Chapter 20: Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp

◎Stealing the Immortal Venerable’s possessions in the Nine Heavens—what is the punishment?◎

These past days Fu Yuqiu had been run off his feet, day and night without pause, and had finally earned himself one night of rest.

He slept so deeply his whole body went soft. In his drowse, he seemed to roll up against some warm spot and nestle in; the scent of clouds and mist wrapped around him, and someone nearby seemed to be laughing softly.

Fu Yuqiu slept like the dead, snuggled closer, and slept deeper still.

In his dream, he returned to Secluded Sound Valley. Spirit Grass and spirit trees chattered around him, and the crystal-clear pool came flowing to greet him too, pouring its gentle waters over his roots.

Fu Yuqiu was so overjoyed he forgot himself entirely, drinking deep of the spirit water with his beautiful roots.

The sweet water slowly filled his stems and leaves; his withered, cracked body revived like springwood, tender green buds unfurling amid the dead leaves.

Fu Yuqiu woke up straight out of pure joy.

But when he blearily opened his eyes, everything from the dream had dissolved into nothing—he was back in the man-eating Nine Heavens.

Fu Yuqiu: “…”

The drop was too cruel. Fu Yuqiu kicked his legs in fury, nearly ascending on the spot, and took a long while to calm down, huffing.

He’d fallen asleep curled on his own soft pillow—yet somehow he’d ended up sprawled on the very spot where the Immortal Venerable had lain, a tiny cloud quilt tucked over him no less.

Fu Yuqiu kicked the quilt off and looked around, puzzled.

Daylight filled the room. The Living Yama was gone goodness-knew-where, and the entire inner chamber stood empty.

Fu Yuqiu looked around—and his gaze landed on the candle stand atop the bedside table.

—The Phoenix Inheritance was still floating there, quiet and undisturbed.

Fu Yuqiu’s heart lurched violently; he nearly lost control and dashed up to snatch it in his beak and bolt.

But on reflection—would a treasure like the Phoenix Inheritance really be left sitting out here, waiting for him to steal it?

The Living Yama loved laying traps. For all Fu Yuqiu knew, the man was waiting for exactly this—letting him steal it, then bursting out to catch him red-handed.

I will not be so easily fooled, Fu Yuqiu thought warily.

The Phoenix Inheritance went on floating there, watching Fu Yuqiu in silence as though it were alive.

Fu Yuqiu shivered, gave it one long, reluctant look, then turned and rolled himself off the bed, grumbling as he waddled out.

A moment later, the Immortal Venerable returned from outside and lifted the bed curtains with one hand.

The Phoenix Inheritance on the candle stand still glimmered softly.

It hadn’t been taken?

The Immortal Venerable: “…………”

Fu Yuqiu ran off to the little medicine room attached to the Nine Heavens’ side hall, intending to find some healing elixirs for the Phoenix.

This had once been the province of the successive Snow Deer Physicians—but ever since the last one had been sent off to Mid-Cloud Ridge, the Snow Deer Clan had sent no new physician to the Nine Heavens.

Back when the Immortal Venerable had summoned every soul from Mid-Cloud Ridge, Fu Yuqiu had scrutinized the crowd, face by face—and no Snow Deer had been among them.

—That Snow Deer had probably been killed by Feng Beihe.

At the thought, a shiver ran through him.

Feng Beihe. That madman.

Despite the fruit, Fu Yuqiu still felt weak all over after waking.

He slumped against a table leg to rest, gazing up at the medicine cabinet that soared all the way to the ceiling, trying to work out how he could possibly open those little drawers to find medicine.

A small cloud drifted down from the rafters, snuggling up to him affectionately.

Fu Yuqiu studied the cloud and ventured, “Can you help me?”

Incredibly, the cloud seemed to understand, bobbing up and down.

Fu Yuqiu didn’t overthink it and lit up. “Then help me—”

Before he’d finished, the little cloud swooped beneath him, scooped him up whole, and carried him fluttering to the very top of the medicine cabinet, bobbing this way and that.

“AAAAH—!!”

Fu Yuqiu shrieked, nearly flinging himself over the edge, his eyes brimming with terror-born tears.

Making a grass that had spent its whole life rooted in the earth fly this high was simply not the act of any decent creature.

The cloud, thoroughly startled itself, hurried back down and set him on the floor.

Fu Yuqiu, already unwell, was now scared half into limpness. Sick and listless, he tried to burrow his claws into the soil—but the floor was solid jade flagstones, without a single crack.

The little cloud hovered in place, rather at a loss.

Fu Yuqiu panted a while before collecting himself. He couldn’t even muster anger—since when had any bird ever been afraid of heights?

“Thank you,” he said, drooping. “I just wanted to find a little spirit medicine. No need to carry me flying.”

The cloud bobbed once more, then threaded familiarly through the medicine cabinet’s drawers, and before long came drifting back down wrapped around a whole heap of elixirs and spirit medicines, spilling them across the floor with a clatter.

Every last one was treasure enough to dazzle the eye—among them several Golden Radiance Grass seeds, and several Spring Return Fruits that Yun Shou had always begrudged handing out.

Fu Yuqiu stared in amazement.

The cloud nuzzled against him, as if to say, eat up, eat up.

“Oh—thank you…” Fu Yuqiu scratched his head with a wing. “But I don’t need this much. One fruit is plenty.”

Steal this much, and if the Living Yama finds out, he might just boil me down for a medicine primer.

He had no wish to implicate the cloud that had helped him, so he took only a single Spring Return Fruit and pattered back to the side hall.

The side hall was so vast, and he was the only bird living in it.

He hunted high and low until he found the perfect little hiding nook for his “loot,” stashed the Spring Return Fruit away in secret, and settled in to wait for nightfall to carry it to the Phoenix.

Soon enough, the sun sank westward.

Fu Yuqiu had dozed off in a daze beside the water trough, and opened his eyes muzzily to check the sky.

Dark. Time to find the Phoenix.

Fu Yuqiu struggled to rise—but this shell of his wouldn’t quite obey, as if a slow fire were smoldering through his meridians, his whole body too heavy to flutter an inch.

He was about to try again when voices drifted in from outside—Yun Shou and Yun Gui.

Yun Shou: “Why is the Venerable One recuperating again? Didn’t he just visit the Sweet Spring a few days ago?”

Yun Gui: “Don’t ask what you shouldn’t. The Venerable One goes to the Sweet Spring; the two of us will withdraw for the night.”

With that, two dragon cries rang out, fading into the distance.

They’d really left the Nine Heavens?

Fu Yuqiu’s spirits surged.

The Living Yama off at the Sweet Spring to recuperate?

And both dragons gone from the Nine Heavens?

Could the timing be any more perfect?

Fu Yuqiu was long accustomed to rotten luck; confronted with fortune this good, even he was startled.

Still, a thread of wariness remained—was the Immortal Venerable dangling another trap for him?

He waited patiently until the hour of Zi, when all the water and clouds of the side hall once more vanished into thin air—precisely as it had been the last time the Immortal Venerable departed for the Sweet Spring.

Only then did Fu Yuqiu relax, haul himself upright, and set off happily from the side hall toward the Immortal Venerable’s bedchamber.

The mist had dissipated completely, leaving the great hall emptier than ever.

Fu Yuqiu churned his little short legs, laboring all the way to the inner chamber—normally he’d still have had energy to spare for rolling about, but tonight, inexplicably, a short run had left him gasping.

Even a fool as dense as Fu Yuqiu could sense something wrong with this shell. But probing his Inner Mansion, he found the Spirit Core turning as ever, his meridians wholly unremarkable.

Unable to diagnose the trouble on the spot, Fu Yuqiu put it out of his mind and devoted himself single-mindedly to stealing the Phoenix Inheritance.

He nudged his head through the layered bed curtains, hooked his claws into the brocade quilt hanging over the bed’s edge, and climbed aboard, punching claw-holes a dozen at a time.

Bedside stand. Phoenix Inheritance. Still resting on the candle stand.

Who knew how the Living Yama’s mind worked, leaving it out so carelessly.

Seeing the thing he’d coveted so long sitting right there before his eyes, Fu Yuqiu abandoned all further caution and pounced, clamping the Golden-Red Plume in his beak.

“The Phoenix’s… Phoenix Inheritance.”

Fu Yuqiu’s head swam; every limb and bone burned scalding hot.

After all this exertion he felt half roasted stupid—yet he still remembered to carry this plume to the Phoenix.

He swayed toward the way he’d come, but his dizziness scrambled all sense of direction; he crawled muzzily up onto the window lattice, misstepped, and dropped straight down.

“Chirp-wee—”

The White Sparrow’s round little body rolled across the floor several times before stopping. Sick and woozy, he lifted his head, got his bearings with effort, clamped the Phoenix Inheritance from the ground in his beak, and ran for the Phoenix’s prison.

Perhaps the fall had knocked a bit of clarity back into him, for the Azure Luan Clan Master’s words surfaced in his mind.

“When the Immortal Venerable perishes, I will give you the antidote.”

At the time, Fu Yuqiu had felt nothing wrong with his body, so he’d paid the words no mind.

But now…

The full moon hung in the sky, and the moonlight falling on him was like a slow fire, creeping into his meridians and burning as it went.

He was still thinking when his foot suddenly gave way, and his whole body rolled out like a snowball.

The world spun. Fu Yuqiu clamped down on the Phoenix Plume with everything he had, refusing to let his hard-won prize fly loose.

When he finally steadied himself and looked back, dazed, he found a young man in robes of bright yellow standing a short distance away, watching him with cold eyes.

Fu Yuqiu was hopeless with faces; he hadn’t the faintest idea who this was. He tilted his head and chirped, “Chirp?”

Who’s this, then?

Ming Nan stood with the moonlight at his back. His wide sleeve lifted in a slight motion, and countless flames burst forth, converging in an instant into an enormous cage—a Fire Prison—sealing Fu Yuqiu inside.

Fu Yuqiu stared at the man, uncomprehending.

Then the flames of the great cage began to shrink, fiery strands of burning line converging on Fu Yuqiu from all sides, slowly contracting, as if to crush him to death amid the fire.

Fu Yuqiu’s pupils contracted to pinpricks.

Ming Nan looked down at him from on high. “Stealing the Immortal Venerable’s possessions within the Nine Heavens—what should the punishment be?”

Stealing from the Immortal Venerable. A flawless pretext.

The Immortal Venerable was recuperating tonight, heedless of all affairs in the Nine Heavens.

Kill the sparrow by this means, seize the Linked Azure Water, and even when the Immortal Venerable returned tomorrow, no blame could fall upon him.

With that thought, a glint of killing intent flashed through Ming Nan’s eyes.

In the Nine Heavens’ remotest palace, the Phoenix stood with lowered eyes at the center of the spell formation. The Water-Divining Chimes rattled violently under the force of the cascading water, ringing with an urgent, nameless note of coming storm.

The water poured down over the Phoenix’s magnificent feathers, raising wreaths of white mist.

The Phoenix belonged to fire; by rights he should have recoiled from Water Spiritual Power. Yet he stood in perfect calm, letting the water soak him through.

The sparrow’s soft, sweet voice suddenly echoed in his memory.

“Does the Living Yama actually want to die?”

The Phoenix went still—and the water pouring from thin air stuttered, then dissolved abruptly into mist and was gone.

Never mind… the Phoenix thought. When he comes later and sees this water, he’ll only chatter my ears off.

The sound of the Wind-Divining Chimes stopped dead, leaving only a faint quiver of resonance hanging in the vast hall, lingering long without fading.

Pure moonlight poured down, laying the ground white as fresh-fallen snow.

The Phoenix dried the water from his body and fixed his gaze on the entrance of the hall.

He himself had not realized just how much he was anticipating the sight of that snowball bounding toward him.

Silly. Clumsy.

And yet—like a lively young grass, stretching happily toward the sunlight.

The Phoenix faltered, just slightly.

Why does he keep thinking of that White Sparrow as a grass?

At that moment, a dragon cry tore through the air outside.

Yun Gui—who should long since have left the Nine Heavens—burst into the palace, transformed into human form in a flash, and dropped to one knee.

“Venerable One—”

The Phoenix’s brow creased lightly, and human words left his lips—the Immortal Venerable’s clear, gentle voice.

“Did I not order you not to appear tonight?”

Yun Gui’s face had gone white. “The White Sparrow… the Little Highness stole the Phoenix Inheritance, and Presiding Venerable Ming Nan has trapped him in the Fire Prison!”

The Phoenix’s golden eyes flooded instantly with crimson mist.

The red rope overhead snapped clean through; the Wind-Divining Chimes crashed to the ground, shuddering violently.