Chapter 18: I’ve Got It

◎I’m going to steal the Phoenix Inheritance.◎

The Snow Silkworm struggled for its life with such force it could have dragged that little fat ball Fu Yuqiu clean across the floor.

Fu Yuqiu had wrestled the Snow Silkworm all the way from the Nine Heavens’ side hall to the Phoenix’s palace, conquering his nausea and terror while battling the wretched thing who-knew-how-many times along the road. His snow-white feathers were smeared gray with dust, and a few dried grass stalks were tucked in his plumes—apparently he’d been dragged through the undergrowth at some point.

Whether from disgust or from fear, the White Sparrow buried himself against the Phoenix, not daring to glance back at the wildly thrashing Snow Silkworm, his long tail feathers trembling.

The Phoenix watched him with an indescribable expression.

“Go… go on, eat it!” Seeing the Phoenix motionless, Fu Yuqiu urged him on in a quavering voice. “If it gets away, don’t expect me to go find it for you!”

The Phoenix: “…”

The Phoenix cast the silkworm one cold glance—and the thing, which had been struggling without pause, froze stiff and went utterly still.

Fu Yuqiu dimly registered the silence behind him and timidly looked back.

Finding the Snow Silkworm finally motionless, he collapsed in limp relief and grumbled, “Stingy Living Yama. I went to all that trouble singing him tunes, and this is what he gives me…”

The Phoenix lowered his head, plucked a dried grass stalk from between the sparrow’s feathers, and—without a trace of distaste—tidied his ruffled plumage with his beak. “Cursing him again?”

“Not cursing, exactly. I just said he’s temperamental.” Fu Yuqiu drooped. “If he makes me sing again tomorrow, I’m calling him a stingy miser who fakes rooster crows at midnight.”

The Phoenix: “…”

The Phoenix plucked the dried grass stalk right back out.

Fu Yuqiu didn’t notice the Phoenix’s little maneuver. He rested a moment, then said, “Why haven’t you eaten it yet? It’s a century-old Snow Silkworm, they say. Once-in-a-lifetime find.”

The Phoenix’s brow knotted—he seemed violently averse. But seeing how the sparrow had worn himself half to death dragging it here, he couldn’t flatly refuse. “That is feed for rearing ‘Withering and Flourishing.'”

Fu Yuqiu tilted his head. “Withering and Flourishing? What’s that?”

“A secret Fire Soul art of the Yuanchu Clan, one that binds two lives together.” The Phoenix said, “The Fire Soul splits in two and is planted in each of two hearts, so the two live and die as one. The Snow Silkworm is the feed that sustains the Fire Soul.”

Fu Yuqiu didn’t quite follow. “Oh—so you mean the Living Yama eats these Snow Silkworms too?”

“…” The Phoenix choked. “The Immortal Venerable… does the Living Yama keep a Clay Urn? What he raises inside it is likely this Fire Soul.”

Only then did Fu Yuqiu catch up, and he said curiously, “You really do seem to know everything.”

The Phoenix looked away, avoiding those clear, pure eyes. “In any case, I don’t—”

He had been about to say I don’t eat it when Fu Yuqiu cut in. “Who cares what feed it is for—it’s a supreme tonic, right?”

The Phoenix: “…Right.”

“Then that settles it.” Fu Yuqiu’s black bean-eyes scrunched nearly shut. “You’re bound to still have hidden injuries from the Living Yama’s tortures. There’s no being picky now. Good medicine tastes bitter.”

The Phoenix: “…”

Fu Yuqiu swallowed his fear, took the rope in his beak, and dragged the play-dead Snow Silkworm a little closer to the Phoenix, looking up at him with big hopeful eyes. “Eat up.”

The Phoenix: “…………”

Fu Yuqiu’s face was smeared with dust, and looking up at the Phoenix like that, he was the very image of a baby beast begging to be praised—soft and sweet and hopeful.

However many reasons the Phoenix had lined up, not one of them would come out. At last he said, “…Very well.”

Fu Yuqiu was overjoyed. His backbreaking labor dragging the silkworm over had not been in vain.

The Phoenix walked forward with slow, measured steps, then glanced back at Fu Yuqiu once.

Fu Yuqiu, afraid of the silkworm—and even more afraid of watching a bird beast eat one, guts and all—had already turned his back on his own initiative, presenting nothing but a round, fluffy silhouette.

He was still chirping away happily: “If the Living Yama rewards me another Snow Silkworm tomorrow, I’ll drag it over for you again!”

Something strange stirred in the Phoenix’s chest—something he had no name for. Like a warm current flowing gently past, or like an empty, hollowed-out chest being quietly filled with something.

He turned back and looked down at the rigid Snow Silkworm, expressionless.

A tongue of flame materialized from thin air and engulfed the little finger-sized silkworm in an instant.

Fu Yuqiu dimly heard a crackling, rustling sound. Assuming the Phoenix had begun his meal, he winced through chattering teeth and asked carefully, “Is it good?”

The Phoenix watched the Snow Silkworm writhe and scream soundlessly in the Phoenix Fire, a manic, shadowed satisfaction glittering in his eyes.

“Mm.”

Only then did Fu Yuqiu breathe easy.

“There’s a medicine room in the Nine Heavens’ main hall, you know,” Fu Yuqiu mused. “When I get a chance, I’ll steal some herbs for you and see if we can’t fix those wings of yours.”

The sound behind him cut off abruptly—the Phoenix had already walked around to face him.

Never once had anyone asked after the Phoenix’s broken wings. Any being who so much as glanced at his feathers would be burned by Phoenix Fire into eternal, unreborn ashes.

But now Fu Yuqiu’s crisp young voice was earnestly discussing the mending of his broken wings—and the Phoenix felt not a flicker of anger. He even answered, softly, “All right.”

Fu Yuqiu turned around and peered at him with one eye screwed shut.

Where the Snow Silkworm had been, the floor was spotless—not so much as a scrap of paper left behind.

—He’d assumed a Phoenix eating a living thing would leave the place a gory mess. Who knew the Phoenix was such a tidy eater; even the paper and rope had vanished without a trace.

Fu Yuqiu lectured him gently, the way one humors a child. “For the record, you can’t eat paper and rope.”

The Phoenix said, “All right. I won’t, next time.”

Fu Yuqiu nodded in satisfied approval. He rested a while longer before remembering his question.

“Why does the Living Yama keep a Fire Soul?”

Ask him anything else, and the Phoenix would always answer patiently. But at this question, the Phoenix bowed his long neck and studied him for a good long while before saying, “You want to know that?”

“Mm.” Fu Yuqiu had nothing better to do anyway and snuggled lazily against him. “Don’t tell me he planted ‘Withering and Flourishing’ on somebody?”

Seeing that the sparrow was merely indulging curiosity, the Phoenix’s expression softened, and he said evenly, “He planted Withering-Flourishing Fire Souls in the three Junior Venerables of the Three Clans.”

Fu Yuqiu jumped. “WHAT?!”

He’d assumed Withering and Flourishing was something you planted in a beloved—shared life and death, withering and flourishing as one; what a romantic, world-shaking vow.

Instead, it had been planted in adopted sons?

Fu Yuqiu let out an “Eeeuw—” of pure disgust, his whole face rearranging itself into an expression that said the Nine Heavens are thoroughly debauched.

The Phoenix: “…”

The Phoenix looked at him, torn between laugh and sigh, and said, “The Withering and Flourishing was planted in one of the three, binding that one’s life to the Living Yama’s. But none of the three knows whose heart the Fire Soul resides in.”

Fu Yuqiu froze.

Remembering the Three Clans’ rivalry, currently fought red-faced and tooth and nail, an involuntary shiver ran through him, unnoticed even by himself.

The Three Clans’ rivalry was, at bottom, children playing house in the mortal realm—counting who had won more Golden Plumes to decide who would inherit the next seat of Immortal Venerable.

But with these Withering-Flourishing Fire Souls in play, everything changed.

That childish, game-like contest had abruptly become a brawl to the death among the Three Clans’ Junior Venerables.

No one knew whose body the Withering and Flourishing resided in—but precisely because no one knew, the three Junior Venerables would tear at each other’s throats.

—Kill the one whose heart held the Fire Soul, and you killed the Immortal Venerable himself, claiming that supreme and sovereign seat.

And at the same time, none of them could move against the Immortal Venerable directly—for there was no guarantee the Fire Soul didn’t reside in his own heart.

The Phoenix’s body was warm as a little stove, yet leaning against him, Fu Yuqiu felt as though he’d fallen into an ice cellar, cold through every limb.

Who would stake their own life as bait—just to watch a fight?!

The Living Yama… is a madman, through and through!

Madder than Feng Beihe, even.

“Feng Beihe must have learned by now that the Fire Soul isn’t in his heart,” the Phoenix said evenly. “That is why he wants to kill the Immortal Venerable outright.”

Fu Yuqiu tilted his head, lost. “If the Fire Soul is planted in the heart, how did he find out? Don’t tell me he cut open his own chest—”

The words died on his tongue. He suddenly remembered: years ago, when Feng Beihe, under the alias Wind Beihe, had fallen into Secluded Sound Valley, his heart…

…had seemed to have been cut open.

[T/N: His alias uses the homophone character ‘Fēng’ (风, meaning ‘wind’) instead of his true clan surname ‘Fèng’ (凤, meaning ‘phoenix’) to conceal his identity.]

The color drained from Fu Yuqiu’s face in an instant.

“What’s wrong?” the Phoenix asked gently. “Did that frighten you?”

Fu Yuqiu pressed himself closer against the Phoenix and muttered, small-voiced, “Does the Living Yama actually want to die? Why set up a whole thing like this? It gains him nothing at all.”

The Phoenix’s golden eyes rested quietly on that round snowball. After a long while, he lifted his head slightly and glanced up at the Wind-Divining Chimes overhead.

What he said was half sigh, half indifference. “Mm. Perhaps he no longer wishes to live.”

“Well, it’s none of my business anyway.” Fu Yuqiu sniffed. “In fact, the sooner those two tear into each other the better—I’ll be right there chirping them a battle tune.”

The Phoenix: “…”

Fu Yuqiu stayed in the Phoenix’s palace until daybreak again before waving a chirpy goodbye and waddling back to the side hall.

The Immortal Venerable summoned him to sing as usual.

Fu Yuqiu opened his beak and delivered a rousing little ditty about a “cheapskate.”

The Immortal Venerable: “…”

The Immortal Venerable praised him again. “Very nice.”

Beside the Immortal Venerable’s feet, Yun Shou curled his lip.

He couldn’t understand a word the sparrow chirped, but somehow that tone sounded awfully like a string of curses.

The Immortal Venerable asked him mildly, “Not pleasant to hear?”

“Lovely! Lovely indeed.” Yun Shou praised with his ears plugged. “Like celestial music to the ears—truly worthy of the Azure Luan Clan.”

Fu Yuqiu: “…”

The Immortal Venerable: “…”

The Immortal Venerable gave Fu Yuqiu a look that was half smile, half something else entirely—and rewarded him with yet another item.

This time, a Golden Plume.

Fu Yuqiu’s eyes lit up—but on closer inspection, it was not the Phoenix Inheritance plume, and he shot the Immortal Venerable a glare.

He works his tail off composing ditties, and this is what the Living Yama fobs him off with?!

The Immortal Venerable said, meaningfully, “The day you sing even more beautifully, I’ll give you something truly precious.”

With that, he swept away.

Fu Yuqiu was fit to burst. That very night he ran to the Phoenix’s palace and chirped out his fury at full volume!

“‘Sing even more beautifully’? What was wrong with my singing?!” He flung the Golden Plume—the very treasure the Three Clans’ Junior Venerables would kill for—onto the floor and stomped it with a claw, fuming. “I chirped my heart out and he’s still picky?! Picky my chirp!”

The Phoenix: “…”

The Phoenix asked, oddly, “Cursing him again?”

Fu Yuqiu sniffed. “Can’t understand me anyway.”

“Perhaps…” the Phoenix tried, “…you could try singing him a normal tune?”

Fu Yuqiu kicked at the Golden Plume, thoroughly put out.

The Phoenix waited with great patience for him to work it out himself.

Before long, something seemed to dawn on Fu Yuqiu. He suddenly gave a “Chirp!” of revelation and cried, “I’ve got it!”

The Phoenix raised a brow. “Got what?”

“The Living Yama is stringing me along for fun!” Fu Yuqiu declared with absolute conviction. “Even if I sang him ‘the Immortal Venerable is fairer and more delicate than any flower,’ he’d never hand over the Phoenix Inheritance.”

The Phoenix: “…”

No—he very well might.

Fu Yuqiu bounced up, suddenly solemn. “The Living Yama is too far gone. Every day you stay in the Nine Heavens is another measure of danger—I’ve decided.”

The Phoenix: “…Decided what?”

Fu Yuqiu said, “Next time he goes to the Sweet Spring to recuperate, I’m going to steal the Phoenix Inheritance and bring it to you.”

The Phoenix: “…”

The Phoenix: “……………”