"Jianjian, have you arrived in Jingdu? Are you alright? What's the situation in Jingdu?"
Du Yanran's leisurely voice came over the phone.
Standing by the window on the second floor, Jianjian looked out at the small garden downstairs where a gardener was pruning branches and leaves, and answered Du Yanran half-heartedly.
"Mm, I landed safely at noon and just saw my father. He's a very good man and didn't abandon me or my mother. Theirs was a political marriage, and later my mother was the one who asked for a divorce, so there's no such thing as me being kicked out like a pitiful cabbage."
Jianjian had said these exact same words in her previous life, without a single character changed. The only difference was that in her past life, Zhao Mufeng had told these things to Jianjian, whereas in this life, Jianjian was telling them to Zhao Mufeng, cutting him off from giving his splendid performance.
"That's good, I was worried about you!"
Du Yanran on the other end breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed everything was just like her past life; the only difference was that she had snatched Jianjian's Immortal Fate. Confident that things were not out of her control, she brushed Jianjian off with a few perfunctory words and hung up the phone.
Du Yanran reached out to touch the white magnolia flower pendant hanging around her neck. This was what she had snatched from Jianjian. As soon as she got home, she had bound it to her, and sure enough, the set of jewelry merged into an exquisite and delicate white magnolia flower pendant, which was a top-grade defensive Treasure Artifact.
The Treasure Artifact contained a Space, inside of which was an acre of spirit land growing various spirit herbs and spirit plants, and right beside the field was a small pool of spring water.
She had already tasted the spring water; it was clear, sweet, and refreshing, with the effect of cleansing away deep-seated ailments, and drinking it over the long term could wash the marrow and cleanse the bones.
She knew she had bet on the right horse, and her guess had been verified—Jianjian's Immortal Fate lay in this pendant. In her past life, that magnolia earring of hers had only been a storage space, but it possessed an invisibility function that had saved her life several times at critical moments.
This time, it was an entire set of jewelry merged together, finally complete with defensive functions, the ability to farm, and the capacity to hide people. Let's see how she would soar to the clouds now.
Du Yanran was extremely smug, forgetting that her Immortal Fate was something given to her by someone else, and what she owed others would eventually have to be repaid.
In her past life, even after ascending to the upper realm, she had still been struck down with a single wave of a sleeve by an exceptionally refined man, causing her physical body to collapse. It was only by using the white magnolia earring to preserve a sliver of her soul that she had managed to escape back to the lower realm, after which she had sunk into darkness to hibernate and repair her divine soul. Upon waking up, she discovered she had returned to the time before she began her Cultivation.
This time, she would definitely make her Immortality Cultivation path even smoother, so she struck first to gain the upper hand and seized Jianjian's immortal opportunity.
Clutching the magnolia pendant in her hand, Du Yanran's eyes flashed with ambitious light.
First, she would drink the Spirit Spring water to cleanse the eighteen years of deep-seated ailments in this body, and then she would proceed to Qi Condensation. Having planned everything out, and after confirming that Jianjian in Jingdu had not deviated from the trajectory of her past life, Du Yanran set her mind at ease and began to immerse herself in Cultivation.
After all, time waits for no one, and the spiritual energy in the secular world was virtually nonexistent. She would need to adjust her body first and then spend more time on Qi Condensation.
Meanwhile, Jianjian attended the family dinner at the Zhao Family Villa, where only five people were present.
Zhao Mufeng and his second wife, Qian Yi, along with their two children. Zhao Mufeng sat at the head of the table, with Qian Yi and the two children on his left, and Jianjian on his right.
"Jianjian, this is your Aunt Qian Yi—you can just call her Aunt Qian. This is your younger brother Zhao Zihan and your younger sister Zhao Ziyu."
He turned his head to address the third person across the table:
"This is Jianjian. She had been living with my ex-wife all this time, and shortly after Jian Rou passed away from illness, I brought your older sister back home.
After all, she is of our Zhao family's flesh and blood. Back then, Jian Rou was in poor health, and having the child with her served as some kind of emotional sustenance, so she and I rarely saw each other over all these years.
Now that Jianjian is back, we can be considered a reunited family, and you all must get along well in the future."
With that, he let out a sentimental sigh and looked toward Jianjian.
How could Jianjian not know this was a prompt for her to make her stance clear? Without putting on airs, her calm voice rang out:
"Hello, Aunt Qian. Hello, Zihan, Ziyu. It's very nice to meet you."
The three people opposite her reacted in different ways. As the mistress of the house, Qian Yi wore a well-fitting black cheongsam embroidered with red peonies that fully revealed her wonderful figure; it was hard to imagine she was the mother of two children.
Qian Yi's appearance was naturally outstanding—willow-leaf eyebrows, phoenix eyes, a delicate nose paired with rosy lips—giving her a unique, mature charm. Her voice was also very gentle, albeit somewhat deliberate.
"Now that Jianjian is back, of course we welcome her. If you need anything in the future, just tell Aunt Qian. Your father is a rough-hewn man who doesn't understand a young girl's innermost thoughts; if you have any secrets, you can talk to Ziyu. Ziyu even complained to me that she didn't have a close older sister!"
She covered her mouth with a smile, indicating that she warmly welcomed Jianjian's arrival.
"Welcome home!"
Zhao Zihan's voice was very cold. This was the person who had been spying on her from the window at noon—her so-called younger brother.
A white shirt and beige casual trousers, dressed primarily for comfort. In fact, after sitting down, Jianjian had swept her divine sense over them and discovered that both her so-called younger brother and younger sister had bone ages older than hers.
Zhao Zihan's bone age was already twenty, while Zhao Ziyu was the exact same age as her. It seemed there was more than one thing she had been deceived about in her past life.