Be Gentle, Immortal Master

As if to make up for all the nights we had forsaken over the past month, we tumbled in bed for way too long that day. Needless to say that when we finally woke up the next morning after barely sleeping, the hour was already quite late.

I turned over drowsily under the blankets, squinting against the bright ray of sun pouring through the window above us. "We missed the view at sunrise you promised me," I mumbled, covering my eyes with a hand. "It must be almost noon now with this much light."

He curled his arm. I didn't realize until then that I was still lying in his embrace, and the motion sent me rolling over onto his chest, facing down. "You make a much more beautiful view than sunrise," he said. A lingering kiss ensued.

I chuckled against his lips. I suddenly felt like one of those infamous consorts from the tales of the past, who were so beautiful and so good at the art of the bed chamber that the emperors would stop caring about their responsibilities and lose themselves in bed all day. Those women were always blamed throughout history for their influence on their husbands, and from the look of Bai Ye right now … he wasn't too far from falling victim to my power completely just like those emperors.

Deciding that I couldn't let him fall further from grace than he already did, I pushed him a little, breaking our kiss. "We should get up." I tried to convince him. "You were going to hunt my dinner today, weren't you? It's already late enough, you'd better get started soon."

He dismissed the idea without a second thought. "Don't forget it's the middle of winter now, Qing-er. There isn't much to hunt in this area at this time of the year." With those words, he claimed my breath again. His arms tightened around me, hoisting my body closer towards him.

This shameless man's appetite was impossible to satiate, I thought as he deepened the kiss. He was the one that claimed to disagree with my plan of how to spend our free days here … But who knew it was all talk! I had thought that last night was overindulging enough, yet here he was—

The next moment, my stomach growled, relentlessly interrupting his hands that were just starting to slide down my back.

I looked up at him, slightly embarrassed. Then we both laughed. "Looks like I'll be starving to death if that's the case," I said. "I hope you brought enough prepared food from the pantry before we left."

Reluctantly letting go of me, he reached for the clothes that we had tossed all over the floor last night. "I've already set up traps yesterday before we came. We might end up with some luck in a few days … But until then, you're getting fish."

"Fish?" I blinked. "There was dried fish in the pantry?"

He stared at me, as if trying to determine whether I was fully awake. "No. I'm catching them today so my dear wife won't starve to death."

My eyes widened. I had never heard of fishing in winter. "How do you fish with everything frozen?" I asked.

Although I knew enough about hunting and fishing in general, the village I grew up in was in the south, and we didn't have to deal with winters nearly as harsh as this. Even the smallest ponds rarely froze, and if they ever did, the thin ice would only stay for a few days before the next warm day's sunshine melted everything. But winters here up north weren't anything similar. During the coldest days, the lakes would freeze so solid that we could walk across them, and it never occurred to me that one could fish under conditions like this.

Bai Ye smiled, knowing what I was thinking. "Frozen water is precisely what we need for fishing here this time of the year," he said. "Come, I'll show you."

Eager and curious, I donned my warm layers, and I followed him back out into the world covered in deep whiteness.

The snow had stopped this morning. Bright sunlight glared over the white ground, blinding my vision, and the whole mountain top looked different under the glowing light. We trod in the deep snow for a while until we came up to a large clearing in the woods, and he gestured for me to stop. "Careful with your footing," he said. "It's ice below us now."

I looked down, not realizing that the terrain beneath us had changed without me noticing. "This lake has a strong flow of spiritual power and freezes earlier than other ones in the area," he added, "even before the heavy snow starts. So it simply looks like a glade when you come upon it in the middle of winter, because the ice is all buried under the snow just like the forest floor."

Focusing on the feeling under my feet, I could sense the faint flow of power beneath us. This was just like the meadows at Mount Hua with the underground lake, I realized, which meant that anything growing here would be quite beneficial to cultivators. Bai Ye sure knew how to pick the best place to live.

"How do you catch fish through the ice then?" I asked.

He smiled. "Most people would drill a hole … But of course, we can be lazy and make it a little easier."

He raised a hand, uttering a simple fire spell, and the next moment, the snow and ice in front of us started to clear. As he carefully moved his hand, a small hole started forming in the whiteness covering the ground. Curiously, I poked my head forward, and I gasped when I saw a clear body of water at the bottom of the hole, filled with fish.

"They'll gather around us because of the fresh air," he explained. "They've been stuck under solid ice for almost a month now."

I grinned. I never knew fishing could be so easy … We didn't even need any bait? "You really suit a commoner's life better than a cultivator's," I exclaimed.

He laughed.. Together, we started picking our choices for dinner.