INE Chapter 120: Sugar Art

The nearest city to the Divine Sect was Xuanji City.

By the time the moon hung above the willows, the long streets were already ablaze with lantern light stretching for miles, turning night into day. The crowds were endless, lively and bustling.

It was now the winter month, and snow had settled atop rows of lanterns.

Beautiful women with cloud-like hair and fragrant cheeks walked beneath the lights, their faces glowing under the lanterns. As they moved, the light and shadow shifted across their features.

The play of light traced over their graceful figures, making them appear like fish swimming through the sea.

In the midst of the crowd, Gu Baiyi led Sanhua toward a covered bridge.

After walking for a while, she found the perfect spot and came to a stop.

The spot Gu Baiyi chose was excellent, standing at the bridge’s edge, one could clearly see the splendidly illuminated Taiping Hall across the river.

Sanhua glanced around at the women nearby, then mimicked their posture, placing her hands delicately on the railing.

Her imitation was quite accurate, though still a little stiff and unnatural.

Gu Baiyi noticed all of this and quietly held back her laughter.

Sanhua, unaware that her little gestures had been fully seen through, kept her gaze fixed on the Taiping Hall and asked calmly, “What is that place?”

“That’s Taiping Hall, the residence of Xuanji City’s city lord.”

“I see.”

Sanhua turned her eyes away and looked at Gu Baiyi. “You never leave the Divine Sect and are hardly involved in worldly matters. How do you know so much?”

Gu Baiyi looked at Sanhua’s serious expression and couldn’t help but smile. “Someone once took me to Taiping Hall. That’s why I know.”

Sanhua didn’t ask who that person was, because her attention had already been caught by something else.

Gu Baiyi followed her gaze and saw a group of girls gathered around a small vendor stall, their eyes wide with anticipation.

One girl in a goose-yellow dress stood beside the stall, laughing as she said to the others, “I rolled a butterfly! What did you all get?”

“I rolled a dragonfly." another girl replied, sounding a bit disappointed.

“Sigh, I’ve been rolling for a whole month and still haven’t gotten a phoenix.”

Sanhua’s expression didn’t change, but she was inwardly puzzled, what exactly were these girls doing?

She stepped closer for a better look and saw various sugar paintings stuck into a straw target.

The girls were clustered around a dice cup, taking turns rolling dice.

Each side of the die had a picture of a sugar painting, presumably, whatever image they rolled, the vendor would make that sugar figure for them.

One girl had just rolled a butterfly, and the vendor quickly scooped up a ladle of syrup, pouring it skillfully unto the stone slab.

The syrup streamed out in sparkling lines, gradually taking the shape of a butterfly.

Once the figure was complete, the vendor stuck a wooden skewer into it.

When the syrup had fully hardened, he gently lifted the sugar butterfly with a small spatula and handed it to the girl.

She took it, gazing at the beautiful butterfly with a mixture of delight and reluctance.

After a moment’s hesitation, she finally made up her mind and took a bite.

Chewing the sweet syrup, she beamed and said to her friends, “The butterfly tastes amazing.”

“……”

Shouldn’t the sweetness come from the syrup, not the shape? Why did she make it sound like the pattern itself made it taste better?

Sanhua didn’t get it.

Logically, it was the same vendor, the same syrup, shouldn’t they all taste the same?

The girl who had rolled a dragonfly watched her friend eat with envy and muttered, “No matter how good the butterfly is, it can’t compare to a phoenix.”

Hearing this, Sanhua fell silent.

Gu Baiyi had been right, having never lived among mortals, she truly couldn’t understand how their minds worked.

Sanhua was about to look away when she noticed Gu Baiyi still watching the sugar painting stall.

She narrowed her eyes and thought, Don’t tell me… she actually likes sugar art, just like those girls?

But no, that couldn’t be it.

Gu Baiyi was only watching because she noticed Sanhua was staring, probably assuming she wanted to buy one.

When Gu Baiyi turned to look at her, she saw that Sanhua’s expression hadn’t changed at all.

That led her to another guess: Maybe Sanhua really does want a sugar painting, but she’s holding back because she’s a lofty immortal.

With that thought, Gu Baiyi pointed at the stall and smiled. “Does the True Immortal want to take a look?”

Sanhua thought to herself, As expected, she wants a sugar painting, but is pretending it’s for me. How odd.

She was about to decline, but then remembered that mortal lifespans were short. Even cultivators only lived a few centuries.

Gu Baiyi couldn’t cultivate, so at most, she might live to a hundred. With only a century to live, yet still too reserved to ask for a sugar painting… how pitiful.

Sanhua decided to be a compassionate immortal for once. She nodded and said, “Let’s take a look.”

As the two approached the sugar painting stall, both the girls and the vendor were left momentarily stunned.

In all their years, they had never seen such beautiful people, it was as if immortals from storybooks had stepped into the mortal world.

The girls remembered tales their mothers had told them.

Stories of two immortals who once descended to the mortal realm, their beauty unparalleled. One had long since returned to the beyond, while the other loved mountains and rivers, rarely seen by ordinary folk.

But now the girls thought, even those two legendary immortals might not compare to these two standing before them.

Sanhua didn’t know what the girls were thinking. To her, their faces were all blurry.

In the language she’d learned in another world: she had face blindness. Everyone looked like pixelated blobs to her.

With that thought, Sanhua looked up at the one person who didn’t appear pixelated, Gu Baiyi.

She still couldn’t figure out why this person didn’t blur like the others. But being naturally lazy, she didn’t care enough to dig deeper.

Looking at Gu Baiyi, Sanhua asked, “What kind of sugar painting do you like?”

“……”

Gu Baiyi was silent for a moment.

Before asking what kind of sugar painting someone liked, shouldn’t you first ask if they even liked sugar paintings?

Apparently, Sanhua had skipped that step entirely, just assuming Gu Baiyi liked them.

Right now, Gu Baiyi had misunderstood in turn, she thought Sanhua liked sugar paintings and just wanted to use her name as an excuse to buy one.

Thinking that since Sanhua liked them, she had no choice but to go along with it, Gu Baiyi answered after a pause, recalling that move Nirvana performed by Ji Rong: “A phoenix.”

The girls nearby didn’t find the answer surprising.

Who wouldn’t want a beautiful phoenix?

The street vendor snapped out of his daze. Seeing that both Sanhua and Gu Baiyi had the looks of fairy maidens and were dressed in fine robes, he put on a wide smile and eagerly introduced his game:

“Ladies, one throw of the dice is just twenty wen. Whatever pattern you roll, I’ll make it for you.”

Sanhua nodded, then casually pulled out a silver note from her sleeve and handed it over.

The vendor was puzzled, who paid for sugar paintings with a silver note these days?

He took the note, only for his hand to tremble violently when he saw the denomination. He nearly knelt on the spot from the shock.

After a long moment, he moved his lips and hesitantly said, “Miss, this… this note, I’m afraid I don’t have enough change.”

Sanhua wasn’t too familiar with how mortal currency worked and had randomly conjured up a note.

She didn’t know the value, but Gu Baiyi did. A hundred taels of silver was worth a staggering amount of copper coins.

Gu Baiyi was just about to quietly remind Sanhua when Sanhua said boldly, “No need for change.”

Gu Baiyi: “…”

Well, looks like there’s nothing for her to do here.

The vendor was dumbfounded.

“No change? Even if I painted sugar figures until my next life, I still couldn’t use it all up.”

Sanhua replied calmly, “Just one is enough.”

At those words, the vendor finally understood.

He was in luck today! He’d run into a rich lady with more silver than she knew what to do with.

Suppressing his excitement, he accepted the silver note with trembling hands, then picked up the ladle to prepare the most beautiful, elaborate phoenix sugar painting he could.

But just then, Sanhua turned and walked toward the dice cup, as if she was going to roll it herself.

The vendor panicked.

To keep kids coming back, he’d tampered with the dice, it was rigged never to land on the phoenix.

If she didn’t roll a phoenix, would she get disappointed and take back the note?

He was sweating. He wanted to stop her and just make her a phoenix outright.

But with so many people crowding around, saying anything now would only make him look suspicious, someone was bound to call him out.

So he shut his eyes and steeled himself:

No matter what she rolls, I’ll just draw a phoenix.

But before he even opened his eyes, shrieks of excitement burst from the girls around him.

“A phoenix! She rolled a phoenix, fairy sister got a phoenix!”

“No way! I’ve been trying for a month and never got one. Her luck is incredible!”

The vendor was stunned. He opened his eyes, stepped closer, and stared at the phoenix pattern on the die, his sense of reality crumbling.

He had rigged those dice. A phoenix shouldn’t even be possible!

Standing next to Sanhua, Gu Baiyi had seen everything clearly.

When Sanhua tossed the die, her expression was calm, but Gu Baiyi had noticed the subtle movement of her fingers hidden in her sleeve.

She couldn’t help but laugh to herself, so even a dignified true immortal would secretly use spiritual power just for a sugar painting.

Sanhua, on the other hand, didn’t feel she had done anything wrong.

After all, she’d sensed the dice were rigged from the start. Using magic was simply evening the odds, hardly immoral.

The immoral part was yet to come.

A girl in a pale yellow dress watched the vendor begin his phoenix painting with clear envy.

She gritted her teeth, pulled out some copper coins, and took her turn at the dice.

And then, 

“Oh my god! I got a phoenix! A phoenix!”

“Me too! I got one too! Come on, girls, let’s all try!”

The sound of dice rattling in the cup echoed crisply.

In just the blink of an eye, there were over a dozen phoenixes.

The vendor stared at the identical phoenix results, his face turning green.

Sanhua stood to the side, holding the phoenix sugar painting he’d handed her, watching the chaos unfold with cold detachment.

But the corners of her lips couldn’t help lifting into a faint smile.

“Is the true immortal happy?”

Sanhua was, in fact, a little happy.

That vendor had been swindling girls for ages. Now he was finally getting a taste of his own medicine.

He’d probably spend the whole night replacing his dice.

“Yes." Sanhua said with a nod, then handed the phoenix sugar painting to Gu Baiyi.

Gu Baiyi looked at the candy, then at Sanhua’s calm expression.

Sanhua was clearly the one who wanted the sugar painting, so why was she giving it to her?

Sanhua frowned when Gu Baiyi didn’t take it. Didn’t Gu Baiyi want one? Why wasn’t she accepting it now?

After a moment of thought, Sanhua added, “It’s a gift.”

Then, as if sensing her tone was too stiff, she made a conscious effort to pull up the corners of her mouth into a small smile.

After all, in every world, when people give gifts, they usually smile. It made things seem normal, genuine.

Only, when that smile appeared on Sanhua’s face, it looked anything but normal.

Gu Baiyi looked at the woman standing before her.

Sanhua held the phoenix sugar painting in her hand, her smile faint.

Even such a slight smile looked forced and awkward.

And yet, Gu Baiyi found her incredibly endearing.

So much so that she wanted to laugh, but felt that now probably wasn’t the time.

After a moment, she reached out and took the sugar painting from Sanhua’s hand.

Looking into her eyes, Gu Baiyi smiled softly and said,

“Thank you, True Immortal. I really like it.”