“I’m so mad! I’m so mad! I’m so mad! That damn Ji Yue treats me like a monkey for his amusement — I’m furious!”
In the main bedroom of the backyard, Nan Shan was kneeling on the bed, punching and kicking a pillow so hard it was about to fall apart, yet she showed no sign of stopping.
Shou Xin couldn’t bear to watch anymore.
He poured her a cup of water and handed it over:
“You should take a break, shouldn’t you?”
Before he could finish his sentence, Nan Shan glared furiously at him.
“Why are you taking it out on me just because you had a fight with the Immortal Lord?”
Shou Xin muttered helplessly.
Nan Shan gave a cold snort, took the water and sipped it:
“Who says it has nothing to do with you?”
“I slept through the whole night!”
Shou Xin protested.
Nan Shan retorted, “Just because you were sleeping doesn’t mean you’re not involved. The fact that you can still breathe means you’re involved.”
“…You’re being unreasonable,” Shou Xin rolled his eyes at her.
Nan Shan downed the remaining water in one gulp.
The coolness slid down her throat into her stomach, finally easing some of her frustration.
Seeing her staring blankly into space, Shou Xin hesitated for a moment, then couldn’t help but ask, “What on earth happened?”
Nan Shan’s eyes flickered slightly. After a long time, she slowly turned to look at him.
The intensity of her gaze made Shou Xin sit up straighter, feeling a bit uneasy.
At last, Nan Shan sighed, “It’s nothing.”
“You think I’m a child, so you won’t tell me!”
Shou Xin immediately protested.
Nan Shan chuckled and patted his head reassuringly, “Even if you were an adult, I still couldn’t tell you.”
“Did the Immortal Lord ask you to keep it a secret?”
Shou Xin said in sudden understanding.
“Then you don’t have to tell me.”
Nan Shan glanced sideways at him, wanting to ask if he would blindly support whatever the Immortal Lord said.
But thinking of their relationship, she decided it was unnecessary to ask something so pointless.
“Hey,”
Nan Shan snapped back to attention and met Shou Xin’s hesitant gaze.
“I… I do care a lot about the Immortal Lord, but I care about you too. If he really did something wrong, I would definitely side with you,” Shou Xin said with difficulty, breaking his own principles, his ears turning slightly red.
Nan Shan stared at him for a long while, then suddenly pulled him into a tight hug.
Shou Xin was startled and struggled in panic, “Wh-what are you doing!”
Nan Shan said nothing, only hugging him even tighter.
After a lot of struggling and messing around, Shou Xin finally managed to break free and slammed the door shut behind him.
Nan Shan watched the closed door, feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion.
She pulled the quilt over her head and, with a stern face, went to sleep.
Ever since she learned to cultivate with spiritual energy instead of her spirit bone, she had never been idle — always thinking about how to improve her cultivation or reinforce her powers.
This was the first time she’d done nothing but sleep all morning.
Yet, this was only the beginning.
It was as if Nan Shan had lost all her drive.
All she did was sleep day after day.
Even when Shou Xin came repeatedly to her bedside to persuade her, she remained motionless, sleeping with a look like she intended to perish alongside heaven itself.
“Don’t think I don’t know you’re just pretending to sleep! Wake up!”
Shou Xin tugged at her hand, trying to drag her off the bed.
But with the great difference in size, he gave up panting after several futile attempts.
“What exactly happened between you and the Immortal Lord? Why can’t you just talk it out? Now he won’t come to the backyard, and you’re sleeping all day. I’m really bored!”
Shou Xin’s voice even started to choke from pretending to be pitiful, but Nan Shan still showed no response.
With a huff, he stormed off angrily.
The room fell silent.
The Blood Sun outside was immobile, so there were no changing shadows.
It felt as if time itself had frozen.
The door opened again, but there was no noisy clamor from Shou Xin.
A gentle warmth hovered at Nan Shan’s brow, as if someone wanted to touch her but ultimately withdrew, disappearing without a trace after a brief pause.
Nan Shan quietly opened her eyes.
The room was still empty.
The Immortal Lord was staying away from the backyard. Nan Shan just kept sleeping. Shou Xin, only seven years old, was growing increasingly frustrated, to the point where he didn’t even enjoy cooking anymore.
He was even considering causing some trouble just to get their attention when a shadow suddenly fell over his head.
“What are you doing?”
A voice came from above. Shou Xin looked up in disbelief.
“You’re not sleeping anymore?”
“I’m full of sleep. I don’t want to sleep anymore,” Nan Shan looked down at him from above, her expression indifferent.
Shou Xin blinked rapidly, then sprang up from the ground, “I’ll go make you food!”
“No need,” Nan Shan grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back, “I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten in forever!”
Shou Xin shouted angrily.
Nan Shan laughed, about to say that it didn’t matter even if she didn’t eat for a long time now.
But when she caught sight of the redness at the corners of his eyes, her grip on his collar instantly loosened.
Seeing that she wasn’t arguing anymore, Shou Xin cheered and ran happily to the kitchen.
Nan Shan watched his joyful back and couldn’t help but laugh as well.
She had originally intended to go find Ji Yue right away, but stayed to eat with Shou Xin instead, delaying her plan a bit.
But that was fine — better to be well-fed and ready to settle accounts with him.
Nan Shan ate two large bowls of rice in one sitting.
Feeling satisfied, she patted her belly, put down her chopsticks, and headed toward the front hall.
“Talk properly! Don’t fight!”
Shou Xin, still worried about the unknown conflict, urged anxiously.
Nan Shan waved her hand, seemingly taking his words to heart.
However, Ji Yue wasn’t there.
The temple was filled with the scent of incense.
Those who had died the night before now knelt lively and vibrant before the altar, praying earnestly and offering incense to the god who had once killed them.
Nan Shan immediately spotted Aunt Li among the crowd.
Unlike the last time she’d seen her — with only her upper body left in a horrifying state — Aunt Li now looked healthy and glowing, her face full of devotion as she gazed at the statue, showing not a trace of resentment.
Before coming in, Nan Shan had already guessed what the temple would look like.
But seeing Aunt Li sincerely offering incense still made her feel deeply uncomfortable.
If Ji Yue wasn’t here, where else could he be?
After a brief thought, Nan Shan left the temple.
She found him on a beach.
The Blood Sun hung high in the sky, with only a palm-sized black spot on it.
Technically, it was still morning in the Eastern Yi lands.
In the distance, waves rolled and foamed, the white sands warmed and softened by the Blood Sun.
Nearby, the colorful fragrant birds bloomed brightly, some branches stretching even onto the sand.
Ji Yue was still wearing that light blue robe, holding a string of bells and tracing formations in the sand.
His ethereal figure almost blended into the sea and sky, making him nearly invisible.
Nan Shan stood quietly under a coconut tree until he lifted his gaze and looked at her.
“Don’t stand under a tree like that,” he said after a long absence, his tone as calm and gentle as ever, as if there had never been any rift between them.
“You might get hit by a falling coconut.”
Nan Shan shot him a glance and reluctantly shuffled a step to the side, counting that as a response.
A faint smile touched Ji Yue’s eyes.
“Still angry?”
“What are you doing?” Nan Shan didn’t answer his question.
Instead, she looked toward the empty ground behind him.
She had seen clearly earlier — he had been using the bells to trace a very complex formation on the sand.
Yet in just a short while, the formation had completely vanished, as if it had never been there.
Ji Yue followed her gaze and looked back, finally explaining, “I was just cultivating as usual.”
“You still need to cultivate?”
Nan Shan sneered at him. Seeing that he wanted to explain, she directly raised her hand to stop him, “If you don’t intend to tell the truth, then don’t bother speaking.”
Ji Yue paused for a moment—and actually did shut his mouth.
Nan Shan looked at him like that and let out a laugh, half-angry:
“So you really were planning to lie?”
“The formation isn’t complete. It’s not good to speak too much about it,” Ji Yue said calmly.
Nan Shan snorted coldly.
A sudden silence fell between them.
Ji Yue patiently waited for Nan Shan to speak, but after waiting a long time, all he saw was her looking at the sky, the ground, and the sea—never once looking at him.
Helpless, he had to speak first:
“Why did you come looking for me?”
“Oh, it’s nothing really,” Nan Shan said straightforwardly, without playing hard to get.
“I just suddenly remembered, you once swore a heart-oath to me—you said if you ever hid anything from me, your soul would be destroyed, and you’d never reincarnate. Do you still remember that?”
“I remember,” Ji Yue nodded.
Seeing how calm he was, Nan Shan narrowed her eyes:
“You’ve hidden so much from me. Aren’t you afraid the heart-oath will come true?”
Ji Yue smiled silently and met her eyes with tenderness.
Nan Shan stiffened slightly, her emotions cooling:
“Oh, right—you want to die. You’d be happy if the oath came true.”
Face darkening, she turned around and stormed off.
“……”
“Don’t talk to me!”
Nan Shan cut him off angrily.
Halfway through walking away, she turned back, pointing at him with a trembling hand:
“Why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you tell me from the start that you were the Barrier? Why didn’t you tell me you sought me out so I could kill you?”
“You were too guarded back then. If I’d told you, it would only have made you suspicious,” Ji Yue explained patiently.
“Cultivation requires clarity. If you’d started doubting me—or the techniques I gave you—you would have been stuck in place, unable to make progress.”
“So you lied to me?”
Nan Shan’s voice trembled with rage.
“You just stood there watching me, acting like a fool, trusting you more and more, relying on you more and more, trailing behind you every day trying to please you, working so hard so I could break the Barrier for you—were you proud of yourself?!”
When she came here, she’d warned herself over and over to stay calm, stay composed, not to let herself be looked down on—but at this moment, her eyes still reddened with emotion.
Ji Yue looked at her tear-brimming eyes.
His fingers moved slightly, but in the end, he did not reach out to touch her.
Nan Shan took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down:
“I have a few questions for you.”
Since asking her to come after dark, Ji Yue had already anticipated this confrontation.
Hearing her, he merely nodded slightly.
Nan Shan stared at him for a moment before asking:
“The illusion I fell into—was it something you did on purpose?”
“No. And strictly speaking, it wasn’t an illusion,” Ji Yue answered.
“It was the result of resentment—when your mind wavers under its influence, hallucinations appear.” After a moment’s silence, he added, “I never meant for you to suffer like that. I’m sorry.”
Nan Shan paused. Her anger subsided a little:
“In the hallucination… the things I experienced—were they things that actually happened to you?”
“I don’t know exactly what you experienced,” Ji Yue looked up at her, “but since it was resentment triggered by me, it must be closely related to me. However, resentment can distort memories, so not everything you saw would have been completely real.”
He could easily imagine that her experience had been very painful.
After a long silence, Ji Yue gently said, “It was just a nightmare. It’s over now.”
Nan Shan lowered her eyes and said nothing.
“Is there anything else you want to ask?”
Ji Yue asked softly, breaking the silence.
Nan Shan stared at him for a long while, then simply plopped down onto the sand.
Ji Yue chuckled silently and good-naturedly sat down beside her.
Their clothing brushed against each other, as if there had never been any distance between them.
But the air between them remained tense.
“What exactly is your relationship with Uncle Zhong?”
Nan Shan asked.
Ji Yue clearly froze for a moment when she mentioned that name.