Chapter Ninety-Nine: Heart-Piercing Pain

Drunk as I was, my apology to Xue Shan came out haltingly. He stopped in his tracks before I could even finish.

"I am... so very sorry!" I finally blurted out.

Xue Shan slowly set me down. Leaning against a tree, I sat on a flat boulder to collect myself, wondering why he had stopped. When I looked up, I saw his face contorted in agony, which he was desperately trying to suppress. Ultimately, unable to withstand the sharp pain in his chest, he clutched his heart and slumped forward against the stone.

"Is... is your heart ailment acting up again?" His state sobered me up slightly.

Xue Shan remained silent, gritting his teeth to endure it.

"Where are your pills?" I asked.

Xue Shan was in too much pain to utter a word.

I stumbled forward and frantically searched his sleeves, pulling out a small bottle, only to find it empty. I hurried to check his pulse, but my hands were unsteady from the wine, and it took me quite some time to locate it. When I finally did, it was in utter chaos—surging and plunging, twisting in knots, leaping violently, and then pausing abruptly. It was a complete mess!

"How can this be?" In my five hundred years of practice, I had treated countless patients with heart ailments, but I had never seen a pulse so chaotic. Any ordinary immortal with a pulse like this would have perished long ago.

Xue Shan sat cross-legged on the ground, forming hand seals to protect his heart meridian, forcing himself to meditate and regulate his breathing through the agonizing pain. Cold sweat drenched his forehead, and the hands forming the seals trembled violently. When I heard the kitchen boy say the other day that Xue Shan had suffered agonizing pain when his chest pain flared up without his pills, I had thought it an exaggeration. Seeing him now, I realized it was the absolute truth.

"Let me channel my energy to heal you." I sat cross-legged opposite him. Suppressing the effects of the wine, I gathered my immortal energy to treat him, only to be violently repelled by an inexplicably powerful force from his back. The backlash sent a sharp pain through my own chest, as if my heart were being pierced by ten thousand arrows.

"Ah!" I cried out in pain.

"Are you... alright?" he asked weakly. Suddenly, his heart meridian surged uncontrollably, and he spat out a large mouthful of fresh blood.

A familiar, sweet scent wafted in the air... Never mind that now! We could not stay here; I had to get him back to his medicine. Drunkenly, I struggled to my feet, helped him up, and took to the air. As we flew, Xue Shan's energy grew weaker and his body heavier. "Hold on, we are almost there!" I urged.

I channeled more immortal energy to speed up, but a wave of dizziness washed over me. I hastily landed on a cloud to let the drunkenness subside. Unable to stand, Xue Shan sank to one knee, clutching his heart with one hand while I supported him with the other.

Looking at his posture, his silhouette... I was suddenly reminded of the Battle of Luolong, which the storyteller in Qilin Town had described. Master must have collapsed on the clouds just like this back then, and his pain must have been even more unbearable than Xue Shan's...

My own heart began to ache...

Overwhelmed by the agonizing memory, my grip on Xue Shan loosened. He drifted out of consciousness, his arm slipping from my hand, and he plummeted from the edge of the cloud.

I dived down after him, my mind flooded with the memory of Master, his soul dispersing as he fell from the clouds to catch my Heart-Linking Feather...

I caught Xue Shan in my arms. He looked just like Master lying in the crystal coffin on Mount Sumeru. He looked so much like him... exactly like him...

"Wake up! Don't die!" I shook him, but he did not respond. "Fei'er is here! Don't die!" Still, he remained motionless.

I held him tightly as we sat on the cloud, heavy teardrops falling one by one onto his face and clothes. "Master! Please wake up... Fei'er is right here, you don't have to hold onto that feather anymore..."

After a long while, the alcohol finally wore off, and I slowly descended to the ground. Xue Shan remained pale and unconscious. Wiping away my tears, I checked his pulse once more. It had returned to a normal, strong beat. I breathed a sigh of relief.

After such a heart-wrenching sob, exhaustion washed over me, and I could no longer carry him. Looking around, I realized we were in an unfamiliar valley. I found a dry spot nearby, laid him down, and used my magic to start a fire. I gathered some cattails to cushion him, draped my outer robe over his body, and cast a protective barrier around the clearing. Satisfied that everything was secure, I felt an overwhelming weariness. Reverting to my true form as a white sparrow, I perched on a nearby branch and fell asleep.

In my dream, it was the year Master carried me on his back under the moonlight, walking on and on... I murmured drunkenly, "I drank too much today and soiled your robes... Fei... Fei'er is unfilial. Let me pour you some tea to make amends."

Master merely smiled and said, "Come down and drink some water..."

"Granny, come down and have some water." Xue Shan's voice woke me. I flew down from the tree and transformed back into my human form. The sky was bright, and the dream of the past had temporarily blended with Xue Shan's words.

Xue Shan was holding a lotus leaf, looking refreshed and energetic, with no trace of the sickly state he had been in the night before. I, on the other hand, felt my head throbbing and my limbs weak. The aftereffects of the wine were truly terrible.

"You are alright now..." I said listlessly, still trapped in the melancholy of my dream.

"Yes," Xue Shan replied.

"Good for you." I took the lotus leaf and drank a few gulps of water, feeling my mind clear slightly.

"It is no matter. This chronic ailment is not fatal," Xue Shan said.

"Hmph. You didn't see the state you were in," I retorted.

Xue Shan smiled faintly and cupped his hands. "Thank you for looking after me, Exalted Goddess."

*Looking after him...* The memory of how I had gotten drunk, mistaken him for my beloved, and wept in his arms for half the night flooded back, filling me with intense embarrassment and regret.

"You had better still call me Granny. 'True Goddess Dayin' is just a title others made up."

I reached out, pulled his hand toward me, and felt his pulse. Remembering the longing look Xing Yao had given him while serving tea at the Star-Plucking Tower yesterday, it was clear the young woman had fallen for him.

"Your pulse is fine now. When you go back, redeem Xing Yao and help her start a good life. As your elder, I must warn you: stay away from places like that. It is bad for your health, especially with a body like yours." Now that my appearance had aged, I seemed to have developed the nagging tongue of an old woman.

Xue Shan's expression remained calm. "I have a wife."

"A wife?" Having stayed at the Duke of Sea's estate for so many days, I had never realized that someone as young as Xue Shan was already married. On second thought, perhaps his young wife was away visiting her family. The realization that I had drunkenly clung to a married man and wept made me wince with embarrassment. Since he said his chronic ailment was not fatal, he probably just had to ride out the episodes. Why had I been so frantic?

"Xing Yao is a pitiful woman," Xue Shan continued.

"Pitiful how?" I was curious to hear what excuses men had for keeping multiple wives and philandering.

"She was bound and sold to that place by cruel relatives to settle a debt, so I patronized her to keep her safe," Xue Shan said.

"And so you gained a new mistress?" I asked.

"She only needs to put on an act with me. There is nothing else between us," Xue Shan replied.

I thought to myself, *with the way Xing Yao looks at you so longingly, she clearly wants there to be something more.*

"Will she be implicated in this matter?" I asked.

"She is a witness," Xue Shan said.

"A blessing in disguise. Some people are not nearly as fortunate." Thinking of myself, the words slipped out.

Xue Shan's expression grew solemn. He instinctively clutched his chest, a flicker of profound grief appearing in his dark eyes.

I gasped, thinking his ailment was acting up again. "Is your ailment acting up again?"

"No."

I rolled my eyes at him. "If not, why are you clutching your chest? I thought my reputation as a healer was about to be ruined by you." I gulped down the rest of the water from the lotus leaf. I thought to myself, after crying my eyes out yesterday, even if I could not completely cure his strange ailment, my treatment must have had some effect.

Xue Shan snapped out of his thoughts and smiled. "With all your gold leaves, Granny, why would you ever worry about making a living?"

Mentioning the gold leaves reminded me of Xing Qi. I said grumpily, "If I had known Xing Qi had such an appetite, I would have just let her eat two watermelons. I could have saved myself a few gold leaves."

"You did give her quite a few," Xue Shan noted.

"If I hadn't given them to her to drink in my stead, I would have drunk myself to death..." I muttered.

Xue Shan chuckled. "I did not realize your tolerance was so low, Granny."

"But I am formidable when drunk," I retorted.

Xue Shan paused, staring at me intently.

I quickly averted my gaze and stood up. "I will go find us some breakfast."

"No need, it is already prepared," Xue Shan said unhurriedly.

"Prepared? Where is it?" I asked.

Xue Shan pointed toward the fire pit.

I picked up a branch, transformed it into a small shovel, and scraped away the dirt beneath the ashes. Like a treasure hunter, I unearthed two roasted sweet potatoes.

I grinned, blew the dust off them, and tossed one to him.

"There is more," Xue Shan said.

"More?" I dug further to the side and actually unearthed a parcel of fragrant fish wrapped in lotus leaves! Peeling back the leaves, the aroma made my mouth water.

"Any more?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

I dug again, but found nothing. "Where is it?"

Xue Shan held out his hand, revealing two small wild pears in his palm.

I felt a mix of delight and embarrassment—delighted to have food and fruit when I was hungry and parched, but embarrassed because I felt like he was playing with me.

Xue Shan smiled faintly, his expression and smile bearing an uncanny resemblance to *him* from all those years ago.

Back then, when I was learning archery, the bows in the Yuqing Realm were all too heavy for me to draw. Seeing my struggle, Master told me he had crafted some new bows for me and placed them on the rack. While he practiced on his own, I tried drawing one of the new bows, but failed, feeling utterly disappointed. He told me there were more. I picked up another, but it was still too heavy. When I asked if there were any others, he nodded. I searched the rack up and down but found nothing. When I asked where it was, he chuckled, shot an arrow right into the bullseye, and handed me the bow in his hand, saying, "This one should be just right."

I did not take the pear. Instead, I sat to the side and quietly ate my sweet potato.

"Are you not going to eat the pear?" Xue Shan asked.

"I do not care for pears. Besides, you have prepared a feast. I cannot possibly eat it all." I did not want to accept too much of his kindness; it made me uneasy. Ming Zhong reminded me of Master, Xiao Xiaobai reminded me of Master... and now, even Xue Shan. Had my longing for him driven me to madness?

My illusions regarding Ming Zhong had been the work of Ming Bo's spell, and my hatred for him was enough to eclipse any false familiarity. But last night, when Xue Shan carried me on his back, I had naturally associated him with Master. When I saw him clutching his chest and falling from the cloud, I had been completely unable to distinguish him from Master. I had blamed it on the wine. But what about now? I was sober, yet my heart raced at his words...

I silently warned myself not to be foolish. How could I let my heart flutter just because I met someone who resembled him?

"You barely ate anything last night," Xue Shan said.

"How did you know I was True Goddess Dayin?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I guessed," Xue Shan said. "A white-haired old woman who could travel to the West Sea with High Immortal Chun Feng and dine at the same table was bound to be extraordinary. Besides, your cultivation is exceptionally deep."

I smiled faintly, thinking to myself that despite his youth, Xue Shan was incredibly meticulous. He must have planted informants around the West Sea Lord long ago to set this trap. Yesterday's exchange had caught them red-handed, and he had even managed to use "True Goddess Dayin" as his witness. Such calculating foresight was far beyond his years. It was more like...

My thoughts were drifting again. I quickly pulled myself back to reality.

"Are you and High Immortal Chun Feng's family doing well?" Xue Shan asked suddenly.

"Oh... yes... they are fine," I prevaricated.

"Your pastries are delicious, Granny. Do you make them for High Immortal Chun Feng often?" Xue Shan asked.

"I rarely bother. Your Grand-Uncle is far too demanding. He always nitpicks, and if the flavor is even slightly off, he refuses to eat." I spoke the title "Grand-Uncle" deliberately, reminding myself that the man before me was my martial nephew!

"No wonder," Xue Shan murmured thoughtfully.

"Eat up, don't let it go to waste. We will be busy soon," Xue Shan said, handing the fish and the pears to me.

"Busy with what?" I asked, puzzled.

"Do you know whose territory we are in, Granny?"

"I do not."

"The Sea Wolf Tribe."