t
At the thought of this, Qianye laughed wryly and started walking toward Ji Tianqing.
Ji Tianqing’s eyes went wide. “What are you trying to do? Qianye, how can you be so disloyal? Are you really going to rob me of my clothes? I’ll scream if you come near me!”
Li Kuanglan sneered, “Go ahead! Let’s see who runs faster when those natives come.”
Li Kuanglan’s sword arts focused on speed to claim victory. This was a talent she was most proud of, and even Qianye might not be her match without Spatial Flash.
Between the three, Ji Tianqing was probably a bit weaker in terms of speed. But she wasn’t that easily provoked, either. She sized up Li Kuanglan with an evil expression, saying, “I have a lot of ways to make you run slower. I see you haven’t been doing well the past few days, want me to call a few natives over?”
Li Kuanglan recalled the way she was assaulted just now. Embarrassed and angry, she shouted, “Qianye, what are you waiting for!? Restrain this damn lass and I’ll let you see her real appearance.”
Qianye walked forward unwillingly at Li Kuanglan’s urging. “Tianqing, just give her a set of clothes if you have extra. I don’t want to do this.”
Ji Tianqing snorted. “You speak as if you can win.”
This problem wasn’t easy to reply to. “That might not be a certainty outside of the Great Maelstrom.” What he meant to say was that he would surely win here. This wasn’t meaningless boasting because, despite her power, Ji Tianqing mostly relied on secret arts. Her constitution was more or less the same as Li Kuanglan’s. Qianye, on the other hand, was like a fish in water due to his powerful body. His strength advantage was too great for her secret arts to make up for.
Qianye’s words woke Ji Tianqing up to this reality. Shrugging, she puffed her chest out, saying, “I don’t have extra clothes, you can search if you want.”
Now that made things difficult for Qianye. He naturally would need to search closely if he wanted to be thorough, but Ji Tianqing was a girl. There was no way he could do that! The recent skinship with Li Kuanglan was already enough trouble for him. He didn’t want to double the distress.
Li Kuanglan sneered, “What are you afraid of? Search every corner of her body. I want to see if she dares to let you.”
As expected, Ji Tianqing’s expression became unnatural.
Qianye wasn’t about to fall for this trick, however. “I really can’t.”
“Then press her down for me, I’ll do it!” Li Kuanglan folded her sleeves, making ready to do the dirty work.
Ji Tianqing slid forward, circling around Qianye and dodging Li Kuanglan’s demonic claws. “I really don’t have clothes! The one on my body is my spare set. My original clothes were destroyed in the passage. I don’t have a treasured armor as you do. How can ordinary clothes last in there?”
Li Kuanglan stopped after realizing that she was speaking the truth. “I really shouldn’t have come here.”
Ji Tianqing was surprised. She sighed moments later, saying, “It’s too late now that you’ve arrived here. Besides, who knew this world would be like this? Did we have a choice? Are you willing to resign to fate and marry someone you don’t like?”
Li Kuanglan said coldly, “Why must I marry? I had no intention of marrying since the moment I took up men’s clothing. Eh!?”
She hadn’t finished speaking when Ji Tianqing’s hands started assaulting her chest, causing her entire body to grow weak. Although nothing could be discerned on the surface, all three of them were experts who could see the situation from tiny clues. It wasn’t hard for everyone to see what had happened just by looking at her unnatural expression and movements.
Having lost much of her dignity, Li Kuanglan no longer dared to utter fierce words. All she did was stare angrily at Ji Tianqing.
The latter stuck out her tongue as she pulled back her hands. She then stood aside in an orderly fashion, almost as though nothing had happened just now.
Li Kuanglan knew she could do nothing against her. Without Cold Moon’s Embrace, she wasn’t Ji Tianqing’s match even if she were at her peak. Eighty percent of her power relied on her sword techniques, unlike Ji Tianqing who possessed numerous secret arts and could use any weapon in reach.
Li Kuanglan sighed. “No matter what, I won’t accept the family’s arrangement. Besides, what can a marriage even bring? Are our own values really that high?”
Ji Tianqing replied calmly, “Who says it’ll bring nothing? Our fate will never change unless a female Heavenly Monarch appears in the Empire. The higher our cultivation, the greater our value. Some major character is bound to be interested in us one day. Just like your sister, she ultimately had to enter the palace, no matter how proud of a character she was back then.”
Li Kuanglan remained silent because she knew Ji Tianqing spoke the truth. Women were still dependent on men to a certain degree; the only difference was how much. The stronger one was, the more independent they could afford to be—even that was only switching from one form of helplessness to the next.
Naturally, there were conflicts in every generation and dynasty, as well as people who succeeded and those who failed. For instance, Li Kuanglan’s male attire, Ji Tianqing’s constant disguise, and even Zhao Yuying’s unrestrained manners were a form of rebellion. Despite that, the greater picture had never changed.
Evernight, on the contrary, was much better in this regard. Only the female werewolves were relatively more vulnerable. The vampire and demonkin treated both genders equally, and the role of females was somewhat greater among ordinary arachne. Due to the presence of the Queen of the Night, the entire Evernight world treated women on the same level as men.
In the empire, however, ladies of noble birth had no way to change their fate. As Ji Tianqing said, the only way out was for a female heavenly monarch to appear. Without this achievement, women would always be inferior to men and equality would ultimately be limited to the surface.
It was just that talented geniuses like Li Kuanglan and Ji Tianqing weren’t willing to submit to fate.
After listening for a good while, Qianye couldn’t help but comment. “Just pick someone you like, how hard is that?”
To his surprise, both Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan turned around to glare at him. “Shut up, you!”
Bewildered, Qianye raised his hand in defeat. He sat down to the side and began cultivating with his eyes closed. Ji Tianqing dragged Li Kuanglan to the side. “What are you going to do about that?”
“What else can I do? Since Sister asked me to come here, I’m sure she has a way to solve the problem. No need to worry.”
“That might not be certain. It’s fine if that person isn’t adamant, but even your sister might not be able to stop him if he’s truly angry. In the end, she’ll have to give you up.”
“So what if he’s angry? Why must I be afraid? Besides, he’ll be the one losing face if he does that…”
“That wasn’t what you said back in the year, I remember you said…”
“Shut up!”
The two walked toward the far end, whispering like sisters who had known each other for many years. If it wasn’t for their history of fighting, both openly and in secret, one would think their relationship was just that good.
Qianye was finding it increasingly difficult to understand women. It was better to leave such things to professionals like Song Zining.
Night fell in the blink of an eye. Qianye concluded his training and stood up feeling completely different from before. Li Kuanglan said in astonishment, “Your injuries have healed so quickly?”
Qianye nodded. “It wasn’t serious.”
He had used Life Plunder while saving Ji Tianqing, killing over twenty natives in one go. However, the true purpose of this move wasn’t to kill. The large amounts of drained essence blood filled him up to the point of explosion, injuring him significantly. Qianye had vomited most of the extra blood in the forest, so his internal injuries healed quickly after cultivating for a while.
Qianye glanced at the sky and found that twilight was nigh. He thus lit up the campfire and started roasting some meat. His skill in grilling was much better than Li Kuanglan, so much so that Ji Tianqing couldn’t stop praising him. The real challenge arrived after dinner—it was nightfall.
Qianye was drowned in worry, but the other two kept on chatting as though nothing was out of the ordinary.
“Tianqing, how long have you been here?”
“Three days, including today.”
Li Kuanglan gave it some thought. “Mm, then we arrived at more or less the same time. How was it? Any danger?”
At this point, Ji Tianqing started gnashing her teeth. “That damned passage destroyed most of my clothes, and guess what, I dropped straight into a group of those bastards!”
Li Kuanglan was shocked. “Were you okay?”
Ji Tianqing rolled her eyes. “Of course! I stomped several of them to death just from the landing, and slapped the remainder to death. These bastards aren’t powerful at all, just a bit stronger and more durable. But they’re really disgusting!”
It would seem she was quite lucky to have a group of natives break her high-gravity fall. That was why she was relatively unharmed, unlike Li Kuanglan who had fallen straight to the ground. She would’ve turned into a skeleton by now if it wasn’t for Qianye.
“Then how did you pass the three days?” Li Kuanglan arrived at the critical topic.
Ji Tianqing blushed slightly. “This accursed place is really strange, none of our predecessors have mentioned it at all. It’s alright in the daytime since I can suppress my urges with the Iceheart Prison Secret Art, but the nights have been extremely difficult.”
“How did you get through the night?”
Ji Tianqing produced three white fruits, saying, “I rely on them. Eating them will speed up the circulation and activate one’s vitality. That and channeling my arts were barely enough to get me through the night.”
It was that simple? Li Kuanglan and Qianye glanced at one another, and then at the unassuming white fruit. They were overcome by an inexplicable feeling for a while.
Qianye felt great regret. Li Kuanglan’s eyes were shifting about, and no one knew what she was thinking.
Ji Tianqing was quite generous. She gave the other two fruits to Qianye and Li Kuanglan, saying, “Eat it now. It’ll take a while for the effects to kick in.”
Qianye placed the white fruit in his mouth and felt a sour, fishy taste wash over his palate. It definitely wasn’t tasty. The fruit would turn into liquid with each bite—there were no stones, and neither did they leave any residue. After eating the fruit, Qianye couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had tasted this somewhere but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
After everyone had finished their fruit, Li Kuanglan asked, “Is this fruit common? Let’s go pick more of them tomorrow.”
Ji Tianqing said expressionlessly, “These things are the four-armed natives’ holy fruit. I’ve robbed them clean already, and we just ate the last three.”
