◎Living Yama!◎
Fu Yuqiu was so furious his voice cracked.
The Secluded Sound Valley was ringed by mountains on three sides; its only road was the long river. Spiritual power was abundant, but the feng shui was poor—every few days someone came plummeting from the clifftops. Most were corpses; only a rare few still drew breath, dying slowly at the bottom.
As a spirit treasure born of heaven and earth, Fu Yuqiu—bad temper notwithstanding—was brimming with compassion. Even the humans he despised most would get rescued, nose pinched shut.
Seeing a bird of such magnificent plumage tortured to the edge of death, Fu Yuqiu’s grudging impression of the Immortal Venerable as an “okay person” plunged to rock bottom, transforming at speed into a vicious “bird-torturing fiend.”
Seeing the bird open its eyes, Fu Yuqiu spread his wings and hopped toward it, trying to catch its attention.
“Chirp! Chirp-chirp!”
The phoenix, trapped in the formation, tilted its head the tiniest bit, watching a certain snowball bounce up and down with eyes of ice.
Seeing the bird move, Fu Yuqiu finally relaxed.
Good—still savable.
Why do I keep wading into messes like this? Fu Yuqiu lectured himself as he searched the formation’s edges for a way to break it. Last time I saved an ungrateful wretch and it cost me my life.
Complaints aside, he set about rescuing the bird with everything he had.
Even a fool like Fu Yuqiu knew better than to stroll into that formation; he only dared run along its edge.
The phoenix watched expressionlessly as the snowball rolled back and forth, the violence in its eyes churning like mist.
But Fu Yuqiu’s shell was plump to begin with, and after all that earlier scampering he was already spent.
He ran a short while before collapsing, exhausted, and rested on the spot—then suddenly remembered he still had a spirit core.
Fu Yuqiu tentatively stirred the Origin Core in his inner mansion.
That spirit core was always playing dead at the drop of a hat; it never obeyed him.
He hadn’t held out much hope—but the moment he stirred it, a stream of water appeared out of thin air.
It seemed almost alive, “looking” around this way and that before its gaze settled on the bird trapped in the formation.
—Maybe it was Fu Yuqiu’s imagination, but this Origin Core, the same one that turned into a coward the instant it saw the Immortal Venerable, now seemed to be quivering with gloating excitement.
Fu Yuqiu didn’t understand what it was so excited about; that it responded at all was an unexpected gift.
He tried guiding the water into the formation.
The deep azure current was like a water dragon, glittering with excitement as it viciously split the formation and crept toward the bird trapped at the center.
At the sight of the water, the phoenix’s eyes grew even colder.
It seemed to try struggling upright, but the moment it moved it crashed back down, its glorious feathers soaked.
The water crept closer.
At the same moment, high above the hall, the Wind-Divining Chimes strung along the tangled red cords shuddered—and rang out in a fine, dense chorus that filled the entire empty hall.
Ting-ling-ling—
That eerie, chilling sound set every one of Fu Yuqiu’s feathers on end.
But he didn’t dare stop. Gritting himself, he pushed the water forward, thinking to wrap the bird up and drag him out of this sinister formation.
Just as the water was about to touch those gorgeous plumes, the dense chorus of Wind-Divining Chimes stopped dead.
The phoenix, silent until now, suddenly coughed up a mouthful of gold-red blood, streaking in winding lines down its feathers under the pouring water.
“Chirp-jee!”
Fu Yuqiu shrieked.
The water dragon tore free of his control, bursting apart into raindrops that came clattering down.
Somehow, the red cords overhead snapped all at once; countless Wind-Divining Chimes rained to the floor with the water, and the formation on the ground dissolved into nothing.
The phoenix was near death, its eyes full to overflowing with hate as it stared fixedly at Fu Yuqiu.
It looked as if it wanted to scatter his ashes to the winds.
Fu Yuqiu didn’t register that look at all—because he’d just made the joyous discovery that someone had forcibly shut down the hall’s formation.
If not now, when?
Fu Yuqiu stumbled headlong into the cascading water, rushing to the phoenix’s side.
The phoenix seemed to try struggling, but barely moved before coughing up blood again, watching helplessly as the snowball came flapping at him like a drenched chick.
The phoenix stared blankly at the approaching snowball, its golden pupils scattering for an instant.
He… he’s come to finish me.
He’s also…
The vanished mist of the Nine Heavens abruptly reappeared.
Fu Yuqiu’s sharp eyes caught the mist around them converging on him slowly from all directions, like a net closing in.
“Chirp!”
Fu Yuqiu shrieked and scrambled to the phoenix, butting the dying bird with his head, urging frantically: “Can you still move?”
The mist around them froze for an instant.
The hatred in the phoenix’s eyes hadn’t faded; it looked at him, nearly lost.
“The mist is coming again!” Had Fu Yuqiu been in grass form, his leaves would have been dripping with cold sweat. Trembling, he pecked at the phoenix’s feathers and urged, “Quick—quick, let’s go!”
The phoenix stared at him, dazed.
Watching that reaction, Fu Yuqiu thought: This is bad. A bird this gorgeous, and it’s an idiot?
But having already mounted the rescue, he couldn’t very well abandon him and bolt.
Water was still falling from overhead. Fu Yuqiu, grasping at whatever straw there was, strained to worm his way under the phoenix’s broken wing.
The phoenix’s pupils contracted sharply; the touch against his broken wing set his whole body trembling.
The mist closed in again.
But in the next instant, the phoenix’s body lurched—and the world rose, slowly, by a few inches.
Fu Yuqiu had wedged himself underneath, straining to prop the phoenix onto his back with that chubby little body.
The phoenix: “……”
A phoenix’s bones are hollow, and after being tortured to skin and bone, he weighed hardly anything at all.
Fu Yuqiu summoned the strength of his entire bloodline, gave a straining “chirp-jee,” and heaved the bird—many times his own size—up onto his back, wobbling.
The white sparrow’s body was too small; once he’d hauled the phoenix up, those two gorgeous broken wings draped down naturally, hiding the snow-white little figure completely. Not a trace of the sparrow was visible.
The cold ferocity in the phoenix’s eyes drained away, replaced by undisguised astonishment.
Who knew whether he was more stunned that the white ball hadn’t killed him—or that a body that small could lift him at all.
Fu Yuqiu strained out one tender yellow claw and took a step forward.
Then…
With a muffled chirp, he was squashed flat.
The phoenix: “……”
Fu Yuqiu felt his internal organs being pressed into pancakes—and maybe he was imagining it, but he could have sworn the place where the big bird pressed against his back was trembling faintly.
Was he… laughing?
Chirp, this thing weighs a ton. Fu Yuqiu didn’t dwell on it, still grumbling. Don’t tell me he’s solid through too.
Fu Yuqiu gathered himself, heaved back up, and shuffled off at a snail’s pace.
His view was blocked by the phoenix’s gorgeous plumes, so he could only run toward where he remembered the doors being—and never saw that the mist in the great hall had already dispersed.
Fu Yuqiu fled with his heart in his throat, phoenix on his back.
He got squashed flat seven or eight times along the way, and after interminable struggle finally escaped that Devil Den.
Beside the palace lay a Parasol Tree Forest. Fu Yuqiu tottered in with his burden, belatedly noticed the mist was gone, and finally relaxed—with a “chirp-jee” of relief, he was promptly squashed flat again.
The Parasol Tree Forest glimmered with fine, faint motes of light, fireflies drifting through the pair like mist.
Fu Yuqiu lay panting on the ground for a good long while before recovering.
He glanced wearily sideways and found the big bird had somehow regained movement, and was looking down at him.
This big bird had been tortured terribly thin, soaked head to toe—and both wings seemed to have been deliberately broken. One look was enough to know it hurt.
Compassion surged up in Fu Yuqiu at once—along with a deep fellow-feeling, one sufferer recognizing another at the Living Yama’s hands.
“How did you end up in there?” Fu Yuqiu shook out his feathers and said sympathetically, “Did that Living Yama lock you up?”
Soaked as the phoenix was, he somehow didn’t look like a drowned rat the way Fu Yuqiu did. Wretched as he plainly was, he still gave off an air of serene, untouchable nobility.
At the words “Living Yama,” something shifted in his eyes. He said, softly: “Living Yama?”
Hearing that hoarse cry, Fu Yuqiu pitied him all the more. “The Immortal Venerable. Him.”
The phoenix: “……”
The phoenix gave a soft “oh” and said, perfectly even: “Him.”
“I knew it.” Fu Yuqiu flapped his wings in outrage. “He really does have a taste for tormenting others. No wonder he’s a sickly wreck. Serves him right!”
The phoenix watched him hop with anger, and at the curses against the Immortal Venerable, his eyes grew deeper and deeper.
On the surface, though, he remained gentle—not the least bit darkened by all that torment. He said warmly: “Thank you for saving me.”
“No trouble at all.”
Seeing him still dripping, Fu Yuqiu decided this big bird was a bit dim—didn’t even know to shake the water off.
The white ball shook himself with all his might, demonstrating: “Like this. Fluff up like this, shake hard, and the water flies right off.”
As far as Fu Yuqiu knew, birds by instinct hated being soaked through.
Being confined in a formation with water dumped over his head like that—how miserable must that have been?
The snowball, fluffed up, looked like mortal dragon’s-beard candy, pathetic and adorable as he shook, enough to make anyone fear he’d shake his own feathers clean off.
But a creature as dignified as a phoenix would sooner die than do such a thing. He looked down at the white ball earnestly teaching him how to be a “bird” and said mildly, “It’s fine.”
Fu Yuqiu assumed his broken wings made it impossible, and tactfully dropped the subject.
With all that commotion, it was now past the hour of Zi.
A gust of cold wind made Fu Yuqiu shiver all over—and he remembered he was in the middle of an escape.
“Want to escape together?” Fu Yuqiu asked. “If the Living Yama catches us, he’ll set us both off as fireworks for sure.”
“Living Yama?”
The phoenix blinked, faintly startled.
He seemed to find the title rather amusing, repeating it low. Something like fine sparks of fire glittered in his golden eyes—terribly gentle.
Fu Yuqiu didn’t come up to so much as the bird’s claw. He flapped and bounced up: “Hey! Hey! What are you spacing out for?”
“Escape to where?” The phoenix lowered his gaze, looking faintly worried. “We won’t make it out.”
“We will, we will!” Fu Yuqiu hurried to reassure him. “Come with me. Staying here is just waiting to die.”
Perhaps the phoenix decided he had a point. He nodded. “All right.”
With a companion found, Fu Yuqiu wasn’t nearly so scared anymore. He pointed ahead into the dark.
“The Nine Heavens’ Cloud Ladder should be just ahead. Word is you can take the Cloud Ladder down to the Drifting Path.”
The phoenix was silent a long moment, then said softly: “That is south.”
Fu Yuqiu: “……”
Fu Yuqiu staggered and went rolling off like a ball.
He bounced right back up. “Huh? SOUTH?”
“Mm.” The phoenix’s beautiful golden eyes regarded him gently. “North is that way.”
“Oh! Oh! Ohhh!”
Fu Yuqiu felt wickedly lucky he’d gone back for the rescue—otherwise he could have rolled to his death without ever finding the Cloud Ladder.
The mist had fully cleared. Fu Yuqiu peered around a long while, detected no one, and rolled off with the phoenix in tow.
The phoenix followed behind the snowball at an easy, measured pace.
His frame was huge; one of his strides took the snowball two or three rolls to match, so the phoenix simply ambled along behind—watching the snowball roll and bounce, which was, admittedly, rather amusing.
Before long, Fu Yuqiu’s eyes were spinning too hard to find the road, and he had to switch to toddling along on his little short legs.
Watching him wobble along, the phoenix said abruptly: “Why don’t you fly?”
We’re fleeing for our lives. Wouldn’t flying be faster?
Fu Yuqiu tilted his head up at him, bleary. “Huh?”
The phoenix’s gaze went deep, as if black mist churned within.
The agony of broken wings still seemed to linger in every bone.
He looked at those snow-white wings and—no telling why—felt a surge of revulsion. Nearly cold, he said: “Fly.”
Fu Yuqiu said, puzzled: “Fly? Why would I fly?”
The phoenix: “……”
The phoenix was, incredibly, stumped by the simplest question in the world.
You… are a bird, aren’t you?
