Geng Xinghe hugged the bundle of red lotus flowers with a joyful smile. “Thank you, Master.”
Chi Changye let out an acknowledging hum, offering nothing further.
Fine, let him thank me if he must. I can endure a few extra words.
After escorting the boy back to the Bamboo Dew Pavilion, Chi Changye took his leave.
Though Mount Chiyue was an immortal peak, alongside its pool of lotuses that bloomed unceasingly through all four seasons, it also experienced the turning of the year.
In the late autumn chill, few leaves remained upon the trees.
Moonlight poured down from the branches.
Instead of returning to the Lotus Breeze Pavilion, Chi Changye stood beneath a tree outside the Bamboo Dew Pavilion, bathing in the moonlight.
He waited until the light in Geng Xinghe’s room went dark before turning to retrace his steps.
The young man suppressed a pair of low, soft coughs.
Ah, it is rather humiliating to admit, but even immortals can catch a chill.
Chi Changye intended to head back and brew a batch of cold-remedy pills for himself.
Leaving the Bamboo Dew Pavilion, he headed straight toward the pill chamber.
Yet the moment he pulled out the necessary medicinal herbs, that familiar sobbing was carried once more on the evening breeze to his ears.
Chi Changye sighed and massaged his temples.
A headache indeed.
It began weeping every single night like clockwork, as though he, Immortal Lord Yaoguang, had committed some unspeakable transgression that summoned a wretched spirit.
Resigned to his fate, Chi Changye set the herbs aside, pushed open the door, and stepped back out.
That night proceeded just like the others, with Chi Changye holding Geng Xinghe as they slept.
When Geng Xinghe awoke the next morning to find Chi Changye still keeping watch by his side, his heart was flooded with a mix of deep emotion and uneasy distress.
Chi Changye was not a patient man, let alone an overly warm or affectionate one.
Yet he had gone to such lengths for his sake.
A profound sense of panic gripped Geng Xinghe’s heart.
Whenever fortune seemed unkind to him, he invariably found himself crossing paths with people who treated him well.
Even though he had been young at the time, Geng Xinghe vividly remembered how devoted his birth parents had been to him.
Despite their modest means, his father would hunt in the fields while his mother spun thread, and by nightfall, the family of three would gather in their small home amidst laughter and warmth.
And even when relentless natural disasters struck later on, depleting their food stores and etching worry lines across his parents’ faces, they had never once let him go hungry or vented their frustrations upon him.
Yet in his fifth year, both his father and mother were gone.
He had witnessed with his own eyes how starving, crazed men broke into his home like beasts…
Before his very eyes, his parents were reduced to a bubbling pot of broth.
Later on, he became the young master of the Geng family in the capital.
Clad in brocades and riding in carved carriages, every rare treasure in the world was his for the choosing.
His father and mother had guarded him as though he were the very apple of their eye.
Yet his father and mother died as well.
And now he had found a master. He.
Geng Xinghe curled up tightly within Chi Changye’s embrace, not daring to brush against the man beside him.
He was terrified that he might bring his own ill fortune down upon his master.
Curling himself into a tight ball, the boy wept in silence.
A moment later, the young man slipped quietly out of bed, dressed himself, opened the door, and stepped outside.
He was a disciple; how could he constantly rely on his master to cook for him?
The kitchen stood adjacent to the pill chamber.
Passing the pill chamber on his way, Geng Xinghe noticed that the door was ajar.
Stepping forward to pull it shut, the boy spotted a mess of scattered medicinal herbs piled upon the table beside the cauldron.
It was evident the owner had departed in haste, lacking even the time to put them away.
Geng Xinghe stepped into the pill chamber.
Upon glancing at the herbs resting on the table, however, he froze.
Bupleurum, scutellaria, ginseng, pinellia, licorice, fresh ginger, jujube.
Was this Minor Bupleurum Decoction?
For a moment, confusion clouded Geng Xinghe’s mind.
Why would his master need these? Could it be that immortals caught colds as well?
Hesitating for a brief moment, the boy ultimately lacked the courage to touch the herbs on the table. He backed out of the room and simply pulled the door closed behind him.
Chi Changye was roused from his sleep by the acrid scent of smoke.
Sitting straight up in bed, he took a moment to process what was happening.
Then, letting out a sharp curse, Chi Changye sprang up from the bed, transformed into a streak of azure light, and vanished from the room.
Thick smoke billowed from the kitchen. By the time Geng Xinghe stumbled out, his face was smeared with soot like a mischievous kitten.
Just as the boy stood there in helpless dismay, Chi Changye materialized out of thin air before the kitchen doorway.
The azure-clad immortal grabbed the boy by the shoulder, hauling him back to shield him behind his own body. Formulating a hand seal, he reeled the billowing smoke and dancing flames directly into his palm with a swift sweep of his hand.
Silence descended upon the kitchen once more.
Chi Changye exhaled a breath of relief, turning back to inspect the soot-covered boy with a mounting headache. “Why on earth did you try to start a fire yourself?”
Did he want to cook his own meals?
There was truly no need.
He was quite fond of the current layout of Peak Chiyue and had no desire to oversee a complete interior renovation.
Looking thoroughly ashamed, Geng Xinghe murmured, “I thought, I could manage it.”
Chi Changye harbored a deep, abiding aversion to trouble, his brows knitting tightly together.
“There is no need to go to such unnecessary lengths in the future. I do not find you burdensome, and you have no call to play the selfless martyr,” he stated, his voice carrying an edge of severity unlike anything the boy had heard before. “Geng Chen, sometimes sheer stupidity is far more grating than outright malice. Now you’ve simply created a greater nuisance for me.”
Geng Xinghe looked up at Chi Changye.
The azure-clad immortal stood with his long hair cascading loose over unkempt robes. He hadn’t even taken the time to slip on his shoes, standing barefoot on the late-autumn mountain stone with a pair of delicate, alabaster feet exposed to the elements.
Chi Changye’s toes were tinged with a faint blush of red, perhaps from the cold.
Overwhelmed with guilt, Geng Xinghe dropped his gaze and whispered, “I am sorry, Master.”
The boy drooped like a defeated, crestfallen rooster.
All of Chi Changye’s lingering irritation suddenly found itself blocked with nowhere to go.
Why was he yelling at Geng Xinghe?
Was it not entirely normal for a pampered young aristocrat to be incapable of cooking?
Gritting his teeth, Chi Changye reined in his emotions and smoothed out his tone. “Never mind. Do not do it again. Cooking a meal for you requires very little effort on my part.”
By the time he spoke again, his voice had returned to its customary calm.
Geng Xinghe bit his lip, nodded quietly, and offered another subdued apology.
The boy remained listless and subdued, his spirits visibly crushed.
Left with no alternative, Chi Changye softened his stance further, reaching out to give Geng Xinghe’s hair a comforting, reassuring tousle. “All right. It’s over now.”
Geng Xinghe answered with a soft, quiet hum.
Hesitating for a heartbeat, the boy ventured, “Master, should you perhaps go change your clothes first?”
Lowering his gaze, Chi Changye looked down at himself, and his face instantly flared bright red.
Ahhhhhhh.
Chi Changye screamed internally.
His dignified image, completely destroyed!
Maintaining an expressionless facade, Chi Changye pulled his lapels together, snapped off a dead branch to secure his hair into a makeshift topknot, and tried his utmost to project an air of aloof, chilly detachment.
Unfortunately, the wrinkled azure inner tunic, the loose, messy hair-tie, and his bare feet made him look far more indolent and languid than usual, contrasting sharply with his typical demeanor.
Oh well. Let it be.
Chi Changye abandoned the struggle.
The azure-clad immortal simply walked off barefoot and in his inner robes, washed his hands thoroughly, and prepared a meal for Geng Xinghe.
For the half-month that followed, Chi Changye found himself unable to return to his own bed, spending every single night bunking in the Bamboo Dew Pavilion.
Yet night after night, Geng Xinghe’s sleep grew increasingly plagued by terror and distress. Toward the end, even holding the boy tightly in his arms failed to stop him from weeping in his sleep.
Roused once more by the quiet sobbing, Chi Changye sighed.
The young immortal blinked his eyes open to find the boy curled into a tight, shivering knot beside him.
Geng Xinghe’s eyes remained firmly shut, beads of cold sweat dotting his pale forehead, his complexion drained of color.
Gazing intently at the silently weeping boy for a long moment, Chi Changye finally reached out, pressed his fingertips gently against the center of the boy’s brows, and stepped directly into his dreamscape.