Dai Xinyue massaged her brow. “Are you for real, Junior Zeng? You went and beat up the person who had previously saved you?!”
Zeng Fei raised his hands, palms showing. “No, no, Senior Sister Dai, please, you misunderstand.” Despite her skinny frame and fatigued appearance, Dai Xinyue had a cultivation that could beat him effortlessly - now that he was at the peak of Qi Refining, he could tell she was at peak Foundation Establishment or perhaps even Core Formation.
“What do I misunderstand? It was your minion that knocked her out, no?”
“No, no…” he stopped and grimaced. “Okay, yes it was my minion. But hear me out, he was trying to demonstrate a fire technique that she had wanted to see, just that he misunderstood demonstrate as to mean to use it on her.”
Dai Xinyue clicked her tongue in distaste and glanced at Sun Ru lying on the medical bed. “You’re lucky she simply fell unconscious from the physical shock of the blow - hardly any damage was done due to the Phoenix technique she cultivates. If not for that, I wouldn’t have believed you this easily.”
Zeng Fei sighed in relief, grateful that it was finally over.
After Pingu had knocked Sun Ru out, the penguin had taken the liberty to nod towards Zeng Fei as though he’d just carried out the orders Zeng Fei had given.
Zeng Fei had unsummoned the penguin at once, cursing the heavens for giving him such a dunderhead of a minion, but by then it was already too late.
Within seconds, he was incapacitated by seniors who’d been passing by. Only after taking pains to explain that it’d all been an accident did they take Sun Ru and him to the Healing Hall, next door to and dwarfing the Medicinal Hall that Outer Sect Disciples used.
It was there he discovered that Dai Xinyue worked in both hospital wings, and for some reason he’d had received a very bad feeling from seeing her, instantly growing anxious. Luckily she was busy tending to another patient and hadn’t noticed them.
But then one of the seniors who’d brought Zeng Fei here called out to greet her, and he’d been a second too late to stop them.
Dai Xinyue had spun around and glanced, made a double take and narrowed her eyes, glowering at them, clearly in a foul mood. It was no small mercy that she was already occupied with another patient.
In fact, it turned out to be no mercy at all as she’d simply dumped the patient she’d been treating for another medical practitioner to handle and stormed right over. (Wasn’t there something in the Hippocratic Oath to prevent people from doing this?)
It was only now, after chewing him out for several minutes, that she listened to his side of the story and conceded his innocence.
Regardless, she refused to let him off the hook. “Honestly, from the first time we met, I knew there was something strange about you.” Dai Xinyue tsked. “If only I’d seen earlier that you were going to turn out like Peng Chenglu, I would have put you in the soil myself back then.”
Hoping that she was joking (a natural deadpan comedian, he was sure), Zeng Fei was caught on the name she’d mentioned: he could have sworn he’d already heard it several times today from the people gossiping behind his back.
His brain made the connection, and his eyes widened dramatically. “Wait, you know my senior sister?”
Dai Xinyue scoffed, then, seeing his confusion, gave an uncharacteristically harsh note of laughter.
Although unquestionably rude, her gestures lacked the edge that genuine dislike possessed: to his eyes, it didn’t seem that Senior Sister Dai hated his senior sister as much as that they were close enough to treat each other snarkily.
But even then, weren’t the friends of your older sister supposed to treat you more nicely when you randomly ran into them outside… so why had Dai Xinyue gone the opposite direction after hearing he was Peng’s junior brother?
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
What he’d gathered about Peng Chenglu so far - from his master’s words and from overhearing others - was that her fashion style was a hot topic of discussion for girls and boys, and that she was talented in alchemy and illusion magic, which in turn was why some were fond and others apprehensive of her.
As far as Zeng Fei could speak from direct experience, he knew that the Energy Gathering Pills she’d refined had been of incredible quality, incomparably more effective than the one the original had bought using contribution points. If not for them, he would likely still be at the sixth or seventh layer, even when accounting for all the other advantages, since that’s how impactful the pills had been.
“Senior Sister Dai, could you tell me more about my senior sister?”
Dai Xinyue scoffed, then turned towards Sun Ru. “Since you’re awake, I think it’s time the two of you trotted along to complete your mission. Leave me to treat patients who actually need my help.”
‘What, like the one you dumped to treat us?’ Zeng Fei thought of saying, almost did say, did in fact start saying, only to clear his throat then and act like it’d just been a random noise; at the very last moment, he’d become aware that he could either make that sarcastic remark or leave the Healing Hall alive today, not both.
Having already been caught in the crossfire between Peng Chenglu and Dai Xinyue, he didn’t want to catch any more strays, and so wisely decided to close his mouth.
Only as they were leaving did Dai Xinyue address Zeng Fei’s question. “As for your senior sister, you’ll get to know her yourself soon enough. She’s preparing a surprise for you.”
“A surprise as in a gift, or do you mean something I should be wary of?”
Apparently he too was a natural-born comedian as his unwitting comment caused her to crack up, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes; though it was odd how her gaze made it seem she was laughing at him, not with him… not that he was laughing in the first place.
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The Vice Chief of the Divine Truth Scouring Abode, Cai Ling, glanced between the two requests he’d received in quick succession.
Since sending out his orders, the informants had gathered manifold details on the target disciple, which he’d then used to send the VIP client a basic profile on Disciple Zeng Fei.
Yet even armed with all this additional information, Cai Ling had not been able to figure out for the life of him what the VIP client saw in this insignificant child or what had caught their attention so.
This was when, as though rebuking his shortsightedness, the heavens themselves had deigned to answer him through the form of a report he received a few days later, stating that Zeng Fei had been accepted as Grand Elder Mi Mi’s personal disciple.
The association alone earned the Disciple Zeng Fei his place on the watchlist, and furthermore commented much about his nature if those lot had taken him in as one of their own.
For the VIP client to have gleaned this before anyone else, they were evidently prescient. That, or…
The first jade slip the Vice Chief had received today was from the VIP client, requesting that he let them know the instant Disciple Zeng Fei was seen leaving his sect grounds, as well as any information on where he was heading.
To Vice Chief Cai’s nose, this entire situation stunk of not mere prescience but a full-blown prophecy: the client setting up tripwire over news regarding spirit beasts and maintaining it for many millennia; immediately identifying the chosen one through signs only they could recognise; and moving before anyone else… to do what, though?
Was Zeng Fei the chosen one, their promised saviour, or was he the destroyer they intended to eliminate in advance?
What complicated matters was the second jade slip the Vice Chief had received today, from the Treading Infinity Sect’s Sect Leader, Lao Yating.
That old fox had directly demanded that Cai Ling share who it was that’d requested Disciple Zeng Fei to be put on the watchlist, brazenly assuming that it hadn’t been Cai’s decision.
The Truth Abode had a strict policy of never divulging which of their clients had made which informational requests, and the Vice Chief himself had enjoyed the honour of denying countless similar asks from powerhouses in the past, uncaring for the powers they wielded or threats fielded. It wasn’t like the might of the Divine Truth Scouring Abode was something to be sneezed at or anything.
Though that said, there were a few organisations that even the Truth Abode didn’t want to get on the bad side of, the Immortal Sects very much counting in this category. This was why the Truth Abode granted certain backdoor requests to the leaders of these groups as a way of keeping them happy.
Nor did it matter here that the Vice Chief simply didn’t know the VIP’s identity to be able to answer the Sect Leader’s request: even if that were the case, they would be expecting him to hand over what he did know - namely the VIP client’s address. Any decision not to do so could be viewed as the Truth Abode aligning itself against the Treading Infinity Sect.
Yet any decision to do so could be viewed as the Truth Abode aligning itself against the VIP client, who clearly was also not someone to get on the bad side of as evidenced by the multiple former Chiefs who’d meekly dropped investigations into their identity.
Such an important decision was not one Cai Ling could make as the Vice Chief; and thank the heavens for that, he thought to himself as he got up to go meet the Chief.