The mountain peak was wrapped in a profound quiet.
Moonlight spilled over wind-swept stone, catching in the frost-tipped grass like scattered shards of pearl. A small lacquered table stood at the center of the clearing, flanked by two seated figures. The only sound was the gentle clink of porcelain as Xie Yingying poured tea with practiced ease, delicate steam curling upward like incense smoke.
The tea's fragrance lingered in the thin air, light and grassy, with a subtle depth that hinted at spiritual nourishment. Su Min's eyes lowered, lingering on the familiar leaves steeping in her cup.
"You dried these yourself," she said quietly, breaking the silence.
Xie Yingying's lips curled into a faint, almost imperceptible smile. "You recognized them?"
"Mhm." Su Min lifted the cup, letting the warm steam brush her face. "My plants, right?"
Xie Yingying replied, her voice casual but honest. "I heard tales of a healer in the south who raised them like pets. They said her tea could settle even the most restless meridians. I found that… curious."
Su Min hummed, noncommittal, and took a slow sip. It tasted of memory.
Once, she had tended those bamboo spirits herself, back when she was still hiding behind her identity as a simple healer, obscuring the Emperor's intelligence networks and guarding her gourd until it ripened. She never expected anyone to remember that chapter of her life, much less that the leaves would find their way back to her like this, a ghost from a quieter past.
The silence that followed was not awkward, it was thoughtful, the kind that only forms between two people comfortable enough not to force conversation, yet aware of the shared space between them.
Below them, clouds blanketed the valley, their surfaces silvered by the moonlight. Somewhere in the forest beneath that mist, something immense and ancient stirred, a presence both powerful and incomplete. The demon beast they waited for had not yet fully matured. This moment was a rare, suspended pause in a world that offered few.
"I always thought tea was an overrated mortal affectation," Xie Yingying said, swirling the pale liquid in her own cup with idle fingers. "But this… is not bad."
Su Min gave a soft, breathy snort. "High praise."
"From me? It is."
Su Min looked up. Xie Yingying was not smiling, exactly, but her expression had softened at the edges. Her usual cool detachment had thinned, and beneath it, a flicker of genuine warmth peeked through.
"You have changed," Su Min said before she could stop herself.
Xie Yingying lifted a slender eyebrow. "Have I?"
"From the first time we met."
Xie Yingying's gaze turned distant, but not cold. "I suppose I have. Or perhaps I have just remembered how to act human."
That drew a quiet, genuine laugh from Su Min.
"I was never good at small talk," Xie Yingying continued, her voice a low murmur. "Not as a Holy Maiden, not within my sect. Everyone wanted something, either guidance or favor. And then I slept through a few centuries. That is hardly conducive to good social graces."
Su Min did not press her. She simply reached forward and poured them both another cup of the fragrant tea.
After a pause, Xie Yingying leaned forward slightly, resting her arms on the low table. Her wide sleeves fluttered softly in the mountain breeze.
"Have you ever heard of the Heavenly Yin Sect?"
Su Min frowned faintly, searching her memory. "No… I have not. The name does not sound familiar."
Xie Yingying let out a soft breath, not quite a sigh, more like resignation. "I am not surprised. No one remembers it anymore."
Her gaze drifted upward to the moon, luminous and full above them. "It was once a great sect. Ancient. Older than most of the dynasties that ever ruled these lands. But that was long, long before the Heavenly Decay began to ravage the world."
"You have heard of the curse," Xie Yingying said, her voice quieting. "Every cultivator above the early Golden Core stage suffers from it. Their qi turns volatile. Their lifespan bleeds away faster the more power they command. It did not used to be like that. Once, ascension was an open path. Not a death sentence."
Su Min nodded slowly, offering only her silent attention.
"The curse struck slowly at first. But it was cruel. Unforgiving. The stronger you were, the sooner you were swallowed." Xie Yingying's voice darkened, shadowed by the weight of memory. "My sect tried everything. Medicines, grand formations, even deep sealing techniques to slow the decay. But in the end… it claimed everyone. Not by battle. Not by betrayal. Just time. And the heavens themselves turning against us."
Su Min said nothing. The wind shifted again, carrying the soft, clean scent of bamboo and tea.
"I was supposed to awaken much later," Xie Yingying said, her gaze fixed on something far away. "Near the prophesied opening of the Golden Core Avenue. That was the plan. The seals were designed to align with specific celestial shifts, when the curse might have weakened. When the world might have changed."
Her lips curved, thin and bitter. "But instead, I was dragged awake three centuries too early by a fool who thought I would be grateful."
Su Min let out a soft chuckle at the memory. "And then you suddenly decided to strike at me."
A faint smirk tugged at Xie Yingying's mouth. "Clashing blades. Measuring strength. Not exactly the traditional start to a fruitful alliance."
"True." Su Min looked down into her tea again, watching the leaves settle. "But somehow… here we are."
She left the rest unsaid, hanging in the cool air between them.
For a moment, the wind shifted, bringing with it the faint, distant cry of a night bird. The mountain itself seemed to exhale.
Xie Yingying looked at Su Min, her dark eyes intent. "And you? You have yet to tell me anything truly real about yourself."
Su Min's eyes flicked upward, a hint of wariness in their depth. "Everything I have said has been true. Just not everything worth knowing."
"Clever dodge."
"It is a useful skill."
Another comfortable pause settled between them. But this time, Xie Yingying did not let it stretch too far.
"I did some digging," she said, her voice dropping to a near whisper. "Just to understand. I needed to know who I was choosing to fight beside."
Su Min was not surprised, Xie Yingying had already spoken of her clan and her grudge. She decided to humor her. "And what did you find?"
"A ghost," Xie Yingying said simply. "A wandering alchemist in the southern frontier. Hidden deep in the mist veiled mountains. Treated wounds, healed illnesses, asked for nothing but herbs and ores in exchange. Created tokens that became local currency."
Su Min said nothing, her face a calm mask.
"You saved people, Su Min. Quietly. Consistently. Without letting anyone name you saint or sinner. You just… did the work."
The words hung there, suspended in the chill night air.
Su Min's hands curled slightly in her lap. "You make it sound noble."
Then she set her cup down on the lacquered wood, leaning back. The wind shifted, rustling the leaves of a nearby pine.
"The Su Clan," Xie Yingying added after a measured pause. "They were noble once. And then they were gone. Wiped from the records."
"I was fourteen," Su Min said softly. "Too young to stop it. Too old to pretend it never happened."
Her voice was calm, but flat. Like someone reciting the lines of an old story about a wound she no longer dared to feel.
"My clan was executed for a rebellion we never joined. Wrong place, wrong connections, wrong time. The Emperor wanted a scapegoat. We were convenient."
A breath of wind passed, cool and quiet. Xie Yingying said nothing. She did not need to. She simply listened, her presence an anchor.
"The Yong Prince rebelled, and we were accused of backing him. At that time, my father had already pledged our allegiance to the Emperor. But we had ties, old friendships and kinship bonds. That was enough," Su Min continued, as if reciting something she had once read in a history scroll about another family entirely.
"They came during the evening meal. My parents were dragged away. My uncles tried to reason, my elder cousin resisted, but it did not matter. The decree had already been sealed. After weeks of torture masked as interrogation, they carried out the sentence. Execution at dawn."
She paused, her fingers tightening almost imperceptibly on her teacup.
"My father… he bargained with his last breath. Begged them to spare me. Promised I would be no threat. And in a way, they listened."
Xie Yingying's brows knit slightly. "You survived."
Su Min gave a humorless smile. "That depends on what you call survival. I buried my family. I still remember the smell of blood mixed with rain. But mercy," she said the word like it tasted of ash, "meant being sold."
She exhaled, her voice dropping low. "A fallen noble girl makes for excellent stock. Educated, well-bred, defanged. The Chunhong Brothel took me in before the ashes of our ancestral hall were even cold."
The mountain wind stirred again, this time with a sharper, colder edge.
"I escaped," she said, and for the first time, there was unyielding steel under the calm surface. "I did not know then that the brothel was more than just a pit of indulgence. Its mistress was not just a trafficker. She was a cultivator, feeding on the vitality of young girls to restore her strength. And me…"
"You were exceptional," Xie Yingying said quietly.
"Yes," Su Min said, her eyes reflecting the cold starlight. "She could smell it on me. My talent. My latent qi. If she devoured me, she would have returned to her peak in a single night."
A beat of heavy silence filled the space between them.
"That old witch from the Hehuan Sect?" Xie Yingying asked, though she already knew the answer.
Su Min nodded once, a sharp, definitive motion.
"And the Emperor?"
"They were already allies," Su Min said, her voice flat. "He feared what I might become. So when she demanded me back, he agreed. His soldiers hunted me across three provinces."
Her voice was soft, but her gaze was distant, looking backward, far from their moonlit perch.
"In early autumn, they cornered me in the Minshan range. Hundreds of men. They burned the forests to the ground trying to flush me out."
A flash of memory crossed her eyes, smoke, screaming animals, the world painted in fire and terror.
"I rode straight into the flames. They did not expect that."
She leaned back slightly, her eyes turning toward the impassive moon.
"The Jishui River was just beyond, massive, kilometers wide. I had one chance, so I pushed everything I had, every shred of qi, into the soles of my feet and leapt."
She closed her eyes, the memory vivid.
"I remember how the wind felt on my face. How the fire looked behind me. How the river opened up beneath, black and endless."
A pause. Her hand moved slowly over her teacup's rim, tracing the bead of condensation.
"My boots kissed the water. And I ran across it."
Xie Yingying blinked, a rare show of pure surprise. "You ran across the Jishui?"
"I did not stop to check if I could. I just ran."
She opened her eyes again, the present returning to them. "And when I made it across, I collapsed. Half dead. But free. That night, I stopped being the last daughter of the Su Clan. And I started being just Su Min."
The name landed between them with its own unique weight.
A long silence stretched, settled and heavy, but not uncomfortable.
Xie Yingying finally broke it, her voice softer than the moonlight. "I am sorry."
Su Min shook her head, a firm, dismissive motion. "Save that. It does not change anything."
"No," Xie Yingying agreed. "But it explains something."
Su Min turned her head slightly, brows raised in question. "Explains what?"
"Why you are still kind."
That simple statement gave Su Min pause.
"I am not," she said after a beat, her voice firm. "Not really. I just…" Her voice trailed off, her breath escaping in a quiet sigh. "It is a transaction. I need herbs, ores. They bring them. I treat their wounds. That is all."
She stared down at the tea's surface, moonlight rippling in its reflection. "I did not want to be a hero. I just wanted to survive."
Xie Yingying's voice was gentle, yet unwavering. "And yet, you managed to do both."
Another hush settled over the peak. The frost-tipped grass stirred in a passing gust. Then, Xie Yingying spoke again, her voice a low murmur.
"She was not always like that, you know," Xie Yingying said. "The Demon Queen."
Su Min glanced up, quietly surprised by the shift.
"The one who ran the Chunhong Brothel," Xie Yingying continued. "The cultivator who marked you for death."
"…You knew her?"
"I read about her. Her real name has been erased, but her early records survived, barely," Xie Yingying said, her tone quiet and steady. "She was born with a Ghost Body, rare, coveted. A physique made for spiritual seduction, perfectly aligned with Hehuan arts. But no one cared about that at first."
A gust of wind passed through, shaking tiny droplets of dew from the pine needles.
"She was sold," Xie Yingying said. "By her own mother. To a place like Yihongyuan."
Su Min's fingers stilled against the cool porcelain of her cup.
"She lived as livestock until her physique awoke. When it did, the men who came to her did not leave the same. Some never left at all. She drained them, took their essence, their power, their will. That is how she obtained her first cultivation method, and from there, she entered the Hehuan Sect."
A pause, letting the grim history settle.
"But from that day on, she had a taboo. One word she would never tolerate hearing."
Su Min spoke it softly, the word hanging in the air. "Mother."
Xie Yingying nodded. "No matter how powerful she became, how high she climbed within the sect… that word was poison to her. It broke her more than the brothel ever did."
The simmering fire in Su Min's gaze dimmed, then cooled into something more complex.
"She was still a monster."
"She was," Xie Yingying agreed without hesitation. "But sometimes, monsters are just what girls become when no one ever lets them be anything else."
Su Min said nothing at first, processing the words. Then:
"I hate her."
"You should."
"I nearly became her."
Xie Yingying did not interrupt. Did not argue. She just listened, her presence a silent acknowledgement.
"But I did not," Su Min said, her breath fogging faintly in the night air. "Because someone, somewhere, gave me the chance to choose otherwise."
Her hand curled around the teacup again, drawing a faint measure of warmth from it.
"That is why you are still kind," Xie Yingying said again, quieter this time. "Even after all of it."
Su Min did not answer. There was no need.
They sat like that for a long time. Quiet. Still. Two ghosts from different worlds sitting beneath the same moonlight, living anyway.
Companions, if not yet friends.
Beneath them, the beast stirred again. The ground trembled faintly, just a breath, but it was enough. A reminder of the violence that waited in the valley below.
Then, as the moon reached its zenith, a foul, concentrated deathly aura surged from the heart of the valley, ripping through the peaceful night.
"It has emerged."
In an instant, the tea was forgotten. Both women stood in unison, their faces hardening, eyes locked on the source of the disturbance. A palpable pressure pulsed from below, a spiritual weight that felt stronger than either of them. A Corpse King at the Golden Core level had broken free of its cocoon.