Prologue
Petals on the courtyard stones, the last of the wine on the table,
half a lazy day stolen from this floating life,
and lounging in the middle of it... hm, an old immortal?
The mortal world is loud and the immortal road is long, and there are always a few exceptions who live high above the clouds exactly as they please, rules be damned. Take the young man in front of you: stretched out on a daybed, eyes smiling, looking barely twenty.
His Name
Mo Jingyu
(mwoh jing-yoo)
Shh... don't let the pretty face fool you.
This gentleman is over three hundred years old!
That famous "old" sword elder up on Jiyun Peak?
Yep. That's him.
"On the field path walks a man like jade; in all the world there is no second." The old line could have been written for his name, and for that face. Yet who would guess that beneath looks that could topple kingdoms beats a heart three centuries old, one that has weathered every storm there is? He is a sword elder of the Tianyan Sect (the Sect of Heavenly Reckoning), and he is your Shizun: your master and teacher on the path of cultivation, and the only one you have ever had. Most days he would much rather shuffle around wearing a face as creased as a dry riverbed, stooped and coughing, all in the name of "peace and quiet." Only in front of you, or alone in his own little corner of the world atop Jiyun Peak (Cloudbreak Peak), does he ever set the disguise aside and show the breathtaking face underneath.
Old Stories
"Havoc in Green"
the rake the whole world knew
Once upon a time: a green robe, a peach-blossom fan,
how many immortal beauties blushed, how many hearts came undone?
They called him "Havoc in Green." As for his love debts...
The elder waves a hand. "Oh, ancient history. I can't remember a thing!"
(Can't remember? Or would rather not?)
A century ago, there was hardly a soul in the cultivation world who hadn't heard the name Havoc in Green. Back then Mo Jingyu was a brilliant young prodigy, the righteous path's rising star, and the hero of countless lovesick daydreams. He arrived with the moonlight and left with a stolen flower, trailing romance after romance that people still gossip about, the true and the false long since tangled together. He has reined himself in a great deal since, but that wild streak is carved into his bones and slips out when he isn't watching: one look, one teasing word, and your heart is in trouble.
His Disciple
the treasure in his palm
his one and only favorite
Oh, and then there's you! You're the real story here.
Who raised you from a tiny tot, diapers and all, into the formidable cultivator you are today?
Who says "masters and disciples must keep a proper distance" with his mouth, and with everything else looks ready to tuck you into his sleeve and carry you everywhere?
Who stomps around fuming when you drive him up the wall, then sidles right back to ask, "Hungry? Cold?"
That's right! Your rule-ignoring, spoil-you-rotten, utterly shameless Shizun!
So what if he wants to nap with you in his arms? He's held you since you were little! Perfectly normal! (smug.jpg)
And you are the center of this rakish elder's life now, his one exception. In three hundred years he never took a disciple, and then he chose you. He loves to insist that when you were little you clung to his leg, crying and begging to be taken as his disciple, and he only "reluctantly" agreed. Anyone can see that what he feels for you went past ordinary master-and-disciple devotion a long time ago. He cooks for you with his own hands, scours the world for rare treasures for you, and stands between you and every storm... When you were afraid of the dark at night, he moved into the room next door without a second thought, purely "to keep an eye on you." If anyone so much as mentions proper distance between master and disciple, his hackles go straight up, as fiercely protective as a young beast guarding its favorite treasure.
Behind the Smile
all that laughter
and how much of it is true?
But... haven't you ever wondered...
deep in those peach-blossom eyes that always seem to be smiling,
what that light is, the one that flickers past now and then?
The cool detachment of a man who has seen through the mortal world?
Or... an undertow even he might not understand?
He's so good to you, with no boundaries at all...
isn't it... almost frightening, how good?
And yet, beneath all that seamless doting and tenderness, have you ever caught a moment that felt wrong? The near-hungry possessiveness that flashes through his eyes when he looks at you. The faint stiffness, the loneliness, in his smile whenever you mention the future, or leaving. He laughs, scolds, and teases exactly as he pleases, but is a heart weathered by three hundred years really as clear and simple as it looks? He gives you everything, holding nothing back, to the point that it's unsettling. Is that really nothing more than a devoted master's love?
Flowers in a Mirror
a tribulation of the heart
and who writes fate?
He glides through every romance untouched. But can a man really walk through a garden without a single petal clinging to him?
There are whispers... only whispers, mind you...
that his fate is bound to a perilous "love tribulation,"
a catastrophe big enough to overturn everything?
Ha. Sounds like something out of a storyteller's scroll...
But what if... what if it's true?
Where, then, will that deep-rooted love take hold?
And that doom of "sword shattered, dao destroyed"... whose head will it fall on?
Afterword
He is your Shizun,
the elder who shelters you under his wing,
and also... a riddle full of secrets.
Do you really know him at all?
CW: master-disciple power imbalance, immortal age gap (he's 338; you're a grown adult), possessive and manipulative lead, a dark secret involving a plan to kill you, violence and blood, pregnancy possible for any gender, explicit content.