Xiao Li rushed to her mistress's side, her eyes darting frantically across Bai Xifeng's body as if looking for invisible wounds.
"Young Miss, are you truly alright? That red light looked so ominous!" Xiao Li cried, her voice trembling with leftover adrenaline.
"Hmm... I'm perfectly Pahchiri." Bai Xifeng replied, casually patting the dust off her sleeve.
"What? Pah-chiri? Is that some sort of ancient incantation?" Xiao Li blinked, looking utterly bewildered by the strange syllables falling from her lady's lips.
"Ah! Forget it. It's nothing." Bai Xifeng grinned. She had slipped into her old habit of using anime slang again, in her mind, she had meant she was 'perfectly fine' or 'certainly okay.'
"More importantly, is there anything to eat? My stomach is growling." Bai Xifeng said, rubbing her belly.
It turned out that intense studying and warding off failed exorcisms burned through calories faster than she had expected.
"I will prepare lunch for you immediately, Young Miss!" Xiao Li declared, disappearing into the kitchen with the speed of a gust of wind.
With her maid gone, Bai Xifeng sat back down to face her mountain of books. She did not care whether the "audience" hiding in the bushes had finally dispersed or if they were still lingering to whisper about her. To her, they were nothing more than background noise in a play she had no interest in starring in.
Behind the dense foliage of the garden, however, Bai Chunhua and Bai Huiling were drowning in a sea of disappointment. They had expected to see Bai Xifeng shrieking in agony, but instead, they had witnessed a bored nap.
Bai Chunhua had seen this specific ceremony once before. Ordinarily, if a person was possessed by a malevolent spirit, the red light of the Star Formation would act like a spiritual acid, searing the flesh and soul until the victim bled from every pore.
Yet, Bai Xifeng had remained untouched. A chilling thought crossed Chunhua's mind: Did she cultivate some forbidden, evil technique to shield herself? She did not for a moment doubt the monk's competence, after all, she was the one who had urged her mother to hire him due to his formidable reputation for destroying demons. If the ritual failed, the problem wasn't the monk, it was Bai Xifeng.
"Second Sister, how is she still standing? Is it possible that monk was just a well-dressed fraud?" Bai Huiling hissed, her fingers digging into the bark of a nearby tree.
"No. That monk is the real deal. I've seen him work before." Bai Chunhua replied, her eyes narrowing into cold slits.
"Then how?" Bai Huiling's face was pale with dissatisfaction. The sight of Xifeng being 'okay' felt like a personal insult.
"Do not let your temper get the better of you, Huiling." Bai Chunhua said, a cruel, thin smile playing on her lips. "This was just one attempt. She is a bird in a cage. She has nowhere to run. We will find another way, and next time, we won't be so gentle."
With a final, lingering look of malice, the two sisters retreated from the courtyard. Bai Xifeng let out a long, unhurried yawn the moment Baishe whispered in her mind that the coast was finally clear.
"They really do despise the original Bai Xifeng, don't they?" Bai Xifeng sighed, leaning back in the gazebo. "It's ironic. They enjoy this luxurious lifestyle, the fine silk, and the gourmet food, all because of the blood and sweat of my father, the Great General. Yet, they treat his only daughter like a stain on the floorboards. Talk about ungrateful."
***This novel is a contracted work with w e b n o v e l. c o m. If you do not read this novel on w e b n o v e l. c o m, that means it has been stolen. It breaks my heart when someone steals my hard work. Can you consider reading it on the original website for those who read my novel on another website besides w e b n o v e l .c o m, as your support to me? Thank you, from, your shameless author, ZerahNeko***
Proofreader: haibara9369