The two of them embraced in silence for a while longer. I buried my face in her chest and sobbed, unable to hold back any longer, as if I had to pour out all the bitterness of the past few years in a single go. She simply stroked my head with tenderness. When my weeping finally subsided, she gently tilted my chin up, looking down with aching affection at my tear-stained face. My makeup was naturally ruined, a mess of faded rouge. She took my hand and led me to a flat, smooth jade stone by the stream. As always, she first laid down a small cushion before inviting me to sit.
She knelt on one knee, resting an elbow on her propped-up left leg. Her fair hand hung loose and relaxed as she looked up at me, her eyes never wavering. Feeling self-conscious, I rubbed my eyes and wiped away my tears. She dampened a clean handkerchief in the stream and held my face, meticulously wiping away the remnants of powder. Her gaze remained burning and intense throughout, staring so fixedly that I felt overcome with shyness, feebly trying to push her away.
"Not a single day passed that I did not yearn for you," she said with a warm smile. "Only now do I realize that no moment can compare to this one."
Lord Wei’s sweet talk was so cloying it made my shoulders and neck flush crimson. I spat a playful "bah" at her. "What, was the version of me in your memory not as good-looking as I am now?"
"The present is naturally different from the past," she said with utter solemnity. "Now, Azhi belongs to me."
I wanted to give her a fierce look, but I couldn't keep a straight face. I burst into laughter and scolded, "How shameless."
In my frantic run earlier, my clothes had become disheveled and my hair ornaments had loosened. She helped me tidy my hair and attire. Touching the *Dream-Like Immortal Raiment*, she gave a tender, nostalgic smile. She lightly pinched the mist-like gossamer fabric between her fingers and remarked casually, "This style is from several years ago; it’s likely no longer in vogue in the capital. The proprietress of *Into the Dream* should wear some new clothes."
"Fine," I said with a beaming smile. "For now, I certainly need to dress the part."
She seemed to find my coquettishness excessively endearing. Her hand, resting on her knee, twitched as if she wanted to do something bold, yet she ultimately rose with decorum and sat down properly beside me.
We chatted idly about what had happened during our separation. She held my vanity case and small mirror for me while I fixed my appearance. I noticed that her collar and back were covered in makeup stains and tear tracks from my crying earlier; a brand-new set of expensive, light-colored robes was completely ruined. Blushing, I told her to use a spell to clean herself up, but she merely glanced over her shoulder and gave a rakish smirk, clearly having no intention of dealing with it. I huffed and cleaned it for her myself. Fortunately, during my years at *Into the Dream*, I had handled no small number of high-priced garments...
After a period of intimate whispering, I snuggled into her arms and asked, "If I hadn't chased after you, where would you have gone?"
Her anger seemed to rise again at the memory of the earlier events. Her tone turned flat. "To find the point where this deadlock can be broken, naturally."
"Lord Wei did that on purpose, didn't she?" I laughed. "The incense burners on every table went out, except for the one in front of that man at my table. Not only did it stay lit, but an extra one appeared."
"He wanted to protect you," she said coldly. "So I let him have a double portion along with yours."
I covered my mouth and giggled, utterly amused. In a fit of pique, she scooped me up and sat me firmly on her lap. Seeing that I still wouldn't stop laughing, she turned my face toward her, staring into my eyes as she said sharply, "Every time he looked at you, I executed him in my heart a thousand times."
"Then, do you know that every time you look at me, my heart soars to the heavens and sets off fireworks?"
She froze upon hearing this. When she spoke again, there was an undercurrent of emotion, her voice trembling slightly. "No need... no need to soar to the heavens. Just stand on solid ground with me. That is enough."
I knew that after years of running and living on the edge of a blade, she had never known a moment of stability. To her, a happiness that could be held in her hands on solid ground was an immense luxury.
She was tall and long-limbed; even with me sitting on her lap, my feet dangled easily. I simply kicked off my shoes and hooked my arms around her fragrant, soft neck, playfully climbing onto her. She narrowed her eyes, looking very much like she enjoyed this, loosely circling my waist to keep me from falling while letting me do as I pleased. After climbing for a bit, I suddenly remembered something and tried to jump off her with a red face. She pressed me back down and asked with a smile, "What is it?"
"Ahem," I whispered. "I’ve gained weight eating at the Nie family. I’m afraid I’m too heavy for you."
She hooked one hand under the crook of my knees and the other behind my back, casually lifting and weighing me. Her conclusion: "Light as a feather."
I tried to intimidate her. "Nie Xueqing forced me. Do you know how much I eat now? A single meal is—this big—two basins of rice and noodles..." I circled my hands to show her. "Countless meat dishes, and I have to drink wine too."
She chuckled. "Even if you're trying to scare me, I won't go back on my word. My Wei family can still afford to supply this much food."
"Who wants to eat your family's food!" I huffed. "Didn't we agree long ago? You're coming back to the mountain with me to be my bandit bride!"
"Indeed," she smiled. "Then take me to see your Master."
I was lost in a tender reverie, imagining the scene of her meeting Master, when she suddenly held out her hand to me. "Then you'll have to redeem me from the yamen. The price is very high."
"No problem!" I said grandly. "I pull in fifty million a year. I'll give whatever they ask!"
She pulled me into a tight embrace and whispered in my ear, her voice husky, "Not a penny more, not a penny less: half of the *Into the Dream* storefront, plus one beautiful proprietress. That will be enough."
After exchanging more tender, useless words, I tugged at her, saying that business was more important. Lord Wei rose with me reluctantly, but then stopped in her tracks. She wouldn't move until I pulled her, and even then, she had to interlace her fingers with mine, lingering over the sensation for a long time before finally taking a step. I felt a sweetness in my heart, but also a pang of pity. Her life was likely an endless cycle of "important business," one task after another, forcing her to suppress her emotions like this.
I asked, "What lies ahead? My senior brothers and sisters must have investigated already; it’s not related to illusions."
Wei Qingming replied, "It is indeed unrelated to illusions; it should just be the trapping array itself. Since Senior Brother Bai said it cannot be unraveled, I won't waste my energy. I simply want to pressure the one controlling the array and see what kind of monster or ghost they are."
"Aren't you being too modest, Lord Wei?" I said with a grin. "He couldn't even tell which direction the controller was in. I think the two of you are about equal. Perhaps you're even a cut above."
"No, he truly is a genius, and he specializes in this field. I cannot compare," Wei Qingming said with genuine humility. "My attainment in arrays is merely 'just enough.' He certainly saw where the controller was; it's just that none of us can best them, and he didn't want people throwing their lives away for nothing."
I thought for a moment and speculated, "The Array of Fear itself doesn't have much killing power. At most, it makes people lose their reason and will to fight. It's not commonly used on its own; usually, it's paired with other illusion mechanisms to be lethal. I suspect that if it weren't for the disciples of Mount Gomeng being here, the Array of Fear would be followed by an Array of Wrath. That way, the elite disciples—the foundations of the three great Daoist sects for the next century—would start slaughtering each other, and the world would fall into chaos."
"Mhm." Wei Qingming nodded with a smile. "My lady is brilliant. You are exactly right."
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I raised our tightly joined hands. "We've only been holding hands for a moment and you're already calling me 'my lady.' The Lord Envoy certainly knows how to give an inch and take a mile!"
She shrugged shamelessly. "As for hands, they were joined long ago. Speaking of which, I've actually been late by several years in calling you that. I, Wei Tian, have truly suffered a great loss."
I laughed and spat a "bah" at her, deciding not to argue. I never expected that the powerful and "nefarious" Lord Wei would be as childish as any pining maiden when in love...
Wei Qingming smiled silently for a while before continuing, "With the Tianshan Assembly approaching, the sect is very protective of the participating disciples. This banquet was reported to the Jingle Palace, which manages secular affairs, long ago. In half an hour at most, the anomaly will be impossible to hide. Someone will come to the rescue eventually, which is why our fellow disciples aren't panicking." Her tone darkened as she finished, returning to the hunting state I knew so well. "But I do not like placing my life in the hands of others."
As we spoke, we reached a cliff at the back of the mountain. I hadn't expected the southern side of Little Xie Peak to be so lush and beautiful, while the back was such a rugged, stark precipice, straight as if sliced by a blade. With our current abilities, it would still take half a cup of tea's time to fly to the summit. Just as I was inwardly admiring this intense contrast of beauty, Wei Qingming gazed intently at the cliff for a moment and sighed. "So, we were in the snare from the very beginning."
As she spoke, she pointed to an unremarkable tree. I observed it closely as well and gasped in shock. "This... this is a high-level illusion array constructed using an Illusion Domain—'Within the Mirror'..." The sunny and shady sides of that tree were completely reversed from common sense. The mountain we had entered today was itself a fake created by an Illusion Domain!
I hurriedly looked around and thought back carefully. Except for a tiny patch of ground less than ten feet wide before this cliff, every other place looked perfectly natural. It was a mirror within a mirror, twisting everything in reverse. Vegetation was sparse before the cliff; if not for this scrawny tree happening to grow within those ten feet, no one would have spotted the flaw. When Qiao Songlin and the others investigated, they only checked for areas where the flow of illusion techniques was abnormally dense—the array cores. Combined with their lack of familiarity with the terrain, they had overlooked the fact that this entire vertical plane of the cliff was the anomaly!
I couldn't help but feel a chill at the opponent's strength. "An Illusion Domain maintained with such ease... even if First Senior Brother comes to the rescue, he might not be a match..."
"It's not just an Illusion Domain," Wei Qingming said. "The person behind the scenes is also shifting and reshaping the landscape within the domain, forming a natural trapping array based on the original terrain. This is indeed the array-crafting technique of the Canxia Realm."
I felt a slight urge to retreat, but then I saw Wei Qingming smile faintly and hold out her hand to me. "Azhi, let's go up and take a look first."
Her calm and serenity were truly the best sedative. I smiled too, gripped her hand tightly, and we flew upward together.
As we flew, I looked anxiously at the sky, fearing we would hit a barrier array in real space before reaching the top of the cliff and stub our toes. Wei Qingming, however, was unhurried. She led me straight through the top of the cliff, loosely circling my waist as we slowly descended. She had naturally deduced where the boundary of the array lay. I couldn't help but think that after we got out, I really should take the opportunity of the law-changing assembly at the Wujing Sect to learn more about arrays.
The two of us scouted the area. I took it upon myself to have Huanzhen spread its sand grains in preparation for battle, while Wei Qingming brought out a bronze mirror, outputting spiritual power to a specific point. She hoped to faintly mark the shapes of the array runes. Usually, high-level array masters like her and Bai Yuyu wouldn't need tools for this step at all.
She was memorizing the runes that flashed by in an instant. My eyes were dazzled just watching; the runes extended in over a dozen directions. I could at most remember three or four lines at once. I really didn't know what her eyes were made of...
I didn't know at which point the manifestation of the runes alerted the guardian of the array. Suddenly, clouds and wind surged in the seemingly empty sky, completely obscuring the runes that had just begun to take shape. A fine, dense drizzle began to fall. The entire world seemed to be sliced into countless fragments by these delicate threads of rain, dissolving, twisting, and shifting constantly, slowly coalescing into a human figure.
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
镜中 | Within the Mirror | The name of the high-level illusion array.
魏天 | Wei Tian | Wei Qingming's original or alternate name.
入梦来 | Into the Dream | The name of the protagonist's business/shop.
如梦仙缕 | Dream-Like Immortal Raiment | The name of the protagonist's special garment.
天山会 | Tianshan Assembly | A major gathering or competition in the story.
净乐宫 | Jingle Palace | A division within the sect managing secular/administrative affairs.
故梦山 | Mount Gomeng | The protagonist's sect.
餐霞境界 | Canxia Realm | A high level of cultivation (literally "Cloud-Eating" or "Aura-Consuming").
浣真 | Huanzhen | The protagonist's tool or weapon, likely sand-based.
小嶰峰 | Little Xie Peak | The location where the events are taking place.
