Qin Shuying led Shen Mo along, remaining silent the entire way.
Her Escape Light was incredibly fast. The night wind cut like a blade against Shen Mo’s face, blowing the dried blood into fine powder.
Shen Mo leaned against her with his eyes half-closed, unsure if he was awake or asleep.
He could smell the faint, cold fragrance emanating from her body. It was the same scent from that day in the small hut.
He wanted to push her away, but his hands wouldn’t move. It wasn’t just because he had lost his strength. It was because — he didn’t want to push her away.
This realization caused a surge of indescribable fear to well up in his heart. He was afraid that he had grown accustomed to this feeling of being protected.
He was used to being in her arms, where he no longer had to pretend to be a virtuous husband, no longer had to endure, and no longer had to carry everything alone.
But she was Qin Shuying. She was the Tianjian Peak Master. She was Su Wan’er’s enemy. She was his…
What was she?
He didn’t know. He only knew that by her side, he didn’t need to speak.
“Did Lin Jingzhe,” she suddenly spoke, “do anything to you?”
Shen Mo was startled, then immediately shook his head. “No.”
Qin Shuying looked at him, seemingly trying to discern if he was lying. Shen Mo met her gaze calmly.
When he said she hadn’t done anything, he meant it. Lin Jingzhe had only tried to intimidate him, wanting to tear down his self-esteem, but at the final moment, she had stayed her hand.
Not only that, but she had stood in front of him to protect him.
Qin Shuying watched him for a long time before finally averting her gaze.
“That’s good,” she said.
He looked at Qin Shuying and suddenly asked, “What was in that mountain?”
Qin Shuying’s brow twitched slightly.
“You said there was something else there.” Shen Mo stared into her eyes. “You know what it was, don’t you?”
Qin Shuying remained silent for a moment. “I know,” she said.
“What was it?”
Qin Shuying did not answer. The moonlight shone on her face, giving her frost-cold features a soft, glowing halo.
“Shen Mo,” she said, her back to him, her voice very light, “the less you know about some things, the better.”
Shen Mo said nothing. He knew Qin Shuying meant well, but he knew even more that an Elder’s semi-demonization, the abnormal Crow Swarm, and the ‘thing’ inside the mountain suggested that matters were far from simple.
He fell silent. However, his arms subconsciously tightened slightly, steadily supporting her body.
Through her clothes, he could feel a warm, delicate sensation against his palms. It was the curve of Qin Shuying’s waist.
This had originally been a necessary action to stay balanced while traveling by Sword Kinesis.
But as they jolted through the air, that touch of soft warmth felt like a spark. For some reason, it made his heart race with anxiety.
Shen Mo lowered his gaze, his eyes falling on her pale profile. He gave a bitter smile in his heart.
He knew Qin Shuying was good to him, but it was precisely this ‘goodness’ that felt like an invisible rope, tightening until he couldn’t breathe.
He should be grateful. He truly was grateful. But besides gratitude, there was something else.
Regarding what happened that night in the small hut, he hadn’t been entirely passive. He knew that. He knew it better than anyone.
He could have been more decisive back then, but he wasn’t. He had half-pushed and half-accepted it. Even for a single moment—
He closed his eyes.
What had he been thinking in that moment? He didn’t know. He didn’t dare to know.
And now, standing behind her, looking at her straight back and smelling her cold scent, images of that night involuntarily surfaced in his mind.
Her fingers. Her breath. Her gaze. And the tooth mark on his collarbone that had yet to fade.
His mind uncontrollably flashed back to the absurdity of that night. The dim room. The hurried breathing.
And Peak Master Qin’s eyes, which still made him tremble when he thought of them now. That sense of immoral taboo was humiliating.
As the heat faded slightly, another gentle and beautiful face splashed over him like cold water.
Su Wan’er.
Two completely different emotions collided violently in his chest, and a sense of guilt naturally arose.
His hand, currently resting on Qin Shuying’s waist, felt like a desecration of his feelings and an unspeakable betrayal of his wife.
Every additional second of physical contact felt like a reminder — ‘I can’t go on like this.’
Once this thought took root, it grew like wild weeds. Driven by guilt, he made a decision.
Shen Mo took a deep breath, suppressing the chaos in his heart. He loosened his grip slightly and then quietly took half a step back.
“Peak Master Qin, though my cultivation is shallow, my Sword Kinesis is adequate. We… should travel separately.”
Qin Shuying paused.
He quickly added, “Disciples of Yunyin Mountain travel this path from the Luoxia Mountains every month. There isn’t much danger.”
As he spoke, Shen Mo prepared himself for her to snap at him or even seal his Spiritual Meridian to forcibly take him back to the peak. His muscles tensed in secret.
After all, with Qin Shuying’s domineering personality, she would surely wave her sleeve and whisk him away by force. How could she allow him to refuse?
However, the expected pressure did not descend.
A deathly silence surrounded them. After a moment, Qin Shuying let out a soft chuckle. The laughter was extremely faint, like a thin crack appearing on a sheet of ice, vanishing as soon as it arrived.
“If that is what you want, as you wish.”
She agreed so bluntly that she didn’t even try to argue. She didn’t even give Shen Mo a second glance.
With a wave of her wide sleeve, she turned to leave. Her red robes cut a decisive arc through the wind.
However, she casually tossed a White Jade Porcelain Bottle toward him. The arc was sharp, yet it felt weightless when it landed in Shen Mo’s hand.
The bottle was slightly cool, seemingly still carrying the temperature of her fingertips.
In the next second, she was already several dozen feet away, leaving Shen Mo with nothing but a cold, proud silhouette.
He stood frozen in place, watching the direction she had gone. His chest felt as if it were stuffed with cotton, suffocatingly tight.
It was he who had rejected her, he who had wanted to avoid suspicion, yet when she actually left without looking back, an indescribable sense of loss crept into his heart like vines.
‘She just left like that? Won’t she try a little harder? Even if she just scolded me for being ungrateful, it would be better than this.’
It felt like being a pet abandoned by its master; though he craved freedom, he felt a bone-chilling cold when that freedom actually arrived.
Yet, this medicine bottle proved that she still cared.
Shen Mo quickly formed a hand seal, and the old flying sword on his back unsheathed with a clang.
Because his mind was in disarray and his cultivation was low, his leap onto the sword was unprecedentedly clumsy.
The flying sword swayed violently in mid-air, lurching toward the horizon like a drunkard.
The mountain wind poured into his sleeves, making his clothes flutter wildly.
His figure rose and fell amidst the clouds, possessing a pathetic sense of determination, as if he were fleeing from some terrifying beast by plunging headfirst into the vast sea of clouds.
The wind whistled past his ears. It was cold. Truly cold.
Qin Shuying had left her Fox Fur Coat with him, but he felt too awkward to wear it.
It was her item and carried her scent; wearing it felt like it would burn him. Thus, he only wore his own half-damp, old robes, shivering in the wind.
How long had he been flying? He glanced back. The path behind him was a blank white expanse; he could see nothing.
He flew forward a bit further. Suddenly, the sound of something cutting through the air came from behind. Someone was coming.
Shen Mo instinctively gripped his Ice Soul Jade and looked back—
A green sword light streaked toward him from behind at an incredible speed. In the blink of an eye, the sword light was right in front of him.
Lin Jingzhe.
She stood on her sword, her expression still grim. Her left shoulder was wrapped in bandages, but her posture while flying was as steady as if she were walking on level ground.
She glanced at Shen Mo’s wobbling sword light, her lips twitching slightly.
Shen Mo didn’t speak.
Lin Jingzhe slowed her sword to fly side-by-side with him. She looked left and right, scanning the surroundings, and then frowned.
“Where is Qin Shuying?”
Shen Mo’s hand tightened on his sword hilt. “She left.”
“Left?” Lin Jingzhe’s voice rose a pitch, as if she had heard something bizarre.
“It was my own—”
“Your own what?” Lin Jingzhe interrupted, looking him up and down. “You wanted to leave on your own? And she agreed?”
Shen Mo remained silent. His silence was his answer.
Looking at him, Lin Jingzhe suddenly laughed. The laughter sounded particularly piercing in the wind.
“Interesting,” she said. “Truly interesting.”