Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 168: River

"You like sitting here, I did not see you around much," he said. She did look enchanting.

She shrugged. "I feel at peace. Most of the time, if I'm not working, I sleep," she said. "Which, it seems to me, might be a wise course for you, my lord."

Her tone was forbidding. There was nothing about her to suggest that they'd ever kissed or had any intimacy. Wuyi was confused for a while.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked.

"No, I did not," she replied.

"I got the note. If you like me, why don't you join my group when we leave?" he asked.

"I am not interested. You have made me impure in heaven's eyes. Pavilion Novices are not supposed to be touched by a man with those intents. I sacrificed myself, maybe for the greater good," she replied.

"You wanted me more than I wanted you, from the moment your eyes met mine. I know you felt the pull that I felt. Don't be a hypocrite. You sacrificed yourself? Rather, you craved that too." Even as he spoke the words, he cursed himself for a fool. It was not what he wanted to say, especially to a lady.

"You have no idea what I do or do not want," she said. "You have no idea the life I have led. I was brought to the pavilion at a young age, my parents from a noble clan robbed and killed by demonics. I was raised by Nomads for a while. Then the righteous attacked them and killed them. I was sent here to be a novice."

He sighed. "I grew up with people who hated me, a father who left me, and a mother who did not care for me, and a clan that wanted to make me their tool," he hissed. "I grew up in the desert near nomads. The things I had to do, you have no idea. I don't think anyone has an easy life in this world."

So much for self-control; he had said too much. Far too much. He sighed.

But he was not done. "And I am not against the heavens, even if heaven itself decrees I should be. I will be what I will, not what anyone else wills, as can you. Be what you choose. You love the Heavens?" he asked, and something black passed into his mind. "What has it done for you?

Love me instead."

"I will not," she said, quite calmly.

"I know what you thought when you first met me. I wanted to tell you that you were perfectly correct in what you thought. I plotted to meet you outside her door. And she used me, the old witch. I love her, but she's throwing me at you. I was blind to it.

She's playing courtly love with you and substituting my body for hers. Or something." Liwei shrugged, and the motion was just visible in the starlight.

The silence stretched on. He didn't know what to say. It sounded quite likely to him, and he didn't see a way to make it seem better. And he found he had no desire to speak ill of the Pavilion Mistress. He wanted to use them, especially her, to enhance his statur of Light. It was only logical that pavilion mistress was trying to use him too.

"I'm sorry that I always speak so brusquely, anyway," he said.

"Brusquely?" she asked, and laughed. "You mean, you are sorry that you crushed my excuses and made light of my vanity and my piety? That you showed me up as a sorry hypocrite?"

"I didn't mean to do any of those things," he said. Not for the first time, he felt she had the moral ground. She acted as a lady; he unnecessarily became direct and honest.

"I do love the heavens," she went on. "Although I'm not always sure what loving heaven should mean. I have found an unwanted deep affection for you. It is true too, and it hurts me, like a physical pain, that you deny the heavens."

"I don't deny the heavens," he said. "I'm quite positive that the petty thing exists."

Her face, pale in the new moonlight, set hard.

"I'm really too tired to do this," he thought. "I can't say that I love you, but I really do care deeply for you," he heard himself say. He thought of Jia and his summer love and winced.

She put her hand to her mouth. "You have a funny way of showing it," she said.

She reached out a hand to take his, and as their fingers met, she flinched.

"Oh!" she said. "Heavens, Young Master, you have overexerted your Qi."

She leaned over him, and she breathed on him. That's how it felt.

He opened his defenses, running into the sacred chamber. He looked at the statue of light, which craved the girl's Qi. He saw disapproval from the statue of Valor. Well, his behavior had not been so noble, as was to be expected.

He let her energy flow from her to the sacred chamber through him and to the statue of light.

Her bloodline Qi was very distinct.

In the real world, they were almost in each other's embrace.

"You have secrets?" she whispered.

"So do you," he answered.

Wuyi raised his hand, and his hand turned white.

She stared. "It's magnificent! Is that your bloodline? The reason for me to crave you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Yes, but it's not what you think, yet it is what you think at the same time," he said. It wasn't a lie. It was merely an encouragement to underestimate.

She chuckled. Her bloodline power and the Qi Wuyi showed were similar, but hers was more potent; Wuyi's Qi was calm, hers slightly more wild, even though they both were of healing properties. Her eyes glowed whiteish like a cat at night and were just faintly almond-shaped. "I knew you when I first saw you," she said. "You are different just like me. The power of the hidden bloodline."

He smiled. "We are two of a kind," he said.

She had his hand, and now she took it and placed it on her right breast—not with the intent he expected. His hand didn't find her breast but rather touched heart meridian. She was showing him her source of power. He felt he was standing on a bridge. Beneath him flowed a river of White Pure Qi.

"My bloodline gives me an unlimited source of this river," she said.

He watched the power flow under the bridge, and he was a little afraid of her. "You can use all this?"

All of his statues were alert, this was strange for them too. The overabundance of Qi river from a girl was unexpected her bloodline was like a bridge connecting her to this source.

She smiled. "I'm still learning. I tire quickly, and I don't have the physical strength."

Wuyi could feel the statue of light drinking the power from the river through him, but he also could feel how Liwei was getting physically tired.

He smiled. "You don't have to overexert."

"I don't plan to, but I want you to recover. You should go rest after this," she said.

He reached out for her.

As his hands closed on her shoulders, her concentration slipped, or his did, and they were sitting on the bench in the peach-scented darkness. The river and bridge were gone.

They kissed.

She laid her head on his lap, and he opened his mouth.

"Please don't talk," she said. "I don't want to talk."

So he sat, enjoying this moment. For a second, here he was—human, right now, the humanity he had almost given up, in the darkness. It was some time before he realized he had recovered all his exhaustion. By then, she was asleep.

He let her sleep as he waited. She was taking a long nap. If it wasn't that he was a Qi warrior, his legs would have gone to sleep.

He wondered if it was his duty to wake her up and send her to bed, or if he was supposed to wake her up and have another kissing session.. He needed to rest, meditate if not sleep.

He contemplated about the river. The vast river of QI what was it? That was powering her. If she swallows that she will become an immortale. He looked down and saw that her eyes were open.

She wriggled off his lap. He considered a dozen remarks—all variations on his lap being warmer than her heavens in the sky, but then dismissed them all.

He was, after all, a human male. He kissed her forehead.

She smiled. "You pretend to be far worse than you are," she said. He shrugged.

She reached into her sleeve and put something in his hand. It was a plain square of silk cloth.

"My vow of giving up mortal wealth isn't worth much because I have nothing," she said. "I did a little to ease the tire-woman's joints, and she gave me this. But I've cried into it. Twice." She smiled.