The white rooster and jade rabbit entwined their necks, calling out in midair.
Cheng Xinzhan watched, dumbstruck, while Zhou Qingyun stared blankly, her face and ears crimson.
Daoist Jianxian, meanwhile, held a Thunder Talisman between his fingers, at a loss.
"Who is causing trouble?"
A woman's voice came down from the lofty peak. Then the rosy light covering the mountain became a giant hand, seizing all three people and both swords,
and lifting them onto the peak.
The pine grove atop the peak was small, with only a little over a hundred trees, but each was a coiled dragon at rest, every pine needle gleaming emerald.
There was only one small wooden cabin in the grove. Opposite it lay an ancient pine as thick as a water vat,
with a female Daoist sitting cross-legged on its trunk.
She wore rosy robes patterned with red cranes and a crown of layered mountains. Her face looked about forty. Her eyes were slightly closed, and she held a ritual fan of blue-green feathers, slowly waving it, her bearing graceful and elegant.
The three people and two swords tumbled to the ground.
"Master!"
The young woman recognized her surroundings at a glance. This was the place that haunted her dreams day and night, and the person before her
was the one she thought of constantly. Seated on the ground, Zhou Qingyun poured countless turns of feeling into that cry, laden with untold longing.
The female Daoist's eyes flew open, immediately finding Zhou Qingyun.
"Yun'er!"
Tears fell like rain from Zhou Qingyun's eyes as she repeatedly bowed her head.
Daoist Jianxian and Cheng Xinzhan saw only a flash of rosy light upon the tree before the woman vanished. The next instant, she was crouching before Zhou Qingyun, helping her up.
"It really is you, Yun'er!"