[天命为凰]

Untitled Part 11

011 - Two options

After seeing Hui Niang and the other two off, Lu Mingshu went back to the pond to continue doing the laundry.

Liu Jizhen walked over, stood by the side, and watched her silently.

Lu Mingshu lifted her head. "Master?"

Liu Jizhen nodded. "Come here."

"Yes..."

Liu Jizhen sat down, looking at Lu Mingshu before him.

On the day she had just arrived, as he recalled it, she still had had the semblance of a very delicate young lady. But today, with an old apron tied around her waist and her hands red from soaking in the cold water, she had already lost that delicate touch to her demeanor.

"Master?" Lu Mingshu felt nervous under his gaze.

Liu Jizhen moved his line of sight away, speaking with a flat tone, "I already know of your birth status."

Lu Mingshu lifted her head at once. She knew her birth status was awkward in Nine Jade Palace, which was the issue that worried her most when she had to acknowledge a Master. Now that Liu Jizhen suddenly brought this up, did he not want her under his tutelage anymore?

While riddled with anxiety, she listened as Liu Jizhen continued, "Do you know what kind of a person I am?"

The topic changed so fast it stunned Lu Mingshu. She answered, "I know, Master is Nine Jade Palace's previous generation's Eldest Senior Brother. Famed as a rare talent only seen every hundred years, started practicing martial arts at age eight, entered the Inner Breath Realm at age ten, Fusion Realm at age fifteen, and the Spirit Realm at age twenty-four." She paused in thought before adding another line, "In Xichuan, there hasn't been more than ten people entering the Spirit Realm before the age of twenty-five in a millennium!"

These words had been memorized in her heart, repeated many times over.

Liu Jizhen smiled slightly. "What you said is not incorrect, but those are all things of the past."

Lu Mingshu was stunned. Of the past? What did that mean?

Liu Jizhen looked down at his hands, his usually cold voice sounding a little different, "I am now just a handicapped person."

Lu Mingshu froze for a moment, speaking out in confusion, "Master?"

Liu Jizhen lightly said, "Eight years ago when I entered the Spirit Realm, I went out and travelled in search of challenging experts. But when I travelled to Beiming, I was defeated and even had my Meridians crippled in that challenge. I barely got back my life but had become a cripple."

He looked at Lu Mingshu. "I believe you have a rough gauge of what kind of place Heavenly Ascension Pavilion is by now. Although this place is counted as one of the courtyards, it has in actual fact already been given up on. Being thrown in here means I am only just waiting for my death."

Lu Mingshu looked at him in a daze, her eyes not in focus for a long while.

Which was to say, that father of hers was not truthful to her. He had indeed found a genius Master for her, but the man was a cripple...

Lu Mingshu found herself not at all surprised, but instead with a tranquil calm. It was probably because she unconsciously knew that this was exactly what her father was more than capable of doing.

"When you first came, I didn't want to accept you, for I knew you would be no different than a half-cripple if you were to follow a cripple like me. But that steward reminded me that if I didn't want you, he still had to find another suitable place for you that might not necessarily be better than this place."