Chapter 3: Osmanthus Cake

A few days later, Ji Wangshu was brought back to the sect by Mu Zhiming and settled into her small courtyard.

Within the Immortal Sect, everyone knew that Senior Sister Mu Zhiming had brought a man back from down the mountain, and private discussions buzzed everywhere.

“Frozen Sister Mu picked up a man?”

“I heard he’s a childhood sweetheart she rescued from the Demon Cult’s prison.”

“What does he look like? Is he handsome?”

“No idea. She’s got him locked in her courtyard and won’t let anyone in.”

Ji Wangshu indeed hadn’t left, though it wasn’t because Mu Zhiming had him under house arrest.

It was because he’d just been rescued from the Demon Cult, covered in wounds, and needed rest.

But the real reason he chose not to go out had nothing to do with resting.

The sun was high, nearly noon.

Ji Wangshu lay on the bed, just waking up, still half-drowsy. He rubbed his bleary eyes and glanced out the window.

Outside the courtyard, female cultivators came and went, craning their necks to peer at the wooden cabin like they were observing rare animals in a zoo.

He frowned slightly. “…This is way too intimidating.”

If not for the fact that his childhood sweetheart Mu Zhiming was one of the top talents in the sect—the Wooden Sword Immortal renowned for a hundred miles around—and that the female cultivators held some fear of her, he figured they’d probably have barged in and drained him dry.

Then Ji Wangshu let out a sigh, recalling how before he’d transmigrated, he could barely string two words together when talking to female coworkers.

That was probably why, after arriving in this world, he stayed holed up in the sect every day, never setting foot outside the gate.

You expect someone like him to face an entire sect full of female cultivators in this Dream World?

He shook his head, wrapped the blanket around himself, yawned, and went back to sleep.

…

A few sticks of incense later, Ji Wangshu woke again. He glanced out the window and saw the female cultivators who’d been gathering in the courtyard had dispersed. He looked up at the sky.

Outside, the sun had melted soft, like a stub of red candle nearing its end, slumping against the horizon. The dusky twilight seeped through the window like candle wax.

It was evening now. Another fulfilling day gone, he thought.

He sat up, stretched, and a jolt of pain shot through his body. A sharp “hiss” escaped his lips. He lifted the hem of his shirt and looked at the dense web of scars covering his skin.

These were the hidden wounds left by years of torture in the Demon Sect, now throbbing dully as the stretch pulled at them.

Ji Wangshu sighed, thinking: At least over these past few days, his childhood sweetheart Mu Zhiming, after learning of his injuries, had mixed up some medicinal ointments and planned to apply them to him today.

Once she did, it shouldn’t hurt as much. But then again, he wouldn’t be able to lie around in this cabin guilt-free anymore.

He rolled over and suddenly noticed the table by the bed was now piled with things he hadn’t seen before.

A plate of osmanthus cake, two tangerines, a small pot of tea—the cup still steaming, as if brewed not long ago—and beneath it all, a piece of paper weighed down by the pot. The edges of the paper were folded several times, as if it had been adjusted repeatedly before being slipped in.

He moved the teapot aside and pulled out the small note. There was a line of tiny handwriting on it—

“Eat when you wake up. I’m off to practice swords.”

The characters were crooked, the strokes broken and uneven, like a child’s scribbles.

After reading it, Ji Wangshu gave a bitter smile and looked at the food spread across the table.

These past days, every time he woke up—no matter the hour—the table was always laden with food. Counting carefully, this was already the ninth time.

Mu Zhiming was genuinely kind to him, but he always felt this kindness was like that of a distant relative he hadn’t seen in years—polite, thoughtful, but distant.

He sighed, picked up the plate of osmanthus cake, and recalled his memories as a Wood Spirit Three-Needle Flower deep in the mountains:

The real childhood sweetheart would often, on summer afternoons, run through the forest with a young Mu Zhiming, catching fish by the stream and splashing in the water. When tired, they’d sit down, and he’d hold out his hand to Mu Zhiming. She’d produce osmanthus cake from who knows where, break it in half, and they’d share.

Ji Wangshu pulled his thoughts back, took a bite of the osmanthus cake in his hand, and frowned slightly.

This osmanthus cake was cloyingly sweet.

That real childhood sweetheart, if placed in Blue Star in his past life, must have been a Southerner, someone who loved sweets.

He and that person really were nothing alike.

It wasn’t just a difference in taste. The real childhood sweetheart in his memories was talkative, constantly tugging on Mu Zhiming’s sleeve and calling her “Woody, Woody.” He was lively, able to scramble up and down the mountain with ease. He was also carefree, often stripping off his shirt when he got dirty and running naked through the forest.

Having someone like him—quiet, lazy, and homebound—pretend to be that naturally extroverted childhood sweetheart was really asking too much of himself.

At least Mu Zhiming couldn’t see it.

Though it wasn’t a nice thought, Ji Wangshu occasionally had these flashes during his days in the Immortal Sect.

Otherwise, Mu Zhiming would likely have realized by now that he wasn’t the same person as the childhood sweetheart in his memories.

Because the connection between people shows through the tone of conversation, the expressions during talk, the eyes of secret affection, and the unconscious little gestures of the hands.

In this situation, pretending to be someone whose only frame of reference was his memories as a bystander—the Wood Spirit Three-Needle Flower—and whose personality was completely different from his own, it was nearly impossible not to slip up in daily interaction. No amount of quick thinking could help, because one lie had to be covered by more lies, and when every single thing required lying, being exposed was only a matter of time.

“Ah… what a pain.” Ji Wangshu took a few deep breaths, missing his junior sister and master.

Back in the real world, when he was in the Yixiu Sect, his master would keep everything in perfect order, caring for him like his own mother. After his master passed, his junior sister took over that role.

And whoever it was, all he had to do was follow their arrangements, as if he could hand over his agency and not bear a shred of responsibility for his own life.

But in the Dream World, that wasn’t possible. He had to play the part of the childhood sweetheart, stay cautious in the Immortal Sect so the cultivation masters wouldn’t see through him, build a good relationship with Woody, and complete System Tasks.

Only then could he earn rewards—perhaps cultivation, perhaps Spirit Stones, perhaps heavenly treasures—to attract new disciples and hold onto the sect his master left behind.

Even though he knew this in his heart, he always instinctively avoided it, just like the person he was in his past life.

Lost in thought, he took another bite of the osmanthus cake, clicked his tongue twice, and set the half-eaten plate back on the table.

This osmanthus cake really was too sweet.

For someone like him, this was all too much.

He sighed. Suddenly, a woman’s faint fragrance, mingled with the aroma of plum blossoms, drifted in from the window.

Pressing close to the crack in the window, he turned his head to look. By the flower bed on the other side of the small courtyard, Mu Zhiming was crouched there, her back to him, at some point.

Her fingers lightly brushed over the petals, her crimson lips slightly parted, as if murmuring to herself. Her voice was so soft that Ji Wangshu couldn’t make it out even in the quiet of the night courtyard.

But Ji Wangshu was stunned, frozen in place.

Because on that face—teased by her fellow sect sisters as the Frozen Wood—was an expression he had never seen before.

The brows that were perpetually frosted over had thawed in that moment, the corners of her eyes relaxing, her lips curving into a faint, shallow arc.

Moonlight poured like water over half her face, spilling out an inch of tenderness.

Perhaps, in that moment, I was enchanted by the moonlight.