The Cicada Sloughs Its Shell — Your Grave Will Surely Be Covered in Flowers...

The blue-maned horse hadn't gone far. It stopped before a jutting boulder on the mountainside, where a short-haired youth in blazing red robes sat cross-legged, one hand resting loosely at his side, the other propped beneath his chin. His gaze drifted into the distance, the very picture of idle boredom.

The mountain breeze stirred his hair in small waves and set the long earring dangling from his left ear swaying gently, its pearl glint casting flickering patches of light across his cheek.

He sat upon the boulder, yet no shadow fell from him onto the stone—which meant the youth was no living man, but a ghost.

Plainly, this was the very "Lin Qingyun" who had just had his throat slit and a blade driven through his heart.

But a pierced throat and heart were nothing to him. That attacker's limited cultivation and that pitifully weak knife couldn't have done him any real harm.

He didn't even need to abandon his mortal shell, because there was no need at all—yet Lin Qingyun had done so anyway, staging the image of his own death.

Lin Qingyun muttered to himself, "This is a good opportunity—well, we've come this far, and Wen County isn't far off now. I taught Xiao He breathing techniques and a set of sword forms, enough to handle ordinary folk."

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. No matter how much I teach, it's still better for her to experience things herself... I can't very well keep playing Lin Qingyun forever, escorting her to apprentice under some master and become a great swordswoman, just to come fight me, can I? Though Xiao He could never beat me."

"I'm a busy man, after all. Where would I find the time to run around with a little girl? A few days of amusing her is about right; any longer and it stops being fun—"

He talked on, spinning excuses for his own behavior as he went.

But these were all just ornaments layered over the truth. There was only one reason he'd seized the chance to fake his death and slip away from He Zhuoming: she was too strange.

He couldn't even understand why he'd agreed to let her stay and dig graves with him, or to escort her to Wen County. Sometimes he nearly felt admiration for the frail little girl, because she could so easily stir his emotions while remaining completely oblivious to it all.

So weak, so helpless, so pitiable.

And yet she stood as his equal.

But after sitting in a daze for a while, Lin Qingyun suddenly spoke to himself again: "Now that I'm dead, I wonder how Xiao He is crying."

"Sigh. She was always quick to cry. She's probably terrified—cultivator disputes don't touch mortals, but there was blood and death all the same... She'll cry herself out and then get hungry. I left a big bundle of snacks behind, more than enough to last her to Wen County... Say something."

He suddenly stretched out a leg and kicked the blue-maned horse standing nearby.

The horse was silent for a moment, gauging his intent, then spoke cautiously: "Then... would you like to go back and check on her?"

Lin Qingyun snorted. "Go back? I faked my death precisely to shake off that trouble—and you want me to go back? If she grabs me and cries, are you going to peel her off me?"

"If your mouth can't say anything useful, shut it. You talk just as uselessly as your brain."

The blue-maned horse shut its mouth and gave its head a small shake.

On its head still sat that bamboo-woven hat. The hat was a poor fit, uncomfortable to wear, and it kept making its head itch.

Lin Qingyun caught sight of the bamboo hat and his face went cold. "Why are you still wearing that hat?"

The blue-maned horse: "..."

Lin Qingyun was deeply annoyed. "Xiao He is already pitiful enough, small and fragile as she is—and you had to take her hat too? What kind of dragon, strong and sturdy as you are, wears a hat? Have you no conscience at all?"

The blue-maned horse again gauged his intent and answered calmly: "I'll return it to her."

Lin Qingyun didn't accept that answer either. "You return it to her, and then she'll keep you there, and you'll have the perfect excuse to slack off and avoid work, right? Qing Yang, I never took you for such a lazy dragon. Go back and reflect on your mistakes behind closed doors."

Hearing this, the blue-maned horse breathed a sigh of relief—his master only wanted him to go back and reflect, not to eat dragon meat. That was good news.

He shifted into human form—a handsome young man in cyan robes—and took the bamboo hat from his head, presenting it with both hands, very respectfully placed at Lin Qingyun's feet, then made a swift retreat.

With one finger, Lin Qingyun hooked the bamboo hat and spun it on his fingertip.

He stared at the spinning hat, lost in thought—one moment wondering how He Zhuoming would deal with his 'corpse,' the next wondering whether she was still crying.

He'd always known he was a responsible and kind-hearted man; he just hadn't expected his sense of responsibility to run so deep that he'd be this worried over a Xiao He he'd only taught the basics.

But then he reconsidered and muttered to himself: "It's only natural to worry. I've never taken a disciple before. Since I taught Xiao He the basics, how is she any different from my disciple?"

"A master never abandons his disciple—that's the way of the world..."

As he spoke, Lin Qingyun suddenly stopped fidgeting, snatched the hat from the air, and rose to his feet—he'd nearly talked himself into going back for He Zhuoming.

But after leaping down from the boulder, he caught himself.

A strong premonition seized Lin Qingyun's feet, and he remembered Xiao He's strangeness all over again.

He looked down at the bamboo hat he'd woven, then recalled the face He Zhuoming had made when she'd flipped her sword behind her back, hopped in front of him, and grinned while she talked. In that instant, a warning rose instinctively from the depths of Lin Qingyun's heart.

Stay away from her—stay away from her!

Keep your distance, or you'll die without knowing how.

The warnings in Lin Qingyun's heart had never once been wrong. The one time he'd ignored them, he'd paid a terrible price.

An invisible external force pressed down, crushing the bamboo hat in his hand into fine shreds in an instant. He lowered his hand, shook the remaining bits of debris from his palm, and prepared to walk away.

He figured the mountain range was vast enough; wandering for ten days or half a month before returning to his body would be fine. By then, Xiao He would surely have moved on.

He was a busy man, after all. Setting aside his own affairs to look after Xiao He this far was practically enough to win him the title of the most selfless good-for-nothing under heaven—even if he were her own father, getting this far would make him a successful one.

Lin Qingyun muttered to himself: "What a loss. She never even called me 'Dad'..."

He was still talking to himself when he suddenly felt a drop of water land on his cheek. Lin Qingyun reached up to touch his face, but found no trace of moisture.

He froze for a moment, then realized—his corpse was still lying somewhere back there. Body and soul always maintained a certain connection; if someone's tears fell on his face, his soul would feel them too.

*

The young man in black vanished like a gust of wind after saying the word "mortal," leaving He Zhuoming alone, sitting frozen in place.

She stared blankly, not even noticing the cut on her chin—until a breeze threaded through the forest, warm as it was, and made her shiver.

She scrambled to her feet in a single bound, her hands and feet ice-cold as she stumbled over to Lin Qingyun and turned him over.

His face was pale as paper. His eyes, which were always curved in a smile, were now closed in calm repose, his long, thick lashes pressed together.

Before He Zhuoming could even process that he might be dead, the tears came first, falling one by one onto his still face, smearing the flecks of blood on his cheeks.

"Wahh—Lin Qingyun... Lin Qingyun, you can't be, you can't be dead, wahhh—"

She cried as she reached out to feel his neck for warmth and a pulse.

She found neither—only slick, icy blood coating her hand. The wet, slippery feel of that blood seemed to spread from her fingers straight into her heart, and He Zhuoming began to cry even louder.

Sniffling, she felt at Lin Qingyun's chest, only to have another splash of blood spill from the unhealed wound there. That only made her tears flow harder.

Lin Qingyun had died so inexplicably. Could the male lead really die too?

And the horse he'd kept had run off as well... He'd called it a dragon, but it wasn't even as good as a dog—it fled faster than anyone when enemies showed up!

He Zhuoming sniffled and hugged Lin Qingyun's corpse, sobbing: "You, you said... wahh... you said you couldn't read women, fine, but... how could you not read horses either... wahhh..."

"I, I don't even know who the killer was, or what grudge he had against you, wahhh... Now that you're dead, what do I do—is this world going to break apart, wahhh—"

By the end, she had no idea what nonsense she was babbling. Her emotions were a tangled mess, and she needed to pour them out in whatever chaotic words came to mind.

She cried for two reasons: half from the terror of what she'd witnessed, half for Lin Qingyun.

Because, honestly, He Zhuoming considered Lin Qingyun a good friend by now.

Even if his horse had abandoned him, she, as his friend, would never do the same!

With that decision firm, He Zhuoming rose to her feet, still crying, and found the wooden sword that had fallen nearby. She was determined to use it to dig Lin Qingyun a grave—she couldn't leave the only friend she had in this world to rot out in the open!

The wooden sword wasn't as good as a shovel, but at least it was sturdy.

She dug all the way until the sun sank behind the mountains, and she really did manage to carve out a proper-looking pit. She jumped in to test the depth, decided it was enough to bury someone, and pushed Lin Qingyun's body inside.

She also gathered wildflowers she didn't know the names of from nearby, roots and all, and laid them over his body.

Seeing that his face had begun to take on a faint, stiff pallor over the afternoon, He Zhuoming sadly placed a green-leafed purple blossom over his face, covering it.

She muttered over the corpse: "You know, that sword hilt of yours had crabapple blossoms on it. I figured you must really like flowers, so I dug up a lot of them and buried them with you. Your grave will surely be covered in flowers someday."

"Sigh. Rest in peace, okay? Don't worry—I've memorized the killer's face. I'm going to train hard, find a proper orthodox sect to learn from, and then avenge you!"

"And once I've avenged you, I'll go home. I'm a person who keeps her word..."

As He Zhuoming was muttering to herself, a faint voice drifted up from beneath the green-leafed purple blossom: "Really now?"