23 Chapter 22
'Song Jia...' Ji Wuye murmured inwardly, a train of thoughts racing through his mind.
"Hehehe..." Song Jia's airy laugh echoed through the abandoned courtyard as she sauntered in, her lithe figure swaying gracefully. Bending at the waist, she inspected the overgrown surroundings with curious eyes, plump lips curling into an impish smile.
The sound of her voice instantly put Ji Wuye on alert.
He swiftly schooled his features into a mask of pleasant surprise, but inwardly her abrupt presence sent a tendril of unease slithering down his spine.
Squinting against the dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy, he scratched his tousled white locks and flashed a disingenuous grin. "Ah! Sister Song, it's...rather unexpected to find you wandering these abandoned grounds."
As Ji Wuye's words hung in the heavy silence, Song Jia suddenly appeared before him, invading his personal space.
Her delicate brows furrowed as piercing luminous irises bored into his, leaving him momentarily wrong-footed by her intense scrutiny. A subtle floral fragrance wafted from her, contrasting with the earthy scents of crushed foliage and damp soil surrounding them.
Song Jia's frown deepened, plump lips pursing in dissatisfaction at his awkward responses. After a tense pause, she exploded into movement. Her slender fist lanced towards Ji Wuye's chiseled face in a lightning-fast strike.
WHOOSH-!
Her knuckles halted a hairsbreadth from his straight nose. Despite the suddenness of the attack, Ji Wuye's nonchalant smile evaporated as his body thrummed with coiled tension.
His crimson gaze sharpened to piercing clarity, shoulders squaring as calloused palms twitched in readiness to deflect the incoming blow.
From Song Jia's perspective, the handsome youth's unassuming facade shattered, replaced by a magnificent, dignified aura of quiet strength that radiated potent power.
"Hmm...now that's more like it!" she purred approvingly, withdrawing her fist. An impish grin played about her full lips as she sashayed away, eyes roving over the scattered logs and boulders littering the courtyard.
Ji Wuye's shoulders slumped as he exhaled a resigned sigh. 'What's gotten into her this time?'
Now exposed, he dropped the pretense, features settling into a mask of mild annoyance. Planting himself squarely before Song Jia to impede her exploration, he demanded, "You haven't answered my question. Why are you here?"
His blunt words held an edge of barely restrained irritation at this unwelcome interruption to his training regimen.
"My my, Brother Ji..." Song Jia tsked in mock reproach, deftly circling around the obstruction he presented with effortless, almost dancinglike movements. "Is this the real, unvarnished you beneath that polite facade? I can scarcely believe all the other Sisters have failed to glimpse this intriguing, roguish side!"
Her teasing lilt contrasted with the solemn weight of her luminous gaze, which remained cautiously trained upon him even as she squatted to inspect a massive, moss-covered boulder.
"Woah..." she murmured in amazed appreciation, trailing slender fingertips over the craggy stone surface. "This is enormous! Don't tell me you've been training with something this size?"
Resigning himself to her intrusive presence for now, Ji Wuye retreated to the deck edging the courtyard's living quarters and settled cross-legged upon the weathered planks with a weary sigh. His crimson eyes openly studied Song Jia's lithe, muscular form as she crouched mere paces away.
For all her seeming delicacy, the sleek curves of the seventeen-year-old's figure hinted at the taut strength coiled beneath her form-fitting martial robe, a byproduct of constant rigorous training.
An undeniable beauty, yet her luminous gaze remained shrewdly guarded, at odds with her outward nonchalance as she focused on her surroundings.
The same wariness he had sensed the first time they met in the previous timeline, when her transcendent skills rendered him little more than an awed spectator...
'Back then, she was already so tremendously powerful that I could only watch from behind,' Ji Wuye reflected with a quiet, inward murmur.
Shaking off the nostalgic reverie, his brow furrowed as he refocused on the puzzling matter at hand. 'But why is she really here, in this remote, disused courtyard?'
Though he couldn't precisely recall details from the previous timeline, a vague recollection surfaced that Song Jia had become something of a famous among the Outer Disciples after her prodigious talents were unveiled.
An insatiable appetite for challenging others and constant training leaving a trail of defeated geniuses in her wake...
This secluded area, isolated from the bustling male and female disciple quarters, was abandoned for good reason. So what had drawn her formidable presence here today?
As Ji Wuye's thoughts chased themselves in fruitless circles, Song Jia abruptly paused and shifted her piercing gaze regard back towards him, seeming satisfied by whatever she had discerned.
Straightening fluidly from her crouch, she fixed him with a imperious look and issued a simple challenge:
"Let's spar...Brother Ji."
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