Yin Shuang stood once more on the mountain path, though this time she did not feel like a dreamer.
She was Jiang Xue.
Her feet carried her across grassy stone ridges, her steps light with youth and untempered spirit. The sky above the Silvercrest Mountains was painted in hues of soft gold and cloud-split blue. Wind whispered across the high cliffs, stirring the crimson sash around her waist.
This was no idle illusion.
She could feel the earth beneath her soles. Smell the pine-scented air. Even the ache in her calves from running too far too fast. It was a memory, but deeper than a mere echo—a life, returning to her in fragments through the Peerless Sword's resonance.
A voice called from ahead.
"You should focus your breath more," Mo Xuan said calmly, not turning around. "You're exhaling too shallow. You'll burn out your meridians before reaching the fourth layer of condensation."
Jiang Xue—no, Yin Shuang, feeling her through the veil—pouted.
"You say that like breathing's a cultivation crime," she muttered, wiping sweat from her brow.
Mo Xuan glanced over his shoulder, an amused smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Breathing is the first act of every technique. If your breath is sloppy, your form will be, too."
"You sound like an old man."
"I am one," he replied evenly. "At least, by cultivation standards."
Jiang Xue caught up to him, still fuming. Her face was flushed from exertion, her dark hair tousled by the wind. She glared at his composed figure. Mo Xuan walked like the world bowed to him—not with arrogance, but with weight. The kind that came from responsibility, age, and an inner silence others couldn't disturb.
He wore his signature gray robes with silver trim, his hair tied with an obsidian thread. A scroll was tucked beneath one arm, and his fingers glowed faintly from the afterimages of a formation he'd just dismantled in passing.
They were descending toward a clearing carved into the side of the mountain, where ancient stones jutted from the grass like broken teeth. Mo Xuan gestured toward a flat rock in the center.
"Sit."
Jiang Xue obeyed, only mildly begrudging.
Mo Xuan sat across from her and unwrapped a cloth bundle from within his sleeve. What he revealed was a book, its surface inscribed with luminous characters that shimmered faintly under the sun. Each glyph danced along the cover like living ink, forming the words-Celestial Eclipse Manual.
Her breath caught.
"You finished it," she whispered.
He opened the book. The pages were not parchment, but spiritwoven silk—durable, Qi-stabilized, immune to time and decay. On them, complex mandalas of glyphs spiraled outward in mirrored formations, patterns built to hold and guide dual-aspect energy.
"This is the foundation," Mo Xuan said. "A method for harmonizing yin and yang Qi, drawing power not from force, but balance. Light and dark, motion and stillness, inner and outer truth. Together, they create stasis."
Jiang Xue leaned closer, entranced by the complexity of the designs. "You made all this for me?"
He didn't answer at first. His fingers paused on the corner of a page.
Mo Xuan didn't answer immediately. "I made it because you need a path tailored to your strengths. Your foundation is solid, but your Qi flow is chaotic. Traditional methods will only carry you so far. You require something unique."
Her heart beat faster—not from the cultivation talk, but from something deeper, more personal.
"You didn't answer the question."
He finally met her eyes.
"I'm your teacher. I build bridges for those willing to walk across."
Her heart clenched at the deflection. But she didn't let it show.
"Then teach me," she said.
They trained for months atop that peak.
Jiang Xue grew stronger by the week. Her control of opposing Qi types advanced to levels that left even other elders stunned. With Mo Xuan's guidance, she unlocked hidden channels in her body, expanded her soul-sea, and deepened her resonance with both lunar and stellar energy patterns.
But the teachings weren't what drew her back to his side each morning.
It was him.
The way he spoke. The way he moved. The way he treated her not as a child, or a pet project, but as a person—worthy of honesty, of attention, of investment. In his company, she felt… seen. Understood in ways no one else had ever managed.
Their late-night discussions by starlight. Their walks through falling snow. Even the meditations they shared in silence—each became another thread woven into the tapestry of her heart.
She fell in love with Mo Xuan not through words, but through time.
She never told him.
Not directly.
But she suspected he knew.
He always knew things before she said them.
And yet, the more she opened, the more he closed.
One spring afternoon, as the snow melted from the peaks and the wildflowers began to bloom, Jiang Xue stood across from Mo Xuan on the cliff where they first trained.
She had reached the seventh layer of Eclipse Integration—a feat that should've taken years. Mo Xuan looked at her not with pride, but with caution.
"You're overextending your yang reserves," he said.
"I'm fine."
"You're not sleeping enough."
"Neither are you."
He didn't respond.
She stepped closer.
"I know why you're keeping distance," she said.
That got his attention.
"I'm your student," she said. "You're a sage. You're aspire to be above mortal ties. Devoted to Cultivation. Unmoved by things like… love."
His eyes remained unreadable.
"But you're not stone, Mo Xuan," she whispered. "I see it. You feel it, too. I know you do."
A long silence passed.