The next day.
The weather had cleared. Warm autumn sunshine spilled over the windows, and a faint scent of osmanthus drifted in from the courtyard.
Xie Jinhuan got up and dressed, hung his weapons at his waist, then picked up the sash and skirt from the floor, folded them neatly, and hung them on the clothes rack.
Behind the bed curtains, the utterly exhausted Bespectacled Girl lay limp, facing inward. Her big bowls were squashed flat, the black-stocking Dharma Artifact lay discarded to one side, and her waist, white as congealed cream, twitched from time to time.
Her complexion was much rosier than before, though, and her whole body seemed to glow. That appeared to have something to do with some of the yin cold energy being purged as well.
Strictly speaking, Missing Moon Manor's yin cold energy was a drawback of its cultivation technique, while the Immortal-Burning Gu was a method developed to turn that drawback from waste into something useful.
The cold-purging method A Piao taught him really worked. Wanyi had transformed into a river goddess, becoming more and more spirited instead.
The price, however, was that it wore a man out. All the purged yin cold energy passed into him, and if too much accumulated, yin would flourish while yang declined.
Still, a man's supreme yang energy renewed itself endlessly. He could metabolize it away in a few days, so it was no real problem.
Once Xie Jinhuan had tidied himself up, he took the handkerchief folded beside the pillow. A red plum blossom was imprinted on it.
Wanyi had insisted on putting the handkerchief there, saying it was tradition. Since Xie Jinhuan's robes were shredded whenever he fought, he was afraid of losing it and put it away in Wanyi's cabinet.
Noticing that he had left