I’m the Hehuan Sect Master’s Personal Disciple, but They Call Me a Heartless Dao Genius

I slept with Xie Jinghong.

The Xie Jinghong, first on the Young Prodigy Rankings, Chief Disciple of the Taishang Wangqing Sect, the foremost genius of the Heartless Dao, the closest thing to a slab of cold jade in three hundred years.

The outside world calls me the Hehuan Sect’s seductress; they say I used perfume, used charm arts, used my eyes to drag his Dao heart into chaos.

I felt wronged the moment I heard it.

Getting to sleep with Xie Jinghong had nothing to do with a successful seduction.

It was because I beat him until he had no strength to fight back. He couldn’t resist.

The next morning, once it was done, I sent him back to the Taishang Wangqing Sect and collected my Hehuan Sect honor graduate’s gift on the side.

Three days on, the Taishang Wangqing Sect blockaded our mountain gate. The moment they saw me, they started calling me a Heartless Dao genius.

This story starts when I was five.

That day the immortal sects were taking in disciples. I stepped forward in the crowd and tested as a supreme-grade lightning Spirit Root.

The Spirit-Root Testing Stone exploded, sparks spraying in every direction, and a few old men from the Sword Sect got so excited their beards stood on end, clamoring over each other to call me a good sapling.

One said I was born for the sword Dao; another said I should follow him to slay demons; a third said that if I took him as my master, I would shatter the heavens with a single sword within a hundred years.

I listened very carefully.

Then I got tricked away by a chicken leg.

It was wrapped in an oil-paper wrap, the skin roasted crisp and fragrant, and by the time it reached my nose I had already been starving for two days.

The person holding it wore red silk, her brows and eyes carrying a roguish charm, and when she smiled it was like a whole tree of peach blossoms opening in a spring wind.

“Kid, want to come with me?” she asked.

“Do you feed me?” I asked.

“We do.”

“Chicken legs every day?”

She weighed it. “Depends on your performance.”

So I solemnly set down the jade tablet the Sword Sect elders were fighting over and boarded her spirit boat.

The boat had flown thirty li before I remembered to ask. “Big sister, which sect are you from?”

She patted my head. “The Hehuan Sect.”

I blinked. “What’s hehuan?”

Her smile grew even kinder. “The most exquisite, most beautiful, most gentle Dao under heaven.”

I was young then. I only understood one word: gentle.

Only later did I learn that she was the Hehuan Sect’s Sect Lord, my master, and that her name was Lou Fuyue.

Later still, I learned that this most exquisite, most beautiful, gentlest Dao under heaven opened its first lesson with Bones of Charm, Born Complete, its second with Eyes Like Water, and its third with How to Make a Sword Cultivator Bow First.

I sat on the meditation cushion and stared at those lines for a whole morning.

Not one character made it into my head.

My senior sisters flick their eyes, and flower petals drift over on their own.

My senior brothers open their folding fans, and the female disciples of the Medicine Sect next door forget their pill cauldrons are still burning.

When my turn came, my master made me practice Words That Hesitate to Fall in front of a bronze mirror.

I squinted and leered at it for half a shichen.

The bronze mirror didn’t crack. My master’s face did.

She was silent for a long time before she tried to comfort me: “It’s all right; you’re young; the gates of romance had yet to open.”

I nodded.

That night I failed to draw qi in; my lightning Spirit Root threw lightning around my dantian all night long, and charred three mu of peach blossoms on the Hehuan Sect’s back mountain into coke.

The next day my master hugged me and cried: “What a good face, what good bone structure — why did you have to turn out to be a block of wood that knows nothing of love?”

Her crying made me feel guilty, so I made a suggestion. “Master, how about I learn something else first?”

She wiped her tears, then spent three days searching through chests and cupboards before she dug out a gray, dusty old manual.

Four large characters were written on the first page: Boundless Great Love.

My master studied it a long while before enlightenment dawned on her: “Great love — isn’t that just universal love? Our Hehuan Sect is the most universal-loving of them all; this must be a secret manual left behind by some Hehuan old ancestor!”

I thought she had a point.

Love is what the Hehuan Dao talks about, and love is what this book talks about — round it up and it’s the same sect’s Cultivation Method.

So I practiced it as written.

The first night, spiritual qi entered my body.

The second year, I reached the Peak Stage of Qi Refining.

At my Foundation Establishment at age ten, heavenly lightning sheared half the Hehuan Sect’s plaque clean off, leaving only the word “sect” hanging in the wind.

My master took both my hands, her eyes lit up like she had struck a spirit stone mine.

She wanted to go out and show me off.

But the moment she stepped past the mountain gate, she quietly stepped back.

A genius who established her foundation at ten had come out of the Hehuan Sect. There should have been a feast.

The problem was that this genius didn’t know the Hehuan Heart Method.

And when she cultivated, she was pure of heart and poor in desire, her brows stern and proper — more like an ascetic than the little Buddha child of the Zen Sect next door.

My master didn’t dare tell anyone.

Every time the other Sect Lords asked about me, she could only smile dryly: “That little disciple of mine: decent-looking, a beauty that topples cities.”

And when they asked about her cultivation base?

“That’s right,” my master said. “She really is quite good-looking.”

On the day of my Core Formation at seventeen, my master looked at the tribulation clouds filling the sky and made up her mind.

“A-Ning,” she said, “once you turn eighteen, you have to relearn the Hehuan Heart Method.”

“Why?” I asked.

My master drew a deep breath: “I am the Sect Lord of the Hehuan Sect; you are my direct disciple; of course you have to learn the Hehuan Sect’s orthodox Cultivation Method.”

I thought her worry was well-founded.

I could already split a waterfall with a single sword back then, yet I still couldn’t understand, in the romance storybook my senior sister lent me, why the two leads would blush just for sharing one umbrella through a rainy night.

If the umbrella isn’t big enough, buy another one.

A pair of penniless wretches.

The day I turned eighteen, my master personally pressed the real Hehuan Heart Method into my arms.

Her tone was grave. “This is our sect’s inheritance. Go into closed-door cultivation for three days and comprehend it well.”

So I went into closed-door cultivation.

The first day, I finished the upper volume and learned that the Hehuan Dao is about yin and yang sustaining each other.

The second day, I finished the middle volume and found the Hehuan Dao was about qi flowing as one.

The third day, I finished the lower volume and distilled it into a single sentence.

Isn’t it just Dual Cultivation?

On leaving seclusion, I found my master’s face full of expectation. “You comprehended it?”

“I comprehended it.”

She grabbed my hands, excited. “Tell me.”

I said earnestly, “Find someone with a good Spirit Root, good looks, a good body, and a steady Dao heart, and cultivate together.”

The corner of my master’s mouth twitched. “It isn’t quite that direct.”

“What else does it need?” I asked.

She stopped and started, started and stopped, and squeezed out a single sentence. “It also needs love.”

Enlightenment struck me like a hammer. I smacked my own forehead. “Clarified from top to toe!”

My master pressed two fingers to her brow, as if she very much wanted to explain further.

But I had already started drawing up my list of candidates.

If his talent was worse than mine, no. I was afraid he would slow my progress.

If his looks were worse than mine, no. I was afraid it would affect my Dao heart.

If he wasn’t careful of his own body, no. I feared old debts.

If his temper was too good, no. My senior brother said a spineless man is no good.

If his temper was too bad, also no. My senior sister said a man who beats his wife is no good.

After filtering, only one name remained.

Xie Jinghong.

Chief Disciple of the Taishang Wangqing Sect, top of the Young Prodigy Rankings, Core Formation at nineteen, half a step into Nascent Soul at twenty, a sword heart clear and bright, never invaded by frost or snow.

I stood in front of the rankings for half a stick of incense, more satisfied the longer I looked.

Leaning in, my senior sister sucked in a breath. “Little Junior Sister, your eye is sharp.”

“Look around all you like,” I said. “No one has better conditions than him.”

Snapping his fan open, my senior brother said, “He’s the foremost man of the Heartless Dao; he cultivates by severing affection and extinguishing desire; go provoke him and you’re likely to get pinned to our mountain gate with one sword.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Anyone who can’t beat me doesn’t deserve to dual cultivate with me.”

Respect rising in her eyes, my eldest senior sister covered her mouth.

“Truly a cultivation prodigy, the likes of which our Hehuan Sect has seen once in a hundred years.”

“Senior brothers and sisters,” I asked, “what do I have to do to dual cultivate with him?”

A circle of senior brothers and sisters crowded around me, as if preparing to pass down some ancient secret art.

The eldest senior sister said, “Step one: act fragile. Nine men out of ten can’t resist a delicate little white flower.”

The second senior brother said, “Sword cultivators all fall for that one — the Heartless Dao most of all. Every one of them is ice on the outside and molten underneath; the colder they act, the softer they are where it counts; all you have to do is collapse weakly in a path he’s certain to take, and he’s bound to catch you.”

The third senior sister added, “The moment he lifts you, look up at him. Three parts panic, three parts shyness, four parts words left unsaid.”

I nodded over and over.

I put on a white dress the next day, picked the road Xie Jinghong had to pass on his way down the mountain to exorcise, and lay down in the snow.

To make it convincing, I even took care to let my lips turn blue with the cold.

Footsteps came from far off.

I closed my eyes and, as planned, coughed softly.

The scabbard pressed against my collar.

Before I could look up, the whole of me was lifted by that sword, three inches off the ground, drifting toward the clinic at the foot of the mountain.

Xie Jinghong’s voice came from overhead. “You’re injured, miss. The clinic is up ahead. I’ll take you there.”

I: “…”

At the clinic he set down a pouch of Spirit Stones and turned to leave.

I sat up on the couch. “Fellow Daoist Xie, aren’t you going to ask why I fainted?”

Xie Jinghong stopped.

My eyes lit up.

He looked back, his face calm. “Your voice is full of vigor, miss. You don’t sound like someone who fainted. You were faking.”

Then he walked out, the hem of his robe brushing the threshold, and even the wind seemed to freeze where he passed.

The medical cultivator looked at me, then at the Spirit Stones on the table, and said delicately, “Miss, would you like me to prescribe something to clear your head?”

I decided the first step had failed, and that it wasn’t my fault.

Xie Jinghong simply didn’t know the procedure.

Once back at the sect, I debriefed.

Silence from my eldest senior sister for a long moment. “He lifted you by the collar with his sword?”

I nodded.

Full of admiration, the second senior brother breathed in. “What a cold heart. What a steady hand.”

Slapping the table, the third senior sister said, “Playing fragile doesn’t work, so engineer some chance meetings; in matters of the heart, what matters is a fate that doesn’t look deliberate; run into him enough times and he’ll remember you.”

Helpfully, the eldest senior sister added, “And you need some physical contact. It helps things warm up.”

I understood.

So for the next half month, I was busy every day.

While Xie Jinghong was purging evil spirits in Blackwater Town, I walked past him from behind, whistling.

Whistle whistle whistle~

The evil spirit had just crawled half its body out of the well; it saw me in my Hehuan Sect red robes, then saw Xie Jinghong in his Taishang Wangqing Sect white ones, and hesitated on the spot.

“Go on with your work,” I told them. “I’m just passing through.”

Xie Jinghong swept his sword and chopped the evil spirit back down into the well.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“A chance meeting,” I said.

Three days later, Xie Jinghong was practicing his sword at the Cold Pool. I walked past the edge of the pool, whistling.

Whistle whistle whistle~

His sword qi veered, and the tangerine peels were pared away clean while the flesh dropped back into the basket in neat segments.

“Fine swordsmanship,” I said, delighted.

“Need something??” he said.

I nodded. “Nope. Just passing through.”

His gaze went to the snow-covered mountain, empty of people for ten li in every direction, then to the tangerines in my arms.

He didn’t call me out. He only said, “The mountain road is steep, miss. Take care.”

My chance, I thought.

My foot slipped, and I pitched toward his arms.

He stepped back.

I plunged into the Cold Pool.

The water was so cold I nearly achieved enlightenment on the spot.

On the bank, Xie Jinghong stood and held out a branch.

Soaking in the water, I asked, “Why didn’t you catch me?”

“A man and a woman should not pass objects hand to hand,” he answered.

Furious, I snapped the branch in half.

Later still, he attended the Dao Discourse.

I went too.

He sat in the front row, listening to an elder lecture on how forgetting emotion is not the same as severing it, and severing intent is not the same as having none.

Whistling, I walked past him.

Whistle whistle whistle~

The first pass, he didn’t look at me.

Whistle whistle whistle~

The second pass, he turned a page of his book.

Whistle whistle whistle~

The third pass, he looked up.

I thought I’d moved him and was about to speak.

“You’re disturbing the people behind you, miss,” he said.

Several dozen pairs of eyes in the back rows swiveled toward me in unison.

I lost again.

Back at the sect, I crouched outside my eldest senior sister’s door, extremely earnest. “Is there a more efficient method?”

The eldest of my senior sisters meant to talk me out of it.

A head poked down from the roof beams. “There is one more way,” the second senior brother said quietly.

I looked up.

“It can’t be used unless there’s no other choice,” he said.

I shot to my feet. “There’s no other choice!”

Lowering her voice, the third senior sister said, “Drug him, knock him out, haul him back.”

I went quiet.

The others went quiet too.

After a while I smacked the table and stood. “If there’s a method this efficient, why didn’t you say so sooner?”

A hand clamped down on my shoulder — my eldest senior sister’s. “This method costs us our reputation, Little Junior Sister.”

I said, “Our Hehuan Sect still has a reputation?”

Everyone considered it. Surprisingly, no one objected.

I went down the mountain to buy medicine.

The Hehuan Sect’s storeroom was empty year-round. My master said it was because our sect’s character was lofty and disdained such underhanded tricks.

But the senior brother who kept the storeroom told me in secret that the real reason was that three hundred years ago, an ancestor had refined all the passion incense into calm-spirit incense to treat his insomnia.

I had no choice but to find a butcher at the foot of the mountain.

When the butcher heard I wanted medicine, he eagerly handed me a packet of powder.

“It’s for cattle,” he said. “One dose and a whole ox can’t move.”

“Can people eat it?” I asked.

He gave me a look. “Miss, who are you trying to harm?”

I said, “How can you call cultivation harming anyone?”

The butcher silently added another packet.

I slipped into an inn that night at the base of the Taishang Wangqing Sect’s mountain and poured the medicine into Xie Jinghong’s tea.

After emptying one packet, I decided it wasn’t reliable enough and poured in half of another.

When he picked up the teacup, I was hiding on the roof beams, my heart pounding faster than it had during my Tribulation Transcendence.

Xie Jinghong suddenly looked up, his gaze traveling to the beams.

I held my breath.

He acted as if he’d noticed nothing and lowered his head to drink.

One cup of tea later, he set the cup down. His fingers paused, faintly.

I jumped down from the beams. “Forgive the offense, Fellow Daoist Xie.”

He looked up, his eyes very dark. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

I lifted my chin, insufferably arrogant. “I do. It’s my graduation assessment.”

He seemed to want to say something, but he had barely pushed himself up on the table’s edge when the drug surged through him and his figure swayed.

I took the chance and threw him over my shoulder.

Xie Jinghong struggled.

His struggle was no weak thing. When his sword intent swept over, the window paper shattered.

Unfortunately, I was a genius among geniuses.

I brought one palm down on the back of his neck.

He grunted once and went still.

I let out a breath and huffed, “My senior sister said this is what you call letting the captive go so you can catch him.”

By the time I carried Xie Jinghong back to the Hehuan Sect, half the sect was awake.

My eldest senior sister burst out first, her eyes shining like night pearls.

“Did it work, Little Junior Sister?”

I set him down on the couch and wiped my sweat. “Not yet.”

Quilt in arms, the second senior brother came running: “The bedding has to be new; light the incense burner and close the windows tight; we can’t let anyone from the Taishang Wangqing Sect catch the scent and come looking.”

A plate of celebratory fruit arrived in the third senior sister’s hands. “Eat something first. Build up your strength.”

I frowned. “Why are you all more practiced at this than I am?”

“Rich in theory, zero in practice,” the eldest senior sister said mournfully.

My master arrived last.

Her bun was askew and her outer robe on backward. When she saw Xie Jinghong on the couch, tears nearly fell.

“At last, our Hehuan Sect has a student who can graduate.”

Her words moved me a little too.

That night the red curtain fell, and the incense burner burned itself out.

I had thought Dual Cultivation would go as the Cultivation Method described: spiritual breaths meeting, yin and yang sustaining each other, cultivation base climbing by leaps.

As it turned out, the Cultivation Method was written very subtly.

Xie Jinghong woke several times, his voice hoarse beyond recognition.

“Shen Zhining,” he said. “Stop.”

My head was stuffed with everything my senior sisters had taught me then — refusing with the lips while inviting with the hands, letting the captive go in order to catch him, when a man says no he means yes.

And he looked so wretched from the drug, his spiritual breaths roiling like fire, that I simply used the Heartless Dao’s Cultivation Method to press down his sword intent, then drew on my lightning spiritual power to guide his qi flow back to its source.

Lightning and snow collided.

All I remember is peach blossoms falling outside the window all night, and the light of spiritual energy flickering on and off inside the room.

By the second half of the night Xie Jinghong stopped struggling. He only lifted a hand and caught hold of my wrist bone.

His fingers were frighteningly cold, but his grip was heavy.

I thought he was going to hit me.

He only stared at me, the corners of his eyes red, as if spring had burned him.

“Shen Zhining, don’t regret this,” he said.

“Regret what?” I asked.

He closed his eyes, as if he had given up on reasoning with me.

The next day, before full light, I woke refreshed and energized.

The Golden Core in my dantian was smooth and round, my spiritual power flowed without a snag, more smoothly than after three months of closed-door cultivation.

Overjoyed, I understood.

So the Hehuan Dao really did work.

Beside the couch, Xie Jinghong sat up, his black hair loose over his shoulders, his white robes torn out of shape by me.

For a long while he looked at me and said nothing.

Feeling a little guilty, I struck first. “You cooperated quite well last night, Fellow Daoist Xie.”

The teacup in his hand cracked.

I hastened to add, “I’m not someone who shirks responsibility.”

Xie Jinghong looked up.

“If you want, I can see you back to your sect,” I said earnestly.

The teacup crumbled to powder.

When the dust settled, I personally saw him back to the foot of the Taishang Wangqing Sect’s mountain gate.

To keep up appearances, I even bought him new clothes.

After he changed, he stood in the morning mist, his brows cold, his collar buttoned with immaculate precision.

If I hadn’t seen him lose control with my own eyes the night before, I would have believed this man had never been disordered by a spring wind.

Just before I left, he called me back. “Shen Zhining.”

I turned around. “What?”

“What did you take last night for?” he asked.

I thought about it. “Didn’t I say? A graduation assessment.”

The look he gave me was colder than last night’s sword intent.

I thought his sword was coming out.

He only smiled.

Very faint. Very soft. Very dangerous.

“Fine,” he said.

A crowd of senior brothers and sisters lined the path at the Hehuan Sect to welcome me, a red silk banner draped over my shoulders.

Written on the banner was: Honor Graduate Shen Zhining.

My master personally pressed a jade tablet into my arms, tears in her eyes. “Child, you’ve won glory for our sect.”

I fingered the jade tablet and felt I was no longer the Hehuan Sect’s sole good-for-nothing.

So I soon went back into closed-door cultivation.

After all, no matter how good Dual Cultivation was, nothing beat the stability of that Nameless Manual my master had given me.

On the fifth day of my closed-door cultivation, our mountain gate nearly got split open.

I had just completed a minor cycle when a boom came from outside, like Heavenly Lightning striking the earth.

My third senior sister pounded on my door. “Get out here, Little Junior Sister! Those Taishang Wangqing Sect people are attacking!”

I pushed the door open and saw, far off, a dark mass of white-robed sword cultivators crowded at the mountain gate.

All of them wore cold, solemn faces, and the swords at their waists hummed in unison, as if they meant to raze the Hehuan Sect to the ground.

My master and my senior brothers and sisters blocked the gate from inside, their momentum somewhat lacking.

My master talked tough. “You’ve come a long way, everyone. No need for steel. Let’s talk.”

The white-bearded old man leading them was so furious his beard flew every which way: “Your Hehuan Sect kidnapped our sect’s Chief Disciple and ruined his Dao heart, and you still say let’s talk?”

Under his breath, the second senior brother muttered, “It wasn’t ruined, was it — I heard Xie Jinghong’s sword intent went up a whole layer after he got back.”

His ears were preternaturally sharp. “That’s because my disciple is unusually talented!”

I pushed my way out from behind the crowd.

“I did all of it,” I said. “Whatever you want, take it up with me.”

The moment the words left my mouth, the scene went quiet.

Countless gazes landed on me.

Only then did I notice Xie Jinghong standing behind the white-bearded old man.

He was dressed with exceptional care today.

A jade crown gathering his hair, white robes traced with silver patterns, the sword at his waist fitted with a new sword tassel, his whole person cold in a very considered way.

For a couple of breaths I stared at him and thought that, sure enough, the Dual Cultivation partner I had chosen with such care looked even better after sleeping with him.

Xie Jinghong seemed to sense my gaze. His lashes lowered faintly.

The tips of his ears reddened, very faintly.

I was about to look again when the white-bearded old man suddenly charged up to me.

I thought a blow was coming. My hand was already on my sword hilt.

Instead he seized my hand and dropped to his knees with a thud.

“Little Martial Uncle!”

I jumped back half a step and failed to get free.

The old man cried with genuine feeling, snot and tears nearly rubbing off on my sleeve.

“Senior, calm down. I’m young. I can’t take this,” I said earnestly.

His lips trembling, he announced through tears of joy, “You have cultivated the Taishang Changqing Wuqing Jue!”

The white-robed sword cultivators behind him all changed color.

My master changed color too.

“What the hell? So that Nameless Manual of mine is called this? Why is the name so long?” I asked.

“That is a Cultivation Method created solely by the founding ancestor of our Taishang Wangqing Sect. It was lost three hundred years ago when the ancestor entered a secret realm; he took only one successor from a later generation in his life; by seniority, whoever cultivates this method is the Little Martial Uncle of our sect,” he choked out.

I looked down at the old manual.

The first page indeed read Boundless Great Love.

The second page read Heartless is not severed feeling; lasting love is not love in bondage.

I had always assumed these were pretty words the Hehuan Sect wrote to coax newcomers.

Fury rising out of nowhere, the old man turned to look at Xie Jinghong.

“Traitor!”

Xie Jinghong’s brow moved faintly.

Slapping him on the shoulder, the old man said, “You nearly ruined our Little Martial Uncle’s Dao heart!”

I: “?”

Xie Jinghong: “…”

From the Hehuan Sect crowd: “…”

My master could no longer hold back, and said weakly, “Um, everyone, did you perhaps forget that, by your own account just now, it was my disciple who ruined your disciple’s Dao heart?”

Rushing to defend his own, the white-bearded old man said, “The Little Martial Uncle is young and knows nothing of love; as his junior, could Jinghong not simply have avoided her?”

Xie Jinghong’s gaze moved slowly toward him.

That look was very cold.

He pretended not to notice.

I was stunned by the scene.

So long as your generation is high enough, black and white really can be turned upside down.

Full of fury, the Taishang Wangqing Sect had come — but after recognizing kin, they would have emptied their entire treasury for me.

One elder pressed a box of high-grade Spirit Stones on me.

Another elder handed me a short sword attuned to lightning.

Xie Jinghong’s master — the white-bearded old man named Xuanwei Zhenren — simply took the jade pendant from his own waist and called it a meeting gift.

I held an armload of gifts, overwhelmed by the favor.

My master’s eyes had gone red watching from the side.

Not from being moved. From heartache.

She yanked me back, wary. “This is my Hehuan Sect’s direct disciple.”

Xuanwei Zhenren said at once, “And the Little Martial Uncle of my Taishang Wangqing Sect.”

My master ground her teeth. “I raised her.”

Xuanwei Zhenren was perfectly justified. “My martial uncle.”

My master: “I tricked her back with a chicken leg!”

Xuanwei Zhenren stalled, evidently unsure what there was to be proud of.

I offered quietly, “They were spicy.”

My master immediately straightened her back.

Xuanwei Zhenren paused, then turned to instruct his disciples. “Go buy ten.”

Getting along with the Taishang Wangqing Sect, I decided, wasn’t impossible after all.

Eventually the two sects sat down to negotiate.

The negotiations took place in the Hehuan Sect’s main hall.

A row of colorful floral robes on the left, a row of white on the right.

And me, seated in the middle.

Xie Jinghong stood behind Xuanwei Zhenren, his gaze drifting to me every so often.

Whenever I looked up at him, he would be studying something very interesting in the middle distance.

My master smacked the table. “A-Ning isn’t leaving; she’s been by my side since she was five; she eats the Hehuan Sect’s food, sleeps in the Hehuan Sect’s beds, and splits the Hehuan Sect’s peach trees; she is a person of the Hehuan Sect.”

Xuanwei Zhenren smacked the table too: “She cultivates our sect’s founding ancestor’s method, lays her Dao Foundation on the Heartless Dao, forms her Golden Core on the Heartless Dao, and was born to join my Taishang Wangqing Sect.”

I listened very carefully.

Both sides made a lot of sense.

My master suddenly hugged me, crying miserably: “A-Ning, your master carefully raised you for thirteen years, hoping you’d inherit the mantle — how is it that in the blink of an eye you’ve become the next sect’s Little Martial Uncle?”

I thought it over and comforted her. “Master, you didn’t raise me all that carefully.”

My master’s sobbing hitched.

“And the method you gave me was the neighbor’s,” I went on.

She cried even louder.

Xuanwei Zhenren seized the chance: “Little Martial Uncle, come back to the sect with us; a heaven-sent prodigy like you is wasted in the Hehuan Sect.”

“Why wasted?” I asked.

His face was a mask of anguish. “They taught you Dual Cultivation!”

“What’s wrong with Dual Cultivation?” my master said furiously. “Dual Cultivation is a proper great Dao too.”

Xuanwei Zhenren pointed at Xie Jinghong. “Then don’t cultivate it on my own disciple! It’s an offense against decency!”

The hall went quiet again.

Xie Jinghong lowered his eyes like a jade statue devoid of joy or sorrow.

Were it not for his reddening ear, I might have believed it.

I suddenly understood something.

All these people argued and argued, but no one asked what I wanted.

They all treated me as an outcome.

In the Hehuan Sect’s eyes, I was the hope they had raised.

To the Taishang Wangqing Sect, I was the Inheritance chosen by the founding ancestor’s method.

Xie Jinghong probably saw me as a tribulation he could hardly speak of.

But I wasn’t anyone’s outcome.

I set down the chicken leg in my hand and said seriously, “In the daytime I’ll cultivate the Heartless Dao at the Taishang Wangqing Sect; at night I’ll return to the Hehuan Sect and study the Hehuan Heart Method.”

Both sides looked at me together.

“Both of you count as having taught me,” I said, “so both of you have to keep teaching.”

Xuanwei Zhenren opened his mouth.

My master opened her mouth too.

Then Xie Jinghong laughed once.

Very soft, yet it landed in the silent hall.

I looked over.

He raised his eyes and asked, “Then what about me?”

“You?” I said.

His fingertips rested on his sword hilt, his tone level. “I’ve already dual cultivated with you. Shouldn’t I be your responsibility too?”

Xuanwei Zhenren rapped his fly whisk against his back before I could answer.

“Traitor. No climbing the seniority ladder at random!”

From that day on, my life got very busy.

Days at the Taishang Wangqing Sect.

Evenings back at the Hehuan Sect.

Each morning Xuanwei Zhenren led a gaggle of elders in studying that manual of mine, and at the most excited points they looked ready to enshrine me.

Each evening my master spread the real Hehuan Heart Method out in front of me and forced me to read it line by line.

I studied it very seriously.

At least on the surface, very seriously.

In truth, a romance storybook was hidden beneath the manual. Its title was After the Cold-Faced Sword Lord Broke His Vows for Me.

I read three pages and decided the author was biased against sword cultivators.

Xie Jinghong would never break his vows like that.

All he did was slide the manual out from between the storybook’s pages and ask, his voice mild, “Little Martial Uncle, which page of the Hehuan Dao did we get to today?”

I said, “The page about how Dual Cultivation requires mutual fulfillment, and one must never harm another to benefit oneself.”

He flipped through the book. “This is a page you should have learned earlier.”

I touched my nose.

Sometimes I reflected on that night too.

I had truly believed everything my senior sisters told me; I thought refusing with the lips while welcoming with the hands was spice; I thought Xie Jinghong’s struggling was only the last stubbornness of a Heartless Dao disciple.

But the more I learned later, the more I knew it wasn’t.

Liking someone isn’t carrying them off. Loving someone isn’t deciding for them whether they want it.

I understood a little too late.

Fortunately, Xie Jinghong hadn’t used that incident to trap me, and he hadn’t used it to trap himself either.

He simply came to spar with me every few days.

The first time we sparred, I drove him back in three moves.

I sheathed my sword. “Your heart isn’t calm.”

“You’re too fast,” he said.

“The Heartless Dao demands a heart with no distractions,” I said. “You looked at me twice just now.”

He went silent.

The second time we sparred, he held out until the seventh move.

On the eighth, I pressed my blade tip to his shoulder, and he suddenly asked, “That storybook you were reading last night — what’s it about?”

My blade tip veered and sliced off a strand of his hair.

“You ask that while sparring?” I said.

“Curious,” he said.

I said honestly, “A sword lord who falls into demonhood for love.”

“Is it good?” he asked.

I considered it, then said earnestly, “Not as good-looking as you.”

The sword in Xie Jinghong’s hand nearly dropped.

I caught the opening and slapped him to the edge of the training platform with one palm.

Xuanwei Zhenren watched from below, agonized. “Jinghong! Purify your heart!”

Xie Jinghong raised a hand and pressed his brow, his voice dropping low enough that only I heard. “I can’t.”

I was caught off guard.

He had already turned and stepped down from the platform, his white-clad back straight, still looking like that cold moonlight.

Only his ear-tips were blushing in a way quite at odds with cold moonlight.

In the evening, back at the Hehuan Sect, my master asked, “What did you learn at the Taishang Wangqing Sect today?”

I said, “I learned that even Heartless Dao disciples lose their composure.”

A light came into my master’s eyes. “Over you?”

“Yes,” I said. “His grasp of the Dao is too shallow.”

My master spat her tea out.

She stared at me for a long while, then suddenly sighed.

“A-Ning, do you really not understand, or are you pretending not to?”

I turned a page of the manual and didn’t answer right away.

I wasn’t entirely oblivious.

When Xie Jinghong looked at me, that look was like fire pressed down beneath the Cold Pool.

I could see it.

I simply had no intention of reaching in to fish it out.

Love is too hot. Fish it out and it would burn my hands.

I had cultivated the Heartless Dao for thirteen years. I knew that once the heart moves, it is easy to hand yourself over.

The elders of both sects studied my Nameless Manual for a full three months.

The more they studied, the quieter the Taishang Wangqing Sect grew.

Xuanwei Zhenren had assumed that the founding ancestor’s lost method was surely the ultimate expression of severing emotion to prove the Dao.

But the further into the manual he read, the less it resembled what they had cultivated all these years.

Heaven and earth give birth to all things; all things enter my heart.

Seeing flowers, one knows spring; seeing wither, one knows autumn; seeing the suffering of all beings, one is not trapped by suffering; seeing the joy of all beings, nor is one trapped by joy.

The heartless are not without love; they are without fixation.

I lay on the table gnawing a chicken leg, listening to a roomful of elders argue themselves red-faced.

Someone said, “The ancestor meant great love.”

Someone said, “But our sect has taken severing affection as its root for three hundred years.”

Someone objected, “When you sever affection to the end, disciples go into closed-door cultivation for ten years without knowing spring from autumn, and can’t even remember their own senior brothers’ names — is that truly the great Dao?”

Xuanwei Zhenren turned to me. “What does the Little Martial Uncle think?”

Setting down the chicken leg, I considered it.

“I think you have cultivated heartlessness too narrowly.”

The whole hall went quiet.

I said, “When I was little I didn’t understand the Hehuan Heart Method, so my master gave me this book, and I practiced it as written.

It never stopped me from looking at flowers, eating chicken legs, or liking good-looking people.

It only let me know that when flowers fall there is no need to cry, that when the chicken legs run out you can buy more, and that a good-looking person who doesn’t belong to me is not worth forcing.“

By the window stood Xie Jinghong, his profile lit cold by the daylight.

I didn’t look at him.

“Heartless doesn’t mean having no feelings. It means not being dragged around by them.”

“Boundless Great Love doesn’t mean loving every person. It means seeing that all things have their own Dao.

Others have their own wishes. I have my own heart.

I can’t decide for someone else just because I like them, and I can’t lock myself away just because I’m afraid of losing.“

At this I paused.

No one in the hall spoke.

Xuanwei Zhenren’s expression went from shock to shame, and at last he sighed a long sigh.

“We cultivated for three hundred years, and it turns out we fall short of the Little Martial Uncle’s thirteen years of stumbling into it by accident.”

My master swelled with pride at once. “Of course. I taught him well.”

Xuanwei Zhenren glanced at her.

My master lowered her head to drink her tea, pretending nothing had happened.

That night Xie Jinghong saw me back to the Hehuan Sect.

The moonlight on the mountain road was thin, pine needles drifting onto his shoulders.

He suddenly asked, “Today you said that liking someone still doesn’t let you decide for them.”

I nodded. “Mm.”

“So you’ve realized,” he said.

My steps faltered.

The words weren’t heavy, yet they landed like a sword, precise, on old business.

I said, “Xie Jinghong, I was wrong that night.”

He stopped too.

I looked at the road ahead, my voice a little lower than usual.

“I didn’t understand then — I thought I had to cultivate the Hehuan Dao, so I only cared about completing the method; later I learned that a method was never meant for treating a person as a tool.”

He was quiet for a long time.

Long enough that I thought he wouldn’t answer.

Then he reached out and brushed a pine needle from my shoulder.

“If I truly hadn’t wanted it, you couldn’t have carried me off.”

I turned to look at him.

He explained no more, only looked down at me, much of the cold in his eyes dispersed.

“Then why didn’t you hide?” I asked.

He countered, “Why did you choose me?”

“You’re the best-looking, and your talent is the best,” I said honestly.

Xie Jinghong was quiet a moment, and then he actually laughed.

This time it wasn’t a cold laugh, and it wasn’t an angry one either.

It was like a thread of snow melting.

He said, “Shen Zhining, you really know how to infuriate a person.”

I thought the remark unfair.

I had clearly been complimenting him.

Revising the Taishang Wangqing Sect’s method turned out to be harder than I had imagined.

Some elders felt that since the founding ancestor’s method had been lost for so many years, rashly changing the sect’s foundation was too risky.

Some disciples felt they had been severing affection perfectly well, and suddenly telling them to practice Boundless Great Love was like dropping an ice cube into a hot wok to stir-fry.

Xuanwei Zhenren worried over it until several hairs had gone missing from his beard.

When I heard, I proposed, “Then test it first.”

“How?” he said.

I pointed at the training platform. “Have the disciples come for Heart-Questioning.”

Three hundred disciples of the Taishang Wangqing Sect gathered for the Heart-Questioning.

On the high platform I sat, my master to my left, Xuanwei Zhenren to my right.

Below the platform stood Xie Jinghong, white-robed and sword-bearing, like a billboard for the sect.

The first to mount the platform was a young disciple.

He had practiced the Severing-Affection Jue for three years. His greatest confusion was that seeing a junior sister get injured made his heart anxious.

He said shamefully, “This disciple’s Dao heart is unstable.”

I asked, “She got hurt, you felt anxious, and then?”

“I took her to the clinic,” he said.

“Who paid the medical fees?”

“This disciple did.”

“Did you take the chance to make her promise herself to you?”

The youth went white with fright. “No!”

I nodded. “Then you simply feel the natural affection between fellow disciples. Your Dao heart isn’t unstable.”

An uproar swept the crowd below.

The second disciple was even more dramatic.

He said he had gone into closed-door cultivation for ten years, and when he left seclusion he learned his own elder brother had died of illness — the grief he could not sever completely to this day.

Xuanwei Zhenren’s brow furrowed tight as he listened.

I asked, “Did your brother treat you well when he lived?”

The disciple nodded, his eyes red.

“When someone who treated you well dies, feeling sad means your humanity is still alive; if you didn’t feel sad, that would be the thing to examine for cultivation gone astray,” I said.

Xuanwei Zhenren coughed.

I added, “Of course, if you stop cultivating from now on and trap yourself in old memories day after day, then you truly would be enslaved by emotion.”

That disciple knelt in salute, his tears striking the platform.

The third to mount the platform was Xie Jinghong.

The moment he came up, the whole venue went silent.

The Chief Disciple of the Taishang Wangqing Sect. The steadiest Dao heart of the past, now the least steady example of all.

Looking at me, he asked, “If the heart favors one thing, does that count as violating the Heartless Dao?”

I said, “It depends how far the favoritism goes.”

He asked, “What if seeing her throws off my sword, hearing her voice scatters my focus, and knowing she has no such intention, I still want to look at her one more time?”

A chorus of sharp gasps swept the crowd below.

I suspected they had not come for Heart-Questioning but to hear gossip.

Without changing expression, I said, “Then it depends on whether you’ve hurt others or yourself because of it.”

Xie Jinghong: “No.”

I asked, “Have you forced her to respond?”

He: “No.”

“Have you used kindness, old history, or reputation to trap her?”

His lashes lowered faintly. “No.”

I gave a nod. “Then you are not enslaved by emotion.”

His eyes came up.

I said, “Only that you keep getting distracted when you spar. That does warrant punishment.”

Laughter nearly blew the roof off the venue.

Xie Jinghong laughed too.

Very shallow, yet it made several female disciples below the stage clutch their hearts.

When the Heart-Questioning ended, Xuanwei Zhenren announced on the spot that the Taishang Wangqing Sect’s Cultivation Method would be revised.

The old maxim, severing affection and extinguishing desire, was changed to know emotion and be untrapped by it; see love and be unattached to it.

As the disciples dispersed, Xie Jinghong walked to my side.

He asked, “And if she never has such intentions?”

I knew who the she was.

I took a bite of chicken leg and said around the mouthful, “Then keep cultivating your Dao.”

“Can’t I wait?” he asked.

I glanced at him. “Waiting is your business. It isn’t a debt she owes you.”

Xie Jinghong went quiet. Then, barely audible: “Fine.”

I ran back and forth between the two sects until I knew the route by heart.

Hehuan Sect disciples began eavesdropping on the Taishang Wangqing Sect’s lectures.

Disciples of the Taishang Wangqing Sect secretly came to the Hehuan Sect to borrow storybooks.

Trouble started with the second senior brother.

He used to boast that he passed through ten thousand flowers without a single leaf clinging to him.

Then he attended a course on Seeing the Heart, Knowing the Self at the Taishang Wangqing Sect, and came back hugging the medicine bottle the junior sister of Dan Peak had given him, sitting on the roof all night in the cold wind.

I asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m comprehending the Dao,” he said.

My gaze dropped to the medicine bottle.

A small note was stuck to the bottom: The medicine is bitter. Remember to eat candy.

I said, “This doesn’t look like comprehending the Dao. It looks like you’ve taken a liking to someone.”

Shock drained the color from the second senior brother. “I’m a disciple of the Hehuan Sect. How could I fall for someone that easily?”

I reminded him, “We’re the Hehuan Sect. Falling for someone is no big deal.”

Understanding dawned. “Right.”

Three days later he went down the mountain and bought three jin of candy.

She lost her mind too — my eldest senior sister.

She had been the best teacher in the sect, always with a formula for everything.

Then she met a swordswoman from the Taishang Wangqing Sect, who only complimented her once — “Your saber is steady” — and my eldest senior sister came back and burned every copy of her Thirty-Six Maneuvers of the Gaze.

“I was wrong about everything I learned before,” she said.

“Wrong how?” I asked.

“Liking someone isn’t about making her see how beautiful I am. It’s about letting her see who I am.”

I was filled with respect.

My master listened, one hand over her heart. “It’s over. My disciples have started falling in love properly.”

I said, “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It’s a good thing, but it makes me look like a very improper Sect Lord,” my master said mournfully.

Refusing to accept this, she decided to go to the Taishang Wangqing Sect in person for an exchange.

On the first day of the exchange, she debated the Dao with Xuanwei Zhenren from dawn till dusk.

On the second day, she sparred with Xuanwei Zhenren from the mountain gate to the back mountain.

On the third day, Xuanwei Zhenren gave her a hot chicken leg.

My master carried the chicken leg home and was silent for a long while.

I asked, “Master, have you been won over?”

She snorted. “You think one chicken leg is enough to trick me?”

I said, “That’s exactly how you tricked me back then.”

“Then he has to send at least two,” she said.

Watching my master’s back, I decided the Hehuan Sect really could be saved.

As for Xie Jinghong, he came even more often.

Officially it was to ask the Little Martial Uncle to correct the Cultivation Method.

In practice, every visit turned into a spar.

These days he could last twenty moves against me.

On the twenty-first, he still got distracted.

Sometimes it was because a slit opened in my sleeve from the sword wind.

Sometimes it was because I casually complimented how he’d bound his hair that day.

And sometimes it was simply because I asked, “Did you change into new clothes on purpose?”

He would say, his face cold, “Sect protocol.”

Then I would point at the silver-threaded sword tassel at his waist. “And protocol specifies that sword tassels be embroidered with peach blossoms?”

Xie Jinghong said nothing.

I leaned in for a closer look. “Nicely embroidered.”

The hand on his sword tightened for an instant.

The next move slowed again.

One palm slapped him off the training platform.

Watching from a distance, Xuanwei Zhenren sighed. “Lust has eaten his wits.”

Looking up, Xie Jinghong said mildly, “Honored Master, mind your words.”

Xuanwei Zhenren snorted. “You still remember I’m your master? Your Little Martial Uncle compliments you once and you can’t even hold your sword steady.”

I perched on the platform’s edge, swinging my legs.

“Xuanwei Zhenren, don’t scold him.”

Xie Jinghong’s eyes came to me.

I said seriously, “He’s simply too weak.”

Xie Jinghong closed his eyes.

Xuanwei Zhenren laughed three times, and when he was done he came over to clap me on the shoulder again. “Keen eyes, Little Martial Uncle.”

The look Xie Jinghong gave me was like he wanted to drag me off for another three hundred moves.

I wasn’t afraid.

I ran faster than he did.

Once, Xie Jinghong actually cornered me.

It was the night before the new Cultivation Method was to be proclaimed.

Both sects’ elders had argued the whole day and at last settled the last line of the sect maxim.

As I stepped out of the council hall, the moon hung at the corner of the eaves, and there was the scent of peach blossoms in the night wind.

Under the corridor stood Xie Jinghong, waiting for me.

He was holding an oil-paper wrap.

I saw the oil-paper wrap and my steps faltered.

“They’re hot,” he said.

I walked over and took it.

The oiled paper opened, and inside, sure enough, was a chicken leg.

One bite, and my eyes creased shut in contentment.

Xie Jinghong watched me. “Shen Zhining.”

I answered around the mouthful.

He said, “When you were chasing me before, was it also this easy to coax you?”

I considered it. “No. Back then I chased you because your conditions were the best.”

“Was there no liking at all?” he asked.

My chewing slowed.

The corridor was very quiet. From far off came the occasional footsteps of disciples making their night rounds.

I wasn’t deaf to what he was asking.

And I wasn’t unaware of what hid behind the question.

I simply wasn’t willing to repay that stretch of his life I had thrown into chaos with one flippant “I like you.”

So I answered seriously, “There was.”

Xie Jinghong’s lashes stirred.

“The first time I saw you at the Immortal Sects’ Grand Tournament, I thought you were good-looking. Later, when you lifted me by the collar with your sword, I was very angry; after that I passed by many times, and every time you recognized me, so I decided you weren’t so blind after all,” I said.

At this the corner of Xie Jinghong’s mouth seemed to stir.

I went on. “But my liking back then was shallow, so shallow I thought sleeping with you would count as completing my cultivation; I would understand only later that I hadn’t liked you — I had wanted to prove I wasn’t the Hehuan Sect’s good-for-nothing.”

When the words left me, the night seemed to thin, as if the wind had blown through it.

For a long time, Xie Jinghong said nothing.

I wrapped the chicken leg back up.

“Xie Jinghong, I don’t want to lie to you.”

“I can read you now, and I know you’re waiting. But I can’t hand myself over just because you’re waiting.”

“That wouldn’t be Hehuan, and it wouldn’t be Heartless either.”

He lowered his eyes, his gaze falling to the oil-paper wrap in my hand.

He would be disappointed, I thought.

He only asked, “Then can I still come find you to spar?”

I looked up. “Of course.”

He asked again, “Can I bring you chicken legs?”

I said warily, “You’re not trying to trick me with chicken legs, are you?”

His eyes found mine, a very faint smile surfacing in them.

“Would it work?” he said.

I considered it.

One used to be enough to trick me.

Not anymore.

These days it takes at least two.

I didn’t say the words out loud.

Because Xie Jinghong had already produced a second oil-paper wrap from his sleeve.

I went silent.

“Enough?” he asked.

Looking at those two chicken legs, I suddenly felt the Taishang Wangqing Sect had come a long way in three months.

But I still had my principles.

Taking the chicken legs, I said, “Just enough to keep you company in sparring.”

Xie Jinghong nodded. “Fine.”

He was always like this.

I gave what I gave, and he took exactly that much.

No pressing, no asking, no overstepping.

And yet every time he said fine, it didn’t feel like a concession.

It felt more like he had lit a lamp for himself beside my Dao.

I could choose not to walk toward him.

He could keep it burning.

In itself, this owed no one anything.

The day the new Cultivation Method was proclaimed, both sects hung new plaques at their mountain gates.

The Hehuan Sect changed its old maxim, Enter the Dao through love; every flower may be gathered, to Know your own heart before you promise it to another.

The Taishang Wangqing Sect changed its old maxim, Sever affection, extinguish desire; the sword heart knows no dust, to Know love and be untrapped; love long and be unbound.

Xuanwei Zhenren looked at the new plaque, his eyes slightly red.

My master looked at the new plaque, her expression complicated.

I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Our sect has suddenly become proper,” she said.

I said, “You don’t like it?”

My master thought it over. “It’s not that. It’s just a little unfamiliar.”

In the distance, the second senior brother was handing candy to the junior sister of Dan Peak.

Side by side, my eldest senior sister and that swordswoman had gone down the mountain, ostensibly to slay demons.

A new course had opened, run by the third senior sister: How to Win Your Beloved Over Without Lying, Drugging, or Forcing Them to Cultivate Beside You.

The sign-up line ran from the Hehuan Sect straight to the Taishang Wangqing Sect.

As I passed, the third senior sister grabbed me and insisted on seating me in the front row.

“I still need to learn this?” I said.

She smiled. “You especially need to.”

I decided she lacked respect for honor graduates.

Outside the door stood Xie Jinghong. Hearing this, he tilted his head slightly.

“What are you laughing at?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

I stared at him.

He caved. “I just think this is a good course.”

I rolled the course booklet in my hand up, pretending to hit him.

He didn’t dodge.

The booklet landed on his shoulder, very lightly.

In that instant I suddenly thought of many years ago, lying in the snow playing dead while he lifted me by the collar with his sword, cold as if incapable of closeness.

So some people weren’t incapable of drawing near.

He had simply been waiting until I truly stood steady before he was willing to leave the distance for me to decide.

Several years later, I crossed my Ascension Tribulation.

There wasn’t much to write, really.

Heavenly lightning fell in ninety-nine bolts, the tribulation clouds draining the color from the faces of disciples from both sects.

Standing beneath the tribulation clouds, I suddenly felt these bolts were much like the lightning that had charred my peach grove when I was five.

My master shouted from the mountain gate. “A-Ning, even after you ascend, remember to come back and see me!”

Xuanwei Zhenren shouted, “Little Martial Uncle, if there’s any word of the founding ancestor in the immortal realm, remember to send it through a dream!”

All manner of shouts came from my senior brothers and sisters.

Xie Jinghong didn’t shout.

He stood at the end of the cloud stairway, his white robes shining in the lightning’s glare, two oil-paper wraps in his hand.

I walked up and asked, “Are they hot?”

He said, “They’re hot.”

I took them and nodded in satisfaction.

Above, the Gate of Heaven opened, and immortal light fell down.

The gatekeeping immortal official asked me, “Ascendant, state your Dao Name.”

“Shen Zhining,” I said.

He looked at Xie Jinghong. “And you?”

Before Xie Jinghong could answer, I answered for him. “He’s my sparring partner.”

The official’s brush tip paused.

Xie Jinghong turned his head to look at me.

Biting into a chicken leg, I added, slow and unhurried, “And a junior of the Taishang Wangqing Sect.”

His eyes lowered, as if smiling.

I offered no further explanation.

Later, many people in the immortal realm asked me which was higher, the Heartless Dao or the Hehuan Dao.

I said both were high.

The Heartless Dao let me see all living beings. The Hehuan Dao let me see myself.

If there had to be a winner, then it was probably the chicken leg.

After all, my life began with a chicken leg.

Even on the day I ascended, I was still holding one.

As for what became of Xie Jinghong afterward, I never wrote it into the Dao Canon.

The Dao Canon speaks of the great Dao, not of private hearts.

And he, to me, happened to be precisely that bit of private business I had never managed to account for.

Later generations, when they spoke of me, all said the same thing —

the Heavenly Dao.