Both masks covered only part of the face, but the areas they covered and their materials differed. One was entirely metal and relatively simple in craftsmanship, consisting of just two outspread wings that concealed the eyes.
The other was more elaborate, crafted from white porcelain. Besides wings, it bore dark red patterns he could not decipher, and fine cracks beneath the white porcelain gave it an even more mysterious air. Even the ties were threaded with hollow gold rings and green agate. The bridge of the nose marked its boundary; everything below it was concealed, leaving only the brow and eye at the upper left exposed.
Almost without hesitation, Pei Qing reached for the one with the simpler design.
The other was a little too exquisite.
Lou Yun, however, gave the young man no room to choose. She picked up the white porcelain mask and put it on him with unquestionable resolve.
"Wait!" The young man turned, and the cold touch had already reached his cheek.
The carriage was cramped to begin with. In helping him put on the mask, Lou Yun already had him half enclosed in her arms, and now he had turned around without a care.
The mask fitted over the young man's face, revealing only eyes that should have looked cool and otherworldly. Its intricate splendor inexplicably transformed their usual distant air into something coldly alluring and bewitching.
The tassel earring on his right ear complemented the mask perfectly, not to mention the pale purple robes Pei Qing wore that day.
"This one is too ornate," Pei Qing protested, touching the mask.
"It isn't." Lou Yun picked up the two ties, her gaze intent, and reached behind his head to knot them.
The delicate, secluded fragrance of magnolia mingled with tranquil white sandalwood and wafted toward him. It lacked the cloying sweetness usually found on young women, yet it inexplicably made Pei Qing's heart skip a beat.
He distinctly remembered A Zi saying that young women always smelled gentle and sweet. He tilted his head to sniff lightly, then suddenly realized he was behaving like a lecher. He promptly turned into a peach blossom cake fresh from the steamer, red all over.
"This mask suits you."
Before the person leaning over him noticed his loss of composure, he murmured, "Mm."
Absorbed in tying his mask, Lou Yun truly did not notice that someone had lost himself over her.
She curled a finger and knocked twice on the wooden door. The carriage stopped at the sound.
"Your Highness?"
"The Imperial Preceptor and I will stroll around. Find somewhere nearby to park the carriage and wait."
"Yes."
Lou Yun got out first. Standing beside the carriage, she kept her attention on the spies and instinctively held out a hand, waiting for the person inside to step down.
When Pei Qing lifted the curtain, he saw Lou Yun dressed in black brocade, golden wings covering her face, her tall, slender figure standing amid the surging sea of people.
After waiting a long while without receiving his hand, Lou Yun looked back and extended hers again. "Aren't you coming down, sir?"
Dazed by the way Lou Yun addressed him, Pei Qing took the woman's hand and climbed down in a stupor.
"Sir?"
"You are the teacher of all under heaven. Nothing could be more fitting than calling you sir."
Those words were plainly correct, yet an inexplicable disappointment rose in Pei Qing's heart. Only sir?
Ying Yi was driving that day. Seeing his master appear in a mask had stirred little reaction in him, but when Pei Qing emerged behind her wearing a matching mask, surprise visibly flashed across his face. He was now absolutely certain that his earlier guess had been right.
His master really did have feelings for the Imperial Preceptor. Otherwise, she would never have let him wear the pavilion master's token.
The Feather Pavilion was Lou Yun's own enterprise. Beyond the shadow guards who usually protected her, it also encompassed commerce, intelligence, mercenary dealings, and more.
Raven feathers and those patterns were the Feather Pavilion's insignia. Lou Yun had ordered her subordinates to make several masks for convenience when going out. The metal mask would have sufficed, but finding the white porcelain mask's craftsmanship truly exceptional, she had kept it as well. They had hoped to see their master wear that mask herself someday and behold her elegance, never imagining that the master's man would wear it first. Still, their wish to admire a beautiful sight had been fulfilled.
Lou Yun admitted that having Pei Qing wear the mask had indeed been something of a whim. It was only a mask, after all. Apart from making it easier to move through her businesses, it was nowhere near enough to command the Feather Pavilion.
The scene he had imagined-leading Lou Yun around and explaining things, then watching with a smile as the young woman marveled at her first trip outside the palace-never materialized.
Instead, Lou Yun kept pulling him along and asking:
"Do you enjoy watching acrobatics, sir?"
"No, I just thought it must have taken considerable hard work to reach that level."
"If you feel their lives are difficult, sir, you can put some money in that bowl."
Pei Qing instinctively reached into his pocket for a hundred-tael banknote, but Lou Yun swiftly caught his wrist. She turned his palm upward, and a few copper coins dropped into it.
"Use these, sir."
"Like this?"
The young man in the white porcelain mask bent down. The gold threads on his ties and the tassel on his ear gleamed beneath the red candles hanging high overhead. A jade-like arm emerged from his pale purple sleeve, and two or three copper coins slipped from his fingertips into the chipped porcelain bowl. The curiosity and compassion in his eyes made him seem like a deity untouched by mortal life, bestowing mercy upon the world.
Lou Yun seemed to have become that deity's most devout believer, guiding an innocent god on his first descent to bestow blessings upon the world in a mortal way.
Her breath caught. By the time she came to her senses, she had already covered the young man's hand with hers. She heard herself tell him in an unsteady voice, "That will do."
Taking Pei Qing's hand, she pulled him away from the noisy crowd.
"Thank you, immortal! Thank you, immortal!"
Behind them, the acrobat kept calling out his thanks.
What was there to thank him for? Plenty of people had given more than Pei Qing. Why did he only remember to thank him?
Even after the man disappeared from sight, Lou Yun could not calm herself.
She did not know where to begin. She only felt that Pei Qing had been far away from her just then, very far away, as though he might shed his mortal form and ascend to immortality the very next moment.
A casual complaint Lou Ze'an had once made to her about Pei Qing rang in her mind. "Our Imperial Preceptor is wonderful in every way, except that he doesn't seem quite human. If someone told me one day that he had perfected his merits, attained the Dao, and ascended to heaven, I wouldn't even be surprised."
At the time, she had merely thought Lou Ze'an was talking nonsense. Yet the sight just now had truly startled her into a sweat.
"What's wrong?"
Pei Qing clasped Lou Yun's trembling fingertips. They were unbelievably cold.
Chapter 15
"Nothing."
Pei Qing wanted to press her further, but seeing that Lou Yun had returned to normal, he could only let it go.
Whether both had forgotten or someone was deliberately ignoring it, the hands they had clasped earlier still had not parted.
Eventually, they reached a stream some distance from the market streets, where there were considerably fewer people.
Pei Qing suddenly let go and crouched before a small stall.
Lou Yun silently regarded her empty palm, then put her hands behind her back and watched to see what the person who had suddenly run off intended to do.
"Granny, how much is this?"
The stallholder was an elderly woman whose eyesight and hearing both seemed to be failing.
She turned toward the voice. "Huh? Speak louder, miss."
Good-naturedly, Pei Qing brought his head close to her ear and asked again, "I said, how much is this straw basket?"
The young man held a basket woven from straw cord and bamboo strips.
"Oh, oh. Everything on the stall is three copper coins."
Having received an answer, the young man prepared to pay, only to discover that he did not have three copper coins. He turned around, raised his head, and looked imploringly at Lou Yun.
Lou Yun chuckled, and the little anger she felt at being abandoned vanished just like that. She took three copper coins from inside her robes and placed them in his hand, only for him to shake his head and mouth, "Do you have any broken silver?"
Understanding, Lou Yun added a little broken silver. The young man took the money, first placing the three copper coins in the old woman's palm, then slipping the silver into her purse as she opened it to put the coins away.
"Thank you, Granny."
The old woman saw them off with a cheerful smile, adding a blessing as they left. "May you and your sweetheart be of one heart forever, miss."
At that, neither knew whether to laugh or cry.
Yet as Lou Yun walked beside the young man, the corners of her lips lifted slightly. Of one heart forever? A fine phrase.
Noticing the person beside him warming in spirits, a trace of a smile flashed through Pei Qing's eyes as well.
As long as she was happy.
"By the way, why did you buy a bamboo basket?"
Pei Qing's residence did not seem like somewhere that would have a use for such a thing.
"This bamboo basket is very finely woven, using a method I don't know. I'll take it apart when I get back and make Youyou a new bed."
"Youyou?"
"Mm, the orange cat in the courtyard. You should have seen it. It likes playing in the courtyard and sleeps right there when it gets tired. Last time, it broke its bed jumping all over it. This bamboo basket looks sturdier than the ones I weave, so I thought I'd improve all their beds when I get back."
"You wove all those things in your courtyard yourself?"
"Mm."
"With such skillful hands, sir, those little creatures are truly fortunate."
Embarrassed by Lou Yun's praise, Pei Qing said bashfully, "They're just little things I make when I have nothing to do."
Thinking of the lively scene in Pei Qing's courtyard, Lou Yun asked curiously, "Could the Imperial Preceptor truly be an immortal descended to earth?"
"What nonsense are you talking?" The young man looked startled, as though he might come over and cover her mouth at any moment.
"Then how can you make all those beasts live in harmony?"
Hearing the teasing in Lou Yun's words, Pei Qing sighed, looking quite helpless. "I put a great deal of effort into it. Little Green thinks about catching and eating Little White every day. I don't know how many times Little Green bit me while I was trying to keep Little White from being eaten."
Back then, the medicine he always carried was for treating snake venom.
"The big cat was always thinking about eating its companions, too. I had to pin it down and beat it for ages before they would get along in the courtyard."
"If it was so troublesome, why keep them?"
A trace of loneliness appeared in the young man's eyes. "At first, I only kept cats. Later, some were brought by A Zi and the others to keep me entertained, and some I rescued after leaving the palace. As I kept raising them, I ended up putting them together."
"Oh, and I have a golden eagle, too. It flew off to play a while ago. When it comes back, I'll introduce you to it, Your Highness."