Chapter 27: Caught
Xu Yourong stood by the window, hearing those words, and was stunned for a long time, not knowing what to say.
On the Never-Setting Sun Prairie, they had faced life and death together, fought side by side, relied on each other, and even brushed snow off each other. They had long understood each other's feelings. It was just that, back then, she didn't know he was that little Daoist from Xining Town. After leaving the Zhou Garden, she had also thought about her promise to him and prepared to break off her engagement. But then the Celestial Palace announced it to the world, the Sword Pool reappeared, and many people saw those swords. After several comparisons, she finally confirmed that he was who he was. Only then did she realize how cruelly fate toyed with people, playing such a joke on her.
But what did that matter? As long as he was still him, that was fine. She knew very well what she wanted. On the Bridge of Helplessness and by the ox bone pot, she had also been waiting for him to say something. But he never did, until late into the night, when he suddenly appeared at her window in this inexplicable way and said such an inexplicable thing.
Well, this really did resemble his sword path.
Just like Wang Po's blade path—very straightforward.
He used this one sentence to directly pierce the window paper before her eyes, bringing the situation straight back to the Divine Path in front of the Zhou Mausoleum.
Xu Yourong stood up, looked at his figure through the window, and then reached out to push it open.
Snowflakes mixed with wind rushed in, landing on her face, bringing a chill.
"The floor heater is burning too fiercely; it's a bit hot in the room."
She said to Chen Changsheng, as if explaining why she had opened the window to see him. But she herself didn't notice how adorable this explanation was.
Chen Changsheng looked at her face, not noticing the nervousness revealed by this explanation or the cuteness that came with it. He just thought she was adorable.
"I was standing outside just now, and I also felt a bit hot," he said very honestly.
It was the dead of winter, deep in the night, with the world silent, freezing cold, and snowflakes dancing.
"How long have you been standing here?" Xu Yourong asked, looking at the snow on him.
Chen Changsheng thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, "I forgot."
Xu Yourong said, "Why didn't you just come in?"
Chen Changsheng said, "I was afraid of disturbing your rest, and... Shuang'er should be here, right? I was worried she might say something if she saw me."
Xu Yourong said, "So, do you want to come in now?"
Chen Changsheng said, "No need. I came... actually to give you something."
After saying this, he slipped off the string of stone beads from his wrist, carefully broke the string, and then reached his hand through the window, saying, "There are ten in total. Pick five."
Actually, he had long forgotten whether he had made some agreement with her about the treasure distribution in the Zhou Mausoleum. But he instinctively felt that since they had found the Zhou Mausoleum together, anything discovered there should be split equally—whether it was the Two Severing Blade Technique or these ten stone beads.
"These are..." Xu Yourong's curious voice suddenly stopped. She looked up at him, somewhat incredulously, and said, "These are from the Zhou Mausoleum... those ten?"
If it were any other cultivation expert, even a giant of the state religion like Linghai Zhiwang, they wouldn't be able to see anything unusual about these ordinary-looking stone beads, because these beads truly had no fluctuation of energy. But she had been interpreting the Heavenly Book Monoliths since she was a teenager, and she had seen these Heavenly Book Monoliths with her own eyes in the Zhou Garden. Naturally, she could sense something different.
"Yeah." Chen Changsheng looked at her and said, "The Zhou Garden hasn't disappeared. If you want to go back and see it, I can take you in."
He didn't use the phrase "enter the Zhou Garden" but rather "go back," because the Zhou Garden was indeed too important to both him and her.
Xu Yourong was even more shocked to hear that the Zhou Garden hadn't collapsed and that he could still enter and exit it freely.
But what was truly important were the stone beads in his palm.
She looked at him seriously and asked, "Are you really going to give them to me?"
Chen Changsheng looked at her seriously and said, "Without you, I would have died long ago. There's no way I could have found the Zhou Mausoleum, let alone the Sword Pool and these."
Xu Yourong thought for a moment, didn't bother to pick carefully, took five stone beads from his palm, and immediately stored them in the Tong Palace.
She felt that what Chen Changsheng said made sense, so she accepted it calmly, appearing extraordinarily carefree, matter-of-fact, and upright.
What Chen Changsheng admired most about her and liked most about her was this very temperament.
"Then I'll be going."
In the snowy night, he entered the palace, the window was pushed open, he saw her, and gave her those stone beads. Everything that needed to be done was done, so naturally, it was time to head back. So-called coming on a whim and leaving when the mood fades—this was the epitome of a scholar's elegance... But he was a youth, not a scholar, so while he said he was leaving, his feet didn't move.
Xu Yourong said, "Go on back first."
Chen Changsheng hummed in acknowledgment, but his feet still didn't move. He just looked at her.
She turned slightly, as if to avoid his gaze, but actually leaned out of the window.
Closer and closer, he grew nervous.
She reached out and brushed the snow off his shoulder, just like she had brushed the fallen leaves off him on the Divine Path back then.
Very relaxed, very calm, very familiar, very peaceful.
The window paper had long been pierced, the window itself pushed open. It just needed some final confirmation.
The act of brushing off the snow was that confirmation.
Chen Changsheng felt as if his severed meridians had repaired themselves, his whole body filled with the power of life. He looked at her, his eyes shining.
Xu Yourong didn't meet his gaze. She looked somewhere in the snowy night, feeling her face still a bit hot, and said softly, "Tomorrow, I want to go see the National Academy."
Chen Changsheng hesitated no longer. He turned and walked into the snowy night.
He was very sure that this time, he would definitely be able to sleep.
...
...
At five in the morning, Chen Changsheng woke up. He spent five breaths calming his mind, then opened his eyes, washed up, got dressed, and went to run by the lake.
Counting carefully, he had only slept less than two hours. Strangely enough, his spirits were especially good. He didn't have the dark circles under his eyes that Tang Thirty-Six often had, and he felt as if he had wings on his feet.
As time passed, more and more students came to run by the lake, but none of them were faster than him. He kept overtaking them. When the overtaken students saw it was him, they quickly bowed in salute.
No matter how young, he was still the dean, not to mention that last night he had been confirmed as the candidate for the Pope. So the students' attitudes were more respectful than usual.
But he couldn't tell the difference. He returned their salutes with more patience and calmness than usual.
The breakfast at the small cafeteria across the lake was golden millet porridge. He couldn't tell what difference it had from ordinary millet porridge. Even when Xuan Yuan Po pulled the Mountain Sea Sword from a pile of firewood and proudly showed it to him, saying that he had been practicing with it last night and had used lightning to sharpen it successfully, Chen Changsheng couldn't see any difference between the Mountain Sea Sword and when it first came out of the Sword Pool in the Zhou Garden.
In short, he was somewhat distracted, his gaze frequently drifting toward the direction of the Imperial Palace.
"Are you sick or something?" Tang Thirty-Six asked, yawning as he looked at him.
Chen Changsheng snapped back to reality, looked at the dark circles under Tang Thirty-Six's eyes, and said, "I think *you* might be the one who's sick."
Tang Thirty-Six thought angrily, if it weren't for the fact that I was stupid enough to spy on you for half the night last night and ended up falling asleep in the snow from exhaustion, why would I be in such bad shape?
Chen Changsheng was looking toward the Imperial Palace because she had said she would come, and he was waiting for her.
Of course, he wanted to share the story between him and Xu Yourong with others, especially his friends.
Tang Thirty-Six would have been the best person to confide in, but Xu Yourong had said she didn't want anyone to know, so he had to hold it in.
After finishing breakfast, he washed his face and rinsed his mouth again, changed into clean clothes, and stood by the window waiting.
It was also because he was usually very particular about cleanliness that he didn't attract the attention of the others at the National Academy.
After an unknown amount of time, a crane's cry sounded in the distance.
He followed the sound of the crane's cry. Before long, deep in the winter forest, he saw that white crane and the person riding it—her.
Xu Yourong was still wearing the same big cotton-padded jacket from yesterday. It wasn't rustic; it just looked warm.
Probably because she didn't want to be seen, she had used that secret technique of the Nanxi Zhai, like she had in the Zhou Garden, to make her features look much more ordinary.
Seeing her ordinary, plain face, Chen Changsheng wasn't disappointed. Instead, he felt even more familiar.
Perhaps it was because of this familiarity that he found the feeling of casually talking to her, like in the Zhou Garden.
He looked at that big cotton-padded jacket that made her look especially cute, hesitated for a moment, then gathered his courage and said a sentence.
"The ox bone has a strong smell. Do you want to change into new clothes, or wear mine first? I'll wash this one for you?"
Xu Yourong was stunned. Then she became truly embarrassed and annoyed. She turned and walked toward the white crane.
Chen Changsheng came to his senses, realizing how absurd his actions were. He quickly chased after her and started making frantic gestures at the white crane.
The white crane had an old friendship with him. Before Xu Yourong could get close, it let out a cry and flew away.
Xu Yourong stood in the snow, stunned again.
Ever since two years ago, she had never been able to understand why the white crane was so close to Chen Changsheng and so friendly toward him.
"What exactly did you do to it back then?" she asked, looking at Chen Changsheng. "Why does it listen to you so much?"
This was the first time the two had talked about their childhood.
"I mentioned it in my letters to you back then, but you've forgotten." Thinking about this, Chen Changsheng felt a bit uncomfortable, but then thinking about what he had just said, all that discomfort turned into anxiety. "I misspoke just now. Don't be angry. Just think of what Tang Tang said."
The sentence he referred to was, of course, Tang Thirty-Six calling him a pig.
...
...
The white crane left and never returned. The snowy forest was empty and desolate.
Snowflakes drifted down slowly. Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong, holding umbrellas, walked through the secluded woods of the National Academy.
"Zhe Xiu and I live here." Chen Changsheng led her to the edge of the woods, pointing at a small building not far away.
Only after speaking did he remember that she had come to the National Academy that night and might have even seen the scene at the tavern across the street. He explained, "Don't misunderstand. That day, Tang Tang insisted on dragging Su Moyu and me over. Su Moyu used to be at the Celestial Palace Affiliated Academy, ranked thirty-third on the Azure Cloud List. You might have heard of him. He's with us now."
This paragraph made two detours, very naturally, and carried a bit of youthful pride, as if he was showing off to her.
Just then, a voice suddenly rang out from the winter forest.
"I knew you had something going on! No wonder that night, you didn't even dare to touch the girl in your arms. So... you already had a lover!"
As the voice sounded, a snow pile suddenly scattered, and Tang Thirty-Six stood up from inside it.
...
...
(The next chapter will be in the evening. Specific time unknown.)