Chapter 16: The thin line of the next town

In the morning, they left the inn . Su Qingxue adjusted the bag on her shoulder and looked back once at the second-floor window.

Lin Tian waited beside her, the dual thread sitting warm and steady between them, no longer something either of them could pretend was just the air.

"You’re walking a lot better today, have you noticed it yourself?" Her soft voice came with a little ’trying-not-to-be-shy’ vibe.

"That’s only because you kept waking up to check on me all night."

She went pink at that and started down the road without answering, and he fell into step beside her.

"There’s two days to the selection grounds from here , if we don’t stop for too long, maybe even less if your ’weak’ legs can actually hold up."

"They aren’t weak , when they hold up... someone screams"

" Idiot!’ her cheeks turned into a pout ,

" Pffttt hahaha "

"Ughh leave it , you say that every time I ask, you know that right?"

"And every time I’ve been right so far."

She almost smiled at that. "And your arm, how is it now, is it still hurting badly or has the pain gone down a bit?"

"It’s just sore now, it’s not bleeding anymore. That salve you applied last night really worked."

"Good, because if it opens up again on the road we’ll have to stop somewhere, and I really don’t want to stop more than we have to."

They walked in silence for a stretch. The dual core turned quietly under Lin Tian’s skin, full from the night before, settling the new Foundation energy deeper into his meridians.

Every so often he felt a thin echo of her through the thread, a flicker of awareness, the shape of her mood , something like that.

"Can you feel it too, even right now?"

"What ? This warmth? This thread between us?"

"Yeah."

She was quiet for a few steps probably because she was trying to find the right words. "I do, I feel warmth all the time, and sometimes I just know you’re looking at me even when I’m not facing you at all. It’s strange, not in a bad way though, it’s just strange, like someone left a door open in a room I used to keep closed for so long."

"It’ll get even stronger the more we dual cultivate, you know."

"I know that, I’m not taking it back or regretting it, I just need a little time to get used to it. This morning when I circulated, my Qi moved cleaner than it ever has in my whole life, that actually scared me a little, in a good way. I didn’t even tell you how clear it felt."

"You just did tell me..your tongue is like a soap, it slipped every now and then"

"Don’t look so pleased with yourself ..it was a bad joke "She sighed and looked ahead,

"I’m not looking pleased at all."

"You are though , I can feel it through the thread."

’oh my my , Using my powers against me ’

He didn’t argue with that, and she looked ahead at the empty road, her smile fading a little.

"Those people found us once so easily, someone must have paid them to follow us, and that someone still knows we are moving toward Azure Cloud. What if they are already waiting at the next town, or what if they already sent word to the selection grounds?"

"Then we just have to get there before they can do anything useful with that information, before their words even matter."he casually replied ,

"And if the sect senses this mixed energy on us the moment we step through the gate, what do we say then?"

" Of course , then we deal with it,same as we’ve dealt with everything else until now....also it’s not a ’demonic art’ and we aren’t from demonic cult . it’s just a rare case , and useful for some people. "

The moment Tian said the word ’demonic’ , a memory tried to rise in his mind : Two extremely beautiful eyes with faintly glowing crimson pupils .. Then it was gone.

’Agggh... every time a memory pops up , it hurts like hell! Those eyes..I don’t remember at all. There should be a connection between the word demonic and the memory ’ He was deep in thought when Qingxue’s voice came ,

She let out a short breath. "You are way too calm for someone who was literally dying two weeks ago."

"Uh...I had a pretty good teacher looking after me the whole time." "Beautiful and ...heh seductive ""pleasure for the eyes".

’When did I seduce him ? this idiot, he is teasing me again !! ’

"I didn’t teach you anything at all, I just made you that bitter soup you hated and kept telling you, not to walk too far, and I sat by your bed arguing with your uncle. That isn’t teaching, that’s just nagging like a Granny." She ignored his teasing and chuckled.

"You stayed with me , and that was the only teaching I needed."

The words sat between them for a moment. She didn’t answer right away.

"I used to think the path to a sect would feel much bigger, like something important should change the moment you leave your village, maybe banners or some kind of omen or something. But it just looks like more fields and the same sky as always."

"It will feel different when we actually arrive, you’ll see."

"You’ve never even been there, so how would you know how it feels?"

"Neither have you, so we are both just guessing together, aren’t we?"

That earned a real small smile from her as she looked at the hills rising in the distance, grey-green under thin cloud.

"My father used to say Azure Cloud only takes one outer disciple from our region every three years, and it’s usually someone , with a clan recommendation or a spirit root that, some important person already tested.

"He said the rest of us were meant to stay and farm and not make trouble. We are just two people with no recommendation at all and ,.

" A dual energy we can’t even explain to anyone without sounding like we’ve lost our minds hah They are going to look at us like we are completely strange when we show up."

"Then let them look however they want, let them stare , it’s not a crime to be strange."

"Easy for you to say, you are the one who broke through into Foundation Establishment in a single night fucking me ...oh I-I mean dual cultivate ! ! 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

" phew..I’m still ordinary on paper, and if they test spirit roots the old way, mine won’t impress anyone at all. "

’heh so cute .. , even the slip of tongue was cute ’ " well you are rising too, Qingxue, you felt it yourself this morning when you circulated. That isn’t ordinary anymore, not even close. right ?"

She went quiet, because the thin new flow in her meridians was still there, pure Yin moving cleaner than before the dual, and she hadn’t fully admitted to herself how much it changed the way the road felt under her feet.

"If they reject me but decide to take you, I’m still not going back to that village !! I’ll find work in a town or try a smaller sect. I am not going back to Auntie Zhao and your uncle’s face, not after everything!! Please..."

"They are not taking me without you ,I won’t leave you that’s final. If they only want one of us, then they don’t get either of us."

"You can’t decide that for a whole sect, Tian-ge, they have their own rules."

"Maybe I can’t decide for them, but I can decide what I do, and what I do from now on includes you."

She looked at him for a long moment while they walked, the dual thread pulling a little tighter on its own.

"You are going to be so difficult to handle in a sect that is full of rules, you know that?"

"Probably, yeah, I will be."

"Haa that’s good, someone has to be difficult. I’ve spent too many years being careful for both of us."

They stopped near midday under a stand of trees where the road bent. She handed him water, their fingers touched, and this time neither of them pulled away as fast as before.

Below them the land dropped toward a wider valley, a thin river cutting through it, silver where the light caught it. On the far side, barely visible, the first roofs of another town sat low against the hills with a thin trail of smoke rising from near the center.

"That town over there, that’s the last stop before the outer selection grounds. If we keep walking at this pace we can reach it by evening, sleep there for the night, and then arrive at the grounds early next morning before the main crowd gets there."

"Alright, that sounds like a good plan to me."

"And if those men are waiting for us again in that town, what do we do then?"

"Then this time I’m not the only one who knows how to hit back, we both do."

She met his eyes, suddenly serious. "I’m being serious with you, Tian-ge, if someone comes for our dual energy again, you don’t get to just push me behind you and tell me to run away.

"We’ll face it together, we deal with it together, or we don’t deal with it at all. I already chose this road with you, I’m not going to be protected out of it."

"I heard you the first time, I really did."

"No, say it back to me properly, I want to actually hear you say it."

"We deal with it ’together’, no matter who comes for us. ’ Together. ’ we will cultivate tonight, and I’ll show some stars to your little kitty "

"...." She didn’t say a single word, after a while, she nodded once, satisfied, and put the water away, ears pink ...

They walked on as the valley opened wider and the afternoon stretched. Other travelers appeared on the road, a merchant with two loaded mules complaining to no one about the price of salt, a pair of young men in plain practice robes arguing about sword forms. One insisting the Azure Cloud outer test still favored pure sword roots while the other said the elders had started caring more about stability than flash. An old woman with a basket of dried herbs glanced at the faint dual mark of energy around them and looked away fast, quickening her steps.

The air itself felt different closer to Azure Cloud territory, thinner and sharper, like it expected cultivation and had no patience for people who only walked.

"They are definitely going to the selection too, look at them."She pointed a finger,

"Yeah, probably, they have that look on their faces "

"They already have proper cultivation clothes and they talk like they’ve been training since they could barely walk. One of them even mentioned an uncle in the outer sect, did you hear that?"

"Then we’ll just have to train twice as hard after we get inside, that’s all."

She held his hand and started walking, "You really believe we will actually get inside, don’t you? You really believe that?"

"I believe we didn’t come all this way just to stop in front of a gate and turn around. And I believe this dual core isn’t something a gate elder sees every year. That can work for us or against us, but I’d rather make it work for us." He was quite confident saying this .

"And if it works against us, what then?"

"Then we leave and find another path, ’Together.’ Same answer as before, nothing changes...sigh " He sighed at her stubbornness.

She walked beside him in silence for a while, the dual thread humming quietly between them.

"When we get to the town, we take one room again. I’m not pretending we’re strangers after everything we’ve been through, and I’m not sleeping on the floor just to protect a reputation that village already ruined for me."

"I wasn’t going to ask you to do that anyway."

"Good, and Tian-ge?..."

"Mm?"

"If we dual cultivate again...before the selection, we do it because we actually want to, not because you’re trying to force another breakthrough ! "Her soft voice slightly embarrassing..

"Agreed, I won’t force it."Lin chuckled.

"You say that now, but you always push yourself too hard."

"I mean it this time , the core can wait, you don’t have to."

Her ears went pink again.