After the banquet dispersed, the spirit lanterns remained lit as guests filed out in twos and threes, the front courtyard bustling with parting pleasantries.
Gu Yuanshan and Liu Ruolan stood at the entrance seeing the guests off, their faces bearing the weary traces of an entire evening of smiles, evidently well satisfied with the sheer grandeur of the banquet.
Lin Zhixue slipped out by blending into the crowd.
No one noticed her, and she had no desire to be noticed by anyone.
Stepping outside the Gu manor's gates, a late-autumn chill swept over her with the headwind of the night.
She took a deep breath, slowly exhaling the pent-up tension that had weighed on her chest all evening.
Everything that had transpired tonight drifted through her mind, rising and sinking like fragmented memories.
Shaking her head to cast these fragments aside for the moment, she quickened her pace.
...
When she arrived home, Xiaohe was still awake, sitting on the threshold waiting for her. The maid leaped to her feet the moment Lin Zhixue walked through the door.
“Young Miss! Was there anything good to eat at the banquet? Did anyone give you a hard time?”
“The food was quite good, and I'm fine,” Lin Zhixue casually replied.
Xiaohe pulled her along to change clothes and wash her face; after all the fuss, she was finally able to lie down in bed.
Turning onto her side, she habitually pressed a hand against the jade pendant resting over her chest.
The jade was warm—warmer than usual, even faintly hot to the touch.
Frowning slightly, she was just about to take it off to have a closer look.
The jade pendant lit up.
A faint cyan halo surfaced from deep within the jade.
Unlike the fleeting flicker from before, this time it grew brighter and denser, as if something in the center of the halo were slowly waking up.
Lin Zhixue sat bolt upright, cradling the pendant in her palm, her amber pupils contracting slightly under the cyan glow.
The halo spilled from the surface of the jade pendant, gradually condensing into form beneath her watchful eyes.
First came a palm-sized body, followed by a fluffy little head.
The little thing radiated a translucent pale cyan all over, like a cluster of solidified light.
It looked like a miniature person with exquisite facial features and long, pale golden hair cascading down its back, the tips slightly curling. It simply hovered there in midair.
It rubbed its eyes, let out a yawn, and opened them.
A pair of emerald-green eyes locked directly onto Lin Zhixue's gaze.
“Finally awake!” it chirped in a crisp voice, its tone as righteous and self-assured as if Lin Zhixue waiting on it were only natural.
“Finally got some spiritual energy! I've been waiting for so, so long.”
Lin Zhixue’s hand cradling the jade pendant froze in midair.
In her seventeen years of life, she had seen demon beasts and artifacts, but she had never seen a talking miniature person emerge from a jade pendant.
She paused, her mind a bit dazed. It felt like a dream, yet everything before her eyes was impossibly clear.
“What... kind of thing are you?”
“I'm not a thing!”
The little thing put its hands on its hips, bobbing up and down in midair.
“I am the artifact spirit of the Taixu Soul Jade! Do you even know what the Taixu Soul Jade is? Never mind, looking at you, you clearly don't.”
“Anyway, it's a super, super powerful treasure, and as for me, I'm the treasure's artifact spirit! Got it?”
Having said its piece, it slightly lifted its chin, its eyes brimming with anticipation for praise.
Lin Zhixue looked at it, remained silent for two breaths, and asked, “Then why did you only wake up now?”
The artifact spirit tilted its head, flying right up to Lin Zhixue’s face to scrutinize her features, as if confirming something.
Then it sat cross-legged in midair, propping its chin on one hand, and pondered seriously.
“It’s probably because you had a fairly large fluctuation in your spiritual energy that was absorbed by the Soul Jade, so I finally gathered enough strength to wake up.”
Lin Zhixue recalled the night she broke through to the fifth level of Qi Refining—the jade pendant had indeed flickered with light.
Back then, she thought it was just a hallucination, so she rubbed her eyes and went to sleep.
So from that moment on, this little creature had already begun waking up inside the pendant.
“So that means you are now my...”
“Master!” The artifact spirit sprang to its feet, hopping in midair.
“You activated the Soul Jade, so you're my master now! From now on, wherever you go, I go! When you fight, I'll be right by your side to...”
It paused, its emerald eyes darting around.
After racking its brain for quite a while, its voice grew a few notches quieter: “...chat with you.”
“...So all you can do is chat?”
“What do you mean, 'all you can do is chat'?!” The artifact spirit bristled, flying up to her face and jabbing its finger toward Lin Zhixue’s nose, popping out a word with each poke.
“I am—the artifact spirit—of the Taixu—Soul Jade!”
“When you get stronger in the future, I'll get stronger too!”
“There'll be tons of things I can do then!”
“What's wrong with just chatting for now?!”
Watching it hover in midair, hopping about and puffing up with indignation, Lin Zhixue's expression softened without her even realizing it.
“Fine. Then what should I call you?”
The artifact spirit stopped hopping, its expression going blank for an instant.
Then it awkwardly turned its face away, its tiny hands wringing together in front of it as its tone abruptly shifted from proud and self-assured to a sheepish mumble.
“I don't have a name... I slept for so long that I don't really remember anything from before.”
Having said that, it stole a glance at Lin Zhixue.
Lin Zhixue said nothing.
Leaning against the headboard, she looked at this palm-sized little person.
It had nothing. No memories, no name, no companions.
After sleeping inside this jade for who knows how many years, the very first thing it did upon waking was put its hands on its hips and tell her, “Finally got some spiritual energy!”
Lin Zhixue watched it, falling silent for a moment.
“Then I'll call you Xiaoyu,” Lin Zhixue said.
“The way you float looks like a feather.”
Xiaoyu’s eyes lit up, as if little lamps had been kindled in those emerald-green irises.
It twirled in midair, though it still stubbornly talked tough.
“Xiaoyu? It's okay, I guess. Not particularly impressive, but it'll do. This artifact spirit will reluctantly accept it.”
Footsteps came from outside the door, and Xiaohe pushed it open, poking half her head inside.
“Young Miss, who are you talking to?”
She saw only Lin Zhixue sitting alone by the bed; the room was peaceful and quiet, with no one else in sight.
Yet her young miss's lips were still slightly parted, clearly having just spoken.
Xiaoyu hovered in midair and waved a hand at Xiaohe.
Xiaohe’s gaze passed right through, landing on the wall behind Lin Zhixue without the slightest reaction.
“Young Miss?” Xiaohe called out tentatively once more.
Lin Zhixue looked at Xiaohe, then shifted her gaze to Xiaoyu, who was floating in front of her making faces. She paused for a breath.
“In the jade pendant my mother left me, there's an artifact spirit. She is right here.”
“You can't see her, but she is truly here.”
Xiaohe was taken aback, her eyes instinctively scanning the empty air, yet she still saw nothing.
Lin Zhixue added, “Her name is Xiaoyu.”
This time, her gaze happened to fall right where Xiaoyu was floating.
Xiaoyu crossed its arms in midair, tilting its head to examine her while muttering, “Of course only master can see me.”
Naturally, Xiaohe heard nothing, but looking at that empty space, she broke into a sudden grin and bowed earnestly toward that direction. “Greetings, Miss Xiaoyu!”
Floating in midair, Xiaoyu froze.
“'Miss'?” Its voice shot up an octave.
“Who told you I'm a miss? I'm an artifact spirit!”
Crossing its arms, it huffed and floated in a circle before turning back to snort toward Xiaohe.
Unfortunately, Xiaohe couldn't perceive its protest in the slightest, remaining in her bowed posture with a sincere smile on her face.
“...Whatever. Ignorance is blameless.”
Xiaoyu turned its head away, its voice softening as it stole another glance at Lin Zhixue.
“The name is fine. Xiaoyu is just Xiaoyu—no suffixes allowed!”
Without caring whether Xiaohe could hear, it turned and transformed into a tiny stream of light, slipping back into the jade pendant.
Lin Zhixue tucked the jade pendant back against her chest, her fingers lingering on its surface for a moment.
...
By the time Gu Yanqing saw the last guest out, the moon was already high in the midnight sky. He was just about to head back to his room, wash his face, and collapse into bed.
The system in his mind suddenly chimed.
It was a gentle, almost imperceptible chime of notification.
His steps halted.
A line of text materialized before his eyes.
“Shift in the worldline detected.”
Gu Yanqing paused for half a breath, then quickly realized what it meant.
Worldline shift.
He had seen this phrasing countless times in novels and games in his previous life, but this was the first time hearing it from this useless system bound to the female lead.
In all the time he had waited, the only time the system had spoken up on its own aside from pinging locations was when the worldline shifted.
Subconsciously, he glanced at the system map.
Beside the red dot, an additional blue dot had appeared.
The two dots were virtually overlapping; had he not taken a closer look, he wouldn't have noticed it at all.
A glitch?
He stared at that blue dot for several breaths before suddenly realizing what it was.
Not only could the system pinpoint Lin Zhixue's location, but it could also detect anomalous presences around her. The artifact spirit of the Soul Jade fell within the system's perception as well.
Who knew the system had this kind of hidden function? It wasn't completely useless after all.
He closed the system interface and didn't dwell on it any further.
He knew very well what this signified.
From today onward, Lin Zhixue was no longer just an ordinary branch disciple at the fifth level of Qi Refining.
She was the master of the Taixu Soul Jade, the contractor, and the female lead of 《Treading on Snow》 who would ascend to the summit step by step.
Her journey officially began today.
The plot had progressed.
In the original work, Lin Zhixue's first fateful turning point had officially triggered today.
Calculating the timeline, it was about right. Quite a few days had passed since that rainy alley encounter; she had gathered the Cold Marrow Grass on the mountain, her cultivation had broken through to the fifth level of Qi Refining, and after the Soul Jade had been nourished by spiritual energy for so long, that thing was bound to awaken.
He only hoped that once she grew strong, she wouldn't actually set her sights on him.
Slipping off his outer robe and draping it over the back of a chair, he lay down on the bed.
Rate on N.U.
