After suffering the ordeal of listening to an enthusiastic lecture on her new need of consuming deadly poisons, An Fei staggered out of the forest and towards the cottage where He Xin busily prepared the evening dinner. The young maiden quickly ladled the steaming porridge into wooden bowls, and glared at Xu Lingxin’s innocent countenance with annoyance.
“Venerable Mei didn’t allow you to take her into the Mourning Forest.”
The celestial maiden shrugged with a complacent expression, and raised the wooden bowl to her lips. Xu Lingxin smacked her tongue at the delicious fragrance emitting from the broth, and quickly jabbed her spoon.
“The sect leader made me the gatekeeper of the Mourning Forest. As the gatekeeper, it is I who holds the final authority on whether someone can enter the Mourning Forest, not Granny Mei.”
“Not only Venerable Mei, but also Venerable Liu and Venerable Liang! Young Miss, you can stand your ground against a single Elder, but not all three!” He Xin furrowed her brows and curled her lips.
“The elders’ falcons have long since landed. They demand an answer, and Young Miss, you simply do not have the authority to overturn their demands!”
“So what? So long as the sect leader hasn’t said a word, the elders can’t order me around like that. Do they think that the Morning Star Temple is the Haunted Buddhist Sect?”
Xu Lingxin leaned onto her right arm and splayed her body against the comforting grass, and curled her lips into a sardonic sneer. Her left hand easily twirled the delicate strands of He Xin’s stray hair with a cheerful snort, and directed her gaze at the setting sun.
“Having submitted under the Violet Jade Pavilion’s thumb, they will naturally change their mindset to be utterly subservient and despicable. I brought Little Sister Lingxue here, so naturally, I shall be the one to take care of her. Who dares?”
The irritation and contempt within He Xin’s gaze continued to accumulate the longer Xu Lingxin maintained her graceful, aloft posture. An Fei silently finished her bowl of porridge and softly rose to her feet. She felt the celestial maiden’s gaze land at the square of her spine as she began walking towards the wooden cottage, and the young maiden’s discontent burst with great strength when she noticed An Fei’s attempt of departure.
“She is from Great Yong! Young Miss, you must remember that we are now under Bei Tang. People from Great Yong are our enemies. They should be killed without mercy!”
The young girl briefly paused her step, but continued after a moment’s silence.
With the harmonious and energized scene of Xu Lingxin attempting to placate the fuming He Xin whilst in the company of a roaring hearth plastered in her gaze, An Fei closed the wooden door. The young girl ignored the painstaking intention behind the particular arrangement of decorations, and swiftly made her way in the cottage until she stood before the freshly cleaned room previously used for storage.
Compared to the other rooms in Xu Lingxin’s carefully tailored residence, the small quarters before her was one that had been hastily flushed and cleaned of its residue to accommodate an extra resident. The hinges were neither oiled properly nor were they particularly respectful of the concept of remaining silent at nighttime, and there was only a single, solitary window just below the top of the wall. During the daytime, the lighting was exceptionally dim and gloomy, but the frail beauty shone during the night.
An Fei closed the door to be welcomed by the flickering rays of sunset flashing through the small window. The young girl raised her palm to shield her eyes from the concentrated glare, and softly moved the small amount of distance within the room to place herself on the thin mattress.
It was hardly comfortable compared to the exquisite bedchambers of the Sanctum, but An Fei recognized and treasured the importance of the partly disintegrated, disregarded square of packed linen. The spring of Bei Tang wasn’t as unbearable as its winter, but the earth was still… cold.
Sometimes, the linen square caved into small, unpleasant ravines after she slept in a single place for far too long, and at others, the cold temperature from the ground soaked into the mattress before her body could snatch even a fragment of warmth. An Fei shook her head with a wry smile, and closed her eyes.
Shortly after, the young girl opened her eyes to gaze into the far corners of the room, a displeased smile twisting her lips into a distorted expression.
“I don’t understand.”
The once vibrant metropolis of golden light swirling inside her body had been reduced into complete silence. She peered and tore the mental visualization apart to the best of her ability, but failed to discover even a speck of the former golden radiance. The fortress was silent, cold, and lifeless after having soaked for too long in the mortal world of death.
The crimson darkness had eroded the inside of her body from the torso, and the golden kernel at the base of her chest that always greeted her gaze with a cheerful quiver had been replaced with a towering crystal. The sky-blue cube gently swirled in the crevice where her heart once fervently beat, suspended in place without any external forces supporting or suppressing its existence.
The young girl raised her hand and placed the tips of her fingers against the left side of her chest, hovering directly across from the cube that was in the mental visualization. An Fei squeezed her eyes shut and strained her ears and senses as best as she could, yet was unable to find any trace of a heartbeat or feel any pulse from her fingertips.
“Does this mean… that I have no spiritual essence in my body? Is this why I can’t return to the Sanctum?”
Her heart was silent and cold, devoid of any life or conscious of self-being. Her lips, when she compelled them to recite phrase after phrase engraved onto the platinum mirrors of the Sanctum, failed to produce any melodious bells or cause the world around her to distort.
The cold, surreal and distant sensation of utter disappointment and exhaustion… this was abandonment.
“She did say that she would kill me… is this what she meant?”
An Fei muttered in a low tone, and released an abrupt, sardonic laugh. The young girl tugged the heavy curtains into place to blot out the single, solitary ray of sunlight, and threw herself onto the mattress. With a few struggles of breath, and several hefty muttering filled to the brim with unhealthy curses and cries, she had surrendered to the pleasures of sleeping.
The young girl didn’t notice the silhouette of a small crow perched on the other end of the window.
The small crow shook its beak and took flight amidst the diminishing sunset, spreading its wings across the vast mountainous region that housed the Morning Star Sect. As it flew, the crimson eyes carefully inspected the small pond, the expansive forest, and the line of branches stabbed into the soft, barren earth. The crow swiftly rose into the heights of the skies and tipped its wings, bidding the crumbling sun farewell.
When it had perched onto a thick branch of the highest tree of the forest, the small crow’s figure gave way to reveal a youth clad in golden robes.
“How odd. She reeks of someone who had died recently, but her body and soul is intact. What’s going on?”
Jun Mo scratched at his head in confusion. The youth directed his gaze in the direction towards the wooden cottage concealed underneath the impenetrable veil of trees, branches, and leaves, and crossed his arms before his chest in annoyance.
“Why is Elder Brother taking so long to arrive? I created such a detailed spiritual waypath so he wouldn’t get lost – did he get into another fight with Mu Rongyuan?”
Jun Mo leaned against the coarse bark, and displayed a derisive sneer. The youth closed his eyes and crossed his legs, not intending to make a move until the sun rose once more.
He was just a foolish crow. Unlike his Elder Brother whose Master was one of the revered and feared beings of the Realm, he was a crow who liked to bask in the glorifying blessings of the sun, instead of venturing into the cold, dark unknown of the void.
“I already have two wives. If it wasn’t for my stupid, drunken self, agreeing to ward off Deng Lun and Bai Xing, would I really be here? Qing Qing, Xiao Hong, I really miss the both of you…”
Since he was just a foolish crow, he wasn’t going to indulge in the mess of marriage with a mortal girl who danced too close with Death. That trouble could be left for his Elder Brother, whose knowledge and wisdom spanned across the Heavens.
The crow closed its eyes with content and awaited the arise of dawn. He indulged in a dream of pleasure and paradise with a pair of heavenly beauties, selectively forgetting that he himself had been ‘eaten’ by two beautiful women who particularly enjoyed roasted raven.
