“Let go!” screamed Yun Ruoyan suddenly, before she tossed Pei Ziao’s hand aside.

Pei Ziao was clearly shocked by her sudden wrath. “Ruoyan, what’s gotten into you? Why are you acting so fiercely? Weren’t we on good terms?”

Yun Ruoyan turned toward the good-looking youth. In her mind’s eye, this innocent and youthful face turned into the cold and aloof exterior of the adult Pei Ziao.

She repressed her desire to slap him in the face and murmured, “Young Master Pei, you must be mistaken. We’ve never been on good terms.”

She suddenly smiled and pointed toward her birthmark. “You’re clearly disgusted by my birthmark, and yet you still pretend you don’t care. What’s the point?”

Pei Ziao, his machinations revealed, was unable to react. Yun Ruoyan called a servant over to take care of him as she went in search of Pei Yingxiong. Having lost his excuse for delaying further, he could only hand over the furnace.

As soon as she had the furnace in hand, Yun Ruoyan went straight back to the Lins.

Lin Zainan, Lin Qingxue, and Lin Qingchen were all waiting for her in the living room. As soon as they saw her enter, they stepped forward to welcome her.

“Sister, you’re finally back! We were just planning on going to the Pei manor to find you,” Lin Qingxue exclaimed.

“The Peis didn’t treat you too badly, did they?” Lin Qingchen asked affectionately.

“They don’t dare!” Lin Zainan laughed heartily. “The Lins aren’t to be trifled with.”

Yun Ruoyan, quite moved by their affection, smiled. “Not only did they not dare to bully me, they even handed me a treasure, just like that.”

Yun Ruoyan put down the bundle that she had been carrying on her shoulders. Within it was a gold box, and within the box was a furnace.

“This is the fabled top-grade furnace? It’s so small!” Lin Qingxue exclaimed once again. “Even smaller than the pots we use to heat up soup in the kitchen.”

Her analogy made everyone present laugh.

Yun Ruoyan took the censer-sized furnace out of the box and placed it in front of Lin Zainan. It was made of a black, lustrous material and seemed to gleam in the lamplight.

“Grandfather, look!”

Lin Zainan poked and prodded at the furnace as he spoke. “The smaller the furnace, the more valuable it is. Such small furnaces can better concentrate the power of spiritual flames. Most materials wouldn’t be able to bear such concentrated flames, but high-grade furnaces that can withstand such flames are able to magnify the effects of pills by two or three times.” Lin Zainan looked at the furnace in his hands, his eyes shining as he pronounced, “This is really a treasure!”

Yun Ruoyan thought that just about any pillmaster would be as happy as her grandfather upon seeing high-grade herbs and furnaces.

“In that case, Grandfather, I’m sure you’ll be able to make better and better pills with this furnace.” Yun Ruoyan smiled, as did the Lin sisters.

But Lin Zainan handed the furnace to Yun Ruoyan, and she tilted her head at her grandfather.

“High-grade furnaces can bond with their owners, and since you were the one who obtained it, Ruoyan, you’re tied to it by circumstance. You should keep it for now.”

Although Yun Ruoyan wasn’t sure if she could become a pillmaster, she finally accepted the furnace upon her grandfather’s insistence.

The Lin sisters both admired and were happy for their sister, and the three girls chattered nonstop as they sat around the furnace.

By the side, Lin Zainan clutched his beard and smiled, sighing internally. Wouldn’t it be great if this house were like this daily?

Under the Yun matriarch’s intervention, news of Pei Ziao falling into the lake didn’t reach Yun Ruoyan’s father’s ears, and Yun Ruoyan didn’t reveal the fact that Yun Ruoyao had planned to push her into the lake in the first place.

She had just obtained her grandmother’s trust, and she didn’t want to cause any complications immediately. However, because of this whole incident, the females of the Yun family had begun to treat Yun Ruoyan differently.

Yun Ruoyan’s grandmother clearly had an improved opinion of her, and Madam An and the others wouldn’t be able to suppress her so easily anymore.

These last few days, she had been focused on practicing the use of the Feilai Blade in her yard. Whenever she did so, she would instruct Peony and Xi Lan to keep guard outside the yard while she practiced within closed doors.

Peony and Xi Lan didn’t ask about her affairs; they simply thought that Yun Ruoyan, unwilling to resign herself to inadequacy, was secretly honing her skills in earnest. After a long period of practice, she had apparently recovered her talent once more. In defeating both the eldest miss and second master in a battle, she was able to regain her pride.

The two servants started to admire their mistress even further.

Yun Ruoyan was standing in the middle of her rooms, controlling the Feilai Blade and forcing it to revolve around her. It took only two orbits before her forehead began sweating in earnest, and it seemed as though her third-rank spiritual energy was far too weak to properly use the Feilai Blade. All she could carry out were simple attacks.

“Mistress, someone’s coming.” Qiuqiu’s mental warning reached Yun Ruoyan, who was in the middle of her practice.

Without any hesitation, Yun Ruoyan recalled the Feilai Blade into her body once more.

“Who is it? If you keep hiding in the shadows, I’m going to call out to my maids!” Yun Ruoyan looked around her room. The doors and windows were shut, and there surely couldn’t be anyone inside.

She walked towards her back window and was just about to open it when it opened by itself.

“Why are you here again?” Standing outside the window was none other than the black-clad youth that she had met twice already. In his hand was his gold-tipped folding fan, which he pointed mischievously at Yun Ruoyan. “What’s the matter, did I scare you?”

He smiled.

Exasperated, Yun Ruoyan muttered, “Why won’t you leave me alone? If you appear in front of me so suddenly again, I’m really going to start calling out for people.”

“It won’t matter if you do, because by the time they arrive, I’ll have long since vanished once more,” the youth replied carelessly.

“Then, can you at least tell me why you keep appearing in front of me?” Yun Ruoyan asked patiently. After all, no one would hang around someone else for no reason, let alone someone as dull as her.

“I’m doing it under someone’s orders.” The youth tapped on the windowsill with his fan in a rhythmic manner. “The pills last time were also entrusted to me by that someone. Have you consumed them yet?”

Without his reminder, Yun Ruoyan would have forgotten that the pills were still with her. She hurriedly said, “Wait, give me a moment.”

She entered her rooms and tossed the bottle of pills to the youth.

“Hey, you!” The youth’s face was shocked. “Don’t you know that these pills are priceless? You can’t even buy them even if you wanted to!”

“That’s exactly why I’m handing them back! They’re so expensive that I can’t believe a stranger would give them to me just like that!”

The youth craned his neck and was just about to continue arguing with Yun Ruoyan when Peony’s voice came from the yard. “Miss, your father’s summoning you.”

“I’ll be right over,” Yun Ruoyan responded, before turning to the youth. “No matter who’s telling you to watch over me, I don’t want to see you again. Bye forever!”

And then she slammed the window shut.

The youth opened his mouth wide and left it hanging open for quite a while.

“Third Prince, what are we going to tell the marquis now?” A shadow clad fully in black appeared by the youth’s side.

“The truth, of course.” Li Qianhan looked at the pills in his hand, a smile dancing about his lips. “This Yun lass’s quite interesting, isn’t she? A little ugly, though. I didn’t expect the marquis’ taste to be so… interesting.”

Yun Ruoyan followed her father’s servants to his study, seeing that Madam An, her two sisters, and Yi Qianying were also present. Beside her father was Envoy Ding.

“Now that everyone’s present, let’s start the meeting in earnest.” Envoy Ding placed his teacup on the table and opened a register, reading out loud, “By right of contest, Yun Ruoyan and Yun Ruoyu have earned their admission to the imperial territory for the next stage of Kongming Academy’s selection process. Each noble family additionally has one nomination; from the Yuns, this nomination goes to Yun Ruoyao; from the Peis, to Yi Qianying. As such, all four ladies present are eligible to enter this territory.”

Yi Qianying’s ashen face quickly turned radiant, and she couldn’t hide her excitement and joy. She quickly thanked Envoy Ding.

Yun Ruoyan felt somewhat doubtful. Why had the Peis given their slot to Yi Qianying? Pei Ziao and Yi Qianying couldn’t have gotten together already, could they?

Surely not. In the past, those two hadn’t been in cahoots this early on.

On the other hand, Yun Ruoyao, publicly known as the most presentable of the Yun daughters, had lost to Yun Ruoyan in an upset. Even though she had obtained a recommendation from her family, she wasn’t all too happy.

After reading off the information from his register, Envoy Ding opened a redwood box and took out four tokens, one for each of the girls. “This token allows you admission into the imperial territory, and is your proof of identity for when you enter Kongming Academy. Only those who walk out of the territory with this token will be eligible to enter Kongming Academy as a student, and those who either lose their way or lose the token will be ineligible.”

After handing out the tokens and informing them of its use, he left.

Yun Lan looked at the four girls, pleased at the results of the selection. Not only did all his daughters qualify, even his niece had managed to finagle herself a spot. It seemed as if the doors of Kongming Academy had opened up wide for the Yuns.

But when his gaze swept over Yun Ruoyan, he paused for a moment. She stood there silently, her face neither angry nor joyful, but calm and collected.

As for the three girls to her side, Yi Qianying’s face was a furious red. She had unexpectedly obtained passage into the imperial territory, and she still couldn’t hide her excitement.

Yun Ruoyao clutched her token tightly. She had always been decently talented; although Yun Ruoyan had seemed stronger at the start, Yun Ruoyao had quickly eclipsed her. But her unexpected loss to Yun Ruoyan, and the fact that she had had to rely on her family for this token, meant that she couldn’t mask her displeasure.