The girl in the pavilion didn't seem very old, perhaps even a year or two younger than Pei Lengxue.
She was dressed in a white robe that resembled a man's bathing garment.
It seemed like she wasn't wearing pants, and her snowy white legs swayed gently as she moved.
Drops of glistening dew hung from her bare toes.
Her hair was even longer than her height and hung loose without any fastenings.
Its color was peculiar, a mix of white and black, as if a small part of her hair had been intentionally bleached.
But it didn't appear to be artificially done; it seemed natural.
The girl had been moon-gazing and playing a game against herself in the pavilion before.
However, Pei Lengxue had suddenly walked into the bamboo forest, fully focused on her sword practice, and hadn't noticed her at all.
Seeing how seriously Pei Lengxue was practicing her sword, the girl had no intention of disturbing her.
She withdrew her gaze, picked up the cup in front of her, and took a sip.
As the sake flowed down her throat, her cherry lips slightly parted, and a mist, filled with a sense of ethereality, was exhaled from her mouth.
"Ah..."
A bamboo dragonfly happened to pass by, colliding with the mist.
It instantly became intoxicated, lost its direction, and descended.
The girl gently raised her hand, and an invisible force lifted the falling bamboo dragonfly, allowing it to gently land on the stone table, becoming her drinking companion.
However, in the next moment, the girl seemed to sense something.
Her eyes, one black and one white like the sun and the moon, narrowed slightly, and she looked back at Pei Lengxue.
Swish, swish...
With Pei Lengxue's next sword swing, a series of sword qi shots radiated outward from her, centered on her, and shot towards the eight bamboo stalks to the west, neatly cutting through each one.
Snap...
Even the red beams of the pavilion where the girl was sitting weren't spared and bore a concave mark from a streak of sword qi.
In the blink of an eye, the girl quickly moved her head backward.
Bang...
The next moment, the porcelain sake cup in her hand flew out as if struck by something, departing from her thumb and forefinger.
Clatter...
The cup shattered upon hitting the ground.
The girl murmured, "A Qi Refining cultivator, yet, her Shadowleaf Sword Art is cultivated up to the fifth level?"
At this point, Pei Lengxue, having heard the sound of the cup shattering, quickly stopped her sword dance and turned to look at the girl.
She had completely missed the presence of anyone else in the bamboo grove before.
However, upon seeing the girl's appearance, she was left in stunned silence, her breath caught.
After a moment of silence, the girl took a small mooncake from a plate on the stone table, resembling a chess piece. "Mooncake, want one?"
The sound of the offer reached Pei Lengxue's ears, carried by the wind.
Pei Lengxue turned her head left and right, looked at her surroundings, pressed her chin with her hand, and asked, "Are you talking to me?"
...
...
...
The girl remained silent for a while and then slowly nodded.
Pei Lengxue, however, couldn't help but feel a trace of unease.
She swallowed and, looking at the half-moon in the sky, whispered, "It's not the Mid-Autumn Festival, so why are you eating mooncakes?"
"Who says you can't eat mooncakes unless it's the Mid-Autumn Festival?"
...
Pei Lengxue bit her lip and stared at the girl for a moment.
She felt like this girl was too ethereal, almost otherworldly. It was as if she wasn't quite human.
And eating mooncakes during a half-moon...
Just then, the mist in the bamboo grove touched Pei Lengxue's skin, and she suddenly felt a chill envelop her entire body.
She remembered the ghost stories her senior brother used to tell her.
In those stories, many spirits and demons were incredibly beautiful.
They would use their alluring appearances to draw people closer.
When they got close enough, they would reveal their true form, exposing gaping mouths to devour the unsuspecting victims.
Pei Lengxue now had a suspicion: this girl might be some kind of spirit.
With newfound courage, Pei Lengxue quickly extended her spiritual sense to probe the girl.
After probing with her spiritual sense, Pei Lengxue became even more certain of her suspicions because her spiritual sense indicated that there was no one in the pavilion.
...
At this point, the girl furrowed her eyebrows slightly, displaying a hint of annoyance and asked, "Why did you use your spiritual sense to probe me?"
"You are..." Pei Lengxue swallowed and stammered, "...a ghost?"
...
...
After a prolonged silence, the girl nodded expressionlessly, "Yeah, my corpse is buried beneath your feet. You stepped on me."
"?!!!" Hearing this, Pei Lengxue jumped in fright and quickly moved three or four steps to the side.
The girl smirked, "You just stepped on my head a moment ago, and now you're stepping on my left hand."
"?!!!" Pei Lengxue hastily moved another step to the side. "That's my shin."
"I'm sorry," Pei Lengxue quickly apologized.
Realizing the girl's body was dismembered and buried, she didn't want to step on her again.
To avoid any further mishaps, she summoned her flying sword from her storage bag and floated on it in mid-air. "I really didn't mean to..."
"It's okay." The girl smiled and shook her head, then gestured for her to come closer from the pavilion bench. "Not many people visit here. Come and sit with me for a while."
"No... thanks for the offer! I... I have urgent matters!" Pei Lengxue recoiled and flew back toward her three-room courtyard on the flying sword with all her might.
Observing her departure, the girl didn't pursue and sat back on the bench.
...
"...
"...
"...
"So rude."
Afterward, the girl paid her no more attention.
She picked out one mooncake from the plate on the table, about twenty of them in total, and tossed it into her mouth.
After chewing for a moment, she raised her eyebrows, "Huh? It's actually filled with egg yolk... I distinctly remember that I only put one."
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Tn: Character Art and Illustration for the characters are in my Patreon.