Qiwu Hall was called a "hall," but in truth it was a whole cluster of palaces suspended at the summit of the clouds.
The main hall was cast from Nine-Heaven Snow-Jade and radiant gold-stone, its buildings towering above the sea of clouds; the long stairways, the corridor pillars, the eaves and corners were all sheathed in a faint divine glow. Seen from afar, the entire palace was like a blazing sun standing within the light of heaven — majestic beyond measure, and forbidding, so that none dared lightly draw near.
The Young Lord, Yun Huang, lived here.
The man was like his hall: hung high in the clouds, radiant and dazzling, not to be looked at directly.
And carrying, too, the loneliness of one who dwelt at the very peak.
The next day, before the sky had lightened, while the stars still hung upon the ink-blue canopy—
Yun Qing, treading over the dew, had already arrived outside Qiwu Hall. The great hall doors, wrought of crimson-flame divine wood, opened without a sound. The Yunxiao Guards on watch, clad in dark-gold spirit-armor, bowed to him in salute, their movements crisp and uniform — plainly they had been given their orders.
Stepping into the hall: light and majesty in the utmost.
What met his eyes was the dark-jade throne atop nine tiers of jade steps. The seat was broad and vast, its armrests carved into dragon-heads, and in the dragons' mouths were held two "Sun Crystals" that ceaselessly gave off a power of purest yang.
Yun Huang sat upright behind the desk, dressed only in a plain white robe with hidden silver-thread patterns. He was concentrating on deducing the workings of an archaic formation-disk, light and shadow crossing over its surface, countless tiny runes flowing, colliding, and winking out, giving off ripples of energy that set the heart trembling. Between his brows was gathered a weariness and a chill that would not disperse, as though he had not noticed anyone enter.
Yun Qing made no sound, only stood quietly to one side — in a spot from which he could answer a command at any moment, yet would not disturb Yun Huang.
His Double Pupils stirred faintly, and he soon saw clearly the state of things in the hall.
The "Huangshan Cloud-Mist" tea at Yun Huang's hand had long gone cold, its steam scattered. The jade desk was piled with jade slips left unsorted, burying more than half of the fine carvings upon it. As for Yun Huang himself — the blazing-sun divine power that should have been perfectly smooth and flawless was now faintly restless, plainly the sign of one who had been deducing for a long while without ever finding the door in.
'Mm... like a little sun sulking all by itself.' The thought rose, and nearly bent the corner of his lips against his will. Fortunately his control held, and his face kept that same gentle, quiet look.
Time flowed on in the silence, until Yun Huang finished deducing a crucial node and, out of habit, reached for the tea by his hand. His fingertips touched the cold cup-wall; he paused slightly, and a trace of the faintest displeasure swept across his brow.
At that very moment, a pair of hands — knuckles clearly defined, steady and strong — took that cold tea away a step ahead of him.
Yun Qing's movements were smooth and natural, as though rehearsed a thousand times over. He poured the cold tea into a jade basin at the side, filled a fresh cup of spirit-tea at just the right temperature, and set it back lightly at the spot nearest Yun Huang's hand. The whole process was flowing and soundless — nothing but an utterly attentive thoughtfulness.
The motion of Yun Huang's brush, tracing its outline, paused slightly. Those pale-golden eyes at last lifted from the formation-disk and fell upon Yun Qing, the scrutiny still there — yet not so bitingly cold as the day before.
"Who gave you leave to touch it?" he asked mildly.
Yun Qing bowed slightly, his tone gentle and unhurried: "Huangshan Cloud-Mist, drunk cold, harms the body and readily breeds a chill stagnation. The Young Lord labors day and night, and all the more must guard his vital essence at every moment. Since Qing has been ordered to attend, he ought of course to do so with all his heart, and dares not be remiss."
He said it naturally, without flattery, and without any deliberate self-abasement — as though merely stating a matter that stood to reason.
Yun Huang gazed at him for several breaths, then in the end said nothing more, drew back his gaze, and went on deducing the formation-disk.
But Yun Qing's Double Pupils clearly saw that the ripples of spiritual power around Yun Huang — bristling like an angry hedgehog — visibly eased a fraction, growing... docile? A faint, languid contentment showed through, like a creature soothed by having its fur stroked the right way.
'Just as I thought — you have to smooth his fur and coax him.' Yun Qing confirmed the judgment in his heart.
Over the several hours that followed, this was how he quietly wove himself into the mornings and evenings of Qiwu Hall.
His presence was kept within a subtle boundary — never disturbing Yun Huang, yet always able to appear at just the right moment when needed. Thanks were owed to the many odd jobs of his past life, which had stored up for Yun Qing a wealth of experience beyond compare.
Replacing the vermilion brush when its spirit-ink ran dry, sorting the mountainous stacks of jade slips and scrolls, adjusting the light, refilling tea and offering water — every small chore he handled in perfect order.
More than deliberate ingratiation, it was a caretaking that left no trace.
Yun Huang, accustomed to others either cowering in awe or harboring some scheme, could not help feeling a peace of mind he had never known before.
Moistening all things without a sound; dripping water boring through stone.
Yun Huang was still that same face of ten-thousand-year frost, but he began to grow used to that steady figure in the hall who silently adjusted the glow of the luminous pearls.
His gaze lingered an instant on the man's back. He had to admit — this was no mediocrity of the sort he loathed.
The ice-locked ramparts within his heart seemed, under this meticulous and attentive company, to have been pried open by a barely perceptible crack?
Until dusk fell.
"Hmmmm—"
A mournful cry burst suddenly from the formation-disk before Yun Huang! Its brilliance snuffed out at once, and a fierce backlash of force rolled outward.
He gave a muffled grunt, his face darkening in an instant, and a wisp of the blazing-sun divine power within him spilled out beyond his control.
"Boom!"
A scorching wave of air exploded outward; the temperature in the hall shot up in an instant. Several jade slips on the desk were the first to suffer, scorched until they gave off a hissing "sizzle."
What Yun Huang was deducing was an ancient immortal formation named "Blazing Sun Immortal-Slaying." This formation took a sun-star's core as its guide — purest yang, purest hardness, overbearing beyond the ordinary — and it matched the body of merit he cultivated exceedingly well.
Yet the way of formations happened to be the one and only field in which this peerless prodigy could be called merely "upper-middling." Days on end of sitting in dry deduction, day after day, always failing at the very last threshold — even with a heart-nature as cold as Yun Huang's, it was hard not to accumulate a measure of vexation.
The air within Qiwu Hall drew taut all at once.
Just then, Yun Qing approached, carrying a bowl of freshly simmered Ice-Heart Soul-Calming Soup. The soup was made from forty-nine kinds of rare immortal plants that settled the spirit and calmed the mind, of no small benefit to the wear on one's heart and soul. He had meant to set the bowl, fragrant with a clear, cool medicinal scent, lightly at the corner of the desk while Yun Huang had paused.
Who would have thought that what met him head-on was a cold rebuke, carrying an undisguised, displaced anger.
"Withdraw!"
Yun Huang's tyrannical, mighty pressure bore down on Yun Qing like something solid.
"Do not fawn upon me here. Do you imagine that with such shallow service This Lord would look on you — one such as you — with any special favor?" For some reason, in the end, those wounding words, "baseborn spawn," were not spoken aloud.