Fledgling Down and Young Feathers (1)

After leaving the gathering ahead of the others, Shen Yuxi slowly followed the winding mountain path. He let out a long breath, and only then did his tense shoulders gradually relax.

Whether in my past life or this one, it seemed I would never get used to activities like team-building... Shen Yuxi thought. He inadvertently looked up and saw a huge full moon hanging high in the night sky.

Shen Yuxi's mood worsened.

He did not often admire the moon. A full moon ought to symbolize reunion, yet in both his lives, whenever he parted from someone, a cold, brilliant moon always hung high above, like fate looking on with merciless indifference.

—Just like this very moment. Moonlight spilled down like frost, cold and clear, as though it meant to drag him back into the distant days of his childhood.

Back then, in the Shen Family's main residence, the dampness of the plum-rain season crept silently into every corner like a ghost. The carved floor tiles resembled rice paper soaked through by time, exuding a stifling wetness.

Only seven years old, Shen Yuxi knelt alone in the ancestral hall. Light and shadow interlaced within it, while the darkness bound him tightly like invisible shackles. His frail body was like a sickly plum tree swaying on the verge of collapse in a cold wind.

A quarter of an hour earlier, his legitimate elder brother had toyed with a warm jade pendant in his hand, deliberately drawing out his words as he said maliciously, "You little bastard, still refusing to confess? Father's most treasured mutton-fat white jade was found beneath your pillow."

Shen Yuxi abruptly raised his head, his eyes reddening with anger and grievance. "It wasn't me!"

"Impudence!" The family head's eyes flew wide. He slammed his hand against the table, making the teacups atop it clatter, and roared, "Caught with both the criminal and the evidence, and you still dare quibble! So young, yet already so hopelessly wayward!"

"I didn't! Father, I truly didn't do it! I didn't take the jade pendant!" Shen Yuxi was frantic, his voice thick with tears, yet he still stubbornly defended himself.

"You still dare talk back?" The family head's voice became even harsher, like a heavy hammer. "If I don't teach you a lesson today, you won't know the height of heaven or the depth of earth!"

"Third Brother, at this point, there's no need to keep putting up a stiff front, is there? Just obediently admit your mistake and apologize to Father. Perhaps Father might even punish you lightly." Shen Liangxian wore an ill-intentioned smile as he hypocritically persuaded him.

Shen Yuxi lowered his head. His voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz, but it carried a stubbornness. "The jade pendant... I didn't take it."

The rain outside the ancestral hall gradually thickened, bean-sized drops pounding against the ground. The family head impatiently waved a hand. "Since you stubbornly refuse to repent, kneel here for three days and three nights. No food or drink during that time! I'd like to see just how hard your mouth is!"

Having said that, the family head flicked his sleeve and left, leaving behind only Shen Yuxi, kneeling helplessly where he was, and Shen Liangxian, wearing a smug expression.

A cold smile curled Shen Liangxian's lips. Deliberately, he hurled a full cup of steaming-hot tea, cup and all, at Shen Yuxi's hand.

"Ah!" Caught off guard, Shen Yuxi cried out in pain, then immediately bit down on his lip.

With a crisp crash, the teacup shattered into pieces. The scalding tea surged toward his hand like a raging heat wave, and the searing heat instantly ravaged the back of it, as though countless red-hot needles were stabbing into his flesh.

At the same time, sharp shards of flying porcelain cut a bloody line across his pale wrist like deadly hidden weapons.

Bright-red blood, like sprites weeping blood, slowly wound its way down his delicate, fair skin, now scalded a furious red. One drop, then another... fell heavily onto the damp floor tiles, blooming into grotesque, horrifying blood flowers, as if silently recounting this sudden act of violence.

"Third Brother, look at you. Your brother took pity on you and defied Father's orders to bring you a sip of water, yet you couldn't even hold a cup of tea steady." Shen Liangxian bent down and whispered in his ear, "You're just as useless as that consumptive ghost of a mother of yours."

Shen Yuxi trembled uncontrollably. His nails dug deeply into his palms, and fury burned in his eyes as he gritted out, "Don't you dare speak of my mother!"

"Does it hurt?" Shen Liangxian ground the shards beneath his shoe, producing a teeth-grinding creak. With a teasing expression, he said, "Beg me. Kowtow to your brother a few times, and perhaps I'll soften my heart and plead with Father on your behalf?"

Shen Yuxi clenched his teeth tightly. He refused to cry out in pain, and he did not dare to.

How could he not know Shen Liangxian's sinister intentions? This so-called plea for mercy was nothing more than a hypocritical humiliation.

Plead for mercy? Did Shen Liangxian really think he did not know who had orchestrated all this? Wasn't his current suffering precisely what the man before him had gone to every conceivable length to "plead" for? Wasn't this "kindhearted" elder brother the one who had stolen the family head's jade pendant and framed him?

He chose silence only because, in his current circumstances, speaking the truth would not let him retaliate against Shen Liangxian. Instead, it would only enrage the Madam further. By then, life for both him and his mother would become even harder, even more dark without the light of day.

Mocking laughter mingled with the fragrance of tea and echoed wantonly between the beams and pillars. Shen Liangxian thoroughly relished the thrill of tormenting him, only turning away in satisfaction once he had had enough fun.

Stubbornly, Shen Yuxi stared at the winding trail of water on the ground. Its twisted shape somehow reminded him of the blood his birth mother had coughed onto her handkerchief the night before—equally scarlet and piercing to the eye, like a sharp blade savagely stabbing his heart.

His mother's illness had worsened by the day, her breath so faint it seemed liable to scatter at any moment. To get her treated, he had not hesitated to cast aside his dignity and run about everywhere.

First, he had tried every possible way to seek an audience with the family head. But the family head was burdened with countless affairs; how could an insignificant concubine-born son like him see him simply because he wished to? Not to mention the Madam obstructing him at every turn—he could scarcely even approach the gates of the family head's courtyard.

Unable to see the family head, he turned to beg the residence physician. But how could the physician risk offending the Madam to help him? However unwilling he might have been, secretly giving Shen Yuxi one or two doses of medicine pieced together from scraps was already the limit.

He had even begged the servants in the kitchen, hoping to obtain a full meal for his mother.

He was indeed lowly, but not base. He believed himself to have a clear conscience.

Yet with one offhanded false accusation from his legitimate elder brother, all his perseverance became a joke.

He wanted to cry. Yet he knew he could not.

He was the only man who could support his mother. If he showed weakness, what would become of her?

Forced to kneel for three days and three nights without food or drink—such a severe punishment was enough to drive the tender life of a seven-year-old child to the brink of death.

After untold trouble, his birth mother finally received the news. Frantic with worry, she dragged her sickly body back and forth beneath the corridor, utterly unaware that her embroidered shoes had been soaked through by rain.

After begging an unknown number of stewardesses and stuffing away the last copper coin on her person, she finally obtained a vague piece of news. By the time she staggered into the main hall, the Madam was leaning against a vermilion-lacquered corridor pillar, unhurriedly trimming her nails.

"Where is Elder Sister going?" The Madam snapped her golden scissors shut with a click. Poison seemed to drip from her slanted phoenix eyes. "The family head is in a fit of anger right now, and what he hates most is anyone pleading for mercy. I advise Elder Sister not to waste her effort. Go back and take care of your health."

His birth mother's knees struck the bluestone slabs heavily, startling a pair of swallows sheltering from the rain beneath the eaves into flight. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed and begged, "Madam, please show mercy. Xi'er is only seven... He cannot endure without food or water. Madam, please show mercy!"

Her heartrending pleas sounded like blood and tears squeezed from a shattered heart.

"Daring to steal a family heirloom jade pendant at seven—what would he become when he grew up?" The Madam sneered coldly. Then, as though she had suddenly thought of something, she bent down, and her gemstone-studded nail guard swept across his birth mother's deathly pale cheek. "Perhaps... Elder Sister is willing to bear the punishment in her son's place?"

A crafty gleam flashed through the Madam's eyes, and she continued, "How about this? If Elder Sister is willing to share Xi'er's punishment, I will ask the family head to halve it. What do you say? The family head was only speaking in anger, after all. Seeing how dearly Elder Sister loves her son, I'll plead for Xi'er. The family head will still give me that much face."

His birth mother agreed without the slightest hesitation.

Shen Yuxi naturally could not bear it. His mother was already weak and sickly; how could she endure such torment? He shook his head again and again and desperately tried to dissuade her, but she had made up her mind. Her eyes were full of love and pain for her son, as well as unwavering resolve.

Summer nights were the hottest, and it had just rained. The heat was like an airtight net tightly wrapping up all things beneath heaven. During the first half of the night, sweat and dampness intertwined and steamed upward, as though they would roast people alive, leaving them dizzy and muddleheaded, their breathing difficult and heavy.

By the latter half of the night, however, the temperature plunged off a cliff. The sudden chill was like countless sharp ice blades piercing straight into the marrow, cold enough to make one's heart quake in terror. Sweat gradually dried in the cold and clung to the skin like a frigid suit of armor, freezing one to the bone.

How could his already frail and sickly mother bear such torment, like being caught between ice and fire? When Shen Yuxi, drained of strength and unconscious, slowly awakened in the cold wind, he found that his mother's warm embrace had long since turned cold.

"—Mother?"

The sweat that had dripped onto the ground during the first half of the night had spread into a human-shaped damp mark on the blue bricks. Now, a thin layer of frost had formed over it.

The embrace that had once given him endless warmth and comfort was now like an ice cellar, sending his heart plummeting instantly into a bottomless abyss.

He clung tightly to his mother's body and refused to let go, as though if he held her tightly enough, she would not truly leave him. Moonlight spilled through the mottled window lattice. The moon shone bright as a mirror, yet its cold radiance could not illuminate the boundless grief in his heart.

At dawn, the sky remained dark as ink, and the silence all around was almost oppressive. When his legitimate elder brother came bearing freshly brewed ginseng soup to "visit," he saw the concubine-born younger brother he regarded as a little bastard using his scalded, horribly swollen hand to clutch tightly at a corpse that had long lost all breath.

The child's face was bluish-white as paper, without a trace of tears. Only his hollow, vacant eyes remained, like deep black holes reflecting the full moon outside the window, filled with endless deathly stillness and sorrow.

"What bad luck." Shen Liangxian frowned in disgust. His exquisite deerskin boots disdainfully avoided the congealed bloody foam on the floor as he raised his voice and shouted, "Someone, take this filthy thing—"

Before he could finish, however, he suddenly fell silent as though someone had seized him by the throat. The concubine-born younger brother who had always meekly endured his abuse slowly raised his head.

Shen Liangxian's gaze met his. Those eyes were cold and sharp, like two streaks of icy light stabbing straight into his heart. They involuntarily reminded him of the ancient sword his grandfather had collected, one that radiated chilling killing intent from drinking too much blood. The ancient sword's coldness seemed to rush at him again through the gaze of the person before him.

—"Get out."

He heard that bastard, always so weak and cowardly, say it.

Ordinarily, hearing such defiant words would have made him fly into a towering rage, and he would have mercilessly taught that brat who did not know the height of heaven or the depth of earth a vicious lesson.

But at this moment, for some reason—perhaps because the aura emanating from the person kneeling on the floor was simply too strange—it did not feel human. It was more like some ferocious beast concealing endless danger.

That beast was lying dormant. At the slightest reckless move, it would pounce without hesitation and bite through his throat, taking his life on the spot.

It was not only him. The servants present were also startled by this sudden turn of events, each frozen in place with terror filling their eyes.

In the end, they fled in disarray.

Even if she had only been a concubine, she had still been the family head's woman. When he heard news of her death, the family head showed displeasure, but ultimately waved a hand and lifted Shen Yuxi's punishment. He instructed the servants to let Shen Yuxi return and keep vigil for the dead, hoping that the vigil would help him rein in his temper.

But Shen Yuxi went nowhere. He merely stubbornly held his mother's body and continued kneeling where he was, like a statue frozen solid. No one could pull him away or persuade him otherwise.

With the punishment over, the taunts of the legitimate branch's children became fine needles, stitching the last remnants of childhood innocence shut beneath brocade robes.

He neither resisted nor explained. With his frail body, so thin that a gust of wind might knock it over, he carried his mother bit by bit, step by step, with great difficulty toward their tiny, somewhat dilapidated courtyard.

The path back to the courtyard now seemed endless. Every step felt like a sharp blade piercing deeply into his heart, causing pain that bored into his bones.

The legitimate branch's children he passed pointed at him, their mocking words shooting toward him like arrows.

"Look, that's the little bastard who stole something. Did he get his own mother killed? He truly is a jinx."

"He's even putting on an act, hugging a corpse while being punished. Disgusting!"

"Hmph, someone like him should be thrown out of the Shen Family as soon as possible, so he doesn't keep making a spectacle of himself here."

Yet Shen Yuxi seemed not to hear them. His gaze was empty and dull, all his attention focused on his mother's gradually cooling body upon his back.

At last, he returned to the familiar little courtyard. The dilapidated wooden gate creaked in the breeze. Everything familiar entered his sight, yet all of it now appeared especially desolate. The flowers and plants his mother had planted with her own hands in the corner drooped their heads in the night, as though they, too, grieved for their mistress's departure.

Shen Yuxi gently laid his mother down on the old but clean bed. His movements were so careful, as though he feared disturbing her.

When he washed his mother's face with well water, he discovered that the smile she had forced herself to wear while comforting him the night before still lingered at the corners of her lips.

Shen Yuxi slowly sat beside the bed, staring blankly at his mother's face as he tried to find the warmth and tender affection of the past in those bloodless features.

His mother's tightly closed eyes would never again look at him gently, and those slightly parted lips would never again softly call his name.

Shen Yuxi merely looked quietly at his mother. When he grew tired of looking, he lay beside her and tightly held her hand, as though this would let him remain with her forever. He pressed his face against her icy palm. The calluses left by years of embroidery remained there, like a patch of snow that would never melt.

Moonlight flowed over the window lattice, casting the mother and son's shadows upon the wall. Those shadows gradually twisted and distorted, eventually becoming the silhouette of a young beast curled beside the corpse of a giant beast.

From that day onward, his heart went completely cold toward everyone in the residence, and he no longer held the slightest expectation for any of them.

No matter what humiliation or bullying he suffered, he merely gritted his teeth in silence and swallowed all his pain and grievances into his stomach.

Within that endless darkness and torment, he did not know how much longer he could endure. Perhaps he would be crushed beneath it the very next moment. Yet at the same time, he vaguely felt that if he truly could not hold on, perhaps that would not be entirely a bad thing.

If he could not endure, he would be reunited with his mother—in that world without pain or bullying, he could once more throw himself into her warm embrace.