Chapter 81 - The Jade Statue

While submerged in the hot spring, she felt her inner force growing more lively and circulating faster inside her body. With each revolution, the speed increased up to two times her usual cultivation speed..

Ning Xuemo really liked it, so of course she would not let go of such a good training opportunity. After washing off the remaining dirt on her, she sat crossed legged and closed her eyes, calming herself down and getting ready to cultivate.

She was about to start cultivating when she felt something. She abruptly opened her eyes.

She became stupefied by what she saw!

Opposite to her, someone half-sat and half-floated in the pool, somehow managing to appear there without her noticing!

It was a man. It was a man whose appearance made her unable to describe it.

Only half of his body stuck out of the water, but this was enough to captivate people.

His hair floated on the water’s surface like seaweed, and his body looked like a jade, exuding a warm brilliance. His long eyelashes were like a fan lightly closing. His peerlessly beautiful lips were lightly pursed. Under the gleaming reflection of the sunlight on the water, his whole body seemed to be covered with a faint holy aura.

‘Under the vast expanse of the ocean, reflected by the moon, the pearl shed tears;

On Lantian Mountain, warmed by the sun, the jade turned to smoke.’[1]

The moment Ning Xuemo saw him, these two verses came to mind.

Afterwards, she remembered the situation she was in and felt shocked!

She restrained the urge to yell out. She clenched her fingers under the water as she gave a low shout, “Who are you? When did you come in?!”

This hot spring was so small; furthermore, the water was crystal-clear. If there had been someone hiding in there beforehand, she would have noticed!

So where did he pop out of? In addition, he had appeared so silently that she had not even noticed him!

The person opposite of her kept his eyes shut showing a lazy and tranquil demeanour. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, and his posture of holding his hands together had not changed.

Because the hot spring was too small, the distance between that person and Ning Xuemo measured less than 30 centimeters.

Ning Xuemo was short. If she had not floated up, only her head would be above the water. However, this person actually had half his body exposed while he was just sitting.

Ning Xuemo looked at his peerlessly beautiful collarbone and his handsome chin. This distance was enough for people to hear each other breathing.

Ning Xuemo suddenly had goosebumps.

She could not feel the slightest hint of the other person’s breath! He sat simply like a perfect jade statue!

But his chest clearly moved up and down slightly.

“Hey, you…” Ning Xuemo extended her hand, planning on patting his shoulder, but it unexpectedly went past his body.

And with a faint flash of light, that man suddenly disappeared.

‘Ghost! It was a ghost!’

Ning Xuemo shivered and was so startled that she incorrectly placed her foot down, causing her to trip and swallow a large mouthful of the spring water…

She hurriedly righted herself and looked again. It was completely silent. There simply was not another person there!

Did she really see a ghost?

No way. He did not look like a ghost. Instead, he gave her the feeling of being rather tangible…

It could not have been a hologram, could it?!

This era has such advanced technology?

Even if it was the modern world, which was more advanced in science and technology than this place, he would not have been life-like to this degree!

She naturally had quite a bit of scientific knowledge and immediately checked her surroundings for a projector but could not find anything.

And this was Ji Yunhuang’s hot spring. He would not be so bored as to play this kind of joke on her, right?

Or maybe there was some kind of magnetic field which accidentally caused the appearance of an illusion of that man??

She had heard that only Ji Yunhuang could come in here, so who was that person?

Was he Ji Yunhuang’s pet boy?

That’s not right! That person’s aura seemed quite strong. Even if he was compared to Ji Yunhuang, who also had a strong aura, they clearly were not in the same league.

[1]These verses are from a very famous poem called Jin Se (The Lavishly Decorated Zither) written by the Tang Dynasty's poet, Li Shangyin. The poem itself it's quite complex, so I won't explain the whole poem, just going to concentrate on the two verses.

From the research that was done on the verses, the general meaning is about something beautifully sad and unreachable.

The first verse "Under the vast expanse of the ocean, reflected by the moon, the pearl shed tears" referred to the mermaid that shed tears which turned to pearl. Shedding tears is sad and why the sadness, it could be sadness of lost, parting, etc.

As for the second verse "On Lantian Mountain, warmed by the sun, the jade turned to smoke." this referred to a very sad story about a princess whose name contain the character Jade. She loved a man beneath her social status. Thus, to be together with the princess, the man left her to study and pass the examination to get a status, but when he succeeded and came back, the princess had already died while waiting for his return. So, he went to grieve before her tomb in regret. The princess' spirit appeared in front of him and gifted him a present which caused calamity to him. She then appeared again to right the wrong, but when her mother wanted to hug her, her spirit disappeared into smoke.

You can listen to the whole poem in song here. It's beautiful. For more details on the poem itself, you can read it here.