Transmigrating into the world of Jade Dynasty, I was targeted by the female lead in a reverse romanc

Su Ru stood under the eaves, holding the unfinished little garment in her hand.

With needle and thread in hand, he didn't move for a long time. Moonlight leaked through the gaps in the eaves, falling on the fabric and illuminating the crooked stitches with exceptional clarity.

She glanced down, lost her focus, and made two mistakes while sewing.

She picked at the thread with the needle tip and started over, her movements slow, as if she had thought long and hard about each stitch.

After she finished picking out the pieces, she didn't continue sewing. Instead, she looked up at the winding mountain road in the distance.

The mountain path was deserted, with only a few withered leaves being pushed by the wind, rustling as they rolled down the stone steps. She watched for a long time, so long that the needle in her hand stopped, so long that the shadow of the orchid in the porch moved from her feet to the threshold, before she spoke softly.

"Senior sister, has Xueqi not emerged from seclusion yet?"

Shuiyue stood beside her, her hands behind her back, also looking in the same direction.

A breeze blew by, and her moon-white Taoist robe fluttered slightly, making her look even more like a sword sheathed in its sheath.

Quiet, aloof, all sharp edges concealed.

She didn't answer immediately, but remained silent for a while before finally saying "Mmm".

"It's been four years," Su Ru said.

Her fingers unconsciously caressed the soft fabric in her hand, her fingertips tracing back and forth across the stitches, as if counting the days.

"This kid is pushing himself too hard."

"She has something on her mind."

Shuiyue's voice was not loud, and her gaze remained fixed on the distance.

The mountain path leads to a bamboo forest, behind which rises misty peaks, layer upon layer, obscuring the view beyond.

The wind rustled through the bamboo grove, creating a soft, whispering sound, as if someone were whispering, or as if nothing was at all.

"I'm holding back my determination," Shuiyue said, her tone calm but her words clear, "I won't give up until I achieve my goal."

Su Ru turned to look at her.

Shuiyue's profile was hardened by the shadows cast by the eaves.

She didn't turn her head or meet Su Ru's gaze; she just kept looking in that empty direction, as if she were looking at something very, very far away.

"Did you try to persuade them?" Su Ru asked.

"advise?"

Shuiyue's lips twitched, the curve extremely faint, as if she wanted to laugh but ultimately didn't, leaving only a bitter trace that vanished in an instant.

She finally withdrew her gaze and turned to look at Su Ru, her calm eyes concealing a weariness that only her fellow disciples could understand.

"You know that child's temperament; trying to persuade him is pointless."

It's not that I didn't try to persuade her, it's that I tried but couldn't persuade her, I talked to her but couldn't win the argument, I watched her drive herself to a dead end and there was nothing I could do.

Shuiyue paused, her gaze falling on the small garment in Su Ru's hand. The stitches were crooked and uneven, as if the seamstress hadn't been paying attention to the needle and thread at all.

She checked the size of the clothes, had a good idea of ​​what it was, and asked, "Has your son contacted you yet?"

Su Ru's eyes dimmed.

She shook her head, and the needle in her hand stopped moving again.

"No, he's been down the mountain for two years, and there's been no news of him at all. Two years ago, someone said they saw him in southern Xinjiang, but they haven't heard from him since."

She lowered her head, looking at the small garment in her hand, her fingers pinching the thin needle, her knuckles turning slightly white.

"It's not easy, but I don't say it out loud. I'm anxious inside, and I can't sleep well at night, tossing and turning."

Shuiyue fell silent.

The two stood there, the corridor was very quiet, and the shouts of disciples practicing swordsmanship could be faintly heard from afar, as if there was something between them, hazy and indistinct.

"That kid," Shuiyue suddenly spoke, her voice flat as if she were saying something completely ordinary, "is tough, he won't die."

Su Ru looked up at her.

Shuiyue said no more.

She turned around and walked into the main room, her steps neither hurried nor slow, her back straight. After taking two steps, she stopped again.

She didn't turn around, leaving only her back view, which looked particularly slender in the moonlight under the corridor.

"Xueqi should have come out of seclusion last month."

Su Ru was taken aback, and her needlework stopped: "Then what...?"

"What have you realized this time?"

Shuiyue's voice was devoid of emotion, neither loud nor soft, neither sad nor happy, as if she were talking about something unrelated to herself. But it was precisely because it was so indifferent that it made people's hearts tighten.

Su Ru's fingers tightened, and the needle pierced her fingertip precisely, drawing a small bead of blood, crimson red, which seeped onto the pale white fabric, staining a small circle. She ignored it, only clutching the small garment in her hand tightly, and asked:

"Is it dangerous?"

"have no idea."

Shuiyue answered decisively, almost cruelly. She turned around to face Su Ru, backlit, so her expression was not clear, only her eyes were bright and somewhat piercing.

"She made her own choice, and was already planning to leave the seclusion, but fate played a cruel trick on her. She had an epiphany at this time, and wanted to force herself to stop, but..."

She paused, as if something was stuck in her throat, and lowered her voice, "There's a force that won't let her stop."

Su Ru's heart tightened suddenly. She didn't speak, but just looked at Shui Yue, waiting for her to finish speaking.

"She fought back fiercely."

Shuiyue's voice suddenly became very soft, so soft that it seemed as if she was talking to herself. She looked at Su Ru with deep eyes, so deep that you could see the worry, heartache, and a kind of unspeakable helplessness that only a master could have.

"I was guarding outside the stone chamber, and I could feel the fluctuations of spiritual energy inside. It was chaotic and rapid; she was struggling. Like a drowning person desperately trying to grab onto something, but there was nothing around her but water."

She paused, her voice even lower, "But human effort can't defy fate, and in the end, it was pushed back down."

The corridor suddenly became very quiet, so quiet that you could hear the sound of bamboo leaves falling to the ground in the distance. The tiny drop of blood had congealed on Su Ru's fingertip, dark red, like a tiny mole.

Shuiyue took two steps forward, walked up to Su Ru, reached out and took the small garment.

She looked down at the crooked stitches; some were too tight, the fabric was all bunched up, and some were too loose, the threads sticking out, as if someone had casually sewed them up. She didn't say anything, just turned the clothes over and over, and then handed them back to Su Ru.

She said she just wanted to go faster, even faster.

Shuiyue's voice suddenly choked, the moment was so brief as to be almost imperceptible, but she turned her face away to look at the bamboo grove outside the corridor, as if she were looking at something else, "I'm afraid that if it gets too late, the person will be kidnapped."

Su Ru's throat suddenly went dry, as if something was blocking it.

She opened her mouth, as if to say something.

I wanted to talk about that girl in southern Xinjiang, about how beautiful her smile was, about how my silly son's eyes shone when he looked at her, about how he wrote her a letter, carefully writing each stroke, saying he wanted to marry her. But she never said any of these things.

She couldn't say it.

She looked at Shuiyue, and Shuiyue looked at her too.

Both of them had the same thing in their eyes: worry, helplessness, and a hint of indescribable, piercing heartache.

They are fellow disciples, classmates, and people who have watched each other grow from little girls into who they are today. Some things don't need to be said; just looking into each other's eyes is enough for them to understand each other.

"That child." Su Ru could only say these three words before she could say nothing more.

She lowered her head and continued sewing the little garment in her hands.

The needle and thread moved faster than before—no, more like more chaotically.

The needle pricked her several times, and the thread got tangled once. She untied it and started over, her fingers trembling slightly.

The wind picked up.

The bamboo leaves rustled softly, wave after wave, like the tide surging down from the mountain, into the corridor, and into the space between the two silent women.

Shuiyue suddenly spoke again.

Her voice was very soft, as if it were carried by a gust of wind, so soft that Su Ru had to look up at her lips to confirm that she had actually spoken.

"You know, that child came to see me before he went into seclusion."

Su Ru paused as she twisted the needle, the needle tip hovering in mid-air, just an inch away from the fabric.

"What did you say?"

Shuiyue looked at the bamboo forest in the distance, her gaze suddenly becoming very distant, as if she had passed through that bamboo forest, through all these years, and seen a very, very distant past.

She stood there, her back still straight, but there was something indescribable in that posture—weariness, a deep, long-buried weariness.

She asked me, "If you like someone, but that person has the world on their mind, heavy responsibilities, and the code of conduct for their sect, and just... can't have room for you, what should you do?"

Su Ru put down the needle and thread in her hand. She opened her mouth, wanting to say, "What did you say?", but suddenly found that she couldn't ask.

Because she could almost guess what kind of answer her senior sister, a woman who was always stiff, cold, and never talked about romance, would give.

Shuiyue remained silent for a long time.

That silence was different from the silence before. The silence before was filled with worry, but this silence now contained something else: memories, old wounds, something that had been rummaging through the dust of time for a long time, finally turning to the page buried deep in one's heart.

She finally spoke.

"I said," she turned to look at Su Ru, a rare tenderness in her eyes, a tenderness that was not affection but compassion, "then you should also become a responsibility that he can't let go of."

Su Ru was stunned.

She looked at Shuiyue, her lips slightly parted, but she couldn't utter a single word for a long time.

She had known this woman for hundreds of years, and she had never seen her with such an expression.

"Senior sister, you..."

Shuiyue looked at her with an expression that seemed to say, "You also think it's wrong, don't you? You also think it's selfish, don't you?"

But what she actually said was something else entirely.

"That's selfish, isn't it?"

She smiled, a very faint smile, fleeting like a flower in bloom, then quickly dispersed by the wind.

"But I can see that the child is driving herself crazy. She needs something to hold onto, even if that idea is wrong or selfish, it's better than nothing."

She looked back at the bamboo forest, her gaze passing over the layers of green and landing on an unknown spot.

The wind ruffled a few strands of gray hair at her temples. She didn't try to gather them up; she just stood there with her hands behind her back, her posture still upright, yet it made one's heart ache.

"Sometimes I think," her voice gradually lowered, as if she were talking to herself, or as if she were speaking to the heavens and earth.

"We cultivate the Tao, seeking transcendence and freedom, but look at us, how many of us have truly transcended? How many of us are truly free?"

She paused, the wind making her Taoist robe flutter.

"It's just that love and affection have been given a different name—responsibility, morality, or the tradition of one's sect—and just by changing the clothes, they're no longer the same?"

Su Ru didn't speak, she just listened quietly.

She looked down at the small garment in her hand, which still bore the dark red mark left from when she pricked her finger.

She looked at it for a long time before saying softly, "But everyone has to have something to care about in their life."

Shuiyue nodded, and this time, she didn't bring it up again.

“Yes,” she said, her voice as soft as a sigh carried on the wind, “so I don’t advise her to give up; I tell her to hold on.”

She turned around and looked at Su Ru, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes reflecting the afterglow of the setting sun, giving her a somewhat gentle appearance.

"You only know whether you should let go, and how you should let go, when you hold on tight and it hurts."

Suddenly the wind picked up again, rustling the bamboo leaves, creating a vast, overwhelming sound, as if an unseen sea was hidden within the bamboo forest.

Su Ru squinted as the wind blew, but then she saw Shui Yue turn around and stand facing the bamboo forest for a very long time.

Then she heard Shuiyue whisper something.

The words were spoken so softly that she almost missed them if the corridor hadn't been so quiet and the wind hadn't stopped for a moment.

"Just like back then, I didn't hold on to that person. Now..."

She paused for a long time, so long that Su Ru thought she wouldn't say anything more.

"There wasn't even a chance to feel the pain."

Su Ru stood up.

She didn't say anything, but simply stepped forward and took Shuiyue's hand.

The hand felt cold to the touch, with prominent knuckles. When Su Ru held it, it felt like she was holding a hard, thin branch that had been blown by the wind for a long time.

She didn't let go.

"Senior sister..."

Shuiyue pulled her hand back.

The movement was very gentle, without any struggle. She slowly withdrew her fingers from Su Ru's palm, one finger at a time. Then she turned around and walked into the main room. After a few steps, she stopped at the threshold without looking back.

"It's late, let's go back."

She stepped over the threshold and into the house. Her slender figure was half-hidden by the shadow of the threshold. Moonlight fell on her shoulders, illuminating the fine patterns on her moon-white Taoist robe.

Su Ru stood under the eaves, watching the figure gradually disappear into the darkness of the house. The thin moonlight spread across the bluestone floor like a layer of frost.

In the distance, the bamboo forest was still rustling, as if someone was crying or laughing.