Chapter 47

Chapter 47: Li Shi Yi, Don’t Let Me Catch You Again!

Otherwise… why would she rather roam the roads with that filthy old Daoist priest than come back and be the great miss?

Gu Yong Ping kept talking, the wine loosening his tongue until it flapped like a banner in a storm.

“The second aunt who came in later,” he said, snickering, “she was pretty. A proper young miss. At first my second uncle doted on her. Then these past few years she got older and faded, and he went and took four concubines…”

Gu Shi Yi made a sound in her throat that meant, Yes, of course he did.

“But none of those concubines had even one child,” Gu Yong Ping continued. He leaned in, lowering his voice like he was telling a secret that would change the world. “One time I heard the servants in Second Uncle’s courtyard say… they said my second aunt drugged him. Made it so he can’t have children anymore.”

Gu Shi Yi’s brows lifted.

“Second Uncle found out,” Gu Yong Ping said with relish, “and he beat her. Now husband and wife look fine on the surface, but they’re already split.”

He burst out laughing. “Imagine that! Outside, my second uncle looks so glorious—can run this huge clan—but he can’t even control the women in his own back courtyard. And he got drugged!”

Gu Shi Yi nodded, pleased in a cold way. “Serves him right. Lust is a blade over your head, and he still doesn’t understand something that simple. Sounds like the Gu family’s future family head isn’t that impressive.”

A scheme like that wouldn’t be loud. It wouldn’t be a single violent dose. If she’d really done it, it would’ve been quiet and patient—starting the day she entered the door. A man drinks tea every day. A man eats snacks every day. A man lowers his guard when he thinks he’s being loved.

Noble families taught their children to watch for that kind of thing. For Gu Huai Mu to still get caught meant one thing: beauty had melted his brain.

Gu Yong Ping slapped Gu Shi Yi’s shoulder like he’d found someone who finally spoke human language. “Brother, you’re exactly right!”

Gu Shi Yi let him bask in agreement for a moment, then asked casually, “I heard your Gu family’s missing great miss was found and brought back.”

Gu Yong Ping nodded, his face flushed red. The wine had made his thoughts slow and sticky. He frowned, thinking hard, then said, “But I feel… I feel… she doesn’t look like our old Shi Yi…”

Gu Shi Yi’s gaze sharpened. “If the family acknowledged her, the elders must’ve checked. Why would Tenth Brother think she isn’t your sister? Because she was gone too long, so she feels unfamiliar?”

“No, no.” Gu Yong Ping shook his head so hard he wobbled. “Old Shi Yi left at five. After all these years, sure, she’d change… but you’d still see traces. The brows, the eyes, something. This one… I just feel she isn’t old Shi Yi.”

He squinted at the air, trying to pull a memory out of it.

“Old Shi Yi’s temperament,” he said, voice suddenly certain, “was different.”

He started listing his crimes like trophies.

“When we were little, I bullied her the most. Sometimes I’d shove her into the grass while we were walking. Or under the table at meals I’d kick her knees until she hopped up in pain and got punished by Grandfather. Or I’d yank her hair ribbon so she’d stumble around with her hair loose and get scolded by the nannies…”

Five- and six-year-olds couldn’t do much, but even that was nasty.

“Old Shi Yi was stubborn,” Gu Yong Ping said, wagging a finger. “If I pushed her down, she never cried. If Grandfather blamed her unfairly, she’d just grit her teeth, fists clenched, staring at me like she wanted to eat me alive. She was like a hard bean you couldn’t season—no matter what you did, she didn’t soften.”

He took another drink and smacked his lips.

“She could’ve cried and made the elders go easy. But she wouldn’t. And now this Shi Yi? She cries at the drop of a hat. I even heard her husband really falls for that.”

He said it with absolute confidence—so confident he didn’t notice Gu Shi Yi’s fist tighten under the table.

Then he looked up, saw her expression, and pointed like he’d found buried treasure.

“There!” he shouted. “That expression! That’s it. Our little Shi Yi had that exact face. If the elders hadn’t held her down, she would’ve jumped up and punched me—or bitten me!”

He laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. “She bit me once. Like a little dog.”

Gu Shi Yi kept her smile in place by force. She poured him more wine, because it was better than pouring him blood.

“You’re talking about when she was little,” she said lightly. “People change when they grow up.”

Gu Yong Ping drank, then shook his head so hard he nearly toppled. “No. Even when I was little, I felt it. With that stubborn streak? That kind of personality… you carry it from childhood to old age. It doesn’t just disappear.”

Gu Shi Yi took a piece of braised duck and chewed it slowly, loudly, as if the meat had personally offended her.

After a moment, she asked, “Does anyone else in your family feel the same?”

Gu Yong Ping blinked. “No. Back then only me and Old Eight bullied her the most. Old Eight went into the mountains. The rest didn’t notice.”

Old Eight went into the mountains?

So he had a spirit root. He’d gone to cultivate.

Gu Shi Yi’s eyes narrowed. “Old Eight?”

Gu Yong Ping nodded, then scowled like the memory itself annoyed him. “That bastard was rotten. When we were little, he was the one who egged me on. He said her mother was a bad woman, so she had to be bad too. Said we should ‘teach’ her while she was young, so she wouldn’t do shameless things when she grew up.”

Gu Shi Yi’s teeth ground together. “And you listened?”

“I was little,” Gu Yong Ping said, as if that explained everything. “Old Eight was my real brother. Whatever he said, I believed.”

Gu Shi Yi gave a short, sharp huff.

So that was your real face, Gu Old Eight. Twenty-some years, and I only see it now.

Gu Yong Ping sighed, and his tone turned oddly admiring. “I heard Old Eight is already at level eight of the Qi Refining Stage. The elders praise his talent. Maybe one day he’ll be another Nascent Soul cultivator in our family.”

Level eight.

Gu Shi Yi’s mouth twitched. That was… not someone she could casually “teach a lesson.”

If that old woman at level seven of the Qi Refining Stage hadn’t crippled herself and lost her power, Gu Shi Yi would’ve been killed long ago.

Fine. She could wait.

“The Gu family tests children for spirit roots after they turn six,” Gu Yong Ping rambled on. “Once Old Eight tested with a spirit root, he got taken into the mountains. Aside from gathering once a year at New Year, brothers don’t even see each other.”

He poured himself more wine and stared into it like it was his future.

“I have no hope in this life. I’m just hoping to have more sons and daughters—maybe one will be able to cultivate. Too bad I can’t stand that woman. I don’t even want to touch her.”

Gu family rules were cruel in a quiet, organized way. A properly married legal wife’s child was “legitimate.” That legitimacy bought you comfort, status, and protection. Look at Gu Yong Ping: he was a useless kept man, yet he could lose tens of thousands of taels in a gambling den and still be treated like a lord. At the very least, it meant he could afford to lose.

Concubines’ children didn’t have that kind of wealth. They also didn’t have that kind of dignity—when they saw legitimate young misses and young masters, they had to kneel just to speak.

And someone like Gu Shi Yi? Direct line, and the future family head’s eldest daughter. Even though at home they’d called her Little Shi Yi, outside she’d been the great miss of her generation. Her presence alone carried weight. If her birth mother hadn’t run away, she would’ve been the Gu family’s jewel in the palm.

So even though Gu Yong Ping took concubines, what he truly wanted were legitimate sons and daughters. Even if they had no spirit roots, the life they could live inside the clan would be different. It was the only scrap of protection he could offer them as a father.

With the wine rising and Gu Shi Yi nudging the conversation where she wanted it, Gu Yong Ping spilled plenty of “secrets.” He was outer-line, so he didn’t know the Gu family’s true core matters, but it was more than enough to fill Gu Shi Yi’s twenty-five-year gap.

In the end, it all boiled down to one simple thing: after she left, her birth father hadn’t grieved much at all. He married a new wife as usual. He had children as usual. In their generation, the numbering had already reached thirty-seven. As for how many noble houses they’d married into, how many sects had tried to seize Blue Moon Lake, how many conflicts the clan had crushed—Gu Shi Yi had no interest.

She did, however, ask about the “Gu Shi Yi” who had been married out.

“Oh, her?” Gu Yong Ping waved a hand. “Marrying into the Sun family wasn’t bad. I heard that kid from the Sun family dotes on her.”

Gu Shi Yi leaned in and lowered her voice, watching his bleary eyes. “Did you ever hear… that she has a half-demon body?”

Gu Old Ten stared at her for a long time, as if the words had to swim through wine before reaching his brain. Then he slowly shook his head.

And immediately afterward, he slumped forward with a dull thud, face planting onto the table and passing out cold.

Gu Shi Yi watched him for a heartbeat, expression empty.

Then she calmly finished her wine, reached over, and patted Gu Yong Ping down. She found every banknote on him and took them all. After that, she walked out of the private room like nothing in the world had happened.

The waiter hurried up, ready to speak. Gu Shi Yi jerked her thumb back at the room. “Collect the bill from him.”

Gu Yong Ping was a regular. He brought friends. He put everything on credit. The waiter didn’t dare make trouble for Gu Shi Yi—and even eagerly called her a carriage.

Gu Shi Yi rode straight out of town and back to Blue Moon City. She chose a secluded inn, shut herself in, and only then pulled out the banknotes with a wicked grin to count them.

Li Yan Er covered her mouth, laughing. “Shi Yi, you’re terrible. You cleaned out everything on him. How’s he supposed to pay?”

“He already lost everything,” Gu Shi Yi said, utterly unbothered. “Those banknotes are silver I helped him win back. I’m just taking them back now. And don’t worry—he’s a Gu family young master. He never pays cash for meals. He always puts it on the tab.”

Gu Shi Yi did not know that downstairs, Gu Yong Ping was already exploding.

“What do you mean,” he roared, “I can’t put it on the tab anymore?!”

The shopkeeper looked like he wanted to crawl under the floor. “Tenth Lord, it’s not that I want to make things hard. Your Second Master sent word earlier—said you’ve drawn too much silver from the estate lately. The accountants aren’t allowed to cover your tabs anymore, so…”

So please pay with silver and stop eating like a bandit.

Gu Yong Ping’s temper flared, but then he remembered last night’s winnings and forced himself to breathe. Fine. He had money. He reached into his robe—

And froze.

His face went green so fast it was almost impressive.

Only then did he understand.

He stumbled out into the street and started screaming at the night like it had personally betrayed him. “Li Shi Yi! You goddamn con artist! You used me as a bridge!”

He’d spent enough time in gambling dens to recognize the type. He assumed Li Shi Yi was a traveling cheat—one of those men who lived off casinos. Last night, that kid had won nearly five thousand taels with him. If Li Shi Yi had been alone, he probably wouldn’t have made it out of town alive.

So the bastard had latched onto Gu Yong Ping’s status as a Gu family young master, borrowed his shadow, and relied on the gambling den proprietor not daring to offend the Gu family. That was how he’d walked out safely.

“Damn it! You used me to cross the river, and you even scammed me out of a meal! That’s too ruthless!”

Not even a single copper left for him.

Cursing didn’t summon silver. Li Shi Yi was long gone.

Gu Yong Ping couldn’t draw from the public funds anymore, but he still had his own household. He grabbed the waiter and snapped, “Go tell my madam to send a steward to pay!”

“Yes!” the waiter said, and ran.

Not long after, he came back, sweating and miserable. “Tenth Lord, I… I asked at the estate, and that madam… that madam…”

Gu Yong Ping’s heart sank. “What did Madam say?”

The waiter swallowed. “Madam… had the gatekeeper tell me there’s no such person in the estate. They won’t give me any silver.”

Gu Yong Ping saw stars.

Today. Of all days. Everyone chose today.

He spun back toward the street and screamed until his throat burned. “Li Shi Yi! Don’t let me catch you again! If I catch you again, I’ll break your legs—or my name isn’t Gu Yong Ping!”

In Blue Moon City, Gu Shi Yi counted the banknotes one last time, then tucked them away with satisfaction.

Li Yan Er’s eyes were bright. “That’s enough to last us a while.”

Gu Shi Yi laughed softly. “Right? Spend a thousand gold, and it comes back again. As long as you’ve got skill… silver really does come as easy as picking it up.”

Li Yan Er blinked. “But how did you win so much? You didn’t even do anything.”

Gu Shi Yi’s smile turned sly. “That gambling den’s dice are rigged. The dealer can make whatever point he wants—Big when he wants Big, Small when he wants Small.”

Li Yan Er stared.

“I didn’t need to do much,” Gu Shi Yi said. “When I squeezed past him, I used a Reversal Illusion Art and made him see Big and Small the wrong way around. After that, when the house pressed Big, I pressed Small. When the house pressed Small, I pressed Big. I could win as much as I wanted.”

She tucked the money away carefully, then sobered a fraction and looked at Li Yan Er. “I only went in to get Gu Yong Ping talking. The old man warned me—no using Dao arts to cheat people. I still broke the rule a little, so I can’t keep all this silver. I’ll have to use some of it to help the poor.”

Li Yan Er hesitated. “Why?”

“Because it damages your karmic virtue,” Gu Shi Yi said, the words coming out like something she’d repeated to herself a hundred times. “When you use Dao arts to harm people or cheat them, you’re the one paying for it. If your virtue is lacking, it harms your Dao heart. It harms your next life.”

The old Daoist priest had always been like that. He would rather be so poor he dragged her into living on air than use Dao arts for crooked tricks.

Gu Shi Yi had once scoffed at him. “That gambling den sets up Feng Shui traps and cheats people. Isn’t that normal?”

And the old man would answer, calm as stone, “If he does it, he loses his virtue. If you do it, you lose yours. He enjoys this life, then in the next life he’s a cow or a horse—driven and whipped. Do you want that?”

Mortals were dull. They only cared about this life and never thought about the next. But cultivators walked the Dao. They couldn’t pretend the bill wouldn’t come due.

Back then, Gu Shi Yi had complained about him endlessly—lustful, greedy, and yet stubbornly clinging to principles he refused to bend.

Now the old man was gone.

And Gu Shi Yi found his words sitting in her bones, heavy as iron.