Looks like that bronze shard has fused into my palm? Xue Mu clenched his fist and opened it, again and again, but he could never feel anything foreign there, nor any energy reaction—he simply couldn't sense any use to it.
Maybe it only activates once I have some energy of my own? Xue Mu mused silently.
Xue Mu had always been a proactive, adaptable sort. From the very first moment he opened his eyes after transmigrating, he had been facing reality and hunting for ways to understand and fit into his new surroundings.
Mingling with this pack of violent women who didn't treat human life as worth anything was dangerous, but it was also a decent stroke of luck. As things stood, whether he wanted to understand this world or learn some martial arts, there was no faster route than getting on good terms with these women.
So the first order of business was to win their trust and plant his feet firmly; only then could he think about the future.
Through the window the sky was a deep, endless blue, washed clean, birds darting and grass growing tall, the air fresh and bracing. Xue Mu had spent more than twenty years in a modern city and hadn't laid eyes on countryside like this in a very, very long time. Even when you did get out of the city, the sky was usually roofed over with gray haze that pressed down on your heart—nothing like this clear, bright freshness.
For Xue Mu, who had no family left to hold him to his own world, this moment made him feel all the more that transmigrating was no big deal—just a change of lifestyle, isn't it? The fortune I ground out over all those years, scattered on the wind; the starlets I was dating, gone. What's there to regret? A whole new world, a future I can't even guess at—what's there to worry about? I built myself up from nothing back then; I can do it again now.
Xue Mu let out a long, heavy breath, and his mood opened up considerably. Looking around, he saw they were no longer on a mountain road but seemed to be on a flat official highway. Far ahead, the outline of a city wall was faintly visible—perhaps their destination.
Yue Xiaochan was not far off to the side, robes and sleeves fluttering, treading over the grass. Xue Mu gazed at her bare feet and could tell she absolutely never touched the ground; she only skimmed over the tips of the grass like a butterfly flitting among flowers.
This world's power levels really are high... A girl of thirteen or fourteen with qinggong like that, and she looks completely at ease—I wonder if she'd actually fly if she went all out? Then again, if you people are that badass, what do you even need a carriage for?
As if she felt his gaze, Yue Xiaochan turned her head, grinned, and made a gesture of gouging out eyes, as if to say: keep staring and I'll dig your eyes out.
Xue Mu fished for conversation, pointing toward the city: "Miss Yue, what place is that?"
"The capital."
"Is the capital where we're headed?"
"What's it to you?"
"I'm going to be your accountant, you know."
Yue Xiaochan burst out with a "Ha!" and floated over to the carriage window, studying him for a moment. "You look a lot better. You were all sickly before—see, our medicine really does work."
Xue Mu rolled his eyes inwardly and kept fishing. "Why don't you ride in the carriage, miss?"
Yue Xiaochan puffed out her cheeks. "Master's tallying up just how bad our losses in the south really were. All those numbers give me a headache, so I came out to clear my head."
Xue Mu blinked. When he'd switched carriages earlier, he'd seen plenty of female guards sitting all around the front and back of the caravan. If you're bored, can't you just chat with them? Why go play grass-skimmer all by yourself out here?
As if she'd read his mind, Yue Xiaochan's eyes curved into crescent moons, and she seemed to find it terribly funny. "Seems you really don't know who we are—you honestly think just anyone would dare joke and chatter with the two of us the way you do? I can't tell whether you're missing a screw or just that ignorant."
Xue Mu leaned against the carriage window, head tilted, studying Yue Xiaochan's doll-like little face—creamy skin, a pair of shallow dimples, cute as could be, honestly. He shook his head and laughed. "I really am ignorant, I've no idea what great beings you and your master are. But I figure even if I did know, there'd be no reason to be afraid of talking to such a pretty little sister."
Yue Xiaochan scraped a finger down her cheek. "Stubborn mouth. If you knew who my master is, you wouldn't say that."
"Then might I ask your honored master's esteemed name?"
Yue Xiaochan blinked. "She actually shares your surname. Her given name is Qingqiu."
Xue Qingqiu? The icy divine light in those beautiful eyes flashed through Xue Mu's mind. The name didn't match that terrifying image of a supreme expert at all—if anything, the three syllables all level-toned read a little awkwardly on the tongue. He laughed. "So we're actually the same family. Even more reason not to be afraid."
Yue Xiaochan's eyes went wide. She stared at him like he was some kind of monster for a good long while, then finally burst out laughing. "Really... all right, all right. As long as you're not afraid."
It was only natural that he'd never heard of Yue Xiaochan—she was just thirteen this year, hadn't yet shown her face in the jianghu, and had no glorious battle record to boast of. But who was her master?
"The stars and moon lose their color; bloodied hands wash the clear autumn."
The strongest Cavern Void realm master under heaven, the most mysterious and unfathomable sect master of the Star Moon Sect of the Demon Sect, a towering demon lord whose killings had filled the wilds—in many people's minds she was the number one under heaven.
There was no consensus on that, but she was unquestionably acknowledged as one of the ten strongest. In this world where everyone worshipped martial arts and the hundred schools preached their ways, Xue Qingqiu's name could practically cure a baby's night crying. What backwater had this fellow crawled out of...?
The so-called female guards weren't guards at all—they were Demon Sect disciples too. But the gulf in status between them and a core direct disciple like Yue Xiaochan was insurmountable; very few of them dared to joke around with her. Even when she felt like chatting with them, all she could get back was respectful answers.
Outsiders were worse still: they either fought the "witch" to the death, or got so besotted they acted like idiots, or turned out to be fellow cultivators full of their own self-importance. An ordinary, everyday attitude like Xue Mu's was something Yue Xiaochan had never run into, and she found it fascinating. She couldn't help smiling.
"Looking at you now, you seem a lot more easygoing. Before, I always felt you were hiding a bellyful of secrets, with worry written all over your brows. Did you just have some kind of sudden enlightenment?"
Xue Mu smiled. "Since you're bored, how about I tell you a story?"
Yue Xiaochan's eyes lit up. "Yes, yes, please!"
Xue Mu said unhurriedly, "An old man selling porcelain bowls was walking down the road with a carrying pole, when suddenly one of the bowls fell to the ground and shattered. But the old man kept walking without ever looking back. A passerby thought it strange and asked: why don't you even glance at your bowl when it's broken? Now, how do you think the old man answered?"
Yue Xiaochan guessed with great interest, "The old man was actually rich, and didn't care about one bowl?"
Xue Mu shook his head. "The old man said: it's already broken. No matter how much I look back, it's still broken."
Yue Xiaochan froze. The perpetual smile on her face slowly faded, and she sank into thought. It was quite a while before she spoke. "That's a very interesting story. It almost seems to have given my cultivation some insight. Thank you."
In another carriage not far away, Xue Qingqiu sat facing several rolls of silk manuscripts, delicate brows knitted tight, brush in one hand as she wrote and sketched on the paper. Her cultivation had long since reached a peak mortals couldn't imagine; Yue Xiaochan and Xue Mu's conversation over there hadn't been loud, yet she heard every word of it.
As Xue Mu's story ended, she froze just as her disciple had, then looked down at the silk manuscripts in her hand—and suddenly, as though something had clicked, she laughed out loud. The several rolls of silk bloomed with a faint blue flame, turning to ash in the blink of an eye and scattering away without a trace.
A female disciple reported, "Sect Master, we've arrived."
The caravan slowly came to a halt. Xue Mu climbed down from the carriage too and looked up at the seal-script characters above the city gate: Tiandu.
At that same instant, he abruptly felt a violent pressure crashing against his body, as if he'd dived to the bottom of deep water, squeezing him until his breathing grew labored.
Before he could even ask Yue Xiaochan beside him, he suddenly felt a surge of heat rise from his palm, spreading through every cell of his body in an instant.
The oppressive aura that had just weighed on him vanished at once; instead he felt thoroughly comfortable, and even a strange sense of intimate familiarity flowed into the depths of his heart. Even the weeds beside the city gate looked lovely to him now, as if... he had come home.