Before dawn, Deer Jade Terrace was brightly lit.
Dao attendants carried spiritual medicines in, one after another. Even Lord Qingxiao, who had been in secluded cultivation for months, was forcibly summoned out of seclusion by the Sect Master Token to tend the immortal furnace and refine pills.
Ever since Lin Zhuoyu had joined Floating Jade Mountain, Daoist Lord Tongxu—normally as aloof and untouched by worldly matters as an immortal—had wholly abandoned his indifferent nature, lavishing tenderness and indulgence on him at every turn. Even a single bruise from a bump would become known throughout all of Floating Jade Mountain.
This was the first time in fifteen years that Lin Zhuoyu had been so gravely injured.
Spring mornings were still bitterly cold and wrapped in mist.
The backlash from Subtle Probing, being a wound to the sea of consciousness, was hard to dispel. Even the medical sect, which could grow flesh on dry bones, couldn’t cure it with a single dose.
“Don’t let him use spiritual power for the next few months, and see that he takes his pills on schedule every day.” Wei Qingxiao of the medical sect on Autumn-Embracing Peak washed her hands and said, “It’s not even that serious an injury anyway—”
Before she could finish, she felt a chill at her back.
Wei Qingxiao rolled her eyes. “My dear Sect Master, senior brother, Yu’er is a person, not one of your glass collectibles. A young man goes out to have fun; a few injuries are only natural. Don’t overdo it.”
Daoist Lord Tongxu looked at her coolly.
Wei Qingxiao shuddered and instantly declared with solemnity, “…But an injury this severe does warrant strictness. Senior brother, you must punish him hard this time—issue a ban at once, keep Yu’er from leaving the sect for thirty years.”
Daoist Lord Tongxu ignored her, soaking a handkerchief to wipe the cold sweat from Lin Zhuoyu’s brow.
The wound on his back had been treated. Lin Zhuoyu lay slightly on his side on the spacious warm-jade daybed, breathing rapidly in his stupor, sweat coming wave after wave. Perhaps the sweat stinging his wounds made him uneasy; he murmured in his sleep.
“Father… Mother…”
“Elder Brother…”
Lin Zhuoyu drifted between dream and waking. His thick lashes trembled; in his daze he saw Daoist Lord Tongxu and murmured, “Generational Uncle, where are my father and mother?”
Daoist Lord Tongxu’s hand stilled.
The aftereffects of Subtle Probing could disturb the sea of consciousness, and memories sometimes fell into disorder. Only in those carefree days at Chaoping Marsh had Lin Zhuoyu ever called him “Generational Uncle.”
Before Daoist Lord Tongxu could think how to soothe him, Lin Zhuoyu whimpered, his body struggling without his awareness. “Senior Brother… where is Senior Brother? I want Senior Brother… Senior Brother, save me!”
Daoist Lord Tongxu: “Yu’er!”
Beneath the nine white-jade steps, Yan Su knelt outside the hall though no one had commanded it, obstinate. His snow-white robes were still stained with Lin Zhuoyu’s blood—gruesome, glaring—the trailing hem rimed with frost.
He Xing had tried every way to persuade Yan Su and gotten no reaction, so he had simply knelt down too.
When day broke, Wei Qingxiao came out of Deer Jade Terrace and beckoned. “Linyuan, stop torturing yourself on your knees. Come inside.”
Yan Su didn’t move.
Wei Qingxiao said, “Yu’er is raising a fuss to see you. Hurry…”
She hadn’t even finished when a wind seemed to sweep past her eyes. Bewildered, she came back to herself and saw Yan Su dart into Deer Jade Terrace like a ghost.
Wei Qingxiao muttered under her breath, “How is he faster than a man whose wife is in labor?”
A glance out the corner of her eye showed He Xing still kneeling on the ground. Exasperated beyond words, she marched over and seized his ear: “Aren’t you impressive! I always told you to cultivate your Heart-Purifying Mantra properly and you wouldn’t listen, and at the critical moment you actually needed your Little Junior Brother to save you?!”
He Xing had already cried three rounds; he bent at the waist, letting his Shizun twist his ear. “I was wrong, I truly know I was wrong!”
Seeing him crying in such a sorry state—and probably worried some herder would come running after all the bawling—Wei Qingxiao let go. “Enough. It isn’t all your fault. Violet Foxes are masters of disguise; even if one appeared before my very eyes, your master might not recognize it. Stop crying.”
He Xing forced back his tears. “How is Little Junior Brother?”
“Nothing serious,” Wei Qingxiao said. “Back then, Yu’er was abducted by a Great Demon and suffered a terrible fright; had your Sect Master not arrived in time, he might have lost his life. His sea of consciousness has been unstable all these years. If your Senior Martial Uncle takes this out on you and berates you, don’t take it to heart.”
This was the first He Xing had heard of any of it. “What did the Great Demon want with Little Junior Brother?”
In all his growing years, demons had been savage and unrestrained—he’d never heard of them not eating humans, but abducting and keeping them instead.
Wei Qingxiao said no more, only sighing silently.
Yan Su rushed into the inner hall of Deer Jade Terrace; before he even drew near, he could faintly hear Lin Zhuoyu crying.
Daoist Lord Tongxu lifted the bead curtain. “You—”
One word in, Yan Su abandoned all etiquette, called only “Shizun,” and swept in like the wind.
Daoist Lord Tongxu: “…”
When Lin Zhuoyu first came to Floating Jade Mountain he was only six, and he clung to no one but Yan Su. Every nightmare-induced breakdown could be soothed by Yan Su alone, and this time was no different.
Yan Su lifted the bed curtains and saw Lin Zhuoyu curled on the daybed, drenched in cold sweat, face streaked with tears, pale lips endlessly calling “Senior Brother.” His heart clenched at once.
He sat on the edge of the bed and, with practiced ease, gathered Lin Zhuoyu into his arms. Afraid of pressing the wound on his back, he settled him face-to-face on his lap, gently stroking his black hair, cold as satin.
Sensing the familiar scent in his half-sleep, Lin Zhuoyu clung to him like a drowning man to straw, forehead pressed into the hollow of his neck, tears sliding slowly down over his collarbone, scalding Yan Su until his body stiffened slightly.
“Senior Brother, save me…”
Yan Su froze.
The night of the Chaoping Marsh massacre, Lin Zhuoyu had been abducted and vanished; Daoist Lord Tongxu had searched for a long time alongside Yan Su before finally finding the boy.
Little Zhuoyu had been at his last gasp then. Perhaps the first thing he’d seen while struggling in despair was Yan Su—and so every childhood nightmare had ended with him crying “Senior Brother, save me.”
He had rarely cried out like that after growing up. This was the first time in ten years.
It was because he hadn’t arrived in time that Lin Zhuoyu had once more known the despair of being hurt.
Yan Su held the slender body tighter. “Mm. Senior Brother is here.”
Lin Zhuoyu was easy to soothe. Sensing the reassuring presence wrapped around him, his spiraling emotions gradually settled, and before long he was curled in Yan Su’s arms, tear-streaked, fast asleep.
In truth, Lin Zhuoyu dreamed of nothing.
In the heavy haze, his vision was pitch black; he seemed to be lying in a current, drifting with the flow—and so he drifted the whole night.
But at the very instant of waking, a thin hand suddenly seized him, and a voice whose tone he couldn’t make out drifted over from far, far away.
“…I’ll find someone to come back and save you!”
Lin Zhuoyu’s eyes flew open.
The sun was already high in the sky; sunlight poured through the window lattice onto the edge of the bed. The gauze curtains swayed gently in a wind laden with peach blossom petals, and the hand hanging over the bed’s edge was bathed in light, feeling its scorching warmth.
Lin Zhuoyu stared blankly at the bed curtains. When tired, he generally didn’t force himself; he simply lay there, letting his head turn over on its own time.
A good while later, the first cognition bubbled up from his addled brain.
Oh. I’m at Shizun’s Deer Jade Terrace.
As if a gate had opened, the memories from before his stupor came flooding back in a rush.
Lin Zhuoyu tried to prop himself up, but moving his arm pulled at the wound on his back; he hissed and toppled straight down.
Suddenly an invisible force came riding the wind; a few peach blossoms slipped beneath Lin Zhuoyu’s back, barely holding him up and sparing him a hard fall.
Lin Zhuoyu glanced over and inwardly wailed. He flipped over and rolled to the foot of the bed with lightning reflexes, playing dead with practiced skill.
Soon, Daoist Lord Tongxu’s voice drifted over, mild: “Still not awake?”
Lin Zhuoyu hastened to say, “No!”
Only after saying it did he realize his mistake, and he closed his eyes in despair.
Subtle Probing really does scramble the brain. Be very careful with it from now on.
Knowing he couldn’t hide, Lin Zhuoyu could only crawl on his knees to the edge of the bed, carefully parting the snowy gauze curtains a crack and poking out half his head. “G-Good morning, Shizun. You are radiant as ever today, like a banished immortal!”
Daoist Lord Tongxu was unmoved by his honeyed words. “Since you’re awake, get up and take your medicine.”
Seeing that Shizun wasn’t even blaming him, Lin Zhuoyu was overjoyed. “Okay!”
His back still injured, Lin Zhuoyu casually draped on a light white robe and got off the daybed. He was just preparing to flatter his generous and magnanimous Shizun when a thick wave of medicinal stench bowled him over.
Lin Zhuoyu stared dumbfounded at the enormous bowl of medicinal broth on the desk, his voice trembling. “Shizun?”
Daoist Lord Tongxu gathered his robes and sat, not even lifting an eyelid. “The prescription your Shishu Qingxiao wrote. She said brewing it into broth makes it more potent. Drink.”
Lin Zhuoyu: “…”
Knowing he was in the wrong, Lin Zhuoyu reluctantly sat and picked up the bowl bigger than his own face.
The bitter medicinal smell rushed at him; he tipped his head straight back—Daoist Lord Tongxu was prepared, catching the back of his skull with perfect precision, not letting him flip it over.
Having failed at cheating, Lin Zhuoyu could only start gulping it down, glug glug.
By the time he finished the medicine—bitter enough to make him stamp his feet—his usually doting Shizun didn’t even give him a piece of honey candy, leaving him to spin in circles nearby.
And it wasn’t over. Daoist Lord Tongxu said, “Tomorrow, Perfected Zhou of Xiangdao Pavilion will personally come to Floating Jade Mountain to divine your fortune for the next ten years.”
Lin Zhuoyu nearly choked to death. Incredulously he said, “How much did you pay this time? Shizun, what a waste of money!”
Daoist Lord Tongxu looked at him coolly.
Lin Zhuoyu instantly remembered he was a “criminal awaiting judgment” and shut his mouth, sitting there with his head hanging.
Though his manner seemed normal, Daoist Lord Tongxu knew him far too well—one glance showed him the grievance written there.
True enough: wounded so gravely, then waking with no comfort, only to be forced to choke down bitter medicine. Where in his life had Lin Zhuoyu ever suffered such neglect? Of course he was sad.
Daoist Lord Tongxu’s heart softened at once, his voice gentling. “It’s only for peace of mind. Think nothing of the money.”
“But she’s just spouting nonsense,” Lin Zhuoyu said sulkily. “All these years of ‘blood calamities’ I could forgive, but take my childhood name—my parents chose it. Why should one half-true, half-false divination make me change it? I like my original name. ‘Jade uncut makes no vessel’—well, I remain uncut entirely thanks to her changing my name.”
Daoist Lord Tongxu reached out and tapped his forehead. “Little Immortal Lord Lin single-handedly drawing out the Violet Fox affair is known to all. How does that make you ‘uncut’?”
Lin Zhuoyu startled. “How many days was I asleep?”
“Three.”
Lin Zhuoyu instantly forgot the divination. Remembering that in his haze he seemed to have seen Yan Su, he asked quickly, “Then where’s Eldest Senior Brother?”
“Nine Winters Cliff.”
Lin Zhuoyu was shocked, leaping up in alarm. “Nine Winters Cliff is frozen year-round—it’s where disciples are punished for wrongdoing, the Cave of Reflection! What’s he doing there? Shizun!”
“I did not punish him,” Daoist Lord Tongxu said, displeased. “In your heart, is Shizun one to take out his anger on the innocent?”
“No, no, no, of course not.” Lin Zhuoyu brushed him off, threw on some robes haphazardly, and bolted for the door.
Daoist Lord Tongxu frowned. “Your wound hasn’t healed.”
“Can’t—die—from—that—”
Lin Zhuoyu’s voice faded into the distance, and in a moment he was gone.
Nine Winters Cliff was the northernmost point of Floating Jade Mountain, winter in every season; even spiritual power shielding couldn’t withstand the bone-piercing cold.
Yan Su had been here two full days. His limbs, his frame, even his spiritual veins were nearly frozen solid; his breath and heartbeat faint.
The Heart-Purifying Artifact Lin Zhuoyu had given him sat before his knees, streaming forth azure light without cease.
But it was all useless.
Yan Su’s sea of consciousness, once like a barren plain, had at some point become strewn with peach blossoms. To the Heart-Purifying Dao, those soft petals were fatal blades. Whenever a petal brushed past his spirit body, what he sensed was not warmth but searing agony.
“Senior Brother!”
Yan Su kept his eyes shut, refusing to hear the voice unsettling his mind.
But the voice grew clearer, nearly resounding in his ears, quickly swelling—until it seemed to take substance, a phantom leaning gently toward him.
A pair of hands settled on Yan Su’s shoulders from behind. In the world of ice and snow, a warm, slender body draped itself over his back, fingers catching a strand of the black hair hanging over his chest, lazily winding it around a fingertip.
“Senior Brother, don’t you like looking at me? I’m right here. Why won’t you open your eyes?”
Yan Su’s breathing stumbled for an instant.
“Lin Zhuoyu” draped himself over his shoulder, clinging, scorching breath spilling against his neck. “Senior Brother, look at me. I’m so cold.”
Yan Su’s frost-rimed lashes stirred; slowly, he opened his eyes.
Seeing him finally awake, “Lin Zhuoyu” laughed softly and slipped like a snake out from under his arm. A soft body clad only in a thin snow-white robe settled intimately astride his lap.
So close they could hear each other’s heartbeats.
“Lin Zhuoyu’s” thin lips nearly brushed Yan Su’s face, his tone as if steeped in honey—utterly unlike how he spoke to He Xing.
“Senior Brother, tell me—if one day the Three Realms perished and only you and I remained, would you take me as your Dao Companion?”
Yan Su’s breath halted. A flash of ferocity crossed his pupils as he seized that neck and slammed the figure to the ground.
A bang.
“Hahaha.” “Lin Zhuoyu” lay in the snow laughing loudly, slender fingers hooking Yan Su’s insufficiently tight wrist, then pressing a ghostlike kiss to his palm.
Under Yan Su’s stunned gaze, he curled his vivid red lips into a smile, his voice bewitching: “Senior Brother, take me as your Dao Companion. Dual Cultivation, Union Ceremony—together for all eternity. Won’t you?”
BOOM—like heavenly thunder crashing down upon his spirit platform.
The spiritual power of Yan Su’s Origin Core reversed; in an instant he tore free of the illusion, clutching his chest and spitting out a mouthful of blood.
The blood sprayed into the snow, like a scattered red plum blossom.
