Yun Qingyue found a secluded, deserted corner inside the inn. Caring little that it was almost dawn and what consequences might follow if she were discovered, she directly put on her flying wings and opened the map to fly toward Yunyin Mountain, having asked for directions earlier.
Flying along, she prayed that Dan Gudao had not yet made his move, that Qi Mushan could still be saved, and that there was still time to leave a glimmer of hope in this world for Li Xiangyi!
As expected of a product of the interstellar age, it took her only three hours to reach the waist of Yunyin Mountain. Spotting the two small red dots on her map, she quickly made her way toward them.
The moment she got close, she heard a hysterical voice shouting, "You old bastard, you've always been biased! You taught Li Xiangyi all the good stuff while giving me nothing but cold faces and beatings. But so what? In the end, the two of you, master and disciple, are still going to die by my hands. Hahahahaha, you are all blind fools! You refuse to suck up to someone with noble blood like me, and instead favor a beggar like Li Xiangyi. It serves you right that you're all going to die horribly!"
"Shut up, you unfilial disciple who betrays his master and ancestors! You are utterly unworthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Xiangyi!" An angry yet feeble male voice interrupted the ugly, ear-piercing clamor.
However, a moment later, that grating voice rang out again: "Old man, you're at death's door and you still dare to go against me? Go to hell!!!"
Bang! Clatter! "Aah, who's there?" In the nick of time, Yun Qingyue pulled out a robot, activated its combat mode, and inputted the command to protect Qi Mushan.
Thus, with a single gunshot, the robot punched straight through one of Dan Gudao's lungs and shattered several of his ribs. Watching Dan Gudao collapse to the ground and cough up blood endlessly, Yun Qingyue fired another shot into his body before going to check on Qi Mushan's condition.
Fortunately, everything was still in time. She first poured a bottle of recovery potion down the throat of the unconscious Qi Mushan, then set to work stopping his bleeding and bandaging his wounds.
After finishing the treatment and laying him down properly, she was just about to order the robot to kill Dan Gudao when two figures in black suddenly rushed in, hoisted Dan Gudao up, grabbed him, and fled.
Yun Qingyue thought about it and decided to let it go—she wouldn't pursue them. When master and disciple were reunited, they could figure out that man's fate themselves; after all, she was just an outsider!
But what should she do now? She couldn't possibly just leave Li Xiangyi's master sleeping here on the ground, could she? She didn't even know where he lived! And where was Mother Cen? *Ugh, this is so annoying, what should I do?!*
Just as Yun Qingyue was fretting, a slightly weathered female voice suddenly came from outside: "What's wrong with the old man? Why has such a nice place become like this?"
Yun Qingyue's eyes lit up. "Hello, Senior!"
Mother Cen: "Who's inside? Come out, or this old woman will use force!"
Yun Qingyue: "Senior, Senior Qi is injured, please come in!"
Mother Cen: "What?! How can this be? Wasn't he in seclusion? How did he get so heavily injured? Was it you?!" With that, she cast a sharp, piercing glare in her direction.
Seeing that Mother Cen hadn't even finished speaking before raising her hands to gather her inner force, Yun Qingyue waved her hands frantically in terror. "No, no, no, I didn't do it! When I got here, a man in black was arguing with Senior. Then he ran away, it really wasn't me! Oh, right, I even treated Senior's injuries, have a look!"
"Old woman, don't get worked up. I'm fine, this little girl saved me." At that moment, Qi Mushan's weak voice came from behind Yun Qingyue.
While casting a wary glance at Yun Qingyue, Mother Cen walked over to check Qi Mushan's injuries. After taking his pulse and letting out a slight breath of relief, she said to Yun Qingyue, "Thank you, young lady, for stepping in to save my old man. Please forgive me for any offense just now! May I ask who you are, and why you are here?"
Yun Qingyue: "I... my name is Yun Qingyue... I heard something happened at the East Sea, but no one could find Sect Master Li. I thought I'd try my luck here, and... and I never expected something like this to happen. I gave Senior some medicine, so he should be fine."
Mother Cen pulled Yun Qingyue's hand over, taking her pulse with practiced subtlety while saying kindly, "Miss Yun, thank you so much. If you hadn't arrived in time and saved this old fool at the critical moment, the two of us would probably have been separated by life and death... Look, it's getting dark soon. Why don't you stay here for the night and have a meal? Let us husband and wife express our gratitude!"
Yun Qingyue opened her mouth to speak, but Mother Cen cut her off. "Oh, don't you decline. I can see you don't look like someone who knows martial arts, and it's not safe to walk mountain paths after dark. Tomorrow morning, I'll personally escort you down the mountain, that way we can rest assured. How does that sound?"
As they spoke, the two of them helped Qi Mushan up and walked toward the rooms.
What could Yun Qingyue say? The old woman had covered all her bases out of consideration for her safety, and they weren't bad people. Declining further would be improper, and most importantly, she hadn't actually watched the entire TV series.
Yun Qingyue had only caught snippets of it on other people's phones while she was at school or hospitalized, knowing roughly the general plot, the major props, and the names of the main characters just by listening and watching.
So, now she had to stay to find out more about things she didn't know!
Together with Mother Cen, Yun Qingyue helped Qi Mushan to Mother Cen's room to let him sleep, then followed Mother Cen to the doorway of the room where Dan Gudao used to live.
Opening the door, Mother Cen said, "This was the room where my eldest disciple used to live. But don't worry, he hasn't been back here for a long time, or I wouldn't have brought you here. I've replaced all the bedding with new ones, and the room is all tidied up. It's just that I have plenty of rooms around here, so I hope you won't mind and will forgive any shortcomings."
Yun Qingyue waved her hands hurriedly. "Not at all, how could I mind? People of the jianghu aren't that particular, having a place to stay is already great. Well then, Senior, I'll go get some rest first. I've been traveling for a long time and I'm exhausted. See you later, Senior."
With that, she waved at Mother Cen and closed the door with a smile.
Turning around, Yun Qingyue hurried over to the bed. Sitting down, she began calling out to the system in her mind: "System, System, are you there? Tongzi? 2573? Are you not here?" It seemed the system was experiencing issues.
Hopefully, the system would recover a bit later so she could do a lot of things without being monitored. She could also take the opportunity to blackmail it for another payout; this time, she absolutely couldn't let herself be hoodwinked again!
She needed to take some time to think carefully about what kind of compensation to ask for. After all, it was because of the system's malfunction that she had ended up a "victim" and suffered so terribly.
Naturally, she required generous compensation; otherwise, if she got too scared and failed to complete her missions later, that wouldn't be good, right? Hehe!
Never mind, she wouldn't think about it for now—she needed a good rest first. The past two days had been far too thrilling, and her body was about to give out. She'd deal with everything else after sleeping!
Meanwhile, in Mother Cen's room, the old couple was still discussing Yun Qingyue. Mother Cen asked, "Old man, what on earth is going on here? Weren't you in seclusion? Weren't the mechanisms activated? How did such a huge disaster happen? And why did this Yun girl come to Yunyin Mountain looking for Xiangyi when she said something happened at the East Sea?"
Qi Mushan stammered for a long time without making any sense of it. In a fit of anger, Mother Cen slapped the table, pointed at Qi Mushan, and rebuked, "You'd better tell me everything from start to finish, and if you dare hide even a single word, I'll deal with you!"
Startled out of his wits, Qi Mushan finally forced himself to gather his energy and told Mother Cen everything in detail. At the end, he said, "I only knew Dan Gudao liked to play clever and was a bit narrow-minded. I never expected him to be so adept at disguise and so utterly vicious. He actually committed parricide and patricide, murdered Xiangyi, and even tried to usurp Xiangyi's identity. It's simply treasonous and maliciously cruel! Are those people from Nanyin blind as well?!"
Mother Cen trembled all over with rage. "Back then, I said we shouldn't care about him, but you insisted the child was still young and would learn if we taught him. He was born a bad seed, how could he ever be taught well? Now look at this! Because of him, my Xiangyi's whereabouts are unknown, his life or death is a mystery, and your inner force is completely drained, leaving you this weak. Those Nanyin people are just using so-called restoration as an excuse; finding a master is nothing more than a front. Have you forgotten why Xiangyi's entire family was wiped out in the first place?"
"I, I... *sigh*—it's all predestined misfortune!" Qi Mushan let out a long sigh and changed the subject. "What do you make of this Yun girl's background? With injuries as severe as mine, she had me recovering so well in no time at all. She clearly doesn't know martial arts, yet she used some unknown weapon to heavily injure that wicked disciple. Spirit medicines I've never heard of and weapons I've never seen, all on a little girl who knows no martial arts. And she suddenly appeared right outside the house—truly bizarre!"
After listening, Mother Cen thought for a moment and sighed as well, "Each generation of talents surpasses the last; perhaps we've just been living in seclusion for too long. Anyway, this girl doesn't have an ounce of malice as far as I can tell, and she even saved you. Everything she said pointed to her coming here to find Xiangyi, so she shouldn't be an enemy or a bad person. Tomorrow I'll send her down the mountain and ask around more on the way. Alright, go to sleep now, let's not dwell on this. I'm going to reset the mechanisms and traps just in case. Then I need to make dinner; that girl is going to be starved when she wakes up! Go to sleep, I'm heading out."
"What's that smell? So fragrant! Wow, it's already dark?" Awakened by the aroma, Yun Qingyue sat up in a daze, startled by the dark sky outside.
Had she slept for this long? She quickly got out of bed, put on her shoes, and hurried out the door. Following the scent, she easily located the kitchen and said apologetically to Mother Cen, "I'm so sorry, Senior, I woke up too late and didn't manage to help out."
Mother Cen replied, "What's there to apologize for? Sleep when you're tired, eat when you wake up—there aren't that many rules here. Besides, you're this tired because of my old man, how could I blame you? I should be thanking you instead. There's water over there, go wash up, we're eating right away."
Following the direction of Mother Cen's finger, Yun Qingyue went over to freshen up briefly, then came back to help carry the dishes.
To be honest, she really was starving. The last time she had eaten was early in the morning before dawn, when she hastily swallowed a few baozis before hitting the road.
Having stayed hungry all the way until now, and even having gotten into a fight midway—for the sake of keeping Li Xiangyi alive, Yun Qingyue had truly contributed a lot. She had gone a whole day without food!
After dinner, she said goodbye to the elderly couple and returned to her room. She remembered someone saying that there were clues hidden in this room, and she needed to search carefully just in case she ever needed evidence to confront someone in the future.
Besides, if she wanted Li Lianhua to live a good life, she had to dig up all these pieces of evidence; otherwise, that old fox definitely wouldn't believe her!
Packing away the things she had found and tidying up the room a bit, Yun Qingyue lay down on the bed. She had thought she wouldn't be able to fall asleep, but before she knew it, she drifted off again.
Waking up naturally, she saw that it was still dark outside and listened carefully; there was no sound from Mother Cen's side either. She remembered the video mentioning that Mother Cen and Qi Mushan lived in separate quarters, and she wanted to go check out the other place to see if there was anything else.
So, she quietly opened the window, slipped out into the courtyard, put on her flying wings, and went searching for the other dwelling.
...
Having sneaked back in through the window and crawled into bed, Yun Qingyue began pondering where to go after heading down the mountain. Where was the plot at right now? At this point, Li Xiangyi should already have been saved by that Monk, right?
Should she go to Pudu Temple, or head straight back to the East Sea to search around? Since she had transmigrated into a TV show, staying by the protagonist's side was obviously the best choice.
But what excuse could she use to make them let her stay? Or she could simply trick Li Xiangyi into coming back to Yunyin Mountain. His master hadn't died this time, and he wouldn't need to find a place to observe mourning and torment himself anymore!
She wasn't sure if she was allowed to spoil the plot, but she could just figure out a way to cure Li Xiangyi's poison first. Then she'd resolve all those messy people and affairs, and after that, he could do whatever the hell he wanted.
That would count as resolving a lingering regret, right? Back then, those classmates, the nurse sister, and the patients at the hospital had been crying and cursing—the impression it left was truly profound!
Consider it fulfilling their wish; after all, doing missions was the same no matter where you were!
After the three of them finished breakfast, Mother Cen said to Yun Qingyue, "It's inconvenient for you to travel alone in women's clothing. I found some of Xiangyi's old clothes, and they look like they'll fit you just right. Go change into them; I'll help you tidy up. Having fewer troubles is always better."
Ah, right! Yun Qingyue mentally scolded herself for not thinking of this. This was the ancient world, a martial arts world at that—she needed to protect herself. "Thank you for the reminder, Senior, otherwise I wouldn't have thought of this at all. I'll go change right now."
When Yun Qingyue came out after changing, Mother Cen restyled her hair into a high ponytail and placed the hair crown that Li Xiangyi had left behind on her head.
Once she was all tidied up, Mother Cen led Yun Qingyue slowly down the mountain toward the small town at the foot of Yunyin Mountain. Mother Cen booked a room for her, and the two of them went shopping together.
Mother Cen needed to stock up on supplies for the mountain, while Yun Qingyue pretended to prepare items she would need for her upcoming journey!
After seeing Mother Cen off, Yun Qingyue returned to her inn room, bolted the door from the inside, and began transferring supplies from her System Backpack into her Pendant Space.
After transferring two-thirds of all the items inside the System Backpack, her mood finally improved a little bit.
As expected, no woman could resist the joy of buying things and bringing them home. After all, the Pendant Space truly belonged to her alone, and calling it her own home was pretty accurate—yep, nothing wrong with that!