At the very center of the ruins, on that moonlit waste, Gu Chengming finally drew his fist back.
The fissure from ten thousand years ago had sealed completely. The two eras had each returned to their rightful place — the past belonged to the past, the present to the present. But one thing had been left behind.
At the spot where the Red Dust Immortal had made his final dispersal, in the middle of the shattered ground, a lotus flower hung quietly in midair.
Its petals were half-transparent, the whole bloom roughly the size of a fist, its edges chipped and incomplete. A pale golden radiance turned slowly within its heart.
—Well, well. Another equipment drop.
Honestly, he wasn't entirely sure what the thing was good for.
What if it was a curse, a knot of resentment, some last spiteful counterattack from a dying man?
In the games of his previous life, the final item a boss dropped was very often a double-edged sword.
Gu Chengming put it away regardless. Whatever conventions RPG players lived by had nothing to do with a Galgame player like him.
Besides, he hadn't been afraid of the Red Dust Immortal while the man was alive. Now the man was dead — beaten to death by his own hand, no less.
[Red Dust Phantom Body Formula voiced its agreement: Whatever the case, taking it with us can only give us more options.]
[Hundred Bones Resonance snorted: A paltry Sixth Realm relic, fit to curse Heavenly Emperor Gu?]
—All right. Loot secured. Now for the main event.
From the moment the karma between the Red Dust Immortal and the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign had been rewritten into mutual destruction, this Secret Realm had begun the first true self-healing it had known in ten thousand years.
The red-gold spirit patterns receded like an ebbing tide. The pitch-black threads of causality snapped inch by inch. From deep beneath the strata, silver-white spirit patterns surfaced anew, and time and causality — twisted for a hundred centuries — settled back, bit by bit, into their proper order.
That fractured sky, seized in turns by red-gold and iron-grey, finally began its last repair once every pattern on the ground had returned to its place.
The broken canopy of heaven knit slowly together, moonlight-colored spirit radiance flowing along the seams.
At last a brand-new firmament took shape above Gu Chengming's head.
A moon-white silver moon hung high, its clear light stretching ten thousand li.
This was what this Secret Realm had originally looked like — the Land of Nowhere, the branch seat of the Penglai Immortal Sect.
Gu Chengming stood on the ruined platform and looked out over the reviving land, moved despite himself.
And just then, the silver-white patterns beneath his feet flared. The light spread along the ground, gathering into a single clear path that ran straight toward a hall in the distance, more than half of it collapsed.
So it wanted to guide him somewhere?
He followed the path the patterns marked for about a quarter of an hour and arrived before the ruins of that hall.
The doors were long gone, but on the wreckage of the frame four characters could still be made out — "Penglai Immortal Sect." Inside, things were better preserved than out.
The four walls were weathered, but the carvings on them remained whole: silver-white lines sketching the image of drifting cloud and brilliant moon.
Clouds surging. Moonlight turning.
It was the complete diagram of the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sword Art.
And on the stone dais at the hall's center rested a jade slip and a broken sword. The spirit light within the jade slip had grown very faint; clearly it had been sealed there for an age.
But the instant Gu Chengming stepped into the hall, that faint light brightened. He picked the jade slip up and sent his spiritual sense into it.
A voice sounded in his mind.
"Fellow Daoist. It has been a long while — though for you, perhaps rather less than a moment has passed."
"If you can hear these words, then the Red Dust Immortal's karma has been rewritten… thanks to you, Fellow Daoist."
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign's voice.
Something stirred in Gu Chengming.
This message had not been left "now." It had been recorded ten thousand years ago.
Which meant that after the ending of that great battle had been rewritten, she had not perished at once. She had used what time remained to her, and by means of the Dao of Time, left these things behind.
The information in the jade slip continued to flow: "I glimpsed certain images within that light. They were not complete, but they were enough to tell me the origin of the sword art you now carry." When she came to this, the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign's tone gained, rarely for her, a certain unevenness of feeling.
"That my Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sword Art should be taken up and passed down after my death — that was what I hoped for. But in the residual afterimages of that light, I saw things that should not have been there."
"Someone reworked my sword art into a law art. Someone else reworked the law art back into a sword art. And then someone folded into it a baleful qi that belongs to no part of the Dao of Cloud and Moon."
"Every alteration carried it further from the original intent of Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing. By the time it reached your hands, it had been changed past recognition."
"If I have not reasoned wrongly, the temperament of anyone who cultivates it will be dragged, little by little, toward extremes."
Hearing that, Gu Chengming found his feelings rather complicated.
So the Yunyue Sect's old "Flowing Cloud, Moon-Following Law Art" had been born out of this Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sword Art. A legitimate inheritance, then.
A law art differed from a sword art in form, but its core intent of cloud and moon had not strayed far.
Later, however, some sword cultivator had turned it back into a sword art. The form returned — but certain unique insights accumulated during its stage as a law art had been forcibly stripped away.
And that had not been the last alteration.
After that, someone had blended in this so-called "baleful qi."
And it did not look accidental.
Someone was deliberately warping this sword art. As for why…
"I cannot know for certain where that baleful qi came from, but I can say with confidence that it is no natural drift of Dao-intent. Someone did it on purpose."
"Their purpose, I suspect, concerns whoever finally cultivates that sword art. Practice a method seeded with baleful qi for long enough, and the practitioner's state of mind will be led, without their ever noticing, in one particular direction."
Had it not been for the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign, likely no one would ever have noticed the trickery hidden inside this sword art.
The message in the jade slip reached its final passage: "And so I hope, Fellow Daoist, that you can restore this sword art to what it once was, and uncover the scheme of whoever it is that twisted it from the shadows."
[Flowing Cloud Moon-Following: …]
The jade slip's light guttered out slowly after the last word fell.
Gu Chengming stowed it away and picked up the broken sword from the dais.
The blade was snapped at the halfway point, the surviving portion still glimmering faintly with the color of moonlight. A faded silver-white silk cord was wound around the hilt. This had been the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign's sword — or perhaps "her relic" was the better word.
He tucked the broken sword away as well.
On his way out through the ruined gate, he looked back once at the complete diagram of the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sword Art on the hall's walls.
The silver-white lines flowed quietly in the moonlight — clouds rising, moon bright, unchanged and new through all the ages.
Gu Chengming ran through his schedule in his head.
Originally he had meant to go to the Yunyue Sect only after reaching the Fourth Realm. The waters there ran deep, after all, and a Third Realm disciple barging in might not walk out whole.
But it seemed that would have to be moved up.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign's entrustment. The baleful qi riding on the Flowing Cloud, Moon-Following Sword Art. And the hidden hand deliberately twisting cultivation methods from the dark.
—Right. The heroine of the next arc is decided. It's you, Little Flowing Cloud.
[The Flowing Cloud, Moon-Following Sword Art seemed to sense something. Its tone was distinctly unfriendly: Don't call me Little Flowing Cloud.]
Gu Chengming pretended not to hear.
He turned his gaze to the moon-white sky in the distance.
The Secret Realm was healing itself; the exit ought to open soon. But before that, a thought struck him.
All of the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign's leavings were, by their very nature, things she had left ten thousand years ago.
Which meant that after the battle had been rewritten to end in mutual destruction, she had survived for at least some span of time afterward.
In other words — after that final strike of "mutual destruction," the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign might have lived.
And afterward? Ten thousand years was long enough for a great many things to happen.
But that was another story.
Gu Chengming put away the jade slip, turned, and walked toward the Secret Realm's exit.
Moonlight fell across his back, and the silver-white patterns stretched away into the distance beneath his feet.
[Hundred Bones Resonance cheered: Let's go, Heavenly Emperor Gu! On to the next stop! This Emperor will grind every last one of those wretches who dared tamper with a comrade into powder!]
[Flowing Cloud, Moon-Following Sword Art: …Who's your comrade.]
[Hundred Bones Resonance: Heh.]
*
The silver-white patterns unrolled along the way, lighting the road beneath Gu Chengming's feet.
As he drew nearer the edge of the Secret Realm, the scenery around him changed. The distant hills and woods were recovering their vitality at a pace visible to the naked eye — tender buds pushing out of dead wood, water murmuring again in dried-out streambeds.
At the same time, from far off came a very familiar racket: the noise of a large group on the march.
"Senior Brother Gu!"
"It's just ahead! Faster, faster, faster!"
"Elder Yu said it was this direction!"
Gu Chengming looked up. On the horizon, Yu Wenqiu came tearing through the air at the head of them all, riding her Dharma Sword, with close to a hundred disciples streaming along behind her in a genuinely impressive display. Su Qingmeng followed close, holding the rear.
—The Resistance had turned out in full.
When Yu Wenqiu landed in front of Gu Chengming, her peach-blossom eyes were full of delayed terror and relief. Only after confirming that he still had all four limbs and hadn't misplaced an arm or a leg did she let out a long breath.
"Thank goodness you're all right, Little Gu. And the white-haired one?" She bit down hard on the words "white-haired."
"He went back," Gu Chengming said shortly.
Yu Wenqiu's eyebrow twitched.
Went back? Went back where? Died? Ran? Or did you conscript him?
But one look at Gu Chengming's face and she had the sense not to press.
Instead it was Gu Chengming who looked past her at the dense mass of a hundred-odd people and back at her, mildly startled. "Elder, what's all this?"
Yu Wenqiu straightened her collar. For once she squared her shoulders, the corners of her mouth lifting with the private satisfaction of someone whose moment in the spotlight had finally, finally arrived.
Nearly a hundred disciples stood ranked behind her in neat rows, mixed together from every major sect. Their robes differed, but every one of them stood bright-eyed and fired up.
Someone at the front let out a shout. "Long live the United Resistance! Long live Elder Yu!"
"Long live——!!" "Long live——!!!"
A hundred voices in chorus, shaking the open country.
Yu Wenqiu savored her moment of glory, sneaking a sidelong glance at Gu Chengming out of the corner of her eye.
—See that, Little Gu? This Elder can be quite dependable now and then.
Gu Chengming found it funny; he had seen straight through his own Elder's thinking. He offered a couple of well-timed compliments, and she was promptly flattered clean out of her senses.
Inside the Secret Realm, everything had settled. Outside it, however, a rather different scene was waiting for them.
For the sect heads and elders keeping watch beyond the boundary, the last stretch of time had been sheer torment.
The moment the Secret Realm's exit opened, the ground before the Wavewatch Pavilion outside Floating Isle City was packed shoulder to shoulder.
Mohist Gate Grand Elder Liu Chongji stood before the water mirror, astonishment plain on his face.
About a quarter of an hour ago, whatever anomaly had gripped the Secret Realm had apparently been resolved from within, and the Mohist Gate had regained control of the place. That alone had let every sect head and elder present breathe again.
But the scene that had reappeared was nothing Liu Chongji had anticipated.
He had been an elder of the Mohist Gate for the better part of his life. He knew this Secret Realm well.
And he had never seen anything like this. Silver-white spirit patterns. A firmament of moonlight. The architecture of an ancient immortal sect… What in the world had happened in there?
Zhongli Yuan, Sect Head of the Taiyi Sword Sect, shouldered his way over as well, took one look at the image, and sprouted a question mark above his head.
In the image, Yu Wenqiu was standing atop a raised platform.
Behind her, ranked in perfect order, stood close to a hundred disciples drawn from every sect. Presentation: maxed. Formation: maxed. Momentum: maxed.
"Long live the United Resistance! Long live Elder Yu!"
"?"
No, hold on. What exactly was going on.
With the total dispersal of the Royal Court's spirit veins, the disciples' spirit soul projections had escaped the crisis of assimilation. Once silver-white spirit patterns replaced the red-gold spirit veins, the projections became, if anything, more stable than before.
The exit opened on schedule a quarter of an hour later, and the disciples began filing out.
First came the ordinary disciples who had been in the Secret Realm's outer regions, in twos and threes, wearing every expression imaginable.
Then came the main body of the Resistance, and when this group emerged, the ranks were so neat that every sect head present was momentarily stunned.
—They came out in formation.
Tianji Pavilion disciples took the left flank, Myriad Dharma Sect disciples the right, with the Wenjian Sect in the center bringing up the rear.
Su Qingmeng was the second one out. She walked straight over to the Wenjian Sect's ranks, took her place, and stood there as if nothing had happened.
Then came a rather long wait.
"Where's Elder Yu?" a disciple asked, glancing back.
"Elder Yu said she'd come out last," another answered. "She said she wouldn't leave until she'd confirmed everyone had gotten out safely."
Shen Qianqiu, hearing that, went briefly still.
After another stretch of time about as long as it takes to drink a cup of tea, the exit flickered one last time, and a figure walked out of the light.
Yu Wenqiu.
Fourth Realm elder of the Wenjian Sect. Leader of the United Resistance. Toppler of the Royal Court. Deliverer of the disciples of every major sect. Woman who does not buckle under pressure.
She came out with her robes torn in several places, half her topknot come loose, a shallow cut on her face where flying stone had caught her — and her spine perfectly straight.
The light at the exit gathered in behind her and went dark. The passage into the Secret Realm closed for good.
Last one out. Everyone safely withdrawn.
—The self-awareness of a Resistance leader.
She looked around, confirmed that every disciple was accounted for, and only then let herself relax.
Then she turned around and saw Shen Qianqiu, Zhongli Yuan, Liu Chongji and the rest of the Fifth Realm greats gathered before the water mirror — and the extraordinarily complicated expressions on all their faces.
Yu Wenqiu blinked. "…What is it?"
Shen Qianqiu looked at her, worked his jaw, and in the end managed only one sentence. "Wenqiu. What exactly did you do in there?"
It caught up with her a beat late: the water mirror had broadcast everything she'd done inside, start to finish.
Including the founding of the United Resistance. Including a hundred disciples roaring "long live." Including the way she'd stood on that platform surveying the realm like there was no one else fit for the job.
Yu Wenqiu waved both hands at once, laughing weakly. "That — that was all the disciples doing it on their own. This Elder only contributed a very modest amount of effort…"
Shen Qianqiu glanced at the hundred-odd disciples from every sect standing in immaculate formation behind her, then back at his own elder, who on any ordinary day knew nothing but pastries and storybooks.
The murmuring around them was picking up. "That's Elder Yu?" "She doesn't look all that formidable." "Don't judge by appearances! Elder Yu personally shielded over a hundred of us and got us out of there!"
"Didn't you see the part where Elder Yu used her Clairvoyant Eye to displace the Fate-Reversal Sovereign's sword scar? She's first among elders, hands down!"
Listening to all this, Yu Wenqiu felt her tail about to curl up into the sky, and puffed out her chest, thoroughly pleased with herself.
Setting aside Elder Little Yu's rare hour in the sun.
As for what had actually happened between Gu Chengming and that white-haired Heavenly Emperor — the outside world knew nothing whatsoever.
The water mirror's record of the Royal Court's core region was entirely blank. Even observation at the level of the Record of the Myriad Worlds had been useless.
And it wasn't only outsiders who were in the dark. Even the Resistance's own members had no idea what had gone on.
All they knew was that Yu Wenqiu had opened the road with her Clairvoyant Eye, and that Gu Chengming had charged in with that white-haired girl.
And then, after a while, the Royal Court had collapsed, the sky had changed, and the Secret Realm had reverted to the shape of an ancient immortal land.
As for what happened in between — nobody had seen it. But disciple gossip has never required evidence.
So it was that the meme of the "Heavenly Emperor's favored consort" quietly began circulating in certain small circles.
Some said a high-realm great cultivator had woken from a long slumber, and the first thing he did upon waking was go looking for the reincarnation of his favored consort — rebuilding a Royal Court and rewriting the rules to do it — and that Gu Chengming was that reincarnated consort, and everything had started because of him.
To the sect heads and elders, the whole theory was arrant nonsense. Nobody believed it; they took it for something people had made up to amuse themselves.
But gossip was gossip, and there was real business to attend to.
Every disciple had withdrawn safely and the passage was sealed, which meant the most central portion of this Grand Tournament had come to its end amid utter chaos.
For the Mohist Gate, the first problem was not what had happened inside the Secret Realm, but how to bring this Grand Tournament to a close at all.
The Secret Realm had been turned upside down. The entire planned sequence of matches was void.
What the disciples had experienced in there wasn't a contest of skills; it was a three-in-one package of wilderness survival, resistance uprising, and ancient immortal-sect ruin exploration. Content richness: maxed.
"Grand Elder, what do we do?" One of the Mohist Gate's administrative elders wore a distinctly sour expression.
Liu Chongji paced the council hall for about the time it takes half a stick of incense to burn, then made his ruling. "Given the unprecedented and exceptional circumstances of this Tournament, the standard rankings are annulled."
There was a general exhalation of relief.
Rankings — when every last contestant had been busy running for their life, there really was no way to produce any.
But then Liu Chongji shifted course. "The first-place prize, the Blood-Burning Realm-Breaking Pearl, must still be awarded. The criterion will be changed: it goes to whoever performed most outstandingly and contributed most during the Secret Realm crisis."
The others exchanged looks. Contributed most… judged how? By vote? By a meeting of the sect heads?
Before anyone could propose a method, a Mohist Gate disciple came hurrying in.
"Grand Elder! Now that the water mirror is restored, the Secret Realm's point system came back with it! The original point records are still intact!"
Liu Chongji raised an eyebrow.
The Floating Heaven Mystic Spirit Mirror had always had a point system built into it, one of the core adjudication mechanisms of the Grand Tournament.
The Secret Realm had suffered enormous damage during the Royal Court's occupation — but the point system, being something engraved into the bedrock laws of the realm itself, had come back along with the restoration.
Including all the events the outside world had been unable to observe under the heavenly-mystery shielding.
The points ranking was projected into the empty air of the council hall.
—First place: Gu Chengming.
Everyone stared at the number beside his name and fell into a collective silence.
It was past the question of a runaway lead. It was high enough to make a person suspect the point system had a bug.
Because the destruction of the Royal Court had been dutifully, faithfully converted into points by the Secret Realm's system.
An ancient Royal Court covering more than ninety percent of the Secret Realm's area. Dozens of Fourth Realm projections. A red-gold spirit vein network. A law-level spatial lockdown—
—all of it categorized as "crisis events," all of it converted into points for the one who "resolved" them.
Gu Chengming's score alone was higher than every participating disciple's combined. Higher, in fact, than every participating elder's combined.
And second place on the board — Yu Wenqiu.
The United Resistance's rescues, escorts, and organized withdrawals in the Secret Realm had likewise been recorded faithfully by the system.
Her total wasn't a fraction of Gu Chengming's, but among all Fourth Realm cultivators it still ranked first.
There was nothing left to argue about.
First place went to the Wenjian Sect, and the Blood-Burning Realm-Breaking Pearl to Gu Chengming. Iron-clad fact, notarized at water-mirror level. No one could find a thing to object to.
Zhongli Yuan looked at where the Taiyi Sword Sect disciples fell on the board — every one of them outside the top twenty — and remembered the terror of being ruled by "Loser Calls Me Daddy" inside the Floating Heaven Mystic Spirit Mirror.
He sighed.
However you looked at it, at least his disciples were alive.
As for the Grand Tournament rankings… let whoever wanted the top spot have it. The first-place sect had to spend money and resources hosting the next Grand Tournament anyway.
He wasn't envious in the slightest. Correct. Not envious.
The evening after the awards, in the Eastern District of Floating Isle City.
Gu Chengming delivered a brief report to Shen Qianqiu at the Wenjian Sect's lodgings.
Regarding what had happened inside the Secret Realm, he was selective.
He left the Royal Court out of it entirely. The heavenly-mystery shielding had blocked most of the information anyway, and he was happy to save himself the trouble.
But the existence of the Red Dust Immortal, the Returning River, and the truth of a Secret Realm twisted for ten thousand years — matters bearing on the security of Great Qian's cultivation world — he reported honestly to Shen Qianqiu.
"A Sixth Realm great cultivator… the Returning River…"
The hand holding Shen Qianqiu's teacup trembled slightly. As Sect Head of the Wenjian Sect, his experience was hardly shallow.
But "Dharma-Station," "Returning River," and "time reversal" strung together in one breath made even his scalp prickle.
"This is no small matter." Shen Qianqiu set down his cup, brows knitted tight. "If we are to notify the major sects, it will cause tremendous upheaval. The wording must be handled with the utmost care. Should it be mishandled—"
He hadn't finished when a Wenjian Sect disciple stepped quickly to the door and cupped his hands. "Sect Head. Princess Ji Yixi of the Great Qian royal house requests an audience."
Shen Qianqiu started. Gu Chengming, for his part, wasn't surprised at all.
Ji Yixi's arrival resolved the exact problem Shen Qianqiu had been agonizing over.
In her capacity as representative of the Great Qian imperial family's hidden line, she formally categorized the Secret Realm incident.
In a sentence: this matter involved an ancient Dharma-Station and extraterritorial karmic interference; the Great Qian imperial house and the Night-Watch Bureau would jointly assume the follow-up investigation, and no sect need issue notifications of its own.
The moment the words "imperial endorsement" were spoken, most of the weight came off Shen Qianqiu's shoulders.
He wouldn't have to find the wording. He wouldn't have to face interrogation from every sect head.
When the Great Qian imperial house had already classified the matter, who would dare ask more?
After Shen Qianqiu withdrew with visible relief, Ji Yixi took a seat in the guest room.
The fist-sized black little dragon was coiled on her shoulder as usual, tail hanging lazily — though its slit pupils still contracted involuntarily at the sight of Gu Chengming.
The call-him-daddy trauma had not yet healed.
"The Red Dust Immortal's karma has been utterly extinguished in the current timeline," Ji Yixi said without preamble. "The Returning River will not occur again. For that, we have Commander Gu to thank."
Gu Chengming nodded. Presumably this was what she had seen through the Record of the Myriad Worlds.
"There is one thing that surprised me, however." Ji Yixi hesitated, then said it anyway. "The Eternal Life Sect's attitude toward all this is rather curious."
Gu Chengming's brows rose slightly. He gestured for her to go on.
"The Red Dust Immortal used the Eternal Life Sect's hands to launch the surprise attack on the Penglai Immortal Sect's branch, yes. But from the intelligence I've gathered these past days, the Eternal Life Sect's own people don't seem to regard him as one of theirs. It reads more as mutual exploitation. The Red Dust Immortal needed the Eternal Life Sect's manpower and resources; the Eternal Life Sect needed his attainments in the Dao of Causality. Each took what they wanted, but they were never truly allied. And now that he's gone, the Eternal Life Sect shows no sign whatsoever of having suffered a grievous loss. On the contrary—"
Her tone paused delicately. "—quite a few of them are gloating."
Gu Chengming turned that over. So the situation inside the Eternal Life Sect was even more tangled than he'd assumed.
He shook his head and set it aside for now, drawing the pale golden lotus from his robes and setting it on the low table.
"This thing. The Red Dust Immortal left it behind when he was extinguished."
The instant Ji Yixi's eyes fell on the lotus, they widened — she clearly recognized what it was — and she began to explain.
The Inverted Cause Lotus's Dharma-Station had returned to its proper place, yes. But ten thousand years of the Red Dust Immortal's own accumulation would not simply evaporate along with it.
There was precedent for this sort of thing: the "inheritance" a Sixth Realm powerhouse leaves after death, usable directly.
But this one was far too vast and tangled to be of much practical use.
Having said that, Ji Yixi shifted. "However — using this as a base, one could forge a spirit artifact bound to the Dao of Causality."
"If Commander Gu trusts me, what would you say to leaving it in my hands? The Great Qian imperial house's forge-masters have a great deal of experience with ancient relics. Once it is complete, I will deliver the finished piece to Fellow Daoist Gu."
Gu Chengming thought it over and nodded his consent.
Ji Yixi put the lotus carefully away.
Then she drew a small brocade box from her sleeve and pushed it across to him.
"There is also one other thing for Commander Gu — call it thanks for the Secret Realm affair."
Gu Chengming opened the box. Inside lay a jade seal, warm and lustrous as fat through and through, a coiling dragon carved on its face, the faintest golden spirit light circulating along the dragon's body.
"This is called the Secondary Seal," Ji Yixi said, as though introducing a thoroughly unremarkable gift. "Whoever holds it will be regarded by the dragon-qi as a member of the imperial house anywhere within Great Qian's borders."
Gu Chengming's hand paused.
"You may mobilize dragon-qi at will. It is equivalent to an imperial edict."
"?"
A question mark surfaced above Gu Chengming's head.
Ji Yixi seemed to catch his doubt, and elaborated: "Should Fellow Daoist Gu ever wish to rebel, it also provides a legitimate pretext."
"?"
No, hold on. Judging by your face, this doesn't feel like a joke.
Joke or not, Gu Chengming put the little seal away in the end.
He saw the two of them off at the gate of the lodgings, then returned to his room and sorted through the day's gains one by one.
—The Secondary Seal, the broken sword, the lotus, plus the Blood-Burning Realm-Breaking Pearl he had yet to collect.
Most important of all, Love's Hundred Bones Resonance's room counted as thoroughly cleared.
This trip into the Secret Realm had yielded far more than he'd expected.
Over the next two days, Floating Isle City moved into cleanup and recovery.
The remnants of the Otherworldly Heavenly Demon were swept out by the joint effort of the Fifth Realm greats. The city-guarding grand formation was reactivated after repairs. The spirit lamps came on street by street, and life returned to the avenues.
The Cloud-Gazing Tower was first to reopen. The proprietor took down the CLOSED FOR THE TIME BEING placard that had hung by the door for half a month and replaced it with a brand-new one: "In celebration of the successful conclusion of the Grand Tournament — buy three spirit wines, get one free, today only."
Successful conclusion… honestly, the phrasing was rather delicate, but no one bothered to correct it. The disciples had all come back whole, after all, and by results alone it had been successful enough.
As host, the Mohist Gate put together a brief closing ceremony at the tail end of the cleanup.
At it, besides announcing the Tournament's final rankings once more, Liu Chongji handed out an additional batch of special-contribution awards.
Most of them were the usual sort of thing — spirit stones, pills, fragmentary manuals — a bit of icing on the cake for disciples who had distinguished themselves in the Secret Realm.
But when it came to Gu Chengming's turn, Liu Chongji drew a badge from his sleeve.
The badge was about two inches square, made of what looked like some spirit-gold alloy. The face bore Floating Isle City's civic emblem; the back was inscribed with a line of very small spirit script.
"Fellow Daoist Gu, this is Floating Isle City's Star of the City badge."
"The bearer enjoys discounts in the market wards, priority in the guest courtyards, use rights to the spirit springs…"
He rattled on for a good long while.
Gu Chengming accepted the badge and turned it over a couple of times.
Star of the City.
Why not just call it Honorary Citizen of Floating Isle City? he thought. It fits this whole immortal-cultivation setting about as well as a saddle fits a fish.
Floating Isle City's main street was bustling again, except this time the flow of people had reversed. The flying-ship berths were packed with queues waiting to depart.
Gu Chengming stood in the courtyard of the Wenjian Sect's lodgings, watching the lively scene, calculating when he ought to set out for the Yunyue Sect—
—when a small, hesitant cough came from behind him.
"…"
Yu Wenqiu stood under the osmanthus tree in the courtyard, about five paces away.
She had changed into clean elder's robes today, her hair freshly bound, and — rarely — she had even tucked a small osmanthus blossom at her temple.
—She had picked that blossom off the tree in the courtyard this morning. Three of them, in fact, and she'd spent an age holding each against her reflection before settling on this one.
The other two she had stuffed back onto the branches. Whether they could survive being stuffed back was anyone's guess.
"Little Gu…" Yu Wenqiu said, her voice half a tone lower than usual.
Gu Chengming turned around, saw a Yu Wenqiu considerably more put-together than usual, and blinked.
Yu Wenqiu ran through her script at high speed in her head, starting from Gu Chengming, I'm not going to be your Elder anymore and ending at I want to be your Dao-companion.
She drew a deep breath, lifted her head, and looked him straight in the eye.
—Now.
"I, I actually… have always…"
—Disaster. Line forgotten.
No, not forgotten. Her mouth just couldn't keep up with her brain.
Every line she'd rehearsed had tangled into a knot, replaced by a heap of fragmentary words shoving each other around on the tip of her tongue.
I like you — no, too blunt, lay some groundwork first.
You're the most — the most what? The best? The one who makes my heart move most?
None of it was right!
Yu Wenqiu's mind went completely to pieces, and what finally came out was a sentence stitched together from the wreckage.
"I, I want to be your Dao — Dao-companion."
Not loud. But every word came out clearly.
The moment she finished, her face went red from the roots of her ears all the way down her neck, as red as if the osmanthus at her temple had bled its color into her. She kept her head down and didn't dare look at his expression.
That was it. She'd said it. No taking it back.
Everything hinged on how Little Gu answered now.
If he said, "Elder, I've always thought of you as an older sister," Yu Wenqiu was fairly certain she'd throw herself straight off the edge of Floating Isle City.
And if he said—
"Weren't we already Dao-companions?"
In none of the scenarios she'd imagined had that sentence appeared.
Her mind blanked for an instant. Then, slowly, she raised her head.
Gu Chengming stood before her wearing a slightly puzzled look, with even a trace of why are you only bringing this up today in it.
Little Yu was entirely lost.
Already Dao-companions? Since when…?
Wait. The Capital?!
The Capital. The Star-Plucking Pavilion. That night.
The night she'd worked up her courage to say, "Stay at This Elder's side and write storybooks for the rest of your life," and then decided she'd botched it completely because she hadn't made herself clear.
—He'd understood?
Yu Wenqiu's peach-blossom eyes went wide.
After they'd come back from the Capital, Little Gu's manner hadn't changed. But it hadn't gotten any closer, either.
He still brought her pastries. Still read storybooks with her. Still went down to the training grounds to coach the juniors in her place whenever she felt too lazy to.
Everything as usual.
So thoroughly as usual that she'd never once realized their relationship had already, at some point, undergone a fundamental change.
So all that agonizing. All that groaning. Running off to Tianji Pavilion to cast a marriage divination, only to draw an utterly baffling single character — 缠 (Entanglement).
And it turned out he'd said yes ages ago?!
—Which made all that agonizing look completely idiotic!
Yu Wenqiu looked at Gu Chengming with wounded resentment, her eyes plainly asking, then why haven't you shown a single sign of it since we got back from the Capital?
Forget Dual Cultivation, she grumbled inwardly — at the very least there ought to have been some kissing and holding.
Then again, since the Capital they'd been preparing for the Tournament, so there genuinely hadn't been a chance. That thought deflated her somewhat.
Gu Chengming paused.
Now that he thought about it carefully, this was arguably his fault.
As far as he was concerned, they'd settled things back in the Capital. After returning to the sect he'd been busy with Tournament preparations, and he hadn't been short on attentiveness — he simply hadn't taken any further step.
Looking at Elder Little Yu standing there with an osmanthus blossom at her temple, red-faced and glaring at him, it struck him that there were things no amount of talking could accomplish as directly as doing.
—When it comes to decisiveness, a Gal veteran yields to no one.
He stepped forward. Yu Wenqiu retreated half a step on reflex and came up against the osmanthus trunk. A few blossoms shook loose, and one landed square on her shoulder.
Gu Chengming reached out and plucked the fallen flower from her shoulder — and then didn't withdraw his hand, letting his fingers slide from her shoulder up to her cheek.
Yu Wenqiu's breath stopped.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait!
No, hold on, isn't this developing a bit fast?!
She'd been angry a second ago! She hadn't even finished her lines!
But her body was more honest than her head. Her peach-blossom eyes drifted half closed, lashes trembling.
Morning light spilled through gaps in the canopy, scattering dappled shadow over them both.
Yu Wenqiu kept her eyes shut, her mind blank — and then, out of that blankness, countless thoughts came bubbling up.
—So there was never any need for all that talking. If I'd known, I would have just kissed him back in the Capital.
Months wasted going back and forth over nothing. Yu Wenqiu, how stupid can one person be.
And then one more thought rose up and covered all the others.
—So kissing feels this good.
At that same moment, a dialogue box popped up.
[Hundred Bones Resonance watched with considerable envy.]
[Then a thought struck it: hey — hasn't Love's Hundred Bones Resonance's room technically been cleared too?]
[So does that mean, from now on, it can occasionally with Heavenly Emperor Gu…]
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