To be honest, the latter half of the chapter has been replaced.

 

A thousand years ago, Bai Lingchen was a pure embodiment of aloofness. His talent and aptitude in cultivation were unparalleled—he progressed rapidly in areas where others spent centuries struggling, often achieving breakthroughs in just a few decades, or even a few years. As a youth, he attracted no small number of envious and jealous gazes.

Yet, in some other respects, he was shockingly dense.

Perhaps because he devoted all his attention to his pursuits, he was almost entirely ignorant when it came to mundane, everyday matters, let alone the subtle emotional fluctuations in others.

When he took on his three personal disciples—Huo Junxiao, Wu Nan, and Shen Han—it was particularly evident in the early days before they became accustomed to each other. His detachment drove nearly everyone around him mad, with Yu Xian being the most deeply affected victim.

Although they were Bai Lingchen’s personal disciples, it was largely Yu Xian and the attendants of Yunfu Palace who took care of them.

Bai Lingchen's sole contribution? Occasionally demonstrating a sword technique to the three inexperienced disciples who could barely hold a sword steady. Then, he would vanish again.

To be honest, if Bai Lingchen’s level of care were applied to a dog, even the dog would feel neglected.

But strangely, the three young disciples seemed inexplicably drawn to him. They stuck to him like glue, as if under some kind of spell. Looking back, it was probably a case of youthful admiration—children often set lofty role models for themselves. Someone too close felt ordinary; someone too distant felt out of reach. Bai Lingchen, with his detached demeanor, struck the perfect balance, becoming their idealized figure.

It was nearly impossible to say which of the three disciples revered Bai Lingchen the most. If one had to rank them, though, Junxiao would undoubtedly come out on top.

Yu Xian always felt that this grand-disciple of his must have had something wrong with his head—because of all three, Junxiao was punished by Bai Lingchen the most.

While Bai Lingchen exercised some degree of restraint when disciplining the other two, he showed no mercy when it came to Junxiao. If the latter misbehaved, Bai Lingchen wouldn’t even blink before doling out punishment.

At first, Yu Xian assumed Bai Lingchen simply didn’t like his rebellious eldest disciple, which was why he was so harsh.

But over time, Yu Xian realized that Bai Lingchen actually got along most naturally with Junxiao. He would scold and punish him without hesitation, and when Junxiao brought trouble upon himself, Bai Lingchen would sometimes even tease him before dealing with it. His interactions with Junxiao felt less formal and carried less of the gravity of a master.

In contrast, when dealing with Wu Nan and Shen Han, Bai Lingchen maintained a distant politeness, always mindful of his role as their master.

It all came down to personalities.

But even though Bai Lingchen felt at ease with Junxiao back then, he would never have imagined that his eldest disciple would grow up harboring feelings for him that far exceeded the bounds of a typical master-disciple relationship.

At the time, Bai Lingchen was too oblivious to notice, and Junxiao, constrained by ethics and propriety, kept his feelings tightly restrained. Only someone extraordinarily perceptive would have picked up on the subtle changes in Junxiao’s demeanor.

But now, things were different.

Bai Lingchen was no longer who he once was. Or rather, the current Bai Ke was a composite of Bai Lingchen and Bai Ke.

Bai Lingchen’s thousand years of memories were undeniably precious, but the decade or so of memories as Bai Ke were equally important. He couldn’t discard either part of himself.

It was the union of these two selves that made him who he was now: Bai Ke.

And Bai Ke was far more emotionally perceptive than the aloof Bai Lingchen of the past.

This emotional complexity was due, in large part, to the period of time after he encountered Junxiao but before his memories returned. During that not-so-short interval, the usually restrained eldest disciple had, perhaps taking advantage of Bai Ke’s amnesia, revealed a care and concern that far exceeded the boundaries of master and disciple.

At times, Junxiao’s gaze, his tone, and even his words betrayed a blatant lack of pretense. It was as if he had painted a bold declaration across his face: “I have feelings for you, and my intentions are far from pure.”

Back then, Bai Lingchen’s obliviousness stemmed from his detachment from worldly affairs. Bai Ke, however, was deeply rooted in the mortal world, and his sensitivity to emotions—especially those stemming from love or desire—was naturally far sharper.

Even if Bai Ke were blind, he couldn’t ignore the occasional emotions that Junxiao let slip.

In fact, back when he had no memories, Bai Ke didn’t reject these feelings from Junxiao. On the contrary, after experiencing event after event together, Bai Ke found that something inside him had begun to stir, as if ready to surface.

For a while, the two of them coexisted in a silent, mutually acknowledged atmosphere—one tinged with an ambiguous undercurrent of intimacy—until now, when Bai Ke’s memories fully returned.

The teachings of master-disciple ethics ingrained in Bai Lingchen and the faint impatience within Bai Ke were now tangled together in his heart, leaving him with only two words to describe it all: a sin.

Yet, even at this juncture, the situation wasn’t entirely beyond salvaging. If both of them restrained themselves, suppressing the undeveloped emotions, and returned to the traditional dynamic of master and disciple as it was a thousand years ago—going about their respective roles as before—then any awkwardness would gradually fade away. Those unspoken feelings and impulses would slowly diminish and eventually vanish altogether.

Each party would resume their proper roles. Everything would return to normal. Everyone would be happy.

Such a simple solution.

But the other party had to go and rebel, throwing the plan completely off track.

Ever since Bai Ke awoke and regained his memories, Junxiao seemed to have adopted a "break it if it’s already broken" mentality. Restraint? Gone. Self-control? Nonexistent. The ethics of their master-disciple relationship? Completely thrown aside, as if he had no intention of ever considering them again.

When Bai Ke was meditating to regulate his breathing, Junxiao would sit nearby, staring at him without so much as a blink. No amount of shooing could make him leave, and his presence was so intense that Bai Ke couldn’t ignore it. Bai Ke considered it fortunate that he hadn’t ended up with a cultivation deviation.

When Bai Ke soaked in the hot spring, Junxiao would be there too, never once looking away. His words were so blunt that Bai Ke didn’t know whether to disrobe and get into the water or simply turn around and leave.

Wherever Bai Ke went, Junxiao would calmly and openly follow, making it seem like Bai Ke was the one being too self-conscious.

In just a single day and night, Bai Ke and Junxiao had become locked in a kind of tug-of-war, seeing who would give up first and concede defeat.

By the next morning, even Yu Xian had noticed something odd between them. He pulled Bai Ke aside and asked, “Hey, dull-face, what’s going on with you and that Junxiao kid?”

Bai Ke, full of frustrations he couldn’t voice, could only mutter a few vague words to brush the question off.

As the hour of Chen (NT: hour of the dragon, 7 to 9 am) approached and the group prepared to reopen Yusheng Mountain to return to Yusheng Sect, Bai Ke could no longer hold back. He sought out Junxiao, hoping to use this opportunity to gently initiate the subject. He planned to suggest that, now that they were returning to Yusheng Sect, it was time to set all these feelings aside and restore the harmonious dynamic they’d once had as master and disciple. Wouldn’t that be for the best?

Dressed in flowing white robes with silver edges, Bai Ke stood beside a bamboo grove deep within the secret realm. His ink-black hair was tied high in a neat fashion, and amidst the rustling sound of the bamboos, his figure exuded a natural and unearthly grace.

When Junxiao arrived, Bai Ke paused his idle fiddling with a bamboo leaf and turned to speak, his expression calm. But before he could say a word, Junxiao cut him off.

Junxiao, as though guessing Bai Ke’s intentions, gazed at the endless bamboo forest before him and said, “I wonder, Master, whether you had any awareness while sealed within the Ice Soul?”

Unsure of Junxiao’s intentions, Bai Ke hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.

Junxiao gave a quiet “Hmm,” and then, with an air of nonchalance, dropped an explosive revelation in Bai Ke’s face.

Junxiao said, “If you had retained even a shred of consciousness, you should remember that, at the very last moment, I kissed you.”

Bai Ke: “...”

--- [Second half of the chapter]

There are always people in this world who, without fail, bring up the very topic you’re desperate to avoid.

But Bai Ke didn’t feel annoyed.

For a moment, he even felt a sense of disorientation, and then memories from thousands of years ago surged into his mind—

At that time, Huo Junxiao was still just a troublemaker barely reaching Bai Lingchen’s waist. He was a wild child, always climbing rooftops, chasing cats, and harassing dogs, never settling down for even a moment. Eight times out of ten, whenever Bai Lingchen saw him, he’d feel an irresistible itch to beat some sense into him.

But things changed when Junxiao turned seventeen or eighteen. His parents in the mortal world passed away one after another, and just a few years later, the elder brother he had been especially close to also died unexpectedly. From then on, Junxiao’s once fiery and brash personality suddenly mellowed.

When Junxiao was very young, a renowned fortune-teller had declared that he was a very unlucky person and that anyone close to him would meet an untimely end.

Junxiao didn’t remember much from before he was six, but some words had a way of sticking in one’s memory. When the right circumstances arose, their meaning would suddenly become painfully clear. That’s how it was for Junxiao. When he was a child, he hadn’t understood the fortune-teller’s words. As he grew older, he dismissed them as nonsense. But when his loved ones truly began to suffer untimely deaths, leaving this world one by one, those words from the fortune-teller became a shadow, clinging to him ever since.

Even later, after countless years of cultivating his heart and mind, that shadow shrank smaller and smaller, retreating to a hidden corner of his soul, almost imperceptible. His subdued temperament never reverted to the lively spirit it once was.

And yet, that shadow never truly vanished. It merely lay dormant, buried in a place even Junxiao himself was unaware of.

Then, many years later, when Bai Lingchen suffered severe injuries in his first battle with the Ice Soul and fell into a coma, Junxiao’s long-buried heartache was dug up.

Soon after, his junior disciples, one after the other, also met with misfortune, as if fate were replaying the tragedy from years ago—loved ones falling one by one.

The fortune-teller’s words, long forgotten, returned to haunt Junxiao after hundreds of years.

This weighed down his already steady temperament, making him even more solemn and restrained.

The only comfort at the time was that his master, Bai Lingchen, was saved.

But good times never last. It was as if the heavens couldn’t bear to see him find peace. Just a few years later, his last remaining hope was shattered—Bai Lingchen sacrificed himself to seal the Ice Soul, nearly scattering his soul to obliviousness. Junxiao and Yu Xian barely managed to save his soul and send it into reincarnation.

From that moment on, the person Junxiao cherished most in the world would forget him entirely.

It all seemed to confirm the fortune-teller’s prophecy. In this lifetime, everyone Junxiao held dear—whether mortal or immortal—met with misfortune. The only exceptions were Yu Xian and Wu Nan, and even they were not unscathed: one’s cultivation occasionally collapsed into chaos, while the other suffered bouts of madness lasting years.

This is why, in this life, Bai Ke encountered a Huo Junxiao whose personality was so deeply subdued it bordered on coldness.

Yet now, with Bai Ke and Wu Nan both restored, it seemed as though Junxiao’s sunken demeanor had begun to surface again. For the first time in ages, he seemed alive.

And so, when Bai Ke heard Junxiao’s bold statement, his emotions grew extremely complicated—

On the one hand, he thought Junxiao’s words were absolutely outrageous. On the other, he felt a faint sense of relief at Junxiao’s change. Mixed with these emotions was a trace of heartache brought to the surface by old memories.

The three conflicting feelings wrestled with each other for a long while. Ultimately, they came to a draw, with the latter two even gaining a slight edge over the first.

Before any more inappropriate emotions could rise to the surface, Bai Ke’s expression turned calm. He let the bamboo leaf in his hand drift to the ground, swept his long sleeve, and vanished into the distance, leaving only a cold remark behind in the grove:

“Stop with the nonsense. It’s time to return to Yusheng Mountain.”

Junxiao stood amidst the bamboo, staring blankly at the fallen leaf on the ground. Then, he raised his gaze to the direction where Bai Ke’s figure had disappeared. No matter how he looked at it, Bai Ke’s retreating back—despite its ethereal grace—gave off the distinct impression of someone fleeing in panic.

And yet, after he’d said something so audaciously rebellious, all he got in return was a light and airy “Stop with the nonsense.”

The worst part? The tone wasn’t even remotely firm.

“…”

Junxiao stood there, stunned for a long moment. His initial approach had been purely out of a “Well, it’s impossible to hide this now, so I might as well go all in and tear down the paper-thin wall between us” kind of resignation. But Bai Ke’s reaction unexpectedly ignited a subtle flame within him—

Clearly, his frost-hearted master wasn’t standing as steady as he appeared to be! If he just pressed a little harder, Bai Ke might actually give in…

As Junxiao was lost in thought, a yellow talisman shot through the air and smacked down in front of him. From within came a familiar, somewhat cold voice: “What are you still standing there for?!”

Junxiao swiped the talisman from the air, clenched it in his hand, steadied his thoughts, and darted off like a hawk in pursuit.

The Yusheng Sect had always upheld a philosophy of “keep everything simple.” The root cause was that successive sect leaders had grown increasingly averse to hassle, each one more eager than the last to delegate all responsibilities.

So, a thousand years later, when the mountain gates reopened and Bai Ke, Junxiao, and the others returned with a group of new disciples, there wasn’t even the slightest thought of holding a celebratory ceremony.

The group landed directly on the Yusheng Sect’s Heaven-Worshiping Platform.

Most of the new disciples, whether young or old, had only heard rumors about the Yusheng Sect and had never seen it in person. Now, standing here in this ethereal paradise, they were completely shocked.

Although no one had resided here for a thousand years, the place didn’t seem the least bit aged. It was as if time had frozen everything in its pristine state from a millennium ago. Other than the people living there now, nothing else had changed.

Yu Xian briefly explained the layout of the sect, assigned the disciples their living quarters, and went over a few informal “rules” that barely qualified as rules at all.

The casualness of it all left the new disciples feeling a bit dazed, as though they weren’t formally joining a sect but merely on a day trip to the Yusheng Sect.

Watching this unfold, Wu Nan couldn’t help but recall the time, long ago, when his master and grandmaster had brought him to the Yusheng Sect as a child. That had been so many years ago—so long he’d lost count. Smiling at the bewildered new disciples, he said, “The Yusheng Sect has always been relaxed. You’ll get used to it. Just think of it as having a home to return to.”

Bai Ke took in the sight around him. As he watched the disciples finish settling in and leave with their simple belongings for their assigned quarters, he felt as though he had never truly been away for an extended time. It was as if they’d merely gone on a long journey, each taking their turn to wander the world, and now, having seen enough, they had simply returned home.

And no matter what happened outside, this place was always the most comforting.

With that thought, Bai Ke’s heart finally settled. Just as he was about to say something, Yu Xian, having finished his instructions to the disciples, turned abruptly toward Junxiao and snapped: “You brat! What are you grinning about? Since you came back from the woods, you’ve been walking around with that not-quite-a-smile plastered on your face. Doesn’t your jaw hurt? What’s so funny? Out with it! Let your grandmaster in on the joke! Here I am, explaining proper matters, and you’re off and absent-minded there. Could you try looking even remotely reliable in front of the new disciples?”

Junxiao raised a hand to press the corners of his mouth, then replied with perfect composure, “I wasn’t smiling.” As he spoke, his gaze flicked briefly toward Bai Ke.

Bai Ke: “…”

So much for that comforting thought—what a complete lie!

 

Translator : DarNan