Chapter 427: Extra 22.

"I am planning not to starve while exploring a cave. It is a sensible precaution."

"Naturally."

"And if the cave is dusty, I will complain."

"I would expect nothing less."

Yan Cijin took Bai Li’s hand. Together they stepped from the bedchamber and crossed the quiet courtyard toward the outer gate. An attendant waiting in the hall bowed and asked whether the Matriarchs needed anything before departing. Bai Li told her that they would be visiting the restricted summit and asked her to inform Lu Wenshu that the investigation had begun. Yan Cijin added that the elders should continue searching the archives and that no one was to enter the sanctuary alone until the cause of the bell’s activity was better understood. 𝚏𝗋ℯⅇ

The attendant listened carefully, then bowed again. "I will tell First Elder Lu at once."

The Matriarchs continued along the path. Their hands remained joined as they passed the training courtyard, where the first disciples were beginning their morning exercises. A few students noticed them and bowed. Others paused to watch the two women walking toward the upper ridge in travelling clothes, their swords at their waists and their expressions calm. The sight was unusual enough to draw quiet questions, but no one dared to interrupt them.

The climb was familiar enough that neither woman needed to watch every step, but they took their time anyway. Yan Cijin paused beside a pine tree where a small branch had fallen across the path. She shifted it aside so that the next person would not trip over it, then brushed a bit of bark from her sleeve. Bai Li watched her with quiet fondness. It was such a small thing, hardly worth noticing, and exactly the sort of thing Yan Cijin did without thinking. She could face a room full of hostile masters without blinking, then stop on a mountain path to move a branch out of someone’s way.

"What are you smiling at?" Yan Cijin asked when she caught Bai Li looking.

"You."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the answer I have."

Yan Cijin gave her a suspicious look, then glanced at the branch lying neatly beside the path. "If you are about to tell me that I am kind, you should know that I will expect praise every time I do something sensible."

"I would never encourage such behavior."

"You have been encouraging it for years. You praise me for making tea, choosing a route, remembering a name, and once for finding your missing hair ribbon."

"The ribbon was important."

"It was tied around your sword case."

"Which is why finding it was important."

Yan Cijin laughed and tugged her hand. "Come along, Matriarch Bai. The ancient mystery is not going to investigate itself."

Bai Li let herself be drawn forward, although she could easily have kept them standing there for another ten minutes just to hear Yan Cijin invent reasons why she deserved more praise. The mountain path rose between tall trees, and the air carried the fresh scent of damp earth and pine. Somewhere above them, the first sunlight had begun to touch the upper rocks. Somewhere below, the disciples were settling into their morning practice. For a moment, Bai Li imagined returning to this same path years from now, after the mystery had been solved, when the bell was silent again and the summit had become just another part of Mount Hua. She hoped that she and Yan Cijin would still be walking side by side, still arguing about small things, still finding excuses to hold hands when nobody was watching.

She squeezed Yan Cijin’s fingers.

Her wife squeezed back, as if she had understood the thought without hearing it.

At the foot of the path leading to the restricted summit, Bai Li stopped for a moment and looked back at Mount Hua. The main roofs were beginning to catch the sunrise. Thin ribbons of cooking smoke rose from the kitchens. The training terraces were filling with students, and the distant sound of practice swords carried across the mountain. It was a place of work, noise, duty, friendship, and a thousand ordinary concerns. It was also the place where she had built a life with Yan Cijin, where they had learned to lead without losing themselves, and where every familiar path contained a memory they had made together.

Yan Cijin squeezed her hand. "What is it?"

Bai Li turned toward her. "Nothing. I was looking at home."

Yan Cijin followed her gaze. The warmth in her expression matched the sunlight spilling across the rooftops. "We will be back soon."

"We will."

They turned toward the upper path and began to climb. The first sunlight touched Mount Hua, laying gold along the stone steps and lighting the mist that drifted between the pines. Behind them, the sect woke to another ordinary morning. Ahead, beyond the restricted ridge, the hidden chamber waited beneath the mountain, its ancient entrance newly revealed to the two women whose presence had awakened it.

Bai Li walked beside Yan Cijin, their fingers intertwined. The world knew them as the two Matriarchs of Mount Hua, the strongest martial artists of their generation, women whose names could quiet a crowded hall. But as they climbed toward the unknown, Bai Li was thinking only of the hand in hers, and Yan Cijin was smiling because she could feel the same steady warmth in the woman beside her.

They had no intention of letting the heavens hurry them.

They would investigate the mystery together, and the morning had only just begun.

Morning came to Mount Hua slowly, spreading a pale line of gold across the eastern ridges while the valleys below were still filled with mist. The first bells of the day rang from the outer courtyards, followed by the familiar sounds of disciples beginning their exercises. Boots struck the stone paths, wooden swords cracked against one another, and someone in the distance called out a correction that was immediately followed by a chorus of embarrassed replies.

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TO BE CONTINUED.