Lady Xuanhe did not react to the provocation. Her expression remained unwavering, lit with celestial clarity, as she turned her gaze toward Shen Wuyin—waiting.
Ren leaned back, casual as snowfall, mischief flickering at the corners of his mouth.
"So why are you here?" he asked. "Because you met my women? Is that the full script for this divine little drama?"
He grinned.
"If this were a play, I'd give you five stars. Excellent staging. Good pacing. Genuinely entertaining."
Lady Xuanhe's voice landed without flourish.
"This is not a game, Shen Wuyin," she said, tone cool, gaze unblinking. "You're quite the womaniser. I met eight of your women. Will there be more?"
Ren stretched slightly, amusement flickering in his eyes.
"Who knows? I'm a lucky man," he said lightly. "It's not exactly easy to keep track of that many."
Then he tilted his head—just enough to shift the room's tone.
"But let's not pretend you're above the fray," he added. "You're a goddess. Don't you have men lining up across realms? Husbands, lovers, devotees praying for a glimpse of your glance?"
Lady Xuanhe didn't blink.
But reality did. Just slightly.
"I had one husband once," she said, voice soft. "We divorced. It didn't work."
The chamber stilled.
No divine tempest. No celestial pride. Just a simple truth—spoken plainly, like a thread quietly snipped from eternity.
Ren's brow lifted, mischief fading.
"Even gods stumble?" he murmured.
Her eyes met his. Direct. Undimmed.
"Especially gods."
Ren's voice softened.
"So… are you going to ease the little snowstorm?" he asked. "Let's just drink tea. No need to keep the frost for dramatic effect."
He adjusted Mianmian in his arms, stroking her head with quiet affection. She leaned into him, scratching her ears in his palm, nibbling her acorn with the poise of someone who had defied a goddess and earned a cuddle for it.
"Don't mind her," Ren added. "She's just a trickster. Loyal. Chaotic. Small."
He flicked his fingers, and a porcelain teacup floated into the air—not carried by qi, but by something gentler. Intention. Invitation.
It landed in Lady Xuanhe's hand as if fate had rehearsed the gesture.
She accepted without a word.
Then she glided—not with ceremony or force, but with quiet inevitability—to the cushion beside Ren, robes brushing against the air like thought unfolding.
She sipped her tea.
The snow paused mid-swirl, as though it too wished to honour civility.
For a moment, god and cultivator simply sat. A squirrel, a goddess, and the man who had quietly rewritten his anonymity into legend—sharing warmth under a sky of halted fate.
Ren's tone deepened—steady and quiet.
"You said Mianmian isn't my true spirit beast," he said. "You're right. She isn't."
Lady Xuanhe watched him.
"But she is. And she isn't. At the same time."
He paused.
"The one bound to my soul is a black dragon. His name is Dread."
Even the snowfall responded to the name—slowing, listening.
"I could show you," Ren said, gesturing toward the satchel at his side. "In his smaller form. If you're curious."
There was no bravado in the offer. Only the quiet certainty of a man who no longer needed applause to validate depth—who knew myth could sit calmly and pour tea.
"No need," Lady Xuanhe replied. She sipped again. "This tea is quite good. Surprisingly comforting."
She glanced at Mianmian, then back at Ren.
"Most cultivators form one soul bond. One beast. One path."
Her fingers curled around the teacup, elegant against porcelain.
"But you?" Her eyes shimmered faintly. "You have two. A squirrel and a dragon. One nibbles acorns. One named Dread."
Ren smiled, pressing a thumb between Mianmian's ears.
"I suppose chaos likes my company."
Lady Xuanhe nodded.
"It does. Because you are chaos, Shen Wuyin. Even I see that."
Before Ren could respond, the door slid open.
Fairy Jin entered with quiet grace—his master, his witness, the one who had seen beneath every mask and held silence.
Lady Yueh followed, composed and unreadable. As Liáng Xu and Fei Yan's master, her presence bore the weight of storms never spoken.
Then came Liáng Xu and Fei Yan.
They stepped through the threshold—and froze.
Lady Xuanhe.
She didn't turn. She didn't need to.
Fairy Jin showed no surprise. Lady Yueh offered a respectful bow.
But Liáng Xu and Fei Yan faltered. Their faces tightened, memories surfacing like bruises beneath skin. The last time they faced Lady Xuanhe, their breakthroughs had shattered on frost—cultivation halted at the edge of ascension.
Only Lady Yueh's intercession had melted the seal enough for them to rise.
Now, before her once again, they bowed.
Not in reverence.
In survival.
Lady Xuanhe inclined her head—barely.
But that gesture held weight. In divine etiquette, it was more than acknowledgment. It was acceptance.
"The Blood Orchid Sect defies balance," she said. Her words drifted like mist against stone. "You walk a more sacred path. For now."
Fairy Jin bowed deeper, hands folded in respect.
"Your protection shaped our fate, Lady Xuanhe. We honour the karmic order you uphold."
Lady Yueh mirrored him. Her stance was firm, her reverence deliberate.
"Without your intervention, we would have lost not just ground—but generations."
Liáng Xu and Fei Yan hurried to follow. Their expressions straddled awe and caution—marked not only by fear, but by gratitude quietly stitched into dread.
They dared a glance upward.
And she met their eyes.
Her gaze held no judgment this time.
Only a clear, weightless warning:
Ascend with humility… or not at all.
Shen Wuyin watched as Liáng Xu and Fei Yan bowed—not with the insolence he remembered, but with tension threaded through their posture. A hint of humility, maybe. Or the faint outline of lessons etched by frost—less taught than endured.
They've changed, he thought. A little.
But not enough.
He'd travelled with them long enough to recognise the pattern: reckless courage dressed in conviction, wisdom performed rather than embodied. The kind of cultivators who burned through epiphanies and emerged unchanged.
Typical anti-protagonists.
They stumbled. They soared. And every lesson slipped off their souls like steam from boiled tea. Always just behind enlightenment, always certain the next breakthrough would justify the last mistake.
Wuyin didn't resent them. He simply saw them.
They never truly learned. Not the parts that mattered.