The Venerable Master Can't See

Content warnings: Not a female-lead story, coercive pursuit, the male lead seems pure and noble on the surface but has been crawling through the shadows all along, melodramatic angst, an old-fashioned plot, love tangled in hatred, flaws in both the main and supporting characters, and an older man raising a younger partner. Please heed these warnings. If you can't handle them, don't read this.

Blurb: Huashuang's family worships a deity. She grew up hearing stories about him and holds him dear in her heart.

The deity is beautiful, and Huashuang especially loves his eyes, like dark green jade.

At sixteen, she climbs the mountain to seek a master and cultivate immortality, and is taken in by Chu Jianxiao, who has been in seclusion for a century and is blind and ill.

Chu Jianxiao is tall and handsome, utterly untainted by worldly dust. A strip of white silk covers his eyes, but cannot hide his graceful charm.

Huashuang likes her master very much. Though they have only just met, she always feels there is something familiar about him.

Yet because she cannot see her master's eyes, it's as if she can't quite see what he is really like.

She has plenty to worry about: whether her master will dislike her, whether his lessons will be difficult, how much she will learn...

But on the day she becomes his disciple, Chu Jianxiao has only one thought: I've caught the little rascal.

Huashuang innocently barged into his sea of consciousness and provoked the lock that restrained his desire, without having the slightest idea what she was doing. Chu Jianxiao can barely bear it, and thinks she really is a reckless troublemaker! He must teach her properly and set her on the right path!

*

After teaching Huashuang for three years, Chu Jianxiao hears that his little disciple has grown close to the Lord of the Netherworld. That man wears black, is young and handsome, and has a pair of perfectly good... eyes.

Later, Chu Jianxiao waits all night before his little disciple finally returns, looking bashful. He lets out a cold laugh, and at last can no longer suppress the shameful feelings in his heart. He completely loses control.

“So what if I'm your master?”

“You and I were born to be this way.”

Huashuang shouts that she hates him and fears him, then risks everything to run away again and again.

Once, Chu Jianxiao finds Huashuang at the shrine.

Huashuang is beside the deity's statue, begging the deity to tell her what to do.

As Chu Jianxiao listens, he can tell just how much she loves the statue, how completely she trusts it.

So unlike the loathing she feels for him.

It makes Chu Jianxiao want to split that damned statue with his sword. But when he senses the statue with his spiritual power, he suddenly freezes.

Its jade-green eyes are intact, and its frozen figure... is exactly like he was a hundred years ago.

Huashuang thinks Chu Jianxiao must be insane to pin her down in front of the statue and do something like this.

She slaps Chu Jianxiao across the left cheek. The silk covering his eyes slips loose. Chu Jianxiao picks it up and covers Huashuang's eyes, then gently takes the cloth between his lips. A cold smile flickers across his face:

“My good disciple, the one you've always prayed to, cherished, and admired... isn't that all me? Isn't that your master?”

I Will Make Your Wish Come True

Theme: Freedom and courage