Morning light filtered through the half-shuttered window, gilding Huo Yuhao's eyelashes. He slowly opened his eyes and glanced at the scraps of cloth scattered across the floor, belatedly realizing he was nearly naked.
The bedding rustled beside him. He turned to see Ma Xiaotao curled up in the corner of the bed, her blanket-wrapped figure taut as a bow and the tips of her ears a suspicious shade of red.
Huo Yuhao's Adam's apple bobbed, and he nimbly rolled out of bed. The moment his fingers slipped into his storage bag, silver light flashed, and he was neatly dressed in a snow-white shirt and black trousers.
The shirt was soft, embroidered with fine, subtle patterns in silver thread. It was a personal garment he had commissioned from a workshop in the Heavenly Soul Empire. Tailored to his figure, it gave his upright frame an even more refined appearance.
"Junior Huo Yuhao." Ma Xiaotao suddenly spoke, her voice muffled as though it came from deep inside the bedding. She slowly raised her head, loose strands of hair falling across her cheeks, but a probing sharpness shone in her eyes. Hesitantly, she said, "Um, I want to ask you something. Why did you help me? It couldn't have been entirely because of Old Yan. When I went to your stall to buy grilled fish that day, you'd already noticed, hadn't you..."
She paused, her chest rising and falling with each breath. "But you were still willing to help me. You released that ice-attribute presence, and Old Yan hadn't come to you yet."
Huo Yuhao unconsciously rubbed the cuff of his shirt, complicated emotions churning in his eyes. How could he explain? What could I say? That we knew each other in our previous lives? That Dean Yan promised me a hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins a month when he asked me? I don't know how to answer you.
"Why..." he repeated softly, bitterness rising in his throat. Wind swept the gauzy curtains up, stretching their shadows long across the wall. "Actually, I'd like to know too." He raised his head, his gaze candid yet concealing a deeper meaning. "But there's something more important than the reason-being able to suppress the Evil Fire. For you and for Shrek, isn't that the best outcome?"
Ma Xiaotao bit her lower lip and lowered her eyes to the folds in the bedding. "So... the reason you helped me is because you're a good person?"
Huo Yuhao smiled bitterly to himself. If only it could be put down to kindness so simply. It was merely a regret from his previous life. Whenever the present overlapped with his memories of what had happened after she turned dark, he always felt a trace of irritation. "Nothing special." He shrugged, his tone deliberately light. "I just couldn't stand seeing a pretty senior suffer from an illness. My heart softened for a moment, that's all."
His words were half true and half false. I've seen your suffering once, so this time I don't want you to follow the same disastrous path again, even if this kindness wears an ambiguous guise. Seeing the doubt flickering in Ma Xiaotao's eyes, he silently added, Once your crisis is resolved, I hope you can truly live for yourself.
Huo Yuhao suddenly turned, his eyes bright as stars as he looked at Ma Xiaotao wrapped in the bedding. "Senior, did you know? A true phoenix can never be burned to death." He walked slowly to the window, moonlight tracing his refined profile. "When it is reborn from the flames, it sheds its old feathers and grows even more magnificent new plumage. Every feather shines with a radiance close to the sun's."
Ma Xiaotao stared at him in a daze, her fingers trembling slightly beneath the bedding. All these years, she had fought the Evil Fire within her alone, tormented on countless nights by pain that scorched her heart and ate into her bones. Yet no one had ever looked at her predicament this way.
"To have endured until now through your own will, senior, you're far stronger inside than I imagined." Huo Yuhao turned his head, his eyes full of sincerity. "A lot of people would have broken down long ago in the face of such pain, but you didn't. That's truly remarkable."
"Yuhao... junior," Ma Xiaotao murmured, her voice choked with emotion she hadn't noticed herself. She had always believed that no one in the world could truly understand her torment, that she could only swallow those lonely moments of being scorched by the Evil Fire on her own.
Huo Yuhao suddenly gave her a warm smile, like the spring sun driving away the chill lingering in the room. "I believe you'll become a true phoenix. Until then, let me help you." He shrugged as though it were nothing. "After all, I was born to meddle in other people's affairs."
His gaze grew resolute. "I'll find a way to deal with the Evil Fire once and for all. I won't let you go through that kind of pain again." With that, he turned to leave, his white shirt fluttering gently in the breeze beneath the moonlight.
"Wait!" Ma Xiaotao suddenly called, an urgency she hadn't noticed herself in her voice.
Huo Yuhao stopped and looked back at her. "Was there something else, senior?"
"Why..." Ma Xiaotao hesitated, a blush spreading across her cheeks. "Why are you so good to me?"
Huo Yuhao froze for a moment, then smiled. "A phoenix should soar freely through the heavens, and you should be the one in control of your own life, senior. Go after the sky that belongs to you. Use your wings and fly to your heart's content."
Watching the young man's retreating figure, Ma Xiaotao felt her heart inexplicably quicken. Was this love at first sight? The moment Huo Yuhao turned away, her gaze unconsciously cast a soft glow over him. Those gentle words and steadfast promises now became fine vines, quietly winding around her heart.
Huo Yuhao left in a hurry, secretly anxious. The bells of the Time Sea of Consciousness kept booming in the depths of his mind, urging him back. As soon as he entered the dormitory, he went straight into the Time Sea of Consciousness, only to find that the vortex hadn't formed yet?
Meanwhile, elsewhere
Inside Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness, strange ripples suddenly spread through the tranquil space. A chaotic mass of gray light slowly emerged, spreading like ink dropped into clear water. Wisps of gray power leaked outward, sending waves rippling through the clear mental space wherever they passed.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, floating in midair, suddenly trembled violently. An uneasy light flickered over his platinum-white body.
"Yuhao's cultivation has been getting stranger and stranger lately..." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm circled the mass of light, his antennae swaying uneasily. "This Sea of Consciousness has always been empty, and there's been no movement from that old man either..."
Suddenly, his voice cut off. His eyes went round as he stared fixedly at the gathering gray mass. The faint outline of a human figure was taking shape within it, and a powerful gray pressure spread outward like a tide.
The instant that vast presence emerged, Huo Yuhao, who was preparing to enter the time vortex, shuddered, and the power of space and time flowing around him instantly froze. He whirled around, his pupils narrowing slightly in shock, and fixed his hawklike gaze on the source of the gray presence.
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, meanwhile, recoiled again and again as though gripped by a giant invisible hand. In his panic, he slammed into the barrier of the Sea of Consciousness with a bang and shrieked in alarm, "What the hell is that?! How dare you scare your Brother Sky Dream!"
He turned his head indignantly, only to see Huo Yuhao surrounded by a grave presence, staring in the direction of the gray figure. "Yuhao? It's you! You nearly scared my soul out of me!" The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had only just sighed in relief when he hurried over, his antennae trembling as he pointed them at the gray mist. "That old man! He... he's awakened!"
"I know." Huo Yuhao's voice was low and firm, though he could hardly hide the excitement in his eyes. He took a deep breath and slowly walked toward the gray mist. Each step felt as though it landed on his own heartbeat, while memories of the past flooded back like a tide...
When Huo Yuhao reached the figure formed from the gray mist, he spoke with the utmost respect, his voice almost trembling. "Teacher!"
The gray mist gradually coalesced into an old man with silver hair falling to his shoulders. Though his features were somewhat indistinct, he possessed an otherworldly bearing. Electrolux frowned slightly, his eyes full of confusion. "Little fellow, although I can't remember many things right now, I've only just entered your Sea of Consciousness. How could I be your teacher?"
Huo Yuhao did not answer. Instead, he closed his eyes and lightly touched a fingertip to his brow. Incantations spilled from his lips, ancient runes lit up around him, and a dense presence of death surged forth, stirring up towering waves in the Sea of Consciousness.
"This is... Necromancy!" Electrolux's pupils contracted sharply, and even his figure could not help swaying slightly. "How could you possibly know Necromancy?"
"Because I am your student." Huo Yuhao raised his head and said, "Teacher, you were the one who taught me Necromancy." He raised his hand again, and more incantations poured forth, accompanied by intense mental fluctuations.
Everything he had experienced on the Douluo Continent, along with Electrolux's final instructions before his death, flooded into the fragment of the old man's divine consciousness like a tide.