After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 15
by Little PandaEvents of the Past, Part 14
Try the wine the Qingluan King gifted.
Because Wen Qiwu had arrived, the young girl from the Qianyue Sword Sect didn’t dare continue the conversation. Before Yun Heng could even speak, she took her leave with a flushed face and departed.
“What did Shijie and that young Fellow Daoist talk about?” Wen Qiwu lowered her gaze slightly. But Yun Heng couldn’t hear the deeper meaning in her shimei’s words.
Yun Heng frowned slightly and answered truthfully. “She seemed to want to ask me about someone in the Qianyue Sword Sect. She didn’t finish saying the name—all I gathered was that the person’s surname might be Lin.”
Lin? Lin as in Lin Shu?
Wen Qiwu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She understood the girl’s intentions perfectly—after all, she herself had once probed her shijie the same way. Unfortunately, when the person you’re probing is a block of wood, indirect approaches are pure wasted effort.
“I don’t think that young Fellow Daoist was actually asking Shijie about someone.” Wen Qiwu left the thought half-finished.
“Then what did she want to ask?”
Yun Heng waited for her shimei’s answer, but Wen Qiwu merely curved her brows, a mysterious light in her eyes that Yun Heng couldn’t read. “Even if I told you, Shijie, you wouldn’t understand. So I’d rather not say.”
After walking a few steps ahead, Wen Qiwu noticed her shijie hadn’t followed. She turned to find Yun Heng still standing where she was, looking rather bewildered—as though everyone else understood something and she alone had been left behind.
The amusement in Wen Qiwu’s eyes deepened. She walked back to her shijie’s side and linked arms with her. “Did I come at a bad time just now? Did I interrupt your conversation?”
“Not at all.” The moment her arm was taken, Yun Heng’s body seemed to stiffen briefly, but she recovered almost instantly.
“Good, as long as I didn’t interrupt.” Wen Qiwu gave her arm a gentle shake and asked softly, “Shijie, you seem to have been very busy these past few days. You haven’t been to Wanyao Mountain in days. Tonight… you should have some free time, right?”
Normally, it was nothing unusual for her shijie to be away for a few days. But with the Qianyue Sword Sect delegation still at the sect, she couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy.
“Tonight…” Yun Heng hesitated. “Tonight the elders are hosting a banquet for the Qingluan King and the Qianyue Sword Sect Master. I’ll try to come back as early as I can.”
In truth, she hadn’t been so busy that she couldn’t spare a moment to visit Wanyao Mountain. But every time she looked toward that mountain, her heart wouldn’t settle. She felt she might be trying to avoid her shimei. So when the person she’d been dodging for days suddenly appeared at her side, a flash of guilt crossed Yun Heng’s face.
Seeing the disappointment dimming her shimei’s expression, the heart Yun Heng had finally managed to harden softened again. “Or… Qiwu, would you like to come along?”
Though it was called a banquet, the elders would inevitably spend the evening discussing dull cooperation matters with the other two factions. The feast would be far less comfortable than staying home.
Wen Qiwu had never enjoyed occasions like this. Yet this time, the moment her shijie mentioned it, she agreed at once. “All right.”
The Qianyue Sword Sect and Wenshen Sect had maintained close ties for a long time. The Qianyue Sword Sect Master already knew Wen Qiwu, but the Qingluan King was meeting her for the first time.
As a true elder among the Monster Race, the Qingluan King had lived for tens of thousands of years. She had witnessed the Monster Race’s golden age, followed the Demon Emperor in conquering territories, and endured the Demon Emperor’s subsequent fall, the Monster Race’s decline, and the fracturing of Shiling Domain…
After weathering so many storms, she had thought nothing in this world could make her lose composure. Yet when the Qingluan King saw the female cultivator standing behind Immortal Venerable Yun Heng, she forgot she was still pouring wine. The spirit wine overflowed from the cup, and no one beside her thought to remind her—her attendants had also instinctively turned to stare at Wen Qiwu.
The Feather Tribe’s gazes were far too fervent. Not only Wen Qiwu herself but even Yun Heng noticed the commotion from the Qingluan King’s direction. The other party’s behavior wasn’t just a lapse—it was plainly rude.
A thread of cold immortal power swept past. Meeting Yun Heng’s icy gaze, the Qingluan King snapped back to her senses in an instant.
Cold sweat broke out across the Qingluan King’s body. Compared to the younger, inexperienced little birds who wanted to cling to Wen Qiwu the moment they saw her, the Qingluan King was more rational and had more to consider.
Who exactly was the woman behind Immortal Venerable Yun Heng? Judging by her aura, she was only human—no Feather Tribe bloodline at all. Her cultivation was likely at the Void Refining stage, while the Qingluan King herself was already in the Golden Immortal Realm. And yet she couldn’t resist that strange pull?
Could the woman possess some special physique? The Qingluan King frowned and no longer stared openly at Wen Qiwu. The Immortal Venerable’s expression already carried a hint of displeasure. Still, the Qingluan King stole the occasional glance at the pale, quiet young woman in blue robes.
Every last Feather Tribe member around her had been warned by the Immortal Venerable’s gaze. The Qingluan King noticed that Yun Heng’s eyes lingered a moment longer on her own daughter. Glancing at Huaiqing’s guilty expression, the Qingluan King thought she finally understood why she hadn’t been able to find her daughter these past few days.
“That’s Immortal Venerable Yun Heng’s shimei. Don’t let her sickly look fool you—I have a feeling that even the two of us together might not be able to beat her.”
The Qingluan King overheard her daughter’s new friend discussing the blue-robed female cultivator with her. So she was Immortal Venerable Yun Heng’s shimei—no wonder she’d arrived alongside the Immortal Venerable.
“Huh, is this wine perhaps the Divine Immortal Brew from Wang-shixiong1‘s treasury?” one of the Wenshen Sect elders exclaimed in surprise.
The elder addressed as Wang-shixiong pulled a long face and let out two most reluctant grunts.
“It is the Divine Immortal Brew. Wang-shidi2 lost a bet to me last time, so he had to bring this out. He’s been heartbroken over it for days. Come, everyone, have a taste.”
Several elders traded jests, and the banquet’s atmosphere grew more relaxed. Wen Qiwu knew that Elder Wang loved his wine—his treasury was stuffed with fine vintages gathered from all over, and the Divine Immortal Brew was the most famous of them all. No wonder he was so reluctant to part with it.
Wen Qiwu was curious what the Divine Immortal Brew tasted like. She quietly poured herself a little, intending to take just a sip.
[Qiwu.]
She suddenly heard her shijie’s voice transmission, tinged with a hint of helplessness.
[The Divine Immortal Brew is potent—even Earth Immortal Realm cultivators can get drunk from it. If you really want to drink, try the wine the Qingluan King gifted instead.] Her shimei couldn’t hold her liquor and had no business drinking the Divine Immortal Brew. That was why Yun Heng spoke up the moment she noticed her shimei’s furtive little move.
Getting drunk was a minor matter. The real problem was that her shimei became especially clingy and delicate when intoxicated. With so many outsiders present, and her shimei being thin-skinned, Yun Heng worried that Qiwu would be too embarrassed to show her face again after sobering up.
But Yun Heng could never have imagined that letting Wen Qiwu drink the Drunken Phoenix was worse than letting her drink the Divine Immortal Brew.
[Understood.] Wen Qiwu obediently withdrew her hand and swapped the Divine Immortal Brew in her cup for the Drunken Phoenix.
The moment the Drunken Phoenix’s aroma rose, Wen Qiwu felt her face growing warm again. Since she was seated far from the Qingluan side of the table, and she’d only poured a small cup before immediately resealing the jar and tucking it into her Storage Bag, the fragrance didn’t reach the Feather Tribe members across the hall.
Wen Qiwu rubbed her burning cheek. This time she was certain—the wine’s aroma was wrong. Just breathing it in made her dizzy, as though she were already drunk.
Was that the wine’s special quality? The fragrance intoxicated, but the wine itself didn’t?
She still remembered her shijie saying it wouldn’t intoxicate her.
Before Wen Qiwu could puzzle it out, a sudden bang rang out from not far away. She looked up to see the Qianyue Sword Sect Master’s daughter, her face flushed crimson, her expression dazed—clearly drunk. Yet even in her cups, the girl stared straight at the Immortal Venerable on the main seat.
Wine lends courage to the timid, as the saying goes. The girl who hadn’t dared breathe a single word when sober now openly declared her feelings.
Wen Qiwu’s fingertips tightened around her cup until they turned white, and the poor cup let out a faint groan.
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