Chapter 263: The Meaning of Meaninglessness
Lu Changyuan opened his eyes.
The incense was still burning.
“You’re awake?”
The silver-haired maiden’s voice drifted over from the side, as gentle as the sound of a flute in the evening.
He turned his head to look. Su Youwan was sitting sideways on the edge of the bed. Her petite bottom rested on the bed, as plump and soft as a rice cake. Her two delicate feet were bare, exposed to the air like the finest tips of lotus root.
The maiden wore her Daoist robe loosely, revealing the top of her dudou, which had been pushed halfway up. The simple garment was wrinkled from the previous night, and he wondered, ‘Did the Little Ancestor of the Compassionate Palace even bring a change of clothes?’
Her pale, tender arms, extending from the sides of her dudou, moved with her needlework. They looked so supple one could almost squeeze water from them. Her trousers below had gotten wet last night, and dark stains were still visible.
The maiden, however, seemed completely oblivious, still focused on her embroidery of mandarin ducks playing in water. Except, it now looked like there was a third duck in the picture.
‘An embroidery of mandarin ducks playing in water… with three ducks?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Lu Changyuan was a bit dazed, but he quickly asked, “Where is she?”
He couldn’t remember how late their antics had gone on the previous night. It only reaffirmed Lu Changyuan’s belief that his old path—cultivating the Supreme Dao of Indifference and avoiding women—had been the right one.
‘There are more and more women around me… What am I going to do?’
“She went out. Miss Bai Lu came early this morning to take her to the Sword Burial Tomb. The Qingcao Gate Master is probably going to heal the remaining participants of the Celestial Dao Grand Competition.”
Most of the top twenty-four contestants were injured, so using the Wood Sword Qi from the Sword Burial Tomb to heal their bodies was an excellent choice.
Lu Changyuan rubbed his face and sat up, perching on the edge of the bed next to Su Youwan.
“Miss Su, your embroidery skills are quite good.”
Su Youwan glanced sideways at him, but Lu Changyuan couldn’t quite read the emotion in her eyes.
“If you wish to praise me, Young Master Lu, you should focus on other things… like my figure, for example.”
‘No.’
‘When it comes to a good figure, that fox lying over there had a truly amazing one when she was human.’
‘Although Mei Zhaozhao is still an embarrassing virgin from the Hehuan Sect, she’s actually very capable in her own right.’
Su Youwan set down her embroidery hoop and knelt naturally before Lu Changyuan. The floor was cold, yet her posture was both submissive and unabashed.
Lu Changyuan looked down just as the maiden tilted her face up to meet his gaze.
Her beautiful face was too pure. It wasn’t the naive purity of one who has never known the world, but the ethereal, fragile purity that comes from severing all mortal ties.
She was like a jade statue that should have been enshrined in a gilded shrine high in the Nine Heavens. Yet, this face possessed a pair of soul-stirring, red, glazed pupils. At this moment, they held no emotion, seeming to glow in the dim room.
Lu Changyuan didn’t find it frightening. He simply found it beautiful—so beautiful that he instinctively reached out and touched the maiden’s cool cheek.
The red eyes of a Desire Demon on a maiden who cultivated the Supreme Dao—this sense of perverse contradiction made Su Youwan a rare treasure.
‘I wonder how a descendant of Su Wuxiang ended up being such a strange girl.’
The maiden asked in a matter-of-fact tone, “Are you aroused?”
Lu Changyuan replied smoothly, “Miss Su is very beautiful.”
“So you’d be like this with any beautiful woman who knelt before you?”
“Is there any other woman in this world as beautiful as Miss Su?”
When he was alone with Su Youwan, Lu Changyuan found it easy to slip back into his old habit of answering a question with a question.
Su Youwan nodded lightly. A few strands of her hair brushed against Lu Changyuan’s leg, tickling him.
“I suppose not.”
‘She’s certainly self-aware.’
The silver-haired maiden then pulled back the covers. “Last night, Young Master Lu pleased me greatly. My master taught me to repay kindness.”
Lu Changyuan finally understood why the maiden hadn’t bothered to get properly dressed after waking up. ‘So she was waiting for this all along.’
‘We haven’t even consummated our relationship, but it seems we’re going to try everything else first. This Little Ancestor of the Compassionate Palace truly is unconventional.’
Lu Changyuan decided to pat the silver-haired maiden’s head.
Her silver hair felt even softer and smoother than it looked, like the finest satin. Just the feel of it in his hand was pleasant.
[The Black Dragon Scale originally belonged to the Snake Race]
Golden characters suddenly appeared in his vision.
‘The Scale is from the Snake Race?’
‘Lu Changyuan wasn’t sure why the words were appearing now… wait, why are they so bright?’
‘At first, the text had been scarlet. Then it had turned a brilliant gold. And now, the golden text was… glowing?’
“Cough!”
The maiden coughed a couple of times, pulling a silk handkerchief from her robes to wipe her rosy lips. “Young Master Lu, please don’t move, alright? I’m not very practiced at this to begin with.”
The moment the silver-haired maiden broke skin contact with Lu Changyuan, the text faded.
?
Lu Changyuan reached out and caressed Su Youwan’s smooth, tender cheek. The text lit up again. He let go, and it faded once more.
He thought, ‘Tell me, what’s going on?’
The golden text in his vision didn’t respond. In fact, it had only ever responded once, back in the village, and Lu Changyuan suspected that it had been the Desire Demon answering him then.
After the Desire Demon was gone, the text in his vision became like a sulking cat; it wouldn’t come when called, only popping up on rare occasions.
Lu Changyuan was only sure that whatever remained was not the Desire Demon. He had no idea what it was, or why the text was glowing now.
‘It wasn’t doing anything else besides glowing.’
“Does my cheek feel that good? You seem so reluctant to let go.”
The maiden chuckled softly and twirled a strand of her hair.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When he pushed open the door, the hour was already late.
Lu Changyuan gazed at the distant Cloud Sea. Sunlight struck the cloud tops, plating the rolling waves of vapor with a flowing golden edge. Nearby, wisps of cloud churned like snowy surf. It was a beautiful sight.
He had asked Su Youwan if she knew anything about the golden text, but the Little Ancestor of the Compassionate Palace knew nothing about it.
‘Oh well, I’ll find out eventually.’
“Where are you off to, Young Master Lu?”
The Little Ancestor of the Compassionate Palace had changed her clothes and now looked dignified and pure. There was no sign of the traces that had been left on her pristine cheeks just a short while ago.
“Miss Su, do you know the two things that disciples of the Qingcao Sword Sect always carry?”
Su Youwan shook her head.
She lived in the Black Realm and had only come to the White Realm in the past year. She had some knowledge of the White Realm’s Sects, but not much.
“Wine and a sword. Everyone in that Sect, man or woman, likes to carry both.”
It wasn’t an actual rule, just a tradition that everyone adopted, influenced by the Sect’s atmosphere.
“So? What are you going to do, Young Master Lu?”
“Because the people of the Qingcao Sword Sect love both wine and swords, they have the most free-spirited swordplay… and the best brewers.”
So, Lu Changyuan was heading to the Qingcao Sword Sect’s brewery to find something to drink.
He hadn’t been much of a drinker lately, preferring bitter tea and the sweet aftertaste it left behind.
But since he was here, he might as well have a little.