Fledgling Down, Young Feathers (2)

That winter, the cold bit deeper than it had in any year before. Goose-feather snow drifted down in thick flurries, snapping the tips of countless branches. It also crushed the most remote little courtyard of the Shen Family.

Within the main hall, the formation turned unhurriedly, warmth suffusing the air as though it had sealed off the frozen world beyond and become a paradise warm as spring unto itself.

Even the side halls had been allotted Warmstones. Servants moved back and forth through them each day, their expressions calm as they methodically cast spells to clear away the mountains of accumulated snow.

In that vast residence, only one small courtyard was forgotten by everyone without prior agreement. Snow sealed its gate, and no one paid it any heed.

In the past, servants would occasionally bring over some leftovers with impatient faces. But now, the bitter winter seemed to have given them the perfect excuse. They were unwilling to even do this perfunctory chore.

Shen Yuxi curled up in the drafty side room, wrapping the ragged, thin bedding around himself again and again, yet it still could not keep out the needle-like cold that pierced to the bone.

He had gone three days without food. In this world of ice and snow, the small boy could only eat snow to sustain himself for a few days.

Hunger was like a blunt knife, slowly and cruelly carving through his organs. He grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it into his mouth. Cold pierced down his throat and into his lungs, making his whole body tremble as his teeth chattered uncontrollably. The snow melted between his lips and teeth, but brought not the slightest fullness—only a deeper chill and heavier weakness.

As time passed, his consciousness gradually sank into clouds and mist, becoming hazy and indistinct. Everything before his eyes began to turn unreal. He seemed to see his mother's gentle smile and hear her soft call. He wanted to reach out and seize that warm phantom, but his hand caught only emptiness.

At dusk on the fourth day, the sky darkened. Shen Yuxi could no longer support his leaden body. He slowly closed his eyes, his consciousness seeming about to be completely swallowed by endless darkness.

The light reflected from the snow outside the window gradually dimmed, like a lamp about to go out. Lying on the cold bedboards, he vaguely heard the creak of the door hinge turning. Light footsteps drew nearer from afar. Someone was treading carefully over the thick snow toward the side room. The hem of a skirt brushed the ground with a faint rustling sound.

He struggled to force his eyes open. His vision was as blurred as though veiled by fog. Amid the indistinct light and shadow, he saw a maid hurry to his side with light yet slightly urgent steps.

"...Who...?"

His cracked lips trembled faintly, but he could no longer force out a syllable.

The maid looked hurried. She swiftly knelt by the bed and cautiously opened a food box wrapped tightly shut. The instant its lid lifted, hot steam rushed out, carrying the long-lost fragrance of rice. That rich scent immediately entered Shen Yuxi's nostrils, jolting his muddled consciousness awake.

She took out a steaming bowl of soup. Wisps of vapor curled upward, filling the cold air with warmth.

The maid bent down and helped him sit up. One warm hand gently cradled the back of his neck, while the rim of the porcelain bowl touched his chapped, peeling lips.

Her voice was as soft as a spring breeze brushing willow tips, as though afraid of disturbing water that wrinkled easily. It carried endless tenderness and pity as she softly called in his ear, "Young Master."

The warmth of the soup seeped through the coarse porcelain into his fingertips, and he swallowed instinctively. When the first mouthful slid down his dry throat, warmth spread through him in an instant, scalding his eyes until they stung.

The instinct to survive ultimately gained the upper hand. He had no mind to care about appearances now. Once he had recovered a little strength, he wolfed down the hot soup in one gulp.

As the scalding broth slid down his throat, Shen Yuxi heard a beast-like whimper escape from his own throat—a sound woven from long-suppressed pain and longing.

His fingernails dug deeply into the rim of the bowl, his knuckles turning deathly pale from the force, as though he wanted to vent all his pain and unwillingness upon that tiny bowl.

It was only a thin stew made by boiling leftovers and scraps together until they had turned to mush. Yet when that warmth fell into his stomach, his whole body convulsed—could a person's innards cry too?

To Shen Yuxi, starving and freezing as he was, this meal was a thousand, ten thousand times more delicious than any meal he had eaten since his mother's death.

The hot soup slowly flowed down his dry throat, like a warm current spreading through his body. Shen Yuxi's nearly frozen body also began to gradually warm because of that bowl of soup.

Color slowly returned to his ash-gray cheeks, and a trace of life gradually revived in his thin, frail body, like a barren desert finally receiving sweet rain that nourished all things.

The maid quietly knelt in the shadows, still as a clay statue, merely watching Shen Yuxi in silence. Only when the spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl with a harsh sound did she seem to come alive. She quickly wrapped the bowl and chopsticks in coarse cloth.

Before leaving, she hesitated. A flicker of struggle passed through her eyes, then she seemed to make up her mind. She took a Warmstone from her clothes and stuffed it into Shen Yuxi's arms.

It was only the lowest-grade kind, its surface uneven and pocked with tiny pits like pockmarks. The heat it gave off was not even as warm as the lingering heat of charcoal.

In this world of ice and snow, the warmth that Warmstone could provide was negligible. Yet Shen Yuxi pressed it tightly to himself as though he had seized his final lifeline. The sharp edges of the stone dug into his palm, hurting enough to keep him awake, but also letting him feel a warmth he had not known in a long time.

Shen Yuxi had not even had time to say a word to the maid, nor had he managed to see her face clearly, before she hurried away.

"Young Master."

She called him one last time. Those three words turned to white mist with her breath and were scattered by the draft in the blink of an eye. When Shen Yuxi looked up, he saw only the corner of a blue cloth garment sweep past the doorframe, shaking down several grains of snow.

In this vast residence, many people called him "Young Master."

Most of the time, when those words came from others' mouths, they were wrapped in thick sarcasm and undisguised contempt. Their lips always curved with disdain, followed by all manner of unpleasant words that filled him with frustration.

Only this maid, who had hurried here and hurried away on the coldest winter day, had called him "Young Master" in such a gentle, sincere voice. Three simple words, yet they brought endless warmth and kindness.

Perhaps Shen Yuxi's life truly was not meant to end. Merely one bowl of hot soup and one inferior Warmstone had miraculously dragged him back from the gates of hell. When he slowly awoke, his body remained weak, but his mind was clear.

But after waking, evil ghosts still lurked all around.

A pale blue-white figure hung from the old plum tree outside the courtyard. The snow weighed the branches down until they creaked, unable to bear the burden, as though they might snap at any moment. The corpse swayed lightly in the cold wind, its frozen toes pointed directly at his window lattice.

In the morning light, he saw half a wooden hairpin stuck in her hair—it was the maid from last night.

The maid had been hanged from the tree outside the courtyard, and her death was a miserable one.

"Wretched servant girl! You dared steal silver-thread charcoal from the storeroom—you deserve to die!" The stewardess spat into the snow, her face full of disgust and rage. She viciously jabbed the dangling ankle with a bamboo pole in her hand. "Hang her for three days, to warn the rest!"

So the other servants had ignored him because they had received the madam's secret instructions.

As Shen Yuxi grew older, although he remained thin as kindling, his face became ever more handsome and beautiful, his brows and eyes carrying an innate air of spiritual grace. It should have been a delightful change, yet the resentment in the madam's heart grew madly like weeds.

Malice arose in her heart. She wanted Shen Yuxi to starve and freeze to death silently in that forgotten little courtyard.

This maid could not bear it, so she secretly saved some soup and hurried it over to Shen Yuxi when no one was paying attention. Unfortunately, the madam discovered her. An act of kindness became her death warrant.

The madam had always been ruthless and merciless. How could she forgive her easily? She casually found some fabricated charge and ordered the maid executed, killing a chicken to frighten the monkeys.

The snow stopped.

Shen Yuxi stood inside the threshold, staring straight at the faintly swaying shadow on the plum tree. Morning light pierced the thin mist, forming a layer of crystalline frost over the maid's pale blue-white fingers. The corpse swayed softly in the wind, and the hemp rope rubbed against the branch with a faint creaking sound.

The madam had deliberately ordered someone to turn the corpse toward the little courtyard. This way, Shen Yuxi did not even need to open the door. He only had to lift his eyes to see through the low window—the pair of eyes that would not close in death staring fixedly at his window lattice.

Fresh snow from the night before covered the maid's shoulders, as though draping her in a plain white mourning garment, making her seem all the more desolate and tragic.

The madam did this to make Shen Yuxi understand that in this residence, anyone who tried to lend him a hand would meet no good end.

—In this residence more vicious than hell itself, even carrying a kind heart had become an unforgivable crime.

Morning dew dripped down the hemp rope like tears that had arrived too late.

But Shen Yuxi did not find it frightening.

He simply kept watching. Though he did not even know her name, at least now he had more than enough time—enough to be almost cruel—to remember what she looked like.

The maid was not particularly beautiful. Had they met amid a sea of people, he would have forgotten her face once they turned a corner. Yet her features held a gentle beauty. Her frozen lips still retained the curve they had in life. In a daze, it seemed that the next moment, she would slowly raise her eyes to look at him and call him "Young Master" once more.

Looking at her frost-covered lashes, Shen Yuxi suddenly remembered the warmth in his palm that night—he even felt that her whole body was faintly glowing.

He had once thought that his life would end in that bitter winter. Endless cold and deathly silence surrounded him, as though the entire world had abandoned him, while he could only quietly wait for death's shadow to slowly descend.

But the inferior Warmstone in his arms continued to give off heat. It was so warm that it almost melted tears from his frozen eyes.

"Have you had your fill of looking?" The stewardess poked the frozen corpse with fire tongs, iron striking ice with a crisp sound. She grinned with a mouth missing its front teeth. "It's fine. If Young Master likes looking, then look all you want. Madam said she is to hang there until spring."

That corpse was like a tattered flag, hanging from the thickest branch of the plum tree. The continuing low temperatures had kept the maid's body intact for the time being. Fine frost flowers clung to her eyelashes, as though she were merely asleep.

"Truly unlucky. So, people should know their place. If it isn't yours, don't covet it, or you'll end up like this—you agree, don't you?" The stewardess kicked the plum tree, and snow came rustling down, covering half the maid's face.

A lie.

A lie that everyone knew was a lie.

Shen Yuxi looked toward the main courtyard. The bronze bells beneath the upturned eaves chimed in the wind. The madam was likely painting her brows and reddening her lips at this moment, lightly tapping her dressing case with fingernails dyed by balsam flowers, waiting for the effects of this lingering torture.

This was the madam's method—not to make him afraid, but to make him remember. Remember that everyone who showed him kindness would become a swaying shadow on the plum tree.

The madam had gone to such lengths precisely to crush his will in this way and make him submit in despair.

Yet Shen Yuxi truly just gazed quietly at the corpse hanging from the tree. From deep winter to early spring, whether biting winds blew or heavy snow drifted down and melted away, he continued to watch in silence.

The first thing he did each morning was push open the window and look toward that plum tree. Before sleeping each night, he would also say goodnight to the vague shadow in the darkness.

When the spring wind thawed the ice, the corpse began to rot. First, bluish-black fluid seeped from the corners of her eyes. Later, her entire face swelled and distorted. One deep night, he heard a soft snap. The wooden hairpin had finally failed to bear the weight, falling into the mud along with a lock of hair.

When the stench of decay drifted into the main courtyard, the madam finally lost patience first and sent someone to take the maid's corpse down. As the servant carried the unrecognizable body past, wrapped in a straw mat, Shen Yuxi merely watched from the window.

Putrid fluid seeped through the gaps in the mat and dripped onto the bluestone slabs, trailing a winding streak like dried blood or some sinister curse.

Shen Yuxi had always been calm. In this deeply walled residence, where ranks were strict and undercurrents surged, he was nothing more than an insignificant existence, utterly powerless to resist. Like a wild blade of grass in spring, trampled into the mud yet still expected to be grateful that no one had pulled it out by the roots.

There was nothing to fight for.

The more he fought, the more miserable the maid's ending would be. He understood all of that.

He did not understand why the madam did not simply kill him cleanly. Why did she insist on scheming again and again? He did not understand.

There would not be a second maid. If it happened again, he truly would die.

But the madam did not make things difficult for him again. Compared to physical suffering, she had always preferred torturing him by ravaging his mind. Like the peacock in her garden whose feathers had all been plucked out, seeing him alive pleased her more than seeing him dead.

What a... formidable woman.

Perhaps, in the lofty madam's eyes, he was only a tiny ant she could crush at will. Her repeated probing and targeting of him were merely for amusement. The sinister plots he imagined might have been nothing more than a whim that had struck her.

The night the maid's corpse was taken away, the moonlight was especially bright. The night was black as ink, and all was silent. As though drawn by invisible threads, Shen Yuxi unconsciously raised his head slowly and looked at the empty plum branches, only to discover fresh buds emerging at the treetop.

A death had served as nourishment and instead brought forth new life. The tender green buds on the branches seemed as though they had grown from rotting flesh.

Yet all he could see at that moment was the mocking full moon hanging high beyond the treetops. It shone brilliantly in the night sky, recklessly spilling its cold radiance.

Moonlight flowed like water over his thin body, drawing a long, lonely shadow across the ground.

He stood there quietly. In his mind, like scenes from a silent film, the maid's gentle, watery gaze as she handed him the hot soup kept appearing, along with that "Young Master" so soft it resembled a spring breeze.

Again and again, it struck his heart, sending wave after wave of bitterness and grief through it.

Shen Yuxi unconsciously clenched the fabric over his chest. The scar left by the inferior Warmstone burned in his palm. The bronze bell at the eaves suddenly chimed, startling the cold crows roosting in the plum tree into flight. Watching those black shadows scatter in all directions, he suddenly smiled very faintly.

Moon, you truly were too heartless. In this cold world, you witnessed every misery and sorrow, yet still hung high in the sky, casting your indifferent clear light. How could he possibly come to love you?