[Age 55. After reforging Wuye and returning to Yuque, your sword spirit gradually regained perfection. With hair tied back and Nightless at your hip, you practiced daily beneath peach blossoms.]
[Fu Xuan often watched from stone benches, bringing tea during breaks. She shared Luofu gossip—how Qingque nearly got conscripted into Cloud Knights by her mother ("Our girl's born with sword bones! Future General Qing!"), until Fu Xuan redirected her to the Divination Commission. Qingque tearfully vowed loyalty by writing 800-word leave petitions ever since.]
[Jing Yuan initially found these entertaining, later dismissing them with "Too long—didn't read."]
"You've truly cultivated an immortal aura, Sword Sovereign."
"Xu'er, must you tease?"
Anming sheathed his blade fluidly, white robes blending with falling petals. Inspired by Hua's teachings, he now channeled Yuque's ley lines—the heavens themselves his whetstone.
Time flowed around Fu Xuan like diverted streams, leaving her eternally youthful. Silver streaks graced Anming's temples, granting him sage-like dignity. Critics who'd dismissed a "short-life species swordmaster" grew silent—after all, what threat could a mortal century pose to ageless immortals?
Marshal Hua quietly lifted his remaining restrictions. Yaoguang delivered her wordless message—a brushstroke of sword intent only he could decipher. Let the complacent think Wuye rusted. The sheathed blade awaited its hour.
"Does it frighten you?" Fu Xuan leaned against him, watching peach petals spiral.
"Not with you here."
Her cold hand warmed in his grasp. These nights, nightmares haunted her—laughter echoing from destiny's abyss. She'd contemplated forbidden arts, yet recoiled. Anming must depart human, not as some abomination.
"Fifty years... barely an eye-blink for Xianzhou." Her voice cracked. "Yet half your lifetime."
Anming kissed her jade-like fingers. "Meeting you made any lifespan meaningful."
...
[Age 71. Swordmasters glimpse fate's edges. Since Wuye's rebirth, omens crystallized—you finally understood Jingtian's serenity before his end.]
[Both walked the Illuminated Path.]
Arcane sigils ignited across the Qiongguan Matrix. Fu Xuan hovered mid-air, third eye blazing like a comet. Premonitions clawed at her—a disaster hurtling toward its ordained moment.
"Qingque!"
The drowsy clerk jerked awake at the matrix's edge, having been snatched from mahjong dreams. "Fetch all Yuque transmissions from the past day-cycle!"
"Must be about Master Anming..." Qingque muttered, leaping onto rooftops with practiced ease. Four decades of dual training—swordplay under Anming, divination under Fu Xuan—had forged Luofu's unlikeliest polymath. Citizens even jokingly called her "General Qing" after she'd outdueled prodigy Yanqing.
She sometimes wondered aloud: "Mom, any chance I'm actually their secret lovechild?"
Her mother's reply: "???"