Mo Hua heard this, and his heart sank.
He had thought, after all, that he had already gained considerable skill in the Heavenly Secrets Calculation and the way of karma.
But he did not dare be too arrogant.
After all, everything he had learned was unorthodox; his Heavenly Secrets Calculation was still not a coherent system, and there was no standard to reference for the way of karma.
Besides, as Martial Aunt Bai had said, his cultivation was still too shallow. If one did not stand high enough, one could not see far enough. He had no idea what terrifying existences still lurked in this world.
Mo Hua's mood grew heavy. He had already waited far, far too long.
He was not old; he could keep cultivating, keep waiting, keep enduring.
But what about his master? How much longer could his master wait?
If that faint light burned out, even for a single instant, everything would be lost.
He would never see his master again.
Mo Hua's thoughts churned, and pain showed on his face.
Bai Qingcheng watched him and felt inexplicably melancholy, full of emotion.
She knew that in Senior Brother Zhuang's life, he had been proud and withdrawn, looked down upon, deserted by all, and had known the coldness of the world and the fickleness of people.
The grand senior brother had wanted to kill him, to take his Dao bone, to snatch away his life force.
She, as his junior martial sister, had also schemed against him for her own benefit.
Yet unexpectedly, at the very end, Senior Brother Zhuang had taken in a little disciple, and this disciple had turned out so loyal and devoted, treating his master with complete sincerity.
As if it repaid all the coldness and ingratitude he had suffered in his life.
Bai Qingcheng's heart ached, then her gaze hardened.
And precisely because of this, there were some things this child must never touch.
If Mo Hua, the only disciple Senior Brother Zhuang had cared for before his death, also died in the terrible karma of their sect, or in some other struggle for power and influence...
Then beneath the Nine Springs, what face would she have to see Senior Brother Zhuang?
At that thought, she felt even more guilt, and even more determined in her plan.
Proud as she normally was, she softened her tone considerably and said,
“Your master's matters, I have my own plans. You don't need to worry about them.”
“These are not things you need to consider. You are still young and inexperienced. Just cultivate well.”
Mo Hua was silent for a moment, then nodded slightly. “Mm.”
Bai Qingcheng wanted to ask him a few things, but the timing was not right, so she said,
“I don't have much time, so I won't say more. If you run into trouble, come find me. After all, I am your martial aunt; I will keep you safe.”
Mo Hua said gratefully, “Thank you, Martial Aunt.”
Bai Qingcheng nodded a little, then without another word, her figure faded and she vanished.
Only Mo Hua remained where he was. Thinking of his master's life and death, memories surged in like waves, and his feelings were complicated and hard to describe.
Bai Qingcheng of the Feather Transformation realm left Mo Hua's room. Just as her figure reappeared in the corridor, she saw another clear, peerlessly beautiful figure there.
Her shoulders were as if sculpted, her waist as if drawn in by a ribbon, and her bearing was like the moon; equally ethereal, like an immortal.
Bai Qingcheng looked at this figure. It resembled her own youth, yet the features and temperament were so different that it was a completely different kind of beauty. Her thoughts churned with emotion.
This child really had grown up.
Every few years she saw her, she had matured a bit, blossomed a bit. Every time, she grew more fair as ice and jade, more clear and lovely.
Even Bai Qingcheng sometimes found it hard to believe that she had given birth to such a beautiful daughter.
But when she thought of her daughter and Mo Hua, her expression turned a few degrees more serious.
“Come with me,” Bai Qingcheng said lightly.
Bai Zixi gave a soft “Mm.”
Bai Qingcheng walked in front, and Bai Zixi followed behind. Both wore white. One older, one younger, they seemed cut from the same mold. Two peerless beauties.
Bai Qingcheng walked all the way into Bai Zixi's private room. It was elegant and otherworldly.
There was a white jade desk, wutong wood, a plain ice zither, a celadon incense burner, and cloud-patterned white silk embroidered with flowing golden light in the Two Forms pattern. In its restrained delicacy, it radiated a beauty and luxury untouched by mortal dust.
The air in the room was also pure and quiet, clearly a place where Zixi lived alone, never entered by others.
Bai Qingcheng nodded faintly, slightly relaxing. She turned to look at Bai Zixi.
Bai Zixi gave a graceful bow. “Mother.”
Her voice was like jade falling on ice, like autumn water in ripples—clear and cool, with a hint of charm.
Even Bai Qingcheng felt her heartstrings tremble and fondness rise, and she sighed inwardly.
She truly was a creation of heaven and earth.
Then Bai Qingcheng gathered her thoughts. Her face turned a little grave as she asked, “What is going on with Mo Hua?”
Bai Zixi said lightly, “Junior martial brother fell into the hands of the Earth Sect. I brought him back.”
Bai Qingcheng frowned. “Just like that?”
Bai Zixi nodded. “Mm.”
Bai Qingcheng asked, “How did he fall into the Earth Sect's hands?”
Bai Zixi shook her head. “I don't know. He fell from the sky.”
Bai Qingcheng was taken aback. “Mo Hua fell from the sky?”
Bai Zixi said, “Mm.”
Bai Qingcheng gave her a look and paused for a moment.
Truly, a grown daughter cannot be kept. Once her heart stirs, she won't even tell the truth, let alone whatever fanciful nonsense she might say.
Bai Qingcheng did not bother asking more. After a moment of silence, she looked at Bai Zixi and asked, “What do you plan to do?”
Bai Zixi's gaze shifted. “Do about what?”
“Mo Hua,” Bai Qingcheng said.
“Mo Hua...” Bai Zixi said softly. “He is just my junior martial brother.”
Bai Qingcheng asked, “Really?”
“Mm.” Bai Zixi nodded slightly.
Bai Qingcheng said, “Then I'll take him away and settle him somewhere else.”
“Mother...” Bai Zixi said, helpless.
Bai Qingcheng sighed. “Tell me the truth. What is really in your heart?”
“I...” Bai Zixi paused. For the first time, a tangle of longing appeared on her cool face. At last, she murmured, “I don't know.”
It was also the first time Bai Qingcheng saw Zixi, whose heart was usually as calm as still water, show such a mix of feelings and budding longing. Her heart sank.
So it was true.
After all these years apart, she had thought those feelings had already been worn away by the years of cultivation.
But who would have expected fate to play such tricks?
For some unknown reason, the destinies of these two children had become intertwined again.
And the affection that had faded but been suppressed was naturally beginning to stir once more.
But such feelings were forbidden. They could never be permitted. Especially not now.
Zixi had already won the Old Matriarch's favor.
That was a fortune countless people could search for all their lives and never obtain.
Bai Qingcheng took a quiet breath. Looking at Bai Zixi, her voice grew several degrees more serious.
“You are a clever child. Some things I don't need to say, and you must understand them already.”
“Mo Hua... was not born into a great house. He has no idea at all about many matters at higher levels.”
“But Zixi... you are different. You cultivate beside the Old Matriarch. You know what kind of world exists at the very summit of the Nine Provinces.”
“The heights are too cold to bear, the cliffs too steep to climb, and the might of heaven cannot be defied.”
When one is sunk in passion, one does not think of such things. But some things do not cease to exist just because you do not think about them.
“You know your status, you know the Bai family, and you know what the Old Matriarch expects of you.”
“Do you want to disappoint those expectations?”
“Do you truly want, for the sake of your own heart, to drag this little junior martial brother of yours into those great affairs?”
Bai Qingcheng's tone was light, but the words were as cold and heavy as mountains.
Bai Zixi no longer spoke, but her face grew paler and paler, and the light in her expression dimmed visibly.
Bai Qingcheng's heart ached at the sight, but she could only keep her face stern and say in a low voice,
“Mo Hua is the junior martial brother. There are things he does not know, and that is excusable.”
“But you are the senior martial sister. You must have your own measure. Some affections were forbidden from the very beginning.”
Bai Qingcheng paused, silent for a long moment, and finally said slowly, “Do you want to be the death of your junior martial brother?”
Bai Zixi stiffened. “Junior martial brother... will not be in danger.”
Bai Qingcheng said coldly, “And what if he is? The path of cultivation is full of countless dangers. How can you possibly know that nothing will happen to him?”
“Above all, do you know how many people would want him dead once you let your heart move and become entangled with him in karma?”
“Would the Old Matriarch spare him?”
“The upper echelons of the Bai family, the Feather Transformation elders, and those ancestors who have been in seclusion for who knows how many years, some you may have heard of, others you may never have heard of at all. Would they spare him?”
“What about the Dao Court? In the Central Dao Court, how would those Dao Scions treat Mo Hua?”
“The Dao Scions might be proud and arrogant, perhaps unwilling to do anything base over jealousy.”
“But what about the ones who uphold the legacy of the Dao Court's bloodline, the ones at the very top of the Dao Court—would they truly do nothing?”
Bai Qingcheng's gaze was grave. “Don't forget, your bloodline...”
“—the sovereign of all birds.”
“If you and Mo Hua ever go beyond the bounds of martial siblings, how many noble daughters of great clans with luan-phoenix bloodlines, driven by the jealousy in their blood, would want Mo Hua dead?”
“Have you thought through all of this?”
Bai Zixi pressed her lips tightly. Her stunning face seemed covered in frost, losing its color bit by bit. The light in her eyes faded, little by little.
Bai Qingcheng's heart clenched at the sight.
But she had no choice but to say these things.
If she could not bear the pain now and cut it off, it would only become a deeper tragedy later.
Bai Qingcheng sighed softly and said in a gentle voice,
“You have always had your own mind. I won't force you. But you must think clearly for yourself.”
“Mo Hua is your master's most beloved disciple, and your only junior martial brother. Do not let him die an unnatural death because of some childish sentiment...”
“Take care of yourself.”
With that, Bai Qingcheng said no more. She turned, and her figure faded like glass in Feather Transformation, disappearing completely.
In the elegant room, only Bai Zixi remained.
Her expression was still cold, but in the depths of her eyes, it was as if the joy had been drained away, leaving them empty.
After a long time, Bai Zixi slowly sat down on the edge of the bed.
She thought for a very long time, then silently took out from beneath the headboard a white storage pouch embroidered with a beautiful pale-gold phoenix pattern.
The pouch was delicate and small, with a quaint charm—one she had used as a child.
It was the pouch she had carried when she, her master, her elder brother, and her little junior martial brother cultivated together in Tongxian City and roamed through Lizhou.
Bai Zixi slowly opened the pouch and took out one little thing after another: little grasshoppers, little katydids, small flower baskets, little wild boars, little tigers...
Some of them were crude, just woven strand by strand from bamboo and grass by dexterous little hands.
Others were exquisite, incredibly intricate, with formations carved inside; with a thought, they would run around joyfully.
These were all things her little junior martial brother had made with his own hands and given to her back then.
Bai Zixi had stored them in her childhood pouch and put it under her pillow. Only when she encountered something unhappy, when she was very, very sad, would she take it out to look.
Now Bai Zixi had taken out all of the things inside.
Her long, jade-like fingers stroked one by one those little grasshoppers and tigers, whether exquisite or crude.
From childhood on, her little junior martial brother's face,laughing, mischievous, angry, and all those memories of the past floated before her eyes, drop by drop.
But her heart grew colder and colder.
He was already so close, yet it felt as if they could never be together.
Bai Zixi's heart felt as if it had been stabbed.
Her gaze grew more and more vacant, and tears silently slid from the corners of her eyes.
In the study, Immortal Rong was still calculating something on paper.
When she saw Bai Qingcheng enter, she looked up and said lightly, “You're here?”
Bai Qingcheng frowned and said nothing.
Immortal Rong put down her brush and looked at Bai Qingcheng. “Why did you come without telling me first?”
Bai Qingcheng was silent for a moment, then sighed. “If I had told you first, maybe I wouldn't have seen what I wanted to see.”
Immortal Rong nodded. “So, you saw everything you needed to see?”
Bai Qingcheng seemed a little annoyed. “Sister Rong, won't you do something about these two children?”
Immortal Rong was also helpless. “How would I manage them?”
Bai Qingcheng frowned. “Keep a closer eye on them, let them have less contact. Remind them to keep proper boundaries... Or from the very beginning, you should not have taken in Mo Hua. You could have found another place to settle him.”
“If he hadn't stayed in this little blessed grotto, and the two of them hadn't spent every day face to face, nothing would have happened.”
“Then Zixi wouldn't be suffering like this now.”
Immortal Rong waited for Bai Qingcheng to finish, then said, “You don't really think I can control Zixi, do you?”
Bai Qingcheng was speechless.
Immortal Rong sighed. “Zixi is no ordinary child.”
“The only reason I can control her is that she is willing to let me.”
“If she did not want me to, even as a Feather Transformation True Person, how could I control her?”
“Taking in Mo Hua was Zixi's idea. Once she sets her mind, if she becomes stubborn, do you really think there was anything I could do?”
Bai Qingcheng paused. After thinking for a moment, she could only sigh helplessly.
The Bai family's legitimate daughter, the Old Matriarch's favorite, with a Heavenly Spirit Root, Phoenix Blood, the sovereign of luan birds... who could do anything about her?
Bai Qingcheng had nothing to say. She simply found the most ornate red-jade chair in the study and sat down, looking displeased.
Immortal Rong looked up at Bai Qingcheng, pondered for a moment, then with a solemn gaze said slowly,
“So, Mo Hua really is... that person's disciple?”
Bai Qingcheng was startled, then feigned ignorance. “Who does Sister Rong mean?”
Immortal Rong's gaze sharpened. She whispered, “...Zhuang Daoling.”