"What a pity, I can only talk with you until here. Lastly, I have an unreasonable request... Please take good care of Qingming for me."
Wang Jiu said, "I have signed a Master-Servant Contract with her, so I naturally have an obligation to take care of my mount."
"I see, then I can rest assured."
At this moment, Shen Yue'e's spirit body was more than half vanished, and the woman seemed to finally have let go of all her concerns, closing her eyes and waiting for the moment of complete disappearance.
"Ah, I almost forgot." Shen Yue'e suddenly opened her eyes, "Senior, could you keep today's meeting with me a secret? If Qingming finds out, she will certainly be sad."
"Alright."
"Also, in this room, there are some small things I've left for Qingming, and some letters are correspondence between me and Fengyun in our younger years... I ask of you, senior..."
However, as she spoke the last word, Shen Yue'e's spirit body silently disintegrated into countless sparkling specks of dust.
Wang Jiu was suddenly puzzled.
What am I meant to do? Study carefully? Keep them well-preserved?
But as the saying goes, "Know your enemy and yourself, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles." Since Shen Yue'e mentioned the correspondence, I should read through them before deciding on any measures.
With this in mind, Wang Jiu began opening the storage boxes in the secret room one by one. Most of them contained silver taels, herbs, and other thoughtful aids for cultivators in the Wind-Rising Realm, but one small wooden box was filled with letters.
Opening one, it turned out to be written by Shen Yue'e to Li Fengyun.
"Fengyun, through our years of romance and letters, we've talked about everything. I once thought that no couple in the world could be more intimate. However, not long ago, I went to Golden Jade City and saw a wondrous love letter called 'Wen Ai'..."
——
"I see, so this is what's called 'Wen Ai'."
After flipping through the letters between Shen Yue'e and Li Fengyun, Wang Jiu felt he had truly gained knowledge. During the Immortal Demon War, Rakugo had once mentioned to him that in Qing Province, a pioneer of Jiuzhou fashion, there was a popular cultural trend called 'Wen Ai'. However, before Rakugo could explain the concept of Wen Ai in detail, the final battle erupted, and so 'Wen Ai' remained a mystery.
Now, at least one of the Sword Spirit's concerns was resolved.
Unfortunately, this did not answer Wang Jiu's previous question: what did Shen Yue'e intend for him to do with these letters?
Could it be that the clever woman perceived that he wasn't well-versed in human relations, so she used the letters to explain Wen Ai to him? Forget it, I'll hand the letters over to Li Qingming for appraisal later.
Just as Wang Jiu was about to pack up and leave, he suddenly heard footsteps coming from outside the courtyard, along the vines and flowers of the Sword World.
Yesterday, he had broken the Protective External Skill of the group of servants with three sword strikes, Li Yuan, Li Li, and Li Peng.
The three stood at the door for a long time, hesitating, before finally someone spoke up.
Li Li said, "Miss, it's us, um, we've come again."
Li Peng said, "Right, Brother Ping was caught copying scriptures, so he's currently being punished by the master to run laps and couldn't come, but it's definitely not out of any disrespect to miss..."
"You shut up! There's no need to say such irrelevant things! Um, miss, your martial skills have improved greatly recently, and we all admire it sincerely. But the relocation work has been set as a family project, so we hope the miss won't make it difficult for us, and would quickly pack up and move to the main house."
This time Li Li spoke, his imposing manner evidently diminished by more than half, clearly cast into shadow from a previous incident, while his two companions didn't dare utter another word.
Wang Jiu listened below, knowing they were looking for Li Qingming, so he didn't interfere and began packing the items in the box. However, after packing for a while, he didn't see Li Qingming come out to greet the visitors, leaving the three family servants at the door looking increasingly as if their bladders were about to burst, extremely embarrassed.
Wang Jiu floated back to the room to take a look, only to see the little girl, having just completed a round of Circulation, was sleeping soundly.
Floating back to the courtyard door, the three servants were still standing erect outside, bravely enduring their discomfort without daring to take a deep breath, showing an attitude of waiting for all eternity.
Seeing this, Wang Jiu calmly took out pen and paper from Li Qingming's room and wrote, "Li Qingming is not available to receive guests," and then softly sent it out the door using the Shape Manipulation Array.
Li Li, happening to receive the note, was dumbfounded.
Li Qingming not available to meet guests? What kind of nonsense is this?!
Seeing this, Li Peng breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Miss said she was unavailable, so let's leave."
"Bah, leave my ass! Use your brain and think, who wrote this note?!"
"Of course, the miss wrote it, there's no one else in this courtyard."
Li Li sneered, "Would the miss refer to herself in third person? She's not a five or six-year-old child!"
"What's third person?"
"You... aside from sleeping, can't you do something more productive during the cultural classes?!" Li Li almost wanted to kick his foolish brother to death, "Plus, the miss's handwriting isn't this plain and unrefined, her calligraphy at the age of ten already put many instructors to shame."
Hearing up to here, Li Peng was still baffled, while Li Yuan concluded, "There's a 95% chance there's an outsider in the courtyard, and a 72% likelihood that the visitor is hostile."
Li Li solemnly asked, "Kidnapping?"
Li Yuan meticulously analyzed, "The Li Family is one of the Seven Great Noble Families of Xiangzhou. Even if it's slightly declined in recent years, it's still the pinnacle of influence in Cyan Cloud City, with an impact index of 41.5%, far surpassing the Qian and Lu Families, thus inevitably standing out as a target. The miss living alone in the old residence has a safety coefficient 89.3% lower than that in the main house, indeed making it easy for someone to take advantage."
Li Peng, on hearing this, immediately became anxious and said, "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go in and save her!"