Chapter 48

The moment those words left Qianji’s mouth, Cen Qianshan shot to his feet.
Powerful spiritual force surged through the courtyard, whipping up a blizzard of snow.
Xiao Ya didn’t quite understand what was happening, but she instinctively felt a wave of dread and backed away a couple steps.
From her point of view, Master looked both wounded and furious, it was hard to tell which.
She’d only been in this world ten years, with just a hazy sense of what humans were like. Yet she could feel it, keen as ever: her quiet, always-composed master was truly angry this time.
The blue bricks in the center of the courtyard shifted aside. A complicated array etched in mystic silver rose slowly from below ground. Cen Qianshan performed a blood sacrifice, crimson streaming into the silver-white lines, flooding the formation with a chilling, bluish glow that blanketed the whole yard in a haunting azure light.
The Dongyue Divine Chime hovered at the array’s core, suspended by power. Cen Qianshan’s pallid fingers gripped the purple-gold mallet and struck the cloud-dragon inlay on the chime bowl.
A bell-like note rang out, soft, piercing, as sound waves rippled through the ghostly blue-lit courtyard, the chill tone washing over the heart and flowing far into the depths of the underworld.
After that one note, Cen Qianshan’s arm froze midair, blood trickling steadily from his pale wrist into the formation etched in snow. But he never struck twice. His arm just lingered there, unmoving.
At last, he gave a bitter laugh, tossed the priceless chime into the snow, turned, and strode back inside the shadowed, lamplit house.
“Master, one chime won’t do anything,” Qianji called after him, trotting a few paces closer.
The last time, that chime echoed for who-knows-how-long, Master spilled so much blood, and only then did Master Mu finally appear, just barely in time.
Just one ring like today? What’s the point? Just wastes spirit stones and fresh blood for nothing.
“Back then, I was the one sheltered at Master’s knee, always hiding behind her,” he said, back turned, sitting on his tiny wooden bed. “If even now, I ask her to take risks for me, to bend and compromise... then what have I grown for all these years?”
He curled up slowly on the too-small bed, murmuring to himself, “It’s fine. Doesn’t matter. Sooner or later, I’ll find a way to reach the Immortal Spirit Realm. All I need is time.”
Qianji was about to step forward, but a gentle barrier blocked the way, a quiet wish for solitude from his master.
“Well, guess that’s fine... Let Mu Xue have her fun for a few years,” Qianji’s dopey head spun around, morphing into a fierce, savage face. He mimed a slicing gesture across his neck with a skinny arm, “Once we make it over there, no worries. Those circling vixens won’t even know what hit them.”
The master still lay there with his back to it, utterly still, not saying a word. That shadowy corner was dead silent, so quiet it almost felt as if the person curled up in the darkness had melted away into sleep.
High atop Xiaoyao Peak, Mu Xue sat amidst a swirl of falling blossoms in her courtyard, circulating the Embryonic Breathing Art she’d practiced for so many years.
Within her Spirit Chamber, the dragon and tiger lay at peace, yet now, a new acupoint quietly emerged. Her primordial spirit sat guard, watching that tiny nexus within a nexus, coiled like a hibernating serpent, luminous as a pearl cradled in an oyster. She didn’t have to focus on it; it simply existed, still and present in the boundless inner sea. Her outward breath faded, until a subtle embryonic breath was born in her acupoint, measured, endless, weaving her spirit together with the flow of yin and yang from heaven and earth.
Above, the night sky spun; the stars shifted in their silent dance.
Suddenly, from somewhere far beyond the misty void, a faint ringing of a chime drifted in.
The sound was cold and distant, threaded through with longing from another realm, spreading into the world until it enveloped Mu Xue's seated form.
But as soon as the sound had arrived, it vanished again, retreating like a receding tide, leaving only that lingering note hanging in the air.
Within the Spirit Chamber, starlight stopped moving, water rippled unmoving, utterly still. It was as if that chime had been nothing but a stray hallucination.
Mu Xue’s eyes opened. She lifted her head, gaze seeking the horizon, and in the calm lake at the heart of her mind, her Water Tiger lifted its wet head too, staring off in the same direction.
On the edge of a wooden gallery, Qianji and Xiao Ya perched side by side, watching the snow fall in the courtyard. Four tiny puppet feet dangled over the edge, swinging idly back and forth.
As puppets, they never worried about cold or fatigue. They could afford to sit for hours, lost in thought or simply wasting time together.
Qianji recited one of his favorite theories about human behavior to Xiao Ya: "They say they're not kids anymore, but honestly? That just means they’re craving to be babied like children. Deep down, they still want that kind of attention."
Xiao Ya didn’t answer, just grunted a few garbled sounds that could mean anything, or nothing at all.
Not that it stopped Qianji from carrying on,
"When Master says he’s not that same kid he once was, what he really wants is for Master Mu to dote on him, just like in the old days. So, at times like this, we should…"
That’s as far as Qianji got, because suddenly, Xiao Ya reached over and started shaking him, hard.
Qianji looked up, following Xiao Ya’s gaze. His square jaw literally dropped with a clack.
In the field of snow, the Soul Gathering Array still shimmered with faint blue light. At its center, someone stood. Or rather, stood the primordial spirit of a person. She bowed her head, gazing at the scattered crimson stains across the array. Qianji could almost hear her long sigh.
She didn’t look like she had last time, only a mass of formless, chaotic light then.
Now, her spirit was whole and glowing, her translucent warmth shaped unmistakably into a young woman’s silhouette.
That gentle, golden soul watched the ground for a moment, then drifted over to the two little puppets. She bent down and ruffled their metal heads with her hand.
Warmth radiated through the iron plating, so startlingly real. Her cultivation was so advanced now that her spirit could physically touch things in the mortal world.
A feeling of deep, aching familiarity welled up inside Qianji. It was as if, so very long ago, this same hand had caressed his head again and again, even though he’d once been torn to pieces, rebuilt with no memory at all. Why was this sensation still left behind?
After petting them both, the young woman straightened and walked into the house.
Qianji made to follow, dazed and confused, but Xiao Ya caught his arm from behind. He turned, just in time to see Xiao Ya wink at him, shaking her head ever so slightly.
When he looked back, Master Mu’s primordial spirit had already slipped inside the house. That gentle golden glow illuminated the shadowy room and bathed their master’s loosely draped figure in light.
She stood for a long moment at her master’s side, then slowly sat down, right beside the sleeping figure, her head bowed low.
…
Cen Qianshan slept deeper than he had in years, maybe in his whole life. Comfort, peace, the sense of being utterly safe, wrapped around him like the warmest blanket.
In his dreams, his Master was there just like always, sitting by his bed, her hand cool and gentle as she cupped his cheek, her other hand slowly, soothingly rubbing his back.
That touch seeped all the way into his soul, melting the years, blurring the passage of time. He felt himself floating in a sunlit hot spring, safe, resting, more content than he’d ever been.
In that half-awake, half-dreaming daze, Cen Qianshan cracked open his eyes. He saw his Master seated at her worktable, busily assembling some little device, snowlight slanting through the window, cloaking her figure in softness. Those terrible things, it was all just a nightmare, right?
It felt like the nightmare had gone on forever, a long, cold world he never wanted to visit again, echoing with fear and loneliness.
But thank god, it was only a dream.
Master was still right here, wasn’t she? She had always been by his side. They still had so much time, time for forever, if they wanted.
Cen Qianshan let out a long, slow breath, and drifted peacefully back to sleep.
When daylight flooded the room, Cen Qianshan woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed.
He blinked in confusion, momentarily lost, unsure of what day or year it was. His gaze slid across the empty chair at the worktable, then swept the room, coming to rest on the pair of little puppets nearby.
The puppets nodded at him, and their stiff mechanical voices turned hunch into certainty.
"She was here. She really came."
"Yep, it was her. Master Mu herself."
Cen Qianshan slowly stood and walked to that worktable, the same one that had been lifeless for a hundred years.
Today, for once, the world was bright. Sunlight poured through the window onto the table. There, in the sunlight, the half-finished artifact that had sat untouched for decades, someone had moved it.
With a technique only Cen Qianshan could recognize, every little detail had been lovingly, expertly completed. She’d bridged the years for him, turning a rough draft into a finished gift. Quietly, it waited, gleaming in the afternoon sun.
It was a storage pendant, a necklace with a fine obsidian cord, its black threads etched with subtle, intricate patterns, all culminating in a vibrant ruby pendant. The gleaming red gem looked like a single drop of blood-shaped tear, carved into the form of a dragon coiled amidst clouds. When the sunlight caught it, the fiery stone shimmered with dreamy, shifting light and shadows.
Cen Qianshan reached out trembling fingers, gingerly lifting the necklace. He raised it to the light, staring over and over until, finally, he believed it was real. His hands shook so badly he fumbled countless times, but at last, he managed to fasten the simple pendant around his neck.
The cold jade rested against his chest, sending a chill straight through him.
The ache that had tormented his heart for a hundred years was soothed, just a little, by that gentle touch of cold.
Qianji and Xiao Ya quietly slipped out of the room to clean up yesterday’s chaos in the courtyard.
Qianji picked up their master’s white towel and tossed it into the bamboo basket in Xiao Ya’s hands. “No wonder the boss keeps himself squeaky clean every day, must’ve been waiting for Master Mu to come spoil him like this.”
“Spoil?” Xiao Ya tilted her head. “Is that really the right word for it? Are you sure you’re using it correctly?”
Up on Xiaoyao Peak, a swirl of white cloud shot down the mountainside, carrying a high-spirited girl whipping past in a blaze.
Ye Hangzhou darted after on his flying leaf. “Today’s the finals, but you seem ridiculously upbeat, little junior sister. Especially fired up, huh?”
Perched on her Reflecting Sky Cloud, Mu Xue called back through the morning mist, “That’s right, senior brother! I want to get to the competition as fast as possible, win it, and be done!”
Ye Hangzhou grinned into the wind. “So eager, chasing after that fancy magic artifact in the prize pool? Can’t deny it; every year the tournament rewards are top-grade.”
“Exactly! I want the prize, the glory, I’ve waited long enough for this. Just thinking about it makes me giddy.”
The mountain breeze teased Mu Xue’s hair, carrying her bright, effervescent voice far and wide.