Chapter 99: Why Are You Angry?

He still remembered that day... when she made her move, the force of it had been enough to make him want to drop to his knees and prostrate himself before her. Even now, merely recalling it left his back slick with cold sweat.

She was only a child. How could she be so terrifyingly powerful?

What shocked him just as much was the masked man.

His cultivation was equally formidable, enough to inspire dread.

What was even more frightening, however, was that the two of them gave off not the slightest trace of cultivation or martial presence except when they struck.

If a martial artist could conceal all signs of cultivation and appear utterly ordinary, there could be only one explanation: that man was also a powerhouse at the Return-to-Truth stage.

The difference was that when that man made a move, one could at least feel the sheer strength and pressure of it.

But when Ji Tianxin acted, one felt nothing at all, except fear. There was no sense of her power existing in the least.

His grandfather had said that Ji Tianxin might have an extraordinary master. Could that man have been her teacher?

Duan Zi remained in a daze long after they had left.

"Princess! Princess, why are you here? His Majesty is asking you to come at once!" A palace maid came rushing over at that moment.

Seeing Duan Zi collapsed on the ground, she was startled. "Your Highness, what happened to you?"

Still seated on the floor, Duan Zi let herself be helped to her feet. "I'm fine. Take me to the Grand Hall."

She wondered, with a flutter of hope and anticipation, whether her lifesaver would go there too...

The maid kept glancing toward the direction Duan Zi had been staring, unable to tell what the princess was looking at. Was there someone over there?

"I've been seen by someone just now," Sikou Yan said as he carried Ji Tianxin back to the place where she had been waiting for Su Qing.

"I know," Ji Tianxin replied lightly.

"You're not angry?"

"No."

"Hm? Why not?" His tone held a touch of curiosity.

"They didn't scold me, didn't hit me, and didn't take my things. Why should I be angry?" Ji Tianxin said slowly, word by word.

"So that is how it is." Sikou Yan felt that she seemed to know everything, and yet also care very little about anything.

Indifferent.

That was the word.

Though it did not seem fitting for a child, it suited her perfectly, and in some strange way, made complete sense.

And thinking of it that way, it did indeed seem unnecessary to be angry or to mind.

"Just now, was this where you and Su Qing lost each other?" Sikou Yan noticed a pair of small footprints on the ground.

Ji Tianxin, still in his arms, looked around. "It seems... so."

With her peering about from his shoulder, she looked exactly like a lost little rabbit, harmless and heartbreakingly endearing.

Sikou Yan felt his heart soften as well, and even his shoulders relaxed a little.

"Master!"

Su Qing's voice came from not far away. When she saw Ji Tianxin, she first breathed a sigh of relief, but the instant she spotted the masked man, she became wary.

"You, you, you... it's you again!" She had seen this man before, the one who had carried her master back to the general's residence last time.

Why was he carrying her master back again this time?

Su Qing looked him over from head to toe, tense and guarded. But when she saw how calm and unruffled her own master looked, she understood at once... Ah, so it was by the master's choice. Then there was nothing to worry about.

"Su Qing," Ji Tianxin called.

"Yes!" Su Qing answered at once. "Master, where did you go just now? Didn't Su Qing tell you to wait here?"