Leaning Against Each Other in Sleep

The campfire flickered under the bare trees on this snowy night. You Su lifted the golden-brown roasted snow rabbit meat from the fire, the grease dripping onto the snow with a soft sizzling sound.

He had been really hungry for a long time.

He thought he'd have a good meal at Qianhua Venerable's place, but he never expected to be dragged away by this woman before he could even take a few bites. Now that he thinks about it, the few sips of tea he drank at Little Dog Qianhua's place only made him hungrier.

Thanks to the fact that the woman had just survived a major battle, this was a rare moment of rest for them during their mission to block the Sea Well. So, the snow rabbit that had luckily survived in the snow unfortunately became his meal.

Ganlong Venerable leaned against a tree trunk to meditate, her plain-colored skirt fluttering in the cold wind, and her cheeks seemed to glow with a cold, eerie blue light under the moonlight.

"Want some?" You Su tore off half a rabbit leg and handed it to her.

The fairy's eyelashes trembled slightly, her pale face flickering in the firelight, and she seemed to feel pity as she looked at the ravaged snow rabbit.

"I have Grain Avoidance from grains for a hundred years."

"Oh," You Su replied casually, putting the rabbit leg back.

The aroma of meat mixed with the scent of pine resin filled the cold air. He deliberately opened his mouth wide as if to bite, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the snow-white neck of the Ganlong Venerable gently twitch.

"Wait." She suddenly spoke, her eyes darting back and forth over the rabbit leg that was about to be put into You Su's mouth.

You Su feigned confusion, staring blankly at her. The woman seemed to flinch under You Su's gaze, but still spoke:

"It's been so long since I've tasted the warmth of everyday life; I'd like to experience that mundane flavor again."

She wasn't greedy for food; it was just that the cold wind was howling, and she was physically and mentally weak. She had a warm campfire and like-minded friends by her side. How could she bear to refuse their kindness?

You Su suppressed a laugh and handed the rabbit leg back to Gan Long. When Ganlong Venerable took it, their fingertips touched, You Su clearly felt that her hand was a little cold.

The female immortal was about to take a small bite of the rabbit meat when she noticed You Su still staring at her. She frowned, "You eat yours, why are you looking at me?"

"Your Sovereign Lord, eat whatever you want. Do you think I'm blind?"

The woman was speechless, thinking to herself that the young man was quite shameless, always pretending to be blind even though he wasn't. He was deliberately trying to make fun of her by seeing her go back on her word.

Fortunately, she wasn't one to be coy, nor would she let the boy get his way. So she gracefully raised her swan-like neck and boldly put the rabbit leg into her mouth.

Fine snowflakes landed on her temples, creating a charming contrast with the shine on her lips.

"How was it?" You Su didn't tease her.

"It's acceptable." She lowered her eyes to hide the emotion in them. "Although it's only seasoned with fine salt, the food from my Northern Ao Continent is inherently delicious."

Upon hearing You Su smiled bitterly, gazing at her snow-white eyelashes. He suddenly recalled the ethereal beauty he had first met, her robes fluttering, but now she seemed like a young girl who had tasted forbidden fruit.

He placed the remaining half of the snow rabbit on the fire and turned it over. The rabbit meat curled up in the charcoal fire, and the fat dripped down the wooden stick.

"Even if those people's thoughts are selfish," he suddenly said, "I think that old man at least genuinely thought that way; he truly believed that it would make Bei Ao better."

The Ganlong Venerable's fingertips glistened with ice crystals as she flicked the melted snow water towards the fire. She remained silent for a moment, her reaction surprisingly calm:

"Um."

You Su glanced at her, guessing that although she had killed him with her own hands, she must be heartbroken.

The snowy night was still and quiet. The two remained silent, with only the crackling of the campfire among the dry branches. The leaping sparks were swept into the night sky by the north wind, mingling with the snowflakes, like crushed stars falling into the snowfield.

You Su shredded the roasted rabbit meat into thin strips, the oil glistening on her fingertips like amber beads.

"That 'gentleman' the old man mentioned..." he suddenly spoke, his voice shrouded in a cold mist, "You really have never heard of him?"

Ganlong Venerable stared intently at the leaping flames, as if trying to pluck out a lurking shadow from the flickering light and shadow:

"I have ruled Bei'ao for nearly three hundred years. Anyone who could devise such a scheme under my very nose should not exist."

"Actually, before, I always thought that the 'sir' those people were talking about was you."

You Su planted a pine branch in the snow, the cold gleam of the Ink Pine Sword reflecting the wrinkles between her brows:

"You were worried all along that I orchestrated this whole thing? It wasn't until I killed him with my own hands that I realized I wasn't the 'sir' he was talking about?"

"Based on my past experience, you and that gentleman are intertwined in this grand scheme, so it's hard for me not to connect you with him."

The woman sighed unexpectedly, "Someone is using my obsession with revitalizing Bei'ao to lay another trap outside the chessboard. I want to know who it is even more than you do."

Suddenly, flames leaped up three feet high from the fire, You Su handed over the torn meat again.

"We're about to face off anyway, so who cares who it is?"

The woman paused for a moment upon hearing this, then smiled gently, but no longer coveted the boy's food.

"That's right, I've already Grain Avoidance. You can eat it yourself."

You Su didn't stand on ceremony with her and started enjoying her meal.

"We'll set off at dawn. Once I light the command token, they'll gather in Changbai City."

"Don't you need to rest a little longer?"

"Time waits for no one." The woman's eyes were resolute.

"Isn't this too hasty?"

"He held back his power because he really didn't want to destroy his homeland anymore, otherwise we wouldn't have decided the outcome so quickly." Her implication was that she hadn't expended much energy.

You Su raised an eyebrow and fell silent. He believed that once someone decided to risk everything, no one had the right to dissuade them.

"I forgot to ask him how the Archimedes Venerable is doing." You Su brushed the snow off his shoulder.

"He was imprisoned in the Heavenly Prison of the Evil Warding Department. Because he was his disciple, he took the initiative to take responsibility for interrogating him. He admired his disciple very much and probably wouldn't really do anything to him."

Upon hearing this You Su nodded slightly, praying that the unruly Flower Daoist wouldn't suffer too much.

"Do you really think Bai Ze can unite the people of Shenshan?" he asked again.

"How can you trust her even less than I do?"

That's because I know she also has a silly beast personality... If Bai Ze continues to fight with the Palace Lord of Dragon Seeing Palace for control of her body, You Su feels it's somewhat unthinkable.

As if sensing You Su's worry for Bai Ze, Ganlong Venerable pursed his lips, and for some reason, a faint bittersweet feeling welled up in his heart.

Why didn't I meet him first...?

"Although she hasn't returned to the mountain for thirty years, the changes on the sacred mountain are minimal; even the people are still the same. She knows just as much as I do, and even if she uses her weaknesses to blackmail people one by one, she can definitely win over quite a few."

"I hope so," You Su sighed softly.

"How... did you come up from the seabed?" the woman asked cautiously. She would have been too embarrassed to ask such questions if their relationship hadn't improved.

"Following the Sea Well you dug."

This answer made the woman somewhat embarrassed, unsure whether it counted as indirectly saving them again, though of course she couldn't possibly be so shameless as to think that way.

What is the seabed like?

"It's completely different from what I imagined. There's no water there at all; instead, a huge space is enveloped by a layer of pitch-black viscous liquid. You can breathe normally inside, like a sea within a sea prepared to breed evil spirits. But it's too eerie and sinister inside. I reckon Bai Ze and I haven't even entered its core area; we've probably only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg."

Just hearing this description sent a chill down Ganlong Venerable, and he said with lingering fear, "This discovery is enough to shock the Five Continents. At least it lets us know that there really is a mother nest of evil spirits in the seabed, so we won't be left without a way to take revenge. As the first person in the history of the Five Continents to return from the seabed, you and she will surely be remembered in history."

You Su shook his head. "He's not the first. Before us, there was already a predecessor who came ashore from the seabed. However, it seems he returned to the seabed."

These words caused the woman's pupils to shrink sharply, as if she were even more shocked than knowing that there really was an evil lair at the bottom of the sea. She wanted to ask You Su who that person was, but then she suddenly remembered something, and her face showed even more disbelief:

"You saw her? She's really not dead?"

"I didn't see that senior, but he left behind many stone tablets deep in the sea. It was thanks to these tablets, which recorded various information, that we were able to escape death at the bottom of the sea. My claim that he returned is also based on inference from the inscriptions on the tablets."

"This madman..." the woman murmured softly, unable to hide the shock in her heart.

"He said that the Sovereign Lord invited him to enter the seabed from the Sea Well. Does the Sovereign Lord know who he is?" You Su was very curious about the identity of that senior.

"She said I invited her?" Ganlong Venerable seemed even more surprised.

"Isn't that right?"

"Of course not. She came to me herself, saying she'd help me test whether this Sea Well really leads to the seabed. I don't even know how she knew I was digging a well here, so of course I wouldn't let her do anything reckless. But she threatened to expose my plan, so I had no choice but to agree to this fearless woman's request."

"Woman?"

"Yes, but like a man, her title is the Venerable Kaishan."

You Su frowned and thought carefully, but couldn't recall such a person.

The woman noticed his confusion. "Her title is taboo; no one dares to utter it, yet she insists on keeping it. Furthermore, she lived a very short time, disappearing from the world two hundred years ago, so later generations are unaware that such an eccentric person ever existed."

Opening up the mountains, opening up the mountains, the most important things in the world are those five mountains. After hearing this, You Su even felt that Ganlong Venerable's evaluation of this senior as unconventional was a bit conservative, it was clearly rebellious.

Why did this senior figure disappear without a trace?

"Two hundred years ago, she stormed the Immortal Ancestor Temple on Mount Henggao with her bare hands. No one knows why, but no one has seen her since, and even this title has gradually been forgotten. If it was her, it wouldn't be surprising if she wrote on her epitaph that she was invited by me. How could someone as domineering as her admit that she came uninvited?"

You Su was increasingly shocked as she listened, marveling that such an extraordinary woman existed in the world.

"But why did she go down to the sea twice?"

"No one knows what she's up to, including that time she stormed the sacred mountain. Compared to those ethereal Fairy, she's truly aloof from the world."

Upon hearing this You Su nodded slightly, becoming even more curious about what kind of person this senior was.

Seeing that You Su was becoming more talkative, the woman unconsciously clenched her fingers and took the opportunity to ask about a question that You Su was more concerned about.

"Does Bai Ze... do she hate me?"

You Su knew that the woman couldn't hold back any longer. He poked at the rekindled campfire and said, "If you really feel guilty, you should ask her yourself. Even if she truly hates you, she won't tell me."

You Su felt that since these two were one body with two souls, they were even closer than family members—"family members"—so why would anyone make things difficult for themselves?

Sparks crackled and exploded. Ganlong Venerable gazed at the leaping flames, as if seeing herself always huddled in the shadows. Because of her profound loneliness, she had created a second version of herself.

She had secretly made up her mind that when they met again, she would let Bai Ze return to this body, even if it meant she had to sleep more afterward.

The firelight made the woman appear even paler, like porcelain. You Su's heart softened. "But when she spoke of you to me, there was no hatred or resentment in her eyes. She said you both did terrible things to each other, but she was the one who was driven out."

The woman finally smiled with relief, her voice like the clear sound of a spring stream breaking through ice, "Although she is timid, she is indeed more clear-headed than I am."

"Of course, she didn't say a bad word about you. She said that when you were studying at Mount Shen, every time you were punished by the lecturer, you would deliberately not wake up so that she would get the punishments like copying the <Book of Mountain Protection> three hundred times. She will hold a grudge for the rest of her life." You Su said with a wicked smile.

The female immortal suddenly turned her head, "She doesn't even know this..."

"She even said she caught a cold from staying up all night, but you complained that she didn't take care of her health."

A burst of golden light suddenly erupted from the campfire, illuminating the tips of Ganlong Venerable's ears and making them flush red. She turned her face away, her voice muffled by her fur collar. "Too talkative."

The snow had stopped sometime earlier, and the Milky Way flowed overhead.

After eating and drinking his fill, You Su felt somewhat tired. He leaned against the tree trunk beside the woman and closed his eyes.

"Remember to wake me up when it gets light."

Ganlong Venerable stared blankly at the profile of the boy beside him, somewhat lost in thought.

When someone can fall asleep peacefully next to another person, it must mean they consider that person one of their own.

In the firelight, the two people, though clearly some distance apart, appeared to be leaning against each other in their silhouettes.

The woman gazed at the boy's thin figure huddled in the snow, then suddenly took a cotton blanket from her Universe Bag and covered him with it. Mixed in with You Su's even breathing were the woman's soft murmurs:

"Thanks."

You Su's eyelashes trembled slightly, but she did not open her eyes.

He wasn't really tired; he came to find his Mistress.

But to his surprise, when he returned to the warmly decorated Sword Sect courtyard, he did not see the figure he longed for.

Previously, his Mistress would always quietly stay by his bedside.

Has something happened to Mistress...?

Rather than a negative prediction, You Su was more inclined to believe that his Mistress had her own things to do; after all, no one can live in a dream forever.

The sun rose silently, and the campfire gradually died down.

"It's time to set off." Ganlong Venerable rose and brushed the frost off his skirt. The grand drama of reclaiming the sacred mountain had finally reached its climax.

You Su gazed at the dawn breaking on the horizon, she suddenly realized that the snow in Bei'ao could actually be quite gentle at times.

My brain was completely fried from thinking about work today, so I'm a little sluggish. I'll make faster progress tomorrow and finish this volume within three or four chapters.