It was nearing the hour of the boar; the moon was bright and the stars sparse.
They had more or less finished catching up. Tomorrow was Si Lingxi's three-thousandth birthday banquet, and Honglu and the other maids still had to return and check over the various arrangements.
"Have Bai Yuan take you over then," Si Lingxi said with a smile. "Go straight to the hall."
Lu Zheng nodded, then patted his gourd and took out a scroll. "A birthday gift for you. Happy birthday."
"Happy birthday?"
Liu Qingyan and Shen Ying were already accustomed to the phrase, but it was Si Lingxi's first time hearing it. She found it rather interesting. Reaching out to accept the scroll, she thanked him, then unfurled the painting.
Under the moonlight, as the scroll opened, a faint red glow actually began to shine from its surface.
The complete painting was revealed before Si Lingxi the next moment.
The painting was dominated by red. A peerlessly beautiful woman, clad in crimson brocade palace robes embroidered with the golden patterns of Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix, sat atop a solitary peak. She wore a gold-threaded, crimson-pearl phoenix hairpin with spread wings, her phoenix eyes shimmering with color and her expression cold and aloof. Before her rested a crimson-stringed Phoenix Tail Zither, which she played with complete concentration.
Jagged rocks surrounded her, evergreen pines and cypresses crowned the peak, cold winds howled, and white clouds drifted leisurely by, all the more setting off the woman's chilly solitude and proud aloofness.
Behind boundless clouds was a golden sun, sending out shafts of golden light. Yet even it could not stop those endless clouds from being dyed crimson, for behind the woman, a Fire Phoenix was spreading its wings in the air.
Yes, hovering in the air