novelHome Chapter 491: What You Just Described, That Is Liking Someone
Chapter 491: What You Just Described, That Is Liking Someone
Throughout the whole of the winter that followed, Tushan Jingci visited Xiao Mo's courtyard with ever-greater faithfulness.Whenever class was over and she had nothing pressing to attend to, no matter how heavy the wind or snow, she would appear without fail in the depths of the bamboo grove, treading through the drifts to Xiao Mo's side.
The bamboo grove on snowy days was truly beautiful, but every single day Tushan Jingci found herself longing for the winter to be over.
Because Xiao Mo had said it himself.
When he woke, he would fill the mountain with peach blossoms for her and the peach blossoms at the Hanshan Academy bloomed in spring.
Which meant Xiao Mo would wake in spring.
So the young girl counted the days one by one, waiting in anticipation for the spring that would belong to herself and Xiao Mo.
As the young girl waited with her heart reaching forward day after day, winter at last came to an end.
On a particular morning, the mountain mist had not yet dispersed and floated thinly between the trees like a layer of half-transparent gauze.
Dew hung on the pine needles, and droplets fell now and then onto the dry leaves below with a faint and quiet rustling.
The stream ran over the stones in shallow, clear ripples, the sand and pebbles at the bottom fully visible, and a few small fish kept close to the rocks and barely moved, their tails waving gently.
On the sun-facing slopes, pale green shoots of new grass pushed up through the earth in clusters.
Mountain flowers were blooming well, and pale pink petals had fallen onto the stone steps of the path, damp from the morning air.
A clean breeze moved through, carrying the earthy sweetness of soil and the faint perfume of mountain blossoms, drifting lightly through the air.
Spring had come.
From that day on, every day Tushan Jingci spent was threaded with a quiet nervousness and anticipation.
To her, it felt as though Xiao Mo might wake up the very next day but early spring passed, and Xiao Mo had still not woken.
Even the peach trees on many of the academy's peaks had come into bloom, with the sole exception of Qianxue Peak where Xiao Mo was in seclusion.
Tushan Jingci, who had always loved spring more than any other season, looked at this spring that had arrived so slowly and brought with it nothing of what she had hoped for, and suddenly felt that she did not love this season quite as much as she had thought.
Among the students at the academy, some had begun to whisper among themselves about why, this year, the peach blossoms on Qianxue Peak had still not opened but after a few days, no one thought much about it anymore.
What those classmates who were close to Tushan Jingci gradually noticed instead was that Jingci, compared to before, had become a little more settled and a little more mature.
They could not quite put it into words.
It was just that in the past, as Jingci grew older, what changed was only her appearance, which became more and more beautiful, more graceful and striking. But in recent months, Jingci no longer seemed to be simply the young girl who had grown up in face while remaining tender in heart.
The quiet sorrow between her brows had given many people the feeling of a woman who had come into herself.
Yueshi too had noticed this keenly in the Young Miss.
In the past, whenever the Young Miss sat down to read or practice her calligraphy, she had always needed someone nearby to remind and encourage her before she would settle to it properly but since Xiao Mo entered seclusion, though the Young Miss still went to the bamboo grove every day and made her daily visit to that motionless young man seated in stillness, she had, without anyone quite noticing, become exceptionally disciplined.
Whether it was reading, cultivation, or completing the work her teachers assigned, the Young Miss no longer needed anyone to say a single extra word to her, and would simply sit down and do it quietly of her own accord.
Before long, several more months had gone by, and summer, autumn, and winter passed in their turn.
Two full years had passed since the day Xiao Mo entered seclusion.
The Dao resonances around Xiao Mo had grown richer and deeper with each passing day.
That winding river of the Dao, half-visible and half-concealed, continued to spiral around him, until at last it wrapped around Xiao Mo entirely, like the silver threads spun by a spring silkworm, layer upon layer, weaving itself into a great and mysterious cocoon.
It was also in this year that the young girl turned eighteen.
If the sixteen-year-old young girl had been a bud still holding its petals closed, tender and still green, then Tushan Jingci now had grown fully into her form, becoming more and more graceful and refined with each passing day.
She stood there in quiet stillness, her features lovely as a painting, her bearing carrying a cool and distant quality, touched with a faint sense of unapproachability that discouraged others from drawing near too easily and yet, in the instant she curved the corners of her lips and let her smile unfold, the whole world seemed to lose its color in that single moment.
It was as though the young girl did not belong to this world at all, but had descended from the clouds.
The First Prince of the Heavenly Demon Kingdom, Chen Jue, and those like him, had become even more captivated by Tushan Jingci than before.
When they were young, they had found Tushan Jingci charming, and had sought to draw near to her on account of the Tushan clan's influence. But now that they had grown up, the more they looked at her, the more beautiful they found her. The quality of her beauty was no longer simply charming, it was the kind of breathtaking loveliness that moved the heart.
And so they had quietly gone to their clans and sects and expressed their intentions, seeking to have Tushan Jingci as a wife.
Those sects and kingdoms had not been without their attempts to approach the Tushan clan on the matter but the Lady of Mount Tu had declined each one with gracious words, saying only that the matter of her daughter's future was entirely her daughter's own decision.
This left the First Prince of the Heavenly Demon Kingdom, Chen Jue, the First Prince of the Fire Demon Kingdom, Lou Huo, the closing disciple of the Thunder Roar Sect's sect master, Lei Qiu, and a number of other young men from notable families feeling that the situation was decidedly difficult to navigate.
If any of them had the ability to win Tushan Jingci's heart themselves, they would have done so long ago. Why would they have needed to call on their families and clans for help?
The problem was that they simply could not do it themselves and precisely because they could not manage it on their own, they had no choice but to turn and seek the assistance of the great houses standing behind them.
Tushan Jingci treated everyone with perfect courtesy these days but beneath that courtesy, there was clearly a layer of invisible distance.
She maintained precisely the right degree of aloofness with each person she met.
Not a single young man had been able to truly approach her heart, let alone win any affection from her.
Another spring came.
In the spring of the young girl's eighteenth year, the peach blossoms on every other peak were competing to outdo one another, the mountains and fields covered in a riot of color.
Only the peach grove behind Qianxue Peak remained bare, not a single flower having opened its face.
This spring, the young girl still did not love it and then, one evening in that spring, as Tushan Jingci sat at home leafing through a book, one of her close classmates came running to her courtyard gate with tear-reddened eyes.
"Bei'er? What brings you here? What has happened?"
Seeing her closest companion in tears, Tushan Jingci was startled, and quickly opened the bamboo gate and came out to meet her.
"Jingci!"
Xu Bei'er, eyes still red, threw herself into Tushan Jingci's arms, and tears came spilling down like beads falling from a broken string.
"It is all right, it is all right. Tell me slowly. I am here."
Tushan Jingci patted Xu Bei'er gently on the back, one hand moving in steady, soothing strokes, her voice soft and steady.
She brought Xu Bei'er into her room and settled her down.
When Xu Bei'er's feelings had gradually calmed, Tushan Jingci asked her gently what had happened.
It turned out that Xu Bei'er had been in love with a young man at the academy. His name was Xu Chu, and he was the only son of the Moonless Sect's sect master.
The two of them had been drawn to each other and fallen deeply in mutual affection, and both their families had considered the match well-suited and had been glad to see it come about but what no one had anticipated was a sudden conflict breaking out between the Moonless Sect and the Manic White Sect, drawing both into a life-or-death struggle.
In the end the Moonless Sect was defeated, the entire sect shattered and scattered, its disciples fleeing in all directions.
The only reason Xu Chu himself had come through unharmed was that he was still pursuing his studies at the Hanshan Academy and had the academy's protection. The Manic White Sect, for all its arrogance, would not dare come openly into the Hanshan Academy to seize anyone but regardless of that, the Moonless Sect as it now stood was nowhere near the equal of the Sea Moon Sect standing behind Xu Bei'er.
Her father, the Sea Moon Sect's sect master, had heard the news and immediately had thoughts of breaking the engagement, wishing to sever all ties with the Moonless Sect and on Xu Chu's side, feeling that he had become a burden to Xu Bei'er, unwilling to have his beloved carry the name of someone who abandoned a friend in times of need, he had taken the initiative and proposed that the engagement be dissolved.
It was only today that Xu Bei'er had learned of this.
Her heart full of grievance and pain with nowhere to take it, she had come running to her closest companion in tears.
Tushan Jingci listened quietly until the end, a flicker of complex feeling passing through her eyes. She took Xu Bei'er's hand in hers, and for a moment found herself uncertain what to say.
"I have made up my mind!"
After crying her heart out, Xu Bei'er suddenly stood up, raised a hand and wiped hard at the tear stains on her face. Her eyes were still red, but the look in them had gradually grown firm.
"This engagement is not getting broken! On what grounds? I am not going to let him break it! Does he think he can just break it if he feels like it? What does that make me?! Jingci, am I right?"
Seeing her companion come to her senses, Tushan Jingci curved the corners of her lips and gave a small nod. "Of course you are right. If Bei'er is the one who loves him, what does it have to do with anyone else?"
"Exactly, that is exactly it!"
With Jingci's approval behind her, Xu Bei'er grew even more spirited and shook her delicate little fist in the air.
"Let me go and draft a letter home first. I absolutely refuse to let this engagement be broken."
"And then first thing tomorrow morning, I am going to find him. We are going to sit down and talk this through properly."
"And if he dares write another one of those ridiculous letters about dissolving the engagement, I am going to break his legs!"
"Ha, yes! Break his legs, and then carry him off on my back and elope with him!"
At that, Xu Bei'er burst out laughing through what remained of her tears, and the knot inside her seemed to unravel considerably all at once.
"Do you want me to go with you tomorrow?" Tushan Jingci took her hand, her voice gentle and sincere.
"No, no, if you came with me I would feel too self-conscious. I really cannot afford to embarrass myself in front of my closest friend." Xu Bei'er wiped the last traces of tears from the corners of her eyes, and with her other hand clasped the slender, soft hand of her companion in return. The cloud over her face had finally lifted in large part.
"Oh, by the way."
With her own situation settled, Xu Bei'er thought of something and turned her attention to her companion, her eyes blinking with curious interest as she looked at Tushan Jingci.
"Speaking of which, Jingci, is it really true that you have no one you like?"
Xu Bei'er tilted her head, her tone carrying a note of genuine curiosity. "You are so beautiful that at least half the young men at the Hanshan Academy admire you. All those talented young lords trying every means they can think of to make their feelings known to you, and you truly do not feel a flutter for even a single one?"
In Xu Bei'er's view, there were genuinely no shortage of young demons at the Hanshan Academy from good families, with fine looks and outstanding ability.
And among those young men, eight out of ten harbored feelings for Jingci and had been trying to attract her attention in all sorts of ways, some openly and some in secret.
And yet Jingci, from beginning to end, had not taken a liking to a single one of them.
This was something Xu Bei'er had never quite been able to understand.
More than that, Jingci was of the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox bloodline. By rights, the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox clan ought to be more sensitive to matters of love than ordinary demons.
"Well..."
Hearing Xu Bei'er's string of questions, Tushan Jingci's eyes shifted slightly, and she lowered her gaze for a moment before looking back up, blinking at her companion.
"Bei'er, I do not even know what the person I might like would look like. Let alone what feeling one's heart stirring would feel like. Perhaps... perhaps I simply have not yet truly met someone I like."
"I see." Xu Bei'er gave a light sigh, seeming a little disappointed but she quickly leaned closer, her eyes lit with the full force of her curiosity. "But Jingci, is there really no one you care about even a little? Not even the tiniest bit?"
Xu Bei'er was still not quite willing to let it go.
To be honest, she was genuinely curious. What kind of person would someone like Jingci fall for?
"Well, it is not as though there is no one..."
Tushan Jingci thought for a moment, then said softly, her small hands reaching of their own accord for her sleeve and gripping the fabric, as Xiao Mo's face drifted slowly into her mind.
"I do have a friend. When I am with him ordinarily, I do not feel anything particularly different, and I have even grown entirely accustomed to him."
"But when he is not around, whether I am reading, writing, eating, or sleeping, no matter what I am doing, I find myself thinking about him without meaning to."
"Sometimes I get angry with him. But the moment I see him again, it is as though nothing matters anymore, and whatever mood I was in simply disappears."
Tushan Jingci lowered her eyes, and in those beautiful fox eyes a quiet flicker passed through, the particular kind of forlornness and confusion that belongs only to a young girl.
"These past days, he has been in seclusion. I have been able to go and see him often, to sit beside him and talk to myself."
"Even though when he is in seclusion, he cannot say a single word back to me, I do not know why, but somehow I never feel bored."
"It seems as though, as long as he is somewhere near me, everything in the world becomes a little different."
Listening to Tushan Jingci say all of this, Xu Bei'er's eyes went wide. She stared at her companion in astonishment, her mouth falling open slightly, unable to find words for a moment.
"Bei'er," Tushan Jingci turned to look at her closest friend with a genuine, open curiosity in her eyes. "What does it actually feel like, to like someone?"
"Ha ha ha ha."
After a brief pause, Xu Bei'er finally caught herself. She raised a hand to cover her lips and could not help giving a soft little laugh, her eyes curving with a teasing, knowing warmth.
"You are laughing at me..."
Tushan Jingci's cheeks flushed a deep red all at once. She shook her companion's arm in a coaxing, petulant manner.
"I genuinely do not understand what it feels like to like someone. Tell me, tell me, what does liking someone actually feel like?"
"Oh, you dear, dear girl..."
Xu Bei'er drew Tushan Jingci's small hand into her palms and looked at her with an expression that was half amused and half aching, the smile on her face impossible to hold back.
"What you just described, that is liking someone."