The valley lay before them like a forgotten dream, its emerald slopes cradled between towering peaks that scraped the heavens. A thin, spiritual mist drifted between ancient, gnarled pines, their branches heavy with the weight of centuries. The air itself hummed with latent, undisturbed energy, a silence so profound it felt sacred. It was a place perfect for a long, deep slumber, perfect for letting the world and all its noise fade away into nothing.
Su Min stood at the cliff's edge, her silhouette sharp and solitary against the fading twilight. She closed her eyes, extending her spiritual sense through the vale, probing for any trace of corruption or lingering malice. "The energy here runs deep and clean," she declared at last, her voice cutting the quiet like a blade. "No demonic taint, no unresolved resentment. It is suitable."
Behind her, Xie Yingying was not looking at the view.
She was watching Su Min, observing the way the evening breeze teased loose strands of her dark hair and how her fingers absently traced the familiar hilt of her sword when her thoughts turned inward. Over these past three months of constant travel and quiet companionship, something imperceptible had shifted between them. The ancient ice in Xie Yingying's gaze had thawed, and her rare, genuine smiles came easier now, especially when Su Min said something unexpectedly sharp or dryly humorous.
She wondered if Su Min had noticed the change at all.
"You chose well," Xie Yingying said softly, stepping forward to stand beside her at the precipice.
Su Min's lips quirked in that familiar, half formed smile Xie Yingying had come to recognize. "You gave me the task. I do not do things halfway."
A comfortable, understanding silence settled between them, filled only by the whisper of wind through the pine needles. Xie Yingying studied the serene valley below, her fingers tightening almost imperceptibly around the silk of her sleeves.
"Su Min," she began, her voice carefully light, as if discussing the weather, "you know, three hundred years is nothing to cultivators like us. Your revenge… it could wait until after the seal. There would be time."
"No." The single word was sharp, final, and unyielding. Su Min turned to face her fully, her eyes burning with that familiar, relentless fire. "I will not sleep while they still draw breath and walk free. Not until I have carved a mark upon this world that they can never erase." Her voice dropped, becoming low and intense. "Besides, the Demon Queen recovers a fraction of her strength with each passing year. The sooner I face her, the better my chances."
Xie Yingying's throat tightened. She knew that tone, that iron will. She knew nothing in heaven or earth would sway Su Min once her mind was set on a path. Still, the words tumbled out, a final, futile attempt. "Golden Core is not easily achieved. The tribulation… even with your talent, it is a gamble with fate itself."
"And what alternative do I have?" Su Min countered, her gaze unwavering. "Wait three centuries and risk her returning to her full Nascent Soul power?" A short, bitter laugh escaped her. "No. This path is mine to walk. I walk it now."
Xie Yingying looked away first, the stunning vista below suddenly blurring. Her chest ached with a feeling she could not quite name. It was foolish, perhaps, to hope that Su Min might choose a different path. Foolish to hope that she might choose safety, or even… choose her.
The silence stretched between them, becoming heavy and thick with all the things left unsaid.
Finally, Xie Yingying reached into her wide sleeve and withdrew a small, carefully tied silk pouch. "The last of the frostbell herbs from the outer chamber of my mansion," she said, her voice meticulously even as she pressed the pouch into Su Min's hands. "They will help stabilize your spiritual energy during your cultivation."
Su Min's fingers closed around the pouch, her skin warm against Xie Yingying's cooler touch. For a single, suspended moment, neither of them moved. Then Su Min tucked the herbs away into her own robe with a quiet, "Thank you."
The first, brave stars were beginning to pierce the violet canvas of the sky when Xie Yingying found her voice again. "When you come back..." She hesitated, then lifted the flawless jade pendant from around her own neck. "This will guide you to me."
Su Min stilled as Xie Yingying stepped closer, the pendant's silken cord brushing lightly against her skin as it settled around her neck. The jade itself was cool against her collarbone, but it already seemed to carry a faint, steady pulse that echoed Xie Yingying's unique spiritual signature.
"It will grow warm and pulse steadily ten years before the Golden Core Avenue is destined to open," Xie Yingying murmured, her fingers lingering for a heartbeat too long on the cord near Su Min's neck. "That is when you will come for me. That is our signal."
Su Min's hand rose to cover the pendant, her thumb unconsciously tracing its smooth, perfect surface. "I will be there," she said, the words rough with an emotion she would not name, but certain as stone.
Dawn's first light began to creep over the mountain peaks, painting the valley in soft hues of gold and rose. Xie Yingying stepped back, the energy of the Xuantian Mansion already shimmering around her like gathering mist.
"Don't die," she said softly, the words a plea and a command.
Su Min's answering smile was as sharp and promising as a newly drawn blade. "I do not plan to."
Then the ancient sealing art took full effect, the world around Xie Yingying folding inward upon itself until she was simply gone, leaving behind only the slight, comforting weight of the jade against Su Min's chest and a promise hanging silently between the stars.
Alone in the breaking dawn, Su Min touched the jade once more, feeling its potential slumber within, before turning her back on the sealed valley.
She would wait.
And then she would return.
And yet, Su Min did not yet understand what it truly meant to wait.
At forty five, with the blood of battle still fresh on her hands and the song of vengeance the only melody in her heart, she had only ever known time as something to be outrun, an enemy to be beaten. Her Immortality talent, that cruel and glittering gift, had not yet taught her its true, grinding weight. She had not yet stood by and watched entire dynasties rise from dust and crumble back into it. She had not yet seen mortal allies and casual friends wither and fade like autumn grass while she remained, unchanging and untouched. Right now, she had never truly felt the sting of a long parting, not in her soul.
In this, Xie Yingying would be the first. And perhaps, the only one.
She was the first person to have ever slipped past Su Min's formidable defenses, not with brute force or power, but with a quiet, unwavering persistence. She was the first whose absence would leave a hollow, unfamiliar space in Su Min's world that she could not quite name. In the hard, lonely years to come, as Su Min carved her bloody path toward vengeance, she would tell herself that this was simply an alliance of convenience, that the warmth she felt in Xie Yingying's presence was nothing more than the comfort of finding a kindred spirit in a vast, indifferent world.
Or so she told herself.
It would take her a decade, perhaps longer, to recognize the quiet truth. That Xie Yingying had been the first crack in her armor, the one who made her pause in the midst of her single minded warpath and think, however briefly, of something softer, something beyond the fight. By the time Su Min finally reached Golden Core, by the time the relentless years had sanded down her sharpest edges and forced her to confront the profound solitude of her eternity, it would be too late to close the door that Xie Yingying had already stepped through.
The jade pendant would pulse one day, a decade before the Golden Core Avenue opened, and Su Min would realize with a quiet, devastating clarity that she had been counting the passing years all along without ever meaning to.
But for now, as she turned her back on the sealed valley and the woman sleeping within it, all she knew was this:
She had a war to win.
And a promise to keep.
[Notes]
Su Min's immortality is both her greatest strength and her most profound, coming wound. She does not yet understand that eternity is not measured in battles fought or enemies slain, but in the quiet moments and the few, precious people who leave indelible marks upon a soul destined to live forever. Xie Yingying, unwittingly, has become the first, the only one who slipped through the cracks before Su Min learned to guard them with the cynicism of the ages. By the time she realizes what has happened, it will already be too late to pretend indifference.
(And perhaps, in the end, she will not want to.)
---
This extra chapter happen 3 months after previous chapter