After My Paranoid Act to Woo My Cold Master Failed - Chapter 44

A flash of imagery crossed her mind the last thing she remembered was succumbing to a wave of exhaustion like a rising tide before falling into a deep sleep.

After that, there was a complete blank.

“You said you wanted to build a snowman. Do you truly not remember?” Fu Xueke pointed toward the massive snowy figure before them, a half-smile playing on her lips.

Shen Shuheng turned to look. The snowman was nearly as tall as she was, with a round, bulging white body and black eyes that sparkled in the sunlight eyes that looked quite sharp and clever. However, beneath those clever eyes was a round, bright orange nose. Combined with the wide, arching smile carved beneath it, the whole thing looked incredibly comical and bizarre.

She looked closer. The nose was indeed an actual orange.

A memory suddenly surfaced: she had adamantly refused to use a carrot, insisting that an orange was better. She had even demanded that the snowmen wear their clothes.

As these memories flooded back, her face burned with embarrassment. In an instant, a deep crimson took over her porcelain skin, spreading even to her earlobes. Shuheng’s hands fidgeted awkwardly. The childish tone she had used with her Master, the nonsensical things she had done it was all mortifying. She wished she could turn into a snowflake and melt into the ground, never to be seen again.

Fu Xueke finally couldn’t help it and let out a laugh.

“When I was doing such childish things, why didn’t Master stop me?” Shuheng murmured, nervously twisting the hem of her robe. She kept her head down, staring at the snow. Her face was so hot she wanted to scoop up a handful of ice and press it against her cheeks.

Fu Xueke smiled tenderly, looking like a rare, exquisite flower blooming in the cold—the only spot of color in this vast white world. “How was it childish? It was clearly very cute. Your Master likes you very much like this.”

Shuheng looked up. Seeing her Master’s joyful expression, a pang of envy hit her. She was jealous of her “mindless” self for being able to make her Master smile so freely. Even if it wasn’t the kind of “liking” she craved, she was still jealous that her child-like self could elicit such a confession.

“Master, don’t you find someone with the mind of a child… annoying?” she asked. In her experience, children were nothing but a nuisance.

“Never annoying,” Fu Xueke’s dark eyes shimmered with warmth. I couldn’t love it more.

The Secret Outing

Shuheng suddenly remembered her silent companion. System? Are you there? Still no response. She felt a twinge of worry, but she was powerless to fix it.

“Are you still playing in the snow?” Fu Xueke asked.

“I need to practice my sword,” Shuheng replied. With the System’s status unknown, she had to double her efforts to break the death-trap of her future.

“Rest today. Everything must be done in stages, and your body isn’t fully recovered.”

“Understood.” But being idle felt strange. Then she remembered her promise to the Artifact Spirit to bring her some storybooks (Huaben). “Master, I have some matters to attend to. I need to head out for a bit.”

“It’s good to clear your head,” Fu Xueke said, though a hollow sense of loss climbed into her heart. Usually, her disciple would explain exactly where she was going instead of using a vague phrase like “some matters.”

Fu Xueke watched the girl’s silhouette grow smaller until she was just a series of footprints in the snow. New flakes began to fall, turning Fu Xueke’s hair and brows white as she stood there, motionless, for a long time.

The Master’s Distraction

Back in her room, Fu Xueke sat by the table with a book, but the black characters blurred into ink-blots. Her mind was elsewhere. Deciding to clear her head, she set a kettle to boil.

Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the kettle whistling and steam erupting until the water began to spill over. She hurriedly extinguished the fire and poured the tea, but her hand shook, drenching the table and the book instead of the cup. She had to use a spell to dry everything.

When she finally managed to pour a cup, she touched the porcelain too quickly and hissed as she burnt her finger. She sighed. She had never made so many mistakes. She always teased her disciple for being clumsy, yet here she was.

What ‘matters’ could she have? Fu Xueke couldn’t stop wondering.

She produced a Concentric Knot woven from black hair strands of Shuheng’s hair. By sensing the aura within, she could find her.

The Hidden Observation

In an instant, Fu Xueke appeared (cloaked in invisibility) at the sect’s Library of Records. This wing contained nothing but fiction and “unofficial” stories, so she had never visited before.

She saw the girl leaning against a tall bookshelf, her brow furrowed and lips pursed in deep concentration.

“Which one is better? ‘The Overbearing Demon Lord’s Thousand Favors’? ‘The Unspeakable Days and Nights with My Rebellious Disciple’…” Shuheng looked at the titles with great difficulty, unsure what the Artifact Spirit would prefer.

Fu Xueke, watching from the shadows, felt a wave of heat hit her face. No wonder Shuheng hadn’t wanted to tell her. So those strange things she says come from these books?

Shuheng ended up dumping an entire shelf’s worth of books into her storage bag and hurried to the Crystal Screen. Fu Xueke followed closely.

“You finally came! I thought you’d run off,” the little girl with pigtails chirped, poking her head out of the screen.

Shuheng poured out the books, creating a small mountain.

“So many!” The Artifact Spirit’s eyes widened. She lunged at the pile like a starving person at a feast. “‘The Cauldron Master is Truly Exquisite’—this series finally finished! I’ve waited a century for this!”

“Senior, are these truly that good?” Shuheng asked, startled by the spirit’s sudden frenzy.

“Of course! Though it’s not for a ‘baby’ like you to read,” the spirit replied. Even if Shuheng was nearly an adult, to a ten-thousand-year-old spirit, she was still a toddler.

The spirit picked out her favorites and pushed the rest back. “You should read these. Every kind of forbidden romance you could want is in here. It’s worth it!” she whispered mysteriously.

Shuheng’s expression dimmed. “Senior, having read so much… do you have any insights on love?”

“Plenty! Do you have someone you like?”

“Yes,” Shuheng’s voice was low, her eyes red. “But it’s impossible for us. She is a woman like me, and in my heart, she is like the bright moon in the sky lofty and unreachable.”

The spirit looked Shuheng up and down. “With your figure and face? Why don’t you try using your sedu” The spirit suddenly cut herself off, a chilling sensation washing over her as if something dangerous was watching. “Just… go try to attract her. The methods are in the books. Read them yourself! Goodbye!”

The Osmanthus Cake

Shuheng packed the books and headed to the market outside the Yuheng Sect. Fu Xueke continued to follow.

So she does have someone she likes, Fu Xueke thought. She knew she should be happy for her, but she wasn’t. In the face of love, she was just a selfish, ordinary person.

Shuheng visited every pastry shop, buying a piece of osmanthus cake at each one. By the twentieth shop, she finally found a flavor similar to the ones they had in Nanxi City. She asked the owner to teach her, offering high-grade pills as payment.

She spent hours learning to mold the white, glutinous flowers and embedding the golden osmanthus petals. Once she had a perfect batch, she packed them carefully and rushed back to Wenxin Pavilion.

Fu Xueke hurried back first. She sat in her room, book in hand, ears straining for the sound of those familiar, hurried footsteps. As the sound drew closer, a faint smile finally touched her lips.