“It won’t change; my promise is a stone in a river, it won’t shift.”

She let go, then ruffled Nesting Phoenix’s small head like smoothing a skittish sparrow. “Rest easy.”

“Mhm…”

With her soothed, Nana Toki hit the road again, the mountain path like a gray ribbon toward Moonview Peak.

Moonview Peak was usually hollow and cold, like a bell in winter, because it was the Sect Master’s perch and few ever came without urgent reports.

Most days, only Yiling Shen lingered on that lonely ridge like a pale lantern.

Today wasn’t that kind of day; today felt like thunder rolling over slate.

Beyond the gatekeepers, elders from other peaks gathered like cranes on a frozen lake.

Outside the peak, crowds of disciples clustered like a ring of reeds in the wind.

Clearly, everyone in Cloudpeak Sect cared about the “senior sister who took a dinner stroll to the back of Moonview Peak and broke a demon seal,” like moths to a flame.

By the time Nana Toki and Nesting Phoenix arrived, the hall was full like a cup brimming to the lip.

Shrine Water, standing by the Sect Master, shot Nana a glare like a thrown dagger, as if to ask why she’d wandered off again.

Nana had no good answer; she’d been coaxing a little ancestor, like rocking a boat on a restless lake.

She kept her eyes on her master’s stormy look and gave Yun Lan a perfunctory bow, like a reed bending in wind.

“Reporting, Sect Master, disciple Feng Luo Luo is late.”

Luckily, most eyes fell on Nesting Phoenix at her side, like stars fixing on the moon, so no one scolded her stance.

Still, something snagged at Nana Toki’s mind like a burr on cloth.

Who was that woman at the heroine’s side, a shadow glued to a lamp?

She’d never seen her, not even as a passing cloud.

Those venomous eyes wanted to eat her flesh and drink her blood, like a wolf at a sheepfold.

Nana searched her memory like riffling leaves; she hadn’t provoked this one, yet the hatred burned like pitch.

Was that the heroine’s secret lover, a jealous flame licking the edge of a blade?

Did she come to kill me with a look, like frost killing a petal?

“…”

“Hey, is that the one the Great Elder sealed in the back mountain? She’s gorgeous, like moonlight on snow.”

“Yeah, and she doesn’t look evil; why would the Great Elder suppress her, like a rock over a spring?”

“You can’t see a heart from a face; maybe she’s the demoness who once plagued the world, like blight on a field.”

Compared to Nana’s side, the seats below buzzed like a hive, disciples whispering ear to ear like wind through pine.

They kept trading rumors of Nesting Phoenix’s past, like passing a hot coal hand to hand.

Up top, Yun Lan’s face went dark like thunderclouds, black eyes fixed on Nesting Phoenix like nails in wood.

Was this the demon woman every Sect Master had warned about, a thorn handed down like an heirloom?

She didn’t match the scrolls in the Scripture Hall, like a painting smudged by rain.

He couldn’t see her cultivation at all, like staring into a deep well; was she higher than him?

Yun Lan’s look grew strange, a candle flickering in a draft, yet he couldn’t help but guard against her.

“Silence!”

Annoyed by the rising clamor, Yun Lan slapped the chair arm; a wave of Spirit Pressure rolled out like a storm tide.

Inside and outside the hall, tongues snapped shut like shutters in wind, and silence fell like snow on moss.

Everyone knew that annoying the Sect Master on Moonview Peak was like poking a tiger on a narrow bridge.

“Feng Luo Luo, during the sect tournament, why didn’t you fight and instead ran to my back mountain’s forbidden ground, like a fox into a henhouse?”

With Nesting Phoenix unable to move, Yun Lan turned the spear of his question on Nana Toki. “Shrine Water says the back mountain barrier was already gone when you arrived—true or false?”

He sat like a judge carved in stone, gaze burning like a torch through fog, as if he’d see through even a moth’s wing.

“Reporting, Sect Master, it’s true.”

Nana stood in the center like a pine on a cliff, totally unafraid, her tone still lazy like a cat in sun. “I ate too much breakfast that day and wanted to walk it off on the way to Wuheng Peak, like strolling after rain. I drifted a bit and ended up in your back mountain, like a leaf in a side current.”

“My barrier has held for a century, weatherproof like iron under frost. Why did it fail the moment you stepped in? Don’t you find that strange, like a lamp going out at noon?”

“What’s strange about it? Maybe the barrier chose that exact day to hiccup, like an old hinge,” Nana said, rolling her eyes like marbles. “It’s an antique; a little failure’s normal, like moss on a roof.”

“…”

Everyone knew the Great Elder’s barrier wouldn’t just fail, like a mountain refusing its roots.

“Utter nonsense! The Great Elder laid that array with his own hands; time wouldn’t crack it, like jade under silk!” Yun Lan’s eyes snapped open like lightning, and a violent wave of Spirit Pressure crashed toward Nana like an avalanche. “Feng Luo Luo, you’d better tell me the truth about that back mountain barrier, clear as spring water!”

It happened so fast that Shrine Water couldn’t even lift a sleeve, like a heron startled at dusk.

By the time he came to, the wave had already been loosed, like a floodgate thrown wide.

The pressure was about to crush Nana like a millstone on grain, when, in a flash of flint and thunder, a blazing flame flew from Nesting Phoenix like a comet.

Under her phoenix flame, Yun Lan’s pressure shrank like a sapling before a wildfire, burned away three steps from Nana as clean as swept ash.

“How would I know? You think I broke it, like a hammer breaking a bell?”

Watching Nesting Phoenix shatter that pressure like clay, Nana crossed her arms and snorted like a spark. “If I had that kind of strength, would I still be a disciple here in Cloudpeak Sect? I’d found my own sect and sit as its master, like a hawk on a peak.”

“Luo’er, mind your tongue in the hall,” Shrine Water said, voice steady like a bell over water. “Sect Master, Luo’er isn’t wicked by nature. She didn’t break the seal to harm Cloudpeak Sect; there must be another thread here—please investigate like sifting sand for gold.”

You call this “not wicked,” like calling thunder a breeze?

Investigate what, when she’s boasting about founding a sect on my peak, like a fox crowing on a temple roof?

Yun Lan ground his teeth like grit between stones, face shifting like sun and cloud. If not for Nesting Phoenix’s unknown depth, he’d have flattened that arrogant girl like a nail under a hammer.

He wouldn’t let her prance like a goat on a ledge.

“We still lack proof about the back mountain seal,” Yun Lan said, forcing calm like smoothing a wrinkled sleeve. “But my disciple Ling’er—Yiling Shen—said you slaughtered a fellow disciple on the road back, and tried to kill her in the wild, like a wolf in brush. Is that true?”

The words dropped like a boulder in a pond, and shock rippled through Moonview Peak; harming a sect mate was a death crime, cold as iron.

How dare Feng Luo Luo be this brazen, like a spark daring the sea?

“Yeah. I killed him.”

Ignoring the startled stares like spears, Nana stood in the center and owned it, tossing the words like stones. “If I deny it, you won’t believe me anyway. I won’t play lace and flowers. I killed him. Tell me what you can do about it, like a judge with his rod.”

As far as Nana knew, aside from the unfathomable Great Elder, she feared no one here, like a wolf among hounds.

“…”

Shameless, thought many, the word buzzing like flies; couldn’t she deflect even a little, like rain off a leaf?

Even Shrine Water froze, stunned like a bell that forgot to ring.

“Feng Luo Luo, you’ve got some gall!” Yun Lan’s face blackened like storm ink.

Yiling Shen was his cultivated vessel, nurtured like a prized furnace, and this girl claimed the kill as if plucking a flower.

Did she think Cloudpeak Sect had no one to curb her, like a garden without a wall?

“If I didn’t have the guts, how’d I kill her?” Nana sneered, a cold knife in her voice. “Why ask what you already know—are you stupid?”

In baiting hatred, Nana was a veteran, hooking it like a fisherman on a dark river.

A few words and she maxed Yun Lan’s aggro bar, like pouring oil on a blaze.

Yun Lan’s mudras shifted like birds in flight; he flipped his hand and conjured a water dragon thick as a pillar, roaring toward Nana with a blood-red maw like a flood serpent.

Sizzle—sizzle—

Sizzle—sizzle—

At the dragon’s birth, everyone stepped back like grass before a gust, afraid of being grazed by his Spirit Energy.

As for Nana…

She didn’t even try to dodge, calm as a rock in current.

Sizzle—sizzle—

Sizzle—sizzle—

Beside her, Nesting Phoenix lifted her right hand toward the dragon’s neck like a pale hook, slowly closing her fingers as if pinching a reed.

White steam rose from that spot like breath in winter, and in the next heartbeat, a ring of crimson fire bloomed around the dragon’s throat like a torc.

Boom—

With a bang like a thunder drum, the airborne dragon blew apart, and water spattered the hall like sudden rain over tiles.

Several disciples and elders, slow to react, were soaked into bedraggled birds, dripping as if dragged from a pond.

“Luo’er! Stop!”

Seeing Nesting Phoenix wasn’t planning to end it there, Shrine Water called out, voice sharp as a bell at dawn.

Too late; by the time his words fell like pebbles, a bright crimson fire-phoenix shot from Nesting Phoenix’s hand like a comet across night.

In an instant, everyone in the hall went weak-kneed, fear and despair pooling like shadow over their heads.

A chill knifed up from their soles to their crowns, like ice climbing ivy.

That fire-phoenix held bottomless Spirit Energy, like a pit with no sky; one glance made hearts shiver like reeds in wind.

Fear surged like a black tide, gripping every throat like an iron claw.

“Nesting Phoenix, mind your manners!”

An old voice rang out in the hall like a bronze bell in winter, and Nesting Phoenix froze mid-flight, the abyssal pressure vanishing like mist in sun.