Murong Feiye stumbled upon an ocean of information the moment he tapped on the search suggestion.
“The owner of a cell fusion patent?”
“National idol?”
“Genius artist?”
“Prodigy of the national examination?”
“…”
Are they all talking about the same individual? Murong Feiye tapped on a random video, which turned out to be a promotional clip for the film, “Empire Under Siege”. For a few seconds after the clip had ended, he remained frozen in place. Then, he quickly replayed the video.
He was a fan of American big-budget production films; he had little to no interest in locally-produced entertainment and media. They were typically over-sensationalized, which he thought made a piece of art lose its meaning. However, this film was an exception. Every single character in the promotional clip was equally magnetic.
Since Li Yu was the main star of the film, Murong Feiye thought that the spotlight would focus mostly on him. To his amazement, every other character was more or less on par with him. Especially–the actress who was playing the character of Princess Qixia. If not for the comments section, he would not have believed that the elegant and alluring princess, who was dressed in bright red, was Gu Xiqiao.
Her bright eyes reminded him instantly of the Milky Way. Her red lips paired so well with her blood-red outfit that it stunned Murong Feiye.
“What did you find?” Seeing Murong Feiye freeze up like that, Baili Bin couldn’t help but give him a shake.
Murong Feiye regained his senses and immediately closed the video player. Tapping on another video of an art interview, he passed his phone over to Baili Bin. “Prepare yourself.” So many great awards. You could give either one of them to a normal person and that person would undoubtedly bathe in glory for the rest of eternity.
Never in a thousand years would he expect that a seemingly regular girl like Gu Xiqiao would possess so many achievements under her belt.
Baili Bin took the phone from his hand and glanced down at the video. Seems like someone was interviewing Gu Xiqiao. “Oh, I’ve seen this one before. She, she really is something else.” He was much calmer than Murong Feiye in response to this.
In that moment, Gu Xiqiao’s words repeated itself in his mind. It appears that the saying, “annihilation and strength” had become the motto of a great deal of young people.
Considering how young that girl was, it’s impossible that she had reached such heights overnight. She must have made an unthinkable amount of sacrifices in exchange for her achievements. A pain rose in his heart thinking about this.
“What? Lemme take a look!” Rong Feishuang was in the middle of a game of chess with Baili Qu when he overheard the young men’s conversation. Stealthily, he snuck up on their backs.
Baili Qu didn’t particularly mind when his opponents cheated or tried to undo his move. What he did not expect was for Rong Feishuang to run off when their match was not even remotely over! ‘What a disappointment,’ Baili Qu sighed. He made a note to himself to never play with this man ever again.
Fuelled by curiosity, he squeezed in to catch a glimpse of what they were looking at.
The video was shot from multiple angles, with multiple cameras. Finally, it showed Gu Xiqiao’s painting. On it was the compassionate and sincere face of a rural village woman. The young reporter then asked, “Is the subject of this painting a person made-up, or is she an actual person you have met?”
“She’s my adoptive mother,” answered the stunningly-beautiful young girl. “She deserves all the gratitude I can offer. However, I’m afraid I won’t be able to see her again in my lifetime.”
The reporter was surprised to receive this answer. It never crossed his mind that the light-hearted interview would take such an emotionally-heavy turn. It was only a moment later that he responded with a, “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
Rong Feishuang stood there, holding the phone like a statue.
“Healer Rong?” Concerned, and with a raised brow, Baili Bin called out to Rong Feishuang.
“It’s nothing.” Rong Feishuang passed the phone back to Baili Bin and once again, a cheeky smile returned to his wrinkled face. Then, he turned away before announcing his departure.
“I’m gonna head off to A University to join Zhu Yuan.”
Ever since he was a child, Jiang Shuxuan’s words had to be taken seriously. If he said that he would never allow them to meet Gu Xiqiao, then the chances of them doing so were pretty much nil. As such, the only other option he had was to go looking for Zhu Yuan.
Still holding onto the phone, Baili Bin looked at Rong Feishuang receding into the distance as thoughts flashed through his mind.
“Baili, hypothetically-speaking, if I and Jiang Shuxuan got into a fight,” said Murong Feiye with an eager look on his face. “Who would lose and who would win?”
“I don’t know,” answered Baili Bin. It has been such a long time since he last participated in the ranking competition. “Though, I can say for sure that your chances of winning are slim, very slim.”
“Preposterous!” protested Murong Feiye with a smug look on his face. “Back then, I was only an inch away from kicking his ass! After that match, I trained day in and day out. Hell, even the great leader of my family couldn’t defeat me!”
His rate of improvement shocked the elders of his clan. Although he was a little sloppy, Murong Feiye was surprisingly confident in his abilities. How could he possibly not defeat Jiang Shuxuan? At the very least, a spar with him would end up in a deadlock, right?
With an excited look on his face, he rubbed his fingers together.
Baili Bin shook his head slightly. “You refuse to delve into formations, and according to my clan’s reports, your mental strength isn’t as terrifying as Shuxuan’s. Broaden your horizons by even the slightest margin and you’d realize just how far ahead of you Jiang Shuxuan is.”
You think becoming the strongest man in the ancient martial arts world is such a piece of cake?
“Fine, fine.” Murong shook his head in defeat. Sticking his hands into his pocket, he said, “I’m gonna go watch a movie.”
The only reason why he got up so early today was to see Gu Xiqiao in person. Since it didn’t seem like she’s gonna make an appearance any sooner, there was no reason for him to idle around here anymore. He thought that it’d be a good chance for him to watch “Empire Under Siege” at the cinema.
The smile on Baili Qu’s face faded away upon realizing that two of his friends had left. In his mind, a scene kept replaying. “Yesterday, we bumped into Miss Gu when we arrived. What you said was true, the resemblance… really is uncanny.”
“Grandpa, stop thinking too much about it. You too, said that my cousin is in the Imperial Capital…wait no, has already returned to Great Britain. You’d always bump into a Doppelganger or two.” Something had affected Baili Qu but Baili Bin on the other hand, refused to believe in it.
A reaction like Baili Qu’s could only be invoked by meeting that girl in person.
Baili Qu took in a deep breath to calm himself down. Still, the matter remained stubbornly in his mind.
Although he explicitly stated that he did not believe in Baili Qu’s suggestion, he immediately called up Tang Qingqiu when he got home. “Qingqiu, do me a favor.”
The golden rule of the ancient martial world was to never interfere with matters pertaining to the secular world. And so, the Baili clan’s forces were concentrated solely in the ancient martial arts world. Tang Qingqiu was the very exception to this rule. He had successfully established a corporate empire in the outside world. As such, whenever one needed outside information, Tang Qingqiu was your best bet.
“You want her information?” Tang Qingqiu was a little surprised when he heard what Baili Bin said. “Listen, Baili, you’ll never get…”
“No,” Baili Bin seemed to have read what was going on in Tang Qingqiu’s mind. “I just want to know her history. Especially her family, where she was raised and all that. It would help a great deal if I get to know more about her.”
This time, Tang Qingqiu suddenly remembered what Murong Feiye told him. Aunt Baili? Seemed like Murong Feiye wasn’t the only one who noticed how Gu Xiqiao was the spitting image of Aunt Baili. Tang Qingqiu pondered about it for a while before handing the matter over to Qin Heng.
What he did not know was that this investigation would soon unveil yet another shocking discovery.
“Beauty Qiao, someone’s trying to look up your information. Would you like me to suppress them?” Jiang Shuxuan wasn’t in the study room, so the system was allowed to float around the room freely.
Gu Xiqiao was sketching something with her pencil. Her eyes narrowed the moment she heard the system’s warning. “Who is it?”
“…huh, it’s Tang Qingqiu?”
“Tang Qingqiu?” Gu Xiqiao put her pencil down. “Are you sure he’s not digging for Xiao Yun’s information instead of mine?”
The system raised its hand and out came a clear panel in front of Gu Xiqiao’s eyes. “It really is you. In fact, he’s tracing you all the way back to N City.”
“Leave him be.” Gu Xiqiao continued working on her sketch. “We’ll let him check whatever’s appropriate. Though, you should suppress sensitive information that he stumbles upon.”
At A University.
“Zhu Yuan!” Professor Jiang rushed over hastily.
Zhu Yuan was still grinding his experiment. His hands did not tremble even the slightest when he heard Professor Jiang’s thunderous roar. “What did you discover this time?” he asked without looking up.
Professor Jiang stood still and inhaled deeply. “Little Gu sent me a document!”
What? Zhu Yuan immediately put down the apparatus he was holding and instead, grabbed the paper Professor Jiang was holding. He thought that she would come over in a few days’ time. Who would’ve thought that she’d send Professor Jiang her manuscript only one day later?
“Did she call you?” He asked as he flipped through the pages frantically.
“Yeah” responded Professor Jiang. “She said that this might be a little hard to understand, which is why I’m here.”
Zhu Yuan flipped the first page over. “I bet they won’t understand this too. Did you tell her to come over?”
“…I forgot to do that.”
‘…Garbage professor!’ thought Zhu Yuan to himself.
A large crowd had already formed around Zhu Yuan by the time Rong Feishuang arrived at A University.
He initially wanted to walk right up to Zhu Yuan. However, upon closer inspection, he realized that he had grown a tad bit unfamiliar with his own disciple.
There were many people gathered in the laboratory. Rong Feishuang watched as a girl with a piece of paper asking Zhu Yuan some questions. He thought that the boy would turn her down coldly but to his amazement, not only did he give thorough explanations, he did so in a friendly manner.
“Master?” Zhu Yuan was surprised to see Rong Feishuang here at his workplace. He shoved the pile of documents over to someone next to him. “Why are you here?”
“What are you kids doing?” Rong Feishuang looked over at the students who were engaged in a heated debate. He was taken aback by how this was the first time he had gone under so many peoples’ radars.
Zhu Yuan’s eyes lit up a split-second later. “You came at the right time, Master. Miss Gu has just sent a manuscript, containing her treatment process from yesterday. Why don’t we look at it together? It involves a formation too! You know how weak I am at traditional Chinese medicine!”
“Will she be coming by today?” Suddenly, an equally bright glow appeared in Rong Feishuang’s eyes.
“Nope,” replied Zhu Yuan with a sigh. “I called her but my call never got through.”
He had already grown used to Gu Xiqiao’s tactics.
“But take a look at this first master.” Zhu Yuan yanked the papers out of the person’s hands and passed it over to Rong Feishuang.
Absent-mindedly, he took hold of the papers. It seems like his mind was somewhere else. His mind didn’t really register what Zhu Yuan had just said. However, as he read through the papers, his eyes grew wider and his facial expression became dead serious. He did not move a single muscle until he read the writings till the very end.
Written with great detail on the paper were methods of acupuncture. It also contained an illustration for every part where the needle was to be inserted, its steps, and the effects of doing so.
His mastery of traditional Chinese medicine was sky-high; even foreign practitioners were impressed by his work. Picking up where he left off yesterday, a look of disbelief returned to his face.
After re-reading the writings, he concluded that the insights provided were incredibly unique. Some of them seemed almost to have been written by some old veteran of Chinese medicine.
If not for seeing Gu Xiqiao work in real life, he would have thought that you were lying if he was told that this was written by a young lady who was barely twenty.
Such a talent, with just a little bit of polishing…
“So she gave you her secret acupuncture technique just like that?” asked Rong Feishuang. This was the most precious treasure a doctor could ever lay his hands on. Even he had some tricks which he kept as a safely-guarded secret. On the other hand, not only did she reveal her technique, she even provided a thorough explanation of how the process worked.
Was she plain stupid or was she just so generous?
Amused, a smile appeared on Zhu Yuan’s face. “That’s right.”
Rong Feishuang glanced at him. Suppressing the excitement that was swelling up within him, he asked: “You seem like you admire her a lot don’t you?”
This was his first time seeing Zhu Yuan react this way about someone else.
So much about Zhu Yuan had changed within the span of a month. The crappy playboy attitude that he once possessed was now nowhere to be seen.
“Well, I’m not the only one.” Zhu Yuan proceeded to point at everyone present in the laboratory. “Master, if you came here two months ago, these people would flock to you in an instant. Don’t you feel a little lonely now?”
“…”
‘Let’s not venture into that topic, alright?’ begged Rong Feishuang in his mind.
He furiously flipped through the papers again. Zhu Yuan was weak as hell whenever he stood next to that girl!
“Look at her. Now look at yourself.” Rong Feishuang used to be proud of his accomplished disciple. Now, such feelings had turned into deep disgust. He’d even laugh in his dreams if he had a disciple like Gu Xiqiao.
“…”
After mutually hurting each other, both master and disciple stood there, bathing in awkward silence.
“Darn brat! I demand to see her!” yelled Rong Feishuang while glaring at Zhu Yuan. It didn’t matter if it was because of these papers, or something else, it was imperative that he met her right this instant!