Chapter 49

Chapter 49: A New Journey

Ji Xing Ge vanished around the corner in a storm.

Watching her go, Bai Meng Jin felt a flicker of guilt. “If you anger her like that, won’t it cause trouble?”

“Valley Master Ji is here,” Ling Bu Fei said, completely unconcerned. “What trouble could she cause?”

He turned back to the Kaiming Beast.

The spirit beast loved freedom. After being penned in the yard for days, it was restless. Now, under its master’s steady touch, it purred like thunder rolling in a distant valley.

“This beast was raised by my mother,” Ling Bu Fei said, voice going a shade quieter.

He took Bai Meng Jin’s hand, guided it forward, and let the Kaiming Beast sniff her.

“Remember her,” he told it. “From now on, she’s your female master.”

The Kaiming Beast rumbled and shoved multiple tiger heads toward Bai Meng Jin’s hand, competing to nuzzle her.

Its coat was sleek and glossy—clearly pampered by the Limitless Sect—and the warm weight of its nuzzling was unexpectedly comforting.

Ling Bu Fei smiled. “As expected of the one I picked. It really likes you.”

Bai Meng Jin let the beast rub her palm again. “Does it have a name?”

“It’s called Da Mao.”

Bai Meng Jin stared. “…”

A beast with multiple tiger heads named Da Mao.

That was truly… efficient.

Ling Bu Fei glanced around.

You Yan and the others had taken one look at him and Bai Meng Jin and decided he was “busy,” so they kept their distance. Only Bai Li Xu remained at the yard gate, standing guard with disciplined patience.

It was the perfect moment to talk.

“So,” Ling Bu Fei said, “about earlier in the valley…”

Bai Meng Jin understood. She held his hand and silently laid a soundproof barrier over them.

The sensation still made Ling Bu Fei’s breath catch.

He’d known since childhood that he couldn’t cultivate. Vast power slept in his body, unreachable, like a dead sea. With Bai Meng Jin, he could finally feel it move.

He could cast a barrier with a thought.

He could crush a Nascent Soul cultivator under his palm.

His gaze sharpened on Bai Meng Jin. “How do you know Soul Search?”

His voice lowered. “That’s a forbidden art of the sects. In the whole Limitless Sect, only the Sect Master is qualified to learn it.”

Bai Meng Jin tilted her head. “Do you think it’s strange for the Gu Family to have Soul Search?”

Ling Bu Fei fell silent. Then he shook his head.

During the Devil-Sealing War, the Gu Family had been a top-tier immortal clan, with a foundation rich enough to rival entire sects. If anyone could possess forbidden techniques, it would be them.

“But at your age,” he said, “you shouldn’t know so much.”

His eyes narrowed. “And the way you drew Second Lady Hu’s primordial spirit into the Yin-Yang Umbrella… that’s also unusual.”

Cultivation wasn’t one skill. It was a thousand—runes, arrays, pills, treasures, herbs, wards—each demanding time. Ling Bu Fei had read endlessly to pass the years he couldn’t cultivate, but even with all that knowledge, what Bai Meng Jin did still felt… beyond her years.

Back in the tomb, she’d looked at the valley’s wards and seen a Grand Array.

Even Second Lady Hu hadn’t known what she was building.

The Kaiming Beast rumbled and nudged Bai Meng Jin’s palm again.

Bai Meng Jin smiled, rubbing its head as she leaned slightly closer to Ling Bu Fei. “Because my head holds one person’s knowledge from an entire lifetime.”

Ling Bu Fei froze, remembering strange tales from dusty books. “A Gu Family senior… sealed what they knew into your sea of consciousness, and when conditions were met, it opened?”

Passing down cultivation methods was common.

Passing down knowledge itself—vast, tangled, everything from arrays to forbidden arts—would require a monster of a cultivator.

Bai Meng Jin only smiled and didn’t answer. His guess wasn’t wrong enough to correct. Her mother had, in her own way, passed the Gu Family’s foundation to her.

“Done asking?” Bai Meng Jin’s voice stayed light. “Then I’m taking down the barrier.”

“Wait.” Ling Bu Fei’s fingers tightened around hers. “Don’t you want to know what I saw when I used Soul Search?”

Bai Meng Jin looked at him.

She didn’t want to entangle herself in his family’s storms, but if he offered the truth, she wouldn’t refuse to hear it.

“I saw the moment Fang Xu Cheng decided to frame my father,” Ling Bu Fei said. “On the way back from the Ming River, someone met him in a tavern. They stirred him up and handed him the idea.”

Bai Meng Jin’s brows lifted. “Did you see who?”

Ling Bu Fei nodded. “A completely unremarkable face. It felt like a disguise technique. The kind of face you forget the moment you look away.”

Bai Meng Jin’s voice came out flat. “I see.”

So the rumor that Ling Yun Zhou had joined the Devil Clan hadn’t been accidental.

Someone had planted it.

In her previous life, she’d never heard the truth behind it. Either Ling Bu Fei uncovered it later… or it vanished into the world like smoke.

“I don’t want them to know,” Ling Bu Fei said.

By them, he meant the Limitless Sect.

Bai Meng Jin met his gaze. “I won’t say a word.”

That wasn’t what he meant—not entirely—but he couldn’t force the words out of his mouth.

He’d tried to show closeness. She’d accepted it like a transaction.

Something in him tightened, then turned sour.

“Let’s go back,” Ling Bu Fei said abruptly, releasing her hand and standing.

Bai Meng Jin blinked at his back, genuinely confused.

A boy’s heart really was a needle at the bottom of the sea.

Early the next morning, they departed.

Ling Bu Fei rode in the familiar lavish carriage drawn by the Kaiming Beast. For the Bai siblings, You Yan arranged another carriage—less extravagant than the Young Sect Master’s, but still far grander than anything the Bai Family had ever touched.

Bai Meng Lian climbed in and exhaled, eyes shining with complicated emotion. Ever since leaving home, she’d counted the days until they reached the Cinnabar Cloud Palace. Who would have thought the destination would change halfway, and they’d head to the Limitless Sect instead?

Still—together was enough.

Bai Meng Jin sat in the same carriage at first.

Bai Meng Lian glanced at her. “You’re sitting here? Shouldn’t the Young Sect Master take you with him?”

“He didn’t say,” Bai Meng Jin answered. “Maybe he likes being alone.”

Bai Meng Lian’s lips tightened. Even if this engagement began as a deal, she still wanted her sister and her fiancé to at least look like allies.

After a while, Bai Li Xu dismounted from the front carriage and approached. “Miss Bai.”

Bai Meng Jin lifted the curtain. “What is it?”

He cupped his fists politely. “Young Master invites you to ride with him.”

Bai Meng Jin blinked in surprise. She’d thought he was still sulking.

Bai Meng Lian’s face brightened. She gave Bai Meng Jin a small shove. “Go.”

So Bai Meng Jin climbed down and walked to the front.

Once she was seated, Bai Li Xu returned to the driver’s seat and flicked the reins. “Set off!”

You Yan and Lin Bai Yu went ahead. Bai Li Xu drove. Young Sect Master Ling finally started the long road home.

Shang Lian Cheng saw them off on behalf of the Shang Family, waving with a smile he couldn’t quite hide.

At last, the plague god was gone.

In the Bai siblings’ carriage, Bai Meng Xing was delighted at first. He rolled around like a child, laughing at the softness of the cushions—

Then he abruptly sat up, eyes wide. “Elder Sister!”

Bai Meng Lian looked at him.

“Didn’t you say you left my money with Perfected Chang Ling?” Bai Meng Xing’s voice went shrill. “Now that we’re going to the Limitless Sect, does that mean the money is gone?”

Bai Meng Lian stared at him for a heartbeat.

Then, without blinking, she said, “Yes.”

A wail erupted from inside the carriage.

It was so miserable, so dramatic, so endless, it sounded like the world had ended over a handful of coins.