After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 60
by Little PandaTruth
The Truth Behind the Confinement at the Cliff of Reflection
Thinking back, though they had never defined a relationship beyond martial sisters, kisses like this had happened more than once — in dreams and in reality.
But back then they had both been raw and restrained, never parting their lips to tangle and caress like this. Wen Qiwu felt she could barely catch her breath. Her Shijie’s breath, carrying a faint medicinal scent, wrapped around her, leaving her somewhat dazed and lost in the moment.
Her Shijie used to be an absolute stickler for propriety — how had she become so relentless now?
Only when Wen Qiwu felt her lips beginning to swell did her Shijie let her catch a breath — but her Shijie seemed to have become enamored with the sensation, and before Wen Qiwu had even stopped reeling, she was kissed again.
“Shijie…” Her muffled voice was trapped between their lips.
Wen Qiwu thought that everything happening now was strikingly similar to what she had experienced during her Heart-Questioning Tribulation. Could she have fallen into another illusion, or was she dreaming?
Sensing her distraction, Yun Heng gave her a light nip.
It didn’t hurt, but when Wen Qiwu opened her eyes, they carried a hint of grievance. Who could have known that opening her eyes at that moment would reveal an unsettling red flickering in the depths of her Shijie’s affection-filled gaze.
A chill seized her heart. She gave her Shijie a gentle push, only to be held even tighter.
All these days, apart from her physical and soul injuries, her Shijie had shown almost no obvious signs of heart demon influence — so much so that she had nearly forgotten her Shijie’s heart demon was equally severe.
Bang.
Yun Heng was suddenly pinned beneath Wen Qiwu, her ink-black hair spilling in disarray across the bed. She breathed softly, her reddened eyes filled with bewilderment and alarm.
Wen Qiwu noticed that after she had accidentally pushed her Shijie, her Shijie’s body had been trembling slightly. She had wanted to check on her condition, but her Shijie refused to let go — and after a bit of back-and-forth, she ended up pinning her Shijie beneath her.
An ambiguous warmth silently spread between them. Wen Qiwu’s ears were so red they looked ready to bleed.
She leaned down and gathered Yun Heng into her arms, coaxing softly, “Shijie, did the heart demon say something to you?”
Yun Heng trembled slightly. Wen Qiwu had guessed right — this was not the first time her shimei had rejected her since returning. The long-dormant heart demon had seized its chance while her emotions were in turmoil, speaking to her in a gloating tone: 【Look, Ah Que rejected you again.】
【You already lost her. Do you think she’ll still want you? Why not let me try? I can keep her by your side forever.】
“It says you don’t want me anymore.” Yun Heng’s tone revealed the fragile helplessness of someone tormented by a heart demon. Wen Qiwu’s heart ached all the more. She leaned down and pulled her Shijie into her embrace, hesitating a moment before pressing a kiss as light as a feather on her Shijie’s cheek.
Back then, her Shijie had rejected her so decisively — that memory made Wen Qiwu fear her Shijie would regret this once she recovered. So she only kissed her Shijie’s cheek. A kiss like this could soothe her without overstepping.
“Everything the heart demon says is a lie. Don’t believe a single word of it.”
When Wen Qiwu didn’t hear her Shijie’s response, she pressed further: “Shijie, do you believe it, or do you believe me?”
“Of course I believe you.” Yun Heng, seeming to finally snap back to her senses, answered immediately.
“Then from now on, no matter what the heart demon says, will you tell me, Shijie?” Wen Qiwu brushed the stray hair from her Shijie’s forehead. Her Shijie’s eyes held a soft, watery light — when had she ever been this fragile? Every time she saw her Shijie like this, Wen Qiwu could never bring herself to settle scores later1.
Yun Heng gave a soft “Mm.” She lowered her gaze slightly, her faintly furrowed brows and eyes stirring one’s heartache. “It says you pushed me away because you’re disgusted by me.”
“Nonsense!” Wen Qiwu retorted immediately. That heart demon was truly despicable — it seized every possible chance to sow discord between them. “I just… didn’t quite react in time, that’s all.”
The moment Wen Qiwu’s words fell, her lips were touched again by a soft, warm sensation.
This time Yun Heng pulled away the instant she made contact, giving Wen Qiwu no chance to push her back.
“It also said you’d feel disgusted by this…” Yun Heng said a great deal — no, to be precise, she embellished2 a great deal.
【Despicable!】 The heart demon couldn’t hold back from cursing — she was actually slinging mud at it! It had never said any of those later words!
A faint hint of a smile flickered through Yun Heng’s eyes as she was held and comforted in Wen Qiwu’s arms, vanishing as quickly as it appeared.
“Don’t listen to its nonsense.” How could she feel disgusted? She was overjoyed.
Wen Qiwu was thin-skinned — that last sentence was impossible to say aloud, but her words and expression had already betrayed her thoughts.
Her Shijie kissed her again. This time Wen Qiwu didn’t pull away — after a moment’s hesitation, she responded.
They were enveloped in each other’s presence, intertwined and inseparable. As for the bitter medicinal taste on Yun Heng’s lips, it had long been replaced by sweetness. If she could be this close to her shimei every day, then the bitter medicine was truly a fine remedy — for that, she ought to thank the Medical Immortal.
Wen Qiwu’s face flushed pink from the kissing, and Yun Heng’s pale complexion gained a touch of color. But unlike her Shijie’s utter contentment, a trace of melancholy lingered in Wen Qiwu’s expression.
“Shijie.”
“Mm?” Yun Heng gazed at her, arm wrapped around her shimei’s waist.
“If you regret this later, then… don’t be angry with me.” Wen Qiwu murmured indistinctly.
Yun Heng’s body stiffened slightly. Her shimei still harbored reservations about what had happened back then — even fear.
In the end, it was her own fault. She had sown the seeds of this herself. Now, because she had a heart demon, her shimei couldn’t be certain whether what she felt was genuine affection or mere obsession…
She deserved to bear all of this.
“Ah Que, your Shijie was wrong. Back then, I didn’t dare face my feelings for you. I was running from them, so I never figured out what I truly wanted. Later, the Holy Maiden of Yuxi Sect wrote many letters scolding me… I suppose I should thank her too. If not for her reminders, I might have kept deceiving myself for a while longer.”
But she had understood far too late. Thinking back to those days, Yun Heng felt a chill run through her entire body.
“I had planned to wait until you [could] come out from the Cliff of Reflection to talk to you about us, but…” Yun Heng’s voice caught.
Thank goodness Ah Que had returned. Thank goodness she still had a chance.
Wen Qiwu sighed inwardly. But she had “died of illness” — if not for that child Ah Yue bringing her back on a whim, she feared she wouldn’t even have had the chance to hear these words.
Wait!
Wen Qiwu suddenly noticed something strange in what her Shijie had just said. What did she mean by waiting until she [could] come out from the Cliff of Reflection? Could she not have left that place during that time? Her Shijie had sent her there to reflect, but couldn’t let her leave?
Her instincts told her there was still something about the past she didn’t know. She hurriedly asked her Shijie, “Shijie, back then… could I not leave the Cliff of Reflection?”
Yun Heng’s gaze held a hint of confusion, as though she didn’t understand why her shimei would ask such a thing. Still, she explained to her shimei in detail: “Of course you couldn’t leave. The essence of the Life-Exchange Technique is to excise you from the Heavenly Dao’s perception, then weave a false fate to walk toward death in your stead. Beneath the Cliff of Reflection, there happened to be a Spirit-Null Zone. That person and I used the Spirit-Null Zone as the array eye and set up the Heaven-Concealing Grand Array.”
Yun Heng’s plan had been bold and dangerous. The Life-Exchange Technique was only the first step — once her shimei had survived the death calamity written into her fate, she would then address the problem of her soul.
“As long as you remained within the array’s boundaries, even the Heavenly Dao couldn’t find you. You only needed to stay there to avoid the calamity. Once you weathered the death tribulation, you could come out.”
Yun Heng explained her plan in full detail, omitting only some of the risks the caster had to bear.
But the more she explained, the more bewildered Wen Qiwu seemed, as though she had never heard of any of this.
“Ah Que… you didn’t know about this?” Yun Heng unconsciously gripped the edge of the blanket. An absurd conjecture suddenly rose in her heart.
Wen Qiwu shook her head, somewhat dazed. “I didn’t know. I always thought you were angry, Shijie, so you sent me there to reflect on my mistakes… and never wanted to see me again in this life.”
“That person — that Demon Seed — said it had already explained everything to you…” Yun Heng’s voice stopped abruptly. Of course — how could she have expected a Demon Seed harboring its own ulterior motives to genuinely help her?
“I’ve never heard of the Life-Exchange Technique or the Heaven-Concealing Grand Array.” Wen Qiwu seemed to be coming out of her shock. She searched her memory desperately, certain she had never heard of any of this.
So… Ah Que had believed all along that she had been punished and sent to the Cliff of Reflection? Blood surged in Yun Heng’s chest. This time, her anger had genuinely torn at her heart vessel wounds.
No wonder — no wonder after she returned, the moment Yun Heng tried to get closer to her shimei, her shimei had reacted like a startled bird.
Someone who had confined her for so many years suddenly confessing love — who would believe such a thing?
Yun Heng clutched her chest. It hurt terribly.
How had Ah Que endured all those years in a place like the Cliff of Reflection?
“Shijie!” Wen Qiwu hastily gathered the weakened Yun Heng into her arms. “Don’t be angry. The Medical Immortal said you need to rest calmly and heal.”
Had that Demon Seed not already been completely obliterated3, Yun Heng would have dug it up and ground its bones to dust4 right now… But its body had been Elder Lu’s, so even if she found it, she couldn’t lay a hand on it. Yun Heng bit her lower lip. The injustices her shimei had suffered all those years were far worse than she had imagined.
Drip. Wen Qiwu noticed a drop of water land on the back of her hand.
She reached up to wipe her Shijie’s tears, but Yun Heng seized her hand and explained urgently, “Ah Que, your health was poor back then. I would never have sent you to the Cliff of Reflection over something like that, no matter what. I can swear it — if I ever had such a thought, then mm—”
Yun Heng was silenced by Wen Qiwu’s hand over her mouth.
“You don’t need to make that kind of vow. I believe you, Shijie.” Wen Qiwu withdrew her hand. Her thoughts were still reeling, but she instinctively chose to trust Yun Heng. So all these years… she had misunderstood her Shijie?
Her Shijie… had never actually despised her? Wen Qiwu’s chest was choked with a complex tangle of sourness and sweetness.
“Ah Que, if you don’t believe my feelings for you, I can also swear to the Heavenly—” Yun Heng, attempting to make yet another vow, was silenced by the remaining half bowl of medicinal soup being pressed to her lips.
The bitterness — potent enough to assault the soul — stopped Yun Heng from finishing her oath. Wen Qiwu raised her hand and waved lightly, and a window not far away swung open. A small bird flew in carrying a tiny porcelain bottle — inside was spirit flower nectar.
Yun Heng swallowed the bitter medicine numbly. Bitter as it was, it couldn’t match the fine, dense ache in her heart. Then her shimei took the initiative to kiss her, and the clean sweetness of the spirit flower nectar wove between their lips and teeth, gently smoothing away the scars of the past.
Footnotes
- 秋后算账 | qiu hou suan zhang | Literally 'settling accounts after the autumn harvest' — a Chinese idiom meaning to defer retribution or reckoning until a later, more opportune time, when one is in a position to settle scores at leisure.
- 添油加醋 | tian you jia cu | Literally 'adding oil and vinegar' — a Chinese idiom for embellishing or exaggerating a story with extra, often false details to make it more dramatic or persuasive.
- 尸骨无存 | shi gu wu cun | Literally 'no corpse or bones remain' — a Chinese chengyu describing total annihilation leaving nothing behind, often used to express utter destruction in battle or vengeance.
- 挫骨扬灰 | cuo gu yang hui | Literally 'grind bones to dust and scatter the ashes' — a classical Chinese idiom expressing the most extreme form of posthumous vengeance, signifying total destruction of an enemy's remains.
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