Yunmeng Gorge lay at the entrance to the Western Continent — even at Shen Nanyin’s sword-flight speed, it would take a full day to arrive.
Besides, sustained sword-flight consumed a tremendous amount of spiritual power, and heading into a dangerous place with a depleted body was hardly a wise choice.
So deep in the night, Shen Nanyin decided to find somewhere for himself and Cheng Xueyi to rest.
“Where are we going?” Cheng Xueyi caught his hand, asking him with some tension: “Why have we stopped?”
The night was so familiar to her, the light swallowed in darkness letting her move like a fish in water, her true nature gradually slipping from her control.
If Shen Nanyin suddenly changed his mind now and decided not to go after all…
“It’s late, and we’ve traveled a long way. Let’s find somewhere to rest a while, and set off again at dawn.”
After he answered, Shen Nanyin felt her grip loosen slightly, though she still didn’t let go.
“Is Eldest Senior Brother tired?” She considered this for a moment. “That makes sense — sword-flight is the most taxing thing on one’s spiritual power. It’s already remarkable that Eldest Senior Brother managed to fly this long.”
Having said this, she released his hand, letting Shen Nanyin bring her down to land.
The moment her feet touched the ground, she spoke again: “But I really am anxious. I’m afraid something might go wrong the longer we delay, and I want to confirm whether there’s still Moon-Mending Grass at the destination. So let’s not rest after all.”
Shen Nanyin looked at her for a moment, and could understand her urgency.
In his youth, nearing a breakthrough, he too had known such restless, anxious moments.
Cheng Xueyi was only nineteen, after all.
“Then let’s press on.”
Shen Nanyin was about to summon his sword again, but Cheng Xueyi stopped him.
“Rest, Eldest Senior Brother. The rest of the way isn’t far — let me take you.”
She would take him?
Shen Nanyin couldn’t hide his surprise as he looked at her, watching Cheng Xueyi begin rummaging in her small satchel.
“Sure, my cultivation is low, but my head works just fine. Don’t look so shocked, Eldest Senior Brother — carrying you a stretch of the way is nothing difficult. I’ve been in the sect five years now, whatever else you say about me, and I do have some tricks up my sleeve.”
She pulled several sheets of colored paper from her satchel. They didn’t look like ordinary paper — spiritual power rippled across their surface.
“I can’t offer you something as grand and comfortable as the Desireless Heavenly Palace’s flying boats, but I do have this.”
In the darkness, Cheng Xueyi folded the colored paper into paper cranes, one after another, then gave each a light breath. The cranes swelled in size as if they were real immortal cranes.
“Borrowed-strength talismans.”
Shen Nanyin recognized them now — these were borrowed-strength talismans, though he’d never seen anyone use them to lend strength to an immortal crane.
The Qiantian Sect kept countless immortal cranes, each one plump and sleek, well-fed and comfortable, tasked with the sect’s internal transportation.
“I spent two years at the Spirit Beast Court before entering Taixuan Palace. Learned this from the director there.” black lotus novel Novel Site · Black Lotus Novel
Cheng Xueyi climbed onto the largest crane and waved to Shen Nanyin. “Come on up, Eldest Senior Brother.”
Shen Nanyin stood rooted where he was, unmoving.
He looked over the other cranes — they were all there to support the one Cheng Xueyi rode, to keep it from losing power mid-flight.
Only her crane could actually be sat on.
But Shen Nanyin felt that he had two perfectly good hands and feet of his own — relying on his junior martial sister like this simply wasn’t right — and so he couldn’t bring himself to lift his foot no matter what.
“Hurry up, don’t waste time.”
Too impatient to watch him agonize, she reached out and hauled him over, seating him behind her, and the crane rose into the sky, swaying unsteadily.
…The distance to Yunmeng Gorge truly wasn’t far now.
Flying like this for a while, trembling and unsteady the whole way, wasn’t really something unbearable.
But even though Cheng Xueyi had deliberately enlarged the paper crane, it was still too small.
So small that every attempt Shen Nanyin made to keep some distance from her failed, undone again and again by the crane’s unsteady swaying.
He had no choice but to press tightly against her back.
Shen Nanyin was tall; sitting on the crane, he only had to lower his head to see the crown of Cheng Xueyi’s hair.
He looked at her soft, downy hair bun, the shell ornament nestled in it, the line of her shoulders and neck, the rise and fall of her chest, and her hands folded together atop the crane.
The moonlight was hazy, and even in flight the crane never rose very high, so the light remained dim.
Poor light didn’t hinder a cultivator’s sight. Shen Nanyin suddenly found himself in considerable discomfort.
“Junior Martial Sister Cheng.” He wanted to get down. “I’ve rested enough. Let me fly us there by sword.”
Cheng Xueyi drawled, “If Eldest Senior Brother has spiritual power to spare, you could save it for helping me pick the immortal herb once we’re past Yunmeng Gorge. But if you’re bored just sitting there, why don’t you cast me a warming spell instead.”
She shivered, her body trembling gently in his arms, and Shen Nanyin instantly went rigid.
“So cold,” she complained, her voice trailing off unsteadily.
The deep night was bitterly cold, and she was chilled through. Shen Nanyin found himself, almost without meaning to, casting a spell to warm her.
There was no such thing, strictly speaking, as a “warming spell” — cultivators were untouched by heat or cold, relying instead on their own cultivation.
If such a spell existed, he wouldn’t have needed to wrap her in his outer robe before.
He had no choice but to take another approach — drawing fire-spirit energy from the ambient spiritual power around them, letting it dissipate to create the illusion of a warm environment.
It had some effect, but Cheng Xueyi still seemed cold.
Her eyes were half-closed, her brows carrying a certain languor, nothing like her usual daytime vigor.
Shen Nanyin’s lips moved, but he didn’t know what to say.
The two of them were pressed far too close together, and seated as they were, though he harbored no intention to offend and his heart was as still as calm water, certain parts of his body still couldn’t help but repeatedly brush against her.
She suddenly glanced back at him. Shen Nanyin didn’t look away, and said seriously, “Junior Martial Sister, let me carry you by sword instead.”
Cheng Xueyi tilted her head, her expression somewhere between a smile and not. “Eldest Senior Brother really is just as gifted as they say~”
“…”
Whatever others meant by “gifted” certainly meant nothing else — it was purely praise for his exceptional talent, Shen Nanyin was sure of that.
Whatever Cheng Xueyi meant by “gifted” was certainly not the same thing, Shen Nanyin was equally sure of that.
He moved to get up immediately, but Cheng Xueyi stopped him.
“What are you running for? I’ve already felt it once — is it really such a big deal?”
The memory of that night in the cave came crashing back into his mind like a collapsing mountain. Shen Nanyin caught her wrist in return and said, brows furrowed, “The past is the past. The present is the present. I have no intention of offending Junior Martial Sister — I hope Junior Martial Sister will choose her words carefully.”
Shen Nanyin truly had no intention of offending her.
It was simply the problem of position and posture, forcing this contact upon them.
Nor did he show any of those humiliating reactions — proof enough that what he said was true.
That there was no reaction at all was, in its own way, quite a presence — truly “gifted,” as it were.
Cheng Xueyi glanced down at the silver bell at her waist. She hadn’t undone the silencing seal from the Ghost Market since then — and fortunate that she hadn’t, or Shen Nanyin could never have sat here so calmly for so long.
How could she possibly let him escape just like that?
The way to tame a hero as upright and forthright as Daoist Lord True Martial and Bright Splendor was, in the end, nothing more than making him break his principles again and again.
She brought up something else first, to let him breathe a little easier: “That pair of sea-demon tears Eldest Senior Brother won at the First Market — do you still have them on you?”
Sure enough, once distracted by another topic, Shen Nanyin’s composure improved somewhat.
“I do.”
He said only that one word, then opened his palm, and an exquisite jewelry box emerged from his qiankun pouch, settling quietly into his hand. Black Lotus novel Novel Translations — Black Lotus Novel
Cheng Xueyi’s languid brows immediately came alive.
“Is Eldest Senior Brother still willing to give them to me?”
After a scene like that, after nearly saying she wanted to kill him — and now here she was asking him to help pick immortal herbs, unwilling to let go of the sea-demon tears, asking whether he’d still give them to her. No ordinary girl would have Cheng Xueyi’s nerve.
And Shen Nanyin, infuriatingly reasonable as ever: “If you want them, they’re yours.”
They had been meant for her from the start. If she didn’t mind having them, if she wanted them, then naturally there was no reason not to give them.
“Then I’ll trouble Eldest Senior Brother to make them into earrings for me. I don’t want a hair clasp.”
Aside from swordsmanship, the True Martial Daoist Lord dabbled in every manner of Daoist art, and excelled at all of them — it wasn’t an exaggeration to call him all-around gifted.
She wanted earrings, not a hair clasp — fine, he’d make earrings. No difference to him.
Shen Nanyin put away the jewelry box and nodded in agreement.
Cheng Xueyi gazed at his lowered brows, looking up at him from below, her lashes all the more dense from this angle.
Someone with such an unbending spine — how was she to make him willingly fall into corruption and decay, to bend at the waist, to be used by her?
The True Martial Daoist Lord of Bright Splendor seemed like he ought to remain forever indifferent, forever pure, forever unmoving as a mountain.
Did she really have to drag him into the mud, until he was covered in filth?
Better not to think about it — but the more Cheng Xueyi thought, the more worked up she became.
She couldn’t help but grip Shen Nanyin’s hand, and once he looked over at her, she lowered her voice, hoarse now: “Eldest Senior Brother is so good to me. You’re so good, that I really do feel I need to repay you with something, or I can’t rest easy.”
Cheng Xueyi leaned back, and Shen Nanyin had no choice but to catch her fully in his arms.
Her eyes half-lidded, she let the crane’s jolting motion knock the two of them together, again and again.
Shen Nanyin, who had visibly just begun to relax, tensed up once more — even more so than before — and the corner of Cheng Xueyi’s mouth curved into a spreading smile.
“Eldest Senior Brother.”
She called to him lightly, airily. Countless people in the Qiantian Sect addressed him this way — outer disciples, inner disciples, whether or not it was technically their place to do so — because to them, “Eldest Senior Brother” was less a matter of seniority than a title of recognition for Shen Nanyin.
He was, without question, the foremost disciple beneath the Jingci Fazong within the Qiantian Sect — the Eldest Senior Brother they all looked to, someone they could rely on.
Such a pure title, and yet from Cheng Xueyi’s mouth — without her even particularly altering her tone — it somehow changed the very flavor of the stars, the moon, and the cold night wind around them, turning everything unaccountably charged and heated.
Cheng Xueyi stretched herself out at leisure, her straight spine arching upward, the small of her back pressing closer against him.
Everything about a woman’s body was soft, and fragrance filled the air.
Cheng Xueyi’s scent was especially distinctive — there truly was a cool, snow-like quality about her.
Shen Nanyin watched, unable to believe it, as she effortlessly closed the distance he’d worked so hard to open between them, pressing flush against him once more — even closer than before — every jolt of the crane’s flight another clumsy, unintended contact.
Shen Nanyin was, after all, only a cultivator, not a monk who had renounced the body — his own body was in no way lacking, was in fact quite excellent.
If he could distract himself with other, more proper matters, he could keep his heart as still as calm water — but not like this.
Truly, not like this.
His breath filled with the scent of snow, a vein throbbing at his temple, and just as he was about to push her away, he heard her sigh — light, delicate, affecting.
That soft, lingering sigh extinguished what little reason he had left.
This time there was no drug, no bell-sound at all — his defenses simply broke on their own.
“Eldest Senior Brother, do you want me?”
Cheng Xueyi’s quiet question drifted into his ear, and there was no mistaking what she meant.
How things had come to this point felt, somehow, both inevitable and utterly inexplicable.
Shen Nanyin could no longer sit still. Just as he moved to fly away, Cheng Xueyi caught hold of him.
“Don’t you?” Her gaze dropped, taking in the not-so-subtle reaction beneath the overlap of his brocade robe. “You clearly do.”
“Last time I left you unable to see or touch — after Eldest Senior Brother went back, did you ever imagine it?”
Cheng Xueyi pulled his arm into her embrace, her eyes hazy, brimming with an endless mist.
“Did you ever imagine me, in your dreams?”
Though phrased as a question, her words already carried certainty.
Shen Nanyin’s heart raced violently, and from the wreckage of his collapsing reason, some dream surfaced — one that had truly existed, but which he’d forgotten completely upon waking.
Some dreams left a person with vivid memory upon waking.
Some dreams were entirely forgotten upon waking.
Cheng Xueyi was a forgotten dream.
“I’m sorry.”
Shen Nanyin, the moment he realized, began apologizing. · BLACK LOTUS Reading · Black Lotus
“Nanyin deserves death for this offense.”
…What?
Huh?
Why was he suddenly apologizing?
Cheng Xueyi froze, watching in disbelief as the charged, heated atmosphere from a moment ago was thoroughly demolished by Shen Nanyin’s solemn apology.
“Before today, I did not recall whether I had ever dreamed something that offended Junior Martial Sister. Reminded by Junior Martial Sister just now, I recall that I did indeed dream of Junior Martial Sister, after that incident. Though it was only a dream, it was still an offense against Junior Martial Sister — allow me to apologize.”
Cheng Xueyi: “…”
She hadn’t asked that question to place blame on him for anything. Why was he doing this… forget it.
A perfectly good moment of seduction, ending this way — and somehow Cheng Xueyi wasn’t even surprised.
If it were so easy to bring Shen Nanyin to heel, he wouldn’t be Shen Nanyin.
Still, there was something to be gained — at least now she knew for certain he had dreamed of her.
Just as she was about to ask what exactly had happened in the dream, hoping to pick the good mood back up, she heard Shen Nanyin continue: “But please rest assured, Junior Martial Sister — I never harbored any improper thoughts of Junior Martial Sister in that dream. I simply dreamed of Junior Martial Sister, purely and only that.”
Even if it was only a dream of her presence — a smiling face like a blossoming flower, and that bell sound that was practically a nightmare in itself, nothing more happening beyond that — it still, to Shen Nanyin, counted as an offense against her, and as a failure of responsibility toward himself.
He realized that his earlier conclusion perhaps hadn’t been specific enough.
He needed to give both Cheng Xueyi and himself a formal, direct ending — one that left no room for ambiguity, for either of them.
Shen Nanyin guided the crane down to land, stopping on a mountain near Yunmeng Gorge.
The night was gradually receding, light breaking across the horizon, and Cheng Xueyi frowned slightly, unaccustomed to it.
Shen Nanyin stood with the light behind him, the sun’s boundless radiance seeming to pour into him, and she, accustomed now to darkness, instinctively drew back from it.
She hadn’t gone more than a few steps when she heard Shen Nanyin say, gravely: “Junior Martial Sister Cheng.”
Cheng Xueyi paused slightly, turning to look at the man standing in the light — he was extremely tall, his shadow falling over her, engulfing her completely.
She couldn’t make out his face clearly, but she could see his smooth, pale jaw, and his lips — lustrous and soft, beautifully shaped.
That handsome mouth was about to say something she would hate.
“Junior Martial Sister asked whether I’ve ever dreamed of you — the answer is yes. Given what happened between us before, I couldn’t help dreaming of you. But it happened only once, and never again since.”
He had barely slept, in the time since.
Shen Nanyin’s words were firm and sincere, every syllable resolute: “Junior Martial Sister also asked whether I want you… the answer is no.”
“Neither before nor now have I ever had such thoughts, and I never will in the future.”
Wrapped in golden light, the man stood like the most insurmountable mountain in the world, the most uncapturable wind — no one could break the wings that carried him freely upward.
“Since I was young, I vowed to devote my life to the Qiantian Sect, just as my Master did — to cultivate the Dao with a still heart, untouched by worldly affairs.”
Shen Nanyin bowed earnestly to Cheng Xueyi, and petals drifting down the mountainside brushed past her eyes. She didn’t blink, didn’t look away, staring fixedly at the crown of the man’s bowed head.
“I beg Junior Martial Sister to grant me this.”
Grant him this.
What a thing to ask.
Cheng Xueyi watched Shen Nanyin bow before her.
But the result was nothing like what she had wanted.
He had bent his spine, yes — but only to push her further away.
Cheng Xueyi watched him quietly. He remained bowed, holding the posture as though he wouldn’t rise until she agreed.
How laughable.
Did he want to see just who he was trying to threaten with a move like this?
Cheng Xueyi walked up to him and raised a hand to rest it on his shoulder.
Expressionless, she pulled him back upright, bit by bit.
Shen Nanyin didn’t insist on remaining bowed to her either.
He straightened, and his gaze met Cheng Xueyi’s — her face utterly without expression, even severe and cold, leaving him, who was used to her ever-shifting expressions and frequent smiles, somewhat unsettled.
The next instant, the girl’s tight expression broke into a smile again, and she shoved him back with some force, dissolving into laughter all on her own. Black Lotus Novel Novel Translation | black lotus novel
The silver bell at her waist suddenly began to ring, its sound chasing after him along with her doubled-over laughter.
Shen Nanyin raised a hand to press at his temple, and in his daze thought he saw Cheng Xueyi smiling, winking at him.
On a clear, bright morning, deep in the perilous mountain forests of Yunmeng Gorge, a waterfall came crashing down, its roar swaying together with the ringing of the bell.
Cheng Xueyi walked lightly toward the waterfall, hands behind her back, light scattering over her figure, and Shen Nanyin sensed something was wrong.
“Junior Martial Sister Cheng, don’t go any further—”
Before he’d even finished speaking, Cheng Xueyi leapt straight off the edge into the waterfall.
In an instant, Shen Nanyin had already leapt after her over the falls. Amid the spray of water, he saw her drab gray robes soaked through, her hair plastered wet against her forehead and neck, her whole body plummeting headfirst.
Catching her would have been simple enough for Shen Nanyin — but Cheng Xueyi wasn’t actually trying to die.
She laughed up at him. “Why’s Eldest Senior Brother so nervous? You’d think I was going to eat you alive if you didn’t want it. I was only teasing you a little, for the sake of the sea-demon tears — you didn’t actually think I’d let you touch me for real, did you?”
Shen Nanyin’s pupils contracted, the mist of spray held completely at bay by his body-guarding wind barrier. He remained as neat and composed as ever, while Cheng Xueyi was the exact opposite.
She was drenched through, falling in disarray, while her poised, effortless Eldest Senior Brother hovered above, one in the sky and one plummeting toward the earth.
And yet it was clearly she who was the one falling — while Shen Nanyin felt as though he’d become the puppet, strings held in her hands, his heart and mind entirely under her control — joy or sorrow, good or bad, calm or chaos, all according to her whim.
Just like now.
“Did Eldest Senior Brother think I was jumping off a cliff? What are you even thinking — our destination is right beneath this waterfall. We’re here—”
Cheng Xueyi drew a dagger from her waist and drove it hard into the rock face behind the waterfall, forcibly halting her own fall.
She flipped and leapt, vanishing behind the curtain of water. Shen Nanyin followed close behind, and through the mist he spotted a hidden stone door.
The stone door was covered in moss, with only a small patch of open ground before it, just enough for someone to stand — and Cheng Xueyi stood there now.
She didn’t rush recklessly through the half-open stone door, but leaned to one side, wringing the water from her clothes while observing what lay within.
Shen Nanyin arrived completely dry, and moved instinctively to help dry her off as well, but the moment he raised his hand, she had already slipped through the stone door.
Worried she might get hurt if there was some trap inside, Shen Nanyin followed immediately.
The moment he crossed the threshold, his vision blurred, the silver bell rang out, and Shen Nanyin’s thoughts snapped off for an instant. When awareness returned, he found himself pressed hard against the stone door, and saw Cheng Xueyi’s eyes before him — vivid, yet cold.
“Bowing to me won’t do you any good. Now, kneeling down and begging me — that, I might consider.”
Shen Nanyin froze, his head splitting with pain.
He forced his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, Cheng Xueyi was nowhere near him — instead, far off, glancing back and waiting for him.
“Eldest Senior Brother?” she asked, puzzled. “What’s wrong with you? Hurry up and catch up!”
Shen Nanyin: “…”
An illusion?
He inspected the stone door, straightened his robes out of habit, and walked slowly to stand behind Cheng Xueyi, watching the water still clinging to her — this time he raised a hand to dry her off, and she accepted it.
Despite clearly being the one with lower cultivation, she walked ahead with calm confidence, while Shen Nanyin followed quietly behind, never overtaking her.
He watched her back in silence, that distinctive snow-scent of hers filling his senses. — B L A C K L O T U S Reading | Black Lotus Novel
Not an illusion.
He pressed two fingers together and froze solid the bell at her waist.
He possessed a Water Spirit Root — every form water could take was his to command, freezing included.
Cheng Xueyi noticed what he’d done, her steps faltering for a moment, while Shen Nanyin’s own steps never paused, carrying him naturally ahead of her.
“I, Nanyin, was born into the Shen clan of Kunshan, and trained under the Jingci Fazong. My Master and my family both hold to this teaching: a man born between heaven and earth bends his knee to no one, save heaven, earth, and his parents.”
Shen Nanyin spoke, calm and steady: “Forgive me for being unable to kneel and beg Junior Martial Sister. I hope Junior Martial Sister will understand.”
Cheng Xueyi: “…”
“Junior Martial Sister’s temper remains exactly as it was before, not changed in the slightest — though at least you’re learning to conceal it better, that much is progress. Still, using bell-sound illusions isn’t the proper way, and it won’t succeed every time. I’d advise against using it again in the future.”
…Fine, Shen Nanyin.
You really are something.
Best keep being “something,” then.
