Noon Dreams of a Thousand Mountains, A Shadowed Arrow Through the Window, Part 3

Yun Yao knew this was big trouble, but she hadn’t expected to face such a colossal mess right upon opening her eyes.

Her newly accepted disciple, just one night into his apprenticeship, was on the verge of “betraying his master and destroying his lineage.” Should she act or not?

No time to decide—the surging killing intent hit, a vicious aura choking her throat. Yun Yao’s figure darted back, reappearing a dozen zhang away. *Naihe* stirred to protect its master but was restrained by her side. She looked, exasperated, at the demon frozen in a neck-strangling pose.
His savage gaze faltered briefly.
The next moment, he appeared before her again.

The blood stench hit like a tidal wave, nearly knocking her over.

“Taiyi Elder used to say we were trouble, but all seven of us combined couldn’t match your knack for tormenting your master,” Yun Yao quipped, dodging while launching a verbal assault on the demon-possessed boy. “First day as my disciple, and you’re already plotting to betray me and seize the sect’s legacy?”

“…”

“Fine, my peers waited a hundred or two hundred years to challenge Taiyi Elder. You dare on day one.”

“…”

“Keep chasing—still chasing? Believe I’ll let *Naihe* teach you a lesson?”

“…”

“Good, good, Master was wrong. I know you’re telling me to leave, but with your grandmaster and uncles watching from the heavens, how could I let my own disciple chase me off? They’d mock me forever.”

“…”

No matter what she said, the demon remained unmoved. On his fifth failed pursuit, he paused, tilting his head slightly, his gaze carrying a trace of unformed innocence.

That look startled her.
The spiritual light of *Naihe*, summoned in her struggle, dimmed again under her reluctant suppression.
This was why she couldn’t strike—beneath the blood, he was still the world’s most pitiable boy. Even in his demon form, she knew he’d unleashed it to save her.

He’d endured endless hell for years without succumbing, yet did so before Two Realms Mountain to save her.
So clever and beautiful, yet acting like a fool.
…Just like *them*.

Yun Yao glanced instinctively at the sky.

When troubled, she used to turn to Taiyi Elder, or her fourth senior brother, then her fifth. Later, she had no one.
She could only look to the heavens.

“I’ve never taken a disciple or managed a sect. You all left, dumping this mess on me. Now I don’t even know how to teach a disciple…”

“Sigh!”

Before she could finish her melancholy, a blood-red figure surged with murderous intent in her peripheral vision.

She dodged, narrowly escaping the fierce gust—

*Swish.*

The demon’s cold, bloodthirsty eyes passed her. Up close, Yun Yao saw clearly: indeed, an innocent cruelty, pure in its brutality.
She hissed, retreating, her neck chilling.

Relieved to have dodged, lest her “dear disciple” tear off a chunk of her flesh—
Then she saw half a broken hair ribbon, adorned with small flowers, tangled with a strand of her hair, drift down between her and the demon turning back.

Her eyelid twitched, fury rising. “Mu Hanyuan!”

She charged, *Naihe* still sheathed, wielding it like a staff to discipline this rebellious disciple.
But as her strike neared his neck, he stood motionless, ignoring the incoming scabbard.

If it landed, a normal person’s head would be gone—yet he didn’t dodge?

“—!”

She halted abruptly, nearly suffering spiritual backlash.
Stepping back, she steadied her breath and warily looked ahead, suspecting he’d seen through her reluctance to kill and stood still deliberately.

But then she noticed his pained, contorted expression, a glimmer of anguished clarity in his eyes.

Surprised, she hesitated, then tested, “Mu Hanyuan?”

“—”

Her words triggered him. He swung his hand, unleashing a fierce gust.

She moved to dodge—then stopped.

With a resounding crack, it wasn’t Yun Yao but the demon boy whose bones snapped.

Blood sprayed as he groaned, collapsing to one knee.

Her eyelid twitched. “You—” Words failed her. She gritted her teeth, stepping forward to crouch and check him. “You’re awake?”

“…Leave.”
His voice rasped, blood still fresh from his bones.
The demon grass of Heaven’s Break Abyss, eerie even when blood-soaked, now withered around him, turning to ash.

“Hiss.”

Her hand, reaching for him, froze awkwardly, recalling past lessons.

“Leave!”
He looked up, his bloodshot eyes filled with searing pain and despair.
His expression dimmed, voice hoarse. “It’s me… I couldn’t hold back… Go, quickly.”

She snapped to attention. “Qianmen’s chosen disciple, human or demon, must follow me to the immortal realm to serve. No way I’m letting you slip away.”

“…”

Despite his agonized grimace, he looked at her, puzzled. “You… want to use me too?”

Yun Yao: “…?”
Yun Yao: “…Huh?”
How did he reach that conclusion?

Before she could respond, the demon form surged back, veins bulging as he collapsed forward. His fingers, like blades, dug into the ground, carving ten blackened holes into the ashen earth.

“Fine… do as you wish.”

She barely caught his broken whisper before his fingers, sharp as blades, gleamed coldly, rising and plunging down—

*Pfft.*

Hot blood splashed Yun Yao, too close to avoid.
She froze.

His right hand pierced his own chest.

Ignoring the gushing blood, he raised his head, pale veins straining in his neck with suffocating sharpness.

His eyes, shifting from savage red to calm black, locked onto her.
Staring, he resolutely crushed his own heart.

“—”

A colossal force seemed to explode in her mind, blanking her consciousness. Without thinking, she caught the collapsing boy in her arms.
He slumped against her shoulder, his scalding blood burning her neck.

“I can’t die… fatal wounds make me faint, heavy blood loss weakens me… Do what you want with me.”

His words fell, and he tilted his head, breathless on her shoulder.

“…”

Her trembling fingers clutched his robe.
She shut her eyes tightly.

After a few breaths, her breath and emotions steadied from the familiar terror. Silently chanting *He’s not like them, he’s alive* several times, she opened her eyes.

The boy in her arms was pale, blood pouring from his chest, draining his life. Still beautiful, he was like fragile glass, ready to shatter.

Thankfully, she sensed his chest wound slowly mending, as if invisible blood-red threads wove his broken body back together—organs, veins, bones…
Slower than lighter wounds, but still with strength.

He truly knew how to hurt himself most thoroughly.

“What was that last line, hm?” Relieved of her final worry, exhausted and slightly annoyed, she pinched his unconscious cheek. “Telling me you’re like them so I can kill you a hundred times a day later?”

“Fine, we’ll settle this when you wake.”

She stood, brow furrowed.
Hesitating, her gaze searched, landing on the cliff of Heaven’s Break Abyss.

—Mu Hanyuan might not wake soon, and as he said, waking might bring the demon form again.

To avoid killing him repeatedly, she had to “resolve” the calamity in his body soon.

“You’re lucky you met the immortal realm’s greatest genius master,” she muttered, hoisting the bloodied boy on her back. “Anyone else, even given three hundred years, might not figure out what’s wrong with you—but me?”

“…”

Evening, Heaven’s Break Abyss, under the April Snow.

“…Found it.”

Seated cross-legged on the stone, Yun Yao traced the blood-red threads in Mu Hanyuan’s body to their source before the moon rose.
Sweat beaded her forehead, but her hands kept forming seals.

Her usually lazy or flippant face was now rare, solemn, almost grave.

In Qianyuan Realm, such a terrifying evil existed—unheard of in two hundred years.

It was like a seed, a flame, or an elusive spiritual force, formless, fleeting, wandering his body, unpredictable.

The blood-red threads seemed born from it, nourished by it, cycling endlessly.

She was certain: if Mu Hanyuan merged with it, within a century, no one in Qianyuan Realm could escape him. But whether he’d remain this pure-hearted boy was uncertain.
By then, all life could perish at his whim.

Her senior brother’s final, life-bought prophecy wasn’t false.

“…Good thing I found it early.”
Her seals quickened, golden runes with scattered light falling into Mu Hanyuan’s body.

Half an hour later, the elusive blood flame was sealed by countless peak Qianyuan curse seals and forced out.

Yun Yao’s face was pale, her clothes sweat-soaked.

Releasing her seals, she opened her eyes.

Scanning him with divine sense, she sensed countless blood threads lingering in his veins, inexhaustible.
She’d exhausted her spiritual energy to seal the evil; she had no strength left.

Without the evil as a seed, these threads shouldn’t corrupt his mind, perhaps even aiding his cultivation uniquely.

For now, the priority was…

“Time to seal you.”

She looked up coldly.

The erratic blood flame hovered before her.
Even outside Mu Hanyuan, it was sinister, twisting space-time itself—without her Taiyi-inherited ancient seals, it could escape, possessing another being, beyond saving.
Even sealed, it morphed in midair, trying to cloud her clarity.

“Don’t try, it’s useless. I can’t destroy you now, but I’ll find a way.”
Exhaling, she flicked her finger.

The sealed flame, unable to resist, sank into her brow.

A burning sensation seared her forehead.

Sensing the evil, she swiped her brow, masking its aura.

…

Clear clouds and a bright moon spilled silvery light through the April Snow’s branches, scattering petals like snow.
The boy stirred from his coma.

Opening his eyes, Mu Hanyuan seemed disbelieving. “I’m… still conscious?”

“What, expecting that master-betraying demon to wake instead?” Yun Yao sighed, leaning wearily against the tree, drawling lazily. “Forget it, I want to live a few more years. I never want to see your demon form again.”

The evil voice gone, he felt it.
Startled, brushing off the April Snow petals from his sleeves, he checked his meridians, then looked at her, voice hoarse. “You… removed it?”

“You? No respect,” she pinched his cheek, tugging. “Call me Master.”

He paused, then said, “Master.”
Hesitating, he looked up. “Master wasn’t hurt? The demon form is ferocious, always hidden. Where I… stayed before, no one ever detected it.”

More than ferocious.

She scoffed inwardly but smiled lazily. “They couldn’t, but I can. Who else is your master, the world’s greatest?”

“…”

After a pause, he lowered his gaze, faintly smiling. “Yes, Master is the world’s greatest.”

“Good, teachable.”
She nodded, satisfied. “I’ll rest a bit. Before word reaches the Demon Realm’s main cities, we leave for the immortal realm tonight.”

“As Master commands.”

Seeing him about to kneel, she instinctively reached to stop him. “I’m not used to this, no kneeling—”

Her hand froze on his arm.
Both paused, staring at each other.

Hesitantly, he said, “Master, just now, the spiritual threads in my body seemed to sense…”

An attraction?

His gaze fell to her hand on his wrist.

“—”

If not for the moon veiled by mist and the April Snow’s shadows hiding her face, her fleeting panic might’ve shown.

—The sudden pull came from the sealed evil in her brow, clearer to her than to him.

It was as if the blood threads in him called to the flame in her, urging unity, tempting her toward the boy.

…Even sealed, it caused such chaos—a truly unprecedented evil in Qianyuan Realm.

Her expression unchanged, she restrained herself, releasing his wrist with a casual smile. “Nothing, just… a bond I placed on you. A contract, that’s all.”

“A bond?”

“Yes,” under the April Snow, she touched her brow guiltily. “It’s called… uh, yes!”

“It’s the master-disciple bond!”