By the time Xie Guanqi finished sweeping Yushan Avenue, the sun had already sunk low in the sky.
After gathering the trash and returning the broom, he went to report back to the Discipline Elder. The elder—whose face was gloomier than a coffin—personally inspected the entire road again. Only after confirming that Xie Guanqi hadn’t slacked off did he dismiss him to attend the evening lesson.
By the time the lesson ended, night had fully fallen.
Xie Guanqi returned to the residence of the direct disciples on Yanchou Mountain. With practiced ease, he pulled out various tools from his cabinet and laid them on the table: a hammer, copper wire, pliers, and a milky-white adhesive he had borrowed from a junior disciple.
The junior had claimed it was the most cost-effective and strongest glue currently available—put simply, the best among a pile of cheap options.
Some sword cultivators in the sect were so poor they’d pawn even their robes if they could. When the soles of their shoes wore through, they wouldn’t replace them—just smear on some glue and keep wearing them.
Fixing a shoe sole wasn’t much different from fixing a broken hairpin. If it could hold a shoe together, it could hold a broken ornament too.
But…
Looking at the pearl ornament in his hands—unevenly glued, with visible adhesive along the edges—Xie Guanqi fell silent.
No matter how he looked at it, the repaired version was nothing like how he remembered it. In fact… it was rather ugly.
And worse—after being taken apart and glued back together multiple times, the fragile mineral pieces could no longer withstand further handling. One more attempt, and they’d likely crumble into useless fragments.
At first, Xie Guanqi had thought repairing it would be simple. He imagined he could just spare a little time between memorizing texts—maybe even cut into his sleep—and quietly fix it before returning it unnoticed.
Instead, half a month had passed, and the more he repaired it, the worse it became.
Meanwhile, his priorities had shifted from “I’ll fix it in my spare time”… to “I’ll sacrifice sleep to fix it”… to “Forget sleep and studying—I messed up this bead again, I need to redo it.”
Which was how, during the exam, faced with a page full of dense text, his drowsiness doubled—and he fell asleep right at his desk.
When he woke up, not only was his paper blank, but even the other examinees had already left the room.
Still, none of that mattered.
What mattered was the now-unfixable ornament.
Holding it in both hands, brows tightly furrowed, Xie Guanqi tried angling it toward the light, searching for any position where it might look halfway acceptable.
At that moment, someone knocked on the door.
He quickly hid the ornament in his robes. “Come in.”
His second junior brother entered, surprised to see the tools spread across the table. “Senior brother, are you repairing a sword sheath?”
“My sheath is fine,” Xie Guanqi replied. “What do you need?”
“I came to borrow Mingzhu’s study notes.”
Xie Guanqi looked confused. “Who’s Mingzhu?”
“…Hai Jiao.”
“Oh!” He immediately understood. “Wait a moment.”
Once the sword’s name was mentioned, he remembered which sword—and by extension, its owner, one of his junior sisters, though he couldn’t quite recall her face.
After handing over the notes, the junior suddenly pointed at himself. “Senior brother, who am I?”
“Luoxia,” Xie Guanqi answered without hesitation.
“…Fine,” the junior muttered, too tired to correct him.
He rolled up the notes and turned to leave—then Xie Guanqi suddenly asked, “Luoxia, can you repair jewelry?”
“Jewelry?” The junior stopped, instantly intrigued. “I can fix a bit of anything—but why are you repairing jewelry?”
He quickly searched his memory for any instance of Xie Guanqi interacting with women—and found none.
Junior sisters didn’t count. Junior sisters weren’t women—they were creditors.
Could it be he accidentally damaged a female cultivator’s hairpin during sparring? Unlikely. Xie Guanqi’s swordsmanship wasn’t that sloppy—unless it was intentional. But that didn’t fit his image at all.
Xie Guanqi pulled out the ornament and showed it to him.
The junior took one look and said decisively, “Throw it away.”
“…What?”
“Doesn’t matter what it used to look like. Right now it looks like a lump of purple sludge. If I were the owner, I’d throw you out along with it. So you might as well throw it away now.”
“…Is it really that ugly?”
“Imagine it on the original owner’s head.”
Xie Guanqi did.
Immediately, he got up, opened the window, and hurled the ornament out with full force.
After tossing it, he turned back eagerly. “What next?”
The junior raised a brow. “This belonged to that physician, didn’t it?”
Xie Guanqi said nothing.
Understanding immediately, the junior skipped the question. “Does she know it broke—and that you have it?”
After thinking for a moment, Xie Guanqi shook his head. “She doesn’t.”
“Excellent. Then from now on, pretend this never happened. Take this secret to your grave.”
“When I’m in the grave, I can tell it?”
“Better not even after the coffin lid is sealed.”
Seeing him fall into thought, the junior patted his shoulder. “Trust me. If you act like nothing happened, it’ll probably blow over.”
“If you try to fix a mistake, you’ll only make more mistakes.”
By the end, his tone grew deeply regretful, and he began recounting how he himself had once followed that exact path—step by step—until he ended up as a plaything of the Hehuan Sect.
Xie Guanqi didn’t really understand, but since Luoxia seemed eager to talk, he quietly sat and listened.
Only his body stayed present.
His thoughts had already wandered far away.
He thought of the ornament. Then of meeting Doctor Lin that day—and what she had said.
He had gone looking for the White Dragon Pearl hoping to make her happy.
But he had found the wrong one.
And she hadn’t been happy.
When she said, “This road is long, and the sun is harsh,” she had looked at him without blinking.
He couldn’t describe that look. It made his head feel light, his chest uneasy. In that moment, he felt like he would have agreed to anything she said.
And she had been right.
Morning lessons and written exams were important.
And at his age, being punished to sweep… was embarrassing.
As his junior talked on, he suddenly felt a bit hungry. His eyes landed on a handkerchief-wrapped bundle of candies on the table—colorful, sweet-smelling, completely out of place.
Without thinking, he reached for them.
“Senior brother, I’ll just have—”
Before his hand could touch them, Xie Guanqi grabbed his wrist.
“Hey—”
Xie Guanqi pushed his hand away, took the candies, and tucked them close to himself.
Then he stood. “I’m going to practice swordsmanship. Coming?”
The junior immediately shut his mouth, made up an excuse about returning something to a junior sister, and fled.
Because of her seasickness, Lin Zhengdu had delayed her trip down the mountain to restock supplies.
The summer heat had emptied the town streets. Only children, fearless of the sun, ran about in groups, turning themselves as dark as charcoal.
Lin Zhengdu carried her medicine basket to the clinic in the morning, then spent the afternoon setting two legs and an arm at a hunter’s house. After sunset, she ate a refreshing bowl of cold noodles made by Madam Yao, then, as usual, went to the bathhouse and had her hair done by the hairpin artisan.
The artisan brought out new hairpins for her to choose from, praising every piece she tried on.
Even knowing some of it was flattery, Lin Zhengdu enjoyed it all the same.
With a generous wave, she bought not only the one she wore, but many more beautiful ornaments she would never actually wear on the mountain.
The artisan beamed, packing them up eagerly.
Then, suddenly remembering something, she slapped her thigh. “Ah! Doctor Lin—your friend ordered a pearl ornament from me a few days ago. He said he’d come pick it up today, but he hasn’t shown up yet. I’m about to close—could you pass it to him for me?”
Lin Zhengdu paused, holding up a bronze mirror. “My friend?”
“Yes—the young gentleman who came with you for the free clinic in spring. Dressed all in black, very handsome, quite imposing.”
With that description, Lin Zhengdu immediately knew who it was.
“If it’s inconvenient, never mind,” the artisan added quickly.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll take it. What kind of ornament did he order?”
The artisan smiled brightly. “A purple glass vine flower—it was popular a few months ago. You wore one before too—I even styled your hair in twin buns that time!”
Despite the detailed reminder, Lin Zhengdu still couldn’t recall exactly which one. She had tried too many styles and owned too many hairpins—more than a dozen in purple alone.
No matter.
Once she received the box, she opened it immediately.
Seeing the ornament inside, she raised a brow slightly.
She remembered.
She had once owned a pair like this—but one had gone missing. Since wearing just one didn’t look good, she had tucked the remaining piece away and never worn it again.
Closing the box, she slipped it into her robes and strolled down the street.
Night deepened. The moon hung high, casting bright light over the smooth stone pavement. Lin Zhengdu stepped along the moonlight for a while, then suddenly stopped, looking ahead.
The Sword Sect and Medicine Sect shared the same path down the mountain.
Which meant—she would definitely run into Xie Guanqi here.
And she did.
He saw her too, eyes widening in surprise. The last time they met, he had said he would cut his hair—but it was still long, still curled at the ends.
Lin Zhengdu waved at him.
After hesitating a few seconds, he walked over.
She noticed his breathing was heavier than usual, and a lingering aura of killing intent still clung faintly to him, not yet fully settled.