Hours before reaching Xuancang Mountains
While her companions and Dongyue were asleep, Xiyu thought of her mother, Lady Peony’s words at the creek on the island. She was a little girl of no more than eight, then.
"Xiaoxi, you are the last of the Muxue clan. Do us proud."
Proud? What did her mother mean? She did not understand what ‘proud’ meant in the eyes of her mother.
Her father had always been distant to her, which she assumed was due to her witchcraft. In the Muxue clan, women had always been favoured over men due to their ability to cast spells. The magic had chosen her. When she was twelve, the magic had ‘called’ to her in a dream. She saw herself walking in a pavilion made of clouds in the sky, where she chose her first spellbook.
Enchantment. In her mind, the southern goddess of sensuality, the dark moon deity Minami, smiled upon her. Then came her secondary spell choices. She wanted to be powerful, like no other. And so, she chose the power of offence. Xiyu prayed to Minami to bless her at times when she felt she was at her weakest.
Together, the combination would have been extremely lethal. Had Xiyu not been kind and charitable at heart, she would be like those legendary witches who would often steal life-power from innocent commoners to enhance their own vitality. She had taken a stand even her father did not: to protect the residents of the island.
Lady Peony spoke of a strange man who was unable to leave the mountains of Xuancang. Though none of them knew of the identity of the man who was imprisoned within, she had even seen him in her dreams. However, every dream she had of the mountains was seen with such fuzziness that she could not make out his looks. Even it wasn’t clear of which part of the mountain he was jailed on. The tricky part about the area was that the boat Xiyu inherited after her granduncle’s disappearance was forged out of the Muxue ancestor’s prized sword, The Vanquisher.
Through her granduncle’s diary, the child Xiyu discovered even more secrets about the mountains and the chest buried upon it, which she believed was her birthright since she was technically the last of the Muxues. It turned out that Muxue Fangyi had wanted to open the chest himself, but he had given away too many secrets to her when she was little.
Her mother was against the idea of her travelling to the mountains, so she was patient and did not bring up the idea again. Luck turned out to be in her favour when she stumbled across the secret trapdoor where he had stowed away his hidden stash of wines in an underground chamber, which was the same trapdoor she had taken her companions the day before the journey. This was the very place he had kept his diary, and she believed that since she was a Muxue, she would similar to him, be able to open the secret door.
To entice the dreamy and foolish traveller to assist her, she hatched up a plan. Of course, she had to make it seem as challenging and risky as possible. Manipulating him was a little mean, but she thought of the possibilities of lost magic contained in the chest. If she were to enhance her existing powers, it might even assist her in protecting the people. Perhaps it was just a small price to pay, in this case, a bit of deceit involved, for a more significant return. The Chinese saying would go, 'Better to save one life than build a seven-storied pagoda'. This also applied to her situation.
She had even behaved seriously and made the men endeavour to prepare for the journey; when in fact she knew it was a mere matter of timing. The boat was highly magical and would just need to wait for a certain time for it to enter a time-controlled portal. This was not the first attempt she had made to enter the portal. She had tried over a span of six years but to no avail. Her first attempt was at twelve where she had convinced Hanshan to go sailing with her without telling him the purpose of the trip. The boat sailed calmly for one whole day without anything happening. Every attempt she had made until the age of seventeen, had ended with the same result; that she had almost wanted to hack the boat to pieces.
Her last attempt was when she was months close to reaching eighteen, and she was alone. She wept and even called her late mother’s and the goddess Minami’s name, but nothing happened. She had attempted on so many different occasions and times of the day over the six years.
Realising it was ten years after her uncle’s disappearance and wondering if it had to be a time when the gates of Muxue was open, she decided to give it one last try. Since Zhan Dongyue was so desperate to win her over to the point of healing Xu Hanshan’s wife just to get him from her, she decided to manipulate him in this part and be the bad person.
One day, Zhan Dongyue would get over it. He would probably move on from her, like Hanshan. The secrets of a witch were just too complicated for him to ever understand. There was no future between two people from different worlds.
“Miss Muxue. Please accept me. Miss Muxue, I like you.” His words overcome her, and her heart softened. Nobody had ever spawned the effect of touching her icy-cold heart like this peculiar traveller, but would he stay, or leave like Xu Hanshan?
She often missed the feeling of his lips on hers, and she admitted it was a reason for her to keep him alive. In Muxue, contrary to what she had read and heard of the outside world, was different. She had no obligation to become his wife even if they had intimate contact, and she clearly was aware of what happened between couples behind closed doors. Only that it was not the same for a witch. Her powers granted her a deeper sensuality than other women of Muxue during a full moon, only decreasing slightly days after a full moon. She was assured this young master Zhan would be sent running ten thousand ‘li’ away from her if she ever knew.
She sighed and tried to anticipate what would be next for them after seeing the man. A lot of questions resided in her mind, but what did she want?
Did she want to be rid of the curse that deprived her of the chance to be with anyone in her life, or did she want to become more powerful to aid her people? Though she genuinely wanted to do the latter, a part of her envied the normal Muxue women and how they could find love with no hindrances.
Then, there was the question of the dark bonding-ritual. That was not something she was comfortable with, to spend time with a person in an attempt to create a connection between them and perform the rites with him. Many secrets had to be inside the chest, she thought. Perhaps if she acquired the chest, she would have her answers.
She might not even need to initiate the ritual at all, she hoped.