He raised his right hand, pressed two fingers together, and brought them to his lips.
Then...
A melody flowed from between his fingers and lips.
It was neither a flute nor a whistle. It was a timbre Chen Siyao had never heard before.
Clear and far-reaching, it carried a resonant hum in the gaps between notes. It sounded less like one person playing than three or four instruments performing together.
The melody itself followed no fixed mode. It rose high, then dipped low, with no obvious beat, yet possessed a natural rhythm... as though the sounds of a mountain stream tumbling over rocks had been arranged into music.
All five white deer stopped grazing at once.
Every head lifted.
The rainbow colors flowing along their twenty antlers sped up, shifting from slow gradients to rapid pulses—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet, cycling through them all in a single second.
Then they walked toward Chen Hao.
Their approach was neither hesitant nor tentative, but eager and cheerful. The largest white deer leading them trotted a few steps, its hooves tapping a light rhythm on the blue grass.
It ran straight up to Chen Siyao and lowered its head—
Gently nudging her arm with its forehead.
The rainbow light on its antlers touched her skin with a trace of warmth.
Chen Siyao froze for a moment, then slowly reached out to stroke the white deer's neck.
Its coat was so smooth it hardly felt real. Finer than silk, gentler than warm water.
Yang Wanqing had already rushed over.
"Let me pet it, let me pet it, let me pet it—"
Another, slightly smaller white deer came up beside Yang Wanqing and nuzzled her waist.
Yang Wanqing wrapped both arms around its neck and pressed herself against it.
"Master always knows what