"Y-You are! What are you doing here?!" Fairy Fei pointed at Yuan with trembling fingers and a shocked look on her face, dumbfounding the Inner Court disciples there.
"S-Senior Sister Fei? Are you okay? Do you know this Outer Court disciple?" Disciple Ying decided to ask her.
"I… I…" Fairy Fei was speechless. How is she supposed to answer such a question? Tell them that she was defeated by this Outer Court disciple in her own field of expertise?
"T-This Outer Court disciple… is my assistant!" Fairy Fei spurted out without thinking.
"Your assistant?" They all looked at her with wide eyes.
'Since when did Senior Sister Fei need an assistant?' Disciple Feng wondered to herself.
'Since when did I become her assistant?' Yuan asked himself with his eyebrows raised in a funny manner.
Fairy Fei immediately panicked, and she corrected herself after clearing her throat, "I-I meant to say that he's my student! That's right! I am currently teaching him how to play the zither!"
"What?! You accepted this Outer Court disciple as your student?!" Disciple Feng exclaimed in a baffled voice. Why did Fairy Fei accept an Outer Court disciple as her student— a man at that— when she, an Inner Court disciple and her friend, has been asking Fairy Fei to teach her the zither?
"He may not seem like it but he has great talent, and I believe that he will eventually surpass me one day…" Fairy Fei spoke whilst trying her best to not choke on her own words due to how ridiculous it sounded for her.
Fairy Fei looked at Yuan with her heart beating like crazy, but when she noticed that Yuan wasn't saying anything, much less call out her bullshit even a few moments later, she sighed in relief inwardly.
"I-If you think I have made a mistake by accepting him as my student, why don't we let him play the zither so you can determine whether he's truly worthy or not?" Fairy Fei suddenly suggested.
The disciples there turned to look at Yuan with suspicious gazes.
'Can he really play the zither?' They wondered inwardly because usually only women would pick up the zither.
"What do you think, Disciple Yuan? Can you play the zither for us? Just one song will be enough…" Fairy Fei looked at Yuan with a stiff smile on her face.
"I don't mind, since I would also like to play the zither again…" Yuan nodded his head after pondering for a moment.
"Great! Come inside!" Fairy Fei's face beamed with delight after seeing Yuan's approval.
"Uhh…"
Disciple Ying and Disciple Feng looked at Fairy Fei with a dumbfounded look on their faces, as Fairy Fei looked to be the most excited one for some reason.
Sometime later, Yuan entered Fairy Fei's house and closed the door behind him before following Fairy Fei and the Inner Court disciples to the yard behind the house, where two more Inner Court disciples were waiting.
"Welcome back, Senior Sister Fei. What took you so long? My ears have gone cold from waiting for your next song!" One of the disciples there said.
"Hmm? Who's that? Eh? An Outer Court disciple? And a man at that? Why is he here?" The other disciple asked after seeing Yuan's figure.
"Junior Sister Zhao, Junior Sister Gu, this is Disciple Yuan, an Outer Court disciple and also my student," Fairy Fei introduced Yuan to the two girls and vice versa.
"S-Student? Senior Sister Fei's student? How come this is my first time hearing about this?" Disciple Gu mumbled, as she has known Disciple Fei for many years now.
"Because it was only recently that I'd accepted him as my student." Disciple Fei said.
"Anyway, Disciple Yuan is going to play one song for us as an introduction."
"You can use that zither over there." Disciple Fei pointed at the beautiful zither sitting on the table a few meters away.
Yuan nodded and sat down behind the zither a moment later.
'Senior Sister Fei is actually letting a man touch her zither? This is… Shocking would be an understatement...' The disciples there looked at Yuan sitting behind the zither with dumbfounded expressions on their pretty faces.
They all knew how much Disciple Fei treasured her precious zither— so much so that even they had never touched her zither before.
Meanwhile, Yuan stared at the elegant azure-colored zither before him with a calm gaze.
After a moment of silence, Yuan lifted his head to look at Disciple Fei and asked her, "Which song should I play?"
"Do you remember the first song you played on that day? You can play that one."
Yuan nodded and took a deep breath before lifting his arms in a slow but smooth manner.
The next moment— Ting~!
A string on the zither trembled, creating a clean and crisp sound that immediately pulled the heartstrings of the disciples sitting not far away from it.
Another beautiful zither note resounded in the area not even half a second later.
'W-What is this feeling?' They all wondered to themselves the indescribable feeling in their heart, completely unaware that they'd just been bewitched by Yuan's zither skills.
Meanwhile, Disciple Fei had long closed her eyes to fully indulge herself in Yuan's zither music.
Time passed very quickly, and before the disciples were aware, Yuan played the last note on the zither.
"What do you think?" Yuan asked the disciples, snapping them out of their daze.
"I… Uhh…"
The disciples were speechless, and they turned to look at Disciple Fei with perplexed looks on their faces. While it was obvious that Yuan's performance was superior when compared to Disciple Fei's performance that occurred before Yuan's appearance, they didn't dare to say it to her face, as that might anger her and get them banned from listening to her performances in the future.
"C-Can you play another song? I don't think I can tell your skills just from a single song…" Disciple Zhao suddenly said.
When the other disciples heard Disciple Zhao's words, they quickly agreed with her, "Yeah! Play another song for us so we can judge properly!"
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Discord is available now in the Author's Note!
