Everyone looked toward the source of the voice.
A familiar figure walked in from outside the door, and with a flick of his hand, over a dozen jars of plum blossom brew filled the table.
"Drink to your heart's content. This wine won't make you drunk, so it won't interfere with business."
"Wow!! Lord Zhimu is so generous!" Bai Heng's eyes lit up as she raised her hands in a cheer.
Not just her, everyone except Jingliu showed varying degrees of change in their expressions because of this.
For no other reason than that Qi Zhimu's plum blossom brew was far too intoxicating and one could never tire of it. This was also why they always loved coming to Qingxin Residence during their leisure time after battles.
Soaking in the hot springs was just incidental; the true goal was the wine.
Qi Zhimu left after delivering the wine, leaving the space to the High-Cloud Quintet.
Jingliu's slender brows furrowed imperceptibly. Confusion flashed in her heart, and deeper down, a sense of unease rose.
She felt her Master was being a bit strange... The plum blossom brew was mellow on the palate and could relax one's state of mind, inevitably leading to overindulgence.
Combined with the fact that it wouldn't make them drunk, the four of them drank heartily, yet they still couldn't finish those dozen-plus jars.
As the hour grew late, everyone gradually bid farewell to Jingliu and departed.
Anyone could see she was hiding something on her mind, but no one pried. After all—
In the current situation, whose heart wasn't heavy?
Jingliu didn't personally see them off. After putting away the empty jars, she followed that familiar scent to Qi Zhimu's private courtyard.
The ornamental plum blossoms in the courtyard had long since withered, their dry branches swaying desolately in the wind.
Jingliu stood behind Qi Zhimu, her eyes flickering with complex emotions, her voice suppressing deep affection.
"Master, you said back then that if I brought back Hoolay's head to prove myself to you, then... now, Hoolay is already being punished in the Shackling Prison."
She looked directly at Qi Zhimu's broad back, not like a child waiting for praise, but more like a gambler demanding a payout.
"Do I now have the right to receive that answer?"
Hearing this, Qi Zhimu turned around.
The woman before him, radiating a sharp edge, was no longer the naive girl of the past.
After a long silence, he slowly nodded.
"You have done very well."
A bright light shone in Jingliu's eyes as she stared intently at her Master's lips, waiting for what came next.
"In terms of military merit and swordsmanship, you have long since surpassed your teacher over these years. You have successfully caught up to my footsteps and left this Master of yours behind."
Qi Zhimu's words were not against his heart; they were a sincere acknowledgment.
Light rapidly surged in Jingliu's eyes.
The longing accumulated over a thousand years, at the moment of receiving affirmation, completely broke through the dam of her reason.
"Then Master... are you willing to admit it now?"
She unconsciously moved closer again, almost pressing against his chest, her breath hot and hurried.
"Admit that you have developed feelings for your disciple as a woman, that you have developed love, and that you have an instinctive desire?"
Her voice was soft, carrying a trace of a trembling, silent plea, as if urging him to nod and admit it.
Qi Zhimu's gaze flickered slightly, but he maintained his calm and unruffled appearance.
"These things have never existed, so where is there any talk of admitting them?"
The curve of Jingliu's lips suddenly froze, and she said excitedly, "...You're lying to me!"
Qi Zhimu remained silent.
Jingliu's emotions became increasingly turbulent, and her voice unconsciously rose.
"If Master truly has no reaction to your disciple while conscious, then I will believe what you say!"
Before she finished speaking, she stood on her tiptoes and leaned in, kissing those lips that always spoke cold words.
Her soft tongue forcibly pried open his teeth with a desperate madness, wanting to stir up a storm inside and taste even a hint of a response.
Qi Zhimu's pupils constricted slightly.
The desire buried deep in his heart and suppressed by reason flared up like a prairie fire the moment he touched her scent.
His body was clamoring for possession, but his reason was screaming an alarm.
He couldn't!
He suddenly exerted force and pushed the woman in his arms away.
"...Jingliu! You are being presumptuous!"
This stern rebuke, the likes of which she had never heard before, nevertheless revealed an irrepressible state of disarray.
Unlike the Sleeping Snow sisters, Qi Zhimu had always known that he had fallen in love with this disciple of his at some unknown point.
But he was a monster; he could not respond.
He really couldn't... Jingliu stumbled back two steps, her eyes red, her face full of resentment and brokenness.
"Why?!"
"Master, what exactly did your disciple do to make you unwilling to admit your feelings for me? Tell me!"
"Why can you accept others, yet only I am unacceptable? I can change! For Master, I can do anything! Even if it means dying..."
"Enough."
Qi Zhimu extinguished the last trace of warmth in his eyes and slowly uttered a sentence.
"From now on, you have graduated."
The world seemed to have been put on pause.
Jingliu's mind went blank, leaving only those words buzzing in her ears.
She looked at him in disbelief, her voice shaking beyond recognition.
"What did Master just say...?"
"I said, you have graduated."
Qi Zhimu repeated coldly.
"From now on, you are no longer my disciple."
"No... NO!!"
Jingliu let out a distorted scream.
"Master... why must you be so heartless to your disciple?!"
She lunged forward again like she was mad, tightly hugging Qi Zhimu's waist with such force that she almost crushed him.
"I won't leave! I won't graduate! Even in death, I am Master's disciple!"
Qi Zhimu's brows were tightly furrowed. Seeing that he couldn't pry those arms open, he had to mobilize his breath to forcibly break the restraint, and with a sudden flick of his arm, he threw her off.
The movement was so violent that a crisp sound of shattering rang out abruptly.
Both of them froze simultaneously, their gazes falling to the ground.
The silver moon jade pendant, which had been tied to Qi Zhimu's sleeve for years and was warm and smooth throughout, was thrown off as well, hitting the hard, cold floor heavily.
That was the jade pendant Jingliu had personally polished for a long time before her first expedition years ago.
Now it was in pieces, looking exceptionally jarring in the night.
The air seemed to freeze.
Jingliu stared blankly at the fragments on the ground. In her daze, what she saw was her own heart, shattered into pieces.
"I have said it before."
Qi Zhimu was the first to break the dead silence, his voice colder than anything.
"If you transgress again, we shall be strangers from then on. Right now, Yueque is in imminent danger, and billions of lives hang by a thread."
"As the Cloud Knight Sword Master, to be trapped by romantic feelings and behave so crazily and inappropriately—what kind of conduct is this!"
He turned around and didn't look at her again.
"Put away all those thoughts that shouldn't be there and leave here immediately to rest and prepare for tomorrow's reinforcement."
Jingliu didn't move.
She still stared fixedly at the shattered jade on the ground, the light in her eyes extinguishing bit by bit.
What remained at last was only a stagnant, swamp-like gloom.
Gone... everything was gone... A thousand years of obsession, a thousand years of deep affection for her Master, had in exchange only brought a sentence of graduation and a floor of irreparable fragments.
A long time passed.
So long that Qi Zhimu could almost no longer suppress the pity and stinging pain in his heart. Just as he was about to speak—
Jingliu slowly knelt down and gave him a respectful kowtow.
No words, no farewell.
The ritual finished, she departed with a broken heart and hollow eyes, her steps like those of a puppet.
But at the very end... she still subconsciously turned her head to look at Qi Zhimu one last time.
It was still a heartless back.
Jingliu gave a miserable, sorrowful smile, the two tear tracks on her cheeks carrying a pain that burned everything.
The moonlight stretched her shadow long and lonely, as desolate as a withered leaf.
It was as if this departure was a final farewell.
Master... since you don't want me, then I will bury this heart, along with this life, on the battlefield.
For the rest of my life, I will hunt the Abundance for you, to repay the debt of 1079 years of nurturing, until death... Thanks to [Xiao Sheng Mei You Li Le] for the Great God Certification support!
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