Chapter 121: Old Friends

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The overcast sky drizzled steadily. Beneath the eaves of the blue-tiled roof, the falling drops pattered softly, while tassels swayed in the breeze and little bells chimed with a clear, ethereal sound.

Fine threads of rain drifted through the openwork carved window. Pale-blue sleeves covered the books on the writing desk. Their owner slowly raised his head, revealing a languid, fair face; a trace of helplessness showed in his sleepy eyes.

Only when the rain began to ease did the fair-faced man brush his sleeves aside and shake the droplets from them.

An azure jade bangle flashed upon his bandage-wrapped wrist. With fingers bound in cloth, he slowly turned the pages and continued studying the book before him. Four characters were printed across its cover:

The Complete Book of Official Admonitions.

“After barely surviving Sangyu Island, my master sent me to Southern Wasteland Province. Even a duck being driven to market isn’t hurried along this much. I’ve never set foot in Southern Wasteland Province before.”

The fair-faced man rubbed the space between his brows and sighed softly.

He closed the book. Through the swaying lamplight on the desk, he gazed at the hazy drizzle beyond the window, his heart seemingly covered by a layer of gloom. From the corner of his eye, he glanced toward the bronze mirror on the table.

The reflection in the mirror revealed hair of a striking, pale red.

“Master, if you keep tormenting your disciple like this, I’m going to lose my mind. In these troubled times, everyone else has their disciples remain in secluded cultivation within their caves, avoiding calamity and misfortune.

“Why must you do the opposite? It’s true that before sending me down the mountain, you always give me plenty of amusing magical treasures and teach me all sorts of fascinating arts, but I can’t help feeling that you never have my best interests at heart.

“Last time, you helped me obtain the post of Assistant Prison Officer. Why have you changed it to Commandant this time?”

The fair-faced man let out a heavy sigh and looked at his disheveled pale-red hair. Had anyone been there, they would also have noticed a faint serpentine red mark deep within the black pupils of his eyes.

He reached for three copper coins on the table and tossed them casually. After staring at the indistinct hexagram they formed, he sighed once more, picked up an oil lamp, and left the room.

The lamp burned with a cold flame, its wick glowing blue and flickering.

As the night deepened, the color of the wick grew richer, as though someone were spreading ink with a brush. The deep-blue wick and flame gradually turned an eerie azure, and even the fair-faced man’s features seemed painted blue.

The lamp itself resembled an exquisitely beautiful black lotus. Its petals slowly unfurled.

Carrying it, the fair-faced man walked along winding corridors and through the gentle drizzle, which watered the flower-filled courtyard where a hint of green had begun to show.

He left his own courtyard without much thought and stepped onto the street.

The wind was mild.

The moss-covered flagstones were damp, perhaps because of the misting rain from above, or perhaps because a washerwoman by the river beneath the stone bridge not far away had accidentally splashed water onto the ground.

The fair-faced man walked along with the lamp in hand. The pattering rain and faint chill of the breeze made him yawn.

After an unknown length of time, he stopped before a manor. A pair of stone lions stood outside it. The lion on the left toyed with an embroidered ball beneath its right forepaw, while the lion on the right rested its left forepaw upon a cub.

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The fair-faced man looked up at the manor.

A fine mist of rain drifted from the sky, slanting across the darkness. The flame of the oil lamp in his hand swayed, while water slipped silently from the eaves and spread into ripples upon the ground.

“Is this the place?”

The fair-faced man narrowed his eyes and sighed softly. He crossed the high steps, approached the dark-red wooden gate, and lightly knocked upon the beast-head door ring.

A small head emerged from behind the gate. Seeing the fair-faced man, it showed a flicker of surprise before the gate was quickly shut again. After a moment, a servant in blue came out, opened the gate, and respectfully ushered him inside.

The passageway within, paved entirely with cobblestones, was pitch-black. Apart from the small patch of light at their feet and the intermittent sound of wind and rain brushing past on either side, nothing could be seen.

Fortunately, after they crossed the passageway, they came upon a winding corridor. Several lanterns hung beneath its eaves, illuminating the dark space.

“Young master, the road ahead is not easy to walk,” the servant in blue explained quietly.

The fair-faced man said nothing. His crane-feather cloak drifted lightly as he continued forward, and the servant in blue quickened his pace, gritting his teeth as he led the way.

Before long, the fair-faced man stopped before a courtyard. He raised his eyes to the white walls capped with black tiles. The wall tops rose and fell like waves, and in the center stood a half-closed vermilion moon gate. A black plaque above it bore three simple, ancient characters: Fragrant Pine Garden.

Faint琴 music drifted from within.

“Who sent you here?”

The servant in blue lightly knocked on the gate. A maid in green peered out, her petite face filled with wariness as she studied the fair-faced man.

“His lordship summoned him,” the servant answered in a small voice, seemingly quite afraid of the maid.

“Then come in.”

The maid in green wrinkled her delicate nose and looked several more times at the fair-faced man’s features. She left the gate half-closed, turned sideways, and indicated that he could enter.

At some point, the oil lamp in the fair-faced man’s hand had vanished.

He casually placed his bandage-wrapped hands behind his back and slowly entered Fragrant Pine Garden. Rain as fine as silver threads had veiled heaven and earth like gauze. A winding stream of green water flowed around the pavilion like a jade sash of blue silk.

Beside the carved wooden railings of the pavilion hung a crystal curtain, its gauzy drapes swaying gently.

Behind the curtain, a woman draped in silk played the qin. Her fingers rose and fell, and the music flowed—sometimes insubstantial, sometimes solid, forever changing. At one moment it resembled clear, ethereal drops falling into a secluded mountain stream; at another, a river and sea churning with great waves.

The fair-faced man had no intention of sitting quietly and listening to the lovely music. He lazily stretched and asked in a soft voice, “Will you do it yourself, or shall I?”

“What do you mean, young master?”

The crystal curtain lifted. Within the pavilion stood a woman with a slender willow waist, a delicate and shapely figure, an exquisitely raised nose, naturally crimson cherry lips, and skin as smooth and pale as congealed cream.

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“Are you not pretending ignorance?”

The fair-faced man raised his hand and caught an oilpaper umbrella that had struck at him from behind. Its tip suddenly thrust forward like the head of a green serpent, yet it posed not the slightest threat to him.

“This humble girl truly does not know.”

The woman in the pavilion hid her smile behind a veil, displaying every form of feminine allure. Yet the fair-faced man sensed an intense killing intent.

Clang, clang, clang.

The qin music was no longer pleasant. It sounded like armies surging across a battlefield, thunderous and overwhelming. The fine rain became soldiers, the clear wind their steeds—and the commander was the maid in green behind the fair-faced man.

The fair-faced man lightly raised his eyes. The bandages wrapped around both his hands burst apart, exposing the palms beneath, covered in terrible burns.

The rain turned to mist before it could even fall.

A sound tore through the air beside his ear. The fair-faced man tilted his head slightly. Wild flames erupted from his palm and spread across the oilpaper umbrella, twisting together with the green serpent of its tip in a fierce struggle.

Then, as though all the rain and mist in the sky had paused, the fair-faced man was suddenly inside the pavilion. His scarlet, burned palm pressed down upon the ancient qin beneath the woman’s stroking fingers.

A wisp of gray smoke rose slowly.

“As a Commandant about to take office, I must first help the newly appointed Governor of Nanxi Commandery eliminate you, this unlucky little demon.

“An order from one’s superior truly is difficult to disobey.”

The fair-faced man sighed languidly. The bandages fluttering around his body suddenly wrapped themselves around the wisp of gray smoke as it tried to escape.

The wisp abruptly burst into a thread of red light, causing the tightening bandages to pause. In the end, however, they still bound it completely.

“A little demon is easy enough to eliminate, but how am I supposed to manage the military troops of an entire commandery? Master, please do not blame me if I fail in my duties again, as I did last time.

“But how am I supposed to heal these injuries burned into me by the Wing Fire Serpent? The Divine Emperor’s path has already withered, and that would be bad enough—but no one even knows where the Celestial Emperor is. There isn’t a single deity around whom I can find to lodge a complaint.”

The fair-faced man helplessly sighed and opened one side of his crane-feather cloak. Looking down, he gazed at his body, burned into a grotesque and horrifying state. The bandages fluttering around him wound themselves once more around his entire body.

He drew his cloak close and sighed again.

The vanished oil lamp reappeared in his hand. A thread of red light descended from midair into its deep-blue wick, and the lamp’s eerie azure glow suddenly deepened.

Amid the hazy drizzle and gentle breeze, his figure gradually receded into the distance.

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