In the evening, a full moon rose over the Stone Water Garden, a place within Zhu Xuelian’s inner disciple palace. Since there were so few of them, everyone had an entire palace, sharing them only with the disciples from their former circles. As such, Zhu Xuelian lived with Yun Fei and Wu Yulan, but since they were always about on their own business, she had the entire thing mostly to herself.

  There was nothing special about the Stone Water Garden, but Mu Jingyu found it very special. Several stone lanterns sat on platforms that emerged from the clear pond, illuminating the night with a faint glow. The moon was reflected on the clear waters, and occasionally, fish nibbled on the fallen leaves floating on the surface.

  Zhu Xuelian undid the knot on her sash and let the silk of her black, moonlit robe cascade off her shoulders just enough to reveal her back to Mu Jingyu.

  “Will this do?” Zhu Xuelian asked.

  “Mmm,” Mu Jingyu hummed and averted her gaze from Zhu Xuelian’s back. She was seated behind Zhu Xuelian, on one of the stone platforms, and her heart, for some reason, was beating madly.

  Her scent. The way the moonlight reflected in her black hair. The way her soft, snowy-pale skin lingered in her gaze. Was it because they were alone? They were both girls, so this didn’t make any sense.

  “Are you going to begin, Jingyu?” Zhu Xuelian asked softly, after a brief spell.

  Mu Jingyu blinked and then nodded.

  “Please tell me if you feel any discomfort,” Mu Jingyu said, forming a symbol with both hands and gathering her ice qi toward her fingertips.

  Methodically, Mu Jingyu pierced the acupuncture points on Zhu Xuelian’s back with her fingers and sent her ice qi into the major vessels. Immediately, Mu Jingyu’s gold core was suppressed by the counter-shock of the raging fire qi within Zhu Xuelian’s meridians.

  Mu Jingyu found it incredibly fierce and imposing, and where she was confident before that her ice qi was at the pinnacle of the elemental attributes, she could no longer claim this with the same confidence. It wasn’t just that the fire qi was extremely pure and powerful, but because it was completely merged with sword qi.

  Her master once told her that the path of sword cultivation is distinct from qi cultivation, or even body refining. Sword Control was the first step on the road of sword cultivation and it emphasized control over one’s heart and mind to utilize sword intent. Sword Merging was the next step, in which one’s sword qi and essential qi completely merged and became one — it was the union of mind and body.

  Mu Jingyu was regarded as a genius because she accomplished Sword Merging at the age of fifteen and obtained the opportunity to cultivate the Glacier Breaking Sword. Something like this was unheard of on the Sky Continent. Only future Sword Saints can merge the sword and the spirit before the age of forty, they said.

  Turns out, compared to Zhu Xuelian, she wasn’t all that special. This, also, made her happy. Maybe she wouldn’t be all alone in the world anymore.

  Mu Jingyu closed her eyes, and a blue light shone through her eyelashes, then she pressed her fingers into Zhu Xuelian’s spine and directed more energy into the vessels. Like a sword flying over a lake without disturbing the surface, her merged sword and essential qi poured over the roaring flames, calming them, guiding them, and tempering them. Fire and ice were opposed elements, but that did not always mean they were rivals. The Yin can temper the Yang, and the Dao creates the heavenly laws through the unity of opposites. In this regard, Mu Jingyu was perfect for stabilizing Zhu Xuelian’s gold core.

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  Wu Yulan would’ve been an even better choice.

  “Sister Zhu, may this Jingyu ask you something personal?” Mu Jingyu whispered.

  “You can ask me anything, Jingyu,” Zhu Xuelian said with a humming tone of admiration. It seemed as though Mu Jingyu’s efforts were enough to impress Zhu Xuelian.

  “Is there a disagreement between you and Wu Yulan?” Mu Jingyu asked.

  Zhu Xuelian chuckled. “Half my life belongs to Wu Yulan; how can there be disagreements between us?”

  “Then… why? Why ask me?” Mu Jingyu asked.

  Zhu Xuelian leaned back slightly and adjusted the robes that bunched up around her forearms.

  “You always seem to hold me in such high regard, but I really don’t deserve it,” Zhu Xuelian said.

  “That… that is not true, Sister Zh—“ Mu Jingyu began, but the shake of Zhu Xuelian’s head took the wind out of her words.

  “I want to walk the road with you as an equal,” Zhu Xuelian said. “What am I supposed to do if you admire me more than you admire yourself?”

  Mu Jingyu blushed at those words and lowered her gaze. Still, she was a sword cultivator, so she did not let this distract her from the more important task at hand, and her energy stability did not suffer at all from the wandering state of her mind.

  “Can this Mu Jingyu not worship you as her big sister?” Mu Jingyu asked, using the word worship like one would revere seniors and superiors.

  “You can,” Zhu Xuelian said with a light nod. “But why? Would you rather follow behind me, or walk by my side?”

  To this, Mu Jingyu remained silent for a long time. The surface of the pond trembled gently.

  “Because… this Mu Jingyu… is really… an evil person,” Mu Jingyu whispered. This time, the stability of her qi did suffer, and she suffered an immediate backlash from Zhu Xuelian’s core.

  Mu Jingyu coughed, but the backlash wasn’t too severe to injure her vitality.

  Everything seemed very still for a long moment. It was as though the wind had disappeared, and the fish had gone to sleep.

  “Because I envy Wu Yulan,” Mu Jingyu whispered.

  The surface of the water shimmered, and an image emerged in the painted moonlight — an image of that day at the Red Conference when Zhu Xuelian encouraged Tian Li, who defeated Mu Jingyu.

  “Because I envy Tian Li.”

  A fallen leaf landed on Zhu Xuelian’s reflection and disturbed the surface again, and the image disappeared.

  “Because I wish it was me instead of them.”

  When Zhu Xuelian pulled her robe up to cover her back, Mu Jingyu lowered her head and sighed deep in her heart. She shouldn’t have said those things.

  But Zhu Xuelian’s fingers cupped both her cheeks and lifted her gaze. Zhu Xuelian was smiling — she wasn’t mad at all.

  “Then we can be evil together,” Zhu Xuelian said and pressed a soft kiss to Mu Jingyu’s forehead.

  Instantly, Mu Jingyu’s face flushed completely red, and her eyes teared up — though whether it was relief, joy, or embarrassment, not even Mu Jingyu could tell.

  Zhu Xuelian turned around again, and let her robes fall. Her head bobbed from side to side.

  “The problem with good and evil is that no one can agree, and ten people will have ten different meanings in mind; so why even bother?” Zhu Xuelian spoke. “As for envy — what for? Can I travel the road with only one companion? Who decided this? I’d like to have a word with them.”

  Mu Jingyu’s laugh, on the verge of crying, bubbled out, followed by a sniffle, as she wiped the corner of her eyes with the back of her hand. Then she laughed again, this time with more clarity, as she summoned her energy to the tips of her fingers, to continue stabilizing Zhu Xuelian’s core.

  “Zhu Xuelian is so violent and unreasonable,” Mu Jingyu whispered. “This Mu Jingyu is very fortunate.”

  Zhu Xuelian hummed happily at the praise and looked up toward the moon.

  “Thank you, Xuelian,” Mu Jingyu said softly.

  “What for?” Zhu Xuelian asked.

  “For accepting and returning my feelings,” Mu Jingyu said. “This knot in my heart finally feels resolved, and I think I can break through into the next realm now.”

  Zhu Xuelian smiled — Mu Jingyu did not see it, but she felt the warmth.

  “In that case, maybe you can return the favor by braiding my hair?” Zhu Xuelian said and then tapped one of the black metal and jade chains. “Help me cover these up?”

  Mu Jingyu smiled and nodded. “I’d love to,” she said. “Can I also make a new outfit for you, for when you return to the Sky Continent?”

  Zhu Xuelian giggled. “That too? Aren’t I just exploiting you then?”

  “Shush…!” Mu Jingyu laughed. “I want to do this!”

  “All right, all right,” Zhu Xuelian hummed happily. “How can I refuse?”

  They laughed through the rest of the night and enjoyed the cool breeze in the morning. Mu Jingyu learned a lot about sword attainment while stabilizing Zhu Xuelian’s core. Perhaps that was also one of the goals of asking Mu Jingyu to do this, but Mu Jingyu understood the true reason.

  To walk the road together as equals. Deep in her heart, Mu Jingyu knew, from the moment she first saw Zhu Xuelian, that this would be a strong bond like this. A great opportunity, as those Taoist sages say — a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

  Perhaps it was even destiny.