“Let’s go—come inside and talk.”

Seeing Gu Qingxue make no move, standing there frozen and staring blankly at him, Lin Mo chuckled.
“What’s wrong? It’s not like you’ve never been here before—why so shy?”

From the side, Lin Tian chimed in, “Yeah, coming here is like coming home. We’re all family—what’s there to feel awkward about?”

Lin Zhan gave Lin Tian a shove. “You little brat, who asked you to butt in?”

Lin Tian immediately stepped aside with an obedient grin.
“Uncle, you go ahead—you talk.”

Lin Zhan turned back toward Gu Qingxue, his smile warm and friendly. “Qingxue, ah—been almost two years, hasn’t it? The last time you came over, everyone in the Lin family missed you afterward.”

During the time when Gu Qingxue had lost her memory, she had been unusually gentle and well-behaved, getting along quite closely with the Lin family. Remembering those days and facing Lin Zhan’s kind smile, she couldn’t bring herself to show any coldness.
“Uncle Zhan, Lin Mo and I… will just talk for a bit and then leave,” she said softly.

She nearly blurted out “Brother” again, but hastily caught herself. She had to admit—the lingering influence from that external duplicate of hers was still strong.

“Is that so? Very well, then…” Lin Zhan began, but before he could finish, Gu Ningxin tugged him sharply aside and stepped forward.

With a bright, enthusiastic smile, Gu Ningxin took Gu Qingxue by the hand and started leading her toward the Lin manor.
“Since you’re already here—and it’s such a rare outing—how could we just leave you standing outside?” she said cheerfully.
“There’s plenty of space inside. Come in, come in! We can talk comfortably, and it’ll give us a chance to properly play host.”

As they walked, Gu Ningxin leaned close and whispered beside Gu Qingxue’s ear, “My Mo’er has been talking about you ever since he got back—misses you this, misses you that, he’s been so distracted he can’t even eat or sleep properly.”

Hearing that, Gu Qingxue’s face flushed scarlet, and she couldn’t help but glance toward Lin Mo.

Unable to resist Gu Ningxin’s warmth and insistence, she was half-pushed, half-led—feeling a little dazed—into the Lin manor.

“What did Mother just say?”

For a moment, Lin Mo clearly sensed that Gu Ningxin’s gaze had softened again, returning to that gentle, tender look of hers.

“Mo’er, why are you still standing there?” she urged when she saw Lin Mo rooted to the spot.

Watching Gu Ningxin repeatedly running interference for Lin Mo and boosting his chances in love, Lin Tian sighed, “With a mother like that, who’d worry about not getting a wife? Why didn’t I have a mother like that yesterday?”

His mother’s face darkened. She seized Lin Tian by the ear. “You little brat, what did you just say?”

Lin Tian yelped for mercy. “Mother, I was wrong—my ear’s going to come off! It hurts!”

…In the main hall, Gu Ningxin had a few of the younger Lin clan members bring out the spirit tea that Gu Qingxue had prepared.

Seeing Lin Mo still looking a bit dazed at the side, Gu Ningxin prodded, “Mo’er, weren’t you always saying you wanted to make those new pastries you’ve been working on for Gu Qingxue?”

Of course Lin Mo understood his mother’s intentions. He smiled at Gu Qingxue. “Qingxue, would you mind staying here to keep my mother company for a while?”

Gu Qingxue hadn’t intended to refuse, but when she remembered the pastries—and those candied spirit-fruits—Lin Mo had given her before, rare delicacies seldom seen in this world, she couldn’t help swallowing.

Once Lin Mo left, Gu Ningxin took Gu Qingxue’s hand. “Qingxue, Mo’er’s never been very likable since he was small—hmph, he doesn’t know how to win a girl’s heart. But he truly likes you. You can feel that, can’t you?”

Gu Qingxue didn’t answer. She’d come today intending to lend the Lin family a hand once, o resolve the karmic debt left by her external incarnation.

Still, she hadn’t expected Lin Mo to have grown this much already. She herself hadn’t figured out how to face him yet. Now that Gu Ningxin had asked so directly, her mind turned to mush; everything was in a jumble and she didn’t know where to begin.

Seeing her remain silent, Gu Ningxin gave a reassuring smile. “It’s all right, Qingxue. I know you’re Jiang Yanran’s senior sister, but matters of the heart are about mutual affection between you and Mo’er—that’s what matters most. You don’t have to care so much about what others think.”

“Besides, that engagement between Jiang Yanran and Mo’er has already been annulled. You really don’t need to feel guilty.”

At that, Gu Qingxue’s expression only grew more awkward. How could she possibly not feel guilty? She admitted to herself that she did, in fact, have feelings for Lin Mo.

After all, everything her external incarnation had experienced was no different from what she herself had gone through.

But—she wasn’t Jiang Yanran’s senior sister. She was Jiang Yanran’s master.

If her own disciple were ever to find out that she had shared such an experience with her disciple’s former fiancé… how could she possibly face her?

Worse still, if outsiders got wind of it, who knew what kinds of strange rumors would spread?

“Shocking! The Palace Lord of the Cold Ice Palace, after annulling her disciple’s engagement, turned around and snatched her disciple’s fiancé! Was it all premeditated, or just moral collapse?”

Just imagining that headline made Gu Qingxue’s scalp tingle.

She was, after all, the head of an immortal sect — if such gossip ever circulated, what face would she have left to live in this world?

During that expedition into the Yao Clan’s secret realm, her disciple Jiang Yanran had been grievously wounded by Lin Mo — her foundation shattered, her hatred toward him etched deep into her bones. She was still undergoing trials within the Cold Abyss of the Ice Palace.

If Jiang Yanran were to emerge and learn all of this… how would she ever look at her master again?

Gu Qingxue remained silent for a long while before finally saying,
“Aunt, I still want to speak with Lin Mo alone about this matter.”

Gu Ningxin understood. From the moment Gu Qingxue appeared, she could tell from her aura that her memories had returned.

She also knew that the messy affair between the amnesiac Gu Qingxue, her former fiancé, and her own disciple was far too tangled for anyone to easily accept.

Everything that needed saying had already been said; there was nothing more she could add.

Gu Ningxin merely nodded and said softly,
“Very well. Matters of the young should be handled by the young themselves.”

Still, she added one last sentence, her tone gentle yet meaningful:
“But I’ll say this — Heaven has its own arrangements. If you let the opinions of outsiders make you miss the person meant for you, you’ll regret it for life. Treasure what you have.”

Gu Qingxue felt as though struck by lightning.
“Heaven’s arrangements… is that really how it is?” she murmured faintly, dazed.

---

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Lin Mo was busy preparing pastries — yet his thoughts were far from calm.

“System,” he muttered, “I can’t shake the feeling that this Gu Qingxue is… different from the one I knew. I don’t mean she’s someone else entirely, but… there are just too many little details that don’t match up.”

The system’s voice echoed in Lin Mo’s mind.

“Host, where do you think the difference lies?”

“The biggest issue has two points,” Lin Mo replied.

“First, there’s the matter of cultivation. Even if someone lost her memory, at most she’d forget how to use her techniques—how could that possibly affect her cultivation level itself?”

He frowned. “Second… why is this Gu Qingxue’s yuan-yin still intact?”

If not for that expedition to the Yao-clan’s secret realm, he could have sworn he’d seen blood with his own eyes.
That made absolutely no sense. Could it be that in the cultivation world, there actually existed a method to restore such a thing?

【Heh heh heh… yuan-yin unbroken… such a rare and precious condition…】

“This isn’t funny,” Lin Mo snapped. “If you’re trying to rack up regret points off me, you can forget it.”

【Aiya, the system was only joking!】

【Still, host, you should actually be happy about this.】

“Be serious,” Lin Mo warned.

【Fine, fine. To answer your first question—the Gu Qingxue you encountered wasn’t her true self, but merely one of her external incarnations.】

“???” Lin Mo blinked in disbelief.
“What do you mean? An incarnation?
So all this time… I’ve been tangled up with just a fragment of her?”

He rubbed his temples. “What kind of mess is this…”

【Host, don’t pull such a long face—let the system finish explaining.】

【The cultivation method Gu Qingxue practices allows her to divide off an external incarnation. In essence, that incarnation is her true self—it shares the same soul. But when she entered the secret realm back then, the incarnation’s link to her original body was cut off by the people inside. As a result, that incarnation lost its memories and manifested as Gu Qingxue from a much younger stage.】

【Once the connection was restored, all of the incarnation’s memories returned to the original body.】

Lin Mo stared blankly. “So the Gu Qingxue I’m seeing now is the real one?”

【Exactly, host—you’re quick on the uptake.】

Hearing that, Lin Mo finally felt a bit of the weight lift from his chest, though he couldn’t shake the faint sense of having been toyed with.
“Alright,” he sighed, “you don’t need to answer my first question anymore.”

Lin Mo thought for a moment and quickly pieced the rest together.
Of course—if the incarnation’s connection to the true body had been severed, then naturally that incarnation’s cultivation would vanish along with it.

The system whimpered pitifully,

“Wuwuwu… host, can you please stop being so clever? At this rate, I can only earn one regret point from this!”

Lin Mo laughed. “That’s on you. Why didn’t you start from the first question in the first place?”

“I… I just thought it’d be easier to start with the second one…” the system mumbled.

By now the system felt terribly wronged. A single question was worth twenty regret points, and by trying to take a shortcut, it had missed out on one entirely.

Listening to that almost-crying tone, Lin Mo couldn’t help but chuckle.
“I’m teasing you. Since you cleared up both my doubts, I’ll credit you for two regret points. So quit crying already.”