Chapter 4 (1/2)
4 – Transmigration, Meeting 21 (IV)
“Little Qi!” After leaving Xue Qilin's room, Qi Qiqi went to the main hall. On the way to the main hall, however, someone called her.
“Huh?” Qi Qiqi stopped in her steps and looked in the direction the voice came from.
The person who called out to her stepped out from the shadow of a tree. It was an approximately 20-year-old woman with long fiery-red hair combed into a ponytail and a stern expression on her face that made her look very refined dressed in clothing imbued with ashes. It was the Elder of the Sword-casting Chamber Li Wanting.
“Big Sister Ting!” Qi Qiqi seemed a little happy.
In public, Qi Qiqi and Li Wanting addressed each other according to their statuses, but in private, they addressed each other by nicknames, implying that they had a good relations.h.i.+p.
“So…” Li Wanting looked at the tall building not far away – the Snow-facing Abode, and asked: “Have you settled down the Young Ancestor?”
The Snow-facing Abode was the place where the sect masters and ancestors dwelt for generations. Despite that fact, it didn't occupy a large area, nor was it luxurious. It had a unique garden villa flair.
“Well, uh… I did.” The expression in Qi Qiqi's eyes was a little uneasy, which apparently didn't escaped Li Wanting.
“Hmm? Little Qi, you didn't do anything rude to the Young Ancestor, right?”
“How, how could that be!?” Her reaction was emotional, with shame turning into anger. Well, she was hiding her guilty conscience. Her guilty conscience wasn't without reason. After all, she had beaten up the Young Ancestor. Besides…
This apparently was seen through by Li Wanting, and her gaze turned sharp in an instant: “Did you do something to her?”
“No, I didn't! I just punched her once, that's all.” Feeling uncomfortable being stared at, Qi Qiqi averted her gaze at once and unconsciously kneaded her clothing.
Li Wanting sighed, facepalmed herself, and shook her head: “I knew it… The Young Ancestor seems to be unhinged, so how could you bear with it…”
After reaching this point, Li Wanting knocked Qi Qiqi on the head, and then scolded her: “But she's our ancestor, a senior of our sect! How could you have hit her? Your impulsive temper will be your undoing one day!”
“I, I know!” Tears gleaming in her eyes, Qi Qiqi touched the place where she had been knocked on the head and answered in a low voice.
“That's good.” Only then did Li Wanting smiled and stroke Qi Qiqi's hair.
“Stop it!” Qi Qiqi pushed Li Wanting's had aside, annoyed: “You made a mess out of my hair!”
Li Wanting curled her lips and said in a weird tone of voice: “How cold!”
As if she suddenly recalled something, Li Wanting asked non-bona fide: “Anyhow, whom are you going to ask to clean up your mess?”
Qi Qiqi gave her counterpart a look of annoyance, and then answered casually: “Senior Apprentice Sister Luo.”
“Hey, you‘re dumping your mess onto Luo Qing again?”
“What else can I do? Senior Apprentice Sister Luo's gentle and easy-going personality is suitable for dealing with that scoundrel!” At this point, Qi Qiqi waved her fist fiercely, but then she remembered what Xue Qilin said about her fist, and she stopped mid action.
“Hhha, you just called our Young Ancestor a scoundrel. If that old fellow Liu Chengzong heard this, you'd get lectured.”
“Rest a.s.sured, I know how to behave when in front of Elder Liu.”
“Then what about today?”
Qi Qiqi, who seemed quite confident, smiled stiffly due to Li Wanting's remark: “It's all because of that scoundrel!”
When she thought about how Xue Qilin made her scream in front of everyone else, Qi Qiqi gnashed her pearl-white teeth.
“However, the Young Ancestor's temperament seems to be rather good, seeing as you came unscathed after punching her.”
That's not how it played out… Qi Qiqi's expression turned odd in an instant.
“Hey, what's wrong? Isn't that what happened?”
“I don't know, as I punched her lights out…”
“You didn't, did you?”
Qi Qiqi nodded embarra.s.sedly.
With an expression that said “I'm feeling dizzy” on her face, Li Wanting uttered sarcastically: “Way to go! And now you want to actually toss this hot potato to Luo Qing, and then make your getaway.”
“I couldn't help it. I don't know why, but after exchanging a few words with the Young Ancestor, I had an unbearable urge to hit her!” Qi Qiqi responded almost in self-resignation.
“Anyway, you must apologize when the Young Ancestor wakes up!”
“I know!” Qi Qiqi knew that she was in the wrong. No matter what, she was the one to get physical first, not to mention that the person that she hit was her senior.
“Anyway, was she really knocked out cold? Did you punch her with all your strength?”
How could I have used all my strength? Qi Qiqi wanted to answer this way, but when she saw the sharp look in the other party's eyes, she gave up on the idea: “What you mean to say is that with the cultivation base of the Young Ancestor, she shouldn't have been knocked out with a punch of mine that wasn't even at full strength?”
“Yes, you got it right! She is a contemporary of the Great Ancestor, and no one in the sect knows of her existence, so she should be over 100 years old, right? How can a person who can live to be 100 years old have a low cultivation base? No one would believe that, right?”
Qi Qiqi wasn't surprised at how clearly and logically Li Wanting laid things out.
Although Li Wanting didn't do her name [1] justice, having an offhand disposition, but once you got along with her, you would realize that that was only the surface layer. In fact, she was the type of person who was crude in most matters, but subtle in some.
“Besides, didn't the Great Ancestor say that she could lend us a helping hand in a critical moment? As such, her cultivation base cannot be low. She should be at least at the Heaven Realm. But it's strange that a Heaven Realm master would be knocked out by a punch from someone who entered the Earth Realm not too long ago. The gap between realms is so big that it's unthinkable.”
The more Qi Qiqi listened, the deeper her frown became.
“I don't think it's really necessary for the Young Ancestor to hide her strength, nor take your punch.”
Qi Qiqi squinted her eyes slightly and asked tentatively: “Are you doubting her ident.i.ty?”
“There's nothing to doubt about her ident.i.ty. After all, she is in possession of the Great Ancestor's jade pendant, and she did emerge from the Sword Mound! It's not so easy to accomplish both things at the same time!”
Indeed, although she may get the jade pendant by accident, but the Mound Sword Array guarding the Sword Mound wasn't a joke. Only experts at the Grandmaster Realm can break through it unscathed.
“So, you're skeptical about her strength?”
“Not skeptical, just baffled, that's all! It's very important to know how strong she is. If we misjudge her strength, then fatal mistakes may be made during decision-making.”
In the Martial World, success or failure depended not only on whose fist was bigger, but also on whose strategy was more proper.
If you know yourself and know your enemy, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
Decision-making was to examine yourself and others, and then make the most appropriate choice. As such, it was very important to examine your strength. If you misjudged your strength, your strategy would be flawed.