Hundred Sects Tournament · Golden Core (5)

Profound Heaven Street had been built along the mountainside, its pavilions layered one upon another, its lights like stars. Shen Yucheng was still the same as ever—whenever some little trinket caught his interest, he simply could not resist buying it on the spot.

Whether it was a cheap crystal hairpin that glimmered faintly, a storage sachet printed with gaudy patterns, spirit-flower rouge with a cloyingly sweet scent, or tinkling imitation-antique wind chimes—so long as some inexplicable detail struck his fancy, he would pull out spirit stones without another word, buy it, and stuff it all into Shen Yuxi's hands.

Nine out of ten of those things had no practical use and contained scarcely any spiritual power. They were nothing more than cheap amusements. Yet Shen Yucheng was happy just looking at them and inexplicably fond of them; seeing how delighted he was, Shen Yuxi could not help but have his own mood lifted as well.

Though Shen Yuxi usually did not dwell on it, deep down, he had once held hopes for familial affection.

Perhaps precisely because the role of father had been utterly absent from his life, when he had first met his nominal second brother, Shen Liangxian, as a child, a vague yearning for an "elder brother" had quietly sprouted in his heart. But Shen Liangxian's actions soon ground that spark-like expectation into dust.

He had truly come to know Shen Yucheng when his mother's health had already begun to wax and wane.

At the time, Shen Yuxi had been filled with unease, yet he still had to pretend to be calm before his increasingly haggard mother. Whenever he truly could not hold it in any longer, he could only find some deserted corner, curl himself up, and let his tears stream down in silence.

It was on