After seeing Yu Mi off, Xueqing went straight to the ice cavern where Linger was in seclusion.
On the cold jade bed lay a little Celestial Fox, fur fluffed up, curled into a tight ball, hugging her own snowy tail as she slept soundly. The little Celestial Fox’s three eyes were all shut, her dense snow‑white fur and small belly rising and falling in an even rhythm with her slow, steady breaths.
Linger slept so deeply she hadn’t even noticed Xueqing come in. Just from that, Xueqing knew the girl was out like a rock. If nobody came to wake her, she had no doubt Linger would sleep comfortably until the three‑year punishment was up.
She had sentenced Linger to “face the wall and reflect on her mistakes” here, to seriously examine what she’d done wrong.
And this little thing?
Snoring away.
Judging from that peaceful posture, she was sleeping especially well, without the slightest awareness that she’d caused trouble, let alone any hint of guilt or repentance.
Celestial Foxes had long lifespans to begin with, and the imperial bloodline of the Celestial Fox royal clan, which carried the blood of the Demon Emperor, lived even longer. In human terms, Linger’s current age was about the same as a toddler just learning to walk—a time when she should have been cared for by her parents, carefree and without worries.
A child that age, placed in the Upper Realm, would absolutely not be allowed to leave the protection of powerful elders, much less be sent out to temper herself alone.
In this lower realm, though, Linger’s bloodline superiority meant there were almost no existences that could truly threaten her. There was little risk of her being captured or harmed.
But precisely because she so rarely encountered danger, she had grown up utterly fearless—unafraid of heaven, unafraid of earth, daring to provoke anyone and to stir up any kind of trouble.
Xueqing sat down by the side of the cold jade bed and gently patted Linger, waking her.
Linger opened her eyes and stared at Xueqing in surprise.
“Aunt, how come you’re here?”
She sat up, rubbing her slightly sleepy eyes with her fluffy fox paws.
Xueqing opened her palm. Resting in her hand appeared a fully translucent, jewel‑bright storage bracelet and a storage ring of clearly extraordinary grade.
Linger recognized them at a glance as Yu Mi’s belongings. Her eyes flew wide open and all trace of drowsiness vanished.
“Isn’t this Yu Mi’s storage treasure? Why is it in your hand?”
She snatched up the jade bracelet from Xueqing’s palm, examined it carefully for a moment, and confirmed it was genuine. Yu Mi’s aura imprint was clearly branded on it.
Even though the storage treasure was restricted so no one but Yu Mi could use it, she could still faintly sense the aura of a small world within it. A bracelet containing an inner world—within the cultivation world, that was one of a kind. Impossible to counterfeit.
Yu Mi had fallen into Ba’s hands—her aunt would never have just stood by and done nothing. But if her aunt had rescued Yu Mi, shouldn’t these things still be on Yu Mi?
“Yu Mi came to me to have her memories sealed,” Xueqing said calmly. “She left these behind.”
The instant Linger heard that Yu Mi had been to find her aunt, she finally let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“So she did escape in the end,” she thought. If Yu Mi hadn’t gotten free, how could she have come to find Aunt?
But then those four words—“seal her memories”—sank in, and she asked in astonishment:
“Seal her memories?”
Xueqing nodded.
Linger stared at her, utterly baffled.
“Why would Yu Mi want to seal her memories?”
As soon as she finished asking, she saw that her always‑gentle aunt was looking at her with a rare, solemn expression—eyes that clearly said: “You’ll have to ask yourself that.”
Linger thought, “What does this have to do with me? I’ve been here this whole time, sleeping my head off. I didn’t even know Yu Mi wanted to seal her memories. How could it be related to me?”
She coughed lightly.
“Aunt, you know I’ve been in this ice cavern reflecting on my mistakes…”
Halfway through, her eyes changed.
She hadn’t gone out, true—but her period of reflection wasn’t even finished yet. Could it be… related to that?
She looked up at Xueqing carefully, then shuffled over and wrapped both of her fluffy fox paws around Xueqing’s arm, staring up with pleading eyes.
Seeing Linger still in her small‑cub form, Xueqing’s heart softened despite herself. She sighed lightly.
“To rescue Yu Mi from Ba, Bao Gu used Xiao Lian as bait to lure Qing Ying away and into the void.”
She then told Linger everything that had happened after Bao Gu came to find her.
Standing up, looking down at Linger, she said, “In the future, think about whether you can bear the consequences before you act.
“You and Yu Mi are both fearless, not afraid of danger or death. But if you overreach and don’t know your limits, ‘not afraid of danger or death’ becomes ‘seeking death.’
“Being truly capable means being able to protect yourself, protect those you want to protect, and resolve the mess you cause. Acting without regard for the consequences… in the end you only hurt others and yourself.”
Linger raised her head to look at Xueqing.
Her aunt’s eyes were clear and bright, but in that moment they were like two sharp blades stabbing straight into her heart.
Her aunt’s words were harsh—just short of directly saying that she and Yu Mi had been stupid, and in the end hurt Bao Gu.
“Aunt… then Bao Gu…” Linger asked in a low voice. “She can’t come back, can she?”
Xueqing held Linger’s gaze for a long moment, then only said:
“Take Yu Mi’s things back to her.”
She turned and started toward the exit.
“Aunt!”
Linger sprang up to chase after her, trying to block her path, only to realize she was still in fox form, barely up to Xueqing’s knee. She hurriedly shifted back to her human shape.
“Then Bao Gu…” she asked, voice trembling. “Can she still come back? Will there ever be a day when we can see them again?”
Xueqing looked at her and asked:
“How many years has it been since I descended from the Upper Realm?”
Linger had no idea why she would suddenly bring that up and just stared at her in confusion.
“Over thirty thousand years,” Xueqing said. “We came to this realm because it was suitable for survival, and because we had a coordinate and knew how to return. People in the Upper Realm also know how to come here.
“But in all these thirty thousand years, we still haven’t been able to go back.
“Have you ever seen any of our people from the Upper Realm come to find us?
“Separation by a single world is already close to a permanent farewell. How much more so exile into the void?
“The void is boundless. Within it are countless worlds. Only a small number of worlds occupy relatively fixed positions; only those fixed worlds can locate one another and determine coordinates.
“If you enter the void and your luck is good, you might fall into a vast great world, a stable universe filled with stars and space.
“If your luck is bad, you’ll be destroyed as soon as you step in.”
Her voice paused.
“As for whether she can come back… that’s harder than throwing a single grain of sand into the ocean and then trying to find that exact grain again.
“The best outcome is that Bao Gu is lucky enough to still be alive somewhere.
“There are some things you simply cannot do. If you do them, then you must accept the result and pay the price, whether you’re willing or not.”
Linger stared blankly.
“Then Yu Mi…” she whispered.
“She chose to take a risk without considering that if she got into danger, Bao Gu would pay any price to save her,” Xueqing said. “Then she has to bear the consequence of losing Bao Gu.
“And so do you.”
Linger’s tears spilled over in a rush.
After telling Linger Yu Mi’s coordinates in the cultivation world, Xueqing left.
Linger wiped her face, took Yu Mi’s storage treasures, and went to the location Xueqing had given.
But Yu Mi was nowhere to be seen.
Fortunately, though this area was remote for humans, for a member of the demon clan like her it was practically covered in eyes and ears. Using demon‑clan methods, she borrowed the senses of the nearby flowers, plants, and small animals, tracing Yu Mi’s tracks all the way forward.
After crossing several mountain ridges, she finally found Yu Mi.
Yu Mi was standing in the courtyard of a run‑down Daoist temple, staring at an ancient tree whose leaves had all turned yellow.
Linger descended beside her.
“Yu Mi‑jie.”
She stuck her head in front of Yu Mi’s line of sight.
“Do you still recognize me?”
Yu Mi turned to look at Linger, studied her face for a moment, then swept her gaze up and down her entire figure. A thread of doubt flickered in her eyes.
Linger held out Yu Mi’s storage treasures.
“You went to find my aunt to have your memories sealed,” she said. “You left these with her.”
Yu Mi took the storage treasures from Linger. A sweep of her divine sense inside confirmed they were indeed hers.
She put the bracelet back on her wrist. Her hand fell naturally to rest on it, fingers unconsciously stroking the surface.
Then she suddenly froze.
That… felt like an ingrained habit.
She stared dazedly at the familiar bracelet. For no reason at all, her heart suddenly ached. In her mind, something seemed to flash past, so fast she couldn’t grasp it.
“Yu Mi?” Linger called, noticing the change in her expression.
“Why did I want my memories sealed?” Yu Mi asked.
Linger opened her mouth to answer, but suddenly realized that mentioning Bao Gu was inappropriate.
Sealing the memories was precisely so Yu Mi could forget Bao Gu. If she brought her up again, what meaning would that have?
“Because you wanted to forget some things from the past,” she said instead.
Yu Mi lowered her head, looking at the bracelet on her wrist.
“Does it have to do with this bracelet?”
She must have liked this bracelet very much before, otherwise she wouldn’t have developed such a habit, nor would she feel so many inexplicable emotions just from seeing it.
She couldn’t remember what had happened in the past. She only felt as if she had lost something extremely important, and it made her unbearably sad—but she had nothing concrete to hold on to.
She let out a self‑mocking laugh, turned her head toward Linger, and asked:
“You said I sealed my own memories?
“You knew me before all this? Right, I suppose we must have known each other.”
Linger’s heart squeezed. She lowered her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
She shouldn’t have egged Yu Mi on when Yu Mi had hesitated, shouldn’t have pushed her to go to the Archaic Mountains, shouldn’t have thumped her chest and guaranteed that with their treasures for protection nothing would happen.
“Forget it, then,” Yu Mi said. “If it’s forgotten, let it stay forgotten. Since I chose to erase it, I must have had my reasons. What’s past… should stay in the past.”
Her tone shifted.
“Thank you for bringing my things back to me.”
Seeing Yu Mi like this, Linger didn’t know what else to say.
After a long silence, she finally asked:
“Are you going back to Xuantian Sect, or back to Kan Gang?”
Yu Mi shook her head lightly.
She had erased everything from before precisely because she wanted to sever the past. There was no need to go back.
After thinking it over, Yu Mi decided to stay at this Daoist temple.
She did some simple repairs, cleaned the places that needed cleaning, and settled down there.
Linger stayed with her, running around busily, overly attentive, as if terrified Yu Mi would chase her away.
Yu Mi didn’t remember anything from before, nor did she remember Linger. But Linger gave her an instinctive sense of closeness, of someone who knew her extremely well. Whatever she wanted to do or say, Linger understood without being told; the tacit understanding between them could only have come from long years spent together.
Linger didn’t want to leave, so Yu Mi naturally didn’t drive her away. They simply lived together in the temple.
Yu Mi was not someone who could sit idle. Even though she lived in a Daoist temple, she often went out wandering.
The “first” time she went out, she ran into a cultivator like herself. That person seemed to know her and greeted her with great respect.
After that, more and more cultivators she didn’t recognize came rushing over. One among them even claimed to be her Grandmaster, which Linger confirmed was true.
Her Grandmaster tried to persuade her to return to Xuantian Sect. Later, some people who claimed to be from Kan Gang also came.
Just listening to all the things they said made her head pound. She grabbed Linger, had Linger use illusion arts to stall them, and slipped away.
After that, whenever she went out, she always changed her appearance.
Yu Mi herself didn’t know why she so strongly resisted going back to that Xuantian Sect or Kan Gang they kept talking about. She just vaguely felt that returning would be… wrong somehow—like there was some existence there she absolutely did not want to face.
She stayed living at the temple, but she always felt something was missing.
Every so often, an urge would rise within her to go out looking for… something. She didn’t know where to go, only that she wanted to walk, wander, search.
As for what she was searching for—she had no idea.
Once, she mentioned this to Linger. Linger’s reaction had been unusually strange. Always lively and talkative, she had looked pained, conflicted, unwilling, guilty.
In the end, she’d only thrown out one sentence:
“You won’t find it.”
Then she left Yu Mi standing there.
Later, after Yu Mi pushed her again and again, Linger finally told her:
“You once had a Dao companion. You loved each other very much.
“But she… is no longer in this world.”
When Yu Mi heard those words, a white‑clad, cold figure flashed through her mind, and by her ear there rang a single word: “Senior Sister.”
Her heart lurched with a fierce pain that made her want to cry. Then her head began to throb, hurting so badly tears streamed down her face.
At that moment, she understood why she had sealed her memories.
She knew why she’d been running away.
She knew she would never be able to retrieve what she had lost, but she was still unwilling. That unwillingness had turned into a long, helpless confusion.
After thinking about it for a long time, she decided to go searching anyway—to follow the path that person had once walked, even if all she could find was a trace, a shadow, a scrap of news.
Her inquiries went surprisingly smoothly. In this world, there were a great many rumors about that person.
She learned her name. A very plain, even rustic name: Bao Gu.
There were all sorts of stories, rumors, and legends about Bao Gu, but her movements had always been extremely secretive. Whenever Bao Gu was mentioned, everyone would also bring up Yu Mi, and how Bao Gu protected Yu Mi more fiercely than her own eyeballs. Whoever dared touch Yu Mi, Bao Gu would dare stake her life against them.
Including Ba.
Yu Mi listened to countless tales about Bao Gu. She learned of the Archaic Mountains, and how Bao Gu had deceived Ba into being exiled into the void together in order to save her.
She went to the Archaic Mountains.
They had already become a desert. Nothing had been left behind.
She took Linger with her, traveling through every place Bao Gu had ever appeared.
She discovered that everywhere Bao Gu had gone… had been because of her.
When she stood amid the Archaic Desert, at the place where Bao Gu had last departed this world, she finally understood that some people, once lost, would never come back.
There was a word for that: “once.”
Once upon a time.
Later, she and Linger left the Archaic Mountains behind.
What she left there was the past, the once, the never‑to‑be‑found‑again.
Not long after, she met a fluffy little monkey. Linger called it “Little Monkey.” That monkey knew how to brew monkey wine.
The moment she saw it, she knew what it had been to her.
She didn’t go back to Xuantian Sect.
She didn’t return to Kan Gang.
Instead, she wandered the world with Linger and Little Monkey as her companions.
With friends beside her, with wine that never ran dry, she measured heaven and earth with her feet.
As for the past—everything that had once been—those all became “before.” All that remained was a bit of loneliness and loss. Nothing more.
And she came to genuinely like this drifting life, blown where the wind took her.
The sky for her blanket.
The earth for her mat.
Good wine and good friends beside her.
On still, quiet nights, she would sometimes think of the stories she’d heard—stories about Yu Mi and Bao Gu.
Those events were tied to her, yet felt like they had happened to someone else.
In the end, all the countless feelings in her heart were poured into a cup of fine wine.
And only when she was drunk did they finally come to rest.
