Chapter 3

He merely wound a strand of my hair around his fingers.

“Be good, Qingqing.

“I’ve let you bite my hand and undo my robes. Might we do something else now?”

His eyes were flushed. He was more alluring than any fox spirit.

So, in the dream, I grew bolder.

“Master, let me absorb a little essence first.”

As soon as I woke, I rushed into his study.

“Mas—”

One step inside, I saw him seated with his robes partly open, tending an injury.

When had he been hurt?

He looked up.

“Have you forgotten your manners now that you’re formally my disciple?

“Come here. Help me apply this.”

I approached nervously and took the medicine bottle.

Then I noticed something odd.

The bite on his wrist had vanished.

Without thinking, I opened his robe farther.

The marks on his chest were gone too.

So were the ones on his neck.

Then...

Had it really all been a dream?

By the time I realized what I was doing, it was too late.

Xie Qingjun caught my wrist and regarded me calmly.

“Song Qingqing. What exactly are you trying to do?”

I snatched my hand back and laughed awkwardly.

Inside, though, I was delighted.

If it was only a dream, didn’t that mean I could do whatever I liked to Master there?

From then on I became increasingly outrageous.

Dream-Master indulged me in everything.

In my attempts to draw more essence, I even introduced restraints into our dream encounters.

Strangely, the more elaborate my plans became, the stronger his essence seemed.

How did that make sense?

And why was the real Master looking at me more and more strangely?

While I cleaned the study, his pale fingers moved slowly around his writing brush.

Remembering how those same hands had obeyed me in the dream made my fox face burn.

“Are you ready for tomorrow’s trial?”

I jolted.

I’d been so busy admiring a handsome man that I’d forgotten something important.

Three trials remained.

The mountain of blades, the sea of fire, and the test of spiritual roots.

Several times I tried to withdraw.

Somehow, I kept winning instead.

More than once, the soles of my feet had nearly met a sharp blade.

Yet I always managed to leap clear.

Was Heaven helping me?

But I didn’t want to marry Master!

I only wanted to do as I pleased with him in dreams!

“What did you do? Why haven’t you been hurt at all?”

Fairy Yuyao stood before me, frowning. She was covered in injuries.

I, meanwhile, had strolled along as though on an outing.

Someone teased her.

“Fairy Yuyao, aren’t you Master’s favorite disciple? Why not ask him for the nearest exit from the mountain of blades?”

She hesitated, looking troubled.

“But Master told me to keep it secret. I can’t tell anyone.”

That settled it.

Everyone assumed she really knew the way.

They fell in behind her.

One disciple even took off his finest armor and offered it to her.

I held up the map I’d found along the path.

“Want to come with me? I think I know where the nearest exit is.”

I hadn’t been injured once.

Surely the map deserved some credit.

The senior disciple who hated me gave it a contemptuous look.

“Follow you? So you can get us killed?

“They say fox demons are stupid. Apparently they’re right.

“Picked up some ragged scrap of a map and now you think you’re wonderful.”

I sighed.

Fine.

That was what I got for trying to help.

I made it to the exit without difficulty.

Xie Qingjun was sitting in the Mystic Realm, leisurely pouring himself tea.

“There you are.”

As I approached, he pushed a freshly filled cup toward me.

My throat was dry from the journey. I drank it all.

He refilled it.

“Master, I’m exhausted! You have no idea what I’ve been through. People even insulted me! I’m furious!”

“Did they?”

There was laughter in his voice.

“Shall I punish them for you?”

“No need. I may be a little fox demon, but I’m very generous.”

“Yes. Very generous.”

I remembered what I’d been doing to him in dreams.

Guilt stirred.

Whenever he made me clean the study, I took revenge that night.

Then he gave me even more work.

He’d even made me reorganize every book.

So my dream revenge grew correspondingly worse, until my lofty master was pleading with me.

I could still remember his hoarse voice and flushed eyes.

“Qingqing, stop teasing. Your master can’t bear it.”

While I was lost in thought, the doors of the Mystic Realm opened.

The other disciples began arriving.

They looked distinctly odd when they saw me beside Master.

“Master? Why are they all staring? Am I not allowed to sit here?”

I started to rise.

He pressed me back down.

“Why wouldn’t you be? It’s hardly the most improper thing you’ve done.”

True.

In dreams, I’d sat on him.

Groups of disciples continued to arrive.

Still no Yuyao.

Three sticks of incense burned away before her group finally appeared.

The unpleasant senior disciple saw everyone already assembled and exploded.

“Yuyao! This was your shortest route? It must have been the longest!

“Look! Even Song Qingqing arrived first!

“We should never have listened to you. We should have followed her!”

The others joined in.

Yuyao went pale.

“It really was the shortest way. You have to believe me.”

“How? We can see the results!”

“I found that map in Master’s study! How could it be false?”

Silence fell.

Realizing what she’d admitted, she hurried to explain.

“No, that isn’t—”

Then she pointed at me.

“It was Song Qingqing! She took the real map and gave me a fake!”

I looked at the ragged map in my hand.

“Heaven above! Heaven be my witness! I found this on the path!”

Xu He studied it thoughtfully.

Xie Qingjun set down his teacup.

No one dared speak.

“There was never any such map.

“That will be all.”

Her accusation collapsed.

The looks directed at Yuyao changed.

A senior sister who had never liked her spoke up.

“All that vanity. Perhaps put some thought into proper cultivation.”

Yuyao’s face went white, then green.

The uproar had given me a fright.

I drank another two mouthfuls of tea to steady myself.

Xu He stared at me.

“Qingqing. You’re drinking from Master’s cup.”

I startled.

My hand loosened.

The cup fell and shattered.

Terrified, I crouched to pick up the pieces.

The last disciple to break one of Master’s cups had been sentenced to sweep the courtyard for a year.

Someone lifted me by the collar.

I didn’t need to guess who.

“Master, I’m sorry! I’ll buy you another!”

“It’s only a cup,” he said.

“But there must still be a punishment.”

Xie Qingjun never told me what it would be.

For several days I lived in dread, convinced I was about to be expelled.

I even demanded an answer from him in my dream.

His gaze deepened as he approached.

“Be good, Qingqing.

“Your master has only one punishment in mind.”

The dream became another intimate encounter.

When I woke the next morning, my waist ached terribly.

Outside, Xu He was getting ready for morning practice.

“Senior Brother? Why are you here?”

He looked at me strangely, hesitated, then drew me aside and lowered his voice.

“Qingqing. You and Master...

“Is something going on?”