After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 17
by Little PandaEvents of the Past, Part 16
Does her shijie plan to never see her again?
Below the Cliff of Reflection at Wenshen Sect lies a Spirit-Null Zone. Whether immortal or demon, any being caught at its center is rendered as powerless as a mortal, unable to wield any strength.
The cliff above is partially affected by this zone as well, which is precisely why the founding ancestor of Wenshen Sect chose this site as a place of reflection for disciples who had erred. The restricted spiritual energy and harsh conditions here were ideal for tempering restless minds.
Cultivators below Dao Integration could barely use any spiritual power on the Cliff of Reflection. And since the place served as a prison in all but name, the conditions for those confined here were naturally poor. Under normal circumstances, a detainee would be lucky to have a rain-sheltering cave—but the one who had arrived a few days prior had been given a small house of unknown origin.
If any other disciple confined at the Cliff of Reflection had seen this, their first act upon leaving would have been to go to Yunwu Mountain and weep to the Sect Master about the injustice. Yet stranger still, there was no one else on the cliff.
All the disciples who had once been confined here seemed to have vanished without a trace, leaving behind only deathly silence. Apart from the sound of wind brushing through the grass and leaves, not even an insect’s chirp could be heard.
The Cliff of Reflection had welcomed its sole “guest.” Other than two healers, no one knew that Wen Qiwu—publicly said to be in closed-door cultivation—had been brought here.
Lu Qiaoyi still remembered the scene she had witnessed when she hurried back that day. She had never seen Wen Qiwu cry like that. The girl’s thin, lonely silhouette was like a leaf trembling on a branch, ready to crumble at the slightest touch.
Even so, Wen Qiwu had caught her by the sleeve and stopped her from going to confront Yun Heng, insisting that this was her own doing and had nothing to do with her shijie1.
She said she was fine. When she was brought to the Cliff of Reflection, she hadn’t asked why. She had only grown unusually silent. On the surface, Wen Qiwu’s emotions seemed to have stabilized, but Lu Qiaoyi knew it wasn’t that simple. Xiao Que’er had merely forced the feelings that had spiraled out of control a few days ago back inside. Over time, that kind of suppression would inevitably fester. Even a healthy person could make themselves ill from bottling things up—let alone someone whose body was already fragile.
What could have driven this pair of martial sisters to such a breaking point?
Lu Qiaoyi didn’t dare ask Wen Qiwu, for fear of rubbing salt in the girl’s wounds. But watching them like this wasn’t a solution either. After much deliberation, Lu Qiaoyi decided to make a trip to Yunwu Mountain.
The wind and snow on Yunwu Mountain had been unusually fierce these past few days. Even Xuetuan, born in the extreme-cold snow plains, had gathered up its belongings and temporarily relocated. The cause of this anomaly was none other than the mountain’s master.
Lu Qiaoyi took one look at the scene on the mountain and knew that things on Yunwu Mountain were no better than at the Cliff of Reflection. She resigned herself to climbing through the blizzard. It helped that she was an Earth Immortal—otherwise, she might not have been able to make it up the mountain at all.
She searched the mountain for a while before finally spotting Yun Heng beside the spirit field where various rare herbs and grasses were planted. The cold had taken its toll—quite a few of the spirit plants’ flowers and leaves had wilted.
Most of these spirit plants were medicinal herbs grown for Wen Qiwu. Yun Heng tended to them with extraordinary care on ordinary days. If not for the incident that had thrown her mind into complete disarray, she never would have neglected them.
Lu Qiaoyi could tell at a glance that the person tending the spirit plants was going through the motions. The petal caught between Yun Heng’s fingertips was nearly torn off. The Immortal Venerable, radiant as the moon and untainted by dust, crouched there with an indescribable desolation about her.
“Sect Master…” Lu Qiaoyi sighed and asked her what had happened, but that closed clam wouldn’t open.
Lu Qiaoyi pressed her again and again. In the end, she even invoked their fallen Shizun2 before Yun Heng finally spoke of what had happened.
Hearing what Wen Qiwu had said while drunk, Lu Qiaoyi was speechless for a moment. She wasn’t shocked. As Zuo Lan had once remarked, probably only a block of wood would fail to see that Wen Qiwu’s feelings for Yun Heng were anything but ordinary. As the person most familiar with the two martial sisters, Lu Qiaoyi had noticed the signs long ago.
The thing she had feared most had come to pass.
“It’s my fault.” Yun Heng released the poor petal from her fingers. The expression in her lowered eyes was extraordinarily complex—dejection, remorse, self-reproach. She had practically raised her shimei3 single-handedly. That Wen Qiwu’s feelings had “gone astray”—and toward her, of all people—was a responsibility she couldn’t escape.
“Sect Master, whether anyone is at fault can wait. Let me ask you this: regarding Xiao Que’er… what are you thinking? Do you only see her as a shimei, or are you worried about the gossip out there?” Lu Qiaoyi held Yun Heng’s gaze, trying to read the emotions in her eyes, to see whether her answer came from the heart.
“I…” Yun Heng paused, a flicker of confusion crossing her face, as though she didn’t quite understand why Lu Qiaoyi would ask such a question. “I naturally see her only as a shimei.” Naturally, she also didn’t want her shimei to suffer those kinds of rumors.
But if her heart was truly that pure, why had there been a moment’s hesitation? What was that bewilderment and struggle deep within her?
Lu Qiaoyi opened her mouth, her expression caught in a half-formed hesitation. She could likely see through Yun Heng’s insincerity—but something she recalled sent a flash of inexplicable coldness through her dark eyes, and the words she had meant to say, she swallowed back.
That fleeting shadow made Lu Qiaoyi look like a stranger. But Yun Heng’s gaze had already drifted back to the spirit plants before her, and Lu Qiaoyi had hidden it well enough that the shift went unnoticed.
“All right. You’re her shijie, so you naturally know where to draw the line. But have you told her about the Cliff of Reflection arrangement?” The chill in Lu Qiaoyi’s eyes was quickly replaced by warmth.
Yun Heng shook her head, a trace of struggle in her eyes. “I haven’t seen her yet.”
“I’d originally planned to give her a surprise, but never mind—I’ll find another chance to tell her.” Lu Qiaoyi tried to put her at ease.
“You haven’t forgotten what day it is, have you? Xiao Que’er’s birthday… Will you come?”
Lu Qiaoyi received only Yun Heng’s silence in answer.
She didn’t know how to face her shimei now.
After a long while, Lu Qiaoyi’s sigh dissolved into the wind and snow.
When Lu Qiaoyi returned to the Cliff of Reflection, there was a hint of guilt in the way she looked at Wen Qiwu. She quietly added several precious treasures from her own storage bag to the birthday gifts she had prepared. She knew these treasures couldn’t fill the void left by Yun Heng’s absence, but beyond that, she didn’t know how else to comfort Wen Qiwu.
“Thank you, Elder.” Wen Qiwu accepted the gifts and voiced her thanks. Her voice was soft and gentle, and she didn’t appear disappointed that Lu Qiaoyi had come alone.
But Lu Qiaoyi didn’t miss the flicker of disappointment that crossed her eyes.
As Wen Qiwu looked down at the gifts in her hands, she suddenly felt a hand ruffle her hair. That gesture of warmth and wordless comfort cracked open the emotions she had held back for so long.
Drip. A warm teardrop landed on the gift box. Then another, and another, dampening the exquisite packaging.
Wen Qiwu stared at the single gift box in her hands, her eyes red. The gift her shijie had so carefully prepared for her was probably gone now.
Over her days at the Cliff of Reflection, she had thought it through many times. In truth, she didn’t yet feel much regret. What she felt more was a sense of relief—she had finally given an accounting of the feelings she had harbored for so many years. Even if she were to die from Spirit-Dispersing Syndrome in the near future, at least she would die without regrets.
But as the days passed one by one, a kind of fear crept into her heart. She had been brought here by Elder Lu. Her shijie had left no message, had given no “sentence.”
No specified duration meant indefinite extension. And how many more years could her body hold on? Was her shijie planning to never see her again?
“Elder, did my shijie say how long I need to reflect?” Her voice carried the hint of a sob.
Lu Qiaoyi couldn’t bear it. Wen Qiwu looked like a little beast abandoned at the roadside, pitiable beyond words.
“You may need to stay here for a few years.” Precisely nine years—nine-nine returns to one4, through cycles and rebirth.
And Wen Qiwu, hearing the answer “a few years,” closed her eyes in quiet despair.
But Lu Qiaoyi didn’t explain the second half. She only comforted her: “I’ll talk to the Sect Master. Don’t be too hard on yourself—when has she ever truly been angry with you?”
But this time was different. Apart from this, she had never done anything so outrageous her entire life.
Wen Qiwu still didn’t know that Lu Qiaoyi had already heard the full account from Yun Heng, so she didn’t know how to begin explaining what she had done.
“Stop crying now. The birthday girl should be a little happier. I promise things will get better.” Lu Qiaoyi pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the tearstains from her face, then set the table with all of Wen Qiwu’s favorite dishes. Most important was that indispensable bowl of Longevity Noodles. She sat her down by the table and said, “Trust me. When has Elder Lu ever failed to deliver on a promise?”
But the way that promise would be fulfilled might not be quite what Xiao Que’er had imagined.
She had too deep an attachment to this place. If the present and future would only bring her pain, then perhaps forgetting would be a good thing too.
Footnotes
- 'Shijie' is a term of address for a senior female martial sister in a cultivation sect.
- 'Shizun' is a respectful term of address for one's direct master in the cultivation world.
- 'Shimei' is a term of address for a junior female martial sister in a cultivation sect.
- A Daoist cosmological concept: after nine full cycles, all things return to their origin and are reborn. The phrase implies renewal through completion of a cycle.
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