Chapter 387: Speak Plainly
"En, I have returned." Zhu Qingyue acknowledged Li Meirong with a simple shake of his head. "Did you miss me?" he asked, his tone almost teasing.
Li Meirong looked down, letting a few stray strands of hair fall in front of her face as she did so.
"Who's going to miss you?" she muttered, "You've only been gone a few days."
"Little Liar," Zhu Qingyue replied with a chuckle, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. His bright eyes were full of indulgence as they looked upon her.
Li Meirong raised her face to glare silently at Zhu Qingyue; her red face was full of unspoken accusations, but she received only another infuriating chuckle in response.
Would it kill this white-haired devil to stop constantly embarrassing her? Or making her embarrass herself?
It wasn't as though they were alone right now! Zhu Qingyue always behaved as though hers was the only opinion that mattered, while those of the people who surrounded them were of little to no consequence.
And, while it felt nice to be considered so special by someone like Zhu Qingyue, it was quite disconcerting how little her boyfriend seemed to care about others. It was as if he couldn't care less, as if everyone but Li Meirong was beneath him.
Mo Cheng gave a loud, pointed cough to gain their attention.
"As touching as this reunion seems to be," he interjected scathingly, "we have entirely overlooked the most important part of this discussion."
"Speak plainly," Zhu Qingyue replied, drawling his words in a manner that was purposefully irritating.
When he seemed content with Li Meirong's reaction to his presence, he then turned to eye Mo Cheng, raising an eyebrow in silent inquiry.
Mo Cheng gulped audibly; it had become difficult, suddenly, to swallow his own spit.
Now that Zhu Qingyue was directing the full measure of his gaze at Mo Cheng, the latter felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
"You said you could offer your help…" He trailed off, fidgeting in place.
"Ah. So I did."
Li Meirong wrapped her other hand over the top of Zhu Qingyue's suddenly, dragging his gaze back to her. Her expressive eyes showed how perplexed she was.
"Are you really capable?" she asked. "How much of our conversation did you hear, exactly?"
"I have heard enough to know that your friend's soul will soon depart from his body, and I have the knowledge and skill to stop this rather unfortunate event from occurring." His statement was informative yet cryptic, and Zhu Qingyue expressed his response with the utmost nonchalance.
Li Meirong sized up Zhu Qingyue with a great deal of concentration, sceptical about his offer. On the one hand, he had admitted to being able to help Mo Cheng, which she was inclined to agree to. On the other, he was keeping the level of information he had acquired as a total secret.
Since he did not even pretend that he had been unable to hear anything, the next question about the eavesdropper was: how much did he hear?
As Zhu Qingyue was currently bent down and attired in his usual large, dark robe, he overshadowed the entire landscape as viewed by Li Meirong, and had ended up inadvertently cornering her against the bench.
Due to his current position, right in front of her as he was, she was forced to stare directly at him, face to face.
Although he hadn't outright admitted he had been snooping in the garden, or for how long or how much he had overheard, his lofty golden eyes gave her pause. Those eyes seemed to show that he knew everything.
A discomforted feeling began to form in the pit of her stomach. She wasn't sure if she would be able to come to terms with the knowledge that Zhu Qingyue might have heard that she was also possessing a body that was not her own, just like Mo Cheng was.
Despite her unease, Li Meirong decided to let the interrogation wait until later, to be conducted at a more appropriate time. For the moment, she was more curious to know how capable her boyfriend truly was.
Since Zhu Qingyue had been raised as a peasant for the majority of his life, this meant that his wealth of knowledge had been acquired at a later stage, after his childhood, and probably only after his father - the Lunatic Grandmaster - had discovered his whereabouts and taken him under his wing.
So, in essence, Zhu Qingyue's study of swordsmanship, cultivation skills, and spirituality all had to have been mastered in a miniscule amount of time!
Li Meirong's eyes lit up with curiosity as she contemplated her boyfriend.
"Do you know how to make a person's soul more compatible with a foreign body?" she asked him.
Attaching a soul to a body to which it didn't initially belong was a very, very advanced form of spiritual manipulation. One would need to be an extremely learned and proficient cultivator in order to do so…
Zhu Qingyue simply nodded his head, as if this subject was a simple, everyday one and what he was offering was just a run of the mill task for him.
"Then… what can be done?" Mo Cheng asked slowly, his tone uncertain. He seemed to be ill at ease with the idea that the only source of aid he could find was from the one person who was, ironically enough, supposed to be his nemesis in the future.
Zhu Qingyue kept his mouth shut and pressed his lips together, remaining purposefully silent. He was looking everywhere and nowhere, like a child who was keeping a stash of candy tucked away in a pocket and was entirely unwilling to share it.
'Usually he behaves so elegantly and nobly,' Li Meirong thought exasperatedly as she assessed Zhu Qingyue's peculiar behavior. 'Yet sometimes, like now, he seems so immature…'
He wasn't an easy person to analyze, and neither was he an easy man to handle by any means. 'It is as if he is young yet old at the same time,' She mused. 'Wise beyond his years, yet somewhat childish and silly.'
Additionally, he currently seemed to be in no particular hurry to share his wealth of knowledge with her and Mo Cheng. Zhu Qingyue had never been particularly elaborate or loquacious with his words and speech, but he was being strangely reticent.
What would she need to do to make her white-haired devil spill the damn beans already?!