The air congealed.
The hand with which Yun Qing held the soup bowl was steady as bedrock. That targeted blazing-sun pressure, as it neared his person, was, to everyone's surprise, like a clay ox plunging into the sea — quietly dissolved by the all-encompassing aura of chaos.
He was not provoked to anger by this sudden rebuke. Those Double Pupils lifted calmly, seeing through the violent torrent of energy raging around Yun Huang. With the power of the Double Pupils, he could always see a little more than others.
Fury, frustration, agitation — and a trace of something even their owner had not noticed: chagrin?
Yun Qing understood. This Young Lord — rather than say he was venting his setback at the formation onto others, it would be truer to say he was sulking.
Under Yun Huang's cold stare, Yun Qing did not retreat but advanced, carrying the soup bowl forward.
Then he raised his empty left hand, a wisp of spiritual power gathering faintly at his fingertip, and lightly tapped toward the dimmed formation-disk above.
"Young Lord," he said, gentle as ever, as though those cold words just now had not fallen into his ears at all, "the join here seems a touch too rigid and unyielding."
"The Star-Whorl and the Astral Pivot ought to draw from one another in a single breath. If one seeks only hardness, it grows all the easier to lose balance at the final threshold. Blazing yang is fierce and abundant, true — yet once truly set into motion, it need not be wholly without room to turn. What is hard to the extreme breaks easily; better to try infusing three parts of soft force, like the pull of the tides, and perhaps..."
As he spoke, Yun Qing's fingertip traced through the void, threads of spiritual power carrying the nature of chaos melting into the formation-disk's phantom.
The formation-disk, dead and still a moment ago, quivered lightly; several runes that had been clashing against one another actually steadied for an instant. It was still far, far from completing the formation — but the deadlock had been broken open.
Yun Huang's eyes narrowed faintly, his gaze falling at once back onto the formation-disk. Peerless in talent, he grasped it the moment it was touched upon, and in an instant understood where the crux lay. This problem that had plagued him for days had been pointed out by Yun Qing so lightly, so offhandedly, at its very hinge.
And what left him, for the moment, unable to speak was Yun Qing's manner — the man had, after all, preserved his face.
Yun Huang was silent a while. Today had truly cost him some dignity.
"You..."
Yun Qing was still smiling. Seeing his anger ease a little, only then did he set the bowl of Ice-Heart Soul-Calming Soup at the edge of the desk and say warmly, "Formations wear on the spirit. Let the Young Lord settle his mind a moment before continuing — it will not be too late. The way to crack the problem has appeared; a brief rest to regulate the breath, and success is certain."
Yun Huang looked at the bowl of soup, then at Yun Qing, and in the end picked it up and drank it down in one draught. His churning sea of consciousness slowly settled.
Setting down the bowl, Yun Huang gave Yun Qing a complicated look, then suddenly spoke, his voice a few degrees less cold: "In the way of formations, you have a certain eye, it seems."
"I only rely on these eyes to see a little finer than others, that's all." Yun Qing's manner was natural, his Double Pupils curved with smiling eyes, carrying a rare trace of banter.
Yun Huang looked at him, his gaze stirring faintly, then hurriedly turned his attention to the formation-diagram and began deducing according to Yun Qing's guidance — and, sure enough, it went a great deal more smoothly.
***
By the time Yun Huang finished deducing the last node, the sky outside was full of stars. Spirit-mist drifted over the gilt ridge-crest of Qiwu Hall, setting off the night ever more still.
Yun Qing bowed in salute, the hem of his garment sweeping over the jade tiles of the hall: "Young Lord, if there is nothing further to command for now, Qing will take his leave first."
Yun Huang did not lift his eyes, his fingertips toying with a wisp of blazing-sun spirit-energy as he said mildly, "Quiet-Heart Court has already been prepared for you. This month, you will attend day and night, and await my summons."
"This..."
Yun Qing, ever composed and unhurried, paused, rarely for him.
Quiet-Heart Court sat to the rear and east of the Qiwu Hall cluster — a small, secluded, elegant courtyard. Not a little of the Yun Clan's discipline-whip main material, the "Clear-Heart Vine," was planted there.
The crux of it was that this place stood a mere hundred-odd paces from Yun Huang's sleeping quarters.
To cultivators such as they, with senses keen and souls clear and penetrating, that hundred-pace distance was, in truth, scarcely different from sharing a single hall.
Seeing him at a loss for words, Yun Huang finally raised his eyes, his tone bland: "Elder Brother... has an objection?"
That single "Elder Brother" fell light as a feather, plainly without any feeling in it — and yet, precisely for that, hard to answer.
"I would not dare. Qing accepts the command." Yun Qing lowered his head at once and assented, his expression as usual, though within his heart the waves had already risen.
Yun Huang's move looked like a warning, yet to be allowed a place "at the side of his own couch" — was that not, in a hidden way, a heightened measure of trust and closeness?
The archaic stone road was covered in a thin frost; footfalls upon it rang cold and clear. The attendant leading the way was silent the whole while, seeing Yun Qing to the gate of Quiet-Heart Court before withdrawing.
Gazing at that seemingly ordinary courtyard gate, Yun Qing had already prepared himself to face some spiteful trial.
"A young lord fallen on hard times, all but a servant — a worrying plight indeed." So he bantered with himself, yet in his Double Pupils there was not the slightest fear; rather, a faintly eager readiness showed through.
By the formulas of certain legendary storybooks from his past life, this was the moment for some wicked servant who fawned on the high and trod on the low, or some fool eager to prove his loyalty, to leap out and make trouble, heedless of his standing and strength.
Interesting. The wheel of fortune turns; let him taste, too, the flavor the protagonists knew — "playing the pig to eat the tiger, turning the tables and slapping faces."
Nineteen years of grueling cultivation in the "Chaos Ancient Cave" had ground even the most flighty of temperaments into something still and heavy as a mountain. It was only thanks to the Second Elder who guarded his path being a man of wit and humor that he still kept this playful cast of mind.
Reality, however, dealt him a gentle great slap.
The furnishings within Quiet-Heart Court were elegant in the extreme; not one table, not one chair was of common make. The desk, wrought of thousand-year dark-iron wood, was steady and weighty; on the windowsill, a Cloud-Step Ink-Peach breathed out pure spirit-energy. Every implement and cultivation resource was supplied to the standard of the Yun Clan's "Eldest Young Master," without the slightest skimping or lack — finer even, by a few degrees, than the allotment of his own Qingyu Hall.
The stewards and servants who came and went delivering goods and messages all wore respectful looks and observed every courtesy in full. There was neither slight nor slur on account of his "guilty status," nor any spiteful, probing test from those who curried favor with the powerful.
A steward of delicate, handsome features stepped briskly forward and bowed to Yun Qing, his tone respectful: "This subordinate greets the Eldest Young Master. The Young Lord sends word: that by day he may have been wanting in consideration. This is what the Young Lord instructs be given to you, with a further charge that you come to Qiwu Hall tomorrow at the hour of the rabbit, and that will do." So saying, he presented with both hands a food box of archaic design.
Yun Qing gave a slight nod and took the food box. Watching the steward's respectfully retreating back, he laughed inwardly. Yun Huang's actual words had surely been something like "Reward him this, and tell him to come tomorrow at the hour of the rabbit" — only, passing through this steward's relay, they had gained a few degrees of tact.
This Young Lord ruled his subordinates with a truly iron discipline. He had plainly struck the posture of "making things hard" for him, yet those below did not dare in the slightest to fawn on the risen and scorn the fallen.
Yun Qing sighed inwardly; that little hope of "slapping down a wicked servant" had fallen utterly through.
"It seems the scene of treading on the low and fawning on the high from my past life's storybooks has no chance whatsoever of playing out here with Yun Huang." He could not say whether he felt more disappointment or more admiration.
An ancient clan, after all — where would one find some truly witless fool?
And so—
To gain a foothold at the side of this reincarnated Immortal Emperor, one had only true value and true ability to rely on.
"This world is not the novels of my past life, after all..."
Gazing at the bright moon beyond the window, wrapped in the faint vine-fragrance that pervaded the court, Yun Qing was, rarely, moved to a touch of wistful melancholy. Arriving alone in a strange world, he suddenly understood something of the lonely desolation Yun Huang hid within the shadow of his blazing sun.
***
Wait.
"Something's not right!"