The Frost Beneath Her Veil - Chapter 29.1

Yin Jiuruo paid no attention to what Fu Qing was saying. Her only focus was on knocking down the Soul-Binding Lamp ideally, to let it shatter on the floor and allow the power maintaining her soul-summoning to dissipate entirely.

Fu Qing looked at Yin Jiuruo’s stubborn, persistent face so determined, so calm, as if she were willing to pay any price to leave. The woman’s mask of eternal indifference cracked, and her cold, aloof countenance revealed a flicker of panic.

The cold beauty, her lips a sickly crimson, tasted the bitter fruit of her own actions. Like a freezing, heartless river meeting a reef, she came to a standstill for the first time. She knelt down and gently supported Yin Jiuruo, the flickering light of the Soul-Binding Lamp illuminating both their faces.

“Xiao Jiu, do you wish to leave this Sovereign so badly?”

Yin Jiuruo looked at Fu Qing lazily, her gaze steady. She clearly saw the panic hidden in Fu Qing’s eyes. It was almost funny; usually, the one full of panic, suspicion, and terror was herself. Now, it was Fu Qing.

Being free of desire was indeed good; no wonder Fu Qing had always taught her to be “free of attachment.” When you no longer harbor expectations, there can be no disappointment. Moreover, she no longer cared whether Fu Qing lied to her or not. With a liar, you don’t need to distinguish truth from falsehood—just treat every word as a lie.

“I just wanted to see what would happen if the Soul-Binding Lamp broke,” Yin Jiuruo said softly after a short laugh. “Daoist Sovereign Changfan, you cannot trap me for a lifetime.”

Fu Qing’s gaze sharpened. Even though her cultivation was countless times higher than Yin Jiuruo’s, her wavering state of mind seemed to confirm Yin Jiuruo’s words.

“Xiao Jiu, I have finished your wheelchair. I will push you out in a while to see the parasol trees you planted.”

The woman forgot to use her self-referential title, “this Sovereign.”

“Xiao Huo already told me those trees have withered.” Yin Jiuruo looked at Fu Qing with amusement, the curl of her lips mocking the Daoist Sovereign’s helplessness.

All laws follow nature. Even with the power of a Sovereign—reaching through the heavens and reversing Yin and Yang—the human heart remains unattainable. Yin Jiuruo’s heart was dead, and the trees she planted with care had withered with it. No amount of restricted spells or divine powers could restore everything to how it once was.

The human heart is fragile. The near-omniscient Fu Qing discovered she was not omnipotent; she could discern all things and see through the world, but she could not calculate the heart.

Looking at Fu Qing’s dazed, bewildered, and lost expression, Yin Jiuruo wanted to laugh out loud. However, the repulsion between her body and soul kept her movements uncontrolled. She wanted to laugh heartily, but hot tears rolled from the corners of her eyes instead.

It turned out Fu Qing could also be lost, could also have moments of heartbreak. But this was merely the hunter’s sorrow at the extinction of her prey—grief like a rabbit mourning a fox. Could that truly be called sadness? The puppeteer’s heart—transparent and clean as lapis lazuli—ached because her most useful puppet had shattered.

“The parasol trees will bloom again, as long as you stay by my side.” The white-robed Daoist Sovereign unconsciously bit her own lip, her soft mouth stained with blood. Her eyes were as clear as lotuses—fragile and transparent, yet majestic and stern.

“They won’t. Even if they bloom, they aren’t the trees from back then. What use would they be?” A misty smile floated in Yin Jiuruo’s eyes, making her look quite merry.

“They are useful. I will make them bloom again,” Fu Qing insisted, a persistent stubbornness hidden in her words. She picked up a bowl of milk porridge with double sugar. “Be good, Xiao Jiu. Drink a little.”

Double sugar milk porridge. Heh. A bowl every day on Hexue Peak. Yin Jiuruo found it hilarious; Fu Qing had played her like a fool, yet still remembered a bowl of milk porridge to nourish her heart meridians.

“I am neither thirsty nor hungry. Don’t waste your energy unless you want to stab me again and use this porridge to keep me hanging by a thread.” She turned her head back toward the sky outside the window, her face calm and unmoved.

“Xiao Jiu, what are you looking at?” Fu Qing’s pale pinky finger wouldn’t stop trembling, as if she were trying with all her might to grasp something that had already passed away.

Yin Jiuruo did not answer, she only stared fixedly. After a while, she asked: “Actually, I really want to see Senior Sister Chong You. Is she well?”

Silence filled Linyue Residence, save for the withered parasol leaves rolling in the snow, becoming covered in frost until they could roll no further.

“I will have Feng Qi come over to tell you the details. She has been taking care of Chong You lately.” Yin Jiuruo taking the initiative to ask dissipated much of the cold gloom in Fu Qing’s eyes.

“I don’t trust Feng Qi. It’s quite interesting how you’re all birds of a feather.”

Fu Qing gazed at Yin Jiuruo, feeling as though she had never truly known her. Over a long span of time, she had repeatedly met and encountered Yin Jiuruo, constructing false love only to erase the girl’s memories. Although she practiced the Way of Emotionless, years of living together meant she knew almost every one of Yin Jiuruo’s thoughts.

The girl preferred sweets over vegetables; she hated spicy food and fish but loved Tiaocao tea jelly; she favored the color azure for her clothes, often slept in, and would daze off after waking up… Fu Qing understood almost every side of Yin Jiuruo, yet she had never seen her this resolute.

She was supposed to be perfect in her calculations. What had she missed?

“Xiao Jiu, I will do whatever you wish.” She answered Yin Jiuruo’s greatest concern. “Since her injury that day, Chong You has been cared for by Feng Qi. Her life is not in danger.”

Aware that Fu Qing’s subtext was “everything can be granted except leaving her,” Yin Jiuruo didn’t bother wasting words and went straight to the point: “I want to see Senior Sister Chong You myself to confirm she is safe.”

“Fine. Rest for a while, and I will take you there later.” Fu Qing sat on the edge of the bed. Feeling the girl’s visible retreat, she closed her eyes and whispered, “Spirit-Stabilizing Pill. I’ll feed you.”

Yin Jiuruo looked at the dark pill and gave a light laugh. “How do I know you’re not poisoning me?”

Hearing this, Fu Qing let out a long sigh. “Xiao Jiu, am I truly that despicable in your eyes?”

“Yes, Daoist Sovereign. You have your despicableness, and I have my stupidity. No wonder our endings always involve you killing me.”

“I will not kill you.”

“What is the difference between now and being killed?”

Fu Qing’s breath hitched. She unconsciously closed her eyes to suppress the helplessness in her heart. She took out another pill, split them in half, swallowed one half herself, and then fed the rest to Yin Jiuruo.

The bitterness of the medicine was mixed with the sweet fragrance of the woman’s fingertips. Yin Jiuruo knew it was because Fu Qing’s soul chains were constantly pressed against her; the sweet scent was faint yet soul-stirring. She could even perceive a bit of the woman’s unsettled emotions.

She didn’t understand. She would never understand what Fu Qing was thinking.

The betrothal gifts Shen Cangli sent remained unopened in the courtyard, freezing under the heavy snow, as if the woman didn’t even know such expensive gifts existed.

“Fu Qing, if you don’t love me, why do you keep me imprisoned?” Yin Jiuruo watched Fu Qing’s slender, graceful back, initiating conversation for a rare second time.

A blue mist began to spread over Hexue Peak, and white birds rose and fell in the distance. Fu Qing remained silent for a long time, her coiled ink-black hair looking like clouds. She said hesitantly but seriously: “Xiao Jiu, if you want me, I can learn to like you. I will give you whatever you want.”

Yin Jiuruo replied with a sneer. “If someone begs you, you will love them?”

Fu Qing frowned, about to argue, only to hear Yin Jiuruo’s airy voice.

“It turns out the Daoist Sovereign’s affection is so cheap.”

In the past, when Daoist Sovereign Changfan debated Dao or scriptures with others, there was always a back-and-forth. Yet facing Yin Jiuruo, she thought a thousand thoughts, only to find herself speechless.

“If the Daoist Sovereign has further needs, just say so. There is no need to throw out false things,” Yin Jiuruo said, her eyes half-closed, her breathing slow and heavy. “You and I both know that false things can deceive once, but they cannot deceive for a lifetime.”

The snow mist from outside drifted into the room, landing on the woman’s raven-black lashes. Fu Qing gripped the jade pendant in her palm, feeling lost and bewildered. It seemed she had truly done something wrong—something that divine powers and spells could not fix.

“Xiao Jiu, I will take you to bathe first. After your nap, we will go see Chong You together.”

The information in that sentence was overwhelming. Yin Jiuruo’s breathing quickened, and fine sweat appeared on her pale forehead. From the condition of this body, she knew well that after her death, Fu Qing must have burned incense and cleansed her daily, wiping her down meticulously as one would maintain the most precious artifact.

Perhaps to Fu Qing, she was just a precious object. Even if the object lost its soul, it was still a thing of extraordinary use that had to be preserved with care and spent time with every day.

“I am not so crippled that I cannot bathe myself. I don’t need to trouble the Daoist Sovereign.”

Fu Qing, however, paid no heed. Her jade-like, cold face drew close to Yin Jiuruo’s lips, her long hair cascading down, her sweet scent inviting. “Your soul has just returned to your body; it is inconvenient. I will take care of you.”

She supported the struggling Yin Jiuruo toward the bath. Their breaths mingled and their skin touched from time to time. At first glance, they looked like an intimate couple; in reality, they shared a bed but had different dreams, each with their own hidden motives. Yin Jiuruo could not resist for now; she only watched coldly.

Fu Qing shed her pure white robes, revealing ice-like skin and exquisite curves. She placed prepared rare herbs into the spring water and knelt to test the temperature. The water in the spiritual pool soaked the woman’s thin inner garment; her black hair clung to her collarbone, her pale cheeks flushed with a sickly crimson, and the magnificent red mole on her snowy curve was faintly visible.

Being treated with such care by Fu Qing, Yin Jiuruo only watched with indifference. The woman’s sharp, cold phoenix eyes rippled with tenderness, as if they had truly fallen in love at first sight and grown deeper over time. Yin Jiuruo pushed away the hands coming to help her and sank to the bottom of the pool in a state of both wretchedness and exhaustion.

The spring water pooled on her lashes like fallen tears. In truth, how could there be such a thing as “love at first sight” in this world? Those moments of warmth and entanglement were nothing but a meticulously crafted cage to catch you. And she was just a naturally foolish person who would throw herself away for a tiny bit of love, willingly believing and giving everything.

Fu Qing slowly submerged herself, her graceful silhouette pressing close. They were like two drowning blades of withered grass—when they touched, they produced a swelling juice, entangled to the extreme.

Only when the feeling of suffocation became overwhelming did Fu Qing lean against Yin Jiuruo at the edge of the pool to rest. The woman’s faint, alluring gasps of breath dampened the tip of Yin Jiuruo’s ear until it turned red.

“Xiao Jiu, let me learn to like you, alright?” Fu Qing’s usually clear pupils were rippled with a moist spring color. “You can only look at me, only love me.”

“So that it’s easier for you to lie to me again?” Yin Jiuruo listened to these possessive words, the teary corners of her eyes curving upward. “Are you that starved for love? So many people outside love you; just pick one.”

“So you picked one outside as well, didn’t you?” The woman’s pupils turned cold, flashing with varying shades of dark desire.

Yin Jiuruo inhaled the sweet scent on the woman and closed her eyes wearily. “Yes. Go pick one yourself. I would be happy to wish you a happy wedding. Or, you could wish for me and someone else to live happily ever after.”

“Xiao Jiu,” the noble, stainless woman pressed tight against Yin Jiuruo, her damp lashes gathered into a dark, obscure shade. She said word by word: “Only I can marry you.”

“Heh. Dream on,” Yin Jiuruo’s gaze swept over the seductive red mole on the woman’s snowy skin. She smiled casually. “You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself.”

The two fell into a long silence, with only the sound of the hot spring water splashing and the warm mist rising, sweet scents and medicinal odors intertwining. Afterward, Fu Qing did everything herself—drying Yin Jiuruo’s body and dressing her in new clothes—as if the things that shattered her sincerity had never happened, as if there was no betrayal or deception. As if they were still master and disciple, or a couple about to be wed.

In front of the bronze mirror in the bedroom, Fu Qing’s pale jade hand held a wooden comb, combing Yin Jiuruo’s hair over and over before pinning it with a hairpin made of green bamboo from Hexue Peak. The mirror reflected their close proximity. The woman’s desolate phoenix eyes cast a cold allure; her thin lips were pressed tight, carrying a sense of inviolable nobility.

“Xiao Jiu, what kind of hairstyle do you want?”

“Whatever. As long as you like it.”

Fu Qing sighed softly. Her hair at the temples was half-wet, her skin like congealed fat. Beneath the gauze, her slender waist was barely a handful; the small of her back held drops of water, like translucent, juicy lychees.

Yin Jiuruo only gave a cold, hollow side profile. That day, what Fu Qing pierced was more than just a body; it was the heart she had devoutly offered up.

The accumulated deceptions were like ghostly claws, long ago tearing their fate apart, leaving no possibility of a reunion.

Because of the need to recover from her injuries, Chong You had moved to a side peak not far from Hexue Peak. This peak was treacherous and rugged, with half of it consisting of steep cliffs and the other half bordering the ocean. A faint blue oceanic aura surrounded the peak, providing fresh and abundant spiritual energy.

Yin Jiuruo went there in a wheelchair.

Fu Qing had crafted this wheelchair from Ruomu, an ancient miraculous wood with green leaves and red blossoms, capable of warding off the cold and shielding one from the wind.

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