Jiang Huai said nothing more, just sat by the bedside and waited quietly.
Luo Yueguan seemed to be lost in a memory, and she tried hard to recall the past.
Cultivators and ordinary people are not entirely separate worlds. A cultivator can easily crush any ordinary person. Even righteous cultivators, as long as their actions are not too extreme, killing one or two ordinary people by accident would not be seen as a problem by most cultivators.
The hatred cultivators held for evil cultivators stemmed from fear, fear that they would sacrifice thousands of people for their cultivation at the drop of a hat. If their cultivation surpassed theirs in the future, they would then sacrifice the cultivators themselves. The vast majority of cultivators held no particular compassion for ordinary people.
Luo Yueguan began to recall strenuously. She had cultivated at the Qingxuan Sect for ten years. After reaching the early Foundation Establishment stage, she descended the mountain once more. What had she done when she next saw her mother? Her memories seemed to be veiled by a distant mist…
Why? She remembered every single thing that cruel woman had done to her as a child so clearly, yet she had forgotten what she herself had done later on.
Had she killed her? No… that wasn’t right…
When she saw that woman again, she seemed to have become very, very old, no longer as alluring and radiant in front of crowds as she had been when she was a courtesan. Where had she been then? It seemed to be in some hovel, where any man could have his way with her for a mere half a copper coin… That woman had become her shame. As a cultivator, having such a mother alive in the world seemed to only invite ridicule from her fellow disciples in the sect.
But what had she actually done? Luo Yueguan’s head suddenly began to ache intensely.
“Perhaps it’s better not to think about it?”
Jiang Huai gently grasped Luo Yueguan’s shoulder, trying to stop her from recalling those events. But Luo Yueguan shook her head. She tried very, very hard to pierce through the mist, but her head felt as if it were being pricked by needles. The mist eventually dissipated, and she seemed to remember.
She had met that woman again in her hometown, but the woman no longer recognized her. She had become somewhat insane, one of her eyes had been blinded, and her body bore many old scars. Yet, she distinctly remembered selling her for a thousand taels of silver when she had left her.
She had taken her away from that hovel, cleaned her body, dressed her in a brand new dress, and treated her to the finest meals and the best wine in the city. While she was drunk, she heard the reason for her downfall.
In the two years after her daughter left, the woman had suddenly begun to regret it, or perhaps it wasn’t regret, but longing. She wanted to see her daughter again, to see that she was well, and so she left in a fit of madness with all her savings. But she was just an ordinary person. Let alone a thousand taels of silver, even ten thousand taels of gold wouldn’t be enough to step foot in the Qingxuan Sect. She had searched for a long time and never even found out where the Qingxuan Sect was… Even if her only wish was to see her daughter from afar, she knew she was too ashamed to appear before her again.
She felt an indescribable mix of emotions and lied to her, saying that she was actually a fellow disciple of her daughter. She was visiting her mother by chance, as her daughter had entrusted her to do so. Her daughter was doing very well at the Qingxuan Sect, and she shouldn’t worry.
The deranged woman suddenly laughed, then knelt down and kowtowed to her, begging her to tell her daughter when she returned to the mountain that the mother who had always treated her poorly, who had always hit and scolded her, was long dead, having died a most tragic death. Perhaps then, her daughter, who cultivated at the Qingxuan Sect, might feel some relief and peace of mind.
Her forehead bled profusely as she kowtowed, but in the end, Luo Yueguan did not reveal her identity. She couldn’t tell if she still harbored hatred, but after a long silence, she softly agreed.
They stayed in the same inn. When she woke up the next day, the deranged woman had used the new clothes Luo Yueguan had bought for her to weave a rope and had hanged herself from the ceiling beam.
She left no suicide note, but Luo Yueguan seemed to understand.
She didn’t want to be her shame.
Luo Yueguan couldn’t recall if she had cried that day. After burying the woman, she returned to the Qingxuan Sect. It seemed her worldly ties had been completely severed, and that memory had vanished at some point… It was only now, when it was mentioned, that it was recalled.
When Luo Yueguan came back to her senses, her fair cheeks were already streaked with tears.
“Why are you crying? What did you remember?” Jiang Huai took out a handkerchief and gently wiped away the tears on Luo Yueguan’s cheeks.
But Luo Yueguan didn’t speak, and her tears continued to fall silently.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, then don’t. It’s okay, it’s all in the past now… Don’t cry,” Jiang Huai wiped away her tears. He was a little flustered, as he had never been good at comforting women.
“I remembered…” Luo Yueguan’s voice was hoarse.
“I saw her again… At that time, she had completely turned into a madwoman… I lied to her, telling her I was a fellow disciple of her daughter and was sent by her daughter to see her… She seemed to sober up a bit… She confessed to me, apologized, kowtowed… begging me to tell her daughter that she was dead, that she had died horribly, so that her daughter might forgive her… I didn’t reveal my identity… and I couldn’t say that I forgave her… But I left her ten thousand taels of gold and some healing pills… enough for her to live out her life without worry… But that night, she took her own life… By the time I realized, it was too late…”
“Did she love me… or hate me, Jiang Huai… what do you think?”
Luo Yueguan’s eyes suddenly shifted to Jiang Huai’s face. Her eyes were so confused, like a ship in a storm, frantically searching for an anchor.
“Love and hate are hard to define; I don’t know either,” Jiang Huai could only shake his head lightly. “But it’s good that you’ve come to terms with it. Did your past self hide this memory?”
“I can’t tell if I hid it myself… or if my inner demon hid it…”
“Memories can’t be forgotten just by forcing yourself. All past experiences, every single moment, make up who you are now. Without any part of it, you are incomplete. It always stays in your consciousness and influences everything. But the sad things are in the past. If you dwell on past suffering, you will keep stagnating and trap yourself further.”
Luo Yueguan’s eyes suddenly became sharp for an instant. “Shut up!”
Jiang Huai was startled.
But the next moment, Luo Yueguan looked at him gently. “I’m not talking to you; I’m arguing with my inner demon.”
Luo Yueguan’s inner demon had been chattering in her ear earlier, but this time, Luo Yueguan suddenly realized that after recalling that memory from the past, the inner demon’s power had weakened.
After saying “shut up,” the inner demon was truly suppressed for a moment, unable to make any sound.
“Are you alright?” Jiang Huai looked at her with concern.
He also couldn’t figure out the situation with Luo Yueguan’s inner demon, as he had never seen anything like it before. Fortunately, Luo Yueguan quickly replied softly, “I’m alright, at least I’m better than before.”
“That’s good,” Jiang Huai breathed a sigh of relief. “Try this soy milk I’ve prepared; it’ll get cold soon.”
Luo Yueguan picked up the tea bowl and brought it to her lips, taking a gentle sip.
“Actually, I really like sweet things,” she suddenly said.
Jiang Huai was taken aback. After a moment, as if conjuring something, he pulled out a large jar filled with various colorful candies. “Here, for you.”
“You brought so many candies?”
“I made a lot because Qingyu likes them.”
It wasn’t entirely true. Some were made by him, and some were bought from the system store when he saw candies, spending one point at a time to save them. Since Luo Qingyu loved them, and he occasionally ate a few, one point from the system could buy dozens of pounds. Jiang Huai loved to exploit these loopholes. He still had plenty more.
Luo Yueguan accepted the box of candies, her eyelashes already touched by stray tears that she had unconsciously wiped away. The corners of her lips curved upwards. “You do know how to show respect, don’t you?”
“Of course! Master taught me well since I was young.”
“Hmph, you barely show any filial piety to your Master!” Luo Yueguan gave him a disdainful look, then changed the subject. “What did you do to Qingyu last night?”
“Why do you keep asking this question?” Jiang Huai felt a headache coming on, but after a moment, he suddenly had a thought. Wait, why was Luo Yueguan asking this? He recalled that Luo Yueguan could share Luo Qingyu’s senses through Daoist magic, and then his eyes widened. “You didn’t use Daoist magic to spy on Qingyu’s feelings again last night, did you?”
“Spying? This is supervision… to see if you did anything bad to Qingyu.”
“How could I do anything bad to her?”
“Where did I not? Last night I could feel my throat… so deep…” Luo Yueguan deliberately put on a shameless expression again. Jiang Huai seemed to have gotten used to her teasing. “It wasn’t me who wanted to bully Qingyu, it was Qingyu… insisting… and then I kissed Qingyu too…”
“You still have the nerve to say that! Like a dog! Don’t you feel disgusted, don’t you feel… dirty.”
“What’s dirty about it? It was moist and delicate pink,” Jiang Huai said, then suddenly felt a moment of inexplicable shame. But Luo Yueguan seemed completely shameless, so it didn’t matter. Luo Yueguan leaned back languidly against the bed. “Then what else did you do?”
“Don’t you already know? Are you asking me this just to find an excuse to interrogate me?”
“I only spied for a moment and then cut off the Daoist magic connection.”
“Why do you care so much about these things?”
“Isn’t it normal for a mother to worry about her daughter?” Luo Yueguan’s expression was full of innocence. Jiang Huai shook his head helplessly. “It was just kissing… and then doing some naughty things… it was all consensual with Qingyu… I will take good care of Qingyu, you really don’t need to worry about this, do you?”
“Kissing… what does it taste like?”
“You still have the nerve to ask? Didn’t you bite me for no reason before?”
“Biting… that’s not kissing,” Luo Yueguan replied with complete justification, but her eyes seemed to casually sweep across Jiang Huai’s face. Her moist, red lips parted slightly, and the tip of her delicate pink tongue licked the corner of her mouth.
Jiang Huai’s heart skipped a beat.
He could still check Luo Yueguan’s favorability three more times. Jiang Huai silently chanted “check.”
Current favorability: 87.
Cold sweat instantly broke out on Jiang Huai’s forehead.
Danger! Little Huai, danger!
