The sky had taken on an eerie leaden gray. Dark clouds blanketed it, and fine sleet mixed with goose-feather snow drifted down in a flurry, settling on the houses and trees of the Daoist temple, as though the whole ground had been clad in silver.
Xia Wu, dressed all in black, and Ying Pei, wearing a pale-colored palace dress, stood before me. The pressure they radiated was far stronger than I had imagined.
I had originally thought of him as nothing more than Black Eyes. I never expected him to become an elder today, and for a moment, I couldn't slip into the role. Ying Pei seemed to notice my hesitation. She smiled at me, then reached out to stroke my shoulder, softly uttering some archaic words. Though they sounded awkward to my ears, I could more or less make out what she meant.
The results of strengthening my study of ancient speech over the past year were pretty good, but I would rather not have understood those words at all.
"What's wrong? You don't need to be so formal with him. You're both going to be his wives, aren't you? Xijun definitely can't be a concubine. Wherever she is placed, she has to be a co-wife." Xia Wu spoke with some displeasure.
"Matters of the heart shouldn't be forced too much. I can tell that he likes Xijun, and Xijun also likes Yitian very much..." After spending some time with me, much of the coldness had faded from Ying Pei's face. She was still very kind to me.
"If you like her, marry her. Why all the hesitation? He isn't usually so indecisive when he does things, so what's gotten into him today? Xia Yitian, do you think that just because you have your grandmaster behind you, you can