Chapter 22: Special Treatment

The Immortal Venerable sat composed at the edge of the couch, cradling Fu Yuqiu in his palm, pouring Spiritual Power into the sparrow’s meridians once more, guiding him to clumsily sort and circulate the power of his Spirit Core.

Yun Shou’s dragon eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

This White Sparrow! What had he done to deserve having the Venerable One sort his meridians for him?!

Yun Gui shot him an exasperated look, thinking: If you’d been in the Nine Heavens last night, your jaw would’ve dropped to the floor.

The Spiritual Power in Fu Yuqiu’s body still kept turning into grass-shaped streams of water; the Immortal Venerable’s sleeves were soaked through entirely, but he paid it no mind, eyes lowered as he combed through the chaotic meridians.

The little Snowball, bloated uncomfortably by the Spiritual Power, listlessly cracked his eyes open and gave a soft chirp.

“Prepare some Spirit Medicine,” the Immortal Venerable said.

Yun Gui nodded and turned to leave, hauling the still-indignant Yun Shou along with her—better to drag him off before he said something wrong and provoked the Venerable One’s wrath.

The Spirit Core formed from the Linked Azure Water had scoured Fu Yuqiu’s meridians clean through; his snow-white feathers were sleek as water, the down stirring lightly like a white dandelion.

When birds and beasts form their first Spirit Core, they invariably transform into human form without meaning to, until they gradually learn to sort their meridians and gain full control over the core.

Remembering Fu Yuqiu’s loathing of human form, the Immortal Venerable meant to sort his meridians in advance, sparing him the transformation.

But in his haze, Fu Yuqiu’s consciousness drifted beyond his own control; he had no idea how to use the sorted meridians, and the Spiritual Power went on battering his organs.

Yun Gui flew to the medicine room, scooped up an armful of Spirit Medicine, and ran back to the sleeping chamber.

Yun Shou trailed behind, heart aching: “All of this! We’re taking all of it? Wasting it on that White Sparrow?”

Yun Gui shot him a look: “Be an idiot on your own; don’t drag me into it.”

Yun Shou stared, baffled.

The moment the two reached the entrance of the sleeping chamber, a sound like Spiritual Power detonating in the void burst from the inner room.

A “boom.”

The vases and jade ornaments in the chamber were blasted to powder by the Spiritual Power, raining down in showers.

Yun Gui and Yun Shou startled and rushed inside.

“Venerable One—”

In the inner room, curtains woven of weightless cloud-mist had been flung straight up by the Spiritual Power, hanging without falling for a long moment.

The seven or eight layers of gossamer-thin, snow-white bed canopies around the couch billowed as if caught in a gale, fluttering like butterflies with beating wings, faintly revealing a shadowy figure within.

Through the gaps, one could see the Immortal Venerable in snow-white robes sitting at the couch’s edge, his hem trailing to the footrest, rippling like flowing water in a wind from who knew where.

The White Sparrow in his palm was gone. In his arms, instead, curled a youth wrapped haphazardly in a snow robe embroidered with hidden phoenix patterns.

Yun Gui startled and immediately bowed her head.

Yun Shou was half a beat slow. His gaze traveled up from the Venerable One’s trailing hem, and through the water-like gauze he glimpsed, faintly, two slender calves.

The gorgeous phoenix-patterned hem barely reached the knees; snow-white hair fell like water, a few strands tangling down across the insteps.

Those snowy arches tensed slightly, as if trying to curl—then the strength drained away and they fell limp.

Yun Shou froze.

The White Sparrow… had assumed human form?!

Before he could think further, an overwhelming pressure crashed over him, forcing him straight down to his knees, head bowed, cold sweat streaming, not daring to look again.

The Immortal Venerable withdrew his cold gaze and lowered his eyes to the youth sleeping soundly, curled in his arms.

The Spirit Core was turning slowly now; the uncontrollable streams of water had already receded into the Inner Mansion.

In human form, the White Sparrow was porcelain-white all over—even his long hair was white as snow, save for a single strand of red threaded through it, all the more dazzling.

The Immortal Venerable had never thought a pretty face worth much. Even Ming Nan of the Yuanchu, hailed as the foremost beauty, had only ever seemed passable to him.

Yet the first time he saw Fu Yuqiu’s face, the Immortal Venerable’s long-still heart had given a sudden, heavy leap.

A creation favored by the Heavenly Dao was indeed devastatingly, unbearably beautiful.

Fu Yuqiu’s sleeping face looked docile and gentle, nothing like the shrieking, quick-tempered fury of the White Sparrow.

Strange to say: the White Sparrow was a blessed creature of the Heavenly Dao, and that round, plump little body should by all logic have produced a human form that was either flawless and vivacious or soft and adorable as fresh snow.

Instead, Fu Yuqiu’s face was beautiful to the point of excess. Against that snow-white hair, he looked like a peerlessly gorgeous, soul-snatching ghost of passion.

The Immortal Venerable’s hand rose instinctively to touch that face, but his senses quickly returned; his fingers stiffened and his brow creased faintly.

After a long silence, he forced his hand back and instead slid it beneath Fu Yuqiu’s limp knees, lifting him horizontally into his arms.

Yun Shou and Yun Gui dared not lift their heads. From their bowed posture they could only see the Venerable One’s hem sweeping across the mist, the long white hair of the one in his arms trailing to the floor, skimming the snow-white cloud like a dragonfly brushing water.

Even a single strand of that hair carried a seductive tenderness.

The Immortal Venerable left behind one sentence: “Tidy this place.”

Yun Gui hurriedly answered, “Yes.”

The Sweet Spring.

Fu Yuqiu’s body was covered in the water marks left when the Linked Azure Water had run wild, damp enough to soak half the Immortal Venerable’s robes.

Forming a Spirit Core was like a complete cleansing of marrow; every impurity in the body would be scoured away.

Though what overflowed from the White Sparrow was only pure water, with no filth, the Immortal Venerable still brought him to the Sweet Spring.

A few clouds drifted past, drawing up water; Fu Yuqiu, heavy and listless, faintly felt water sprinkling onto his face.

Accustomed to being a bird, he found it immediately uncomfortable and instinctively shook his head, his soaked white hair clinging to his neck with a ticklish itch.

Fu Yuqiu’s brow furrowed as he began to flounder about—when a warm hand came from the side and gently smoothed down the strands clinging to his neck.

Fu Yuqiu instantly felt better and, on instinct, nuzzled against that hand.

“Chirp.”

The Immortal Venerable’s hand stilled.

It was the first time he had ever seen a bird that still chirped after becoming human.

Fu Yuqiu, weak all over, leaned against the cool jade walls of the Sweet Spring. His mind was fogged, yet he dimly registered the touches from outside.

He felt water sprinkling down over him from above, cool water wrapping his feet, an unprecedented sense of safety enveloping him, and he couldn’t help humming in contentment.

Before long, an arm slipped gently around him, carefully moving to lift him from the water.

In his daze, Fu Yuqiu dimly sensed his “roots” leaving the water, and uncontrollably kicked twice.

“Chirp…” he whimpered, aggrieved. “Want water.”

Feet porcelain-white as snow splashed against the Sweet Spring’s clear water, scattering misty droplets.

A soft laugh sounded by his ear: “All right. Here’s your water.”

Fu Yuqiu was coaxed yet again, and obediently let the strength drain from his legs.

But the next moment, a loose outer robe smelling of frost and mist wrapped around his slender body, and his feet left the water entirely.

Tricked again.

Fu Yuqiu nearly burst into tears of frustration.

Expressionless, the Immortal Venerable carried Fu Yuqiu out of the Sweet Spring.

Their hems overlapped; black hair and snow-white tangled together.

Back in the sleeping chamber, the ornaments damaged earlier had been replaced, and the bed was made anew.

Fu Yuqiu, dizzy and muddle-headed, had already forgotten his earlier anger. Set gently upon the couch, he still chirped twice, rolled over slightly, and curled his calves up, trying to hide them.

—He had a deep dread of his feet being exposed. Even as a bird he’d have buried them in the earth if he could; fortunately the White Sparrow’s down was thick enough for him to tuck his claws inside, which gave him a modicum of security.

But he hadn’t yet realized he had become the human form he hated most. Instinct made him curl, trying to tuck his claws into down that no longer existed—kicking and kicking without ever brushing familiar feathers.

Fu Yuqiu let out a frustrated whimper, slender toes scrabbling wrinkles into the snow-white brocade quilt, searching for the lost down.

“Chirp…”

Soon, the quilt covered the youth’s thin, delicate body.

Sleepy though he was, Fu Yuqiu still struggled to wind the quilt around his curled calves with unpracticed fingers.

Circle after circle.

Only when his calves were wrapped up snug and tight did he give two satisfied chirps, hug his arms around himself, and sink into deep sleep.

The Immortal Venerable sat at the couch’s edge, watching the youth’s whole series of naive, unpracticed movements, and somehow felt an uncommon delight well up in him.

He chuckled softly and reached out, gathering a strand of Fu Yuqiu’s bed-swamping snow-white hair into his palm.

Yuanchu Clan, Nanyu Mountain.

Ming Nan transformed into a Yuanchu and spread his wings over the Outer Islet of the great marsh.

Orchid grass in the water swayed with the wind, as if welcoming him home.

The Spirit Mirror passed down through the Yuanchu Clan’s generations rested in the well at the very center of the Outer Islet, guarded by many.

Ming Nan landed on the islet, resumed human form, and strode inside without a glance.

The keepers of the Water Mirror barred his way sternly: “Halt! Without the Yuanchu Clan Master’s order, no one may approach the Water Mirror.”

“Insolent.” The wounds on Ming Nan’s face had already vanished, and he wore his usual lofty air of the Presiding Venerable, brow arched in arrogance. “You dare block me? Have you grown tired of living?!”

The two keepers exchanged glances.

“Get out of my way.” Ming Nan kicked aside the one barring him and flung back a wild boast: “If the Clan Master asks, tell him to go to the Nine Heavens and take it up with the Venerable One.”

The pair went pale.

The supreme sovereign of the Nine Heavens was capricious in his favor, and doted only on the Yuanchu Presiding Venerable, Ming Nan.

If Ming Nan uttered one careless word of complaint to the Nine Heavens, the entire Yuanchu Clan might suffer annihilation.

The keepers looked at each other, and at last one of them sped off from the Outer Islet to find the Yuanchu Clan Master.

In that brief interval, Ming Nan passed unimpeded into the deep pool of the Outer Islet.

The Yuanchu Clan’s Water Mirror rested within the thousand-year Reflection Well, beside an ancient oak whose canopy blotted out the sky like a great parasol.

Moss carpeted the ground; withered vines climbed the ancient well carved with archaic patterns. Ming Nan approached with a dark face, scooped up a handful of pebbles, and tossed them carelessly into the well.

Soon the Reflection Well flickered faintly, as if in answer.

Ming Nan said: “Change surrounding the Immortal Venerable. The Reincarnated One. Where?”

Ripples spread across the ancient well, and an image slowly surfaced on the water.

“The Mortal Realm. The Phoenix Ruins.

In the great hall carved over with countless Spell Formations and talisman patterns, the bed canopies billowed in the wind like thin clouds scattering.

The white-robed Immortal Venerable, as if embracing some fragile, long-lost treasure regained, stroked the long hair of the one in his arms, his warm hand moving inch by inch.

“Right here,” he murmured. “Do not go where I cannot see.”

The one in his arms stirred faintly, and there came, indistinctly, the soft clink of chains.”

The sound of chains rang in Ming Nan’s ears.

He stared, stunned, half suspecting the Immortal Venerable in the Water Mirror had been replaced through Body Seizure.

No one had ever seen the Immortal Venerable wear so tender an expression—so anxious of loss, so devout, so helpless. As if, were that person to demand his life, he would cut his own throat without a moment’s hesitation.

Could a murderous, merciless madman, capricious as the weather, one day fall in love with someone?

Just then, the Yuanchu Clan Master, hearing the news, came hurrying with his people. Old as he was, at the sight of Ming Nan standing irreverently before the Water Mirror, he nearly fainted.

“Heinous! Utterly heinous…” The Yuanchu Clan Master trembled with fury. “This is a sacred relic, and you dare—”

Ming Nan gave him one cold look, deigning not to speak with them at all, and turned into a Yuanchu, flying away.

Where the Reincarnated One the Immortal Venerable sought actually was, no one could say for certain.

But the Water Mirror foretold: one day, the two would meet again.

Ming Nan took the Drifting Path’s Cloud Ladder, intending to head for the Nine Heavens.

But before he even entered the Talisman Formation, he saw Feng Beihe standing tall and straight beside nine white jade pillars, waiting for him—as if he had long predicted he would come.

Ming Nan said coldly, “If you want the White Sparrow dead, do it yourself. Don’t bother me.”

Feng Beihe raised a hand and flung out a thread of Spiritual Power, shattering Ming Nan’s Concealment Technique and revealing the wounds beneath.

Feng Beihe healed those wounds and frowned. “Who hurt you?”

Ming Nan didn’t want to speak with him.

If not for Feng Beihe ordering him to kill the White Sparrow, he would never have fallen into the Venerable One’s disfavor.

He was about to leave when Feng Beihe said, “Do you not wish to awaken inspiration like your elder brother’s—to see centuries into the future?”

Ming Nan whipped his head around, repulsed. “That was before!”

Before, he had believed the Venerable One favored the Yuanchu Clan because of his brother, and so had striven to cultivate the inspiration innate to the Yuanchu—to be like his brother, and win a little more of the Venerable One’s affection.

—Perhaps never his brother’s equal, but at least no longer such a useless, chicken-ribbed piece of trash.

But now, the Venerable One had never been protecting him for the sake of the Yuanchu Young Clan Master. So what use was all his painstaking effort to raise his inspiration?

“The Venerable One is right,” Ming Nan said coldly. “There’s nothing wrong with being a vase put out for display. At least no one can take that position from me.”

In all the Three Realms, none surpassed his beauty.

With no cultivation and no inspiration to speak of, he might as well be content as a beautiful ornament.

So long as the Venerable One didn’t cast him off, he would at least have a path to survival.

Feng Beihe regarded him coolly.

“Don’t come bothering me again,” Ming Nan snapped. “I won’t do your bidding anymore. Take your damn Spirit Core and get lost!”

Feng Beihe said unhurriedly, “What did you see in the Water Mirror?”

Ming Nan was sick of him. He took out the Golden Plume, activated the talisman patterns, and opened the passage from the Drifting Path to the Nine Heavens.

“The Immortal Venerable’s Reincarnated One is in the Mortal Realm,” Feng Beihe continued. “Whoever descends from the Nine Heavens suffers the suppression of cultivation. So long as you lure him down to the Mortal Realm, the Three Clans can be certain of his death.”

Ming Nan sneered, “You three monkeys, played for fools and spun in circles?”

Feng Beihe wasn’t angered. “Believe it or not. I’ve said my piece. You wouldn’t want to be treated as a plaything either…”

Before he could finish, Ming Nan, thoroughly out of patience, stepped into the passage and entered the Nine Heavens.

The Nine Heavens, wreathed in cloud and mist.

The wounds on Ming Nan’s face had healed. He had even seized the chance to change into gorgeous clothes and re-tie his loose black hair.

Holding up the Water Mirror to check his face and confirming nothing was amiss, Ming Nan entered the Immortal Venerable’s sleeping chamber.

The Venerable One had no duties today and was playing the Konghou in the outer room.

As Ming Nan entered, the Immortal Venerable glanced up slightly and said flatly, “You found out?”

“Yes.” Ming Nan bowed with elegant grace. “I went to the Reflection Well. I did not see where the Reincarnated One is—but I saw the future, some years from now.”

The Immortal Venerable’s fingers rested on the Konghou. “Whose future?” he asked with interest.

Ming Nan didn’t answer. Instead he lifted his head and said boldly, “Venerable One—the position of Presiding Venerable you promised me. Will you take it back?”

The Immortal Venerable arched a brow, seemingly not expecting such audacity.

Last night he had nearly been killed, and yet now he could ask this question without the least evasion.

That the Immortal Venerable had indulged Ming Nan all these years did indeed owe partly to the fact that “he was interesting.”

He smiled. “Naturally not. What I have given, I never lightly take back.”

Ming Nan let out an imperceptible breath.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak of the Reincarnated One, a shrill cry suddenly came from the inner room: “Chirp—”

It was a bird’s cry, yet it sounded as though it came from a human mouth.

At the same time came the chaotic racket of things being thrown and torn, a terrible din.

Ming Nan’s brow creased faintly.

Yun Shou came stumbling and tumbling out of the inner room, stammering, “Venerable One… the Little Highness is awake.”

The Immortal Venerable nodded, his manner perfectly calm—though the hand resting on the Konghou never moved.

“Mm. See that he is well attended.”

Yun Shou: “…”

Yun Gui had drilled him at length: the Venerable One treasured the White Sparrow Little Highness immensely; he must be treated with the greatest care.

But now the Little Highness was tearing the bed canopies apart in a full meltdown, and the Venerable One couldn’t even spare him a glance, sitting there so composed.

This was special treatment?

Wasn’t he supposed to hate him?

Not daring to guess the Venerable One’s mind, Yun Shou could only pull a long face and trudge back inside.

Ming Nan, listening, gleaned the gist of it.

That White Sparrow Little Highness seemed to have turned misfortune into blessing—formed a Core and become human.

“Hah,” Ming Nan thought mockingly. That White Sparrow’s shell was fat as a freak-show blob. Its human form is bound to be an Ugly Freak.

At that very moment came Fu Yuqiu’s stumbling shriek from inside:

“I… chirp! Chirp has become an Ugly Freak—!! Aaah!!”

The Immortal Venerable: “…..”