Only when he stepped out of the tower and the crisp night wind struck his face, finally dispersing the lingering, cloying fragrance of the Soul-Devouring Pearl, did the forced coldness on Yun Huang's face ease a little. A belated warmth crept up behind his ears.
His steps gradually slowed. The frozen fury in his Golden Pupils began to thaw, replaced by a complex swell of emotion.
No one understood the power of the Soul-Devouring Pearl better than he did.
Absurd though the outcome of today's "interrogation" had been, Yun Qing's emotional collapse had been rooted in his own heart, even if an outside force had drawn it out. That surging sense of grievance, that profound fear, that unreserved dependence... none of it had been feigned.
Those tearful eyes had reflected nothing but shattered sincerity. The more composed and restrained a person ordinarily was, the more their vulnerability struck straight at the heart when they broke down.
"If he had no genuine feelings at all, even with the Soul-Devouring Pearl guiding him, he might not have displayed such..." Yun Huang frowned, unusually at a loss for words. "...Such 'idiocy.'"
"He did conceal things, but he also truly..." Yun Huang murmured to himself. The last few words dissolved into the night wind, unheard even by him.
Perhaps, so long as certain lines remained uncrossed and certain feelings were genuine, there was no need to dig quite so relentlessly to the root of everything.
Enough.
Yun Huang gazed toward the approaching dawn on the horizon. Those reddened, tearful eyes and that sobbing "Little brother Huang" flashed through his mind once again, beyond his control. Some of the anger knotted in his heart finally dispersed without a sound.
Dis... dispersed?
Sensing an unusual fluctuation from the Immortal-Sealing Tower, Yun Huang's heart suddenly skipped a beat.
When a child goes quiet, mischief is surely afoot!
What was Yun Qing up to now?!
Inside the Immortal-Sealing Tower, the light was dim, and the higher one went, the stronger the suppressive force became.
Returning to the Immortal-Sealing Tower once more, Yun Huang arrived at the entrance to the quiet chamber on the Third Level with distinctly "un"hurried composure.
The heavy door was tightly shut, cutting off the inside from the outside.
Yun Huang stood motionless before it, without immediately pushing it open. His Golden Pupils were fathomless, and his spiritual sense had already seeped through the door like invisible water, silently taking in everything within.
The quiet chamber was small. Soul-calming dark jade in its four walls gave off a faint, cold glow, though it no longer possessed the top floor's brutal intensity. A stone bed and a stone table stood in the center, simple furnishings. Yet the table held a complete set of brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, along with several dishes of spirit fruit and Spirit Tea.
Rather than a prison cell, this place resembled a quiet chamber meant for peaceful cultivation.
Yun Qing had evidently recovered considerably from his initial collapse. The Soul-Devouring Pearl's influence was fading, though he could hardly be called clearheaded yet.
At that moment, he sat cross-legged before the table, one hand supporting his temple, his brows slightly knitted as he sank into thought.
"Strange... what was I planning just now?" His sea of consciousness was still a little unsettled, his thoughts like a kite with its string snapped.
"Right, that Little Golden Crow has quite a temper. I'm afraid he's truly angry this time. Ordinary apologies and pleas for forgiveness probably won't work..." He labored to gather his scattered wits and began analyzing the situation with a convincing air, utterly unaware that he had already strayed three thousand miles off course.
"I must think of something he can't refuse, something to draw him out so I can see him."
Yun Qing vaguely remembered having privately considered that, despite Yun Huang's seemingly innate majesty and cold decisiveness, deep down he harbored a barely perceptible... fondness for literature and an aloof, refined sensibility.
His usual clothes and accessories were invariably exquisite, and even the occasional few words he uttered often carried a poetic quality. The last time Yun Qing had answered him in verse at the Martial Arena, although Yun Huang had said nothing, Yun Qing had sensed the aura around him soften a little.
"Perhaps appealing to his tastes will move him?" Yun Qing thought this an excellent plan, never once questioning why his restraints were now gone, his surroundings had changed, and his treatment had improved...
He picked up the lustrous white, warm-to-the-touch Heart-Telepathic Jade Brush from the table and spread out the supple Cloud-Heart Paper. After a moment's consideration, he swept the brush across it.
At first, his brushwork remained fairly steady, his lines orderly. He wrote verses such as "Should this body be bathed in radiant light, I would become the endless wind around my emperor's gates," and "Gladly would I be a step beneath my emperor's feet, never regretting loyal blood spilled upon his crimson court." They proclaimed his devotion and begged forgiveness. Earnest though his words were, humble though his posture was, they still fell within the bounds of "explaining himself and declaring loyalty."
Yet those who entrusted their feelings to poetry were most easily moved by their surroundings. All the more so when Yun Qing's mind had not yet fully settled. In that silence and solitude, many complicated emotions buried deep within him, which even he had never examined closely, quietly began to ferment.
As he wrote, those utterly unruffled Golden Pupils with which Yun Huang had cast him into the Immortal-Sealing Tower rose unbidden before him.
Sorrow welled up from within, impossible to stem.
Thinking it over carefully, although their brotherhood had begun with Yun Qing's meticulous scheming, Yun Huang had truly given him an immense sense of security in this cruel world, where strength ruled supreme and death and the annihilation of one's cultivation could come at any moment.
One of this world's mightiest beings was willing to stand behind him and catch him whenever he fell, and that man was his younger brother. To Yun Qing, who had known little familial warmth in either his previous life or this one, that bond held an indescribable allure and sense of belonging.
As the performance continued, the false play had become true feeling. Without genuine sincerity, how could he have fooled an Immortal Emperor's eyes, which saw through the ages?
The more Yun Qing thought, the more miserable he became, and warm moisture once again gathered in his eyes. His brushwork slipped out of control with it, becoming plaintive and lingering. Before he knew it, he had veered completely onto the wayward path of... boudoir lament poetry.
He likened himself to a beauty who had lost favor deep within the palace, writing things like "My lord's grace, once sunlight, turns to autumn shade; locked in deepest cold, I do not resent its depths," and "Your handmaid begs a little of your radiance, to light my lonely sleep within this tower"... The more he wrote, the more absorbed he became, and the more his heart ached.
Yun Qing was utterly immersed in the poignantly beautiful, mournful scene he had created, his tears pattering down in time with his verses.
Yet he remained wholly oblivious, his writing only growing faster. He casually tossed aside sheet after sheet covered in lingering, sorrowful pleas, scattering them across the floor among stray tears and splattered ink. The resulting mess exuded a bizarre frenzy of "creation."
Outside the door, Yun Huang: "..."
He felt his face twitch for what must have been the umpteenth time that day. The last scrap of cold severity he had forcibly maintained finally crumbled before this utterly absurd spectacle, shattering until not even dust remained.
This was beyond endurance!
"Enough!"
A shout laden with shock, irritation, and a trace of... embarrassment suddenly exploded through the quiet chamber! The heavy Black Iron Door was shoved open, striking the wall with a dull reverberation!
Yun Huang entered with the light behind him, his black robe stirring in his wake. First, he fiercely glared at the culprit, who looked up in bewilderment, eyes red and face streaked with tears, still holding his brush. Then his gaze fell upon the "unfit-to-be-seen" poems covering the table and floor. A few lines were even especially explicit!
Perhaps Yun Qing had guessed correctly after all, for the very first words Yun Huang ground out through clenched teeth were, "Your last line doesn't rhyme!"
The instant he said it, Yun Huang himself wanted to abandon all decorum and press a hand to his forehead. Why on earth was he arguing poetic meter with an elder brother who was under the Soul-Devouring Pearl's influence and crying as he wrote boudoir laments?!
Yun Qing was completely stunned by this head-on barrage of "literary criticism." The Heart-Telepathic Jade Brush fell from his hand onto the table with a clatter, splashing a few drops of ink. He looked utterly helpless at having his "poetic inspiration" abruptly interrupted, seemingly not yet fully recovered from his "creative state."
At the sight of him, the nameless fire in Yun Huang's heart flared higher and higher, yet he had nowhere to vent it. He could only sweep his sleeve in frustration and fling out, "Honeyed words and ingratiating airs, nothing but ridiculous verses! You may be spared death, but punishment you shall not escape! You will remain confined here for a hundred years! When you regain your senses, we will discuss this again!"
Having said that, he truly did not want to look at Yun Qing's peculiar appearance any longer, nor could he be bothered to clear away that pile of "evidence." He tossed the previously confiscated Silent Abyss Spear back to Yun Qing, then turned and left, his black sleeve tracing a sharp arc.
Only, as he left, he seemed to have forgotten to close the quiet chamber's... door?
The heavy door of the quiet chamber remained ajar, opening the way out of the Immortal-Sealing Tower.
Like a silent invitation...
Thank you to Mogui for gifting five update-request talismans!
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