◎To the Drifting Path.◎
Fu Yuqiu chirped this out in high spirits, only belatedly noticing that something was off about Qingxi’s expression.
“You…” Fu Yuqiu didn’t quite dare call her “big sister,” so he blurred the address entirely. “Chirp Chirp, is something wrong?”
Qingxi had believed there was nothing left in this world that could frighten her—she’d grown bold enough to dare storm the Nine Heavens themselves.
But now, the pressure radiating from that broken-winged Phoenix came crashing over her like boundless waves, one after another, as if to drown her alive in the dense terror carried in her very blood.
H-how was that possible?!
Why would the Phoenix be together with the White Sparrow…
Qingxi trembled from head to toe. Her mind snapped clear for a single instant, and her first instinct was to snatch the Linked Azure Water back from Fu Yuqiu.
At the very least, if the White Sparrow was dragged back, there would still be a sliver of hope.
But while her mind screamed at her to move, her body felt frozen solid—not even a single finger would obey.
Fu Yuqiu watched her curiously, giving Qingxi’s slender, pale fingers a gentle peck with his sharp beak.
“What’s wrong?”
The Phoenix seemed to give a soft laugh.
The terrifying pressure around them vanished in an instant, so completely that both Yun Gui and Qingxi went weak in the knees and nearly pitched straight down.
Yun Gui broke out in cold sweat and immediately dropped to her knees to beg forgiveness.
But before she could move, the Phoenix’s gaze swept over, golden pupils flickering faintly, as if transmitting some message.
Yun Gui shut her eyes in obvious anguish, then transformed on the spot into a pitch-black dragon, fangs bared and claws spread, coiling around the spell formation.
“You… how dare you flee the Nine Heavens without permission!”
Qingxi: “…”
Fu Yuqiu was still pecking at Qingxi’s fingers. At that familiar voice, he froze solid.
Yun Gui was here…
“CHIRP!!!”
He shrieked. The joy of having just escaped his cage instantly curdled into belated terror, and he burrowed frantically into Qingxi’s palm.
Yun Gui was the Living Yama’s person—and she had been guarding right beside the Drifting Path’s formation?!
Fu Yuqiu began to suspect that the Immortal Venerable had known about his escape all along, and had deliberately waited until he finally got out before ordering him dragged back.
First grant boundless hope, then plunge him into despair.
That was the Living Yama’s style, all right.
Before Fu Yuqiu could even process it, Qingxi—newly freed—snapped back into motion, her pupils contracting sharply. She snatched up the White Sparrow, tapped her toes against the ground, and shot into the sky in the blink of an eye.
She was… fleeing?!
Seeing this, Fu Yuqiu shrieked, “Phoenix—”
Qingxi had just taken to the air when she said, horrified, “What?”
“Hurry,” Fu Yuqiu pressed. “Take the Phoenix with us!”
Qingxi: “…”
Qingxi stared at him in sheer disbelief.
“Do you know…” Her voice was trembling. “Do you know who he is?”
Before Fu Yuqiu could answer, Yun Gui had already been forced to charge up and block their path.
“Qingxi, you know full well you can’t take him with you.”
“Get lost!” Qingxi roared.
Fu Yuqiu’s heart pounded wildly, his thoughts racing.
With Yun Gui here, this was unlikely to end well.
If he himself was dragged back to the Nine Heavens, he might be spared death on account of his status as the Azure Luan’s Little Highness—but the Phoenix…
Yun Gui and Qingxi were already exchanging blows in midair.
Fu Yuqiu peeked down through the gaps of his feathers and dimly saw that the Phoenix was still standing in place, showing not the slightest intention of fleeing.
“He’s not running while he has the chance? What is he thinking?!” Fu Yuqiu nearly toppled over in exasperation. Then another thought struck him. “Oh, right—he’s probably pining for his dear Immortal Venerable.”
At that thought, Fu Yuqiu fumed with exasperation, so angry he could have exploded.
By now Qingxi had shaken off Yun Gui and surged up on clouds, urgency in her voice. “Where’s the Linked Azure Water?”
Fu Yuqiu: “Chirp?”
With the Phoenix right there, Qingxi didn’t dare simply carry Fu Yuqiu off—and she knew full well she couldn’t escape anyway.
Seeing his blank, bewildered face, she grew frantic with worry and simply thrust her hand in to search the White Sparrow’s body directly.
Very quickly, Qingxi went rigid with horror. “You actually swallowed the Linked Azure Water—”
He’d swallowed it?!
Seeing Fu Yuqiu’s dazed, clueless expression, Qingxi’s heart nearly stopped.
The Sparrow’s brain wasn’t nearly enough room for him to swallow the Linked Azure Water—could he have stuffed it in his beak for safekeeping and gulped it down by accident?
Qingxi: “…”
Her little brother was absolutely capable of doing something that stupid!
Qingxi was on the verge of despair. With Yun Gui closing in fast, she gritted her teeth, forcibly drove her Azure Luan Water Spiritual Power into Fu Yuqiu’s Inner Mansion, and resolved to pull the Linked Azure Water out.
Even if the White Sparrow had to go back to the Nine Heavens, he could not go back carrying the Linked Azure Water!
Yun Gui was already upon them, fangs and claws bared.
Beneath the nine white jade pillars, the Phoenix’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Qingxi, mid-extraction of the Linked Azure Water, suddenly went rigid—that overwhelming pressure crashed down again, forcing her whole body to shudder, immobilized.
With a resounding boom, she plummeted from the sky, and Yun Gui, hot on her heels, slammed her into the ground with one claw.
Fu Yuqiu tumbled out from Qingxi’s forced-open fingers and crashed, dusty and disheveled, right into the Phoenix’s claw.
Qingxi cried out in alarm, reaching desperately. “White Sparrow!”
Yun Gui bore down with the pinning claw, growling through gritted teeth, “Don’t. Move.”
Fu Yuqiu panicked and scrambled over. “Chirp chirp!”
The pitch-black dragon claw locked around Qingxi’s slender waist as if a single squeeze could snap it in two. Fu Yuqiu had freely borrowed this poor boy’s shell, after all—he could hardly stand by and watch Qingxi die for his sake.
He spread his wings to shield her, voice quavering. “I—I’ll go back with you. Let her go. Don’t crush her…”
Yun Gui watched, expressionless, as this little white fluffball chirped on and on, understanding not a single word.
The Phoenix cast Yun Gui a glance.
Yun Gui froze for a moment before finally releasing Qingxi.
Qingxi suppressed a cough. “White Sparrow…”
Fu Yuqiu didn’t look at her. He trotted over on his little short legs and said softly to the Phoenix, “Chirp.”
—Run.
The Phoenix froze.
The syllable had barely landed when Fu Yuqiu violently roused the Spirit Core within his body, successfully summoning an enormous Water Dragon that came roaring toward Yun Gui with ferocious momentum.
Yun Gui sneered. The black dragon was impervious to water and fire alike, her body tough as iron—one claw split the oncoming Water Dragon clean in two.
How could a conjured water dragon ever rival a true dragon? It wilted on the spot, scattering into a drizzle of deep-blue rain that pattered to the ground.
Yun Gui reacted lightning-fast—one snatch of her claw, and she had Fu Yuqiu, who’d been scrambling along on the ground, firmly in her grip.
But by then, the Phoenix had vanished without a trace.
Yun Gui couldn’t begin to guess what she was feeling as she gazed, expression complicated beyond words, at the little white fluffball pecking indignantly at her dragon claw with his sharp beak.
Fu Yuqiu had only meant to vent his temper, but dragon hide was far too thick. Two pecks in, and the pain nearly drove tears from his eyes.
Qingxi was still pinned in place by the pressure. She ground her teeth. “Yun Gui…”
Yun Gui gave her a look that said my hands are tied, then rose on clouds and mist and flew toward the Nine Heavens.
The black dragon didn’t pass through the channel of nine white jade pillars at all—she shot straight up through the clouds.
“CHIRP————!!”
Fu Yuqiu, terrified of heights, screamed the whole way up until his throat nearly gave out.
Before long, the familiar Spiritual Power of the Nine Heavens came flooding back into his body.
He was back in the Nine Heavens.
Fu Yuqiu nearly wept.
He hadn’t even been free for a quarter of an hour before getting dragged back.
Well—at least the Phoenix hadn’t been caught. That was one mercy among misfortunes.
Yun Gui assumed human form and, face grim, carried Fu Yuqiu back to a side hall of the Nine Heavens and locked him in the Golden Cage—then layered several spell formations over it to prevent escape.
Fu Yuqiu figured he was doomed either way, so he decided to go down swinging, flapping his wings and rattling the Golden Cage’s lock with a tremendous clatter.
“Chirp chirp chirp!”
To his surprise, Yun Gui—normally the Immortal Venerable’s most devoted lackey—didn’t fly into a rage over his escape at all. She only watched him with an oddly complicated look in her eyes.
Instead, it was Yun Shou who came rushing back in a panic. At the sight of the White Sparrow caged inside, the furious Evil Dragon roared, “Fleeing the Nine Heavens without permission is a capital crime! Do you want to be a charcoal-roasted little bird?!”
Yun Gui said flatly, “Do you want to be a charcoal-roasted dragon?”
Yun Shou: “???”
Yun Shou wanted to keep cursing, but Yun Gui had already seized him by the ear and hauled him out.
Fu Yuqiu had been planning to duel that Evil Dragon for three hundred rounds of chirped insults—he hadn’t expected Yun Shou to flee without a fight.
Hmph. Coward.
With nothing to do, Fu Yuqiu paced in furious circles inside the Golden Cage—now cursing the Living Yama, now worrying over Qingxi, now fretting over whether the Phoenix had really managed to escape.
Dawn gradually broke.
Fu Yuqiu had spent the entire night in an uproar and was dead tired, but he feared the Living Yama might arrive at any moment, so he stayed vigilantly wide-eyed, like a condemned man waiting for the blade hanging over his neck to fall.
And so he glared at nothing until sunrise.
His two little claws tucked into his plumes, Fu Yuqiu dozed, swaying, his head bobbing—whenever he truly couldn’t hold on and dropped off, he’d suddenly pitch forward and jolt himself awake.
Until the first ray of sunlight fell, and the water beads in the jade plate inside the Golden Cage suddenly rippled, clear water trickling forth once more.
At the same time, the water in the side hall’s potted landscapes reappeared.
Clouds and mist swirled, drifting slowly closer.
In the space of a single breath, everything reverted to the mist-veiled state the Nine Heavens had been in before.
Fu Yuqiu shuddered from head to toe.
The Living Yama… had probably come out of the Sweet Spring.
Sure enough, footsteps soon sounded from outside.
Every time the Living Yama summoned the White Sparrow to “attend his bed,” he’d have Yun Shou carry him over to the Nine Heavens’ main hall or the Immortal Venerable’s bedchamber. Fu Yuqiu assumed it would be the same this time, and buried his head in a corner playing dead, only his long tail feathers exposed, trembling.
“Whatever happens, happens,” Fu Yuqiu muttered in resignation. “Worst case, I’ll self-detonate my Spirit Core and just die.”
At that moment, something lightly brushed against the White Sparrow’s tail feathers.
Fu Yuqiu, already thoroughly demoralized, angrily flicked his tail and refused to acknowledge anyone.
The person stubbornly pinched his tail feathers instead.
Once, twice, three times—Fu Yuqiu’s temper had never been good, and now he outright exploded. He whipped around in fury and bit down viciously on that detestable hand.
He put his full strength into the bite. A bead of blood instantly welled up on that jade-smooth back of the hand.
Golden-red blood trickled slowly down toward the thumb.
Fu Yuqiu froze and looked up, stunned.
The Immortal Venerable was gazing down at him, eyes lowered, laughter hidden in his pupils.
Fu Yuqiu: “…”
I’m dead. I am so dead.
The Immortal Venerable watched the blood trail winding down the back of his hand and said mildly, “Quite a bit of strength in that beak.”
Fu Yuqiu shivered head to toe. Only now did fear finally catch up with him, and he shrank back timidly.
The Immortal Venerable’s ink-black hair was still damp, the ankle-length ends dripping water.
He seemed to be in an excellent mood—far from holding the sparrow’s bite against him, he lifted the shivering snowball into his palm with evident interest and used a single plume to gently tip up Fu Yuqiu’s tiny sharp beak.
“Little Highness,” the Immortal Venerable said with a smile. “Scared now, are we?”
Fu Yuqiu, terrified of being seized and set off as fireworks, dodged desperately—but the Golden Cage was right behind him, nowhere to retreat. His snow-white feathers were pressed into ridges, puffing out through the bars.
But as he jerked back, his gaze suddenly landed on the plume in the Immortal Venerable’s hand.
That was…
Fu Yuqiu’s pupils contracted.
That was the Phoenix’s plume!
A Phoenix Plume was unmistakable—and more than that, the scent on it was one Fu Yuqiu knew intimately. He even glimpsed a smear of dark red blood at the plume’s root.
Fu Yuqiu stared, wide-eyed and lost.
“Looking at this?” The Immortal Venerable gave the plume’s root a light twirl between his fingers, remarking offhandedly, “That Phoenix has been captured and brought back.”
Fu Yuqiu sucked in a sharp breath and stared at him in horror.
The Immortal Venerable seemed to find his expression fascinating, studying him with something close to appreciation.
But then—when two tears slowly slid down from Fu Yuqiu’s ink-black eyes—the Immortal Venerable’s leisurely composure abruptly faltered.
Crying?
For a Phoenix he’d known less than a day, this White Sparrow was actually grieving?
Fu Yuqiu… Fu Yuqiu had been cried into this state by sheer rage.
His temper had never been good; the moment anything displeased him, he raised heaven and earth in protest, and after reincarnating into a White Sparrow’s body, he contemplated Spirit Core Self-Detonation at every hour of the day.
But now—he’d barely escaped before being hauled back, and the Phoenix had been seized for torture.
And the culprit, the Living Yama himself, had the gall to come swagger in front of him?!
“I’m so mad, I’m SO mad!”
Fu Yuqiu was so furious his head swam. He didn’t even notice those spineless tears had already streaked out; he wanted to detonate on the spot.
But that damnable Spirit Core was playing dead again.
Fu Yuqiu cried even harder.
Every last one of them—not a single good bird among the lot.
The Immortal Venerable stared, dazed, at this White Sparrow with its colossal temper, crying until its feathers were soaked. A long silence passed before he finally released the bloodstained plume.
At last, he stopped smiling. He even reached out a warm hand and gently stroked Fu Yuqiu’s face, wiping away the tears that pattered down one after another.
“What are you crying for?”
Fu Yuqiu’s eyes went black with fury, and he immediately abandoned all dignity and bit him again, hard.
Living Yama, you have the nerve to ask?!
Chirp chirp chirp!
Blood beads rose again on the back of the Immortal Venerable’s hand. He didn’t spare it a glance—just hooked Fu Yuqiu’s beak upward, making him lift his head.
“Is there someone on the Drifting Path you care about?”
Fu Yuqiu had no interest in talking to him and furiously pecked him again.
Seeing him worked up like this—pecked three times running, the back of his hand riddled like a sieve—the Immortal Venerable actually laughed again.
Fu Yuqiu: “…”
What was so funny about that?!
Fu Yuqiu suspected the man had gone mad.
The Immortal Venerable said, “Yun Shou.”
Yun Shou appeared in an instant, dropping to one knee. “Your orders, Venerable One?”
“Go to the Drifting Path.”
The Immortal Venerable, never learning his lesson, reached out again to tip up the White Sparrow’s chin, his golden eyes brimming with warm light.
“…Summon every single member of the Four Clans to the Nine Heavens.”
Yun Shou froze.
Fu Yuqiu was equally dumbfounded.
