I was imprisoned inside the human skin of the aloof fairy's master

The cold moon hangs like a hook above the green mountains.

Shen Du knelt on the bluestone slab, his knees so numb he could barely feel them. He secretly glanced up at the figure in white before him, then quickly lowered his head again, cold sweat mixed with dew streaming down his forehead.

"Kneel properly." A cold voice came from above, devoid of emotion, yet it made Shen Du's back tense.

"Master, I've been kneeling for three hours..." Shen Du muttered softly.

"Did you practice swordsmanship as I was told?"

"I practiced."

"You practiced? I told you to practice three times, and you only practiced twice before running off to raid bird nests in the back mountains. Is that what you call practicing?"

Shen Du's lips twitched. He thought to himself, "Master, how do you know everything?" He was twenty years old this year. He had been taken up the mountain by his master when he was eight, and it had been twelve years since then. Every time he slacked off, he couldn't escape his master's eyes. Sometimes he even suspected that his master had put some kind of tracking spell on him, but then he thought that Qingya Peak was such a small place. His master could see even the split ends in his hair with a single scan of his divine sense.

The white-clad fairy turned around, moonlight falling on her face. Her brows and eyes were as cold and aloof as frost and snow, her thin lips slightly pursed, revealing no emotion. Her name was Lu Qinghan, the sole successor of the Qingya Peak lineage of the Cangshan Sword Sect, and the undisputed number one fairy of Cangshan. Over the years, countless outstanding talents from various sects and noble families had come to propose marriage, all of whom she had blocked at the door with a single sword stroke.

Throughout her life, she only had one disciple, Shen Du.

"Get up." Lu Qinghan's tone softened slightly. "Go back and copy the sword manual three more times. I will check it tomorrow."

Shen Du felt as if he had been granted a pardon. He scrambled to his feet, his knees cracking. He rubbed his legs and grinned as he approached Lu Qinghan. "Master, are you hungry? I picked some wild mushrooms while I was raiding bird nests today. I'll make you some soup when we get back."

Lu Qinghan glanced at him, a hint of barely perceptible helplessness in her eyes: "You drink it yourself."

"master--"

“Say one more word, and I’ll copy it ten times.”

Shen Du immediately shut up, but still followed Lu Qinghan with light steps, stepping on her shadow as they walked into the house. The moonlight stretched their shadows long, one tall and one short, one in front of the other, like a painting that had been steeped in the passage of time for twelve years.

Shen Du knew that his master was good to him. How good? So good that sometimes when he woke up in the middle of the night, he would feel that it would be only right to return his life to his master.

But he never imagined that this day would come so quickly and so strangely.

Seven days later, the demonic forces attacked.

To be precise, it wasn't a massive army that arrived; it was just one person. This person wore a dark red robe, his face was as pale as a corpse, and a half-smile played on his lips. He carried a knife in his hand. The knife was peculiar; its blade was long and curved, entirely black, but the edge gleamed with a ghostly green light, as if it had been coated with something unclean.

He stood in front of the mountain gate of Qingya Peak, looked up at the plaque with the words "Qingya" written on it, and then casually waved his hand, shattering the plaque into dust.

Lu Qinghan was the first to sense that aura. She was meditating when she suddenly opened her eyes, her expression changed drastically, and she grabbed the long sword hanging on the wall, saying to Shen Du, "Stay in the room and don't come out."

Her tone had never been so stern. Shen Du was startled and before he could ask anything, Lu Qinghan had already transformed into a white shadow and rushed out.

Shen Du couldn't stand it any longer. He gritted his teeth, grabbed his broken iron sword, and followed. He had been a disciple for twelve years, but his cultivation was only at the mid-Foundation Establishment stage. In front of a true expert, he was no different from an ant. But he had only one thought in his mind—he was worried about his master going alone.

By the time he arrived at the mountain gate, the battle had already begun.

It was a battle he couldn't possibly intervene in. Lu Qinghan's sword light poured down like a cascading silver river, each strike carrying a chilling, bone-piercing intent. But the red-robed man's movements were extremely strange, his body twisting and turning as if he had no bones, and every swing of his black knife carried a sinister aura that sent chills down one's spine.

Shen Du hid behind the boulder, his palms sweating profusely. He saw that his master's white robes were stained with blood, and there was a deep wound on her left arm that exposed the bone, but her swordsmanship did not diminish at all; on the contrary, each strike was more ferocious than the last.

Then the knife pierced the master's back.

The scene Shen Du witnessed seemed to be slowed down countless times—the black knife, gleaming with a green light, pierced Lu Qinghan's back and slashed downwards along his spine. Blood gushed out, staining most of his white robes crimson. Lu Qinghan's body stiffened abruptly, and the sword in his hand fell to the ground with a crisp sound.

"Master!" Shen Du cried out in anguish as he rushed out from behind the boulder.

The man in red drew his sword, took two steps back, and looked at Lu Qinghan's body with great interest. His expression was as if he was waiting for something to happen, and that expectant yet playful look sent a chill down Shen Du's spine.

But nothing happened.

Lu Qinghan's body fell straight down, her blood spreading across the ground. Her eyes were still open, her lips moved slightly as if she wanted to say something, but ultimately no sound came out.

Then, something strange happened.

Lu Qinghan's body began to change. It was as if something had hollowed out his flesh from the inside, and his entire body rapidly withered away. His skin, however, remained intact, growing thinner and thinner, more and more transparent, until it finally became a complete human-shaped scabbard, which floated lightly to the ground.

The man in the red robe frowned, his expectation turning into disgust. He stepped forward, used the tip of his knife to lift the human skin, and spat, "What the hell? What a waste of my good knife."

He casually tossed the human skin aside and turned to leave. The skin, as thin as a cicada's wing, was blown by the night wind and landed on the stone steps in front of the mountain gate, gleaming with an eerie yet sacred luster under the moonlight.

Shen Du's mind went blank. He stumbled over, knelt on the ground, and tremblingly picked up the human skin. The skin was very light, as light as a piece of paper, and still retained his master's warmth and breath. He could even recognize the familiar outline of that face—his master's eyebrows and eyes, his master's lips, only now they had all become a flat, empty skin.

"Master... Master..." Shen Du's voice trembled, tears streaming uncontrollably onto the human skin. He didn't know what had happened, nor did he understand why his master had become like this. He only knew that something had happened to his master, and there was nothing he could do.

He held the human skin and cried like a dog.

Then, the human skin moved slightly.

Shen Du's crying stopped abruptly. He looked down at the human skin in his hand, thinking he was hallucinating. But the next second, the human skin suddenly sprang from his hand, flipped over as if it were alive, and faced his face.

Shen Du's pupils suddenly dilated.

Before he could even scream, the mouth of the human skin was already covering his head. A tremendous suction force surged from all directions, his head was tightly wrapped in the human skin, his vision went completely dark, and his mouth and nose were tightly covered, making it impossible for him to breathe. He struggled desperately, tearing at the thing on his head with his hands, but the human skin seemed to be alive, tightening its grip even more.

Then, he felt his tongue.

A tongue that didn't belong to him emerged from the inside of the human skin's mouth and covered his own. That tongue was cold yet soft, with a strange feel to it, like his master's, yet not quite his master's. His taste buds could taste the lingering blood on that tongue and another indescribable flavor—like frost and snow, like the cold moon, like the faint fragrance in the air when his master stood beside him all those years ago.

His body was swallowed inch by inch. The human skin began to extend downwards from his head, like a snake devouring its prey, slowly and steadily enveloping him entirely in the empty shell that had once belonged to his master. His arms were squeezed and tucked into the arm portion of the human skin, his torso was stuffed into the torso portion, every inch of his skin pressed tightly against the inner wall of the human skin without a single gap.

The sensation of being forcibly shoved into another layer of skin made every nerve in Shen Du scream. He could feel the human skin merging with his own, as if countless tiny tentacles were extending from the inside of the human skin and burrowing into his pores. Those tentacles were cold and fine, like his master's fingers gently caressing every inch of his skin, or like something deeper than death was engulfing him.

In his final moments of consciousness, all that remained was a white light and the lingering, cold fragrance of his master.

Then, he completely lost consciousness.

After an unknown amount of time, Shen Du's consciousness slowly returned. The first thing he felt was the wind—the cool sensation of the night wind brushing against his skin, carrying the scent of mountain grass and trees. Then came the sounds—the chirping of insects, the sound of the wind, and the distant sound of a waterfall. Then came the light—the faint red glow of moonlight filtering through his eyelids.

He is alive.

This realization made him suddenly open his eyes.

The familiar night sky stretched before him, the cold moon still hanging high, exactly as it had been before he lost consciousness. He gasped for breath, his chest heaving violently, his whole body aching as if it had been run over. He tried to move his fingers, and they moved; he tried to move his feet, and they moved too.

He came back to life.

Shen Du pushed himself up and sat up, looking down at his body. He was wearing a tattered white robe, stained with blood—his master's white robe. He felt something was wrong, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. He touched his face; his cheeks, nose, lips, and chin were all there, and the texture was normal skin.

etc.

He touched something that shouldn't be on his face.

The small mole at the end of the left eyebrow.

That's my master's mole.

Shen Du's hand froze in mid-air, his blood running cold in an instant. He touched it again, his fingers trembling as he carefully traced the curve of his brow bone. The mole was there, slightly raised, its location and feel precise.

That was Lu Qinghan's mole; he had seen it for twelve years and would never mistake it.

"Shen Du".

A voice rang in my mind.

That was his master's voice, Lu Qinghan's voice, clear and familiar, with a tremor he had never heard before, suppressed to the extreme.

"Master?!" Shen Du practically shouted, "Master, where are you? Are you still alive?!"

There was a moment of silence.

"I'm alive." Lu Qinghan's voice echoed in his mind, her tone extremely complex, "But Shen Du... you are now inside my body."

Shen Du was stunned.

He slowly lowered his head and spread his hands. His fingers were long and slender, white, and his skin was as smooth as porcelain, completely different from his rough hands, calloused from practicing swordsmanship. He suddenly ripped open the front of his shirt, and in the moonlight, he saw his collarbone, the curve of his chest, and his flat and smooth abdomen.

That's not his body.

"Master..." Shen Du's voice sounded like someone was choking him, "Then your body... I'm using your body now?"

"yes."

"Then...is inside your body?"

Lu Qinghan remained silent for a long time before answering with three words in a tone that could almost be described as despair.

"And me too."

Shen Du shuddered. He felt it—not with his ears, but from within his body, from the depths of his own soul, he sensed the presence of another soul. That soul was like a piece of cold jade, quietly embedded beside his consciousness, sharing the same body with him. He could even sense her emotional fluctuations—fear, confusion, and a trace of something she was desperately suppressing, something she herself didn't want to face.

"We..." Shen Du's voice was dry and hoarse, like sandpaper, "We've become one?"

The night wind blew, and the white clothes fluttered in the wind.

Lu Qinghan did not answer.

But Shen Du felt a warm, soft touch deep within his soul, like his master's sigh, gently landing on his heart.