Fu Yuqiu had never felt so wretched.
Even when he had been imprisoned in the Sand Mustard, nearly withering to death from thirst, it hadn’t been like this—his whole body burning inch by inch as if set aflame, scorching his very reason to ashes.
Even the bright moonlight seemed a cruel murder weapon, viciously stabbing into his Inner Mansion, driving out the Spiritual Power he depended on to survive, tyrannically occupying his fragile body.
“What’s happening to me?”
Fu Yuqiu muddled through his thoughts for a good while before reacting belatedly.
“Oh. Feng Xingyun poisoned me.”
Fu Yuqiu didn’t exactly feel pain—it was just that the Azure Luan Clan’s Water Spiritual Power made him instinctively reject fire, and now it felt as though a genuine ball of fire were hidden inside his body, impossible to extinguish or draw out, blazing away as it warred against the Water Spiritual Power throughout his body.
The sensation of water and fire mingling was maddening.
Fu Yuqiu lay dying on the icy ground. Though his body was limp and powerless, some inexplicable strength let him clamp the Phoenix Plume tightly in his beak as he struggled toward the palace where the Phoenix was imprisoned.
In his blurred vision, the cage woven from Yuanchu fire threads kept shrinking, closing in on him, searing heat rushing at his face.
Unable to move, Fu Yuqiu could only watch helplessly as the flames bore down on him.
But the fire cage stopped just an inch away from him.
The tongues of fire raged so fiercely they nearly licked his body.
Fu Yuqiu watched listlessly, as if dazed, without any reaction.
Ming Nan walked slowly toward the seemingly dying White Sparrow and, seeing the Phoenix Inheritance still clamped stubbornly in his beak, curled his lips into a smile that made that gorgeous face all the more strikingly beautiful.
“The Phoenix Inheritance belongs to the Venerable One. Stealing it is a capital crime.” Ming Nan reached his hand into the fire cage, delicate fingers pinching the Golden-Red Plume to tug it out, speaking with lofty condescension. “The Venerable One is resting today, so in his stead, I shall punish you, you Ugly Freak who knows no bounds of heaven and earth.”
By the aesthetics of the Yuanchu—and indeed of the Three Clans—this White Sparrow, fat as a ball, was indeed an Ugly Freak.
Fu Yuqiu had been lying motionless and dazed on the ground, but the moment he felt the plume in his beak about to be yanked away, his unfocused eyes snapped into sudden focus.
“That’s the Phoenix’s!”
Fu Yuqiu was muddled, unaware of his own situation, but instinctively he remembered this Inheritance belonged to the Phoenix and must not be given to anyone else.
He clamped down on the plume, refusing to let go, his pitch-black eyes going red.
“Reckless little thing.” Ming Nan didn’t force the matter; he even coldly released his grip, simply channeling his Spiritual Power to let the tongues of fire swallow the White Sparrow whole.
No hurry.
Once the White Sparrow was burned to ashes, he could take both the Linked Azure Water and the Phoenix Inheritance.
The fire cage suddenly tightened around the White Sparrow.
But just as it was about to touch the White Sparrow’s tail feathers, an ethereal blue Water Dragon appeared out of thin air.
With a “pssh,” the ferocious flames were doused on the spot.
Ming Nan’s brow furrowed.
After dousing the fire, the Water Dragon roared and lunged viciously at Ming Nan.
Ming Nan sprang up to dodge the strike.
But he moved too slowly; the tip of the Water Dragon’s tail lightly brushed his cheek, then burst apart with a boom, scattering into raindrops that pattered to the ground.
Ming Nan vaguely sensed something was wrong and raised a trembling hand to his face—snow-white fingertips stained, impossibly, with blood.
That Water Dragon was bizarre beyond reason; a mere brush of its tail’s Spiritual Power had nearly destroyed his face.
Ming Nan’s rage ignited in an instant, and he glared murderously at Fu Yuqiu.
“How dare you—!!”
What the Yuanchu Presiding Venerable prized most was his own face.
With this face identical to his elder brother’s, Ming Nan had won the Immortal Venerable’s favor in the Nine Heavens and ascended to the position of Presiding Venerable that all Four Clans loathed yet had to bow to.
—Even if that “Presiding Venerable” was merely an empty title, it represented the supreme favor and indulgence of the Venerable One.
As the Immortal Venerable said, he was nothing but a beautiful vase.
If a precious, exquisite porcelain gained a flaw, would the Immortal Venerable—who treated him as nothing more than a plaything…
no longer love to look at his face?!
At that thought, Ming Nan wanted nothing more than to kill this White Sparrow on the spot.
And indeed, he did exactly that.
Yuanchu flames were the closest thing to Phoenix Fire. Clusters of flame sprang into being out of thin air, weaving a dense rain of fire in midair.
Nearly out of his mind with fury, Ming Nan swept his hand down heavily without a second thought.
“DIE!”
The flames turned to beads of rain, piercing through the void, smashing mercilessly toward Fu Yuqiu, who was on the verge of passing out.
Then came an earth-shattering crack.
Where Fu Yuqiu lay, the Spirit Core within his Inner Mansion had formed a water barrier, desperately shielding his frail body.
Though the Yuanchu fire rain had clearly smashed down, it came to an abrupt halt an inch from that water barrier.
Not a single spark could fall further.
Enraged, Ming Nan assumed it was another of Fu Yuqiu’s tricks and immediately exerted force, trying to press the fire rain forcibly down.
But the next instant, before he could even react, his knees buckled without warning and slammed into the ground, nearly shattering his delicate knee bones.
The pressure arrived belatedly, crashing over him. Ming Nan snapped awake from his rage, pupils blown wide.
Every emotion had come too slowly. It wasn’t until the cold sweat on his temple dripped to the ground that Ming Nan realized his heart was flooded with endless, bottomless terror.
It was the pressure of the Phoenix.
Ming Nan pressed his forehead to the ground in fear, his mind racing desperately for a justification for his actions.
“Venerable One, forgive me…” His whole body trembling, he quavered, “This White Sparrow stole your plume Inheritance. I feared he meant you harm, and so I…”
With every word Ming Nan spoke, the pressure grew stronger—it clearly did not wish to hear his explanations.
Ming Nan shut his mouth, terrified.
The Yuanchu flames still hung suspended in midair, as if frozen.
Mists swirled around them, and from within came, faintly, the sound of slow, unhurried footsteps.
From where Ming Nan knelt, he could see robes embroidered with hidden phoenix patterns, layer upon layer like unbroken clouds, sweeping the mist aside with every step.
The Immortal Venerable walked slowly out of the clouds, each step striking Ming Nan’s quaking heart like a heavy bell.
Finally, he stopped before Ming Nan, and a gentle voice came: “Raise your head.”
The Phoenix’s pressure had not dispersed. Ming Nan was nearly prostrate, and at those words could only, with all his remaining strength, tremblingly prop himself up on both hands and lift his head in meek obedience.
The Immortal Venerable bent down slightly and reached out to touch Ming Nan’s blood-streaked face, saying, seemingly with regret, “How did you get injured? Such a beautiful face.”
Ming Nan murmured, “Venerable One…”
The words had barely fallen when the hand gently stroking his cheek suddenly moved down, coldly seizing his outstretched, slender neck.
Ming Nan’s voice died instantly; he stared at the Immortal Venerable in horror.
“Am I not still, barely, alive?” the Immortal Venerable said with a smile. “Since when have matters of the Nine Heavens needed you to overstep your place?”
All these years, no matter what trouble Ming Nan caused, the Immortal Venerable had always indulged him.
But this was the first time…
From this gentle, white-robed Immortal Venerable, he felt killing intent utterly unmasked.
He really would kill him!
Ming Nan didn’t even know what he had done wrong.
Was it just because of that White Sparrow?
On the surface, he had only been helping the Venerable One retrieve the stolen Phoenix Inheritance.
Even in the extreme case—even if the Venerable One cherished that White Sparrow, the Yuanchu fire just now hadn’t harmed so much as a hair on it.
Why would he want to kill him?
Ming Nan’s whole body went weak. He struggled to speak, hoping to rouse the Venerable One’s pity.
“My… my elder brother…”
“Your elder brother?” the Immortal Venerable said flatly. “Yes, he did save me.”
A flicker of hope rose in Ming Nan’s eyes.
“I have undergone Nirvana. My memory of those years is hazy, but the feelings remain.”
The Immortal Venerable still wore that soft, gentle expression, as if reminiscing: “From childhood I was imprisoned in the Phoenix Ruins by the Vermilion Bird Immortal Venerable. When I came of age, he sought to drag me to the Nine Heavens to be buried with the Golden Crow.”
Ming Nan didn’t know where this was going and stared at him blankly.
“How tragic,” the Immortal Venerable said softly. “For someone living such a miserable, tedious life—if suddenly someone disregarded their own life to pull me out of that hell, I would surely be overjoyed, moved, warmed. I would regard them as a god and wish to offer them everything I have. Is that not right?”
Ming Nan shivered.
The Immortal Venerable suddenly laughed again, and at some point crimson mist had begun to brew in those golden eyes.
“But strange to say—that was the ‘god’ who saved me at the cost of his own life. So why is it that every time I think of your elder brother…”
Those slender fingers that seemed made only for stroking the Konghou tightened bit by bit. The Immortal Venerable watched, nearly delighted, as Ming Nan’s face grew whiter and whiter, his expression ever more sinister, like a ghostly asura of the Yellow Springs Hell.
“…why is it that whenever I recall him, what surges up in my heart is the urge to grind his bones to dust and scatter his ashes?”
Ming Nan’s pupils slowly went unfocused. His eardrums felt as though a drum were beating frantically against them.
The Immortal Venerable this time… truly meant to end his life.
Ming Nan had always believed he’d been indulged all these years because of his brother. But now he finally understood.
His elder brother might never have saved the Venerable One at all—on the contrary, he might have offended him.
The world said the Yuanchu Clan basked in the Immortal Venerable’s protection, that even its chickens and dogs ascended to heaven. But now, it seemed that was far from the truth.
The Yuanchu Clan was no different from the Three Clans—merely a plaything to pass the Venerable One’s time.
And the Venerable One’s feelings for him were not affection, not indulgence. Just as he’d said—Ming Nan was nothing but a beautiful vase.
He was mad enough to kill even the Vermilion Bird Divine Lord—what was lightly smashing one vase, by comparison?
Ming Nan’s eyes went glassy, and forced tears slid slowly from their corners.
Suddenly, the hand clamped on his neck wrenched away. Fresh air flooded his lungs, and Ming Nan, back from death’s door, coughed until it felt like his chest would tear apart.
Weakly, he raised his head to look.
The Immortal Venerable, who had just been venting his madness, seemed to have noticed something and strode quickly to the dying White Sparrow, cradling him in his palm with the gentlest of movements.
The White Sparrow had already fainted, but apart from a little dust, bore no external injuries.
The Immortal Venerable’s brow knitted. A brief probe revealed that the Spiritual Power in the sparrow’s meridians was in utter chaos, as if something were rapidly devouring his vitality.
“Yun Gui.”
Yun Gui appeared in an instant. “Yes.”
“Go to the Snow Deer Clan.” The Immortal Venerable said coldly, “Invite the Snow Deer Clan Master to the Nine Heavens.”
Yun Gui had long grown used to the Venerable One’s exceptional treatment of this White Sparrow. Without a word, she transformed into a great dragon and flew off.
The Immortal Venerable held the White Sparrow to his chest and cast one cold glance back at Ming Nan.
