Chapter 54: Reckless (Please recommend and add to your collection)

He Xian stood anxiously in the distance, unable to do anything. Gu Yi seemed to be intentionally blocking her from running out, but now that the Head of the Hall had already arrived, if she didn’t step forward to plead for mercy, who else could possibly save Gu Yi’s life?

She racked her brain, trying to figure out where things had gone wrong along the way. It was supposed to be a secret infiltration, so how had they been exposed so quickly?

A faint regret crept in—she almost wished she hadn’t been swayed by Gu Yi’s persistent pleading and agreed to this reckless venture.

“You must be the Seventh Princess, one of the Four Wonders of Luyang?” Even at such a moment, Gu Yi took the opportunity to guess the identity of the girl in purple beside him.

“Yes.” There was something off about the situation, and the girl in purple seemed slightly worried. “But that doesn’t matter now. Are you the one who angered my Fourth Sister so much? What have you done? Tell me quickly. My Fourth Sister dotes on me; perhaps I can plead for your life.”

“Seventh Sister, move aside!”

So fast—unbelievably so!

The voice hadn’t even finished before the person arrived. In that instant, Gu Yi could clearly see the faint beauty mark above her delicate brow.

He barely dodged her incoming strike with all his might.

Her lightning-fast figure swept by, lifting the flowing black hair of the girl in purple in one swift motion.

“Fourth Sister, what’s going on?!” The Seventh Princess knew her family’s temperament well. If she didn’t intervene, there would soon be another corpse in the Hall.

Gu Yi finally got a good look at her—she was the Fourth Princess, Yin Tianchang, the Head of the Hall, a name that filled people with dread. If not for these facts, Gu Yi would have found her particularly attractive.

Of all the women she’d met, this one was the tallest—Gu Yi guessed at least one meter seventy-five.

Slender and graceful, while the Seventh Princess wore a long dress, the Fourth Princess was clad in a short green skirt. Her top left her collarbones and a swath of skin bare, soft silk draping from her arms and her shoulders half-revealed.

Gu Yi, a lover of long legs, delighted in this sight—those ninety-centimeter legs were a feast for the eyes.

But that face was not nearly as pleasing—cold as frost, radiating murderous intent.

Yet, there was a sense of familiarity too. Had she seen her somewhere before?

“My Seventh Sister has been in the Hall and doesn’t know what happened this morning. This person’s name is Gu Xiaoyao. He arrived in Luyang a few days ago and provoked Fan Ling on Changning Street. Unfortunately, Fan Ling was defeated and, under duress, brought him here to the Hall. Knowing his own limits, Fan Ling promised only to bring him before me.

I am the Fourth Princess of Xu, Head of the Luyang Institute’s Hall of Techniques, responsible for guarding and protecting the Hall. I cannot permit outsiders to enter as they please, or what use is all my years of cultivation?

After I drove him away, Daoist He Xian brought him back into the courtyard, and they sneaked into the Hall. With such a troublemaker, Seventh Sister, do you still want to show him mercy?”

The Head of the Hall didn’t believe He Xian’s attempts to defend herself. She’d seen with her own eyes that it was He Xian who had dragged the boy away.

At the time, she’d assumed they’d gone to the Spirit Talisman Path or intended some laughable “future visit.”

Never did she expect they’d try to sneak back in.

What did they take the Luyang Institute’s Hall of Techniques for, anyway?

The Seventh Princess was profoundly shocked. She glanced at Gu Yi—there were actually people this audacious in all the world!

Though she didn’t wish for anyone to lose their life, upon hearing this, she could only remain silent.

The Fourth Princess was satisfied. Her younger sister, though sometimes siding with reason over kin, in this case had both kin and reason on her side.

Her gaze locked onto Gu Yi’s face.

“Speak. You risked your life to break into my Hall. What is your purpose?”

Gu Yi answered directly, “I have an old friend. Before leaving, he left me a message, which I came here to confirm.”

“What message?”

“It’s something you two wouldn’t want to hear.”

“So you want to die…” The Fourth Princess was indeed quick-tempered. With a twist of her hand, the spiritual energy in the room grew turbulent and oppressive.

“Wait, Fourth Sister,” the girl in purple hurried to stop her, fearing she’d act too harshly. “Before you arrived, I saw this person channel spiritual energy and stir all the techniques in the Hall to excitement. He must be exceptionally talented in cultivation. The Kingdom of Xu has always valued talent; we mustn’t kill rashly.

Besides, he’s but a small cultivator at the Meditation stage, yet dared to sneak into the Hall of Techniques. This is too strange—there may be another reason behind it!”

“You don’t understand, Seventh Sister. He has no regard for the Luyang Institute; clearly, he’s not one of our people. If, as you say, he truly has great talent, then all the more reason to kill him and end future trouble!”

With that, she refused to listen further. A light tap of her finger brought immense pressure down on Gu Yi.

At the Meditation stage, one could draw in energy.

At the Mindful stage, one could release it.

At the Spirit-guarding stage, spiritual energy could be guided through the body endlessly.

At the Return to Origin stage, it could be shaped at will.

Fan Ling still needed a weapon.

But the Fourth Princess no longer did.

The spiritual energy of heaven and earth was her weapon.

A ringing of sword intent filled the Hall. Though Gu Yi drew his sword and summoned his energy to defend, the dazzling sword strikes came too swiftly—he was wounded before he could react.

With a thud, he was knocked to the ground, pain exploding in his right chest, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

No matter how capable he’d been in the past, the gap in strength was simply too great.

This was trouble—he’d gone too far, and this woman was unreasonable, resorting to violence at the slightest provocation.

Gu Yi furrowed his brow. He didn’t believe he would die here, but he’d need to think fast.

Not far away, the Fourth Princess was surprised. She recalled what the Seventeenth Hall Master had told her—this youth could command the spiritual energy of the world within a tiny space for combat. Otherwise, that one sword just now would have left him gravely injured.

The Seventh Princess was indeed as rumored—innocent and kind-hearted.

“Fourth Sister, don’t take his life yet. If he truly is a subject of Xu, killing him would be a great loss. Better to capture him first.”

Gu Yi wiped the blood from his lips. “That pain just now jogged my memory.”

“In the second year of the Peaceful Reign, the Hall’s master once went alone to Little Garden Mountain, waiting outside the Mountain-Sea Array for a day and a night.

Not long after, your Seventh Sister here also went to Little Garden Mountain, but she was more sincere—she waited for a whole month.”

The two princesses exchanged surprised glances—clearly, Gu Yi was telling the truth.

But it seemed it still would not sway the Fourth Princess.

“Now you use Little Garden Mountain as a shield when your life is threatened? But even so, that is still Xu’s land, and we are Xu’s people. You trespassed in my Hall of Techniques—do I not have the right to kill you?”

“You really are… troublesome,” Gu Yi muttered, frowning. “The headstrong type—if you truly lost your temper, I could easily end up dead by accident.”

The Fourth Princess smirked. “Now that you understand, make your purpose and background clear. Or do you think my sword lacks sharpness?”

Gu Yi’s eyes fell on two blank slips of paper still floating in the air. There were always countless techniques drifting through this space, so these “special” ones were easily overlooked.

Just now, one of them had silently drifted behind the Seventh Princess.

Hotheaded types were indeed troublesome.

And her cultivation at Return to Origin was too high; he could only put things on hold for now.

The Seventh Princess seemed to sense something—why was that person looking at her?

Gu Yi turned his heel ever so slightly, and a brilliant radiance shone from him. The slip of paper, as if summoned, suddenly revealed a vortex of air on its surface.

“Seventh Sister, be careful!” The Fourth Princess, seeing the strange occurrence and fearing for her sister, reached out to save her.

But caught off guard, the Seventh Princess was already halfway sucked in, and in a blink, vanished completely.

The change was so abrupt that even the Fourth Princess was momentarily stunned—swallowed up by a slip of paper?

“If you’ve harmed my Seventh Sister, I will kill you!”

But the slip of paper seemed able to teleport—an instant later, it appeared at Gu Yi’s side.

The furious woman’s fist was about to land on his face, but Gu Yi dodged swiftly and slipped inside.

From that moment, all the strange phenomena in the Hall disappeared, the floating techniques faded away, and the two slips of paper drifted gently to the ground.

The Fourth Princess hurried over and picked them up, calling out again and again, “Seventh Sister! Seventh Sister!”