Maybe My Soulmate! (GL)

Chapter 252: Leaving the azure dragon city 3.

Su Yubing rested her head against the rock wall with her eyes half-closed. Mo Yuxin sat beside her in the water, gently washing a bit of dried mud from Su Yubing’s shoulder with the kind of care that always made Su Yubing’s heart feel too full. No matter how strong they were, no matter how many people feared them, no matter how much trouble they could crush with one hand, the soft moments between them were always what felt the most powerful.

The mountain region also gave them the first truly unusual beast of the journey, a white-feathered cloud crane with a crown of silver horns and a trail of pale fire circling its wings like ribbons. It was a divine beast, the kind people in ordinary stories only heard about once in their lives, if ever. The villagers nearby had been too scared to go near the cloud cliffs where it nested, because the beast had been stealing spirit medicine from the high ridge gardens and attacking anyone who climbed too close. The local sect had tried to subdue it twice and failed both times. When Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing arrived, they found the crane standing on a cliff edge with its wings spread wide, beautiful and dangerous at the same time, like a living piece of the sky itself. Its cry shook loose snow from the rocks. It was not evil either. It was defending a hidden nest that had been disturbed by miners digging too deep into the cliffs.

Mo Yuxin understood the problem almost at once. She and Su Yubing climbed the cliff face together, every step smooth and sure, until the beast decided they were close enough to attack. Then the mountain itself seemed to wake up. The cloud crane swooped down in a blur of white flame and razor wind, and its wings cut deep channels through the stone where they had been standing just a breath before. Su Yubing moved first this time, because her ice arts were best suited to the narrow ledges and sharp air currents. She spun her palms outward and spread a ring of frost across the cliff surface, making a safe platform under their feet. Mo Yuxin leaped through the crane’s next dive, sword out, and slashed a line of brilliant light across the air. The crane twisted away, feathers scattering like glowing snow, then came back with enough force to crack the rocks. It was a fierce fight, but not a desperate one. They were never in true danger. They were simply matching themselves against something rare and proud.

What made the scene unforgettable was the way they fought together. Mo Yuxin drew the beast’s attention with direct, clean strikes, while Su Yubing boxed in its flight path with layered frost barriers and bright spiritual threads that shimmered like moonlight. The crane finally realized it could not win by force alone, and when it pulled back, Mo Yuxin did not chase to kill. She called out instead, telling it in a calm voice that she knew it was protecting something. The beast hesitated. Su Yubing took the chance to project a gentle wave of spiritual sense into the nest cavern behind the cliff face, where they found two broken eggs and a third one still warm. Someone had been hunting the crane’s young. That changed everything. Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing repaired the shattered nest, moved the remaining egg to a safer chamber, and left behind a ward array strong enough to keep hunters away. In return, the divine crane followed them for three whole mountain days, circling above their path like a white guardian before finally soaring off toward the highest peaks. The villagers later said the beast had become a mountain spirit again, but Mo Yuxin only said, "It was just a parent defending its home."

By the time they left the mountains, they had gained a few more traveling companions for a while. There was a young herb gatherer named Lin Qiao who had gotten separated from her group during a storm and would have fallen off a cliff if Su Yubing had not frozen the edge in time. There was also an older sword traveler called Old Yan who had once been famous in his youth, then spent the last twenty years wandering between provinces selling lessons and bad jokes. He had a sharp tongue and a surprisingly good eye for sword movement, so Mo Yuxin listened to him more politely than he expected and even sparred with him once, mostly just to show him that the old man’s feet were too slow for her. Old Yan lost the match in under ten moves, then laughed so hard he nearly sat down in the snow. He and Lin Qiao ended up traveling with them for nearly two weeks, which meant the road was filled with stories, teased comments, and a lot of meals cooked over open fire. Lin Qiao adored Su Yubing and called her "sister-in-law" with such ease that Su Yubing laughed every single time. Old Yan claimed he had never seen two people so openly in love and still so dangerous to anyone foolish enough to interrupt them. Mo Yuxin did not deny it.

The journey then moved into a wide stretch of low plains where the weather turned hotter and the road dustier. The trees changed. The green became sparse. The sky stretched open and huge over golden fields, and the wind carried the smell of dry grass and distant smoke. In one town there, they stopped because the local well had gone foul and people were getting sick. This turned out to be the work of a buried earth wyrm that had been shifting underground too close to the water vein. The beast was old and enormous and covered in scales like baked clay, with eyes like amber lanterns. It had no interest in eating people. It was just half asleep and annoyed after being disturbed by miners digging a new pit. The town thought the monster was cursed.

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TO BE CONTINUED,