The Old Calendar No One Could Turn

The two of them walked upstream along the Dragon Whisker River.

As they passed the stone arch bridge, Liu Xianyang smiled. "Know why I was dead set on working with Master Ruan back then?"

Chen Ping'an nodded. "There used to be a covered bridge here. Every evening, plenty of people came to stroll, cool off, and chat. Only the Old Scholar Tree drew a bigger crowd. More old folks and children gathered there; more young adults gathered here, which meant more girls, too."

Liu Xianyang rubbed his cheek and sighed regretfully. "Too bad those little girls aren't so little anymore. Whenever they see me on the road now, the old girls have little girls of their own beside them, and the way they look at me isn't right at all. Like they want to eat me alive."

"Don't get carried away," Chen Ping'an said. "They just suspect you're a Dao Cultivator from the mountains. They don't think you're handsome and ageless."

Few ordinary people in their hometown knew that Liu Xianyang was a direct disciple of the Longquan Sword Sect. And since Master Ruan had moved the Patriarch Hall north of the capital region, leaving Liu Xianyang alone to watch over the Blacksmith Shop, even the well-informed in the Northern Yue Region mostly mistook him for a menial disciple of the Longquan Sword Sect.

"In that case," Liu Xianyang mused, "Yu Qian Yue really is the one for me. A match made in heaven; when fate calls, lovers meet across a thousand miles."

"She's calling herself Yu Qian Yue now?" Chen Ping'an smiled. "She put thought into that."

She Yue. Yu Qian Yue. A thought stirred in Chen Ping'an's mind, and his spirit wandered ten thousand miles again, rifling through his thoughts like a spring breeze turning pages.

Liu Xianyang