Chapter 32
Chapter 32: Who Is She
[Holy crap.]
Bai Meng Jin cursed silently as the wind screamed past her ears.
She’d wanted to use this chance to latch onto Ling Bu Fei, yes—but not like this. Not bound to him and dragged through the sky by a Divine Transformation Stage cultivator like a bundle of goods.
The Red Thread around them tightened with every shift in the wind. Worse, her pant leg had split where he’d grabbed her earlier. Cold air whistled straight in.
And the shameless Ling Bu Fei had his arms locked around her shoulders so tightly she could barely breathe.
“Let go,” she forced out through clenched teeth.
“No.”
He shook his head without looking at her, voice stubborn as stone.
“You won’t fall even if you let go.”
“No!”
Even now, he refused.
Bai Meng Jin was about to explode—then she felt him trembling. Just a little. But constant.
A thought clicked into place.
“You’re afraid of heights?” she asked, incredulous.
“No.”
Young Sect Master Ling would rather die than admit it.
Even with his lips pale, he still said no.
Bai Meng Jin laughed in sheer disbelief and lifted her hand. “Fine. Then hold my sleeve instead. Like this, I can’t breathe.”
He hesitated, mortified.
Heaven could witness it—what he’d said to Ji Xing Ge hadn’t been a lie. Who knew he’d turn around and cling to some little miss without letting go?
But if he had to choose again, he’d still choose the same. Compared to his obsession with cleanliness and distance, his life mattered more.
He shifted, inch by inch, until his fingers finally caught her sleeve cuff instead of her shoulders.
Both of them exhaled—him in relief, her in the blessed return of air.
Second Lady Hu flew through the night without slowing. When the sky finally turned gray with dawn, a vast shadow rose ahead—something so enormous it blotted out the world.
A giant tree.
Its crown pierced the clouds, no smaller than a mountain.
“The Parasol Tree?” Ling Bu Fei frowned. “Why are we still on Phoenix Mountain?”
Phoenix Parasol City and Perching Phoenix Valley lay along the same mountain range—Phoenix Mountain. And on Phoenix Mountain stood the Parasol Tree, the massive ancient tree where ten thousand birds returned to roost.
It didn’t make sense. A Divine Transformation Stage cultivator could cross half the world in a night if she wanted.
In one night, she should’ve been able to fly all the way to the far west.
“She’s circling on purpose,” Bai Meng Jin said, voice clipped. “To throw people off.”
“Oh.” Ling Bu Fei nodded, then glanced down at her.
There was too much in that look—too sharp, too weighing.
Bai Meng Jin resisted the urge to ask what he meant.
Before she could, the Red Thread binding them snapped.
The sudden release flung them outward.
The loss of control made Ling Bu Fei grab the person beside him again, instinct overriding pride.
Bai Meng Jin didn’t have time to argue. She released a protective glow around them—
And they crashed through layers of branches, leaves exploding around them like green rain, before dropping into a hollow within the tree itself.
They hit a pile of dry straw. The impact still rattled their bones, but it didn’t break them.
They rolled, tangled, until they finally stopped. Young Sect Master Ling’s bright, expensive robe was covered in straw and bark dust.
Then Second Lady Hu stepped in.
She looked around thirty, face sharp as a blade, clothes neat and practical. Her presence alone made the air feel heavier.
Bai Meng Jin confirmed again, quickly, that she didn’t know this woman from her last life. Second Lady Hu must have vanished from the martial world long before Bai Meng Jin ever rose high enough to hear her name.
Second Lady Hu didn’t look at Ling Bu Fei at all.
She studied Bai Meng Jin instead, eyes thoughtful. “You’re an interesting girl. So young, already at the Golden Core Stage—and even a devil cultivator.”
Bai Meng Jin forced a polite smile and kept her guard up.
Second Lady Hu snorted, then lifted her skirt hem and sat on a stump as if they were merely chatting in a garden. She even conjured a cup and poured herself water.
“Little maid,” she said lazily, “what are you to him?”
“I…” Bai Meng Jin glanced sideways.
Second Lady Hu had made it clear: she’d taken Ling Bu Fei to question him, and it likely involved his father. That was Limitless Sect business—dangerous business.
If Bai Meng Jin was just a random outsider, her ending could be ugly. She didn’t know how Second Lady Hu did things, but she didn’t strike Bai Meng Jin as the sort who hesitated when she saw a loose end.
“She’s my maid,” Ling Bu Fei answered first.
“Maid?” The mockery in Second Lady Hu’s face deepened. “You don’t think I didn’t hear what you said up in the sky, do you?”
What kind of maid spoke to her master like that?
Ling Bu Fei’s mouth opened. Closed. He searched for something that sounded… normal.
A would-be disciple of the Cinnabar Cloud Palace meant nothing in the eyes of a Divine Transformation Stage cultivator. Even if Bai Meng Jin truly entered the palace, she’d still be a small disciple without weight. He needed an identity that would make Second Lady Hu hesitate—something that would keep her from acting rashly.
“What,” Second Lady Hu said, irritation sharpening, “you can’t answer?”
Ling Bu Fei blurted, “She’s my fiancée!”
For a heartbeat, the tree hollow went silent.
Second Lady Hu lifted a brow. Bai Meng Jin shot him a look so shocked it nearly cracked her composure.
What was this kid saying?
Did he hit his head and scramble his brain on the way down?
Second Lady Hu looked at Ling Bu Fei, then at Bai Meng Jin. “Why does it not look that way to me?”
“A maid in name,” Ling Bu Fei said quickly, “a fiancée in truth.”
Since the words were already out, Young Sect Master Ling leaned into his talent for improvising lies without blinking.
“Your Excellency should know what state I’m in. My body holds Divine Transformation Stage power, but my meridians have been corroded by devil qi until they’re mostly ruined. I can’t use it at all.”
He nodded toward Bai Meng Jin. “This girl is of humble origins, but she had a stroke of luck. Her power matches mine. We can cultivate together and guide my energy. That’s why my uncle sent her over. Honestly, she’s only been with me a few days. We aren’t that familiar yet.”
The story was smooth. Logical enough.
Second Lady Hu didn’t immediately find a flaw. She raised a hand and sent a Red Thread to coil around Bai Meng Jin’s wrist.
Ling Bu Fei’s heart jumped. If she exposed the lie—
But the next moment, Second Lady Hu’s eyes lit with recognition. She drew the Red Thread back with a soft click of her tongue. “A Jade-Tempered Body, and a devil heart. She really is a match for you.”
“Huh?”
Ling Bu Fei stared, stunned.
Beside him, Bai Meng Jin couldn’t help rolling her eyes—then forced her expression back into something demure.
Fine. First, survive. If being a “fiancée” kept her alive, then she’d be a fiancée.
“Since you’re an engaged couple,” Second Lady Hu said lightly, “there’s no need to avoid suspicion.”
She traced a line in the air. Red light sank into the ground and spread into an invisible boundary, sealing the hollow.
“Don’t take a single step out of this hollow,” she warned. “Otherwise… hmph.”
Then she turned and left. Her figure vanished among dense leaves, and who knew where she’d gone.
Bai Meng Jin stared after her, unsettled. “Wasn’t she going to question you? Why did she just leave? Isn’t she afraid someone will track her down later?”
Ling Bu Fei leaned back into the straw with a tired huff. “You heard her. What she wants is about my father.”
His voice flattened. “My father disappeared eighteen years ago. I was just born. How could I answer anything?”
“Then…”
“The one she really wants to question isn’t me,” Ling Bu Fei said quietly, “but the thing inside my body. So she needs to prepare.”
Those words made Bai Meng Jin’s hair stand on end.
Her mind flashed to everything she knew—fragments, rumors, half-truths—from her last life.
By the Ming River, the Devil Clan had stirred. Madam Jiang had died in battle.
Suddenly she understood.
“Your mother sealed something inside you,” she said, voice low.
Ling Bu Fei nodded, eyes sharpening with surprise. “Quick reaction.”
“A treasure?” Bai Meng Jin pressed.
“That’s right.”
Bai Meng Jin exhaled slowly. “So your mother gave you that power so you could control the artifact—and suppress the devil qi inside you.”
Ling Bu Fei studied her, disbelief edging into his voice. “Are you really just a disciple who hasn’t even entered the Cinnabar Cloud Palace yet? I didn’t explain anything, and you still understood something this tangled?”
Bai Meng Jin swallowed a sigh.
In her last life, by the time her cultivation art was perfected, Ling Bu Fei had long since become Sect Master. No one talked about these old stories anymore. Those who knew kept their mouths shut; those who didn’t pretended not to notice.
Meeting him earlier this time, she finally saw just how much had always been hidden under the surface.
She’d known it. Establishing a “Young Sect Master” in the Limitless Sect had always been excessive—the position wasn’t hereditary. Not truly.
Back then, Madam Jiang must have sealed something incredibly important inside him.
The Limitless Sect held him up as a warning: don’t touch him unless you want the entire sect’s wrath.
And the Ling Family… used that same fact to fight for power and seize the Sect Master seat.