The morning air hung thick and oppressive when Miaomiao first noticed the trouble. Dark clouds pressed down like a wool blanket, and more tellingly, Meng Ruji's jaw was clenched tight enough to crack stone.
When Meng Ruji began distributing flatbread, the message became unmistakable. Everyone received their share—even Tuzi—but her gaze deliberately swept past Mu Sui as if he were invisible.
Miaomiao watched, eyes widening, as Mu Sui's outstretched hand hung in midair. He didn't flinch. Instead, he leaned against the wooden cart with deliberate nonchalance, arms crossed, watching Meng Ruji with the intensity of someone studying a puzzle they intended to solve.
The tension snapped when Tuzi noticed his master's empty stomach.
"What are you doing bullying my city lord brother! Hand over the flatbread!" Tuzi's deep voice thundered across the camp.
Meng Ruji's laugh was sharp as broken glass. "I'm negotiating Miaomiao's supplies. Everyone else gets a fair share for their labor. As for him?" She gestured dismissively. "He has perfectly good hands and feet—let him find fruit himself."
Before Tuzi could finish his angry retort, Mu Sui was already walking toward the forest.
"City lord brother! Why must you suffer this bird's anger!" Tuzi called after him, hurrying to follow.
"You're too noisy," Mu Sui said, not breaking stride.
Tuzi lowered his voice but continued his complaint as they disappeared into the trees. Meng Ruji remained unmoved, methodically eating her bread as if nothing had happened.
When Miaomiao sidled closer, her eyes bright with curiosity, she asked softly: "Young Master Mu seems different today... almost protective of you, Sister Ruji?"
Meng Ruji's expression darkened. "Protective like a pet? I'm not an animal to be coddled."
"That's not what I meant. He just seems—"
"He owes me." Meng Ruji bit savagely into her bread, as though chewing something more substantial than flatbread. "Fair. Ness."
She turned away before Miaomiao could press further, moving toward Ye Chuan, who was crouched over the cart wheels with single-minded focus.
The weather only worsened. By the time they set out, thunder rolled like warning drums across the bruised sky. Tuzi spotted the broken house first—or what looked like one—and they hurried toward it just as the first raindrops fell.
What Meng Ruji found was far stranger than a simple shelter.
The ruined temple stood like a skeleton, its four walls collapsed, its roof tiles scattered like scattered teeth. Inside, a divine statue bore what remained of the structure, its stone face blurred by centuries and moss. Because half the roof still clung to this god's shoulders, a patch of dry ground remained—a pocket of shelter carved out by divine burden.
Meng Ruji and Mu Sui both froze when they entered. Neither looked away from the statue immediately.
Meng Ruji moved first, carrying their supplies to the safest corner. Then she stepped outside and began gathering the long, bamboo-like azure grass growing beside the temple.
Mu Sui stood before the statue in absolute stillness.
When the rain intensified and Tuzi hauled the cart inside, the sound seemed to pull Mu Sui back to the present. But Ye Chuan—who had just entered—stopped dead upon seeing what held up the roof.
The color drained from his face.
"This is a divine statue," he said, his voice tight with something that might have been horror or reverence.
Miaomiao turned to look, then shrugged. "Isn't that common?"
"No." Ye Chuan's hands clenched. "The mortal world worships Immortals. This place worships a god. We should leave. Now."
Tuzi waved him off, already removing his coat to make a cushion for Mu Sui. "In this rain? I'm not pulling that cart again."
But when Ye Chuan turned to Meng Ruji, his plea was earnest. "Miss Meng, as a cultivator, how can you rest in a place that worships gods?"
Meng Ruji paused mid-grass-gathering, then turned to face him fully. On the periphery, Mu Sui looked up as well, his dark eyes watching her with an intensity that seemed to devour her movements.
"This time, Tuzi is right," Meng Ruji said calmly.
Ye Chuan's face flushed red with something between anger and despair. "Don't you know what gods were like? They wanted to destroy everything! The Immortals fought thousands of years to defeat them and protect us all! How can you be so indifferent?"
Lightning cracked the sky, illuminating the blurred features the gods had once worn—those downcast eyes that seemed to gaze upon all human chaos with inexplicable patience.
Meng Ruji's hands continued their work, steady as though the heavens weren't tearing themselves apart.
"I'm not a cultivator," she said, finally looking at him directly. "I'm just an unlucky person. Some Immortal or demon decided my fate, and now I'm trapped in this cultivation business. That's all."
"But the Immortals protected ordinary people! You should follow their rules!"
"I respect their victory. But I refuse their rules." Meng Ruji's voice didn't rise, yet everyone heard it through the rain like a bell. "Even if the Heavenly King himself appeared today, he wouldn't convince me to step outside and catch a single drop of rain."
She finished her first grass cloak and handed it to Miaomiao, then began weaving another. By the time Ye Chuan's face cycled through red and white again, Meng Ruji had completed a second cloak.
"If you insist on this," Ye Chuan finally said, his voice hollow, "I suppose I have no choice. But I won't shelter under those eaves."
Meng Ruji tossed the new cloak toward him. He caught it almost by reflex.
"If you refuse the god's protection, then let me give you mine for a while," she said, her hands already weaving the third. "Though standing in the rain, it won't be very effective. Block what you can, just make do."
Mu Sui, who had been eating fruit with his head bowed, let his gaze follow that grass cloak. He watched Ye Chuan grip it, watched the conflicting emotions war across his features, watched him finally don it and turn to face away from the temple—a solitary flagpole in the downpour.
Then Mu Sui's attention drifted back to Meng Ruji's hands. The grass moved like water through her fingers, taking shape.
A third cloak.
"Sister Ruji, won't he get sick?" Miaomiao worried, glancing toward Ye Chuan's rigid form outside.
"What you plant, you harvest," Meng Ruji said without ceremony. "His convictions are his own. Pulling him in now would wound him more deeply than any blade."
When Miaomiao asked how she'd learned such intricate weaving, Meng Ruji's voice softened slightly. "I raised many children. Some are very small. When they see these patterns..." She tied off the fourth cloak with nimble fingers, and the grass shifted into recognizable shapes—ears pricked upward, a rabbits head rendered in simple, perfect lines.
"These rabbit ears are so cute!" Miaomiao breathed.
That single sentence made Tuzi's neck crane forward with desperate hope.
Mu Sui's gaze locked onto Meng Ruji's hands.
"Do you want it?" Meng Ruji asked, holding the cloak between them.
Tuzi's eyes went wide and sparkling. "I want it!"
Mu Sui turned his head away with exaggerated composure, as though he'd never been interested at all.
Tuzi received his treasure with glee, spinning in circles to admire it while wearing it, laughing at his own reflection in the polished surfaces of their belongings.
Mu Sui watched him with cold indifference, then snatched back a piece of fruit Tuzi hadn't finished.
When Meng Ruji finished the fifth cloak and placed it on herself, only torn scraps of grass remained on the ground.
Thunder rumbled relentlessly. The divine statue's face remained expressionless—neither sorrow nor joy written across its blurred features.
Neither did Mu Sui's.
The rain lasted through nightfall. By morning, though the sun remained hidden, the deluge had ceased—but the earth was too soft to travel.
Meng Ruji decided they would stay.
Night came quickly. Miaomiao grew drowsy, and with her eyelids growing heavy, Tuzi suddenly grew clever—everyone should contribute their outer coats to make her a bed. They complied readily, creating a nest of fabric for their "employer."
When Meng Ruji removed her coat, something fell to the ground with a soft clink.
The stone. She'd forgotten about Mo Li entirely. He must have needed time to recover from whatever torment Luo Yingfeng had inflicted. She placed him beside Miaomiao's makeshift pillow, then straightened to stretch.
That's when she noticed Mu Sui had already slipped outside.
She found him easily enough, following the path he'd taken. Ye Chuan, resting in a tree fork above, pointed wordlessly in the direction Mu Sui had gone, then closed his eyes again.
Away from the others, Meng Ruji discovered what she'd expected: Mu Sui leaning against a tree, his face drawn with pain.
She chose to stand before him with arms crossed, her tone theatrical: "Your wounds are troubling you again?"
She crouched down and extended her hand—then pulled it back, letting her palm hover just half an inch from his skin. Close enough for him to feel the warmth. Not close enough to touch.
She was doing it on purpose.
And she knew he knew.
"Touching you would make it better, right?" Her smile carried dangerous mischief. "But I..."
Mu Sui's hand rose to grasp that warmth, but Meng Ruji pulled away. His fingers closed on nothing but cold, damp air—and her pleased laughter filled the space between them.
"Husband, how can you be so impolite?"
"What do you want?" His voice came tight, controlled.
Meng Ruji's smile faded. She tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. "One question, one answer. Finish the game."
"Last night, I answered one of your questions," Mu Sui said quietly. "You didn't lose out."
"I did." Meng Ruji was firm. "You didn't give details."
Silence pooled between them, thick as the forest's damp night air.
Finally: "At Xuejing Cliff, the day I took your Inner Core, there wasn't just you and me."
"I know. Ye Chuan was there."
"Not him. There were also black monsters. Shadow demons, perhaps." Mu Sui's eyes held a cold gleam as he held her gaze. "They had already broken your seal before I arrived."
Meng Ruji's breath caught. "My seal was broken by them?"
"Yes. I fought them. I took your Inner Core from their hands and placed it in my dantian." He watched her process this. "The malevolent energy in my body—I acquired it that day."
"You didn't dig it out yourself?" She was almost laughing, except the laugh died unborn. "You're still hiding your true strength from me?"
Mu Sui neither confirmed nor denied. "That should be the next question, shouldn't it?"
Meng Ruji was quiet for a moment. "Fine. I'll unbury your entire history someday."
"Is it fair now?" he asked.
"I suppose."
"Your hand," he said simply.
The directness surprised her. She coughed softly, then sat and patted the space above her knees. "Come here. I don't shortchange people who negotiate properly."
Mu Sui glanced at her legs but didn't immediately lie down. Instead, his gaze moved to her face, and he asked a question he'd asked before, one that had never received a clear answer: "Are you this good to everyone?"
"Should I be worse to you?"
Before she could finish, he lay down. Then, with stubborn persistence: "Your hand."
She placed her palm on his forehead. "Better?"
"Mm."
The night deepened. In the silence, the forest held only the rhythm of their breathing.
After a long time, when Meng Ruji's eyes were beginning to close, she heard his voice again, hazy as a half-remembered dream: "You were more than just a little bad to me."
She drowsed lightly. "Hm?"
"The azure grass cloak..."
She couldn't hear clearly. "Do you want one too?"
A long silence followed. She thought he'd fallen asleep.
"No," he finally said, his voice so small it was almost inaudible. "I don't want one..."
Meng Ruji pursed her lips. "Mu Sui, you're so contrary."
But as he drifted deeper into whatever dreams the forest offered, she made a quiet decision: tomorrow she wouldn't tease him anymore. She'd weave him a cloak.
Who doesn't want one? Only a fool wouldn't want one.
Previous/Next
.jpg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)