Night Clouds Brewing Rain (3)

Lin Huaixu emerged from Clear Parasol Hall without summoning the Spirit Crane. He merely drew his lapels closer and, stepping over the blue-stone stairs still wet with dew, headed down with brisk, light footsteps.

When he descended Misty Spirit Peak, the horizon was still steeped in inky darkness, with only a faint strip of fish-belly white showing in the east. The morning fog was so thick that even the pines and cypresses ten zhang away were reduced to blurred silhouettes.

The mountain wind brushed past, carrying the chill of early dawn. As Lin Huaixu walked down the mountain, he carefully sorted through the contents of his respective conversations with the sect master and his second senior brother.

He was in an excellent mood. The smile at his lips carried a hint of calculation, yet his gaze was far deeper than usual, like a star-hidden night sky—clear to the eye, with bottomless darkness beneath.

Having just rounded a bend in the mountain path, his way was abruptly cut off by a swath of deep green. Lin Huaixu stopped short. Beneath an ancient pine stood a figure in plain white with his hands behind his back, his broad sleeves fluttering softly in the morning breeze, looking even colder and clearer than the dawn dew gathered on the branches.

"Seventh Elder?" He blinked, and the depth in his eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by his usual frivolous grin. Even his tone rose slightly. "Out for a stroll so early, are you, Elder?"

True Person Yulan turned around, his expression stern. Those eyes, seemingly clouded but in truth razor-sharp, fixed directly on Lin Huaixu. "Where have you been?"

Lin Huaixu's gaze drifted everywhere. One moment it landed on the ancient pine behind True Person Yulan, the next it darted toward the bushes nearby.