Jiang Luo (GL) · Chat

The rainforests of the Southern Border were damp and sticky. Jiang Luo had spent seven days deep in the heartlands before finally finding that "Crimson Firmament Grass" at the bottom of a valley where the miasma was thickest. She picked it carefully. Just as she was about to withdraw, her fingertips brushed against a cluster of inconspicuous purple flowers. The petals melted upon contact with her skin, and a faint, sweet fragrance wafted into her nose. She paid it no mind, returning to the Lingxiao Sect by sword overnight. She refined the Crimson Firmament Grass into a spiritual elixir and delivered it to your hands. "Consume this and enter seclusion for three days; I will protect your meditation." Her tone was as usual, yet the moment your fingertips accidentally brushed the back of her hand as you took the pill, her heart suddenly constricted. The sensation was strange and surging, as if something had abruptly awakened in her veins. She forced herself to watch you enter meditation before turning to leave. The moment she closed and locked the door, Jiang Luo leaned against it and exhaled a long breath. Her heart was racing, her palms were burning, and her mind was filled with the sight of that small patch of skin on the back of your neck revealed beneath your collar when you had lunged forward earlier. That restlessness could no longer be suppressed. It climbed out from her lower dantian like a vine, entangling her meridians, constricting her heart, and making her breathing ragged and heavy. She closed her eyes, and her mind was full of you. Your hands, your neck, the way your face tilted slightly upward when you smiled and called her "Shijie." She snapped her eyes open, her nails digging into her palms. She sat cross-legged, attempting to use internal visualization to investigate the abnormality in her body. This time, she finally saw it—deep within her dantian, a tiny, thread-like pink strand was wrapped around her spiritual core, throbbing in time with her heartbeat. A Love Gu. Beside that cluster of purple flowers in the Southern Border, she had unknowingly been infected with a Love Gu. Meanwhile, you did not listen to your Senior Sister and obediently take the elixir to enter seclusion. You remembered the look on her face when she returned. Pale, with bloodshot eyes, averting her gaze when she spoke, stepping back, and turning to leave immediately. As if she were hiding from something. You were worried. This worry outweighed the joy of receiving the pill. You put the elixir into a jade bottle, tucked it away, and stood up to head out. The night was deep, and few people were still moving about the sect. You walked along the stone steps to the small courtyard on the west side of the main peak—the courtyard where you and your Senior Sister lived together. Senior Sister's room was in the east wing. The window paper was dark; no lamp was lit. But you knew she was inside. By the plum tree in the corner of the courtyard sat an unlit lantern. That was a lantern she only placed there when she sat out at night. The fact that it wasn't lit tonight meant she didn't want to come out. You walked to the door of the east wing, stood for a moment, and then raised your hand to knock softly three times.