Chapter 1435: The Heart's Truth

"Lu Qinger."

Li Luo looked up at the slender figure that had appeared at the staircase landing. From this angle, it made Lü Qing'er's legs—covered in sheer white stockings—look even straighter and longer, and her snow-white skin carried a luster that seemed even more dazzling than the stockings themselves.

Li Luo smiled and walked up to stand beside Lü Qing'er. He gazed at the ice-lake-blue eyes of this girl he had known for many years, and for some reason, he felt that Lü Qing'er seemed to have changed a little this time they met.

In the past, Lü Qing'er had a liveliness touched with a maiden's playful charm, but now she seemed somewhat chillingly aloof, and the smile on her fair, beautiful face had clearly faded a great deal.

"What are you looking at?" Lü Qing'er met Li Luo's gaze and said.

"Are you all right? When we separated in the Lingxiang Grotto-Heaven in previous years, you were still in an ice-sealed state at the time. It didn't cause you any harm, did it?" Li Luo asked with concern.

He had wanted to say these things to her when they met, but earlier there had been too many people around, so Li Luo had held back. Now that the two of them were alone, he finally asked.

Lü Qing'er gently shook her head and said, "I actually owe it to you, the Lingxiang Grotto-Heaven."

Li Luo laughed and said, "Why be so polite? You had Lü Shuanglu and Zhang Cuicheng travel thousands of miles to help me, and I haven't even thanked you for that yet."

Lü Qing'er's eyes shimmered as she said, "What does it have to do with me? They only went to Outer Shenzhou because they had a mission."

Li Luo was left speechless. Zhang Cuicheng had already explained the reason, yet here she refused to admit it. This tsundere streak of hers was still pretty much the same as before.

The two walked up the staircase together, with scattered sunlight falling on the corridor, sprinkling in bits and pieces over this pair of young people.

Listening to that familiar voice beside her, within Lü Qing'er's wintry eyes, the chill that constantly welled up seemed to unconsciously soften a little at this moment. Her footsteps also gradually slowed, as if she was reluctant to leave the scene before her.

"Li Luo, I really miss the old South Wind Academy."

Lü Qing'er said softly, "Do you still remember our fighting side by side at the South Wind Academy's Grand Examination?"

A hint of nostalgia also rose in Li Luo's eyes. Back then, he had just resolved the issue of his Empty Phase, and then he had teamed up with Seeing Yu Lang, Zhao Kuo, and Lü Qing'er to earn a spot at the Sacred Mystic Star Academy in that Grand Examination.

Looking back now, before I knew it, four or five years had somehow already passed.

That once Empty Phase youth had now stepped onto the Path of the Unparalleled, and they too had each embarked on their own paths.

Over these years, they had all been through far too much.

Lü Qing'er's footsteps suddenly paused, and her frost-laden voice spread softly through the corridor: "Li Luo, I used to always think that the engagement between Senior Sister Jiang and you wasn't from her heart, that it was just a way for her to repay a debt of gratitude."

Li Luo was stunned, and fell silent.

"So later I even went to find Senior Sister Jiang, told her that her decision was irresponsible, and hoped she could dissolve the engagement and free the two of you from its bonds. But looking at it now, I must have seemed like a clown back then." A self-mocking smile seemed to lift the corners of Lü Qing'er's lips.

Li Luo's expression was complicated. In the past, back in Daxia, he had vaguely sensed that Lü Qing'er seemed to have some feelings for him, but because the two of them were too close, he hadn't thought too deeply about those feelings.

Later, after leaving Daxia and going through the Lingxiang Grotto-Heaven and all of Lü Shuanglu's words, he finally understood that this girl he had known for so many years had actually been deeply in love with him all along.

Li Luo wasn't quite sure how to handle the scene before him. In the past, Lü Qing'er had only hidden these feelings in her heart, never speaking them aloud. But now, perhaps because of some subtle changes in her temperament, she had suddenly brought up this sensitive topic.

So he could only laugh dryly, trying to play it off with a joke: "So you really have been coveting my handsome looks for a long time."

Lü Qing'er swept him a casual glance with her beautiful eyes.

Li Luo sighed helplessly and said, "Lu Qinger, the engagement between me and Sister Jiang Qing'e isn't a cage for us. These years we've been through life and death together—we're already one."

He and Jiang Jiang Qinge now shared the reality of husband and wife; they were only missing a grand wedding presided over by their parents.

The two had grown up together since childhood, and their deep bond went without saying. Yet Lü Qing'er's initial intuition had also been right—at the very beginning, Jiang Jiang Qinge might indeed have been motivated by a sense of gratitude, and also because she held deep attachment to the little family that was the Luo Lan Mansion, so she had written up an engagement.

But over these years, the two had supported each other, lingering time and again at the brink of life and death. Li Luo could now clearly feel that Jiang Jiang Qinge's feelings for him had thoroughly transformed from that original gratitude and sibling affection into a love between a man and a woman.

The two loved and relied on each other deeply, weathering one tribulation after another.

Lü Qing'er listened to Li Luo's words and said softly, "You two were always the most rightful match."

Li Luo was silent for a long while, saying nothing. In this world, men with harems of wives and concubines were common, and within the Li Li Tianwang line it was even more commonplace. But the love between him and Jiang Jiang Qinge likely could not accommodate a third person. And Lü Qing'er was no ordinary figure either—she was the Young Lady of the Lü branch of Jinlong Mountain, and in terms of background, her line was no weaker than Li Li Tianwang's branch.

The good things in this world couldn't all fall to him.

In the corridor, only the soft, unhurried footsteps of the two could be heard.

After quite a while, Lü Qing'er softly continued, "Li Luo, you don't need to worry. I've hidden my heart for so many years, and telling you now isn't because I want any particular outcome."

"I just want to cleanse my heart."

"In the future I will inherit the Lü branch's 'Holy Ice Seed.' This Holy Seed carries the power of an ice heart that severs emotion, so when I successfully inherit it, all past feelings will be sealed in ice. At that point, we'll truly be nothing more than friends."

Li Luo's heart trembled slightly, and he turned to look at Lü Qing'er. The girl before him now had a faint smile on her red lips, but within those ice-blue eyes, it seemed as if emotion was gradually fading away.

That sense of distance was also growing stronger.

"I came to the Sky Mirror Pagoda to find you this time because I wanted to help you one more time. So no matter what you need, I will give it everything I have to help you accomplish it."

"Just consider it..."

On Lü Qing'er's fair, beautiful face, a smile bloomed like a snow lotus flowering in the depths of winter, and she said, "Just consider it thanks for personally teaching me my first phase art back at South Wind Academy."

When she had first entered South Wind Academy, many of the young men and women had not yet manifested their phases. Li Luo had displayed astonishing talent in phase arts, so the mentor had asked Li Luo to help him guide the others in phase arts, and the young girl had been one of those who received Li Luo's guidance.

At the time, she had simply felt that the handsome, confident, and patient boy was like the first ray of light falling into the heart of a girl whose feelings had yet to awaken.

From then on, there had been a faint shadow.

Lü Qing'er's footsteps stopped at this point. She pushed open a door on one side of the corridor and stepped inside.

"I'm at my room."

Lü Qing'er smiled faintly, then slowly closed the door. In the narrowing gap, Li Luo's stunned figure gradually blurred.

The door closed, as if frost were covering the scars of the heart, and at the same time a girl's soft whisper rose.

"Li Luo, long time no see."

"Li Luo, goodbye."