It was hard to imagine that Xun'er, with her serene and composed temperament, could possess such an alluringly bashful charm as she began to speak so softly, half in shame. The pure, tantalizing shapeliness of her rendered a very real and peculiar allure to Xiao Yan's heart.
Having counselled himself within, calling her a little vixen, Xiao Yan garbled some kind of answer in reply, and then, under Xun'er's amused gaze, chose most unheroically to flee at the top of his speed.
Watching the boy retreat in such disarray, Xun'er covered her mouth with her hand and giggled softly. She looked herself over from head to foot, then turned her gaze toward the small pool of water beside the path.
Within its surface, the young maiden stood graceful and lithe, with bright eyes and pearly teeth. As her gaze rippled and flowed, it carried a hidden seductiveness and a faint, elusive charm that was hard to perceive.
"I truly do look rather pretty..." Giving a light, graceful twirl, Xun'er's rosy little lips curved upward into a small, complacent smile.
Not too far away, several of the clan's youths who had just come walking over suddenly felt their steps freeze solid. Their mouths slowly fell open, their eyes filled with stunning admiration, as they stood dazed, gazing at the beautiful maiden who was so caught up in admiring her own reflection beneath the willow tree.
...
Having fled all the way back to his room in disarray, Xiao Yan finally caught his breath and let out a sigh of relief. Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he smiled bitterly and muttered: "This little lass — once she grows up, she'll surely be an even greater vixen than Ya Fei of the auction house..."
Settling down at the table, Xiao Yan took a mouthful of tea. Throughout his mind floated that alluring, dainty image of Xun'er from earlier, and with the gentle blinking of those limpid autumn-water eyes, Xiao Yan could feel his very heart beginning to grow hot.
Shaking his head with vigorous force, he once more cursed himself a beast within, and only gradually did those wanderings of mind that so stirred his thoughts begin to settle down.
Shaking out his somewhat sore and numb arm, Xiao Yan walked over to the corner of the room, hauled out the great wooden basin filled with Foundation Liquid, swiftly cast off his clothes, and rolled over the rim and into it.
The cool liquid bathed his skin, and a wave of warm-then-cool sensation washed away the fatigue that nagged at the very marrow of his bones.
His palm idly sliced through the water in the basin, and Xiao Yan leaned back languidly against the rim, his somewhat hurried breathing slowly easing to an even, calm rhythm.
Recalling the stir he had caused in the training grounds that day, Xiao Yan smiled faintly. Strength, after all — that was what mattered most in this world.
His fingers pressed against his brow, and yet a cold, proud, beautiful face suddenly flashed unbidden into his mind. It was... Nalan Yanran.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and Xiao Yan murmured softly to himself: "Two years, isn't it? You had best be certain to wait for me — I will come and find you..."
A tender whisper it was; had the coldness in his tone not betrayed him, any other would have taken it for the sweet murmurings of a pair of young lovers.
At the memory of Nalan Yanran's condescending words and overbearing demeanor in the great hall that day, Xiao Yan's fists slowly clenched. A humiliation such as that could hardly be erased...
"Heh — cultivation cannot be allowed to stagnate. That woman... though she is haughty, for her to have been accepted as a disciple by the Sect Master of the Yun Lan Sect, her talent for cultivation can hardly be ordinary." With a light laugh, a cold smile curled at the corner of Xiao Yan's lips.
He let out a long deep breath. Whenever he thought of that woman, a peculiar diligence filled Xiao Yan's heart. Gathering his spirits, he set aside his languid posture, adopted a cultivation stance within the wooden basin, joined the ten fingers in a hand-seal, calmed his disordered mind, and slowly closed his eyes to cultivate.
...
Ever since the test that day, Xiao Yan could clearly feel that the gazes of his fellow clansmen upon him had automatically shed their former contempt and mockery, replaced instead by a kind of awe.
Yet toward such awe — a regard he had only been worth, in days gone by, three years ago — Xiao Yan reacted with nothing more than a calm indifference. He showed not the slightest trace of arrogance at a sudden rise to fortune.
On the day following the test, Xiao Yan, of course, kept his promise and spent a carefree day in Xun'er's company. To this, the person dearest to him in the clan after his own father, Xiao Yan found it hard to refuse and quite unwilling to refuse any request she might make.
After that easy day, Xiao Yan's life once more returned to its old, orderly calm.
In the early morning he would train his Dou Techniques hard on the back mountain; returning home, he would cultivate his Dou Qi; and from time to time he would accompany Xun'er and talk with his father. These intervals of time Xiao Yan had arranged in flawless order.
During this period he happened upon Xiao Mei in the clan from time to time, and at the sound of her sweet, cloying address of "Xiao-gege", Xiao Yan would smile faintly and make do with a perfunctory reply. Toward a woman so thoroughly worldly, he had ever maintained an attitude of polite avoidance.
Because she could revere him today for the return of his talent, so too could she grow as cold to him as a stranger tomorrow, once that talent had gone again. Such a veiled betrayal as this — once tasted, was enough.
...
A month passed at a gentle, easy pace amid such peaceful, relaxed days, and in seven days' time would come the great day of the Xiao Clan's coming-of-age ceremony...
Seven days remained before the ceremony, yet Xiao Yan's hope of breaking through to the eighth rank showed not the slightest sign of stirring, which rather disappointed him.
He strove for two more days and still reaped nothing. In his regret, Xiao Yan slackened the tightly drawn time of his cultivation. Yet little did he imagine, just as he had come to believe a breakthrough was beyond hope, that a surprise beyond all expectation would come bubbling up out of nowhere.
On the night two days before the coming-of-age ceremony, in the depths of his slumber, Xiao Yan suddenly sprang up as though walking in his sleep. Without even removing his clothes, he jumped bolt upright into the wooden basin whose medicinal power was nearly spent.
After half a night of fumbling, Xiao Yan finally opened his bleary eyes. And then... he discovered, utterly dumbstruck, that the barrier of breakthrough which had plagued him for two or three months had, unbeknownst to him, while he was lost in that haze, been broken through.
For a breakthrough that had come so inexplicably, and with such a comical air, Xiao Yan, in the aftermath — amid all his joy — could only curse between laughter and tears: "Got to be kidding me!"