My Shijie Seems Intent on Destroying the World – Chapter 7
by Little PandaWhen the Spirit Flowers Bloom
This Is a Gift from Second Senior Sister!
The moment Qi Zhi returned to her little courtyard, she collapsed onto the bed half-dead.
The excitement she had felt upon leaving Suihan Hall was like a last gasp of vitality—the little grass who had stayed up all night simply could not keep her energy up and wilted halfway through.
The moment she burrowed under the covers, she only hoped that no more chores would come looking for her today.
But in her life, things going contrary to her wishes was the norm, so she did not expect to steal much leisure. The moment she slipped under the blankets, she seized every second to drift into dreams.
Qi Zhi had not expected that this nap would be unexpectedly peaceful. She woke to the hour of sunset, and not a single person had come by the entire time.
Wrapped in her quilt, she sat up in bed and gazed at the quiet wind chimes outside the window, the layered clouds tinged red at the horizon. She could not help but feel that today had passed in a way that seemed especially unreal.
What Qi Zhi did not know was that someone had indeed come today.
Someone who had lost face yesterday naturally wanted to find some petty excuse to torment her today.
But he sent several lackeys one after another to assign heavy chores to his Junior Sister, yet not a single one dared to step foot into this courtyard.
The reason was simple—they saw a bird with a white head and gray back.
It was very quiet, neither moving nor calling. It simply folded its wings and perched silently on the courtyard gate with its eyes closed in rest. Whoever dared approach, it would snap open its beady eyes and glare.
Who in Tiandao Sect did not know that this little creature was Mu Qingshi’s spirit beast?
With it standing guard there, how was that any different from Mu Qingshi personally keeping watch at the door?
Even if dealing with a little bird was easy, no one dared to easily offend the one from Suihan Hall.
And honestly—truly, honestly—when this little fuzzball glared and tilted its head, it actually looked rather intimidating.
Only by the time Qi Zhi woke, it had already flapped its wings and returned to report back.
So the courtyard remained as quiet as ever, as if no one had ever come.
The sunset was nearly spent. Qi Zhi did a big, lazy stretch, washed up, and cooked herself a bowl of plain noodles.
After finishing the noodles and washing the dishes, the sky outside gradually darkened, and she lazily lay back down on the bed.
The palm-sized little mirror lay quietly beside her pillow. After a brief silence, she rolled over and scooped it into her hand.
Qi Zhi had spent five hundred years on this mountain. Even a Qiankun Bag1, which was not particularly rare, was something she had to borrow from others. If she told anyone, they probably would not believe it—but this mirror was actually the first magical artifact she had ever owned in her life.
And this first magical artifact was something her shijie2 had specially sent Ah Yun down the mountain to find and give to her.
Just thinking about it made her so happy she could not stop smiling.
The sky outside had already darkened. She wondered what Mu-shijie was doing now…
Curious, Qi Zhi could not resist gathering a faint wisp of spiritual power at her fingertip, and with great care, gently tapped the mirror’s surface.
The image within the mirror gradually appeared.
Half of it seemed to be covered by something, faintly revealing the dim glow of candlelight.
The other half was also dim. A layer of mist had formed on the mirror’s surface, and she could only vaguely make out the wooden roof beams above and a half-panel of a standing screen to the side.
The candlelight swayed gently in the room, as if it could stir the silent plum blossoms on the screen.
Where had shijie tossed the mirror?
Qi Zhi held the mirror, looking at it this way and that, but could not make sense of it for a long while. Just as she was about to try calling out to her shijie, she heard a faint, unclear sound of water from the other end of the mirror.
Then came what sounded like someone stepping out of a bath.
Water droplets pattered down—some dripping onto the floor, some falling back into the water.
Qi Zhi instinctively clapped a hand over her mouth.
The next second, behind the screen appeared a slender, gentle silhouette.
The lingering warmth from the bath wreathed her form like smoke and mist. Every slight movement swayed in the dim candlelight, casting flickering shadows.
Like a phantom from a dream that would shatter at the slightest touch, impossible to see clearly.
She raised a hand to gather her long hair over her shoulder, stirring an impossibly soft wisp of mist. Her wet hair sent droplets scattering onto the screen, where they slid down along the silver-embroidered blossoming branches like morning dew.
Qi Zhi’s breath caught involuntarily, her heart thrown into disarray.
By the time she recovered her senses, Mu Qingshi was already standing beside the mirror.
She wore only a thin layer of inner robes. The gossamer fabric clung to her damp skin, tracing gentle curves that were never visible on ordinary days.
She leaned forward slightly. A strand of loose hair fell forward from her temple, and a single drop of water plummeted from it, shattering heavily across half the mirror’s surface.
Through the veil of mist, Qi Zhi seemed to meet those tranquil eyes.
A moment of guilty panic made her hastily sever the mirror connection, pressing the mirror—nearly the cause of a grave mistake—hard against her chest.
Her breathing in that instant was frantic, and it took a long while to slowly calm down.
Qi Zhi thought that her timing in activating the mirror had been, more or less, rather inopportune.
Fortunately, while sound transmitted through the Facing Mirrors3 was two-way, the visual imagery was one-way—both mirrors needed to be simultaneously energized with spiritual power for two-way imagery.
Her shijie had looked perfectly normal just now, so she probably had not noticed anything.
Thinking thus, Qi Zhi shook her head vigorously and buried her flushed face under the covers.
…
Mu Qingshi pushed aside the clothing that had been covering half the mirror. With lowered gaze, she stared at the small mirror.
After a long while, she pinched a clean corner of her garment and gently wiped away the mist from the mirror’s surface.
Her shimei4 had “visited” just now. That fleeting glimpse of green beneath the mist, tinged with what seemed like panic—she had seen it all in that instant.
She instinctively reached out to touch it, but in the end, her fingers met only darkness.
From the other side of the mirror came a series of muffled, faint, strange sounds.
When the mirror image appeared again, the mirror had been tossed back to the pillow by her shimei. Aside from a few scattered strands of hair, there was nothing but an empty ceiling.
That girl had always been carefree at heart. She had probably fallen back asleep by now.
Mu Qingshi draped on her outer robe and sat by the mirror, waiting a while longer. When no further sounds came, she closed her eyes and let out a silent, soft sigh.
At last, she slipped the mirror into her sleeve and rose to step outside.
The sunset’s afterglow had already faded. Ah Yun was curled into a little ball on the treetop, perhaps asleep.
Save for the wind, all of Suihan Hall was silent.
She suddenly disliked this silence very much. So she snapped several plum branches and turned to walk out of the hall.
Ah Yun was startled by the sudden commotion and twisted its head to look back.
Seeing that Mu Qingshi was simply leaving on her own without giving it any instructions, it tucked itself back into a ball and went back to sleep.
Ever since catching a glimpse of something she should not have seen that one time, Qi Zhi—though she could not stop replaying it in her heart countless times—still dutifully and properly learned her lesson.
To prevent the same thing from happening again, every time before activating the Facing Mirrors, she would place the mirror face-down, send her voice through first to ask if it was a good time, and only then flip it over to look.
With this mirror, whenever she wanted to chat with her shijie, she could try asking if she was free.
And Mu Qingshi seemed to always be free. No matter when she reached out, she would receive a reply in a very short time.
Sometimes Qi Zhi worried that she was bothering her shijie so frequently—would it make her feel troubled?
But on second thought, her shijie’s damaged spiritual root meant there would be no further breakthroughs in this lifetime, so naturally she had no need to cultivate.
Suihan Hall was so desolate. Her shijie stayed there every day with nothing to do, with only Ah Yun for company. Surely she felt very lonely.
For four hundred years, she had always wanted to see her shijie. Perhaps her shijie also frequently wanted to see her?
With this thought, she cast aside all her misgivings. She even braided a sturdy thin cord, tied the little mirror to it, and wore it at her waist all day long, only taking it off when she went to sleep.
Only today was rather unlucky. Her little mirror was spotted by Fourth Senior Brother, whom she happened to encounter on the path. A flash of surprise crossed his eyes as he stepped closer and asked, “Where did you get this thing?”
Fourth Senior Brother had always been accustomed to getting whatever he wanted—taking what others cherished was a common occurrence.
Qi Zhi immediately shielded the mirror with both hands, her eyes full of wariness. “This is a gift from Second Senior Sister!”
Fourth Senior Brother rolled his eyes at her. “What a waste on you.”
In the end, he did not dare to do much more, walking away with a look of disdain.
Qi Zhi breathed a sigh of relief and could not resist making a face at his back, punching and kicking the air. But before she could even pull her movements back in, he turned around and caught her red-handed.
The cowardly little grass could stretch and bend with equal ease. After desperately steadying her balance, she turned with a guilty face and fled at full speed in the opposite direction.
“Let’s see how long you can keep acting so arrogant!”
Fourth Senior Brother’s displeased voice rang out behind her. Qi Zhi found it completely baffling.
She jogged to a deserted spot, sat down against a boulder, and used a wisp of spiritual power to activate the mirror, telling Mu Qingshi about this baffling feeling. She was truly sick to death of Fourth Senior Brother—he always bore such unprovoked malice toward her.
Hearing this, Mu Qingshi asked softly, “Have you ever thought about never having to see him again?”
Qi Zhi heard this and hugged the mirror, thinking seriously for a moment.
“That would be very difficult, wouldn’t it?” she said quietly. “Unless I could be as powerful as Eldest Senior Brother and Third Senior Sister, leaving the sect for decades without needing to return…”
“It is not that difficult.”
“Huh?” Qi Zhi tilted her head, full of curiosity.
Mu Qingshi nodded slightly, smiling gently. “Your little flower is almost blooming, isn’t it?”
Qi Zhi knew she was asking about the one in her Sea of Divine Sense5.
“Mm!” She nodded earnestly. “I can feel it—it is going to bloom very soon!”
As she spoke, she seemed to realize something, and her eyes instantly brightened. “Once my spiritual root is healed, will shijie take me away from the mountain to cultivate?”
Mu Qingshi did not deny it. She simply curved her eyes and brows, gazing quietly at her—as if it were a tacit agreement.
After a brief silence, snowflakes suddenly began drifting down on the wind. Qi Zhi looked up toward the sky.
Quickly, she stood up, her eyes full of joy.
“Shijie, look—it is snowing!”
“Yes, it is snowing.”
In a daze, another year had passed from autumn to winter.
Mu Qingshi watched the first snow falling heavier and heavier at the horizon. She clenched the mirror in her hand and said softly, “It will be soon, shimei.”
“Those who have bullied you…”
“Very soon, you will never have to see them again.”
The author has something to say:
Qi Zhi: Shijie, take me away from the malice!
Ah Yun: It is eliminating the malice.
Footnotes
- A spatial storage pouch commonly used in cultivation settings to hold objects far larger than its exterior suggests.
- A pinyin kinship term meaning 'senior sister,' used by junior female disciples to address or refer to older female disciples under the same master.
- A pair of magical artifacts allowing remote audiovisual communication. Sound is two-way upon single activation, but visuals are one-way unless both mirrors are simultaneously energized with spiritual power.
- A pinyin kinship term meaning 'junior sister,' used by senior female disciples to address or refer to younger female disciples under the same master.
- The internal mental and spiritual realm where a cultivator's spiritual root and consciousness reside.
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