Blue butterfly kept silent for a moment as if to give him time to sort out his feelings. She took another sip of the wine, narrowing her eyes while thinking back to the time when they had all come together to choose their names.
After a few moments had passed, she sighed. “The one who found his name first was actually Shang Qiang, from the Li Ren Sect. Now, you’ve probably never met him, have you?”
Yun Bei Fen and Mei Chao Bing both shook their heads. When it came to the guardians, Mei Chao Ming had met both the black warrior and blue butterfly while Yun Bei Fen only knew the latter. They had also come into contact with the red priest’s ability through the vial of his blood and the development with Luo Lin but they had never seen him. As for the white jade of the Li Ren Sect, that person was a real mystery to them.
Blue butterfly nodded, smiling faintly. “Well, if you see him in the future, you’ll understand. For now, you’ll have to take my word on this but Shang Qiang is pretty. Prettier than any woman I’ve ever seen.
“Now, imagine that this type of person is somebody who can fight you with his bare hands, because no matter what weapon you use, it just won’t be able to penetrate that thick skin of his. It’s really such a beautiful contrast.” There was a trace of laughter in her eyes, clearly quite amused at her friend’s misfortune.
Mei Chao Bing stared at her and then hurriedly retracted his gaze, feeling that his thoughts were really moving in the wrong direction. He just couldn’t help himself though.
He had always thought that the sect’s four guardians would be solemn people. People that were serious and that you would look up to as a role model. But now that he was slowly getting to know them, he had to admit that this wasn’t the case.
Yes, the black warrior had been pretty much like that. Fighting against him had opened his eyes. But when it came to blue butterfly, from the way she told stories, focusing on the wrong details all the time, to how she made fun of her friends, she really was nothing like what he would’ve imagined a guardian to be.
While Mei Chao Bing had trouble reconciling his idea of the guardians with what he was actually seeing, Yun Bei Fen didn’t have any deeper thoughts on this matter. He was just really curious about this white jade. “How does it work though? Actually, that sounds like a really useful ability.”
Blue butterfly smiled and finally put down the flask of wine, leaning a bit forward to look at Yun Bei Fen. “You’re also a very pretty youngster. Would you like to learn?”
Yun Bei Fen thought for a moment and then nodded. “I think it would be really convenient!” Anyway, he wasn’t very strong so his senior martial brother Mei always needed to worry about him. If he had an ability like this where even if people attacked him, they wouldn’t be able to hurt him, wouldn’t that be great? Then finally, Mei Chao Bing could rest assured that nothing would happen to him.
After a moment, blue butterfly shook her head though. “I’m afraid it won’t work out. As I said, you are usually born with an inclination to get one of these abilities. So I’m afraid that if you haven’t found anything yet, you probably won’t be able to develop one.”
At the side, Mei Chao Bing’s expression suddenly changed. Actually … he had always felt that Yun Bei Fen’s way of training and gaining skills was a bit weird. He had wanted to talk about it with Elder Baili but hadn’t gotten around to it and even forgotten about it in-between with everything else going on. Now that blue butterfly mentioned this, he couldn’t help but feel that maybe there was more to this.
He straightened up, suddenly worried. An ability would’ve downsides. Yes, you could make use of it, but blue butterfly had stressed that it wasn’t necessarily a good thing. He had no idea what kind of ability Yun Bei Fen might have if there even was one, but now that he thought of the possibility, he was afraid.
He glanced at him, his heart still filled with dread. What if this was true? What if he really had an ability? What if the downsides of it were bad? What if Yun Bei Fen wouldn’t be able to take it?
For a moment, Mei Chao Bing couldn’t focus at all on what blue butterfly was saying. Just the idea that something like this might be happening to Yun Bei Fen … he couldn’t deal with that.
If it was himself, alright. He had suffered through loneliness and he had come so far only based on this one person’s support and his own will. He wouldn’t mind taking on some more hardships. But Yun Bei Fen … he didn’t want him to have to go through something like that. He wanted him to have a good life. And somehow, he felt that an ability would get in the way of that.
Mei Chao Bing reached up and rubbed his forehead, not sure what to do. Anyway, if there was an ability, nothing could be done about that. It couldn’t be changed. It could only be … well, lived with. Really, he probably didn’t even need to think about this. If it was the truth, they would have to deal with that. No matter how difficult it got, they would surely find a solution.
Anyway, Yun Bei Fen at least wasn’t alone. There was him, there were his three senior martial brothers, there was senior martial brother Shen, and also Elder Baili. In fact, there were probably a lot of other disciples in the sect that loved Yun Bei Fen to bits as well. He just was that kind of person. Knowing him, people couldn’t help but want to be there for him.
So yes, if he was in that situation, it wouldn’t be like with his Master or the four guardians. He had support in the sect, he would not need to suffer. Not as much at least. And a bit of suffering … for cultivators, they probably couldn’t get around that. That was just par for the course for the kind of life they had.
