Chapter 273: Parting
The Ice Demon of the Eternal Cloud Peak had essentially taken a five-month, fully immersive vacation into his own deepest, most desperately guarded romantic fantasies.
But all good things, even extended cross-country grocery shopping trips with your disguised yandere best friend, must eventually come to an end.
The Official Sect Martial Ranking was drawing near.
The grace period for accumulating mission merit points was closing to an end.
Ji’an’s spatial ring was currently stuffed with enough premium monster cores, rare herbs, and highly venomous exotic spices to purchase a small nation.
It was time to go home.
They stood at the dusty, windswept crossroads of a small border town, a few miles from the nearest teleportation array that would take Ji’an back to the Celestial Sword Sect.
The morning sun beat down on the wooden merchant stalls and the dusty road.
Ji’an stood opposite Blue.
She was wearing her trusty, slightly battered gray traveling cloak over her white inner sect tunic.
The glowing, two-tailed Nekomata kitten, who had spent the last five months napping on her shoulders, offering telepathic insults, and demanding high-grade sashimi, was currently curled around her neck, purring loudly.
It was time for the farewell.
And Lin Ji’an, dramatic to the very core of her transmigrated soul, refused to let a good parting scene go to waste.
She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a pristine white silk handkerchief.
She pressed the fabric to the corner of her eye, letting out a long, heavy, incredibly theatrical sigh that would have won an award at the Oscars.
"Ah, Blue," Ji’an lamented, her voice trembling with manufactured, soap-opera grief. "The rivers of time are cruel mistresses. We met as strangers in the bustling markets of the capital, and now we part as brothers-in-arms on the dusty roads of the frontier. You were the finest meat-shield, the most efficient vegetable-dicer, and the most minimalist rogue I have ever had the pleasure of kidnapping."
Blue stood perfectly still.
He was wearing his dark leather robes, his fiery crimson hair tied back in a neat tail.
He stared at her.
Beneath the disguise, Xie Wangchen was currently experiencing an internal conflict.
Half of his brain was melting with adoration for her ridiculous, over-the-top antics.
The other half of his brain was rolling its eyes into the back of its skull, because he knew for an absolute, undeniable fact that he was going to teleport back to the sect, drop his disguise, and literally see her tomorrow morning.
’He is acting as if I am walking to my execution,’ Wangchen thought, suppressing a heavy sigh. ’I’m literally going to the same mountain he is going to. I’ll probably beat her in reaching there. This is absurd. He is even more absurd. But I love him so much it makes my teeth ache.’
"You have been an adequate companion, Young Master Ji’an," Blue replied smoothly, keeping his facial expression locked in a mask of stoic rogue indifference. "My cultivation has benefited greatly from your... unique dietary regimen."
Ji’an dramatically grabbed his hand, clutching it between both of hers.
"Do not forget me, Blue!" Ji’an wailed playfully, giving his hand a firm, comrade-in-arms shake. "When you are out there in the world, fighting dragons and refusing bags of gold because of your bizarre vow of poverty, look up at the stars and remember the chef who fed you spicy pork belly!"
Blue looked down at her hands wrapping around his.
A faint, dark, genuinely amused smile finally broke through his stoic facade.
He slowly pulled his hand back, though he allowed his fingertips to lightly, lingeringly graze against her knuckles, a subtle, lingering touch that made Ji’an’s heart do a sudden, unwelcome stutter.
"I could never forget you, Young Master Ji’an," Blue murmured, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a promise that completely shattered the comedic atmosphere. "You have left a mark on my Dao that time cannot erase. May the winds favor your return to the mountain."
Ji’an swallowed hard, the fake tears entirely vanishing, replaced by a sudden, brilliant flush of heat on her cheeks.
’Why does he have to say things like that?!’ Ji’an panicked internally, hastily stepping back and putting the handkerchief away. ’He’s just a rogue! He’s just a friend! Stop rizzing me up in the middle of a dirt road, you handsome, minimalist weirdo!’
"Right! Yes! The winds! Thank you!" Ji’an stammered, awkwardly adjusting the straps of her pack. "Well... goodbye, Blue! Stay safe!"
She turned on her heel and practically sprinted toward the teleportation array station, the Nekomata on her shoulder letting out a telepathic, mocking laugh.
«You mortals are so incredibly awkward. The mating dances of the swamp crocs are more dignified than whatever it is you two are doing,» the kitten snickered in her mind.
’Shut up, fluffball! There is no mating dance! He’s a guy! And he thinks I’m also a guy! We are just bros from different mothers!’ Ji’an mentally shrieked back, her face burning.
Blue stood at the crossroads, watching her retreating back until she completely disappeared into the teleportation pavilion.
The moment she was out of sight, the red-haired rogue vanished.
The illusion shattered like fragile glass.
The fiery hair turned to a cascading waterfall of midnight black.
The rugged leather robes dissolved into pristine, flawless white silk.
The ambient temperature of the dusty crossroads plummeted to absolute zero, coating the dirt road in a layer of jagged, black frost.
Xie Wangchen, the Ice Demon of the Celestial Sword Sect, stepped out of the shadows of the alias.
He looked toward the teleportation array, his dark, bottomless eyes burning with a possessive fire.
"I will see you back in the sect, Master Ji’an," Wangchen whispered to the freezing air.
With a single step, the space around him folded, and the immortal prodigy vanished, racing his completely oblivious best friend back to the sect.
The Celestial Sword Sect was not just a martial arts school; it was an awe-inspiring, gravity-defying architectural miracle.
