Chapter 1: Rebirth of the White Sparrow

◎ No grass under heaven goes chirp chirp. ◎

Fu Yuqiu felt as if imprisoned within a single grain of sand.

Scorching sunlight beat down overhead; the air held neither spiritual power nor moisture — every breath drew only scalding heat and stinging pain into his lungs.

Fu Yuqiu drooped his feathery lashes listlessly. His ankles had already turned a withered yellow.

— This was not a good sign.

Fu Yuqiu was the only Crimson Spirit Secluded Grass in the world capable of raising the dead, having gained sentience from being steeped day and night in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Something gifted by the Heavenly Dao should have walked a smooth road — yet here he was, trapped in this sea of sand, his spiritual power failing for want of water, his meridians slowly withering away.

If he stayed any longer, he would likely wither to nothing.

His hands were chained to the ground; his legs could still barely move.

Dry rootlets sprouted from his toes, straggling slowly down into the soil in a desperate search for even a scrap of water to sustain his life.

But the moment the fine sand buried the back of his foot, a hand shot out and closed around his sand-covered ankle.

“What are you looking for?”

Fu Yuqiu startled and looked over in horror.

His Spiritual Sense was sealed; he hadn’t even noticed when this man appeared.

The man in black had jade skin and a noble bearing, kneeling on one knee before Fu Yuqiu.

He brushed the sand from Fu Yuqiu’s foot with a tenderness as if handling a beloved.

But when he looked up, those eyes held no warmth whatsoever — cold as frost, gazing as if at a dead thing.

“This place is Sand Mustard. Apart from sand, there is nothing here.”

Fu Yuqiu didn’t hear a word of it. Summoning his strength, he swept his foot fiercely sideways.

“Bastard!”

Before his foot could touch the man, there came a crisp snap — Feng Beihe had lightly caught that trembling ankle, his gaze indifferent as it turned upon him.

“Let go!” Fu Yuqiu’s voice was hoarse. Exhausted, he glared at the man without even the strength to snarl properly. “I schemed with everything I had to save you, and you repaid kindness with treachery. Are you humans… all so heartless?”

From the moment the Crimson Spirit Secluded Grass gained sentience, it had lived in the spirit-rich Secluded Sound Valley, doted on from birth by the spirit trees and spirit beasts there. It had never once known malice in this world.

The only exception was the man before him.

“It was all an act.” Feng Beihe said flatly. “My goal, from the very beginning, was your Spirit Core.”

Fu Yuqiu froze, staring at him in disbelief.

Spirit Core?

An act?

Back then, Feng Beihe had fallen off a cliff into the Secluded Sound Valley drenched in blood, his whole body reeking of impending death — even the Shadow Vine coiled on the cliff face, which fed only on corpses, had been drawn to him and tried to root into his flesh.

If Fu Yuqiu hadn’t luckily found him, he would have died without a doubt.

All of that… had been nothing but an act to win his trust?

Looking into Feng Beihe’s indifferent eyes, Fu Yuqiu shivered despite the sweltering heat.

A man willing to stake his own life as bait.

Truly a madman…

“Your elder brother was right to keep you from leaving the Secluded Sound Valley.”

Feng Beihe lowered his eyes and withdrew the restraints binding Fu Yuqiu to the ground; the chains instantly crumbled into loose sand. “A Crimson Spirit Secluded Grass’s Spirit Core can raise the dead. The moment you step beyond the valley’s Barrier, even if it were not me, sooner or later someone would dig out your Spirit Core for medicine.”

Fu Yuqiu’s wrists were ringed with bruises from the chains. He stared at Feng Beihe in disbelief. “So, digging out my Spirit Core is justified, is it?”

“Yes.” Feng Beihe raised a hand and stroked Fu Yuqiu’s pale face, saying lightly, “At least I won’t damage your soul. You will be able to enter the cycle of reincarnation again.”

At those words, Fu Yuqiu was actually laughed out of his anger.

A beast was a beast — to commit such a vicious act and still dress it up in such righteous rhetoric?

Feng Beihe saw nothing wrong with what he had said, and leaned slightly closer.

Fu Yuqiu was so disgusted he propped himself up to shuffle backward.

The Sand Mustard was under Feng Beihe’s control; the moment he moved, his back struck a wall of sand.

“You—!”

Without so much as a blink, Feng Beihe raised a hand and clamped it firmly over Fu Yuqiu’s mouth, cutting off the curses about to pour out.

“You are angry, so I shall apologize.” Feng Beihe leaned close to his ear, murmuring as if coaxing a sweetheart. “My apologies. I was wrong.”

Fu Yuqiu: “…”

Fu Yuqiu was beyond words at this man’s behavior, so furious his eyes brimmed with moisture.

Just then, a voice spoke up beside them:

“Think this through. Forcibly extracting the Spirit Core now may damage it — all your efforts would come to nothing.”

Only then did Fu Yuqiu realize there was another person within the Sand Mustard.

That man stood not far away, pale-faced, with a vermilion-red mole between his brows. He stepped forward and bowed respectfully to Feng Beihe, a cold medicinal fragrance clinging to him.

Feng Beihe said, “If the Spirit Core is damaged, it can be nurtured back. How is that coming to nothing?”

The physician hesitated. “But the secluded grass’s soul… may be harmed.”

A faint smile crossed Feng Beihe’s ever-indifferent face. He looked at Fu Yuqiu and apologized in a tone utterly without ripples: “Then there is nothing to be done.”

If the soul was damaged, it could not enter reincarnation again unless it underwent Soul Tempering anew.

Feng Beihe had always believed that dead things were easier to control than living ones. Since he meant to take the grass’s Spirit Core, he naturally would not leave the grass’s soul intact — why court complications?

Fu Yuqiu trembled all over.

The Crimson Spirit Secluded Grass was a gift of heaven — as exquisite as any jade blossom or fairy flora, nurtured day and night by the Heavenly Dao’s power, its leaves a pure, limpid blue. One glance said it was no ordinary thing.

Yet Fu Yuqiu’s human form was the very opposite of the grass’s original shape: that face was strikingly beautiful, practically bewitching.

Ink-black hair, jade-pale skin; the long hair was loosely braided, trailing all the way to his ankles, tiny vines woven through the strands, their blossoms already withering — only at the crown of his head remained one brilliant red bud.

— Even after seven days imprisoned in the Sand Mustard, his beauty was undiminished.

The physician stole a hurried glance and his breath caught.

This was nothing like a secluded grass — more like a seductive ghost that lured souls away.

Feng Beihe glanced at him carelessly.

The physician dropped his gaze, not daring to look again.

“I hear the Secluded Grass’s elder brother, his younger brother… hold special standing in the Mortal Realm. If his soul is harmed, then I’m afraid—”

Feng Beihe cut him off. “The Heavenly Dao gifts its treasures, and they still end up as fish in a pond, birds in a cage. You pity him — does anyone pity you?”

Only then did the physician realize — perhaps from the very beginning, Feng Beihe had intended for the grass’s soul to be scattered.

At that thought, he dared not plead further, and nodded his assent.

Fu Yuqiu struggled desperately, his pupils full of terror.

He couldn’t understand it. He had only saved a person — how had it come… how had it come to this?

Seeing Fu Yuqiu’s face dead pale, Feng Beihe released the hand over his mouth and stroked the grass’s beautiful face.

“Don’t be afraid.”

There was no escape. Fu Yuqiu shook all over. “Are you truly… going to kill me?”

Feng Beihe answered softly, “Yes.”

Anyone who didn’t know better would think he was whispering to a lover.

“You did all of this, and it was only… for my Spirit Core?”

“Yes.”

Fu Yuqiu murmured to himself, “My Spirit Core… for my Spirit Core…”

Feng Beihe’s eyes showed no ripple. As he spoke, he slowly placed his hand over Fu Yuqiu’s dantian and violently channeled his spiritual power.

Fu Yuqiu had no strength to resist; he could only stare blankly at Feng Beihe.

He had been in the Sand Mustard too long — the grass’s original form was nearly withered, and the Spirit Core clung weakly. Almost docilely, it was drawn out bit by bit by Feng Beihe’s power.

Fu Yuqiu’s tears finally fell. He did not pull away; instead, he reached up and hooked his arms around Feng Beihe’s neck, offering up his Spirit Core like a man laying his neck upon the executioner’s block.

“Feng… Beihe.”

The embrace was so warm that a dark light flashed abruptly through Feng Beihe’s placid eyes, and the hand channeling power paused for a moment.

But only for an instant.

As Fu Yuqiu’s murmur faded, the arms hanging loosely around Feng Beihe’s neck suddenly tightened with every ounce of his remaining strength, hugging him with everything he had.

Tears streaming down his face, Fu Yuqiu laughed wildly. “You want… you want my Spirit Core that badly?”

Feng Beihe froze.

The next moment, he felt a surge of spiritual power from the Spirit Core about to leave his palm.

Fu Yuqiu had deliberately delivered himself into Feng Beihe’s hand — he meant to self-detonate his Spirit Core?!

“Yuqiu—”

Feng Beihe immediately formed a seal, attempting to stop it.

“My things…”

Fu Yuqiu’s hands slid down — but with the last of his strength he seized Feng Beihe’s lapel, his eyes lightless, filled with a hatred he had never known before.

“My things — even destroyed, you’ll never have them!”

At last, expression changed on Feng Beihe’s perennially mask-like face. “You…”

Fu Yuqiu looked frail and docile, but that madness in his bones — who knew whom he had learned it from.

Seeing Feng Beihe’s mask-like face finally change color at last, Fu Yuqiu threw back his head and laughed.

If you want the Spirit Core so badly, pay for it with your life.

Seeing things turn against them, the physician swiftly opened the Sand Mustard’s entrance and urged: “Go!”

A heaven-favored thing self-detonating its Spirit Core — the power was immense, beyond mortal strength to stop.

Seeing Feng Beihe’s grim face still forming seals in an attempt to prevent it, the physician hurried forward and tried to physically drag him away.

Feng Beihe violently tore free of the physician’s grip. “Get away!”

He had schemed so long for the Crimson Spirit Secluded Grass’s Spirit Core — how could he fail at the very last step?

His seals came faster and faster, but Fu Yuqiu’s mutual destruction came faster still.

One final stroke short of completing his seal, the trembling Spirit Core violently erupted.

Only a single cry was heard: “Junior Venerable—”

Feng Beihe’s pupils contracted sharply. The shockwave of the enormous spiritual explosion swept yellow sand into the sky like scattered fireworks.

The entire Sand Mustard shattered outright, raining down like fine sand.

A spring breeze passed, and from the pile of sand, a single flower bud slowly bloomed.

“…The Fire of Nirvana.”

“I remember.”

Fu Yuqiu’s ears rang; his soul felt as if torn apart, then scorched by raging fire — the burning bored straight to his heart, as if about to burst from his body.

In his daze, he vaguely heard several voices interweaving at his ear, unable to tell which belonged to memory and which to reality.

“The Venerable does love fluffy birds, but… ah, well, this white sparrow is a bit too fat. How does the Azure Luan Clan Master raise them?”

“Seven or eight meals a day — you’d get fat too. Is the Azure Luan planning to send him here to eat the Nine Heavens into bankruptcy?”

“Yuqiu—”

“It was for your Spirit Core.”

Spirit Core…

Feng Beihe!

In an instant, the memories from before the Spirit Core’s self-detonation crashed into his mind.

Fu Yuqiu couldn’t tell where he was. The resentment of being hounded to death left his head reeling; the hatred for Feng Beihe had taken root deep in his soul.

“I’ll kill him! That ugly crow! Ugly tree root! Toad!”

As a blade of grass, Fu Yuqiu wasn’t much good at cursing, so he simply piled every ugly thing he could think of onto that damnable man, tumbling them out in a jumbled stream.

“Oh my, it’s singing,” a voice praised nearby. “They say a White Sparrow’s spiritual power can calm the mind, and its song is melodious and pleasant to the ear. Now that I’ve heard it, the reputation is well deserved.”

Fu Yuqiu was still cursing away: “In my next life I’ll be your father! I’ll beat you to death, you unfilial son!”

Another voice said, “Mm. Indeed lovely to the ear.”

After venting, Fu Yuqiu came slightly back to his senses and realized that the blast from his Spirit Core Self-Detonation had been enormous — that dog of a man and the physician should have been blown to smithereens, no corpse left whole.

One for two. Not a loss.

With his resentment thus slightly eased, he belatedly noticed that something was off.

He was not in that yellow-sand-filled Sand Mustard. Cloud and mist drifted all around him; spiritual power flowed plentifully through his meridians; his heartbeat was slow. It seemed…

He was still alive?

Alive?!

Fu Yuqiu jolted awake, the realization crashing down at last.

He should have perished together with Feng Beihe. So how was he still alive?

Just then, a face magnified several times over suddenly appeared before him.

— It was a handsome youth in azure robes patterned with dragons, his pupils vertical slits, staring at him darkly, as if a single opening of his mouth would swallow him whole.

Fu Yuqiu was so frightened he shrieked: “Chirp?”

But right after crying out, he was so startled by that soft, thin birdsong that his whole body jolted.

Chirp???

No grass under heaven goes chirp chirp.

Fu Yuqiu was scared fully awake.

The azure-robed youth blinked his slit pupils and poked Fu Yuqiu’s fluffy body with a fingertip. “Tsk. Such a tiny body — how did it swallow that spirit flower in one gulp?”

A girl’s voice drifted over: “That spirit flower was sent by the Vermilion Crane Junior Venerable for the Venerable One to nurture his soul. One more bloom and it could have been used as medicine. Today, the moment the flower opened, this thing swallowed it in one bite. Hah…”

The azure-robed youth said cheerfully, “What’s the big deal? The flower was barely swallowed — its medicinal essence isn’t fully digested. Boil this white sparrow, and it still counts as medicine.”

Fu Yuqiu: “…”

What kind of logic was that?

The poking made Fu Yuqiu’s feathers stand on end. Instinctively he swung a leaf to slap the offender — but the moment he raised it, something felt wrong.

What met his eyes were two spotlessly pure white plumes.

Feathers?

Fu Yuqiu gaped, and after a long while let out a piercing shriek of despair.

“Chirp!?”

What ugly creature was this?!