The Aloof Master Keeps Refusing to Save the Dying

Snow blankets the mountain peaks, where ice and snow endure.

Was it a glimpse from another life, or a bond destined for this one?

After five years of dreamlike companionship, she gave him an orchid from her sleeve. Yun Lan once thought Jiang Fushu was a match Heaven had granted her.

Until the ferocious Taotie trampled Yun Family Village, her parents died horribly, and her younger brother vanished. She didn't know Jiang Fushu was in the clouds, his white robes fluttering as he watched fate crush her.

A young female sword cultivator, gifted beyond compare, she joins Sanqing Mountain and becomes his personal disciple.

He teaches her: Immortals must sever love and desire and follow the Way of Heaven.

But she insists on asking: What is the Way of Heaven? Is it the Way of Heaven to treat human lives as worthless?

She trains with everything she has, her sword sharp enough to cut through metal and stone. Everyone calls Yun Lan a genius of the sword. Only she knows that every stroke is for the sake of an answer.

Until she presses the sword he gave her to his chest.

"Jiang Fushu." Her voice trembles. "Why didn't you save them back then?"

He looks down at her, her reflection in eyes like ten thousand years of ice and snow.

"Lan'er," he says. "That trial was written in your fate."

So that's what it means to have a trial written in your fate. She refuses to accept hers.

Even as the world hunts her down, that immortal-like man remains seated atop Sanqing Mountain, his robes untouched by dust.

Until she ascends to godhood by the sword. He regrets teaching her to sever love and begs her humbly. She grinds his pure white robes beneath her feet, while tears of blood fall from his usually emotionless peach-blossom eyes.

Yun Lan lifts his chin with her sword. "Jiang Fushu, you owe me."

After that, the stars shift and the seasons change, but no one in the world can find that immortal figure again. Only then does Yun Lan realize how many bitter consequences he had borne for her where she could not see.

"Was it worth it?" asks the Buddhist disciple, a dot of tender beauty between his brows, his golden body perfected.

She sleeps lightly before his tomb, clutching the missed wedding letter between her fingers, and sheds tears for ten thousand years.

In a daze, there he is again, crossing the roiling mortal world, his white robes and sleeves sweeping lightly as he comes toward her. Snow rests on his lashes, reflecting the boundless world as he collides with her soul.

Theme: Refuse to accept fate, and become a god through the sword.