Master’s wedding was at hand. The sect proclaimed a grand amnesty, and I, too, was released from the forbidden grounds and brought back.

The others received me as though bracing for a mortal enemy.

Fearing I might hurt the little mistress-to-be, Eldest Senior Brother fastened thirteen spirit-binding talismans on me.

Junior Brother simply camped at my door, sword clasped in his arms, his face black.

“Lay a finger on her, and I will repay it to you many times over.”

Even the sword spirit bound to me by a master-servant pact risked the scattering of his soul to force me to dissolve the contract—so that he might go steal the bride.

I agreed to it all, perfectly agreeable.

For I was secretly carrying the child of a certain fierce dragon in my belly; one surge of emotion and they would find me out, and all would be lost!

The moment I returned to Qinghan Mountain, a breath of crisp autumn cold struck me full in the face and made me shiver.

I had been shut away in the sweltering forbidden grounds for so long that the mortal world no longer suited me.

I drew my thin clothes tighter and sniffled.

My senior brother Yang Ze glanced at me sidelong. His cold instructions—that “it was no easy thing to come back, so do not fly into one of your dog’s tempers again”—paused, then went on.

“Miss Cao is Master’s beloved. The wedding is near, and fellow cultivators from the sects of all Nine Provinces will come to celebrate. Though you have spent these years learning your lesson in the forbidden grounds, there is no guarantee you will not revert to your old ways.”

As he spoke, he drew forth the talismans.

I looked at those thirteen ostentatious spirit-binding charms and felt amused.

I was about to say there was no need to use an ox-cleaver to kill a chicken: my spirit was so feeble now that if I came to blows with the willow-frail Miss Cao, she would likely be the one kneeling on the ground begging me not to die.

But then a thought struck me. My fingertips touched my belly, and I asked hesitantly:

“Can these talismans bind any kind of spirit?”

Yang Ze had expected me to fly into a rage; at my calm he was briefly stunned.

“...Naturally.”

My eyes lit up. As cheerfully as ordering dishes, I said, “Then put them all on, by all means.”

Yang Ze chose to put on none of them.

Anything strange is surely a trick.

He decided I must have grown so powerful through my calm that I could even break free of spirit-binding talismans.

I was sorely disappointed.

Might as well leave, I thought.

Mei Fengzhi’s wedding banquet would hardly lack for one guest; perhaps he would even breathe easier not seeing me.

Besides... I looked at my belly.

Carrying such a great burden—if the fellow in the forbidden grounds woke and sensed I had run off, there was no telling how he would run mad.

My mind made up, I swept a look around my old room, considering what I could take with me.

Unexpectedly, an uninvited guest arrived.

At the doorway.

A man with upturned eye-corners and a mole at the tip of his nose stood glowering at me, arms folded around his sword.

Years had passed; at first I did not recognize him.

Until he spoke: “Dou Chanyin. You dare come back?”

That familiar ingrate-turncoat tone, and I remembered at once.

Fourth Junior Brother, Han Yun.

“Stealing spiritual treasures, slaughtering an innocent mortal girl,” he said snidely. “If I were you, I would have tucked my head in like a turtle in the forbidden grounds and died of shame.”

I shot him a withering look. Truly, I could not understand it.

A boy who had once been soft and fair, sniveling “Elder Sister” after me—grown up and gone as mad as his master the moment he met that mortal woman, blind in eye and blind in heart.

I searched along the curio shelves and said slowly:

“Pity I am not you. I do not care for being a turtle.”

I found a storage pouch and was about to stow some treasures into it when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed Han Yun had not left.

He stood rooted at the door like a pillar base, stubbornly gripping his sword and watching me.

“I have to keep an eye on you.”

He feared I would go make trouble for Cao Wu.

Annoyed, I rushed over to push him away. He stood immovable as a mountain. I raised my hand; he lifted his face, jaw set, wearing the look of a man who would not leave even if beaten a thousand times.

My palm never fell.

I stopped myself. Why lose my temper and alarm the pregnancy—worse, let that fiend in the forbidden grounds sense it.

Besides, Han Yun was no longer the little junior brother who had once clung to me and been worth the trouble of disciplining.

I cooled down, did not spare him a single glance, and flung the door shut behind me.

The tall, thin shadow of the man outside lay on the dark-green window paper, locked in stalemate, cold and still.

As the wedding day drew near, I grew anxious.

By my reckoning, the day the dragon in the forbidden grounds would wake was that very same day.

If I did not find a way to leave before then, he would surely catch wind of me and come seize me.

But the whole sect watched me as though I were a mortal enemy, tracking my every move—to say nothing of the flower-guarding cavalier Han Yun at my courtyard gate.

Had I still my old powers, I could have drawn a talisman and fled a thousand li through the earth without anyone the wiser.

But Mei Fengzhi had long since destroyed my spiritual powers. Had I not met that dragon in the forbidden grounds, it was doubtful I would even have come back alive.

Thinking this, even the shelf of spiritual treasures Mei Fengzhi had once given me became an eyesore.

Wait...

Something suddenly caught my eye.

The Ruyi Plate.

I picked up the spirit plate covered in ruyi cloud patterns. It was a gift from long ago, when I could never get my cultivation right and cried alone; Mei Fengzhi had coaxed me and brought it back from his travels.

With an incantation, it could take one anywhere one wished. But fearing I would sneak down the mountain to play, Mei Fengzhi had set a restriction: it could only travel within Qinghan Mountain.

That would be enough.

I would move myself to the mountain gate, then find a chance to slip out.

In the dead of night, the wind sighed through the mountain pines.

I had just landed on a secluded path near the gate, meaning to creep furtively out, when I ran straight into another face from the past.

On the stone steps below, a man in a wide-brimmed hat climbed up one step at a time, lips pressed tight, profile carved as if with a blade.

Bad luck.

I quietly took a deep breath.

This one was even crazier than Han Yun. Han Yun at least only nursed a secret crush on the mistress. This creature was no human: relying on the terrifying power of his true body, a thousand-year sword, he kept scheming to seize Cao Wu and make her his own.

When Cao Wu had her accident back then, he had not said a word before running me through with his sword.

I retreated warily. I could not withstand another stab in the back from him now.

Qin Wushang’s oppressive gaze shot out from beneath his hat.

“Where are you going?”

I did not answer.

He thought the worst of me, convinced that everything I did was out of jealousy of Cao Wu. But as he was my sword spirit, bound by the master-servant pact, it usually fell to me to restrain him, never the reverse.

That sword thrust of old had come at the cost of the contract’s backlash, risking the scattering of his soul.

And that one thrust had severed the bond between him and me for good.

Yet here he was, still going on about dissolving the pact.

Baffled, I finally spoke.

“There is nothing between us anymore. Look.”

I opened my palm. The lifeline lay quiet there; the red bond-thread that had once joined him to me had vanished without a trace.

His hat hid Qin Wushang’s eyes. He bowed his head and seemed to stare hard at my hand.

A fine drizzle fell in the deep night, and the mountain grew colder.

I curled my fingers to draw back my icy hand, about to say “Now will you stop blocking my way,” when my retreating hand was suddenly seized.

He pulled it over and examined it again and again, as if determined to find some thread of evidence that he and I were not truly severed.

Madman.

I wrenched my hand back in disgust, wiped it on my hem, frowned, and glared at him.

“I said it is gone, so it is gone. If you do not believe me, I will order you to get lost right now—get lost, let us see you do it.”

He did not get lost.

There, you see. I had not lied.

But Qin Wushang blocked the narrow mountain path like a mountain, and no matter how I tried I could not get around him. Swallowing my anger, I prodded him.

“What are you waiting for? Go find Cao Wu now and sign a pact with her, tie yourselves together for life. Even Mei Fengzhi would not be able to drive you away.”

My words were perfectly sweet to hear, but Qin Wushang acted deaf. Motionless, he kept watching my hand.

Meanwhile Han Yun, having discovered my escape, had chased after us. Catching my words from behind, he shouted in a fury:

“I knew it! You are still thinking of Master! Trying to provoke the mistress and make trouble for her!”

One in front, one behind. Not even a winged thing could escape.

I closed my eyes, heartsick and exhausted.

Han Yun’s shout carried loud enough for everyone to hear.

And so the rumor spread again that I had slipped out in the night, bent on harming Cao Wu. This time it reached Mei Fengzhi’s ears.

Heaven was my witness.

A girlish, foolish infatuation with my master—that one fault had cost me years of undeserved suffering in the forbidden grounds. I had long since reformed, utterly and completely.

Why would no one believe me?

Were it not that I still had some pride and feared that fiend would find me, I could have shouted to the world that I carried a “dragon’s get” in my belly.

Forget Master—I had lost all interest in humans entirely!

I was summoned to the main courtyard by the Council Hall and stood waiting aimlessly at the door for Mei Fengzhi.

Of all places on Qinghan Mountain, his cave-dwelling was the coldest.

Snow fell there in every season, year after year of pallid white.

But when I arrived this time, it wore the look of early spring: clusters of white plum blossoms, warm swallows and singing orioles. I had heard it was an illusion conjured for Cao Wu—mortal women were fragile as fledglings and must be cherished and delicately raised.

“Chanyin, why do you not come in?”

Lost in my thoughts, I heard a woman’s gentle call and got gooseflesh all up my arm.

Damnation. Why was it another scene alone with her?

This time she appeared thoughtfully to invite me in. I refused with my life. I dreaded that the moment I neared her, some mystical phenomenon would occur—she would trip, fall ill, or weep until she could not speak.

Seeing I would not enter, she came out herself.

“Do not be cross with me anymore, Chanyin. You are my only friend. I do not blame you...”

Cao Wu spoke softly and reached for my hand.

I retreated at once, three great steps back.

Her lashes trembled; she looked deeply hurt, on the verge of tears. And just then Mei Fengzhi walked up from behind.

The scene was only too familiar. In a flinch of old habit I put my hands behind my back and quickly explained to Mei Fengzhi:

“I did not bully her!”

At my words, both of them started.

Perhaps they remembered the girl I had been: young, refusing to swallow any grievance; when arguments failed, biting my lip until it bled to hold back tears, hiding my red, swollen, punished hands behind my back, stubborn as a calf.

Always shouting at Mei Fengzhi: “I truly did not bully her! Why is it that you never, ever believe me!”

I met his gaze, distant and wary, thinking that if he struck me again without hearing me out, I would fight back with everything I had.

Mei Fengzhi lowered his eyes to my tightly clenched, whitened fingers.

After a long while, what he asked was:

“A-Yin, are you afraid of your master?”

My clenched fingers stilled.

Toward him I had felt disappointment and grief; but the word “afraid” I had never considered.

Yet now that I considered it—yes, I supposed I was afraid.

How could one not fear such cruelty: the person who had once sheltered me in every way suddenly casting me down into the dust overnight.

Seeing my distance and silence, Mei Fengzhi veiled his eyes and told Cao Wu to go in first.

Looking worried on my behalf, she timidly pulled his sleeve and urged: “Speak to her gently. Do not scold Chanyin. I truly do not blame her for what happened back then.”

Mei Fengzhi drew his sleeve back.

“Go in.”

His tone was nothing like the tender softness rumored; it even carried a hint of warning. Perhaps I misheard.

Cao Wu’s face stiffened.

Once she had gone, the ice in Mei Fengzhi’s eyes thawed a little—but remained fogged, unreadable.

“A-Yin. Come here.”

I frowned, puzzled.

“Come here,” he repeated.

Once, I would absolutely have reached out and taken his fingertips obediently before he had to ask a second time. This time, I did not.

He sighed, as though I were still the same willful, unreasonable little disciple of old.

“Let your master feel your pulse.”

I hid my wrist behind my back and shook my head. “No need. I am quite well.”

Mei Fengzhi seemed to sense something and probed faintly: “A-Yin, in the forbidden grounds... did you meet anyone? Or any beast?”

My heart leapt into my throat.

I feigned incomprehension. “For a thousand li the forbidden grounds hold no trace of humans; there is not even a mouse. How could there be a beast?”

Mei Fengzhi stared at me for a long moment. “Good, then.”

He turned and walked down the mountain. Leaving the warm-spring cave dwelling, snow began to fall, flakes of moisture settling on the shoulder embroidered with gold cloud patterns.

I followed behind. It was always his back I saw.

He spoke, his voice as cold as snow-pearls dropping onto a jade plate.

“Some trouble has occurred in the forbidden grounds of late. I asked you to return early, so do not go running about on your own...”

Just then Senior Brother Yang Ze hurried up the stone steps and bowed.

“...People have come from Gan Prefecture!”

Mei Fengzhi’s brows drew faintly together.

I keenly caught his gravity.

For a nature as cold and heartless as his to show so clear a stir—some formidable personage of some sect must be involved.

While my senior brother made his report, I quietly took the other fork in the path.

Plucking a leaf to toy with, I considered his words.

Mount Yingmu in Gan Prefecture?

I remembered reading in the library pavilion that the sect on those peaks had been destroyed two hundred years ago.

Its current leader was a young man, seemingly named “Ying Xuan.”

Ying Xuan...

I silently mouthed the name, certain I had seen it somewhere.

Fragments churned in my brain like paste...

Overlapping shadows above and below in the rock cave; the man’s back bowed taut as a drawn bow; the jade token at his neck always knocking painfully against my collarbones; wanting to curse him but only weak weeping coming out; the sweltering heat flushing my face red...

Where was my mind going!

Halfway up the mountain, snow turned to rain. I shook my head hard, sending droplets flying.

Dou Chanyin, Dou Chanyin, was this the time for such nonsense?

With the whole sect run off its feet preparing for tomorrow’s wedding and that sect from Mount Yingmu, I decided I would leave at midnight.

Han Yun and Qin Wushang had both been called away for duties—a perfect chance.

I tossed aside the crumpled leaf and hopped down the steps in two or three bounds. On landing I remembered the child in my belly and patted it nervously.

Please do not let it kick up a fuss.

What I feared most came to pass.

Something stirred in my belly suddenly, as if sensing kinship.

A voice sounded at my ear.

“Pardon me, fairy maiden—is this the way to the guests’ quarters?”

I looked over. A dark, lean cultivator with a long beard and a cloth cap smiled amiably. He said their party had come from Gan Prefecture, especially to congratulate Immortal Mei on his wedding.

Their party...

Stiff-necked, I turned my head inch by inch.

By the half-mountain stone terrace, high winds stirred the fine rain, and I saw at a glance the young man at the railing: a jade crown bound in his hair, robes of darkest black, towering height, and at his lean waist a black stone carved like a serpent’s scale.

The misty autumn rain veiled him, yet that half of porcelain-pale skin and the single jet-black arc of his brow were startlingly, heart-stoppingly clear.

At the voice, the man looked over indifferently.

Those piercingly bright eyes were exactly the madness I remembered.

My knuckles cracked as I squeezed them.

The capped cultivator said that this was their sect leader, Ying Xuan.

My world caved in.

The black dragon imprisoned in the forbidden grounds was Ying Xuan. He had gotten out—out and coming to make trouble for me. Done for, done for...

My mind raced through all the wicked things I had done—

Back then, for reasons unknown, all my meridians had snapped, and in my agony, with nowhere to turn, I had stumbled by chance into a cliff cave and broken in on Ying Xuan’s cultivation, throwing his breath into chaos. He had coughed up a mouthful of blood on the spot.

He had meant to snap my neck with one hand, only to be stopped by some inexplicable force. Helpless, he could only throw me aside and keep a corpse in his cave.

Then, fighting to survive, I had mistakenly eaten a wild herb at the cliff edge and forcibly triggered Ying Xuan’s mating season. Discovering that the closer I got to him the more I thrived—that my meridians began to knit themselves together—I refused to climb off him.

He had gripped me hard, those jet-black pupils as if aflame, and through gritted teeth spoken his only words during the seven mad days that followed.

“Don’t let me recognize you.”

...

A flash of inspiration.

That was it.

I remembered: his eyes had been injured then; he could not see.

And so in the cliff cave, unable to endure it, I had often slipped aside while he could not see, trying to catch my breath; he could only send out spirit-sense to track my breathing.

Which meant he truly did not know what I looked like.

No wonder he had glanced at me casually and looked away, as though I were an ant by his feet.

On reflection, even if he did recognize me—a man who could walk out of the forbidden grounds whole and be regarded with such wariness by Mei Fengzhi must be a great figure. Why would he care about that unspeakable little “dewdrop affair”?

Thus calmed, I raised my hand and directed the capped cultivator.

Only as I passed Ying Xuan with my head down did my body, despite itself, shiver at the faint warm fragrance on him.

He did not seem to notice and went his own way, expressionless.

I let out a soft breath of relief.

At midnight, Han Yun had only just been called away when, closing the door behind me to run, I suddenly heard a great clamor from the mountaintop.

It sounded like forest monsters baying together, like owls and crows shrieking.

In an instant Qinghan Mountain blazed with lantern light, everyone seizing torches and rushing to the peak.

Peering out from my doorway, I was taken for a sightseer; several newly admitted disciples, knowing nothing of my history, dragged me along.

“Elder Sister, come quickly, let us go see.”

I quietly hid the sleeve-pouch stuffed with treasures: “...”

Because of tomorrow’s wedding, the mountain paths were decked with red silk and red lanterns. Tonight’s wind wailed especially bitterly; the dark, towering pines loomed in grotesque postures, shrouded in thick fog, unspeakably sinister.

The one it had happened to was Qin Wushang.

I saw him forced to his knees by Mei Fengzhi, sword still in hand. At first I thought his bride-stealing had simply failed.

But in the lamplight I saw Cao Wu cowering behind Mei Fengzhi, a long gash across her cheek, still shaken—Qin Wushang had cut her.

Everyone murmured: “Possessed by evil, surely.”

Qin Wushang was bound about waist and legs by chains. Seeing me, his eyes lit as with a banked dark fire. He stretched out a hand with an effort, clawing at the ground, trying to crawl toward me.

The crowd looked at me and silently parted, making way.

The sword I had worn since childhood was strapped to his back. Black blood seeped from his lips and teeth; his knuckles strained.

“Master...”

I stood frozen.

Just as his fingertips nearly touched my shoe, he lifted his head, lips moving, seeming about to speak.

But in that taut instant, cold light flashed at the corner of my eye: Han Yun burst out from nowhere, mad, and drove his sword straight through the back of Qin Wushang’s neck and out the front.

I watched the flying blood about to spatter my face—when a pale, long-fingered hand swept a sleeve between us. The blood could not touch him; with a flick of his wrist he flung it off, pattering across the ground.

Dead silence fell.

Ying Xuan looked as if he had merely lent a casual hand. Not looking at me, he brushed nonexistent dust from his sleeve, a faint smile on his thin lips, and said to the capped cultivator at his side:

“This sort of spectacle is far more amusing than watching some tedious pair wed tomorrow.”

The capped cultivator smiled and said nothing.

Both Qin and Han looked unwell, showing signs of possession. Mei Fengzhi was calm. He had Qin Wushang’s body and the fainted Han Yun carried away.

Quite a few onlookers had gathered from the sects of the Nine Provinces. They exchanged glances and whispered: “Qinghan Mountain has seen disciples of the same school slaughter one another. It seems the wedding cannot proceed.”

The wedding was, naturally, called off.

More and more people were possessed, spreading like plague to every sect across the Nine Provinces. Mei Fengzhi sealed off Qinghan Mountain. Panic reigned; the sect leaders quarreled daily in the Council Hall.

Some said it was the Three Corpses at work and advocated meditation and purification on Geng-Shen days to escape bewitchment.

Others insisted it was demon possession; the urgent thing was to set up altars and wield talismans to drive the evil out.

In the end they spat at one another, each convinced he was right.

Mei Fengzhi sat upright at the head of the hall and said not a word.

Only when the others had shouted themselves hoarse and sat mute and bewildered did he speak.

“This matter began at my Qinghan Mountain. Plainly someone means to use the wedding, when all the sects are gathered, to unsettle hearts, set us at one another’s throats, and catch us all in one net.”

The leaders exchanged glances, puzzled. “Who?”

My gaze drifted involuntarily to the most indifferent man in the hall. Ying Xuan sat with eyes closed, as if bored to the edge of sleep.

Mei Fengzhi said gravely: “I have consulted the Fate Plate. A wayward star assails the moon, in the north.”

The north!

At once everyone thought of something.

An old sect leader quickly shook his head with a laugh: “Impossible, impossible. Immortal Mei cannot mean that black dragon trapped in the forbidden grounds?”

“That wicked beast was skinned and hamstrung two hundred years ago by your own revered master, Master Baiming, leading the allied sects; they carved the pearl from his belly and pinned him with ninety thousand soul-suppressing talismans. Not even a grand immortal could escape.”

The older leaders, recalling that dragon, all paled a little.

Some younger leaders, knowing less, spoke rashly: “What if he did get out? We trapped him once, we can do it twice. Find him and kill him, that is all!”

Ying Xuan opened his eyes lazily and glanced at the speaker.

The capped cultivator beside him—Ying Ji, the vice sect leader—at last spoke up, mildly: “The north holds more than the forbidden grounds. The Taihe Sect and the Dongshan Sect are both there. Are they the masterminds too?”

The two named leaders’ faces soured.

Ying Ji went on: “Whoever tied the bell must untie it. This trouble arose at Qinghan Mountain. We all came for Immortal Mei’s wedding, and for no reason so many of our disciples have become possessed...”

He looked at Mei Fengzhi and smiled. “Immortal Mei, you owe us an explanation.”

What a tongue.

I admired it secretly. In a few words he had turned the spear-point on Mei Fengzhi. To everyone present, rather than blame a dragon long since imprisoned, was it not better to vent their anger on the man who could actually grant them favors?

Sure enough, someone was provoked into raising his voice:

“Indeed! People came and now they cannot go home—what sort of business is this!”

“Immortal Mei, you must think of something!”

The old leader stroked his beard and said slowly:

“The jade pearl Master Baiming took from the black dragon’s belly in those years has boundless power. In small matters it can dispel evil and extend life; in great ones it can suppress souls and aid cultivation. With so grave a crisis upon us, why does Immortal Mei not bring it forth to deliver us all?”

The hall fell quiet at once, every eye on Mei Fengzhi.

Mei Fengzhi’s face was like frost, unreadable. He rose and quietly dropped a thunderclap.

“I was about to inform you all. The jade pearl, last night...”

“...was stolen.”

BOOM.

The door was slammed open.

Outside, black clouds pressed low, wind and rain raged.

Yang Ze stood soaked in rain and blood, panting wretchedly, and stammered: “Miss Cao—she has run off!”

Cao Wu had stolen the jade pearl and fled down the mountain.

The news was everywhere; all of Qinghan Mountain was stunned.

“A weak woman like her—how did she have the power to break through the mountain guards?”

“Weak woman?! Eldest Brother, open your eyes and look what she did to our eldest senior brother!”

Several junior disciples clustered under the corridor, dazed.

“I saw it last night. That Cao Wu showed her true form—all white, even her hair. Her moves were unearthly, and in the moonlight she cast no shadow at all!”

“...You are saying... Master married a ghost?!”

“No wonder there are so many pine trees up there—pines only grow that lush over graves...”

The tales grew wilder by the minute.

I walked over; they hushed at once and bowed with clasped hands. “Second Elder Sister.”

I nodded in return.

As I was about to pass, one of the female disciples called after me softly.

“Elder Sister... you have been wronged.”

I started and looked at them.

They said: “What happened years ago was surely Cao Wu framing you. Neither human nor ghost, she bewitched Master and the senior brothers and made you suffer all this time for nothing.”

“The truth is, all of us juniors know in our hearts you would never harm anyone!”

The girl bit her lip. “When I first came to Qinghan Mountain, you were the one who showed us around. You taught even the slowest disciple patiently. On the training trial I was hurt and held you back, and you never complained—you even carried me back...”

“Elder Sister... when you were drowning in rumors, at your most helpless... we did not dare stand up and protect you...”

“I am sorry...”

The autumn wind shook rain-soaked leaves from the eaves, a pattering sound that made one sad for no reason.

Such was human nature: a rumor told often enough becomes truth; good and bad hang on a single mouth. The moment fortune turns, everyone scrambles to declare a true heart and trample the villain to prove their own cleanliness.

I veiled my eyes, smiled without a word, and turned down the long corridor.

Behind it were held the possessed disciples; the East Tower housed the dead. Every sect had guards posted there.

Taking a clever route and relying on a childhood spent climbing walls and rooftops, I flung a grappling hook from an abandoned pavilion and swung onto the East Tower’s roof.

Qin Wushang’s body lay in the innermost room of the top floor. I slipped in through the transom.

Ever since Qin Wushang died before my eyes, I had kept wondering what he had meant to say.

Since my return he had behaved strangely, as if he had entirely forgotten running me through that year. But if Cao Wu truly had power enough to use sorcery and force Qin Wushang to kill me, how could he have suddenly turned and slashed her face?

Doubtful, I had come looking for clues.

Approaching Qin Wushang’s body, I found his face unchanged except for the sword hole through his neck.

I examined him carefully all around and was about to pry open an eyelid when a thin red thread suddenly appeared in my palm, winding over his neck and behind his back.

The bond-thread had returned!

The red thread led to the sword.

Of course.

When a sword spirit’s fleshly body dies, the soul returns to its true body, and the contract remains in force.

I struck my own head. Stupid—how could I forget that.

With the sword in hand, I could ask the sword spirit what on earth had happened.

I quickly slung the sword onto my back and was about to leave when, from the corner of my eye, I caught a figure by the window near the door. I crouched at once.

It was Mei Fengzhi.

He seemed about to enter and had sent the guards away.

What to do, what to do—the window was out. Hide first.

I crawled under the corpse bier; there was a drape to cover me.

But no sooner had I lifted the cloth than I came face-to-face with a pair of glinting black eyes.

Ying Xuan met my gaze expressionlessly, pulled the stunned me into his arms, and clamped a palm firmly over my mouth.

Almost in the same instant, Mei Fengzhi pushed the door open and came in.

The drape was perfectly sealed. I was pressed close to Ying Xuan, his fragrance filling every breath; an instinctive dizziness came over me, my ears reddening.

I could not see the figure outside, only sensed Mei Fengzhi stand there a moment. Then a ball of bright blue flame kindled, and in an instant everything went still.

He did not linger. At the sound of the lock latching I pried Ying Xuan’s hand away and scrambled out, gasping.

The corpse on the bier had been burned to ash; the window had blown open, and in a blink the ash, glittering with blue specks of light, was swept out by the wind and scattered without a trace.

I stared, stiff.

Behind me rose Ying Ji’s voice.

“My lord, it seems this Mei lunatic is the real ‘ghost’ after all.”

The dark drape rippled and reshaped into a man. Ying Ji smoothed his beard straight and looked at Ying Xuan, who emerged calmly from under the bier.

They made no attempt to hide from me. Ying Ji said they could not linger on Qinghan Mountain; they must pursue the jade pearl’s trail at once.

Go on then, go. Coming to my senses, I gripped the sword, thinking: I have to get away too.

I supposed they took me for an unimportant nobody. While they talked, I edged along the wall, meaning to return the way I came.

But I had been foolish indeed; Ying Xuan was no idiot.

Without so much as lifting an eyelid, he reached out, drew me over with spirit-power, then leaned down and pressed a hand to my belly, his gaze terrifying.

He spoke my name one word at a time.

“Dou. Chan. Yin.”

“Where did you think you were running, carrying what is mine?”

So he had recognized me all along, watching me play the fool the way one teases a cat or a dog.

Utterly guilty of conscience, blindsided by so many bewildering strange events, I lost my wits for a moment and babbled the first nonsense that came.

“It is not as if I got pregnant with your child on purpose! I could not have managed this business alone, could I?”

“I know you are angry, but please do not be angry yet.”

“Once my meridians fully recover, if you want to keep this child I will give birth and hand it back to you; if you do not, I will raise it myself. I will never extort you.”

“In my current condition, if you touch me, mother and child will both die together!”

“You are a great man with a great heart—let me off this once!”

In the small room, dust floated in the light, and the silence was frightening.

A strange expression crossed Ying Xuan’s face.

Beside him, Ying Ji’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He twisted around, stammering: “Ch-child? My lord, you...”

Ying Xuan turned his goggling subordinate’s head back around, gave me an unreadable look, and gave a cold laugh.

“Very well. I will not touch you. But you will help me find that jade pearl. Then I will consider whether mother and child both live—or whether to keep the child and discard the mother.”

With my life held in his grip, there was no second road.

I could only nod.

Several days later, Tu Prefecture, in front of a teahouse.

I took off my hat and shook water from my hair. Two drops accidentally splashed onto the back of the man’s hand; his lashes, beautiful as a knife-edge, swept over them.

“Are you a dog?”

I stopped my head-shaking habit and let it pass, indifferent.

Ever since the night Ying Xuan had undone the restriction on the Ruyi Plate, we had quietly left Qinghan Mountain to track Cao Wu, heading west all the way to this borderland between north and south.

Along the road my appreciation of this man’s vicious tongue had scaled new heights.

Probably because he was not human to begin with, he had simply given up on being one.

I carried his dragon child, after all; far from showing the slightest tenderness, he ordered me about like a serving girl.

The rain came down too hard. Chilled, I dropped my head and sneezed.

Ying Xuan did not react at all; but Ying Ji, just back from gathering news, hurried over and, hearing me, told the innkeeper to bring a pot of hot tea and a dry cloth.

Ying Ji handed it to me himself with a smile: “Do not freeze to death, fairy maiden—er, I mean, do not catch a chill.”

Not a good one among them.

I took the cloth with a smile that did not reach my eyes and rubbed my hair hard.

The innkeeper served the hot tea. Through the curling steam, Ying Ji spoke of what his inquiries had found these days.

I heard him raise a term again: “the Earth God.”

I slowly stopped drying my hair and listened as Ying Ji said gravely:

“All along this road, almost every place has people worshipping this god; Tu Prefecture alone has the most believers, who do not hesitate to sacrifice their own children, cutting out their hearts as offerings.”

In all the world’s Nine Provinces, crowded with Buddhist and Taoist temples, I had heard of gods great and small—but this “Earth God” was strange indeed.

Not only had I never heard of him; he belonged neither to Tao nor to Buddha, neither proper evil nor proper ghost. He had been born from an odd entry in a county gazetteer—

An ancient tribe called the Wuqi lived in caves and ate earth. When their people died, their hearts did not decay; buried and dug up a hundred years later, the hearts took human form.

And so the believers called themselves “the Wuqi” too, hoping their Earth God would lead them to an immortality free of illness and disaster.

Ying Ji said that just now, while the faithful gathered to burn incense, he had seen a woman who looked like Cao Wu slip into the Earth God temple.

It was plainly a baited hook. We had chased so long without seeing anyone—how could we stumble on the real thing so conveniently?

I thought little of it, lowering my head to blow on the scalding tea.

But Ying Xuan meant to bite that hook.

“When the hook comes, the shore cannot be far.”

Finding me too slow, he lifted me by the back of my collar and tucked me under his arm like a traveling bundle.

“Move.”

The tea burned my lip. Hissing, stumbling, carried along, I could only glare at him in secret.

But his embrace was so warm; the hat sat crookedly on my head, held by him; his shoulders and back were broad, as if even the wind could not get through.

I hated the cold so much that I magnanimously forgave his rudeness and let him shelter me from wind and rain with an easy conscience.

The Earth God temple was thick with incense, and even at dusk a fair crowd was gathered.

Pretending to be believers, we entered to offer incense. In the haze I saw there was neither shrine nor statue in the temple—only a plain altar, two pure vases holding white plum sprays, and above them a hanging painting.

I stared at the painting.

A cinnabar talisman, drawn in one unbroken stroke to its end. I could not tell what spell it was; I only knew it was unpleasant to look at, and a sharp, violent pain flickered through my stomach.

My vision darkened. Ying Xuan pulled me away, his tone neither cold nor warm: “Dumb thing—take your eyes off you for a moment and your soul goes wandering.”

I came to my senses, sweat beading at my temple.

“What is that?”

Ying Xuan lifted a brow, half-smiling. “It is your sect’s thing. Why ask me?”

My heart turned cold.

Ever since so many events at Qinghan Mountain, I had not dared think it through. But the image of Mei Fengzhi destroying the corpse and all evidence would not leave my mind.

From childhood he had been the man I admired. Even after he turned on me, I had only told myself love had addled his wits, that he had misread Cao Wu.

He slew demons and cut down monsters, always upright, like the cleanest handful of snow on the highest peak. Beside him there had always been a corner of peace, which made me forever want to draw close and depend on him.

Yet these days, the events at Qinghan Mountain seemed inextricably tied to him.

I had meant to ask the sword spirit, only to find on the sword the same familiar restriction Mei Fengzhi had set. The sword had a soul but could not speak.

And now this plainly calamitous, world-harming evil god was connected to Qinghan Mountain too...

I gripped the sword and looked at the ragged believers in the wet, glowing dusk, numbly holding up meat-hearts in the temple. For the first time, I was lost as to the righteousness of my own sect’s Way.

Then Ying Ji said softly, “Look. She has come out.”

I frowned and looked.

The people laid their hearts before a small earthen mound on the altar. The white-haired woman who resembled Cao Wu, hooded, sprinkled water from a plum branch over their heads.

After a stretch of muttered chanting, the talisman in the painting behind her suddenly blazed with unearthly light.

The people sighed in awe as if in a trance.

The earthen mound slowly cracked open and swallowed the hearts. An aged hand reached out, and out crawled an ancient monster with white hair over a yard long.

Before I could even catch my breath, the old monster flicked a sidelong glance and fixed his ghastly stare straight on me!

In a flash, the cinnabar on the painted talisman welled with blood, becoming ring upon ring of vortexes that abruptly sucked me in.

“...Fairy maiden!”

Ying Ji’s call came faintly through the chaos.

I tumbled headlong into a pouch and struggled up to feel my way around; there was no exit anywhere.

I was about to draw my sword and cut my way out when I heard voices outside.

It sounded like an old man.

“The disciple you raised has led the wolf into the house—how conveniently the turtle is caught in our jar. She is of no more use now. Cut the pearl from her belly; with the two pearls joined, this old master’s path to immortality will be complete.”

The pearl!

I stared at my belly.

So I had not been pregnant—I had been nurturing a new jade pearl.

Had Mei Fengzhi imprisoned me in the forbidden grounds for this?

A silence. The old man laughed coldly. “What, cannot bear to?”

After a moment, Mei Fengzhi’s clear, cold voice finally spoke.

“Master, she is only a child. She has never done anything wrong.”

The old man started, then hissed with laughter.

“A child?”

“You have lost your heart to a child! A-Feng!”

The old man’s hoarse voice grew heated.

“Do not forget that your master, too, has never done anything wrong! I risked my life slaying the dragon and taking the pearl, reviving the sect, making Qinghan Mountain supreme over the Nine Provinces!”

“But look how unjust Heaven is. I was not the only one who slew the dragon that day—yet the retribution, that corpse-dissolution bars me from immortality, fell on me alone.”

“One jade pearl can only keep my heart beating; my body grows older and older.”

“A-Feng, your own father, the sect leader, was killed by dragons. It was I who rescued you and raised you with heart’s-blood care. Qinghan Mountain will one day rest on your shoulders alone. Once your master becomes immortal, I can go on watching over you...”

Dead silence.

Master Baiming calmed. “Your junior sister Cao Wu has already told me you truly love that girl—that since she was small you have fed the jade pearl with your own heart’s blood to shield her spirit and keep her safe into adulthood.”

Inside the pouch, my fingers trembled at his words.

“Very well. For your sake, I will spare her life. But the pearl absolutely must be taken. See that you do it without causing her pain.”

“Do not think of hiding her. You know my temperament; then it would be more than a simple matter of cutting open a belly.”

Mei Fengzhi agreed.

I must have been hidden in the fold of his robe; I could hear his heart beating steadily all the while, as if nothing could ever throw him into confusion.

Some time passed. I was stifling in the pouch, nearly unable to breathe, when a crack of light opened above me.

I had been shrunk. A pale hand fished me out.

Before I could catch my breath, I clamped down hard on that hand and bit with all my might, until my teeth ached. Only then did the man speak coldly.

“Ungrateful, double-dealing cur.”

Hmm?

That familiar, cutting tone...

I let go and slowly raised my eyes.

The face was still Mei Fengzhi’s face, but the insufferable expression was identical to Ying Xuan’s.

“Ying Xuan?”

I tilted my head.

His dark look seemed to soften a fraction at my getting the name right. “Mm.”

Only the two little pointed fang-marks on the web of his thumb were bleeding, which made for an awkward sight.

I covered them pointlessly with my hand and asked how he had taken Mei Fengzhi’s appearance, where this was, and how we had ended up here.

Ying Xuan: “...”

He took a deep breath, stuffed me back, and said: “If that brain of yours will not work, do not use it. Just follow.”

I shut my mouth.

Perhaps because I had been shrunk, everything around seemed enormous. It looked like an underground realm, layer upon layer winding like an anthill. Quicksilver-like rivers coiled across the ground, and at the highest point stood a palace.

The people coming and going, old and young alike, were white-haired. On every level they channeled their powers, sending streams of starlight to the jade pearl hanging in midair.

Ying Xuan glanced at the jade pearl.

Clutching the cord of the jade token at his collar, I poked my head out and glanced at him.

The books said that a dragon’s belly-pearl was the equal of its heart. When a dragon chose a mate, it nurtured a second, new pearl in its mate’s belly, signifying that the mate was the dragon’s second heart, beyond price.

The pain of a belly cut open and tendons torn out was beyond imagining.

Because of the grand-master’s greed, he had lost one “heart”; and because of my ignorance and use, he had lost the other.

I lowered my eyes to my belly.

Suddenly I tugged the jade-token cord at his neck. He looked down, his half-lowered lashes like a crescent of moonlight, giving a false impression of gentleness.

I held the sword up and offered it to him.

“The pearl. Cut it out.”

He started.

“Rather than let them take it for their filthy business, it should go back to its rightful owner. That is only natural.”

After a long moment, he curved his lips and asked, tilting his head: “Not afraid of pain anymore?”

His teasing tone brought back the seven days in the cliff cave: the pain of my meridians healing, woven with pleasure, had often made me cry. Ying Xuan never coaxed and never stopped; his tenderest concession was to kiss away my tears whenever I sobbed until I could not breathe.

My gaze dodged in embarrassment.

“I-I am not. This time I absolutely will not cry. Go on, do it.”

Ying Xuan seemed in a good mood; he dropped the snideness too. Two fingers flicked lightly, sending me back into the pouch inside his robe.

“Next time.”

I rolled limply in the pouch, hair a wild mess, bewildered: does cutting someone open require choosing an auspicious day?

Ying Xuan did not take the pearl. Disguised as Mei Fengzhi, reining in his arrogant look, he was genuinely cold and aloof—even Cao Wu was fooled.

Her voice was as gentle and seductive as ever, fine as autumn rain south of the Yangtze.

“Senior brother, where have you hidden Chanyin? Master is pressing us for the pearl. If you cannot bring yourself to do it, I can do it for you.”

Ying Xuan said: “If I remember rightly, she was good to you once.”

Cao Wu laughed softly.

“At this point, what else can be done? Master raised us, and he raised the gu in our bodies too. If Master cannot become immortal, neither you nor I can save ourselves.”

“Before, you feared I would harm her and thought locking her in the forbidden grounds would keep Master from touching her. But look—she still did not escape.”

“She is the one fated to nurture the jade pearl. The hexagram on the Fate Plate is perfectly clear; it cannot be changed.”

Cao Wu sounded a little bitter.

“Have you not spoiled her enough these dozen years? After this tribulation, the worst that happens is she becomes a mortal again.”

“A mortal’s hundred years—spend them with her, and that is a whole lifetime.”

Inside the pouch I could not see; I only caught a woman’s fragrance—Cao Wu must be drawing close. Ying Xuan’s body tensed, seeming to restrain himself with all his might.

Leaning against him, she seemed to cry: “Senior brother, without her, in the days ahead... you still have me...”

Ying Xuan grew “gentle” too. Setting her upright, he said: “Enough of that for now. Since the pearl must be cut out, first take me to where the original pearl is enshrined. I will draw some spirit-energy to transfer to her, lest her present body cannot bear it.”

Cao Wu was all docility.

“All right, senior brother. I will take you.”

They passed the guards smoothly and came above the jade platform at the earth’s center. There floated the pearl, suspended in midair.

Cao Wu behind him, Ying Xuan reached out, his hand hovering over the pearl, slowly drawing in spirit-energy.

So close—one grab and it was his. I peeked out with both eyes, watching, desperately tense.

But before Ying Xuan moved, a sword was laid across his neck.

“You act very like him. But what you do not know is that senior brother never likes talking with me at all; he despises even touching the hem of my clothes.”

Cao Wu spoke coldly from behind.

“Hand over that treasure you keep at your chest. Stop hiding it.”

Ying Xuan made as if to reach into his robe, eyes narrowing; with the speed of a thunderclap he whipped out a long whip and coiled it around Cao Wu’s sword.

Pulling and pouring in force, the two of them soared at once and fought in midair.

I fell out of the pouch, dizzy. But the jade pearl hung right above me. Clutching my head, I jumped hard, trying to reach it.

Alas, short arms and short legs.

Honestly! Stop fighting and turn me back first!

Even without the pearl, Ying Xuan could subdue a Cao Wu easily enough. Just as he bound her and finally remembered what he had lost and turned to find me, I was lifted by the collar from behind.

The familiar scent of white plum blossoms, faint and clean.

I shivered and looked up.

The real Mei Fengzhi looked down at me, watching me quietly.

Not far off, Ying Xuan held Cao Wu, the barbs of his whip at her neck, his voice savage: “Give her back.”

Mei Fengzhi lifted a brow and stroked my tangled long hair with the pad of his thumb.

“Give her back? What here is yours?”

“You have noticed too, have you not—the pearl no longer answers to you. You cannot take it back.”

Ying Xuan’s face darkened as if water could be wrung from it. He moved the whip-barbs closer to Cao Wu’s vein, and a line of fresh blood ran down.

“Senior brother...” Cao Wu’s eyes went wide, crying out in terror.

Mei Fengzhi was unmoved. He looked at me. “As for A-Yin—she belongs to you even less.”

A snap of breaking bone: Ying Xuan twisted Cao Wu’s neck outright, raised the whip, and attacked Mei Fengzhi.

But with the jade pearl in hand, Mei Fengzhi’s power had soared; how could Ying Xuan withstand him?

In a few exchanges he was pinned to the ground.

Proud as Ying Xuan was, eyes blood-red, feral snarls tearing from his throat, he drove his palms onto the whip-barbs to drag himself up and charged Mei Fengzhi again.

And Mei Fengzhi had grown tired of it.

He cast a talisman. Spell-arrays rose on all four sides, plainly bent on reducing Ying Xuan to ash and smoke.

Just then, the meridians in my body suddenly flared hot. The pearl in my belly sensed danger and poured gurgling spirit-power back into me. I quickly drew on it, returned to my true form, knelt at Mei Fengzhi’s feet, and caught the hem of his robe.

“Master, take the pearl from inside me, please—I beg you, do not kill him!”

“Slaying a dragon offends the Heavenly Way; it brings retribution. I... I truly do not want you to become like Grand-Master...”

Mei Fengzhi’s folded fingers curled for an instant.

“Master... let him go. I will go back with you.”

Mei Fengzhi hesitated.

But the next moment, I worked the bond-thread and aimed the Wushang Sword at his throat.

A threat.

Mei Fengzhi stared at me in disbelief.

Tears stood in my eyes; the red thread trembled at my fingertips.

Behind us Ying Ji had finally found the right path. He heaved the grievously wounded Ying Xuan onto his back, threw open a teleportation array amid the howling wind and flying earth, and shouted at me: “Fairy maiden, come quickly, come! We are leaving!”

Mei Fengzhi’s ever-placid eyes stirred at last; his throat worked.

“A-Yin. Are you abandoning your master?”

One sentence.

One broken line of tears.

My face streaked with tears, I said: “Master abandoned me first...”

When I was very small, Mei Fengzhi once pointed at a map and taught me the lay of the land—

Of the world’s Nine Provinces, past the ferries of Tu Prefecture, the northernmost is Gan Prefecture. Its people worship the dragon totem; legend says it is the homeland of the black dragons.

...

Ruining most of his own cultivation, Ying Ji had teleported us to Gan Prefecture.

That day Master had shown mercy and not hunted us to the last. But I knew this was only a moment’s indulgence. I carried the pearl; Master Baiming would not let me go.

“Why do I not just cut the pearl out and return it to Ying Xuan? He is wounded so badly—is he about to die?”

In the tent, listening to the whimpering wind outside, which sounded more and more like keening at a funeral, I kept watch over the unconscious Ying Xuan, deeply worried.

Beside me Ying Ji clattered away preparing herbs, his beard tied into two skyward tufts, sweating profusely.

“Rest easy, fairy maiden. Our lord is the true line of the black dragons—he will outlive even a tortoise.”

“Besides, this other half of the pearl is the fated betrothal gift of the dragon race. Once given, it is the equivalent of your human world’s bride-price. There is no taking it back.”

“A proud man like our lord would refuse it even in death.”

“If I nodded for him on the sly, he would carve me into eight pieces the moment he woke!”

What an ill-tempered dragon.

“He really is hard to wait on. Thank you for your trouble, A-Ji.”

I cupped my face in helplessness.

Behind me Ying Ji snickered lewdly, full of meaning: “The fairy maiden will have her share of trouble in the days ahead...”

Baffled, I turned around. “?”

The hand dangling over the edge of the mat moved. A moment later, Ying Xuan’s gloomy voice came over us.

“...If neither of you wants that tongue of yours, better to cut it off.”

He was awake!

Ying Ji lunged over to swear loyalty: “My lord!”

I too smiled at him, delighted.

Ying Xuan pushed Ying Ji’s beard away in disgust. Then the corners of his eyes lifted as he looked at me—those soul-stealing eyes, bright as the white moon.

Setting everything else aside, this dragon was truly beautiful.

Just looking at him made one go blank without meaning to.

Then I heard this beautiful dragon say to me coldly:

“Silly rabbit, keep grinning and your front teeth will catch a cold.”

I wiped the expression off my face.

Some dragons simply do not deserve a pleasant face.

I had thought Gan Prefecture would be Ying Xuan’s territory. But these days I found that Master Baiming’s fabricated “Earth God” had spread its influence even to the northernmost land.

The temples to the black dragon stood abandoned and dust-choked, while the Earth God temples a few li away blazed with incense.

“The world turned upside down!” Ying Ji fumed.

Ying Xuan was calm enough, wiping dust from the incense table with a fingertip.

“So-called belief in gods is only the seeking of benefit. The dragon race has waned and cannot shield them; no one can blame them.”

Ying Ji could not accept it. “But for hundreds of years Gan Prefecture had fair winds and timely rains. Even trapped in the forbidden grounds, our lord never forgot to send spirit-power to shield this land. They turn their backs on all those years of toil just like that?”

“Our lord spent his heart’s blood breaking out for the pearl too, all for the people’s safety. They know nothing, and here they burn incense to the enemy. A pack of fools—”

Ying Xuan swept him a faint glance. Sensing the wrong mood, Ying Ji forced himself to calm for a few breaths and bowed his head.

For the people’s safety...

I turned that phrase over but did not ask then.

That night, when Ying Xuan went out on business, I entered the tent and quietly asked Ying Ji about the things he had said by day.

Still clattering among his jars and herbs, he pressed his lips shut at my question, hesitating over whether to tell me.

I said: “A-Ji. In your eyes, I am not a bad person, am I?”

Ying Ji looked at me and nodded. “Though the fairy maiden is of Qinghan Mountain, her heart is clear and her eyes see true—not like those so-called righteous cultivators, taught until they are bloated with selfish desire and unable to tell right from wrong.”

“But I do not understand any of this in my heart.” A weight settled on me; I lowered my brows. “Please tell me—what exactly are my master and grand-master trying to do?”

Ying Ji stopped his work, his face grave.

“Slaughter people as sacrifice; gain the Way and become immortal.”

Gan Prefecture’s early-winter wind blew into the tent, stinging the ears.

My head buzzed, as if I had not understood.

“For Grand-Master to become immortal, do they not only need the two jade pearls? How could killing people gain the Way?”

Ying Ji’s gaze was pitying. He said softly:

“Your grand-master is so ancient and decrepit—where would he find the power for so vast an array?”

My lashes trembled violently.

Master...

Everything was Master.

I understood now.

The jade pearl was never the key to immortality.

The people’s incense was.

Not one in hundreds of years succeeded in cultivating immortality; it required immense merit.

Though every stick of incense was merit, mortals were fickle, and those who burned incense in true sincerity were few indeed. Merit vast enough for immortality might take who knew how many lifetimes to accrue.

And so the forbidden art of “the Earth God’s Heart Sacrifice” was devised.

The old master believed the gu he had planted in his two disciples let him control them; he never guessed that all along it was he who was controlled by Mei Fengzhi.

He was too old. Bent under the sin of harming the dragon and taking the pearl, he had survived to this day entirely on the scraps of spirit-longevity Mei Fengzhi doled out from the jade pearl.

Mei Fengzhi knew perfectly well that trading forbidden arts for merit would, like the dragon-slaying, draw the Heavenly Way’s backlash. So he used the old master’s greed, letting the old man stand in front and bear Heaven’s wrath.

“The mantis hunting the cicada always forgets the oriole behind it,” Ying Ji said coldly. “When the time comes, the world will be thrown into chaos, ten thousand people made sacrifice; then Mei Fengzhi will turn and kill Baiming, purge evil on Heaven’s behalf, deceive both Heaven and the Way, and reap all the fruits.”

A chill ran down my spine.

All of it was a lie.

Taking me in and raising me like a treasure—only to make Master Baiming believe I could nurture the jade pearl, that I was an essential vessel for immortality.

Then the old master sent Cao Wu to watch me. What looked like a plan running smoothly, driving me step by step to the betrayal of all around me, was in fact only Mei Fengzhi pushing the boat with the current.

He locked me in the forbidden grounds, and at the last moment I duly fell into the trap, meeting Ying Xuan, who should have been buried too deep in the earth to ever reach.

Once the pearl came into being, he brought me back to Qinghan Mountain—luring the tiger away from the mountain, drawing Ying Xuan out of Gan Prefecture so he could manipulate Gan Prefecture’s believers.

Next came the possessed disciples, leading Ying Xuan and me to think in the wrong direction, wasting time chasing the pearl, while making the old master all the more certain that joining the two pearls was the very treasure of immortality.

“Sending us into that earthen lair was meant to kill us by the old man’s hand too...” I murmured.

Ying Ji shook his head. “Pity the old thing was too useless—frightened by the retribution for harming the dragon. The Merit Array was not ready, and Mei Fengzhi could not truly kill our lord and draw down Heaven’s wrath either. That is why he let us go.”

Ying Ji still looked shaken.

“That man’s scheming runs too deep. He holds no one’s life of any account.”

At his words, I curled my lip at my own ridiculousness—even as my heart was being carved. A tear slipped quickly past; I turned my head and wiped it away with a flick of my hand.

Swallowing the bitterness.

I thought a moment and asked: “The Merit Array is the final step of his scheme?”

“Exactly,” Ying Ji said. “Every Earth God temple in the Nine Provinces, so long as people offer incense there, is a node of his array. When the time is ripe, Baiming will work the rite at the array’s heart...”

Looking at Ying Ji’s grim face, I asked softly: “Once the rite is worked—then what?”

Ying Ji swallowed and looked at me.

“Every believer’s heart will explode. Soul and body will separate and melt into a puddle of corpse-fluid, flowing into the array-chart to feed the one who wove it.”

Mountains and seas of corpses, a world in terror.

And the heart of the Merit Array lay in Gan Prefecture.

The herbs Ying Ji had been preparing were meant to test whether they could be mixed into the well water the people drank, to wake the possessed believers.

“If we can save even one, that is one saved,” he sighed.

Hugging the sword, I sat blankly outside the tent.

Above, wind rolled the yellow sand, layered clouds surging in chaos.

The sky over Qinghan Mountain was never like this. Apart from the peak where Mei Fengzhi lived, snowbound all year, the mountain’s four seasons were calm and mild.

White plum blossoms covered the slopes, blooming even in high summer.

The mountain spirits and plant sprites feared no humans and often came in broad daylight to draw the cool spring water.

The first time I saw those little wild monsters lining up obediently to draw water, I had been too timid even to move, hiding in Mei Fengzhi’s robes, refusing to come out no matter how he coaxed.

Back then I truly believed I had reached the Peach Blossom Spring.

A master who indulged my mischief, a stiff-necked senior brother, a playful junior brother, a sword spirit who disdained my dull cultivation yet acknowledged me as master—and later, a gentle Cao Wu.

All the girlish secrets I could not tell my master I had whispered shyly to Cao Wu under the covers.

She always smiled with curving eyes, so warm and kind that she made me imagine the water villages of the south I had never seen.

But when I woke one day, everything had changed.

Like the illusion of warm spring blossoms on Mei Fengzhi’s peak, it vanished abruptly to reveal a barren, desolate snowfield, countless greedy people treading countless filthy mud-pits.

So ugly.

I dropped my head.

Back then I had been powerless to clear my name; facing this murderous scheme that endangered all the people of the world, I was still powerless.

In despair I pressed my forehead to the sword’s sheath. Suddenly the sword hummed and shook.

The bond-thread blazed fierce red.

I opened my mouth in astonishment.

After Ying Xuan removed its restriction, the Wushang Sword still could not speak.

But if it wanted to say something, it had its own ways.

The blade slid from its sheath, rose upright and danced amid the grit and gravel, its tip a flash of snow-light, dazzlingly drawing something on the ground.

I stood and stared fixedly.

One unbroken line, linked from start to end—like a dragon bound by countless chains.

It was the talisman on the painting in the Earth God temple...

A flash of insight crossed my mind.

That is it!

The array-chart!

The talisman was the array-chart for Baiming’s rite!

The book on array-charts Mei Fengzhi had shown me as a child said—where an array-chart has chains, there must surely be a place to unlock the array-eye.

I knelt on the ground, breathing fast.

Find it, find it quickly...

“Fairy maiden!”

Not far off, Ying Ji returned from the villages. The wind and sand were so thick I could barely see him; I only sensed him waving frantically, stumbling toward me.

I rose with a smile, about to tell him I had found a way to break the array...

From the side, a murderous streak of ferocious qi pierced the black fog and came straight at me.

Who!

I whipped around, called the sword to hand, and blocked in a panic.

The newcomer laughed hoarsely.

“Little girl—A-Feng really does dote on you, does he not? He even gave you the Wushang Sword.”

I retreated several steps, feet driving into the sand and carving a deep furrow.

“But did you know that Wushang was originally the sword with which I slew the dragon and took the pearl? A treacherous thing that lives on after betraying its master—and dares run wild before me!”

Master Baiming gripped the jade pearl in five fingers, drew qi to seize the blade, his aged face twisted like a crumpled human skin, his eyes ghastly.

He shouted: “Reveal!”

Inch by inch the blade cracked like spider silk. Pinching the sword soul of Qin Wushang, the old master dragged it straight out.

The next moment, the sword crumbled to powder and mixed into the sand.

The old master then struck at me.

“A disciple of Qinghan Mountain, shielding our mortal enemy! A-Feng is too merciful to you. To spare you would leave a hidden peril!”

A cold wind blew my hair loose.

The soul-scattering I braced for did not happen.

Qin Wushang held me, blocking the strike with the last wisp of his shattered soul.

The words he could not speak that night were spoken at last.

“...Master. I never wanted to hurt you. For that one thrust, I have repaid you with my whole life. I beg you—do not... ignore me anymore...”

I held him tight.

But I was never fated for such fortune; I could keep nothing.

His last glimmer of light vanished between my tightly clasped fingers. My grief was beyond bearing.

The old master had not expected Wushang to block his strike with his life. Shaking off his astonishment, he was about to attack me again.

A violent gust swept him aside. Amid billowing dust and sand, a gigantic black dragon drove all four claws deep into the bedrock, turned his head with an osprey’s glare, bared his fangs, and roared like thunder.

At first the old master was too stunned to speak; the inborn fear of dragons in his bones made his hands tremble.

But then he burst into wild laughter.

“So we have forced out your true body at last! Well done! Well done!”

It was Ying Xuan.

I stumbled forward instinctively.

But a long-whiskered azure dragon swooping down nudged me onto his back. Flustered, I grabbed his horn. “A-Ji?”

Ying Ji made a sound in his throat in answer and flew high into the sky.

He looked as if he meant to carry me away.

But...

I looked back at the dragon and the man locked in ferocious battle amid the yellow sand.

I cannot...

“You cannot! That talisman—the array-chart! Baiming means to use Ying Xuan’s true body to lay the array! The talismans hanging in every Earth God temple across the Nine Provinces are the soul-suppressing chains binding Ying Xuan!”

Ying Ji stopped short.

His two glimmering green dragon-eyes blinked uneasily, as if conflicted.

I shook his horn and shouted resolutely:

“I will not live on in shame! If I have to watch him be destroyed, soul scattered, and watch all these people die without ever knowing why—I would rather throw myself down and die right now!”

The azure dragon’s body went rigid.

I leaned down and rested gently against him.

“A-Ji. Trust me. I have a way.”

Ying Ji set me down, then flew off to join the fight against the old master.

On the ground, buffeted and swaying by the astral wind, I looked around. This basin ringed by mountains happened to hold nine natural standing stone pillars, one at each compass point.

Every pillar was plastered with the old master’s yellow talismans, and several already had cinnabar lines condensing from the various prefectures, linking to one another.

I had to find the array-eye quickly.

Recalling the talisman’s strokes, I silently worked the pattern out in my mind.

Suddenly, I had it.

I ran to one of the pillars. It was eroded by wind and sand and warded by yellow talismans; a single touch made my hand bleed.

Frowning, I looked at the mangled flesh of my palm.

Clenching it anew, I took a deep breath and climbed the pillar again.

But just as I had struggled halfway up, a sigh came from behind.

“A-Yin. Why is it you never learn?”

Mei Fengzhi caught my arm. I clung to the pillar and would not move.

His voice turned cold.

“Let go. Do you want your whole body to rot away?”

I shook my head stubbornly.

“Better the body rots than the soul.”

Mei Fengzhi was genuinely angered now; a dark ruthlessness flashed across his cold, fine features.

“Dou Chanyin. Are you determined to betray me—for him, an outsider?”

Dou Chanyin.

The name he had given me.

Once, every time I heard that call, it was joy. Now it turned to knives, driven into the softest place.

More painful than rotting flesh.

I showed signs of breaking. Through tears I shouted:

“Because you are wrong! Master, you are wrong!”

I begged him.

Just as I had once begged him, crying with all my might, to take me down the mountain to play.

Begging him to turn back.

“...Master, ‘when you see goodness, move toward it; when you have a fault, correct it’—you taught me that...”

“Is becoming immortal really that wonderful?”

“Worth changing your face beyond all recognition, worth throwing away everything...”

The veins at Mei Fengzhi’s temple pulsed frightfully. He bent down, tore me back by force, and heedless of the blood covering me, held me against him.

“A-Yin. You know nothing at all.”

His eyes locked on me, as if wanting me to retreat behind him again and trust him forever. Hoarsely, he said:

“If I cannot become immortal, I cannot remain a person at all.”

“Look at my hair. The gu is real. Are you not afraid I will become like your grand-master?”

“I do not want you to fear me, A-Yin...”

I looked at his hair, half white now, truly like the snow on Qinghan Mountain’s peak.

But...

I met his gaze, my eyes full of resolve.

“What of yours is real and what is false—I can no longer tell them apart, and I do not want to anymore!”

He said he sought immortality only to remain human.

But the moment he conceived the intent to harm people, he had already betrayed the Way of being human.

Mei Fengzhi’s breathing caught.

“Fine. Then I will let you watch him die—that, at least, will be real!”

He clamped my arm hard, released me abruptly, and swept off toward the vortex of spirit-arrays where Ying Xuan and the old master fought.

I fell to the ground and watched: with Mei Fengzhi’s aid, the old master’s strength swelled, and Ying Xuan and Ying Ji were pressed hard.

I looked up. The sky was filled with red threads, layer upon layer of chains.

The pillars were warded by talismans; I could neither fly nor climb.

Gasping, I looked up with difficulty.

The array-chart was a dragon; the array-locks were its eyes. A male dragon bears a belly-pearl and passes it to his mate held in his teeth.

Then the key to destroying the array-spell was the jade pearl nurtured in the mate’s belly. Placing the pearl atop the highest pillar—the position of the dragon’s tooth.

I looked down. The pearl in my belly sensed it and glowed softly.

From loss of blood, my mind was growing hazy.

In truth I had always been rather useless. Since childhood, bearing the title of senior sister, I had seemed to strive for first place in everything, while every effort was only surface gloss.

Always relying on Master’s backing, I had passed my days on the mountain light-heartedly, without a care.

When wronged, instead of fighting hard to carve out my own path, I had sulked, thrown my future away and bared my neck for the blade, convinced that one day they would understand my grievance and, drowning in regret, come take me home.

I had entered the Way and gained cultivation effortlessly, enjoyed my sect’s shelter for all these years, and known only my own trivial, flower-and-moon sorrows.

This catastrophe was the bitter fruit my own sect had grown.

Naturally, a disciple of the sect should be the one to end it.

My scattered gaze slowly gathered. Five fingers gathering spirit-power, fingertips as blades, I cut my own belly open, steadily.

Far off, the men in the sky saw me.

A fierce dragon roar.

The pearl welled with blood. Suddenly stripped of the pearl’s protection, my healed meridians snapped all at once.

I broke out in a cold sweat of agony.

Then, with all my remaining strength and the last wisp of spirit-power, I slammed the pearl into the coiling patterns of the pillar.

In an instant, the red threads linking the Nine Provinces snapped one after another, and the highest pillar blazed with light, a dazzling column rushing to the sky’s zenith!

“—A-Yin!”

Cut off from the spirit-transfer of the merit-threads, the jade pearl the old master held also broke its restriction and flew toward its master.

The old master’s eyes nearly split with fury.

“My pearl!”

But Ying Xuan did not let the pearl return into his body. Holding it between his teeth, his cultivation restored, he summoned the wind and called the rain, drew down heavenly lightning, and struck the old master—shrunk now into a decrepit old man—into utter nothingness.

With the array broken, Mei Fengzhi, the true hand behind it all, went white-haired in an instant.

This time he at last remembered to look back. Seeing me covered in blood, he looked blank for a moment, as if about to fly over.

But no one had expected this.

From the moment he chose to deceive both Heaven and the Way, Heaven had watched on, unmoved.

He had not yet become immortal—how could he deceive Heaven?

The Heavenly Way holds virtue; it does not pardon those without a heart.

Nine bolts of heavenly tribulation, vast and roaring, flew at him.

I drew my thin clothes tighter and sniffled.

I lay on the ground, looking up weakly. The whole sky was filled with... fragments of broken white plum blossoms, as white in the suddenly spilling moonlight as the snow of Qinghan Mountain, vast and wandering, with nowhere to return, covering all of Gan Prefecture.

Perhaps this is what a beautiful dream looks like when it shatters.

I grew colder and colder, curled into a ball, and sobbed brokenly in a pool of my own blood.

Everything was gone—my Peach Blossom Spring; I could keep nothing...

A clear wind blew away the sand and the petals.

A dragon’s shadow blocked out those illusory spring flowers and autumn moons. He returned to human form; his warm, fragrant robes fell around him.

He bent his head and, the pearl held between his teeth, kissed me.

“Good girl. Do not cry. I am here.”

（The End）