SS CH88

When Duanqing returned to the Fuxue Courtyard, the sky was nearly bright.

He hadn’t slept all night, yet showed no signs of fatigue. Just as he had said he would, he watched Shen Wuduan cry a snotty, tearful mess until the man finally drank himself into a stupor. Only after settling him into a room did Duanqing turn and head toward the Fuxue Courtyard.

He hadn’t been to Netherworld Valley in thirty years, but the path leading to the Liufeng and Fuxue courtyards hadn’t changed much. Daoist Duanqing always had an excellent memory, and since Erniang had already passed down orders to the guards, his walk was perfectly smooth—until he saw an idiot spacing out in front of the courtyard gate.

Ye Fusheng had been mischievous and quirky since childhood. At four or five years old, he was already adept at climbing roofs and flipping tiles. It was rare to see him this quiet, let alone sitting on the front stone steps with a hand resting on his knee, looking for all the world as if his soul had wandered completely out of his body.

Fortunately, spacing out was just spacing out; he hadn’t lost his martial instincts. The moment Duanqing stepped out of the plum blossom path, Ye Fusheng looked up and hurriedly stood. “Shifu’s Spouse.”

Duanqing nodded. “Is Sect Master Chu no longer in serious danger?”

Though of the same generation as Shen Wuduan, Duanqing didn’t put on the airs of an elder, treating Chu Xiwei with respect and politeness. However, hearing him mention Chu Xiwei gave Ye Fusheng an indescribable feeling. Rubbing his nose, he replied, “He’s already asleep. The Ghost Physician just checked on him and said he’s fine for now.”

Duanqing murmured an “Mm,” his gaze lingering briefly on Ye Fusheng’s lips.

Ye Fusheng immediately felt a surge of panic. Whenever Shifu’s Spouse discovered something, he never pointed it out directly. He would just wait quietly for a confession, and usually, it didn’t take long before Ye Fusheng couldn’t handle the pressure and spilled everything to seek leniency.

But this matter was truly hard to explain.

That light kiss from Chu Xiwei had drawn out an intoxicating dream steeped in the rich fragrance of osmanthus flowers; yet the words he spoke had shattered that dream like a clap of thunder, leaving Ye Fusheng dazed, trembling in soul, and utterly at a loss.

After the seventeenth day of the twelfth lunar month this year, Ye Fusheng would be a thirty-year-old man. He had seen countless superficial illusions of sound and color. If he couldn’t even distinguish between true sincerity and false words, the grass on his grave would probably be taller than he was by now.

When Chu Xiwei held him and spoke those words, he could feel the man’s heartbeat through his water-soaked clothes—slowing from violent pounding to a steady rhythm. It was as if those words were a mountain that had weighed on Chu Xiwei for years, finally handed over in its entirety along with a piece of his sincere heart.

Ye Fusheng could tell that his words were not fake.

And precisely because of that, he didn’t understand, nor did he dare answer lightly.

The word “whether” was easy to say, but tied to the other end was a genuine heart. No matter how heartless or carefree Ye Fusheng was, he didn’t dare accept it lightly, much less trample it into the mud.

He had always known Ah-Yao hated him. Just as he himself had said—he deserved it, it was only natural.

He had also always known Ah-Yao had a sharp tongue but a soft heart. Perhaps, apart from their preordained promises, the two of them might have had a different ending, but Ye Fusheng had never imagined things would escalate to this point.

When had it started?

Was it the daze of waking from a grand dream in the Jinxing Residence? The life-and-death trust in the Anxi Mountains? The laughter mingling with mixed feelings in General Town? The desperate concern hanging by a thread at Wanghaichao?

Or was it the ten-year obsession spanning vast distances, the hidden, beautiful thoughts of a young man harboring affection?

Love rises from nowhere, yet grows ever deeper.

Ye Fusheng was not Chu Xiwei. He didn’t know, nor did he understand, what Chu Xiwei was truly thinking.

Therefore, in that moment, he could only say one sentence: “Ah-Yao, I am your Shifu, and I am also your enemy.”

Chu Xiwei remained silent for a long time. If the medicine wasn’t so potent that even fainting was difficult, Ye Fusheng would have almost thought he’d fallen asleep.

After a long wait, he finally heard Chu Xiwei speak: “I haven’t forgotten, but… I couldn’t control myself.”

Where love is focused, one cannot control oneself.

Foolish obsessions and infatuations are the hardest to erase.

“You were drunk that night. You might have forgotten the words you said, but I remember them clearly,” Chu Xiwei had said, picking out a single thread of white hidden in Ye Fusheng’s hair. “I don’t want to live this life without holding onto anything.”

Choking on his words for a long time, unable to formulate a proper response, Ye Fusheng could only reply with a roundabout deflection: “Even if you let go of the past, you are so outstanding… Why hang yourself on a dying, crooked tree?”

He used the Youmeng poison as a tactful rejection, because life and death were always the hardest things to control, leaving people powerless and helpless. His heart in a tangled mess, unable to give him a simple “yes” or “no,” Ye Fusheng had simply laid bare all the stakes and hidden dangers between them, hoping to use a sharp knife to cut through the tangled mess of this forbidden delusion.

But Chu Xiwei merely stared at him, a gaze that made his heart palpitate.

“Heaven never seals off all paths. I believe in these words… Shifu, you must believe me too,” Chu Xiwei told him, enunciating every word while enduring the continuous waves of pain wracking his body. “Today was a moment of panicked confusion on my part, but my words were not false and my heart is not hollow. Do not rush to brush me off with talk of gratitude, grudges, etiquette, and duty.”

Chu Xiwei’s resolute and blunt confession dragged them both onto a precariously thin wire. Neither dared to pull away recklessly; they could only stand at a stalemate, quietly contemplating their choices.

He didn’t mind waiting, but he refused a perfunctory answer. Even if the string snapped in the end, sending them both plummeting into the abyss to be smashed to pieces, he still wouldn’t regret it.

As a descendant of the imperial family, willful arrogance was his very nature. Telling him to endure was for the sake of the big picture; advising him to retreat left no room for compromise.

Ye Fusheng was finally left completely speechless.

Fortunately, Chu Xiwei didn’t push him further. After speaking those words, he truly had no strength left. Fully focusing on enduring the medicine’s effects, he mobilized his true qi to circulate through his meridians. Only after the Ghost Physician entered to tend to the aftermath did Ye Fusheng stumble clumsily out of the Liufeng Residence.

Arriving at the gates of the Fuxue Courtyard, his mind was still a bowl of paste. He simply sat down in front of the door and spaced out, like a stray cat with nowhere to go.

From the heavy dew of the late night until the freezing wind pierced his clothes, he still couldn’t untangle a single thread from his myriad wild thoughts. Then, Duanqing arrived.

The Daoist’s gaze wasn’t exactly blazing like a torch, but Ye Fusheng’s own guilty conscience couldn’t handle it. He looked up at the sky and down at the earth, completely avoiding eye contact with Shifu’s Spouse. Fortunately, Duanqing saw his inner turmoil. Intending to let him handle it himself, he didn’t interrogate him, letting him off for now. “Come inside with me,” he said instead.

With that, he pushed open the courtyard gate with one hand. The orchids were as they had always been; everything in sight remained exactly as it was in the past. Pausing for a moment, he stepped over the threshold.

Following behind him, Ye Fusheng watched as Shifu’s Spouse navigated past the main hall and bedroom with practiced ease, heading straight for the study. It was clear Duanqing was incredibly familiar with this place, not feeling the slightest bit estranged despite a thirty-year absence.

Arriving at the study door, Ye Fusheng suddenly remembered something and hurriedly called out, “Shifu’s Spouse, wait—”

His reaction was a step too slow. Duanqing had already pushed open the door, his eyes falling instantly on the three puppets sitting around the table.

The hand resting on the door paused for only a fraction of a second before Duanqing walked in, completely ignoring them. Bypassing the puppets, he sat behind the desk and instructed, “Come here.”

Ye Fusheng stared blankly at the puppets, then turned to look at Duanqing’s unchanging expression. Hesitating for a moment, he asked, “Shifu’s Spouse…”

Duanqing’s gaze swept over the puppets briefly. “Cleverly crafted objects, possessing form but lacking a soul. They can be longed for and missed, but they are not grounds for foolish delusions.”

His heart shaking, Ye Fusheng obediently sat down in front of Duanqing. The Daoist reached out and placed his fingers on his pulse, withdrawing them only after a short while.

“I asked Shen Wuduan,” Duanqing said. “It is not that your poison cannot be cured. It is only missing one thing.”

Hearing this, Ye Fusheng looked up at him, a long-lost surge of excitement rushing through his heart.

He had long since made peace with life and death—or rather, he had long viewed death as a return home. He had failed his Shifu, wronged Ah-Yao, and owed his old friends. In Ye Fusheng’s eyes, his lingering existence over these ten years was simply to fulfill a promise. It didn’t matter whether he lived well or poorly, and naturally, it mattered even less whether he wanted to live or not.

But now, he still wanted to watch over Xie Li a bit more, he still couldn’t stop worrying about Chu Xiwei, and he had only just reunited with Duanqing… Bit by bit, these attachments gathered together, breathing vitality into his walking corpse of a body, making him reluctant to depart.

Yet Ye Fusheng knew very well that the Youmeng poison was nearly impossible to cure. To this day, not a single person had ever survived it.

The heavens loved to toy with people, forcing someone who wanted to die to linger on, while leaving someone who wanted to live hanging by a thread, counting the few days they had left.

Ye Fusheng had been racking his brain figuring out how to settle his affairs in the less than two months he had remaining. Things like teaching Xie Li a few more skills, shamelessly pestering Shifu’s Spouse to take him to his Shifu’s grave to kowtow, and… making Chu Xiwei willingly sever his delusions and find a good place to settle down.

He never expected this matter to have room for a turnaround.

Ye Fusheng looked at Duanqing in disbelief. The Daoist’s voice softened imperceptibly, as if to comfort him. “What it lacks is the medicinal primer of ‘extreme cold blood’. As long as we have that, you will be fine.”

“What is ‘extreme cold blood’?”

“First, it is the fresh blood of a spiritual creature that grows in places of extreme Yin and utter cold. But such things can only be stumbled upon, not sought; they went extinct a century ago.” Pausing, Duanqing’s gaze chilled slightly. “Second, it is the heart’s blood of a supreme master who cultivates top-tier extreme cold martial arts.”

Ye Fusheng rapidly ran through the intelligence of all known martial arts masters in his mind. “Yin and Yang are the fundamental variations of martial arts, so there is no shortage of people in the Jianghu who follow Yin and cold paths. But to possess both top-tier classical martial arts and achieve a state of grand mastery… I have never heard of such a person.”

“I have not left the mountains for a long time, so I know little of this as well. Fortunately, Sect Master Chu has already dispatched people to investigate widely. Hopefully, there will be news.”

Ye Fusheng froze. He remembered the flash of pain in the young man’s eyes when he used the Youmeng poison to gently reject Chu Xiwei, and that firm, unwavering “you must believe me.”

The right hand resting on his leg clenched involuntarily. For a moment, a chaotic mix of sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy surged in his heart, tangling together into an indescribable flavor.

Duanqing glanced at him. “Rest for a day. Tomorrow, you will follow me back to Wangchen Peak.”

Wangchen Peak of Dongling was the headquarters of the Supreme Palace, a sect focused on Daoist cultivation. It was said that a century ago, they were the uncrowned leaders of the orthodox martial world. The Palace Master at the time was even appointed as the State Preceptor by the founding emperor of the previous dynasty, and the trend of Daoist faith swept the nation.

However, sixty-eight years ago, the previous dynasty was overthrown, and the Supreme Palace faded from the public eye. Today, it possessed none of its former glory. The mountains and rivers remained the same, but the people were not as they were.

For over sixty years, the Supreme Palace suffered from a lack of talent. Only the previous Palace Master, Ji Qingyan, possessed peerless martial arts and a deep hatred for evil. He spent his life punishing evil and promoting good countless times, earning the prestigious title “Eastern Daoist” in the Jianghu. Unfortunately, he passed away on a crane to the immortal realm five years ago.

Back when Ye Fusheng was idling his days away on Feiyun Peak, he rarely saw Duanqing fight. Although he knew his martial arts were not weak, he had never heard a single word about the “Supreme Palace,” assuming Duanqing was simply an independent cultivator from the wilderness. It was only recently that he learned Shifu’s Spouse actually hailed from the Supreme Palace.

In his heart, he had always treated Shifu’s Spouse as a decent Daoist kidnapped up the mountain by a female bandit. Suddenly hearing that Duanqing actually had a sect lineage, he couldn’t help relapsing into his old habits and asked, “Shifu’s Spouse… back then, you didn’t elope with Shifu, did you?”

Duanqing cast him a glance. “I did.”

Ye Fusheng had originally just wanted to be playfully obnoxious. He never expected Duanqing to actually admit it. Instantly, he choked on his own saliva, coughing as if halfway to the grave.

A massive flurry of cheap market novels featuring elopements between “domineering wives and handsome husbands” flashed through his mind. He envisioned everything from the beginning to the end, complete with all the dramatic twists and turns. It was simply too much to handle.

Duanqing looked at him expressionlessly. “Have you laughed enough? Did you understand what I said?”

“I understood.” Ye Fusheng hurriedly sat up straight, though he couldn’t help carefully asking a follow-up question. “But Shifu’s Spouse, if you take me back…” Will I really not get kicked out by your maiden family?

As if he hadn’t heard the unspoken implication, Duanqing’s gaze grew heavy. “It has been thirteen years. It is time you went back to see her.”

He spoke this sentence very lightly, as if relieved of a heavy burden, as if a promise held for years was finally about to be fulfilled. Even his usually unrippled eyes carried a rare trace of softness.

Ye Fusheng’s heart suddenly leaped into his throat, pounding violently.

He had a vague guess, but he didn’t dare to think about it. His voice strained, he squeezed out a sentence: “See… who?”

“When a Shifu dies, the disciple observes mourning,” Duanqing said softly. “On her deathbed, Qifang said you must be the one to lay her to rest… Another year’s end approaches. Now that I have finally found you, come back with me to see her.”

I speak of returning, I speak of returning, yet the year draws to a close. I speak of returning, I speak of returning, yet my heart is filled with sorrow. ¹

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1. From the Book of Odes, Xiaoya, “Plucking Vetch”. ↩︎