Read Novel Full Chapter 558: She Is Your Older Sister (2 in 1)
Chapter 558: She Is Your Older Sister (2 in 1)
“You... who are you?”
Tushan Jingci stared coldly at the woman in Daoist robes before her, her gaze sharp as a blade.
This woman’s figure and appearance were almost exactly the same as her own. There was no difference at all.
As for whether the other party had deliberately transformed into her appearance?
Tushan Jingci was certain that was impossible.
As a descendant of the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox clan, she had an innate, extremely keen instinct for illusion arts.
In this world, no one could use illusion arts to deceive her eyes.
“We met once, fifty years ago, in Tushan.” The woman in Daoist robes slowly spoke, and even her voice was exactly the same as Tushan Jingci’s.
“Fifty years ago... Tushan...” A trace of confusion surfaced in Tushan Jingci’s eyes.
But very soon, her eyes suddenly lit up. She stared at the other woman in disbelief.
“It was you!”
Tushan Jingci remembered.
Fifty years ago, there had been a woman named Gui Junmeng who had personally delivered Xiao Mo’s belongings to her.
It was only that, at the time, the woman had worn a veil, and even her voice had been deliberately altered. Tushan Jingci had never seen her true face.
She had never imagined that woman would look exactly the same as her.
A coincidence?
Tushan Jingci secretly pondered it, but the moment the thought arose, she immediately rejected it herself.
This absolutely could not be mere coincidence.
How could there be two people in the world whose appearance, figure, and voice were all exactly the same?
“Jingci, I know what you are thinking.” Gui Junmeng slowly spoke, gazing calmly at Tushan Jingci. “If I said... I am you, and you are me... would you believe it?”
Tushan Jingci’s brows drew tightly together. She said nothing.
“As expected, you do not believe it.” Gui Junmeng gently shook her head, then changed the subject and said seriously, “I came today because I want to take Xiao Mo to Seeking Immortality Temple.”
“If Xiao Mo truly wishes to join yin and yang with you, then no one should stop him, including me. It is only that I feel... you should not obtain Xiao Mo in this way.” Gui Junmeng’s gaze fell on the unconscious Xiao Mo, and her voice unconsciously softened a little. “This is not quite right.”
“What I choose to do has nothing to do with you.” Open killing intent had already surfaced in Tushan Jingci’s eyes. “I do not know your true identity, but now! Leave at once and get as far away from me as you can!”
“This time... I no longer want to leave.” Gui Junmeng’s gaze was calm and stubborn, without the slightest hint of retreat.
“Hah!”
Tushan Jingci gave a cold laugh. The seven snow-white long tails behind her lashed out abruptly, sweeping toward Gui Junmeng all at once.
Gui Junmeng formed a spell seal with her fingertips and casually tossed out an ancient mirror.
In an instant, brilliant light flared from the mirror’s surface.
Tushan Jingci and Gui Junmeng were drawn into the mirror at the same time.
This way, the innocent villagers of Cloud Village would not be harmed.
Otherwise, if two Jade Pith Realm cultivators fought with all their strength, never mind Cloud Village.
All living creatures for miles around would likely be caught in the aftermath.
The world inside the mirror held only a vast, boundless white sky and an endless expanse of calm water.
Water and sky met as one, seamlessly joined, with no end in sight.
The seven long tails behind Tushan Jingci carried a sharp whistle as they lashed viciously at Gui Junmeng again and again.
With every violent sweep of her tails, the surface of the water in the mirror-world surged into towering waves, exploding with one thunderous crash after another.
Facing Tushan Jingci’s assault, Gui Junmeng merely composed herself and formed spell seals with her hands.
A circular Eight Trigrams formation, shifting between black and white, appeared around her and firmly protected her at its center.
No matter how violently the seven long tails struck, they could not shake Gui Junmeng in the slightest.
Tushan Jingci’s brows knitted tightly. The chill in her eyes grew even more intense.
She took a heavy step forward, and clusters of blazing white nine-tailed foxfire appeared behind her out of thin air, their scorching light making the surrounding mist hiss as it evaporated.
“Go!”
Tushan Jingci lightly flicked her slender finger, and the nine-tailed foxfire poured down like torrential rain, blotting out the sky as it descended upon Gui Junmeng.
Gui Junmeng gave the horsetail whisk in her hand a gentle sweep. In an instant, a total of nine towering water gates rose before her.
The nine-tailed foxfire collided violently with the water gates. In an instant, steam surged upward, and a vast white mist spread over the entire surface of the water, blocking both women’s sight.
Just as Gui Junmeng was looking left and right, the dense mist suddenly split open.
A Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox pounced straight at her.
That Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox’s fur was pure, flawless white, without the slightest stray color, clean as freshly fallen snow in winter, soft and immaculate.
The perfect lines of her fox body carried an innate grace and softness, as though she were the most exquisite creation between heaven and earth.
And at the center of her fox brow was a pale-blue flower mark. Its pattern resembled both tassels and winding drops of water, adding several degrees of sanctity to her beauty.
“She really is beautiful...”
Gui Junmeng froze slightly, then murmured the praise from the bottom of her heart.
The next instant, Gui Junmeng waved the horsetail whisk in her hand, and the spell formula for the Five Thunder Orthodox Law completed itself in her heart in a flash.
Immediately afterward, bolts of falling lightning descended from the sky, striking toward Tushan Jingci.
Tushan Jingci nimbly dodged the falling lightning, seized an opening, raised her fox paw, and slammed it viciously toward Gui Junmeng.
Gui Junmeng leaped up, her hands swiftly forming spell seals.
Thunder kept gathering and surging behind her, finally condensing into an azure dragon of lightning.
“Suppress.”
Her lips parted lightly. She uttered only that single word, and the azure dragon of lightning plunged down in response.
Tushan Jingci raised her snow-white fox head. Countless strands of spiritual power kept gathering and compressing near her mouth, finally turning into a blazing, dazzling white sphere of light.
In the time it took for sparks to fly from flint, that sphere of light abruptly transformed into a burning pillar of flame and lunged at the azure dragon of lightning.
“Alas...”
But just then, from outside Flowers in a Mirror and the Moon in Water, a mature woman’s soft sigh suddenly came.
“Both of you, stop. Do not fight anymore.”
Immediately afterward, the pressure of a cultivator at the perfected completion of the Immortal Realm descended heavily upon both of them.
Whether it was the pillar of flame or the azure dragon of lightning, both seemed to have been wiped away with a brush dipped in water. In the blink of an eye, they vanished completely.
Tushan Jingci and Gui Junmeng left the mirror-world and returned to the small courtyard in Cloud Village.
Between the two women stood a beautiful mature woman who looked to be in her early thirties, still graceful and charming.
“Mother...” Tushan Jingci called softly, full of surprise.
All these years, her mother had been wandering the world.
She had not seen any trace of her mother for several decades.
She had not expected her mother to suddenly appear in Cloud Village.
“Jingci, it has been such a long time...”
Tushan Xinhua fixed her gaze on her daughter, her eyes filled with tenderness and longing.
“And Junmeng, you as well...”
Tushan Xinhua slowly turned her head. Her gaze fell on Gui Junmeng, and her expression carried guilt and self-reproach that were difficult to hide. Even her voice softened unconsciously.
“I never thought... Junmeng, that you would already have grown this much.”
Gui Junmeng did not answer. She simply stood quietly in place, without revealing anything.
But that slender hand of hers tightened around the horsetail whisk without her noticing, her fingertips faintly whitening.
“Junmeng... take Xiao Mo away,” Tushan Xinhua said calmly.
“Mother!” Tushan Jingci abruptly stepped forward, her voice filled with urgency. “I will not let anyone take him away!”
“Jingci...” Tushan Xinhua gave a soft sigh, hiding both helplessness and heartache. “What you did today... was already wrong.”
“How was your daughter wrong?!”
Tushan Jingci stepped forward and still wanted to attack Gui Junmeng again.
But the pressure of a cultivator at the perfected completion of the Immortal Realm pressed down upon her once more.
Tushan Jingci instantly could not move. She could only watch helplessly as, from beneath her mother’s skirt, a snow-white long tail emerged, gently bound Xiao Mo, and silently dragged him to her mother’s side.
Tushan Xinhua extended a fingertip and lightly touched Xiao Mo between the brows, then sent him to Gui Junmeng.
Gui Junmeng stretched out both arms, steadily caught Xiao Mo, and held him in her embrace.
Her clear eyes blinked as she looked at Tushan Xinhua, filled with confusion.
“I hope... Xiao Mo can make his own choice,” Tushan Xinhua slowly said. “Junmeng, what do you think?”
Gui Junmeng lowered her head and glanced at Xiao Mo in her arms, then raised her head and looked at Tushan Xinhua. In the end, she nodded. “Thank you for your understanding, Senior. I’ll take Xiao Mo back to Sikong Temple first...”
Hearing the other woman address her as “Senior,” Tushan Xinhua could not help freezing slightly. Her heart was filled with complexity, but in the end, she only said gently, “Go.”
Gui Junmeng held Xiao Mo in her arms, turned, and left. Her figure gradually merged into the thick night.
“Mother, who exactly is she?”
The doubts in Tushan Jingci’s heart grew even heavier.
“Why are her appearance, her figure, and even her voice exactly the same as mine, as though we were carved from the same mold? And why did Mother help her?!”
“Mother was not helping her. As for who she is...” Tushan Xinhua gently bit her thin lip and gazed deeply into her daughter’s eyes. “Actually, she is the person closest to you...”
“I do not quite understand what Mother means.” Tushan Jingci’s eyes trembled faintly, and her fingers tightly clenched the corner of her dress.
“Jingci, Mother still remembers that when you were young, you always clung to me and asked about your father, did you not...” Tushan Xinhua said softly, her tone carrying a little reminiscence and bitterness.
“Back then, Mother was just like you. I fell deeply in love with a human man. That man was your father. He was a sword cultivator from the Ten Thousand Arts world.”
She lifted her head, looked at the night, and spoke slowly.
“But for Mother to fall in love with a human was a great taboo within the Tushan clan, and your father’s sect could not tolerate us being together either.”
“And so, both the demon-race world and the Ten Thousand Arts world hunted us down. We wandered the world together, concealing our names and identities. We only wanted to stay far from the world’s conflicts and quietly live our own days in peace.”
“Later, Mother became pregnant with you, and we also found a quiet place.”
Tushan Xinhua paused slightly, her eyes wavering.
“Mother originally thought we could live peaceful days. But fate was cruel. No one expected your constitution to be so special. The bloodlines of human and fox clan conflicted within your body, as incompatible as fire and water...”
“To save you, your father went alone to the desolate land to search for a method that could preserve your life,” Tushan Xinhua said gently.
“Fortunately, your father ultimately found an ancient treasure. That treasure could split the bloodline within you in two. After the bloodlines were separated, the two of you sisters could both keep your lives.”
“Unfortunately, your father was gravely injured because of this. Not long afterward, he passed away, leaving only us behind.”
“After that, Mother brought you back to Tushan. And your father’s adoptive father—in other words, your grandfather—was a venerable elder of the demon-race world. He had just emerged from seclusion. With your grandfather’s persuasion, the Grand Elder finally agreed to let me safely give birth to the two of you.”
“You, who inherited the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox bloodline, remained by my side. And the child with the human bloodline was taken away by Daoist Yunxi and raised by her.”
She gazed deeply into Tushan Jingci’s eyes and said, word by word:
“So, Jingci... strictly speaking, Junmeng... is actually your older sister.”
...
At the summit of Mount Sikong, the night wind gently brushed past the eaves of the temple.
The temple gates were lightly knocked upon. The sound was not loud, but in the silent night, it was especially clear.
Before long, the gates slowly opened.
The person who opened them was not one of the other disciples in the temple, but Sikong Temple’s abbot himself—Master Yuankong.
“Amitabha.”
Yuankong looked at the young woman in Daoist robes before him, then at his own disciple in her arms. He pressed his palms together and lowered his head, chanting the name of the Buddha.
“Benefactor, please follow me.” Yuankong’s expression was as calm as still water. He did not ask even half a question.
“Thank you, Master.” Gui Junmeng nodded slightly and answered softly. Holding Xiao Mo tightly in her arms, she stepped through the temple gates.
Half an incense stick later, Gui Junmeng arrived at the courtyard where Xiao Mo lived.
She gently and quietly placed Xiao Mo on the bed, carefully covered him with a thin quilt, then gazed at him for a while before turning and walking out of the room.
The moment she stepped outside, she saw that the old abbot was standing silently in the courtyard. He had clearly been waiting for a long time.
“If Benefactor has no place to stay for the moment, you may reside in the neighboring courtyard. It is still empty. No one has lived there before,” Master Yuankong slowly said, his tone harmonious and unhurried.
“Thank you for taking me in, Master.” Gui Junmeng bowed. Then she raised her eyes to look at Yuankong, her gaze carrying a trace of inquiry. “Only... does Master not wish to ask about the reasons behind all this?”
“What need is there to ask? And what would change if I did?”
Master Yuankong smiled faintly.
“To all of you, he may have another name, another past.”
“But to this old monk...”
He turned his head and looked at the young monk sleeping peacefully inside the room. His cloudy eyes were filled with love and pity.
“From beginning to end, he has only been my disciple. He has only been the infant I found at the temple gates.”
“Queyin... Queyin...”
He softly repeated the Dharma name he had personally chosen, his voice carrying a touch of helplessness and a touch of sighing sorrow.
“I gave him this Dharma name...”
“But in the end, the karma from his previous life still could not be brought to an end...”
“Perhaps... this is my disciple’s fate.”