The blade stood before them, scarlet radiance gleaming.
In the silence, Feng Yinming finally spoke. First he gave a very, very soft sigh. In such stillness, even that sigh sounded unusually clear, like the faint rustle of falling snow.
“I truly don’t know whether I should congratulate you first, or mourn for myself.”
The long saber hummed, and the chill around it deepened.
“Why congratulate me? Why mourn?”
Feng Yinming shook his head with a bitter smile. “You’ve cultivated painstakingly for many years, and your cultivation has grown ever deeper. As your friend, of course I’m delighted for you. But today I’ve brought trouble up this mountain, so naturally I hoped to find a man who still had feelings. Now that dream is shattered, of course I ought to mourn for myself.”
The two had known each other for many years and understood one another thoroughly.
Qian Xuelang cultivated the Dao of Supreme Forgetfulness. The further he advanced, the more he returned to primal simplicity and purity. Though he retained the form of a human being, true human feeling faded from him, and worldly rights and wrongs could no longer touch him.
Elio’s Notes: Taishang wangqing (太上忘情) is a classical expression for the highest sage being unmoved by emotion. The novel turns that idea into Qian Xuelang’s cultivation Dao; “Supreme Forgetfulness” keeps the older philosophical flavor without reducing it to ordinary coldheartedness.
When speaking to such a person, ornamental lies and empty courtesies were meaningless.
That was why Feng Yinming’s sincerity was almost naked in its directness, enough to surprise even Ren Yijue.
No answer came from the other end. Instead, the scarlet saber Honglu suddenly rose into the air.
“This is…” Ren Yijue’s expression sharpened, and his fingers moved to form a hand seal.
“Don’t worry.” Delight appeared on Feng Yinming’s face, and he hurried to stop him. “He’s letting us in.”
Ren Yijue stopped, though he did not relax his vigilance. He merely stared at the scarlet saber before them and said slowly, “But it hasn’t left. Does it mean for us to ride the artifact?”
“Honglu may not possess spiritual consciousness, but its power is not to be underestimated. It is absolutely not something an ordinary person could control.” Feng Yinming shook his head.
As they spoke, Ren Yijue suddenly felt a tremor. The accumulated snow beneath their feet seemed to answer the guidance of that brilliantly scarlet saber. It rose and drifted like butterflies, glimmered like fireflies, and slowly danced around them.
In an instant, red light blazed. The flying snow, clouds, and mist all began to spin with it, suddenly whipping up a desolately beautiful storm of rouge-red snow that engulfed the two of them in the blink of an eye.
The red snow wrapped gently around them like an embrace. Through the haze, both men felt as though they had fallen into the clouds, with no idea where they were being taken.
Before long, the wind died and the clouds dispersed. Ren Yijue suddenly saw moonlight and snow spread across the earth, surrounding a single figure as he approached.
In his hand was the scarlet saber Honglu.
The hand holding the saber was whiter than snow and smoother than jade. For a moment, it was impossible to tell whether the scarlet blade made him seem colder, or whether he made the blade appear even more vivid.
His fingers brushed over the ceaseless red flame flowing along the saber. Unhurried, he spoke in a voice like ice splintering.
“When did I ever say your dream was shattered?”
The instant the man spoke, Ren Yijue confirmed his identity and sighed inwardly. Plain robes, frost-white hair, untouched by the dust of the mortal world. No wonder Mister Feng’s friend hides deep in the mountains. If he walked among ordinary people, who knew how many romantic debts he would incur?
“My, I never imagined Feng still had this much face with you.” Feng Yinming honestly did not know whether he ought to feel flattered or alarmed, and could not resist teasing him. “Does this mean you’re willing to meddle in my little problem? No wonder Heaven didn’t rain red. You had to make a red snowfall yourself to suit the occasion.”
The man in plain robes said indifferently, “You are Qian Xuelang’s friend.”
“At this rate, even my eyes are going to shed red tears.” Such extravagant favor made Feng Yinming almost uncomfortable. He pretended to wipe his eyes. “Since I’m your friend, why did you leave me outside just now? Could Honglu have harbored wicked intentions and tried to defy its master? If that’s the case, don’t blame me for lodging a complaint against it.”
The man in plain robes ignored the playful nonsense. His gaze swept past Feng Yinming and quickly settled on Ren Yijue.
A moment ago, Ren Yijue had been admiring the man’s beauty. But when their gazes met directly, a chill surged from the bottom of his heart, like ice water pouring through him until even his innermost being went cold. What stood before him did not feel like a person at all, but more like a perilous mountain peak, a spring snowfall suspended among the clouds, or perhaps something even more…
Yet Ren Yijue could not find a more precise comparison. Nothing seemed able to describe that missing spark of life in this beautiful, flawless jade-like man.
Ren Yijue carried himself with elegant ease and had a naturally romantic temperament. Even with his lungs turning cold and his courage shaken, he could not help thinking, If those amorous eyes grew on someone else’s face, how moving they would be. What a waste for them to belong to such an icy beauty.
Yet that strange, chilling sense of terror did not diminish the man’s beauty. If anything, it gave him another kind of allure.
After the thought passed through him, Ren Yijue found it both ridiculous and offensively presumptuous. He lowered his gaze without realizing it, and the fear in his heart naturally ebbed with the motion.
Qian Xuelang saw him look away and paid it no mind. He said to Feng Yinming, “I knew several months ago that you would bring someone to find me today.”
Feng Yinming stared at him in astonishment. “You knew? What do you mean? How could you know?”
Ren Yijue could not help frowning.
Qian Xuelang said, “The Heavenly Mandate.”
“The Heavenly Mandate? What Heavenly Mandate?” Feng Yinming was utterly baffled.
Qian Xuelang did not answer. He soon turned and walked away, not caring whether the two behind him followed. “But if the Heavenly Mandate says so, must Qian Xuelang obey it? That is why I was waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me? If you were waiting, why did you still have Honglu stop me?” Feng Yinming followed behind him, completely at a loss. “I’m overjoyed that you’re willing to see me, but every single thing you’ve said today has been beyond anything I expected.”
Qian Xuelang turned his face slightly. The coldness in his brows and eyes grew more pronounced. “I was waiting for you to persuade me.”
“So that’s it. Honestly, sometimes I think you talk in riddles just to leave me completely confused.” Feng Yinming put on an exaggerated expression of enlightenment, then tossed out another question. “How very strange. It’s not as though I haven’t read plenty of books, so perhaps your realm has simply leapt too high for me. There’s still one thing I don’t understand. When, exactly, did I persuade you?”
Ren Yijue, however, heard the beginning and already knew the end. With one turn of thought, he understood the deeper meaning of Qian Xuelang’s words.
So be it. Old friends had reunited and rarely had the chance to talk. Why should he say more?
Qian Xuelang let Feng Yinming tease him without showing the slightest embarrassment or helplessness. “Several months ago, when my seclusion ended, a coincidence of opportunity allowed me to glimpse a sliver of Heaven’s secrets. That was how I learned of today’s Heavenly Mandate. But my seven emotions remain, and my six desires have not been extinguished. My emergence from seclusion did not go smoothly, so…”
The moment Feng Yinming heard the words “did not go smoothly,” his expression became tense. He echoed softly, “So…?”
“So to this day, I remain a man who possesses feeling.”
“So Qian Xuelang remains a man who possesses feeling.”
The two spoke the same sentence at almost exactly the same time. Feng Yinming had no room to marvel at such immediate understanding between two men who had only just met. He was too surprised and moved to speak at all.
Qian Xuelang could not help looking toward Ren Yijue, who was naturally looking back at him.
Ren Yijue gave him a faint smile, his eyes flickering. In the end, he had not managed to resist saying that extra sentence.
For an emotionless man to utter words so rich with feeling… if Honglu had been sent from the beginning to welcome them inside, then it truly was deeply moving.
Unfortunately… the very act of choosing had already created a distinction.
Qian Xuelang had certainly not lied. He did not wish to obey the Heavenly Mandate, yet he followed what came naturally. He would neither force himself nor force the world to turn another way.
He was very close to the Immortal Dao.
Qian Xuelang said, “I have seen you, and I have heard your name. But I do not know who you are.”
“I am the trouble Mister Feng brought with him.” Feng Yinming ought to have introduced the two of them, but Qian Xuelang was broad-minded by nature and Ren Yijue was not the passive sort. Looking directly into Qian Xuelang’s eyes, he smiled. “My surname is Ren, my given name Yijue. I am merely an unaffiliated cultivator.”
Qian Xuelang nodded. “Ren Yijue. I’ll remember it.”
Ren Yijue asked in return, “And you?”
Qian Xuelang did not understand. “You already spoke my name just now.”
“Mister Feng may be your friend, but I am not.” Ren Yijue smiled, calm and unhurried. He was strikingly handsome, so even the faintly pressing edge in his manner did not seem rude. “Even if I know it already, that is not the same as the two of us introducing ourselves. Naturally, it is different.”
At this point Ren Yijue abruptly paused. His smile deepened, making his eyes shine, and his words seemed to take on a little more meaning.
“Isn’t it?”
“Qian Xuelang.”
Qian Xuelang indulged him.