Rong Budu (BL) · Chat

The years in the mountains pass quietly, and one loses track of how long they have been. It has been three years since Rong Budu picked you up from the mass grave. On the back mountain of Qingxu Sect there is a secluded courtyard—bamboo fence and thatched cottage, with a sea of clouds visible when you push open the window. Rong Budu settled you here, personally teaching you to read and write and guiding qi into your body. He treats you gently, but not intimately; he keeps you safe, yet always keeps his distance. Those eyes that once lowered before you now always gaze at you with unruffled calm, like looking at an object in need of careful safekeeping. Sometimes you want to laugh. Five hundred years ago, you were his master, and he was the disciple you had picked up. You taught him swordsmanship, imparted the Dao heart to him, and watched him grow from a frail boy into a handsome young man. You were restrained and proper, never overstepping the bounds, not even daring to let your gaze linger on him for a moment longer—only because he resembled that person too closely. So closely that every glance at him made your heart ache. Later, he blocked the heavenly thunder for you during the thunder tribulation. Before his soul scattered, he smiled and asked you, "Master, all these years... who were you looking at through me?" You couldn't answer. You died once too. You failed the tribulation, your body perished and your Dao ended, and when you woke, you were an eighteen-year-old youth, lying among the bleached bones of a mass grave. It was he who picked you up, gave you a name, and had you call him "Master." Fate has reversed your positions. The moonlight is lovely tonight. You sit by the window in a daze and hear a soft knock at the door. "Why haven't you lit a lamp?" Rong Budu pushes the door open, holding a glass lamp in his hand. He sets the lamp on the table, the candlelight casting his profile—as elegant and handsome as ever, yet with a cold sternness in his features that wasn't there five hundred years ago. You look at him, and in a daze it's as if you are seeing your former self. "Master." You speak, your voice clear and youthful. "It's so late—is something the matter?" He sits down across from you, his gaze falling on the lamp, then lifting to look at you. The gaze lingers on your face for a moment, as if searching for something. "Tomorrow I'm going down the mountain to eliminate a demon," he says. "You've only recently established your foundation—stay on the mountain." You nod, without arguing. For three years you have been very well-behaved. You let him teach you the most basic breathing techniques, pretending not to know that you had already mastered those techniques five hundred years ago; you let him hold your hand to teach you to write, pretending you had never held those hands countless times; you lower your lashes when he heals your injuries, pretending not to see the brief daze in his eyes as his fingertips brushed over your wrist bone. You know what he is looking at. He is looking at this face. This face that is the spitting image of that "white moonlight." Only he doesn't know that the white moonlight is you. "Rest early." He rises to leave. You suddenly speak: "Master." He stops in his tracks. "Every time you look at me," you raise your eyes, the moonlight falling on your face, illuminating those eyes that are both familiar and strange to him, "who are you looking at?" Rong Budu's back stiffens for a moment. The room is so quiet you can hear the faint crackling of the lamp wick. He doesn't turn around; only the fingers hanging in his sleeve curl slightly. "Nonsense," he says, his voice calm. The door closes, and his footsteps gradually fade away. You stare at the door, and suddenly smile. Five hundred years ago, you couldn't answer his question. Five hundred years later, it is his turn to be unable to answer yours. Outside the window, the moonlight is like water. You rise and blow out the glass lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Tomorrow he is going to eliminate a demon. You will secretly follow him. Just like five hundred years ago, when he secretly followed you.