Two days later.
Just as Bai Ruxue had said, the Daoist nun came to the door again.
Xiao Mo studied the nun. She had only to stand there to give off a sense of being unstained by the dust of this world.
However breathtaking her beauty, one still could not summon a wicked thought toward her.
It was as though, instinctively, one felt an uncrossable gulf between oneself and her.
The moment Bai Ruxue caught sight of the nun, she hurried to hide behind Xiao Mo.
As if afraid the nun might spirit her away.
"This poor Daoist is Fuchen. Greetings, young master." Fuchen gave a Daoist salute.
"This student is Xiao Mo. Greetings, immortal maiden." Xiao Mo returned the courtesy with a bow.
"Might I ask what the young master is to this young lady...?" Fuchen asked.
"A friend," Xiao Mo answered.
Fuchen nodded and looked to Bai Ruxue, hiding behind Xiao Mo. "Might I ask how the young lady has decided?"
Bai Ruxue timidly poked her head out from behind Xiao Mo's back, her small hand clutching tightly at the hem of his robe. "I... I'm not going to cultivate immortality! I don't want to go with you!"
Fuchen looked at Xiao Mo.
Xiao Mo was somewhat helpless. "I tried to persuade Ruxue yesterday as well, but she refuses to leave no matter what."
Fuchen regarded Bai Ruxue calmly and nodded. "I understand. It seems the affinity has not yet ripened."
Fuchen drew a jade pendant from her robes. "If Miss Ruxue should change her mind, she may bring this jade pendant to the Tianxuan Sect and look for me at any time."
Bai Ruxue glanced at Xiao Mo, and Xiao Mo nodded.
Only then did Bai Ruxue cautiously reach out and accept the jade pendant.
"Then I shall take my leave. Forgive the intrusion."
"Let me see the immortal maiden out of the village."
Just as Fuchen was about to go, Xiao Mo spoke.
Fuchen turned, looked straight into Xiao Mo's eyes, and then nodded. "Then I'll trouble the young master."
"After you."
After telling Bai Ruxue to watch the house, Xiao Mo led Fuchen out of the village.
"Is there something the young master wishes to ask me?"
Once the two had walked some distance from the village, Fuchen asked the man beside her.
When Xiao Mo had offered to escort her, Fuchen had already guessed that he had a question for her—one that was not fit for Bai Ruxue's ears.
"Nothing escapes the immortal maiden, it seems. I do have a few doubts. Might the immortal maiden enlighten me?"
"The young master need only speak plainly."
"I want to ask about a snake turning into a dragon."
A flicker of surprise crossed Fuchen's eyes. "So the young master already knows."
"How could I not know?"
Xiao Mo shook his head with a smile.
"When I was small, I saved a little white snake. Three years later, a little girl in a white dress came looking for me.
She had no fixed home, and every winter she would vanish. And at first she wasn't very skilled at taking human form—a few times her snake tail even showed.
I suppose the only one kept in the dark was her.
Still, since she didn't say anything, I didn't ask."
"The young master is not afraid?"
"She has never harmed anyone. What is there to be afraid of?"
"Good." Fuchen looked at Xiao Mo with approval. "The young master has a Dao heart, but regrettably no spiritual constitution. You cannot cultivate the Dao."
"Every person has their own way of living. If I can't cultivate, then I'll be an ordinary man." Xiao Mo smiled. "I imagine the immortal maiden came here for Ruxue?"
"Indeed."
Fuchen made no attempt to conceal it.
"When I passed through this village, I saw a courtyard tinged with a little yao aura—and yet that yao aura was as clear and bright as the light of sun and moon.
Which meant she had never harmed anyone, and was only borrowing the spiritual power of heaven and earth to cultivate.
Curious, I walked over to look, and saw that Miss Bai in the young master's courtyard had a superb spiritual constitution and heaven-given talent, and so the wish to take a disciple rose in me.
I hid a little from you earlier. I hope the young master will pardon me."
"The immortal maiden is too kind." A faint desolation colored Xiao Mo's expression. "Truthfully, she shouldn't be here. I'm the one who has kept her locked up."
Fuchen smiled. "Human or yao, each has their own allotted fate. If she wants to stay at the young master's side, then that only means that to her, the young master is her 'Dao.' How can that be called a cage?"
Xiao Mo fell into thought.
Fuchen went on. "To answer the young master's earlier question—a snake becoming a dragon is truly no easy thing.
First the snake becomes a python; that is the most basic stage. It must evade its natural enemies, including being hunted by humans, find a suitable spirit land, withstand sickness and disaster, and most importantly—overcome the instincts and sloth of a lowly creature and persevere in cultivation.
She had a tribulation due, but the young master saved her. She is a white python now. That trial, she has passed."
After that comes python to boa. Besides dodging mortal hunters, she must also contend with cultivators hunting her.
I observed that Miss Ruxue shows an atavistic cast and the makings of a dragon. That makes her all the more likely to draw a cultivator's eye. The young master must be sure to warn Miss Bai to be careful."
Xiao Mo nodded. "This student will remember."
Fuchen continued, "After becoming a boa comes becoming a jiao. This is the most crucial point for the snake kind.
Becoming a jiao is what is called Walking the Jiao.
It usually happens in the season of torrential rain, when mountain floods burst and rivers swell to bursting.
The snake kind borrow the huge force of the flood to rush downstream toward the sea. The process is deadly dangerous: they must smash through or slip around the natural obstacles in the riverbed, boulders and great mountains.
And there are man-made obstacles too—Dragon-Slaying Swords hung beneath bridge arches, bridge piers and dams carved with talismans, dragon-locking chains, and the like.
When a jiao walks, there is certain to be wild wind, driving rain, lightning and pealing thunder.
The lightning strikes savagely at the snake kind as they push along the flood channel, and many are smashed to pieces in the lightning tribulation."
"And last is becoming a dragon.
Once the snake kind enter the sea, they are called Hidden Jiao. At that point they need only cultivate in seclusion.
When their cultivation reaches a certain level, nine bolts of supreme-yang golden lightning will fall.
Failure means the body dissolves, the Dao perishes, the soul scatters.
Success means becoming a true dragon."
Xiao Mo listened to Fuchen in silence, his brow knitting.
"I know what the young master is worrying about."
At the village entrance Fuchen halted, turned, and looked at Xiao Mo.
"The young master is worrying that becoming a dragon is so perilous that staying at your side will hold her back—that she would be better off coming up the mountain with me, where someone can shelter her.
You were even thinking, back in the courtyard, that though Miss Ruxue won't come up the mountain with me this time, you could talk her around later and change her mind."
Xiao Mo said nothing.
His silence was as good as an admission.
Fuchen shook her head.
"Young master, in this world every person has the fate allotted to them.
You believe that if she came up the mountain with me, her future dragon transformation would be more assured.
You believe that here, you can only hold back her great Dao.
But is that really so?"
Fuchen lifted her head. Though it was broad daylight, her eyes seemed to glitter with stars and galaxies, as if she were divining the workings of heaven.
"Tumbling through the dust of the mortal world—who says that is worse than pure cultivation on a mountain?
The young master is a mortal man, but who says you will accomplish less than we cultivators?"
Xiao Mo raised his head. "What does the immortal maiden mean?"
Fuchen drew her gaze back, and her star-filled eyes slowly became ordinary dark pupils.
The Daoist nun smiled at the man before her.
"Just follow your heart."
"The young master is her fortune."
"And also her fate."