As the night deepened, a gentle breeze danced through Biyun Tower, causing the sea crystal lamps to glow softly.
Qin Yuzhi, sporting an eye mask on her forehead, yawned as she descended the stairs, only to find the table completely bare. Ying Bing was there sipping tea, occasionally glancing outside.
Shang Qin Qing was munching on sunflower seeds across the table.
“Where’s Little Li?”
“He went to the South Border King’s residence,” Shang Qin Qing replied.
“The palace…? What’s he doing over there? He can’t even be bothered to come back and make us dinner?”
Qin Yuzhi’s tone reflected some serious morning grumpiness.
Every day, she dreamt of hard selling for Li Mo, and while not getting paid was one thing, now he wouldn’t even bring back a meal!
“Honestly, I thought he should’ve been back by now, but, you know, he did offend the noble families of Da Yu yesterday.”
Shang Qin Qing glanced at Ying Bing out of the corner of her eye.
Seeing her staring out into space like a statue waiting for her husband, she squinted and lowered her voice dramatically:
“Is it possible that the moment he entered the palace, he was secretly apprehended?”
“!”
Ying Bing, expressionless, couldn’t resist raising her head to sneak a peek outside.
“Great, just what I need.”
Qin Yuzhi huffed, “Once I restore the Huanmo Sect’s honor by cleaning up the past, and I work to bolster the Huan Shen Sect, I’m going to grab Li Mo, lock him in a little black room, and whack him with a tiny whip—without giving him any food, too!”
“Huh?”
Ying Bing turned her head to look at her, ice chunk-like face puzzled.
“Alright, alright, no tiny whip then.”
“But no food is not an option.”
Ying Bing said earnestly.
“I’m still waiting for him to cook for me!”
Qin Yuzhi sniffed, feeling quite wronged.
Little Li was probably over at the palace feasting on delicious treats while she starved here, and they wouldn’t even let her complain. Where’s the justice in that?
Shang Qin Qing stared at Qin Yuzhi for a long time, suddenly as if remembering something, she raised an eyebrow:
“Aren’t you the Qin Yuzhi who disappeared with the Huan Shen Sect’s Yunmeng Hall?”
“How do you know me?” Qin Yuzhi was taken aback. It seemed that no one in the Huanmo Sect remembered her, yet here was someone recognizing her.
“I was born three hundred years after you fell asleep, a pureblood Qingluan, managing marriages and weddings, I’ve heard tales about you in the sect,” Shang Qin Qing confirmed.
“Ah, so you know me. It seems my legacy lives on even after my long snooze.”
Qin Yuzhi put her hands on her hips, sighed dramatically, feeling like an old friend meeting another long-lost soul—tears almost welled up.
Shang Qin Qing’s expression grew complex: “I’ve certainly heard stories…”
“Wait a second.”
Qin Yuzhi suddenly pieced it together and asked, “Didn’t I instruct the higher-ups in the sect to wake me every three hundred years?”
“If Da Shang is still standing three hundred years later, then how come no one came to wake me? Did something major happen in the sect?”
“That’s not it,” Shang Qin Qing shook her head, hesitating to speak further.
Seeing Qin Yuzhi’s burning curiosity, she continued:
“The higher-ups of the sect all felt you shouldn’t be awakened.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, it’s a long story. At first, I heard from others that your slumber was linked to a great terror, and nobody should dare approach or try to wake you, because if that existence stirred, the whole world would fall into eternal slumber.”
Ying Bing silently listened.
Even she knew nothing of these secrets from the Da Shang era.
“They weren’t entirely wrong… or were they?”
Qin Yuzhi frowned: “In that case, the sect should’ve been working on finding a method to seal the ancestral god of Yunmeng once and for all, to rescue their sect.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, let me finish.”
“Oh, oh…”
Shang Qin Qing proceeded:
“Eventually, I discovered they had other reasons for not waking you.”
“Such as the ancient ancestor of the Ming Jiao clan, who was on the verge of vanishing due to his powers being insufficient.”
Just then, Shang Qin Qing took a breath and added, “On his deathbed, he told me he had hidden a stash of gold and treasures, all tucked away in his little secret vault. And the location of that vault, apart from him…”
“Only you know.”
Qin Yuzhi: “?”
So just because he didn’t want his hidden stash exposed to anyone else, they opposed waking her up?
“And then there’s the leader of the Tianma clan; he secretly kept a few little mares outside, and only you know about it.”
“??”
“And the leader of the Luwu clan, who secretly liked to wear women’s clothes. The so-called ‘most handsome man in Da Shang,’ Yu Shiyun, suffered from a serious case of hemorrhoids; and the poetic geniuses of old, like Shizi, supposedly had a refined taste for women’s feet…”
“…..”
Ying Bing’s face fell, her features dimming as she pinched her large-headed doll.
“So, they didn’t wake me up because they were worried I’d be sitting on those secrets for life? How could they do this to me?”
Qin Yuzhi fumed, feeling even more wronged.
She hadn’t even dined on those secrets more than three, four, five times at most!
Shang Qin Qing sighed: “Because it’s easy to know a person’s face but not their heart; who would think a grace like Yuhuang could have such odd tastes?”
When she first heard these stories, she was just as shocked. If the timing hadn’t been so tight for those guys, she’d have indulged a good five or six times at least…
“Oi, Little Ice Girl, you’re about to spill your tea!”
“….”
Ying Bing was gazing at the swaying sea crystal lamp, the warm glow pulling at her attention, feeling a bit dazed.
“Little Ice Girl, don’t you think they’re being excessive?”
“Li Mo probably doesn’t think so.”
“？？？”
Qin Yuzhi completely didn’t grasp what this had to do with Li Mo.
And… where the heck was that guy anyway?
“Looks like I’m going to have to work on an empty stomach today.”
“Leader Qin, wait for me.”
Though Shang Qin Qing and Qin Yuzhi were from different eras and hadn’t met before, they were still on the same side, so there was lots to chat about.
As they headed off, Qin Yuzhi couldn’t help but look back, saying:
“Little Ice Girl, he might not return tonight. You should rest early.”
“I got it, just need a little more tea.”
“Alright then.”
Shang Qin Qing smirked; she wasn’t hearing this for the first time.
That big-headed doll was looking more and more like a glowing ornament by the minute.
The two went upstairs.
The hall fell silent, and Ying Bing wondered if she should ask her ice chunk what he was up to.
The last time, he was right in the thick of it, and just when he was about something really serious, the Taiyin consciousness flickered to life, and at this hour, how should she approach him?
Should she ask if he wanted to sleep together?
…..
Meanwhile, up at the top of Biyun Tower, in the Ice Chunk’s room.
“Where did Ice Chunk go?”
Li Mo was rolling back from a kick of cloud.
Typically, he would’ve expected Ice Chunk to be winding down after her training about now.
If she was speaking about her time at Biyun Tower, she should have returned to her room by now.
“When did she sneak out?”
Li Mo decided to head to the main hall of Biyun Tower and ask the manager.
As he entered the hall, he noticed that most of the lamps had been extinguished, leaving only a dim ambiance.
At their usual table, he spotted Ice Chunk sitting quietly under a single faint lamp.
The flickering light made her appear even more delicate and lovely, though her furrowed brow showed she was preoccupied with something.
