Crush's Cold Senior Sister is Actually Childhood Sweetheart - Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Why Did You Install a Face Authentication Door Outside The Castle

Ling Qi’s brows furrowed slightly: “Jiu Yang Palace?”

“Yeah, An Jin looked so worried at the time that she didn’t even have time to say goodbye and just left in a hurry.” Fu Xin’s brows were also tightly knitted, her tone filled with worry. “Nothing should happen, right? Emperor Fo Ling has always been kind, so he probably won’t make things too difficult for them.”

Ling Qi’s gaze darkened slightly: “She didn’t leave you a single word?”

“…No, she just said she was going to Jiu Yang Palace with Liao Huan.” Fu Xin paused before answering.

“Got it, thanks.” Before Ling Qi’s words were even finished, she flicked her sleeve and turned to leave. Fu Xin, hugging the documents behind her, said anxiously: “Senior Sister Ling is going to Jiu Yang Palace to find An Jin? Will you be in any danger alone, how about I go with you…”

“No need.” Ling Qi dropped two words without looking back, her figure already disappearing outside the door.

She said she wanted to go with her, but she didn’t move a single step. After the white figure completely disappeared from sight, the worry on Fu Xin’s face vanished, instantly replaced by a blank expression.

She looked around, and after confirming that no one was around, she immediately took out her communicator and started typing.

She moved too quickly, and the documents she was holding fell to the floor. A gust of wind blew a few pages away, but Fu Xin didn’t even spare them a glance.

She bit her lower lip, her fingers tapping furiously on the screen, typing at a lightning-fast speed.

…

“How about we just forget it?”

The closer they got to the castle-like palace ahead, the more anxious Liao Huan’s heart became. She tried to stop several times, but seeing the high-spirited An Jin beside her, she swallowed the words she was about to say.

It wasn’t until the iron fence outside the castle was right in front of them that Liao Huan finally couldn’t hold back and grabbed An Jin’s sleeve.

“Alright, let’s go back then.”

Liao Huan thought An Jin would be very persistent, but she didn’t expect her to agree so readily. She turned her steps and walked straight back, without a moment’s hesitation, her movements very decisive. By the time Liao Huan stood there in a daze, An Jin had already walked dozens of meters away, leaving her far behind.

“Wait!” Liao Huan jogged to catch up, walking beside An Jin, but after walking side by side for a few steps, she hesitated and stopped again, “Actually… it’s okay to go.”

Although she was the one who first said to go back, seeing An Jin agree so readily made her feel conflicted. Her mind raced with thoughts, and after much hesitation, curiosity and unwillingness to give up finally won out.

She thought An Jin would be angry about her indecisiveness, but she saw her turn around, with a “I knew it” expression on her face and a smile on her lips: “You’re not allowed to change your mind this time.”

“I…”

Liao Huan’s hands trembled slightly, her gaze passing over An Jin and looking straight at the magnificent castle. She took a deep breath, finally making up her mind and said: “Okay, we’ll go.”

“If we don’t find anything… we can just jump out the window and run.”

An Jin: “…”

If Emperor Fo Ling really wanted to chase them, jumping out the window would be like walking into a trap. After all, they were on his territory, and there must be many immortal envoys watching. Besides, they couldn’t outrun or fly faster than a High God.

However, seeing Liao Huan’s expression of facing death, An Jin still swallowed the words.

Jiu Yang Palace was a typical medieval architectural style, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, castle walls made of iron and stone, and a circular tower at each end, reaching into the clouds. Having seen the Forbidden City-style Chong Guang Palace, An Jin almost thought she had time-traveled when she first saw this Western-style castle.

The iron fence outside the castle had some rust, and the stone walls of the tower were covered with ivy leaves. But unlike other places, there were swirling clouds here, and the area around the castle was paved with stone bricks. Moss grew in the crevices of the ancient stone bricks, and An Jin, stepping on the bricks and getting away from the soft clouds, finally dared to look down at the road.

“There are no clouds near Jiu Yang Palace?” Liao Huan muttered in confusion as she walked forward, not expecting An Jin to give her an answer, but she suddenly heard the person beside her speak: “Because the daughter of Emperor Qing Yuan is afraid of heights, and they used to have a good relationship.”

“Really?!”

Liao Huan tried to recall the Vermilion Bird Dao Master she had seen at Chong Guang Palace. That person stepped on the clouds as if she were walking on flat ground, and she couldn’t imagine it. She squinted her eyes suspiciously: “How do you know something like this?”

An Jin blinked: “Senior Sister Ling told me.”

Liao Huan immediately believed her for the most part: “I didn’t expect Senior Sister Ling to be so merciless when it came to exposing her childhood friend.” She sighed with emotion, secretly clicking her tongue in her heart.

The An Jin beside her suddenly stopped, tilted her head, and looked at her, “Childhood friend? We just went to school together at the academy, and there were so many other people there, are they all childhood friends…”

“Senior Sister Ling and the Vermilion Bird Dao Master are different.” Liao Huan patiently explained to her, “According to seniors who have been to Wuyou Island before, whenever they went to see the Emperor, they would almost always see Senior Sister Ling and the Vermilion Bird Dao Master together, in a close posture, as if they were one.”

“It’s said that before Emperor Qing Yuan’s fall, they were inseparable for a thousand years, and their figures could be seen everywhere in these four seas and eight wilds.”

Liao Huan even sounded a little envious: “I wish I had someone who could grow up with me, and go to the Dragon Palace to kill demons with me.”

An Jin listened, biting her lower lip, lost in thought. After a while, she finally squeezed out a sentence: “Then why was it like that last time at Chong Guang Palace…”

She still remembered the tense atmosphere between the Vermilion Bird Dao Master and her senior sister when the Vermilion Bird Dao Master visited Chong Guang Palace that day, and they almost started fighting on the spot.

“I also find it strange.” Although An Jin didn’t finish her sentence, Liao Huan had already guessed what she wanted to ask.

She also had the same doubts in her heart: “What exactly happened back then, I’m afraid only the few people involved at the academy would know… It’s said that eight hundred years ago, just after Emperor Qing Yuan’s fall, news came that the Vermilion Bird Dao Master was seriously injured and had to go to Tian Mo Palace to recover.”

“The White Tiger Dao Master died, and the Black Tortoise Dao Master also disappeared, and the Dao of Heaven couldn’t even choose a candidate for Emperor.”

“Finally, the position was taken over by High God Fo Ling, and everyone thought things would calm down for a while, but then Senior Sister Ling suddenly betrayed Jiu Yang Palace, causing a huge uproar in the upper realm.”

“So, the main point of suspicion is still on Emperor Fo Ling?” An Jin pursed her lips, guessing.

Liao Huan nodded, she had always thought so too.

Following the moss on the stone bricks, the two finally reached the castle gate, but they both fell silent the moment they saw the gate.

“So, why…” An Jin’s mouth twitched, and she squeezed out a sentence with difficulty, “Did they have to install a face recognition door outside the castle!”

The ancient castle looked weathered. Although it never rained in the upper realm, the outer walls of the two towers still showed traces of being washed by rainwater. The city walls were mottled, and the iron fence was also rusty, but the black fence was locked, and a huge screen for face recognition was hanging on it.

“What do we do?” An Jin turned her head to look at Liao Huan with a look of hopelessness, still holding on to a last glimmer of hope.

“Did your mother, the fox clan immortal, really not leave any other clues in the letter? Like the password for this face recognition door, or a key that can open the door directly?”

But Liao Huan cruelly shattered her illusion: “The letter said she was doing very well in Jiu Yang Palace and told me not to come looking for her.” She didn’t even want to see her, so how could she have left any password or key?

But as the saying goes, since they’ve come this far, they don’t want to give up now.

Although they thought it was a long shot, the two still walked to the iron fence gate, hoping for a miracle to happen.

As soon as An Jin stopped, a loud “face recognition successful” suddenly sounded. The next second, the iron gate slowly opened inward. Because even the gears were rusty, it got stuck for a while as it opened.

An Jin and Liao Huan were dumbfounded.

After a while, the two of them walked in in a trance. They kept looking back, still not understanding why this had happened.

The iron gate behind them tried to close on its own, but the gears below were too rusty and it got stuck there for a long time. The two of them had to work together to barely close the iron gate.

“So face recognition means… as long as it’s a human face, it will be recognized?” An Jin still hadn’t recovered.

In any case, the two of them had finally gotten in. An Jin followed behind Liao Huan towards the palace door. Liao Huan walked a few steps ahead and reached out to push the palace door—

And it didn’t move.

An Jin was stunned: “?”

Could there be another mechanism?

Seeing Liao Huan’s expression twist from using so much force, An Jin didn’t reach out to push, but instead used all her strength to lean against the door. But the moment her body touched the palace door, the door suddenly opened.

An Jin was caught off guard, stumbled forward a few steps, and almost fell to the ground.

She turned to look at Liao Huan, her expression complex: “I didn’t expect you to be so weak.”

Liao Huan felt she had no way to defend herself.

It was clearly very heavy just now, and she couldn’t push it at all.

But this castle had been strange everywhere since the face recognition door. The two of them didn’t think much of it and didn’t dare to linger at the door, so they walked in quickly.

As soon as they entered, a wave of cold air rushed out from inside the castle, making them both shiver.

“It’s just like the mortal realm here.”

Liao Huan couldn’t help but complain in a low voice. The upper realm never had seasonal changes, and High Gods and immortals usually didn’t feel changes in temperature. The only places where they could feel hot or cold were secret realms, but the cold in secret realms was just coldness, while the cold wind blowing out from here had a bone-chilling coldness.

It was more like winter in the mortal realm.

An Jin woke up in the mortal realm in the summer, and she only stayed there for three months, so she naturally didn’t know what winter was like. She just felt like she was shivering, and she felt like she was going to be frozen into an ice sculpture the next second.

“May I ask which two immortals you are here to see?”

A very light female voice suddenly appeared beside them. An Jin and Liao Huan were both startled. They turned around and found it was an immortal envoy. The immortal envoy bent down slightly and asked them, her expression very kind, and she didn’t seem to have noticed that they had trespassed.

“We’re looking for…” Who was it again?

An Jin looked at Liao Huan with a pleading look, but the other person turned her head and avoided her gaze.

Liao Huan didn’t know her mother’s name, and she couldn’t even be sure if the letter was really from her mother. Everything was just her own guess, and the letter also said not to come looking for her.

She didn’t know how to explain to the immortal envoy, so she could only remain silent.

The immortal envoy still had a polite smile on her face, waiting for their reply. But Liao Huan didn’t want to say anything, and An Jin didn’t know what to say, and the palace suddenly fell into a deadly silence.

Fortunately, the immortal envoy had seen too many strange visitors in her time. She only knew that the person who passed the authentication door was a licensed guest, so she didn’t ask any more questions: “Please feel free to look around, two immortals. If you need anything, you can come and find me again.”

With that, she retreated to the entrance of the palace.

Following her direction, An Jin’s eyes widened. It turned out that both sides of the palace hall were filled with immortal envoys. The immortal envoys were standing in the same posture without moving, apparently having been there for a long time.

But An Jin and Liao Huan hadn’t noticed them when they came in at all.

Those immortal envoys seemed to have deliberately hidden their presence, becoming completely invisible, and only actively came forward to ask questions when guests encountered problems.

An Jin swallowed hard and suddenly felt a little scared. She and Liao Huan exchanged glances, and the same fear was clearly visible in each other’s eyes.

After walking through the palace hall, a very deep corridor was in front of them. Both sides of the corridor had identical doors, with closed doors painted red and golden doorknobs.

“How about we look for a bit first?” Noticing the hesitation in Liao Huan’s heart, An Jin proactively suggested: “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find it directly. If we really can’t find it, we’ll go out and ask the immortal envoy?”

But Liao Huan didn’t play by the rules. She pondered for a moment and said: “I remember Master has a roster of everyone in Chong Guang Palace. Do you think Emperor Fo Ling also has a roster like that?”

“…What are you planning to do?” An Jin suddenly had a bad feeling.