Qiwu Jun had barely returned to Lone Egret Peak when Mu Lin Jun arrived.

　　“You’re back at last. Where have you been these days? You never come down the mountain,” Mu Lin Jun teased.

　　“I went to check on that oddity at Weak Water,” Qiwu Jun replied.

　　“Any signs?” Qingshan Jun asked next.

　　Qiwu Jun thought of Ruoshui but shook his head.

　　“That’s for the best,” Mu Lin Jun said, then his tone shifted. “Strange thing about that storm — we expected a massacre, but when disciples went to help, they found no casualties. People had already evacuated to higher ground; only houses were destroyed where the water ran through.”

　　“Someone warned them ahead of time?” Qiwu Jun asked.

　　“Yes.”

　　“Who?” Qiwu focused. If such a warning had come without prophecy or sense, either a hidden master was involved or someone kept a secret.

　　“A dream—an immortal in a dream,” Mu Lin Jun answered slowly.

　　Qiwu Jun frowned.

　　Mu Lin Jun explained: “Before the flood, almost every household said they dreamed of a breathtakingly beautiful immortal woman who told them the water would come and urged them to flee.”

　　“Could someone have set up a trap?” Qiwu Jun wondered.

　　Mu Lin Jun shook his head. “When I began hearing the reports I thought the same, so I investigated. I asked dozens of people. They all said the same thing: they weren’t sure at first, but when talking over tea and meals they realized many of them had the same dream. Particularly on the night before the storm, they all heard a woman urgently telling them to get to higher ground. The next morning the deluge came and they had to believe it, so they grabbed their valuables and fled up the hills.”

　　“Unheard of,” Qiwu Jun muttered.

　　“Yes, so they say a dream-immortal saved them.”

　　“What did this dream-immortal look like?” Qiwu asked.

　　“Some said she rode on colorful clouds, some that she galloped on a phoenix, some joked she carried roasted chicken and grilled fish; descriptions varied, but people agreed she was a vision of extraordinary beauty,” Mu Lin Jun recounted in lively detail.

　　Qiwu Jun smiled wryly. “Ridiculous.”

　　“Yet odd,” Mu Lin Jun conceded. Though the visions varied, they shared common elements. “They said the immortal had a fire-phoenix marking on her forehead.”

　　This storm carried an air of strangeness without any obvious flaw to explain it.

　　“Enough of that for now,” Mu Lin Jun changed the subject. “These are peaceful times. Our senior suggested finally arranging the marriage between you and our junior sister. The betrothal was set more than a hundred years ago — you two can’t delay forever.”

　　Qiwu Jun lowered his lids. “What does the sister say?”

　　“She’s a woman — how could she refuse? If you give the word I’ll organize everything. We’ll invite the world and celebrate.”

　　“Do as you wish,” he said. He had long since seen through worldly affairs; marriage held no real appeal. But it was the master’s wish — the man who’d taken him in when he had nowhere to go, who had taught him, who had been his protector. The master had been kind, entrusted him with care, and in his final charge had asked that the arrangement be honored. How could Qiwu refuse?

　　“So you agree?” Mu Lin Jun asked with a satisfied smile.

　　Mu Lin Jun informed Qingshan Jun, whose stern face softened at the news. He set the date and sent invitations far and wide. A celebration like this — a wedding for the head of the Three Masters and the daughter of the late senior elder — had to be grand and publicly known across the Immortal Sects.

　　When word spread, everyone in the sects was invited. The event was the talk of the immortal world.

　　Ruoshui, having met the cloaked man who meant ill but hadn’t done harm yet, resumed admiring her painting and asked casually, “Why did you tell me all that?”

　　“I wanted to help you,” the man said.

　　“Why help me?” She was suspicious. “No good deed is without motive.”

　　“I want to see your devotion fulfilled, not shattered,” he replied.

　　“You must have me mistaken. I don’t love him... I just want to stay near him,” Ruoshui said, amused. She needed him, that was all.

　　The man scoffed inwardly — whether it was devotion or simple desire, it amused him. “If you want to stay near him, you have to marry him,” he said bluntly.

　　“What kind of logic is that? I said I only want to stay near him, not be his wife. Even if he marries, I could find him afterwards and be his maidservant — pour tea, run errands, whatever.”

　　Sending one’s beloved in as a spy or servant was ruthless, but the cloaked man thought it fitting for such a foolish, clingy person.

　　To test his theory, he asked, “Do you know Lord Canghai?”

　　Ruoshui thought hard. The man’s question seemed sudden after a long silence, but she answered carefully, “I think I’ve heard the name before, but I don’t remember.”

　　“You don’t remember?” The cloaked man was surprised — not that she didn’t know the name, but that she couldn’t recall. “Should you know him?”

　　“Should I?” Ruoshui was puzzled by his reaction.

　　“Never mind,” he said. A sly smile tugged at the corner of his mouth under the cloak: Canghai, he thought. Your beloved is in love with another and would let you become a maid to stay by his side — how interesting.

　　He looked pleased with his brewing plan, eyes alight beneath the hood.

　　“Do you know that Qiwu Jun is not fond of women?” the cloaked man asked.

　　“If he’s not fond of women, why get married?” Ruoshui laughed. They had been together so recently — how could she not mean anything to him?

　　Holding a painted portrait of the man who had stood before her a century ago, she did not remember the life that had made him who he was. She had no spiritual talisman, no cultivation aura. The only explanation was that she’d been reborn — or resurrected — met Qiwu Jun in this new life, and quietly fallen for him.

　　The cloaked man brightened at that idea. He intended to help her: let Qiwu Jun watch the woman he loved become someone else’s bride. He wanted to stir things up.

　　To convince her he was sincere, the cloaked man began to tell the tale of Qiwu Jun’s life: “They say Su Mu — Qiwu Jun — grew up with no parents…”