Noon on the sixth day of the New Year.
In the courtyard house at Stone Bridge Village, two sisters were sitting down to a meal.
Perhaps because Xiao Mo was gone and only the two of them were left, the table felt a little cold and quiet.
In the past, too, knowing how hard Xiao Mo studied, Bai Ruxue had often dreamed up different menus for him.
But with Xiao Mo away, the sisters kept their meals simple—one meat dish, one vegetable dish, and that was that.
"Sister, let me wash the dishes..." Xiaoqing said once lunch was over.
"It's fine, I'll do it. It isn't as though I have anything else to do." Bai Ruxue shook her head with a smile and carried the bowls into the kitchen.
But a moment later, the sound of a bowl shattering came from the kitchen.
Xiaoqing hurried in.
In the kitchen, an earthenware bowl lay in pieces across the floor, and her sister was propped against the counter, looking as though she might topple over at any moment.
"Sister, are you all right?" Xiaoqing held her up, her eyes full of worry.
"I'm fine." Bai Ruxue shook her head.
"Sister, honestly—does this look like nothing's wrong?" Xiaoqing sighed. "I'll take care of it. You go sit down first."
Bai Ruxue still wanted to clean up the broken bowl herself, but Xiaoqing dragged her out and planted her firmly on a seat in the courtyard.
When Xiaoqing finished sweeping up and came out of the kitchen, she found her sister sitting in the courtyard, gazing fixedly at the little path that led to the courtyard.
For some days now, whenever she had a moment free, her sister would sit on the stone bench in the courtyard and gaze into the distance, just as she had last time.
The difference was that last time Brother Xiao had only been gone two or three days.
This time, Brother Xiao would not be back until April at the earliest.
Xiaoqing watched her sister's head drooping lower and lower, her eyelids already half shut, as though she would fall asleep the very next moment.
But every time her sister was about to drop off, she would jerk awake, shake her head, and go back to watching that little path.
Xiaoqing went to her side, crouched down, and took her sister's little hand. "Sister, just go get some sleep. Brother Xiao won't be back until spring comes, and by then you'll be awake."
Bai Ruxue smiled. "Xiaoqing, I want to wait a while longer. And... I feel like this hibernation may be different."
"Different how?" Xiaoqing asked, puzzled.
Bai Ruxue shook her head. "I'm not sure either. I just feel that this time I'll sleep a very, very long time... who knows how long it'll be before I wake."
"Oh, sister, you're overthinking it. How long can us snake folk sleep, anyway? May at the latest and we're up again," Xiaoqing said, trying to talk her round.
But Bai Ruxue only smiled gently. "It's all right. It's just one winter without sleep—I can hold out. But Xiaoqing, you ought to hibernate. You've been terribly drowsy lately too."
"But you haven't slept at all, sister..."
"I'm waiting for him to come back."
"Sister!" Xiaoqing had no words left.
Over the next few days, after finishing the housework each day, Bai Ruxue would sit out in the courtyard.
Xiaoqing noticed, too, that her sister was getting sleepier and sleepier.
Yet her sister simply would not hibernate.
By the tenth, her sister was so afraid that falling asleep would mean hibernating that she simply stopped sleeping at night.
Bai Ruxue did not sleep, and Xiaoqing, uneasy at the thought of it, forced herself to stay awake as well.
Then one day, just as Bai Ruxue had gone out to wash the clothes, a woman in a Daoist robe arrived outside the courtyard.
"May I ask who the Daoist priestess is looking for?" Xiaoqing watched the woman warily, afraid that she and her sister had been found out and that the other had come to exterminate demons.
Fuchen smiled. "Miss, there's no need to be so tense. I know Miss Bai and Young Master Xiao. I've come on a matter concerning her—is Miss Bai in? And it's deep winter now; you still haven't gone into hibernation either?"
The moment the words left Fuchen's mouth, Xiaoqing's heart lurched, and in an instant her eyes had turned to vertical cyan pupils—she was ready to strike first!
Fuchen merely extended a fingertip, and a thread of spiritual power shot into Xiaoqing's brow.
In the space of a breath, Xiaoqing found she could not move.
"What do you want?" Fear rose in Xiaoqing's heart, but she did not shrink back in the slightest.
"This humble Daoist comes from the Tianxuan Sect. My name is Fuchen, and I mean no harm in coming here. I have been here once before, hoping to take Miss Bai as my disciple, but she refused that time. I know the affinity has not yet ripened, and I did not force it. If you do not trust me, then when Miss Bai returns, you may ask her yourself."
As she spoke, Fuchen flicked her slender jade fingers once more, and another gleam of light shot into Xiaoqing's brow.
The immobilizing spell on Xiaoqing was released.
Looking at the Daoist woman before her, Xiaoqing's eyes still held their wariness, but she reckoned the other meant no harm—otherwise, with her cultivation realm, she could have done whatever she pleased to Xiaoqing and her sister without wasting a single word.
"What business do you have with my sister?" Xiaoqing asked.
"Some days ago, on a sudden impulse, this humble Daoist cast a divination and learned that Miss Bai's cultivation has already reached the threshold. She needs to enter seclusion and transform into a boa. Once she leaves seclusion, she can go straight into the water and Walk the Jiao."
But Miss Bai's life fire is strange—it seems she has refused to hibernate for a long while now. This humble Daoist came to ask the reason. Is something the matter with Miss Bai?
Fuchen asked.
Xiaoqing glanced at the Daoist woman and bit her lip lightly. "Brother Xiao has gone to the capital. He won't be back until after the metropolitan examination and the palace examination are over. My sister is waiting for him. She says that if she hibernates, she fears she'll never wake, so she keeps putting it off."
"I see." Fuchen nodded. "Then this is Miss Bai's tribulation."
"Daoist Priestess, what do you mean by this tribulation?" Xiaoqing asked anxiously.
How does my sister come to have a tribulation?
Fuchen explained, "When a member of the snake clan reaches this stage, it must go from python to boa, passing through a metamorphosis in which its body grows larger and tougher. All of it is preparation for Walking the Jiao. The whole process takes several years."
"If your sister does not sleep, she cannot shed her skin and become a boa. And your sister's body as it is now cannot bear the ancestral bloodline stirring within her, still less her current cultivation realm.
So if your sister does not hibernate soon, she will not merely ruin the very root of her great Dao—she may well lose her life."
Hearing this, Xiaoqing burst out angrily, "You Daoist woman, you're talking nonsense!"
Fuchen was not the least offended. "This humble Daoist speaks no nonsense. Tell me—has Miss Bai's complexion not grown worse and worse of late, as frail as thin paper?"
Recalling how her sister had looked these past days, Xiaoqing's mouth fell slightly open and her eyes trembled. She lowered her head and murmured as though to herself, "Then... then what are we to do..."
"So wills affinity; so wills fate."
Fuchen sighed and produced a pill.
"If Miss Xiaoqing trusts me, give this pill to your sister, and she will fall asleep and transform into a boa."
"But Miss Xiaoqing, you must know your sister's obsession as well as I do."
"Because this sleep may well last a lifetime."
"Your sister may never see him come back..."