Chapter 22: An Unparalleled Beauty in the Mortal Realm

Page 1 of 3

Though the Tidewatcher Inn was ablaze with light that night, Lu Chenyuan felt as if the brightness throughout the establishment was veiled behind a thin, insubstantial layer of gauze. After returning to the inn with his master, he did not immediately retire to the woodshed to rest, but instead turned matters over and over in his mind.

If he wished to investigate the inn, he would have to start with the few heretical practitioners from the Murky Current sect. Yet their movements were mysterious, their vigilance keen; if he attempted to tail them too closely, he risked alerting them and plunging himself into danger instead.

“Better to take the initiative than to wait passively,” he mused silently. “To know when the fish will bite, one must first know what bait they favor. Those people are of a wicked path, after all; what they covet is nothing more than those rootless, solitary guests who are easiest to prey upon.”

He sifted through the faces of every guest in the inn, and before long, had narrowed it down to three or four individuals. These were either lone merchants or disheartened itinerant cultivators—folk who seemed to have little background and would be easy targets.

Those foreign cultivators in possession of the “Jade of the Sea’s Bright Moon” had been expelled by the Tidewatcher Pavilion. Though they appeared destitute, their cultivation was not insignificant, and since they bore rare treasures, they had become exceedingly cautious, scarcely venturing beyond the inn’s threshold. For the moment, they were unlikely to become the targets of those wicked men.

As he pondered, he caught in the corner of his eye one of his selected targets—a middle-aged scholar with a face marked by sorrow—slipping out the inn’s front door alone and vanishing into the depths of night.

Lu Chenyuan’s heart stirred, and he immediately formed a plan. Rather than following through the main entrance, he turned and made his way first to the rear courtyard.

Perched on the gnarled old locust tree was Situ, leaning lazily against a branch. Noticing his disciple’s swift return and equally hurried departure, Situ lifted his eyelids in languid puzzlement and asked, “Where are you going at this hour?”

Lu Chenyuan paused, turning back to reply, “Master, there’s no need to worry. I’ll return shortly.”

He knew his master was astute; saying more would only arouse suspicion. That single line was enough.

Without lingering, he slipped out through a little-used side door in the rear courtyard, vanishing quietly into the night.

The wind on the street was colder than before, and as it brushed his face, it carried a faint, elusive scent of blood. Ever since the grisly public tragedy a few days prior, the nights in Zhenhai Chuan seemed shrouded in an invisible frost.

The Demon Suppression Office had posted notices, their blood-red characters declaring:

“Though ordinary folk need not fear the threat of demonic transformation, violent emotions such as anger, sorrow, resentment, and hatred may still stir the world’s murky currents. Where the currents gather thickest, the risk of cultivators losing control increases manifold.”

Just these few lines were enough to make all the townspeople wary and cautious.

Street vendors selling “Peace Charms” and “Tranquility Incense” had sprouted everywhere, and business was booming as never before.

No longer did people pray to the God of Wealth; instead, their meager coins were offered to the illusory deity of inner peace.

Fishmongers, once notorious for haggling over every last copper, had learned to trade with courtesy and warmth. Even when customers bargained harshly, they only smiled wryly and waved it off, fearful that a single word too many might spark someone’s suppressed anger and ignite a disaster that claimed lives.

Gone were the quarrels of husbands and wives on the streets, and the curses of drunken men had vanished. Neighbors who had argued fiercely over a single coin yesterday now deferred to each other, smiling stiffly in perfect unison.

If ever a pair of young cultivator-couples raised their voices in argument, the crowd within a hundred paces would scatter like startled fish, leaving a vast empty space behind, each face etched with the same wary terror, as if saying, “Stay away from me.”

It was as if emotion itself had become a taboo more dreadful than plague.

Lu Chenyuan took all this in, yet felt not the least bit safer—only a sense of absurdity and irony. Who could have imagined that in this vast and open world, such methods were needed just to maintain a fragile peace?

In this blackly humorous harmony, only the night patrols of the Demon Suppression Office, iron compasses ever humming in hand, moved ceaselessly along the roads.

Their cold, severe gazes swept across every forced smile, lending an even heavier air of oppressive dread.

Lu Chenyuan slipped into the shadows of a corridor pillar, following the scholar from a distance. Step by step, they arrived at the populous shore by the sea.

Page 2 of 3

Under the night sky, the Eastern Sea was a vast stretch of darkness, with only a faint phosphorescent glimmer at the horizon where sky met water.

The sea wind, heavy with brine, carried the wailing of waves, pounding against the rocks on the shore and sending up pale sprays of foam.

Just then, the calling from the depths of the Eastern Sea resounded in his mind once more, sudden and unbidden. This summons bore a magnitude and majesty beyond words, far clearer than ever before, provoking the monster within him to surge, yearning to burst free and fling itself into the pitch-black abyss.

Startled, Lu Chenyuan hastened to recite the breathing technique his master Situ had taught him, forcing himself to suppress the urge.

He remained wary: “In this ailing world, who knows what horrors lurk in the sea? The old tales of water ghosts may not be mere superstition.”

He did want to uncover the secret behind that call, but rushing headlong toward death was not the way; perhaps when the tide-watching ritual came, the truth would be revealed.

Focusing his gaze, he saw that the scholar was merely seated on a rock by the shore, staring out at the waning moon, sighing heavily as if to dispel the gloom in his heart.

Lu Chenyuan wondered if he had followed the wrong person. But then, in the corner of his eye, he noticed another solitary figure sitting atop a moonlit boulder nearby.

That person sat with their back to him, a robe of pale silk rippling gently in the sea breeze; the silhouette was strangely familiar.

Looking more closely, he realized it was none other than Shangguan Chuci.

Lu Chenyuan’s mind raced: “If I remain hidden in the shadows alone, I’ll seem too suspicious. If the scholar spots me or a patrol questions me, my position will be hard to explain.”

“Better to step out openly and strike up a conversation with Young Master Chu. To others, it will just appear as two night wanderers meeting by chance—nothing could be more natural.”

With that, he made up his mind, abandoning all pretense of hiding. He strode confidently out of the shadows toward the figure on the rock, keeping the scholar within the periphery of his vision.

As he drew closer, he saw her sitting at the edge of the rock, her form under the moonlight appearing rather solitary and stark.

A pair of bare feet dangled in the cool sea water, gently swaying with the waves.

That posture, far from her usual unruffled poise, revealed an inexplicable hint of melancholy.

Lu Chenyuan’s glance had been unintentional, but he could not help pausing in surprise.

Her feet, illuminated by moon and sea, were so fair as to dazzle the eyes. Delicate ankles, graceful arches, ten toes round as pearls, glimpsed in the clear ripples—these were certainly not a man’s feet.

At this, he was almost certain: this Young Master Chu was, without doubt, a woman in disguise.

As his mind wavered, the call from the deep sea surged again, louder than ever.

Lu Chenyuan felt darkness sweep over him, his very soul swaying, the monster within straining to break free. He instinctively tried to use his breathing technique, but it had little effect; his spirit was still being dragged down.

The call from the depths seeped in like a tide, bypassing all the barriers his will had erected and echoing in the core of his soul.

From that moment, the sound of waves all around turned into the murmurs of countless vengeful spirits, and the briny air suddenly reeked with the metallic tang of blood.

At the critical moment, he fixed his gaze desperately on what was right before him.

That deep-sea summons now embodied all things dark, cold, chaotic, inhuman—a boundless, devouring abyss.

But the pair of feet before him gathered all the world’s frail, beautiful, vivid, and tangible goodness.

On one side: the endless abyss. On the other: the human world within reach.

Caught between these two opposing forces, Lu Chenyuan found, to his astonishment, that his soul—on the verge of being consumed by madness—had discovered at last a place of refuge.

The abyssal call was cold, vast, and pitiless, seeking to erase his very self and absorb him into chaos.

But the sensation evoked by those feet was warm, immediate, and alive.

He could see the moonlight playing over delicate skin, imagine the coolness of seawater brushing the arch, the ten round toes—white as freshly peeled lychees—curling and uncurling with the gentle waves.

Page 3 of 3

Every subtle movement seemed a gentle yet stubborn defiance against the cold, lifeless sea.

When a crest of foam swept in, softly lapping over the slender ankles before retreating as scattered bubbles, the trail of water left upon the arch became his sole line of defense against the abyss.

It was as if he could hear the moonlight’s chill touch echoing in crystal clarity against his ear as it fell on bare skin.

He could smell, mingling with the brine, a sweetness—something clean and fresh, different from the sea’s salty tang—rising from the warmth of living flesh.

Amid that vast, chaotic, all-consuming call to oblivion, everything he saw before him—the arch’s curve, the delicate skin, the glistening beads of water, the slight tension of curled toes—was so strikingly real and vibrant. Fragile as they might seem, they were the only healthy things in this ailing world.

He felt a surge of vital energy, as if a gentle stream had flowed into his freezing, frenzied mind, rekindling the dying fire of his humanity with a fresh bundle of warmth.

In an instant, the myriad voices of vengeful spirits reverted to the tireless sound of waves, the stench of blood and decay once more dissolving into the familiar damp brine of the sea breeze.

Lu Chenyuan was momentarily lost in a daze.

At that moment, Shangguan Chuci seemed to sense someone behind her. She turned, about to greet him with a “Brother Lu,” when she saw him staring, unblinking.

Noticing where his gaze had fallen, she froze, and a flush of bashful irritation bloomed across her cheeks.

But looking closer, she found Lu Chenyuan’s expression rather odd: his eyes held not the usual greed or infatuation, but a focus so intense it defied description.

It was as though he was not gazing at a pair of feet, but at a beam of light capable of dragging him from endless darkness.

For reasons she could not explain, being looked at in such a way filled her with a sense of being needed, and her usually unflappable heart skipped an unsteady beat.

“What a joke... In another world, if a man stared at a girl like that, he’d be thrown in jail for days, no question.”

“Yet why is it that, being looked at by him, I don’t feel offended at all—in fact, my heart’s racing like it’s got a little motor in it… This guy must be toxic!”

Shangguan Chuci steadied her thoughts, but that gaze, so singularly intent, seemed to carry a searing heat.

It made her reflexively curl her ten jade-like toes beneath the water, carving shallow grooves in the sandy seabed below, as if to bury her sudden embarrassment and fluster deep within the cool, wet sand.

She took a single breath to suppress the unfamiliar flutter.

When she looked up again, her lips had curled into a teasing smile.

She did not speak at once, but leaned back on the rough stone, her slender hand resting against the rock. Against its coarse gray, her wrist shone all the whiter.

She turned her slim shoulder slightly, her gaze brimming with playful mischief.

Only when Lu Chenyuan finally shook off his strange trance, his eyes clearing, his face betraying a trace of confusion and helplessness, did she lean in, her bright eyes sparkling in the moonlight, and ask, half-teasing, half-chiding:

“Well, have you looked your fill yet?”

At her words, the youth’s face grew even more embarrassed, as if suddenly realizing his own impropriety, and he hurriedly looked away.

Shangguan Chuci’s smile deepened.

“The moon above the sea, the rocks beneath the tide, so many sights to see, Brother Lu—yet you haven’t spared them a glance.”

“So tell me, what kind of magic does my pair of feet possess, that you stare so intently?”