Chapter 58: Northern Black Crescent Sect

The student who tried to persecute them introduced himself to be one of the senior disciples, Wang Ge. He apologized with deep regret for acting this way because that little token was enough to bring war to all Sects.

It was given to the Head Disciple by the late Madam when he was small. He regarded this token sentimental and kept it with him everyday since he was a child. He would never leave his room without bringing it along.

"I'm surprised he was willing to lend it to you," Wang Ge said to Xiu'er as he toured them around the Northern Sect. "I've never seen him apart from it before."

It's not that big of a deal, Xiu'er said in her head again. Why is this guy being so dramatic about everything? Is no one else seeing this?

As Wang Ge continued to talk, she became less and less interested, because he talked, a lot.

"One time, the Head Disciple lost the token while he was swimming in a lake. He made the entire Sect drain the lake just to find it. All the creatures in that lake died and the pond stank pretty bad for a week straight but he didn't care at all. He was only thinking of finding the token."

"And how old was he when that happened?" Xiu'er quickly asked with a hint of awareness of what's going on at the time.

Wang Ge darted her eyes and roughly coughed. "H-he was five."

Exactly as I thought. Xiu'er rolled her eyes.

"But that's not the case! Never mind. By the way, why do you have a monkey with you?"

Xiu'er squint as if she was confused and looked at him dead in the eyes.

"What monkey? He's my younger brother."

She knew she was only messing with him, but she was starting to have fun

"Aish, follow me." Wang Ge shook his head and turned away.

This was the first Sect they were formally introduced to and were being so generous to them. They saw the training grounds, the bath houses, the kitchen, the library, the classrooms, and passed the private area.

The Northern Sect was laid out with stones on the ground as the main material to hold up the buildings. Then the buildings were thoroughly fixated with wooden beams. Some halls were made with black wood while others were regular wood. Xiu'er could see that the Sect valued nature and built the Sect to revolve around the theme, resulting in a green scenery of majestic landscape straight out of a painting. There were numerous pavilions standing in the middle of ponds. There were piers, bridges, walkways, a bamboo forest, a peach tree forest, rocky mountain range in the background, and a seven tiered pagoda sticking out in the middle of the clouds.

Finally, they saw the student dorms where they were dropped off one at a time to retire for the night.

Xiu'er's room was exactly the same as the many rooms their disciples lived in. There was a divider on the right side of the room for changing, a bed on the left, a table in the middle, pots of plants in each corner and a few paintings on the walls.

She dropped face down on her bed. She can't let the day go out like this. She needed to figure out more about Murong Yuqi. What kind of person was he and what his goal was with her? She wanted to stay up but she was so exhausted from the entire day: finding Jiyi Sangshi, drinking poison, fighting Qingzhao, losing Silang, riding to the Northern Sect and Murong Yuqi staring at her.

Her eyelids were heavy, her pupils dry and her head pounding. She was going to give A'Li a mission to do but before she knew it, she had knocked out cold.

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Early the next morning, Murong Yuqi sent servants to wake up everyone and let them know he requested their presence at breakfast to formally introduce himself. He even had maids prepare morning baths for all of them and new changes of clothes.

There was a knocking on Xiu'er's door that lasted for half an hour but she didn't hear it. She was still sleeping. She had slept through the night in complete exhaustion and didn't even wake up when the sun shone through her window. Strangely, her sleep was satisfying because she didn't realize she had let her guards down overnight when she already told herself not to.

It wasn't until A'Li bit her on the hand to wake her up that she realized the knocking on her door. She gave a low grunt as she forced herself up and rubbed her eyes. With a quick stretch, she went to the door and opened it. The person on the other side wasn't a maid, but a young girl dressed in a noble, upper class robe.

As it turned out, Murong Yuqi personally sent his sister to tend to Xiu'er. Murong Lihua was his younger sister about fourteen or fifteen years old. She introduced herself with a small bow but then she took one look at Xiu'er, and shook her head. As the sister of the famous Murong Yuqi, the sister was expecting more out of her brother's female friend but was disappointed to see a girl with such average looks. And what is that? A dirty monkey on her shoulder! How unladylike!

Murong Lihua was wearing a pink and peach colored dress. Her dress was embroidered with blooming flowers that looked like they could come to life if not for the gold threadings on it. Her hair was adorned with cute colorful flower accessories. She had her hair up in a symmetrical design, signifying her young taste in style. Her face had soft features: an egg-shaped chin with rosy pink lips, a dainty nose worthy of a young miss, large sparkling eyes, double eyelids and a beauty mole just below her right eye.

Is he mocking me? She thought after Murong Lihua introduced herself. Xiu'er let out a sigh of disbelief.