The two youths were strangely devoid of the verbal lisps that accompanied those who were completely intoxicated, nor had they succumbed to the fearful bodily rhythm displayed solely by delirious drunkards.
With an elegant and refined aura seeping from their bones with each movement, they two young men arose from their seated positions at the counter of the bar, before directing a glance towards the other.
“Be quiet,” the violet-haired youth hissed in annoyance.
“Who said I was even attempting to court a woman, much less this stinky girl?”
The golden-haired youth sighed as he shrugged his shoulders, his dazzling countenance revealing an exasperated expression. Jun Mo leaned over to haul the sleeping young girl onto his back, before directing a rueful glance towards the silently standing Dongfang Yu.
“I say, Elder Brother, must I be the one doing this?” the golden-haired youth groaned.
“Making me hold Sister-in-law whilst you stand from the side, those are some… extreme tastes.”
The youth with violet irises furrowed his brows on instinct, not knowing how to react to such provocative words.
Ultimately, Dongfang Yu shook his head in confusion, his voice snapping forth to strike the young Golden Crow on the back of the neck.
“Who even said that I was going to marry this lass? I just need to discover a method to escape that damned corridor, and you can stop worrying about that and claim this stinky girl already.”
Jun Mo froze in his tracks, a choked groan prying its path of escape from the depths of his stomach.
The young Golden Crow glanced upon the unconscious An Fei placed neatly on his back, beads of sweat trickling down his brow.
“Eldest Brother, my wives would slaughter me if I dared to bring back a third – you know that far too well, so why?”
“Then deal with this girl as a concubine; I can easily tell that your feelings towards this stinky lass aren’t nonexistent,” Dongfang Yu maintained a nonchalant expression on his countenance as he stared at Jun Mo.
“As long as they don’t know, what can your wives say to such a thing?”
The golden-haired youth rolled his eyes towards the slumbering and detached heavens, his heart wishing for a bolt of lightning to descend and smatter upon the dead-brained Elder Brother standing behind him.
The young man shook the fringe of his right sleeve in silence, a flicker of molten gold racing through his eyes.
An invisible storm of light descended onto the alleyway submerged within Dong Lin City, submerging the wooden bar as well as the two youths and one intoxicated girl. The paved ground creaked with protest as a gentle wind gouged out several marks into the carefully arranged and crafted blocks of stone.
The slashes engraved onto the stones by the wind and light coalesced into a symbol, the character that resembled the silhouette of a crow with spread wings.
The moment the symbol manifested into the world, the Shattered Star Continent quivered as a myriad of emotions stampeded into its core.
The surface of the earth lightly trembled to mask the startle and trauma suffered by the core, but mysterious phenomena had begun to take root in the secluded alleyway.
The wooden stall with the casks of liquor, the wooden cups, and even the bartender himself began to disintegrate into particles of golden light.
The colored light intermingled into the invisible storm to create a swirling tornado of gold, a harsh and prideful intent seeping from the epicenter.
“Return.”
Jun Mo called out with a disinterested tone, his hands unceasingly adjusting their strength and position to accommodate for the young girl’s persistent, drunken movements. The golden-haired youth suppressed sigh after exasperated sigh, quietly cursing his elder brother in his heart.
The storm of golden light descended onto the shoulders of the young Golden Crow, and the slivers of light began to assimilate into the threads of the youth’s robe.
The disappearance of each golden particle caused the surrounding atmosphere to distort and quake with fear, not daring to be caught in the absorption.
Contrary to Jun Mo’s original intention, a not so insignificant proportion of the golden light descended upon the young girl’s body, and was unexpectedly not rejected by the averse conditions imposed upon her soul.
“Nn…”
The astray particles of gold sank directly into An Fei’s skin, manifesting a shred of fierce warmth to surge through her meridians and blood vessels. The young girl quietly groaned as she struggled around to ease the unusual sensation alighting upon numerous segments of her body.
“N-nuh!”
The more she struggled, the more particles of light were diverted towards her body, creating a vicious and unstoppable cycle.
“C…calm down!”
Jun Mo grit his teeth in frustration as he felt the increasingly violent movements of the young girl against his back, the myriad of odd sensations tickling at the base of his back incurring a horrendous torture upon his willpower.
The youth repeatedly nodded his head to sway loose the disorienting sensation encircling the central region surrounding his spine, his mind quickly orienting itself to two young spectacular women.
At that moment, the Young Master of the Golden Crow Faction could only rely on the memories of his passionate times with his two wives to retain his sanity at the astonishingly spectacular stimulation at his back. That, and…
My dearest Elder Brother, why are you silently standing by at the side as though this wasn’t your problem!?
“I’m done here! Elder Brother, I’ve had enough!”
When the final particle of golden divine essence returned to his body, the young Golden Crow vanished from the Shattered Star Continent with the swiftest speed he could muster, his soul blazing scarlet with an uncontrollable passion and fire.
The final gust of wind brushed at the base of the stones, erasing the engraved symbol as though it had never existed.
Helpless at the fierce outburst from his younger brother, Dongfang Yu could gawk in silence as he watched the young girl’s body fall towards the ground.
The youth even squeezed both eyes shut as his facial muscles cramped, his ears awaiting the sickly thump of a delicate maiden’s body colliding with the hardened stones of paved limestone.
“…no sound?”
The youth creaked his eyes open to discover that the damnable <Steps of Underlying Shadow> had assured the young girl’s safety, even as she were in a heavily drunken state. Dongfang Yu took several steps forwards, his brows creasing deeply with each stride.
An Fei had rolled onto her side to negate the force generated by the impact, and the slightly opened hanfu dress and its concealed temptation was an inebriating sight for the immortal youth to withstand.
“So… what do I do now?”
Since his current form was in actually that of a small raven smaller than his palm – certainly incapable of severely punishing An Fei as he had simulated numerous, numerous times in his mind, and the defenseless and tempting appearance of the young girl was far too much for his secluded mindset to comprehend, the esteemed Heavenly Immortal Dongfang Yu that Li Xiang had painstakingly groomed from his birth froze in place.
As the wind loudly questioned his inaction, the youth replied with a single sentence.
In this circumstance, what was he supposed to do?
–
An Fei felt as though she were experiencing a dream.
Perhaps not a dream but a nightmare, though this was a nightmare that she had never experienced the likes of before.
The young girl furrowed her brows as she attempted to make sense of her circumstances, but to no avail. Her mind seemed to have been trapped in an invisible barrier, unable to explore freely as she used to have been able to.
Her body… was pulsing with a fierce warmth that originated from the outside, as though she were wrapped in a tender yet tight embrace. An Fei felt that if she let her mind wander about, she would surely delude herself into thinking that a person’s arms were wrapped around her waist.
However… she couldn’t ignore the fact that the pulsating warmth around her body was indeed centered onto a specific region, as though she were wearing several heated belts…
“I can’t see anything…”
Her vision was dark, as though she had been blindfolded and thrown into the depths of the void absent of the faintest trace of light. Moreover, her hearing had been severed, to the extent that not even her bodily functions could be heard.
She couldn’t see, but she was able to capture a few blurred scenes and environments.
She couldn’t hear, but she could detect the rustling of leaves tapping against the base of her earlobe, in addition to the energized chirping of birds, then a gurgling stream…
A man and a woman, wandering through an unknown prairie of eternity…
“What is going on?”
The young girl pursed her lips as she attempted to capture the sceneries into her memories, but to result in failure.
Likewise, as quickly as they had manifested, the sensations of warmth vanished in an instant without delivering a single trace.
The cage of darkness encircling her body collapsed upon its foundations, and An Fei rapidly opened her eyes to stare upon a dimly lit wall of stone.
