38: Enemies meet on a narrow road, old grudges are hard to settle

"Let's go, let's go! Time for a show!" Nanny shrieked, unable to sit still. Her small body was as slippery as a loach, and in a blink, she darted to the window.

Her small head peered out, her dark, round eyes filled with excitement as she eagerly looked downstairs.

Qin Jiu and Xiao Huohuo exchanged a bitter smile.

Having no other choice, the two of them could only follow her.

...At the inn's main hall.

Crash! Tables were overturned, chairs askew, a scene of utter chaos.

Two groups of people, like fighting cocks, were at daggers drawn!

The atmosphere was frozen!

On one side, seven or eight Daoists in apricot-yellow robes, with long swords slung across their backs, were the Quanzhen Sect's 'ox-noses'!

The leading young Daoist, around thirty, had an arrogant expression. He flicked his whisk, his eyes like venomous snakes, extremely sinister.

One look, and it was clear he was trouble!

On the other side, a dozen or so nuns, dressed in simple monastic robes, held gleaming sharp swords.

The leading nun, around forty, still possessed her former charm, but at this moment, her face was as cold as frost, her eyes suppressing a ball of fire.

"Holy cow! The Quanzhen Sect and the Emei Sect!" Xiao Huohuo gasped, his voice a low exclamation.

These two Schools were renowned orthodox sects in the current Great Song Martial Forest. Besides the elusive Beggar Gang, they were the most formidable!

One, founded by "Central Divine" Wang Chongyang, was the Xuanmen orthodox sect, with Disciples numbering in the tens of thousands, spread across the land.

The other, the Emei Sect, although its Ancestral Master had passed away early, its current Sect Head was also a formidable person, with unfathomable cultivation. Who in the Jianghu didn't show her some respect?

These two families usually kept to themselves.

Why were they clashing like angry chickens today?

Qin Jiu stroked his chin, finding it somewhat interesting.

"Zhao Zhijing! You're spouting nonsense!" The middle-aged nun, Ding Minjun, roared, her voice clear and cold, yet carrying immense fury.

"My Junior Sister just accidentally brushed against you, and you, you dog, had to strike so heavily? Do you really think our Emei Sect is to be trifled with?!"

Behind her, a young nun, who looked to be only seventeen or eighteen, clutched her arm, her face pale, with traces of blood at the corner of her mouth.

Clearly, she had suffered a great loss!

The 'ox-nose' named Zhao Zhijing sneered, his lips curling.

He flicked his whisk with a "slap," and a wave of Yin and Yang-like unpleasantness made one's head ache.

"Immortal Master Ding Minjun, you cannot speak like that."

"'Accidentally'?" He extended a finger and pointed at a nearly invisible shoe print on the hem of his Dao robe, "Your Emei Sect's 'accident' is truly precious!"

"Do you know about this Dao robe of mine? It was personally bestowed by my Master, Immortal Master Changchun! Stepped on by your Junior Sister, it's dirty! And my heart, it's broken along with it!"

"You!" Ding Minjun trembled with rage, her chest heaving, "Shameless! You are clearly twisting words!"

"Twisting words?" Zhao Zhijing chuckled, and a lewd glint instantly flashed in his small eyes.

His gaze, like a hook, swept back and forth over Ding Minjun and the group of young, beautiful female Disciples behind her.

"Unless..." He drew out his words, his smile growing more lewd, "Immortal Master Ding, you bring your good Junior Sisters to my room and properly 'apologize' to this humble Daoist."

"Then today's matter, we... it's not impossible to discuss."

As soon as these words came out, everyone present changed their expressions.

Shameless! Lewd!

This Zhao Zhijing was simply disgracing the Quanzhen Sect!

Ding Minjun's pretty face flushed even redder with anger, and her long sword hummed, pointing directly at Zhao Zhijing's throat: "Lecher! You're courting death!"

"Heh, afraid of you?" Zhao Zhijing was fearless, and several Quanzhen Sect Daoists behind him also drew their swords, a major battle on the verge of breaking out.

Upstairs.

Nanny, munching on melon seeds she'd found from who knows where, watched with great interest.

"Little Jiu, look at that old 'ox-nose' Daoist, he's smiling so lewdly, he's definitely not a good person!"

Qin Jiu also frowned slightly, saying indifferently, "Just a clown seeking attention."

In his opinion, these so-called renowned orthodox sects, drawing swords over minor disputes, were truly too narrow-minded.

Compared to his Revered Master's immortal methods, which could turn the clouds into rain with a flick of a hand, it was like the difference between heaven and earth.

Only Xiao Huohuo was deeply moved and nervous.

These were experts from the Quanzhen Sect and the Emei Sect!

Rarely seen on ordinary days, today they were about to clash on the spot. For an ordinary Martial Artist like him, such a scene was nothing short of a visual feast.

He was completely engrossed in watching.

Suddenly!

His gaze swept over a familiar yet heartbreaking figure among the Emei Sect crowd!

It was a young woman in a light blue monastic robe. She was tall and beautiful, with an air of aloofness and arrogance that kept people at a distance.

She did not participate in the argument, but simply stood coldly to the side, as if everything around her had nothing to do with her.

Boom!

Xiao Huohuo's mind was like a thunderclap had struck it, instantly blank!

That face!

That face that had appeared countless times in his dreams, brought him endless sweetness, yet ultimately pushed him into boundless Hell!

Cloud Mirage!

It was actually her!

How could she be here?

Wasn't she the Young Miss of the Yun Family?

How could she... become a Disciple of the Emei Sect?!

The humiliation of the annulment of their engagement, Cloud Mirage's cold and heartless words, the unbridled mockery of those around him... Scene after scene, like the sharpest knives, once again fiercely gouged at his heart!

Bleeding profusely!

Heart-wrenching pain!

Xiao Huohuo's breathing instantly became rapid, his face turned deathly pale in an instant, his fists clenched tightly, his knuckles making a crisp "crack" sound from the excessive force, and his eyes, fixed on the figure downstairs, were filled with anger, unwillingness, pain, and... a hint of deep inferiority that even he himself had not noticed.

"Hmm?" Qin Jiu, being who he was, immediately noticed Xiao Huohuo's abnormality.

He followed Xiao Huohuo's gaze and saw the aloof Emei female Disciple.

Connecting it to the 'engagement annulment' he had heard about at the Xiao Family, he instantly understood seven or eight tenths of the situation.

"So it's her." Qin Jiu understood in his heart.

He looked at Xiao Huohuo's crestfallen, as if the sky had fallen, appearance, and his brows subtly furrowed.

Once upon a time, when he was deposed as Crown Prince, expelled from the imperial palace, and demoted to a commoner, the gazes he endured were probably a hundred times more hurtful than this.

They were both people in similar unfortunate circumstances.

A rare feeling of empathy arose in Qin Jiu's heart.

He reached out and gently patted Xiao Huohuo's shoulder, his voice not loud, but carrying a calming power: "It's over."

Just three simple words.

But they made Xiao Huohuo's heart, which felt like it had fallen into an ice cave, tremble violently, and a warm current surged through him.

He slowly turned his head to look at Qin Jiu, his eyes filled with gratitude.

And at this moment, Cloud Mirage downstairs, as if sensing something, suddenly looked up, her gaze like lightning, piercing through the crowd, precisely meeting Xiao Huohuo's eyes on the second floor!

Their eyes met!

The air seemed to freeze at this moment!

In Cloud Mirage's eyes, there was first a trace of astonishment, and then, unconcealed disdain and... disgust.