A Quiet Homecoming

Lin Yu was curled up in her rocking chair, basking in the courtyard sun. After days of overcast skies, today was finally a clear, bright day.

The spring sunlight felt inexplicably warm on her skin. Lin Yu closed her eyes, contentedly listening to the wind around her.

"You naughty cat! Stop biting my clothes!" Chen Lu's loud voice came from afar, and from the sound of it, she was probably tussling with The Snow God again.

Lin Yu called out Chen Lu's name, and the commotion beyond the wall immediately ceased. Moments later, Chen Lu poked her head around the door. "What's up?"

"I got some scriptures from Elder Wen for you yesterday," Lin Yu said, opening her eyes. "They're in your room. I've marked the pages you need to study."

Chen Lu dashed over and propped her chin on the armrest of the rocking chair, staring at Lin Yu with obvious excitement. "Really?!"

Chen Lu loved drawing talismans, and this was a rare opportunity she had been given, so she treasured it.

"Really." Lin Yu drew out the syllable, tapping Chen Lu's brow with her finger. "Go on. Bring me the talismans you've drawn before sunset."

Chen Lu bounced and hopped toward her room, giggling. Before she left, she hid by the wall and tried to scare The Snow God, but the cat was prepared and didn't flinch. Not the least bit put out, Chen Lu was still cheerful. "Naughty cat, I'm off! Go play by yourself!"

The Snow God's fur bristled at that, and he bared his fangs at Chen Lu. But as she walked away, he padded slowly over to Lin Yu and hopped neatly onto the small table beside her.

It wasn't a big table, and it already held a teapot, leaving only a cramped space for the big cat. Over the past while, thanks to plenty of feeding, The Snow God had grown quite plump from eating a dozen times a day, so he had to squeeze onto the table, jostling for room with the teapot.

"Fell asleep again?" That was the first thing The Snow God said once he settled down.

Lin Yu squinted at the sun. "Can you take human form?"

"Or just don't talk," she said, a note of disdain in her voice. "A cat speaking human words is weird, you know. If I'd met a talking cat a few months ago, I might have been scared to death."

The Snow God was speechless. "...You?"

Who was really scaring whom? When he first met Lin Yu, she had genuinely frightened him half to death.

"Right, I'm just a timid, delicate girl." Lin Yu patted her chest. "Seeing a supernatural cat like you would naturally scare me."

The Snow God was silent again.

"Oh, stop rolling around on the table. If the teapot gets knocked off and breaks, you'll have to buy me a new one." Lin Yu reached out to stop The Snow God's turn.

Speaking of compensation, The Snow God remembered something. "Oh, right!"

He flipped over smoothly on the small table before Lin Yu could stop him, lying on his back and gazing at the blue sky. "About my Snow Mirror... you don't need to help me find materials to reforge it."

"Why not?" Lin Yu was surprised, turning to look at him. "Don't you want to be a god anymore?"

"No," The Snow God replied readily.

Lin Yu looked at the swaying peach branches and thought for a moment. "Alright."

The Snow God clearly wasn't satisfied with her brief answer. "Aren't you going to ask why?"

"No need." Lin Yu's foot tapped the ground lightly, and the wooden rocking chair creaked back and forth. "Since you've already made your choice, you must have your reasons."

"But," Lin Yu shifted the topic, "I have to leave."

"Without the Snow Mirror, you won't go back to the Nine Heavens. After I'm gone, are you still planning to stay at the Heaven's Mandate Tower?" Lin Yu's tone was casual. "Or do you have somewhere you want to go?"

The Snow God didn't catch her meaning right away. "After you're gone? That'll be years from now, won't it? You think Ascension is that easy, that you just become a god when you feel like it?"

He assumed Lin Yu meant that someday, after she ascended and left the tower, where would he go.

Lin Yu suddenly laughed. "I'm not talking about that. In about ten days or so, I'll be leaving this place."

"Where are you going?"

"Haven't I told you? The north," Lin Yu reminded him. "Don't you remember?"

The Snow God quickly flipped over from his sprawled position. The more he spoke, the more confused he became. "Why are you going north? I said I don't need the Snow Mirror anymore, so why go to that desolate, cold place?"

Lin Yu thought for a moment. "You should be able to guess."

The Snow God sat upright on the small table. He couldn't imagine how Lin Yu might be connected to the north. Back when he was a god, he spent a lot of time in the north because of the snowy mountains there; he loved the endless white snow.

"Can't guess," he finally said.

Lin Yu opened her eyes. The morning sunlight was gentle, and she stared at the drifting clouds in the sky, lost in thought. After a long pause, she heard her own voice. "You did guess."

"I am Lin Jiyue."

A sharp crash followed. The teapot Lin Yu had been protecting finally got knocked to the ground by The Snow God, shattering into pieces, spilling tea all over the floor.

Lin Yu frowned. "You owe me a teapot..."

Before she could finish, the big cat finally transformed back into human form and crouched beside her. Though she saw The Snow God often, it was always in cat form, so Lin Yu hadn't seen his face in a long while—she was about to forget what he looked like.

In the next moment, The Snow God leaned in, his face full of disbelief. Even though he had suspected some connection between Lin Yu and Lin Jiyue, hearing her say it outright made it hard to believe.

"What did you say?!" The Snow God roared. "You... you... How is that possible?!"

Lin Yu just glanced at him and made a gesture to quiet him. "Of course it's possible."

Her tone was like a kindly old mother smoothing his ruffled fur. "It's fine, don't be scared. I won't hurt you."

Lin Yu knew Lin Jiyue's infamy. Even when she was a child of ten, the whole cultivation world knew of Lin Jiyue's existence thanks to Immortal Lord He's prophetic dream.

The Snow God brushed away Lin Yu's hand on his head. Having been a cat for these past two months, he had grown accustomed to a lazy, carefree existence, not doing much complex thinking. Now that he had suddenly received the news of Lin Yu's identity, his head ached.

No wonder... everything seemed to have a trace. When he first met Lin Yu at the Rain Goddess Temple, she had used the God-Slaying Spike to kill the God of Glory that night.

Back then, the God of Glory was The Snow God's most hated enemy. Seeing his foe dead, he hadn't thought much more about it and never sought to expose anything.

The God of Glory had many followers, but he was ultimately not the God of War. He possessed deep, unfathomable cultivation, yet could barely use it. So, trapped in a net of schemes, he died at the Rain Goddess Temple without injustice.

The Snow God was a deity, so learning who Lin Yu was wasn't hard. He quickly traced her to the Heaven's Mandate Tower.

In his eyes at that time, she was the great benefactor who killed his enemy, but also because of her, the Snow Mirror had gone missing.

Only now did The Snow God think carefully: what kind of person had the nerve to kill the God of Glory? Was it really just because Lin Yu was someone who loved to act recklessly?

It was premeditated on her part.

Of course, her goal wasn't just the God of Glory. Ever since Immortal Lord He's prophetic dream, fate had drawn her a set path and placed an insurmountable mountain before her.

Her aim was to slay gods.

To kill all the gods who wreak havoc on the mortal world.

"The reason you have to leave?" Finally, The Snow God pushed aside his thoughts and asked what he most wanted to know.

"My identity can't stay hidden any longer. Soon, everyone will know I'm Lin Jiyue." Lin Yu didn't hide it; she spoke frankly, grinning. "If you've done something bad, you have to run. If I don't, am I just waiting for them to kill me?"

Besides the impending exposure of her identity, there was another reason Lin Yu had to abandon everything now.

In the Moon God's eyes, Lin Yu and Lin Jiyue were two different people: Lin Yu was a cunning, treacherous schemer, while Lin Jiyue was his ally.

A few days ago at the Buzhou River, the Moon God had handed Lin Yu over to Lin Jiyue for disposal. According to their original agreement, Lin Jiyue would kill Lin Yu and take her place. So the next time she met the Moon God, Lin Yu should have vanished from the world.

From then on, there would only be Lin Jiyue.

The Xianzun had gone with the Moon God to the Nine Heavens to alter the name register. His main concern was when Lin Yu would ascend to godhood, so he would do everything to find Lin Yu's fate book.

But Lin Yu had no fate book. This was a false name, a false identity, a person fabricated out of thin air. How could there be any fate? Who would write a fate book for her?

Thus, time was tight. Before the Xianzun returned, she had to settle everything and leave the Heaven's Mandate Tower, vanishing without a trace.

"Then I'll come with you to the north," The Snow God said. "Have you settled everything after you leave? The north isn't like the Imperial City."

"There's constant war in the north; fighting never stops. Last year there was famine, provisions couldn't keep up, and people even exchanged their children for food. Once you go..." He rambled on, worry lacing his words.

He was a deity, and his days in the north were spent in the snowy mountains. Among those vast, snowy peaks, he lived alone, carefree. Though he'd never truly stepped onto the northern battlefield, he had heard of its cruelty.

Lin Yu was just an ordinary mortal; she couldn't possibly go deep into the snowy mountains. So where would she go?

"I'm going north for the God of War," Lin Yu interrupted him, her outlook calm. "As for the road ahead, I'll figure it out as I go."

"The God of War? Why are you looking for him?" The Snow God was puzzled. "In the twenty years since he ascended, I've never seen him. He's very mysterious."

"That's exactly why—because the God of War died long ago. The one in the heavens now is an impostor." Lin Yu rose from the rocking chair and stretched. "If you were a fake, would you go showing your face every day, hoping people would discover you're not the real deal?"

The Snow God watched her retreating figure, thoughtful. "Is that also why you don't like to show yourself?"

Lin Yu turned back. The Snow God had transformed into his big cat form again, and in the moment she stood, he had slipped into the rocking chair, where he now lay with half-closed eyes, basking in the sun.

Lin Yu slapped the big cat on the head. "What impostor? I'm a real Divine Maiden. Why does everyone doubt my identity?"

Lin Yu had put on plenty of false personas before, and everyone believed those without question. But this time, her true title as Divine Maiden—why did no one seem to buy it?

The Snow God was speechless. "...Try being compassionate and merciful for once. Other Divine Maidens are so kind. Who else goes around killing people every day like you?"

Lin Yu froze, but her face showed no sign of being caught off guard. "...How do you know what I've been doing outside?"

"Is it that hard to guess?" The Snow God laughed. "Aside from the mundane matters of the tower that you can't reveal to them, there are plenty of people outside watching your position."

Lin Yu frowned. "People outside? What about them?"

Lin Yu knew she had no power or influence; she had only been sent to be the Divine Maiden of the Heaven's Mandate Tower through the emperor's favor. In this world, with such faith in the gods, the importance of her position was obvious, so many eyes were on her.

That was the real reason she avoided public appearances. She didn't want people to remember her face or recognize who she was. So on the few occasions she did appear, she dressed in elaborate, formal attire completely different from her usual simple style.

Unless someone knew her well, it was hard to identify her at a glance. Even if they did, they'd just think she bore a slight resemblance. This also explained why she often left the tower and went out without being recognized—others didn't know who she was. It provided her great convenience.

Seeing that Lin Yu truly hadn't heard about what happened this morning, The Snow God sat up straight and spoke seriously. "Someone has lodged a complaint against you at court, and no one's told you yet?"