Lin Zhuoyu let out an “Oho” as his gaze flicked down to the jade. His brow arched, and he bent down on instinct to pick it up.
Qingshan Qi was faster than he was, lunging forward to snatch the pendant—snapped clean in two—and closing it in his palm, as if picking up a heart’s true feelings that must never be shown to another.
The force was too great. The sharp, slanted edges of the break carved a wound straight across his palm, and blood welled up at once.
Lin Zhuoyu was startled. “Don’t squeeze it! You’ll cut yourself again!”
Qingshan Qi’s whole body went rigid; he could barely keep up the mask of timidity. His jaw clenched, teeth gritted, and he squeezed a few words out between them. “I-I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had that jade hidden in your clothes.”
Qingshan Qi kept his back to him, his tone colder than it had ever been. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Lin Zhuoyu still blamed himself. “But it’s broken now…”
“No.” Qingshan Qi said, “It was… already broken.”
Long ago, on that night of corpses and blood, he had dropped the Peach Blossom Jade Pendant as he fled in panic. Only after the fact did he realize that the God of Slaughter who had massacred the Qingshan Clan surely couldn’t be bothered to kill a little demon like him—and he had stumbled back to look for it.
By the time he found it, the pendant lay in the filth, already shattered in two.
“Oh—then let me fix it for you,” Lin Zhuoyu said. “Maybe it can be restored?”
“No need.”
Lin Zhuoyu opened his mouth as if to ask something, thought better of it, and swallowed the question. “Then let me apply some medicine, at least.”
At those words, Qingshan Qi’s back went taut. “No need for that,” he nearly blurted.
Lin Zhuoyu: “?”
“It doesn’t hurt if you don’t put medicine on it?” Lin Zhuoyu pressed earnestly.
Medicine would hurt more, Qingshan Qi thought impatiently.
Then he turned around, tucked away all his killing intent, and went pale-faced as though he had suffered a terrible blow, fragile as anything. “It’s nothing. It will heal soon. Thank you, Brother.”
Seeing him in that pitifully frail state, Lin Zhuoyu gave a flat little “oh” and didn’t press.
Just then, an aged voice drifted in from outside the small courtyard. “Young friends, the Flower Festival is about to begin. Would you like to come watch the ceremony?”
“Sure!” said Lin Zhuoyu.
The Flower Festival was lively. Even this remote little village’s arrangements were no less grand than Linchuan City’s; flowers and grass grew thick everywhere, and sigils filled the sky.
Lin Zhuoyu watched with great interest, wearing peony-like silk flowers, escorted by the crowd to an altar ablaze with blossoms.
The youth whose face had been painted with colored pigment earlier had washed it clean; now, fingertips dusted with peach-pink powder, he drew a single light stroke across Lin Zhuoyu’s brow.
The mark was meant as a blessing, but it lent that face a few extra touches of color besides.
Qingshan Qi stood off to the side, expressionless as they painted purple marks on him too. When he unintentionally turned his head, he saw Lin Zhuoyu standing amid the clustered blossoms, the morning’s first ray of sunlight pouring down over him, as if a layer of gold had been washed over an exquisite, noble jade statue.
Head lowered, Lin Zhuoyu was saying something to the young men and women beside him. Someone teased a laugh out of him, and his beautiful, refined features bloomed into a radiant smile.
Brighter than the sunlight itself.
As Lin Zhuoyu chatted, his gaze happened to drift toward Qingshan Qi—and he suddenly curved his lips into a smile and called out.
“Younger Brother!”
Qingshan Qi almost lost control of the vertical pupils that sprang up in his eyes. He jerked his gaze down, nails digging into the not-yet-healed wound in his palm.
This man has dangerous means, he thought expressionlessly. I absolutely cannot let him live.
Lin Zhuoyu, full of tricks as ever, finished his painted marks and wove out of the crowd to his side, showing him the little fox drawn in pigment on the back of his hand.
“The Fox Immortal Paintings here are truly remarkable. They come out so lifelike, as if they might leap right off your skin—Younger Brother, look. Do I look pretty?”
Qingshan Qi didn’t look at him. “You like foxes?”
Lin Zhuoyu admired the little fox on his hand in the sunlight, turning it this way and that as if he couldn’t put it down, and said with a smile, “Not at all. I’d love to kill every last one of them.”
Qingshan Qi’s eyes narrowed. At last he glimpsed a rare sliver of darkness in this man.
Interest sparked in him suddenly; he tilted his head and asked, “All of them?”
“Yes.”
“And if one of the Fox Clan never ate people, never killed anyone—a completely innocent demon…” Qingshan Qi asked, “would you still fall upon it without a word and take its life the moment you laid eyes on it?”
Lin Zhuoyu blinked, couldn’t hold back a laugh, and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Our Little Qi really is just a child, isn’t he?”
Qingshan Qi’s eyelid twitched.
This man had a real gift for pushing his luck. He knew perfectly well Qingshan Qi hated being touched, yet he always seized any opening to lay a finger on him—and the moment he saw the expression sour, he’d retract his hand and say “sorry” as if nothing had happened.
Knowing full well he’d done wrong, and doing it anyway. Not a shred of sincerity.
Seeing that Qingshan Qi’s hackles were rising again, Lin Zhuoyu reverted to his old habit and pulled his hand back. “Fine, fine, no touching, no touching. But why do I get the feeling you liked it?”
At that mutter, Qingshan Qi’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing.” Lin Zhuoyu changed the subject, drawling lazily, “There’s no such thing as a demon of the Demon Race that doesn’t eat people. You’re overthinking it.”
Qingshan Qi raised a brow. “And what if there were?”
Seeing how earnestly the boy took it, Lin Zhuoyu said offhandedly, “Fine, if one exists, I’ll offer myself to it in marriage. This kid really does take everything seriously.”
Qingshan Qi: “…”
His ears went faintly red. “You are simply…”
Before he could finish, Lin Zhuoyu seemed to catch sight of something. He slung an arm over Qingshan Qi’s shoulder and, before the boy could bristle, lowered his voice in warning.
“There are dead men in that crowd. I’m afraid a great calamity is coming today. Remember—no matter what happens, don’t leave my side.”
Qingshan Qi drew a deep breath and swallowed his fury. “What dead men?”
Lin Zhuoyu pointed through the crowd, one by one. “That one. That one. And that one over there…”
In the end he grew tired of pointing and simply swept his hand across. “Roughly seven or eight are already dead. Their bodies have just been pieced back together with spiritual power to fake the appearance of being alive.”
Qingshan Qi’s face darkened slightly.
This man is only at the Origin Core stage—yet he can see through the illusion disguises of the Spirit Solidification Realm?
Originally he had assumed this man was nothing but a dazzlingly pretty shell, a mouse to be toyed with by the cat, spun around his finger with ease. He had never given that trifling cultivation a second thought.
Now, thinking back—the man was Li Tongxu’s disciple. He had to have something extraordinary about him.
Seeing Qingshan Qi silent, Lin Zhuoyu curled his lips at him. “What, scared?”
“…A little.”
When Lin Zhuoyu smiled, his brows lifted and his whole being blazed warm as the spring sun. “A kid really is a kid—still worried about losing face. Hahaha, even if you said you were scared, your Brother wouldn’t laugh at you.”
Qingshan Qi: “…”
You’re laughing at me already.
Ever since Daoist Lord Tongxu had taken Lin Zhuoyu as his disciple, only those of clean backgrounds came and went from Floating Jade Mountain, and for fifteen years no outsiders had been allowed in—so there were very few on the mountain younger than Lin Zhuoyu.
Having finally met a youth a few years his junior, he naturally had to play the elder brother, going on about “child” this and “Brother” that.
As the two of them tussled, an ancient chant rang out. An elder in ceremonial robes leaned on a Fox Immortal Staff and slowly advanced, kneeling in salute.
“The immortal gate’s fox-fate, we offer all human hope.”
“Fourth month, Flower Festival, by the Fox Immortal’s decree.”
“Twin servants offered, all to the Fox Immortal!”
Across the great altar, everyone cried out in unison: “Manifest, Fox Immortal!”
Lin Zhuoyu shouted along with them.
When the chanting finished, someone behind them draped the Hundred Flowers Robe over Lin Zhuoyu and Qingshan Qi, and the crowd ushered the two of them to the center of the altar.
Lin Zhuoyu was still admiring the robe woven of fresh flowers, rather taken with it. “It’s all fresh flowers on here. They won’t last more than a few days. Ah, I wanted to wear it back for my te—”
The words slipped out, and only afterward did Lin Zhuoyu realize something was wrong. He wrenched the sentence around by force.
“—my Shizun. I wanted him to see it.”
Qingshan Qi was probably still in the grip of that “offer myself in marriage” remark; his expression remained placid, and he said nothing.
The people crowding around slowly withdrew from the altar. By the time Lin Zhuoyu had finished admiring his pretty new robe, the altar stood empty except for the two of them at its center.
The crowd knelt in all four directions, bowing in unison toward the Fox Immortal Statue atop the altar.
“Twin servants offered, all to the Fox Immortal…”
Lin Zhuoyu’s brow arched faintly.
The voices grew louder and shriller, climbing toward frenzy, until by the thirtieth recitation the entire crowd was howling in unison, on the edge of hysteria.
“Twin servants offered, all to the Fox Immortal!!”
“Fox Immortal!”
BOOM!
The Fox Immortal Statue began to quake violently, shaking loose stone dust and falling petals from above; like a drifting rain they scattered down over Lin Zhuoyu’s head.
Then a colossal illusory fox shadow mirrored itself into being.
Its body was as vast as a mountain, its fox tail sweeping upward as it roared at heaven and earth, dwarfing the people below into ants.
Strange sigils slowly surfaced at the center of the altar, condensing into golden railings that caged the two of them in.
Lin Zhuoyu instinctively raised an arm to shield Qingshan Qi behind him.
Qingshan Qi stole an imperceptible glance at him.
Every year there are twin sacrifices. So how many people has this so-called “Fox Immortal” eaten over the years?
Lin Zhuoyu’s eyes went cold by degrees.
All around, the crowd was still shrieking like the possessed.
“Blessings of the Fox Immortal! Protect our people!”
Qingshan Qi glanced at the crowd below with something like a smile that wasn’t one.
To willingly sacrifice the innocent in order to survive—how ugly. How disgusting.
He savored, nearly with relish, the malice of these ugly people, his gaze moving to Lin Zhuoyu’s face, wanting to see there the thing he had always longed to see.
But the moment his eyes landed on that refined, elegant countenance, Qingshan Qi froze.
Lin Zhuoyu stood amid the flowers, gazing at the people clamoring for their deaths. His expression held none of the terror, none of the hatred Qingshan Qi had expected to see—not even a trace of anger.
He simply watched.
He watched the deep fear of Great Demons buried under those ferocious faces, and the begging desperation to survive.
So hideous—and yet so pitiable.
Even shoved onto the altar, Lin Zhuoyu’s demeanor remained calm.
Qingshan Qi stared, stunned—and for some reason his heart lurched into a frantic beat.
He pressed a hand to his chest, and only belatedly realized it wasn’t infatuation: a nameless fury had ignited in his ribcage, burning until he trembled all over.
Like the reckless child who once knew no way to vent the wildness inside him, an urge for destruction fanned by that rage seized Qingshan Qi. He wanted nothing more than to pounce and tear that gentle, kind mask to shreds with his claws.
To see him in agony. To see him selfish.
So what if he has an Exquisite Heart? So what if he doesn’t eat people? So what about “Save me”…
