★
As the Sword Pavilion's senior disciple, Jiang Qinglian has always been steady and dependable.
Within the sect, she manages all its affairs and cares for her fellow disciples, guiding inner and outer sect disciples with equal attention. Beyond its walls, she wields her gentleman's sword, outshines every genius, and has slain countless evil spirits. The Pavilion Master has named her the next head of the Sword Pavilion.
The disciples praise their senior sister as pure as the snows of the Heavenly Mountains and as radiant as the moon among the clouds.
But few know that she has fallen for the child she took in.
Her disciple, however, is free-spirited and hates being tied down. Though he loves roaming the world, he has little patience for romance. When he grows older, she shows him just a little affection, and he avoids her as if she were a plague.
...Perhaps that's for the best.
Jiang Qinglian buries her feelings deep in her heart, hoping they will fade with time.
Who could have expected that, during a sect mission, a red thread beneath the Acacia Tree in a secret realm would bind them fast, proclaiming a destined love rare in a thousand years?
To undo the thread, they must work together. Jiang Qinglian frees her half, but her disciple is still too inexperienced to escape its grip. With no other way out, the two are forced to become cultivation partners
★
In the fifth year of his partnership with his master, Chi Yan finally completes his sword bones and successfully advances to the Nascent Soul stage. He rushes to the Acacia Tree in the secret realm and snaps the red thread.
To him, his master is like a sister and a mother. She raised him from childhood, and even their sword forms are exactly alike.
Even if he were to take a partner someday, it shouldn't be his master. What would people think? She is so noble. How could he let her be criticized because of him...
What Chi Yan doesn't know is that once two people cut their marriage thread, they sever every tender tie between them
On the first day after their partnership ends, his master no longer fusses over him. Instead, she devotes herself to caring for the junior sister who has just joined the Sword Pavilion. He tugs at his master's sleeve and begs for attention, but she turns around on reflex and cuts the sleeve off, ordering him to keep his distance.
One month after their partnership ends, he hears that the young lord of Guiyuan Sect has proposed to his master, and that her response is ambiguous. Despite his injuries, Chi Yan leaves the battlefield against the demons and rushes back to the Sword Pavilion, only to see disappointment in his master's eyes. She scolds him for caring only about romance and neglecting the greater good, the people, and his junior brothers and sisters.
Three months after their partnership ends, Chi Yan searches in tears beneath the Acacia Tree, among a tangled mess of marriage threads, for their red thread. But the elder guarding the tree tells him that once a destined match is broken, there's no going back. His master took the thread long ago and burned it to ashes. In her eyes, he is already no different from a stranger.
One year after their partnership ends, Chi Yan kneels outside his master's room and says he'll gladly become her cultivation furnace. If he can stay by her side and serve her, he'll offer up his sword bones to help her cultivate.
But his master still looks at him with the same clear, cool gaze. She closes the door and sighs. "You weren't like this before."
No, he wasn't like this before.
#The fatal boomerang of love finally came back and hit me.
Theme: Love alone is not enough. What matters is loving each other.
