Chapter 438: Extra 33.

Yan Cijin answered that they had eaten breakfast and would be grateful for lunch later, while Bai Li asked whether the kitchen had enough flour for the week. The cook began explaining that a delivery had arrived late, but it was not a serious problem. Bai Li listened, made a note to have the supply steward check the route, and then asked whether the cook’s son had recovered from the fever he had caught the previous month.

The woman looked surprised that Bai Li remembered. She quickly assured her that the boy was well and had returned to helping with the deliveries. Yan Cijin asked whether he was still determined to become a martial artist, and the cook laughed, saying he was more interested in learning how to cook sweet cakes than in learning sword forms. Yan Cijin declared that this was an excellent ambition, and Bai Li added that Mount Hua could always use another person who understood the proper balance of sugar and tea.

The cook brightened and promised to send a plate of fresh cakes to the residence. Bai Li thanked her, and the two Matriarchs continued on their way. It was a small conversation, almost too ordinary to remember, but Yan Cijin found herself thinking about it as they walked. If they ascended, they would leave behind thousands of such moments. None of them would appear in the histories of Mount Hua. No chronicler would write that Bai Li had remembered a cook’s son or that Yan Cijin had praised a young man’s interest in pastries. Yet these small conversations were part of the life they had protected, and they mattered to the people who shared the mountain with them.

They reached a quiet garden behind an old guest pavilion. The garden was not especially grand. Its stone path curved around a shallow pond, and a few flowering trees leaned over the water. In spring, the branches were covered in pale blossoms. In summer, the leaves provided shade for anyone who wanted to escape the heat. Now the season had left the branches mostly bare, but the garden still held a calm beauty. A small wooden bench stood beneath the largest tree, its surface polished by years of use.

Yan Cijin stopped beside it. "Do you remember the first time we came here together?"

Bai Li looked at the bench. "You told me this was a private garden and that I should leave."

"I was trying to read."

"You had fallen asleep with a book over your face."

"That was a very advanced reading technique."

"You were snoring."

"I was breathing peacefully."

Bai Li laughed. "You told me to leave because you thought I had come to argue with you."

"You usually had."

"I had come to return a book."

"You had also come to see me."

Bai Li looked at her, and after a moment she admitted, "Yes, I had."

Yan Cijin’s smile softened. She sat on the bench and patted the space beside her. Bai Li sat down, and they rested shoulder to shoulder while the pond reflected the pale sky. Their first meetings had been full of arguments, uncertain intentions, and the nervous excitement neither wanted to acknowledge. At the time, they had both been ambitious young martial artists trying to prove that their judgments were sound. They had believed that love, if it ever came, would have to fit neatly into the lives they had already planned.

Instead, love had changed the shape of those lives. It had not taken away their ambition or made their goals smaller. It had given them another reason to look beyond themselves. They had learned to ask what the other thought, to admit when they were wrong, and to consider whether a victory was worth the cost it demanded. They had also learned that not every disagreement needed to become a contest and that the ability to laugh together could sometimes save a whole afternoon from being ruined by stubbornness.

Yan Cijin leaned her head against Bai Li’s shoulder. "If we had never met, I think I would still have become strong."

"I think so too."

"I would have reached the Heavenly Dao Sovereign Realm eventually, perhaps. I would have continued traveling, studying, and looking for answers. I would probably have annoyed a great many people."

"You would certainly have annoyed a great many people."

Yan Cijin gave her a light nudge. "You are supposed to say something kind."

"I am saying that your talents would have remained intact." Bai Li turned toward her. "But I do not know what sort of life I would have built without you. I know I would have kept training. I know I would have protected people when I could. I might have become a respected master, or I might have spent the rest of my life looking for the next challenge. But the life I wanted became clearer after I met you. I found things worth protecting that I might not have understood in the same way before."

Yan Cijin grew quiet. She had heard Bai Li speak honestly about love many times, but the words still reached her. They did not say that either woman would have been incomplete without the other. They said something more generous. They had each been a whole person before they met, and meeting had made the world larger.

"I am glad we met," Yan Cijin said.

"So am I."

She took Bai Li’s hand and turned it palm upward, tracing the familiar lines with a fingertip. Their hands showed the marks of years spent training. There were old scars, small calluses, and faint lines where sword hilts and practice weapons had pressed against their skin. Those hands had held weapons, signed orders, bandaged injuries, carried supplies, and reached for each other countless times. Yan Cijin kissed Bai Li’s palm and then closed her fingers around it.

"Whatever happens in the cave, I do not want us to forget this life," she said.

"We will not."

"I know memories can change. Perhaps we will become stronger and see the mortal world differently. Perhaps the things that seem important now will look smaller later."

"Some things may look smaller," Bai Li said. "That does not mean they were never important."

Yan Cijin looked at her with a quiet smile. "That is why I married you."

Bai Li raised an eyebrow. "Because I understand the nature of memories?"

"Because you say sensible things when I am trying to be dramatic."

"That is a very poor reason to marry someone."

"It is one reason among many." Yan Cijin leaned in and kissed her cheek. "The most important reason is that you are handsome, capable, and very easy to tease."

Bai Li drew her into a closer embrace. "You forgot that I am patient."

"I have never forgotten it. I simply enjoy testing it."

They remained in the garden until the distant sound of the noon bell reminded them that the day was moving forward. When they stood, Yan Cijin brushed a fallen leaf from Bai Li’s shoulder, and Bai Li fixed the fastening at her cloak. Their movements were familiar enough to require no thought. They had spent years leaving rooms together in this way, adjusting each other’s clothing before a meeting, a journey, or a battle. The gesture had never been a public display meant to impress anyone. It was simply how they cared for one another.

As they left the garden, a young disciple came hurrying along the path with a bundle of practice swords in her arms. She saw the Matriarchs and stopped so abruptly that the top sword nearly slid from the bundle. Bai Li caught it before it fell, returned it to the stack, and asked whether the disciple was supposed to be carrying all the swords by herself.

The girl flushed. "I was helping the instructor, Matriarch Bai. I thought it would be quicker if I carried them together."

Yan Cijin glanced at the bundle. "And how many have you carried like this before?"

"This is the first time."

"Then perhaps it would be quicker to make two trips."

The disciple bowed, mortified. Bai Li handed her two of the swords and kept the rest balanced in her arms, walking with her as far as the training yard. Yan Cijin followed beside them, asking the girl about her lessons. The young disciple was nervous at first, but the two Matriarchs spoke with such ordinary kindness that she gradually relaxed. She had been struggling with a turning step in one of the basic forms and had begun to believe she simply lacked talent.

Bai Li asked her to demonstrate the movement. The girl did so, stumbling at the turn. Bai Li watched carefully, then explained that she was trying to move her foot before her weight had shifted. The correction took less than a minute. Yan Cijin showed her how to let the shoulders follow the movement rather than pulling them around too early. The disciple tried again and completed the step more cleanly.

Her face lit up. "Thank you, Matriarchs."

"Practice it slowly," Bai Li said. "Do not chase speed before you understand the movement."

"And do not decide that one mistake tells you what kind of martial artist you will become," Yan Cijin added. "If you could learn everything in a morning, the rest of us would have wasted many years."

The girl laughed, bowed, and hurried toward the training yard with the swords now divided into two manageable bundles. Bai Li watched her go and then glanced at Yan Cijin.

"You are very good with the younger disciples."

"So are you."

"I corrected her footwork."

"You also carried half her swords."

"It was convenient."

Yan Cijin smiled. "Of course."

They continued toward the restricted ridge, and this time the weight of the possible departure felt a little different. It was not a burden they could set down, but it no longer seemed like a distant decision that belonged only to the cave. It was connected to the garden, the kitchen, the training yard, the elders, and every small part of Mount Hua they had come to love. They were not leaving because they had grown tired of the mortal world. If they chose to ascend, it would be because they wanted to follow a path that had opened before them, after making certain that the home they loved could continue to thrive.

Bai Li and Yan Cijin left the main hall and took the path toward the restricted ridge. They did not call for a procession or make an announcement to the disciples. They had decided that the last part of the trial should be undertaken privately, as the cave itself seemed to require. The elders had agreed to remain behind unless there was an emergency, and no one had tried to persuade them otherwise. Their departure from Mount Hua, if it came, would be difficult enough without turning the moment into a public performance.

The path was familiar now. The old markers stood among the moss, the collapsed pavilion remained tucked beneath the trees, and the carvings on the cliff face still showed figures beneath unfamiliar constellations. Yet the atmosphere felt different as they approached. The spiritual energy was clearer, moving through the ravine like a current that had finally found its proper channel. The stone symbols around the concealed entrance shone faintly before either woman touched them.

Yan Cijin glanced at Bai Li. "It knows we have returned."

"Or the formation simply recognizes the change in our cultivation."

"That is a less romantic explanation."

"It is also a possible one."

Yan Cijin smiled and placed her hand beside Bai Li’s. The twelve symbols lit, and the rock face opened as it had before. They stepped into the passage, crossed the preserved archive, and continued toward the circular chamber. The records waited undisturbed on their shelves. Bai Li paused long enough to make sure the scroll they had read was still safe inside its protective sleeve, and Yan Cijin checked that none of the smaller tablets had shifted from the table. Their care was almost ordinary, like checking a book before leaving a study. Even with the heavens possibly waiting beyond the mountain, they did not treat the things entrusted to them as disposable.

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TO BE CONTINUED.