In the bamboo courtyard, Xiao Mo was regulating his breath and steadying himself, consolidating the Golden Core realm he had only just entered.
To speak honestly, even Xiao Mo himself had not anticipated that this seclusion would carry him all the way into the Golden Core realm in a single step.
He drew a slow, deep breath and continued sensing every change within himself, feeling the Dao resonances flowing through the world around him.
The Great Dream of the Yellow Millet seemed now to have dissolved entirely into his blood, becoming one with him.
Both his spiritual energy and his divine sense had been tempered and strengthened enormously over these three years.
What struck him as most remarkable of all was that his mind too felt as though it had suddenly opened up into a broader clarity.
All those Daoist classics he had read in years past, when he recalled them now, gave rise in his heart to many understandings he had never arrived at before and through the subtle workings of the Great Dream of the Yellow Millet, Xiao Mo could dimly perceive the threads of Dao resonance flowing through the world around him, strand by strand, all of it present in his heart.
"Sir."
Just as Xiao Mo was still lingering in the afterglow of the Great Dream of the Yellow Millet, a woman's voice came from outside the courtyard, soft and familiar.
He immediately rose and went to open the courtyard gate, then turned and poured a cup of tea, holding it out toward Liu Shui.
"Please come in, Elder Sister Liu Shui."
"Many thanks, sir."
Liu Shui took the cup but did not hurry to drink from it. Her gaze moved directly to Xiao Mo and stayed there, carrying the gladness of someone reunited after a long separation.
"Sir, you are even better-looking after this seclusion. And I heard from Teacher Xian that you have entered the Golden Core realm as well. That is truly remarkable."
"Ha ha, it was no more than good fortune." Xiao Mo smiled and invited Liu Shui to sit, his gaze passing lightly over her in turn. "From the feel of Elder Sister Liu Shui's presence, you should already be at the middle stage of Foundation Building. At this rate, with continued effort, reaching the Golden Core realm in the future should not be difficult for you either."
Xiao Mo was not simply saying something courteous.
Liu Shui's natural gifts were not the exceptional kind that distinguished the truly outstanding, but they were by no means low.
With sufficient resources to support her in years to come, Liu Shui reaching the Golden Core realm should not pose a great obstacle.
If she were to aim for Nascent Soul, however, that would be a considerably harder path.
"Of course one must keep working. A person of such high talent as yourself still puts in such consistent effort, and I am so much less gifted. How could I dare to slacken?" Liu Shui smiled with a gentle warmth, and at being praised by Xiao Mo in this way, a small flutter of gladness rose in the young woman's heart.
"Diligence is a fine thing. The immortal path is long, and there is far too much to face along it. Only by holding firm to one's heart and not allowing oneself to grow careless can one go further."
Xiao Mo gave a nod, took a sip of tea, and looked at Liu Shui with a smile.
"Jingci mentioned that when Elder Sister Liu Shui left this time, it was because your mother took you away to meet some prospects. Did you happen to meet anyone who suited your heart?"
"Please do not tease me, sir."
Liu Shui's cheeks flushed pink, her slender white fingers gripping her skirt tightly, the tips going slightly pale.
"Mother did have my interests at heart, and those young men were perfectly fine in themselves. I simply had no such feelings toward any of them. The good news is that I have told Mother about my cultivation now, so she will not arrange any more meetings for me in future."
"And more than anything else," Liu Shui raised her eyes and looked directly into Xiao Mo's, the look in them carrying a seriousness and certainty that had never been there before, "the truth is that someone has held a place in my heart for quite some time already."
"Oh?" Xiao Mo showed a faint surprise, and then smiled. "I did not know Elder Sister Liu Shui already had someone she cared for. I wonder who this young man might be, to have won Elder Sister Liu Shui's regard?"
"It is nothing so lofty as regard."
Liu Shui's eyes grew more luminous, carrying the quality of clear spring water, her voice gentle and yet remarkably clear.
"The one I like... is right before me."
…
In the courtyard halfway up the mountain, the peach tree stood in full bloom, pale petals drifting down in a soft fall.
Tushan Jingci was looking at the peach tree in the courtyard, slightly lost in thought, her gaze blank, not quite seeing anything.
"Miss Tushan, do you think Xiao Mo would like a woman like me?"
Liu Shui's words kept circling through Tushan Jingci's mind again and again, and the young girl found her heart in a tangle that would not smooth itself out.
"Elder Sister Liu Shui must have found Xiao Mo by now."
She murmured to herself, her fingertips working absently at her sleeve.
"What would Elder Sister Liu Shui and Xiao Mo be saying to each other?"
"Elder Sister Liu Shui must have told Xiao Mo how she feels by now, surely?"
"And would Xiao Mo... would he have accepted?"
The further her thoughts went, the more complicated and inexpressible the feeling inside her became, like a dense, tangled mass of fine threads wrapped around her chest, impossible to loosen no matter what she tried.
The light fabric of her skirt had been creased into fold after fold beneath her grip, lines pressing deep and shallow, as though they could never be smoothed away.
"What if Xiao Mo accepted Elder Sister Liu Shui?"
Her voice was growing quieter and quieter, until even she could barely hear it herself.
"What if the two of them... what if they truly became companions on the Dao?"
"Elder Sister Liu Shui is so lovely, and she can look after all of Xiao Mo's everyday needs so well. By that measure, someone like Elder Sister Liu Shui, Xiao Mo would surely like her, would he not?"
She leapt suddenly to her feet and began pacing back and forth across the courtyard, her skirt shifting with every step, her slender shadow stretching and shortening by turns.
After some time, Tushan Jingci finally stopped walking. She clasped both hands before her and spoke aloud to herself, with something of an aggrieved and self-reproaching air. "Aah. Tushan Jingci, Tushan Jingci. You like Xiao Mo, and Elder Sister Liu Shui likes him too. What is there to say about that?"
"What then? You do not dare tell Xiao Mo how you feel, and now Elder Sister Liu Shui has gone to do it, and you find yourself feeling put out about it?"
"What have you been doing all this time?"
By the time she reached the end, her voice had taken on the faintest edge of grievance and self-vexation. The more she thought, the more she felt she had only herself to blame.
She sat back down on the stone bench in the courtyard, her gaze settling on the tree laden with blossoming peach flowers, yet not truly seeing any of it.
Tushan Jingci's beautiful eyes blinked slowly, and in the shifting flow of her expression, no one could have said what exactly the young girl was thinking.
A wind passed through, and a few petals drifted softly onto her shoulder. She did not notice them at all then, all at once, Tushan Jingci leapt to her feet.
She pressed her lips tight together. In those eyes that were usually so warm and gentle, a certainty showed that had never been there before.
She gathered her skirt and ran down the mountain without looking back.