I looked up after draping her robes over my, or well her, body. Xue Jinzi had already awoken, which was a little surprising.
Normally people who haven't been able to manipulate Qi yet have a hard time being able to recover from acupuncture points. Xue Jinzi must be quite special, recovering what seemed to be 10 times as fast as a normal mortal usually can.
'Hmm, perhaps this is why Master decided to take you in.'
Xue Jinzi sat up on her bed and pointed a shaky finger at me.
"Ahh! W-who are you!?!? Huh? Wait, I'm nak- you took my clothes!"
I looked at her with a wry smile, I had planned to have disappeared before she had the chance to organize her thoughts from waking up, but that had clearly gone awry.
I was about to speak, but before I could even get a word out Xue Jinzi spoke once again, but this time there was a conviction in her voice. That shaky finger of hers soon became firm and steady.
"Wait… You, I know who you are! You must be the 6th Disciple of Big Brother, Li Daji, aren't you!"
"..."
There was a silence in the room as I stared back at her. At the corner of the room I saw Yi Feng, who leaned against the wall without a care, raised her eyebrows a little.
For a moment I was surprised that she could name me, but thinking about the time she spent with Master it probably isn't outlandish for him to tell a few stories about me.
"I know it's you! Big Sister Xiuying told me about your transformation ability! She told me to be on the lookout for suspicious people, but you even got Big Brother to somehow vouch for you!
Thinking back on it, that name you chose "Su Daji," all you did was change your surname! I should have been suspicious of that alone.
When you asked to switch with me I just wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt! Do you know how suspicious you were acting while trying to take my place? It's all because Big Brother had said he knew you!"
'Oh? So that bitch was the one who told her about me in the end? Damn, well it looks like she might be onto me. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so clingy with him the first time we met. But it had been so long already, I felt like I had to do that to be at ease with myself.'
I looked at the naked woman who just stood up from the bed and glanced over at Yi Feng in the corner. She made eye contact with me for a moment before simply leaning her head back against the wall.
'Damn it Yi Feng, we're supposed to be in this together! Why don't you introduce yourself and stop acting so mysterious over there in the corner! Whatever, I could deal with this alone anyway. You'll just have to talk to her later.'
I looked at the small angry woman who was simply all talk. She couldn't really do anything to me even if she wanted to, I was more than half a dozen realms above her after all.
What could she possibly do to me? But I still had the restriction of not being able to kill her or really harm her too much for that matter. I only wanted to take her place for 2 days after all, I needed her to return once those days were over.
If I really killed her and took her place, I wouldn't really be me then would I? Master would end up loving this Xue Jinzi girl and I might not ever even be mentioned again. I want Master to love me, Li Daji!
Letting her live is the only viable option then, but of course this has its own drawbacks.
The best outcome would be to coerce her into willingly staying and keeping shut about what really happened to her, perhaps we could even come to an agreement then.
The absolute worst outcome would probably be forcing her to stay against her will and in turn her spilling the truth to Master about what happened. This would gain her enmity which would pit her against us and firmly into that thieving bitch's camp and it even lower my trustworthiness in the eyes of Master.
I had to convince her quickly now. I didn't know if I had a real time limit, but I knew the longer I delayed this event the more suspicious whoever was at home would be.
I could simply take the easy way out now and just knock her out again, but I knew that would simply increase her reluctance to stay and probably make it more likely for her to tell Master of her time in captivity. She probably already has a little bias toward that bitch too since they've probably been together for quite a while, so I'm not even starting on an even playing field.
I ceased my previous action to properly wear her clothes and simply let them hang as I focused on the important matter of coercion.
"Little Sister, calm down, why don't you? Let's talk it out."
"Talk it out? I didn't accept your request! So why do you look like me and why have you already started to wear my clothes?! You didn't even have the common decency to put me in something else! I was just laying on the bed naked!"
"Little Sister listen to me, by the time I finish talking you may even willingly stay! I have plenty of benefits for you, you just have to stay for 2 measly days here."
"No! I wanna go back home! Let me out of here and give me back my clothes! Stop looking like me too!"
I was running out of time a little. It already took a bit of time to bring her back here while avoiding people so they wouldn't see someone carrying an unconscious person on their back.
I was starting to get a little anxious at the amount of time I had spent here and even started having a bit of regret for waking her up to convince her.
"Hey, come on, it won't be so bad here. You want to get stronger don't you? I've got the perfect person to help you with it and she's just over there."
I pointed out at Yi Feng who looked on at our conversation with interest.
"I'll get stronger on my own, so just let me go!"
***
(MC POV)
I had finished cooking for a while now, but I had yet to even see a single sign of Jinzi appearing.
She has always been quite quick with her arrivals and now it has already passed the time frame she comes at.
I was starting to get worried especially since she had always come back before it started becoming a little too dark for her. It had already been 40 minutes since her latest return time.
With a short flash I pulled out a jade tablet which was how we had been able to monitor her during that competition in the past. Ying'er had decided to give me the tablet since she thought I would make better use of it.
After activating it and figuring out its functions I decided to track where the signal that it locked onto was coming from. The signal only showed a radius of where she could be, but I could easily scan the entire area that it pointed to to rapidly find her.
When I exited the door I saw Ying'er standing directly in front of me with motions that showed I had opened it just a split second faster then her.
"Ah, Darling, where are you going? It's dinner soon isn't it?"
"Oh me? I'm going to go and get Jinzi back. She hasn't returned yet, but don't worry I'll go quickly. So why don't you just go in and eat some food? Wouldn't want it cold now would you? I'll be back before you know it!"
She leaned forward and planted a little kiss on my cheek.
"Okay! Come back soon alright?"
With that I teleported down quite far and after making sure that I had my Inner Disciple Sect robes on I went to go and roam the streets for a moment.
I pulsed my Qi Sense throughout the entire area that the radius showed and soon I found the soul signature that matched Jinzi's, the only problem was that I was sensing 2 of them. Something that I didn't think was possible.
'Why are there 2 over there? Is something wrong? Is her soul being split in half?! Are they combining?! I have to find out!'
After visualizing the courtyard of the building I found the two in I reappeared within there in the blink of an eye. There was really nothing about the place so far which seemed out of the ordinary. The place fit right in with the numerous other courtyards of the Inner Court.
With nothing there I decided to appear in their backyard just to make sure the place didn't have anything weird around and everything was quite standard besides a cellar like door in the corner of the yard.
After doing so I decided to keep my Qi Sense active at least until I found them, but then I noticed that there was a 3rd soul signature along with them and that they were underneath me.
Noticing this detail my focus immediately locked onto the slanted doors of the cellar.
Normally there were no underground chambers for any of the disciples which only made the appearance of this one even more suspicious. Clearly the place had been built for a while too considering the weathering of its exterior appearance from the elements.
With the thought that Jinzi may be in some danger I rushed to open the door and by the time I reached the bottom 3 pairs of eyes had already turned their gazes toward me.
The sight down here surprised me, the two soul signatures each had their own identical bodies, but one was completely naked while the other looked as if their clothing might even fall off at any moment. They both seemed to be in a catfight while I came down as well, but they halted immediately at my arrival.
One of them was more on the offense and the other the defensive as they struggled at keeping robes on. As soon as I saw the scene I wanted to help the passive one who was simply trying to keep her clothes on, but by the time I even thought about it they had stopped to stare at me.
As for the last person at the scene they looked like they were merely a spectator of the events unfolding before her. After a good glance at her I realized that she was actually the tomboy-like woman from before.
Suddenly as if they regained their thoughts both Jinzies simultaneously called out to me and let go of each other.
"Big Brother!"
The one with the disheveled robe acted a bit more coyly and the other looked at me with some relief at my arrival.
The woman in the corner only leaned against the wall and when my eyes met hers she showed a wry smile.
'Why is she here? I already have a little guess at why there are two Jinzies though.'
I crossed my arms at the two Jinzies and stared at them silently in hopes that the pressure of silence would make them slip up.
Honestly I couldn't instantly tell them apart at a glance. The two looked the same, had the same soul signatures, and at the moment didn't act extremely different from how she normally would. There was no way Li Daji would be able to learn about Jinzi's personality so soon, well that is if they had actually only met once or twice before.
I just had to wait out the moment when one of them slipped up, but on second thought there wasn't really a reason to prolong this incident was there? Perhaps aggressive questioning would work too.
But before I could even get a word out after coming down here we all heard footsteps come in from behind me and a sensual voice sounded out in the quiet room.
"My my, what do we have here Darling?~ 2 Jinzies? Fufu~"