Cuddling with the Cold Female Protagonist – Chapter 109

Volume 4: The Perils of the Jianghu

Phoenix Perching on the Wutong Tree

To Su Yi, having ambition was a good thing.

At the very least, it meant that the person before her could be trusted. To be able to speak so frankly of her inner desires in front of strangers meant that she wanted their help and was willing to form a deep connection with them. If she had rescued them without asking for anything in return, Su Yi would have been more suspicious about her true purpose.

“Miss Xue, you rescued us because you want our help?”

“That’s right.” Xue Zhining smiled and waved her hand. The water in the teacup condensed into a thin ribbon, slowly leaping from the bowl into the air and gradually forming two characters.

[Opportunity]

“To be perfectly honest, when I first met you two, I performed a divination. These two words appeared in the hexagram. I have waited ten years for this, and it is a chance I do not wish to miss.”

Su Yi’s face remained expressionless, but her heart was filled with a mix of surprise and apprehension.

This woman named Xue Zhining is too uncanny. She can perform divination and use techniques like this. If we help her and she becomes the High Priestess of the Huachen Kingdom, will she eventually pose a threat to the Yanxue Kingdom?

She did not want the people of the Yanxue Kingdom to be plunged into misery and suffering.

Yue Ling shared the same concern.

Seeming to sense their apprehension, Xue Zhining let out a light laugh. “Rest assured, I have no aggressive intentions. Of course, I know that my words alone will not be enough to convince you, and I will not force you. You can pretend you never heard any of this. For now, let’s head back.”

Su Yi and Yue Ling exchanged a glance and nodded. “We can consider Miss Xue’s words, but we certainly cannot agree rashly right now.”

“I understand your concerns. Please, take all the time you need to consider,” Xue Zhining said with a soft laugh. “Let’s not talk about this for now. Let’s think about how to get back.”

Yue Ling said, “Get back? But isn’t that High Priestess still hunting for us? If we go back, won’t we be captured?”

“The most dangerous place is the safest place.”

Xue Zhining smiled. “Let’s return to the ceremonial hall we were just in. They would never imagine we’d be audacious enough to dare go back.”

When they thought about it, her words made sense.

The two agreed, and so they returned to the palace they had just fled.

Yue Ling went in first to scout the area. Seeing no one, she quietly beckoned to the others outside, and the three of them entered together.

With her body no longer under control, Yue Ling was in a much better mood. She looked toward the place where the water currents converged, at the towering Wutong tree that reached into the clouds.

“Can we go take a look?”

Xue Zhining took out two shells covered in incomprehensible characters. After fiddling with them for a moment, she finally answered, “You may.”

Su Yi couldn’t understand the divination reading. Seeing Yue Ling walk toward the tree, she feared she might be in danger and followed her.

The moment she stepped onto the land where the tree stood, Su Yi felt as if she were walking on several layers of thick carpet—soft and exceptionally comfortable.

She asked in surprise, “What is this under the ground?”

“They are its leaves.”

Xue Zhining had also walked over by this point. Gazing at the tree that towered into the clouds, she said, “This tree has been growing for who knows how many years, and has laid down who knows how many layers of ground cover.”

“How incredible.” Looking closely, Su Yi noticed that the bark of this tree was also different from those she usually saw.

Other trees had mottled, uneven bark, but this one’s surface was as smooth as jade.

As Su Yi looked on, she couldn’t resist the urge to reach out and touch it, to see if the trunk was truly as smooth as it appeared.

The instant her hand touched the trunk, a searing heat shot from her palm into her very organs, and a familiar, metallic taste of rust suddenly filled her throat.

“Ugh…”

Her brow furrowed in immense pain, and she half-knelt, leaning against the tree trunk.

Yue Ling, who was closest to her, noticed something was wrong and immediately reached out to grab her. “Miss Su, are you alright?”

An instant before her hand could touch Su Yi, Xue Zhining caught her wrist, saying in a stern voice, “Don’t touch her.”

Yue Ling froze, tense. Xue Zhining had lost her earlier calm, smiling demeanor. Her brows locked tightly, she slowly approached, carefully turned Su Yi’s body, and carried her away from the Wutong tree before gently placing her on the ground.

Su Yi’s face was ashen, and large beads of cold sweat dripped from her forehead. Her lips had lost all their color.

“Poison.”

The word escaped Xue Zhining’s thin lips. She took a green pill from the sachet she carried with her and fed it to Su Yi.

Su Yi’s whole body trembled violently, her suffering intensifying as she shivered uncontrollably on the ground.

Yue Ling was both shocked and frantic. She and Su Yi were stranded here together; she was the only one by Su Yi’s side. If she failed to take care of Su Yi, she would have a hard time answering to Ji Qingchi when she returned.

“How can this be? Back in Changsheng Valley, Elder Baicao clearly cured her poison.”

“The medical arts of Changsheng Valley are indeed formidable, and their Gu art is not lacking either.” Xue Zhining fed her another pill, and Su Yi, who had been trembling nonstop, finally calmed down. “A pity. No matter how skilled they are, they cannot overcome the poison in her body.”

There were three poisons in Su Yi’s body. Feng Qing had neutralized two of them, but there was one that even she was powerless against and could only find ways to suppress.

Yue Ling was unaware of this. She had only seen Su Yi’s complexion improve and assumed all the poison had been cleared.

“What kind of poison is she afflicted with?”

Xue Zhining stood up and smiled. “I am no physician. How would I know?”

“Then why did you give her medicine just now!”

Yue Ling was furious and rushed to check on Su Yi’s condition.

“Rest assured, this is a medicine passed down and improved through generations of my clan. No matter the poison, it can temporarily suppress its effects.”

After confirming that Su Yi was truly alright, Yue Ling breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from her forehead. A short while later, Su Yi woke up. Her face was pale as she looked at the two people watching over her. “Did… I just… have a… poison flare-up…”

Yue Ling nodded. “Yes.”

She asked, puzzled, “But didn’t Elder Feng already detoxify Miss Su?”

Su Yi told her the truth, and Yue Ling sighed. “Even Elder Feng doesn’t know what poison it is… What are we going to do…”

Su Yi gave a weak smile. “Leave it to fate.”

Xue Zhining gazed at Su Yi’s face and suddenly spoke, “Miss Su, would you permit me to do a reading for you?”

“Fortune-telling?” Su Yi smiled faintly. “Alright, this will be my first time.”

Actually, thinking about it, it’s not the first time, but the second. The first was when my mother believed a fortune-teller and had me marry a husband to ward off bad luck.

“Miss Su, I will trouble you to tell me your shengchen bazi¹.”

Su Yi told her birthday. Xue Zhining fiddled with the shells in her hands for a good while before looking at Su Yi with hesitation. “Miss Su… did you fall gravely ill in your twelfth year?”

“Yes.” Su Yi nodded. The original owner of the body had died at twelve, so it was indeed a grave illness.

“No wonder the hexagram showed that you had a fatal calamity… Your lifeline changed starting from your twelfth year, growing stronger and stronger… Miss Su, did you meet someone?”

Who else could I have met? It was, of course, Ji Qingchi, who possesses the Nine Heavens Phoenix Fate.

“Someone very dear to me,” Su Yi said vaguely, her gaze shifting to the Wutong tree. “That tree seems a bit strange. When I touched the trunk, my palm felt like it was burning.”

“Is that so?” Xue Zhining frowned. “But when we touch it, nothing of the sort happens.”

“From what I see of your poison, Miss Su, it doesn’t seem like something inflicted by someone, but rather something you were born with, from the womb.”

Su Yi was stunned. “But my mother said she was surrounded by trusted aides when she gave birth to me. No one would have been audacious enough to poison her. Although Fengcheng is small, she was still the Family Head. It’s even less likely that someone would have had the nerve to poison her during her pregnancy.”

“Having no nerve doesn’t mean it wasn’t done,” Xue Zhining said, frowning as she looked at the patterns on the shells. “Moreover… considering the symptoms you described from your poison flare-up, combined with the strange reaction you had when touching the Wutong tree, the poison you have sounds a lot like the legendary ‘Phoenix Perching on the Wutong Tree’.”

Su Yi was confused. “Phoenix Perching on the Wutong Tree?”

“Yes,” Xue Zhining said with a frown. “There is a manuscript in the ceremonial hall, recorded by a priestess from some unknown generation. It says that about a thousand years ago, there was also a woman with a Phoenix Fate. That woman was a descendant of a fallen noble family, but because of her precious fate, she managed to gain a firm foothold in a chaotic era through sheer effort, establish a kingdom, and become that kingdom’s first Emperor.”

She looked at Su Yi. “That’s right. That Emperor was the founding Emperor of the Yanxue Kingdom.”

Before Su Yi could react with surprise, she continued, “The Emperor had a zhuma² who grew up with her. The two loved each other deeply. The man willingly gave up his position as Chancellor to enter the rear palace as the Emperor Consort, wholeheartedly dedicating himself to easing the Emperor’s burdens. However, the Emperor was busy with state affairs, and the time she could spend with her consort each day was short. Over time, this gave others an opportunity to strike. The Emperor Consort was poisoned and passed away not long after. That poison was called Phoenix Perching on the Wutong Tree. Legend has it that the poison is refined from the fruit of this very Wutong tree mixed with phoenix blood. It is planted in the soul, so even in reincarnation, the poison will follow, like maggots clinging to the bone, impossible to remove.”

“A poison planted in the soul?” Yue Ling scoffed. “That’s quite a stretch.”

“This is merely what was written in a manuscript. It’s just a legend, not to be taken as fact, but the story exists,” Xue Zhining said with a slight smile. “However, one thing can be confirmed: this poison does exist. And another point, it is invariably planted in someone deeply and truly loved by a person with a Phoenix Fate.”

The reason she could be so certain was that the manuscript’s author had written at the end that he was the one who had administered the poison.

He wrote in a gloating tone about how he had poisoned the man and how the man had died in agony, as if it were a commendation of his own actions.

He was deeply in love with the Emperor but could not have her, so he found a way to kill the man she loved so he could take his place.

She looked at Su Yi. “Miss Su once mentioned she has a ‘sweetheart.’ May I venture to ask if that person of yours is the one with the Phoenix Fate?”

Su Yi gave a weak smile. “The High Priestess of the Huachen Kingdom possesses heaven-defying abilities. You must have already divined it. Why bother asking me?”

Xue Zhining indeed already knew. She didn’t press further, smiling as she put away her shells. “If it truly is Phoenix Perching on the Wutong Tree, then this is quite troublesome. I don’t know how to cure it either. The manuscript says there is no antidote in this world… unless a phoenix appears once more.”

Su Yi’s complexion had recovered a little. “Whatever. I’m used to it anyway.”

She rested for a while. Feeling a bit better, she stood up shakily. “We’ve seen this place. There’s nothing special, but there is one matter—we’ve offended the Crown Prince and the High Priest. What if they come back? Also, are we just going to hide here and never go out for the rest of our lives?”

“Rest assured,” Xue Zhining chuckled. “I have a way. Just follow me. Let’s head out first.”

Indeed, aside from the minor incident of Su Yi fainting, they had gained nothing.

The three of them slowly walked out. Su Yi was in the middle. Just as they were about to exit, Xue Zhining, who was behind her, suddenly moved forward and whispered, almost directly into her ear, “Don’t worry, Miss Su. You will not die.”

Before Su Yi could ask, she smiled and said, “The Ninth Highness’s fate is even more precious than that Emperor’s. Besides—a soul from another world, to enter the game is to break the game. You are even less likely to die.”

A chill ran down Su Yi’s spine. How does this woman know everything?

“Relax, I’m friendly.” Seeing the suspicion in Su Yi’s eyes, Xue Zhining obediently raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, something she had also learned from the images in the water. “I absolutely support you and the Ninth Highness. After all, with a Nine Heavens Phoenix Fate, what is there that cannot be achieved?”

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