Chapter 82

Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi was the youngest granddaughter of Old Lady Jin of the Ten Thousand Blessings and Longevity Garden; she had an impatient nature, spoke quickly and urgently, possessed a flamboyant personality, and dared to act on her convictions.

Because she was quite charming, she once attracted Hu Hu Tiehua, and through their daily interactions, Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi also fell for this man.

However, at that time, Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi held another secret identity—the mistress of the "Bat Prince"!

After a fierce internal struggle, Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi ultimately abandoned the sinister and vicious "Bat Prince" and chose Hu Hu Tiehua instead.

Yet, unsurprisingly, Hu Hu Tiehua's old trouble flared up again, and he fled without even looking back.

A few years later, Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi passed away.

Suzhou, Ten Thousand Blessings and Longevity Garden.

"I would fall for such a perverted man? And even become the mistress of some damn 'Bat Prince'?"

Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi looked at the diary's contents in disbelief, her eyes wide open.

If Jiang Sishui hadn't pointed out her identity and personality, Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi would have thought he was not talking about her, but about another woman who shared her exact name.

"The one I clearly love is Young Master Yuan Yuan Suiyun; how could I possibly become the mistress of some 'Bat Prince'? This is sheer nonsense, outrageous!"

After recovering her composure, Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi grew furious again, wishing she could rush before Jiang Sishui to confront him.

Although Jiang Sishui was only speaking of her within a story, she still could not endure it, feeling as though she had been insulted.

"Wait, although what he said was a story, it might not fail to become reality; could something have happened in between?"

Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi suddenly furrowed her brows, her heart filled with shock and doubt: "What exactly happened that I would willingly become the mistress of a man I had never heard of, and ultimately die?"

"No, I must get to the bottom of this matter!"

Before obtaining the diary copy, Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi already had someone she favored in her heart; thus, even though she learned of Jiang Sishui's extraordinary nature, she had no intention of approaching him.

But now she had changed her mind.

Because she wanted to hear more about herself from Jiang Sishui's mouth, so she could guard against future events and avoid the unfortunate fate depicted in the story from occurring in reality.

At the very least, she needed to clarify one thing: why would she become the mistress of that so-called "Bat Prince"!

And if she wanted to know more, she must appear before Jiang Sishui, prompting him to mention her more often in his diary.

Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi was already impatient as fire; once she decided to act, she did so immediately. She tidied herself up and left the Ten Thousand Blessings and Longevity Garden at once.

"Leigu Mountain? No! He was entrusted by Wu Wu Ya Zi to care for his descendants. Wang Wang Wang Yuyan... Li Li Qingluo..."

Jin Jin Jin Lingzhi's eyes lit up, and she immediately set out for Taihu.

Next, Jiang Sishui would definitely go to Manduo Villa!

Gao Gao Gao Yanan loved deeply and exclusively; unfortunately, she chose the wrong object of affection. Moreover, she was stubborn; even after hitting a dead end, she would not turn back. From a certain perspective, she was just as stubborn as Hu Hu Tiehua.

Her second flaw was blind filial piety!

She pursued Hu Hu Tiehua for eight years, which showed the depth of Gao Gao Gao Yanan's feelings for him; yet, upon a single word from her master, Grand Master Master Kumei, she obeyed without question and attempted to kill the man she loved.

Perhaps in her eyes, respecting one's teacher and honoring the Dao were most important; for this, she could even fail to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil.

"Master wants me to kill Hu Hu Tiehua?" Gao Gao Gao Yanan shook her head.

Her master had not descended Mount Huashan in over twenty years; how could she possibly know Hu Hu Tiehua? How could there be any grudge between them, leading her to order this disciple to kill him?

"Could it be that Master, seeing I pursued him for eight years without that scoundrel responding, felt indignant on my behalf and thus ordered me to kill him?"

A sudden thought struck Gao Gao Gao Yanan; the more she pondered "two-eight-seven," the more plausible it seemed.

Speaking of Grand Master Master Kumei, she was truly a formidable figure!

In the story's background, the martial world comprised seven great sword sects, and only the Huashan Sect had a female sect leader.

Since the "Fairy Hibiscus" Xu Xu Shuzhen became sect leader, the Huashan Sect had been controlled exclusively by women.

Although the talent within the Huashan Sect gradually declined thereafter, there were absolutely no scoundrels among them, because these female sect leaders strictly followed Xu Xu Shuzhen's final instructions, selecting disciples with extreme rigor, preferring absence to inferiority.

At its peak, the Huashan Sect once had over seven hundred disciples, but by the time it passed to Grand Master Yinyu, there were only seven disciples left.

Grand Master Yinyu's strictness in selecting disciples became known throughout the world from then on.

And Grand Master Master Kumei was the designated successor of Grand Master Yinyu.

Rumors in the martial world claimed that when Grand Master Master Kumei was a young girl, in order to join the Huashan Sect, she knelt for four days and four nights atop Mount Huashan amidst biting cold snow; by the time Grand Master Yinyu agreed to accept her, her entire body was buried in snow, nearly beyond resurrection.

At that time, she was only thirteen years old.

Seven years later, Grand Master Yinyu traveled far to the South Sea, leaving Master Kumei to guard Mount Huashan.

The "Four Swords of Great Yin," seeking revenge for a palm strike from years past, launched a massive attack, vowing to burn down the Profound Jade Observatory and annihilate the entire Huashan Sect.

Grand Master Master Kumei suffered thirty-nine injuries, both minor and severe, yet she continued to fight bitterly through the bloodshed; in the end, the "Four Swords of Great Yin" all perished at Mount Huashan.

Since that battle, everyone in the martial world referred to Grand Master Master Kumei as the "Iron Immortal Maiden."

Five years later, the "Cold-Faced Rakshasa" from Qinghai sent a challenge letter, demanding a decisive duel with Grand Master Yinyu atop Mount Mount Taishan; if Yinyu lost, the Huashan Sect would submit to the Rakshasa Gang.

Eh? The Rakshasa Gang is from Qinghai; why, when challenging the Huashan Sect, did they choose Mount Mount Taishan as the location?

This maneuver is quite confusing!

This battle concerned the success, failure, survival, or extinction of the Huashan Sect, yet Grand Master Yinyu happened to suffer a Qi deviation at this critical moment.

Since the Huashan Sect could not avoid the fight, Grand Master Master Kumei had no choice but to fight in her master's stead.

Grand Master Master Kumei knew clearly that she was no match for the "Cold-Faced Rakshasa"; she went forth already resolved to die, intending to perish together with her enemy.

On the day of the decisive duel, the "Cold-Faced Rakshasa" did not take her seriously at all, simply telling her to "set the terms and draw the line."

Grand Master Master Kumei unexpectedly ignited a large fire beneath a pot of boiling oil, calmly plunged her hand into the scalding oil, and said with a smile: "If the Cold-Faced Rakshasa dares to do the same, the Huashan Sect will admit defeat."

The "Cold-Faced Rakshasa" immediately changed color, stamped her foot, and departed; from then on, she never set foot in the Central Plains again.

However, Grand Master Master Kumei's left hand had already been burned by the boiling oil into scorched bone.

This is the origin of the name "Withered Plum."

"Hiss—"

At this moment, all the women collectively gasped, feeling their scalps tingle numbly and goosebumps rising on their arms.

Because the story background of "The Legend of Chu Chu Liuxiang" differed from reality, neither the Huashan Sect's strictness in accepting disciples nor the two occasions where the sect faced annihilation evoked much feeling in them.

But that final act of plunging a hand into a vat of oil, letting living flesh be scorched by boiling oil until it became charred bone, created an incredibly vivid image!

They could not help but imagine themselves thrusting their hands into that churning, boiling oil...

Instantly, a shiver ran through them.

Was that kind of pain something a human being could truly endure?

This was too perverted!

No wonder Jiang Sishui had said that Great Master Master Kumei was a ruthless character!

Even Guan Yunchang, who scraped the bone to heal his wound, would not hold a candle to her, would he?

Shanzhou, Huashan.

Yue Yue Lingshan rubbed her somewhat stiff, snow-white cheeks and asked Ning Zhongze beside her, "Mother, did Senior Sister Master Kumei really have such a past?"

Ning Zhongze shook her head with a smile. "Silly child, what are you thinking about?"

"In the story, the Huashan Sect suffered from a lack of talent and stood on the brink of collapse; Senior Sister Master Kumei, unable to support it alone, was forced by desperation into such a low tactic."

"But our Huashan Sect, though certainly not equal to Shaolin or Mount Mount Wudang, is currently flourishing. How could Senior Sister Master Kumei ever be driven to that step?"

"Then why is Senior Sister Master Kumei called 'Withered Plum'?" Yue Yue Lingshan asked, puzzled.

Ning Zhongze smiled gently. "Because she once created a sword technique; when her sword qi swept past, several branches of cold plum blossoms in the snow all withered. She named that technique the 'Withered Plum Sword Art' and thereafter adopted the title 'Withered Plum'."

Hearing this explanation, Yue Yue Lingshan suddenly understood.

After a pause, the young girl added, "Mother, no wonder Senior Sister Gao rarely returns to Huashan; it turns out she found her beloved. I just wonder if this Hu Hu Tiehua is still as much of a scoundrel as he was in the story."

"That depends on her own fate."

"Mother, do you think Senior Sister Gao possesses a diary cheat sheet?"

"She probably does."

"Then will she still bitterly pursue Hu Hu Tiehua?"

"...How would Mother know? Mother is not a god."

Yue Yue Lingshan was about to ask more, but the subsequent content of the diary shocked her so greatly that she swallowed all her words back down.

[After this battle, "Iron Immortal" Great Master Master Kumei became famous throughout the Wu Lin; at only twenty-nine years old, she took over as the head of the Huashan Sect.]

[Perhaps it was due to this past experience, combined with the grace of being taught the Dao and instructed in the arts, that Gao Gao Gao Yanan held her master in such high esteem.]

[However, the world would never guess that the stern and unsmiling Great Master Master Kumei also had an unknown side.]

[Having led the Huashan Sect for thirty years, she actually stole her own sect's ultimate skill, the secret manual of the "Thirteen Styles of Clear Breeze," and colluded with the "Bat Prince" of Bat Island.]

[The book did not explicitly state the specific relationship between her and the "Bat Prince," but it could only be one of two things: lovers or mother and son.]

— Author's Notes —

?? ???????Seeking Flowers??? ???????