CHAPTER 286: A STRANGE NOTE

When I opened the notebook, I was met by looping foreign scripts written in elegant, and utterly unreadable ways. The ink had faded in places, but the strokes remained thin and obsessively neat, like someone had rewritten them a hundred times just to keep the shapes alive. I flipped through a few more pages of symbols, diagrams, and what appeared to be some kind of formula interspersed with paranoid scribbles. No patterns, no names, just nonsense.

I sent a pulse of mental energy into the notebook, letting my consciousness slide along the surface, expecting resistance. An array, a spiritual backlash, something that would bite. But… nothing.

No resistance, no feedback, no hidden compartments. It was… just a normal book.

I looked at Song Song.

“Was this supposed to mean something, or what?” I asked.

She looked back at me and tilted her head, just as confused as I was. Then her expression shifted slightly, turning thoughtful.

“Isn’t that writing in the book kind of similar to the language you use in your notebook?” she asked.

I paused, recalling the time we first met and when Song Song had snatched my notebook, the one where I wrote down my daily cultivation progress and other notes in English. It had been an odd moment.

Now that she mentioned it… this book might have been written by another otherworlder. But the writing wasn’t in any language I recognized. It didn’t resemble Russian, Arabic, or any other language I could name.

Some shapes looked familiar, like an A with two crossbars, but the rest was nonsense. Maybe it looked like English to someone who’d only seen it once. Kind of how people might mistake Korean for Japanese just because they both use lines and circles.

“No, not really,” I said.

“I was sure it looked similar,” she replied.

From her perspective, I supposed the shapes could appear vaguely alike. If she had seen my notebook, she might’ve drawn some assumptions.

This was likely a notebook from another otherworlder. But probably not one from Earth.

The Bloodstep Immortal... there was a strong chance this had something to do with him. Song Song wouldn’t have gotten her hands on something like this otherwise.

“We should talk in private,” I said.

She glanced at me and despite the years we’d spent apart, something passed between us. A silent understanding.

She nodded, offering a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Her instincts were… uncanny.

Song Song had never been socially adept. Most of her solutions to interpersonal problems involved killing someone. But in this moment, she understood exactly what I meant and that I suspected we were being watched. And she understood that someone or something was nearby… even though she, a Core Formation cultivator, couldn’t sense it.

Her entire demeanor shifted. That easy, relaxed energy she’d shown after butchering her brother disappeared completely.

Most people would have needed years of experience in politics and social nuance to catch what I was implying. And sure, Song Song knew me well, but we’d been apart for two years, and she’d spent most of that in isolation. Indoor cultivation didn’t exactly build emotional understanding.

But those gaps didn’t matter. Her instincts overrode all of it. They were borderline supernatural.

She’d once told me it was nothing special, just a gut feeling. Something she got in situations like this.

She must have figured out that I was an otherworlder long ago. And perhaps she’d had questions of her own.

But given how she’d nearly forgotten about that fact, it probably wasn’t that important to her.

Whether I was from this world or not… it didn’t seem to change how she saw me.

If anyone else had behaved like this, I would’ve questioned their motives and probably assumed they were trying to lull me into a false sense of ease.

But Song Song wasn’t like that.

If she didn’t like someone, she made it obvious… usually by killing them. That, in its own strange way, was a relief.

The rest of our flight was silent. I handed her the notebook, and she slipped it into her storage ring without a word.

Not long after, we arrived at the house. As soon as Song Song landed, she took in the sight around her, the lush green grass spreading across the yard, thriving under the effects of the spring array. Her gaze shifted naturally to the porch, where a young woman was lounging in a rocking chair, nearly dozing off.

Fu Yating looked up just in time to spot us. In the moment that followed, I could see her thoughts racing and recognition, caution, and calculation all flickering behind her gaze in a flash.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Hello, esteemed elder,” Fu Yating said, laughing awkwardly. “You must be Song Song. My husband has had nothing but good things to say about you.”

We never really talked about Song Song. So she was just pulling that out of nowhere. Judging by the amused glint in Song Song’s eyes, she knew it too.

“Hi. How are you doing?” Song Song asked, her voice casual but her gaze as sharp as a snake’s. Her eyes dropped to the lower part of Fu Yating’s neck. “Where did you get that fancy new scar?”

It was the scar Fu Yating had gotten during the team expedition, the one where we encountered that first thunder wolf.

“It was from some monstrous beast,” Fu Yating replied, not elaborating. She stood and made her way toward the door of the stone house. “Well, I’ll cook us a good meal. Excuse me.”

Her words might’ve sounded abrupt to anyone else, but with Song Song, silence was probably the safer option. She had a habit of enjoying the discomfort she caused.

Song Song stared at the door Fu Yating had just walked through, then turned to me with a strange smile tugging at her lips.

“What?” I asked.

“No, nothing,” she said at first, then paused and added, “I just never thought she actually liked you. That was surprising.”

...Well, that caught me off guard too.

“Why?” I raised a brow. “I haven’t exactly given her a reason to hate me.”

Song Song blinked, looked at me for a few seconds, and said, “Her clan was massacred. I expected more than a docile housewife. Also, don’t pretend like you’re not surprised too.”

“Okay, fine,” I admitted. “That’s part of why I’ve been a little cautious around her.”

“There are all kinds of people in the world,” Song Song shrugged. “I just didn’t expect your fiancée to be one of the ordinary ones. She’s wearing a mask, sure, but it’s not for you. It’s for the freaks like me.”

Well, that was quite the analysis. It seemed like the real crazy person had just met a fake one, which was what I always assumed Fu Yating was. She never gave off the kind of presence that Song Song did. She lacked that dangerous edge. Though I always assumed she was scheming more than she let on.

If someone else had made that observation, I might’ve dismissed it. But Song Song had unnerving instincts when it came to people, and she was a sharp judge of character.

Sure, even she could be blindsided, like what happened with her cousin Song Sia, who eventually betrayed her. But even then, she had always kept her at arm’s length.

After that, I took Song Song to meet Speedy, and neither of them bothered with much effort. One gave a lazy wave; the other yawned and lowered his head onto the grass out front like it was all too boring to deal with.

A little deeper into the wooden house, past the main hall and behind a thick sliding door, was one of the larger rooms. Though “room” was a stretch, it looked more like a stable overtaken by chaos.

Straw was scattered in messy clumps, half-chewed sticks poked from between cracked tiles, and faint bite marks dotted the wooden beams. Anything Batsy had deemed worthy of play, like torn blankets, feathers, dried gourds, and even a cracked training dummy, had ended up here.

The scent of beast Qi clung to the air, laced with a faint smoky aroma and something oddly sweet, like burnt fruit. Scorch marks along the back wall hinted at recent fire-based practice attempts.

The moment Song Song stepped through the doorway, Batsy let out a high-pitched eager yelp that echoed off the walls. Her small black eyes locked onto the newcomer like a predator catching motion in the grass.

In a flash, her wings snapped open, scattering straw everywhere. Her clawed feet scraped the wooden floor as she crouched low, ready to pounce.

She looked feral, ecstatic, and completely unaware of how bad an idea that was.

The bite wound from Speedy’s last nap-time ambush had long since healed, and apparently, so had the lesson. But Batsy wasn’t just any wild beast with a cute face and poor impulse control; she had a bloodline worth fearing. The kind that whispered warnings when real danger was near. Bests didn’t have human intelligence in the innistial stages of cultivation, but this instinct kept them alive.

Batsy jumped at Song Song. The latter’s eyes narrowed.

Mid-pounce, Batsy’s body froze in mid-air for half a heartbeat. Her pupils dilated. A visible shiver ran through her wings. She twisted midflight, aborting her leap, and landed in a scuffle on the wooden floor.

Every strand of fur on her bristled like an agitated cat, and she let out a low, guttural hiss, not out of anger but something closer to primal fear. Without a sound, she bolted behind a mound of hay and peeked out through the stalks, eyes wide and trembling.

Song Song said nothing. She just stood there.

A small smile curled on her lips, not kind, not cruel. Just… knowing.

Her gaze rested on Batsy like a needle on a balloon. Sharp. Without needing to move an inch.

“This one seems untrained,” she said. “Nothing a little discipline can’t fix.”

She just stared down the bat, and Batsy quieted instantly, shivering in silence. Some deeply instinctive part of her recognized Song Song as a predator several classes above her. As she should.

While I was fairly confident Song Song wouldn’t harm anyone close to me, that assurance only extended so far. It relied entirely on the assumption that no one tried anything stupid.

We didn’t linger in Batsy’s den. Song Song barely gave her a second glance. Her curiosity didn’t extend to creatures unless they could level cities or at least had the potential to one day.

It was the next room I truly wanted her to see.

I kept my gaze fixed on her face as I opened the final door at the end of the wooden house.

At first, there was no reaction. Just her usual look of mild disinterest as she saw a young girl meditating cross-legged in the center of the room, sunlight filtering through a wooden skylight. Wu Yan’s posture was steady, breath slow and calm. Her porcelain mask rested on a cushion nearby.

Then Song Song’s gaze narrowed.

Her Core Formation senses must’ve reached out instinctively, probing. And that was when it hit her. The confusion. Then realization.

Her eyes widened. Then widened more, round and unblinking, and owl-like.

She took a half-step forward, her attention locked onto Wu Yan like she was trying to see past the surface.

“How?” she asked, voice low, disbelieving.

Song Song was never the curious type. She didn’t poke around or ask questions.

That had always been my role.

But even she looked completely captivated.

I stepped beside her, smiling faintly.

“The world is a wonderful place,” I said simply. “You just have to look in the right cracks.”

And sometimes… In the people standing right next to you.