Le Gui touched her nose and lay on the edge of the pool, soaking in the warm water.

She wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination, but the moment she immersed herself, she felt a wave of comfort spread through her body. The soreness from overexertion faded away, and her strength gradually returned. Her mind drifted back to when Di Jiang had touched her forehead and the lingering sensation of overwhelming pleasure. For a moment, she felt an odd discomfort between her legs.

[So what exactly did he do to me?] 

[We didn’t even take our clothes off, yet somehow, I still… Not to mention, it was completely one-sided. I basically drooled all over him, and he didn’t even..]

Realizing this, Le Gui instinctively wrapped her damp clothes tighter around herself. The more she thought about it, the more pitiful she felt.

When Di Jiang finished meditating, he opened his eyes to find her staring at her own reflection in the water, looking like she was lost in melancholy. He averted his gaze and stood up to leave.

The sound of water splashing caught Le Gui’s attention. She quickly shook off her thoughts and scrambled to follow him. The moment she stepped out of the pool, her wet clothes instantly dried and softened, as if she had never been in the water at all. Only the dampness in her hair proved otherwise.

“Your Lordship, where are you going?” she asked as she chased after him.

“To listen to music,” Di Jiang replied.

“…Listen to what music? You don’t need to meditate or train anymore?” Le Gui asked, puzzled.

“I don’t need to,” he said.

“Your Lordship is incredible!” Under the torment of their tyrannical boss, the workers had mastered the art of flattery to perfection.

Di Jiang didn’t spare her a glance and continued walking. Le Gui had to jog to keep up, silently grateful that she had soaked in the hot spring again—otherwise, she would have had to crawl out of there.

The two of them walked through the long corridors and soon arrived at the front hall of Cangqiong Palace. Inside, a few Youning spirits were playing and chasing each other around. The moment they saw Di Jiang, they immediately scattered back to their spots, pretending they had never moved.

Unlike them, the Seer Mirror, which had escaped from its stand, remained as brazen as ever. Floating boldly in the center of the hall, it made no effort to avoid them. The moment Di Jiang entered, it spoke with its usual mocking tone, “Only two months, and you’re out already? I thought you’d at least stay in the sleeping chamber for a thousand years.”

“What? We were in there for two months?” Le Gui was stunned.

The Seer Mirror had clearly not been talking to her, but hearing her exclamation, it reluctantly glanced at her. “Oh, still alive after two months?”

Le Gui: “…”

It would have been fine if it hadn’t brought that up, but the moment it did, she immediately recalled all the times it had tried to mislead her and trick her into a deal.

“Sorry, but even if you die, I still won’t.” She shot back.

The surface of the Seer Mirror rippled, forming the image of a dark lotus. Its voice turned ominous. “One day, I’ll kill you.”

“Go ahead and try,” Le Gui said, hands on her hips.

The moment the words left her mouth, the mirror’s aura surged with dark energy, and its size expanded tenfold, nearly touching the ceiling.

Le Gui had heard it make threats before, but this was the first time she felt it truly meant to act on them. Her hands instantly left her hips, and she darted behind Di Jiang in a panic.

However, the Seer Mirror’s fury did not seem to be directed at her.

“You…” Its voice was thick with barely restrained rage. “You consumed your cultivation to forcefully heal your wounds?”

Di Jiang glanced at it with indifference and said nothing.

The mirror trembled with even greater fury, and the lotus in its reflection twisted wildly. “Two thousand years of cultivation, wasted on a single injury?!”

“Move aside,” Di Jiang said coldly, his patience wearing thin as the mirror blocked his path.

The lotus in the mirror raged on. “I signed a master-servant contract with you and have been trapped in this forsaken place for thousands of years. I endured all this so that when you died, I could inherit your cultivation. Your power is supposed to be mine! Mine! How dare you waste it!”

Le Gui blinked.

[This sounds like an ungrateful child scolding their father for spending too much money.]

The mirror continued its furious rant, but Di Jiang’s expression grew colder. The magical artifacts on the display shelves trembled, and the Youning spirits cowered in the corners, as if suppressing a deep fear.

As the only one unaffected, Le Gui thought she should say something to de-escalate the situation. But when she looked at Di Jiang’s increasingly icy gaze, then at the mirror that was now massive enough to break through the ceiling…

[Forget it. I’m just a weak, fragile, and completely innocent mortal. I can’t mediate this.]

Without hesitation, she slipped behind one of the display shelves and peeked through the gaps to watch.

Based on her experience working under Di Jiang, she knew he had completely run out of patience.

Sure enough, the thought had barely crossed her mind when the mirror suddenly trembled violently. Its reflection emitted a piercing, agonized shriek that made Le Gui instinctively cover her ears and squeeze her eyes shut, too afraid to keep watching.

“Looks like I’ve been too lenient lately,” Di Jiang said, his voice devoid of warmth. “That must be why you think you can overstep your bounds.”

Although the doors and windows were shut, a fierce wind howled through the hall. Di Jiang stood tall in his thin robes, his face utterly emotionless.

A sharp cracking sound echoed through the room.

Crack. Crack. Crack—

With each sound, another fracture spread across the mirror’s surface. The dark lotus’s screams grew weaker and more desperate, before finally fading into nothingness.

[Did… did it die?]

Le Gui shivered, rubbing the goosebumps on her arms. After a long pause, she cautiously opened her eyes.

Di Jiang was already gone. The Seer Mirror had returned to its normal size and now lay silently on the ground, as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.

The once tidy grand hall was now in ruins. Tables were overturned, display shelves had collapsed, and artifacts were scattered across the floor. The Youning spirits continued to huddle in the corners, still trembling.

Le Gui hesitated for a moment before slowly walking to the center of the hall. There, she saw the Seer Mirror, now restored to its normal size, its surface covered in web-like cracks. A small piece of the mirror had even broken off from one of the corners, revealing a brass-like underlayer beneath the shattered glass.

Inside the mirror, the lotus flower was not fragmented like the broken shards. Instead, it lay in the mirror’s reflection, tattered and worn, as if the web-like cracks were a prison trapping it within, preventing any chance of escape.

“You little beast,” the lotus, having just endured a near-death lesson, now exuded a calmness that only came from being on the brink of destruction. “Do me a favor.”

Le Gui looked at it with sympathy. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to give you a proper burial.”

“…I’m not dead. What are you burying me for?” The lotus was speechless.

Le Gui blinked, trying to be as tactful as possible. “Well… you do look like you’re about to…”

The lotus twitched its petals, clearly wanting to curse her ancestors but lacking the strength. It could only maintain its eerie calm. “Even like this, I won’t die. No need for a burial.”

“Oh.” Le Gui sat down next to the mirror. “Then tell me, what do you need help with? Just so you know, I’m just a mortal. If you’re asking me to take revenge on His Lordship, that’s out of the question.”

“I’m not insane enough to expect a mere mortal to avenge me.” The lotus couldn’t help but sneer.

Le Gui rubbed her nose. “And you can’t trick me either.”

“Do I look like that kind of person?”

“You really do.” Le Gui had a habit of being brutally honest at the worst moments.

The lotus fell silent. “…Just put the broken shard back in place. Without it, I can’t heal the cracks.”

Realizing that arguing with Le Gui would only lead to an untimely death by frustration, the lotus decided to get straight to the point.

That didn’t sound too difficult. Le Gui nodded but hesitated as she reached for the shard. “I won’t drop dead the moment I touch this, will I?”

“…I’m not poisonous.”

“Then is it some sort of binding contract? You’re the expert at making those.”

“I just want to be whole again.”

“If you recover and come after me for revenge, what then? You literally just said you wanted to kill me.”

The lotus: “…”

“Maybe you should ask someone else for help,” Le Gui suggested sincerely.

The lotus: “…”

After a long silence, purple demonic energy began to gather within the mirror. It grew thicker and thicker, gradually engulfing the lotus until only its faint outline remained.

Le Gui widened her eyes in curiosity. “What are you doing?”

“Killing myself.” The lotus spoke with unsettling calm, an eerie madness in its tone. “Even if it costs me my life today, I’ll take you with me.”

Le Gui immediately shoved the shard back into place.

The demonic energy within the mirror instantly dissipated.

“You should’ve just done this from the start.” The lotus let out a cold laugh.

[If you hadn’t threatened me, I wouldn’t have done it at all.] 

Le Gui scoffed inwardly. Seeing that the mirror was now healing itself, she ran off to clean up the mess in the hall.

First, she needed to comfort the trembling Youning spirits. Then, she had to put the magical artifacts back in place. Finally, she would deal with the heavy and bizarre furniture. The energy she had regained from soaking in Wanghuan Pool quickly drained away. By the time she, drenched in sweat, returned to the mirror, it had finished healing.

“Why are the cracks still there?” She poked at the web-like lines on its surface.

The lotus, now sounding much livelier, replied, “These cracks were caused by the master himself. They won’t heal so easily.”

“…He did this to you, and you still call him ‘master’?” Le Gui found this intriguing.

The lotus shot her an annoyed look. “He is my master.”

[This is next-level employee loyalty. Even if my boss beat me half to death, I wouldn’t be this dedicated.] 

Le Gui gave it an internal thumbs-up. “Then why did you challenge him just now if you’re so devoted?”

“He already said it himself,” the lotus replied in a distant tone.

Le Gui blinked. “Said what?”

“He’s been too lenient lately. So I got carried away.”

Le Gui: “…”

“This is all your fault.” The lotus’s tone suddenly turned harsh. “If I hadn’t seen you repeatedly testing his patience without dying, I wouldn’t have gotten so arrogant.”

“…That is some next-level blame-shifting.” Le Gui was utterly baffled.

“It is your fault. If not for you suddenly appearing, he would have died that day drinking under the peach tree. If he had died, all his spiritual power would’ve been mine. I’ve waited for so long, and you ruined everything.”

Le Gui thought back to the smoke that drifted from Di Jiang’s body and into the hall. Realization dawned on her. “So that was his cultivation? He was passing it to you?”

“All because of you. All because of you. He was supposed to die, but you kept lingering around him, making him feel like life was worth living again. And now, he’s even spent two thousand years’ worth of cultivation to heal himself.”

“Hey, can you calm down?” Le Gui rolled her eyes. “I’m just a mortal. There’s no way I could have that much influence over him.”

“All because of you, all because of you—wait, what are you doing?” The lotus suddenly panicked.

Le Gui, who was currently trying to pry apart its cracks: “Nothing, just sending you on your way.”

The lotus: “…”

They locked eyes, mutually annoyed by the other’s existence.

Suddenly, the sound of music drifted from the back of the mountain. Le Gui, utterly exhausted, flopped down beside the mirror. One person and one mirror lay sprawled out, quietly listening.

After a long silence, the lotus spoke. “His Lordship hasn’t listened to music in a long time.”

“He was injured before. In so much pain every day that he couldn’t be bothered. Now that he’s healed, of course, he’d start again.” Le Gui yawned lazily. She could still feel the lingering sensation from the pool earlier, leaving her with a strange and indescribable feeling.

The lotus scoffed at the remark. “That little injury is nothing. He has suffered far worse before, yet it never stopped him from listening to eight opera troupes at once.”

“He’s been hurt even worse?” Le Gui was surprised.

The lotus replied, “No matter how powerful he is, he still has weaknesses. If I hadn’t used my mirror body to block most of the damage that time, he would have died.”

“So, in a way, you saved his life,” Le Gui paused for a moment before suddenly gloating. “And yet, look at you now. You still almost got beaten to death.”

The lotus: “…”

After a brief silence, The lotus spoke again in a quiet voice. “I saved him to keep him alive so he could continue cultivating. One day, when he dies, all of his spiritual power will transfer to me. Unlike some people, who hear a few sweet words and immediately open their hearts, only to be betrayed eight hundred times.”

Le Gui’s grin slowly faded. “That was uncalled for.”

“Who started it?” The lotus retorted.

Le Gui, realizing she had provoked first: “…”

“Hey,” The lotus called out again when she fell silent. “Do you want to kill her?”

Her—referring to Yaoyao, the first human friend Le Gui made after arriving in this world.

“Kill her? What for?” Le Gui was confused.

The lotus asked, “You don’t hate her?”

“…It’s not serious enough to use the word ‘hate,’ is it?” Le Gui hesitated.

Truthfully, she had never truly integrated into this world. To her, the people here were no different from characters in a book. Being bullied did not bother her, and being betrayed did not break her heart. Even when faced with corpse after corpse… well, the first time she saw one, she was scared sick, but after that, she got used to it.

Everything in this world—including Di Jiang—felt like mere ink and paper brought to life. She could not muster much love or hatred. She only wanted to leave.

“It’s not that deep,” she chuckled. “She never intended to be my friend in the first place.”

“You’re surprisingly indifferent about it,” The lotus remarked. “If it were me, I’d at least slaughter her entire sect.”

[Friend, you’re a mirror. Could you have a little less bloodlust?]

Le Gui wanted to say something but stopped herself. Chatting with a mirror like this felt a bit ridiculous. As a dignified human being, she should at least be conversing with an animal.

She turned over, pushed herself up from the floor, dusted off her clothes, and prepared to leave. The Seer Mirror suddenly called out to her, “Hey, where are you going?”

“I’m going to find Juzi to play.”

The Seer Mirror’s tone turned odd. “You still have the energy to play?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Le Gui was confused. “I did a lot of work earlier, but I already rested.”

“You really are something,” the Seer Mirror clicked its tongue. “Normally, when two people engage in dual cultivation, the greater the difference in power, the more unbearable it is for the weaker one. Your power gap with the master is wide enough to span three realms, yet after everything, you still had the strength to clean up… and now you want to go out and play.”

Le Gui froze for a second. Then she looked at it like it was some kind of pervert. “So your all-knowing ability comes from spying?”

“I don’t spy on anyone,” the Seer Mirror said, displeased. “My knowledge comes from the laws of the world. Who spoke to whom or how many times they engaged in dual cultivation—none of that is within my scope of interest.”

“Then how do you know we…” Halfway through her sentence, Le Gui realized something was off. If the mirror had really been spying, it would not have assumed she and Di Jiang had engaged in dual cultivation.

What happened was more like Di Jiang crushing her one-sidedly.

As Le Gui’s thoughts raced, the Seer Mirror sneered. “You have his spiritual power inside you. Anyone with eyes can see what happened.”

[Spiritual power? I have Di Jiang’s spiritual power inside me?]

Le Gui was stunned for a moment. Then she abruptly stood up. “I—I just remembered something I forgot in the sleeping chamber. I need to go get it.”

Without looking back, she dashed into the corridor, leaving the grand hall to settle back into its usual quiet, with only a single mirror lying motionless on the floor.

Le Gui ran as fast as she could. The hallway, which usually took an eternity to traverse, seemed unusually short this time. She rushed straight to the sleeping chamber, rummaged through her storage pouch, and pulled out a ladder. Struggling a little, she propped it against a pillar and skillfully climbed up.

A small, palm-sized compass rested quietly on the beam.

[If I really have Di Jiang’s spiritual power inside me, then the seal on this shouldn’t affect me.]

[But what if the Seer Mirror was lying? What if it deliberately lured me here?]

[But the Seer Mirror didn’t even know I was planning to steal Wuliangdu…]

Le Gui thought about the tools she had previously thrown at the compass, all of which disintegrated before even getting close. She swallowed hard.

No, she really… really wanted to go home.

Taking a deep breath, Le Gui reached out and carefully grasped the compass.

On the rear mountain, leaning lazily against a peach blossom tree, Di Jiang slowly opened his eyes. He gazed at the sky, watching as dark clouds began to gather.