Chapter 65. Meeting at the Book Pavilion

Chapter 65. Meeting at the Book Pavilion

Qin Shili was utterly shaken; a living person turned her previous conclusions upside down.

Lin Nuo wasn’t dead; he was alive and well!

Impossible! That earth-shattering explosion had left nothing but ruin for miles—the vast, lush jungle was swallowed by a sea of flames in an instant, devoid of life.

Even she doubted anyone could survive that blast, yet here was Lin Nuo, truly alive.

She didn’t want to believe it, but the reality was undeniable.

There was no way to refute it; she felt powerless in her disbelief.

Now, it seemed Lin Nuo’s strength was increasingly mysterious, perhaps even beyond her own—he was only a low-tier cultivator, with a weak aura to boot.

“Child, just pretend you didn’t hear what I said earlier.”

Dao Yuan, the spirit cat, was dragging its plump body, about to leave.

“Wait, Senior!”

Qin Shili called out to the spirit cat.

“Senior, was that note in ‘A Thousand Years of Solitude’ really written by him?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t pry.”

The spirit cat didn’t even look back, stepping out with its fluffy legs, leaving leisurely.

Qin Shili fell into deep thought once more.

It seemed she had overestimated her own abilities; there were always greater powers out there, or perhaps Lin Nuo was the hidden genius she had yet to discover.

Dao Yuan was willing to approach Lin Nuo, clearly due to his extraordinary qualities. Previously, she thought only she could communicate with Dao Yuan within the Xuanyun Sect, then Lin Nuo suddenly appeared, directly able to engage with Dao Yuan.

If they were to be ranked, Lin Nuo was definitely a level above her.

Now it appeared that Lin Nuo was on equal footing with Dao Yuan, while she herself was just an ignorant junior, left utterly excluded, like an outsider unable to interject.

She began to feel anxious, a sense of crisis washing over her, realizing that a profound expert was right beside her, and he was the same junior who had once pursued her.

Even though Dao Yuan didn’t say it, she could guess that the phrase from the note in ‘A Thousand Years of Solitude’, *“Knowing fate but not obeying it,”* was written by him. His ability to navigate the Black Market with ease and effortlessly rescue the princess from its clutches, not to mention surviving the explosion—each point indicated he was a person of unfathomable depth.

He read her thoughts from that phrase and offered guidance, effortlessly mingled within the Black Market, and had the audacity to purchase contraband, only to ultimately uphold justice—both in the Wind Sea Forest trial and this current endeavor to find the princess, it was the same: acting in righteousness.

Qin Shili felt she needed to reassess Lin Nuo. In the Xuanyun Sect, she was indifferent to everyone—except him. She couldn’t shake him off her mind.

What book was he reading? Could it be something incredibly profound?

……

Lin Nuo stood in front of the literature section, searching for the work he desired.

This outing had truly been a disaster for Lin Nuo.

He spent a lot of money acquiring a batch of contraband, only to run into the Dark Alliance and the Royal Guards. Forced to stash a small portion of materials into his bundle, he had to blow up the small warehouse and flee. He successfully escaped but forgot to bring the bundle—talk about a colossal loss, several hundred million down the drain!

Then he flew back on his sword, but midway he ran out of spiritual energy and ended up in some dog village where gold lay scattered everywhere, only to awkwardly snatch a horse to escape. But he didn’t get far before a Zuan horseman shot his horse dead, enraging him to brawl with a few of them. Although he turned them into pig heads, he lost his horse. Then he saw a pig being slaughtered, snatched one, force-fed it a low-grade Berserk Pill, and ran away on the pig for several miles, only for the poor pig to foam at the mouth and die from the cold!

So, he roasted the pig.

The taste was surprisingly decent.

Later, once his spiritual energy recovered, he slowly flew back to Tianling Mountain. His life was truly a rollercoaster; he thought to himself, wasn’t he the world-destroying villain? Where was the justice in this?

But on the bright side, he had brought back the Blackscale Stone. With the Blackscale Stone, the protagonist Su Kexin was not far from demise. When the time came, with a bang, Su Kexin would be sent straight to the skies—who could possibly stop me, Lin, the villain?

Upon returning, he needed to find some books to indulge himself, as life was tough; he could only depend on spiritual nourishment to get by.

*“I remember the books should be around here… Aha!”*

Lin Nuo finally found “Jin Ping Mei” on the literature shelf and was about to reach for it when he suddenly heard the sound of clicking high heels approaching from behind, along with a chilling sensation.

Sensitive Lin Nuo instinctively glanced back.

Startled, it was Qin Shili! She stood right behind him, her icy beautiful eyes fixated on him.

Frightened, Lin Nuo hastily turned his right hand and randomly grabbed another book.

No matter what he pulled out, it had to be better than being caught red-handed with “Jin Ping Mei.” That would be social suicide, right?

Moreover, looking at such artistic literature was something better left for the bed, not while staring at it in the book pavilion—how awkward!

Qin Shili’s cold demeanor flickered slightly, as if stunned by the scene before her.

Feeling odd, Lin Nuo turned to see what book he had pulled out.

What was it? “A Thousand Years of Solitude,” an old book.

Whatever, there were still parts he hadn’t read, might as well finish it.

Lin Nuo took “A Thousand Years of Solitude” and sat down in his usual spot.

At that moment, Qin Shili casually took a book from the shelf and sat down across from him.

—