Chu Mingbei had been perched on the railing without a shred of decorum, staring aggrievedly at the rhythmic pulse of the barrier light over Chu Mingyao’s door.
When a murmur of voices drifted from behind him, he glanced back to see two figures walking side by side, locked in lighthearted conversation.
Chu Mingbei froze.
A flash of sharp disappointment flickered in his eyes before he masked it, vaulting lightly off the railing to meet them.
As he strode forward, he hurriedly smoothed his robes— disheveled after days and nights of his sleepless vigil outside the door.
By the time he reached them, the creases were gone, his appearance restored to a semblance of neatness.
He offered a shy smile, his eyes bright with forced energy, though the spiderweb of bloodshot veins from exhaustion remained.
But that didn’t matter.
Chu Mingbei’s spirits rose at their approach.
“Eldest Senior Brother! Yun’er! You’re here?”
The greeting to his eldest senior brother was perfunctory, but the name ‘Yun’er’ carried a weight of unmistakable affection.
Chu Mingdong offered nothing but a cold grunt.
Xiang Qingyun, however, smiled sweetly. “Yes, Senior Brother Bei. I wanted to visit Eldest Senior Sister, so Eldest Senior Brother accompanied me.”
“See Eldest Senior Sister?” Chu Mingbei’s expression stiffened.
He glanced back at the door, where the barrier light continued its steady, indifferent flow.
When he looked back at Xiang Qingyun, he saw her smile falter, freezing at the corners of her lips as she followed his gaze.
A pang of sympathy tugged at his heart.
Chu Mingdong took a sharp breath, his voice icy, “So, she won’t even see her fellow disciples now? Yun’er has already apologized once, and she came today to offer her regrets again. And this is the response? To shut herself in and refuse to see anyone?”
Chu Mingdong stepped forward, clearly intending to break open the door.
The barrier Mingyao had set was fragile— designed for soundproofing rather than defense. It couldn’t even contain the leakage of her cultivation aura, let alone a physical assault. Panicked, Chu Mingbei lunged to catch Chu Mingdong’s arm.
“Eldest Senior Brother, stop! She’s cultivating! I think— I think……”
He glanced at Xiang Qingyun. She looked equally frantic, her hand outstretched as if to pull Mingdong back herself, though Chu Mingbei had been a second faster.
As their eyes met, a faint blush crept across her cheeks.
She withdrew her hand quickly, offering him a bashful, fleeting smile. Her lips moved, whispering a silent message.
‘Thankfully, Senior Brother Bei, you stopped him. That was so good of you…… I didn’t react in time.’
Chu Mingbei was so captivated by the movement of her lips that he completely forgot he was still holding onto an incensed Chu Mingdong.
It wasn’t until Chu Mingdong violently shook off his grip that Chu Mingbei snapped back to his senses. He heard the heavy thud of Chu Mingdong’s boots stepping forward again.
“Eldest Senior Brother!” Chu Mingbei cried out, unable to catch his arm a second time. “Wait! I— I’m sure Eldest Senior Sister isn’t doing this on purpose. Perhaps she truly had a sudden insight and is on the verge of a breakthrough? She might not be able to come out!”
Chu Mingdong halted, letting out a series of harsh, mocking sneers.
“A breakthrough? If she were truly breaking through, she would have applied for a proper cave dwelling. Why stay here in these quarters? She’s not breaking through— she’s posturing!”
Xiang Qingyun’s voice followed, soft and hesitant.
“Eldest Senior Brother, perhaps we should wait. I think what Senior Brother Bei says makes sense. Regardless of what Eldest Senior Sister is doing in there, or whether she…… truly doesn’t wish to see us…… we shouldn’t disturb her. Next time— next time I will come alone to offer my apologies. If she refuses me once, or even twice, I will simply keep coming back. Surely, eventually, she will find it in her heart to forgive me.”
The more Xiang Qingyun spoke of her own forgiveness, the more Chu Mingdong’s face darkened from fury.
Even Chu Mingbei, who had been so desperate to keep the peace, felt a flicker of dazed confusion.
Was Chu Mingyao truly at a critical point in her cultivation? Or was she simply giving them a cold shoulder? Was this entire silent protest aimed specifically at Xiang Qingyun?
“Enough!” Chu Mingdong roared.
He reached the door in two strides.
Ah Hong, who had been trembling as she tried to block the entrance, was roughly shoved aside. She crumpled to the ground with a cry.
He reached out, his palm hovering inches from the wood, ready to shatter the seclusion.
“Today I—”
The sentence was cut off as the doors suddenly swung inward.
Chu Mingyao stood framed in the threshold, her gaze fixed on Chu Mingdong with a smile that carried no warmth.
The air instantly turned brittle.
“So,” Her voice rang out, light and drifting, “what exactly are you going to do today?”
Originally, Mingyao had intended to ignore the gathering outside. Even Chu Mingbei’s presence— though he looked increasingly pitiful— hadn’t moved her.
To a cultivator, even at the basic Qi Refining stage, a few sleepless nights were a triviality. At Foundation Establishment, one could forgo food entirely. Unless drained by the rigors of combat, exhaustion was easily mended through a few moments of meditation.
With Chu Mingbei’s constitution, a few days of waiting were nothing.
Besides, he had never been the diligent type. A few missed sessions of cultivation wouldn’t hinder progress he wasn’t making anyway.
But the arrival of Chu Mingdong and Xiang Qingyun had shattered the silence. The escalating clamor made peace impossible.
So, she had simply come to see for herself.
She had heard every word.
Chu Mingdong was right about one thing— she should have applied for a cave dwelling before attempting a breakthrough.
In the Sword Sect, such sanctuaries were the exclusive right of those who reached the Soul Transformation stage. Everyone else had to barter precious resources for temporary access.
While other disciples sought cave dwellings for their dense spiritual energy to bolster their chances, Chu Mingyao’s foundation was already ironclad. She could break through anywhere. What she lacked wasn’t energy— it was security.
In the past, she had viewed the Sword Sect as a sanctuary. Now, that trust was dead.
If she hadn’t misheard, Chu Mingdong’s accusation— his claim that she was ‘pretending’ to reach a breakthrough— had been laced with a jagged, poorly concealed jealousy.
It was a bitter revelation. For years, she had used the resources she earned through her own blood and sweat to subsidize him. She had yielded to him at every turn, carefully curating his image so the sect would see him as an eldest senior brother on par with her.
And in return? What she got was not gratitude, but resentment.
The realization was beyond disappointing; it was revolting.
They were both currently at the late Golden Core stage, but the paths they had taken to get there were worlds apart.
After Mingyao had advanced, Chu Mingdong had only reached the same level by retreating into his father’s— the sect master’s— private cave dwelling, gorging on pills to force a breakthrough.
Even then, she had been the one to provide the catalyst. Under the persuasion of Perfected Ziqiong, she had handed over the very pills the sect had specifically allocated to her, just to ensure Chu Mingdong didn’t fall behind.
She had purposefully waited until Chu Mingdong’s realm stabilized before revealing that she, too, had reached the late Golden Core stage.
In the past, she had exhausted herself cooperating with him, the sect master, and Perfected Ziqiong. Together, they had performed a flawless play for the world— the ‘unrivaled twin prodigies’ of the Sword Sect’s younger generation.
But Chu Mingdong knew the truth of that performance better than anyone.
It wasn’t difficult for Chu Mingyao to guess why he reacted so violently to the news of her potential breakthrough.
Her advancement to late Golden Core had been natural, a result of pure talent and discipline. She had even intentionally lingered at the mid-Golden Core stage for a long time just to wait for him, tempering her foundation to an extreme degree in the process.
Chu Mingdong, conversely, had crawled there on a crutch of pills. To avoid permanent damage to his future potential, he would need years of bitter, soul-crushing cultivation to stabilize. Even if he continued to gorge on medicinal catalysts, his next breakthrough would not come easily.
How could he not react strongly?
What Chu Mingyao hadn’t expected, however, was that his response wouldn’t be to work harder to close the gap. Instead, he chose to sabotage her— to drag her progress down to his level by force.
Clearly, he had plenty of time to spare. He simply preferred to spend it playing the protective escort for his little junior sister rather than cultivating.
Chu Mingyao felt a profound, heavy sense of disappointment.
She met Chu Mingdong’s gaze, her eyes infused with the weight of a Nascent Soul-level Divine Sense. As expected, he couldn’t endure the pressure. His heart hammered against his ribs as he instinctively lowered his head, unable to maintain eye contact.
She sighed, stepping to the side to walk past him.
Her room was plain, stripped of anything valuable. She had no fear of him entering once she was gone.
“Thank you for the reminder, Eldest Senior Brother.” She said, her voice cold and distant. “I shall go apply for a cave dwelling immediately.”