Xu Yi was in so much pain he could barely open his eyes.
He had no time to pay attention to the strand of bright yellow tassel connecting him to the incense burner. He grabbed the burner, braced one hand against the table, and rose unsteadily to his feet, trembling all over. Staggering to the door, he opened it.
The door swung wide. In an instant, sunlight flooded in, and a hot breeze heavy with moisture rushed toward him and swept through the room, dispersing the smoke that had already begun to thin.
Only one of Xu Yi's eyes could open. He set the incense burner by the doorway. The wind carried away the smoke from the still-burning incense, so it could no longer gather into a dense haze.
Just then, Xu Yi noticed that the brass tip on top of the burner seemed to twist.
He gently turned it. A thin layer of brass inside the burner rotated into place, covering its interior.
Once the oxygen in the burner's limited interior had been used up, the incense went out.
In the breeze, the burner gradually cooled until it was cold to the touch and completely still.
Xu Yi picked up the burner, shut and locked the door, then returned to the room.
Covering his mouth, he forced himself to swallow the blood spilling from his tongue. Then he went to the bed, picked up Jing Tao's soft jade pendant, held it beneath his nose, and took a deep breath.
Jing Tao's scent activated and transformed Xu Yi's spirituality, turning it into something that could heal injuries.
A tingling sensation appeared on Xu Yi's tongue. Within seconds, it became an itch. A few seconds later, the itch vanished, and the excruciating pain was gone as well.
"Fuck!"
Xu Yi cursed. His tongue felt fine—in fact, it seemed even more nimble than before he'd been injured.
He returned to the table, lifted the teapot by its spout, and drained the cold tea in one go.
"Haah... haah..."
After taking a few deep breaths, he finally came out of his panicked state and calmed down.
"What... was that I just saw?"
Remembering the images from before, Xu Yi shuddered. The more he thought about them, the more horrifying they seemed.
"Could that... have been my future?"
"In the future... will I become a murderous psychopath like that?!"
Xu Yi considered the matter carefully.
"I really can't stand certain unusual scents. When I was facing Ji Xiao, my spirituality went out of control and turned her into an incense stick."
"Turning people into incense sticks is something my spirituality can do when it loses control.
"If what I saw in that smoke really was my future...
"Then that means I can control that ability and use it deliberately."
"But... how could I become a psychopath like that?!"
Xu Yi couldn't accept it.
He clenched the palm-sized incense burner in his hand, rubbing it back and forth.
"What exactly did I just see..."
He asked himself again.
Now his head was clear, and he had plenty of courage.
"Whatever it was that I just saw...
"No matter what! There's no way I'll become a murderous psychopath like that!"
As this thought took root in his mind, Xu Yi noticed that the strand of bright yellow tassel connecting him to the burner was slowly growing brighter.
At the same time, a faint scent appeared beneath his nose.
Xu Yi was extremely sensitive to scents. He immediately recognized that it came from the incense burner.
The scent was very strange, nothing like a woman's natural fragrance. It was more like the smell of some kind of plant oil—
A little like rosin, but without rosin's strong pine scent, and not nearly as warm or spicy.
If Xu Yi had to describe the impression it gave him...
It was "a tranquil scent touched by the essence of trees."
The scent was serene, free of joy or sorrow. It left him feeling calm and at peace, as if even his mood had settled.
Though the scent was exceedingly faint, Xu Yi was still captivated by it, reluctant to let it go.
He slowly turned the extinguished incense burner in his hands, breathing in the fading scent as he watched the strand of bright yellow tassel connecting him to it.
What was this bright yellow, aurora-like tassel?
Xu Yi stood up and walked once around the table. The bright yellow strand remained lightly connected to him the entire time.
Suddenly, Xu Yi noticed that Jing Tao's jade pendant in his palm seemed to be glowing too.
He widened his eyes and brought the pendant closer. A faint blush of pink shimmered across it.
It was the color of peach blossoms.
When Xu Yi focused all his attention on the pink glow, it suddenly grew a little brighter.
It was about as bright as a light bulb of less than one watt.
The peach-pink glow on the pendant appeared in the air, forming a faint line of scented tassels.
The pink scented line began at the pendant and stretched out through the door.
Xu Yi pondered this.
He gathered up all his belongings and followed the pink scented line outside.
Following its direction, he walked along 38th Shop District's main street and finally stopped at the gate of the Jing Family residence in Courtyard No. 2 of 38th Shop District.
"So that's how it works!"
Xu Yi suddenly understood.
"Using this incense burner lets me lock onto scented objects and track down the source of their scent!"
Searching for the source of a scent.
The feeling... was indescribably wonderful.
It wasn't evening yet, so it wasn't time to meet Jing Tao. Xu Yi slipped her jade pendant back into his breast pocket and took out Ye Miao's sachet.
Once he focused on Ye Miao's sachet, a faint blue line of scented tassels appeared.
Xu Yi followed the pale blue line along 38th Shop District's main street, crossed Green Duck River Bridge, and, amid the shrill honking of rickshaws, continued down the street toward central Puxi City. At last, it stopped on the road beside Puxi City Central Park.
The scented tassel line continued ahead, disappearing into the enormous school campus before him.
The campus was vast, spanning almost the entire block. Instead of a high, enclosed wall, it was surrounded by a partly open decorative wall. From where he stood, he could see rows of low, rough-textured red bricks, their surfaces covered in dense English ivy.
It had rained that morning, washing the dust from the ivy. Now that the sun was out, the leaves looked lush and green.
The school's partly open wall wasn't very high; it only reached Xu Yi's chest.
At its center stood a large, black, openwork wrought-iron gate. Beside it, a small line of stylized Western lettering read "SMH," the abbreviation of the school's full name.
St. Mary's Hall.
Ye Miao had come to enroll there just yesterday.
Xu Yi's gaze turned distant.
"Nothing like the old site of St. Mary's Hall back home."
Back home, Xu Yi had visited the old site of St. Mary's Hall near Raffles City Changning in Shanghai. Only the clock tower and a few buildings remained there, making it vastly different from the sprawling campus before him.
Judging by its appearance alone, this wasn't the same school at all.
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