The Fake Heiress's Guide to Self-Rescue - Chapter 22

Chapter 22: The Crane-Locked Bronze Mirror [3] – VIP

Jiang Qianqian slowly opened her eyes and found herself on a cloud platform, surrounded by a vast whiteness.

“Where… am I?”

She slowly sat up and observed her surroundings. There was nothing but clouds in this place. Jiang Qianqian sent out a burst of demonic energy. The green light hit the clouds and was instantly absorbed, leaving only a small area of golden lotus patterns behind.

“Mortal, why do you not bow when you see me?”

What a cringey line! Jiang Qianqian turned her head and saw an elegant red-crowned crane standing there. Her feathers were as white as fine silk, and her long, black neck was slightly curved. The red on her head was as vibrant as a fresh flower petal, and the black on the tips of her wings had a soft sheen. Seeing Jiang Qianqian look over, she slightly spread her wings to show off her tall and slender figure.

“Are you captivated by my immortal appearance? Hehehe.” The huge wings lightly covered the crane’s beak. This human-like action made Jiang Qianqian’s hair stand on end.

“May I ask for your name, Immortal?” The current situation was special. Jiang Qianqian couldn’t figure out the crane’s true strength, so she cupped her hands and bowed, going along with her words.

This flattery was clearly to the crane’s liking. Her eyes narrowed. A gust of wind blew, and Jiang Qianqian quickly raised her arms to block it.

The wind gradually stopped. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a graceful fairy standing in front of her. The fairy was wearing a snow-white feathered robe with a silver-white belt around her waist. She had vermilion dots between her arched eyebrows and a dark blue hair crown on her head with a large red pompom on the front.

“I am the White Crane Boy, a disciple of the Old Man of the South Pole.” A clear voice came. Jiang Qianqian looked up and saw a jade-like face with a majestic expression that made her legs feel weak and made her want to kneel down and worship.

Thud. Jiang Qianqian knelt on the cloud platform, her expression respectful. “I pay my respects to the White Crane Boy.”

“You call me the White Crane Boy?”

The White Crane Boy’s tone was unfriendly. Besides her master and the Sect Leader, who wasn’t respectful when they saw her? This mortal really didn’t know the rules, daring to call her “Boy.”

“Then what should I call you?” Jiang Qianqian’s face was covered in black lines. This immortal was really hard to serve. Besides, didn’t she introduce herself as “Boy”?

“Cough, cough. You should call me ‘High Immortal’.” The White Crane Boy lightly coughed twice and put her hands behind her back.

“Oh, oh. I pay my respects to the White Crane High Immortal.” Jiang Qianqian imitated her and kowtowed again in a pretentious manner.

A cloud floated over and helped her up. The White Crane Boy was in a good mood and no longer made things difficult for her. “Okay, get up now.”

When she looked up, their eyes met. The White Crane Boy’s eyebrows shot up in shock. “How did you get locked in here too?”

“What do you mean by ‘locked in’?”

Jiang Qianqian didn’t understand what the White Crane Boy was saying. She was confused when she heard that she had been locked up, but she also keenly caught the familiar tone in her words.

“Do you know me?”

“Of course, I do,” the White Crane Boy said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She lightly poked Jiang Qianqian’s forehead with her finger and answered with a smile, “By seniority, you should call me ‘senior sister’.”

“Senior sister!?”

Jiang Qianqian felt dizzy, as if her mind was clouded over. She couldn’t tell up from down. She must be dreaming right now. How else could she have an immortal senior sister?

“That’s right,” a pair of hands grabbed Jiang Qianqian’s shoulders and looked her over from head to toe. “But why did you come down? I remember you hadn’t reached the time of your tribulation yet. Did you annoy your master, and he kicked you down?”

The White Crane Boy looked at Jiang Qianqian’s familiar face. Her confused expression made her realize that something was wrong. She reached out and used her divine power to probe Jiang Qianqian’s spiritual sea, only to find it was a blank slate.

It looks like she really was kicked down. She doesn’t remember anything. The White Crane Boy muttered to herself, her hands still moving, her divine power flowing through Jiang Qianqian’s body.

“Something’s not right. You should have already gone back. Why are you still here?”

The White Crane Boy’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. By all accounts, a boy who descends to the mortal world, whether for a debt of gratitude or a debt of karma, would not live past eighteen. Jiang Qianqian should have returned to the side of Supreme Master Taiyi. Why was she still lingering in the human world?

“This mirror can’t hold me for long. How about I take you back with me when I go back?”

Although Jiang Qianqian knew this was out of kindness, she felt as if the White Crane Boy was saying that as soon as she got out, she would get rid of her first. She laughed awkwardly and waved her hands. “No, no, Senior Sister. If I want to go back, I’ll definitely go back. Don’t worry.”

Seeing that the White Crane Boy still wanted to say something, Jiang Qianqian immediately changed the subject. “By the way, Senior Sister, how did you get locked in this bronze mirror?”

At the mention of this, the White Crane Boy was filled with indignation. She slapped her thigh, her eyes burning with anger. She gritted her teeth and said, “I came down to the mortal world to go through my tribulation, but I didn’t expect someone to see my true form. They killed my mortal body in this life and locked my primordial spirit in this bronze mirror, sucking my magic power day and night.”

“How could they…” Jiang Qianqian was horrified. She couldn’t imagine how a person could be so cruel as to harm a divine being’s mortal body just to satisfy their own selfish desires.

“I don’t know,” the White Crane Boy shook her head. “Before I died, I heard a few people’s voices. They all wore masks and had tattoos on different parts of their bodies.”

This group of people must have been fully prepared. They somehow knew that she was going to descend to the mortal world for her tribulation. They found her five-year-old body and killed her, but she didn’t know what they were going to use her magic power for.

“By the way, what about Liu Jin, the man lying in the room outside? Has his soul scattered too?” Jiang Qianqian asked, looking around and briefly checking her surroundings.

“Oh, you mean that man,” the White Crane Boy said, sitting cross-legged on the cloud platform. With a wave of her hand, she conjured a delicate tea table and poured herself a cup of clear tea. She took a sip and said, “One of the small leaders of that group gave him this mirror and told him to refine my magic power. Unfortunately, he’s just a mortal. How can he withstand my magic power? After absorbing just a little, he passed out.”

“I see.”

Jiang Qianqian nodded in understanding. Just then, the White Crane Boy suddenly looked up at her, a hint of displeasure in her tone. “However, I just saw a tree demon cultivated in your spiritual sea. How can you, a boy under Supreme Master Taiyi, cultivate with the help of a tree demon?”

Just as she was about to explain, the White Crane Boy grabbed her hand. A massive divine power gathered in her palm and slammed toward her face. In an instant, Jiang Qianqian felt as if her whole body was being torn apart. Her head ached terribly.

“Ah!!!” She opened her mouth. The excruciating pain made her scream.

A ball of green light appeared in the White Crane Boy’s hand. The piece of Jiang Huai’s primordial spirit that had been in her body was forcibly pulled out.

“I will use this piece of primordial spirit to transform into divine power and inject it into your dantian,” the White Crane Boy said, lightly blowing on the fragment. The fragment instantly turned into a green feather. “From now on, you’ll use this to cultivate.”

The White Crane Boy waved her hand. The glowing green feather turned into a stream of light and flew into Jiang Qianqian’s dantian. At the same time, an exquisite feather pattern quietly appeared on her wrist, as if it had been branded onto her skin.

“Now, sit cross-legged and gather your qi. I will teach you how to use this divine power.”

Jiang Qianqian immediately sat down cross-legged, her hands resting naturally on her knees. She closed her eyes, waiting for the White Crane Boy’s guidance.

“The Seven Stars guide me, the Pivot of Heaven is the door. The stars shift, and my universe is protected. The four directions are arrayed, evil spirits do not invade. When this formation is complete, all spells are powerless.”

The White Crane Boy chanted a spell. Her hands quickly formed a hand seal, drawing on the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to set up a Big Dipper Protection Formation around Jiang Qianqian. A faint starlight appeared in the formation. At this moment, the White Crane Boy returned to her true form, spreading her wings that covered the sky. A golden light came from her mouth and landed on the formation.

“Close your eyes and feel the spiritual power in your dantian. Use your mind to guide this spiritual power to flow out from your dantian,” the crane said slowly. “You can imagine it as a tree, and the spiritual power is its branches and leaves. Let the branches and leaves spread to every one of your meridians.”

A hot sensation came from her dantian. Jiang Qianqian could clearly feel the divine power that the green feather had transformed into gathering inside her, gradually forming a green inner core. She closed her eyes tightly. Her spiritual sea was empty, and the residual aura of Jiang Huai had long since dissipated. A gentle breeze blew. The newly formed inner core extended its first “branch.”

…

At the same time, two full days had passed outside the bronze mirror.

Jiang Jing pulled a chair over and sat quietly by Jiang Qianqian’s bed, with faint dark circles under her eyes. For two full days, she hadn’t slept peacefully. Every time she closed her eyes, she would be woken up by Jiang Qianqian’s desperate voice echoing in her ears.

It’s all my fault. I didn’t watch her carefully. Jiang Jing lowered her eyes and traced Jiang Qianqian’s face with her gaze, inch by inch. Jiang Qianqian’s face had clearly thinned from not eating or drinking for two days, and her lips were slightly chapped from thirst.

Jiang Jing’s gaze gradually moved down her neck, collarbone, and arm. Suddenly, her eyes stopped at Jiang Qianqian’s fair wrist. A strange pattern had appeared there at some point, like a feather or a leaf of some kind of plant.

This is—

Jiang Jing’s pupils constricted. She suddenly stood up from the chair. She grabbed Jiang Qianqian’s wrist with such force that several obvious finger marks appeared on her skin. Realizing her mistake, Jiang Jing quickly let go, leaving only her index finger and thumb lightly wrapped around Jiang Qianqian’s wrist.

Just as she was about to take a closer look, she heard Aunt Liu’s voice from downstairs. “Master Jiang, you’re finally back!”

“Since time was tight, I brought my shimu and rushed back overnight,” was her senior sister’s voice.

A series of footsteps came and stopped at the door. Before Jiang Jing could get to the door, she heard Jiang Daishuang say, “I’ll go check on Liu Jin first. Master, please go check on the situation in the next room.”

“Okay.”

A familiar voice entered Jiang Jing’s ears. Her heart began to beat wildly, and she even held back the urge to vomit. The door was pushed open.

A pair of calm eyes met her gaze. Time had not left many marks on the woman’s face. The few wrinkles she had were harmoniously embedded in her face. The woman looked at her, her eyes gentle. She reached out her hand and said, “I am Jiang Daishuang’s shimu, my daoist name is Luo Yuan. You can call me Daoist Master Luo Yuan.”

Jiang Jing’s throat was dry. She coughed twice before she could barely find her voice. She took Daoist Master Luo Yuan’s hand. Her wrist was shaking uncontrollably, and she forced a smile. “It’s an honor to meet you.”