Maybe My Soulmate! (GL)

That night, the town hosted them with the kind of gratitude that made both women feel a little awkward. They were used to people being afraid or awed, not this warm and clumsy kindness. The village aunties sent over braised fish, sweet rice cakes, and a jar of fruit wine so fragrant it almost made Su Yubing sit up straighter. Children gathered outside the inn to sneak peeks at them through the window, and one little boy stared at Mo Yuxin’s sword with such serious eyes that Mo Yuxin eventually let him hold the scabbard for one whole minute before his mother dragged him away apologizing nonstop. Later, when the night deepened and the lanterns dimmed, Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing sat on the roof together with their knees touching and the cool river wind brushing over them. Su Yubing tucked her legs beneath her and leaned against Mo Yuxin’s shoulder. Mo Yuxin fed her a slice of pear. Then, because nobody was watching and because neither of them had ever been very good at resisting each other for long, they kissed under the moonlight until Su Yubing was smiling into the other woman’s mouth and Mo Yuxin was laughing softly against her lips.

The second month on the road was when the journey started feeling less like a short trip and more like a whole life lived in motion. They crossed long fields where wild spirit grasses waved silver in the breeze, and they passed old stone roads that had once been part of an ancient empire no one remembered clearly anymore. They met wandering merchants who swore the road ahead was haunted, and Mo Yuxin calmly put those merchants behind her as soon as it turned out the haunted road was just a flock of spirit crows stealing shiny things from carriages. They helped repair wagons, healed minor injuries, taught a group of young sword cultivators how to settle their breathing during a panic, and scared away two different gangs of bandits without even trying too hard. The bandits, to be honest, were the kind who had chosen the wrong target so badly that the entire ambush felt almost embarrassing. They had hidden in a valley pass with metal hooks and poison arrows, clearly thinking they were about to rob a pair of elegant travelers. Instead, Mo Yuxin looked up at the tree line, sighed once, and said, ”They are not even trying very hard.”

Su Yubing had to cover her mouth because she was already laughing.

Mo Yuxin moved first, as she always did when someone was foolish enough to step into their path. She did not draw a huge display of power unless she had to, because most problems could be solved more simply than that. She just flicked her wrist, shattered the arrows in the air with a blade of condensed qi, and then walked up the slope with the same calm pace she might have used to stroll through a market. Su Yubing followed on the other side, her sleeves flowing like water, and every time one of the bandits tried to attack her, he ended up on the ground with his meridians sealed and his legs tangled together in a mess of frost threads. By the end of it, the whole gang was kneeling with their weapons dropped in the dirt. Mo Yuxin made them hand over everything they had stolen from the nearby villages, then made them haul the supplies back down the mountain themselves while promising them that if she ever heard they tried this again, she would personally come back and make sure they remembered her face for the rest of their miserable lives. The bandits nodded so fast it looked like their necks hurt.

After that, the villagers at the mountain foot invited them to stay for dinner. Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing could have declined, but they did not, because they both liked simple people with honest gratitude. The meal was plain but warm, and the old grandmother who cooked it kept trying to put more food into Su Yubing’s bowl because she said a girl that pretty ought to eat more. Su Yubing laughed and looked at Mo Yuxin like she was being unfairly teased by the whole universe. Mo Yuxin, who had been trying very hard to look dignified, failed completely when the grandmother then turned around and told her, very seriously, that she clearly needed to keep treating her wife well or someone else would steal her. The whole room went quiet for a second, then Su Yubing nearly choked on her soup while Mo Yuxin actually smiled enough to make everyone else in the room blush. That night, when they were alone in the borrowed guest room, Su Yubing pushed Mo Yuxin gently back onto the bed, sat on her waist for one playful second, and kissed her like she wanted to make up for all the teasing she had just survived. Mo Yuxin held her at the waist and kissed her back until Su Yubing was soft and breathless, then pulled her down beside her and wrapped an arm around her like she was the safest treasure in the world.

Their third month brought them into a huge mountain region where the peaks were so high they seemed to stab the clouds open. Snow still sat on the upper ridges even though the valleys below were green and full of flowers. The air there was thin and bright, and the spiritual energy was so clean it almost felt like drinking cold spring water with every breath. There were rare herbs growing between the cliffs, old pines twisted by lightning, and deep caves that echoed whenever the wind passed through them. They stayed there longer than they meant to because the place was too beautiful to leave quickly. They found a hidden hot spring in the middle of a pine forest, and after a day of climbing and fighting off a few spirit wolves, they soaked there together while steam curled around them and the sky turned gold above the trees.

.

.

.

TO BE CONTINUED.