It was cold, the mountains were barren, the rocks were rugged, and an icy wind whistled around their ears.
Tian Liu Yan led the way, shielding them from most of the wind and snow that lashed against them. Xinxin stumbled more than she walked. She had snuggled deep into the furs that Pian'er had hunted and prepared for her. In this regard, the demoness had proven to be extremely helpful.
During the weeks they had been traveling together, she had primarily proven herself to be a welcome distraction with her extensive knowledge and daily training. In fact, the rather unconventional training, which mainly consisted of fighting each other to the death, seemed to be bearing fruit.
Liu Yan could now not only feel the power in his body, he could control and store it much better. The corrupted qi of the demons had filled his body like an empty vessel. When he used this power, he emptied it again.
Through cultivation, he multiplied the power within himself, it swelled, anchored itself, and became one with him. A steady flow of give and take. Xinxin mostly watched from the sidelines. The only thing that gave her a glimmer of zest for life at the moment were her conversations with Pian'er.
After only a short time, the demon had grown dear to her heart like a friend, and Pian'er also seemed taken with Xinxin. She did not judge, she listened and treated Pian'er like a fully-fledged being with a past, memories, and emotions, and not, like most people, like a monster.
Liu Yan also noticed how surprised she was every time Xinxin acted logically and calculatingly and did not hide behind a cloak of righteousness and morality. Since Pian'er believed she had once been a wandering Xia, this behavior both impressed and confused her.
"I sense a presence ahead of us," Pian'er cried, supporting Xinxin, who kept falling down. Liu Yan nodded; he had also sensed it for some time. But the thick snowstorm made it difficult for them to continue.
He himself would probably have no problems, and Pian'er also knew how to help herself. However, Xinxin didn't seem to be able to keep up much longer. Not only had she lost her qi and her magic, but her body was now also much weaker.
Now she would have far less resistance to Zhao Hua's torture than she had back then. Liu Yan looked back and waited until Xinxin had caught up with him. It would be faster if she allowed him to use magic. But her fear of heights was so deeply ingrained that she almost fainted when he even hinted at it.
Xinxin took his hand and did not object when he pulled her close under his cloak to keep her warm. Pian'er had conjured a small flame in the shape of a lotus flower. But the wind carried the warmth away before it reached her body.
"We have to keep going, we have to find at least a shelter for the night," Pian'er called out. Liu Yan nodded and motioned for her to go ahead and scout the way while he shielded Xinxin from the wind and cold.
"I've become pretty useless, haven't I?" she murmured.
Liu Yan held her closer, but she didn't look up. Her gaze was fixed stubbornly on the ground and the vast, white desert below them.
He could feel her trembling, not from the cold, but from the tears she was holding back. Liu Yan conjured a sphere of magic around them, a black and red pearl in the middle of the white nowhere.
Even though you couldn't see your hand in front of your eyes inside the sphere, he could feel Xinxin clinging to his chest and sniffling quietly. He gently stroked her hair.
"When we find our place and no longer have to run away, you can brew as many ointments and tinctures and herbal teas as you want," he said softly.
Xinxin laughed softly, then fell silent.
"You could just leave me behind," she said after a while.
"No." Liu Yan's answer was prompt and decisive.
"Why?"
"Because..."
"I found something," Pian'er's muffled voice reached them. Liu Yan took Xinxin's head in his hands.
Even without seeing anything, he was all too aware of her. His lips found hers, and before she could protest, he kissed her. Without pretense, without mortal danger, simply because he wanted to.
Her lips were cold, but the warmth of the heated kiss soon made them pulse. He lifted her head and ran the tip of his tongue over her lips before penetrating deeper. Only when Xinxin gasped and could hardly breathe did he pull away from her.
He tasted her and felt her heart beating wildly. He suppressed the urge to kiss her even more fiercely and rested his forehead against hers.
"Because you are my conscience, my humanity.
If you leave me, I'll burn the whole damn world down," he whispered hoarsely in her ear. Most of the time, he had his voice under control. Only rarely did he fall back into a rough whisper, thanks to the wound and scar Zhao Hua had left on his neck. He only showed this vulnerability to her. "Oh," she cleared her throat.
"Liu Yan, I..."
He dissolved the bubble around her, too afraid of her answer, too afraid of the brutal truth she would tell him.
Xinxin would not stay with him out of fear or respect or because he had become powerful. He couldn't bear the thought of her simply leaving, for whatever reason.
There was a time when he had wished she would leave, a time when he didn't care, and a time when he would have gotten over it. But that was over.
For a while, their relationship had been based on mutual dependence, on their shared experiences and their escape, but those were all reasons of the past. The fact was, he would never let her go, even if she asked him to.
Xinxin could ask anything of him, he would destroy anyone who stood in her way, or spare them if she asked him to. But she was not allowed to leave. Xinxin seemed to sense what was going on inside him. She took his hand and let him pull her through the snow without saying a word.
Pian'er had found the entrance to a cave. It was pitch dark, and you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. Pian'er used her power to light a lotus flame that burned even without wood.
The flower slowly circled above the ground, bathing everything in a soft red light. Xinxin stood up and wanted to go to the back of the cave when Liu Yan and Pian'er got up too. She frowned.
"It's okay, sometimes a woman has to do what a woman has to do," she reassured them and shuffled into a corner that the light didn't reach.
But the wall was nowhere to be found. She carefully felt her way around, but the cave seemed to be much larger than she had thought.
Should she just stay here? In the middle of the path? Maybe one of Pian'er's flames would be helpful. Xinxin turned around and was just opening her mouth when she stepped into thin air. "Pian'er, I could use one of your... Ah!" She fell. It hurt like hell when she hit the cold, hard frozen ice and fell rapidly downward.
Xinxin clung tightly to the furs and pressed her legs together so she wouldn't break anything when she crashed into the ice wall. Her head hurt like hell after hitting the wall for the umpteenth time.
It was freezing, and her clothes weren't keeping her warm enough when the fall ended abruptly. She felt the bend and shot out of the cave into a wide space. She slid several meters across the floor before sliding into a statue and coming to an abrupt halt. Completely cramped, she crouched on the floor for a while, trying to catch her breath.
"What are you doing here?" asked a youthful, childlike voice. Xinxin opened her eyes wide. Had a child strayed here?
When she looked up, she saw a face above her. It did indeed have a childlike face, or was it more youthful? The white-blond hair was tousled and uncombed. A red leather band with bells seemed to tame it a little at the nape of the neck. The boy himself wore old, worn monk's robes that shimmered golden yellow.
Xinxin turned her head and realized that the boy was floating in the air in a half-cross-legged position. His other leg dangled loosely, as if he were sitting on an invisible cushion.
He wore brown cloth pants, and his leather shoes seemed to have never touched the ground. Unlike the rest of his clothes, the soles looked unused. Xinxin scrambled to her feet and held her aching head. Everything hurt, and it was so terribly cold.
"I fell," she gasped. The boy hovered a few feet above the ground and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
Xinxin looked around. The hall was huge and completely frozen, yet it was brightly lit by countless torches hanging from the ceiling and anchored in the walls and statues. The statues themselves depicted monks ready for battle, all looking in one direction in magnificent poses.
Xinxin followed the gaze of the stone-carved guardian. She squinted as she realized she was on a huge underground terrace carved into the stone. But where the rock ended, everything was completely frozen, a gigantic window of solid ice.
"Hey, who gave you permission to just walk around here like that?" the boy exclaimed indignantly. Xinxin turned around again.
Only now did she notice that the boy had a golden tail. Until just a moment ago, it had been wrapped tightly around his waist, which is why she had mistaken it for a fur belt, but now it was whipping back and forth angrily. She raised her finger.
"Are you a demon?" she blurted out.
"You are a rude young lady," the boy said indignantly.
"My name is Xueling, I am a golden monkey, a divine beast and guardian of this tomb, you, you..." He was obviously at a loss for words. Xinxin scratched her head.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"My name is Luo Xinxin," she introduced herself and bowed slightly. That seemed to calm the boy down a little. The golden tail wrapped back around his hips.
Xinxin was quite astonished. She had seen a lot, but a divine beast was new to her. If Xueling was the presence that Pian'er and Liu Yan had sensed, then that was a problem. Liu Yan couldn't absorb the qi of a divine beast; it would poison him. There was no purer energy.
"What is someone like you doing here? Are you all alone?" Xinxin asked. Xueling shrugged.
"I'm watching over this place," he said.
"Watching over what?" Xinxin asked, irritated. A pile of snow and ice?
Xueling looked depressed, then flew ahead, motioning for Xinxin to follow him. In the middle of the terrace stood a mighty stone coffin. The lid was open, so with a little effort she could peek inside.
Inside lay a skeleton, frost covering the bones and scraps of once magnificent clothing still hanging from them. The hands were folded in prayer on the chest, with a chain of thick prayer beads around it. Xueling hovered beside her and looked wistfully at the pile of bones.
Divine beasts were said to be loyal until death, and the extent of that loyalty tore at her heart.
"How long have you been watching over him?" she asked gently.
"I stopped counting the years," Xueling replied. The fact that the body had decayed even in these temperatures showed that even the mountain was once subject to the changing seasons, so Xueling had been watching for a very long time.
Xueling slid down to the floor next to the coffin and wrapped herself more tightly in the furs. She was freezing miserably.
"You don't have to stay here," she said, shivering. Xueling looked at her intently.
"Your master is not coming back. Even if he has entered the cycle of rebirth, you are more likely to meet him out in the world than find him here." Tiny clouds of mist formed in front of her mouth, and she felt the frost weighing heavily on her eyelashes.
Although she kept rubbing it off, the cold was oppressive. Suddenly, she had an idea. "All this snow here, it's not you, is it?" she asked, shivering. Xueling blinked a few times, then it suddenly got a little warmer. The spot where Xinxin was sitting thawed a little and the warmth of the torch reached her.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
"Sorry, I haven't had to be considerate of mortals in a long time," mumbled the golden boy. Xinxin nodded.
"Thank you, I'm really grateful," she said in a quiet voice.
"My companions will be looking for me, and for you too. But I will clear up the misunderstanding," said Xinxin, once she had regained her composure.
"You could come with us. The world out there is dangerous, and in a way, we are trying to find a place in it," she suggested. Xueling frowned.
"I've been here for a very long time. I don't think I can leave now," he admitted. Xinxin nodded.
"Sometimes it's hard to let go of something that once did us good. It's hard to realize that the world keeps turning and that things can't always stay the same. Letting go is hard. I know that. I held on to ... something for a long time, even though I knew that the old days would never come back," Xinxin said, staring absently into the distance.
Her eyes glistened suspiciously. "I won't lie, it still hurts. But... but I think I can finally look to the future again. There's someone, someone who gives me hope that there will be happy days again."
Xueling tilted his head. It was clear that he was thinking deeply about her words. As a divine beast, he had the ability to see through lies immediately. Xinxin's pain was genuine, it was real. Just like the delicate blossoms of hope.
Xueling watched as she still trembled. He also sensed an immense, angry force burrowing into the mountain. His protection and the magic he had continuously pumped into the rock held back the demonic power.
"That angry man up there, does he belong to you?" Xueling asked. Xinxin laughed.
"Yes," she said. "He belongs to me!"