Maybe My Soulmate! (GL)

Ruan Xue in particular seemed to have appointed herself as their unofficial junior disciple somewhere along the way, showing up at their cabin door most evenings with some excuse or another to spend time near them, and Chen Hao, though more reserved about it, clearly respected Mo Yuxin enough that he started quietly asking her sword technique questions whenever Ruan Xue was not around to overhear and tease him mercilessly for it.

One clear afternoon, with the sea calm enough that most passengers had come up on deck to enjoy the sunshine, Mo Yuxin found herself talked into giving Chen Hao a short sparring lesson, mostly because Ruan Xue would not stop pestering both of them about it until they agreed.

”Your footwork is fine,” Mo Yuxin said, circling him slowly with her wooden practice sword while he tried, and mostly failed, to track her movement properly. ”Your problem is that you telegraph your strikes before you throw them. Your shoulder drops half a second early every single time.”

”I do not,” Chen Hao said, a little defensive, right before his shoulder dropped exactly as described and Mo Yuxin’s practice sword tapped him lightly on the wrist before his own strike ever landed.

”You do,” she said, not unkindly. ”Try again. Watch your shoulder this time, not your feet.”

By the end of the hour, Chen Hao was breathing hard and covered in light bruises from the practice weapon, but he had also visibly stopped dropping his shoulder, and the grudging respect in his eyes when he bowed at the end of the session was obvious to everyone watching, Ruan Xue loudest among them as she cheered from the sidelines like she personally had something to do with the improvement.

One evening, when the sea was unusually calm and the sky had gone the color of ripe peaches just before sunset, the sponsoring sects arranged a communal dinner up on the main deck, long tables set out with roasted fish and rice wine and whatever fresh vegetables were left from the last supply stop. Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing ended up seated with Ruan Xue, Chen Hao, Liu Chen, and a handful of other young disciples who had slowly worked up the courage to sit closer to them over the past weeks, and the conversation drifted easily from sect gossip to cultivation techniques to, inevitably, the two of them.

”So how exactly did you two meet,” Liu Chen asked, emboldened a little by the rice wine. ”If you do not mind me asking.”

Mo Yuxin glanced at Su Yubing, who just gave her a small nod, silently telling her it was fine to share as much or as little as she liked.

”Long story,” Mo Yuxin said simply. ”Short version, she saved my life once, a long time ago, and I decided I was not going to let her walk away afterward.”

”That is not exactly what happened,” Su Yubing said, amused, resting her chin lightly on her hand.

”It is basically what happened.”

”You chased me for two years.”

”I prefer to call it persistent courting.”

The table burst into laughter, Ruan Xue nearly choking on her rice wine, and even Chen Hao cracked a rare smile at that. Mo Yuxin reached over without any particular ceremony and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Su Yubing’s ear, the gesture so casual and so clearly habitual that nobody at the table even blinked at it anymore, not after weeks of watching the two of them together every single day.

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About six weeks into the crossing, the Tide Dragon stopped briefly at a small trading outpost island to restock fresh water and supplies, a cluster of wooden buildings and a busy little market built up around a natural harbor. Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing took the chance to walk through the market together, mostly just to stretch their legs on solid ground after so many weeks at sea, with Ruan Xue tagging along enthusiastically and Chen Hao trailing behind pretending he was only there to keep an eye on his junior sister.

Su Yubing paused at a stall selling small carved trinkets, picking up a delicate little ornament shaped like a wave, turning it over in her hands with obvious interest. Mo Yuxin, without a word, simply paid for it and pressed it into her palm before she could even ask the price.

”You did not have to do that,” Su Yubing said softly, though she was already tucking the little ornament carefully into her sleeve.

”I wanted to,” Mo Yuxin said. ”Consider it a souvenir. Something to remember this crossing by, besides the sea monster.”

Ruan Xue, watching this whole exchange with her hands clasped under her chin, let out a long dramatic sigh. ”You two are going to make me believe in true love or something ridiculous like that.”

”Good,” Mo Yuxin said, unbothered. ”It is worth believing in.”

They ate roasted skewers from a street vendor while walking, Mo Yuxin stealing bites off Su Yubing’s stick with zero shame whenever her own ran out, and by the time they made it back to the ship before it set sail again that evening, half the market vendors had already started referring to them affectionately among themselves as the pretty young married couple from the big black ship, a title neither of them minded in the slightest.

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It was almost two months into the crossing, well past midnight on a night when the moon had not yet risen and the ocean around the Tide Dragon was black as ink, when the trouble that actually mattered finally showed up. Su Yubing woke first, some instinct honed over centuries of cultivation prickling at the back of her neck, and she sat up slowly in the dark, listening carefully.

”You feel it too,” Mo Yuxin murmured beside her, already awake, already reaching for her sword.

”Something is approaching,” Su Yubing said quietly. ”More than one presence. And it does not feel clean.”

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TO BE CONTINUED.