Plan on Hold: I Messed Up

A lighthearted fantasy rom-com: the patient, calculating one x the lustful but clear-eyed one

1.

The Hehuan Sect has a legend named Fan Ying.

She is the only person in the entire sect who has managed to hold on to the position of senior sister despite making no progress in either cultivation or performance.

When asked how she does it, she can only give you two words:

"Endure" and "rumors."

The first keeps you standing; the second puts minds at ease.

After happily lying flat for three hundred years by spreading rumors about sword cultivators, karma finally catches up with her. Now she has to make all her old boasts come true.

Cangze is a legendary figure in the cultivation world, an untouchable flower on a mountaintop. Born with a Mystic Yin constitution, he cultivated the Heartless Path to its highest level. Someone in his position rarely looks anywhere but down from on high, too far above the world to notice its everyday joys.

The task is a tough one. Armed with the extensive theories passed down by her predecessors, Fan Ying finally finds her chance. The untouchable flower parts his thin lips and says, "I remember you. You're the Hehuan Sect cultivator who's been spreading rumors about me for three hundred years."

By a twist of fate, the two of them, who feel little for each other, end up doing something unspeakable. She knows it isn't love, only his compassion as her senior brother and his sense of responsibility kicking in. He couldn't just let her die right in front of him.

Fan Ying tries to press her advantage, but Cangze avoids her at every turn.

After eight hundred rounds of back and forth, she's tired.

Working hard was never her strong suit. Giving up was.

2.

Fan Ying goes home to her master, looking for a hug and some comfort, and accidentally learns the untellable secret of the untouchable flower: Cangze was not born with a Mystic Yin constitution. It was caused by a curse. Every full moon, the curse flares up, tormenting his heart and burning away his reason as desire consumes him. Only the Hehuan Sect's unique secret art can undo it.

It is a stormy night, lightning tearing through the dark.

The man kneels in a corner, pinned to the ground by four spiritual locks that pierce his shoulder blades. His struggles send blood spraying everywhere. Faced with such cruelty and the anguish in his broken expression, Fan Ying touches his captivating face and says,

"We each get what we want."

No one can say who seduced whom.

3.

After one night together, Cangze is no longer useful to Fan Ying.

She thinks he must hate her. Why else would he hold back even when desire takes hold? Why else would his gaze have changed, no longer the cold, compassionate look he once gave her, but a dark, resentful, obsessive stare that is almost suffocating?

So she runs away again, back to her hometown to enjoy herself.

The day he storms the Hehuan Sect, sword in hand, and demands that the sect leader hand someone over, Fan Ying is joking around with her junior brothers, so drunk she can barely walk. As she steps outside, a familiar hand closes around her waist and pulls her against his side.

The sword at Cangze's waist clearly reflects her flushed face.

Its dazzling sharpness sobers her up, taking away seven of the eight parts of her drunkenness.

"I thought that once you'd had your fun, you'd come back."

"I was wrong. The only way to make you listen is to lock you up."

Oh no, things have gone off the rails.

--

Cangze has lived half his life as he pleased, but he has only ever come undone over two things.

First, a woman he'd never even met managed to spend half his life with him using nothing but her words.

Second, the female cultivator who ruined his reputation knocked on his door one rainy night and saw every bit of the misery and shame he had hidden away.

And the words "We each get what we want" shattered all his pride and hopes.

--

Only Fan Ying knows that the legendary man, pure and aloof as a cold moon, is actually tormented by his constitution. In the dead of night, he lets go of his self-control, unable to resist his desires.

"I do it all willingly."

"The curse on me has flared up again."

"Help me, A Ying."

"Yes, yes, I know... Damn it, go easy on me!!!"

The author swears: This story has a happy ending, is one-on-one, and both leads have only ever been with each other!!!

Additional setting notes:

1. Cultivation stages: Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Deification, Void Refinement, Body Integration, Mahayana, Tribulation Crossing, and then you become an immortal!

2. This is my own take on cultivation. Some settings don't correspond to reality; everything serves the plot.

3. The female lead is at the mid-Golden Core stage; the male lead is at the late Mahayana stage, on the verge of immortality.

4. The female lead has an amnesia plotline.

Theme: Perseverance can carve through stone