[Time Remaining: 6 Days, 08 Hours, 15 Minutes]
Stair number 4,392.
My calves were burning. My lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass.
I looked up. The stone steps spiraled into the clouds, disappearing into a white mist that smelled of ozone and death.
"Who..." huff "...builds..." wheeze "...this many stairs?"
I collapsed onto the cold stone, sweat dripping from my nose.
The Ancestor's Peak. The highest point in the Heavenly Dao Sect. Ten thousand steps to the top. Legend said that only those with unwavering determination could reach the summit.
Legend forgot to mention that those people usually had working cardio.
I lay on my back, staring at the grey sky.
"System," I gasped. "I can't do it. Just let the timer run out. Cripple my cultivation. I don't care. I'm not moving."
The blue box flickered into existence above my face.
[SYSTEM]:You are pathetic.
"I am human," I corrected. "There is a difference."
[SYSTEM]:Chen Wei. Look at your status.
I groaned. "I know my status. I'm a Foundation Establishment cultivator who is about to die of exhaustion on a staircase."
[SYSTEM]:Exactly. You are Foundation Establishment.
The box pulsed mockingly.
[SYSTEM]:You can fly.
I froze.
The wind whistled past my ears. A hawk screeched somewhere in the distance.
I sat up slowly.
"I..."
I looked at my hands. I looked at the faint spiritual energy humming in my meridians.
I had spent five years in the Outer Sect keeping my head down. I walked everywhere. I chopped wood by hand. I lived like a mortal because acting like a cultivator meant drawing attention.
I had genuinely, completely forgotten that I could defy gravity.
"Oh," I whispered.
[SYSTEM]:If stupidity was a cultivation method, you would be an Immortal Emperor.
"Shut up," I muttered.
I channeled my Qi. My body became light. My feet lifted off the stone.
Whoosh.
I shot upward, bypassing the remaining five thousand steps in seconds. The clouds parted. The mist cleared.
I landed on the summit.
And immediately, I wished I was back on the stairs.
It was quiet.
Not the quiet of a library. The quiet of a grave.
The top of the peak wasn't a palace. It wasn't a fortress. It was a flat plateau of grey stone, scoured clean by the wind.
In the center sat a cave. No door. No guards. Just a dark hole in the rock.
"Hello?" I called out. My voice was snatched away by the wind.
No answer.
I walked toward the cave. The temperature dropped with every step. Frost crunched under my boots.
I stopped at the entrance.
"Outer Disciple Chen Wei asks permission to enter!" I shouted, bowing.
Silence.
Then, a voice floated out from the darkness.
"Enter."
I swallowed dryly. I stepped inside.
The cave was massive. The ceiling was high enough to fit a dragon. The walls were smooth, cut by sword intent thousands of years ago.
But it was empty.
I looked around, confused.
There was no furniture. No bed. No table. No bookshelves. No personal items.
There was only a single meditation mat in the center of the room.
And her.
Ancestor Ling Shuang sat on the mat. She was reading my crumpled piece of paper.
She didn't look up when I entered.
"Close the entrance," she said.
I looked back. There was no door.
"Uh, Ancestor..."
She waved her hand.
Rumble.
A massive boulder slid across the opening, sealing us in. The only light came from the glowing moss on the ceiling and the faint, white aura radiating from her body.
We were alone.
Locked in a cave with a nuclear weapon.
"Sit," she commanded.
She didn't gesture to a chair, because there weren't any. I sat on the cold stone floor, five feet away from her.
She continued to stare at the poem.
"You wrote this," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes, Ancestor."
"The stars are not beautiful because they are bright. They are beautiful because they are distant."
She traced the words.
"Why?" she asked.
I blinked. "Why what?"
She looked up. Her ice-blue eyes bore into mine.
"Why is distance beautiful?"
I hesitated. I thought about the prompt the System gave me. Vulnerability.
"Because..." I started, choosing my words carefully. "Because when something is far away, we can imagine it is perfect. We can love the idea of it without being burned by the reality."
Ling Shuang went still.
"Burned," she repeated.
"Closeness brings pain," I said. "Flaws. Disappointment. Loss. It's safer to admire the star from the ground than to touch it."
She lowered the paper.
"I have been on this mountain for 650 years," she said softly. "I sought the peak of cultivation. I sought perfection."
She gestured to the empty cave.
"I removed all distractions. All attachments. All... closeness."
She looked at me.
"Is this why I am cold, Chen Wei?"
The question hung in the air. It was so innocent, yet so heavy.
She wasn't asking philosophically. She was asking medically. Like she was diagnosing a sickness she didn't understand.
"Yes," I said.
"But I am strong," she countered. "I am the strongest in the sector. Is strength not warmth?"
"Fire is warm," I said. "But a fire needs wood to burn. It needs... fuel."
"And what is the fuel?"
"Connection."
She frowned. The concept seemed alien to her.
"I do not understand."
"Ancestor," I said, taking a risk. "Look at this room."
She looked around.
"It is efficient," she said.
"It's empty," I corrected. "You have been alive for three thousand years. Where are your things? Where are your memories?"
"Memories are distractions."
"Memories are life!" I blurted out.
She stared at me.
"You speak strange words for an Outer Disciple," she murmured. "You said you wrote this from experience. That you knew the dark."
I looked down at my hands.
"I was sick," I said quietly. Not a lie. "Before I came here. I was very sick. I spent a long time in a white room. Just me and the walls."
"Did you cultivate?"
I laughed. A bitter, short sound. "No. I waited to die."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"And were you lonely?"
"Terrified," I admitted. "I wanted someone to hold my hand. Anyone. But there was no one."
Silence stretched between us.
Then, she moved.
She shifted on her mat. She leaned forward, just an inch.
"I..." she started, then stopped. "I broke through to the Nascent Soul realm one thousand eight hundred years ago. The sect celebrated for a month."
"That sounds... nice?"
"I did not attend," she said. "I was stabilizing my realm. When I emerged, my master was dead. My peers were old. The world had moved on."
She looked at her hands. They were pale, perfect, and terrifyingly strong.
"I have not felt... anything... since that day."
She looked back at me.
"Until yesterday."
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[VULNERABILITY DETECTED][Romance Progress: 5%]
"When you read the poem," she said. "My heart... stuttered. It was unpleasant. But it was not cold."
She stood up.
I scrambled to stand as well.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"Chen Wei, Ancestor."
"No," she said. Her voice was firm. "Do not call me Ancestor."
"Then... Sect Elder?"
"No."
She took a step closer. The air smelled of snow.
"Ling Shuang."
My heart stopped.
"Ancestor, I can't—"
"Say it." The spiritual pressure spiked. Just a little. A warning.
"Ling Shuang," I squeaked.
She smiled.
It wasn't a big smile. It was a tiny twitch of the corner of her lips. But on her face, it looked like a sunrise after a thousand-year winter.
[CRITICAL HIT][Romance Points +20]
A rush of warm energy flooded my body. My fatigue vanished. My cultivation base rumbled.
Holy crap. The System wasn't lying. Her happiness was literally steroids for my soul.
"You," she said, pointing a slender finger at my chest. "You seem to know things I do not. About... burning. And fuel."
"I know a little," I managed.
"Good." She turned and walked to the wall of the cave. "Then you will teach me."
"Teach you? Teach you what? Poetry?"
"Everything," she said. "You say this cave is empty. Fill it."
She turned back to me.
"What do mortals do? When they are not cultivating?"
"Uh," I scratched my head. "They work. They sleep. They eat."
"Eat," she repeated. "I consume Fasting Pills. They are efficient."
"Efficient, yes. But boring."
She tilted her head. "Food is for sustenance. How can it be entertaining?"
I stared at her.
"Wait," I said. "Have you... have you ever had a dumpling?"
"A... dump-ling?" She pronounced the word carefully, like it was a foreign spell. "Is this a high-grade pill?"
My jaw dropped.
"You are three thousand years old," I whispered. "And you have never had a dumpling?"
"No."
"Spicy noodles?"
"No."
"Sugar buns? Roasted duck? Tea eggs?"
She shook her head. "I have not eaten mortal food since I was a child. It creates impurities."
I looked at her. Really looked at her.
She was a goddess. She was immortal. She could crush armies.
And she had missed out on every single good thing about being alive.
"That," I said solemnly, "is a tragedy worse than death."
She frowned. "You exaggerate."
"I do not," I said. "Ling Shuang, you haven't lived. You've just existed."
She stiffened.
For a second, I thought she was going to kill me. I had just insulted the most powerful being in the region.
But the anger didn't come. Instead, she looked... curious.
"Show me," she said.
"Show you?"
"Tomorrow," she said. "Take me to this... place of dumplings."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[MISSION UPDATE][OBJECTIVE: The First Date][TASK: Escort Ancestor Ling Shuang to the Outer Sect Market.][DIFFICULTY: Suicidal][WARNING: If she gets a tummy ache, you die.]
I stared at the blue box. Then I looked at the innocent, expectant look on the face of the woman who could split mountains.
"The market," I said weakly. "You want to go to the market."
"Yes," she said. "Is there a problem?"
"No," I lied. "No problem at all. Just... people. Lots of people. Loud people. Dirty people."
"I will suppress them," she said simply.
"Please don't," I begged. "That ruins the vibe."
"Vibe?"
"I'll explain later."
I bowed. "I will return tomorrow at dawn. With... an appetite."
She nodded. She waved her hand, and the boulder slid open.
Sunlight flooded the cave.
I walked out onto the peak. My legs were shaking, but not from exhaustion this time.
I was going on a date.
With the Ancestor.
To a cheap noodle stall.
[SYSTEM]:Congratulations. You have successfully initiated the 'Sugar Daddy' protocol. Except you are the sugar, and she is the daddy.
"I hate you," I whispered.
[SYSTEM]:Romance Progress: 5%. Cultivation boost pending. Don't forget to fly down, idiot.
I looked at the stairs. I looked at the sky.
I grinned.
I pushed off the ground, soaring into the air.
For the first time in two lives, I felt like I was actually going somewhere.