The Moon in the Sky and the Moon in the Water

"Mr. Xu Xi has been getting busier and busier lately..."

Night fell.

The evening breeze turned into a soft whisper, brushing through every corner of the room before slipping out through the window in the clash of air currents.

Outside the window was an exceptionally bright full moon.

So bright that it overshadowed the stars, leaving only the moon in the sky.

In the quiet night, with the full moon reigning supreme, Wu Yingxue gently draped a coat over Xu Xi and stood by his side, quietly gazing at his face.

As her eyes blinked,

Looking at Xu Xi's face, at his figure, Wu Yingxue reminisced about the past six months.

After uncovering the truth about the Thirteen Prefectures of Great Qian,

Xu Xi chose not to reveal it.

Firstly, doing so would cause panic among the people, leading to chaos with no other benefit.

Secondly, it might alert the demons of the Ten Thousand Mountains, jeopardizing the escape plan before it even began.

Thus,

Over the past six months, Xu Xi only shared the specifics about the demons with a few trusted individuals, such as Niu.

As for the rest of the populace, he subtly influenced them,

Gradually deepening their acceptance of the harsh reality.

When the time was right,

He would make the final revelation.

In places unseen by others, Xu Xi quietly orchestrated everything, preparing for the future escape from the Ten Thousand Mountains—a task that was incredibly arduous.

Wu Yingxue had been helping.

But she felt her contributions were limited.

Most tasks required Xu Xi's assistance for her to truly complete them.

"If I become more capable, maybe Mr. Xu Xi can rest properly?" Wu Yingxue thought to herself, her tone tinged with melancholy.

It was a dissatisfaction with her own inadequacy.

Driven by this dissatisfaction, the girl sat at the other end of the desk, picking up a document on agriculture and civil affairs, hoping to assist in some way.

"Hmm... first this, then that."

Flipping through, reading, pondering carefully.

Holding a brush in hand,

Resting her chin on her palm.

Once she arrived at an answer, Wu Yingxue would annotate and mark the document.

Time always flies when one is engrossed, slipping away unnoticed. By the time the girl came to her senses, she realized a long time had passed.

The feeling was subtle,

Like water slipping through her fingers, drop by drop, until a puddle had formed without her noticing.

"Is this how Mr. Xu Xi spends every day? And he doesn't find it dull?"

Wu Yingxue murmured to herself.

She put down the brush and paper, rubbing her cheeks with her hands, then giving them a light pat to shake off her drowsiness.

Come on, Yingxue!

Mr. Xu Xi is working so hard; how can you slack off?

"Yaaawn~" The girl stretched in place, twisting her left shoulder, then her right, before picking up the brush again.

She looked like a diligent scholar,

Which was quite amusing.

But as she wrote, her eyes reflected the flickering candlelight, the shadows of which fell on Xu Xi's face. Gazing at this scene, her thoughts began to wander.

She thought of the Ten Thousand Mountains, of Qingniu Town, of everything from the past.

...

From childhood to adulthood,

Wu Yingxue had always felt she was special.

She believed herself to be stronger than most girls, even surpassing boys, with her diligence and decent talent.

Though she never voiced it,

In her heart, in the heart of the young lady, there had always been a dream of being a "hero who saves the world."

She firmly believed that someone as special as herself was destined to save the nation and its people,

To be revered by the populace,

To be praised by all.

But a series of events years ago shattered that naive dream.

Wu Yingxue did not become a hero who saved the world; instead, she became a fugitive wanted by Great Qian. The turn of events was so sudden that she could hardly accept it.

Ah...

Just recalling it made her chest tighten,

As if her neck were being squeezed, making it hard to breathe.

"..." Wu Yingxue's brush stopped moving, her fingers unconsciously twirling the brush handle, her mind clearly elsewhere.

The shattering of her dreams and the upheaval of reality had been so cruel to her at the time.

She was not a naturally resilient prodigy, unable to ignore setbacks.

In the end,

The young heroine was no different from others, merely having grown up in privilege, in a noble household, which had given rise to those unrealistic fantasies.

When stripped of that identity, when the external aura faded,

The girl named Wu Yingxue,

Was just another mortal who could be killed.

This was the first lesson Xu Xi taught her.

"If it weren't for Mr. Xu Xi, I might have died long ago," the girl thought. She was clumsy, only skilled in martial arts, and the little she knew about governance was learned after meeting Xu Xi.

Her not-so-brilliant mind, however, remembered many things about Xu Xi.

There was the time he carried her under the starry sky.

The New Year's Eve blessings they shared.

The paper flowers they folded together.

Individually, none of these moments seemed particularly profound.

But when woven together, they formed an invisible path, with two people walking side by side—Xu Xi and Wu Yingxue.

With each step, emotions settled over time,

Flowing quietly, gently passing by.

The two walked the same path, moving toward the future together.

"What is my relationship with Mr. Xu Xi...?" In the quiet room, the girl gazed at the weary face before her, suddenly frowning in deep thought.

Was it a master-disciple relationship?

It didn't seem so.

She had never formally become his disciple, and their relationship was too casual, lacking the hierarchy between teacher and student.

Then, was it a romantic relationship?

Not quite that either.

Wu Yingxue had seen many married couples, and their dynamics were clearly different from hers and Xu Xi's.

In her pondering,

The girl suddenly recalled a term she had heard from Xu Xi long ago: 【Companion on the Path】.

A friend who shares the same ideals, walking the same path, supporting each other along the way.

Wu Yingxue felt that this description was somewhat fitting.

"Mr. Xu Xi once said that a companion on the path can also be called a 'Dao Companion.' It sounds like an interesting term..."

Pfft.

The girl covered her mouth, stifling a laugh.

As she looked at the peacefully sleeping Xu Xi, she suddenly thought of how the character for "friend" (peng) is made up of two "moon" (yue) characters.

When speaking of two moons, the first thing that comes to mind is the classic tale of the moon in the sky and its reflection in the water.

"In a way, Mr. Xu Xi is like the moon in the sky."

"And I am the moon reflected in the water..."

The moon in the sky, gentle and bright.

The moon in the water, its light hidden beneath the surface.

The moon in the sky illuminates the moon in the water.

The moon in the water reflects the moon in the sky.

Sky and water become one, the moons mirroring each other.

Water, originally empty, gains the form of the moon through reflection, filling the void with something tangible.

Isn't that interesting?

Wu Yingxue clutched the fabric over her chest, feeling the unease and uncertainty about the future, her fingers gradually tightening.

She whispered softly:

"Please, Mr. Xu Xi, you must survive."