"The most troubling part is that he is so young. I may not even outlive him."
Ji Qingcheng shook her head. Avenging the sect against him was not something she had any possibility of doing.
All she could manage now was to wander the martial world, rob the wealthy to help the poor, and make a small amend for the wrongs and sins Falling God Peak had committed over the years. That was the only thing she could still do for the sect.
Then a thoughtful look appeared in those cold, clear eyes of hers, like the surface of a frozen pool, "Those people were so rich. Once they hand over ten thousand taels of gold tonight, what should I spend it on?"
With that thought she reached to her waist and took out a gray cloth coin purse, opening it.
Inside sat a large silver ingot alongside some broken silver pieces and copper coins.
The purse was one she had taken from the server's waist using her control-of-air ability before leaving the inn.
By all rights, given how badly the server had behaved, Ji Qingcheng, as the victim, would have been entirely justified in killing him. But unfortunately, Ji Qingcheng had no fondness for killing. Even all along the road, encountering bandit after bandit and mountain thief after mountain thief, the worst she had ever done to any of them was strip away their martial arts and break one of their legs. She had not killed a single one.
She was not sure whether this was the right approach, but she chose to follow her heart. Unless one day she was left with no other choice, she did not think she would choose to take a life.
Then she began working through a mental plan, calculating how she might spend ten thousand taels of gold once she had it in hand.
Right at that moment, a big black cat appeared from somewhere, climbing up onto the roof of the Cloud Arrival Inn.
It stepped lightly across the tiles on four nimble cat legs, a large green fish weighing more than four jin in its mouth, and found a comfortable spot where it settled in and began eating its dinner with great contentment.
The green fish was steamed and cooked. At the same time, inside a private room of the Cloud Arrival Inn, Shen Anran was holding her chopsticks, staring at the dish that had held the large fish only moments before. She furrowed her brow and looked at Li Musheng, "Your Highness, that cat..."
When the food had arrived, she had been in the middle of talking with Li Musheng. The moment the big black cat saw the large fish being set down, it had started gesturing urgently at Li Musheng.
Then in the blink of an eye, the fish had been snatched from the table in its mouth, and the cat had vanished entirely.
At that, Li Musheng simply waved a hand, "Leave it. Let it eat. It needs a full stomach to do its job."
At those words, Shen Anran's lovely face showed a faint puzzlement, but she still said, "Well, all right..."
Then she went and asked the server to bring up another fish.
At the same time, in the fading glow of the mist-veiled sunset, the big black cat ate the fish in its mouth while its green eyes drifted now and then toward Ji Qingcheng on the opposite rooftop.
Ji Qingcheng had naturally noticed the big black cat too. The two of them occasionally glanced at each other, each seemingly lost in their own thoughts.
Before long, the big black cat had cleaned the green fish down to the bone, then stood and stretched with a lazy yawn, and padded around on the rooftop for a while.
Eventually it made its way to the eave closest to Ji Qingcheng and crouched down, waving a paw at her, clearly beckoning her to come over.
At the sight, Ji Qingcheng's expression showed mild puzzlement, and she waved back at the cat, equally clearly beckoning it to come to her.
The big black cat let out a meow and kept waving its paw, gesturing for Ji Qingcheng to come. Ji Qingcheng furrowed her brow in response and, not about to be the one to give in, stayed right where she was and kept waving.
And so the two of them stared each other down, each urging the other to come first, one waving a paw and the other waving a hand, neither side yielding.
This went on until Li Musheng's figure suddenly appeared. One person and one cat both noticed at once and immediately stopped.
Li Musheng patted the big black cat on the head, patting it until its head was spinning.
"I told you to eat the fish and then go and look into what that young woman is about. Is this what looking into it looks like?"
Li Musheng said, visibly unamused. The big black cat swayed its dizzied head and immediately lay flat, trying to make amends in an obsequious show.
Then it started pointing at Ji Qingcheng with a look of indignation on its cat face, clearly blaming her for being unreasonable and failing to cooperate.
Ji Qingcheng said nothing. Her beautiful face was completely expressionless, giving off the air of someone who wanted no one near her.
In truth, at that moment she was on full internal alert, her entire body tensed to the extreme in the face of Li Musheng's arrival, ready to disappear at any instant.
"This young woman is a person with divine nature?"
Without anyone knowing when it happened, Li Musheng's figure had vanished from where it had been, and appeared beside Ji Qingcheng.
Ji Qingcheng rose slowly to her feet and looked at Li Musheng beside her.
She suppressed with great effort the urge to flee, thought for a moment, and then gave a cool nod, "That is correct. What do you want with me?"
Ji Qingcheng understood that if Li Musheng had set a cat to keep an eye on her, he had certainly noticed something unusual about her. And so she chose not to lie, as doing so might well prove counterproductive.
At those words, Li Musheng gave a nod.
The big black cat had already told him earlier that the young woman was a person with divine nature.
And Li Musheng had indeed detected the faint traces of both Martial True Qi and divine power emanating from her.
She appeared to be a dual cultivator of both martial arts and divine nature, though her martial cultivation was not particularly high.
"Is this young woman an uncultivated person with divine nature?"
Li Musheng studied Ji Qingcheng for a moment and suddenly asked.
At those words, Ji Qingcheng paused, clearly not understanding what Li Musheng meant by "uncultivated."
Li Musheng naturally saw her confusion, and quickly explained, "What I mean is, does the young woman have any force behind her, something like the Divine Nature Sect or Falling God Peak?"
At those words, Ji Qingcheng's heart gave a sudden lurch, and a flash of anxiety crossed those cold, deep eyes before being quickly suppressed. On the surface she remained expressionless, and said evenly, "There is no force behind me. I have always acted on my own, and both my abilities and my martial arts are entirely self-taught."
At those words, Li Musheng's expression shifted slightly, "Then the young woman and I are very alike. Honestly, I too am self-taught, and it is through my own effort that I have reached my current level."
Those words, however, landed in Ji Qingcheng's ears and left her privately astonished.
She did not even believe the lie she had told about herself. Anyone who believed Li Musheng's version of the same story was simply a fool.
"Is there something else?"
Ji Qingcheng pushed aside the thoughts in her head and looked at Li Musheng, "If there is nothing else, I have things to attend to, and will take my leave."
As she said this, Ji Qingcheng had finally found herself a pretext, and immediately made to leave in a hurry.
After all, she could fairly be considered a remnant of Falling God Peak, and being in the company of Li Musheng, the very person responsible for Falling God Peak's destruction, gave her an inexplicable feeling of unease.