Chapter 141

After all that trouble, the sky was already turning to night.

The dome of the sky, like a maiden’s blushing face, was quietly suffused with a layer of ambiguous orange-red. There were still very few clouds on the horizon, and the evening glow surged like a tide, covering the boundless, mirror-like surface.

Ning Ning was wrapped in Pei Ji’s outer garment, her hands and feet enveloped in the wide cotton cloth. She seemed amused, enthusiastically swinging her sleeves like a Peking opera performance, bringing forth waves of fragrant, cool breeze.

Only her lower body was in the pool, and although she was splashed by some water from the waterfall, she didn’t end up completely soaked.

Pei Ji, however, was drenched from squatting down, his jet-black hair in disarray and dripping water, resembling water snakes clinging to his neck, their tails sweeping across the hollow of his nape.

Whether it was due to the icy pool water or some other reason, the demonic energy that had been rampaging within him gradually subsided, leaving only a faint ember.

The light pink cloak he wore was infused with the faint fragrance of gardenias, reminding him of the same scent on Ning Ning, making him somewhat uncomfortably tug at his clothes.

“Pei Ji, don’t you think something’s strange about all this?”

Ning Ning, walking with a spring in her step, turned her head to look at him as she spoke, chuckling lightly for some reason, and handed him a handkerchief. “Wipe the water off your face; you’re completely soaked.”

Pei Ji took it as she said; his tone was very calm. “I’d like to hear more.”

“First, there’s the whereabouts of the Sun Blaze Bow. Everyone knows about this.”

Ning Ning took a breath, playing with the sleeve of the outer garment.

“Whether it’s the demons or the spirit foxes, once they get it, they’ll have the power to change the tide of the battle. If one side had really obtained it, how could there be no news by now?”

Pei Ji listened patiently, responding with a low “hmm.”

“According to the timeline, Qiao Yan saw her father ambushed by demons while retrieving the Sun Blaze Bow, and the jade pendant was seized by the Fire Phoenix. For a long time afterward, it should have been hidden in the Western Mountain.”

He paused, then continued, “Then we took it; Niguang Island was deceived, and the jade pendant returned to our hands. There was no opportunity for anyone to exploit and steal the divine bow.”

In other words, from both the result and the timeline, the chances of someone secretly taking the jade pendant and stealing the divine bow were extremely slim.

“And then there’s Qiao Yan’s childhood friend.”

Ning Ning nodded, a slight smile curling her lips. “Qiao Yan mentioned that he lost the thousand-thread tassel she gave him during that battle and became increasingly cold and distant afterward, almost like a stranger. While it could be explained by him knowing he had little time left and not wanting to get entangled with Qiao Yan, if we abandon this old-fashioned routine of sadomasochism love story and think about it from another most intuitive perspective——”

She pondered for a moment, then emphasized, “Without a token and acting like a stranger, isn’t that someone she’s never met before?”

Thinking about it this way, stripping away the façade of self-sacrifice and so-called love, this story inevitably becomes somewhat eerie.

Ning Ning thought carefully, feeling a chill run down her spine. After a long silence, she continued, “The reason for deliberately distancing himself and speaking to her so rarely was to avoid Qiao Yan discovering that he was nothing but a fake impostor—but what was his purpose in doing this? Aside from Qiao Yan, didn’t any of the many spirit fox villagers notice his odd behavior? Where exactly is Qiao Yan’s real childhood friend?”

Pei Ji followed her line of thought, his brows slightly furrowed. “Could it be for the Sun Blaze Bow? As long as he infiltrated the Fox clan and was someone close to Qiao Yan, once she obtained the jade pendant, he’d have a great opportunity to seize it.”

“But according to Qin Niang, the Water Mirror Array could never be broken by the demon clan. How could he sneak in undetected?”

Ning Ning, feeling her head ache, frowned in distress. “And if he really wanted to impersonate someone close to Qiao Yan, wouldn’t that contradict his later deliberate distancing?”

As she spoke, her hands couldn’t stay still, constantly playing with her sleeves. The long garment draped over her wasn’t buttoned up, and whenever Pei Ji turned his head, he could see the thin fabric lightly pressed against her chest and the fair skin of her neck.

He pursed his lips and averted his gaze, then, without a word, lifted his arm to button up her outer garment, making her let out a soft laugh.

This laugh came without warning, and since they were very close, it sounded almost directly in Pei Ji’s ear, clear and tinkling.

He inexplicably felt a pause in his chest but soon resumed walking alongside her, his voice hoarser than usual. “…It’s not just him; others also have issues.”

Ning Ning obediently followed up, “You mean Qin Niang?”

Pei Ji nodded.

“She has excessive control over Qiao Yan and the Sun Blaze Bow. In the past, this could be explained as a mother’s deep love, unwilling to let her daughter take risks.”

He restrained his expression, deliberately avoiding her intense gaze. “But later, when we found the jade pendant and discovered the divine bow was stolen, when Qiao Yan told her about it—”

Pei Ji paused briefly, and Ning Ning continued seriously, “She didn’t show much surprise and quickly changed the subject, as if she had already known we wouldn’t find the divine bow. Moreover, as the chieftain’s wife, her reaction to the long-lost treasure of the spirit fox clan being stolen is indeed abnormal.”

“Exactly.”

Pei Ji nodded, finally holding her gaze for a moment. “And don’t you think? Her obsession with not allowing Qiao Yan to go to the other side of the formation to exterminate the demon clan far exceeds her obsession with the Sun Blaze Bow or anything else. Even when persuading her to leave the secret realm, it seemed like she was fixated on preventing Qiao Yan from interacting with the demon clan.”

—What is she trying to hide? Why can’t Qiao Yan go to the other side of the formation?

At this point in the conversation, the fog seemed to be gradually lifting.

Ning Ning heard her own heartbeat pounding, and she took a deep breath. “And the most important point.”

She said, “According to Qin Niang, the other side of the Water Mirror is full of Golden Core and Nascent Soul stage demons, formidable in strength, which is why Qiao Yan is so wary of the water pool—yet what we saw before was clearly just a harmless little monster. Judging by Qiao Yan’s skillful posture when she shot it with an arrow, she must have killed ‘Mirror Ghosts’ many times before. If there really were such powerful beings, why has she never seen one?”

For a moment, both of them were silent.

Ning Ning was silent for a while, then suddenly looked up at him.

This time, there was no trace of a smile in her eyes, and her voice was crisp. “I have an idea… How about we go check out the nearby lake?”