Chapter 284: Burying Love

Li Piaoqing passed three courtyards, and only then did she gently exhale the breath that had been choked in her lungs. The pressure this person brought her was even greater than that "Mr. Zhang" in Bixiao Pavilion.

"Has he been following us behind all along?" She said softly.

"I don't know." The black cat looked ahead with its green eyes motionless.

"." Li Piaoqing heard such an answer from this little cat for the first time.

Returning all the way, she didn't see any shadows. Those strong men who unloaded the cargo earlier didn't know where they had gone. Li Piaoqing suddenly felt that she, who was searching everywhere, was actually not the special one. In this residence, there were more people doing things she didn't know about in places she couldn't see.

Lunch.

Yi Chengxin and Yi Nandai still didn't appear. A silent servant sent the meal over.

"Sorry to bother you." The young girl asked with a clear and bright smile, "I see your residence is quiet and secluded, and I really want to stroll around, but I can't see anyone and am afraid of being presumptuous unintentionally—may I ask which places are inconvenient to go?"

The servant paused and said before closing the door and retreating: "Don't enter locked places, don't come to the backyard."

Li Piaoqing took the meal tray and was just about to nod with a smile when a calm voice suddenly sounded in her ear. The young girl's gaze condensed, and she reached out and grabbed the servant's arm: ". Please stay!"

Then she said with some embarrassment: "That, I don't know what Yi sister and the others are busy with... dressing up, tidying up the perfume box, etc., I can also help."

"Many thanks, but no need to trouble you."

"Oh... alright." Li Piaoqing watched the door close before her and slowly raised her index finger before her eyes.

Her complexion gradually condensed.

This finger was slender, straight, and fine-moist. The soft belly of the finger was very clean, without anything visible to the naked eye.

Only the young girl clearly felt a coldness like gelatinous substance fall on it. It was what she had wiped from the bottom of the servant's sleeve according to the little cat's instructions. The touch was like melted colorless jade.

"What is this?"

The black cat crouched on her shoulder: "Material with extremely rich spiritual essence."

". Shuiyang Yuke?"

The black cat was silent for a while: "Perhaps."

Li Piaoqing frowned.

The material that had just arrived was used impatiently. The Yi family wanted this thing not because of its precious value, but because they wanted the thing itself.

"What can this thing do?"

The black cat pondered for a while: "Spiritual essence material, generally speaking, has two characteristics. One is as a touchable and usable heaven and earth spiritual mystery, allowing people who have not yet grasped the spirit to use it; the second is that spiritual mystery often has a special structure in it. If heaven and earth spiritual mystery is iron, these materials are swords, shields, mirrors—in short, they have some miraculous properties that are difficult to replicate."

Li Piaoqing gently closed her fingers and twisted them: "What miraculous properties does this thing have?"

The black cat extended a sharp little claw and gently touched this Yuke. The ghostly blue flame ignited silently. In just one breath, the black cat annihilated it and looked at the young girl's finger silently.

After a while, it extended its claw again and cut this small Yuke into two smaller grains. Then it tilted its head, and in Li Piaoqing's slightly widened eyes, it cut off a strand of her hair and gently stuffed it into one of the grains.

". Why don't you pull your own hair." The young girl was much bolder now.

"I'm growing."

"."

The black cat let the young girl hold the grain without hair in her other hand, and left this one, which was wrapped in a ball of black hair and supported like a small dumpling, on the young girl's index finger.

Then it looked over with its green eyes, and the spiritual fire ignited quietly under this one...

Li Piaoqing suddenly shrank her pupils!

She looked at her fingertip without moving.

At that moment, this dumpling-like Yuke disappeared into thin air, leaving no trace of existence, and at the same time, a bit of tiny coldness fell on the young girl's fingertip.

Li Piaoqing slowly moved her gaze to her other hand, opened it gently, and the small dumpling wrapped in black hair lay quietly in her palm.

"Like water melting into water, as long as they are in the heaven and earth spiritual mystery, they can move freely without hindrance, and as long as a connection at the spiritual mystery level is established between the two, they will run toward each other." The black cat's calm voice sounded in the young girl's ear, "This is the magical characteristic naturally constructed by the mysterious Qi. After doing a sufficiently thorough disassembly of this kind of material, a practitioner can also use the most basic spiritual mystery to replicate the same effect—of course, one must be very talented."

". Where are these materials used?"

"Generally speaking, they are commonly used in the paths of vessels, pills, and arrays."

Li Piaoqing was still silent for a while: "Refining pills and vessels... must consume time."

The black cat nodded: "Yes, arrays."

The young girl, whose sect only had one martial mysterious master, was really very unfamiliar with these spiritual matters: "This material feels very light. Eighty catties of Shuiyang Yuke... presumably it is a very large array. Where can it be laid—"

She quickly remembered the question and answer just now—"Don't go to the backyard."

"I'll go to the back," the black cat said, "You stay in the residence, wait for Pei Ye to come over, or leave after half an hour, or go to meet him."

Li Piaoqing widened her eyes: "You... a cat, are you safe? I'll go with you."

The black cat was silent for a while: ". Thank you, but I must try my best to ensure your safety before seeing Pei Ye."

"."

The young girl was quiet for a while: "Then I'll just go to Yi Danjun's old residence to take a look. If that old servant comes to stop me, you will be easier on your side, and conversely, I can also find some things on my side."

"."

The black cat looked at her without saying a word, and the young girl also looked back without dodging, two pairs of pupils of different colors but equally clear reflecting each other's reflections.

". Alright, then move after a quarter of an hour. I'll try my best to keep him on my side." The black cat said and turned to leap over the courtyard wall.

Li Piaoqing pursed her lips and revealed a light smile, but quickly restrained it. Only then did she remember something. She sat in the courtyard and shoveled two mouthfuls of food, and after rinsing her mouth and washing her hands calmly, she carried the small tray and went out.

Autumn day, big locust tree, empty and silent large residence.

The young girl placed the small tray at the door, pressed her sword, and headed toward the east courtyard again.

The rusty lock and old wood were the same as before. In the quiet air, it was like a gateway to the past.

The young girl gently pressed her hand on the lock, then tilted her head and looked toward the backyard.

I don't know what the black cat did there, but there was indeed no sound of obstruction from behind again.

Li Piaoqing leaped in.

The courtyard was rotten and old inside and out. This small courtyard seemed to have been forgotten here forever, without the slightest trace of people coming in or out. The furnishings in the courtyard no longer saw the habits of the old owner. The young girl walked to the eaves, and in the cracked and faded pillars was solidified yellow soil.

A large lock hung on the door again.

Li Piaoqing came to the window and pushed, and it had already been bolted from the inside. She gently pressed her hand and shook, breaking the fine wood that had long been brittle. A house without anyone raising it always ages at an extremely fast speed.

The young girl leaped in nimbly and looked around.

Unexpectedly, it was not a mess inside, but a neat emptiness like the Yi Duanzhi room—after the owner left, this house was still carefully collected.

Unlike the Yi Duanzhi one, this was an emptiness inside and out. Not only were there no sundries on the surface, but even inside the cabinets and drawers, there was nothing. The emptiness didn't look like it was abandoned, but like it had just been repaired.

There was really nothing.

The tables and cabinets in the bedroom could be seen thoroughly at a glance. The bed only had a wooden frame, and other rooms were even rarer to have furniture.

Li Piaoqing didn't expect that this old residence with layers of locks was just an empty room. Not to mention Yi Danjun, just based on the current state of this house, one couldn't even guess whether its old owner was male or female.

Li Piaoqing moved the last table with some disappointment and looked at the ground blocked by it.

This was the southernmost room, and beyond that was Yi Nandai's courtyard. The young girl couldn't distinguish its former use—perhaps a study, in short, now only such a table remained.

Empty.

The ground was flat. The young girl even imitated the stories and stepped on it, getting only a solid, muffled sound.

For a moment, she wanted to laugh. Although she had experienced many things, from a little junior sister who had gained everything to the current Jade Jade young master, it had actually only been half a year. Innocence always overflowed from strange gaps—clearly she was the source of those stories, but she would still act like a child, learning to be a "Jianghu person."

But just when she wanted to move the table back, her gaze swept across and suddenly landed on the wall, sticking to it.

The wall surface blocked by the table had a fresher color, so the tiny difference was not covered by thirty years of dust, only seeing that in the middle of a piece of withered yellow wall skin, there was such a piece that was yellow but not withered, dry but not cracked.

It was as if it had experienced twenty years less time than the surrounding paint.

Li Piaoqing squatted down slowly and knocked gently.

The empty sound fed back to her ears.

Li Piaoqing was truly stunned. She really didn't expect that such a method would really appear here, simply like a stupid child who had read martial arts stories and thought of a trick. For a moment, even this silent residence felt a bit intimate.

She knocked gently again, and this time the soft but not scattered true Qi penetrated her two fingers. With a "clatter," the rotten wall collapsed.

A box covered in dust was revealed.

Li Piaoqing took it out, brushed off the dust, placed it on the table, and opened it slowly.

Another stack of paper and ink.

It was just not the book volumes like in Yi Duanzhi's drawer, but slips of paper of different sizes and shapes, stacked layer upon layer. At the bottom, there were also two booklets, and it seemed that a scroll was buried.

Li Piaoqing picked up the one on top, was stunned for a moment, and immediately understood what was contained in this box.

Love letters.

Accumulating love letters.

"Mountain brows and sea eyes, seeing each other as new; people say Goddess, I say Goddess Luo."

Just such a short slip of paper unfolded this love affair with two implicit and appropriate submissions.

Li Piaoqing looked at them one by one. These letters started in the spring of Chilong Xinyou and ended in the winter of Chilong Ren Zi, lasting nearly two years, gradually piecing together the rise and fall of this love affair.

In the spring of Chilong Xinyou, the head manager of the Yi family's Qiyun Merchant Alliance retired due to illness, and a young woman temporarily took over, participating in the largest elegant gathering in Xiangzhou City.

No one had ever seen this woman, and no one had ever seen such a ghostly, cold, and drifting temperament. In this gathering that had nothing to do with her, this female manager almost won the attention of the whole audience.

In the next ten days or so, Yi Danjun still managed the merchant alliance, welcoming and sending off many people, and also received dozens of submissions, including generous invitations, flashy love poems, and long outpourings... Among these paper and ink, a short slip of paper was somewhat prominent, with only sixteen characters, signed with a title "Jianfengzhai Hermit," and nothing else.

Yi Danjun looked at it a few more times, and also did not pay attention to it.

After this, the letter sender who had not received a reply never submitted a letter again.

About a month later, Yi Danjun checked the warehouse and was deeply attracted by several paintings full of spiritual energy. The liveliness of the intent and the sharpness of the brush technique were simply like a hot, beating child's heart born in an old body. She found all the paintings sold by this person, looked through them one by one, and remembered the name "Fang Xitian."

Thus, the next time this painter came to sell paintings, Yi Danjun saw his true appearance.

Neither sharp nor young, the man was handsome, and the smile he was ready to purse at any time looked sincere and gentle.

The two talked for a long time about the paintings. Unlike Yi Chengxin, who was hot on the outside and cold on the inside, Yi Danjun was actually cold on the outside and hot on the inside. At the end of this pleasant conversation, she finally couldn't help but smile and care about what good things this new friend had encountered, why he had been unable to close his mouth all morning.

Thus the man told her about the slip of paper he had submitted to her.

Yi Danjun was surprised and bewildered: "Mr. Fang, on so many of your paintings... I haven't seen that studio name."

". Oh, I haven't taken that kind of thing... that was what I took on the spot at the time." The man was a bit embarrassed, "That, I think having a studio name... seems elegant."

Thus Yi Danjun knew that what was mixed with spiritual energy on the man was not so much old age as it was foolishness.

After this, Yi Danjun didn't mention this matter again, and Fang Xitian came to sell paintings more frequently. Every time the two chatted for a while, and finally on the day of the beginning of autumn in the Xinyou year, the two talked about autumn painting techniques. Fang Xitian gathered his courage and invited the woman to go to the side of Xincang Mountain to watch him copy the autumn scenery.

Yi Danjun agreed with a smile.

Arriving at the mountain, Fang Xitian spread paper and ground ink. Yi Danjun watched from the side, but the man drew two strokes and said he had never moved a brush under someone's eyes, so he was really uncomfortable. Yi Danjun then sensibly sat to one side.

However, this man who looked like a foolish gentleman now suddenly revealed his lively ambition—half an hour later, when the woman was called to come and see, the early autumn scenery drawn on it was indeed vivid, but it was only a background. His truly careful brushstrokes fell on the woman who was sitting and reading quietly.

The man's exquisite painting skills didn't need any language explanation. All the colors and scenery in the painting were leaning toward the woman's figure. This was not any autumn scenery at all, but his careful premeditation.

Yi Danjun looked at this painting and moved her gaze for the first time, gently pursing her lips.

Fang Xitian looked at the woman with a smile and titled this painting—"Xinyou Autumn Made for Danjun."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 285 =====