At daybreak, a green shadow flashed over the Vermilion Palace Walls of Daming Palace.
A man in green robes, his hair disheveled at the temples, clambered hurriedly over the palace wall, carrying his shoes in his hands. After racing barefoot over eaves and walls for a while, he stopped on the roof of a secluded house and sat hugging his knees. Gazing at the countless roofs of Chang'an City, packed together like comb teeth and fish scales, he sat dazed, his soul wandering far from his body.
All those countless sensual dreams he had once been too ashamed to speak of had come true. He had forgotten how he had been captured last night, and could not understand why he had fled in such panic today. Everything had sunk into a magnificent, chaotic whirlpool.
He remembered only her moist, shimmering eyes and burning skin, and the scars on her wrist beneath her bracelets. Those marks were rough and uneven, left by wounds that had broken open again and again. When his fingertips brushed over them, he had deliberately asked about them. Only then had he understood: his survival had been neither luck nor accident.
The phoenix embryo-after he had lost consciousness at Fenglong Temple, she had nourished him with her blood and tears. Once the poisonous blood had drained away and he had taken the fresh medicinal catalyst, Zhou Qingyang's Elixir Recipe had finally taken true effect, granting him a new life.
She had held his soul in place with her tears, then reshaped his body with her flesh and blood.
While Wei Xun sat on the roof, lost in a bewildered haze of passion, a tall, fierce-looking woman with a heroic air quietly followed him up.
Huo Qilang had been keeping watch nearby for days, and had finally caught