Behind all this, how many intricate sches truly lie? In the surging undercurrents, how much petty, disgraceful wheeling and dealing remains hidden? Chen Yi felt a prickle run down his spine.
"Mother's been locked up for so many years—how would she know?" The Tushan Clan matron tapped her foot lightly on the surface of the water. "You ought to ask this woman. This woman has been hiding many things from you."
Chen Yi lowered his head, glancing deeply into the water's reflection, and murmured, "A wicked woman, indeed."
Even without the Tushan Clan matron's words, Chen Yi already knew that his wife from his past life had concealed far too much. There were many tis she spoke only half-truths, hiding the rest, or simply never addressed certain matters at all. Even after spending long years together, Chen Yi always felt an inability to truly understand her. Though they were married, no amount of ti or conversation could forge true intimacy. It seed she cared little for this life or the last.
Whenever Chen Yi wanted answers, Zhou Yitang would either evade his questions or tell him it wasn't the right ti for him to know.
The Tushan Clan matron suddenly smiled mischievously and said, "What if you divorced her?"
"She… She's the woman in this world who cares most for , besides you," Chen Yi paused, seemingly stunned by such a proposition. Fearing to displease the matron, he shook his head with a laugh and said, "If I divorced her, odds are the next one I'd find would also be a wicked woman."
"There are good won out there."
"Too many wicked won in the world," Chen Yi hesitated briefly before steering the conversation elsewhere. "How would one not be considered a wicked woman?"
"Soone like Mother wouldn't be a wicked woman." The Tushan Clan matron pointed at herself, grinning.
"Mother, isn't that just shaless self-praise?"
"You brat, if I don't boast about myself, how would you know I treat you better than anyone in this world?"
When the matron suddenly called him "brat," Chen Yi's heart ward—it was similar to when he would teasingly call the little fox "fool." Such small exchanges softened his heart.
"Mother, you're so good to ," Chen Yi said out of nowhere.
The Tushan Clan matron blinked in surprise, covering her mouth to stifle a laugh. "You finally realize it now?"
"I've always known."
"Who's better—your master or your mother?" The matron asked with feigned slyness.
After a mont's hesitation, Chen Yi replied, "…Mother."
"What a good boy." The matron glanced toward the figure lingering within Heart Lake. "Still, if she asks you the sa question, you must say she's better. Understand?"
"Why?"
"Because without a little dishonesty, how will you win a woman's heart?" The matron laughed lightly. "Go ahead and say it—Mother will never mind."
Chen Yi's thoughts rose and fell in turbulent waves but soon settled once more.
Before him lay his own Heart Lake. Chen Yi flexed his fingers, dissipating Zhou Yitang's reflection from the water's surface. The lake rippled under the motion, and in its place, the shifting water coalesced into the image of an elder standing atop a mountain peak. At first glance, sothing about the figure felt extraordinary. The Tushan Clan matron narrowed her eyes, her fox tail flaring out, as an ominous aura spread.
Surveying the pitch-dark world beyond, Chen Yi began rattling off his predicant, as though pouring beans from a bamboo tube:
"He wishes to duel —a fight by the sword. If I lose, I die; if I win, he dies. Years ago, Zhou Yitang managed to spar to a draw against him. She later imparted teachings to dispel my ignorance, saying only by attaining the state of 'forgetting both self and the external world,' rging as one with the heavens and earth, would there be the slightest chance of survival. Her words were not false, but…"
The matron imdiately cut in, "But you don't like it."
Chen Yi gave a bitter chuckle and responded, "That's right, I don't like it. To sever attachnts to the mortal self, to labor toward achieving form without substance, and selflessness—I… I cannot devise another strategy. I cannot imagine… a better state of being."
For so reason, much of Zhou Yitang's teachings resonated deeply with him, yet when it ca to the one thing most praiseworthy—her swordsmanship—Chen Yi would always dismiss it, as though her words had gone in one ear and out the other. It wasn't an outright rejection but a sense that her lessons weren't entirely correct. This ti, the sentint felt even stronger. Her so-called 'forgetting both self and the external world,' aligning with the Martial Arts Third Rank of refining spirit to return to the void—chanted over countless philosophies—echoed within him. Yet the mory of the crumbling Buddha statue on the night before leaving the capital remained vivid. Chen Yi himself had destroyed that selfless martial intent—his disagreent on an intrinsic level impossible to deny.
With a mocking smile, Chen Yi muttered to himself, "I proclaim there's a better state, claiming that I embody the Dao itself. Yet aside from this thod of rging with the universe, I cannot find an alternative path. My heart… feels forever adrift, influenced now by one elent, then by another, uncertain where it aims to wander among heavenly realms."
"Your heart is unmoored?"
"Min Ning once asked where my heart had gone, and only then did I co to realize its fleeting nature," Chen Yi replied slowly. "Even now… I don't know where I want to go."
"Where do you wish to go…" The Tushan Clan matron mused, before posing another question: "People walk the world between heaven and earth—so where are *your* heavens and earth?"
"Where else could they be, but here?" Chen Yi found her inquiry odd.
The heavens and earth—where else could they exist? Aside from this realm, this single world—what other heavens and earth could there possibly be…
Suddenly, Chen Yi's thoughts aligned sharply, and he exclaid, "You an *here*?!"
Ripples spread across the lake's waters. Tender waves refracted Wu Buxu's silhouette into fragnted shards. Neither pure nor murky waters shimred amidst shifting veils of mist, where faint specters played. Gentle currents brushed against Chen Yi's knees, as faces filled with eerie familiarity surfaced.
The Tushan Clan matron pressed her lips into a soft smile, speaking with gentle warmth, "If not within your heart—then where?"
Chen Yi took in a deep breath, and as reflections stirred within, the water surged. Droplets—one, two, countless—leapt skyward, rging into a magnificent, crystalline firmant. The sky unfolded, radiant as newly washed jade, as moisture thrumd in the rhythm of his breath. Raising his gaze once more, Chen Yi stood stunned, entranced.
The world fell to silence. Beneath a vast, serene expanse sketched in tender hues, familiar faces erged with increasing clarity. From these images, forgotten mories surfaced. Chen Yi recalled countless stories and scenes reeling through him—fragnts of bitterness, joy, rage, sorrow… glimpses of Yin Tingxue clutching paper flowers she hesitated to unravel, the soaked sleeves of priestesses before and after the capital's fall, the solitary woman by the grave guarded by a single arm, Min Ning with sword and blade imitating his own upright bearing, Qin Qingluo's complex expression as she cradled her stomach, and Zhu E's buoyant deanor as she read letters aloud… even the widow, lost in her trance at the desk. Water's shimring, shifting light stitched these fragnts into infinite skies.
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