Chapter 91
Chapter 91
Five years passed in the blink of an eye.
The two disciples, now over ten, stood a head taller than their peers and grew more striking in both appearance and bearing by the day.
Everyone on Huai’an Lane, where Zhu Yin and the others lived, knew them.
Naturally, they knew Zhu Yin as well.
When this mysterious, beautiful young woman first arrived ten years ago with two swaddled infants, many people assumed she was a young, lovely, and wealthy widow.
Some pitied her.
Some wanted to arrange a match for Zhu Yin. She might have come with two burdens in tow, but anyone who could buy such a large residence clearly possessed considerable wealth. She was young as well. Plenty of people would fancy a widow like that!
Others with ill intentions secretly set their sights on the household.
Then two black-robed figures of strange and eerie bearing inexplicably appeared in the residence.
Only then did the mortals of Huai’an Lane belatedly realize that the young and beautiful Lady Zhu Yin might be one of the legendary cultivators!
They could hardly be blamed for not considering it at first. Many races mingled in Nandu, but its districts were still divided by status and wealth.
No powerful cultivator or wealthy dignitary had ever thought much of this neighborhood.
Now ten years had passed.
The tiny swaddled infants had begun growing into graceful, handsome youths, yet Lady Zhu Yin’s face remained as young and radiant as it had been ten years earlier, like a girl of sixteen, without the slightest change.
The neighbors on Huai’an Lane became even more certain of their guess. Those who had once harbored ill intentions broke into cold sweats, grateful that greed had not blinded them into doing something irreparable.
Zhu Yin did not care what outsiders thought of her.
Her children had grown, and being their master brought new worries.
The first was that her disciples had developed tastes of their own.
No matter how Zhu Yin coaxed him, Yun Lie refused to wear the light, ornate dresses she liked anymore.
Xixi was now a little taller than her senior brother. Probably for reasons Zhu Yin could not say aloud, she too rarely wore those fluffy, adorable dresses anymore and preferred neat, narrow sleeves that allowed freedom of movement.
Still, they remained dependent on Zhu Yin. They clung to Master whenever they had time and came to her house every single day to share meals with her.
Something was wrong with the children today.
Yun Lie entered carrying an oil-paper parcel. A familiar fragrance drifted from within.
It was roast chicken from an old shop in the western lane. The recipe had been passed down through generations, and the aroma could be smelled from two streets away.
Zhu Yin loved the flavor. Whenever the children went out, they often brought one home for her.
Yun Xi also carried a parcel containing a new dress from Rainbow Robes Pavilion.
When they first earned money by themselves the previous year, they had been tremendously excited and immediately bought one gift each for Master.
Only when they returned home to present their treasures did they realize the problem: they had never decided how to explain where the money came from.
The children racked their brains for an excuse, wondering what story they should invent when Master asked.
Unexpectedly, Zhu Yin asked nothing. She accepted her disciples’ “filial offerings” with a smile.
From then on, they occasionally brought Zhu Yin gifts: sometimes a packet of pastries, sometimes an amusing toy, or perhaps an exquisite hairpin.
Zhu Yin cleared an additional room in her storage space specifically for these little objects.
“What happened? Are you unhappy?”
Heiwu stepped forward and took the objects from the two young masters.
Heipao promptly offered them two cups of tea brewed with Immortal Spirit Spring Water.
Both moved with extraordinary ease. They had clearly done similar things countless times.
Yun Lie and Yun Xi were no longer ignorant children, especially after growing old enough to go out and see the wider world.
They had therefore learned that Uncle Heipao and Uncle Heiwu did not look normal.
The water they had drunk since childhood neither tasted like ordinary water nor was the same thing at all.
Then there were the exceptionally delicious meats and fruits they ate from time to time.
They had visited the markets where Master claimed one could buy anything. Those places clearly had none of it!
But just as Master never asked where they went when they disappeared for half a day, nor where their silver came from,
the children Zhu Yin raised never insisted on solving those mysteries.
After gulping down her tea, Yun Xi moved closer, affectionately wrapped herself around Zhu Yin’s arm, and nestled against her.
After she began studying the sword, the girl had spent some time obsessed with acting “cold and taciturn” and no longer liked drawing close to Zhu Yin.
That phase had ended after two years, but she still rarely showed such vulnerability.
Zhu Yin expertly rubbed her little head, then looked questioningly at Yun Lie, who was slightly older.
Yun Lie said gloomily, “We have a friend whose mother fell ill and died.”
Zhu Yin understood.
She was not skilled at comforting others over death. After thinking for a moment, she secretly nudged Barbara.
The pink kitten understood at once. It jumped lightly into the girl’s arms and rubbed against her face.
Then it repeated the process with Yun Lie.
Holding the cat that had accompanied him since childhood, Yun Lie stared without blinking at Zhu Yin. “Master, you will always, always stay with Junior Sister and me, right?”
They had learned many things from the swordsman who had become their teacher almost by accident. They knew Master was a “cultivator” who could live for a very long time and was not as fragile as their classmates’ parents and elders.
The neighbors said Master had looked this young for ten years. Then, over the next ten years, and the ten after that…
Surely they could spend many, many decades with Master?
Zhu Yin froze.
She could not make that promise.
Forget many decades. In truth, she could not even spend the next one with them.
Zhu Yin did not answer.
The two children, encountering the prospect of parting and death for the first time, looked at her in alarm.
Zhu Yin did not want to pacify them with a lie meant for little children. “Yun Lie, Yun Xi, you are big children now. In a few years, you will grow into mature adults.”
She gazed at them gently. “You have paths of your own to follow and long futures ahead. Master can accompany you for only part of the journey.”
She used their neighbor across the way as an example. “Look at Brother Wang next door. He grew up, married, established a household, and moved to a new home. You ate the wedding sweets from his family two years ago.”
“The people who will accompany him for the rest of his life are his wife and children.”
“Xixi will not listen!” The girl beside her threw a rare tantrum and declared loudly, “Xixi will never take a wife or establish a household. Xixi will stay with Master!”
Yun Lie froze, then instinctively corrected her. “Dummy, girls do not take wives. Taking a wife is something boys do!”
His junior sister glared fiercely at him.
Yun Lie immediately cast that trivial point aside. Still holding Barbara, he moved closer and shouted even louder than Yun Xi, “I will not marry or establish a household either! I will always stay with Master!”
Zhu Yin tapped both their little heads and laughed. “Two tiny bean sprouts talking about marriage.”
Inwardly, however, she began to worry.
She had thought the mission in this world would be simple. All she had to do was raise two children.
As long as she kept them alive, sent them to an immortal sect after fifteen years, then followed the plot and peacefully faked her death, everything would be perfect.
But fifteen years was enough to form a deep attachment even to a small pet.
How much stronger would that attachment become with two obedient, thoughtful human children who wheedled sweetly, saved money to buy her gifts, and called her Master in soft little voices?
Zhu Yin finally understood.
The parting five years from now would be extraordinarily cruel to these two children.