Hidden Shadow – CH 220

Chapter Two-Hundred-Twenty: Indifference

An Jiu turned around and saw a person emerge from the shadows. She wore a gray-black outfit, but the person had the handsome features of a young man.

“It really is Sister!” she exclaimed excitedly.

“Mei Ruyan,” An Jiu said, uttering her name.

Mei Ruyan paused. Mei Jiu usually called her “Sister” or “Ah Shun,” rarely using this name.

“Why are you being so distant, Sister?” Mei Ruyan approached, her expression hurt. She said sadly, “I did not receive a reply from Lord Chu in Yangzhou, so I risked following him to Bianjing. I guessed Sister might return to the Mei family, so I’ve been waiting nearby for over a month.”

She removed her mask, revealing a radiant face.

In An Jiu’s eyes, Mei Ruyan’s beauty was distinctly Eastern; her slender eyes could be both sharp and alluring. But equally, in An Jiu’s eyes, this face was deceptive. “If you wanted to use a fool, I am sorry; that fool is no longer here.”

Mei Ruyan’s expression froze, and then she asked, “What did you say, sister?”

“Stop pretending,” An Jiu said calmly. “Wei Yuzhi is as cunning as a ghost, and his mental power can manipulate external objects. How did you manage to escape from him?”

“His physical constitution was weak to begin with. After using his manipulation abilities once, he needed a long recovery period, which allowed me to escape.”

Mei Ruyan was so anxious that tears were almost streaming down her face. “Sister, you have to believe me. I ran away to save you because I thought I could rely on you in the future. If you ignore me, I will be dead sooner or later once Wei Yuzhi recovers!”

In her desperation, she drew her sword and held it to her neck. “Since I am going to die sooner or later anyway, I might as well end it now! It will save me from living in constant fear.”

A smile slowly crept onto An Jiu’s face; she was incredibly beautiful, but in the moonlight, she was as cold as frost. “From today onwards, I’ve changed my opinion of you. You are nothing special.”

An Jiu was somewhat disappointed. She used to think that Mei Ruyan, growing up in harsh conditions, was like a flower on a cliff—though perhaps too worldly and cunning, she possessed a resilient beauty, far superior to Mei Jiu, that delicate little flower nurtured under someone’s wings. But now she felt that Mei Jiu was not bad either, at least far superior to the woman threatening suicide with a sword in front of her.

Mei Ruyan lowered her sword. Watching An Jiu’s retreating figure, she called out, “Why are you so sure I have ill intentions?”

“Because I do not care about you at all.” An Jiu did not turn around, throwing out this irrelevant answer.

Because she did not care, she ignored her life and death.

Mei Ruyan stood frozen.

This was not the Mei Jiu she knew! Even if a person changed, they would not be so drastically transformed, would they?

An Jiu moved through the city like an arrow.

She returned to the Konghe Army in no time.

She first went to Mo Sigui’s courtyard and threw the Plum Blossom Fist manual in front of him. “Check if anything’s missing?”

Mo Sigui was intently trimming his nails, not having time to look up. “I am not surnamed Mei; how would I know what a manual looks like?”

“You can recognize other martial arts manuals. How come you cannot recognize this one?” An Jiu sat opposite him, staring straight at him. “Have you gone blind lately?”

“Ouch!” Mo Sigui’s fingers ached from filing them, and he glared at her fiercely. “Is this how you ask for a favor?”

They stared at each other for a long time before An Jiu finally pouted. Just as she was about to say a few kind words to coax him, he raised his hand to stop her. “I understand your feelings perfectly, but there’s no need for words. Even a fool could see through it; a dog’s mouth will never produce ivory.”

“I can,” An Jiu said.

Mo Sigui was greatly surprised. He picked up the two scrolls on the table, his mood brightening. “You can actually make fun of yourself! I thought you only knew how to say hurtful things to irritate others.”

An Jiu leaned closer to read with him, replying, “I just think you often make a lot of sense.” Slap! Mo Sigui slammed the scroll on the table. “I am not reading anymore!”

An Jiu quickly checked the scroll, and seeing it was not broken, said, “The psychologist said that people who frequently cannot control their emotions are prone to mental illness. You often get angry for no reason; you’d better be careful.”

“For no reason?” Mo Sigui raised his voice, then deflated, picking up the manual again. “I am almost driven to my wits’ end by you! I want to tell you something serious—An Jiu, be careful I do not poison you one day!”

“You will not,” An Jiu said confidently, “because you are interested in the injuries on my body.”

“…”

Mo Sigui felt like he was being manipulated and tossed around. This feeling was so intense and sudden that he was speechless with “surprise.”

Seeing that he was not moving, An Jiu urged, “Look quickly!”

Mo Sigui silently flipped through the pages, moving very fast. When he reached the last page of the second volume, he suddenly grinned, rolled up his sleeves, and said, “Come on, let me guess, you must have put in a lot of effort to get this, right? But you still got tricked. This book is incomplete; there should be at least two more fist techniques at the end. Wow, what a turn of fortune! I’ve finally gotten my chance!”

“I knew it,” An Jiu echoed Mo Sigui’s words, touching the scroll and saying, “It did take a lot of effort. The jade pendant the former patriarch gave me before he died—I painstakingly preserved it for so long, and then I just gave it to them? I hesitated for a whole day.”

Mo Sigui’s smile faltered.

“They gave me the manual so easily and did not even try to take it back, so I figured they must have withheld some of the content,” An Jiu continued, her slender, pale fingers tapping lightly on the table. “I will need a few more years to practice the later parts, right? I am thinking, if the Mei family does not give me the rest of the manual, or if their demands are too unreasonable, I should be able to snatch it. At the very least, I can steal it, right?”

Mo Sigui said with a mocking smile, “I did not realize you were so capable. My apologies.”

His mockery was so exaggerated that it was hard for An Jiu to ignore it. “This is a very serious matter…”

Mo Sigui grabbed a nail file. “Take Da Jiu and Xiao Yue to play somewhere else. Do not disturb me while I am doing my important business.”

An Jiu thought to herself, what kind of important business was filing nails! But then she noticed him lightly brushing the nail polish dust he’d scribbled down into a paper packet with a brush. “What are you collecting this for?”

“To make medicine, of course,” Mo Sigui chuckled as if he’d thought of something amusing. “This is for your medicine! Feeling uneasy?”

“I’d eat your finger even if you chopped it off.” An Jiu’s gaze lingered on his finger.

This time, it was Mo Sigui who felt uneasy. He pocketed the packet. “Go away, go do what you are supposed to do!”

An Jiu returned to her room to carefully study the Plum Blossom Fist.

The way the Plum Blossom Fist generates power was very different from the Meridian-Severing Palm. The Meridian-Severing Palm’s force was fierce and violent, severing meridians while also damaging flesh, almost crippling the opponent. Plum Blossom Fist, however, was like “hitting a cow through a mountain,” containing a power that was both soft and strong. According to the manual, if one mastered Plum Blossom Fist to perfection, one could injure internal organs without leaving a trace on the skin.