He agreed to travel alongside his master and boarded the cloud-skiff together with Wen Zhihan.
The Cloudmist Peak and the land receded beneath their feet. Once the cloud-skiff surged into the high altitudes, Shen Zong watched Wen Zhihan’s silhouette standing before the steering helm beneath an endless expanse of sunlight.
“The journey is long, Shen Zong. Head into the cabin and get some sleep first; we will arrive once you wake.”
As though sensing his gaze, Wen Zhihan did not turn back as he spoke casually, “There is incense inside the cabin to aid sleep and soothe the mind, along with various other items that you are free to use as you wish.”
Seeing that Shen Zong still had not moved, Wen Zhihan turned around with a warm smile on his face, leading Shen Zong to open the cabin door together.
Only then did the disciple obediently follow him inside.
Wen Zhihan chuckled softly before suddenly saying, “When you first arrived at Cloudmist Peak, you were just as clingy.”
Shen Zong’s footsteps paused. Standing behind him, he furrowed his brows, failing to understand how this person could twist white into black so brazenly, turning his wariness into being clingy.
There was a chilly wind above the cloud layer, yet the cabin was heated by a stove, causing one to unconsciously relax.
Inside the vessel sat beds, each resting close to a windproof window and separated in the middle by a translucent folding screen.
Wen Zhihan seated himself on the bed on one side, gazing absentmindedly at the trails of clouds outside the window.
The sleep-inducing incense burned quietly, inducing a spell of dizziness. Though it was prepared specifically for his disciple, he found himself succumbing to exhaustion and drowsiness first.
Perhaps because his divine soul had yet to fully recover and his mind had remained tense for far too long, Wen Zhihan yawned a few times before drifting into a heavy, deep sleep.
A moment later, the sound of rustling arose, and the silhouette of a youth slowly approached his bedside.
“Master?”
Only the sound of steady breathing answered him.
The stove radiated heat. A gold-trimmed white outer robe, paired with a blue-and-gold belt, hung casually to the side. Wen Zhihan lay fast asleep on the bed, completely unshielded.
Shen Zong leaned forward close toward him, propping one hand beside the pillow as he stared at Wen Zhihan’s sleeping face at close range.
He was truly asleep.
The corners of his lips curled upward. A frigid killing intent replaced his obedient smile. Staring down at him from above, Shen Zong raised his right hand and summoned the healing ointment from the pocket of the outer robe into his palm using spiritual energy.
If he mixed poison into this, he could watch Wen Zhihan ingest poison day after day of his own accord.
What a pity; departing in a rush, he only had a single type of poison on him.
He retrieved the hidden poison from his person, a tiny heap wrapped in paper, lighter than dust.
The powder was carefully poured from the bottle’s mouth, blending into the healing ointment without leaving a single trace.
A heavy sigh suddenly rang out, and the person on the bed who ought to have been fast asleep rolled over.
“Ayuan.”
Shen Zong hastily reached toward the short sword at his waist.
Wen Zhihan drifted awake from his dreams, his dry eyes blinking slowly as he failed to register Shen Zong’s movement.
Relying merely on spiritual aura to confirm the person standing by his bedside, he relaxed his body entirely, even letting out a leisurely yawn with his vital points thrown wide open and utterly defenseless.
Such a lax demeanor appeared somewhat glaring in Shen Zong’s eyes.
How could Wen Zhihan manage to remain so completely unguarded around him?
Could it be that he simply held no regard for him whatsoever?
“Ayuan.”
Wen Zhihan sat up, supporting his forehead to regain clarity. “Did I have a dream?”
He seemed to have dreamed of something grave, yet for reasons unknown, the moment he opened his eyes upon waking, seven or eight parts of it had already faded, leaving behind only the recollection that Shen Zong was in it.
“Yes.”
Shen Zong nodded with a faint smile,
“Just now, Master seemed to have had a nightmare as well. This disciple felt somewhat concerned and came over to check. Since everything is fine, this disciple will go take his afternoon nap now.”
Suddenly feeling a sense of listlessness, he turned on his heel to leave.
He had nearly been caught red-handed while attempting poisoning, and had initially been gripped by extreme tension.
Yet when Wen Zhihan truly remained completely unaware, Shen Zong instead felt a touch of regret. His sword had not left its scabbard for a long time, and this farce of pretentious reverence toward one’s master was growing tiresome.
“Wait.”
Shen Zong’s footsteps halted. He turned his face slightly with wariness, glancing backward from the corner of his eye.
Had he been discovered?
“The stove is lit in this room, but it is still not warm enough. I will go fetch you a thin blanket.”
Sitting on the bed with his back turned, Shen Zong scoffed silently through his nose.
Yesterday, he was made to sleep in the woodshed without even a bed, yet today he required a stove and a thin blanket even for an afternoon nap. Had he not been reborn once, he would likely have been overwhelmed by the sudden favor and tricked all over again.
To maintain the ruse, he feigned obedience as he lay down to sleep.
To his surprise, Wen Zhihan was not satisfied merely with covering him with a thin blanket. Instead, he seated himself right beside him and refused to leave, stubbornly watching him fall asleep.
With his eyes tightly shut, Shen Zong felt somewhat undecided internally.
Perhaps Wen Zhihan possessed far deeper calculations than he imagined and had long since discovered the tampering, merely playing the fool?
A moment ago he had attempted to use immortal arts to verify if he was lying, and now he sought to test whether he could truly fall asleep in peace.
Playing along with the scheme, he simply closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing, and mimicked the appearance of someone overwhelmed by exhaustion drifting slowly into slumber.
“Sleep.”
Unaware of the thoughts running through his mind, Wen Zhihan softened his tone as well. Lowering his gaze to his disciple’s sleeping visage, he smiled and said, “We will arrive by the time you wake.”
Shen Zong remained silent, maintaining his gentle, measured breathing.
His body and mind remained tense, whereas Wen Zhihan felt only relaxation and ease, sitting quietly beside him to gaze at the scenery outside the window.
“It is snowing.”
Wen Zhihan’s voice was low, failing to chase away drowsiness and instead blending into the subtle sounds of burning candles and wind sweeping across the window lattice, rendering the atmosphere even sleepier.
Seeming aware of the effect of his gentle murmuring, he continued talking to himself line by line beside Shen Zong’s ear, just as he used to tell bedtime stories to a young From-Yuan under ten years old years ago, showing no signs of weariness.
“When I first met you all those years ago, it was also during a very heavy, very long snowfall.
“Viewing snow from the sky is completely different from the sensation of walking through snow-filled skies.”
Shen Zong listened with mounting irritation.
His hands clenched tightly beneath the blanket, his fingernails digging deep into his palms as he forced himself to endure.
Stop talking!
Yet Wen Zhihan remained completely oblivious, deaf to the cries within his disciple’s heart as he sank into his own memories.
He gradually recalled that his dream just moments prior had indeed been about that very year.
When they first encountered each other back then, he had singled this child out from the crowd with a single glance.
At that time, there was snow filling the skies and countless casualties. In the face of natural disasters, even immortal cultivators found themselves powerless. Spreading his divine sense, he searched among countless corpses for survivors, and then he spotted Ayuan curled up into a tight ball.
An eight-year-old child whose frame was so lean and small he resembled a mere five-year-old, his fragile body incapable of resisting the wind, snow, and starvation, had already grown drowsy, yet still yielded the warmth of the firewood and the very last morsel of food in his embrace to a stray kitten.
Wen Zhihan hurriedly channeled true qi to sustain the child’s life. When the boy gained enough strength to speak and was asked out of curiosity, he heard the child say:
“I only remember my surname is Shen, style name From-Yuan.”
“A cat?”
The child seemed dazed, as if forgetting the matter entirely, before finally speaking after a long pause. “It is rather cute. Cuter than me, and much easier to survive than me.”
Accidentally locking eyes with him, he became captivated by the brilliance residing in the depths of those eyes.
Stepping into a desperate abyss yet refusing to yield to fate, hanging on the brink of death yet remaining willing to grant survival to another.
It was a gaze fit for an immortal cultivator.
Now, gazing absentmindedly at Shen Zong once more, Wen Zhihan slowly blossomed a smile tinged with faint bitterness before hovering his fingertips over Shen Zong’s forehead, silently tracing a sleep-inducing spell seal.
His body was wound up this tight.
How could he possibly fail to distinguish between true sleep and feigned slumber?
He truly had grown even more taciturn than before, unable to even act spoiled and ask for help when he could not fall asleep.
As the spell seal took effect, watching the youth’s body gradually relax and drift into genuine slumber, Wen Zhihan finally relaxed his own brow as well.
“Ayuan, do you remember? When you were little, you were never good at acting spoiled or sweet, always afraid you were not sensible enough, and would only find excuses to cling to me during the occasional thunderous night.”
As Wen Zhihan spoke, the smile in his eyes deepened.
“You would obediently tug at my sleeve and beg me to retell the story of how I spotted you at a single glance amidst the boundless snow, sometimes even demanding details, how big the kitten was, what its fur pattern looked like, how far I had walked before I saw you, what the eaves looked like back then.”
These were details known only to Wen Zhihan and Shen Zong, things only a master coaxing his child to sleep and a disciple endlessly reliving the luckiest moment of his life would care about.
Marked by the spell seal and already plunged into deep slumber, Shen Zong naturally could not hear these words from his master, sleeping with extreme restlessness while his brow remained furrowed.
Wen Zhihan sighed, placing his palm over his disciple’s dantian to slowly channel spiritual energy, healing the internal injuries in his meridians and viscera little by little.
Only when Shen Zong stopped frowning and his pulse stabilized considerably, while beads of thin sweat dotted Wen Zhihan’s own brow, did he slowly halt, taking a pill himself to restore vitality and accelerate the healing of external wounds.
Before long, the cloud-skiff reached its destination.
Wen Zhihan stepped out of the cabin. Layered clouds faded away before his eyes in succession, revealing snow-capped mountains below that reflected the heavenly light, stretching across thousands of miles amidst deep mists. A single peak soared straight into the clouds, rugged and precipitous, its summit covered in perpetual, unmelting snow, while a pool of warm springs steamed with thin mist unceasingly in this frigid domain.
Reluctant to wake Shen Zong, he dropped a protective barrier around the cloud-skiff, exchanged a few words with the attendant monk, offered the spiritual stones and gifts required to borrow the spiritual pool, and headed toward the warm springs alone first.
Shen Zong experienced a nightmare.
In the dream, his master wore a severe expression, radiating the terrifying divine pressure of a Soul Formation stage mighty cultivator as he reprimanded him inside the room.
And he knelt beside the bed, beside his legs lay the bloodstained outer garment he had secretly hidden, upon which Wen Zhihan’s blood had yet to dry, further defiled by other stains.
Wen Zhihan’s upper body was bare, protected only by bandages. His master sat upright and dignified, looking down at him from above with a gaze of absolute contempt.
His own gaze fell upon the mutton-fat white skin and the mottled bruises of purple and blue.
That was Wen Zhihan, but not the one he wished to kill.
Rather, it was his master.
Void of the hypocrisy, gloominess, and jealousy he was familiar with, it instead carried an unprovoked, chilling severity characteristic of an elder, a pure, unadorned wrath.
If his true master were still alive and saw what he had become now, he would likely look exactly like this.
“You are not my Ayuan. Where have you hidden him?”
“Master, I am right here.”
“No,”
Wen Zhihan stared at him, his brow furrowed tightly while his gaze brimmed with scrutiny. “Ayuan is obedient. He does not practice demonic arts, nor does he steal and hide his master’s clothes.”
He was kicked to the ground. His master looked down upon him from above as if gazing at a filthy ant.
Such fierce rebuke and such a tone felt far more real than any sweet, tender dream.
Sticken with terror in his heart, yet when that slender leg lashed out, he neither dodged nor evaded. Even pain could cause him to thrill with frantic excitement and rejoice, while simultaneously feeling utterly unworthy. Self-blamingly, he scrambled back up, knelt properly once more, and crept forward on his knees toward the pair of feet in his field of vision, instinctively gauging their size while pondering what scale of shackles could lock them away securely.
Yet when he lifted his head, he saw the master he yearned for and desperately desired gazing straight into his eyes, seeing right through all his filthy inner thoughts as he said:
“Shen Zong, you are far too disappointing.”