Those people closing in on her step by step turned into Pei Qing, and Lou Yun darted outside without a second thought.
Ghost Pacing Step?
Watching the woman vanish at lightning speed with those ghostly steps, Pei Qing had no time for surprise. He used his lightness skill and gave chase.
One fleeing and the other pursuing, they ran farther and farther from the capital.
The longer Pei Qing followed, the more alarmed he became. With his martial prowess, he was actually showing signs of being unable to keep up.
He had thought he had failed to break free of Lou Yun earlier because he had not dared use his strength. Now it seemed that perhaps he simply could not break free.
After an unknown stretch of time, they reached a bamboo grove. Lou Yun finally stopped and coldly spat at the man catching up behind her, "Get lost."
Using her fingers as a blade and her internal energy as force, Lou Yun sliced a bamboo stalk in two. She broke off a length to use as a sword and began fighting the bamboo in the grove.
Pei Qing stood far off among the bamboo, watching Lou Yun execute her moves without blinking, amazement on his face. His hand rested on the whip handle at his waist, itching to move.
An opponent of this caliber was hard to encounter in a lifetime.
After venting for a long while, Lou Yun realized that the man who had nearly infuriated her to death still had not left.
She strode through the air, pressing down on the bamboo joints as she leaped before Pei Qing.
The sharpened bamboo tip pointed at the young man's neck. The blood-red color had yet to fade from Lou Yun's eyes, and the hair streaming behind her made her look like a demon that had escaped the underworld to reap lives.
"Want to fight?"
The bamboo tip touched his skin, barely a hair's breadth from piercing it and taking his life.
Pei Qing neither dodged nor retreated. He drew the silver whip at his waist, his voice carrying fierce fighting spirit for the first time.
"Yes."
Between question and answer, they struck in an instant, neither showing any mercy.
They fought for half a day, both bringing every skill they possessed to bear. In the end, Pei Qing still proved no match for her.
The whip slipped from his hand and fell to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.
The young man knelt on one knee and wiped the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "I have lost," he conceded.
At the sight of the blood on the young man's lips, the scarlet in Lou Yun's eyes receded in an instant.
Carrying the length of bamboo, she walked step by step toward Pei Qing, who looked like a feather fallen into the mortal world.
Pei Qing had long since fought himself to exhaustion. Had Lou Yun still not come to her senses?
The fight had been thoroughly exhilarating, and he could no longer move any part of his body. If Lou Yun still had not regained her senses, he could only let her take his life now.
"Ha..." A nearly breathless laugh escaped his throat. As Great Yan's imperial preceptor, he had imagined where he might meet his end.
He might die in the struggle between two factions, on a battlefield killing enemies for his country, or under an emperor's suspicion.
But he had never imagined dying before he had accomplished anything.
Pei Qing suddenly tipped his head back, exposing the most vulnerable part of his body before Lou Yun.
He closed his eyes as though offering himself in sacrifice and quietly awaited death.
Like a pebble dropping onto the water, sending out ripple after ripple.
Lou Yun reached out and loosely gripped the young man's neck, demanding in the tone of one in power, "Does the imperial preceptor understand my feelings now?"
Pei Qing suddenly smiled, a breathtaking smile. His usually cool, distant eyes opened, warmed by the rosy clouds on the horizon.
He looked a little less ethereal and considerably more human.
"No. Your Highness must tell me yourself."
Was there really someone who did not fear death?
Lou Yun tightened her grip, applying a little force.
With his windpipe gripped in her hand, Pei Qing could not breathe and could not stop coughing.
"Do you really want to meet the King of Hell?"
Lou Yun had only just suppressed her fury and could not calm down so quickly. The slightest spark could swiftly set her alight.
"Cough... no... cough, cough."
The young man's face flushed red. Lou Yun still could not bring herself to do it. Bending down, she stared into Pei Qing's eyes and enunciated every word. "I. Like. You."
Then she released him. As the young man went limp and toppled toward the ground, she crouched with him and gathered him into her arms.
Pei Qing's head rested limply on the woman's shoulder as he gulped down air. After recovering, as though that had not been frightening enough, he replied, "I am a man beyond worldly affairs."
Lou Yun could not be bothered with the man in her arms, impervious to all persuasion. She scooped him up and walked toward the wooden cabin.
"Even if you shave your head and become a monk, you'll have to walk out of that temple and return to secular life for me."
Pei Qing leaned docilely against her and asked, "And if I refuse?"
"Then I'll tear down that temple, drag the imperial preceptor out in bonds, and hold a blade to the abbot's neck until he lets you return to secular life."
Anticipating another objection from the man in her arms, she added
"If that still doesn't work, I'll use the monks in the temple as hostages. The imperial preceptor will surely return to secular life obediently."
Pei Qing did not know whether to laugh or cry. His fingertips clutched Lou Yun's collar as he softly accused her, "The conduct of a tyrant."
Lou Yun indifferently bounced the man in her arms as a warning.
So what? She had already been a tyrant for one lifetime. Being one for another would make little difference.
Utterly exhausted, the young man lay in the woman's arms and closed his eyes to sleep peacefully.
He had experienced too much today and taken in too much as well. Perhaps in his dreams, he could sort these thoughts out.
In a haze, Pei Qing dreamed of when he was fifteen or sixteen. A boy's body developed rapidly, but he had thought he would never experience what ordinary men did.
Yet that morning, the stickiness between his legs had woken him even earlier than usual.
How could this be?
The young Pei Qing pulled his hand out from under the covers and stared blankly at the white fluid before his eyes.
Before he could fully recover, Xuanjizi burst through the door over an unexpected matter and caught him looking dazed for the first time in his life.
"A wet dream? This is a normal occurrence for men. There's no need to panic, though I thought you would be at least twenty before you experienced it."
Xuanjizi calmly walked over to reassure Pei Qing. After some thought, he added a few more words of advice. "Now that it has happened, don't dwell on it. As long as there was no specific person in your dream."
"Remember, as Great Yan's imperial preceptor and a man beyond worldly affairs, you must not entangle yourself in too much karma. It is detrimental to your cultivation."
"I understand, Master."
"Mm. I will be traveling north for a while. Look after the observatory in my absence."
"Yes, Master."
The young Pei Qing answered obediently, but after Xuanjizi left, heat immediately crept up his cheeks.
Pei Qing buried his face deep in the quilt, even the tips of his ears showing through his hair burning hot. How could he, how could he harbor such thoughts about a woman he had met only once?
How mortifying. How utterly shameless.
The woman in the young man's dream was Lou Yun, whom he had met two years earlier, though the Lou Yun in his dream looked somewhat different from the one he had seen then.
The girl had fully blossomed. On the bed, she was as languid as she had been at their first meeting, effortlessly holding his joys and sorrows in her hands.
He... he had been utterly hopeless in that dream too. When Lou Yun wanted him to cry, he cried; when she wanted him to cry out, he cried out. He was obedient beyond belief.
He dared not tell anyone, whether Xuanjizi, Lou Ze'an, or Mo Chi.
The first required him to be a good imperial preceptor to Great Yan, the second hoped he would become a good subject, and the third needed only a kindhearted master.
He had spoken of these lovesick feelings only to A Zi. At the time, he had simply thought that he could never have any further connection with Lou Yun in this lifetime.
Like two rivers that never crossed, there would never come a day when they converged.
On the day the Temple of No Delusion caught fire, he had sat in the courtyard for a long time. He had thought how good it would have been if he could have said it aloud, or even just seen her once more.
The news that Lou Ze'an had returned after going missing could be called the only good news he had heard during that time.
He wrote a letter to Lou Ze'an, but Lou Ze'an not only failed to discover the hidden message in it, he did not even write back.
At the time, an inconceivable possibility surfaced in his mind. To confirm it, he set out early to look for her and happened to lend her a hand.
He had not expected her to know martial arts too. He had fled in haste that morning not only because he was running out of time, but also because he feared giving himself away. He feared his eyes would betray him, yet he did not want their connection to end just like that, so he deliberately left his sword there.
But before the court officials, he still dared not act too close to her, so he deliberately put on a cold manner.
Yet no matter how long he waited, Lou Yun never came to return his sword. Fortunately, his encounters with her inexplicably grew more frequent, and they were even assigned to investigate a case together.
He kept warning himself that Lou Yun was merely playing the part of her elder brother and that he must not read too much into it.
But with every meeting, he wanted to leave something behind so that she would come looking for him.
He deliberately ate something that would upset his stomach because he wanted her to seek him out. He had only hoped Lou Yun might send someone to ask after him, never expecting her to come in person.
And so the desire within him was fed until it grew ever larger. Later, in a moment of muddleheadedness, he went straight to her door.
"Lou Yun..."
The young man murmured, the tears seeping from the corners of his eyes slowly soaking into the girl's clothing at her chest.
I like you. I like you so much.
I liked you from our very first meeting when we were young.
And I will like you for all the years to come.
Chapter 18
Holding the man in her arms, Lou Yun planned to settle down at the cabin and hear what Pei Qing had uncovered while she was at it.
Candlelight flickered.
Pei Qing watched Lou Yun bustle about after setting him down, his thoughts flying in all directions. His gaze knew only to follow her, making him look somewhat dazed and foolish.
To make Pei Qing more comfortable on the journey back, Lou Yun had specifically lit the signal flare she carried and summoned Ying Yi and the others.
The night dew lay heavy. Given that Pei Qing's stomach threw a tantrum over a little chili, she dared not vouch for how healthy he was. No sooner had she found a clean spot to set him down than she hurried off to break branches and build a fire.
Seeing the young man curled up in the corner, wrapped snugly in her outer robe, she felt a sense of satisfaction arise unbidden.
Such a beautiful Pei Qing ought to be utterly steeped in her scent. Better still if she could stamp her mark on him, so that wherever he went, everyone would know he already belonged to someone.