Qian Xuelang listened to Ren Yijue and found his words quite reasonable.
These tiny details were things Qian had never noticed, or had considered beneath his notice. Yet Ren Yijue always saw them clearly, each matter distinct from the next.
“Your understanding of the Dao is strong,” Qian Xuelang said evenly. “You are bound to accomplish much one day.”
Ren Yijue leaned over to look at him. Droplets clinging to his hair and face shook loose and splashed over Qian Xuelang. Qian drew his brows together and raised a hand against the spray, then pushed Ren’s face away without a word.
“And how does that compare with the Jade Beauty?” Ren Yijue showed no embarrassment. Instead, he nestled his cheek against Qian’s palm and asked with an ingratiating grin.
Qian Xuelang rarely allowed anyone so near. Ren’s cheek was wet, yet warmth still reached through the contact to his palm. Finding the sensation unusually hot, Qian withdrew his hand. “You’re someone who lives in the world. How can the two be compared?”
“Can’t they?” Ren Yijue sounded disappointed. “Don’t people say all great paths meet and all methods return to one?”
Ren knew perfectly well that Qian Xuelang stood apart from worldly attachments, while his own nature was overflowing with affection. They saw and thought differently, and the paths they followed were different too.
This cultivator of the Emotionless Dao had entered the mortal world to let go of it and thus attain the Great Dao. Ren Yijue lived within the mortal world and studied it closely because that was his nature, and because he delighted in it.
“Stop being difficult,” Qian Xuelang said.
Ren obediently straightened, said nothing more, and let the subject drop. He turned his attention back to the case they were investigating.
White-Brow Child and Bone Lingding had both died at the mastermind’s hands, but the pair had finally learned the mastermind’s identity. They need only tell Shui Wuchen and let her and her husband pursue the matter.
White-Jade Skeleton… He had been famous in Daihai long before Shui Wuchen arrived, then disappeared after her affair, yet somehow heard the news almost immediately sixty-one years later.
Few people would believe he was not connected to the Jiufang clan.
After they had walked a while, Qian Xuelang suddenly said, “There is one thing I cannot understand.”
Ren Yijue was genuinely astonished. His eyes widened as he looked Qian up and down. “Aside from matters of love, there’s actually something in this world that can stump the Jade Beauty? Goodness, is this really you standing before me?”
He could not resist squeezing Qian Xuelang’s hand. He had wanted to pinch his cheek, but did not quite dare.
“Don’t tease me, and don’t imitate Shui Wuchen.” Qian turned his hand over and slapped Ren’s away. The sharp smack sounded painful even to a bystander. “I’m being serious.”
Ren Yijue nearly had tears in his eyes from the sting. He brought his hand to his mouth and blew on it twice. “All right, all right. Go on, then.”
“I exchanged blows with White-Jade Skeleton just now. His cultivation is extremely high, certainly among Daihai’s best. I cannot understand why he would do all this. What did he gain by harming Shui Wuchen? If he wanted revenge, why not simply go to her door and kill her? What would be difficult about that?”
Ren Yijue was secretly dumbfounded. Does the Jade Beauty think of my own enemies the same way? Those demon thralls and half-demons: why don’t they just come kill Ren Yijue with a single palm strike? What could be difficult about it?
The thought made him laugh aloud.
“What are you grinning foolishly about?” Qian Xuelang asked, puzzled.
Ren collected himself and cleared his throat. “Nothing. I just remembered that I have a great many inexplicable enemies of my own. Suddenly I feel a certain kinship with Miss Shui.”
Qian did not understand. “What is funny about that?”
“Well…” Ren Yijue was about to turn wheedling, but remembered the slap and hastily grew serious. “What should I do, cry instead? Still, is White-Jade Skeleton really that powerful?”
Qian Xuelang saw through his evasive manner but did not press the matter. “He is not as strong as I am, but killing him would be extremely difficult. His ability to adapt is remarkable, and he knows Daihai’s terrain far better than I do. I cannot match his advantage of the ground.”
“Then he is indeed formidable.” Ren Yijue finally took the matter seriously, but soon smiled again. “There’s one thing we can tell: White-Jade Skeleton is not what he once was.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I were White-Jade Skeleton, I would lure the Jade Beauty far away, then quietly double back and kill both Bone Lingding and Ren Yijue in the cave. I’d make it look as though they had killed each other.” Ren Yijue laughed and clapped his hands. “See? Another tragedy just like the Five Eccentrics and Taishu Sheng.”
Qian Xuelang was silent.
Ren Yijue’s laughter subsided. His eyes grew dark. “White-Jade Skeleton either fears the Jade Beauty too much to take such a risk, or… he has some other concern and does not wish to kill us.”
Though the two knew little of Daihai and still lacked definitive answers, their back-and-forth helped them sort through the clues. When they told Shui Wuchen their suspicions, they would save everyone considerable time.
They continued talking as they walked. By the time they returned to the Jiufang residence, it was deep night. A flower servant lay fast asleep on the threshold, drool running down its chest. Startled awake by their footsteps, it sprang to its feet in confusion. Its sleepy eyes were not fully open, and it swayed around the threshold twice before finally coming to its senses.
After the flesh-eating monster flower they had seen that day, Ren Yijue found this little spirit extraordinarily adorable. His heart softened. “What are you doing here?”
The flower servant was wiping away its drool. Hearing him, it raised its little bud of a head indignantly and burst into angry, incomprehensible chatter.
“What is it saying?” Qian Xuelang asked.
“How would I know?” Ren Yijue said. “But from the look of it, perhaps it’s angry that we came back so late.”
Though neither could understand its speech, the flower servant clearly understood theirs. It nodded hastily, shaking its head so vigorously that one feared it might fall off.
Ren Yijue laughed. “So I was right.”
The flower servant hopped down from the threshold and patted both men’s legs, gesturing for them to follow it toward the guest rooms.
Shui Wuchen must have been uncertain when they would return, and worried they might become lost in the little residence’s formations. She had evidently sent the flower servant to wait by the entrance and prevent any mishaps.
As they followed, Ren Yijue whispered to Qian Xuelang, “Jade Beauty, do you think that little flower wiped its drool on my clothes?”
Afraid the servant might overhear, he leaned very close to Qian Xuelang. His chest pressed against the back of Qian’s shoulder, and he spoke beside his ear, warm breath escaping between his words.
The warm breath brushed Qian’s cool ear, leaving a faint dampness. Ren’s voice was so near, and as he moved, Qian could not tell whether those lips had touched his ear. A few sparks seemed to brush past, suddenly hot, then gone in an instant.
Qian Xuelang had been about to laugh, but Ren was so close that he felt awkward instead. The place on his hand that Ren had squeezed earlier seemed strangely sensitive as well, and he quickly took two steps forward.
Ren Yijue saw a slight change in his expression but heard nothing. Assuming the Jade Beauty was too reserved to indulge his idle chatter, he let the matter rest.
The flower servant led them to their separate rooms. When the warmth in Qian Xuelang’s ears had finally subsided, he felt unusually tired. He took off the sword case, set it on the table, and stroked it twice before speaking. “White-Jade Skeleton is very skilled, cautious, and ruthless. A pity his character is so poor…”
The Demon-Slaying Sword hummed inside the case, seemingly displeased.
“You don’t like him. That’s perfectly all right. I wasn’t suggesting I would give you to him. I only find it a pity.” Qian Xuelang gently stroked the case to reassure the sword. “You’re as proud as Master. Once you’ve taken against someone, nothing will change your mind.”
Man and sword remained silent for a long time. Then Qian Xuelang said, “Actually, Ren Yijue is not bad. His abilities are rather low, and his temperament is flighty… But he has been tormented by demonic qi since childhood. To reach his present cultivation, he must have worked hundreds or thousands of times harder than ordinary people. Thinking of it that way, he is not so bad after all.”
This time the Demon-Slaying Sword did not respond at all.
Qian Xuelang could not help smiling. He put out the light and went to sleep. In his dream, a figure appeared indistinctly, resting their face against his palm and looking up at him with a pleasingly docile expression.
Physical beauty had never meant much to Qian Xuelang, but in his dream the figure had long, dark lashes and bright eyes that looked at him with warmth and tenderness, reminding him of a young deer in the mountains.
Dreams are forever changing. Before he could make out the figure’s features, the scene shifted to his mountain home when he was fifteen. His master was nowhere to be seen. Water ran gently nearby. He had not yet begun abstaining from food, so he gathered up his robes, went barefoot into the pool, and tried to catch fish. A young deer watched from the bank.
He looked again, but the water was so clear that there seemed to be no fish. Qian Xuelang had no choice but to return to shore. The water lapped coolly around his feet, and the soft water plants brushed his soles.
He stumbled on a stone beneath the water and fell against the deer. The fifteen-year-old was still growing, all long arms and legs. The deer carried him as it bounded across the mountain countryside, and he felt more carefree and happy than he ever remembered feeling.
Night slowly fell. Tired from playing, Qian Xuelang lay on the damp grass and looked sideways at the droplets of dew on the leaves. The deer knelt beside him and rested its head lightly against his stomach, gazing at him from beneath its lashes with dark eyes.
Water gradually rose from the grass until it covered him. Somehow he did not feel cold, only pleasantly warm. He reached to stroke the deer’s neck, but it stood up and regarded him quietly through the water.
Qian Xuelang suddenly felt hungry.
He was wavering between gently touching the deer’s coat and taking a fierce bite when his eyelids began to burn. The discomfort grew impossible to ignore. He opened his eyes and discovered that day had broken.
As morning came, the dream’s softly flowing water and consuming hunger slipped from his mind.
He got out of bed and dressed. While fastening his belt, he realized the sensation was familiar. Soon he remembered the waves of fragrance he had breathed in inside Mister Huanqing’s carriage.
The scent that had made his thoughts hazy and limbs weak evidently had not fully dispersed. Some trace must have lingered in his body, only to resurface gradually in his dream.
Raised from childhood in cultivation under his master, Qian Xuelang had read a great deal about love and desire but knew little from experience. When he had witnessed the affection between Jiufang Ce and Shui Wuchen, he had recognized an atmosphere that made people blush, yet he could not understand why it had that effect.
His dream had left him with a vague impression of happiness. Yet the very intensity of it made him uncomfortable and displeased.
He thought of how the scent had grown extraordinarily strong. Looking back, perhaps it had not been so fragrant at first; the effect had increased little by little. The more accustomed one became to it, the more was required to obtain the same pleasure.
“An endless appetite. What is the point of that?”
Thoroughly weary of the matter, Qian Xuelang washed his hands in a basin of cold water. Yet for some reason, his palm and the skin behind his ears seemed to grow warm once again.