Speaking in riddles seemed to be an extremely common habit among cultivators.
Qin Shu admitted that he was an extremely biased person. Even as he gradually noticed more and more things that seemed wrong about Pei Zhao, he would simply sidle over as though nothing had happened, gloss over them a little, observe them for a while, and then ignore them.
If there were ever a crime scene that needed cleaning up, he would not mind helping with that either. Mm… He had thought about it carefully. It sounded a little frightening when put into words, but he genuinely would not mind.
First and foremost, a person had to be able to face their own conscience. The possibility of “betraying a friend” would keep Qin Shu awake at night even more readily than “personally smashing apart a sacred cathedral.”
At the same time, however, Qin Shu knew perfectly well that Pei Zhao still had an enormous number of things he had never told him. Even though Qin Shu himself had already become honest enough to strip naked and take a bath right in front of him, Pei Zhao was still speaking in riddles.
Compared with the type represented by Daoist Xu, though, Pei Zhao counted as a relatively honest riddler.
If Qin Shu did not ask, Pei Zhao would not say anything. But if Qin Shu dared to ask, Pei Zhao dared to answer. At the very least, Qin Shu really could extract and summarize a considerable amount of useful information from Pei Zhao’s replies.
First, the Dragon Mother was actually a water buffalo. Second, the Dragon Mother was mentally unstable, which was why she had dared to attack Pei Zhao and even attempted to leave a mark on his soul.
She had sent her own “shrimp soldiers and crab generals” out under the banner of justice to arrest a wanted criminal, yet her real priority did not even seem to be recovering the dragon scale. It felt more like a test—a way to probe how powerful Pei Zhao currently was.
After all, the soul mark had never been on Liang Ming Yue. If Jin Bi had been a little more impulsive and simply arrested whoever carried the soul mark to bring back and complete his mission… then he would effectively have had a legitimate reason to go directly after Pei Zhao.
Combined with Pei Zhao’s description, Qin Shu suspected that there might be some unknown conflict between Pei Zhao and the Dragon Mother. If the Dragon Mother were mentally sound, perhaps she would have endured it without acting, but because she had gone mad, she dared to use little tricks designed to mislead everyone.
Of course, even if her mental state was unstable, she still had not personally attacked Pei Zhao. Either she was wary of him, or she had gone so thoroughly mad that there was no logic to what she did. For all Qin Shu knew, she might not even be mad at all and was instead playing some enormous game of strategy.
The Dragon Mother was, after all, a local deity who received abundant incense offerings year after year. Qin Shu no longer dared underestimate the power of faith. The gulf between humans and gods had to be enormous.
If she really was secretly moving pieces across a board and plotting something, ordinary people probably would not be able to see the entire situation at all. They could easily stumble around in confusion and become nothing more than another piece in her game.
Liang Ming Yue knew a great deal, yet played only a tiny role in this muddy mess. Her peaceful life had been torn apart by forces beyond her control, and she carried a supreme treasure like a small child walking through a crowded marketplace with gold in their hands—yet strangely enough, nobody had ever truly tried to rob her.
For more than ten years, Liang Ming Yue had remained alive and well, receiving good fortune, paying the price for it, and repeating the cycle over and over… like some strange, abrupt sacrifice placed into the middle of everything.
There still was not enough information to judge anything further. Before Qin Shu could seriously help rescue her daughter, he needed to acquire some genuinely effective methods of self-protection and escape.
Judging from Pei Zhao’s completely unhurried attitude, he probably really did possess enough ability to protect himself. Qin Shu, on the other hand… had very little confidence in his own ability to run away.
What if I charge in, start a fight, and lose? Am I supposed to burn incense for the Dragon Mother and make a wish for her to spare me? Or ride away on Yuanbao?
That could work. Let me eat until I’m full. Once I get fatter, I’ll be able to carry you.
That was Yuanbao’s response inside Qin Shu’s mind. The thought arrived so abruptly that Qin Shu, who had been lost in contemplation, nearly jumped.
He had already driven Pei Zhao off to bed and was soaking alone in the bathtub, staring blankly into space. Only when the bathwater gradually cooled and Qin Shu stood up did he realize that threads of chill had begun creeping across the back of his neck.
If he stayed in there any longer, he was probably going to catch a cold.
The baby eagle soaking in the bathroom sink had somehow fallen asleep too. Since it still had no head and therefore did not need to worry about drowning, it simply lay on its back at the bottom of the water, apparently sleeping quite comfortably.
Qin Shu could not stand looking at that. He quickly changed into his pajamas, returned to the bathroom, picked up the chick with a small towel, wrapped it up and dried it, then placed it inside the large acrylic box he had recently bought, lining the bottom with several pieces of soft fabric as a temporary nest.
The box had actually been purchased for the eyeball. It had gotten fat enough to burst its old container into pieces. But Yuanbao had quickly become close with it, and lately the two little ancestors always stuck together and preferred sleeping out on the front porch.
The now-unused large box had therefore found another purpose.
The chick, awakened by all the handling, became visibly nervous. Yet the moment it realized that its surroundings had become more comfortable, it failed to resist and abruptly collapsed again, immediately going back to sleep.
Qin Shu laughed. As a precaution, he pricked his finger and dripped several drops of blood onto the chick. Then he too dropped heavily onto his bed, let out a long, comfortable breath, reached around to switch off the bedroom light, and continued communicating with Yuanbao inside his mind.
“Yuanbao, so you can get fat too? You ate so many monsters tonight, but you don’t look any different at all… Explain properly. What exactly should I feed you if I want the best results?”
Gu creatures.
“Huh?”
I need to eat the best ones. I used to eat them every day.
“What, are you complaining that I haven’t been feeding you well enough? Fine, fine. We’re going to Yuncheng next week anyway. I’ll buy you an entire sack wholesale when we get there.”
Qin Shu perfunctorily coaxed the slightly aggrieved Yuanbao and closed his eyes.
The little creature was essentially bound to him now, so there was no real need to worry about it starving. If its energy ever became critically depleted, it could even draw essence blood directly from its owner instead.
Yuncheng… There still had not been any recent news about Liu Yang Yang. Hopefully he had not somehow fallen into another random mountain ravine without even knowing how it happened.
Thinking about one random thing after another, Qin Shu gradually fell asleep.
Too much had happened recently, and after being briefly frightened so badly that night, Qin Shu slept unusually poorly.
He dreamed that he was eating people.
He crawled forward on all fours like a monster and used one of the jet-black horns on his head to pierce straight through a person’s waist. Amid the victim’s piercing screams, Qin Shu breathed heavily and swallowed the bloody “raw meat” in only two bites.
Dense crowds surrounded him, yet they merely watched and observed. They even carefully retreated to either side, opening a path for him to continue forward.
Flames surged inside his eyes. Through that layer of fire, one elegantly dressed, noble-looking human after another fell within his gaze.
They did nothing but stand there, yet it was as though the flames burned away every ornament and disguise until only their naked shells remained. Whether the hearts inside those shells were black or white was completely exposed before him.
He ate every one that appeared pitch-black. Their finery vanished, and thick pools of blood accumulated across the ground, layer upon layer.
Some of the survivors crouched nearby vomiting, while others lifted the hems of their clothes and waded directly into the blood. They knelt at his feet with fanaticism filling their eyes, stretching out their hands to touch him, comb his fur, and paint his likeness.
He lowered his head. His black, razor-sharp horns were soaked in blood, yet the blood only made them seem darker, gleaming faintly like priceless black jade.
Someone eagerly placed a hand on one and stroked it over and over. Others approached carrying crude saws, repeatedly positioning the blades against his head as though they wanted to cut off his horns, but no matter what they tried, they accomplished nothing.
What exactly are they doing? Do they think I’m some kind of… monster? A rare auspicious beast? Something to be displayed? Or a god?
Qin Shu could no longer remember what happened afterward. When he woke up, his head hurt, and his temples throbbed with the swollen ache of extreme exhaustion, although his thoughts themselves remained perfectly clear.
Precisely because he was so clearheaded, Qin Shu immediately realized something was wrong. There was a strange icy sensation at the corner of his lips accompanied by a faint itch.
Something was on his face.
Qin Shu did not open his eyes. As a precaution, he raised one hand and slapped down hard.
Smack!
Immediately afterward, a pitiful shriek exploded inside his mind like a pot boiling over. Qin Shu’s heart lurched, and then he noticed wet, unidentified scraps of flesh stuck to his palm while some sort of liquid slid strangely across his face. His eyes flew open, and he sat upright.
Qin Shu: “…”
Lying in his palm was the frail little eagle chick.
No. At this point, it could no longer really be called a chick. It was simply a blackish heap of jellylike minced flesh mixed with fine down.
A poor, helpless little monster had secretly climbed onto his face first thing in the morning, only to be smashed into pulp by a single slap. Who would believe a story like that?
“Are you still alive?”
Apparently, it was. Qin Shu could faintly sense that weak trace of vitality and presence. As long as he thought about the chick, he could immediately locate where it was.
The process was almost exactly the same when he wanted to determine Yuanbao’s location.
So the experimental blood binding from the previous night really had worked. Although this little thing was neither a ghost nor an ordinary beast, but rather some unknown monster mutated from a Jian, the blood contract between them had genuinely formed.
And fortunately for that blood binding, Qin Shu’s slap had not killed it outright.
Since he could actually raise it himself, he might as well keep doing so. It was not as though one more monster would make much difference in his house… Qin Shu stared at the damp, trembling mass of flesh in his palm, hesitated briefly, then pricked his finger again and fed it several fresh drops of blood.
Squish, squelch…
A sticky sound capable of making someone’s scalp crawl came from his palm. A peculiar warmth gradually spread through the pieces of flesh, accompanied by an itching sensation.
The phrase “struggling to grow flesh and blood” suddenly became extraordinarily literal.
Before Qin Shu’s eyes, a brand-new skeleton, muscles, and organs grew out of the soft pieces of flesh. Everything remained bizarrely sticky and elastic as the new tissues stretched, tugged, and adhered to one another, gradually assembling themselves into a complete body.
Blood vessels unfurled in interwoven networks, while fresh black feathers grew wildly like weeds after a spring rain, rapidly becoming thick and dense… until a fluffy, headless creature resembling a ball of coal appeared.
It sprang up trembling, rushed straight into Qin Shu’s pajamas, and expertly hid beneath the fabric, displaying an unbelievable degree of cowardice.
“Hello? Can you understand me? I need to go to school now. If you want somewhere to hide, wait until I put on something more comfortable.”
Half amused and half helpless, Qin Shu tried communicating with it as he quickly undid the buttons of his pajamas. The instant the frightened chick was exposed to the air, it panicked and began flying wildly around the room, desperately beating its miniature wings until it finally landed trembling on top of Qin Shu’s head.
Qin Shu: “…”
He sighed and realized that the little thing genuinely could not understand human language.
Maybe it was simply because it had only just been born and was far too young to have learned anything. The human face it had produced earlier also appeared to have been instinctive. Other than that, it genuinely had never displayed any aggressive behavior at all. It had been born a complete little coward.
Fine. He would have to teach it from the beginning.
“Yuanbao, teach it how to talk. I’ve already picked a name for it—Coalball. Pretty fitting, right?”
Qin Shu completed a swift and effortless transfer of responsibility. Then he finished washing up in two minutes, pulled on a thick fleece-lined hoodie, and stuffed both Coalball and the wriggling, protesting centipede into the hood.
Immediately afterward, the eyeball expertly hopped into his pocket. Qin Shu put on his school uniform jacket, picked up his backpack, and considered himself fully equipped to leave.
The only problem was that the hood of his sweatshirt was growing heavier and heavier. If he added a few more little creatures, the weight would practically strangle him.
“My house isn’t eventually going to turn into a Pokémon breeding center… is it?”
Qin Shu opened the front door, breathed in the crisp, cold air outside, and muttered to himself, “Probably not, right?”
＊
Jiangcheng No. 2 High School remained peaceful as ever today.
There seemed to be slightly more ghostly figures wandering around the athletic field, but their resentment was weak and their capacity for harm was low.
Occasionally, students overflowing with yang energy would sprint through them while playing ball and directly scatter several frail little ghosts, sending the creatures back into Mother Earth’s embrace before they even understood what had happened.
Qin Shu had woken early and arrived early as well. Carrying two bags of spring pastries, he stood downstairs from the dormitory beneath the dorm supervisor’s complicated gaze and waited for Pei Zhao to come out.
The final wake-up bell had not yet sounded, so the area was rather quiet. Pei Zhao did not make him wait long, however. Almost in the blink of an eye, he appeared at the entrance, swiped his meal card to open the gate, and walked toward Qin Shu.
“…This early?”
Pei Zhao was alive and standing right in front of him, wrapped in a soft, loose cashmere scarf. The stray hair falling across his forehead swayed gently in the cold wind, and beneath the hazy morning sunlight, he somehow managed to make an ordinary school uniform look almost cinematic.
“Mm. I had a nightmare last night. It was all your fault. I didn’t sleep well.” Qin Shu stared at him for a while before suddenly sounding aggrieved. The more he talked, the unhappier he became.
He reached out, hooked an arm around Pei Zhao’s, and pulled him toward the tree-lined path. The pastry bags swung and bumped against one another while the waterproof fabric of their school jackets repeatedly brushed together, creating a chaotic collection of little noises.
Coalball, hidden inside Qin Shu’s hood, was startled awake by the commotion. It cautiously poked out its newly grown head for one look at Pei Zhao, then immediately unleashed a second piercing shriek inside Qin Shu’s mind.
“Hiss… Stop screaming, stop screaming! Yuanbao, keep an eye on it!”
The path beside their dormitory building happened to connect to the seemingly bottomless ornamental lotus pond. The girls’ dormitories stood across the water, and couples often used this path as a shortcut, since they could hide beneath the trees and secretly meet. It was a comparatively secluded place.
Seclusion came with its own risks, however. The stone-paved walkway was uneven, and one wrong step could twist an ankle, send someone rolling down the grassy slope, and drop them straight into the shallow edge of the pond for a delightful taste of aquatic plants.
Qin Shu had just been so startled that his entire body tensed and he nearly stepped wrong, so he simply pulled Pei Zhao over to a bench beside the water and sat down with him to recover first.
Even if Yuanbao suddenly started screaming inside his head, the effect would not have been nearly this immediate. Yuanbao might look like an evil gold-and-red centipede, but its emotions were extraordinarily stable. Even when the Dragon Mother was mentioned, Yuanbao remained indifferent. Most of the time, it was merely hungry.
The trembling little eagle Coalball, however, was Yuanbao’s complete opposite. Anything unfamiliar terrified it.
It was frightened of unfamiliar ghosts, Qin Shu’s electric toothbrush and hair dryer, the floor-standing air conditioner, music coming from his phone, and even the freshly ground coffee machine at Qingfeng Teahouse… Yet so far, the thing it feared most was Pei Zhao.
That overwhelming fear was forcing Qin Shu to experience the emotion along with it. His own brain insistently made him feel a degree of panic he had never experienced before, so that whenever Pei Zhao showed even the slightest intention of approaching, Qin Shu’s instincts screamed at him to tense up and immediately run away.
Qin Shu would not allow that emotion to control him.
So he sat pressed tightly against Pei Zhao, watching the faintly surging yin energy among the withered lotus leaves and stems while the two of them finished breakfast together.
Coalball could be afraid of ghosts if it wanted. Being scared of his electric toothbrush was weird, but still acceptable…
But being afraid of Pei Zhao?
Absolutely not.
The pastries from Qingfeng Teahouse remained delicious, although they were slightly dry. Qin Shu ate slowly and kept his gaze fixed unwaveringly on Pei Zhao, maintaining an extraordinarily intense level of eye contact from far too close a distance.
“…”
Pei Zhao had no idea what he was doing and initially chose to ignore him. He was not prone to choking on dry food, so he lowered his eyes and silently tried to concentrate on enjoying the texture of the pastries.
But Qin Shu kept moving closer and closer until his eyes were practically pressed against Pei Zhao’s face.
Even after Pei Zhao finished an entire box of pastries, Qin Shu’s gaze had never moved away. Finally unable to endure it any longer, Pei Zhao asked, “Why do you keep staring at me?”
“I’m overcoming my inner fear,” Qin Shu answered solemnly.
“…Have you overcome it yet?”
“Mm. Probably.”
“Then why are you still staring at me?”
“Zhaozhao, give me your empty pastry box and stand up for a second.”
“…Why?”
Pei Zhao stood with slight confusion and handed over his empty pastry box.
Although he had a vague sense that something bad was about to happen, Qin Shu looked so serious that Pei Zhao obediently did as he was told anyway.
Smack!
In the next instant, an excessively crisp sound echoed between them. Pei Zhao’s expression abruptly froze, and his hand instinctively moved behind him to cover his backside.
The moment he realized what Qin Shu had done, Pei Zhao’s expression went blank for an instant. Hidden beneath his stray hair, the tips of his ears quietly turned faint pink.
The cardboard box in Qin Shu’s hand had been flattened, but that was all. He put the crushed cardboard back into the bag and continued studying Pei Zhao with the same serious expression.
It was slightly intimidating. The way he looked at him seemed to say…
This isn’t over yet.
“Qin Shu, you…” Pei Zhao had no choice but to struggle for the right words. He hesitated for a while before finally saying in an extremely quiet voice, “Next time you hit me, can you warn me first?”
“I already warned you last night,” Qin Shu replied with perfect seriousness, staring at Pei Zhao thoughtfully. “It doesn’t seem to work very well, though. Zhaozhao, you probably still had time to prepare yourself mentally. Next time I get the chance, I’ll try it again when you aren’t paying attention.”
The terror inside Qin Shu’s mind had already vanished completely. His deliberate confrontation with the fear had been a tremendous success, yet what remained afterward was an even stronger desire to study Pei Zhao.
It was fascinating. Qin Shu had never even been this enthusiastic about studying himself.
“…Next time, don’t use cardboard. It’s really loud.”
Pei Zhao had not refused.
He was complaining, but Pei Zhao’s complaints had never meant rejection.
Especially not complaints made while blushing.
“I used it precisely because it was loud.”
Qin Shu laughed, reached out to take Pei Zhao’s slender wrist, and tugged gently, pulling the stiffly standing boy directly into his arms.
Pei Zhao still had not fully recovered from the shock and was forced to sit on Qin Shu’s thighs, his entire body tense. Qin Shu gently brushed the stray hair away from the side of his face, revealing an ear that had turned completely red.
Warm fingertips pressed against the cold earlobe, rubbing and kneading it as though Qin Shu had discovered some fascinating new stress-relief toy.
Pei Zhao did not struggle, but his breathing trembled slightly, and the constant fluttering of his black lashes completely exposed his unsettled emotions. “Qin Shu, you really are awful.”
“How am I awful? You’re obviously the big bad guy who made me sleep badly last night.” Qin Shu lowered his voice, apparently deliberately teasing him with malicious amusement.
Of course, Qin Shu’s own emotions were equally complicated at the same time. He was simply much better than Pei Zhao at hiding them.
No matter where Qin Shu touched him or how long he kept touching him, the person in his arms felt like a piece of cold jade from head to toe, an extravagant and priceless jewel—or a vivid, living corpse.
Perhaps nobody else could understand what that felt like. Qin Shu did not particularly want anyone to understand either. He leaned closer, pressed his face near Pei Zhao’s ear, and whispered once more, “Zhaozhao, I’ve figured it out. When you’re driving out evil, the most important principle is to scare the evil spirit half to death…”
Smack!
This time Qin Shu did not use any prop at all.
“Qin Shu, you can’t do that…”
“Can’t I?”
This time, Pei Zhao did not give him a direct answer either.
He lightly pressed his lips together, slowly turned his head, and buried his face against Qin Shu’s chest, hiding whatever expression he was making.
After all, the noise they had created was rather loud. A whole flock of sparrows hidden among the branches overhead startled into flight, scattering in alarm through the trees.
Spring really was coming.
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