Qianye steadied his breath and calmed his mind. At his fingertips, that strange pink halo pulsed as if it had a heartbeat of its own—like the flutter of a newborn's chest, like a lover's whisper—unmistakably out of place in this quiet room steeped in medicinal fragrance.
A flicker of resolve cut through his eyes.
He raised two fingers together like a sword, eased his wrist forward, and—with a reverence that felt almost like offering a sacrifice—tapped gently toward Yixuan.
The pink glimmer, as if finally freed, leapt with a faint, delighted buoyancy. It streaked through the air in a thread of clinging tenderness and slipped into Yixuan's pale, snow-white wrist, where faint blue veins could be seen beneath the skin.
Yixuan's throat betrayed her.
A sound escaped—soft, restrained, and threaded with a strange tremor.
Not pain.
Something far more dangerous than pain.
In an instant, a sensation like spring floodwaters bursting their banks rushed along her meridians and acupoints, roaring through her limbs and bones. It was a tingling numbness laced with the faint sting of electricity; wherever it passed, her channels softened and her marrow seemed to warm.
And deeper—deeper than flesh, deeper than habit—those things she had buried for years beneath clear-hearted cultivation and the dust of time stirred awake.
The most primitive, most human ripples of desire, sealed away by discipline and distance, were wrenched open by this foreign, vivid vitality.
For a breathless moment, it felt as if countless invisible, warm, nimble fingers were tracing up her spine—slowly, insistently—brushing every inch of her skin with a patience that was both gentle and intolerably persistent. Not as the Yunqui Mountain sect master, not as a figure above the world, but as a woman with nerves and blood and breath.
A faint sweetness seemed to bloom in the air—an indistinct, alluring fragrance weaving itself into the room's cool herbal scent, creating something eerie and intoxicating.
Yixuan's orange eyes sharpened. The green ring within them flared like ice catching sunlight.
Her Ether surged—pure and cold—as if a polar tide had been provoked.
Her supreme heart method snapped into motion at full force. Intent became a mountain. Dao-heart became ancient frost. The clear radiance of her consciousness flooded her inner sea, moving to wrap, dismantle, refine—everything she had ever done to purge impurity.
As she had done, countless times, with a flick of her fingers.
Yet her dao-heart trembled.
Because this force was nothing like any Ether she had known, nor any Hollow miasma she had spent her life cleansing.
It was not a violent destroyer.
Not a filthy invader.
It was… alive.
An existence with its own will—astonishingly permeable, unnervingly compatible.
When her vast Ether torrent crashed through it, the pink force did not break. It bent like silk, twisted like ribbon, slipped aside—its core unchanged.
As if water could not cut wind.
As if sunlight could not melt shadow.
It refused assimilation. Refused refinement. It even—shamelessly—began to drink.
It siphoned the thinnest thread of vitality from her immense power like a newborn vine latching onto an ancient tree.
Sensing the depth and ferocity of her resistance, it abandoned head-on collision with frightening speed. It split into countless filaments thinner than hair—warm, patient streams that seeped into the deepest, most private recesses of her meridian network.
It rooted itself there.
Like a seed dry for ten thousand years finding, at last, a vast and fertile oasis.
Yixuan attempted again and again to force it out—more refined power, harsher pressure, stronger intent—hammering like a smith forging steel.
But it was like striking mist with a blade.
Like trying to crush a wave with a fist.
Its strength bled away into softness, absorbed, redirected—without ever yielding its essence.
And under her repeated, forceful suppression… its connection to her seemed to tighten, thread by thread.
For the first time in her life, she tasted a sliver of helplessness in the face of the unknown.
This was nothing like what she had done with Shiye—drawing out that faint residue from another body as easily as wiping dust from a sleeve.
What Qianye had delivered was the true "core," heavy with potential—and with an almost obscene clinginess.
Left with no better option, Yixuan changed tactics.
She held her breath, stilled her mind, emptied her spirit until her inner mirror was flawless. Her hands formed a complex, ancient seal—one that carried the logic of heaven and earth within its structure.
Like a master weaver, she built layer after layer of crystalline Ether seals around that lurking, warm nucleus—careful, precise, unhurried. Too strong, and it might rebound. Too weak, and it might slip the net and bloom into disaster.
Fine sweat gathered at her temple, sliding slowly down the line of her cheek.
At last—after a silent battle that felt like an hour inside a single breath—she released the seal. The radiance of her Ether subsided like a tide retreating.
Her eyes remained closed. She let out a long, nearly inaudible exhale. Her chest rose and fell softly, the faint fatigue unmistakable.
And then—when she turned her gaze inward to confirm the seals were set, flawless and complete—
A rare, deeply strange expression crossed the face that was usually as still as moonlit snow.
Shock.
Disbelief.
A trace of offended irritation.
And something else—small, hidden, and disturbingly alive—like springwater flowing under ice.
She had sealed it.
Yes.
But the place it had finally been anchored…
Yixuan opened her eyes.
For a heartbeat, she looked blank. Then comprehension snapped in—and her expression shifted again, settling into a mixture of stunned disbelief, restrained embarrassment, and a fleeting softness that could have been mistaken for warmth.
She shot Qianye a glance.
A look of helpless reproach.
Because that cursed, irresistibly beguiling pink force—somehow, under the complex guidance of her own immense power during the sealing process—had been drawn, almost willingly, and pressed into a position…
Low.
Private.
Near the very source of life.
As if that alone weren't outrageous enough, the sealed core did not lie dormant. It began to form, of its own accord, an exquisite, suspicious pattern—like a half-blooming, dangerous red spider lily—etched in a faint pink glow beneath layers of Ether locks.
It radiated a steady warmth that made the air feel subtly different, as though it were humming in intimate resonance with her own deepest vitality.
This was… improper.
An affront.
A humiliation.
A blush rose—uninvited—across her cheeks, as vivid as plum blossoms on untouched snow. The contrast to her usual austerity was almost shocking.
She instinctively lifted her hand toward that spot—
And froze.
Then lowered her fingers as if nothing had happened.
In front of her disciple, she was still the master. Still the sect leader. Still the example. She could not break.
And besides—this "bitter fruit" was the price of her own decision. Who could she blame? She could only swallow it, teeth clenched, and keep her face smooth.
She forced her heart method to circulate, pressed down the turbulence, and restored her expression to calm neutrality.
Only the light in her eyes remained faintly rippled.
"Nothing serious," she said at last.
Her voice was steady, though a shade lower than usual—carrying the kind of tired magnetism that only appears after one has endured a storm.
"I have sealed it for now. You needn't worry."
She moved closer to the bed, robes whispering across the floor.
Her gaze lingered on Qianye's face—still pale, still too delicate, those emerald eyes brimming with guilt and fear and sincere concern—and something in her softened, despite herself.
He would leave soon.
She was the sect master. She had balances to maintain, obligations that could not be set aside, mundane affairs that chained her to the mountain whether she liked it or not.
And Qianye… Qianye carried burdens even she could not fully unravel—hidden causes, unfinished threads, unseen debts.
This parting might not be measured in days.
It might be measured in years.
Time was long, but cultivation had no calendar; the mortal world was short, and fate was sharp.
Perhaps this farewell… was truly a farewell.
After a moment of silence, Yixuan reached into her robes and drew out several thin, worn thread-bound booklets. Their pages were a special paper—smooth, warm to the touch, faintly carrying her body's lingering heat and that clean, distant fragrance of long-burned incense.
She placed them into Qianye's cool hands with quiet solemnity.
"Disciple," she said, gentle—but with weight that did not allow refusal.
"Our time together has been brief, but the bond is set. The thread is tied. In the days ahead, mountains and waters will stretch far; the roads will not be easy. I cannot remain at your side to correct you and guide you as you practice."
She tapped the booklets lightly.
"These are not profound secret manuals. But they contain essential points of our basic arts, and some of my own shallow reflections—obstacles I have encountered, pitfalls I have seen, answers I have learned the hard way."
"Take them back. In the midst of worldly noise, carve out quiet time. Wash your hands, settle your heart, and practice. Do not neglect your foundation—do not waste the rare gift you possess."
Qianye tightened his grip on the booklets, as if holding a promise and a shelter at once. Warmth surged through him, threaded with a sharp ache of reluctance to leave.
He nodded hard.
"This disciple obeys. I will not fail your teaching."
Yixuan inclined her head, and said no more.
She turned decisively, sleeves lifting a small breeze, and walked to the door. With one push, she stepped out—shutting the room's strange warmth, its lingering intimacy, and her own complicated tide of emotions behind the wood.
Outside, moonlight washed the courtyard in silver.
Ju Fufu still stood guard like a strict little tiger, ears upright, body tense, catching every sound with nervous intensity.
When she saw Yixuan emerge, she immediately fired off a look that was equal parts anxious inquiry and frightened hope, tail curling tightly.
Yixuan stopped and, with a fatigue-tinged gentleness that felt almost maternal, rubbed her senior disciple's fluffy golden head.
It was a simple reassurance.
Everything was fine.
Then Yixuan's eyes traveled past Fufu—meeting Jane's gaze in the shadowed corridor.
For an instant, the night turned brittle.
Moonlight lay like frost between them, drawing a clean line in empty space.
Yixuan stood in white, cold and distant as a figure carved from moonstone.
Jane stood in dark clothes, lean and ready like a hunting cat, ash-gray eyes reflecting a blade's sheen.
Neither spoke.
They only looked.
A silent collision of intent and scrutiny, of warning and boundary, of ownership and responsibility—sharp enough that even the insects seemed to quiet.
Fufu, trapped between them, barely breathed.
She was certain the next heartbeat would explode into disaster—
And, worst of all, wake her junior brother.
But the collision never became a strike.
It lasted only a few breaths.
Yixuan moved her gaze away first—briefly flicking her eyes toward the closed door behind her, where Qianye needed quiet more than anyone needed victory.
Jane, almost simultaneously, eased the edge of her hostility, lips tightening and then relaxing by the smallest fraction.
She, too, did not want to disturb him.
And beneath it all, an even stranger truth formed an unspoken, unwilling "truce" between them:
Both of them could sense it.
A faint, unmistakable echo.
The same source.
Qianye's scent—his pink, beguiling power—threaded into them in two different ways.
In Yixuan, sealed and anchored deep beneath layers of Ether law.
In Jane, stained like a mark after repeated closeness—woven into muscle, into blood, into something harder to wash away.
Because of that shared trace, because of the shared unwillingness to harm him—
The confrontation dissolved without a word.
Leaving only a thin, cold tension in the air, like a blade returned to its sheath but not forgotten.
Yixuan's expression returned to neutral detachment. She did not look at Jane again.
"Fufu," she said softly, "come. We have inventory to review and tomorrow's arrangements to finalize."
Fufu hesitated, glancing at the closed door—then at Jane in the shadow. She stomped once in frustration and whispered "Yes," before hurrying after her master.
Jane remained still, face unreadable.
The next two days in Wei Feidi were unusually clear—sunlit and bright, as if the sky itself wanted to soften the ache of parting.
Qianye recovered quickly under Yixuan's careful care. The pallor faded from his face, replaced by a healthier warmth—though he somehow looked even more delicate than before, like fine porcelain that had survived a fall but still carried invisible hairline cracks.
His emerald eyes regained their clarity, but something had settled into them now—something heavier. Something that had learned the cost of mystery.
Once his body allowed it, Yixuan personally guided him through more systematic training, especially the sect's sense-art—Awareness.
She taught with rare patience, folding profound principles into breathing and posture, into a single step, into a single thought. Like spring rain, silent and thorough.
Qianye learned with fierce focus. His talent was uncanny. His mind was clear. He moved quickly—too quickly—often grasping what others might take months to understand.
At dawn in the courtyard, at sunset beside a stone platform, master and disciple would sit facing one another, Ether flowing quietly around them—subtle, natural, harmonizing with wind and cloud and the far-off sound of tides.
Ju Fufu would squat nearby on the steps, arms hugging her weapon—Huwei—eyes glued to Qianye. Her tail would draw idle circles on the ground.
It was hard to tell whether she was studying the technique—
Or simply studying him.
The last day of the holiday arrived like a blade sliding from its sheath—inevitable.
At dusk, the sky burned gold, clouds lit like woven brocade.
Yixuan hosted a final meal at a famed teahouse in Wei Feidi, perched by water and mountain. The private room was quiet and refined: a round purple-sandalwood table, blue-and-white porcelain, the air scented with tea and food.
Yet the atmosphere was not as grand as the view outside.
It was awkward. Heavy. Understated.
Four sat at the table.
Yixuan took the seat of honor, elegant and distant, lifting a pale jade cup and drinking unhurriedly, as if nothing in the world could pull her off balance.
Qianye sat to her left, somewhat restrained. His gaze occasionally met Jane's; they traded brief murmurs—about the food, about his condition.
Jane sat on his other side, outwardly relaxed, inwardly vigilant. When her eyes met Yixuan's across the table, something flickered—wariness, calculation, and that faint discomfort born of their shared trace.
Ju Fufu sat to Yixuan's right, her eyes almost magnetized to Qianye. Her cheeks puffed with restrained frustration. Even her beloved food seemed less tempting tonight.
She ate, but her chopsticks moved with the spirit of someone chewing resentment.
Occasionally, Yixuan would set down her tea and ask Qianye about his practice. Qianye answered respectfully, clearly, and Yixuan offered a few precise corrections.
Jane spoke little, but quietly tended to him—removing fish bones, placing the best pieces in his bowl with practiced ease.
Fufu tried more than once to insert herself into the conversation, to feed him something "better," only to be silenced by Yixuan's calm glance. Each time, she retreated and attacked a braised pork knuckle as if it were the embodiment of a certain irresponsible "partner."
Dinner ended.
Night fell.
And at Suibian Temple's gate, the moment of farewell arrived.
Ju Fufu's eyes were red. So was her nose. She looked like a creature trying not to be abandoned in the rain.
She shoved a massive, bulging bundle into Qianye's arms—packed with Wei Feidi specialties: fragrant cakes, dried meats and fish, valuable porcelain tools, tea with calming effects she had… "acquired," and far too many things for one person to carry.
"Little junior brother…" she said, voice thick and wobbling.
"These are for you! Eat them on the way, eat them later… Senior sister will… will think about you every day!"
Then, with all the courage she could gather, she shouted into the night as if to carve it into the wind:
"So you have to think about senior sister every day too!"
Qianye held the heavy bundle, warmth swelling inside him—gratitude and longing mixed together until it hurt.
He nodded solemnly.
"I will. Thank you, senior sister. I'll treasure them… and I'll miss everyone."
He said "everyone" on purpose—softening the edge.
Fufu heard only what she wanted to hear.
Her tears trembled, then she smiled through them.
Yixuan and Jane exchanged no real words. A small nod. A small acknowledgement. Their silent balance held.
Finally, Qianye turned to Yixuan and bowed deeply.
"Master. This disciple takes his leave. Please… take care. Do not exhaust yourself."
Yixuan accepted the bow beneath the moon, her outline sharp and unreal. For a moment she looked older than the mountain and lonelier than the sky.
"Go," she said at last, her tone plain, but slightly softer than usual. "The road is long. Be careful in all things."
Qianye straightened, took one last look at Suibian Temple—at the master who had steadied him, the senior sister who had cared for him, the shadowed figure who walked beside him—
Then he and Jane turned, and left together.
Their footsteps faded into night.
Fufu waved until she could no longer see even a strand of silver hair, until the sound of their steps vanished in the wind.
Then her arm dropped.
Her whole body seemed to collapse inward, as if someone had pulled the life out of her with a single string.
The world lost its color.
Tears fell—big, heavy drops rolling down her cheeks.
Yixuan watched quietly, then stepped forward and patted her head again, gentle, steady.
"Do not indulge in childish sorrow," she said, voice calm with the clarity of age. "Meetings and partings are like clouds gathering and dispersing, like the moon waxing and waning. You cannot force them. The bond of master and disciple is the same."
She paused, gaze drifting into the future as if reading something only she could see.
"In one year's time, once this Sha Luo Golden Week's noise has settled and the dust has cleared… you will see him again."
Fufu jerked her head up, eyes wide with sudden, desperate hope.
"Really?! Master—really only one year?!"
Yixuan looked down at her. The faintest curve touched her lips—mysterious, knowing.
"I calculated it." Her voice held a rare thread of dry amusement. "What—do you doubt my divination?"
Fufu sniffled, then muttered weakly, eyes watering all over again.
"W-Well… you did once pull out a whole bunch of 'Great Fortune' sticks that were obviously… specially prepared…"
A sharp flick struck her forehead.
"Ouch!"
"Too talkative," Yixuan said, face returning to serene neutrality as if she had never teased at all. "Keep wagging your tongue and I'll punish you by making you finish the warehouse's old compressed rations. The ones no one wants."
"Hmph! Master bullies people!" Fufu grumbled, rubbing her forehead.
But her heart was already rising—buoyed by that one-year promise. Hope like a seed, stubborn and bright, settled into her chest.
She stared at the dark road where Qianye had disappeared, imagining the day he returned.
Moonlight flowed over Suibian Temple, silent and gentle.
Over the road into the noisy world.
Over the two travelers swallowed by night.
And over a small tiger-girl's heart—broken, patched together by hope, and burning with a promise she would cling to for the next year of her life.
Join here to read ahead.
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After Maxing Out Every Class 45
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