Chapter 653: Lu Chanxi is Missing, Zhong Lingyin is Worried!
However, Liu Ruyan had a good impression of Zhang Yaqian, this delicate and sweet girl, and at this moment, she asked with concern, "Zhang Yaqian, how is your sprained ankle? Do you need a doctor?"
"Thank you for your concern, Sister Ruyan and Sister Anna, no need, Brother Shen has already healed me." Zhang Yaqian looked up with her pure and beautiful face, smiling sweetly, her expression a perfect mask of clarity and innocence.
Shen Anyu also stood up, a casual smile playing on his lips. "Fortunately, Zhang Yaqian's sprain wasn't serious. She's fine now."
Before Liu Ruyan could respond, Zhong Lingyin shot forward, her movements a blur of anxiety. Her hand closed around Shen Anyu's arm, her grip surprisingly firm. "Brother Shen, I have something urgent to talk to you about. Can we go out for a bit?" Her voice was a hushed, desperate whisper, her eyes pleading.
"Okay, no problem," Shen Anyu replied, his tone smooth and unbothered. He knew perfectly well what this was about. He turned to the two women on the couch. "Ruyan, Zhang Yaqian, you two chat first." With that, he allowed Zhong Lingyin to pull him away, a silent puppet master letting his strings be tugged.
"Mhm, Brother Shen and Sister Anna, go ahead. Sister Ruyan and I can just chat." Zhang Yaqian dutifully maintained the persona of a girl still tender from a recent injury, making no move to follow. Her mood, for the moment, was radiant. The storm of jealousy that had been brewing within her had temporarily dissipated, leaving behind a facade of sweetness, obedience, and thoughtful consideration. She was playing her part beautifully.
Liu Ruyan, however, saw right through the charade. A subtle roll of her eyes was the only outward sign of her amusement. She knew exactly what her junior sister was doing—scrambling to find an excuse, conspiring with Shen Anyu to keep her in the dark.
'Hmph, you can hide it for a while, but you can't hide it forever,' Liu Ruyan thought, a predatory smirk touching her lips. 'My dear Junior Sister, I'd like to see just how long you can keep this little secret of yours buried.'
She let out a soft, almost inaudible snort before turning her full, charming attention back to the younger woman beside her, continuing their conversation as if nothing were amiss.
The moment they were out of earshot, Zhong Lingyin's carefully constructed composure crumbled. She pulled Shen Anyu into a secluded corridor, her beautiful face a canvas of pure panic. "Husband," she whispered, her voice trembling, "I can't hide it from Senior Sister much longer! She's coming to the Film and Television City to visit the set and celebrate my birthday. What am I going to do? What do I do now?"
Shen Anyu's mind briefly registered the irony. 'Liu Ruyan already knows everything.'
But seeing Zhong Lingyin on the verge of tears, her eyes wide with genuine fear, a mischievous impulse took hold of him. He reached out, his touch gentle as he brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek. "It's alright," he soothed, his voice a low, calming murmur. "If Ruyan knows, she knows. Is there really a need to be so scared?"
Her head snapped up, her fear momentarily replaced by a flash of indignation. She glared at him, her soft features hardening. "You rotten husband!" she chided, her voice a fierce whisper. "You don't care anyway! You're just not worried about having too many debts to repay. But I… I've done something to let Senior Sister down. If she finds out, how can I ever face her again?"
"Luo Luo and Liyou also know about Ruyan, and they're not scared," Shen Anyu replied, the smile never leaving his face. The words were simple, delivered with a devastating casualness.
Luo Luo and Liyou also know about Ruyan.
The sentence detonated in Zhong Lingyin's mind. The world seemed to slow, the ambient sounds of the building fading into a dull roar. The words echoed, repeating themselves, each syllable a hammer blow against her sanity. She froze, her entire body going rigid.
'Who is Luo Luo? Little Junior Sister… Yang Luoluo?' The connection clicked into place, sending a jolt through her. 'And Liyou… could it be… Fourth Senior Sister, Ye Liyou?'
The implications crashed down on her like a tidal wave. Her mind reeled as she processed the unthinkable. Her head snapped up, her beautiful eyes widening to their absolute limit, shimmering with a mixture of horror and utter disbelief as she stared at Shen Anyu.
"Husband… you… you, you're also with my Little Junior Sister Yang Luoluo… and Fourth Senior Sister Ye Liyou?" Her voice was a fragile, stammering wreck, each word a struggle.
"Mhm, yes." Shen Anyu's main principle was honesty, at least when it suited him. His confirmation was calm, direct, and utterly merciless.
Zhong Lingyin was stunned. Utterly and completely stunned. The world tilted on its axis.
She'd had a vague premonition about Little Junior Sister Yang Luoluo. She had, after all, bumped into them together at the Magic City River View Manor, a moment that had planted a seed of suspicion in her heart. But Fourth Senior Sister Ye Liyou? The cold, aloof beauty? The gold-medal female assassin from the Dark World, a woman who seemed to be carved from ice and shadows? How could she possibly be involved with Shen Anyu? It made no sense.
"Previously in Sakura Country, weren't you offered a sky-high bounty by the Martial God Hall? Many strong practitioners from the Dark World wanted to kidnap you," Shen Anyu began, his voice taking on a narrative quality. He spun a tale that was technically true, yet masterfully distorted. "Your Fourth Senior Sister Ye Liyou was also there, secretly protecting you. She ended up getting seriously injured in the process. I was the one who helped her heal…"
In a few concise sentences, Shen Anyu recounted the heavily edited story of how he and Ye Liyou had met and, according to him, fallen in love. He painted a picture of heroism and fated encounters, conveniently omitting the crucial detail that the person who had offered the sky-high bounty on Zhong Lingyin wasn't the Martial God Hall—it was him. The Hall had merely been a convenient scapegoat.
"I didn't know Liyou was your Fourth Senior Sister at the time, of course," he added, the picture of innocence.
Zhong Lingyin's expression was a kaleidoscope of fluctuating emotions. Confusion gave way to a dawning, horrified realization, which finally settled into a fierce, burning glare. Even the usually good-tempered Heavenly Queen Zhong felt a wave of righteous indignation wash over her.
"You rotten husband!" she seethed, her voice tight with disbelief and anger. "You actually took all of our senior and junior sisters in one fell swoop! That's… that's too much!"
"Not yet," Shen Anyu corrected her, a lazy, infuriating smile spreading across his face. "Your Sixth Junior Sister Lu Chanxi, First Senior Sister Pei Changli, and Third Senior Sister Murong Jieyu are not yet."
Zhong Lingyin clutched her forehead, a wave of dizziness washing over her. She felt like she was going to faint from pure, unadulterated anger. So that was his plan. Of the seven senior and junior sisters of the Sword Palace, this rotten, insatiable husband didn't plan to let a single one go? He was trying to collect the entire set!
Just as her fury reached its peak, Shen Anyu's entire demeanor shifted. The playful smirk vanished, replaced by an expression of profound gravity. His eyes sharpened, and his voice dropped, carrying a sudden, chilling weight.
"I suspect someone is targeting your Sword Palace," he said, his tone deadly serious. "Your Sixth Junior Sister Lu Chanxi has already gone missing!"
What?
Sixth Junior Sister Lu Chanxi has already gone missing?
The words struck Zhong Lingyin with the force of a physical blow. The blood instantly drained from her face, leaving it a sickly, pale white. All the anger, the jealousy, the frustration—it all evaporated in an instant, replaced by a cold, sharp spike of terror.
"Husband," she gasped, her voice barely a whisper, "has Sixth Junior Sister… gone missing?"
"Mhm. I had people investigate. It's absolutely true," Shen Anyu affirmed, his expression grim.
"How could this be? How could this happen!" Zhong Lingyin immediately became frantic. The carefully controlled world of the Heavenly Queen shattered, leaving only a terrified senior sister.
Except for their enigmatic First Senior Sister, Pei Changli, who lived in seclusion in the Sword Palace's deep valley year-round, and their Little Junior Brother, Ye Linyuan, whom she had never even met, she was incredibly close with her other sisters. They saw each other often, their bond forged through years of shared training and life.
She had a particularly strong connection with Sixth Junior Sister Lu Chanxi. Like her, Lu Chanxi was from Jiangnan, living in nearby Hangzhou. They shared a special bond. But her sixth sister was also somewhat similar to their first; she preferred quiet, solitary cultivation, far from the distractions of the mundane world. She often didn't even use her phone, lost in her own pursuits.
Zhong Lingyin had been planning to visit her the moment she had a break in her busy schedule. And now… she was missing?
"Husband, could it be the Martial God Hall?" Zhong Lingyin's beautiful eyes, moments ago filled with shock, now blazed with a murderous indignation. Her mind instantly locked onto the behemoth organization that had repeatedly positioned itself as an enemy of the Sword Palace.
She remembered the incident during her world tour concert in Sakura Country. It was the Martial God Hall that had allegedly posted that sky-high bounty, drawing countless assassins from the Dark World to hunt her down. If she hadn't, by some blessing in disguise, had a fateful encounter with Shen Anyu, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
And then later, in Magic City, the attack by the Sea Dragon King Zhang Hailong and two other Heavenly Human giants from the Martial God Hall… Zhong Lingyin still felt a chill recalling the terror of that day. If Shen Anyu and Susan hadn't intervened, she would have narrowly escaped disaster, if she escaped at all.
Now, with the disappearance of her Sixth Junior Sister, her first and only thought was that it had to be another one of the Martial God Hall's insidious conspiracies.
"It wasn't the Martial God Hall," Shen Anyu said, shaking his head. He spoke softly, his voice a stark contrast to her fiery rage. "It was a beautiful woman in palace attire who called herself… the Ice Snow Immortal Palace. She's the one who took Lu Chanxi away."
"Ice Snow Immortal Palace?" Zhong Lingyin's pretty face was a mask of confusion. The name meant nothing to her. It was a complete unknown.
But the name of the faction was secondary. Her primary concern was the safety of her junior sister. Her mind was a whirlwind of terrifying possibilities.
"I had a master fortune-teller check," Shen Anyu said, his lips curling into a reassuring smile. "Lu Chanxi is temporarily out of danger."
'Of course she is,' he thought to himself. 'Lu Chanxi is also a Destined Heroine, protected by the very fabric of destiny and favored by the heavens. How could she possibly get into real trouble so easily?' Unless she had the terrible misfortune of running into another Destined Heroine or a Child of Destiny as an enemy, which was highly unlikely. Destined Heroines, by their very nature, possessed incredible Luck.
Shen Anyu had been sending people to investigate clues about the Xuanhuang World, but it was extremely mysterious, with very few leads. This was already with Shen Anyu; if it were an ordinary person, they wouldn't even know about the Xuanhuang World.
Too mysterious!
...
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