Time returned to the present.
Ye Luqing looked at Pei Ruyi in the rain with a complex expression.
From the moment Pei Ruyi had arrived at Emerald Water Lake, Ye Luqing had sensed her presence through the nearby spell arrays.
Several times, she had wanted to fetch Pei Ruyi herself, but she had held herself back with immense restraint.
Yet, seeing Pei Ruyi hand over her sword, crying and begging Ye Luqing to kill her—Ye Luqing’s heart softened.
She took Pei Ruyi’s lifebound spirit sword. The nearly transparent ice crystal blade seemed covered in unrepairable cracks, as if it could shatter at any moment.
Ye Luqing gently stroked the sword and said softly,
“Come inside with me.”
Her voice was much gentler than it had been that morning, yet still carried a hint of command.
Pei Ruyi didn’t move, as if she hadn’t heard.
Her Sword Heart was shattered, and she had been casually discarded by Ye Luqing.
She had nothing left.
Ye Luqing sighed, took Pei Ruyi’s ice-cold hands, and said softly,
“I’m sorry, Senior Sister Pei. I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”
A flicker stirred in Pei Ruyi’s eyes, but it quickly dimmed again.
“It’s… meaningless now.”
“My Sword Heart… is completely shattered.”
Ye Luqing looked up at Pei Ruyi. The face that had always held stubbornness or shy indignation was now filled with nothing but dead stillness.
Her own heart ached, and a surge of deep guilt washed over her.
When she had first started training Pei Ruyi, it was only because of that outwardly cold but inwardly warm personality. She had never considered shattering Pei Ruyi’s Sword Heart.
“Come inside first.” She turned her head, reached out, grabbed Pei Ruyi, and pulled her toward the house.
Pei Ruyi’s body was heavy, slack as if boneless, almost hanging off her.
“If the Sword Heart is broken, then nurture a new one.” Her voice was slightly unnatural. “Wanting to die after it breaks once—your Sword Heart isn’t worth much at all.”
Pei Ruyi’s eyelashes trembled. “It can’t be nurtured back…” she murmured. “How can a shattered mirror ever be pieced together again?”
“Who says it can’t?” Ye Luqing frowned, turned, and wiped the rain from Pei Ruyi’s face with her hand. “I want to see just how fragile your Sword Heart really is.”
She brought Pei Ruyi into the house. The bath barrel had long since been prepared with comfortably warm water.
Stripping off Pei Ruyi’s clothes, she had no mood at this moment to admire the beautiful body. She simply placed her into the bath barrel.
Black hair floated on the water’s surface. Soaked in the hot water, Pei Ruyi’s body gradually warmed, and the focus slowly returned to her eyes.
Ye Luqing also entered the bath barrel. Seeing the bleeding wounds on Pei Ruyi’s collarbone and shoulder, she took out a bottle of injury salve from the items Xiao Qingxuan had returned to her.
She uncorked the bottle, and a clear, sharp medicinal fragrance filled the air.
Ye Luqing dabbed some salve and began applying it to the wounds caused by Hua Sheng’s sword qi.
“No… don’t mind me…”
Pei Ruyi instinctively resisted and tried to pull away, but Ye Luqing pressed her shoulder down.
“Don’t move.”
Ye Luqing’s voice was soft but carried a force she couldn’t refuse.
The salve felt cool upon touching the wound but miraculously suppressed the burning pain.
The rain continued to fall outside, but the lanterns inside the house were warm, casting long, overlapping shadows of the two figures.
Pei Ruyi watched Ye Luqing’s focused profile as she applied the medicine, the slight furrow of her brow ridge.
A light flashed in her eyes, but it vanished in an instant.
“You clearly abandoned me… so why are you being so kind to me again?” Pei Ruyi’s voice trembled.
“I’m just a substitute for Senior Sister Xiao, anyway…”
Hearing this, Ye Luqing’s heart tightened, and even the hand applying the medicine paused.
She had thought Pei Ruyi, always under training and commands, was enjoying her descent and had never noticed her true purpose.
So, Pei Ruyi had known everything all along.
“I’m sorry…”
Ye Luqing lowered her head, the surface of the water reflecting her deeply guilty face.
I clearly hate being treated as a substitute, so why did I treat Pei Ruyi like this?
She raised her head, looked at Pei Ruyi with absolute seriousness, and reached out to stroke her face.
“That won’t be the case anymore.”
“You are Pei Ruyi, not a substitute for anyone.”
She watched as Pei Ruyi’s expression softened, tears welling up, and patted her head.
“I will take responsibility and help you restore your Sword Heart.”
“Even if it can’t be restored, even if you can no longer be a sword cultivator, I can still support you for life.”
“So, A-Yi, please forgive me, okay?”
She wasn’t a sword cultivator, and she didn’t know how to restore Pei Ruyi’s Sword Heart.
But whatever she could do, whatever she could do to make amends, she would do with all her strength.
Seeing Ye Luqing’s lovingly pained expression, Pei Ruyi’s heart tightened. Her cherry lips parted slightly, her pupils trembling, her vision beginning to blur.
Gradually, the room was filled with nothing but the sound of choked sobs.
She lay against Ye Luqing’s shoulder, weeping, her beautiful face tear-streaked like a flower in the rain.
“You… you did so many terrible things to me, so why are you so kind to me now…”
She had clearly decided not to forgive Ye Luqing anymore, yet the moment she heard Ye Luqing call her “A-Yi,” it seemed nothing else mattered.
This would make her fall in love with Ye Luqing all over again.
A single pebble seemed to drop into the once-dead lake of her heart, sending out a gentle ripple.
Ye Luqing didn’t answer Pei Ruyi’s question, only gently stroked her head, softly calling the name “A-Yi.”
Pei Ruyi’s previously tensed body gradually relaxed, and she collapsed into Ye Luqing’s arms.
Ye Luqing lifted Pei Ruyi’s chin. Within her red-rimmed eyes, the blue irises seemed to shimmer with starlight.
This was the first time she had looked so closely into Pei Ruyi’s eyes.
The one part of this body that didn’t resemble Xiao Qingxuan.
The part that belonged only to “Pei Ruyi.”
Splash—
Ye Luqing stepped out of the bath barrel, took a large bath towel, and began drying Pei Ruyi’s body.
“Can you get out by yourself?”
“It seems… I can’t.”
Pei Ruyi looked down at her hands. Those hands that once could unleash fierce sword qi now barely had the strength to make a fist.
After her Sword Heart shattered, all her cultivation would slowly dissipate, eventually leaving her as a mortal woman with no strength to even truss a chicken.
Ye Luqing said nothing, simply lifting Pei Ruyi gently and placing her softly onto her own bed.
Although she didn’t know the method to restore a Sword Heart, making Pei Ruyi forget everything—that she could still do.
Her cyan Water-Wood True Qi silently transformed into the tender, pink, enticing Dual Cultivation True Qi. The true qi circulation route shifted to the “Binding Silk Art,” a layer of faint Dual Cultivation True Qi covering one hand, ready to activate the “Mist Crossing Hand.”
She positioned herself physically above Pei Ruyi, staring down at her imperiously, and simultaneously activated the Earth-tier technique, “Layered Flower Shadows.”
Forget all this and that—if she just did it until the sky turned dark, she guaranteed Pei Ruyi would forget all about these things.
Just as she was about to begin an intense and thorough session, she heard a faint voice from Pei Ruyi.
“W-Wait.”
Pei Ruyi’s pretty face was flushed crimson. Having been dominated and commanded by Ye Luqing so many times, she naturally knew what Ye Luqing was about to do to her.
“What is it?”
“Could you… stroke my head while doing this kind of thing…”
Having been treated as a Sword Qi furnace vessel by the Pei Family as a child, she had always lacked a sense of security. Yet now, under Ye Luqing’s caress, she felt an unprecedented sense of attachment.
Ye Luqing paused for a moment. Although it felt a little strange, she still agreed.
“Of course.”
Hearing Ye Luqing agree, Pei Ruyi gathered her courage and continued:
“Mm… I have one more request.”
“Speak.”
A somewhat sickly flush rose on her face, her eyes slightly withdrawn, but her blue irises still burned with fervent devotion, revealing an endless longing.
“Could I… call you ‘Mom’?”
Upon hearing this, Ye Luqing’s mind completely short-circuited.
Huh?
