No Time for Idle Gossip

At that time, Mei Chao Bing, Yun Bei Fen, and Kui Min were already scouting another area. Mei Chao Bing hadn't been able to find any other traces of an array in the vicinity. There might be something further in the distance but he didn't know for sure. He could only feel that there were some points with concentrated spiritual energy but that didn't have to mean much. Sometimes, some natural landmarks could also be especially saturated with spiritual energy. It didn't have to be man-made.

Thus the three of them just continued to walk. After a while, Kui Min couldn't help but turn around to them. "Fen'er, say, what do you know about your first senior martial brother?"

Yun Bei Fen blinked his eyes and then tilted his head. "First senior martial brother?" He fell silent and thought of what he had learned about his first senior martial brother while he grew up. "Well, he likes swords."

Kui Min stared at him, waiting for him to say something more while Mei Chao Bing made sure that he didn't laugh out loud. To be honest, he felt that what Yun Bei Fen had said was likely true. Even though he had only ever seen Zhi Guan for short amounts of time while they were on the same mission together, he had certainly never seen him be interested in anything but swords. Taking care of his sword, using a sword, even talking about his sword was alright. Other than that … Actually, there was no other than that. He had never seen Zhi Guan do anything that was unrelated to swords. Even while sleeping, he would hug his weapon. It was a little bit ridiculous when thinking about it.

Kui Min needed a moment to process what Yun Bei Fen had said. "Is that all? Didn't you were up together? You should know something more personal, right?"

Yun Bei Fen shook his head. "But he really likes swords. They're the most personal thing to him. He's talking about them all the time."

Kui Min nodded slowly. "Then … What kind of things is he saying?"

Yun Bei Fen pondered what to say. Finally, he remembered one story that might convince senior martial sister Kui. "One time, I heard that second senior martial brother liked senior martial sister Zhang. But when I said that I also like senior martial sister Zhang, third senior martial brother said that it wasn't that type of like. I didn't understand but he couldn't explain to me so he sent me to first senior martial brother to ask instead."

Kui Min could imagine just what Yun Bei Fen's third senior martial brother had been talking about but she really wondered where this would lead. What did this have to do with Zhi Guan liking swords? "So what did he say?"

Yun Bei Fen scratched his cheek. "Well, he thought about it for a long time and then he explained to me that it was just like with swords: Actually, you can fight with every sword. But there will be some swords that you will be better with. And then, there might be a sword that you are especially well-suited to so you will want to use that sword more than the other swords. So whenever you go out, you will carry that sword with you and you will take very good care of it because you want to make sure that you'll be able to spend as much time with it as you can. That's because the longer you fight with the sword, the better you'll become at using it." He looked at Kui Min, blinking his eyes. "Do you understand that, senior martial sister Kui?"

Kui Min stared at him but finally, she could only shake her head.

Yun Bei Fen nodded. "I also wasn't sure. I think that first senior martial brother might want to say that he likes the sword just as much as second senior martial brother likes senior martial sister Zhang. So I guess that second senior martial brother must like senior martial sister Zhang very, very much. Because first senior martial brother really likes his sword very much.

"You don't know but he'll take it everywhere with him and he takes really good care of it. So I'm sure it must be a very special sword, ah." Thinking of that, Yun Bei Fen couldn't help but turn to Mei Chao Bing. He happily grabbed his sleeve, before he turned back to Kui Min. "Actually, I also have a sword that is very important to me. Senior martial brother Mei promised that he'll make a new one for me though. I'm sure I'll like that one even more."

Kui Min was hardly able to wrap her head around that explanation of Zhi Guan, never mind paying attention to what Yun Bei Fen had said about his own sword. Just when she wanted to ask some more, Mei Chao Bing tensed up.

"Wait!" He looked behind them, narrowing his eyes. "Something just changed behind us."

Even though Kui Min might engage in idle gossip while they were traveling and nothing much was happening, she also understood that they were in the border region and had to pay attention to their surroundings. Since Mei Chao Bing had noticed something, she definitely wouldn't continue with what she had been doing before. "What is it?"

Mei Chao Bing furrowed his brows, cursing himself. He knew exactly what had changed: It was the array that he hadn't told anybody about. So how was he supposed to alert the rest of the group about this? How was he supposed to alert the other disciples that were currently investigating close by? What if the demonic practitioners came running over soon?

Seeing his tense expression, Kui Min also tensed up. She took out a small fan, falling into a position that would make it easy for her to attack or defend depending on what was happening.

Yun Bei Fen could only look from one person to the other, hoping to find out just what was going on.

Mei Chao Bing patted his back to calm him down and then turned back to Kui Min. "There was a sudden change in the spiritual energy behind us. I'm afraid there might have been an array in the area we investigated before. I don't know what it is but something happened over there. Maybe some demonic practitioners sneaked there and did something. I'm afraid it will be very dangerous. I'd suggest meeting up with the other two and then maybe going to meet the other disciples as well. It's safer to stay together since we don't know what we'll encounter."

Kui Min nodded. She tugged the fan under her arm and pulled out a small flute, putting it against her lips. Then, a trill sounded in the area around them, traveling into the distance.