Chapter 285: Gifts

For a moment, Ding Songyan looked blankly at Zheng Zhuxi, who had stood up together with him, then lowered his head slightly and chuckled.

"Didn’t I mention it? Young Master Jiang was generous and gave me two. I’ve already passed one along to Twelfth Madam Luo as a gift."

"That’s good." Zheng Zhuxi smiled.

She thought for a moment, then opened the green porcelain bottle, poured out a pill that looked like congealed jade marrow, and popped it into her mouth right in front of Ding Songyan, just as he had once eaten the Crane Longevity Pill she gave him on the spot.

The Jade Bloom Body-Nourishing Pill’s effects were gentle and lasting, with no especially noticeable sensation. Just as Zheng Zhuxi was about to say something, she saw Ding Songyan take two more things out of the same box.

They were a Golden Boy mask with phoenix eyes and straight brows, and a Jade Maiden mask with peach-blossom makeup.

Ding Songyan said to Zheng Zhuxi with a smile, "Senior Sister, for your birthday last year I prepared two gifts: the Great Proliferation Chapter of the Lesser Limitless Art, and a Jade Maiden mask. Unfortunately, things went awry afterward, so I only gave you the first. The second got put off until today."

With that, he handed the Jade Maiden mask to Zheng Zhuxi, keeping the Golden Boy mask in his own hand.

Before last year’s birthday, my junior brother already wanted to give me a Jade Maiden mask? That early... Zheng Zhuxi blinked. Her head felt flooded by a surging tide that filled every corner of her thoughts. Before her mind could give the order, her vision blurred slightly, and her left hand reached out, timid but without a moment’s hesitation, and took the Jade Maiden mask.

Ding Songyan watched this with a smile, and suddenly noticed two deep dimples on Zheng Zhuxi’s face.

That smile, as bright and clear as starlight on a deep night, shone straight into his heart.

The next moment, he saw his senior sister raise her right palm.

Hmm... Ding Songyan was overjoyed beyond words.

Without a word, he raised the right hand that should have been withdrawn and lightly tapped it against Zheng Zhuxi’s rosy-white palm.

He had thought that with all his experience he could stay cool and unruffled, but at this moment his heart still turned tumultuous, and he almost lost his composure.

If he hadn’t been mindful that his senior sister was still in mourning, he might have turned his hand over and clasped hers.

Holding the Jade Maiden mask, Zheng Zhuxi felt a little dizzy and noticed her junior brother rummaging through that box again.

He still has things hidden here?

Is this his treasure vault?

Zheng Zhuxi suddenly felt like laughing.

She didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. She knew her junior brother was doing this to keep Demoness Ji from seizing his things or other people from finding them.

Twelfth Madam Luo is truly a person of great virtue... Zheng Zhuxi sighed inwardly.

She drifted over, her steps a little light, and peered in with curiosity.

"What else is hiding in here?"

"Disguise clothes and weapons..." Seeing the young woman close the distance on her own, Ding Songyan smiled and introduced the various items he kept at Twelfth Madam’s place. Finally, he took out a stack of papers and showed it to his senior sister. "This is what I’ve gained after some time under her guidance."

Zheng Zhuxi took it and saw Unified Way Sword and Guiding Principle written on the first page.

It was no longer just a single sentence. It also contained Ding Songyan’s understanding of "two begets three, three begets all things," and used it to build a preliminary yet complete and profound framework.

The young woman was absorbed at once. After all, her Lesser Limitless Art had also reached the perfected Great Proliferation Realm, and the Unified Way Sword’s original foundation was the Seven Swords of Candlelit Night and the Celestial Stars Sword Art.

She sat back down on the edge of the bed, subconsciously leaving a spot for her junior brother.

Ding Songyan sat down without a trace of shyness. While his senior sister read through the Guiding Principle of the Unified Way Sword, he took the Scripture of Utmost Sincerity out of his robe.

It was clearly a new copy, made within the past month. Ding Songyan focused his mind and imprinted the contents into his memory page by page.

Time flew by. After an unknown period of time, Ding Songyan’s eyes grew smaller, his pupils turned jet black, his teeth protruded slightly, and a pair of illusory membranous leathery wings unfolded behind his back.

Relying on the photographic memory that the li fruit gave him when he concentrated fully, he had derived the Scripture of Utmost Sincerity to the perfected Dharma Realm.

He had no sudden hunch, and no warning of possible bloodshed.

That meant there was no great danger in his immediate future.

Just as he had told Zheng Zhuxi, Ding Songyan didn’t burn his lifespan to trick his body into remembering the current state. Instead, he carefully probed which apertures supported the foresight of danger and how his true qi flowed.

Only by mastering these could he adjust some details of his own Chaos art without affecting anything else, break the Scripture of Utmost Sincerity down into parts, pick out the ones that might fit with the Chaos art, and keep at least the "self-warning against bloodshed" ability, even if it meant giving up "immune to all weapons." Finally, he would meet in the middle from both ends to complete the incorporation or integration.

That way, "self-warning against bloodshed" would become part of the Chaos Scripture, and even if Ding Songyan was deriving other arts, it would still work.

An improvement like that couldn’t be a rush job. Ding Songyan hoped to finish before the consort selection or before Twelfth Madam left the Flame Capital.

The Yubird traits quickly receded, and the double pupils returned to Ding Songyan’s eyes.

He turned his head and found that his senior sister had long since finished reading the Guiding Principle of the Unified Way Sword and was watching him derive and ponder the Scripture of Utmost Sincerity with keen interest.

"My father said that once you’ve memorized it, you have to destroy this copy or give it to me to take back to Changhua," Zheng Zhuxi said with a smile.

She already knew her junior brother had eaten the li fruit and didn’t need to rely on the Celestial Heart Art to force himself to remember.

Ding Songyan laughed.

"How could I destroy a manual you brought all this way just for me, Senior Sister?

"Here, take it back to Changhua for now. Later, you can give it to me again. It has to be this very copy."

Seeing how much her junior brother treasured her thoughtfulness, Zheng Zhuxi smiled with pursed lips. As she took the manual, she asked, a little puzzled, "Why would I give it to you again later?"

Didn’t you memorize it already?

Ding Songyan looked at his senior sister with a smile and didn’t answer.

Zheng Zhuxi was dazed for a moment, then suddenly caught the hidden meaning. She couldn’t help but huff, and hurriedly picked up the Guiding Principle of the Unified Way Sword from her lap and pointed at a line.

"Junior Brother, what does this mean?"

Ding Songyan glanced at it and said, holding back a laugh, "Guiding Principle means the core essentials of something, the goal you want to reach, and the steps to get there."

Zheng Zhuxi froze, then looked closely and realized she was pointing at the two words, "Guiding Principle."

"..." She immediately fell silent and pressed her lips together, though her eyes shimmered like water reflecting the afterglow of a sunset.

Ding Songyan went on without batting an eye.

"Of ’yin,’ ’yang,’ and ’change,’ I personally think ’change’ is the most important..."

As he explained and elaborated, Zheng Zhuxi gradually became absorbed in the discussion of martial arts, and her face returned to its snow-and-milky pallor.

In the thick of the exchange, Ding Songyan said with a smile, "I haven’t seen you practice swordsmanship in a long time, Senior Sister. No matter how much we talk, in the end it has to come down to the hands."

Zheng Zhuxi was just as eager. She agreed right away, picked up Autumnwater, went out to the courtyard, and demonstrated the progress she had made over the past year and more.

Ding Songyan sat at the stone table, watching intently, and only shared a few simple thoughts when Zheng Zhuxi paused for a moment.

"Her swordsmanship is much more agile than any other Brightnight Sect disciple I’ve seen, but the foundation hasn’t changed, and the candlelight intent is still there." Twelfth Madam Luo had come over from the shop and stood watching for a while. She said to Ding Songyan, "Oh, you don’t count."

"Please give my senior sister some guidance too, Twelfth Madam," Ding Songyan said with a smile, taking the opening.

Twelfth Madam Luo sat down and scolded him playfully, "You really know how to find me work.

"As for swordsmanship specifically, there isn’t much I can teach Miss Zheng. For one, our martial arts follow different paths. Two, whatever I could teach her, you’ve already taught her. And if we move up to the Way of the Sword, she’s not quite there yet and may not understand."

She kept her voice low, so Zheng Zhuxi didn’t hear these two sentences.

Ding Songyan nodded lightly and began to think it over seriously.

When Zheng Zhuxi finished her sword routine and walked back to the stone table, Ding Songyan not only discussed the routine she had just performed, but also used the Guiding Principle of the Unified Way Sword to talk about some of his own insights into the Way of the Sword, drawing on his many question-and-answer sessions with Twelfth Madam Luo to make it easier to follow.

This was much simpler than the martial arts discussions Ding Songyan and Twelfth Madam Luo usually had. Twelfth Madam Luo glanced at Zheng Zhuxi and saw that she was fully immersed, her starry eyes bright and radiant, while Ding Songyan was enjoying himself too.

How nice... Twelfth Madam Luo sighed silently.

With a smile on her lips, she joined the conversation with Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi even more seriously.

On a nearby watchtower.

Back when Ding Songyan led that stunning girl into the main room of the Cheap Wine Shop, and then only Twelfth Madam Luo came out, Yi Qianyue had already been unable to make sense of the situation.

By the time the three of them were sitting around the stone table in the back courtyard, chatting and laughing, sometimes lively, sometimes each lost in thought, the atmosphere perfectly harmonious, Yi Qianyue was completely bewildered, as if he’d lost track of what year it was.

He can do that?

How did he pull that off?

...

As the evening market drew near, Twelfth Madam Luo glanced up at the sky and said to Zheng Zhuxi with a smile, "Stay and have dinner here. What would you like to eat?"

She found that Zheng Zhuxi’s temperament and thoughts resembled her own in the past in some ways. She felt a sudden warmth toward her and a real sense of kinship, so she took the initiative to ask what the girl wanted to eat.

As for Ding Songyan, in the Cheap Wine Shop’s back courtyard he had always eaten whatever he was given and had no right to order.

Only then did Zheng Zhuxi notice that it had gotten dark. She hurriedly stood and said to Twelfth Madam Luo, a little embarrassed, "I forgot to pay my respects to Master Granduncle. It’s a good time to have dinner with him now."

"That’s only right." Twelfth Madam Luo approved all the more.

She took the chance to glance at Ding Songyan, the implication being: "Learn more from your senior sister, and don’t just talk the talk."

After bidding Twelfth Madam Luo farewell, Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi hurried back to the Prince’s estate and found Wang Zhou in his separate courtyard.

Wang Zhou, who was waiting for dinner, was delighted by Zheng Zhuxi’s arrival and quickly had the servants in the courtyard go to the kitchen to add more dishes.

"Zhuxi, how did you end up in the Flame Capital?" the Grand Elder asked with concern.

Zheng Zhuxi was a little shy, but she told him the truth, "My father agreed to let Junior Brother look through the Scripture of Utmost Sincerity, so I came to deliver the manual to him. Um, earlier, to persuade my father, I revealed that Junior Brother has something special about him."

Wang Zhou instinctively looked at Ding Songyan and saw that the younger man couldn’t hide his smile.

He found it quite amusing.

You two little rascals...

"I trust your father’s character," Wang Zhou said, nodding warmly, then added to Zheng Zhuxi, in a way meant to help, "You probably don’t know yet that Songyan has been fortunate enough to receive guidance from a Supreme Master these past few months."

Zheng Zhuxi smiled lightly.

"Master Granduncle, I already called on Twelfth Madam Luo this afternoon."

Wang Zhou looked at Ding Songyan in utter astonishment.

You took your senior sister straight to meet Twelfth Madam Luo?

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