The gold ribbon tied in a cross came undone.
The lid of the pure white, unblemished box was lifted away.
Inside the box, cushioned on a magenta silk lining, lay a thing shaped to the eye like a pea seed but in truth a deep violet fiend core, condensed from the Sword Soul a Sword Fiend leaves behind at death.
Under the light the fiend core showed an unnaturally full curve and gave off a faint, beguiling violet glow.
A fiend core of this grade, near the size of a child's fist by look alone, was plainly nothing common.
"Well? Mr. Ke Jie. The fiend core of a Lesser Demon Tier Sword Fiend. Does this thank-you gift meet with your approval?"
Bai Wuxie held her cerulean eyes wide and waited patiently for Ke Jie's judgement and answer.
"......"
Ke Jie did not reply.
He only stared and stared at the fiend core in the box.
Not because he was displeased, or unwilling to answer.
But because the many things this thank-you gift implied were altogether too heavy and too tangled.
Setting aside the point that Bai Wuxie was hinting she knew about the Sword Maiden identity he had hidden.
First, how had Bai Wuxie come by a Sword Fiend's fiend core of a grade higher than the Quasi-Demon Tier Blade Demon's demon crystal he carried? And what had she paid for it?
Second, holding a fiend core of the Lesser Demon Tier, which stood level with the top of the Sheath Tier, on top of the Quasi-Demon Tier demon crystal he already had: not only did that hold out hope of restoring the injured Sword Soul Darknight once purified and absorbed, it could push the Twin Sword Souls and the Blade Spirit together to the very peak of the Embryo Tier.
Cross the Embryo Tier's opening Body-Forging Realm, get through a short stretch of the Soul-Fusing Realm, and he could reach the Sublimation Realm, a single step short of the Sheath Tier — the threshold realm where no small number of Embryo Tier Blade Wielders and Sword Maidens stalled for good.
There was no question that this thank-you gift was as precious as fuel delivered in a snowstorm.
But to accept it just like that, without a moment's hesitation, was that really all right......
After a long moment.
"Click."
He closed the box gently.
Ke Jie pushed it back to Bai Wuxie.
"If you're not willing to tell me what preparing this gift cost you, then forgive me, I must decline."
On public grounds and private both, he had given her his answer.
"W-why? Sir, I......"
Bai Wuxie, who had never expected to be refused, panicked on the spot, and looked at Ke Jie helplessly out of those wide, liquid cerulean eyes, the innocence in them undisguised.
For reasons he could not name.
Seeing the girl in front of him like that, Ke Jie's heart gave a quiet, wringing ache, and he opened his mouth to explain:
"I won't simply keep taking from a friend, Xiao Bai. You covered up my identity for me and lied to your own master: that alone has repaid me for saving your life. Besides, I only need a Quasi-Demon Tier core to recover. Spending this gift on that would be too much of a waste."
He had gone soft after all, when he had meant to be hard and make the girl give it up, and so keep her from being dragged into his revenge.
But it was hard to keep his heart from being unwilling to let go.
"So that's how it is, Mr. Ke Jie. And here I thought you'd come to dislike me......" Bai Wuxie's voice shook, and she barely held back a look of grief that might have broken loose at any moment.
Perhaps Mr. Ke Jie was embarrassed?
No, it was more likely because of... his father.
She thought about it seriously for a moment and came back to calm by degrees.
"If that is what you say, sir, then I'll make two requests in exchange. Please accept this gift." Bai Wuxie straightened her face and pushed the box across once more.
"What requests?"
Ke Jie listened attentively.
"The first. Whatever it is you mean to do, if you need my strength, don't ever forget me."
A tenderness and a pity she could not quite hide showed in Bai Wuxie's eyes, and the hint she was giving was unmistakable.
"All right."
Ke Jie hesitated an instant, and nodded.
"The second. Once your Sword Soul's injury has healed, I'd like to go shopping properly with the other you."
Two faint patches of bashful pink crept up her fair cheeks as she said it.
Bai Wuxie's eyes slid away and she turned her face aside, as though afraid of being misunderstood.
She did not dare come out and boldly propose something that resembled a date, so she went the long way around and made it shopping with Li Yue, a Sword Maiden and therefore another woman.
Two girls together: a request like that was perfectly normal, wasn't it?
A moment of silence.
"......All right."
The corner of Ke Jie's mouth twitched, and he agreed helplessly.
At which.
He reached out and took the box from the table, as a practical sign of accepting the gift.
"Wonderful...... Mr. Ke Jie, thank you for agreeing to my selfish requests. I really didn't misjudge you!"
Bai Wuxie's eyes lit up, and she laughed openly and freely.
Her right hand brought out the phone from her waist bag and scanned the table's order code, ready to pick out the dishes the two of them would share shortly.
While she ordered, she did not neglect to ask Ke Jie's opinion.
In the course of it.
The two of them found again that in this area of food their preferences ran broadly the same way.
The fine differences might be that one of them liked a good deal of black pepper sauce on his steak and the other rather less, and other such particulars of how a thing was eaten.
Soon enough.
With the two of them working together in easy accord.
The ordering was done, and after a short wait the dishes came to the table one by one. All that remained was to enjoy this hard-won "world for two".
"Mr. Ke Jie, try some of mine~"
"Xiao Bai! Don't. My plate won't hold it......"
"It's fine! If you can eat it, you can have it!"
For a while there.
A certain enthusiastic Sword Maiden brought a certain son of the Blade King a pressure far exceeding anything the Blade Demon or Cheng Fang had managed.
At the dinner table, that is.
"Haha! You really do look like a cute little hamster, sir!"
"Oh? Ish thish a shallenge, Xiao Bai?"
"No, no, no! Sir, stop putting food on my plate!"
Laughter and talk filled the room, the sense of a boundary between them dissolving for the moment, and even the passage of time seemed to blur along with it.
By the time they came back to themselves, it was already getting on for two in the afternoon.
"Ah! This is bad, I forgot Master told me to bring you to the Dongdu Judgment Hall headquarters to see her. Never mind, she didn't give a specific time anyway, only said sometime today."
Bai Wuxie looked ashen one moment and then spread her hands in a wry, given-up smile the next, and watching her Ke Jie had to fight down the corners of his mouth.
"We had better set out as soon as we can, Xiao Bai. Didn't you only just receive your reward from your master? Don't make her regret it." Ke Jie settled the bill himself, gathered up his things and suggested it flatly.
"Mr. Ke Jie, how did you know my fiend core came from Master?" Bai Wuxie failed to catch up for a moment and asked it blankly.
"I guessed. Be more careful next time and don't just believe whatever people tell you, Xiao Bai." Ke Jie showed a wicked little grin, like a prank that had come off perfectly.
In an instant.
Bai Wuxie caught up, and overheated on the spot.
"Th-that's different! Mr. Ke Jie isn't the same as other people to me!"
The girl's blush had already outdone everything else.
"Is that so......"
Hearing that.
Ke Jie raised a hand and covered his mouth, overwhelmed by the favour, and a few threads of peach-pink showed faintly at the base of his ears.
No, this could not go on.
He was very nearly unable to hold his own mouth down.
And so.
Ke Jie forced himself calm.
And in the space of a second changed the subject on both of them:
"So what does your master want with me, Xiao Bai? We ought to prepare ourselves mentally in advance."
He finished.
Bai Wuxie, who had been about to press her advantage, went out like a snuffed flame.
"There's probably nothing much to it? She only said she wanted to commend last night's work, and to let us know the results of her follow-up investigation while she was at it: information on whoever was pushing from behind."
Bai Wuxie thought about it a moment and answered honestly.
That said.
She raised a hand and patted her own chest, and gave Ke Jie her guarantee with a serious face:
"Whatever else, since we're going to the Judgment Hall, please set your mind at ease, sir, with me there. I stake the honour of my position as a Judicator of the Dongdu Judgment Hall, and of the Sword Maiden Longquan, on it."
This was no idle boast, but a promise she would carry out.
"I believe you, Xiao Bai."
Ke Jie nodded gravely.
***
There was still some time before three in the afternoon.
After a brief rest and a few preparations, they picked up their pace on the road.
Ke Jie and Bai Wuxie, both with the purpose of visiting Feng Rui, stepped into the headquarters of the Dongdu Judgment Hall......
***