Chapter 28

“Me? I’m Zhang Er Ya.” Mu Xue blinked, caught off guard.
The man opposite seized her shoulders, bending down to peer into her face. The storm in his eyes made Mu Xue’s pulse race. Maybe things weren’t as simple as she’d thought.
A hundred years had passed, and this kid hadn’t forgotten her at all. Still as sharp and sensitive as ever, give him the tiniest clue, and he’d unravel everything.
No, he wasn’t a kid anymore, he’d become a man with the weight and gravity to match.
“Then why did you call yourself Xiao Xue?” Cen Qianshan’s voice was low and drawn out, each word squeezing from his chest.
His grip dug painfully into Mu Xue’s shoulders.
Fu Yun reached from the side, prying at Cen Qianshan’s wrist. “Brother, Xiao Xue is just a nickname we all use for her.”
Cen Qianshan ignored him, staring only at Mu Xue. “You… really don’t recognize me?”
Mu Xue held her chin up, meeting his gaze. In those eyes was something deep and desperate, something she couldn’t bear to name.
She stammered, “I-I do! You’re the Demon Realm’s No. 1. The teacher used you as a case study in class.”
His eyes, locked on hers, flickered, dimming as hope drained away.
Cen Qianshan seemed to snap out of his trance. He let go of Mu Xue’s shoulders, stood straight, gave a hollow, self-deprecating laugh, and shook his head.
“Sorry.” He couldn’t bother to explain, carelessly waved a hand, and walked off on his own.
His lonely figure faded away, a bitter, bone-thin silhouette in retreat.
Xiao Shan used to smile all the time, eyes bright, wild, like a mountain stream racing in the sun. When he was happy, he’d laugh; when he was playful, he’d pout or cry. Always so alive, bursting with energy.
He was nothing like this icy, stifled stranger he’d become.
All these years, he’d been on his own, and it showed.
Mu Xue felt an ache pressing in her chest. She’d always thought dying and fading away was the worst fate. At least those left behind were alive, they’d move on, eventually forget her, and live their own well-earned lives.
But seeing Xiao Shan like this… she realized just how deeply her little disciple had cared. Even after a hundred years, he was so familiar with her that only a few fleeting interactions were enough to make him suspicious.
Time erodes everything. Still, after all these years, someone remembered her, kept her close to his heart. Mu Xue didn’t know if she should feel happy or not.
Her chest thrummed with a heat tinged faintly with bitterness.
Mu Xue sighed and helped Fu Yun find a safer spot. Blood was still dripping from his hand; his face was chalk-pale, but he fretted over her anyway,
“Demonic cultivators can be… strange. While senior brother’s away, you, try to steer clear of them, alright?”
He may have been wary of the demonic path, but as a true gentleman, even as he warned his little junior sister, he refused to badmouth those who’d helped him.
He probably had no idea the junior sister he’d been protecting was only wearing the same “mask” as them, and underneath, she was just as cold and obsessive, a demonic cultivator through and through.
“At last! I’ve been waiting ages.” Miao Hong’er, chewing on a stalk of grass, lounged on the branch ahead. Spotting them, she perked up, hopped down, and sprinted over. “Wait, Xiao Xue, you’re here too?”
Fu Yun was already running on fumes, barely holding it together out of worry for Mu Xue. Now, seeing his senior sister, the weight finally lifted from his chest. The relief hit him all at once, and he couldn’t keep going anymore.
“How’d you get yourself like this?” Miao Hong’er caught him as he stumbled. “Don’t move, I’ll carry you.”
She hauled Fu Yun onto her back. He managed a weak “Senior sister…” before slipping into unconsciousness.
When Fu Yun first joined, Miao Hong’er had been their master’s one and only disciple. The moment this gentle, prodigiously gifted boy showed up, every teacher in the sect adored him at once.
Which made for a sharp contrast to Miao Hong’er, who spent her days scavenging mountains for snacks and getting into trouble.
Back then, she was a little menace, bad-tempered, easily jealous, and coming from a working-class background, she especially hated fake, starchy types who acted all high-and-mighty.
So, whenever she was bored, she’d amuse herself by picking on that terribly pretty little junior brother. She’d throw caterpillars at him for kicks, or pin him down and pummel him during sparring matches, truly diabolical.
After years of this, it’s no wonder they can’t stand each other. Their relationship? Rocky, to say the least.
Fu Yun only calls her “senior sister” when absolutely necessary. Never unless he absolutely has to.
So for him to sound this meek and call her that… He must be seriously hurt. Out of it.
“What happened? Who did this to your senior brother?” Miao Hong’er carried Fu Yun on her back, striding forward with Mu Xue beside her. As she walked, she asked for details.
Mu Xue recounted the whole saga from beginning to end.
When Miao Hong’er heard about the demonic cultivator tying Fu Yun up with a whip, getting all handsy and inappropriate, she stopped in her tracks.
Fu Yun’s pale face, slumped against her shoulder, was smeared with sweat and mud, his hair in tangles. Normally, he was so obsessively clean that just a single caterpillar on his sleeve would send him stomping off to change. Now his signature white robes were torn and filthy, the original color hard to recognize.
“Unbelievable. Both of you got this banged up?” Miao Hong’er clenched her jaw. “So Xiaoyao Peak’s just a punching bag now? Guess you can blame it on how useless I am as your senior sister.”
“Don’t get mad, okay?” Mu Xue tugged at her sleeve. “When I left, word was out, Lu Yihong from Tianyan Sect is dead.”
“Dead? How’d he buy it? Honestly, that guy got off too easy.” Miao Hong’er scowled, clearly still pissed. “If I wasn’t hunting for an antidote, I’d have found him myself and made him pay for his trash.”
“I heard he was poisoned with Red Waist. Cut off his own hands and feet, but the venom still took him in the end. Not a pretty scene.” Mu Xue’s little hand held on to Miao Hong’er, face calm and distant, like she was reciting some random rumor and not something that involved her at all.
Miao Hong’er stared at her for a beat, then grinned, “Nice one, Little Sis. That’s how Xiaoyao Peak does things.”
“Thanks, honestly. That news really cheered me up.”
Outside the Sea of Desire, an abandoned, crumbling town near Divine’s Path had turned into a rest stop for explorers passing through.
The numbers dwindled, making it here meant you could handle yourself. The monsters nearby got stronger, so both righteous and demonic cultivators decided to put aside hostilities and hole up in this tiny town to recover.
The Immortal and Demon Realms are cut off from one another, even within the Twin Divine Domain. Anything from the Demon Spirit Realm can’t be taken back to the Immortal Spirit Realm, and vice versa. But humans are crafty, so here in this little town, trading between demonic and righteous cultivators flourished.
Say you found a cultivation technique from another world: copy it, memorize it, bring it out with you. Or a mechanical gadget, a talisman creation secret, an alchemy recipe, those could all be picked apart, studied till you mastered them, and then brought home to your own realm.
Even culinary delicacies and legendary liquors, favorite songs and juicy storybooks from both worlds were popular trade goods. All fair game for swapping in the domain.
And after you brought all these exotic treats home, their mysterious foreign allure made them instant hits, everyone had to have a taste or a look, sparking new trends in both realms.
After a few months of trading, the black market had grown steady and mature, establishing itself permanently in this little town by Sea of Desire. Those who made it here usually had decent skills, and even better wares to trade.
Miao Hong’er and Mu Xue found an empty little house in the town, a quiet place for Fu Yun to recover.
“Xiao Xue, did you level up?”
“When we crossed Sea of Desire, senior brother passed me a mental cultivation method. With those demonic monsters stirring up my mind, I managed to break through on the spot. Now I actually get the whole ‘dragon-tiger union’ thing, and even picked up the basics of medicine refinement.”
“Wow, that’s a wild method! Guess it was just meant to be.” Miao Hong’er praised her. “Heaven and earth are born of the union of yin and yang. In our bodies, dragon-tiger union births the elixir, it’s the foundation for condensing a Golden Core one day.”
“It’s a rare level to reach, you know. Look at all the foundation-building disciples in our sect, how many ever reach the Golden Core stage? Most can’t grasp the mindset needed, never mind actually getting the ingredients together and refining the core.”
She crouched, ruffled Mu Xue’s hair with genuine warmth. “You gained insight into this at your age? Your roots must be top-tier. Keep up your practice, and you could totally become a Golden Core master like our Head Teacher.”
Mu Xue glanced at Fu Yun, still out cold on the bed, gratitude blooming in her heart. “It’s not my talent, senior brother’s guidance made everything click.”
Miao Hong’er smiled, “Junior brother Yun really is a genius, always has his own unique take on cultivation. These days, I only beat him in martial skills, his cultivation’s left me in the dust.”
She rolled up her sleeves, “Guess I’ll have to eat more from now on and catch up.”
Thinking about their hair-raising trip across the Sea of Desire, Mu Xue couldn’t help but ask, “How did you get across? Ours was so dangerous, I honestly thought we weren’t going to make it.”
Miao Hong’er scratched her head, “Your senior sister’s Dao is, uh, literally food. I didn’t look for a ferry, I just walked along the seabed. Must’ve eaten my way across; everything down there was delicious. I just kept eating and eating, and suddenly, I was on the other shore. Didn’t feel hard at all.”
Miao Hong’er licked her lips, the trip was, honestly, risky. The food in the Sea of Desire was so tempting that she’d nearly gotten lost in it for good. Only the faint weight of responsibility on her conscience got her struggling back to shore.
“They say how tough the crossing is depends on the depth of your obsessions. The deeper, the nastier the monsters the Sea of Desire throws at you.” Miao Hong’er eyed her. “So what exactly were you all hung up on to get hit with waves that wild?”
Mu Xue counted her fingers, puzzled. “But there were only three of us crossing: me, senior brother, and Cen Qianshan.”
“Oh, him!” Miao Hong’er suddenly understood, clearly a fellow gossip fan. “Why on earth would you cross with Xiaoyao Peak’s number one romantic disaster? You’ve heard his epic ‘grieves for his dead master, stays chaste for a century’ saga, right? It’s famous in the Demon Spirit Realm, hell, even the Immortal Spirit Realm retells it.”
Mu Xue was petrified. "Huh?"
"You're still a kid, of course you haven't heard of it. As for Fu Yun, he's such a stick-in-the-mud, he's never into this stuff." Miao Hong'er rubbed her chin, glancing over at the wounded junior brother sprawled across the bed.
Moonlit nights, gentle breeze, a gentleman among the clouds.
And yet, this lofty, proper, by-the-book junior brother of hers actually...walked the path of desire?
If those junior sisters in the sect ever found out, who knows how many would break their vinegar jars in a jealous fit, or cry their eyes out onto silk handkerchiefs.
Just who had managed to steal his heart? No matter how she tried, Miao Hong’er couldn’t wrap her head around it.
Meanwhile, Mu Xue herself was wandering blankly along the paths of their camp, just as lost.
She remembered watching her senior sisters giggle over those romance storybooks, and always thought they were just silly gossip, nothing more. After all, she’d been dead for over a hundred years now. Whatever wild tales people spun about “Mu Xue” hardly surprised her anymore.
But ever since seeing Xiao Shan this time, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling prickling at her heart.
The look in his eyes as he gripped her shoulders kept replaying in her mind, so deep, as if broken glaciers and a century's worth of longing and silent chaos were all hidden in those midnight irises.
The “beloved” in Xiao Shan’s story... God, could he really mean... me?
Did I, back in the day, really do something so irresponsible it gave Xiao Shan the wrong idea?
Mu Xue jolted, shaking her head frantically. It had been a hundred years, after all, she’d reincarnated, memories blurred at the edges, the past a haze.
And yet, the more she denied it, the guiltier she felt.
Unconsciously, she’d wandered to the bustling trading market at the center of camp. Among heaps of cultivation manuals, secret recipes, and musical scores, one classic romance novel was clearly outselling them all.
After wavering for a long while, Mu Xue finally snuck a copy of "Master Mu's Scandalous Disciplinary Tales" into her sleeve and slunk back to her room.
With her senior brother still unconscious in bed and senior sister out hunting for food,
Mu Xue holed up in her little room, locked the door, scanned the area with her divine sense to make sure she was alone, then pulled the book from her robes and cracked open the first page.
Inside, the story began: Cen Qianshan, strikingly handsome, skin like carved jade, was put up for sale as a servant, sparking a bidding war among all the noble heirs who were desperate to claim him as their private plaything.
Even the Lius’ daughter and the eldest Miss of the Yan family joined the fray, neither willing to back down. But in the end, no one could compete with Master Mu’s extravagant offer, and thus, the beauty was won.
Mu Xue covered her face. The drama was ridiculous, sure, but beneath the exaggeration she could spot a few glimmers of truth. Maybe, if she kept reading, she’d remember details she’d long since forgotten.
The next part read: Master Mu was the unrivaled darling of the pleasure scene, a hero amidst powder and perfume. She drifted through life charming every pretty boy in Fuwang City, notorious for her scandalous affairs.
But once she got his hands on Cen Qianshan, she didn’t just rush to ravish him, instead, she schemed to take him on as a disciple, training him up with infinite patience until he turned eighteen. She hosted a drinking banquet for a handful of close friends, then summoned her “apprentice” to serve them all.
And what an “apprentice” he was: silver belt with an obsidian sash hugging that narrow waist, legs long and lithe in jade slippers and gold boots. His brows, drawn with a trace of grievance, framed eyes heavy with unspoken emotion. His face outshone snow, cold and proud, hair dark as ink and sharp as a blade. Like bamboo after rain, or pine needles brushing spring, tainted by romance, torn between resistance and longing.
Master Mu, already tipsy, took one look at that beauty and simply couldn’t help herself. Fueled by liquid courage, she dragged the gorgeous youth behind the curtains...
Mu Xue slammed the book shut, heart hammering in her chest.
She tried to piece it all together, she remembered dying to lightning tribulation, but by that time Xiao Shan was already grown, a gentle, unearthly young man idolized by half the girls in Fuwang City. She really had thrown him a banquet, invited her dearest friends, Hongliang, Uncle Nian, the whole lot. Maybe she had drunk a bit too much out of joy. But as for drunkenly losing all morals and doing something so utterly unhinged... impossible!
Blushing furiously, she hesitated, then cautiously opened the book again.
The next chapter: Master Mu and her rowdy friends placed bets with spirit stones, how long could their prideful little disciple hold out? At first, sounds of resistance and struggle came from behind closed doors, but soon enough, someone’s soft pleas could be heard: “Master, please… spare Xiao Shan this time…”
As eavesdroppers listened, the spring air grew thick, the scent of wine sweeter, soon, no one could tell night from morning in that room.
Poor little Cen, his heart given away in one irreversible mistake.
And Master Mu? Heartless to the end. After the “scandal,” she never stopped chasing after new beauties, sipping tea with Young Master Yan today, meeting Lord Liu tomorrow. Cen Qianshan, once won, was abandoned: nameless, unspoken, all but forgotten.
It wasn’t until her tragic early death that Cen Qianshan proved his devotion; faithful and unchanging, he guarded her memory in a lonely, frigid house for 180 years, never wavering.
What a tragedy! What a waste!
Mu Xue was utterly dumbstruck, wishing she could slap herself awake and force those lost memories back.
If any of this was true, she couldn’t even argue with the heavens for striking her with that bolt of retribution.