The Li Clan's Third Ancestor was shocked speechless for a long, long moment.
At last, her voice came out unsteady:
"No... surely not?
Sentience in the womb?
A person like that would rank among the geniuses of geniuses.
The girl's talent is fine, granted — but she's only a light-element spirit master... No. No, it's impossible."
The Old Ancestor conceded the point:
"It is only a suspicion. I have no proof. And the idea is absurd on its face — most likely impossible."
"..."
...
By now, Ning Ruan had cleanly departed Shengjing.
Along the way, three or five furtive somethings had slunk onto her trail.
Ning Ruan sensed every one of them.
And could not have cared less.
Sure enough, before long, the ill-intentioned tails simply... evaporated.
Gone, as if the world had swallowed them.
Ning Ruan had been planning to inspect the storage bag the Li Clan surrendered.
She shelved the idea.
Propping her chin on one hand, she cast a glance around.
Then drawled, to no one visible:
"Come out. You've helped me this whole trip — surely you'll show your face?"
The Scarlet Feather Kite flew on.
A long moment passed.
Only then did Ning Ruan feel a person standing behind her.
"Sixth disciple of Invincible Peak, Yan An. Greetings, Little Sister..."
In the instant that cool, clear voice sounded —
Ning Ruan went completely blank.
Sixth... Sixth Senior Brother?
Hold on...
She had finally, FINALLY remembered what it was she'd always felt she was forgetting.
It was the Sixth Senior Brother, wasn't it!
All this time — not the Eldest Senior Brother, not any of the others — no one had so much as MENTIONED a sixth senior brother.
And she had never once questioned it?
As though — as though, aside from the still-absent Second Senior Brother, their Invincible Peak had already been at full strength.
She hadn't even noticed a person was MISSING...
She turned.
And at last got a proper look at this self-proclaimed Sixth Senior Brother.
The newcomer wore black.
Unmistakably a jade-tree-in-the-wind sort of figure — yet steeped, always, in an air of cool detachment.
Ning Ruan's gaze dropped to the two short swords at his waist, and her eyes narrowed slightly:
"So it WAS you, Senior Brother, who drove off those three poor saps from Suiyun Peak."
"Poor saps?" The cool voice ticked upward a note.
Ning Ruan arched a brow, tone grave:
"The person they were protecting with their lives dropped them the moment it got inconvenient. If that doesn't make them poor saps, what does?"
Sixth Senior Brother Yan An nodded slowly. "True. Poor saps."
With consensus achieved, the distance between them shrank considerably on the spot.
Yet the look in Ning Ruan's eyes stayed odd.
Why odd?
Because... she had been staring at this man for a solid while now.
And the moment she looked away, her mind simply could not reconstruct his face.
Or, frankly, his existence.
"Did you just return to the sect, Senior Brother? And happened to save me on the way?"
Ning Ruan asked the likeliest question — while her gut insisted the truth was otherwise.
Sure enough.
He shook his head, voice cool as ever:
"No. I have been on Invincible Peak all along, in seclusion.
I emerged only recently.
Today I followed you out of the sect deliberately. I heard Eldest Senior Brother say you needed protecting. So I came."
Ning Ruan: ...
No. Hold on.
You've been in the sect THE ENTIRE TIME. How does a person get forgotten this thoroughly?
Ning Ruan found it absurd.
She just couldn't articulate exactly HOW absurd.
"But Eldest Senior Brother and the others never said..."
"Never said I was in the sect?" The Sixth Senior Brother gave a light laugh; through the coolness of his voice threaded something gentler, and wearier:
"They will have forgotten.
Ah — it's my cultivation method, at the root of it. It makes me extraordinarily easy to overlook.
Unless someone is looking me dead in the face, no one remembers I exist.
As for the details... Little Sister will likely learn them once we're back at the sect."
Ning Ruan: ...
No.
She had misspoken earlier, perhaps.
The three Suiyun disciples weren't the poor saps here.
The genuine article was THIS man, surely?
A true old sixth, in every sense of the word.
A POOR SAP of an old sixth, at that!
"Your method is truly... something, Senior Brother."
...
The rest of the trip passed pleasantly.
Ning Ruan found she got along with this Sixth Senior Brother remarkably well.
He counted among the vanishingly few mentally normal residents of Invincible Peak.
Setting aside the walking bug that was his cultivation method.
The moment they reached the sect —
Yan An hopped off the Scarlet Feather Kite of his own accord:
"Little Sister, we've arrived. I hear you're due at the Lecture Hall — I won't accompany you."
Ning Ruan nodded:
"Then I'll come find you after the lecture?"
A distinctly complicated expression crossed Yan An's face. "Junior Sister. That is contingent on you remembering I exist."
Ning Ruan did not believe for one second that she would forget.
As the woman who had memorized the entire sect rulebook on day one, she had a damnable confidence in her own memory.
This whole journey —
even if her mind still couldn't hold his face,
the IMPRESSION was carved deep.
There was no earthly reason she'd forget.
Find Sixth Senior Brother after class. Surely she couldn't forget THAT?
She watched Yan An walk away, then pointed the Kite straight at the Lecture Hall...
TL Notes:
TL Note: "Old sixth" (lao liu) is Chinese gaming slang for a sneaky player who lurks unseen and strikes from the shadows — which happens to describe the literal sixth senior brother perfectly.