Chapter 10

Fang Weiyun gently shook his fan and, sensing someone’s stare, turned toward Shen Anzhi. Shen Anzhi stroked the coin between his fingers, eyelids lifting lazily before he looked past him toward Gu Shuyu.
Jiang Yu, delighted beyond measure, rested her chin on her palm and blinked slowly. Her smile turned deliberately mischievous.
“So, Senior Brother Fang, what business brings you to our sect?”
Her grin struck Shen Anzhi square in the chest. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he forced down a dark swirl of emotion.
“Junior Sister Jiang,” Fang Weiyun said, lowering his voice mysteriously, “my purpose concerns a secret of Penglai Pavilion.”
Here it comes, the plot point she’d been waiting for.
“But,” he added with a teasing smile, eyes curving like a crescent moon as he raised his fan to his lips, “it must remain confidential for now.”
Shen Anzhi lifted his gaze lazily. Their eyes met.
“Senior Brother Fang, how coincidental that you ran into Senior Sister Gu… and insisted on accompanying us back.” His tone dipped, a gentle smile hiding a thin blade of mockery. “Such remarkable fate.”
Jiang Yu shot him a startled look. In the original story, Shen Anzhi disliked the male lead, Fang Weiyun, only after the plot was halfway through. Early on, he pretended to be gentle, virtuous, innocent.
But right now?
He might as well have worn a sign reading ‘Harboring Ulterior Motives.’
Gu Shuyu drew a breath, ready to speak, but Fang Weiyun seemed to only hear one word: fate. His fan couldn’t hide the grin spreading across his face.
“Well, as it happens, Junior Sister Gu is unparalleled in grace and beauty…”
What followed was a monologue that could have filled several scrolls.
He only heard what he wanted to hear.
Jiang Yu hadn’t expected this. The “chaste, refined, steady” Light of the Righteous Path… was secretly Gu Shuyu’s rabid fanboy, and slightly delusional.
The contrast was shocking. The original novel had lied to her!
She’d swooned reading scenes where they brushed hands. Now, looking back, every sparse line of description was bursting with concealed affection.
But then she remembered the tragic ending, one dead, one driven mad.
If she could change Shen Anzhi’s fate… she could change theirs too.
Fang Weiyun tapped his fan absently against his palm. Speaking of Gu Shuyu had fully unlocked the chatterbox within him. At last, realizing he’d rambled far too long, he cleared his throat.
“…and in the end, Junior Sister Gu struck down the wolf demon with a single sword. Truly worthy of being the sect master’s foremost disciple.”
Jiang Yu’s gaze drifted between them.
This CP was excellent.
The crane descended gracefully at the gates of Crane Sect. Gu Shuyu immediately led Fang Weiyun inside to greet the sect master.
Shen Anzhi adjusted his sleeve with one hand, picked up a piece of candied chestnut, and let it melt on his tongue. Catching sight of Jiang Yu smiling dreamily after the departing pair, his own smile thinned. A faint, unreadable emotion glinted in his eyes.
“Heh. Senior Sister is that captivated?”
“No.” Jiang Yu snatched back her gaze and forced a laugh.
A painfully awkward one.
Quite unlike the smile she gave Fang Weiyun…
Shen Anzhi suddenly felt a sting in his palm. He looked down, at some point, he’d clenched the copper coin tight.
A low, rough sound slipped from his throat.
“Wonderful…”
The True Word Technique clearly hadn’t worn off. He reeled his emotions back in, silently chanting a calming mantra.
“Just remember,” he said with a sudden, pleasant smile, “don’t let anything distract you…and forget the promise you made me.”
“I really didn’t,” Jiang Yu said earnestly.
Their gazes crossed. Shen Anzhi gave a quiet, derisive laugh, then strode past her, choosing a different path without a backward glance.
Jiang Yu turned just in time to see how quickly he was walking away.
She smacked her forehead. Brilliant.
She’d forgotten to ask which way to go.
They might belong to the same sect, but their courtyards were different. Shen Anzhi was a disciple of Taiqing Courtyard under the sect master, Gu Shuyu as well. She, on the other hand, belonged to Qingxin Courtyard, the two compounds built side by side on the mountain.
By the time Shen Anzhi’s back shrank to a tiny black dot in the distance, Jiang Yu finally let out a long breath.
The original book had not come with a map…
Just then a young female disciple came down the mountain path. Jiang Yu quickened her pace to meet her, putting on a gentle smile. The girl was barely in her teens; the moment she saw Jiang Yu, she flinched, dropped her head, and didn’t dare meet her eyes.
Jiang Yu softened her voice. “Junior Sister, could you show me the way to Qingxin Courtyard? I’ll repay you with a spirit stone.”
The girl’s gaze skittered away. She stumbled back half a step, looking at Jiang Yu as if she were some catastrophic beast, then raised a trembling finger toward the path on the right. “S–Senior Sister Jiang, just follow this road. I’ll be taking my leave.”
“Ah, oh. Thank you.”
The girl practically sagged with relief and bolted, as if she’d just escaped with her life.
Jiang Yu followed the stone steps up the mountain. There was no avoiding the disciples she passed along the way. Yet, as if rehearsed, every single one of them stepped aside for her. The path was at least two meters wide, but they looked ready to climb into the trees rather than brush shoulders with her.
After a while, she glanced back. Every person she’d passed was standing a good five or six meters away, avoiding her like snake or scorpion.
Jiang Yu knew the original’s name was thunderously infamous within Crane Sect, but it was another thing entirely to witness firsthand just how universally recognized the “little tyrant” villainess was.
At last she reached the mountainside. Sweat beaded across her brow. The original text had treated this entire transition with a single line, glossing over the fact that minor characters had to huff and puff their way up an entire mountain.
She lifted her gaze, and almost blacked out.
Five teenage boys stood in the middle of the stone path, blocking the way. Their robes were identical in cut but dyed different colors. Each had his own particular charm, fine features, good skin, all distinct in their looks. They were lined up shoulder to shoulder, watching her with complicated expressions.
They weren’t here to settle old scores with the original, were they?
Jiang Yu tightened her grip around the blazing-sun talisman hidden in her sleeve.
“You…” she began cautiously.
All five of them stared at her as if they couldn’t believe their eyes, then circled around her to look her over.
One boy exaggeratedly swiped at the corner of his eye, where there wasn’t a single tear. “Senior Sister, you’ve suffered. Why didn’t you use the teleportation array at the foot of the mountain? You must’ve been furious and needed to vent.”
No, brother, please don’t just start free-associating like that…
She’d climbed this far purely because she didn’t know it existed. Now she felt like the clown of her own story…
Another boy’s crystal bracelet transformed into a white crane. The two tall, fawning ones at his sides beamed at her, as obsequious as a pair of lackeys, and escorted her onto the crane’s back to ferry her home.
They chattered away the entire ride, filling her in on the latest gossip from Qingxin Courtyard. Jiang Yu barely managed to get a word in; she simply sat and listened quietly.
When the crane landed, golden sunlight spilled over eaves and carved beams. Tilting her head, Jiang Yu took in the sight of a glazed golden hall rising abruptly from the mountaintop, gorgeous and ostentatious, utterly out of place with the surrounding architecture.
Surrounded by her little entourage, she stepped inside and was nearly blinded. The interior décor was so opulent it almost hurt to look at.
A baby-faced junior brother poured her a cup of warm tea, unable to hide his smug smile. “I heard first thing this morning that the jinx was back. Before you returned to your rooms, we went and mocked him thoroughly, and gave him another beating. Senior Sister can rest easy, we’ve vented your anger for you.”
“Jinx?”
“That kid surnamed Shen from Taiqing Courtyard, of course.”
Surnamed Shen… Shen Anzhi?
The teacup slipped from Jiang Yu’s hand and hit the floor. She slammed her palm on the table and shot to her feet. “You beat him?”
A ringing buzz filled her ears, her knuckles whitening. Wonderful. Another fresh hatred added to Shen Anzhi’s ledger under her name. She could practically see that half-smile of his already.
When the lips are gone, the teeth really do go cold.