"Are you listening to me?" She snapped her fingers, drawing my attention away from the bloodied jade-like beauty. "Anyway, as you know, the nose is there, and your eyes can actually see it. But subconsciously, they ignore it."
"Okay?"
"No, that is not okay!" Song Song put a hand on my shoulder. "The nose is still there, blocking the field of vision. So, using that weakness, you can send some devastating attacks without people noticing. That's how I hit her. I used no Qi in my kick so she couldn't sense it and delivered an attack to the chin."
"Why are you telling me something like this?" I asked.
It was clear Song Song was sharing her combat experience and instinct for fighting. But that wasn't something I could replicate easily. After all, the kick might lack Qi, but there was still the wind generated from the kick that someone might feel, so it had to be at the right moment. Timing it amid battle wasn't something I could do. It would just be a massive risk of my leg getting crushed and losing any chance of escaping.
"So you don't fall for the same trick, of course," she sighed and shook her head like a disappointed teacher. "Then again, this would probably just make you overthink things needlessly in a fight. So, forget it. Try to think less and do more things in a fight."
A harrowing cough drew our attention away from talking about noses. It was the jade-like girl, and she had just coughed out a mouthful of blood. She dropped her ice swords and covered her mouth as she continued coughing, but the blood slipped through her fingers.
The drawbacks of the pill and technique that forcefully increased cultivation temporarily had begun showing. It was not a pretty sight.
"Usually, it takes longer for the aftereffects of these kinds of things to show," Song Song continued her lesson. "But she used both the technique to forcefully increase her cultivation temporarily and the pill."
"Her foundation is probably messed up," I said.
"Not probably, definitely," Song Song added and turned toward me. "Do you think she will die on her own?"
Once again, there was that crazed look in her eyes. Just when she was having such a fine conversation and explaining how she approached fighting and cultivation.
I shrugged and sighed, "I don't know."
But what grabbed my attention more was the jade-like girl as she began throwing up blood and coughing like somebody who had been smoking for a century.
How could someone have such dry-sounding coughs while throwing up blood? I had no idea.
"You're right," Song Song nodded. "I will kill her with my own hands to make sure she stays dead."
Song Song grabbed one of the ice blades the girl had dropped and looked ready to kill the jade-like beauty with her own weapon. Though she no longer quite looked jade-like, her skin was sickly pale, she had dark bags under her eyes, and her eyes' sclera were bloodshot.
As Song Song approached her, my heart beat faster as thoughts of what would happen next played in my mind. This was the one person I wouldn't regret pushing to her death. She deserved to die.
All the things she had done played in my mind. I didn't know the exact situation with how and why she had killed that inner disciple and the rest of his team. It could have been self-defense. But with how she acted, it was highly unlikely.
I clenched my hand into a fist, recalling the innocent guy we had run into and had tried to save. Ultimately, I had to use him as a shield, which still made my stomach churn just thinking about it. Also, throughout this whole ordeal, she had come at me with the intent to kill, too. So she had it coming.
If this was anyone else, I would not have hesitated to kill her with my own hands…
But this was a jade-like beauty. Just thinking of her background made a chill run through my bones. Even if her being a jade-like beauty was not enough of an indicator, her techniques and resources required to reach Qi Gathering before the age of sixteen made it clear that she had a monstrous background.
Perhaps if I had tried to shift all the blame onto Song Song and blend into the background, I might have been able to handle this whole ordeal and skip the punishment part. But despite her faults, Song Song had gone above and beyond for me. I couldn't betray her trust like that.
It would have been hard to hide that either way. I was just another cog in this machine that her clan or whatever she got those resources from wouldn't have minded eliminating.
"Stop," I called out to Song Song as she was about to stab the defenseless girl.
I felt a bitter taste in my mouth just telling her to stop.
Song Song turned toward me with a bewildered look, and for a second, I thought she would not listen to my words. But in the end, she just looked confused and asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yes," I sighed.
She shrugged and threw the ice sword away nonchalantly. "Well, you sure look reluctant for a guy trying to save someone."
"Well, she has killed an inner disciple and his whole team, tormented a girl, and then slaughtered an innocent disciple we ran into," I explained.
Song Song tilted her head and looked like she was waiting for some punchline to the story. But it never came…
Right, she could never understand…
From my point of view, it didn't make sense to kill people indiscriminately, and it was bizarre how casual everyone was about taking someone's life. They didn't even stop to think for a second.
But perhaps I was the odd one here.
After all, for people who grew up in a world like this, it was normal… It was normal to invest in someone who would be a monstrous cultivator and have them on your side, even if they were a monster in character too. No matter how evil someone was, it was more beneficial for a sect to cover their misdeeds than not have them. Unless they killed said talented person, they would just go to another sect, empowering their enemies. But even killing them was a waste in the Sect's eyes. In modern terms, it was like burning money. It was better to launder it instead.
In the end, nobody was really evil. They were just not powerful enough to silence everyone who spoke badly about them.
This was why I should just keep my head in my books and enjoy my time here instead of worrying about these crazy xianxia people. A person with a greater sense of justice and no self-preservation instincts might have tried something. But I was no such person; I was just some guy trying to read interesting books.
"I never really thought you were the kind of man who would fall for a pretty face," Song Song said as she looked at the jade-like beauty wriggling on the ground with utter fascination.
"Excuse me?"
What was she talking about?
She raised a questioning brow and elaborated, "Didn't you spare her so you could make her your concubine?"
"What? Obviously not!" I hurriedly said. "What kind of guy do you think I am?"
"Why do you look like I just called you a sword swallower or something? It was not an insult. She isn't ugly to have as a concubine," she looked as confused as ever. "Also, why else would you ask not to kill her if you didn't want her as a concubine?"
I took a deep breath to calm down and looked at the starry night sky.
Could she not see what she was implying here?
Massaging the area in the middle of my eyes, I explained, "Because her techniques clearly show that she is from a big-shot clan and background. If you killed her, it would become a prize comparison whether the Blazing Sun Sect values you more than making enemies with some foreign superpower."
Song Song's eyes widened as realization dawned on her, and she nodded. "Huh, I never thought of it like that."
Yeah, no wonder. Song Song probably never had to worry about someone being in a higher position than her if she wanted to cause them harm. It was clear that Song Song was some big shot from a big family herself too.
She smiled and slapped me on the back in a friendly manner. "That's why I have you as second in command. To think of things like this."
I nodded while keeping my eyes on the jade-like beauty who finally stopped coughing and was lying on the ground with a pool of blood around her, breathing hoarsely. She had lived somehow, even with how much blood she had thrown up. Though it didn't come as a surprise, seeing who she was.
Walking closer, I laid her on her side, making sure she didn't choke on her own blood and pulled her away from the pool of blood she had made. The ice she had created before had begun thawing, so I laid her on one of the wet trees, ensuring she could still breathe.
I would have cleaned her bloody face or the blood on her clothes, but she was dangerous and had tried to kill me. Of course, I was going to hold a grudge for that.
Despite how harsh the backlash could have been, after a couple of hours, the jade-like beauty coughed again, and her eyes fluttered as the sun began to rise on the horizon. She looked horrible and sickly like she already had a foot in the grave.
"I'm alive?" she asked, looking around, confused. "No, perhaps the afterlife really does exist. Well, that's annoying. If I had known that, I wouldn't have gone through all that effort to stay alive."
She seemed almost content with how things had turned out. But despite that, someone here was not okay with all that.
"You're wrong," Song Song said, breaking the girl's stupor. Then Song Song pointed her thumb at me and said, "This soft-hearted idiot here decided to spare you, and I like him just enough to follow his words… for now."
Okay, so we were hiding why we actually spared her. It made sense since if she knew why we didn't kill her, she could use that as leverage against us.
"I see," the jade-like beauty looked as expressionless as ever and looked at me. "Thank you. Though I can't say it is a good decision sparing me. Just because you saved someone doesn't mean they won't hold a grudge to kill you in the future."
"Okay, she's dead," Song Song declared and began approaching the girl.
"Though there is no need to worry, I do not have the time to waste on silly things like revenge," the jade-like beauty stated.
"Yeah, like we're going to trust you," Song Song stated sarcastically, gathering Qi in her hand.
Wait… Song Song was acting, right? She wouldn't actually kill her after everything we went through to spare her life. Well, this was Song Song, so she probably would.
"Let's calm down a bit, Song Song," I played my part and put on a pleading look. "We went through all this effort to spare her life. Killing her would be a waste of effort now."
"The masked guy is right," the girl added. "Also, you don't have to worry about me killing you, masked guy."
"Yeah, because I will murder you if you do that," Song Song added matter-of-factly.
"I know," the sickly girl nodded. "From our fight, it was easy to see that no matter what, I won't be able to beat someone like you even if we were at the same cultivation level. You barely used any Qi, while I had to go all out. It was quite frustrating, to be honest. Everything I threw at you just ended up to my detriment."
Oh, it seemed like Song Song had really gotten under her skin, even though her emotionless face made it hard to tell.
Then the sickly girl turned toward me and asked, "You could sense Qi, right? Even though you're Body Tempering."
"Yes," I answered. It was no secret any longer.
"Then, are you like me?" She inquired with a strange glint in her eyes.
Was I like her? What was that supposed to mean? She had also asked something like that when we were fighting. It seemed like she also sensed Qi before entering the Qi Gathering realm.
Wait… by "like her," did she mean a reincarnator?
That was unlikely, but I had just met someone who was like a protagonist, and my mind was open to the possibilities.
"Hello," I said in a language utterly foreign to this world, English. It felt weird speaking English with this body.
Hello—was such a common phrase that even someone from Earth who spoke no English would understand.