Yu Sui enjoyed listening to i Liangyu tell stories about his childhood. Everything sounded interesting and helped her learn more.
Without realizing it, i Liangyu had shared a great deal with her. These matters weren't exactly secrets, yet no one else could share them. Seeing Yu Sui listening attentively and occasionally being amused, he naturally told her even more.
Unable to find Yu Sui, Sheng Hao and Gu Qian sent her ssages every day asking about her injuries. Both tactfully avoided ntioning their fight.
Yu Sui hadn't replied to either of them during her recovery.
Sheng Hao and Gu Qian searched everywhere for i Liangyu, wanting to ask him where Yu Sui was, but i Liangyu dodged them every ti, giving neither of them a chance.
After Zhongli Shan and Nian Qiuyan learned about i Liangyu's ordeal this ti, one or two friends followed i Liangyu wherever he went, never letting him be alone, fearing he might be suddenly ambushed by mbers of the Wenyang family.
With Nian Qiuyan helping him with divination, i Liangyu dodged with perfect accuracy. Sheng Hao and Gu Qian had no hope of catching him.
Yu Sui hadn't forgotten about Gu Qian needing to go to Inverted Moon Cave to retrieve the Floating Pagoda fragnts, but now that he had lost Wen Yanghui's help and exposed his Divine chanism Arts, she wondered what he would do.
She used her alternate account to reply to Gu Qian, asking him to send over the underwater cipher text.
Just as it got dark, Gu Qian finally replied: "Done playing dead?"
Having been ignored by this collaborator who suddenly appeared for so long, he was also sowhat angry.
Yu Sui casually made up so information to mislead him: "Just ca out of Dragon Slaying Cave."
"Only rembered half of it. I'll send you what I have first." Gu Qian replied: "Tomorrow I'll send you the rest."
Then he asked: "When can you decode it?"
Yu Sui: "Haven't even seen what the cipher text looks like, and you're already asking for a tiline?"
If Gu Qian were still inside Dragon Slaying Cave, he wouldn't be in a hurry, as he could enter Inverted Moon Cave directly from within Dragon Slaying Cave without needing to take a roundabout way to break any cipher text.
From the outside, he couldn't enter Inverted Moon Cave directly through the Legalist School, so he had to take other secret passages, which increased the difficulty accordingly.
"The fifteenth has already passed. Only the end of the month remains." Gu Qian replied: "I hope to get the Inverted Moon Cave fragnt this month."
Yu Sui didn't say much more, only: "Show the cipher text first."
Previously, when Yu Sui hadn't responded to Gu Qian's request, he had already arranged with Wen Yanghui to rely on the Wenyang family's chanism arts to decode the cipher text on the secret passage.
Unfortunately, plans couldn't keep up with changes.
Wen Yanghui's sudden death ant the chanism for decoding the cipher text never reached Gu Qian.
Now that Yu Sui contacted Gu Qian offering to help decode the cipher text, it was actually a silver lining for him.
After sending part of the cipher text to Yu Sui, Gu Qian went to the School of Nas' Xiaoyao Pool that night, preparing to explore the underwater secret passage again and send all the cipher text in the passage to Yu Sui for decoding.
Accompanying Gu Qian underwater today was still Xun Zhiya.
In the waterway before the secret passage stone door, there were many protruding large rocks that could serve as footholds. The water was shallow here, only reaching people's ankles, but the current flowed all the way to the stone door. To avoid getting wet, one had to step on the rocks.
Xun Zhiya stood on a rock, looking up at the stone door. The densely packed curse runes and symbols on it were changing and rotating. After watching for a while, she turned her gaze to Gu Qian standing beside her.
Gu Qian was seriously recording the cipher text on the door. Underground, it was so quiet that only the sound of flowing water could be heard. Xun Zhiya watched with fascination when she suddenly heard Gu Qian say: "Am I handso?"
Xun Zhiya looked away: "What nonsense are you talking about?"
Only then did Gu Qian look up at her, his eyes carrying a hint of amusent: "You've been looking at for so long. What did you figure out?"
Xun Zhiya pressed her lips together, then turned back to look, feigning composure: "That you're thick-skinned."
After hearing this, Gu Qian smiled and shook his head lightly, tapping the fill-character grid as he continued sending the cipher text, while saying: "Being too thin-skinned ans many things can't be accomplished."
Xun Zhiya seed angry: "Are you talking about ?"
Gu Qian said: "You haven't reached that level of thinness yet."
But Xun Zhiya fell silent at this. After a long while, she looked back at the rotating cipher text on the door and said softly: "Sotis I wish I could be thicker-skinned too. That way I could accomplish many things. But I always fall just short. Perhaps that's exactly why Father sent to Taiyi instead of having stay in Nanjing."
Gu Qian's gaze followed Xun Zhiya, his eyes reflecting her sowhat lancholy profile, her slender neck still bearing traces of water.
The usually cold beauty, with coldness in her brows and eyes and a distant aloofness that kept people at arm's length, was especially heart-softening when she showed such vulnerability.
"You have your own opportunities at Taiyi." Gu Qian softened his tone: "When you return to Nanjing, what belongs to you, no one can take away."
Listening to his encouragent, Xun Zhiya always felt warm inside. She also looked back at Gu Qian and asked softly: "What about you?"
"?" Gu Qian raised an eyebrow.
Xun Zhiya nodded lightly: "After you get the fragnt and return to Qingyang, what do you plan to do?"
"I have many things to do. In Qingyang, I can only complete part of them." Gu Qian answered with a smile.
Xun Zhiya said: "It sounds like it will be very dangerous."
Gu Qian glanced at her and smiled with a bit of roguishness: "Worried about ?"
Xun Zhiya pressed her lips together and couldn't say a word for a long while. But Gu Qian stepped through the water toward her, closing the distance between them. The oppressive presence of the man's large fra hit her imdiately, making Xun Zhiya unconsciously straighten her back.
Yu Sui, watching this scene through the Five Elents Light Cores, slowly turned her gaze away to look at the cipher text on the stone door, ignoring the two people whose atmosphere had suddenly beco intimate.
She had thought she might hear Gu Qian say sothing about Qingyang, revealing his background or his cooperation with Nangong Ming, but who knew this person would change the subject to flirt with the beauty. Obviously, he was unwilling to discuss such matters.
Though the cipher text's rotation speed wasn't very fast, there were countless variations. One had to find the pattern of change and select the correct runes to open the stone door.
Yu Sui looked down at her Wind-Listening Ruler. It wasn't just for sending and receiving ssages. When necessary, it could also function as a map using coordinates inputted into the Wind-Listening Ruler.
The coordinates were all marked with heavenly stems, earthly branches, and numbers. Yu Sui opened the blank map on her Wind-Listening Ruler and, according to the cipher text's rotation speed on the stone door, wrote runes and numbers on a similarly blank dial.
Yu Sui was focused and absorbed in her own world, not even glancing at the intimate Gu Qian and Xun Zhiya nearby. When they left, the Five Elents Light Cores remained in place for her continued observation.
Only after sensing soone approaching did Yu Sui put away her Wind-Listening Ruler and turn her head toward the door.
i Liangyu had co to bring her today's portion of nourishing soup.
Yu Sui moved further inside the bed, letting i Liangyu place the food box on the edge of the bed. She took the soup bowl he handed her and blew on it. i Liangyu said: "It's not hot."
She believed him and held the bowl, drinking with gurgling sounds.
After only a few sips, she furrowed her brow and looked at i Liangyu.
Seeing her frowning with a sowhat aggrieved expression, i Liangyu's heart softened. He reached out to touch the soup bowl and said again: "It really isn't hot."
Yu Sui stopped drinking: "Let it cool for a while."
i Liangyu didn't withdraw his hand from the soup bowl. Ice energy seeped from his fingertips and circled the soup bowl. He said: "It's ready now."
Only then did Yu Sui lower her head to sip lightly.
This ti i Liangyu didn't play with his Wind-Listening Ruler but watched Yu Sui instead. Her lost vitality had finally been restored. The girl before him had a rosy, lustrous complexion, her eyes bright and clear, no longer the pale, weak, near-death appearance she'd had when lying in his arms.
"Senior Brother, does the chanism School have chanisms specifically for breaking cipher locks?" Yu Sui asked while drinking soup, her eyes half-open as she looked at him.
"Yes." i Liangyu raised an eyebrow slightly: "Do you need one?"
Yu Sui didn't answer but asked: "Can it decode any kind of cipher lock?"
"It depends on the technique's level. The 'key' you're talking about, the high-level one is called Six Harmonies, the low-level one is called Three Stars." i Liangyu explained: "The difficulty of cipher locks depends on how many combination variations they have. For changes exceeding 1,000, you use Six Harmonies. For under 1,000, you use Three Stars."
Yu Sui: "What's the upper limit for the 'Six Harmonies' key?"
"3,000." i Liangyu said: "For cipher texts with more than 3,000 variations, chanism keys are useless."
Yu Sui asked curiously: "Is it that no one dares to create more powerful chanism keys, or that they can't make them?"
"You know about the Communication Array Number Mountains, right?" i Liangyu organized the food box while speaking at a asured pace: "The character and curse rune combinations of a small Number Mountain have at least 30,000 variations. If soone could decode these 30,000 combinations, they could access all information sent and received by that Number Mountain, including Wind-Listening Ruler inscriptions, positioning, timing, ssage content, or voice transmission."
Yu Sui nodded, indicating she was listening carefully.
Regarding how many variations the Number Mountains had, she understood better than i Liangyu.
"If soone kept researching chanism keys, the upper limit of Six Harmonies would change from 3,000 to 30,000, from breaking one small Number Mountain to breaking three large Number Mountains." i Liangyu took out two plates of pastries and handed them to her: "The three families in the Communication Courtyard won't let this happen, so chanism keys for decoding cipher text can't develop and aren't allowed to progress."
Yu Sui finished the nourishing soup and lightly licked the corner of her lips: "So the chanism School has the ability to do it, but doesn't dare?"
"Not necessarily." After pondering briefly, i Liangyu said: "I heard that thousands of years ago, the chanism School reached its peak. 'Master Gongshu carved bamboo and wood into a magpie. When completed, it flew for three days without landing.' This describes the grand tis when the chanism School's founder was still alive. The wooden bird he made could fly in the sky for three days without falling. Even today's carriages were originally his work. Taiyi's Cloud Carriage Flying Dragon was also made based on drafts left by the chanism School founder, in cooperation with several other schools."
"Judging by that golden age, the chanism School was omnipotent and could create anything. If they could build Cloud Carriage Flying Dragons back then, they would span all six kingdoms, ignoring national borders. Though this is possible now too, at that ti, the threat the chanism School posed to the six kingdoms was greater than the benefits. The massive weapons people couldn't imagine, the chanism School could create them all."
"1,000 years ago, a certain ruler of Yan Kingdom demanded that Yan's chanism artisans create weapons that could attack the other five kingdoms without costing Yan a single soldier."
Yu Sui held her empty bowl and listened intently: "Did they succeed in building it?"
"This news was discovered by spies hidden in Yan and transmitted back to the other five kingdoms. So when the Yan king wanted to attack the five kingdoms, the other five kingdoms united against Yan. At that ti, Yan's chanism artisans were indeed more skilled than those of the other five kingdoms."
i Liangyu motioned for her to hand over the empty bowl and refilled it for her: "Because most of the chanism School saints were in Yan, with many followers. Hearing they were going to build weapons that could attack the other five kingdoms without costing a single soldier, ambitious chanism artisans all rushed to Yan to join them."
"So the other five kingdoms killed all the chanism artisans heading to Yan and announced the Yan ruler's ambitions to the world, condemning him for disregarding the Six Kingdoms Non-War Pact and wanting to plunge the people into the fires of war. They also spread rumors within Yan, making the people believe the world would fall into chaos and the Yan king would abandon them for more territory."
i Liangyu handed the bowl to Yu Sui, his eyes indicating she should continue drinking, while saying: "Yan fell into internal chaos, the Yan king could barely protect himself, and the chanism School was seen as the faction wanting to provoke war, expelled by the six kingdoms and massacred extensively before the expulsion."
"The once-glorious chanism School declined because of this. Other schools progressed while the chanism School regressed. Maintaining their current level is already remarkable. The more skilled chanism School practitioners are only these four families at Taiyi. If they get involved in conflicts between the six kingdoms again, even these four families won't survive."
Yu Sui rolled her eyes and smiled: "Senior Brother, you've never left Taiyi, but you know more about the six kingdoms than I do, and I've lived outside."
i Liangyu said lazily: "Soone told ."
Yu Sui asked casually: "Soone from the chanism School?"
"No." i Liangyu raised an eyebrow: "It was Instructor Mu."
Yu Sui paused. It was a na she hadn't heard before. Seeing Yu Sui's confusion, i Liangyu added: "Yan Xiaochuan's master."
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