Three years ago the original owner had only been at the peak of Foundation Establishment, and the title of Saintess had not yet been settled on her.
Yue Qingshuang went to the Sect Master of her own accord and put herself forward, saying that she alone in the entire sect had mastered water-attribute techniques and was therefore the fittest person to instruct an original owner with a top-grade water spirit root.
The Sect Master agreed.
No one had anticipated that proper instruction would turn into endless clinging harassment.
The first lesson.
The jade couch on the Wave-Watching Terrace.
Yue Qingshuang reclined across it and patted the empty space at her side.
"Come sit against me. The Water-Guiding Formula needs our spirit breath joined. I can't calibrate your meridians from that far off."
The original owner seated herself properly on a mat, deliberately keeping her distance.
Yue Qingshuang simply came over and put an arm around the girl's waist.
Her chin settled on her shoulder, her fingertips tracing the line of her waist beneath the fabric.
"It's perfectly normal for two women to cultivate close together. What are you shrinking from?"
The original owner's ears burned, and she clutched her hem tight.
"Elder, please observe the proprieties of instruction."
The other only laughed low and pressed nearer instead.
For the whole of that lesson, the original owner sat turned away from her, evading.
The second lesson.
The original owner deliberately changed into a heavy dao robe with a tightly closed collar and sat in the farthest corner of the terrace.
When the demonstration ended, Yue Qingshuang circled around behind her.
Both arms came around from either side, ten fingers locking over the hands that held her seal.
Her chest pressed flush to her back, her breath brushing past her ear.
"Such a narrow waist. One arm and I have all of it."
The original owner went rigid all over, blood rushing to the top of her head.
The instant the form was finished she snatched her hands away and fled to the other end of the terrace.
The third lesson.
Yue Qingshuang used the pretext of examining her spirit meridians and, without waiting for the original owner's consent, sent her spiritual power straight into her limbs.
The power lingered at her waist and abdomen, at her dantian, refusing to disperse, while her ear was filled with talk of how their spirit roots were naturally compatible, how the two of them were practically heaven-chosen partners for dual cultivation.
The original owner shook with anger and curled up on reflex, but she could not get away from the spiritual power circling and coiling through her dantian.
For two full hours there was nothing left but silent endurance.
The fourth lesson.
After three sessions of it in a row the original owner was worn out through body and mind, and went into seclusion for three months meaning to break through to Golden Core.
Yue Qingshuang kept watch outside the cave dwelling through wind and rain alike.
On the day she emerged, Yue Qingshuang threw herself forward, cupped the original owner's cheeks, and made to plant a light kiss on her face.
The long forbearance shattered completely.
The original owner shoved her away.
"I have respected your standing as an elder all this while. You have overstepped and taken liberties again and again. You do not deserve that respect."
Golden Core spiritual power erupted with a roar.
She raised a foot and kicked her squarely in the small of the back.
Caught entirely off guard, Yue Qingshuang staggered two steps.
The original owner stated plainly that she would go and accept punishment of her own accord, then rode her sword away.
That evening a personal attendant passing the terrace saw her own peak master from a distance, crouched beside the jade couch with both hands pressed to the small of her back, face buried between her knees, shoulders faintly shaking. The inner sect disciple keeping watch nearby took fright and hurried over to ask after the injury.
Yue Qingshuang lifted her head slowly. There was not a trace of tears on her face; she was flushed red from the tips of her ears down her neck, and her voice floated, as though she were steeped in a dream that belonged to her alone. "She kicked me."
"Peak Master, please do not be angry. This disciple will go and demand an explanation from Chu Qingxue at once!"
"No need." Yue Qingshuang cut the attendant off gently. "That kick of hers — the spiritual power in it was pure and clean, and the ankle it bared was pale and lovely. I came out ahead."
The disciple was silent for three breaths, then quietly looked away and treated the whole thing as something she had never heard.
Elsewhere, the original owner went as promised to the Sect Master's hall to request punishment.
The Sect Master heard the matter out from beginning to end and was silent a long while, and on that habitually stern and dignified face there surfaced a rare, weary headache.
He sent for Yue Qingshuang to come to the hall and rebuked her severely in front of the original owner. "You are an elder of the twelve peaks and she is the prodigy of my sect. You conduct yourself with no sense of proportion and stir up this absurd business. You may feel no shame, but I am embarrassed on your behalf! If you dare harass Qingxue as you please again, I will shut you up on Reflection Cliff for a hundred years!"
Yue Qingshuang hung her head and listened obediently through the entire scolding, then raised her eyes to the original owner standing behind the Sect Master, her peach-blossom eyes shining. "Senior Brother, there was real force in that kick of Qingxue's. Early Golden Core, and she could shake a Nascent Soul off her footing. Truly a talent the Eastern Wilds sees once in ten thousand years."
The Sect Master rubbed his throbbing temples wearily and sank into another long silence.
The next day the Sect Master summoned the original owner alone into a private chamber and placed the Black Iron Dispersal Token into her hands with his own.
"I refined this myself. From now on, if Yue Qingshuang harasses you as she pleases, you need not concern yourself with rank or seniority in this sect. Simply activate the token and drive her off. I grant you leave to use it freely."
The original owner accepted the token with both hands, knelt, and bowed her thanks.
The Sect Master's tone softened somewhat as he added mildly, "Qingxue, you need not hold too great a grudge against Qingshuang. She was raised under the eyes of myself and the other peak masters together. Her temperament was not always so clinging."
The original owner lowered her eyes in silence and did not answer.
From outside the chamber door came Yue Qingshuang's aggrieved cry. "Senior Brother! These days you have eyes for no one but Qingxue, and no regard at all for the junior sister who has followed you a hundred years!"
The Sect Master's gentle expression vanished instantly, his face going blank again, and he added offhandedly, "If one token proves insufficient, I can refine a spare. There is no need to economize."
That was the whole origin of the Dispersal Token.
In the storage ring, the token still had a paper talisman stuck to it, pressed on hard by the original owner: On meeting Yue Qingshuang, suppress at once. It is all an act. Pay her no mind.
Chu Qingxue sighed softly and put the token back into her sleeve.
Three months since crossing over, and she had already activated it forty-seven times.
That combination just now was practiced to the point of numbness.
"Qing—xue"
The voice came from outside the door again.
She had not gone far. She was peering in through the crack.
"That mortal — how do you plan to place him, Qingxue?"
Chu Qingxue shut her eyes and meant to ignore her.
Inside she was in disarray.
Let slip the smallest feeling that did not belong to the Saintess, and the elders would fix on it.
If body-snatching were ever uncovered, nothing waited for her but the Soul-Refining Lamp.
"Mortals are short-lived. He was never going to be your kind of person."
Chu Qingxue's face showed nothing. She raised a hand and set the token against the wooden door.
A thread of spiritual power issued from her fingertip.
"Suppress."
A muffled thud sounded outside.
Brief quiet returned.
She made an estimate.
Going by past experience, it would hold for about half an hour.
A Nascent Soul cultivator's spiritual power recovered extremely fast; she would be back to pester her soon enough.
Chu Qingxue walked to the mat and sat down.
Hands resting on her knees, she began working through her options one by one.
The first idea to surface: take Lin Jin as a personal disciple out of turn.
Rejected immediately.
If the Saintess took in a mortal from another world for no reason, every person in the sect would be watching the two of them closely.
In daily contact, the flaw of her not understanding the basic sword art would certainly come out.
One soul-search technique and it would all be finished.
Next thought: simply place him in the outer sect as a menial.
Rejected again.
Everyone had seen the phenomenon at the Jade Pool. The elders would sooner or later demand her reason for taking him in, and she would have nothing to say.
Her thoughts came full circle, and the conversation with the Second Elder on Dao-Seeking Peak that day suddenly surfaced.
All methods return to one source. The Great Dao is simplicity itself.
A complete line of reasoning slowly came clear.
The Jade Pool's spirit vein connected heaven and earth.
That golden light had been a cross-world phenomenon of heaven and earth, and Lin Jin belonged to another world.
There were records from antiquity in the cultivation world: a visitor from another world was an excellent reference for comprehending the Great Dao.
And she was stuck at the bottleneck between Golden Core and Nascent Soul.
Long steeped in this world's sword dao, her thinking had set hard.
Let Lin Jin cultivate up from nothing, unbound by this world's rules.
Every question and every insight of his would be a new angle from which to break her own shackles.
The formalities could be made watertight as well.
Grant him only a temporary outer sect menial's status, with no access to high-tier secret texts.
Leave the basic sword art to an ordinary instructor; she would only observe and record, with no need to teach him herself.
Set a two-month limit, and send him away at once if there proved to be no value in it for her comprehension.
The whole of it open to inspection by the Elders' Hall at any time.
The entire account fit perfectly with the dao theory she had used on the Second Elder before.
Even if the Sect Master had his doubts, he would not be able to find grounds to object. Surely.
No, it still felt too much of a stretch. But it was not a bad method either.
Chu Qingxue ran through it several times over in her mind, and the tightness in her chest eased a little.
But a new worry surfaced at once.
Yue Qingshuang's powers of observation were terrifying.
If she were given a hand in the placement, she would have daily contact with Lin Jin.
Following the thread down, the secret she had hidden for three months would no longer be coverable.
She had racked her brains alone just to piece together an account that would protect her.
And she felt a little powerless again.
While her thoughts had drifted far off, a soft voice came floating from the top of the wall.
Yue Qingshuang had shed her usual wheedling tone. She sounded calm and detached.
"Qingxue, I'll stop bothering you."
Chu Qingxue raised her eyes toward the window.
Moonlight lay across the whole of Purple Sun Peak.
A stunning older beauty in purple sat quietly on the edge of the wall, her violet immortal's skirt swaying lightly in the wind.
"I got the sense just now that you were fretting over where to put the mortal from the other world."
"The registration documents, a reliable instructor — I can arrange every bit of it myself."
"The instructors under me keep their mouths shut. You won't have to trouble yourself in the slightest, and there will be cultivation resources enough."
Chu Qingxue's breath caught.
Placing Lin Jin, how to explain it to the Sect Master — she had never mentioned any of it to a soul.
And Yue Qingshuang had guessed it without missing by a hair.
Had she followed her the whole way back from the Jade Pool?
Reciting formulas alone, breaking down late at night, losing control of her spiritual power — surely all of that had not been taken in by her divine sense?
She had always taken her for a clinging nuisance and nothing more.
Only now did she realize with a start that most of Yue Qingshuang's everyday wheedling was a performance, and that her mind was in fact deep and hard to read.
"Don't worry, little Qingxue. I would never do you harm."
Yue Qingshuang gave a light spring and landed on the bluestone of the courtyard.
She brushed the dust from her hem, stopped before the door of the cave dwelling, and came no closer.
"Ah, yes. When you came back from the Jade Pool today — did you smile at that mortal?"
Chu Qingxue's chest dropped hard.
The water spiritual power circling inside her nearly fell into disorder.
For three months she had held the aloof Saintess's manner every waking moment.
Only at the sight of Lin Jin, wretched and sincere, had she slackened for a moment and let a smile show.
And the other woman had watched the whole of it.
"Hmph. Three years at your side, and I have never once seen you smile at me. I'm so jealous."
After a brief silence the soft, syrupy tone started up again.
"Qingxue, Qingxue, a mortal can't keep you company through a thousand years of cultivation. Only I am suitable. Smile at me too, won't you?"
"Suppress."
Chu Qingxue said nothing further.
The token activated.
The force of the shock flung her away.
A string of light laughter floated down from midair. There was not a trace of anger in Yue Qingshuang. "Hee hee. Then I'll arrange his admission to the sect. Qingxue, just take him straight along to have his spirit root tested. Wait for my good news."
She put the token away, and the spiritual light slowly went out.
She leaned back against the door panel again and shook her head helplessly.
What truly threw her into disorder was not the endless pestering.
It was that one remark laying bare the tenderness that belonged to her bro alone.
Chu Qingxue walked to the window.
She pushed it open a crack.
Bright moonlight spilled in.
On the far horizon a sword light flashed past now and then.
But around the courtyard wall, that violet figure was long gone.