[My Master, the Ghost]
I had a master. After I was brought from the mortal realm to Wutong Mountain, he became the closest person to me in the world.
My master, Immortal Wuzhen, slayed evil gods and quelled demonic upheavals. He cared for all living beings and was revered by everyone. Like everyone else, I respected him and longed to become someone who could protect the people as he did.
Perhaps I had some talent. At my first Immortal Sect tournament, I took first place. My senior brothers and sisters said I had done well. As I searched the crowd for my master's approving gaze, I saw nothing but resentment in those familiar eyes.
My master, white as snow atop a high mountain, sometimes... did not seem like a master at all.
When I accidentally cut my finger on a sword's aura, my master stared at the wound without a word and licked the blood from my fingertip.
When I woke in the night, startled by thunder, I opened my eyes to find my master lying beside my pillow, wrapped around me like a vine, whispering, "Don't be afraid."
So tight. I couldn't break free.
A newly arrived junior brother invited me to go down the mountain and train with him. As his senior sister, I was supposed to look after him, so I agreed without hesitation. But the next moment, someone stepped out of the shadows behind the door. Master...
I had never seen my master's expression look so terrifying.
My junior brother went down the mountain alone. The next time I heard news of him, he had been killed by demons, his handsome young face devoured entirely.
I thought that no matter what, I should go down the mountain and gather my junior brother's remains.
My master blocked my way.
"Have you forgotten what I taught you?"
I did not know which lesson he meant.
With a click, the spiritual lock snapped shut.
Looking at my master's bloodshot eyes, I remembered the first lesson taught to new disciples:
Never leave your master.
*
Many years ago, Bai Wuzhen knelt outside the sect for ten whole days and nights, begging his master not to send him away. But the iron-hearted female Sword Venerable still cruelly cast him out of the sect.
Many years later, Bai Wuzhen sat beneath warm curtains embroidered with lotus flowers, holding the slender, pale ankle he had once glimpsed beneath her skirt whenever he knelt. He dragged his struggling, fleeing disciple into his arms.
"Why are you running? Was I not doing it right? I was only copying you..."
Her ankle was bound tight in chains forged from black iron. Bai Wuzhen caressed it, slowly moving upward as he murmured in her ear.
"You can't drive me away, Master..."
*A saint who cares for all living beings and a dark obsessive who insists on claiming her heart for himself.
*A high-minded, compassionate female master x an immoral, sinister male ghost.
Note: 1. A mirrored master-disciple relationship, with love and hatred intertwined.
2. The main text is in third person.
Theme: Love is restraint
