Chapter 4
Chapter 4
I returned to Yuzhao Peak with the Cloudweaving Shuttle.
Ning Buchen followed, claiming that he needed to keep nourishing my meridians.
My youngest junior sister glanced at him, then huffily added a line to the sign standing before the mountain gate.
It had read: DISCIPLES OF WUXIANG PEAK AND DOGS SHALL NOT ENTER.
Now it read: NING BUCHEN EXCEPTED.
Ning Buchen followed me into my courtyard.
I poured him tea, and we sat facing each other across a stone table.
The imposing manner he had shown at Qingwei Peak had vanished. He cradled his cup and looked everywhere—the sky, the ground—except at me.
Amused, I propped my chin on my hand and stared openly, curious how long he could pretend to study the clouds at the horizon.
His pale earlobes turned scarlet.
At last, he admitted defeat. “Senior Sister, don’t look at me like that.”
I smiled. “I’m not even allowed to look?”
The fingers resting on the table curled slightly. Instead of answering, he asked, “Senior Sister, if Senior Brother Xie returns, will you…”
“You think I can’t let him go?”
He pressed his lips together and said nothing.
“Then why did you tell me not to marry him?”
“Senior Brother Xie is not a good man for you.” He lowered his head, his raven-black lashes concealing the emotion in his eyes. “A clean break now is better than a lifetime of torment.”
I fell silent.
I had heard those words from Ning Buchen before.
Eight years ago, I had not yet become a cripple stripped of her cultivation.
Several fellow disciples and I had escorted a group of inexperienced juniors down the mountain for training.
Everyone knew how I felt about Xie Qingxing, so whenever the party divided, they deliberately paired us together.
That time was no exception.
Xie Qingxing and I led the younger disciples to purge Liucheng of the evil spirits plaguing it.
The intelligence had been wrong. The creatures inside the city were far beyond what the juniors could handle. Xie Qingxing and I fought desperately and barely managed to escort them near the gates.
Then Xie Qingxing found a scented sachet on the ground. It smelled of medicine.
He decided that Meng Zhiyuan might be somewhere in the city.
On that slim possibility, he abandoned me without hesitation and turned back.
I suggested that we first get the juniors outside.
Impatiently, he said the gate was only a hundred paces away and that I could manage alone.
He had forgotten that the spiritual energy in our bodies had already drawn every evil creature in the city.
For those final hundred paces, I fought with the resolve to take the entire city’s horde into death with me. Only then did I keep everyone alive until Ning Buchen, the nearest reinforcement, arrived.
I collapsed outside the walls, drenched in blood.
Xie Qingxing emerged carrying an unharmed Meng Zhiyuan.
Ning Buchen had said the same thing to me then.
“Senior Sister, Senior Brother Xie is not a good man for you.”
But my mind had been filled with Xie Qingxing alone.
I neither heard Ning Buchen’s warning nor noticed the red rims of his eyes and the fingers clenched white around his sword.
Two mornings later, I received a message crane from Xie Qingxing.
He wrote that he had found a way into the Demon Realm and would return by autumn at the latest to marry me.
Expressionless, I burned the message to ash.
When I raised my head, I met Ning Buchen’s searching gaze.
Our eyes met. He looked away with slight discomfort.
“He says he’ll come back in autumn to marry me.”
I opened my hand and let the wind carry away the ashes.
Ning Buchen blurted, “Senior Sister, you can’t trust him!”
He seemed to realize how that sounded and pressed his lips together. “I mean… you should think carefully.”
I rested my chin on one hand.
“Buchen, has your senior sister ever lied to you?”
He shook his head.
“Then why does no one believe me when I say I’m done with Xie Qingxing?”
He was silent for a long time.
When he finally spoke, his voice was strained.
“Senior Sister, it isn’t that I don’t believe you.”
“I’m afraid.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
He suddenly rose, came around the table, and knelt so that our eyes were level.
“Senior Sister, look at me.”
He drew my hands to his face.
Light shimmered in the young man’s almond-shaped eyes.
“I’m not the child I was then.”
“Senior Sister, look at me. I don’t want to be one step too late every time.”