Hua Xiangwan's pulse steadied.
Then the thought caught up with her. "The tracking seal — the same one you used on me before?"
"Under normal conditions," Xie Changji said, "no one at my level should be able to dissolve it."
She had been about to mock him for it — his seal, erased by someone wearing Shen Xiuwen's face — but the words died before they reached her lips. Something felt wrong.
Xie Changji looked up and confirmed what she already suspected. "Whoever removed that seal is not beneath me in cultivation."
The air left her lungs.
She could count on one hand the cultivators who stood above Xie Changji. In the western border, she could think of only one — the God of Blood and Valor.
"So we can just narrow it down to him?"
Xie Changji shook his head. "That's under normal conditions. Someone who can obtain an evil spirit may have methods we've never encountered. Or they're concealing their true cultivation."
"But if someone is genuinely that powerful," she said slowly, "what would they need with any of this?"
A beat passed. Hua Xiangwan nodded. "He must be operating outside the righteous path."
"In everything I've observed so far," Xie Changji said, without any particular expression, "there is no righteous path in the western border."
That landed like a stone. She couldn't argue with it. But it still felt uncomfortably close to an insult about her home.
She cleared her throat. "I think Hehuan Palace keeps fairly upright principles."
Xie Changji glanced at her and said nothing. He sat at the edge of the bed, rolled his sleeve to the elbow, and placed two fingers lightly against her wrist. "Let me check on you."
His fingers were cold. The moment they touched her skin she pulled back on instinct.
Her eyes dropped to his hand — and the dream rushed back.
She had never really looked at his hands before. But in the dream, she had known every detail: the line of each knuckle, the length of each finger. She could recall the texture of them now just by looking, which meant some part of her had been paying close attention to Xie Changji without her permission — cataloguing him, memorizing him, filing him away without her knowledge.
Guilt settled over her, sudden and sourceless. She found she couldn't look at his hands. Couldn't quite look at his face either. Couldn't look at him at all.
Xie Changji felt her go rigid. He glanced up. His eyes were clear and unhurried. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
He looked like moonlight, she thought miserably — clean and untouched — and here she was, like some wretched scholar who'd spent the night dreaming dissolute things about a woman entirely out of his reach. The guilt sat heavier.
She cleared her throat again and fixed her gaze on Xiaobai batting a ball across the floor. A safe topic. A normal topic. "I'm fine now, aren't I?"
"The situation has stabilized," Xie Changji said.
"Good."
A pause. "Your poison," he said carefully. "Who planted it?"
Hu Mian had denied it. Which left only the old poison — something dormant, something tied to the Demon Lord's blood command. Xie Changji turned the logic over quietly and arrived at the obvious question.
"What did the God of Blood and Valor do to you?"
"I—" Hua Xiangwan's mind moved quickly.
Xie Changji watched her face and understood the answer without needing to hear it. "It's inconvenient to say. You don't need to explain."
Silence fell between them. After a moment, he said quietly, "Sleep."
Hua Xiangwan's hands tightened on the quilt. She watched him stand and move toward the wash room, and the words came out before she could stop them. "Wait—"
He turned.
She swallowed. "Could you take a different room tonight?"
He waited.
"Or — share with Yun Qingxu? I could—" She searched for a reason and then realized, quite suddenly, that she didn't need one. She had no obligation to share a room with anyone.
She sat up straighter. "I want to sleep alone tonight. I want the whole bed."
She half-expected him to push back. She braced for it.
Instead, Xie Changji considered it briefly and said, "I'll meditate at the table. Separate. I'm not comfortable leaving you without watch."
She exhaled.
Meditating. Just meditating. As long as he didn't get into the bed, she could survive the night.
She lay down quickly, pulling the blanket up to cut off any further conversation. "Then I'm sleeping. Keep your eye on Fox Sleep — don't let her slip away."
"Mm."
He moved into the wash room and closed the door.
Inside, he raised one hand and directed cold water into the tub — filling it, then stepping in.
Being woken halfway through a dream was not a pleasant thing.
If she hadn't suggested separate sleeping arrangements herself, he wasn't sure what he would have done.
He stayed in the cold water a long time. When he finally climbed out, he pulled his robe on, returned to the incense table, lit the sleeping incense for her, and closed his eyes.
She was perceptive. A dream here and there she might dismiss. If it happened often, she would notice.
And besides — she had wanted company, and he had been there. That had made her happy.
If it was only a matter of pleasing himself, a dream visit would be easy enough.
But he didn't think he had the right to that today.
By morning, Hua Xiangwan had talked herself back to reason.
It was just a dream. She was a woman of two hundred years with considerable life experience. A dream of that kind was not worth unraveling. It meant nothing.
Except — it had been Xie Changji. Which meant he had some hold on her attention she hadn't accounted for. The distance between them needed adjusting.
She was careful about it. Deliberate, but not obvious.
At breakfast, when he reached over to wipe her mouth, she got there first.
When they left together and found Xue Zidan stationed at the door — deep in his performance as a devoted young Taoist — Xie Changji moved to take her arm out of habit. Hua Xiangwan scooped Xiaobai from his other arm in one smooth motion, held the fox up, and announced brightly, "Xiaobai! Up we go!"
Xue Zidan watched her flinch away and turned slowly to look at Xie Changji with an expression that asked a great many questions.
He remembered himself and bowed. "Senior, you're awake."
"Call me Shaojun."
Xue Zidan stood there for a long moment. Then, with visible effort, he said: "Young Master."
Xie Changji, satisfied, repeated what he had already told Hua Xiangwan. "I released her."
"Released her?"
"Yes." Xie Changji glanced toward the carriage where Hua Xiangwan had already retreated. He turned back to the younger man and said evenly, "Chasing her now serves nothing. Return to Daozong. When I recover the tracing mirror, I'll bring it to you myself."
"I couldn't possibly—"
"You would be a liability."
No softening. No hesitation.
"I'll keep up!"
Xue Zidan refused to hear it. Xie Changji studied him with those still, vertical eyes until the younger man felt the cold crawl down his spine — like standing under the gaze of a snake that hadn't decided yet.
"You're determined to follow her."
The words weren't gentle.
Xue Zidan held his expression with effort.
From inside the carriage, the curtain moved. Hua Xiangwan's head appeared. "Are you two getting in?"
Xie Changji looked away from Xue Zidan. "Then let's go."
They climbed in together. Xue Zidan took the driver's seat and did his best to look devout and junior.
Inside, Xie Changji settled across from her and immediately lifted Xiaobai from her lap. Hua Xiangwan started to object, then stopped.
If he liked the fox that much — fine. She was generous. She looked out the window.
The carriage rolled through the city's morning streets. Voices drifted up through the curtain.
"Did you hear? Young Master Wen is dead. And Patriarch Wen has lost his mind — went to the Yin-Yang Sect yesterday demanding answers."
"What does Wen Shaoqing's death have to do with the Yin-Yang Sect?"
"Word is Minghuo killed him. The leader of Qingle Palace has put out a reward — ten thousand spirit stones for information."
"Minghuo? The sect leader? He's competing for the Demon Lord's seat? I thought Hua Xiangwan would be the first to fall, but Wen Shaoqing—"
"Well, she married Xie Changji. The first sword in Yunlai. Killing her now would be no easy thing."
"I heard the Heavenly Sword Sect's heart method and Hehuan Palace's share a common origin — what if she could practice both? The golden core alone might—"
The gossip spiraled outward from there, untethered from anything resembling fact, and eventually arrived at speculation about Xie Changji's appearance.
Hua Xiangwan dropped the curtain.
She turned. Across from her, Xie Changji was combing through Xiaobai's fur with one hand, unbothered by all of it.
She stood. "I'll get some air outside."
She didn't wait for his response.
Xue Zidan raised an eyebrow as she climbed up beside him. He looked at the carriage. He looked at her. He sent a message over: Running from him?
No, she sent back. Stuffy in there.
You think I don't know you by now?
He paused. Then — carefully — Didn't you dream about him last night?
"Still pretending to be a pious little Taoist?" she said aloud.
Xue Zidan's face flickered. He held it in, turned forward, and after a moment said stiffly, "Fine. You can be cold with me. He can't do anything to me anyway. I don't mind."
"Why haven't you gone back to Yaozong?"
He didn't answer right away. She glanced at him sidelong. "Stay too long and your sister will assume you've been heartbroken and come looking for someone to blame."
"I am heartbroken."
He said it plainly.
Hua Xiangwan had nothing to say to that. Xue Zidan's expression settled. "I've protected you long enough, senior sister. Long enough that I've nearly given myself away. You're safe. I'll go." He flicked a look back at the carriage. "But Xie Changji — what is he doing? He finally catches her and then just... lets her go?"
"He and senior sister have their own history," Hua Xiangwan said, quietly. "He has his reasons."
Inside the carriage, Xie Changji ran his fingers through Xiaobai's fur and listened to the fluctuations of spiritual energy outside — two people, one conversation, voices he didn't bother decoding.
He touched the fox's ears for a while.
Then: "Xiangwan."
Outside, both voices stopped at once. She and Xue Zidan looked at each other. Xie Changji almost never called to her first. When he did, it meant something.
They both reached for their weapons.
A pause.
"I bought osmanthus cake this morning," Xie Changji said. "Come in and have some."
Xue Zidan stared at the carriage.
Hua Xiangwan stared at the carriage.
They had been ready for an ambush.
While Hua Xiangwan's group pressed forward in pursuit of Fox Sleep, rain had been falling over Mingluan Palace since nightfall.
The city's main roads were dark and drowned. No lanterns. No foot traffic.
A man lay crumpled in an alley corner, soaked through, unrecognizable beneath the blood and rain.
He was the one called Minghuo.
He had run from Qingle Palace's hunters for days, taking every detour he could find, circling wide to avoid capture. On Shennu Mountain, Wen Shaoqing had vanished without warning — and then the formation had activated, and Minghuo had fled before it could pull him in.
Before he'd made it back to the Yin-Yang Sect, the news had already reached him. Qingle Palace was hunting him. If he went home, Wen Rong would follow, and he would die.
There was only one place left in the world where no one would look for him.
He had crawled his way to the gates of Mingluan Palace and sent a message inside.
He didn't know if she would come.
If she didn't — at least he would die close to her.
He was drifting when he felt it: the rain stopped falling on him.
He forced his head up.
She stood above him holding an umbrella, dressed in white, her face as calm as pale jade and her eyes like cold winter stone.
"I don't know how you manage to find new ways to be a problem," Qin Yunyi said. Her tone was not heated — just disgusted. "You come here dying on my doorstep and give Wen Rong one more reason to suspect me. Did I tell you to kill Wen Shaoqing?"
Minghuo couldn't speak. He looked at her.
She surveyed the damage, then crouched and pressed her hand to his forehead. Warm spiritual power moved into him, steady and measured.
"Did you kill Wen Shaoqing?" she asked calmly.
"No."
She raised her eyes. "Then why does his distress letter name you?"
"I meant to," Minghuo rasped. "But he disappeared. Before I could."
"You don't know who actually killed him?"
He shook his head.
Qin Yunyi said nothing for a long moment. "Why did you want him dead?"
He hesitated.
She saw the hesitation. She stood, and kicked him.
"An unfamiliar dog who can't even answer me directly." She turned to leave. "Die here."
His hand shot out and caught the hem of her robe.
"He — insulted you."
She stopped.
Minghuo trembled, each word costing him. "He and Hua Xiangwan — they had an arrangement. She was all he ever wanted. They planned to use the Shennu Mountain formation to drain Xie Changji's cultivation, then kill you."
Qin Yunyi stood very still. "You killed him for that?"
He bowed his head into the mud. The formation, the chaos on Shennu Mountain — it had warped his thinking. He knew that. "My lord. I was wrong. Let me live. Let me stay at your side."
She looked at him for a long time with no expression.
"Life is not something you beg for."
His body went rigid. She stepped over him and walked away. Before she rounded the corner, she tossed a small bottle behind her. It rolled through the mud and stopped against his hand.
"Qingle Palace is still hunting you," she said, without slowing. "If you can break through before they find you — you'll be useful. Take over Qingle Palace."
Her voice carried back through the rain: "And I will handle Wen Rong myself."
Then she was gone.