Chapter 854: Chat

Chapter 854: Chatting

"Pain! You hurt me!" Li Sui pushed with all her might, sending the old Taoist flying, sword and all.

"Get away from me! I don't want to kill anyone! Get out of my way!"

But upon hearing Li Sui's words, the two Taoists exchanged glances and immediately beamed with joy. "The demon is retreating! This child must be trying to flee!"

"Disciple, let the soul fly into the sea!"

"Yes, Master!"

The two Taoists performed complex hand seals, stepped in strange formations, and began circling around Li Sui.

Their footprints gradually traced an inverted Daoist formation on the ground, and the surrounding feng shui began to shift.

Li Sui sensed something was wrong. She didn't intend to sit idle and die, so she pulled out a yellow scroll from within herself, bit her tentacle tip, and quickly drew talismans upon it.

"Master... Master? Am I blind? Is this demon drawing talismans?"

Li Sui stuck three talismans onto her tentacles and, with the three veins bulging, pushed upward with all her strength. She had just flown away, now falling toward the river.

She wanted to escape by water, avoiding their pursuit.

But as she was about to hit the surface, she saw white flagpoles rising from beneath!

They had anticipated she would do this and had laid ambushes underwater too!

Hearing this, Bai Lingmiao's heart tightened. She held her teacup in both hands, leaning slightly forward toward Li Sui beside her.

"And then what happened? What happened to you afterward? Are you alright?"

Li Sui gently placed her teacup down and chuckled softly. "Of course I made it through. If anything were wrong, I wouldn’t be here today."

"The Taoists weren’t my match. It was just that I was leaving my father for the first time and panicked. But eventually, I won. Just... got injured."

As she spoke, images from over a hundred years ago flashed across her eyes.

"Wuuu... wuuu..." She staggered out of the blood-red river with a broken body.

Her tentacles were mostly severed, her whole body riddled with holes, her eyes nearly blind, and her head pierced with a large hole oozing black fluid.

"Wuuu... Father... where are you... they bullied me... I'm in so much pain..." Li Sui cried out to the clouds above, full of sorrow.

Her injuries were too severe. Instinct drove her to seek flesh and blood to heal herself.

Returning to the water, she dragged the floating Taoists to shore, struggling to leave.

Someone blocked her path—neither a constable nor a guard from the You family, but the matriarch of the You household.

"Great Immortal!!" The pale woman staggered to her knees before Li Sui.

"Great Immortal! Please forgive us! Let go of my son! He's the top scholar of the provincial exam! He'll become a top imperial scholar someday! If you want to eat someone, eat me instead!!"

"I'm sorry..." Li Sui, choked with emotion, bowed to her and walked past.

"Great Immortal!!" The sudden shriek stopped Li Sui in her tracks.

Four chubby children, like painted figures from New Year’s prints, wearing red baby clothes, were shoved before Li Sui.

"Great Immortal! These are four boys and girls I bought! How about a trade? Four for one! You won't lose out!"

"I... don't want... I want to go home... I want my father..." Li Sui continued dragging the bodies, laboriously walking forward.

Suddenly, Li Sui felt a sharp pain in her back. The woman, hair disheveled, wielding a hairpin, stabbed wildly at her.

"You give back my son! Give him back!!"

Faced with this madwoman, Li Sui could only retreat helplessly.

This small wound meant nothing, but with each stab of the pin, seeing the hatred in her eyes, her heart grew heavier, like a child who had done wrong and was being scolded.

In the end, terrified, Li Sui dropped the bodies and fled into the woods.

Night fell, and rain began to fall. She was exhausted and wanted to rest somewhere. But there was nowhere to go.

Cold, hungry, and in pain, Li Sui crouched under a big tree, crying out in despair. "Father!! Mother!! Where are you!!"

White smoke drifted from the teacup in Li Sui's hands, slowly dispersing into the air as she watched.

"Afterward, that woman didn’t harm me. She's well-educated and said that since it was unintentional, it was forgiven."

"After I stabilized myself in Great Qi, I even helped the You family. They got a fourth-rank official out of it. It was compensation."

"Though unintentional, I did crush their son to death."

Hearing the ending of the story, Bai Lingmiao sighed deeply. "Ah, since everything is resolved, don’t dwell on it anymore."

"I’m not dwelling on it. I just wanted to chat with Mother while I had time."

Li Sui picked up a gift beside her.

"Mother, these are brown sugar, donkey-hide gelatin, and honey dates. When your monthly cycle comes, drink them in water—they’ll make you feel a little better."

Hearing this, Bai Lingmiao’s heart warmed. No one had ever cared for her so meticulously before.

"I also made you a set of clothes. Knowing you prefer plain colors, I chose fabric that wasn’t too bright."

"This part is detachable. Second Mother also wore it out."

"Your childhood wasn’t wasted on you." The second spirit reached out to touch the smooth silk.

Just as the two continued chatting, urgent footsteps came from outside.

It was Li Huowang, rushing out of the wall directly, heading toward Bai Lingmiao who was trying on clothes.

"Miaomiao! Where are those books we found under the Bai Family Ancestral Hall? I need them!"

"Do you have the spirit-fighting and spirit-medium techniques? I copied them all to the White Lotus Temple. Not here."

"No! I mean, the White Lotus followers remember all those random things!"

"In the second cabinet on the east side."

Upon hearing Li Sui’s words, Li Huowang rushed over, opened the cabinet, and began searching frantically.

"Does it fit? If it's too big or small, I can tailor it right now," Li Sui observed Bai Lingmiao’s outfit.

"It fits. Sui Sui, what happened to your father?"

"Nothing. Don’t worry about him. He’ll come running over soon to tell us what happened. Mother, I came here to discuss something with you."

"Hmm? What is it?" Bai Lingmiao widened her eyes and sat down again.

"Mother, do you remember why you became the White Lotus Holy Maiden?"

"Back then? It was the Unborn Mother who chose me. I didn’t choose it myself."

"If given a chance to give up being the White Lotus Holy Maiden, would you? I think you wanted to do something else before, didn’t you?"

"Sui Sui, what’s going on? Why say this?"

*Thud!* A book fell to the floor.

Li Sui paused, turning to her father’s back as he rummaged through the cabinets. "Dad, can you be quieter? I’m talking to Mother."

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