Maybe My Soulmate! (GL)

Chapter 244: The start of a new arc 2.

She knew there was history in every look the other woman gave her. But the full shape of that history still remained beyond her reach, hidden behind fog.

Shen Mingyue never forced it.

That alone made Mo Yuxin respect her even more.

The founder of the Battle Maiden Sect was someone whose name alone could stir entire continents, but around Mo Lan she had none of that oppressive grandeur. She was attentive, patient, and heartbreakingly tender in the small things. She remembered how Mo Lan liked her tea. She adjusted her shawl when the wind rose. She lowered her voice when speaking to her, as if afraid any harshness at all might cause the fragile threads between them to snap.

One afternoon, Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing found them in a side garden.

Mo Feng was chasing spirit butterflies near the pond, laughing so loudly that even the koi seemed startled. Mo Lan sat beneath a tree, and Shen Mingyue was beside her, not too close, but close enough that the meaning was obvious.

Mo Yuxin slowed her steps.

Su Yubing glanced at her. "What is it?"

Mo Yuxin smiled, but there was something quieter beneath it. "Nothing. It’s just... they look good together."

Su Yubing followed her gaze. Shen Mingyue was saying something low, and Mo Lan actually smiled in answer, a soft one, shy and a little uncertain. Shen Mingyue’s expression changed at once, like someone seeing sunlight after a long winter.

"They do," Su Yubing said.

Mo Yuxin leaned briefly against her shoulder. "I used to think some things, once broken, would never come back."

Su Yubing intertwined their fingers. "Maybe not in the same shape. But that doesn’t mean they can’t return."

Mo Yuxin turned and kissed her cheek. "You always sound wise when you’re trying to comfort me."

"I’m not trying."

"You are."

Su Yubing looked away. "Then stop exposing me."

They walked into the garden together.

Mo Feng spotted them first and came charging over. "Big sister! Sister Yubing!"

Mo Yuxin crouched just in time to catch her. "You’re getting heavier."

Mo Feng gasped. "Impossible. I’m delicate."

Su Yubing’s mouth twitched.

Mo Yuxin looked solemn. "Who taught you to lie like that?"

Mo Feng pointed at her.

Everyone laughed, even Mo Lan.

That afternoon they drank tea in the garden while Mo Feng climbed onto Mo Yuxin’s lap, then Su Yubing’s, then somehow ended up making Shen Mingyue hold a woven grass ring as if it were some priceless treasure. For a little while, everything felt ordinary in the best possible way.

Just family. Just warmth. Just peace bought dearly enough to be cherished.

Still, peace never stayed untouched for long in a cultivation world.

About half a month after the wedding, the first problem came.

It started as reports from hunters and herb gatherers outside the city. A group of demonic beasts had appeared in the low mountain forests to the east, more violent than usual and moving closer to the roads. At first the Su family sent a team of guards along with some guest elders. They expected a simple cleanup.

Instead, two of the guards came back injured, and one elder returned with his sleeve torn and his face pale.

"It is not one beast," he reported in the Su family’s council hall. "It is a disturbed pack. Iron-fanged wolves, at least twenty, and among them a mutated leader nearly at the half-step Golden Core level."

For Azure Dragon City, that was enough to cause real alarm.

Father Su frowned deeply. Mother Su’s expression hardened. Around them, elders muttered in concern.

Mo Yuxin was sitting sideways in her chair, one arm draped over the back, looking as though she had wandered into the meeting by accident rather than as if she could kill everyone in the room with a thought. Su Yubing sat beside her, posture straight, gaze cool.

"The roads cannot remain blocked," Father Su said. "If the merchants stop entering the city, the effects will spread quickly."

One elder hesitated, then said carefully, "Matriarch, perhaps we should request the two seniors-"

He stopped because Su Yubing had looked at him.

Mo Yuxin grinned. "Seniors? That’s harsh. We just got married. At least let us enjoy being young."

The hall relaxed a little with nervous laughter.

Then Su Yubing stood. "We’ll deal with it."

Father Su began, "Yubing, this is not a small matter."

"It’s exactly because it isn’t small that we should go," she replied.

Mo Yuxin got to her feet too and stretched lazily. "It won’t take long. Think of it as a post-wedding outing."

Mother Su pinched the bridge of her nose. "Other people go sight-seeing after marriage."

"We’re practical people," Mo Yuxin said.

So they went.

They did not take a large party, only a few Su family disciples to lead the way and deal with cleanup afterward. The closer they got to the eastern forest, the thicker the smell of blood and rotten qi became. Trees were claw-marked. Birds had gone silent. Even the wind felt wrong.

One young disciple swallowed. "Senior Mo... senior Su... the wolves should be ahead."

Mo Yuxin glanced back with a faint smile. "Stay behind us. If anything escapes, that’s when you act."

The disciple flushed and nodded quickly.

A howl split the air.

Then another answered it.

Shadows moved between the trees.

The wolves emerged in a half-circle, fur dark as rusted iron, eyes glowing with animal hunger and something fouler beneath it. Their leader was huge, almost the size of a horse, with bone spikes protruding unevenly from its spine and black saliva dripping from its jaws.

The disciples behind them went rigid.

Su Yubing’s sword appeared in her hand with a clear ringing note.

Mo Yuxin rolled her shoulders once. "Want the big one or the small ones?"

"The big one is uglier," Su Yubing said.

"So you’re taking it."

"I am."

The wolf king lunged.

At the same moment, the rest of the pack sprang forward.

Then the forest exploded with light.

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TO BE CONTINUED.