The stone door of the cold ice stone room slowly closed behind them. The heavy, dark-green stone slab slid silently back into its groove, completely sealing away the spiritual energy inside, which had condensed almost into a liquid state.
As the last rune dimmed along the edge of the door, Bai Qingxue came to a stop on the mountain steps outside the cave dwelling.
The night wind swept up from the end of the mountain steps, carrying the crisp, cold air unique to Xueji Peak.
The hem of Bai Qingxue's robe fluttered in the wind. Her frost-white fabric billowed in the moonlight like a snapping banner, and her long silver hair blew wild, a few strands sliding across her cheek to her lips before she raised a hand to brush them away.
Bai Qingxue stood at the end of the mountain steps.
Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the clouds and fell upon her shoulders, illuminating the lingering aura of spiritual energy from her recent breakthrough in a faint, silvery halo.
Her newly ascended aura at peak Foundation Establishment still flowed slowly around her.
Lu Xueqing followed her out of the stone room. Her footsteps sounded exceptionally clear on the empty mountain path, each step onto the frost-covered stone making a soft, crunching squeak.
Lu Xueqing came to a stop two paces behind Bai Qingxue. The night wind swept past her side, blowing the ponytail tied at the back of her head to one side.
She looked at Bai Qingxue's back, watching that slender, frost-white spine held perfectly straight in the moonlight.
The wind blew her own stray hairs up again, brushing against her cheek. Lu Xueqing raised a hand to tuck them away, then spoke, “Junior Sister Bai, you should go back and rest. You've just broken through, and your foundation...”
Bai Qingxue turned around.
The moonlight sliced diagonally through a gap in the clouds, catching her profile and making her pale pupils appear translucent, like two thin sheets of ice pierced by moonlight.
Within those eyes, a faint blue glow from the lingering spiritual energy slowly swirled. Yet, when she looked at Lu Xueqing, that glow seemed to be gently brushed aside by an invisible hand.
Bai Qingxue spoke.
Her voice was still slightly hoarse, lower and softer than usual. “Senior Sister Lu, have the plum blossoms in your courtyard bloomed?”
Lu Xueqing froze.
Her lips parted slightly, then closed again.
The plum blossoms of Xueji Peak were not yet in season. The old plum tree in her courtyard only budded at the very end of the twelfth lunar month. There was still some time before then, so it was naturally impossible for them to have bloomed.
Yet, Junior Sister Bai had asked anyway.
Lu Xueqing stared at Bai Qingxue's face.
She wanted to read something from that habitually expressionless face, to discern what lay behind that question.
Was it a casual inquiry? A moment of daze from unstable spiritual power right after a breakthrough? Or something else?
But Lu Xueqing really couldn't read anything.
Bai Qingxue's expression was as cold and indifferent as ever. The settled composure in her eyes remained, showing no extra emotion, as if she were truly just asking an insignificant question.
But Lu Xueqing knew something was off.
Bai Qingxue had never proactively asked about her courtyard.
Furthermore, Bai Qingxue would never leave her quiet room right after a breakthrough, before her foundation had fully stabilized.
Stabilizing one's foundation after ending seclusion was practically a cultivator's instinct, and Junior Sister Bai was exceptionally meticulous about her cultivation.
Lu Xueqing lowered her eyes, suppressing her churning thoughts.
She heard her own voice ring out, softer than she had expected. “I'll go back and check.”
Bai Qingxue did not speak further.
She turned and set off, heading precisely in the direction of Lu Xueqing's courtyard. Her pace was neither fast nor slow, her frost-white hem brushing against the dry blades of grass along the edges of the stone steps with a faint rustling sound.
Lu Xueqing followed behind, maintaining a distance of two paces.
She watched Bai Qingxue's figure move ahead in the moonlight, her long silver hair swaying gently with the rhythm of her steps, and the tassel of Frost Moon Chant swinging in a soft arc at her waist.
A very faint, indefinable premonition bubbled up in Lu Xueqing's heart, like bubbles from the depths of deep water, rising slowly to the surface one by one.
She could vaguely sense that something was different from usual, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.
Lu Xueqing wanted to ask.
But her teeth clicked together lightly, keeping all those words pressed behind her lips.
Yes.
Lu Xueqing did not want to break the companionship they shared at this moment.
Whether this tranquility was real or merely her own illusion, it would shatter if she stepped too heavily.
Thus, Lu Xueqing would rather simply follow, following this person wherever she went.
The end of the mountain steps, the courtyard entrance, the stone table, or anywhere else—as long as that frost-white figure ahead kept walking, she would simply follow.
The courtyard gate consisted of two old wooden doors, the tung oil on the panels long since weathered and mottled by the mountain wind, revealing the faded wood grain beneath.
Bai Qingxue stopped at the courtyard entrance and turned her head to look at Lu Xueqing.
The moonlight shone from the side, tracing a clean, sharp contour along her jawline as her silver hair ends blew to one side.
Lu Xueqing understood the meaning in that look.
Without hesitation, she stepped forward quickly and reached out to push open the gate. The moment her fingertips touched the edge of the door, the cool texture of the wood crept up her finger pads, yet something in her chest began to burn, growing so warm that she almost held her breath.
That warmth spread all the way from her chest to her fingertips, colliding with the coldness of the wooden door. The two temperatures tangled briefly on her finger pads before dispersing.
Bai Qingxue stepped over the threshold.
The courtyard was even quieter than the outside. The courtyard walls blocked part of the night wind, leaving only a gentle breeze filtering through the branches of the plum tree, carrying the unique, green astringency of the buds.
Moonlight sifted through the sparse shadows of the plum branches, casting a swaying, intricate painting of shadows on the ground.
Bai Qingxue walked straight to the stone table and sat down on the side where Lu Xueqing usually sat.
She rested both hands on the tabletop, fingers interlaced. Her posture was exactly the same as every time Lu Xueqing had visited her courtyard to drink tea, except their positions were reversed.
Before, Bai Qingxue had been the host, always sitting in the master seat, waiting for others to push open the door and enter.
But now, she sat in the guest seat, in someone else's courtyard, by someone else's stone table, like a composed visitor, settling herself naturally outside her own domain.
Bai Qingxue raised her eyes, looking at Lu Xueqing, who was still standing by the door in a daze. The moonlight shone from behind her, casting a soft, silvery outline along the edges of her silver hair.
Her lips twitched slightly as she asked, “Where is the teapot?”
Lu Xueqing leaned against the doorframe, her fingertips still resting on the edge of the door.
Her heart thudded against her ribs once, then twice, like a caged bird suddenly fluttering its wings.
She looked at the frost-white figure by the stone table, seeing her own reflection in those pale eyes.
Whether that plum tree had bloomed no longer mattered.
The buds were still on the branches—hard, brown clusters squeezed together, not releasing a single drop of sap. But the person sitting by the stone table had changed places.
To Lu Xueqing, this made her feel that something was blooming silently, slowly, and irreversibly, far more than a tree full of blossoms ever could.
Lu Xueqing closed the door.
The door shut with a very soft creak, like the only thing in the courtyard willing to speak on her behalf.
She walked over to the stone table, squatted down, and retrieved a celadon teapot she rarely used from a hidden compartment underneath.
The teapot was an old item with a warm glaze, reflecting a soft green light under the moon. A few extremely fine crackle lines ran across its body, looking as if they had been carved with a paper-thin blade.
Lu Xueqing placed the teapot beside Bai Qingxue's hand.
Bai Qingxue lowered her gaze to look at the teapot. Her eyes lingered on the crackle lines for a brief moment. She raised a finger, hovering it over the nearest crack for a second before letting it drop, gently touching the cool porcelain surface.
Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the plum branches, falling on Bai Qingxue's silver hair, the green light on the celadon teapot, and the cold stone tabletop between them.
The courtyard was so quiet that one could hear the wind brushing over the flower buds.
Lu Xueqing sat down opposite Bai Qingxue.
She did not ask why Bai Qingxue had come, nor did she ask why she hadn't gone back to stabilize her foundation.
Those questions swirled in her mind again and again, but she suppressed them all. She simply sat there, just as she had done countless times beside Bai Qingxue.
Guarding her silently, resolutely.
The night wind swept through the plum branches, carrying the astringency of the buds and the dampness of the earth, brushing past the ends of her hair and the hem of her robe.
Bai Qingxue reached out, resting her fingertips on the teapot lid, tracing its edge very lightly.
The teapot was cold. No water had been boiled, and no tea had been brewed; not a single wisp of steam rose from its spout.
Yet her fingertips remained on the lid, as if she were touching something that already possessed plenty of warmth.
Soon after, Bai Qingxue raised her head.
Her gaze pierced through the sparse shadows of the plum branches, through the moonlight and the night wind, and landed on Lu Xueqing's face.
That look lasted so long that Lu Xueqing felt her heart skip beat after beat, as if someone had removed the pendulum from her chest, leaving behind only a suspended, trembling sensation that dared not settle.
Yet, she could read nothing in that look.
Bai Qingxue said nothing, offered no explanation, and gave no hint.
She simply watched, looking for a very long time, until Lu Xueqing's breathing softened as well.
Then she withdrew her gaze and lowered her eyelids once more, looking at the spot where her fingertips rested on the lid, her lips curving into an extremely shallow smile.
In the courtyard, the plum branches swayed gently in the night wind.
The buds were still buds—brown, hard, and unopened.
Moonlight fell upon them, illuminating the outline of every single bud with perfect clarity.
But Lu Xueqing knew that some things had already bloomed.
Not on the branches, but by the table. Not in season, but in the night.
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