Chapter 603: Owe You a Favor

　　The rough and hoarse scratching sound was extra clear in the silent night.

　　As time slowly trickled past, Chu Liuyue still maintained this posture as if she didn’t know what lethargy was. But in actual fact, her arms were aching more than ever as if they weren’t her own.

　　Now, she was just forcefully hanging on with her willpower. Only when she really couldn’t take it would she stop for a slight while.

　　But most of the time, she was still refining the Cloud-Sky Copper Sword.

　　A night quickly passed.

　　When the sunlight shone on Chu Liuyue the next morning, she finally put her sword down and stood on the star stone as she stretched her body.

　　Pilipala!

　　Chu Liuyue then felt that she had become alive again.

　　After resting for a while, she picked up the Cloud-Sky Copper Sword again to see what was the result of her night-long refinement. Then, her expectant expression suddenly froze.

　　Only a thin layer of this Cloud-Sky Copper Sword had been shaved off! Compared to its thick and wide sword body, it could directly be ignored.

　　If it weren’t for the scratches that had clearly been smoothed out, she would almost suspect that the sword didn’t undergo any changes at all.

　　She widened her eyes slightly in disbelief and kept flipping the sword to scrutinize it. After a long while, she accepted reality with much difficulty. I didn’t sleep the entire night and kept refining the Cloud-Sky Copper Sword, but it didn’t even make any actual progress!

　　“Girl, why are you anxious? Do you really think a good sword can be made so easily?” The ancestor seemed to have already expected Chu Liuyue’s reaction as he slowly spoke.

　　“I still thought…” Chu Liuyue exhaled. I can finally somewhat understand why Ancestor said that the entire process would exhaust a large amount of energy and strength. This is much more difficult than I had expected.

　　“Don’t worry. Yesterday was just the first day, and you weren’t very familiar with it. You will know how to use your force as you do it more, and it’ll naturally be much faster,” comforted Shangguan Jing.

　　“Thank you for your teaching, Ancestor.” Chu Liuyue put away the Cloud-Sky Copper Sword and the star stone, planning to come back later at night as she had already prepared herself for a long-term battle. No matter what, I must make this sword!

　　…

　　Chu Liuyue returned to Qing Yuan Mountain, briefly tidied up for a while, and went to the medicinal garden as per usual.

　　Without the Messed Yuan Gravel’s effects, all the herbs were growing very smoothly. However, she realized that her senior brothers and senior sisters were much busier.

　　Usually, they would come up to the medicinal garden to take a look, but Chu Liuyue had stayed there alone for a very long time. Only when she was about to leave did she see a senior sister.

　　After talking to the senior sister, Chu Liuyue then knew that they were preparing for the clan competition a month later.

　　When the news spread, all of the disciples in Chong Xu Cabinet treated it very seriously. They all knew very clearly that almost everyone was targeting Chong Xu Cabinet this time around.

　　Jiu Xing Alliance and the other clans had been eyeing their position as one of the top four clans for a very long time. They clearly had a part to play in pushing forward the competition.

　　As long as they were strong enough and performed sufficiently outstanding during the clan competition, they could save Chong Xu Cabinet’s current status. Therefore, everyone became very hardworking in their cultivation.

　　Chu Liuyue came to Weichi Song’s residence alone. He was sitting on a stone bench in the yard when she arrived, with a chessboard placed on the stone table in front of him.

　　That chessboard looked familiar.

　　Chu Liuyue took a closer look and recognized the chessboard as the one she had given to Weichi Song.

　　At that time, she was still young and personally found the raw jade to carve on it. But as the jade material was too hard, she had spent a lot of strength to do it well, and there were some details that weren’t smooth.

　　When she thought about it later, she even felt that the item couldn’t be seen. She thought that he had long thrown that chessboard to some corner, but she didn’t expect… He still kept it in one piece.

　　“Mentor,” she called lightly.

　　Weichi Song recovered his senses, but his eyes still looked a little dazed. It was obvious that he wasn’t looking at the chess game previously but was thinking about something else. “Liuyue? You’re here.”

　　Chu Liuyue walked over and carefully sized Weichi Song up before feeling a chill in her heart. It has just been one night, but Weichi Song seems to have suddenly aged by quite a few years.

　　His eyes were red, and there were dark circles beneath them as if he didn’t sleep the entire night. He looked very frail.

　　It was obvious that the incident yesterday had impacted him greatly.

　　Chu Liuyue vaguely felt her head ache, and she quickly looked down. “Mentor, I came here today to give you something.”

　　Weichi Song looked at her in confusion.

　　Chu Liuyue took out some items from the Cosmic Ring one by one.

　　At the start, Weichi Song hadn’t understood what was going on. But after he opened two boxes consecutively, he immediately realized something and looked at Chu Liuyue in shock. “This is…”

　　“These are all the items you sold to Hundred Herbs Building previously. I redeemed them for you,” said Chu Liuyue as she took out the last few items.

　　A small hill quickly accumulated beside the duo’s feet.

　　“Other than those that have already been sold, the remaining ones are here,” said Chu Liuyue.

　　Weichi Song dazedly stared at those items as his lips trembled slightly. “…Liuyue… Y-you don’t have to do this…”

　　Chu Liuyue said, “I don’t know which one you can’t bear to part with, so I tried my best to bring all of them back. Some of these items might be something normal to other people, but they might be very important to you. Since I have the capabilities, I should help you.”

　　Something seemed to be stuck in Weichi Song’s throat. He looked at Chu Liuyue after a long while and had a complicated gaze. “How did you get so much money?”

　　He knew that Chu Liuyue spent Mu Qinghe’s money when she first went to Hundred Herbs Building. But now, she had already moved out of the Mu Residence, and she basically didn’t have many interactions with Mu Qinghe. Hence, she definitely couldn’t be spending his money.

　　Also, the price for all these items added up wasn’t low…

　　“You don’t have to worry about this. If I couldn’t afford them, I wouldn’t have helped you bring them back.” After Chu Liuyue finished talking, Weichi Song still seemed to be quite worried. Hence, she could only tell Weichi Song about her extorting money from Jian Fengchi.

　　Of course, she only briefly mentioned it and didn’t talk about the details.

　　But after Weichi Song heard it, he was still very stunned. He only knew that Jian Fengchi loved to play, but he didn’t know that he was so good at this and earned so much money in such a short amount of time.

　　But after listening to Chu Liuyue, he did feel much better.

　　Seeing the items accumulated by his feet, he was silent for some time before finally saying, “Since this is so, I won’t decline it anymore. Liuyue, I owe you a favor.”

　　Chu Liuyue lightly shook her head. “Mentor, I’m your disciple. You saying that is like you see me as an outsider.”