Chapter 227: Playacting

Ding Songyan slowly turned his head. A face hovered half-seen in the deep darkness, equally enchanting in a smile or a frown, beautiful enough to steal his soul.

At some point, Ji Hanyi had slipped beneath his quilt. They were less than two fist-widths apart. He could hear her breathing and feel her warmth.

I didn’t notice her again... Is a newly advanced Heaven-Man really so much stronger than a perfected Dharma Realm Grandmaster? Or can only a Supreme Master cultivating a Chaos art manage this? Perhaps Little Sister Qingyan has derived some extraordinary technique? Ding Songyan felt as though he could barely breathe.

He suddenly sighed and spoke with elder-brotherly gravity.

"Little Sister, you’re of age now. You can’t just lie in bed with a man. Not even with me, your second brother."

With that as his excuse, Ding Songyan threw back the quilt, rose from the bed without haste, and put on his clothes.

Ji Hanyi simply watched him from where she lay on her side, amusement in her beautiful eyes. She made no move to stop him.

Only when he had dressed did she sit up, clutching the quilt and wrapping it tightly around herself. All that remained visible was her lovely face, framed by loose black hair. She looked delicate and faintly aggrieved, almost vulnerable.

Heat swept through Ding Songyan. He lifted his chin and looked away rather than meet her gaze.

This demoness—no, my sister—is far too good at this, isn’t she?

Has she started cultivating Beguiles the World as well?

Before Ji Hanyi could speak, Ding Songyan took the initiative.

"Little Sister, there’s something I want to ask you."

Something quite remarkable? I didn’t hear a word of that!

If a question was hard to answer, don’t answer it unless they forced the issue.

The ancients showed the way: look around and change the subject!

Ji Hanyi sat hugging the quilt, making her face look smaller than ever.

Her eyes sparkled with amusement. ℴℴ𝘮

"It’s rare for you to ask me for advice, Second Brother. Go on."

Ding Songyan told her about Master Wei, Fu Yangquan, and the Demon Seed Two-Faced. At the end, he asked, "Little Sister, was this your doing?"

Ji Hanyi shook her head lightly.

"No."

Then a mischievous smile touched her lips.

"I only learned about the Demon Seed because you mentioned it just now, Second Brother.

"So Tan Guanchan had another trick up his sleeve.

"Thank you for telling me, Second Brother~"

She drew out the final syllable, sounding coy and playful.

Huh? Ding Songyan froze.

So Little Sister didn’t know about the Demon Seed after all...

She was so intimidating before that I imagined she knew everything.

I gave away important intelligence without getting a thing in return...

Never mind. We’re family, devoted brother and sister. No need to keep score.

"It wasn’t your doing? Then who’s trying to trip up the Demon Sovereign... Jiang Weichen?" Resisting the pull of her beauty, Ding Songyan met Ji Hanyi’s eyes and watched for her reaction to the name.

Ji Hanyi’s beautiful eyes shifted slightly, a smile still on her lips.

"Who is Jiang Weichen?"

Is she acting, or is that genuine? I can’t tell. Her expression looks natural... If she truly doesn’t know him, does that mean Jiang Weichen wasn’t the one who helped her leave Dingjiang Prefecture through the underworld? Even if she hadn’t known him at the time, she’d have tried her hardest to find out afterward... Ding Songyan could not see through Ji Hanyi. He wanted to derive Mirror Lake Divine Reflection and listen to her thoughts, but it could not penetrate the dark Chaos sealing her sea of consciousness. He would hear only what his dear little sister wanted him to hear.

After a moment’s thought, he said, "Before nether-lightning destroyed Master Yan’s soul, he mentioned the surname Jiang. He was silenced before he could finish.

"I asked around afterward. In nearly a thousand years, the only person named Jiang who accomplished great things and might still be alive is Jiang Weichen, active at the end of the Wei dynasty and the beginning of the Zhao dynasty. I suspect he may be connected to the Celestial Thearch’s palace and everything surrounding it. That’s why I asked."

"Jiang Weichen..." Ji Hanyi repeated the name.

She suddenly smiled, and even the deep night seemed a little brighter.

"Second Brother, you always manage to surprise me. So there was someone like him."

You really didn’t know? Am I the one trying to draw information out of you, or have you coaxed something important out of me without my noticing...? Ding Songyan’s head ached in exasperation. Giving up on caution, he said, "I thought Jiang Weichen was the one who helped you leave Dingjiang Prefecture through the underworld."

"It wasn’t him." Ji Hanyi shook her head with a smile.

She didn’t deny using the underworld to leave Dingjiang Prefecture... Ding Songyan followed up thoughtfully.

"Then who was it?"

"It was..." Ji Hanyi broke off and smiled. "When I’m satisfied with how you handle what comes next, Second Brother, I’ll tell you."

"All right." Ding Songyan took it in stride, at least outwardly.

He had little choice.

Besides, he had always known when to press a point, when to be shameless, and when to leave well enough alone.

He took the opportunity to ask, "Little Sister, didn’t the Brightnight Grand Method fall into the Accumulated Evil Way’s hands? When I questioned Sun Feiyang’s ghost in the underworld, he knew nothing about it, though his cultivation notes recorded numerous weaknesses in the Celestial Stars Scripture and the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra."

Still hugging the quilt, Ji Hanyi answered with a faint smile, "The Accumulated Evil Way has the Brightnight Grand Method, but apart from Tan Guanchan, who studies such things, Sun Feiyang and the others never thought to look at it. As far as they’re concerned, no one in the jianghu still cultivates that art. They won’t encounter it while they’re out doing evil, so why waste their time?

"Oh, if I remember correctly, several cultivation-teaching Elders of the Brightnight Sect escaped the hunt and hid in the Gan, Yu, and Feng kingdoms, each leaving behind a lineage. More than two centuries have passed. Some of those lineages are gone; others survive."

At that, Ji Hanyi lifted her chin with a girlish air.

"I won’t give you any leads to take back and use to win favor with your Senior Sister Zheng."

"I mainly derive the Celestial Stars Scripture and the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra. If I could learn the Brightnight Grand Method too, I’d become stronger still," Ding Songyan protested.

Ji Hanyi gave him a sidelong look.

"See? You still haven’t denied wanting to please your Senior Sister Zheng."

Only our second face-to-face talk, and she’s already learned my tricks? Isn’t that a little fast... As expected of the Sage-Severing Way’s leader. A pity I’ve changed my ways. If I still had fewer scruples, some things wouldn’t be so hard to say... For a moment, Ding Songyan did not know how to answer Little Sister Qingyan.

Ji Hanyi studied him for a moment, then said with a smile, "You have more schemes than I expected, Second Brother. When you killed Sun Feiyang, did you deliberately let the servants see only the Golden Boy mask, so they couldn’t tell whether you were a man or a woman? Were you waiting for me to kill someone in the Jade Maiden mask so you could put all the suspicion on me? And did you attack Hu Chaohui of the Sea-Treading Gang tonight as a man wearing the Jade Maiden mask to hint at a connection between the two attacks for the Martial Prohibition Bureau?"

"That was a coincidence," Ding Songyan said honestly. "I let the servants see only the mask because I didn’t want them to see what I was wearing. Someone with a perfect memory up in a watchtower might have recalled a person in similar clothes passing by earlier. I wasn’t trying to suggest a woman wore the Golden Boy mask. It never occurred to me then that you’d complete the Golden Boy and Jade Maiden pair."

"You never expected me to complete the pair?" Ji Hanyi looked as though she had just come to a realization. "Then you were in such a hurry to produce a male Jade Maiden today because you wanted to muddy the waters."

The ethereal beauty’s lips curved into a smile.

"Afraid your Senior Sister Zheng will get the wrong idea?"

Damn it, so that was the trap she had waiting for me? Ding Songyan went numb.

If he had known, he would simply have admitted he was scheming to set his little sister up.

Ding Songyan decided to loosen his scruples a little. He gave a laugh.

"I visit the Cheap Wine Shop every day without worrying that Senior Sister will misunderstand my relationship with Twelfth Madam Luo. Why would I fret over some baseless Golden Boy and Jade Maiden rumor?"

"True. You’re almost treating the wine shop as your own home." Ji Hanyi nodded, then teased with a smile, "I didn’t know you liked women who were mature and alluring, with a fiery streak."

She gave a sudden laugh.

"No, that’s not right. You like your Senior Sister Zheng too. And you like Su Qingli, who’s younger, livelier, and more carefree."

"I’m simply a lecher." Ding Songyan promptly smeared his own reputation.

"Yet I’ve never seen you visit a brothel." Ji Hanyi tilted her head slightly and looked into his eyes, her own bright and clear.

You really do know a great deal... Ding Songyan regularly used the Candle-Star Pupils to scan his surroundings for Two-Faced and people carrying a Celestial Heart imprint or moth seed. He also checked who was coming and going near the Cheap Wine Shop before every visit. But he knew that might not be enough to keep Little Sister Qingyan from watching him.

With a Celestial Heart imprint and a moth seed, even a passing dog could be made into a moth-man.

Ding Songyan answered his sister with perfect composure, "After seeing someone like you, Little Sister, ranked among the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu, ordinary women can no longer catch my eye."

Ji Hanyi smiled.

"You do know how to flatter me, Second Brother."

She slipped a slender, fair hand out from the quilt she held so tightly and patted the bed.

"Sit here. Come on."

Ding Songyan walked over slowly, smiling as he said, "It’s late. Shall I tell you a story to help you settle down for the night, Little Sister?"

"So you do remember." Ji Hanyi beamed, her voice light. "Go on, then."

Ding Songyan fetched his unfinished manuscript and sat on the edge of the bed. He began the tale of Cao E, the sentient jade who journeyed west in search of the vanished Kunlun.

Ji Hanyi rested her chin on her quilt-covered knees and listened, her expression gentle and intent.

When Ding Songyan finished one installment, she wheedled him into telling a second, then a third.

Each time, Ding Songyan refused at first. After Little Sister Qingyan pleaded a few times, he picked up the pages again with a show of reluctance.

Before they knew it, the fourth watch was more than half over, and the watchman’s gong sounded nearer and nearer.

"It’s very late. Time to sleep," Ding Songyan said in his best elder-brotherly tone.

"All right." Ji Hanyi agreed with an aggrieved air.

Then the peerlessly beautiful woman straightened her back and looked at Ding Songyan with clear eyes and an air of innocent curiosity.

"Second Brother, who will the sentient jade choose in the end: the tree yao Xiaoqian, the scarlet grass of Jade Pool, or Princess Iron Fan?"

Ding Songyan went rigid.

He glanced at his sister’s face and saw a half-smile playing at the lips of the Unsullied Azure Lotus.