Xie Lian ran for over a dozen kilometers in one breath and only began to pant after he’d stopped. He still felt like he was lost inside a massive cloud of fog, trapped in a giant net of peril.
What in the world was going on?
This wasn’t normal. Everything was too abnormal!
Because of course he knew exactly what Mu Qing was capable of! Creating that spiritual light would’ve taken him several hundred years of cultivation at minimum, so there was no way he could be the real Mu Qing! He must’ve been an impostor!
And as for himself…he wasn’t normal either. Through this run, he discovered that he was as light as a swallow—well, he was already as light as a swallow, but his agility had somehow increased exponentially. He was even more formidable now.
Everything was wrong!
He calmed down, calmed down, calmed down. Once he did, it suddenly occurred to Xie Lian that Mu Qing had mentioned a name.
“Hua Cheng,” he murmured.
For some reason, his heart stirred as he said the name, even though it should’ve been very foreign to him. It was as if a small flower had bloomed in a corner at the bottom of his heart. He repeated the name again and again, unable to help himself.
Hua Cheng, Hua Cheng, Hua Cheng.
This person was probably an immensely significant character—perhaps he’d played a critical role in this incident. Xie Lian had to find him.
With his mind made up, Xie Lian headed for the city.
When he first realized what had happened to his body, Xie Lian couldn’t accept it at all, but he had gotten over it less than an hour later. While his body and mind were still in turmoil, the mystifying situation at hand left him no time to panic. The real Feng Xin and Mu Qing were missing, which only proved that the evil mastermind was a terrible creature. He had to get ahold of himself immediately and uncover the truth.
Thus, by the time he entered town, he had regained his usual composure.
Though he hadn’t the mind to drink tea, he picked a teahouse at random and sat by the window on the upper level. Xie Lian picked up the cup on the table and glanced at it—it was caked with years of stains that couldn’t be wiped clean. Even a single look at it made him weary, so he placed the cup back down and ignored it.
In the teahouse, there was a relatively attractive and graceful woman playing a pipa and singing like a warbler. A group of men, old and young, sat around her and snickered as they watched. The woman was singing an ordinary local song—something about a girl going out in the morning to pick flowers—but she hadn’t sung it for long before the group of men began hollering at her.
“Bah, how boring. Next!”
“Yeah, this song is bad. Change it up, change it up!”
“Sing this one!”
Helpless, the songstress had to comply with the crowd and switched to a rather titillating tune. Gently and slowly she plucked the strings, and she sang with a voice so sweet and supple it made one blush. Satisfied at last, the audience cheered and applauded. In contrast, it made Xie Lian feel a little uncomfortable as he sat in his window seat at the corner of the second floor.
Listening closer to the lyrics, he found that the ballad described the intense love and passion of a newly wedded couple on their wedding night. It was extremely, audaciously explicit—Xie Lian had never heard such perverted songs in the royal capital. In the past, he would’ve brushed it off as a foul breeze that blew past his ears; it would have had nothing to do with him, for he would never in his life think about such things. But now, it was different.
Although he had no memory of what had happened, the act had been done, so listening to a song about the subject affected him differently. And he’d also discovered something terrifying: his thoughts were no longer under his control!
A few shameless lyrics made his heart wander wildly. Broken, fragmented images continuously poured into his head—two hands tightly intertwined, a red string desperately entangled between the fingers. He could almost hear the broken gasps, the pleading whimpers, and…the coaxing murmurs of a certain man.
What were these images…? What the heck were they?!
Embarrassed and frustrated, Xie Lian bit his bottom lip and clenched his fists. At last, unable to bear it any longer, he slammed his fists violently on the table.
The loud bang made the patrons at nearby tables stare at him with wide eyes. Only then did Xie Lian snap out of it and mumble an apology. He desperately wished he could cover his ears with his hands and block out the song—if the songstress kept it up, he’d have to leave!
All of a sudden, the singing came to an abrupt stop, and a sharp cry pulled him from his wandering thoughts. Xie Lian’s head shot up, and he saw that a large group of men had surrounded the girl and were attempting to grope her.
The songstress stood up in shock, hugging her pipa to her chest tightly. “Sirs, let’s just listen to the songs. Please don’t touch me…” she pleaded.
Some of the men started kicking up a fuss. “So what if we feel you up? There’s no way we’re the only ones who’ve done it. I refuse to believe you’ve never gotten touched while you’re out here selling yourself!”
The songstress was so upset that her eyes grew red around the rims. “What do you mean, selling myself?” she cried. “I’m selling my voice, not my body!”
The men purposely ignored her.
“Heh—you talk like you’re so chaste! If you were really so proper, you wouldn’t be out here selling yourself!”
“Yeah! You sang such a provocative song, but now you turn around and say you’re not selling what your mouth is offering? ‘Chaste,’ my ass—what a joke!”
The songstress was going to pass out from anger. “You’re the ones who told me to sing it,” she exclaimed, her voice trembling. “I only sang it because all of you made me!”
Yet no matter what she said, the awful patrons always had a comeback. “You sang it because we told you to? So obedient. Only goes to show that deep down, you wanted to sing something like that and seduce people!”
Xie Lian couldn’t listen anymore. He was already in a bad mood, and now his rage was peaking. There was a flash of white, and before those rowdy men had any clue what was happening, a row of them had already been knocked to the ground.
“Who the hell are you?!” yelled the ringleader of the group, whose ass was now facing the sky. “You dare to provoke us?!”
Xie Lian stood in front of the songstress and shielded her. He cracked his knuckles, though he did not allow his anger to show on his face.
“Quit while you’re ahead,” he said darkly. “Anyone would be moved by the sight of a flowerlike beauty, but if you do not understand how to treat her with respect, then you are shamefully classless.”
“She’s the one who sang that song,” someone complained. “She can sing, but we can’t touch?!”
“Correct.” Xie Lian repeated each word slowly and firmly and threw several large men down the stairs as he did. “She can sing, but you can’t touch!”
The men landed on their behinds in a terrible tizzy. The fall wasn’t actually a serious one, but it was more than enough to frighten them—and since no one could even see his lightning-fast moves, there was no chance of fighting back. They fled in a hurry.
When Xie Lian turned back around at the top of the stairs, the songstress curtsied to him in immense gratitude.
“Thank you so much for helping me, Daozhang!” she said.
“It required no effort on my part,” Xie Lian said. “Miss, are you going to be staying here?”
The songstress nodded, so Xie Lian nodded in return. “Very well. Then keep singing your songs.”
With a whirl of his sleeves, he sat back down with upright poise to stand guard over her.
The other men saw that he wasn’t leaving and was keeping an eye on the place, so they didn’t dare harass the girl anymore. Understanding his intention, the songstress felt even more grateful. As she carefully began to sing once again, she picked one of the same lively, local tunes she’d been performing at first.
Xie Lian poured himself a cup of tea, but just as he was about to drink it, he noticed the heavy stains again. After a brief hesitation, he still couldn’t win against himself and put down the cup with a sigh. As he idly turned his head, he paused.
He saw a man sitting in a far more magnificent red tavern across the street.
The man was rather tall and dressed all in red. Although he wore a black eyepatch that added an air of wildness to him, it couldn’t obscure his handsome features. Robes redder than maple, skin as white as snow, a silver flagon in his hand that shimmered like the two silver vambraces around his wrists. At a glance, he was exceptionally eye-catching—and he was looking this way.
Their eyes met. When the man saw that Xie Lian had noticed his gaze, he smiled and raised his flagon slightly, as if he was toasting him.
“…”
For some reason, when Xie Lian’s eyes met that man’s, it felt like lightning coursing through him. He quickly averted his gaze, but while he pretended not to care, his heart started to race.
How strange. The man certainly was dazzling and he had a mysterious appeal, but it wasn’t as if Xie Lian had never seen an attractive man before. Why was he reacting like this at the sight of him?
He pondered for a moment and amended that last thought, for it wasn’t correct—upon reflection, he knew he had never met a man as dazzling and handsome as this one.
He’s a rare character—I should pay more attention, Xie Lian thought.
When he turned his head to look again, however, the man in red had disappeared—just like that. He was like a splendid falling maple leaf that mischievously fluttered across his vision, stunning him and disappearing in an instant. It was almost unreal, like a fleeting dream.
Trying to be inconspicuous about it, Xie Lian peered at the magnificent tavern across the way for a while. When he could find no trace of the man, he finally gave up. He exhaled softly, uncertain whether he was really feeling disappointed.
Oh well, he thought, rubbing his forehead.
Yet when he turned his head, there was someone sitting across from him. He had a hand propping up his cheek, and he was staring at Xie Lian.
When their eyes met, Xie Lian’s mind went blank.
The man, however, simply said with a wide grin, “Daozhang, might you treat me to a cup of wine?”