Chapter 5

Gu Shuyu's Autumn Light Sword cut through the wind. At her side stood a graceful man in pale blue robes, his features handsome, Fang Weiyun's gaze was fixed on Gu Shuyu's heroic bearing, a smile playing in his eyes.
From the colors of their garments alone, you could see the chemistry of a couple.
“Junior sister, are you all right?” Gu Shuyu, ignoring Shen Anzhi and Fang Weiyun beside her, asked with concern as she supported Jiang Yu's arm.
Shen Anzhi glanced at Gu Shuyu from the corner of his eye, a trace of anxiousness to resolve things quickly showing. He was injured; seizing the chance he slit open the wolf's belly. A purple demon core floated up, blood-streaked yet still gleaming.
The demon core flew into the youth's broad palm. Gu Shuyu drew her brows together, her gaze assessing and slightly reproachful. “Junior brother, what are you doing?”
Shen Anzhi's eyes flickered; reluctant, he curled his fingers inward. “Senior sister…”
But when…
When he met Gu Shuyu's gaze, he lowered his eyes and sneered coldly.
Sure enough, even Gu Shuyu had never trusted him.
Jiang Yu pieced it together: imagining the plot's later turns, the second male lead would be corrupted, aside from his identity being revealed and his being cruelly framed, there was one undeniable crime: he swallowed demon cores.
Cultivators normally destroy a monster along with its demon core on the spot, not like Shen Anzhi, who dug the core out to keep it.
Jiang Yu could see her chance.
“Senior sister, it's me. I want that demon core, have junior brother cut it out so I can see it.”
Shen Anzhi was taken aback; the others present were even more puzzled.
In full view of everyone, she seized the demon core from Shen Anzhi's hand; he watched her without a flicker of expression.
She examined it carefully. The moment the wolf's core touched her hand, an icy cold flooded through it, the chill creeping from her palm into her limbs, making her shiver.
Gu Shuyu's expression was grave, tinged with worry. “Junior sister, demon cores are not toys. Destroy it quickly.”
Her hand felt numb with cold, but she forced herself to fiddle with it and softened her voice. “Senior sister, I was wrong, just a moment of impulse.”
She raised her hand to return the core to Shen Anzhi. He glanced at Jiang Yu, closed his fingers together, let out an almost imperceptible sigh, and crushed the demon core.
No one expected what came next: a vast surge of demonic energy suddenly detonated.
Shen Anzhi's sword qi shielded him, though his hand was wounded; Jiang Yu, not far off, fared worse. Her protective jade hairpin spirit tool shattered, her black hair fell loose, a dull pain pressed at her chest, and it felt as if her organs had shifted.
She clutched her chest, barely holding on, and spat a mouthful of blood.
“Junior sister, ” Gu Shuyu had not expected the core to harbor a demon's self-destruct order.
Ever since she was little, Jiang Yu had hated bitterness in all its forms; she never imagined she'd feel this much pain, as if unseen hands were turning and displacing her organs.
So bitter…
Jiang Yu's head lolled to one side; before she lost consciousness she saw the nearby youth's angular hand seize her by the collar, lift her and gently lay her on the ground, cradling her back as he looked down at the blood at the corner of her mouth. Jiang Yu closed her eyes.
How much time passed she did not know.
Jiang Yu lay still on the bed; sunlight stabbed through the lattice. She instinctively raised her eyes to shield them, hands fumbling left and right.
My phone, my phone, why didn't the alarm go off? Do I have an 8 a.m. today…
“Phone, phone…” She couldn't find it and grew impatient. Bleary-eyed, fidgeting, she half-woke and sat up squinting. Taking in the antique surroundings made her head spin; she felt like a beached fish, half-dead, and laid back down with her hands folded over her chest.
There was no dreadful 8 a.m. lecture today, only a deadly mission.
No matter where, everyone is a worker. Congratulations, she'd found her vocation early. Oof!
“Senior sister, who is Shou Ji (phone)?” the voice was cool, a little husky and magnetic, just perfect if you're into voices…
She hesitated, took a sharp, resentful breath like a college student, and sat up. “I was dreaming. In my dream, my phone was my best companion.” She missed it, she couldn't live without it.
Shen Anzhi stepped slowly to the bedside and offered a pill. “Senior sister, take this.”
Jiang Yu pinched up the pill and examined it before putting it in her mouth, glancing askance at Shen Anzhi's expression as she did.
With a faint mocking smile he said, “Senior sister, what are you looking at?”
She chewed the medicine, her thin lips murmuring, “Nothing.” Seeing him about to leave, Jiang Yu hesitated and said, “Junior brother, stay a moment.”
Shen Anzhi paused, then coldly glanced back. He folded his arms and idly flipped the copper coin, letting it roll between his fingers.
“I'll give you the spirit stones, thank you for saving me from the wolf demon,” she said. She was only in an undergarment; speaking, she hurriedly rose, and seeing him toss the copper coin she became nervous and tried to slip away.
At the instant he looked up he saw a small, white figure rummaging for something. His expression stilled; after a brief start his phoenix eyes narrowed sharply. His fingertips unconsciously hooked into the coin's hole and he turned his back abruptly. “You…”
“Ah, junior brother…” Jiang Yu looked back but only saw a hasty retreating figure.
He mumbled something…
Snapping her thoughts back, Jiang Yu weighed the storage pouch in her hand. She blinked, glanced at her clothes and her reddened cheeks, she'd forgotten the story's conservative, pseudo-historical social mores…
She put on a crimson silk cloud skirt embroidered with bright gold threads in auspicious floral patterns. Before the bronze mirror, the pretty girl touched the wooden amulet at her throat with rounded fingertips, the wood carved with her name, warm and lustrous against her skin. Judging by the fraying of the red cord, it had been worn for many years.
A smooth, brocaded mane of black hair flowed like water; Jiang Yu called a nimble shopgirl to fasten her hair into the season's fashionable butterfly bun.
After grooming and ensuring her posture was proper, she went downstairs.
A few cultivators in blue robes sat at a table, swords in hand, chatting idly. Spotting her, they kindly greeted her.
“Fellow cultivator Jiang, are you well?”
“Miss Jiang, you're awake…”
“Miss Jiang…
“Much better, thank you all for your concern.” Jiang Yu smiled and, as agreed, handed over the spirit stones from her pouch and settled the remaining debt with the waiting cultivators.
Being the client felt like this, those who've been there would understand.
The cultivators all beamed, showing no impatience at having waited three days for her.
“Sorry, I was injured earlier and kept you waiting.”
“Oh Miss Jiang, not at all. Next time you have such a good thing, call on us. It is our duty to exterminate demons.”
Jiang Yu lifted her chin just enough to stay in character and answered with composure, “Thank you, fellow cultivators. Fate willing, we’ll meet again.”
When she had finished, Jiang Yu asked the innkeeper where Shen Anzhi’s room was. Hesitant for a moment, she knocked on the door.
After three knocks, Shen Anzhi opened the door lazily. A faint tea scent filled the room; he leaned half his body against the doorframe. For the brief moment she looked up, she realized they were standing a little too close.
The soapberry scent clinging to the youth mixed with the comforting aroma of tea, and for a heartbeat it felt like a slice of tranquil days.
“Senior Sister, what brings you here?”
Jiang Yu shook the pouch of spirit stones she had, handed it to him, and lifted an eyebrow lightly, her pretty face like a charming little chestnut on the move.
“Fulfilling a promise.”
Shen Anzhi took the pouch and glanced at it casually, a smile playing at the corner of his lips, half amusement, half something else. “You gave me too much.”
“Of course I did. You promised to warn me if you were ever in danger, come back as a ghost if you must, but at least let me be a lucid ghost.” Jiang Yu murmured.
Shen Anzhi let a faint, unreadable smile lift one corner of his mouth and, without showing it, shifted the conversation: “Junior brother has one question he can’t help but ask. Why did you lie then? Or did you already know what I intended to do with the demonic pill…”
He frowned and studied her expression, his fingertips rubbing the storage pouch unconsciously. The Jiang Yu before him was somehow different from the harsher version he’d seen before.
Jiang Yu had prepared an excuse long ago; she kept calm and smiled up at him: “You said the demonic pill was valuable and I wanted to see it. You know Senior Sister Gu would never permit trading such things, and I knew you were short on spirit stones. Since you saved me, I set aside old grievances to help you, now it’s even between us.”
“Your twisted logic is something else.” Shen Anzhi opened the door a bit wider; the reflection of her flushed figure shone in his eyes. “Sister Jiang, look me in the eyes.”
Jiang Yu thought, What’s this fiend up to now? Still, she couldn’t help obeying the cadence of his voice and tilted her head to the sculpted, cold-boned face. “What for?”
His deep, clear phoenix-shaped eyes flicked over her like the breeze they'd felt on the cliff when they first met. Shen Anzhi was taller by a head; his narrow eyes were mysteriously beautiful.
Poems from the five thousand years of history described eyes that held a thousand stars, like climbing high enough to pluck them from the sky. There they were, within reach, yet between him and her lay mountains, lakes, and seas, an unreachable distance.
Her expression froze for a moment; her thoughts drifted away before she came back.
Shen Anzhi quietly activated the Crane Sect’s forbidden technique, the True Word Technique.
Jiang Yu had meant to keep her gaze on him, but it was too late. Her pupils gradually lost focus; her eyes dimmed and slackened. She stepped over the threshold and stood in the center of the room.
Shen Anzhi leaned over to look at the obedient, compliant girl. He peered at her brows and the faded light in her eyes and allowed the faintest smile to touch his lips.
He planned to pry open, bit by bit, the spiky poisonous shell of this chestnut to see the face underneath, the pretense, the hand that doled out favors like a cudgel.
“Tell me, who are you, really?” Shen Anzhi slouched against the table and tapped it idly with his hand. He exuded a lazy, dangerous air, calmly waiting for her reply.
Jiang Yu answered sharply, “Jiang Yu.”
Shen Anzhi hooked a sable lock of her hair with his little finger and twirled it at will, a shadow of light burning in his eyes. “Do you bear any malice toward Senior Sister Gu?”
“No.”
“Who are you to Shen Anzhi?”
Jiang Yu paused a moment. “I am Shen Anzhi’s senior sister.”
“What do you hope to gain by getting close to Shen Anzhi?” He tapped her brow with his finger, sweat beading on his forehead as he increased his cultivation to make sure her answers were true.
A confused look crossed the girl’s face; her expression was dull. After a slow moment she said, “I want… I want Shen Anzhi to have happiness. I want Shen Anzhi to like me.”
Shen Anzhi felt blank for a moment. He rose instinctively, finding himself bewitched by her words. Leaning closer, still not satisfied by the distance, he bent down until their faces were near, frowning and fixing his gaze on her, letting out a cold, short laugh with an odd composure.
His finger circled her fragile neck; the pad of his finger barely brushed the side of her throat. His voice, seeping with chill, asked low, “Why are you doing this?”
Jiang Yu hesitated quite a while this time. Her feelings were conflicted, part strategic, part to prevent catastrophe. Slowly the truth came to her and she breathed out three words: “To have a home.”
Home.
Shen Anzhi’s smile was all surface; a dark cloud gathered over his face. His eyes, cold as a frozen star, fixed on her as a faint, secret light flashed across his pupils.
He had never had one, and her aim… was simply to have a home?
Dissatisfied with that answer, Shen Anzhi searched her face for any flaw.