Chapter 345: That Xiangsi

All her innate skills seemed stacked into long-range attacks. No matter how she studied, or how hard she tried, she couldn’t learn close combat. Not only that, but years ago, her right hand had once been severed to save Long Qingyue.

Although reattached through special means, the hand still hadn’t fully synchronized with her body, making her weapon handling look awkward even now.

Ye Wenxin had a certain pursuit: to be wild, cool, dominant, and assertive. After realizing she couldn’t wield weapons properly, she gave up on close combat. Now, the appearance of the umbrella sword compensated for her close combat weakness. Even though it was the umbrella sword’s instinctive reaction, it could still be considered part of her tactics.

Fairy Fengya was still diligently practicing her sword dance. Ye Wenxin simply pretended not to see it, and then she sensed something flying past her. She turned to look, and noticed a dagger thrown to the ground.

There was a pattern resembling a Vermilion Bird¹ embroidered on it. The dagger was light, but Ye Wenxin didn’t understand why Fairy Fengya had thrown it to her.

Fairy Fengya, seeing Ye Wenxin looking at her, explained, “I found this in the secret realm.”

Hearing that the dagger was a treasure from the secret realm, Ye Wenxin picked it up from the ground.

As she pulled the dagger out of its scabbard, a wave of warmth hit her face. The dagger was primarily red, emitting a strong and warm glow, apparently made from some kind of flame stone. When she tried to infuse it with qi, the patterns on the dagger became even clearer, looking incredibly imposing.

This dagger was likely a god-tier divine weapon. After a few moments of admiration, Ye Wenxin quickly grabbed the dagger and threw it towards a distant tree. The moment it hit the tree, flames burst forth from the dagger, engulfing the tree, creating a spectacular sight.

Ye Wenxin was very pleased with the Vermilion Bird Dagger. She was just about to keep this divine weapon for herself when she suddenly realized her actions seemed too assuming. Glancing at Fairy Fengya, she awkwardly asked, “By the way, is this dagger a gift for me?”

“No, I just wanted to show it to you. It’s a gift for Qing’er,” Fairy Fengya replied, messing up the entire script. Ye Wenxin stood there with her mouth agape, unsure of what to say.

Ye Wenxin, thinking she was being too conceited, handed the dagger back to Fairy Fengya. Although she felt somewhat displeased, she nodded affirmatively. “This is indeed a divine weapon, very suitable for Senior Sister’s fire attribute.”

On second thought, Ye Wenxin realized it would be useless for her anyway. Seeing that Fairy Fengya was still examining the dagger, she sat down on the grass and took out her other daggers.

There was the dagger from Ling Jue, the dagger from Xiao Zhang, the dagger from Long Qing’er, the dagger from Gu Xiangsi, the dagger from Madam Yu…

She looked at the excessive number of daggers, and felt as if she was truly being typecast as a little rookie who could only use daggers. While others received tokens of affection, Ye Wenxin realized she could start a dagger retail business. However, she didn’t dare sell these items. Instead, she took out her golden pen and marked each one, to avoid any mix-ups in the future due to having too many daggers.

While Ye Wenxin was carefully labeling the daggers, Fairy Fengya finally glanced over. In her mind, Great Grandma kept urging her to be wary of Ye Wenxin.

“Mm, these daggers are really beautiful.” Ye Wenxin continued muttering praises to herself, making sure to check each dagger’s condition, gently wiping them with a dry cloth, and doing some maintenance.

Previously, Ye Wenxin had little interest in weapons, but now that she had inherited Celestial Master Zhong’s memories, she found herself recognizing all the materials. Seeing the daggers made her genuinely happy. Moreover, she even felt an urge to collect more weapons.

To put it bluntly, she still wanted Fairy Fengya’s Vermilion Bird Dagger. Compared to the other underwhelming daggers, the Vermilion Bird Dagger was visually appealing and had impressive effects, greatly tempting Ye Wenxin.

As she continued to praise the daggers, she kept glancing up to observe Fairy Fengya’s reaction. However, Fairy Fengya had too low emotional intelligence to understand Ye Wenxin’s hints. The two remained in a stalemate until Jin Xiaoqin got up, saw Ye Wenxin holding and wiping the daggers, and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Disciple, have you accepted that you have no talent for weapons, and decided to switch careers to become a merchant?” Jin Xiaoqin laughed, squatting down and starting to rummage through her bag of holding, seemingly wanting to sponsor Ye Wenxin’s dream with another dagger.

As she searched, she realized one of her treasured daggers was missing. Taking a closer look, she recognized one of the daggers in Ye Wenxin’s possession. Jin Xiaoqin’s expression immediately turned sour. “Disciple, why is my dagger with you?”

“Did you forget? You gave it to Xiangsi, and then Xiangsi gave it to me.” Ye Wenxin blinked her innocent eyes. Although she didn’t know how Gu Xiangsi had obtained the dagger from Jin Xiaoqin, now that it was in her hands, she had no intention of returning it.

“I remember it now! Xiangsi got me drunk that time, and then asked me for something!” Jin Xiaoqin suddenly recalled the reason for her dagger’s disappearance. She patted her forehead, looking deeply regretful. Clearly, she had a strong attachment to the dagger.

It wasn’t only this dagger, but Jin Xiaoqin had a habit of collecting many things. Unless she was drunk, it was really difficult to get anything from her. Seeing Jin Xiaoqin’s attitude, Ye Wenxin quickly put the daggers back into her bag of holding.

Jin Xiaoqin laughed again and continued, “Don’t worry, since it’s in your hands now, I won’t take it back. But do you know the special meaning of gifting a dagger?”

Jin Xiaoqin had lived the longest and naturally understood many forgotten cultural traditions. Although she appeared carefree, she had once been a proper lady before becoming the cultivator she was now.

Ye Wenxin tried to search her mind for information, but unfortunately, Celestial Master Zhong, whose memories she inherited, was only interested in exorcising demons and supernatural tales, so he had little knowledge of customs and culture. Seeing Jin Xiaoqin’s cryptic demeanor, Ye Wenxin had a premonition.

“What does it represent?”

“Traditionally, daggers have been exchanged as a symbol of enmity, but that’s not entirely accurate. When a man and a woman exchange daggers, it symbolizes a bond of friendship…” Jin Xiaoqin began explaining some facts of life, leaving Ye Wenxin astonished.

“What about when a woman gives a dagger to another woman?”

Thinking that all these daggers were gifts from women, Ye Wenxin had an even more ominous feeling.

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Footnotes:

1. – The Vermilion Bird, also known as Suzaku in Japanese, is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. According to Wu Xing, the Taoist five elemental system, it represents the Fire element, the direction south, and the season of summer correspondingly. Thus it is sometimes called the Vermilion Bird of the South. ↩︎