"'What's missing isn't beautiful scenery, but being together'-how much more crap like that have you secretly prepared?"
"..." Pei Ye ignored the cat.
The black cat lay beside his ear, offering calm, earnest counsel. "You can't keep doing this. I'm already finding you a little disgusting."
"Then be disgusted to death."
Where they stopped was completely beyond Pei Ye's expectations.
It was not any of the distant pavilions he had seen, but a quiet little garden. The scenery was certainly distinctive, yet it had none of what Pei Ye had imagined.
Not only was it utterly unexceptional, it was even rather out of the way. Pei Ye suspected it lay on the edge of Xunfang Garden, because there were no flowers or flowing water left.
But there were indeed people here.
Two servant-like figures in green stood beneath a pavilion beside the entrance. The gate was small, wooden, and old, standing ajar; closing it would surely produce several clatters.
Beneath the gate lay a broken threshold, old steps, and moss.
Through the gap, Pei Ye could already see that, never mind a pavilion rising above the courtyard walls, there probably was not even a single-story house beyond the gate. The old flagstones paving the path were tilted and cracked, with frost-killed grass roots in their crevices.
But there were indeed guests here too.
Two or three parties had arrived just before them or at the same time. One woman had a reserved, aristocratic bearing and a long sword at her waist. Pei Ye recognized her at a glance: Lu Xiu, whom he had met several times at the Sword Cultivation Academy.
Beside her stood a young man as gentle and refined as polished jade, but his face was unfamiliar.
And the person just entering the garden was another