◎…L-Living Yama.◎
There was not a single blade of grass under heaven that dreamed of flying.
Fu Yuqiu was no exception.
Since reincarnating into the white sparrow, he’d used those useless little wings for balancing his round shell while walking, or as fingers for grabbing things. Flying had never once crossed his mind.
Perhaps the phoenix had simply never met a bird like this. He watched him a long moment, then suddenly laughed.
Fu Yuqiu, toddling ahead and peering about, heard the laugh and looked back, puzzled. “What do I call you?”
“Phoenix.”
“Phoenix?” Fu Yuqiu frowned.
As far as he knew, a century ago the Golden Crow had appeared in the world, raining fire from the skies until the Three Realms plunged into misery—and the entire phoenix race, cloaked in flame, had perished taking the Golden Crow down with it.
Wasn’t the whole phoenix race extinct?
Where did this one crawl out from?
Bad-tempered as he was, Fu Yuqiu knew basic social graces. He didn’t pry into the poor bird’s tragedy, just nodded sagely. “Word is phoenix blood can pull the dying back from the brink, and the Fire of Nirvana can temper souls. That Living Yama…”
Here Fu Yuqiu’s expression changed catastrophically, and he sucked in a cold breath.
“Ssss—”
The phoenix’s Fire of Nirvana can temper souls!
So the Living Yama locked this phoenix up here to torture him to death and harvest his Fire of Nirvana—to temper the soul of that soul-scattered Yuanchu Young Clan Master?!
Convinced he’d stumbled onto something enormous, Fu Yuqiu’s eyes grew even more full of pity and sympathy.
The phoenix: “……”
No one had ever looked at the phoenix with that expression. He asked, softly: “…What about the Living Yama?”
Seeing him still speak so gently made Fu Yuqiu want to rage on his behalf. “Don’t you hate him?”
The phoenix tilted his head. There was not a trace of hatred in his eyes.
He really has been tortured into something wrong in the head, Fu Yuqiu thought.
“Where did he lock you up? What did he want?”
The phoenix lowered his gaze to his dangling broken wing, golden eyes blank. “They said… they wanted to see whether a bird with broken wings could still fly.”
At those words, Fu Yuqiu’s temper flared right back up.
“Son of a—! Let me at his tongue—I’ll shred it and see if he can still talk! Is that something a person SAYS?! HUH?!”
The phoenix gave a muffled cough at that resounding torrent of abuse.
Fu Yuqiu, beside himself, cursed as he marched.
From behind, he looked like a boiled glutinous rice ball, tiny angry wisps of steam practically rising off his head.
The phoenix followed slowly, listening to the string of curses, the interest in his eyes deepening.
Fu Yuqiu wasn’t much of a curser—it was the same few phrases on loop. He seemed to realize his vocabulary of insults was sorely lacking, got so angry he tipped over backward, and his two little feet nearly did the splits.
The phoenix: “……”
What a temper, though.
The two birds had gone only a short way when a dragon’s cry split the sky, pitched high with fury and anxiety, as if something enormous had happened.
Fu Yuqiu startled and stopped at once, pushing his head against the phoenix to shove him behind a pillar to hide.
The Immortal Venerable’s great hall of the Nine Heavens lay just ahead.
The azure dragon landed and became human; Yun Shou rushed in through the palace gates, frantically calling “Venerable One”—heart-rending, as if the Immortal Venerable had passed away.
Before the great hall lay a broad open plaza. Fu Yuqiu looked left and right for cover and found none, so he could only wait in place, chewing on his patience.
Before long, Yun Shou finally came back out.
The young man transformed back into the azure dragon and spiraled into the sky, thrashing about like a headless fly consumed by restlessness, as if searching for someone.
Fu Yuqiu watched the dragon dwindle into the distance and let out a quiet breath of relief.
But before that breath had even finished, the azure dragon overhead seemed to spot something—wheeled sharply, and came diving straight toward the two birds.
The dragon rose like thunder; even the void split with a muffled crack at its passing.
Fu Yuqiu went stiff.
Crap. Spotted!
Didn’t Qingxi say Yun Shou and Yun Gui wouldn’t be in the Nine Heavens today?!
Watching the dragon bear down on them, Fu Yuqiu desperately tried to run with the phoenix. “Quick—quick, RUN!”
The dragon’s cry was already on top of them. Yun Shou looked half-mad, dragon pupils blazing with fury.
Fu Yuqiu scrambled headlong with the phoenix, staggered under the shockwave of the dragon’s cry, and went tumbling like a rice ball, smacking into a rock.
His face nearly went flat.
The phoenix’s pupils contracted. He whipped his head around, golden eyes fixing cold and grim on the incoming Yun Shou.
Yun Shou: “……”
Yun Shou’s entire dragon body locked as if frozen solid, halting dead in midair—then dropping straight down, slamming into the ground.
With an earth-shaking BOOM, dust billowed everywhere.
Fu Yuqiu chirped in wild panic, terrified of being caught.
—Afraid he’d be set off as a firework, and more afraid this innocent phoenix would be drenched and tortured again.
Fu Yuqiu was charging blindly through the dust when his body suddenly went weightless, flung into the air.
He shuddered all over, certain Yun Shou had caught up.
Then a voice reached his ears: “Don’t be afraid.”
The phoenix’s voice.
Fu Yuqiu froze, and only then realized he’d been flung onto the phoenix’s broad back.
The dust was too thick to see how the phoenix moved—only a rocking, lurching rush of motion.
By the time his vision cleared, they were far from the Nine Heavens’ great hall.
In the distance, the azure dragon shot up into the clouds and vanished in an instant.
Yun Shou… hadn’t come after them.
Fu Yuqiu let out a breath he felt down to his toes, both little claws trembling.
Belatedly remembering the phoenix was still injured, he rolled hastily off his back.
“Are you all right?”
After a roll through the dust, Fu Yuqiu’s snowy feathers were grey with grime—but the phoenix’s plumage remained magnificent, without a speck on it.
The phoenix smiled. “I’m fine.”
“That was close.” Fu Yuqiu circled him twice, confirmed he truly hadn’t picked up any new wounds, and muttered, “If that hateful dragon comes after us again, I’ll take him down with me.”
He’d rather die than be dragged back.
The phoenix frowned slightly. “How, exactly, do you plan to take him down with you?”
“Spirit core self-detonation, obviously. It blows up real quick.” Fu Yuqiu said it with the ease of an old hand. “Getting caught means dying anyway—I’m not losing out by taking one person with me. Just make sure you run far, so you don’t get caught in the blast.”
The phoenix: “……”
How on earth did he make self-detonating his spirit core sound as easy as popping corn?
Who knew how far the phoenix had carried him. Fu Yuqiu glanced around idly—and was astonished to find the legendary Cloud Ladder standing not far away.
Fu Yuqiu lit up and bounced. “We’re here!”
The two made for the Cloud Ladder.
Fu Yuqiu was over the moon.
From the Cloud Ladder to the Drifting Path, he could run to that Mid-Cloud Ridge place and see for himself whether that rat of a “Junior Venerable” in league with the Snow Deer Physician was really that dog of a man, Feng Beihe.
“Heh heh.” Fu Yuqiu snickered like a little villain. “Wait for it, you dog. If I, your father, don’t do you in, I’ll take your surname.”
Watching him look like he was off to commit some atrocity, the phoenix asked: “Do you have a grudge against someone?”
“I do.” Fu Yuqiu rarely guarded against anyone; whatever he felt, he wore openly. “He’s somewhere on the Drifting Path, I think. But I’m not sure it’s him.”
“Why not sure?”
“Because he never told me his real name, or his real identity.” Fu Yuqiu frowned. “All I know is—”
All he knew was what?
Fu Yuqiu froze, suddenly realizing that beyond a name and an identity, he knew almost nothing about Feng Beihe—and even those were probably fake.
That made him angrier still. “He lied to me. Lied about his heart, lied about his face, and he nearly—”
Nearly cost Fu Yuqiu his life.
The phoenix nodded along. “Truly vile.”
Fu Yuqiu chirped curses: “Worse than the Living Yama. Hardly even a person.”
This time the phoenix didn’t agree.
The Cloud Ladder was nearly upon them. Fu Yuqiu, beholding his path to survival, scampered ahead in high spirits.
The Cloud Ladder from the Nine Heavens to the Drifting Path hung, as it were, in empty air, stretching away over a boundless drop, wisps of cloud drifting through it—one misstep and you’d plunge into the void.
Fu Yuqiu had been in wonderful spirits—but one step onto the ladder, one glance down, and he flung himself scrambling onto the phoenix’s claw, wings spread wide as he clung to the slender scaled shank, trembling without stop.
The phoenix looked down at the snowball that didn’t reach his claw, voice gentle. “What is it?”
“It’s… a little high.” Fu Yuqiu mumbled. “I’ve never been anywhere this high up.”
The phoenix: “……”
The Crimson Spirit Secluded Grass rooted in the earth; even in human form he’d never been above the third floor of anything. Walking a translucent cloud ladder over an abyss of ten thousand zhang was simply beyond him, and for the moment he didn’t dare.
The phoenix’s golden eyes studied him, as if weighing whether “a bird afraid of heights” was genuine, or whether this sparrow was running a con.
But the sparrow was trembling so hard he seemed about to burst apart like a dandelion, and the phoenix had no choice but to believe it.
—A bird. Genuinely afraid of heights.
He seemed to sigh without a sound. “No need to be afraid. Walk slowly. Just don’t look down.”
Easy for him to say.
But having come this far, there was no way back.
Fu Yuqiu drew a deep breath, choked down his terror of the abyss, and stepped with shaking claws onto the stairs woven of cloud.
The phoenix followed close behind at a leisurely pace—both wings broken, yet not the least bit worried about plunging to his death.
Two steps in, Fu Yuqiu’s claws were already sweating.
When he got nervous, he couldn’t stop talking.
“It’s fine, though. It’s fine, it’s fine—as long as I don’t fall to my death.”
Fu Yuqiu muttered to himself for what felt like ages, convinced he must be halfway down by now.
He looked back.
Six steps.
Fu Yuqiu: “……”
Seeing how wound up he was, the phoenix walked slowly beside him and made conversation.
“I heard that dragon say you’re a mute bird?”
Fu Yuqiu seized on the chatter to distract himself. “I was fooling them. Anyone can chirp a song—but I simply refuse to sing for that Living Yama.”
The phoenix made a low, thoughtful sound, his eyes faintly, dangerously amused.
“And he wanted me to sing that ‘Widower’ song too. So inauspicious.”
“‘Widower’?”
“Yeah.” Fu Yuqiu hummed and chirped a few bars—not badly off-key, but nothing to write home about either. “I heard his Dao Companion died saving him once. Maybe that’s why he likes songs about widowers?”
The phoenix’s pupils contracted violently.
Threads of scarlet bloomed instantly across his golden eyes as he fixed Fu Yuqiu with a nearly glacial stare.
The change was startling—one moment gentle as water, the next as if he’d burn the world to ash.
Fu Yuqiu, eyes fixed on the steps, noticed none of it. He kept right on chattering.
“Hah, if I’d known I’d escape tonight, I’d have sung for him. It’s not like he understands a word of my chirping anyway—could’ve cursed him out to his face while I was at it.”
The phoenix’s gaze grew darker and darker, and the mist of the Cloud Ladder began closing in around him.
Fu Yuqiu babbled on and on, glancing back once.
The moment his eyes fell on the phoenix’s frozen face, he faltered.
The phoenix looked as if his reverse scale had been touched; even his broken wings were trembling faintly.
Fu Yuqiu studied him for a good while—then suddenly charged up the steps and, seething, rammed his head hard into the phoenix’s feathers.
The phoenix: “?”
Caught completely off guard, the phoenix nearly toppled over.
“Are you an idiot?!” Fu Yuqiu looked ready to burst with rage. “He caged you, tortured you—he’s probably planning to harvest your Fire of Nirvana to temper the soul of that Yuanchu Young Clan Master of his, his Dao Companion, and bring them back from death!”
The phoenix went still.
“After everything he’s done to you, I badmouth him a couple times and this is how you react?” Fu Yuqiu looked at him like a hopeless, hopeless fool and said coldly, “There’s a time and a place for playing the saint and bodhisattva. Where was all that mercy when he was torturing you?”
The phoenix: “……”
The phoenix lowered his head and asked, oddly: “You say the Yuanchu Young Clan Master is the Immortal Venerable’s Dao Companion?”
“Supposedly.” Fu Yuqiu corrected him. “—And you’re still calling him Immortal Venerable?! Curse him. Living. Yama.”
“……” The phoenix was silent a long while. Then: “L-Living Yama.”
