A burst of brilliant light precedes the unraveling blackness that forms itself into a representation of my inner world; or perhaps my inner mind. My inner soul? — I am entirely unfamiliar with this function, process, and event.

A black plane extends beneath us with a silvery sheen like a still lake — my sea of consciousness. The surface is calm, resembling glass more than water, upon which a black and silver moon reflects. The moon, in this case, is the black sphere that hovers far above us, although why it reflects as a silver and black moon when its entire surface is black is a mystery.

I can even see the outline of the tree that grows through my black sphere, and see its descending roots spiral down from its perch in the heavens, and penetrate deep into my inner sea.

Countless swords, appearing less made of energy but still made of black and gold, also populate this strange environment, humming ominously and exerting a kind of power that I am very unfamiliar with. The hum that the swords produce is similar but not quite the same as the hum my extra set of Foundation Pillars produce.

I conclude that the strange and mystical power the swords exert are due to the nature of the technique that produced them and its Celestial grade. The Celestial grade is one rank higher than Emperor, so it doesn’t surprise me that it contains such a profound effect.

“It is so beautiful,” Lan Xiaohui says, her eyes wide as she casts her gaze over my sea of consciousness. “These swords are so ominous!”

I am not sure how ominous equates to beautiful but the fact that Lan Xiaohui can manifest herself into my inner world — or whatever this is — gives me confidence that she truly might have a solution to my immediate problem.

Though, she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to demonstrate this solution.

She hops forward, gliding above the surface of my lake. It is not so much that she hops, but that she is so light on her feet that each step she takes sends her flying forward a dozen steps before her feet touch the lake again. And when her heels do click on the surface of the lake, sending out an expanding ring of silver light, lightning sparks at the point of contact, followed by the manifestation of black and red lilies blooming on the surface, embellishing the reflection of the moon.

“It is so vast,” Lan Xiaohui says. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”

“You have never done this before?” I ask her — more for the sake of managing my expectations than to gain knowledge.

She shakes her head as she jumps into the air, flying up more than twenty steps in the reduced gravity, and twirling in the air. “Never!”

Once she lands, she smiles and adjusts me on her hip. Her expression changes slightly. “I’ve never done it with Yu Shun; now I am glad for that.”

Her choice of words implies that this is related to intimacy, but they also assume I know what she is talking about, which I don’t.

Perhaps she interprets my silence in some particular way that encourages her to explain further. Her words become heated and faster; she almost stammers: “I just… I wasn’t ready. To… you know?” She folds her hands and then unfolds them, nervously running her fingers through her hair. “I mean, it’s hard to explain why I didn’t do it… it was an arranged marriage so…”

Her explanation is wholly inadequate and my cursed sentient core is brimming with curiosity even more at this explanation.

“It’s not even particularly useful,” she says, now adjusting her corsage. “Merging consciousness during dual cultivation is kind of like… just for…” She shrugs, without finishing the thought.

Merging consciousness; at least something of value emerged from that.

“So, this is my first time!” she declares with a hint of triumph and satisfaction in her tone.

I suppose overcoming an obstacle and experiencing new things is a cause for celebration, as it leads to the Dao. I also conclude that I may be missing some significant context regarding this matter because my sentient core is also wasting my energy on being happy for some reason. At this rate, I will die in less than a year, and my sentient core is happy.

Without a word, she draws me from my place at her hip and holds me up towards the black sphere. On the surface of the lake, I reflect against the moon.

“I thought of a name for you,” she says.

I don’t think I need a name, but the sooner we are done with this, the sooner we can get to Lan Xiaohui’s method to eliminate the snake in my internal vessel. “What is it?”

“Yaoyue,” she says, with a bright smile.

Demon Moon. She has fully accepted the fact that I am a demonic existence. Maybe this is what she meant by “embracing the devil in my heart”.

I have a question, however. “Why 'moon'?”

Lan Xiaohui smiles as if anticipating the question. “I think meeting you was destiny,” she says. “It’s like we share a connection that goes beyond time and distance. It made me think of the saying: mirror flower; water moon.”

I understand the meaning of that saying: the same way one cannot reach the moon by touching its reflection on water, one cannot touch the flower reflected in the mirror.

“As cultivators, we can reach for and grasp the unreachable,” Lan Xiaohui says. “I think it is poetic. My zither lessons came in handy, hmm?”

There is a smug note to that hum.

“I understand,” I tell her. “If your name is a flower, then mine should be a moon.”

Lan Xiaohui nods. “Do you like it?”

“I do.”

My quick reply has the intended effect because she finally takes a far more scrutinizing glance about her and then asks: “So where is the snake?”

“Beneath the lake,” I tell her.

She looks down at and through the reflected moon and stares for a long moment. Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise when she begins to make out the outline of the snake in my sea of consciousness. “Oh…”

“What is the matter?”

Lan Xiaohui bites her lower lip. “When you said big I thought you meant…” she trails off, shrugging. “Big.”

A hopeful glimmer emits from my sentient core — one which I share. “It is smaller than you expected?”

“No!” Lan Xiaohui exclaims. “This is not big. This is huge.”

I don’t particularly think that a snake a few miles long is huge, but Lan Xiaohui does not share the same standards of size as me.

“But it’s no problem. Big or huge, I will take care of this,” she says and nods.

Without hesitation, she lifts me up above her head and a corona of sword energy shrouds me, sparking off my vessel in black and gold ribbons of light and motes. She jumps into the air, for extra momentum, and then comes down like a comet, descending my energy-shrouded blade through my sea of consciousness and striking the snake’s body with my deadly edge.

Sparks fly off at the point of impact and the still lake of my consciousness produces a wave — which I register mostly as a tickling sort of sensation — but ultimately fails to even scratch the hard shell of the snake.

I feel foolish for ever even considering that Lan Xiaohui could possibly have a solution for my problem. Genius? I should’ve expected that Lan Xiaohui’s — a sword cultivator — solution would be to hit it with a sword. In hindsight, her confidence makes perfect sense to me now as does her solution — I hate to admit it, but this barbarism might actually work if she had the cutting power to actually chop the snake up into smaller pieces I could process; which she does not possess.

Still, Lan Xiaohui is a sword cultivator through and through; giving up does not exist in her vocabulary. Just because something exists that she cannot cut now does not mean that she won’t be able to cut on her next attempt.

Naturally, this means that she summons her Sword Domain, collapsing her sword Qi at the point of my blade, and then strikes at the snake again.

The effect on the snake is the same, no matter how many times she tries to cut it.

Even so, there is a cool confidence and determination to her, pleased tremendously that she can be of use to me like this.