The air fell deathly still.
Xu Yuan slowly turned his head and looked at the woman beside him. That somewhat familiar term, paired with Ran Qingmo's same cool, distant gaze from the day they first met, made the hair on his neck stand up. And just like that, he understood where the bone-deep pain from before he blacked out had come from.
Rejection syndrome, the term instilled a feeling of absurdity, helplessness, and enlightenment all at once.
Once one's cultivation reaches the Source Awakener Realm, those who enter through martial arts can regenerate from a single drop of blood, their bodies rendered all but indestructible. Those who enter through qi can solidify soul and will, leave the body behind, and seize another's spirit.
This world already allowed possession to begin with, but who would have thought that crossing over from another world could also trigger something like rejection syndrome?
Other than the howl of the freezing wind, the vast snowfield was silent.
Xu Yuan said nothing for a long while before speaking softly, "Rejection syndrome?"
"Mhm." Ran Qingmo looked at him and nodded.
Xu Yuan narrowed his eyes and let out an ambiguous little laugh. "Miss Ran, what exactly are you getting at?"
"You are not Xu Changtian." Ran Qingmo met his gaze directly. Her voice was as calm as ever, as though she were stating something utterly ordinary.
Now that the suspicion in his heart had been spoken aloud by someone else, maybe because the long coma had left his mind sluggish, Xu Yuan found that he wasn't actually panicking despite having his identity exposed.
At this point, there were only two roads left in front of him. Admit it or deny it. If he denied it, what excuse could he possibly feed her? If he admitted it, what would the consequences be?
After a long silence, Xu Yuan slowly rose to his feet. Under Ran Qingmo's watchful eyes, he picked up the waterskin beside him and took a swig of Flame Spirit Fluid to warm himself. Then he lifted his eyes to the immeasurably tall mountain peak above, and by the pale moonlight, glanced down toward the endless coastline below.
In the four days he had been unconscious, Ran Qingmo and that big white tiger had actually dragged him all the way to the middle slopes of Heaven's Gate Peak.
With a rough script prepared in his mind, Xu Yuan turned back to look at Ran Qingmo and said slowly, "Whether or not I am Xu Changtian, is that very important to you?"
He did not deny it. He admitted it with striking composure.
What Ran Qingmo needed was a Xu Changtian who was alive, the Third Young Master she could use to threaten the Chancellor. As for how exactly he was alive, that part was not really important. And she had definitely already realized that. Otherwise, there was no way she would have brought his unconscious body along the original route all the way to Heaven's Gate Peak.
Ran Qingmo thought seriously for a moment, then shook her head. "It doesn't matter. But why don't you know how to cultivate?"
As she spoke, a trace of genuine confusion flickered through her eyes.
The change in Xu Changtian's personality before and after his coma could be explained well enough. But if the man before her really had been reborn by possessing another body, why did he seem like a complete infant whenever the subject turned to cultivation?
Holding the waterskin, Xu Yuan sat down beside Ran Qingmo. His heartbeat stayed steady. He raised a hand and tapped his head, speaking in an even, unhurried tone.
"Because a lot of my memories are missing. What I have is fragmented, scattered pieces."
"Including that cave dwelling you mentioned?"
"Naturally."
"What about the things related to Xu Changtian himself?"
"I don't know. Maybe the cultivation art I practice is unusual. Among those broken fragments, some belong to my past life, and some of Xu Changtian's memories were accidentally left behind as well."
"Then how did you know about the Sword Sect?"
At that, Xu Yuan did not answer. He only smiled and shook his head. "Miss Ran, didn't we agree not to pry into that sort of thing?"
Hearing that, the beautiful eyes visible above the veil covering her face flickered for a moment. In the end, she still nodded.
Seeing this, Xu Yuan took advantage of the fact that everything was already out in the open and continued, "You probably won't listen, but I still want to give you a piece of advice. That man will never waver in his decision because of me, or rather, because of Xu Changtian."
Then, meeting Ran Qingmo's gaze, he said each word with deliberate clarity, "If you truly want to stop the Sword Sect from being destroyed, there are better ways. I can help you."
The fall of the Sword Sect was a major plot point in Azure Point. If he made proper use of Ran Qingmo, Xu Yuan stood to gain a great deal from it.
But the look in Ran Qingmo's eyes did not waver in the slightest. She simply watched him in silence.
Xu Yuan smiled faintly at that and did not try to persuade her any further. "My offer stands forever. If you change your mind, you can come to me anytime."
Ran Qingmo's refusal did not surprise him in the least.
Though the two of them were now tied to the same rope, their identities alone made it basically impossible for Ran Qingmo to truly trust him. The reason she had been willing to take his advice and head together for that hidden cave dwelling was, for the most part, because his strength was so meager that he posed no threat to her at all.
No threat? Wait. Xu Yuan's thoughts suddenly stalled.
He realized there was a flaw in his logic. The premise behind going to the cave dwelling was that his weakness made him harmless to Ran Qingmo. But the sudden onset of rejection syndrome had already invalidated that premise.
Once one reached the Origin Awakener Realm through qi cultivation, the soul and spirit would solidify, allowing one to leave the body and seize another's soul.
Anyone at that level could already be called peerless under heaven.
If Xu Yuan remembered correctly, Ran Qingmo had not yet reached that realm at this point in time.
The hidden cave dwelling he had mentioned would, in Ran Qingmo's eyes, naturally be something left behind before his death.
In other words, in her eyes, Xu Yuan had gone from a powerless young dandy who could not even truss a chicken to a mysterious remnant soul capable of threatening her.
Xu Yuan stared at the woman in black before him, who had once again closed her eyes to rest. A flood of questions rose in his mind.
Did she fail to notice this? Or did she notice and simply didn’t care? No, that can’t be right. Ran Qingmo isn’t the type not to care. Confidence is one thing. Arrogance is another. The formations and restrictions inside the former cave dwelling of an Origin Awakener expert are more than enough to pose a threat to Ran Qingmo.
If that was the case, then why did she still dare follow him there? A growing sense of foreboding began to creep through Xu Yuan's chest.
After a moment of silence, he slowly lowered his head and looked at the waterskin in his hand, or rather, at the Flame Spirit Fluid inside it.
The foundation of their cooperation had been the fact that whoever was backing the Flame Spirit Python wanted him dead on the road while Ran Qingmo was kidnapping him.
The thought surfaced, and Xu Yuan suddenly realized something. During the days he had been unconscious, something must have happened. And whatever it was, it had forced Ran Qingmo into going with him to that cave dwelling.
Moonlight poured down like a waterfall. The silence lay still as water.
Crunch, crunch.
As his thoughts churned, the sound of footsteps crushing through snow came from the distance. Xu Yuan immediately turned to look, and only relaxed a little after seeing who it was.
It was that big white tiger. But now the beast was a full size larger than when he had first seen it four days ago. It seemed to have undergone some kind of transformation, and had probably eaten quite a few demonic beast cores these past days while following behind Ran Qingmo.
Humans could not consume demonic beast cores directly, but to demonic beasts themselves, they were an excellent tonic.
The big white tiger came loping over with a snow wolf more than two meters long clamped in its jaws.
Its huge body stopped beside Ran Qingmo. It set down the snow wolf, then rubbed its head against the hem of her black dress with a goofy sort of affection. After that, it shot Xu Yuan a look of open disdain, ignored the prey entirely, and flopped down beside Ran Qingmo to doze.
Everything returned to silence.
Beneath the moonlight in the snowy mountains, the woman in black and the enormous white tiger formed a scene of perfect stillness and harmony.
But Xu Yuan's gaze remained fixed on the tiger's back.
There, at the place where he had once sat, was a deep wound, so severe that bone showed through.