Gu Ning looked at the little loli elder in front of her and could not shake a certain sense of wrongness.
Su Yao and Su Qiuyin both wore the face of a girl of fifteen or sixteen, skin pink and soft, eyes round and guileless.
But if she had to put her finger on it...
"How is Su Qiuyin somehow the one who looks more like the older sister!"
Gu Ning arrived at this preposterous conclusion.
Su Qiuyin turned around now, looking at Gu Ning with open delight.
"Senior Sister Gu, you're finally back. When the secret realm was sealed shut, I thought you'd come to harm..."
As she said it, something occurred to her, and her small hand went groping in her storage pouch.
In a blink she had pulled out several talismans.
"These are the talismans you gave me. I've been keeping them safe."
Su Qiuyin tilted her head and smiled, holding them out.
Gu Ning looked at Su Qiuyin's perfectly guileless face and said with a faint smile.
"Since I gave them to you, there is no sense in taking them back. Keep them."
"Nnh... that's really too much..."
Not having expected that answer, Su Qiuyin was briefly at a loss, and lowered her small head to look at the talismans in her hands.
Looking at the bashful girl, Gu Ning's hand reached out to her head before she could stop it.
At the touch on the top of her head, Su Qiuyin's small face went redder, the corners of her mouth turned up, and she was quietly delighted.
This tableau, however, was making Su Yao beside them go rather red-hot.
"They do say sword cultivators of the Emotionless Dao are the best there is at luring in lovesick boys and girls."
"Put the hair up in a high ponytail on top of that and you could dazzle any girl clean out of her wits."
Su Yao knew Su Qiuyin, her own disciple, whom she had raised for eighteen years and treated as a daughter, inside and out.
That bashful little expression.
Her disciple had been bewitched by this wretched Gu Ning!
And the poisoning had gone deep.
Seeing her own cabbage about to be rooted up by a pig... no, by another cabbage, Su Yao had nowhere to put her temper.
"Junior Niece Gu, come outside with me. I have something to say."
A soft, gluey little bark of a command reached Gu Ning's ear.
And then she felt her sleeve seized and pulled toward the door.
"Hey—"
Gu Ning produced the noise of a certain penguin.
Su Qiuyin felt the reassuring hand on the top of her head vanish all at once.
What followed was the rustle of the two of them heading outside, and she asked with a puzzled little face.
"Master, where are you taking..."
Before Su Qiuyin could finish, Su Yao raised a small hand and cut her off with a spell.
"Qiuyin, you stay here. Junior Niece Gu and I have something to discuss."
That said, Su Yao lifted her kindly little face to the girl a full head taller than her and said.
"You have no objection, do you, Junior Niece Gu?"
"N-none at all."
Gu Ning had no idea what any of this was about, but seeing the threat written across Su Yao's little face and hearing it in her words, she agreed all the same.
And was duly towed out the door by Su Yao.
Gu Ning steadied herself and looked at the furious little loli, thoroughly at sea.
She had no idea where she had given offense.
"Don't go flitting about plucking flowers everywhere just because your master is the sect master! I don't care about the rest of it, but do not toy with my disciple's feelings."
Su Yao stood with her hands on her hips, wearing the expression of someone eyeing a bleach-blond delinquent on a scooter, her small face stern as she looked at Gu Ning.
Her opening line was a shock.
"Me? Plucking flowers?"
Gu Ning could not process it for a moment, unable to digest what Su Yao had said.
Her orientation really was toward girls, granted, but that did not mean she went around toying with people's feelings!
Gu Ning had no intention of swallowing this one in silence and having the delinquent's hat jammed onto her head.
"Elder Su, what grounds have you for saying so? Junior Sister Su and I are close friends of the same gate, with nothing else mixed into it."
Gu Ning defended herself.
Su Yao nodded slightly, sounding thoroughly unsatisfied.
"Hah. I've seen plenty of you sword cultivators of the Emotionless Dao, all fancying you've cut away the seven feelings and the six desires, all putting on that lofty, chilly face."
"But in fact not one of you has ever graduated. In the end you all turn straight around and fall into some seductress's tender embrace, and cheat girls like us who still had our illusions until all we can do is cry where nobody sees."
Su Yao's bitter loathing, in her words and on her face, brought a few black lines out on Gu Ning's forehead.
"What a stereotype!"
"But... it does sound rather true to life."
Gu Ning turned it over and had to admit there was something in it.
But!
She had sworn to be a good ma— a good girl!
She was not like those colleagues who could not graduate.
"It seems Elder Su holds a considerable prejudice against us sword cultivators."
Gu Ning looked at Su Yao with a certain suspicion.
"Need you ask? Everyone on the Emotionless Dao is a pack of—"
Su Yao's mouth was running ahead of her, and the moment it was out she realized she had said too much and hurried to correct course.
"Ahem... I am only worried that Qiuyin will stray onto a crooked road. Besides, this way the pair of you would both hold up your cultivation."
Well then. Gu Ning cracked the case at a glance. Su Yao was one of the cheated.
No wonder her attitude was this poor.
Gu Ning raised an eyebrow and let her tone go cool and rather grave.
"Rest easy, Elder Su. As the sect's First Sword I would naturally never do such a thing. Qiuyin and I are on ordinary terms and nothing more."
"Truly?"
Su Yao looked at the perfectly serious expression on Gu Ning's face, and a good deal of her doubt dispersed.
Gu Ning nodded with great solemnity.
Su Yao's round eyes stared at Gu Ning for several seconds, long enough to make Gu Ning feel a little hollow inside.
But looking at that cold face, Su Yao truly could not find a single crack in it.
At last she let out a small sigh and said.
"I'll believe you this once."
Gu Ning let out a breath.
"Though ever since Qiuyin came back she has been chasing me about asking for cultivation pointers..." Su Yao paused. "And she has entered the sect grand tournament."
Gu Ning was rather surprised, and blinked.
By rights Su Qiuyin should have been indifferent to cultivation, devoting herself to the alchemical path and growing into a master of it.
Had something knocked her? To be this desperate to raise her cultivation.
"Hmph. And whose fault is that?" Su Yao said, somewhat helplessly. "Last time, while I was sealed away refining pills, she slipped off to go investigating with the lot of you."
"She came back with her whole face fallen, muttering something about 'holding people back.'"
"But where would I get cultivation technique? This whole Golden Core cultivation of mine is hollow."
The corners of Su Yao's mouth curved up, and she turned a distinctly conspiratorial look on Gu Ning.
"So..."
Gu Ning had already read this little loli's mind. No need to think about it. She wanted Gu Ning to give the girl some pointers.
"This junior understands. Since the matter began with me, I shall naturally resolve it."
"Now, that was you agreeing. I certainly didn't force you."
Su Yao snorted lightly, wearing the face of a scheme come off perfectly.
She had grown these dark circles refining the pills Qiuyin needed for her cultivation.
She resented it bitterly.
Now that the party actually responsible had turned up, naturally she was going to squeeze her.
Gu Ning nodded, somewhat helplessly, though on second thought.
She had been meaning to spend time with Su Qiuyin anyway and build up her affection. Wasn't this exactly the opportunity?
Call it a favor done with the current.
And just then Dumpling came bouncing out from somewhere.
A head like a ball of cotton popped up, looking at the two of them, one tall and one short.
"Master? So this is where you were."
That said, it came over on its four short legs.
"A doggy?!"
Su Yao followed the sound, spotted Dumpling on the ground at once, and her eyes lit up.
"So... so cute. It must be very soft."
Su Yao crouched down, and both small hands shot out and seized it.
"Oh hell, a dog trafficker! Master, save me!"