"It will! It most certainly will! You are his woman—he would risk his own life to save you, which shows how much you weigh in his heart. Your words must carry weight with him. My lady, I beg you, save me!"

"What nonsense are you babbling?" Duanmu Yu frowned. She knew perfectly well that Wei Zhao had stayed behind to deal with the Guardian of the Sleeping Lotus for reasons that had nothing to do with her; even if her rescue had figured in it at all, it could only have been incidental, never his true purpose.

Just then Wei Zhao laughed and said, "Since you have put it that way, I may as well tell you something. Those creatures who have contended with me for a woman—do you know how they all ended up?"

"H-how... how did they end up?" the Guardian of the Sleeping Lotus asked faintly.

"That I could hardly count. Some lost their lives, some lost their manhood, and some had their whole worldview twisted until they were neither man nor ghost. Which sort do you suppose you will be? As for me, I have no other failing, only that heroes ever fall at the gate of beauty. Ordinarily I am the most reasonable of men, but the moment someone contends with me for a woman, that is the end of it. Truly, when I go mad, even I am afraid of myself." Wei Zhao delivered this fabrication with the most solemn of faces.

The Guardian of the Sleeping Lotus had no way of knowing whether this was fabrication or truth. Its gaze drifted back and forth between Wei Zhao and Duanmu Yu, and by now its regret had turned it green to the very roots. Why could it not have occupied itself with anything else? Why must it have taken a whim to seek out Duanmu Yu for dual cultivation? A fine end this was: the dual cultivation never came to pass, and it had nearly cultivated itself to death instead.

"Human... no, Senior, I truly did not know at the beginning that she was your woman. Do you not have a saying that ignorance is no crime? Consider that I did not strike to kill you before, and that I never truly consummated the dual cultivation with her. Spare me this once?"

"Do not talk nonsense!" Duanmu Yu's fair face suddenly flushed red. Whether it was the word "dual cultivation" that embarrassed her, or being called Wei Zhao's woman, by her usual standards such a girlish expression was unprecedented.

"I..." the Guardian of the Sleeping Lotus tried to argue further, but Wei Zhao gave it no chance—nor did he finish it off then and there. Instead he sealed it away in solitary confinement, then departed the jade pendant space with Duanmu Yu's primordial spirit.

The Mirror Flower, Water Moon had been broken. The Guardian of the Sleeping Lotus was locked away. Once the two of them emerged, they naturally returned to the real world, and Duanmu Yu's primordial spirit naturally returned to her body.

The great tent was the same great tent, and the scene before them the same scene. Yet after wandering so long through so many mirror worlds, even Duanmu Yu could plainly feel the difference. Though every place was identical, the real world simply felt more solid. However lifelike a mirror world might be, it was in the end illusion, and could never produce this one-of-a-kind sense of reality.

Still, Duanmu Yu could not quite set her mind at ease, fearing this was yet another, even more convincing mirror world. It was only when she stepped out of the great tent and saw the greater and lesser spirit beasts outside that her heart finally settled—after all, no mirror world contained such creatures. She let out a breath. "We are back at last. Illusion and reality, one after the other—it felt like a nightmare."

"Heh. Every nightmare has its waking day," Wei Zhao said with a smile.

She glanced at him and said with gratitude, "But without you, this nightmare might never have ended. This time, I truly thank you."

"Think nothing of it. Each of us got what we needed." Wei Zhao shook his head. His move against the Guardian of the Sleeping Lotus had never been entirely for Duanmu Yu's sake; he had simply feared the creature would find Leng Leng and the others and draw the brain-eating worms after them.

"Even so, I must still thank you," Duanmu Yu said earnestly. Whatever Wei Zhao's motives, the fact remained that he had saved her. She had never been one to forget a kindness, and this debt she must hold in her heart.

As the two were speaking, a patrol bee flew over from no great distance, looked Wei Zhao up and down, and said, "Who are you? Why are you with our mistress?"

"Well now, in your master's own words, your mistress and I are adulterous lovers."

Duanmu Yu's face flushed red again at this, and she shot Wei Zhao a reproachful glare, while inwardly she could not help but smile. She had thought him profound and unfathomable before; she had not expected him to be so fond of a joke.

"Adulterous lovers?" The patrol bee took a long moment to work out the meaning of those words, then promptly summoned every other patrol bee in the vicinity. They swarmed around Wei Zhao and Duanmu Yu, bristling with menace. "What monstrous insolence, to put horns on our master! Together, let us hack this adulterer to pieces—and as for the mistress, we shall leave her for the master to deal with himself!"

The patrol bees were on the point of launching their assault, but Wei Zhao only smiled faintly. "Hold. Do none of you think to ask how your master fares?"

At these words the patrol bees froze as one, exchanging glances. "True enough—should the master not be inside the great tent with the mistress, consummating their dual cultivation? How is it that this pair of adulterers has escaped, and the master has made no sound at all?"

Given the Guardian of the Sleeping Lotus's consistently ruthless ways, they did not believe their master would be so magnanimous as to remain unmoved at being cuckolded—unless...

At this thought the patrol bees were seized with alarm, but they promptly flung this absurd notion from their heads. The master was that personage's guardian, an existence mighty enough to stand above ten thousand and beneath only one. How could it possibly capsize in a ditch over a mere human?

Yet if that were not the case, why had there been no reaction at all?

Just then a faint voice sounded from behind them: "Disaster! The master must have been killed by the two of them together! This human is terrifying—a single glance from him nearly killed me!"

The patrol bees turned to look. The speaker was none other than the River Imp, and to them that was one of their own in the truest sense, so they harbored not the slightest doubt. The River Imp's strength was not far below their own—and this human had nearly killed it with a single glance? Why, even the master could not have done such a thing!

"Such a thing happened?" Duanmu Yu shot Wei Zhao a look of astonishment. After what had just passed, she had already held him in the highest regard, had privately begun to class him among the likes of Nascent Soul old monsters—and yet she had still underestimated him. To kill the River Imp with a single glance—what manner of power was that? (To be continued.)