CH 26

The Transient Realm (1.2)

If half a zhang2 was the normal distance to be kept between strangers, she had just made a big breakthrough. For now, she would wait for him to get used to her contact; she could figure out the rest later.

Zheng Wan had thought it through well. However, Cui Wang was different from the starstruck youths who had obeyed her every word. He shook out a piece of white silk from his sleeve and connected his wrist with hers.

“Stay one zhang away from me.”

Cui Wang’s expression told Zheng Wan that she mustn’t be impatient. Otherwise, she would definitely end up like that daughter of the Taiji Sect Master in the immortal realm, and never be able to get any closer.

She obediently stayed a little further away.

“Has the State Preceptor found a way out?”

Zheng Wan pushed the door, then pushed the window; it remained the same. Nothing budged.

“If you use the sword, maybe we can break out?”

Cui Wang pursed his lips, his lips flattened into a straight line:

“This room suppresses the use of all powers; I am the same as you.”

……In other words, he was now an ordinary mortal like her?

Zheng Wan seriously considered the possibility of stabbing Cui Wang right then, and inheriting his relics to embark on her own cultivation. But she realised reluctantly that the path was blocked from the very beginning.

First, she had no weapons; second, she had no skills. The amateur moves that she had learned in the academy wouldn’t even be able to let her get close enough, and once her killing intent was exposed, she would be immediately cut down by Cui Wang, who had superior five senses…

Not to mention that because of his cultivation, his body has long since been hard to hurt by mortal means.

Cui Wang didn’t find anything unusual in the incense ash; he got up and went to the bogu3 shelf on the other side.

Zheng Wan also shut her mouth and looked at the objects in the room one by one.

Since no powers could be used, there was no choice but to think of other methods. Unless it was extremely dangerous, there was always a way to break through a transient realm, and after breaking through, there would usually be rare and exotic treasures——

This was one of the conclusions she got from reading the book.

Along the window, there was a long table with a few screens, a brush washer, a brush holder, and an inkstone. The owner seemed to have been in the middle of writing, then gone out. Following that was a fireplace, a standing incense burner, a dressing table, a vanity box, a comb, makeup powders. On the wall facing the door, there was a painting of a blissful marriage; in the painting, the couple in wedding robes were performing their ceremonial bows.

On the other side, was the rosewood babu bed4 and the bogu shelf. On the bogu shelf was a green jade thin-necked vase—the peach blossoms in it have already withered. Pasted on the south wall was the sign of ‘double happiness’5. An Eight Immortals table6 was placed against the wall, on which the pair of dragon and phoenix candles…

Zheng Wan frowned.

“Something doesn’t feel quite right…”

Cui Wang’s dark eyes looked into hers; she actually felt that there was a glimmer of expectation hidden in them.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah, I got it!”

Zheng Wan tapped her knuckles on her brow and pointed to the dressing table. “There’s no mirror!”

This was obviously a room for a newlywed couple, prepared for both the master and the mistress. There was a table for reading and writing, a dressing table with grooming items and makeup—the only thing missing was a mirror!

Looking at the furnishings, it couldn’t be because it wasn’t affordable—it could only be intentional!

Which woman would have missed out on something as important as a mirror on her dressing table!

Cui Wang’s brows were tightly knit, “Why do you need a mirror?”

“How can one put on makeup without a mirror?” Zheng Wan opened the drawers of the vanity box one by one—there was not even a small copper mirror. “Gold zans and jade accessories, powder and rouge, lacquered pearl inlay makeup brushes—everything is here. But why is there no mirror? ——Something’s not right!”

Cui Wang said nothing.

He walked over to the dressing table. He tapped and knocked on the vanity box, listening closely. Finally, he did something to the box, and with a “clack”, a compartment popped out from the last wooden drawer. When he reached in, he found a mirror, the size of his palm. There was a circle of reeds around the handle, and its body was carved with fine workmanship; exceptionally gorgeous.

“Wow, it’s beautiful!”

Zheng Wan leaned forward; a lock of hair floated from her forehead from the movement and fell on Cui Wang’s wrist, bringing with it the fragrance of magnolia.