A moment earlier, Miguel had still been probing the Azure Empyrean Sword Casket, and the aura of his true station had not yet fully drawn back into him.
Ju Fufu and the others had just stepped through the door, ready to ask him what the plan was from here, and they looked up on instinct.
It was only one glance.
Just one, meeting Miguel’s eyes.
Ju Fufu’s forward step froze mid-motion, and behind her, Pan Yinhu and Ye Shiyuan jerked to a halt as well.
In the vision of all three, the courtyard walls, the bare trees, even the air itself were stripped away clean in that single instant.
In their place hung two blazing crimson stars, vast and suffocating, bearing down straight overhead.
There was no heat, no scorching.
Only a dread pressure, as though heaven and earth had sealed them off from the world and left them entirely alone.
Ju Fufu forgot to breathe.
The two furry ears atop her head flattened hard against her scalp, and the big tail she usually carried high had puffed out to twice its size.
That “fierce tiger” instinct she was so proud of couldn’t even summon the thought of resistance before power this absolute.
All that remained was the primal shiver of a creature standing before a god.
Pan Yinhu stood rooted in place, his legs shaking so badly he nearly lost his footing and went down.
He felt as if that gaze had turned his soul upside down and read every inch of it, leaving him not one secret to call his own.
Ye Shiyuan was rigid from head to toe.
Instinct screamed at him to draw the long sword at his waist and shield his sister behind him, but he didn’t have the strength to twitch a finger.
His bones creaked under the weight, and all he could do was watch that crimson sea of fire swallow him whole.
Then, in the instant their minds were about to sink into it for good— Clap.
A crisp handclap cracked beside their ears.
The crimson sea shattered at once, breaking into a sky full of light motes that scattered into nothing.
The courtyard of the Tranquil Heart Pavilion returned to view, and the rustle of breeze through the bamboo reached their ears once more.
“Waaah!” Ju Fufu let out a yell and nearly jumped straight off the ground.
She clutched her head with both hands, the fur on her tail bristling high, gulping air in great heaving breaths, her chest rising and falling.
She shook her head groggily and turned to the junior brother beside her, a sob still clinging to her voice.
“Junior Brother Yinhu, was I seeing things just now?
I could’ve sworn there were two suns hanging in our room!” Pan Yinhu was slumped against the courtyard wall, wiping the cold sweat off his forehead with one pudgy paw, still panting from the scare.
“Senior Sister, don’t ask me.
I nearly lost my soul back there.
Who had time to look at suns?
I thought my life was ending.” Ye Shiyuan’s reaction was the strongest of all.
He’d wrenched half his sword free, the blade ringing clear as it scraped the scabbard, then caught himself — this was the Tranquil Heart Pavilion — forced down the pounding in his chest and slid the steel back home.
His back was already soaked through, the plain robe clinging to his spine.
For that one moment, he’d been certain he was standing face-to-face with something unspeakably terrible.
A power countless times more fearsome than any opponent he had ever faced.
“What are you all talking about?” Ye Shunguang, kept behind her brother’s back this whole time, poked half her head out.
The girl blinked her red eyes and looked at the three badly shaken seniors in front of her, thoroughly puzzled.
“There weren’t any suns.
I just felt a very warm light wash over me, and all that heaviness weighing on me got a lot lighter.
It was comforting, actually.” Ye Shunguang even stretched, and a little more color crept into her pale cheeks without her noticing.
Ju Fufu and Pan Yinhu traded a look, completely lost as to what their little junior sister meant.
Ye Shiyuan’s head snapped toward Miguel, standing inside the room, and the shock in him went beyond words.
He knew perfectly well that pressure had been no trick of the mind.
And Little Guang’s strange reaction had to be tied to this man as well.
Inside the room.
Yixuan sat on the edge of the bed, the water basin still in her hands.
She looked at her four disciples clogging the doorway and blinked, at a loss.
“What are the four of you standing in the doorway staring for?” Yixuan set the basin on the nightstand, stood up, and waved them in.
“Get in here, you scatterbrains.
I sent you to bring someone, you brought him, so why is every last one of you parked at the door?” Their master’s voice finally shook them out of it.
Ju Fufu scratched the back of her head and muttered under her breath, hunting for an excuse.
“Ran too fast on the way, that’s all.
Brain went short on air.
I hallucinated.
Yeah, that’s it.
Aftereffects of missing out on char siu buns this morning, kicking in early.” Pan Yinhu nodded along vigorously.
What else was he supposed to say?
Whatever Senior Sister said, went.
Ye Shiyuan said nothing, only nodded in silence and fell in behind them.
The three filed into the room one after another, dragging a cold draft in with them.
Yixuan settled back at the bedside and reached out to tuck the quilt in around her sister, her hands gentle.
Miguel stood off to one side, his aura fully reined in now, back to being the easygoing big brother from down the street, as if that terrifying pressure had never existed at all.
He watched them come in and raised a hand in greeting with a smile.
“Fufu, running that fast — looks like that bit of exercise earlier didn’t tax you one bit.
Next time your master hands out a punishment, I’ll suggest she switch to weighted mountain runs.” Ju Fufu went red and scurried behind Pan Yinhu.
She hadn’t forgotten her master’s threat to dock half her meat ration.
Pile mountain runs on top of that and this “fierce tiger” really would end up a useless housecat.
Miguel let her hiding slide and turned to the two male disciples.
“Brother Shiyuan.
Brother Yinhu.
Thanks for making the trip.” Pan Yinhu waved it off with a sheepish grin, insisting over and over that it was nothing.
Ye Shiyuan cupped his fists and bowed in solemn salute.
As for Ye Shunguang, she had already greeted Miguel ahead of the rest.
A single glance earlier had been enough for Miguel to see straight through the connection forged between that weapon and the girl.
It was an instinctive taking.
Slowly, and with no way back, it was siphoning off the girl’s senses and her memories.
The link had sunk all the way into her marrow, tangled up with her very life force.
No ordinary method could cut it away by force.
Anyone who tried would only get the Sword Master killed.
Ye Shiyuan had looked up in the first place because he’d noticed Miguel’s gaze lingering on the sword casket.
Who could have guessed the price of that would be a taste of a god’s scrutiny.
Even so, he loved his sister too much to hold the hope down, and he spoke first, putting the question to Miguel himself.
“Mr.
Miguel.” “My sister’s condition… is there a way to solve it?” The exact same question.
With the exact same tension and worry threaded through the voice.
Inside a single quarter hour, Miguel had felt it from two different people.
That gnawing, bottled-up dread was the real “commission” he had come here to resolve.
Miguel wore his usual mild smile and told Ye Shiyuan with a look that there was no need to worry.
“Everyone, ease up.
Since I’ve come here,” “then I’ll be leaving you with a solution.
Guaranteed.” Hearing that, Yixuan and her disciples all let out a breath they hadn’t known they were holding.
Perhaps because the matter of the Azure Empyrean Sword had hung over all of them for so very long.
Long enough that they had all come to accept it as trouble no one could ever tear out at the root.
And now, at last, a first glimmer of dawn.
That feeling of a weight lifting from the chest — perhaps only Yixuan and Ye Shiyuan could truly understand it.
Neither of them had ever wanted the title of Azure Empyrean Sword Master to become the label stamped on the life of her disciple, his sister.
But wishes ran one way and the world ran another, and fate was never theirs to decide.
The day the contract took hold, everything was already settled.
Ye Shunguang patted her brother’s rigid shoulder, the touch light yet steadying.
The girl slipped past the shield of Ye Shiyuan’s body, took two steps forward, and faced Miguel directly.
The heavy sword casket on her back came forward with her, and even so, her spine had never once buckled beneath it.
She stood ramrod straight instead, like a young poplar bursting with life.
There wasn’t a shred of misery in those red eyes.
What was there instead was a faint smile, and a startling clarity.
“Hello, Mr.
Miguel.” “Please allow me to introduce myself to you again, properly.” Ye Shunguang folded her hands one over the other and performed a flawlessly formal Daoist greeting.
When she straightened, she met Miguel’s gaze without a hint of evasion.
“I am Ye Shunguang.” “Master Yixuan’s youngest disciple.” She looked straight ahead, her voice crisp and unashamed, every word landing solidly in the quiet room.
“And also this generation’s Sword Master of the Azure Empyrean Sword.” The girl’s calm left everyone present without a word to say.
Ye Shiyuan turned his face aside, eyes reddening in an instant as he choked the ache back down.
Yixuan closed her eyes and let out the faintest sigh, heavy with grief.
Miguel looked at this girl who had accepted her fate so evenly, and raised an eyebrow.
The little one was a good deal more clear-eyed about it than her brother.
To keep a heart that pure on a road destined to end in ruin, not crushed by fear, and turning around to comfort the people beside her instead — that was rare indeed.
“No need to be so formal.
Just call me Big Bro Miguel.” Miguel smiled and stepped forward, stopping half a meter from the girl.
“Now that everyone’s here, let’s get down to real business.” ____ 👻🔥Here: Walnut-chan (P4treon)🔥👻 🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: