Hundreds of years later

It only took Jinghe a few moments to be able to detect the invasion of an intruder on her sacred lands. She was rather alarmed, because there were wards and barriers around her sacred lands that kept away mortals, and the barriers could only be broken by the strongest of cultivators.

She immediately stood up, summoning her sword, and leaped down into the mortal realm to her sacred lands to confront the intruder.

The intruder wore an outfit of dark black, and their face was covered with a veil, their features indistinguishable.

"Who goes there?" Jinghe said, pointing her sword directly at the intruder's chest. The intruder had fast reflexes, darting away and kicking the sword to the side. Jinghe was able to detect immediately that this person's cultivation was close to ascension, which would've been why they could've broken into her sacred lands.

"I've come to borrow these lands for spiritual cultivation." The intruder said calmly, with a croaky voice, as if they hadn't spoken for years on end.

"These lands are not just lands that you can intrude in at will. Get out." Jinghe commanded. Normally, whenever she put on her intimidating and commanding aura, most people would turn tail and flee, but this person seemed unafraid, lifting their chin slightly at Jinghe's words.

"May I ask if you are using this land for spiritual cultivation as well? If so, this land is spacious and has plenty of space for both of us. There is no need to fight."

"This is the sacred land of a goddess. Who are you to barge in at will?" Jinghe demanded.

The intruder seemed to be tired of talking with her already, and began fighting. From nowhere, they took out a dagger and began fighting, their moves quick and agile, but even so, they were merely a cultivator while Jinghe a goddess, so Jinghe was able to find their weak point and gave a vicious slash towards the intruder's knee. However, the sword had clearly met skin with quite a bit of force and should've clearly cut it open, but only the robes of the intruder were sliced, their flesh completely untouched.

The sword of Jinghe had one special characteristic, and it was that it refused to hurt those the owner cared about. There were few people that passed the requirement of 'those Jinghe cared about', and most of them, like her parents and some friends she'd had back in the mortal world, were dead. The last one who was alive...

"You!" Jinghe exclaimed, shocked.

Jinghe couldn't believe it and slashed at the cloth at the back of the intruder's neck, causing their outer robes to fall to their elbows. The intruder, in a moment of panic, pulled their robes back up to cover up, but Jinghe had already seen the gray mark on the back of their neck.

"Shameless!" The intruder raged, then realized that they had been fighting, anyways, so it was her fault for letting Jinghe be able to get so close to her. In a panic, the intruder continued to blabber. "I've only trespassed on some sacred lands, and if you want to cultivate here, fine, you can cultivate here, I never said we couldn't share, but if you keep slashing at my robes, I'm going to have to buy new ones. Robes cost money, you know. Are you going to pay?" The intruder kept blabbering on and on, but Jinghe cut them off.

"Yanbo." Jinghe's tone was a mix of sternness, sorrow, bitter-sweetness, and a hint of hope and longing. The intruder couldn't speak anymore. She took off the veil and revealed the face that Jinghe had been longing to see for hundreds of years.

"I'll invite you to dinner. We need to do some catching up." Jinghe said.

Yanbo did not protest.

***

After ordering their dishes, the two sat in absolute silence. Finally, Jinghe broke it first.

"Where have you been all these years?"

"Around." Yanbo's hand was resting on the table, stroking over the wing of her baby flaming paper crane, like she always did. "Here and there. Never in one place for a long time."

"How have you been?"

Yanbo ate a mouthful of food and chewed thoughtfully. "I've been cultivating." She said evasively.

"How has that been going?"

"Fine." Yanbo answered.

"Has anyone attacked you, looked for trouble?" Jinghe asked, concerned. Yanbo was obviously rather reluctant to talk, but Jinghe didn't care, pushing for answers.

"No. Anyone who dared try to look for trouble with me got a good beating."

Jinghe and Yanbo spent the rest of meal like this, Jinghe digging for more information with an endless barrage of questions, and Yanbo fending them off one by one with short answers. When they finished, Jinghe still didn't let Yanbo go, following her to the temple she'd been staying at. Yanbo seemed rather embarrassed to let Jinghe know that she'd been staying at her temples again, and only reluctantly went there after a circle around town.

Jinghe stuck to Yanbo relentlessly, like sticky honey, and stuck with her when she entered the temple, stuck with her as she went out to draw water from a well, stuck with her as she swept the floors, stuck with her as she got firewood for a fire.

Yanbo looked at Jinghe expectantly when she piled up firewood in a little stove. Jinghe seemed to get it immediately, and with a wave of her hand, a roaring, healthy fire lit up in the stove. Yanbo got to boiling some water for bathing, and Jinghe felt a sense of familiarity with the scene. It reminded her of hundreds of years ago, when she'd also stayed with Yanbo like this, going out to the market and coming back home to seeing Yanbo training or meditating.

Jinghe smiled slightly. Yanbo couldn't help but smile back.

That night, Jinghe arranged for beds for them, two comfortable-looking blankets on two mattresses, placed thoughtfully apart in the center of the temple. Jinghe climbed into one, and Yanbo climbed into the other.

Truthfully, Jinghe had no reason to be staying anymore. The only reason she was thickening up her face and staying was because she felt a little scared, a little scared that if she let go of Yanbo now, she wouldn't be able to see her for another hundred years. Yanbo seemed to be unwilling to bring up the topic, either, and let her stay, decidedly ignoring the awkward topic.

Jinghe pretended to close her eyes and sleep, but in reality, through a thin crack in her eyelids, she was watching Yanbo, watching how she went about dumping the water into a large tub, then boiling more water, filling up the large tub. Yanbo was working on the belt at her waist when she suddenly looked back at Jinghe. Jinghe had the perfect appearance of someone who was asleep, and Yanbo relaxed, taking off her belt completely.

Suddenly, Jinghe realized that Yanbo was taking off her clothes to go bathe, and she shut her eyes hurriedly, turning around noisily to face the wall. Yanbo looked back again, and then her brows furrowed a little. Then, a slight smile quirked up the corner of her lips.

Jinghe, facing the wall, was having a little trouble catching her breath. Her cheeks were tinted slightly red, and she hugged the blankets even closer to her chest. Finally, she actually fell asleep.

As Jinghe slept, she saw over and over again, how Yanbo fell, just out of reach, too far for her to catch up, how she was brutally slaughtered by the members of the League of the Rising Sun, and each time, she was powerless, unable to move, as Yanbo cried and screamed and pleaded for her help.

That morning, Yanbo woke up early, as usual, but before she could stand up, she felt a tight tug on her sleeves, and found that Jinghe's hands closed tightly around the sleeve of her inner robes.

"Don't go." Jinghe murmured, sounding frightened and worried. Her forehead creased, and she jerked a little in her sleep, clearly having a nightmare. Yanbo knelt down, a feeling of soft sympathy spreading through her. She reached out her hand and slowly smoothed out the creases in Jinghe's forehead, and so, Jinghe slowly relaxed.

"Did you know?" Jinghe said next. "I've been looking for you for so long. You've made it so difficult for me to find you."

Yanbo's eyebrows raised slightly and her eyes widened a little, but the rest of her expression was inscrutable. Her heart warmed and she sat next to Jinghe patiently, waiting until Jinghe's nightmare was over and she loosened her hold in Yanbo's sleeve. Yanbo looked at Jinghe, a high and mighty goddess, who looked rather small and... cute in her sleep. Her arms hugged her blankets to her chest, and she was all curled up into a little ball. Her cheek was a little mushed against her pillow, giving her a childish appearance. Yanbo covered her mouth, and surprisingly, let out the tiniest of giggles.

Only when Jinghe loosened Yanbo's sleeve of her own accord did Yanbo rise and prepare for the day. Jinghe woke up soon after, completely unaware of the events that had conspired during the night.

Jinghe became quickly used to living with Yanbo. Yanbo also decided spoke not a word of the fact that Jinghe was a goddess and had her own work to deal with and her own palace to return to, as Jinghe said nothing, either. Like that, they unknowingly formed a routine, with Jinghe going out to the market to buy things and Yanbo staying at home, sometimes cooking, sometimes cleaning. Most of their money came from Jinghe's seemingly endless supply, but Yanbo preserved some face by supplying some money occasionally, making money from random jobs in the nearby town.

It was one day, when Yanbo was out working at her latest job, when she picked up the little child. Yanbo had been on the way home, her pockets heavy with her latest paycheck, when she heard the pitiful cries coming from a little alley. Yanbo diverted off her path home to go investigate, and found a little child leaning against the wall of the alley, seemingly all abandoned. It was a little skinny and was burning a high fever, so Yanbo couldn't help but remember her pitiful look all those years ago when she'd left the Mountain Sect and had also hidden in an alley, burning with a fever. Additionally, the little child clung onto her robes, seemingly mistaking her as her mother, crying quite pitifully, "mom! Mom!"

Yanbo picked up the child, looking around. She asked around the nearby townspeople, asking if they recognized the child and knew whose child it was, but no one recognized the child, so Yanbo decided to carry the child all the way back to her home. As Yanbo was walking, the child fell asleep and didn't cry, but the child was still shaking with fever.

When Yanbo pushed open the doors, Jinghe turned her head towards her, a slight smile arching over her lips, but then she spotted the little child in Yanbo's arms.

"Who's that?" Jinghe asked, standing up and walking over. She felt the child's forehead, then, without another question, began giving spiritual energy to the child. A steady stream of warm spiritual energy seeped into the child's forehead, concentrated in the spot between their brows, and finally, the child seemed to relax, and the fever seemed to break.

Jinghe took the child from Yanbo, her attention diverted from her. "Go get a wet towel, and prepare some nourishing food. Nothing too spicy or heavy, though, something that can be eaten on an empty stomach." Jinghe tucked the child into her makeshift bed and sat down beside the child. She felt their forehead and then compared it with her own. The fever had pretty much gone down.

Yanbo returned after a while with a bowl of warm, thick porridge.

"Thanks." Jinghe said, looking up at Yanbo. Yanbo was watching the child with an almost apprehensive air.

"Do you know how to... care for the child?"

Jinghe looked rather amused. "I do." She reassured Yanbo. "Watch and learn." She said with a wink. Turning back around, Jinghe and Yanbo both felt that that behavior was far too... bold.

The next morning, Yanbo awoke to find Jinghe still sitting beside the little child, her position almost unchanged. Yanbo kept her eyes closed, with only slits open, as she watched Jinghe. Jinghe had a calm and relaxed expression on, the very figure of a high and mighty goddess, with nothing out of her control. She smoothed back the hair on the child's forehead and compared the child's temperature with her own.

"The child's pretty much passed the fever. Yanbo, go and heat up the porridge in case the child wakes up." Jinghe said aloud. Yanbo realized she'd been caught, and she sat up meekly, her blankets sliding off her body, revealing loosely-worn inner robes and slightly messy hair.

"How did you know?"

Jinghe smiled softly. "Is there anything you can hide from me?" She said slowly. Yanbo felt rather embarrassed and brushed off her clothes.

"I was just... tired and didn't want to get up yet."

"Okay, okay." Jinghe said, her tone as if she was humoring a little child or soothing an agitated wife. "Go heat the porridge, alright?"

Yanbo scampered away, her cheeks tinted pink.