Chuchu had loved her senior brother since she was little.
She was slow and absent-minded, always a beat behind everyone else in what she said and did. Nobody in the sect liked talking to her.
Only her senior brother was willing to sit quietly, polishing the blade in his hand as he listened to her stumble through her troubles.
When she couldn't explain herself, he would simply smile gently, take a piece of Qiansi candy from his sleeve, and say, "Don't rush. Take your time."
Qiansi candy had a thousand strands. It was the softest and sweetest.
Chuchu loved it.
She wanted to keep taking Qiansi candy from her senior brother.
But in the end, her senior brother left the sect alone and entered the Demon Realm, becoming a lackey under the Demon Lord.
Everyone said he had turned evil, fallen to the demonic path, and lost his Dao heart.
Only Chuchu knew that on an ordinary, peaceful morning, just like all the mornings before, her senior brother had gently patted her head. His eyes were calm and clear.
"Goodbye, Chuchu," he had said.
.
After her senior brother left, Chuchu learned many things.
She learned how to raise a sword without cutting her fingers, how to face doubt with composure, and how to take the token her mother had left her and purge and reform the entire Taihe Sect.
Step by step, she rose to the position of sect leader, becoming one of the most powerful people in all of the Nine Provinces.
No one among the Seven Sects dared look down on the little stutterer named Chen Chuchu anymore.
So much time passed. So many years went by.
She met more and more people and experienced more and more things.
Little by little, Chuchu forgot her senior brother.
Until the Demon Realm was purged and the twenty-four guards at her side brought all the prisoners back for her inspection.
She found them filthy and glanced over them, preparing to leave.
Then she heard a voice in the crowd, faint and familiar, like something from a midnight dream: "Chuchu."
·
Duan Changyi left home at seven, joined the Taihe Sect at twelve, became the sect leader's personal disciple at eighteen, and defected from the sect at twenty-six to join the Demon Sect, leaving behind countless curses and insults.
On the path to revenge, he had never thought of turning back, and he had never regretted his choices.
But he failed.
The twenty-four guards of the Taihe Sect dragged him back to Qingyun Terrace as a prisoner. He was helpless and utterly humiliated.
He wasn't willing to give up. He didn't want to die yet.
He looked up, saw the foolish little junior sister from years ago, and resolved to make one last attempt.
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A story about a white moonlight returning, only to spectacularly fall flat.
Theme: Honesty with one another