Su Wenchuan tore through the final piece, casually tossing the tattered shreds of cloth onto the floor as he stared straight at him.
His voice was cold to the extreme, enunciating word by word: “You are not permitted to wear red ever again.”
With that, the man turned and strode away.
That white figure quickly vanished outside the courtyard gates, leaving behind only a floor strewn with vermilion red, resembling the withering of an old dream.
For several consecutive days, Rong Xuanhe failed to catch another glimpse of him.
Su Wenchuan neither summoned him over nor came looking for him, and not a single shred of news reached his ears.
The small courtyard remained quietly detached from the worldly hustle and bustle. The servants delivered meals and swept on schedule, acting as though nothing at all had transpired.
Rong Xuanhe told himself this was a good thing.
Not having to work, eating and drinking to his heart’s content every single day, and having a place to live, was this not a good thing?
Yet he could not help wondering: Was Su Wenchuan angry?
Did he feel that he was spoiled by favor, devoid of boundaries, and entirely lacking in manners?
Did he regret bringing him back from the Den of Iniquity?
The youth tossed and turned, burying his face in the blankets as he thought gloomily that he was simply this kind of person anyway, and let the man come or not as he pleased.
Then he rolled back over: What if Su Wenchuan was trying to figure out how to kick him out?
Leaving Mount Cangyi, where else could he possibly go? The mortal realm? He had no idea if a small pouch of spirit stones would be enough to survive on.
Perhaps he ought to learn some common knowledge of the mortal realm from the system so that he would have a fallback plan if he were ever driven out.
His thoughts were numerous and chaotic. Tossing and turning to no avail, feeling intensely vexed at heart, Rong Xuanhe simply climbed out of bed to catch some fresh air.
Opening the door, he bumped squarely into a pair of round, bean-like eyes.
The familiar little white bird was squatting upon a flower branch in front of the door, tilting its head as it looked at him.
The youth was startled. “It is you?”
The white bird fluffed its feathers and let out a righteous-sounding chirp.
“Did you get lost?” Rong Xuanhe asked.
He stepped toward the little white bird. The bird seemed inclined to fly away, its wings opening slightly, yet seeing him reach out, it folded them back in, perching with practiced reservation on the branch without moving.
Rong Xuanhe gestured toward it: “Come here.”
The little white bird fluffed its feathers again. Far from coming down, it deliberately edged a little further away.
Refusing to give up, Rong Xuanhe inched forward once more. The moment his fingertips brushed the fluffy feathers, the back of his hand received a firm, stinging peck.
Pulling his hand back sheepishly, he muttered: “Fine, fine, I won’t touch you. You certainly have quite a temper.”
A muffled rumble sounded from the bird’s throat, seeming to express satisfaction with his reasonableness, and it lowered its head to resume leisurely preening its plumage.
The water-clock leaked away its final drops while the moon climbed to the zenith of the sky; the watch of the night was unknown.
The night wind swept through the covered corridor, carrying a chilly draft.
The youth sneezed, rubbing his nose: “Has it grown colder?”
The bird’s snowy white down was likewise ruffled by the breeze. Though uncertain whether it understood human speech, Rong Xuanhe asked anyway: “Are you cold? Would you like to come inside?”
Before he could finish, the little bird hopped right onto him.
It chirped incessantly, rubbing its head against his neck as if urging him to hurry back inside.
So he had managed to trick it into coming after all?
Completely satisfied, Rong Xuanhe curved his lips into a smile, extending his wicked claws to ruffle its feathers.
Returning indoors, he closed the door tight and lit a candle. The flame flickered a few times before he found a lantern globe to cover it.
The orange-yellow halo spread softly across the youth’s face. Lowering his gaze slightly while adjusting the angle of the lantern shade, his sleeves rolled up to his biceps and an untied strand of hair trailing from his shoulder, his demeanor radiated a gentle and introverted grace.
When Rong Xuanhe finished and looked back, the bird had already settled itself obediently by the pillow.
“Chirp!”
It urged him on.
Walking over, he rubbed the bird’s fluffy cheek with a single finger: “Are you sleepy? Go to sleep then if you are tired.”
The bird gave him a peck, prompting him to withdraw his hand and sit down at the table to pour himself a cup of cold tea, whereupon he simply sat there in a daze.
Failing to see him come to bed for a long time, the white bird got up on its own, fluttered twice to land right before him, and audaciously extended a claw to hook his sleeve, pulling him toward the bed.
Locking eyes with its bean-like gaze, the youth softened his voice: “Do you want me to keep you company?”
The white bird emitted that same soft, muffled rumble, nesting beside his hand with no clear indication of whether it was answering him.
“This is the first time I have seen you seek me out at night. Does no one else pay attention to you either?”
The words slipped out, causing Rong Xuanhe to pause before laughing at himself: “What am I even saying to a bird?”
He must have truly lost his mind.
Resuming his daze with his eyes staring vacantly into space, the little white bird tugged at his sleeve once more, seemingly unwilling to be ignored.
The youth gently pulled his garment free, but it hooked it again. After a brief moment of back-and-forth tugging, the youth suddenly let out a long sigh, dejectedly whispering: “Does he really intend never to speak to me again?”
He used to find Su Wenchuan terrifying, feeling aggrieved whenever the man’s gaze or words turned angry. Now that the man was no longer angry with him, merely freezing him out instead, it felt far more agonizing than before.
A candlewick popped with a sharp crack, causing the lamplight to sway and casting a fleeting shadow over his face.
“I have heard the ancients say that when beauty fades, affection wanes,” Rong Xuanhe propped his chin on one hand, the corners of his mouth twitching, “yet my beauty has not even faded, and already I am being forgotten.”
Whenever he acted out certain scripts in the past, villains would always end up completely neglected by everyone in the end. He used to fail to understand why that constituted any punishment, but now he finally grasped the feeling.
For a living person to be forgotten by the entire world just like that must be a thoroughly despairing thing.
After a brief silence, the youth suddenly murmured softly: “I miss home.”
“I do not want to stay here anymore. I want to go home so badly, I want to eat fried chicken, I want to go outside and play, and I want a job.”
Even if it meant suffering or toiling away, it would still beat wasting away one’s life in a complete blank slate.
Yet that place was somewhere he could no longer return to.
The bird stopped moving, acting as though it genuinely comprehended his words as it watched him quietly. Rong Xuanhe saw his own reflection mirrored within those tiny eyes: red-rimmed eyes with unshed tears hovering on the verge of falling, looking thoroughly wretched.
Taking a deep breath to forcefully suppress the stinging sensation in his nose, he recalled another matter: “I also heard that the maidservant who delivered letters for their clan was banished to the outer mountains, demoted to the lowest-tier cleaning duties where she must labor from before dawn every single day.”
He paused, his voice dropping lower: “I, I always feel that I am the one who caused her to suffer.”
The bird suddenly extended one wing, lightly brushing against his hand as if offering comfort.
The youth could not go on.
Tossing and turning over these past few days while running these matters through his head, the more he thought about it, the more he felt his own actions were wrong.
If he had not deliberately worn red that day, if he had not let his blood boil and talked back, perhaps those two clan elders would not have flown into a rage, Su Wenchuan would not be ignoring him, and that maidservant would never have been implicated and punished.
Sensing his vision blur, he wiped at his eyes, only to discover he was crying. A thin layer of moisture coated his fingertips, glittering brightly in the candlelight.
He wiped again, but the tears kept coming faster than he could clear them away, refusing to stop, so he simply gave up.
He ought to sleep.
Once asleep, he would no longer dwell on these painful thoughts.
Sniffling, Rong Xuanhe got up and headed for the bed. The little white bird, which had desperately insisted on sleeping with him moments ago, suddenly broke free from his reach, fluttering its wings toward the window and ramming into the shutters until a small gap opened, before flying straight out without looking back.
Rong Xuanhe stared blankly after it, taking quite a while to react: “Do you find me annoying as well?”
No one answered him. The night wind poured through the window crack, chilling his tear-soaked eyes to the bone.
Climbing onto the bed sluggishly, he wrapped himself inside the blankets like a snail retreating into its shell.
The exterior of the bedding was cold, and the interior was equally cold. Pulling the covers over his head, he cut himself off entirely from the outside world.
Amidst his drowsy haze, a low murmur of voices suddenly drifted in from outside.
Rong Xuanhe started, his immediate instinct warning him of intruders. Peering out with pricked ears to listen closely, he recognized Chunsheng’s voice alongside another deeper, more magnetic tone that sounded like.
His heart leaped violently into his throat.
Before he could react in the slightest, footsteps stepped across the threshold into the inner chamber.
That white figure emerged from behind the folding screen, standing exceptionally tall with eyes like cold stars, a freezing aura instantly flooding the entire room.
It was Su Wenchuan.
Startled out of his wits, Rong Xuanhe instinctively pulled the blanket over his head to feign sleep, only for the blanket to be yanked down the very next second, locking eyes directly with Su Wenchuan.
The youth’s eyes remained damp, staring at him wide and unblinking.
Why had this man suddenly showed up in the dead of night?
Could that bird have been a snitch?
Opening his mouth in helpless bewilderment without knowing what to say, the two of them simply locked gazes, neither willing to speak first.
Meanwhile, outside Mount Cangyi.
A rumor suddenly spread as if winged, originating from an unknown source before rapidly sweeping across the entire cultivation world.
“Say, do you remember the Sword Sovereign of Cangyi? The one valued most highly by this generation of the White Divine Crow, wasn’t his dao companion dead? Word has it that upon leaving seclusion recently, he brought another one back! Didn’t the White Divine Crow uphold lifelong monogamy?”
“A new one? Or the dead one?”
“Naturally a new one, he is not a ghost cultivator.”
“I have seen the one who died; she made an appearance at the previous Myriad Daos Dharma Assembly, seemed to be called Rong Lu, an exceptionally talented individual and the beloved disciple of Elder Han of the Taixu Sect. But dead is dead, surely he cannot bring her back, unless through forcible possession.”
“Hush, do not speak nonsense.”
“The Taixu Sect prides itself on upright moral character among its disciples, would they engage in forcible possession?”
“Who knows? Some say this new arrival merely bears a resemblance. In any case, I have not laid eyes on them.”
The rumors swept like the wind across major sects and aristocratic families, spreading ever further with exaggerated details and multiplying versions.
When the news reached Liyi Residence within the Ten Thousand Demons Commandery, a youth possessing a dazzling, flamboyant beauty reclined leisurely upon a soft couch, flipping through a musical score with complete ennui.
Upon hearing his subordinate’s report, he raised an eyebrow, suddenly stirred with interest.
“Such amusing gossip?”
Sitting up and tossing the musical score aside, a glint of intrigue flashed across the man’s phoenix eyes: “If this lord remembers correctly, that Fu Han is also a disciple of the Taixu Sect. Is his name not included for the upcoming Myriad Daos Dharma Assembly?”
His subordinate answered in the affirmative. Pondering for a moment with narrowed eyes, the man smiled once more.
“In that case, send another invitation to Mount Cangyi under this lord’s name. Once this ‘Rong Lu’ encounters Fu Han, tell me, would that not prove immensely entertaining?”