Chapter 143: Girls Who Love to Smile Are Never Short on Good Luck

Unlike Gu Yi, who felt like he had been caught in the act, Liuyi was simply stunned by the breathtaking appearance of the young woman in official attire. Shuyu had removed her official cap, allowing a cascade of black, lustrous hair to fall freely. Though she wore no makeup, she possessed a face that could topple kingdoms.

She had never imagined that anyone could be beautiful to such an extent; looking at her facial features, it seemed not a single fraction could be added or taken away.

Even when Shuyu showed no inclination to pay attention to her, Liuyi subconsciously shrank back, completely devoid of any urge to compare herself, instinctively knowing she fell too far short.

Of course, this was probably also related to the overwhelming pressure Shuyu naturally radiated. Regardless, she was, after all, the former Left Palace Escort, standing at the Returning to Simplicity realm.

Whether intentionally or by chance, Shuyu walked directly between Gu Yi and Miss Liuyi, completely blocking Liuyi’s line of sight as she turned her back to her.

Gu Yi noticed this subtle detail and thought inwardly, *Good grief...*

*Is she really this jealous? Blocking my line of sight entirely—not even letting me look?*

Shuyu discarded the gentle demeanor she had maintained over the past few days because she truly had not expected that, merely by walking away for a short while, Gu Yi would go and make friends with a new girl, even sitting down to share a meal with her.

Huang Ren had left too quickly; in truth, there had clearly been three of them initially.

"Come back with me."

"—Alright."

Thinking there had been some misunderstanding, Miss Liuyi wanted to step forward and offer a few words of explanation.

However, Shuyu simply grabbed Gu Yi and walked away.

On the way back, she did not say much.

Once they reached the room at the inn, the girl suddenly spun around and fixed her gaze on Gu Yi. "That woman—she comes from a merchant family, valuing profit over righteousness. How could you chat so pleasantly with her?"

Gu Yi: "..."

"Things are not what you think. We aren't close."

"How can you say you're not close? There was even wine at the table, and you have never once shared wine with me."

"That... well, they always serve a bit of wine to entertain guests. I didn't drink with her. Why on earth are you so fiercely jealous?"

"Because—because you said you didn't like women of the Mo clan, and that you only wanted to find an ordinary person, as long as she was just a little bit pretty."

Shuyu blurted out these words, but the moment she finished, she realized something was amiss.

Her pale hands clenched tightly, and her furrowed brows relaxed slightly. As if realizing she had gone too far, she took two steps back with a hint of regret, lowering her head in a helpless daze.

"—I really, I went looking for that Huang Ren."

Shuyu turned her head away and asked softly, "Do you... actually like me, or not?"

...

Gu Yi felt as though his chest had been struck by a heavy blow. He opened his mouth, yet seemed unable to utter a single word. "Uh... well, this, this..."

Seeing him hesitate and stammer, Shuyu felt a chill wash over her heart. Bit by bit, she pressed her lips together and her eyes grew red. When she finally looked up, the two trails of tears delivered a heavy impact to Gu Yi.

One thing he had overlooked was that the reason the people of the Mo clan loved and hated so intensely was because their emotions were exceptionally violent—a tiny bit of sadness was profound sorrow, and a tiny bit of affection was deep devotion.

Finding herself unable to bear the awkwardness, Shuyu simply turned around and ran out.

Left standing in place, Gu Yi felt somewhat dazed. Perhaps it was because she always poured the entirety of her life's strength into her emotions, creating an intensity that felt rather oppressive.

Moreover, he was not entirely certain what someone with such volatile emotional swings would be like in the future.

It wasn't until he suddenly remembered that Shuyu belonged to the Mo clan that a wave of anxiety hit him. If she ran out in such deep grief and something happened to her, it would be disastrous.

"Oh no!"

Gu Yi stomped his foot and hurried out the door to search for her.

The girl hadn't even brought the umbrella left by the doorway, and the endless rain of the past few days showed no sign of stopping whatsoever, pouring down unceasingly.

Gu Yi grabbed an umbrella and rushed into the heavy rain, asking the inn attendant, who told him that Shuyu had left and headed toward the left—which was precisely the direction of the place they had just returned from.

*Surely this young lady isn't angry enough to go and vent her fury on Liuyi?!*

Perhaps Gu Baici had left him with a lingering shadow, but Gu Yi actually found it possible that such an illogical thing might happen. Consequently, his pace quickened instinctively while he channeled a trace of spiritual energy to enhance his sensory perception.

"Shuyu!"

Not seeing her, he simply shouted her name a few times.

There weren't many people on the street in the heavy rain, but whenever he bumped into someone, he would stop them to ask if they had seen an umbrella-less girl with long hair.

After searching across several streets this way, Gu Yi finally spotted her.

Shuyu hadn't gone looking for Miss Liuyi; she was merely wandering through the streets in a daze, letting the torrential rain pour down on her as if she couldn't feel it at all.

Without hesitation, Gu Yi hurried forward, held the umbrella over her, and said, "It's raining hard outside. Don't torment yourself like this. Come back with me now, okay?"

Her hair was completely drenched, and it was impossible to tell whether the moisture on her cheeks was rain or tears.

Gu Yi deeply felt that he should have been more decisive and less irresolute just moments ago. "If you are certain you want to spend the rest of your life with me, then come back with me."

To a certain extent, she had already betrayed the Great Rain Palace. If she were to be abandoned by him as well, the world was vast, yet she would have nowhere left to go.

At this thought, Gu Yi felt an even greater sense of responsibility.

"Then why didn't you say so just now?"

"I'm sorry." Gu Yi reached out to gently wipe the rainwater from her face, feeling somewhat surprised when she didn't dodge. "The last time I did that, you almost kicked me to death."

That had been back in the cave.

...

...

Back inside the room.

Gu Yi brought her a cup of hot tea. "Even though it's not winter yet, the weather is already quite cold. Don't hurt yourself like this in the future."

Having changed into dry clothes, Shuyu held the hot tea and blew on it gently.

...

After some effort, her emotions gradually stabilized.

Gu Yi also recounted the general process of how he went to look for Huang Ren and ended up meeting Liuyi after Shuyu had gone to the palace.

"Did I almost make you turn from loving me to hating me?"

Holding her cup, Shuyu paused, her lips parting slightly. "At that time... I wasn't thinking about hating you."

Gu Yi asked, "Then what were you thinking?"

She placed the teacup on the table. "...Sometimes you are very decisive, but in matters like this, you're less capable than a woman. So I was waiting for you to come find me."

Gu Yi: ???

"Are you certain I would definitely come find you?"

"Mm, didn't your friend named Xiao Yiyi say so?"

"What did he say that has to do with this?"

Shuyu glanced sideways again. "He said you were lustful."

Gu Yi: "..."

This left him torn between laughter and tears. "I thought your mind was straightforward, but I didn't expect you to pull this on me."

"If you truly only like good-looking people, then... be patient a little longer. Once my realm goes higher, I'll be even prettier."

What kind of talk was that? Gu Yi immediately denied it. "Don't listen to his nonsense. We just joke around like that sometimes. If I only liked good-looking people, I wouldn't be any different from an animal. I am a respectable person."

"A respectable person?"

"Of course."

"Then sit down."

Gu Yi was utterly baffled. "Sit down? Sit down for what?"

Shuyu beckoned to him. "Sit down, sit opposite me."

Sitting down it was.

Shuyu tucked her long hair behind her ears. "Lift your head and look at me."

So Gu Yi raised his head. Face-to-face like this, trying to appear respectable under these circumstances... was at least a difficult task for him.

His eyes immediately drifted slightly, and his heartbeat accelerated.

Then he began to feel uncomfortable.

"Didn't you say you were a respectable person?"

*Damn it.*

Gu Yi immediately looked away. What kind of thrilling game was this?!

A faint smile touched the corners of Shuyu's lips as she laughed, a sight that instantly made the surrounding mountains and rivers lose their color.

He walked around in circles twice, took a deep breath to dispel the sudden heat, and then sat down on the soft couch, gulping down three large cups of water.

"Shuyu."

"Mm, go ahead."

"From now on... you must always stay with me."

"Alright."

"I'll go get another pot of hot tea. I drank the one meant for you."

Watching his retreating figure, Shuyu felt a faint, gentle warmth of happiness blossom in her heart. She had never found the scenery outside the window so lovely; after so many years of drifting from place to place, it seemed her heart had finally found a destination.

Before this, although the Great Rain Palace made her think of it as home, it was a different kind of home—there was no warmth to be found there.

The Palace Master was not like family to her; quite simply, she was her leader.

That face beneath the mask was something not only unseen by many in the Great Rain Palace throughout their lives, but even she had never laid eyes upon it.

Devoid of emotional fluctuations, every meeting consisted merely of cold, solemn formal reports. In her destitute state, with nowhere else to go, she had been content with such an environment.

But now, she had ten thousand reasons not to want to go back.

The status of Left Palace Escort might be more prestigious, but as the saying went, it lacked even a shred of warmth.

By Gu Yi's side, certain things made her feel life was truly interesting. For instance, right now—logically speaking, Gu Yi was an immortal of Mount Xiaoyuan, yet he would carry a pot of tea over to her,

test the temperature, and tell her it was too hot and how long she needed to wait.

The Palace Master did indeed take care of her, and Gu Yi took care of her as well.

Yet if she were to imagine the Palace Master taking care of her in such a manner, she estimated she would be so nervous she would immediately drop to her knees and not dare to draw a full breath.

"Daydreaming about what?"

"Nothing." The young woman smiled and shook her head, then asked with curiosity, "Why are you sitting so far away from me? Move a bit closer, and I'll tell you about the Mo clan."

"Alright."

Gu Yi thought moving closer meant sitting side by side with her, but in reality, it didn't. As he drew near, Shuyu simply leaned over and rested against his body.

This stiffened him up instantly. He felt entirely unaccustomed to it and didn't dare make a single movement.

However, once Shuyu leaned against his chest, she didn't direct him to do anything further.

Outside the window, the heavy rain continued to fall. The rainwater washed the world clean, and while the sound of the rain was somewhat noisy, it was far from annoying.

"Aside from the Palace Master, I have met two other members of the Mo clan, though I never told her. One was a girl, and the other was a boy."

Settling into a comfortable position, Shuyu began to murmur softly, her voice unhurried and devoid of special inflection, simply narrating a story.

She said, "I met the man first, in the northern border of the Li Kingdom, where there are vast snowfields. I had once received orders from the Palace Master to search for a special healing herb up there. As it happened, in the snowfield, I saw a man struggling desperately to lead seven or eight young children out of the wilderness. After asking, I learned that those children, tall and short alike, were all his own flesh and blood."

Gu Yi: "All of them?"

"Mm, all of them. I knew right then that he must have been captured by others. When I asked him if he was of the Mo clan, he was terrified, until I told him I was too. Only then did he dare tell me the truth. Just as I guessed, he had been captured, and the children weren't all born from women he loved; most of them were forced upon him."

"It was all to produce daughters of the Mo clan. The northern border is impoverished; those who captured him didn't care about anything else except making him father children, intending to sell the offspring at high prices. However, a sudden, massive blizzard froze many people in that castle to death. It was as if heaven was helping him, and the man managed to escape."

"And then?"

"Did he end up being taken into the Great Rain Palace?" Shuyu looked up slightly, anticipating the question. "No. If I had brought them all to the Great Rain Palace, the palace would have become a target for the entire world. I hid them away, not even telling the Palace Master; no one knows where they are. I told them that life is best lived plainly, and none of the girls are allowed to cultivate."

"The second person I met was a girl in the Guarding Spirit realm, in her late twenties or nearly thirty. She was different from me, and different from the Palace Master too. For a long time, I couldn't understand her."

Curious, Gu Yi asked, "What was wrong with her? How was she different?"

"She was extremely, extremely, extremely grateful to be a member of the Mo clan. This is completely the opposite of the Palace Master and me. For a very long time, I couldn't wrap my head around it, and I even asked her face-to-face. She said that because she loved a man, being able to display her most beautiful side to him was a supreme happiness. Although she gave me that answer, I still didn't understand it back then, but now... I think I'm starting to comprehend it a little."

"People really are strange creatures," Gu Yi remarked.

"Indeed, far too strange."

"Well, I personally don't like keeping bad things weighing on my mind. That goes for life, and it goes for cultivation too—too much mental clutter harms one's Dao heart."

"Alright, I won't talk about those things anymore."

Shuyu extended her index finger, wrapping a wisp of spiritual energy around it before closing her eyes. "During the battle with Mozhi earlier, I gained some enlightenment."

"Are you going to enter the Harmony of Dao realm?"

Shuyu nodded. "I wasn't in any particular hurry before. As I said, I didn't set out on the path of cultivation to become powerful; it was just that the environment in the Great Rain Palace made it seem... as if you couldn't defeat others, you would constantly be bullied. So back when I was in the Guarding Spirit realm, I felt a fair amount of pressure. Later, once I reached the Returning to Simplicity realm, almost no one could bully me anymore, and I grew somewhat slack. But now, I have this urge to break through again. Don't you want to see what I look like when I reach the Harmony of Dao realm?"

"Uh," Gu Yi found this lie difficult to spin. "I suppose I do want to, more or less. But you can't force these things, and besides, that reason feels a bit far-fetched."

"It's not far-fetched at all. From the very beginning, I did it just to become prettier."

"You're already exceptionally pretty right now."

With a trace of playful smugness, Shuyu said, "I can be even prettier."

Gu Yi didn't quite understand. "Given how you already look, I honestly have no idea where else you could possibly improve."

He always felt this kind of conversation belonged to non-human entities.

Changing one's appearance? Were they monsters?

"I don't know either, but the people in Gu Village all said the Palace Master is even better-looking than me. It's probably a matter of temperament. I've never seen the Palace Master, so it's hard to compare."

Gu Yi asked, "Does your entire appearance undergo a drastic transformation? What if I don't recognize you anymore afterwards?"

"That seems to vary from person to person."

"How so?"

"In my case, there will be major changes because I wasn't pretty to begin with, and my facial structure isn't ideal. So it's possible my overall appearance will undergo a massive transformation—to the point where I'm completely unrecognizable. In fact, the current me and the me from the Establishing Heart realm are two entirely different people."

Gu Yi’s mouth fell open slightly. "This... what if I happen to prefer the way you look right now?"

"You won't think that once you actually see it."

She certainly had confidence.

"Fascinating," Gu Yi muttered, shaking his head. "There are far too many bizarre things in this world, many of which defy logic, and you lot are prime examples. Having never understood this before, I always find these new discoveries quite novel."

The spiritual energy swirling around her fingertip finally condensed into something resembling mist, wrapping gently around her. It felt slightly cool yet moist, lacking any distinct scent, yet tangible and wonderfully comforting.

"Is this the Undissipating Spirit Mist?"

"Mm. A very, very long time ago, outsiders heard that we undergo these changes because of the Undissipating Spirit Mist, so some ignorant people captured members of our clan and used cruel methods to extract the mist."

Gu Yi frowned; that was hardly humane.

"Through our own explanations and numerous examples, it took many years for the world to finally realize that outsiders cannot utilize this exclusive spirit mist of the Mo clan. Ever since then, such captures have become rare."

Shuyu looked up. "That's why I can't use it to help you."

Gu Yi: "..."

*I'm plenty handsome as I am.*

"Right now, I actually find the spirit mist wonderful." Shuyu smiled happily. The wisps of spirit mist drifting around her suddenly seemed to take on a life of their own, emitting a specific radiance and sound that prompted Gu Yi to exclaim in wonder.

The only other instance he knew where spiritual energy reflected someone's temperament was Xiao Yiyi.

"Do they... seem happy?"

Looking somewhat surprised, Shuyu fixed her beautiful eyes on the dancing wisps drifting toward the mist-shrouded air.

"They have a voice! I can hear them—I've never been able to hear them before!"

With a trace of lingering excitement, Shuyu felt as though she had reaped an unexpected harvest.

Gu Yi guessed, "Perhaps it's because you like them, so they've started liking you back."

"That must be it!" Shuyu's smile blossomed even wider; she had rarely ever smiled so openly. "I get it now—just like you said, once I began accepting them, they started liking me back."

Shuyu suddenly flipped over and sprang to her feet. The spirit mist drifting around her body wove into various shapes, brushing lightly past her fingertips, her cheeks, the tips of her hair, and her back.

In that single instant, the integration between the spiritual energy and her person deepened, effectively enhancing her strength even further.

"It makes me think of a saying: girls who love to smile never have bad luck."

Landing gracefully, Shuyu gazed at her palms and body in pleasant surprise. She said, "I haven't felt this sensation in many years. Not since I was very young, when I first broke through into the Guarding Spirit realm and was overjoyed by my own transformation."

Gu Yi asked, "Do you feel like you're about to break through to a new realm?"

"It feels... somewhat like it..."