Seeing Lina losing her shit, Sulan's heart sank. He was definitely about to get his ass kicked. All he could do was wave at his junior sister to get the hell away.
Yunshu finally showed up, arriving just in time to see her master chasing her senior brother around trying to beat him up.
"Master?!" She called out to Lina, who was on the verge of going berserk.
Lina had come to Heavenly Jade Peak tonight primarily to bring Yunshu back, but when she caught sight of her disciple wearing those robes, her mind inevitably wandered to some rather... inappropriate scenarios.
Lina's fists clenched. Hard.
"Damn you, Sulan! How dare you lay a hand on my precious disciple! I'm going to beat you to death!"
Sulan didn't doubt for a second that this master-disciple pair had conspired to screw him over. While shouting "I'll carry you guys!" he started dodging like his life depended on it, pulling off some seriously fancy footwork.
He wanted to scream Master, save me! but who the hell knew what corner of the world that unreliable master of his had wandered off to.
Sulan's heart was bitter, but he said nothing.
Yunshu barely managed to keep up with her master's speed. After tremendous effort, she finally managed to grab hold of her.
That bath had been for nothing. Yunshu was drenched in sweat, gasping for breath, her chest rising and falling rapidly with each labored breath.
"Master, why are you trying to punish Senior Brother?"
"Anyone who dares bully my disciple will never be forgiven! Yunshu, don't try to stop me!" Lina's protective instincts were maxed out!
"But Senior Brother didn't bully me at all."
Hearing this, both Lina and Sulan stopped dead in their tracks, one after the other.
Lina looked at her disciple and found her eyes clear and bright, without a trace of shame or evasion. She didn't look like she was lying.
She was stunned.
When she'd questioned Sulan and Sumin earlier, she'd already sensed something off, though she'd forced herself to explain it away. But now her own disciple was also insisting Sulan hadn't done anything wrong. This made it hard for her not to waver: Had I really been wrong?
Sulan also felt something wasn't quite right. If Yunshu really wanted to set him up, shouldn't he be playing the victim right now, accusing him falsely, making up stories, fanning the flames, getting his master to take off that wine gourd and beat the crap out of him?
But he wasn't doing that. Instead, he was stopping Lina from beating him up.
Have I really misunderstood this sissy boy?
The atmosphere became awkward.
But Yunshu's words did provide an opportunity to clear up the misunderstanding.
They chose the octagonal pavilion for their discussion, four people sitting around the stone table in a cross formation.
Naturally, Yunshu was the first to explain, laying out the whole story of why he'd come to find Sulan tonight. As for that little accident at the bathhouse entrance, he chose to skip over it. On one hand, he wanted to keep it as a shared secret between brothers, buried in his heart. On the other hand, he didn't want Sumin to continue misunderstanding his relationship with Sulan as some improper "male-male" thing.
Thank god he didn't bring that up, or Yu Lina would have absolutely lost her mind and beaten me into amnesia.
Sulan occasionally added some details from the sidelines. Lina asked about a few specifics, and after thinking it through and reasoning it out, she believed Sulan was innocent.
"Senior Brother helped me break through my cultivation level before, and today he's been taking good care of me. So really, Master, you've completely misunderstood Senior Brother."
Lina looked at her precious disciple whose elbow was clearly bending outward, and realized she'd been jumping to conclusions and making trouble unreasonably.
Knowing it was one thing, but she was Yu Lina, Master of Jade Phoenix Peak. How could she possibly just bow her head to a student so easily?
Moreover, during her brief encounter with Sulan, there was one thing that really bothered her.
"Fine, about Yunshu's situation, I misunderstood."
Sulan breathed a sigh of relief. If the Jade Phoenix Peak master and disciple weren't still here, he really would have wanted to collapse into a puddle on the stone table.
Yunshu's feminine temptation, his struggling junior sister's plan nearly backfiring, being chased around by Level 6 crazy woman, tonight's level of excitement was absolutely unprecedented in his eight years at the Celestial Gate.
I was just a Level 1 cultivator! Can I really handle being tossed around like this repeatedly?
But during their conversation, he'd also confirmed some intelligence.
Lina's personality was hot-blooded and impulsive, proud and protective, she didn't seem like someone who spent all day scheming and plotting against people. Of course, she might also be deliberately displaying these traits to make him lower his guard.
Either way, more observation was needed.
Lina suddenly changed topics, her sharp gaze sweeping over the senior-junior pair of Sulan and Sumin.
"However, your newly accepted junior doesn't seem to understand how to properly respect her elders."
Damn! I really can't let my guard down around this crazy woman! When her disciple turned on her, she just found another excuse to cause trouble?
"What would Lady Lina like to do about this matter?" If possible, Sulan hoped to settle this privately. Otherwise, if it reached the other higher-ups at the Celestial Gate, word about his junior sister's crippled spiritual roots would spread further and further, which would be very bad for him.