Summer sunlight scattered across the mountains, and the summer cicadas in the trees called without tiring, one note following another without end.
A gentle, soft wind drifted through every corner of the mountains, and even the spirit rabbits in the hills lifted their fluffy little heads in contentment.
In a courtyard halfway up Moon Spring Peak, a thin thread of cooking smoke gradually began to rise, drifting and dispersing in the cool morning air.
"Xiao Mo, I am back! I heard you made all kinds of good food. I intend to taste every bit of it."
Near midday, Tushan Jingci stepped into Xiao Mo's courtyard like a small rabbit, her face bright with a happy smile, calling out as she came.
Not long before, the moment she returned to Moon Spring Peak, Elder Sister Yueshi had told her that Xiao Mo had prepared a whole table of dishes and was waiting for her to come over and eat and so Tushan Jingci had not lingered in her own courtyard for a single moment and had come straight here.
As expected, the moment she walked into Xiao Mo's courtyard, a wonderful fragrance of food met her.
"Young Miss, just a moment more. It is almost ready."
Xiao Mo leaned out from the kitchen and said a word to the young girl in the courtyard.
"There is no need. The Young Miss should just sit in the courtyard." Xiao Mo declined gently. "If the Young Miss goes into the kitchen, I am afraid this meal will not be ready quite so soon."
"Oh, all right then..." Tushan Jingci murmured quietly, a small note of aggrievement in her voice. "This one is not entirely useless, actually I could have been some help..."
Though she felt a tiny bit deflated, Tushan Jingci still did as Xiao Mo said and did not insist on going to the kitchen to cause trouble.
The young girl sat down properly in the courtyard, legs together, hands resting on her knees, her eyes fixed on the kitchen with full anticipation.
Ever since she was small, Tushan Jingci had always loved eating Xiao Mo's cooking.
Only because Xiao Mo needed time for his cultivation on ordinary days, and she felt uncomfortable taking up his time, she had never brought it up.
The only occasions when Xiao Mo would take the initiative to cook were when something worth celebrating had happened, and it was only then that she had a chance to enjoy her fill.
Half an incense stick's time later, Xiao Mo brought out dish after dish of steaming food.
Tushan Jingci quickly rose, carried the rice pot out from the kitchen, first filled a bowl for Xiao Mo, then added one for herself.
"Would the Young Miss like some wine?" Xiao Mo drew out a jug, smiling as he asked. "This wine is quite well known in Tushan. It is called Snow Charm. The taste is rather pleasant."
"Well... just a tiny bit then."
Tushan Jingci hesitated for quite a while before finally giving a nod.
She cupped the wine bowl in both hands, held both arms straight out, and presented it toward Xiao Mo with great formality, looking altogether endearingly obedient.
Xiao Mo lifted the jug and poured her some.
Tushan Jingci lowered her head and took a small sip.
The moment it hit her throat, those beautiful fox eyes narrowed tightly, and the soft pink tip of her tongue made a small appearance, tickled by the heat of it, looking thoroughly adorable.
"The Young Miss still has not grown accustomed to wine." Xiao Mo smiled and took a sip himself.
In truth, the wine was not particularly strong.
After all, the Tushan clan had many women and few men.
And the men of the fox clan also tended to lack a rugged quality, most of them carrying a certain delicate, refined air.
As a result, nothing too intense in the way of wine was favored throughout Tushan.
Even so, this wine seemed to be a bit much for Jingci.
"I have never understood what is so enjoyable about wine."
Tushan Jingci set her wine bowl down with a thoroughly puzzled expression, then lifted her head and looked at Xiao Mo curiously, changing the subject.
"Oh, by the way, Xiao Mo, has something good happened? What made you suddenly feel like cooking for me today?"
"There is something I wanted to tell the Young Miss about, and it is something good in a way." Xiao Mo answered with a smile.
"Tell me, tell me!" Tushan Jingci immediately sat up straight, her eyes full of anticipation, looking at Xiao Mo with a bright and shining gaze.
Xiao Mo looked at Tushan Jingci's clear and open eyes and said in a gentle tone, "The Grand Elder came to speak with me a few days ago and asked me to join the Ten Thousand Demons Alliance. Tomorrow, I will be setting out with the army."
"What?" Tushan Jingci's expression froze slightly as she heard this. Her eyes blinked a few times, her mind going blank, almost certain she had misheard. "Xiao Mo... you... what did you say?"
"I said I will be setting out with the Tushan army." Xiao Mo looked at Tushan Jingci with a smile and repeated the words at an unhurried pace. "This meal could be thought of as a farewell drink."
"No!" Tushan Jingci was on her feet in an instant, her voice carrying a clear urgency. "I know about the war between the Ten Thousand Demons Alliance and the Holy Demons Alliance. This battle could very well be a fight to the death. Many people who go may never come back."
Tushan Jingci stared directly at Xiao Mo, her small hands clenched into tight fists, the knuckles going faintly pale, a tremor in her voice. "I... I am going to go and find the Grand Elder right now. I absolutely will not let you go to that battlefield."
With that, Tushan Jingci turned and was about to fly off toward Crescent Moon Mountain.
"Jingci." Xiao Mo reached out a hand and gently held Tushan Jingci's pale and slender wrist. "Listen to me first."
"Xiao Mo, nothing you say will change anything. I will not let you go."
Hearing Xiao Mo call her name, Tushan Jingci pressed her lips firmly together, yet her expression remained as resolute as iron, as though no matter what Xiao Mo said, she would not yield a single step.
"Jingci, please settle down for a moment."
Xiao Mo spoke in an even tone, his gaze steady and warm.
"Going to the battlefield is also what I want for myself."
"Jingci, you are about to become Tushan's Holy Woman, and in the future the leader of the Tushan clan. If I continue to remain at your side in the position I hold, what will others say? How many will stand up in opposition?"
"And beyond that, my current cultivation level has genuinely hit a bottleneck. On a battlefield, in a matter of life and death, with techniques clashing against techniques, that may be precisely the opportunity for me to break through. Otherwise, if something truly went wrong for Tushan in the future, what would I have to protect you with?"
"But Xiao Mo..."
Tushan Jingci's eyes had grown faintly red at the corners, her voice full of urgency and a deep ache.
"I will protect myself, and I will protect you too! I do not care what others say. What others say is their business. I like you. That is mine."
Tushan Jingci looked earnestly at Xiao Mo, every word seeming to be pressed out from somewhere deep inside her.
"I know what you have always been worrying about. You are afraid that being with me would bring Tushan's entire hostility and even its pursuit down on me. But I do not care!"
"If it came to that, we could simply leave the Demon Realm together, the two of us, and go to the Ten Thousand Laws Realm!"
Xiao Mo shook his head and let out a quiet sigh. "But Jingci, could you bear to leave your mother?"
"I..."
Tushan Jingci's lips pressed together.
She wanted to say that if they truly went to the Ten Thousand Laws Realm and she could never see her mother again, then so be it but thinking it over, she felt that saying something like that would not sit right with her.
"And your bloodline is exceptionally rare. Even in the Ten Thousand Laws Realm, would it truly escape the attention of Upper Three Realms cultivators who might covet it? Could we genuinely find real peace?"
Xiao Mo continued, both hands resting lightly on Tushan Jingci's shoulders, his gaze earnest and certain.
"Jingci, I do not want to take you with me into a life of wandering and hiding. As long as I earn enough merit in battle and my cultivation level is high enough, no one will dare say a word against us."
"And I know you are worried about my safety. I promise you, I will come back alive. All right?"
Listening to Xiao Mo's words, Tushan Jingci's small hands gripped her skirt tightly, the tips of her fingers going pale with the pressure, her expression full of conflict and hesitation.
After a long while, the young girl finally raised her head, her eyes blinking as she looked into Xiao Mo's, her voice so soft it seemed afraid of startling something. "Xiao Mo... you only ever call me by my name at times like this..."
"Jingci, I am sorry." Looking at the gently shifting eyes of the one he cared for, Xiao Mo felt a twinge of guilt.
"You do not need to apologize to me."
Tushan Jingci gave a quiet shake of her head, a faint, bittersweet smile at the corners of her lips.
"And everything you have said, I actually understand all of it. And you know, whenever you are truly set on something, I have never been able to refuse you."
"Xiao Mo, I know I cannot talk you out of this."
Tushan Jingci looked earnestly into Xiao Mo's eyes. In those clear fox eyes there was worry, and there was reluctance.
"But Xiao Mo, there is one thing you must remember."
Her voice was not loud, but every word landed like iron.
"If anything happens to you, I will not live on alone. Do you understand?"
"Make sure to bring this."
"And this."
"Actually, bring this along too. No one knows when you will be back."
…
In Hundred Flowers Alley, in a small courtyard, Xiangniang was busily packing up her belongings.
Everything that could be brought, she stuffed in, going through the inventory carefully several times to make sure nothing was missed.
"Right, that should do it!"
Once everything was packed, Xiangniang let out a long breath and raised her hand to wipe the warm sweat from her forehead, then stored all the packed bundles into her storage bracelet.
"Xiangniang."
"Xiangniang, are you there?"
"Xiangniang!"
From outside the courtyard, a woman's voice suddenly rang out, calling again and again with a rather urgent sound.
"Coming, coming!"
Xiangniang turned and walked out of her room, quickly going forward to open the courtyard gate, where she found a woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties but was in reality three or four hundred years old standing before her.
"Auntie Wang, what is the matter? You look in such a hurry. Has something happened?" Xiangniang asked with curiosity.
This Auntie Wang was Xiangniang's neighbor.
Since Xiangniang's parents had passed away when she was young, Auntie Wang had looked after her over the years.
"What else could be the matter? It is all because of you!" Auntie Wang shot Xiangniang a look and said hurriedly, her tone full of reproach. "What is going on with you, girl? Why have I seen your name on the list of those going out to fight? What, are you tired of living?"
"Oh?" Xiangniang's eyes shifted briefly from side to side, then she curved them into a smile. "Well, Auntie, it is not as though there was any other way."
"What do you mean there is no other way? You think being at the peak of the Dragon Gate realm means you can walk all over anyone? Or that there are not many cultivators on that battlefield with higher cultivation than yours?"
As she spoke, Auntie Wang grabbed Xiangniang's wrist and began pulling her toward the street.
"Come along, come along! Your auntie still knows a few people with some influence. We are going right now to get your name struck off that list. You just stay in Tushan and cultivate properly."
"Auntie, there is really no need for that."
Xiangniang gently loosened Auntie Wang's hand.
"Look, Auntie, I did not have to go originally. But the task the Grand Elder gave me, I did not exactly complete it. That Xiao Mo, he was like a stone, no amount of seduction had any effect whatsoever, nothing could get through to him."
"So now I have to rely on myself. If I accumulate merit on the battlefield, maybe I can enter Crescent Moon Mountain after all, and reaching the Golden Core realm would then only be a matter of time."
"But you cannot gamble with your life to do it!" Auntie Wang's voice was full of anxious concern but the moment the words left her mouth, Auntie Wang seemed to realize something, and began looking the girl up and down with a scrutinizing eye.
"Wait, wait! You are a cunning little thing. Not to mention the way you go around dressed, from the time you were small I never once saw any male get the better of you in anything, and you have always steered well clear of anything with real risk in it!"
"Tell me the truth! What is the real reason you joined the Ten Thousand Demons Alliance?"
"I... what else could I be in it for? Of course it is for my own sake." Xiangniang instinctively avoided Auntie Wang's gaze, her eyes drifting.
"Oh, I believe that like I believe anything!" Auntie Wang gave a scoff, and furrowed her brow in serious thought then all at once her eyes brightened, as though she had caught hold of something important.
"Wait! I heard that the Holy Woman's personal attendant, the one called Xiao Mo, also signed up for the Ten Thousand Demons Alliance. Do not tell me you are doing this for him?"
"My dear girl!"
Auntie Wang stamped her foot in exasperation, her expression one of someone who cannot believe what they are looking at.
"He did not want anything to do with you after all your efforts, then fine, there are other fish in the sea. You are as beautiful as you are, surely you are not going to throw yourself away over one man who does not want you?"
"And besides, it is not as though you are one of those Nine-Tailed Celestial Foxes who can only fix their heart on one man for their entire life or else have no opportunity to attain the Dao."
"You are just an ordinary fox. You can have as many men as you like."
"Listen to your auntie. Stop chasing after these unrealistic fantasies. I know you have not been with a man yet from the time you were born, and I expect with summer coming on you have been feeling a little restless. Just hold on, your auntie will introduce you to a few decent men."
"Oh, Auntie..."
Xiangniang sighed helplessly, her expression somewhere between laughter and tears.
"I understand everything you are saying."
"It is just that I feel... that particular crooked tree grows a bit more attractively than all the other trees."