Chapter 90
Chapter 90: Who Was She, Really?
Lin Qing Xuan studied her face, drained of color, a faint furrow settling between his brows.
“You look awful. Why don’t you rest today?”
He paused, then asked softly, “From now on… should I call you Jiang Yi Yi, or Yao Xiao Man?”
Xiao Man’s head throbbed like it might split.
What the hell had she said in that dream last night? What had she done?
She had only been copying scriptures and dozed off by accident. How did she wake up feeling like she’d been hungover for three days straight, every bone aching?
One look at her blank stare, and Lin Qing Xuan explained first.
“You were infected by the devil qi that black cat brought back.”
“Yesterday, I had you copy scriptures to purify it. But you fell asleep halfway, and that force seized the opening and rushed straight into your sea of consciousness.”
He cleared his throat, eyes sliding away as if he’d rather be anywhere else.
“So, in your dream, you did things you’ve always wanted to do, but never dared to.”
“And you made up for your greatest regret. For example, that promotion you couldn’t stop thinking about in your old world.”
Xiao Man’s gaze snagged on the side of his neck.
A faint red mark caught the light—suggestive, unmistakable—flickering in and out of focus like a taunt.
She pointed at it, throat going dry. “That… was that also me? In the dream?”
Lin Qing Xuan nodded, calm as still water.
“Not only there.”
Expression blank, he pushed up his sleeve.
“And here.”
Fresh bite marks ringed his solid forearm, deep enough to draw blood.
Xiao Man nearly slapped herself.
Was she insane?
Her mind went empty, and the words burst out on their own. “How can I go crazy in a dream and bite you this hard? That’s not even possible!”
Lin Qing Xuan lowered his lashes to the bruised crescent of teeth marks. A faint flush climbed the edges of his ears, though his voice stayed steady—almost clinical.
“In an ordinary dream, you couldn’t.”
He looked up, gaze clear and unwavering. “Last night wasn’t an ordinary dream.”
“You were being corroded by devil qi. Your spiritual sense was unstable, surging. I forced my own spiritual sense into the depths of your dream to pull you back. But your runaway devil obsession collided violently with my Buddhist power in your sea of consciousness.”
He paused, as if weighing each word.
“At that moment, your thoughts—stimulated by devil qi—turned sharply aggressive. They nearly took substance.”
“These bite marks… are wounds left by your resentment and unwillingness, condensed into something real.”
He drew a small, helpless conclusion. “It wasn’t a dream’s illusion. Your intent pierced the dream and acted directly on my body through the link between our spiritual senses.”
He rolled his sleeve down, hiding the vicious, intimate ring of marks.
“A clash of spiritual senses is dangerous. If anything went wrong, it wouldn’t have been just skin and flesh.”
Xiao Man stared at him, stunned.
Without thinking, she touched her lips. So the mark on his neck… came from her too?
Her resentment was really that feral?
Lin Qing Xuan seemed to read her mind. His fingers brushed his neck, light and careless.
“It’s nothing,” he said flatly. “If anything, drawing out what’s been festering in your heart is a good thing.”
Only…
This method of “drawing it out” was far beyond anything he’d ever imagined.
“Meow—meowww!”
Tuan Tuan padded over at some point, yowling and hopping in outrage, as if personally offended by having missed last night’s steamy, thrilling dream.
Xiao Man dragged in a long breath and forced her thoughts back into place.
She lifted her head, met Lin Qing Xuan’s eyes, and spoke slowly—clearly—leaving no room for argument.
“Call me Xiao Man.”
“Here, I’m only Xiao Man. Not Jiang Yi Yi.”
It wasn’t resignation. It was a cut.
Until she earned real freedom, the Jiang Yi Yi who could laugh loudly, chase promotions, and live with an unshackled soul would have to be sealed away.
For now, she was only Xiao Man.
She pointed at the door, voice hard for the first time since waking. “Lin Qing Xuan. Get out. Close the door.”
“Today I’m not waiting on you. I’m resting.”
She used his full name.
Not the title that meant status and chains.
Because today, she didn’t want to be the maid who bowed and served.
She just wanted one quiet day to lie still and feel like herself again.
“Xiao Man! I want you to pat my butt! Right now!”
That damned black cat had decided to pick a fight with both of them, screeching even louder.
Xiao Man pointed at the bouncing black shadow, patience snapping clean in two. “Lin Qing Xuan! Take this thing too! I don’t want to see it today!”
Lin Qing Xuan said nothing. He simply bent, grabbed Tuan Tuan by the scruff, and lifted him with practiced ease.
The cat flailed and kicked, claws windmilling.
Lin Qing Xuan carried him out and gently shut the door behind him.
At last, the world went quiet.
Xiao Man sank back into her pillow. Her mind finally cleared—and a strange unease curled in her chest.
She sat up abruptly and checked herself from head to toe.
Smooth skin. No bruises. No scratches.
Not even a mosquito bump.
So the only one injured was Lin Qing Xuan?
Relief surged so hard it almost made her laugh.
The chastity defense war hadn’t lost.
But the moment that thought formed, guilt shoved it back down.
Only Lin Qing Xuan got hurt, and she was glad?
She let out a shaky breath. Forget it.
Xiao Man flopped onto the bed, too exhausted to care. The weariness in her body and the shock in her spirit dragged her under.
The dream that took her was a wasteland after war.
Broken walls. Charred earth. Cries scattered like ash in the wind.
Blood and dust clung to the air, thick enough to choke. Groans from the wounded, the raw wailing of those who had lost family—each sound cut at her heart like a dull blade.
She wore plain white, now smeared with gray. Barefoot, she walked across stone and ruin. With every step, it felt as though the ground itself mourned beneath her feet.
She didn’t know who she was.
She only knew she had to do something.
Slowly, she lifted her hands. Her fingers formed a complex, graceful seal, as natural as breathing. A low chant spilled from her lips—ancient syllables, obscure and solemn.
Holy radiance bloomed around her. Gentle, yet impossible to ignore.
With the chant came lotus fragrance—clean and calm—pushing back the stench of blood.
Points of pure white light drifted from her fingertips, from her skin, from the air itself—like fireflies, like fallen stars.
They landed on blackened earth, on torn flesh, on cold bodies—
and in the next heartbeat, they broke through.
Sprouts. Leaves. Buds.
Bloom.
One lotus.
Ten.
A hundred.
In a blink, flawless lotuses unfolded across the ruins in layered waves. Dew trembled on their petals. Peace breathed out from their hearts.
Petals brushed wounds that showed bone, and flesh knit together before the eye.
Fragrance soothed the living, smoothing jagged grief into something bearable, something quieter.
A thousand lotuses blossomed on land that had known only death, and life returned with them.
She stood in the center of that lotus sea, eyes lowered, compassion made visible.
As if she had always been meant to stand that way.
Outside the door, Lin Qing Xuan had not gone far. He stood under the eaves, unmoving.
Even Tuan Tuan went still in his arms, golden eyes fixed on the closed door with uneasy curiosity.
Then a thread of presence slipped out through the crack.
It wasn’t spiritual power. Not Buddhist power. Not devil qi.
It was older. Softer. Closer to the root of all things—warm with mercy, steeped in healing, carrying the faintest lotus scent.
Lin Qing Xuan turned so fast his robes stirred.
For the first time, disbelief cracked his composure. He stared at the door.
“This…”
The relic bead he wore close to his body warmed, faint but undeniable.
Tuan Tuan’s tail snapped upright. A low, puzzled purr rumbled in his throat.
Inside, Xiao Man knew none of it.
She curled tighter in sleep, brows drawn as if bearing a sorrow too vast to name.
A single tear slid from the corner of her eye and disappeared into the pillow.
Holy light flashed around her—gone in an instant, quick enough to feel like a trick of vision.
Only the lotus fragrance lingered, thin and stubborn, refusing to fade.