Yun Xiu had originally planned to go up the mountain alone, but the gray wolf insisted on tagging along, nattering the whole way about how mighty Sword Venerable Wuwang was, trying to rope her into joining his fan club.
Yun Xiu’s social anxiety was aimed at people, not animals. And while the gray wolf was a bit of a chatterbox, it had the look of a husky, gray-white fur, sky-blue eyes, not fierce at all, and honestly rather fluffy.
She wasn’t quite used to it, but she didn’t mind talking to it either.
The gray wolf’s name was Feixiao, a working demon from the Demon Realm. The Liuhe Wildlands bordered the Demon Realm, and it occasionally took Hehuan Sect jobs, ferrying Hehuan Sect disciples down the mountain.
“The Hehuan Sect Master?”
Feixiao thought back, wagging its tail. “Never seen her. How could a bigshot like that ever take a ride-share?”
It had, however, heard the Hehuan Sect disciples mention a Young Sect Master of the Hehuan Sect, someone who kept to herself year-round, rarely appeared in public, and whom sect disciples didn’t even dare look at directly on the rare occasions they ran into her within the sect.
But not because she was fierce or domineering, quite the opposite. It was because she was timid and skittish, so shy she cowered from being seen, and she’d get frightened. So the whole Hehuan Sect had gained an extra rule because of her: if you see her, take the long way around.
Word was, the Hehuan Sect had had a 99% graduation and employment rate since its founding, and she was its one and only flaw.
At last they reached the top of the mountain. Yun Xiu crouched behind a pillar, saw the two figures at the Star-Plucking Platform, worked up her courage, and gently knocked on the door… mm, the pillar.
The black-robed woman among them spun around abruptly, her gaze slicing over sharp, then froze the instant it landed on Yun Xiu’s face. She spoke in astonishment. “…Young Sect Master?”
At those words, Yun Xiu and Feixiao immediately stared at each other in dismay.
Yun Xiu blinked. “So you’re the Hehuan Sect’s Young Sect Master.”
Feixiao: ?
Feixiao: “Have you got a screw loose? The Young Sect Master is a woman.”
Yun Xiu hesitated a moment. “Feixiao, sister, did you get a sex change?”
Feixiao: “…”
Damn it all, it would sooner suspect that a burly, strapping male wolf like itself was the Young Sect Master than ever suspect its own self!
Although the newcomer wore a veiled hat and cloak, wrapping herself up tight, the Left Protector Dan Mo still recognized her own Young Sect Master at a glance.
For no other reason than this: that uniquely cringing, cowering-behind-a-pillar seediness was truly one of a kind.
Yet something seemed slightly off, how was the Young Sect Master’s spiritual energy so faint? If she hadn’t spoken up on her own, Dan Mo would have nearly missed her even this close.
Dan Mo marveled. “Isn’t the Young Sect Master in seclusion at Qingfeng Cliff? For a hundred years, the time isn’t up yet. How is it you’ve come out of the sect today?”
The woman kept her eyes fixed on Yun Xiu as she said this, and only then did Yun Xiu confirm that this “Young Sect Master” she spoke of was in fact herself.
Yun Xiu: OvO!
Ah, this. When your performance metrics have climbed all the way to Young Sect Master, can she really just breezily resign?
Yun Xiu whispered, “I, I came to see the Sect Master about something.”
Dan Mo was about to speak when the Hehuan Sect Master behind her suddenly cut in, her sweet, tingling voice gone a touch grave.
“Dan Mo, you go on down first.”
“Yes, Sect Master.”
Dan Mo answered respectfully, walked over to the gray wolf, and casually hauled it up by the scruff of its neck.
The husky craned its neck: woof woof woof?
What was there that it wasn’t allowed to hear!
Dan Mo carried Feixiao down the Star-Plucking Platform, and it soon vanished into the darkness.
In a flash, the vast Star-Plucking Platform held only Yun Xiu and the Sect Master.
Clouds drifted, gauze floated.
Yun Xiu gazed at the languid, lissome silhouette faintly outlined in the moonlight, reclining on her side upon a soft couch conjured from the cloud-mass. A nameless, intoxicating fragrance, like the beat of a butterfly’s wings, settled onto the tip of her nose.
Yun Xiu ambled over, still working out how to broach the subject, when a gust washed across her face and the mist parted.
The veiled hat dropped to the ground with a “clack.”
Clear eyes narrowed. A jade-white fingertip hooked her chin, and by the time Yun Xiu came to her senses she’d already toppled into the cloud-mass, no telling how deep, her little face tilted up, both playfully and slowly, by the woman.
So beautiful.
With no mist to obscure her, the woman’s features were reflected in full in Yun Xiu’s eyes. A pair of peach-blossom eyes, alluring and coy, smiling yet not, and as her gaze roamed, the sea of stars filling the sky behind her didn’t compare to a ten-thousandth of her.
Having lifted her chin, the woman did not let go. Instead she brought two fingers together and let their cool tips drift along Yun Xiu’s jaw, coming to rest at her throat, and spoke idly.
“What do you seek this seat for?”
The voice was like a feather landing at her ear, sending a tingling shiver through her. This close to a stranger, Yun Xiu’s brain instantly crashed, and the resignation script she’d rehearsed the whole way was wiped clean.
She mechanically pulled the sect-withdrawal application from her sleeve, pointed at the Lingyun Sect admissions brochure on her glazed mirror, and stammered, “C-could I possibly…”
Sect Master Sister’s lovely peach-blossom eyes studied her, the emotion beneath them unreadable. After a while, as if struck by a realization, she spoke in a low voice. “Disguise yourself as a Sword Sect disciple to infiltrate the Lingyun Sect? A fine method, indeed.”
Her cool fingers traced from Yun Xiu’s jaw up to the space between her brows, lingered there, then gave her forehead a hard poke. “I never imagined that beneath that dull, foolish look you’d harbor such a scheme, willing even to withdraw from the sect to prove your resolve. Your heart is truly to be commended.”
Yun Xiu: ? Hold on—
“This seat permits it.”
Sect Master Sister released her and reclined lazily back on her side, propping her chin. “This seat is rather moved by your burn-the-boats resolve, so I don’t mind lending you a hand. For this journey I bestow upon you the sect’s supreme treasure, the Love-Thread Snare. Mind you keep it safe.”
“However…” She gave a soft laugh, eyes darkening as they fixed on the tail behind Yun Xiu, her voice turning sinister. “I’ve already laid a forbidden technique upon your life-gate. If within three months you cannot obtain the yang essence of ten Sword Sect disciples, this seat will toss you to the snakes, and cut off your tail to steep in wine.”
Yun Xiu: …!!
Yun Xiu’s pupils quaked. She stammered, straining to get the words out. “B-but I don’t—”
“The hour grows late, this seat is weary today.” Sect Master Sister gave a languid yawn.
“Oh, and, I forgot to mention. Those sword-obsessed blockheads of the Sword Sect hate the witches of the Hehuan Sect more than anything in this life. If they discover your identity, you’ll probably…”
Sect Master Sister left the words hanging, leaning close to Yun Xiu’s ear as her pupils slowly cracked wide. She hooked a slender finger over the fluffy tip of the fox tail, and in a blink the tail behind Yun Xiu vanished.
Her tone was slow and teasing. “So, mind you keep that fox tail well hidden.”
With that, not even waiting for Yun Xiu to finish speaking, she tossed her out of the cloud-mass and casually flung a box down after her.
Then the mist dissolved, and in a single breath she vanished from the Star-Plucking Platform.
Leaving behind only weak, pitiful little Yun Xiu: “…”
Follow the plot: seduce one male lead, get tossed to the snakes by the Long-Aotian (stock name for an overpowered, arrogant hero) male lead.
Don’t follow the plot: seduce ten Sword Sect disciples, and if you fail, get tossed to the snakes by the Hehuan Sect Master.
…Hold on, aren’t the ways to die in the cultivation world a little impoverished?
Just because she was a cannon-fodder side character, it’s this careless?
Yun Xiu fell silent.
She tilted her head back and gazed at the pitch-black night sky.
A long, long silence.
“Woof?”
A dog paw landed on her shoulder. Feixiao, having gone and come back, found the girl sitting on the stone tiles, cool moonlight on her, veiled hat on, her silhouette exceptionally heavy.
Feixiao: “What’s wrong with you? All of a sudden you look like you’ve got a terminal illness.”
Yun Xiu propped her chin and looked into the distance. “Husky-bro, do you think I’ve got charm?”
Feixiao took a step back. “…I’m not into human-wolf romance.”
Yun Xiu: “Actually, I’m a fox spirit.”
Feixiao was shocked. “What, you mean you’re NOT a rat spirit?!”
Feixiao, skeptical: “You sure it’s not a misdiagnosis? No way. You’ve hugged every dark corner the whole trip. Even my rat-spirit coworker in the next office over doesn’t look as much like a rat spirit as you do.”
Yun Xiu: “…”
Yun Xiu: “Husky-bro, in three months’ time, do you reckon my odds of finding one young male cultivator to date are good?”
Feixiao glanced at her, hesitating. “Hard to say. But there’s a chance, different strokes for different folks, after all. The cultivation world’s got so many people, maybe someone out there is into your type.”
Yun Xiu: “And ten of them in three months?”
Feixiao was silent for a full two minutes.
Then it stuck out a paw, dug two yellow spirit stones from its own pocket, and pressed them gravely into Yun Xiu’s hand.
“Go see a pricier doctor this time.”
Yun Xiu: “…………”
Yun Xiu gazed silently at the sky.
She’d made her peace with it.
Ha ha… this crappy world, asking a crippling-social-phobia sufferer plus a pure-hearted girl who’d been single since the womb for twenty-some years to scheme up ways to bed ten male cultivators in three months, you might as well just run her through with a sword and be done with it.
So she had three months left to live. openbye.
Yun Xiu turned her head. “Husky-bro, I want to go somewhere with pretty scenery, quiet, ideally far from anyone. Any recommendations?”
She was never going to hit these metrics anyway, so rather than go put up a dying struggle at the Sword Sect, she’d spend her last three months lying flat and go traveling.
Feixiao: “!!”
In all its years working, it had ferried plenty of passengers bent on ending it all, and the first things they’d say were pretty much exactly like hers. It had studied the script inside out.
Pretty scenery = pick a nice spot to die.
Quiet = no one to disturb your self-offing.
Far from anyone = you’ll be dead and no one will even find you.
Sigh, she just can’t find a partner, that’s all. Why are demon-spirits’ hearts so fragile these days? It’d been a single wolf all these years and it was still living just fine.
But when it came to handling situations like this, it was seasoned and highly practiced!
First, times like these were exactly when you couldn’t let her be alone, that only made things spiral. You had to take her somewhere lively and crowded, move her with joy and warmth, help her blend in and open her heart.
—Behold, Master Fei’s First Move of Psychological Counseling.
Feixiao nodded eagerly. “Th-there is! There is!”
“I travel between the human and demon realms, I’ve been all over. There’s one place with especially gorgeous scenery and hardly anyone around, I’ll take you there right now!”
Yun Xiu nodded listlessly. “I’ll trouble you, then.”
Terrified she’d do something to herself on the way, Feixiao ran flat-out the whole trip. Once out of the Liuhe Wildlands and onto flat ground, it hauled out its own personal little cart, sat Yun Xiu inside, and reached the human world in a single night.
By morning, the horizon was tinged pale gold, its light filtering through the rosy clouds onto the glazed tiles of a city’s outer wall, dazzling and beautiful.
Having arrived, Feixiao no longer needed to keep it a secret and smugly wagged its tail.
“I’ve been to this mortal city before. It’s a small one, but especially bustling. It’s spring now, and today there’s even a Baihua Banquet, the place is packed with people, lively beyond belief. And everyone’s super warm, they’ll come right up, crown you with a flower garland, chat you up like family, and stuff you full of all kinds of food.”
Yun Xiu: ???
She grabbed the cart door. “I want to get out!”
Nooo, how is a setting like this any different from just running her through?!
“Too late. I already welded the door shut.”
For some reason no one was guarding the city gate today. Feixiao took matters into its own paws and shoved the gate open. “Lil fox spirit, today you just wait to receive the warm embrace of the mortal fam—”
Its words cut off dead.
The main street was empty, silent beyond belief.
Sunlight fell cold on the glazed-tile street.
A gust of wind swept up, sending riotous flower petals whirling into the air, spinning a few circles, then drifting down to settle over the corpses strewn in disarray across the ground.
Before the girl and wolf could react, faint footsteps came from behind them, and the next moment two razor-sharp, ice-cold blades were pressed to their necks, a stinging bite of pain.
“Nobody move.”
Faced with this scene, Yun Xiu was silent for two seconds.
“…That was pretty impactful, all right.”
Feixiao: “…”