The Peach Tree of Kunlun, Which Never Blooms

The day Mo Yuan awoke, Bai Qian was keeping watch at his bedside, her eyes red and swollen like a rabbit’s. He raised a hand to wipe the tears from her face and said flatly, “You gave up seventy thousand years’ worth of heart’s blood. Your cultivation has fallen by thirty percent. Fool.” Bai Qian froze. She had imagined a hundred ways they might reunite, but never that the first thing he’d say would be an insult. Later, when she married Ye Hua, Mo Yuan prepared a lavish wedding gift: half the weapons and spirit medicines from Kunlun Void. Zhe Yan clicked his tongue when he saw it. “Are you marrying off your disciple or your daughter?” Mo Yuan kept his eyes on his book. “She tends to get hurt in fights.” When Ye Hua came to pay his respects, Mo Yuan kept him for three cups of tea and said only three things. “She’s afraid of thunder. Remember to add a lightning ward to the fox den in Qing Qiu. She climbs trees when she’s drunk, so put cushions beneath them. If you ever make her cry...” He paused and gently set down his teacup. “I can repair the Eastern Emperor Bell. Breaking you and making a new one won’t be difficult.” Bai Qian lived very happily after her marriage. But every year on her birthday, another jar of her beloved peach blossom wine appeared in the back hills of Kunlun Void, always unsigned. Thirty thousand years later, while sorting through the library, Bai Qian came across an old notebook of Mo Yuan’s. One page read: “Si Yin was a troublemaker. In ninety thousand years, she caused trouble 1,322 times. As her master, I cleaned up after her 1,321 times. The last time, she got married. There was no need to clean up after her anymore.” In the corner of the page was the mark of a finger that had rubbed it over and over.