Night descended quietly, shrouding the Xiao Clan's pavilions and towers in a hazy stillness. Moonlight spilled like water into Xiao Yan's somewhat secluded courtyard, casting dappled shadows of trees across the ground.
The Council Hall's decision had already spread. Xiao Yan returned silently to his room and lit the oil lamp on the table. Its dim yellow flame flickered, casting his forlorn silhouette onto the wall.
He dragged a worn wooden chest out from beneath his bed and began packing in silence. A few changes of clothes, some medicinal powders for treating injuries, and a small pouch of money his father had slipped him in private.
His movements were slow, even sluggish. Every item he picked up seemed to tug at a thousand tangled thoughts in his heart. Leaving home had been his own decision, yet when the moment finally arrived, a complicated emotion he could not put into words still welled up within him.
Just then, a translucent figure drifted soundlessly out of the ring he wore. Yao Lao hovered in midair with one hand behind his back, watching Xiao Yan pack with interest while bouncing a small money pouch in his other hand. The crisp jingling from within made it clear that these were his spoils from the wager.
"Well, finally decided to get lost? I thought you were going to lie around in the Xiao Clan until the earth grew old and the heavens crumbled. What, did that sworn elder brother of yours beat some sense into you?"
"Would you stop blabbering!"
Xiao Yan snapped back irritably and shoved a folded garment into the chest with a muffled thump. He was already in a foul mood and had no time to trade barbs with this old fellow.
He rose to fetch another outer robe hanging on the