Chapter 14: The Mysterious Daughter and a Mother’s Bewilderment

Yun Xueshang paused, her gaze resting on the pink-haired girl beside her who, with surprising familiarity, had called her “Mother.”

‘Whose child is this?’ she wondered. ‘Did she mistake me for someone else?’

She lowered her eyes, studying the child more closely. The girl, a Qi Condensation cultivator, had vibrant pink hair that split into two strands, framing her plump, rosy cheeks.

Her bright, watery pink almond eyes sparkled like stars.

‘So adorable…’

Though certain she had never met this girl before, Yun Xueshang couldn’t shake a strange sense of familiarity that emanated from the child’s innocent face.

‘It’s as if… I’ve seen her somewhere before.’

Before Yun Xueshang could fully grasp this perplexing sensation, the nearby street vendor, having grown impatient, finally spoke up.

“Hey! Where did you come from, you little brat! Get lost, don’t interfere with my business!”

“Hmph! You’re clearly trying to trick my Mother! We wouldn’t buy your trashy wares!”

Hua Xiangrong, still clutching Yun Xueshang’s hand tightly, stuck out her tongue and pulled down her eyelid, making a comical face at the vendor.

“Mother, let’s go! We don’t want anything from him!”

“…Huh?”

Yun Xueshang was somewhat bewildered, yet she decided to follow this girl who was both a stranger and strangely familiar. Perhaps by doing so, she could discern the origin of this peculiar sense of recognition.

“My apologies, fellow cultivator.” She turned back, giving a slight nod. “I must take my leave.”

“Hey! Wait! If not, three hundred… no, even one hundred spirit stones will do!”

***

As they walked, Hua Xiangrong’s chatter was incessant.

“Mother, I’ve told you so many times, all those ‘ancestral secret manuals’ at the stalls are just tricks, meant to fool honest people like you…”

“Hold on.” Yun Xueshang stopped, looking down at the girl. Her cool eyes held a genuine bewilderment. “Little girl, you might have mistaken me for someone else. I am not your Mother.”

She knelt, meeting the girl’s gaze, her voice softening slightly.

“What is your name? Have you been separated from your family? Do you need me to take you home?”

Hua Xiangrong pursed her lips, remaining silent. Her small face first showed surprise, then astonishment, followed swiftly by—

“Wuwuwuwuwuwuwa—!!!”

She suddenly flung herself into Yun Xueshang’s embrace, bursting into loud sobs.

“Why doesn’t Mother want Rongrong anymore! We haven’t seen each other for so, so long, don’t you miss me at all! Wuwuwu ahhh—!”

Yun Xueshang swayed slightly from the sudden “attack.” For the first time, her perpetually serene, almost icy face displayed an expression bordering on bewildered helplessness.

Yet, the weeping in her arms only intensified.

“Wuwuwu… Rongrong knows she was wrong! I’ll be good and wait for Mother to come back! Mother can’t abandon Rongrong! Waaah—!”

Pedestrians on the street stopped, gathering around. Whispers and pointing began to rise.

“Look, look! Listening to the child, the mother actually left her daughter behind while shopping. How heartless!”

“Exactly! The little girl is crying so pitifully, yet she just stands there, not even trying to comfort her. What kind of mother is that?”

“Sigh, if you ask me, parents should really register at the yamen. Otherwise, where do all these irresponsible mothers and fathers come from?”

“…”

“I… I am not…”

Yun Xueshang opened her mouth, intending to explain, but the words caught in her throat. She looked around helplessly for a moment.

Then, after much hesitation, she finally extended a hand. It settled with extreme lightness and slowness on the trembling back of the mysterious girl, who called herself “Rongrong,” patting her awkwardly, once, then again.

“…Rongrong,” she said, trying to make her usually cool voice sound softer, “It’s my fault. I’m not abandoning you.”

But the sobbing in her arms did not cease.

Yun Xueshang furrowed her delicate brows, racking her memory for distant recollections. ‘How did my Master comfort me when I was a child?’

Ah, yes.

“Rongrong, won’t you stop crying now?” she asked tentatively, her tone betraying a cautiousness she herself didn’t notice. “I… I’ll take you to eat something delicious?”

“Wuwu… hic.” A choked sob came from her shoulder. “Then… then candied hawthorn, would that be okay?”

Candied hawthorn?

The unexpected choice made Yun Xueshang pause for a moment before she readily agreed.

“Very well, candied hawthorn it is.”

Fearing the girl might start crying again, she quickly added.

“I… Mother, Mother will take Rongrong to buy candied hawthorn together.”

***

“Senior Sister, we finally found you!”

Lin Qianqian and Qu Linglong jogged into the teahouse together.

“Where is that lost child you mentioned in your sound transmission jade slip? Is she now…”

Lin Qianqian’s words trailed off, halted by surprise.

Before them, Yun Xueshang, who had been facing away, slowly turned around. In her arms was a lively and adorable pink-haired girl, clutching a half-eaten string of candied hawthorn.

“Wait, Fellow Cultivator Yun.”

Qu Linglong, carrying a large box beside her, instantly widened her eyes, her face a mask of disbelief.

“Is this… the strange child you just mentioned, the one who suddenly appeared on the road and called you Mother?”

“Yes, she is—”

“I’m not a strange child at all!”

Before Yun Xueshang could finish, the pink-haired girl in her arms glared indignantly at Qu Linglong.

“Rongrong is Mother’s daughter! Mother is Rongrong’s Mother!”

As she spoke, tears welled up in her beautiful pink eyes.

“Or… is Mother thinking of abandoning Rongrong again?”

“I… I have not.”

For some reason, gazing into those shimmering, tear-filled eyes, Yun Xueshang found herself unable to utter a single word of refusal.

‘Something’s wrong! This is very wrong!’

Qu Linglong watched the usually ethereal and aloof white-haired maiden before her, now flustered and clumsily trying to soothe a child.

She quickly turned her head, exchanging a swift glance with Lin Qianqian beside her, and sent a discreet sound transmission.

[Fellow Cultivator Lin, this girl’s origins are definitely suspicious!]

[S-So Fellow Cultivator Qu feels the same way! I thought I was overthinking it…]

Lin Qianqian let out a breath of relief, eagerly responding.

Their gazes met, and a thunderclap of realization simultaneously struck their minds.

[This child—]

[—looks far too much like Fellow Cultivator Yun (Senior Sister)!]

Just look at that nose bridge, those lips! The lower half of this child’s face was practically molded from Yun Xueshang’s own!

The more Qu Linglong observed Hua Xiangrong in Yun Xueshang’s arms, the more certain she became of her suspicion, continuing her sound transmission.

[Fellow Cultivator Lin, if I may be so bold as to ask,] her tone heavy with gravity, [Fellow Cultivator Yun… she shouldn’t have given birth before, right?]

[Of-Of course not!] Lin Qianqian replied quickly and urgently. [Senior Sister spends her days cultivating and practicing swordplay; how could she have secretly given birth to a child!]

[Then,] Qu Linglong narrowed her eyes, as if unraveling an astonishing secret, [only one possibility remains—]

[—this girl must be a love-child from a romantic entanglement Fellow Cultivator Yun had outside!]

[That’s impossible!]

Lin Qianqian nearly gasped aloud.

[Senior Sister has never formed a cultivation partnership, and she has mostly been in secluded cultivation within the sect these past years. Where would a romantic entanglement come from?]

[Anything is possible!]

Qu Linglong’s tone was utterly heartbroken and indignant.

[Fellow Cultivator Lin, I know it’s hard for you to imagine someone as noble and pure as Fellow Cultivator Yun getting entangled in such a scandalous affair and even having a child. But the evidence is right before our eyes!]

[Look closely at that child’s face again!]

Lin Qianqian looked, only to see that Yun Xueshang had already soothed the girl in her arms. Two exquisite and strikingly similar faces, one large and one small, were nestled together, causing Lin Qianqian to fall into a daze.

[Isn’t that irrefutable proof?!]

[But, but when did Senior Sister…]

Lin Qianqian’s sentence abruptly halted halfway as she suddenly remembered something.

[It seems you’ve remembered as well.]

Qu Linglong’s voice echoed faintly in her mind, carrying a hint of resentment for an unmentionable past.

[Ten years ago, Fellow Cultivator Yun from your esteemed sect descended the mountain for a long period of travel. She even ‘consulted’ with each of us disciples from the righteous and neutral sects of our generation, one by one.]

[And look at this child, how old is she?]

Lin Qianqian gazed at the plump, rosy face, mentally calculated, and her pupils abruptly contracted.

[—It all matches up, the timing, everything.]

Qu Linglong spoke slowly and deliberately, sealing her judgment.

[This is definitely the bloodline left behind by Fellow Cultivator Yun during her travels ten years ago! There’s no mistaking it!]