Chapter 42

Once she snapped back to reality, Qing Zhouxue savored Ruan Mingzhu's words, and for the first time in her life, she tasted a hint of sweetness that came with status and honor.

She had been able to read all of Yun Shuchen's books and manuscripts since she was eight. Her master had never restricted her in matters of study and had even encouraged her to read widely.

When she practiced calligraphy, she didn't copy from standard models—she simply asked Yun Shuchen for her usual handwriting and traced each character one by one. If she lost a piece, it didn't matter; it was hardly a rare thing.

At the thought, her mood visibly brightened.

"Oh, right," she suddenly remembered. "Junior sister, those chapbooks of yours—how much are they worth?"

"What?" Ruan Mingzhu started. "Did you lose one or what?"

Losing one would have been the best-case scenario. Qing Zhouxue sighed inwardly and said flatly, "My master confiscated them."

After she'd been caught that day, Yun Shuchen said it was so she could sleep peacefully without sneaking up late at night to read that stuff, and she took the chapbooks out of her room with no room for argument.

"Just a few books—so what if you don't have them? Did your master punish you?"

"No."

But it was true that starting that very night, Yun Shuchen had grown more distant.

Distant, not cold—her master's tone was still gentle, but it was no longer as close as before. She also seemed to deliberately avoid all physical contact with her.

Qing Zhouxue suddenly realized this, and the fog that had clouded her thoughts over the past few days lifted. But for nearly the first time, she couldn't be happy about figuring something out.

She grabbed Ruan Mingzhu and said slowly, "Junior sister."

Ruan Mingzhu, seeing her serious expression, unconsciously furrowed her brow. "What's wrong?"

"It's about that topic from before. Forget the chapbooks—by the way of the world now, if a woman... if a woman liked another woman, would people really think it was wrong?"

Before Ruan Mingzhu could speak, a few female disciples nearby who had been chatting overheard this and suddenly burst into jeering laughter. Someone said something scornful, muttering something like, "Disgusting."

Qing Zhouxue of course heard it. She watched them scurry off, as if trying to avoid a plague, and stood there frozen.

Ruan Mingzhu spat in their direction. "Mind your own business! Your mother is the disgusting one!"

When she turned back, she found Qing Zhouxue staring ahead, silent as if she'd lost her soul.

"Don't listen to them," Ruan Mingzhu frowned. "Anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's not stealing or robbing—what's there to fear?"

"It's not that I'm afraid of that." Qing Zhouxue shook her head, her thoughts in disarray.

Qing Zhouxue had never cared about others' opinions. Through the vast sea of humanity, people held all sorts of views and judgments, impossible to unify; a chance encounter didn't require anyone to convince anyone else.

But her master wasn't just anyone. She was her closest person.

She didn't know Yun Shuchen's opinion, and she feared she might also harbor a grudge from those chapbooks, unwilling to stay close to her.

Would her master think that her reading those things was also... disgusting?

*

After supervising for the whole morning, Qing Zhouxue didn't know how she ended up back at Heyi Peak. Along the way, she had mulled it over from every angle, and increasingly felt that such a guess was probably close to the truth.

Her master was a gentle person; if she truly disapproved, she wouldn't show it to her face. She would just, as she was now, silently keep her distance.

That day she hadn't said much—only that such things couldn't be taken seriously, and then she'd taken them away.

Yun Shuchen had never interfered with her reading since she was young, even tales of gods and ghosts, which seemed useless.

Only this one book, The Senior Sister Above, did Yun Shuchen forbid her to read again.

She walked up Heyi Peak, where the distant violet glow was still gentle and lingering.

Qing Zhouxue looked at the scenery before her, but for the first time, she had no heart to appreciate it.

Yun Shuchen, unaware that her disciple's speculation had already gone astray, sat alone at the head of her bed, a chapbook open on her knees.

It was none other than The Senior Sister Above, which she'd taken from Qing Zhouxue that day.

She had to admit, the prose was elegant, the emotions sincere and moving, and the plot full of twists. The child even had good taste—setting aside the subject matter, Yun Shuchen had read it with some appreciation.

She flipped back to the cover and her gaze fell on the author's name: Zhiyu.

Very familiar.

It was by her good-for-nothing junior sister, Yue Changge. Anyone who knew her even a little knew she had always used these two characters as her pen name since childhood—plain as day, never changed.

What was there to write about between senior and junior sisters? A chill settled in Yun Shuchen's eyes. She stood and touched a hidden compartment at the head of the bed. Suddenly, an entire wall of her bedchamber split apart, revealing row after row of neatly arranged books.

Vast as the sea.

After a moment's thought, she slid this book between two others of the same "sisters" series—ones she had read long ago.

These Qing Zhouxue had never seen, because she would never presume to enter Yun Shuchen's bedchamber without invitation, and even on the rare occasions she did, she wouldn't touch anything carelessly, making it nearly impossible to find this hidden wall.

Nor would she discover that this entire wall of chapbooks were all tales of women loving women.

These were books Yun Shuchen had gathered from the four corners of the world to while away her leisure. After Heyi Peak was rebuilt, she'd lost a few, which she still regretted.

Yun Shuchen closed the book wall, and it became a smooth surface, showing no trace of anything unusual.

She was about to step out for some air when she spotted a familiar figure pacing outside the window.

The girl stood alone by the door, and when she lifted her eyes, her expression always made one want to pull her close.

Yun Shuchen frowned, suppressing the thought.

She had expected her disciple to come over as usual, but instead, Qing Zhouxue's expression flickered for a moment, then she pursed her lips and turned away.

Walked away?

Truly strange.

Was it that these past few days of cold treatment had finally made her understand to step back a certain distance?

She was a clever girl; such reasoning wouldn't be hard for her to grasp.

This was precisely the outcome Yun Shuchen had wanted.

But for a single instant, watching Qing Zhouxue's retreating figure, she felt a flicker of reluctance.

Logically, it was for the best. But... she couldn't help wondering—had Qing'er run into some other trouble? Or had something happened today?

She wanted to ask her.

In the end, however, she simply stood in place, watching that white-robed beauty disappear into her room.

The excavation of spirit stones at the Taichu Sect was nearly complete. While one side rested, the other busied itself; the entire Lingsu Peak was hard at work, stoking their furnaces to forge the pills that gathered the essence of heaven and earth and the light of sun and moon.

Liu Xunqin had known from the moment she listened to Yun Shuchen's plan that there would be plenty for her to do afterward.

Though somewhat displeased, she was grateful that her disciple Bai Su was sensible enough to take over many of the tedious, repetitive tasks.

A slight fluctuation rippled through Lingsu Peak's barrier. Liu Xunqin cast a glance at the sky; it was the acting sect leader who came in person.

Yun Shuchen glanced over the blazing furnace, the neatly arranged room where the pills were being made, the temperature noticeably hotter there. She smiled. "I've put you to a lot of trouble."

"What's the matter?" Liu Xunqin never made small talk.

"What else could I come to you for?" Yun Shuchen sighed, taking a seat on a chair across from her. "It's naturally about this unworthy body of mine."

"I see you're at peace; nothing seems wrong."

"It's not a problem of the present moment." She paused. "That prescription I take daily—can I stop now, or is there an alternative?"

Liu Xunqin gave her a faint once-over. "Why?"

"Is it because of the side effects of the shaxi flower?" On Liu Xunqin's desk lay some powder of that flower, ground fine, looking just like rouge. She lifted a finger and dabbed a bit, staring at the pale red on her fingertip. "If you stop the medicine now, the ailment's poison still remains in your body. What difference is there?"

"Is there no other way?"

"Your condition is quite complex. I can't think of anything for now."

Liu Xunqin's medical skill was unrivaled in the Nine Provinces; if she had no other ideas, there was hardly any point asking elsewhere.

"I don't quite understand." Liu Xunqin, lost in thought, took a drag of smoke, letting out a few wisps of white mist between words. "Is it so hard for you to find a suitable partner? Someone with an Ice Spiritual Root, which both counters the intensity of the shaxi flower and can better draw out the cold poison—all it takes is Dual Cultivation."

Yun Shuchen fiddled with the jade bracelet on her wrist, silent for a moment.

"Besides," Liu Xunqin paused, "a single Ice Spiritual Root of the finest purity is right by your side."

Though Liu Xunqin was a medical cultivator, she had no grace of healing, and even less regard for moral conventions. As she often said, one shouldn't be timid because of the world's eyes; the path of medicine ought to be free from all taboos, daring in thought and practice.

For this very reason, her peers often criticized her, saying she was so cold and heartless that she'd lost the true essence of medicine.

But she could cure incurable diseases that others couldn't, and that alone shut them up.

That woman Yun Shuchen counted as a stain on her practice—living with cold poison for a few hundred years.

The stain then rose, smiling at her with a curved mouth, still giving a gentle refusal: "Since that's the case, I'll be on my way, Senior Sister."

Yun Shuchen hadn't held much hope anyway, so it wasn't much of a disappointment. Since there was hardly any business at Chunqiu Hall today, she simply returned to her peak.

The grand reconstruction and mining at the Taichu Sect, with the Sect Leader away, were advancing at full steam.

Time flowed quietly, and before she knew it, winter had set in.

Heyi Peak, right at the windward mouth of the great central marsh of the sect, steep and prone to rain and snow.

In winter, snow fell almost daily, layer upon layer. Yun Shuchen pulled her robes tighter, exhaling a white mist.

From spring through summer into winter, Yun Shuchen had been busy with external affairs, seldom returning, and Qing Zhouxue had gradually stopped seeking her out.

Heyi Peak's courtyard was not small, with winding covered walkways—unless one went looking specifically, they rarely bumped into each other.

It had been months since she'd seen her disciple.

The embraces of those few nights, the accidental touches, the palpitations they stirred—it all seemed to fade with time.

Faded to the point where thinking of Qing Zhouxue no longer provoked any particular feeling.

This was good.

Somehow, Yun Shuchen drifted to the highest point of Heyi Peak, the top of Yimeng Cliff.

Dusk was falling now, and the heavy snow had quietly ceased. The setting sun hung above the distant peaks, no longer scorching, like a dab of cinnabar from a brush.

The golden glow of sunset was shifting, tinged with deep purple and pale pink.

At the solitary precipice, light and shadow intermingled. Yun Shuchen saw that all-too-familiar figure.

She danced with her sword, graceful and spirited, like a white crane spreading its wings in the boundless snow. The cold sword in her hand seemed unpolished, in perfect harmony with her moves.

The sword tip suddenly flicked up, stirring wisps of wind that swept up snowflakes. As her swordsmanship grew swifter, the snowflakes multiplied and swirled around her as if alive.

In a flash, she stopped her steps, twirled her sword—

The gathered snowflakes burst apart suddenly, as if a spring breeze arose overnight, and like ten thousand pear blossoms, they fell from the sky.

In profusion, infinitely tender.

Breathtaking.

Yun Shuchen couldn't help but be transfixed.

Amid the swirling snow, the woman with dark hair and white robes elegantly sheathed her sword and walked toward her.

"Master, does this please you?"

From her bosom she produced a lotus pendant carved of white mutton-fat jade, took Yun Shuchen's hand, and placed it in her palm.

Meeting those dark inkstone eyes, which curved into a smile, she said, "Master, happy birthday."