Chapter 13: A Spray of Plum Blossoms

The corridor of their temporary lodging still held a trace of the night’s chill in the early morning.

Zhou Chengan carried two paper bags of breakfast in one hand. Outside Shen Qingyue’s door, he checked his collar for wrinkles before raising his other hand and knocking with restraint.

“Qingyue, are you awake?”

He deliberately kept his voice gentle. “The Bureau told us to assemble early. We’ll be leaving soon. Get up and have something to eat; we might not have time to stop on the way.”

There was no answer.

He waited a little longer, his smile gradually becoming uncertain.

“Qingyue?”

He knocked again, a little harder, but the room remained quiet. There were no footsteps or other signs of her getting up.

He frowned.

She wasn’t usually one to sleep in. With this mission counting toward her academy assessment, she couldn’t possibly oversleep before departure.

Had something happened last night?

Worry rose in him. He shifted the breakfast into one hand, took out his phone, and called her.

As soon as the call connected, a clear, pleasant ringtone sounded behind him.

His tense expression relaxed, and he smiled.

“You’re already up.”

He ended the call and turned. “Qingyue, I thought you…”

The rest of the words stuck in his throat.

At the other end of the corridor, Lin Ye’s door had just opened.

Shen Qingyue emerged from the room with him.

She’d clearly just washed and dressed. Her black hair lay smoothly over her shoulders, a faint flush still lingered on her cheeks, and several red marks had appeared on her pale neck…

More than that, the two were far too close for Zhou Chengan to bear.

She was practically pressed against Lin Ye, one hand linked naturally through his arm. He said something with his head lowered, and she looked up at him, unmistakable affection in her face.

A buzzing filled Zhou Chengan’s head.

The breakfast bags swayed in his hand.

He stood there, eyes widening, as though a heavy hammer had struck the top of his head.

Shen Qingyue hadn’t returned to her own room last night.

She’d come out of Lin Ye’s room.

And they’d come out together.

The thoughts landed one after another like red-hot irons, burning away the greeting, concern, and breakfast he’d prepared until his mind was blank.

An absurd feeling came over him.

It was as though the thing he’d pursued so diligently, spending so much time, effort, and money, had been openly taken by someone else in less than a day.

That person hadn’t merely taken it, but held it in his arms without concealment right in front of him.

Worst of all, that person was someone Zhou Chengan couldn’t afford to offend under any circumstances.

Hearing her ringtone, Shen Qingyue glanced at the missed call on her screen and finally noticed him at the other end of the hall.

“You called me?” she asked, puzzled. “Did you need something?”

His lips moved.

He wanted to ask why she’d come out of Lin Ye’s room, what they’d done last night, and, more than anything, why her attitude had changed so much in a single day.

But when his gaze fell on Lin Ye, he forced every question back down.

That was Lin Ye.

The only son of Skyvault City’s Upper City finance director.

Zhou Chengan’s facial muscles twitched. He forced out a smile more painful than a grimace.

Raising the bags with a trembling hand, he said hoarsely, “Nothing. I was just afraid you’d oversleep. I passed the dining room and brought you breakfast.”

“Oh, breakfast.”

Her eyes brightened.

The change in her since advancing on the Calamity pathway was even more apparent in the morning. She gave a casual smile, and a soft radiance seemed to appear in her expression, drawing the eye without effort.

Zhou Chengan stared, briefly dazed.

She had already released Lin Ye’s arm and hurried over. “Thank you! Young Master Lin hasn’t eaten either.”

She reached out with both hands and naturally took both bags.

He let go instinctively.

Only when his hands were empty did he realize that one bag held her breakfast, while the other was his own.

“Qingyue, the other one is…”

“Thanks!”

She’d already turned away.

Carrying both breakfasts toward Lin Ye, she failed to notice his unfinished sentence.

As she was about to walk away, he could bear it no longer.

“You and Lin Ye…”

His voice shook, his teeth nearly clenched together. “Last night, did you…”

His heart rose into his throat.

Shen Qingyue turned, as though suddenly remembering something important.

“Oh, right.”

He held his breath.

She said seriously, “Please don’t call me anymore unless it’s important. I’m afraid Young Master Lin might see it and misunderstand.”

His expression froze completely.

Without waiting for a response, she hurried back to Lin Ye and handed him one of the breakfasts. Her voice was much softer than before. “Young Master Lin, I brought you breakfast.”

“Oh? That’s nice…”

Zhou Chengan stood there, unable to hear anything else.

His breakfast—the breakfast he’d queued for that morning, the breakfast he’d planned to sit and eat with Shen Qingyue—was now in Lin Ye’s hand.

And she stood beside Lin Ye, unwrapping it for him and asking whether he liked the flavor.

Zhou Chengan felt as if his soul had left his body and drifted alone into a world of ice and snow.

“Snowflakes drift, the north wind howls…”

Only after the pair rounded the corridor and vanished from sight did he whirl around, eyes red, and roar, “Turn that song off!”

A young woman standing behind him jumped and hurriedly tapped her phone, stopping *A Spray of Plum Blossoms*.

“I just thought it was a little quiet,” she explained in a low voice. Looking in the direction Lin Ye and Shen Qingyue had gone, she added, “Let it go. That’s Young Master Lin. We can’t compare with his status, strength, or background. What can you do, however unhappy you are?”

Another companion sighed. “Shen Qingyue has wanted to meet someone from the Upper City since she enrolled. Now that Young Master Lin is willing to take her along, perhaps it really is an opportunity for her.”

The young woman nodded, then added hesitantly, “But did you notice she looks prettier than yesterday? When she smiled just now, even I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”

Zhou Chengan didn’t answer.

His hands clenched at his sides, nails nearly digging into his palms.

He only stared after Lin Ye, jealousy and resentment burning in his eyes like a fire he couldn’t extinguish.

…

The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs had made a last-minute change to its operation.

To prevent the investigation team from becoming separated inside White Stone Town, the branch decided that everyone taking part would first meet on the outskirts, then enter the anomalous zone together.

At normal speed, the drive from their temporary lodging to the assembly point would take about a day and a half.

The Skyvault City branch had prepared six off-road vehicles. In addition to official Bureau members, the participants included Lin Ye, Shen Qingyue, and several academy students.

Perhaps because Gu Qinglan was still shaken by how dangerous Lin Ye was, the Bureau had arranged a separate vehicle for him. Apart from the driver, only Lin Ye and Shen Qingyue rode in it.

The arrangement suited him perfectly.

Though the journey was long, having Shen Qingyue beside him to amuse himself with kept him from getting bored.

The Bureau member driving in front kept his eyes fixed on the road and both hands tight on the wheel, doing his best to regard himself as a contained artifact in the vehicle with no sense of hearing.

…

“Mm…”

“Mm…”

Low moans came from a tall, ancient tree.

After nightfall, the convoy had set up a temporary camp at the edge of a relatively safe forest.

After a simple dinner, Shen Qingyue followed Lin Ye away from their lodging to the old tree nearby.

Holding her, he leaped onto a thick branch, where they sat together high above the ground. Through gaps in the leaves, they could see the moon hanging in the night sky.

Red to the tips of her ears, she nestled against him as the hand around her waist wandered beneath her clothes, drawing a muffled sound from her now and then.

“Young Master Lin…”

Her voice sounded dreamlike, though she didn’t actually move away. When his touch grew a little firmer, a soft sound escaped her. She quickly pressed her lips together and glanced nervously toward the camp.

“They’re all resting. They can’t hear.”

He rested his chin on her shoulder, unconcerned.

“Even so, you can’t keep…”

Before she could finish, he squeezed her waist. She drew up her shoulders, the rest of her sentence becoming a suppressed moan, and looked back at him in shy annoyance.

But now that she was on the Calamity pathway, the look held little force for Lin Ye; to him it seemed more like coy reluctance.

He grinned and drew her closer.

At last she stopped trying to object and let both his hands roam.

After a moment, she said softly, “Young Master Lin, it still feels like a dream.”

“What does?”

“Everything.”

She looked down at her pale hands, satisfaction and wonder in her voice. “At this time two days ago, I was just an ordinary Skyvault Academy student. But in only a day, I became a supernatural and saw a Sequence 0 Sovereign with my own eyes.”

Remembering the Mysterious Shop, her expression grew complicated. “Books always say Sovereigns can’t be looked at directly or understood, and can’t communicate with ordinary people. Anyone who approaches them will eventually go mad from corruption.”

“But the Mysterious Merchant was completely different from what I imagined. He was frightening, but he didn’t seem impossible to talk to. Even after you bargained with him like that, he didn’t really get angry.”

Lin Ye laughed softly beside her ear, tightening his arm around her waist a little.

“Who knows? Maybe Old Wang was just like that before he became a Sovereign.”

She murmured an absent agreement.

A few breaths later, her body went still.

As though realizing something, she slowly turned her head, confusion replacing the shyness in her eyes.

“Young Master Lin, what did you just say?”

He looked at her naturally.

Staring into his eyes, she asked each word distinctly, “What do you mean, before he became a Sovereign? Don’t all evil gods descend from beyond the stars?”

Her breathing slowed, disbelief entering her voice.

“Was the Mysterious Merchant… human before?”