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"What’s wrong with my house?" Gu Xiqiao asked, still looking around. She glanced at the setting sun and the reddish-orange sky as she took out the bamboo tube from last night. "I don’t feel anything."

"You’re just at Bone Refinement level, right?" Tang Qinghong said, straightening up, thinking that he would give her a basic understanding of the ancient martial arts world. He had felt it last night, when her chi was surging up, it was even comparable to some disciples in the Tendon Forging levels. "Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t be able to see the malicious aura, yesterday was an abnormal incident. You may not know about the problem in your house, but on the first day I came here, the malicious aura here was ten times stronger than the one on the mountain!"

"What is more curious is that your house is built on this land, and it seems like it was done deliberately. The malicious aura that lingers here, an average person would definitely die in about half a year without even knowing the reason for it. Disregarding the fact that you’re not affected due to your chi, but how is it that the people living nearby this area are also unaffected?"

Gu Xiqiao looked around the small yard again in surprise. She knew more about this place than him, naturally. Yu Man had passed away two months ago, and she had left the place. Returning two months later, she found that the people staying closest to her—the Li family and the village chief, they had been caught up in all kinds of accidents. According to her memory from her past life, the entire village had moved out of this place soon after.

"I don’t know why I can’t see it," Gu Xiqiao said, as she continued to glance around. She couldn’t feel anything wrong, and she always felt that Yu Man had something to do with it. "My mother had never said anything about it either."

Tang Qinghong placed the last piece of jade from his hands down, and there was a sudden ripple that tore through the air. Tang Qinghong’s face paled slightly, but nothing else happened. He turned to Gu Xiqiao, looking at her with a solemn expression. "You’re also part of the ancient martial arts world, I need your help in this matter!"

"You don’t even need to ask," Gu Xiqiao replied, taking a deep breath. "Let me know what you need."

Her bright eyes narrowed slightly as she glanced around again, accurately pinpointing the few jade stones that Tang Qinghong had placed. Without waiting for him to say anything, Gu Xiqiao reached out to change the position of a few of them. A wave of energy rippled the air, and then there was a steady wave of energy circulating in the area.

"This is... a small Eight Trigram array?" Tang Qinghong’s surprise expression broke through his gentle mask again, feeling slightly numb as he asked, "How do you know this?"

Even for him, it would have taken a lot of effort to set up the small formation, and the entire process would take all the energy he had in his body, otherwise he would have done something by now. But how was it that she just casually moved her hands and formed the array, which didn’t look like it took any effort at all by the look on her face?

"I just practised some." Gu Xiqiao said, looking at him. Then she raised the bamboo tube that was shaking uneasily due to the formation, and coldly said, "If you continue to move, I’ll burn you."

Vengeful spirit in the bamboo tube: "..."

If finally settled down after Gu Xiqiao stared at it for a while, and then she turned her attention back to the yard, ’System, I can’t find the reason for this, can you scan it?’

[Please wait a moment, Beauty Qiao.] The system spirit put down the data in its hands, a serious expression on its face. It knew that the mission for Gu Xiqiao this time was not easy, and it had been searching through all the accessible files in its database, hoping to find any records that could help them.

A transparent panel appeared in front of Gu Xiqiao again, this time displaying a map in three-dimensional settings of the house and the courtyard. From what she could see in the image, there was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere.

[Beauty Qiao, look at the bottom.]

The map scrolled downwards, and Gu Xiqiao could see at least ten meters underground, but after that it was all black on the screen.

[There’s really something wrong with your house, I can only go down as far as ten meters. There’s something blocking my sensors, I think there’s more to your adoptive mother than you think.]

Building a house on this land, and being able to guarantee no incidents for the past ten years, Gu Xiqiao could also guess that there was more than meets the eye when it came to Yu Man, but what was going on? And Yu Man’s death, was it really due to cerebral hemorrhage? Why didn’t she leave any information to her?

All of these thoughts were swirling in Gu Xiqiao’s mind as she continued to stare at the black screen, not having a clue how to start figuring it out.

In Tang Qinghong’s eyes, the girl was staring at the air in a daze, her eyes out of focus. Fortunately, she had exquisite looks. Although she was standing there in a daze, she was still a beauty which was pleasing to the eyes.

"Don’t worry too much, nothing will happen here. If you don’t want the villagers to leave, then I should have a way to make it happen," Tang Qinghong said, letting out a sigh. Thinking of that person, he frowned deeply, "There’s someone who can definitely resolve this matter perfectly, so if we can’t handle it, we’ll contact him."

Although, he was extremely reluctant to admit that he wasn’t able to measure up to that person.

"Thank you." Gu Xiqiao sighed, and waved the panel away discreetly. She returned the bamboo tube to her bag, and raised her head to look up at the gorgeous sunset in the sky, the bright vivid colors spreading everywhere. She felt a tug at her heart after staring at the sight. "I’m going out for a while."

Tang Qinghong didn’t know what she was planning to do, so he just watched her as she went upstairs to grab a drawing board before coming back down and heading out.

***

There was a small hill not far from her house, and you could see the entire village from there. Gu Xiqiao had grabbed her oil painting tools, which was easier to carry than her Chinese painting tools. After setting up the drawing board, she sat on the hill and began to draw.

Instead of using the Alla Prima method, which was the direct style of painting where the paint is applied without letting the earlier layers dry, she chose to use the Glazing method, which was to first spread a layer of paint on the canvas, and applying another layer only after the first had dried and so on. The main purpose of doing this was to make it look like the colors were combined optically, without the pigments actually mixing. This creates a monochrome underpainting which gradually builds up the glazes on top to show a more jewel-like effect on it. This technique tests the painter’s abilities, as well the depth of understanding of colors.

She applied the various colors over each other, using mostly warmer tones. Looking down at the board after a while, she rubbed her chin thoughtfully before picking up a brush that had been dipped in a colder tone which was blue. Both cold and warm tones were the essence of oil painting, and you would use warmer tones for the nearer view, and colder tones for the further view, the contrast of cold and warm being easily explained. The thickness of the layers was also very particular, with the nearer view needing to be thicker than the other. The thickness of the layers could also make a difference in the distance of the painting.

***

At this time, most of the people had returned from the pond area. Shi Tou carried a large batch of fishes to Gu Xiqiao’s door. Seeing the hated Tang Qinghong sitting there instead of her, he placed the fish down and ran off.

Tang Qinghong who had been rejected: ...

Apart from Gu Xiqiao, this was the second person to dislike him with such obvious actions.

The gentle, jade-like face showed a stunned expression for the moment. He didn’t understand, why did the both of them dislike him so?

***

Shi Tou stood at the gates, looking around for a while, before spotting Gu Xiqiao, who was sitting at the hilltop. His eyes brightened, and he ran over to her, "Sister Little Gu, what are you doing?"

"Drawing." Gu Xiqiao replied, as she stopped.

"What are all these?" Shi Tou asked, staring at the pile of strangely mixed colors. His eyes widened as he exclaimed, "It’s so ugly, you’re even worse than me, Sister Little Gu!"

Gu Xiqiao: ...This is where our friendship ends.

Shi Tou was still chattering on, and Gu Xiqiao took a deep breath, sliding out her phone and handing it to him. Shi Tou took the offered item, unlocking the phone with familiar motions and opening the game that Gu Xiqiao often played. Five minutes later... he died, try again, two minutes later...he died.

Gu Xiqiao: ....This is the effect I wanted.

After the system spirit had modified the game, it became a game that cheated children. The system spirit sat in the void space, miming the action of wiping away Shi Tou’s tears. He just had to provoke her when she was in a bad mood, it really was...such an entertaining scene to watch!

***

Su Wen and his group had also caught quite a few fishes, and it was all thanks to the boys of the group. They decided to have a full fish banquet campfire for dinner at night, and Su Wen naturally didn’t want to put a damper on their plans. However, he also didn’t dare to start a bonfire at Gu Xiqiao’s place, and so gathered everyone to set up beside the pond instead. Some of them would stay there to clean and prepare the fish, while the others would gather the items and materials needed.

Walking along the path, you could clearly see two figures that were sitting on the hilltop.

The reddish hue of the sky clearly outlined the figures, and the girl’s white creamy tone of her skin glowed softly, her long eyelashes covering the pair of melancholy eyes. Slender fingers held the paintbrush that danced on the canvas, like the brushstrokes used in a dynamic ink painting.

Although they couldn’t see her face clearly from afar, they couldn’t help but lighten their steps in an effort to not disturb her.

Su Wen stood at her back slightly further away, and could only see a mess of colors. He had never studied anything in regards to painting before, but he looked on silently anyway. Bao Xinyi wasn’t so meek, and she lifted her chin haughtily to one of the other boys that was beside her, "You’ve studied art before, what do you see?"

The boy was staring into space, lost in his own thoughts. "Beauty..."

Bao Xinyi: Go to hell!

The boy came back to himself after a beat, and seeing the fire in Bao Xinyi’s eyes, he blushed in embarrassment. "That pretty girl is using an ancient glazing painting method, it requires quite a high level of skill. No matter how her drawing turns out, it’s already amazing with the fact that she can use this method."

Bao Xinyi stared at him in silence for a while, before turning her eyes to the painting that had yet to be completed, and let out a cold laugh. "Are we still not going? That level of painting is worse than an amateur like me."

Su Wen frowned, but said nothing. However, he also had no indication that he would move, and the others were even more reluctant to leave because of that.

Hearing Bao Xinyi’s words, Shi Tou turned around to look at them, and said to himself, "Teacher used to say that crows were the most annoying creatures, and I didn’t believe her, now that I think back, it seems I was just too immature to understand then."

"..." Bao Xinyi’s face was red with anger, she couldn’t even win against a child?

And so they remained where they were, waiting to see how Gu Xiqiao would finish off. However, she felt like she was given a slap on the face soon after.

As more layers were added to the mess of colors, the complicated messy oil painting soon started showing its proper outline. Gu Xiqiao added a red that was similar to that of a raging fire, and the sky seemed to burn on the canvas. Shrouded in a vivid sunlight, the scene of the whole village was a peaceful and tranquil sight, and it was as though you can see the leisurely life of the villagers through the painting.

Shi Tou had been playing games beside Gu Xiqiao with a bored expression, sometimes grabbing and plucking the grass on the ground, and sometimes counting the bugs he could. He was moving around listlessly, and when he finally looked over when Gu Xiqiao’s painting was almost complete, his eyes grew wide as he stopped his actions, staring in shock.

With one glance, he could tell that the painting was of their village. The village looked majestic, bathed in the glow of the golden rays from the sun. Even though he didn’t understand oil painting, he could still feel the charm of the painting, and was fascinated by it. He reached out his hand to touch it, and felt like he could go one step further, and be touching the cooling sun that was setting.

The boy standing beside Bao Xinyi smiled in triumph. "I knew that this pretty girl’s skills were great, and even our teacher wouldn’t be able to match her. It’s amazing, her surreal approach and vividly fresh colors, the stunning composition, it’s a testament to how great her grasp on the understanding of colors is."

Most of the words from the boy’s mouth were not understood by the others, and they were all mystified by it, but it didn’t hinder their appreciation for this painting.

Bao Xinyi’s frown on her face deepened, and glanced at the boy who was still prattling on and thought, ’Why do I really feel like strangling him?’

Gu Xiqiao was aware that there were people behind her, and by the time she had completed her drawing, it was getting late. She packed her tools, and had Shi Tou help carry the items. When she turned around, she found that Su Wen and the others were still standing there without moving, "Don’t you have anything to do?"

"Yes, we do. We were just about to leave," Su Wen replied with a grin on his face, and couldn’t help but say, "Your painting is really good."

The few boys standing beside him were nodding in agreement.

Bao Xinyi spoke up only after Gu Xiqiao had left. "What’s so great about, she’s just another pretty face, it’s not like anything you’ve never seen before. You don’t even know how many people have..."

"Xinyi!" Su Wen snapped out, a chilling look on his face. He leveled a frosty glare at her. "You have never been this ignorant before!"

Although Bao Xinyi had been ignorant previously, she would just act childish about it, she wasn’t so malicious to throw around wild speculation about others. She had changed so much recently, to the point that he was thinking whether it was a mistake to have brought her along?

"Ignorant?" Bao Xinyi said, her lips twisting up into an ugly sneer. "It’s you who are blind from your own fascination with others!"

Having said that, Bao Xinyi turned around and left, two of the group hurrying to follow her. One of them turned to Su Wen before they left, disapproval clear in his eyes. "Xinyi is right, Su Wen. This girl is young and orphaned, yet she owns a very expensive branded car... don’t be too caught up with her. If it’s just a temporary interest, then that’s fine. Money and things are one thing, but don’t break your ties with Xinyi just because of this. Beautiful women can be found anywhere after all!"

The rest of the people who stayed behind were ones that were on good terms with Su Wen, and they glanced at each other. They weren’t sure how the situation had become like this. The art student who had commented on Gu Xiqiao previously raised his hand. "Then, I have something to say regarding that. Su Wen, don’t listen to them. I’m taking the subject and learning art, and I can say with confidence that the pretty girl has great skills, I won’t be wrong about it. The painting that she just completed, if you put it out to the market, it can sell for at least seven figures."

"Seven figures?! That’s a real neat sum!" One of the group said, their eyes lighting up with wonder.

However, Su Wen ignored them. He had never questioned Gu Xiqiao’s abilities, only something they said made him think of something, "You said the girls were discussing this matter the whole afternoon, could it be that the entire village knows about it?"

"Based on the amount of gossip these people do, it’s most likely," Another person replied softly.

Su Wen’s attractive face darkened as he glanced at the sky that was dimming, and sighed softly. This was exactly the situation that he didn’t want to see happening.