret Realm?”

It is said that Secret Realms are relics of ancient gods, containing countless heavenly treasures, and they appear in various locations in the human realm from time to time.

The first group of cultivators from the two races who entered a Secret Realm tried to establish a long-term base inside so that they could immediately receive their own people and monopolize these heavenly treasures when it opened again.

However, on the day the Secret Realm closed, all outsiders, regardless of their cultivation level, were teleported out. Later, after years of investigation and questioning by curious explorers, it was learned that only specially treated artifacts and thoroughly dead cultivators were left inside.

“If Lin Chaoyao dies inside a Secret Realm and the traces are handled cleanly, it is theoretically possible to avoid being held accountable,” Qin Suiliu nodded, taking a few sips of the eight-treasure porridge. “But he is now the head of a sect. If a Secret Realm that opens doesn’t have something that can attract him, he will almost never go there personally.”

“As long as he can’t find his ‘new wife,’ we have a bargaining chip to attract him,” Yue Tingxi pointed to herself. “Although I still don’t know why he’s so obsessed with me, but…”

“You want to use yourself as bait?”

Yue Tingxi was not surprised to be interrupted and explained calmly, “Yes, but I’m willing to take a gamble. Miss Suiliu didn’t leave me in danger yesterday. If we encounter a similar situation again, I’m sure you won’t abandon me.”

Though she said this, the next Summer Moon Secret Realm wouldn’t open for at least another month. She was only using this as a test, and she would naturally observe Miss Qin’s actions in the future to see if she could live up to this trust.

In any case, they hadn’t formed any contract that restricted their freedom, so they could always part ways. She could go and fight Lin Chaoyao on her own until they both perished.

Qin Suiliu stopped all her movements and quietly observed Yue Tingxi’s gaze and expression.

“Using herself as bait” was not the only way, nor was it the best way; one could even say it was “too impulsive.” But… it was what Yue Tingxi wanted to choose the most.

— She could tell that Yue Tingxi wanted to confront Lin Chaoyao face-to-face and, if possible, engage in a hard-hitting fight.

Qin Suiliu could also understand this feeling. After all, yesterday when she put a sack over Lin Chaoyao and gave him a good beating, Yue Tingxi’s excitement and joy were almost overflowing.

No matter what Yue Tingxi had experienced, she now desperately needed to vent her anger and hatred for Lin Chaoyao in this direct way.

And Qin Suiliu wanted to fulfill this wish that Yue Tingxi had unintentionally revealed as much as she could.

“If that’s the case, have you ever heard of (tacit understanding training)?” she asked tentatively.

“I’ve only seen it in folk tales before, but the book you gave me also clearly mentioned it,” Yue Tingxi nodded. “Some immortal sects’ training requires multiple disciples to activate a formation, and before that, they would have a period of tacit understanding training.”

“To cultivate tacit understanding, you must first trust the other person wholeheartedly. As you humans say, you need to establish a relationship where you can ‘safely entrust your back to your comrade on the battlefield,’ which is equivalent to entrusting your life,” she recalled. “In this way, even at the most dangerous moments, those who have gone through this training can quickly cooperate and form a formation, thereby turning danger into safety.”

“That’s right, it seems Tingxi has already mastered quite a bit of knowledge about the human realm.” Qin Suiliu smiled and nodded, bringing a small bowl over. She filled it with soft, mushy red bean soup and placed it beside Yue Tingxi’s hand. “I am a person who, whenever I make a big gamble, I always prepare everything beforehand. Since you are willing to bet on me not abandoning you, I would like to invite you to participate in this tacit understanding training.”

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