Qin Yi traded a few more jokes with the four Daoists, his laughter echoing against the tavern walls, while An Yi busied herself with a rag to hide the fact that she was wiping away tears. By the time she turned back around, her grief had been tucked away, replaced by the practiced smile of a shopkeeper's wife.
A quarter of an hour later, the four travelers stood to leave, patting their bellies and offering loud praise for the vintage. They promised to make the tavern a regular stop on their future patrols.
"Always welcome! Safe travels, masters!"
Qin Yi waved them off from the threshold, his smile broad and genuine.
As their figures vanished into the crowd of the capital, Qin Yi slowly turned back. The smile remained, but his eyes softened as they landed on the woman standing a head shorter than him.
An Yi was dressed in the drab, functional robes of a commoner. She no longer possessed the ethereal, dangerous radiance she had carried ten years ago when they first met. Yet, in this simple, unadorned state, she looked more real to him than ever. Even in his state of supreme detachment, a sudden, sharp ache of tenderness pierced through his heart.
"Scared you, didn't I?" Qin Yi asked with a low chuckle.
An Yi's lips trembled. She reached out, gave him a frustrated, half-hearted punch to the chest, and then collapsed into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder.
"I thought… I thought it was all over," she whispered.
Qin Yi went still for a moment, then wrapped his arms tightly around her, pulling her close.
"To forget emotion doesn't mean you forget the person," he said softly, his voice vibrating against her ear. "To move beyond the Dao doesn't mean the Dao disappears. If there were no memories to haunt us, how could we ever feel the weight of longing? How could we ever truly know what it means to move on?"
He pulled back just enough to look at her, his expression deeply moved. "Every act of forgetting is built on something that was once engraved in the soul. I should be thanking you, An Yi."
She looked up at him, her brow furrowed in confusion. The high-level philosophy of Daoist realms was a foreign language to her.
"The Dao is like the clouds drifting above us," Qin Yi continued, his eyes bright. "You see the shape, but you can't grasp the substance. It's like the trees on a mountain, always there, so constant that we stop seeing them entirely. People think the Dao is about abandoning everything to gain eternal life. They think it's about killing your desires. But that's not the Great Dao. That's just another form of greed."
He gestured to the world outside their door, the dirt, the noise, the smell of cooking fires. "The true Dao is this world. It's everything. It's the messy, complicated whole. In that moment when I looked at you, I finally understood. My path isn't away from this, it's through it. Seeing you is what completed me."
An Yi couldn't follow the logic of his enlightenment, but she could see the change in him. The cold, distant light was gone, replaced by a clarity that felt warm, human, and grounded.
He had awakened.
To him, the Dao was no longer a set of rigid rules or a climb up a ladder of power. It was an act of will, an idealism where the strength of the spirit projected itself onto reality. It was a force of mind, but one tempered by reason and heart. To follow a path without heart was to invite the "demonic", the hollow descent into obsession that eventually swallowed the practitioner whole.
"Humans are meant to feel," Qin Yi said, smiling down at her. "Even the Immortals aren't cold statues. What they really seek is 'Great Ease', the freedom to exist in the world without being shackled by it. And from today on, that is exactly what I intend to have."
It was a radical departure from the orthodox teachings of Mount Shu or Magnificent Jasper, but Qin Yi was certain. This was the "Magnificent Qin" way.
An Yi sighed, resting her head back on his shoulder. "I don't understand a word of that. I just want you to stay. If you're here, I'm at peace."
"That is a 'Small Dao,' perhaps," Qin Yi teased, kissing the top of her head. "But it's also the greatest one of all. Well said."
An Yi wrinkled her nose and gave him another playful shove. "I don't care about the Great or Small anything. Tonight, I want to look at the stars. Take me."
"Hahaha! As you wish. Should we head to the rooftop, or perhaps the peaks of the back mountains?"
"I want to go to the clouds," she insisted, her eyes sparkling. "I want to be closer to the stars. You spent three years being a 'mortal,' so we couldn't use our techniques. Now that you're back, I want to sit on the clouds."
"Alright then!" Qin Yi didn't hesitate. He scooped her up in his arms, laughing. "Let's go!"
In an instant, they blurred. Two streaks of light shot from the tavern courtyard, piercing the evening sky like twin falling stars.
The sunset had turned the horizon into a sea of bruised purples and fiery oranges. Qin Yi carried her higher and higher until the city was a mere speck of light below, eventually slowing as they reached a bank of high, drifting clouds.
With a simple wave of his hand, Qin Yi solidified the vapor. What should have been light as air became as firm as a marble floor beneath their feet. An Yi stepped out of his arms, gasping as she felt the clouds support her weight.
"Just how powerful have you become?" she asked, breathless.
Qin Yi chuckled, looking out over the vast expanse. "If I were to meet the Great Sect Lords of the world right now, the ones who rule the mortal realms, I think I could trade a blow or two with any of them."
An Yi's eyes widened. She knew the legends. The weakest of the Sect Lords were at the Ninth Realm, and the greatest had reached the Twelfth Realm of Alchemy, the bridge to godhood.
"A Sword Immortal isn't just a collection of levels or ranks," Qin Yi explained, seeing her shock. "Your husband has fused the legacies of two ancient sects and forged a path that is entirely his own. Ranks don't matter when you define the rules yourself."
An Yi rolled her eyes, her interest in his power-scaling quickly fading in favor of the view. She didn't care about the Ninth or Twelfth realms. She just cared about the man standing next to her on a cloud.
"I don't care about the metaphysics," An Yi said, leaning into him. "You just have to protect me. If any of those stuffy Daoists try to pull me into a jar, you'd better be ready to beat them up."
Qin Yi's laughter rang out across the clouds. "Consider it done!"
Night fully claimed the world. In the deep, silent vault of the sky, stars began to spark into existence one by one. An Yi nestled closer into Qin Yi's arms, her breath hitching as she took in the view. She felt a profound sense of warmth, a quiet, domestic happiness. Years ago, the idea that a demon could feel this kind of peace would have been a punchline; now, it was her reality.
They sat in companionable silence, watching the full moon hang like a heavy silver coin against the velvet black.
"Tell me something," An Yi whispered after a long while. "Why is it that no matter how high we fly, the stars still feel just as far away?"
Qin Yi looked up, his gaze piercing through the atmosphere. "It's difficult to explain. Most worlds, even the ones that feel unique, are built on the skeleton of a greater universe. Even if that universe is a void or a clever illusion, it's still modeled after the real thing."
He gestured to a distant glimmer. "The stars you're looking at are vast distances away, not just in miles, but in terms of worlds. Some are dozens of dimensions removed from where we sit."
An Yi's mouth fell open in a perfect 'O' of shock. "Are you serious?"
"Completely."
"What surprises me more," she said, turning to look at him with newfound wonder, "is how you could possibly know that."
She realized then that the mysteries surrounding her husband were like a vortex, growing deeper and more magnetic the closer she got. He wasn't just a powerful cultivator; he was something else entirely.
"You'll have the chance to see it all for yourself someday," Qin Yi replied gently.
An Yi wrinkled her nose, and in a shimmer of spiritual light, she shed her mortal disguise. Her figure trembled, and she returned to the form she had held the day they first met. Barefoot, delicate, and ethereal, she looked like a forest spirit born of moonlight. She was so stunning it was almost difficult to look her in the eye.
"Suddenly becoming this beautiful again…" Qin Yi laughed, a bit dazed. "I'm not sure I'm used to it."
"This wife of yours is going to be so beautiful you'll be ashamed to stand next to her, you ugly thing!" she teased, putting on her most fearsome expression.
Qin Yi burst into laughter. He caught her by the waist, flipping her over onto the soft cloud-matter. "Then it seems I'll have to properly enforce the household rules."
They played and wrestled like children atop the clouds until the stars began to fade into the dawn. After nine years of living as family, there had always been a thin, invisible barrier between them, the shadow of their pasts and the secrets of the Dao. But tonight, beneath the gaze of a thousand worlds, that barrier was finally erased.
The small city below them was called Chenzhou.
Early the next morning, on a dusty rural path just outside the city gates, the four Daoists from the tavern were hard at work. They moved with grim solemnity, sprinkling a pungent silver powder across the dirt while muttering incantations under their breath.
Suddenly, the powder reacted, glowing faintly to reveal a series of golden footprints.
"There it is," the eldest Daoist whispered. "The beast is close."
The four exchanged sharp glances and hurried forward. This demon was no mere nuisance; it had terrorized the outskirts for weeks, leaving more than a dozen villagers dead.
"The prints look like wolf claws," one noted. "A wolf demon with significant cultivation."
"Doesn't matter what it is," another replied, his hand on his sword hilt. "If it sheds human blood, it's our duty to end it."
They reached a dense thicket where the trees were scarred with deep gouges. The footprints were clear as day, leading straight into a clearing. But as they reached the end of the trail, they stopped, baffled.
"Nothing?"
The clearing was empty. No growls, no movement.
"Did it take flight?"
"Junior Brother, the tracking powder, quickly!"
The younger Daoist reached for his waist pouch, but before his fingers could brush the leather, a violent gale slammed down from the canopy.
"Are you looking for me?"
The voice was a low, guttural vibration that felt like a predator's growl. A massive shadow eclipsed the sun.
Boom!
A heavy, furred claw struck out with the force of a battering ram. The Daoist reaching for the powder was sent spiraling through the air, coughing a mist of blood before he hit the ground.
"Junior Brother!"
"Little priests fresh from the nursery," the demon sneered. Its true form was terrifying, a towering, ten-foot-tall beast standing upright, its wolf head snarling with jagged teeth. "Who gave you the nerve to hunt me? Even the old men from Mount Shu know better than to trespass in my woods!"
The three remaining Daoists felt their blood run cold. The aura emanating from the beast was suffocating. They realized, far too late, that they were completely outclassed.
"I'll hold it!" the eldest Daoist roared, drawing his coin sword. "Go! Now!"
"Senior Brother, no!"
"GO! Fetch the Master!"
He charged the wolf demon with a desperate yell. The other two, teeth clenched in agony, grabbed their wounded comrade and fled toward the city.
"Wise choice," the wolf demon rumbled, parrying the coin sword with a casual swipe. "The runts would have been a snack. But you… your cultivation is seasoned. You'll be much more satisfying to chew on."
The beast lunged, its strength overwhelming. With a sickening crack, the coin sword shattered into a dozen bronze pieces. The Daoist was thrown back, gasping as he collapsed against a tree.
"You're dead, priest!" The wolf demon lunged for the kill, its claws extended like obsidian daggers.
The Daoist closed his eyes, accepting the end.
But the blow never landed. Instead, a piercing whistle cut through the air. A streak of sword-qi, sharp and cold as starlight, flashed like lightning toward the demon's brow. The beast shrieked, twisting its body mid-air to avoid the strike, landing several yards away in a defensive crouch.
A man descended from the sky, landing lightly between the Daoist and the monster. He looked casual, almost bored.
"I find myself in need of a mount," Qin Yi said, looking the beast up and down with a critical eye. "A Silver Moon Heavenly Wolf… if you shift back to your four-legged form, you'd actually look quite respectable."
He smiled, though the expression didn't reach his eyes. "What do you say? Are you willing?"
(End of Chapter)
You can read ahead up to 15 chapters on my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395