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The market was bustling—alive with chatter and footsteps, thick with the mingling scents of fresh herbs, dried spices, and fish laid out on wide wooden stalls. I kept my head low, moving like any other traveler as I examined a basket of carp near the end of the row.
I wasn't in a rush. I had already prepared Lan Feng's lunch before leaving the house. But lingering in a place this crowded was dangerous. At any moment, someone might recognize me.
Then, without warning, a tall man stepped into my peripheral vision.
He moved with quiet confidence, his presence slicing through the noise like a blade. In one hand, he held a rolled parchment, which he unfurled and presented to the woman behind the stall.
"Have you seen this man?" he asked, voice low but unmistakably authoritative.
The vendor glanced at the drawing and shook her head. "No."
I didn't look directly. Just a tilt of the head. A glimpse.
My heart nearly stopped.
It was Ruan Yanjun. His face rendered in perfect, brutal accuracy. The sharp lines of his jaw, the slope of his brows, even the piercing gaze that seemed to look straight through the parchment.
And then the man turned to me.
He held the image out. "You?" he asked. "Have you seen him?"
I forced my shoulders to relax, kept my voice neutral. "No," I said, eyes focused on the fish. I picked one up, turned it over in my hands, pretending to check its weight. My fingers trembled, just slightly.
If he noticed, he didn't show it.
But he didn't move on either.
He stood there a beat too long. The weight of his gaze pressed against my skin like cold iron. I didn't dare look up. Instead, I nodded absently and moved to another basket, feigning interest in a red-scaled perch.
Finally, he stepped back and turned away, weaving through the crowd with sharp precision, continuing his questioning.
Relief hit me like a crashing tide—but it didn't settle. I paid the vendor quickly, gathered the rest of what I needed, and slipped out of the market as discreetly as I had arrived.
That man was no ordinary cultivator.
I had felt it in the restraint of his spiritual energy, the honed economy of his movements. A fourth level, at the very least. Maybe higher. And he wasn't asking questions like a local guard or a curious traveler. He was hunting.
Was he a disciple of the Eternal Damnation Sect, searching for his sect leader? Or perhaps one of the many old enemies Ruan Yanjun had made during his ruthless rise—finally catching wind of his presence?
Either way, it was a warning. This place was no longer safe.
By the time I returned to Mao Hai's house, the sun had climbed high into a cloudless sky, and the air was thick with heat. I spotted Lan Feng sitting beneath the shade of the old tree near the porch, his robe sleeves rolled to the elbows, his posture composed. Despite his recent illness, he rose the moment he saw me, moving toward me with surprising steadiness.
"Let me carry that," he said, reaching for the heavy basket of supplies and lifting it with ease.
"You should be resting," I said with a frown as he turned and walked toward the house.
"The house is like an oven," he replied over his shoulder. "Wait here. I'll bring you something to eat."
Before I could protest, he had already disappeared inside.
Moments later, he returned with a bowl of food and a cup of water. He handed them to me without a word and then sat down again under the tree's shade.
"You didn't have to do that," I said as I settled beside him on the grass and began to eat.
"You've done far more for me," he replied calmly. "It's the least I can do."
As I ate, I became increasingly aware of his gaze—quiet, intent, but never intrusive. It wasn't the playful, unabashed staring I had grown used to from Feng'er. This was different. He studied me not with affection, but with quiet precision, as if measuring something he hadn't yet decided how to name. And each time our eyes met, he looked away.
He offered a faint smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"I'm sorry if I've been a burden," he said. "You've worked tirelessly—caring for me, managing the house, even tending the fields. I'll repay you once I regain my strength."
"There's no need," I said with a small smile, trying not to sound too weary. "I'm a priest. It's my duty to care for those in need. You don't owe me anything."
His gaze lingered on me. There was a subtle shift in his expression, as though my words had unlocked a thought he hadn't expected.
"A priest?" he echoed, brow furrowed slightly. "I hadn't realized."
"Does that surprise you?" I asked.
He looked away and cleared his throat. "A little. You don't strike me as the typical priest."
I laughed under my breath. "I hear that more often than you'd think."
A pause passed. Then, almost too casually, he asked, "Are you… married?"
I shook my head. "No. Priests don't usually marry. Not those like me, at least—those who pursue higher cultivation. Attachment, they say, clouds the path."
He nodded slowly, absorbing my answer in silence. "So… you chose this life?"
He looked at me, then slowly shook his head. "No."
"I find that strange," I said. "You're twenty-four. Most people your age are already married."
He gave a small, strained smile and shook his head again. "Maybe I just never wanted to."
Maybe?
I let it go. The hesitation in his voice said enough—whatever the truth was, he didn't want to share it.
Another quiet stretched between us. He turned his gaze toward the horizon, where the fields rippled gold beneath the afternoon sun. I watched as his expression shifted—subtle, pensive, unreadable. He rested his chin on his palm.
And my heart lurched.
That pose—so unconsciously familiar. Feng'er had sat like that many times, lost in thought, chewing on ideas he never voiced aloud. The gesture pulled me too far back, too fast, into memories I wasn't ready to revisit.
I looked away, swallowing hard.
This isn't him. You have to stop.
No matter how familiar his posture, his gaze, or the cadence of his voice—this man was not the boy who once clung to me with innocent devotion. That version was gone. What remained was a stranger in his skin. Softer than the devil I had known, but still distant, still unreachable.
As the afternoon wore on and the shadows stretched long across the grass, I found myself glancing at him again.
There was something about the way he sat. The way he stared into the distance, like someone searching for pieces of himself in the far hills. There was weight in his silence, the kind that came not from ignorance—but from memory just out of reach.
And the thought came again, quiet and sharp:
If this truly was the Ruan Yanjun of the past…
What happened to turn someone so gentle into the devil the world would one day fear?