Crush's Cold Senior Sister is Actually Childhood Sweetheart - Chapter 24

Chapter 24: “What If I Want You to be in Charge of Something Else?”

Knowing that she had caused trouble, An Jin quietly followed behind Ling Qi on the way out of Jiu Yang Palace, not asking a single question. She went wherever she was told, did whatever she was told, and followed the person in front of her every step of the way, looking very obedient.

When they passed the main hall of Jiu Yang Palace, the immortal envoy they had met earlier even came over and greeted them with a smile. But An Jin secretly glanced at the side of Ling Qi’s face and saw that her expression was tense, so she swallowed the greeting that was on her lips and only dared to nod at the immortal envoy.

Just outside the castle gate, Ling Qi stopped and turned around, her gaze fixed directly on An Jin. The sunlight shone down, casting long shadows of the two of them.

Ling Qi’s eyes were calm, without a ripple. She didn’t seem angry, but it made the back of An Jin’s neck feel cold and her heart flutter.

Seeing that the atmosphere was off, Liao Huan, who had been walking at the back, found an excuse and quickly slipped away. Before An Jin could react, the other person had already disappeared from her sight. Ling Qi acted as if she hadn’t seen anything, her gaze still fixed on An Jin’s face, unmoving.

Although she was still concerned about Liao Huan’s matter, it was clearly not the time to worry about others.

“I was wrong.”

Thinking that confessing was the best policy, An Jin put her hands together and apologized sincerely: “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of the broken door of Jiu Yang Palace to sneak in, I shouldn’t have hidden and eavesdropped on others’ conversations, and I shouldn’t have thought about stealing the roster from the Emperor…”

Regardless of how much her senior sister knew, An Jin counted on her fingers, one by one, afraid of missing anything. She thought her senior sister would be angry after hearing this, but to her surprise, the other person’s eyebrows raised slightly, as if she had seen something very new and strange.

“You’ve really grown up. You’ve learned to apologize after causing trouble…” Her tone was slightly elevated, clearly in a good mood.

An Jin: “?”

What was with this sudden elder-like sense of relief?

Ling Qi squinted her eyes again: “You’re not done, what else?”

There’s more?

An Jin’s mind raced, replaying everything she had done after entering Jiu Yang Palace. A light bulb suddenly went off. She blurted out: “I shouldn’t have peeked at your diary!”

The words had just left her mouth when she froze. She suddenly remembered that her senior sister had no way of knowing about that book at all.

Sure enough, Ling Qi was confused: “What diary?”

An Jin swallowed, slowly took out the book she had been carefully hiding in her arms, and obediently held it out with both hands. Ling Qi saw her look of facing death and frowned. She took the book and opened the first page.

When her gaze fell on the slightly childish handwriting, Ling Qi’s breathing hitched, and she was stunned for a good ten seconds before realizing when she had written this.

Ling Qi slowly raised her head, her lips slightly parted, but when she faced An Jin’s serious expression, she was speechless, not knowing how to speak.

In fact, compared to a proper diary, this book was more like fragmented notes on her feelings.

At that time, Ling Qi had been in the academy for less than ten years and was gradually beginning to doubt whether the good luck she had always thought she had was really her own.

She just happened to be at the time when Jiu Yang Palace was burned down, so she lived on Wuyou Island and was able to meet so many friends and even be personally taught by the Emperor.

She just happened to be taken out for training, traveled all over the four seas and eight wilds together, and stood out in the academy’s grand test.

But Yuan Shunhua never admitted it. Whenever Ling Qi tentatively asked, she would either change the subject or pretend to be clueless, which made people unable to do anything with her.

After being fooled too many times, Ling Qi finally hardened her heart and got her drunk.

She still remembered that night, Yuan Shunhua’s cheeks were flushed, and even her breathing had the scent of alcohol. She was completely slumped in the soft couch in the treehouse, her eyes hazy with intoxication, about to fall asleep.

After calling her several times with no response, Ling Qi was about to give up, but the person on the soft couch suddenly turned over and looked at Ling Qi with her eyes wide open.

Yuan Shunhua’s eyes were always sparkling, with a focus that was only for Ling Qi, and her gaze was like she was looking at a treasure she had cherished for a long time.

She had really drunk a lot. Her earlobes and the side of her neck were a little red, but her voice was so clear: “Because… I brought you home, I have to be responsible for you.”

That night, Ling Qi ran back to Jiu Yang Palace as if she were escaping, and closed the door behind her after going upstairs. She slid down the door and sat on the carpet, her chest still heaving violently, and her hands trembling uncontrollably.

She knew that Yuan Shunhua just saw her as a friend and a sister she could rely on, and that the word “responsible” definitely didn’t have any other meaning. But if she hadn’t run so fast, she would have almost lost control and asked that one question:

“What if I want you to be responsible for something else?”

That night, Ling Qi didn’t sleep at all and sat at her desk until dawn. She sat in the chair in a daze for a while, then took out a book from the bookshelf, but she couldn’t read a single word.

Finally, she took out this book, dipped her brush in ink, and after several drops of ink spread on the paper, she barely managed to write these few sentences:

Some feelings are too subtle, even one doesn’t realize them. Rippling at the bottom of the heart, it’s like a hanging bird calling. Some things, we hope we never find out, never know.

The time she spent deceiving herself was not too long, but she had truly hidden it from the person in front of her for hundreds of years. An Jin was still standing in front of her, waiting for her reply, but Ling Qi’s thoughts had already drifted to the heavens, and she even clearly imagined the other person’s flustered appearance after learning her true feelings and fleeing to the mortal realm.

…Or maybe she would hide in the demon realm. She didn’t know how happy Yuan Se would be after finding out.

No, she absolutely couldn’t say it.

Ling Qi made up her mind and glossed over it: “Too much time has passed, I can’t remember anymore. It probably wasn’t very important anyway.” She put the book away, and when faced with An Jin’s dissatisfied gaze, she decided to take the initiative: “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to Jiu Yang Palace this time?”

This was what she cared about the most.

She didn’t care how much trouble An Jin had caused or who she had offended. She was only afraid that An Jin would run away without saying a word or leaving a single message.

But An Jin looked confused: “I had Senior Sister Fu pass on the message… didn’t you two run into each other?”

Fu Xin?

Rethinking their previous conversation, Ling Qi shook her head with certainty: “She said she didn’t know either.”

“How could that be? Did Senior Sister Fu forget?”

The two of them hadn’t reached a conclusion yet when the communicator at Ling Qi’s waist suddenly lit up. She thought it was someone from Chong Guang Palace looking for her, so she didn’t plan to answer, but the other person was unusually persistent, and the communicator flashed for several minutes without stopping.

She picked it up and saw that it was Yuan Se, whom she hadn’t contacted once since she left the demon realm.

Thinking about how she had pulled out all of the other person’s Heavenly Soul Grass, and she didn’t know if Ying Huai Xu had given her the divine bone she had promised, Ling Qi was uncharacteristically guilty. She answered the call: “Ahem, that divine bone is no longer—”

“Ying Huai Xu came to find me.” The person on the other end of the communicator didn’t care about the divine bone at all and went straight to the point: “Guess what she found in Tian Mo Palace?”

Ying Huai Xu? They met?

Ling Qi was stunned for a second. Before she could speak, Yuan Se said impatiently: “She found a locked studio in the basement of Tian Mo Palace, and there were thousands of portraits piled inside.”

“It’s just a hobby, it’s normal.” Ling Qi said disapprovingly.

She was holding the communicator in her right hand and the diary in her left, and she didn’t even have a hand free to hold An Jin’s hand. She just wanted to hang up the call as soon as possible. “We’re still outside, let’s talk about it when we get back—”

“You listen to me first.” Yuan Se didn’t give her a chance to escape and dropped a bombshell: “Of those thousands of portraits, every single one is of Emperor Qing Yuan.”

“There’s one hanging in the center of the studio wall, and in the painting, High God Tian Mo is kissing her by the hot springs in the mortal realm.”

“…Kissing who?”

“Emperor Qing Yuan.”

Ling Qi felt a chill run up her spine, and countless images from the past flashed through her mind, one after another, without stopping. She lost her footing for a moment and stumbled back a couple of steps.

She tightly clutched the book in her left hand, her fingers unconsciously tightening. Her fingertips pressed against the sharp edge of the book, and a faint trickle of bl00d seeped out from the force.

An Jin beside her looked full of worry. Ling Qi wanted to force a smile to comfort her, but she found that she couldn’t even do that. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to force herself to calm down: “Is Ying Huai Xu still with you? Tell her to leave quickly, she can’t stay in Tian Mo Palace anymore.”

Ling Qi could only pray that things hadn’t reached a point of no return, but the words she least wanted to hear came from the other end of the communicator: “She rushed to the mortal realm in a hurry, saying she had an important clue. I couldn’t stop her at all!”

“Got it, we’re going now.”

“You two?” The person on the other end seemed to realize something, and her voice suddenly rose in pitch and she screamed, “Is my senior sister next to you? Tell her to pick up—”

Before she could finish, Ling Qi decisively hung up the call, not giving her a single chance.

…

The journey to the mortal realm was much simpler than An Jin had imagined.

There were no clouds as thin as cicada wings that would sink underfoot, and there was no high-speed elevator like the one on the way here… Or maybe there was, but An Jin had no chance to know.

She was held in Ling Qi’s arms, her forehead resting on the other person’s shoulder, and her vision was completely blocked. An Jin could feel that they were falling, but there was no sense of weightlessness. She was a little curious and wanted to look outside.

The next second, she was hugged even tighter.

Even so, the arm around her waist wasn’t holding her too tightly. She could break free with a little effort. But An Jin didn’t move. She even lowered her head slightly and buried her head in the other person’s chest.

“Don’t we need to report to Emperor Fo Ling?”

“…No need.” Ling Qi was startled and didn’t expect her to ask this question.

“Wow, privileged class.” An Jin looked up and teased, but she was caught off guard and bumped into the chin of the person in front of her. She hissed in pain, and Ling Qi also grunted, but she still didn’t let go.

Instead, she rested her chin on the top of An Jin’s head, gently rubbing it and saying: “She’s too busy to care about these things.”

An Jin didn’t hear what she said. She could only feel the other person’s long hair gently brushing against the side of her ear, making her neck tickle. She unconsciously tilted her head.

But that strand of hair seemed to be on purpose, and it wrapped around her again.

Ling Qi never wore any hairpins or head ornaments, and she only tied her hair with a white ribbon. Sometimes, when she walked in a hurry, the ribbon would suddenly loosen, and her long hair would fall all over her shoulders.

She never cared. Sometimes she was even too lazy to tie it up again and just held the ribbon tightly in her hand and continued walking.

Today, Ling Qi’s hair was loose. As the two of them fell, gusts of wind passed, and the ends of her hair lifted slightly, brushing against An Jin’s shoulder repeatedly. An Jin took a light sniff, and it was the familiar scent of hibiscus.

“Does Senior Sister really like the smell of hibiscus?”

“…Why are you suddenly asking that?” Ling Qi was startled.

“Just curious.”

Ling Qi looked down at the person in her arms, whose round eyes were sparkling as she looked at her. She chuckled softly: “I really like it. I used to like it so much that… I would feel very unaccustomed if I didn’t smell it for a day.”

Ling Qi then said: “But, I should have quit this scent a long time ago.”

“Why?”

The sound of the wind suddenly became very light, and the clouds rolled, inadvertently letting a few rays of heavenly light through. It was still silent all around, and even the speed of their descent slowed down. In the distance, continuous green mountains and thick white mist rising from the mountains were faintly visible.

This was the mortal realm.

Ling Qi held the person in her arms even tighter, her chin still resting on the top of her head, but she didn’t speak again.

She let out a soft sigh.

Because from now on, she no longer had to borrow the scent of hibiscus to deceive herself into thinking that her old friend had never left.