Jingliu: You Said Your Name Is Wei Qing?
Martha nearly lost her soul on the spot.
Jingliu's sudden strike came without warning—so fast and so cold that Martha couldn't even manage a scream. Her throat locked up in pure terror.
But Firefly snapped.
"What do you think you're doing, you bad woman?!"
She threw herself in front of Wei Qing, blazing with indignation, completely forgetting the "get close to her" plan in an instant.
"I won't let you hurt my brother!"
The only saving grace was that she still remembered their cover story as siblings.
"Brother?" Jingliu's voice remained ice-cold, devoid of emotion.
Firefly didn't flinch. She stared Jingliu down, her voice trembling slightly with anger.
"Yes—he's my brother! And what right do you have to attack people for no reason?! Is this how the Luofu's Sword Champion behaves?!"
Martha finally found her voice again. Her face was ghost-pale, but she lunged forward to smooth things over anyway.
"L-Lady Jingliu! This has to be a misunderstanding—there must be! They're new Company employees. If they didn't understand protocol and offended you, I apologize on their behalf!"
She didn't even know what had happened, and she truly didn't believe these two "siblings" could have done anything wrong.
But in this universe, power spoke louder than truth.
And right now, everyone here was still counting on "Flawless Radiance" to keep the front from collapsing.
As she spoke, Martha frantically shot Wei Qing and Firefly a look—begging them to apologize, quickly.
Wei Qing stepped out from behind Firefly, composed and unhurried.
Before Firefly could lunge again, he gently patted her rigid shoulder, signaling her to calm down.
"Lady Jingliu," Wei Qing said, neither servile nor defiant, "my younger sister is hot-blooded and protective. Please forgive her."
"But I'm slow-witted, truly. I don't understand what offense I may have committed that warranted you striking so suddenly."
Jingliu stared at him for several long seconds.
The entire hall fell silent—so silent you could hear a pin drop. People nearby had already noticed the disturbance; every breath seemed to be held.
In that fleeting instant earlier, Jingliu had felt something from this man—something familiar to the point of agony.
It had flashed and vanished like a hallucination, but it still yanked hard on nerves that had been stretched taut for decades.
Was it him?
That traitor?
But the man before her looked different. His features, his aura, his manner—everything was wrong. His Path presence was so faint he almost felt like an ordinary civilian.
And Jingliu didn't believe that man would be so brazen—after what he had done—to stroll up and provoke her in person.
Had she misread it?
Had obsession finally poisoned her senses—so that every shadow resembled him?
At last, Jingliu's killing chill withdrew. The solid ice-sword phantom dissipated into nothing.
Her expression returned to that distant, indifferent calm.
"What is your name?" Jingliu asked flatly.
"Wei Qing," he answered.
…What?
What had he just said?
He said his name was Wei Qing?
"Wei Qing?" Jingliu repeated, each syllable falling like a bead of ice on stone. "Which Wei? Which Qing?"
Wei Qing gave a small, courteous smile.
"Lady Jingliu, you jest. A common Wei, a common Qing. The universe is vast—surely there are many with the same name."
He paused, meeting her gaze without wavering, and added evenly:
"I've heard of the former Luofu general who betrayed the Alliance, of course. When my parents named me, perhaps they wished I'd amount to something… but they never imagined I'd share a name with a figure so infamous. If this has caused offense, I apologize."
Jingliu said nothing, as if weighing something behind her eyes.
The explanation was reasonable. The universe was huge. Shared names were inevitable.
Martha's heart was in her throat. She forced out a stiff laugh, trying to pry open the air again before it crushed them.
"R-Right, Lady Jingliu—what a coincidence, hah…! Little Wei is a hardworking kid, honest too. He just has a big name, that's all—no ulterior meaning!"
Despite only meeting him recently, Martha still rushed to defend him.
And honestly, it made sense. She'd thought the name "Wei Qing" sounded familiar earlier—like she'd heard it somewhere. Only now did it click: it matched the alias once used by that infamous Destruction figure, "Qingzhou."
But decades had passed since the Luofu incident. Back then, Martha hadn't even been born. And by now the whole cosmos called him Qingzhou anyway—no wonder she hadn't made the connection immediately.
"He's with your Company?" Jingliu asked at last.
"Yes!" Martha answered instantly, almost tripping over herself. "He's a genuine Company employee—born and bred! Absolutely no connection to Qingzhou whatsoever!"
She hated herself for not realizing the name earlier.
Jingliu's gaze sharpened again on Wei Qing.
"A Company man…" she repeated. Her tone gave nothing away—neither belief nor disbelief.
Martha nodded so hard her neck nearly snapped.
"One hundred percent! His file is complete. He was sent through official channels. If you doubt it, you can review the records anytime!"
Another suffocating stretch of silence followed.
Jingliu didn't know the Company well—but with its reach across the cosmos, its control systems were likely far more rigorous than the Luofu's own.
Just as Martha felt she might collapse under the pressure, Jingliu finally spoke again.
"The meeting is about to begin."
That was all.
She didn't spare Wei Qing or Firefly another glance. She turned and walked straight toward the primary seats, as though the earlier killing strike had never happened at all.
Martha released a long, shaking breath. Her legs went weak; she nearly toppled and had to brace against a pillar.
"My gods… I thought I was going to die…"
Lowering her voice, she hurriedly told them, "I'm sorry, little Wei—and Firefly too. That one's on me. I completely forgot your name matched Qingzhou's old alias."
"But… thank goodness. Lady Jingliu's mood today doesn't seem… too terrible."
Firefly didn't look particularly bothered. If anything, she seemed irritated.
If not for the mission, she would've loved to test that "bad woman" with her own hands.
"Hmph. Completely unreasonable…" Firefly muttered, glaring at Jingliu's departing back.
"Senior, that woman is too dangerous. We—"
Wei Qing gave a slight shake of his head, cutting her off.
"It's fine. A small incident, nothing more."
Then, quietly—so quietly Martha didn't catch it—he added:
"Her perception is sharper than I expected. She's grown a lot over the years."
Martha mistook Firefly's reaction for fear and quickly tried to soothe her.
"Alright, alright—false alarm. Let's go sit somewhere near the edge."
She leaned in with a pointed reminder, aimed mostly at the "little sister" who looked harmless but clearly had a reckless streak.
"Watch and listen. Don't speak unless you have to."
Join here to read ahead.
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