Chapter 112 The cloth in my hand was icy cold and slippery...

The fabric in my hand was cold and slippery, like the gaze cast by the young man standing in the sunlight before me as he turned back.

Xie Baoqiong's hand loosened for a moment, then suddenly tightened again.

Until the fabric in his palm was warmed by the silk, the young man, forced to stop, slowly raised his indifferent gaze from the crumpled fabric he had been clutching, and placed it on the boy's stubborn face, his tone revealing neither joy nor anger:

"Has no one taught you how to address your elders?"

Seeing that Xie Baoqiong still had a dazed expression, he murmured something under his breath:

"So it really is because of the stone..."

Xie Baoqiong struggled for a long time, unable to figure out how to address the young man before him. The complex web of human kinship was far too difficult for a stone to comprehend. His cheeks, already flushed from being sullen under the covers, turned even redder. Before the young man could push his hand away, he finally managed to utter three words:

"Senior Lin, where are the people who were with me?"

A flicker of surprise and disdain crossed Lin An's eyes as he was addressed as "senior." A smile, different from the one he had seen at the hunting grounds in the capital, curved his lips. He raised his hand and pinched the face that bore a striking resemblance to Shuang Mu's.

"Call me 'Grandpa' and let me hear it."

Xie Baoqiong was filled with strange emotions, but in order to inquire about Qi Gui's whereabouts, he hesitated for a moment before speaking:

"Grandpa..."

The pressure on his chin loosened, moving upwards and brushing against his cheek, his fair fingers curiously pinching the soft flesh of his face.

The young man was very close to him, so close that he could see the individual eyelashes fluttering and his own reflection in those indifferent yet kind almond-shaped eyes.

Xie Baoqiong took a good look at Lin An for the first time. She could see a resemblance to Lin Yu in his face, but compared to Lin Yu, he was more robust and younger. Both of them came from privileged backgrounds and were close in age, yet time had left different marks on them. Lin Yu's hair had turned gray, and the fine lines around his eyes were hard to hide, while the young man in front of her had a full head of black hair and looked even younger than Xie Zhuo.

The hand on his face and the face in front of him were moved away together, but the dark glint in Lin An's eyes did not disappear:

"The person you mentioned was taken away by the Yu'an Guard who were pursuing him."

Xie Baoqiong recalled the cause of her coma, her face momentarily blank, before she spoke rapidly:

"Will he be in trouble? Why is the Yu'an Guard hunting down that person?"

"If you want to know, I can have someone come and answer your questions one by one."

The young man withdrew his hand from his chest, the fingers that had pinched his face curled slightly, his thumb rubbing his fingertips, his face returning to indifference. If the sleeve hadn't still been in his hand, he would have left by now.

Xie Baoqiong's fingers, gripping the embroidery on his sleeve, stopped dwelling on the topic and looked up, puzzled, asking:

"Since you are Shuangmu's master and know his identity, why don't you send him back to me and Xie Zhuo's side..." He paused, not rashly asking about Shuangmu's background, and continued, "You also know my identity, so why do you want me to call you by the name that Shuangmu should address?"

Lin An pulled his sleeves away, a casual, playful look appearing in his eyes, which resembled Lin An's.

"Because after meeting you, I realized I had made a mistake."

Then the young man bent down and patted his head affectionately like an elder: "Get some rest."

Having said that, he turned and left.

—

Xie Baoqiong certainly wouldn't stay inside to rest as Lin An had suggested. Almost as soon as Lin An left, he was secretly taken out of the room.

After leaving the room and leaping onto the wall, he realized that the view he had seen from the window moments before was not the whole picture. The courtyard he was standing on was located on a mountaintop, with greenery spreading across the mountain, while the surrounding mountains were dominated by red maples, a blend of two seasons in his eyes.

Light footsteps came from under the wall. Xie Baoqiong lowered his head and met the eyes of two passing servants. The two servants seemed even more nervous than him. They hurriedly lowered their heads and bowed to him. It was unclear whether Lin An had instructed them to address him as "Young Master" instead of "Shuangmu".

Xie Baoqiong waved to them and jumped down to the other side of the wall. Having witnessed the attitude of the two people earlier, he did not choose to avoid them and explore the dwelling.

As expected, he encountered almost no obstacles along the way. People would stop what they were doing and lower their heads to make way for him the moment they saw him. Apart from being stopped at the main gate and a secluded courtyard, he even went inside Lin An's residence for a stroll.

Bored?

When Lin An was seen again, he had changed his outer garment. The dark purple robe was woven with regular patterns and draped over the young man's shoulders. Maids, like dolls, surrounded the young man. The young man leaned against a carved wooden chair covered with fur, propped his chin up, and glanced at him through the swirling smoke of incense.

Xie Baoqiong stepped over the threshold and stopped where the sunlight could reach, not going any further inside: "Uncle, I want to go out and find my friend."

Lin An leaned back lazily in her chair, as if she hadn't heard him, and waved to the side:

"Find a few people to play with him."

"yes."

A voice came from the shadows, but Xie Baoqiong looked around and saw no one.

He took a step towards the young man, and a rich aroma of agarwood mixed with a light herbal scent wafted towards him. Like the scent on Lin An, the strong aroma made him twitch his nose.

"I don't want to find someone to hang out with, I want to find Qi Gui."

The maidservant beside the young man made way for him to stand by the chair.

Lin An stretched out her hand, her fingers, still cool in the warm room, brushing against the boy's soft, delicate cheek, stroking it gently as if stroking a feather. Her words, mingled with the rich fragrance in the room, sounded intimate and tender:

"Xiao Bao, what's different?"

The same address, but the breath each person exhaled was different. The intimate address that Xie Zhuo used became annoying when Lin An used it.

Xie Baoqiong slapped the hand off her face and took a step back: "Of course they're different."

Although no red marks appeared on his fair hands, the young man's face darkened, and the maids around him immediately fell silent and held their breath, their auras becoming even more restrained, almost imperceptible.

Why can't you be as well-behaved as Shuangmu?

The young man withdrew his hand that had been slapped away, and remained seated back in his chair, but a force pushed him back to stand up beside the chair.

"Xie Zhuo really spoils you too much."

Having just regained her footing, Xie Baoqiong heard another name mentioned, and the slight annoyance she felt spread outwards. Without flinching, she spoke:

"I'm not Shuangmu."

Upon hearing his disrespectful tone, the young man's gloomy expression suddenly brightened. He stared into the man's eyes, his gaze shifting, and he relaxed back in his chair, the corners of his mouth widening and turning slightly upward, but he did not reveal the truth.

Lin An bent his fingers and tapped them twice on the armrest of the chair, speaking quite magnanimously:

"If you want a little bird, just catch another one."

He raised his hand, pointed to a maid, and then to a pole in the shadows beside him, where a birdcage made of gold thread hung, but there was no bird in the cage:

"Take him to catch a bird."

The maid who was pointed at responded, stepped forward to remove the birdcage, and then gently coaxed Xie Baoqiong, whose face was solemn:

"Young master, let's go out."

—

The maid was very agile, and soon she caught a sparrow foraging for food in a corner of the eaves and put it into a golden cage.

Xie Baoqiong watched this scene with little interest, then turned to look at the gate leading down the mountain not far away. It was he who had asked to come here to catch birds not long ago.

"Young master." A maid suddenly appeared, blocking his view. "We've caught the little bird. Let me take you to get some food for it."

A golden birdcage was handed to me, and a gray sparrow stood crookedly on the pole in the center of the cage, looking completely out of place with the golden cage.

Although the maid said she was going to take him to get food for the little bird, she wouldn't take him to places like the kitchen or warehouse. Instead, she sent him back to the courtyard where he had woken up and instructed others to bring him a bag of millet.

Golden millet, as yellow as gold, was placed in a jar in front of him. Just as Xie Baoqiong was about to reach out and grab a handful, a maid handed him a long spoon for him to use.

He had just dipped the long ladle filled with millet into the cage when the sparrows inside, with their big black eyes wide open, seemed to belatedly realize what they had lost. They fluttered their wings and crashed around in the cage, overturning the long ladle filled with millet.

The sound of golden rice grains scattering on the bottom of the plate and birds swatting at their cages mingled together in a chaotic mix.

Even as night fell, the chaotic sounds continued to echo in Xie Baoqiong's heart. He sat up, clutching his chest, his heart pounding.

He turned his head to the side; the golden cage containing sparrows was covered with a cloth and hung next to the partition screen.

Xie Baoqiong put on his shoes and got out of bed. By the moonlight, he groped his way to the golden cage. He lifted the cloth covering it, and found that the millet scattered inside had been cleaned up. The food box and water jug ​​had been filled with food and water, but they remained untouched.

The sparrow, which had been energetically bumping against the railing during the day, was now listless, its smooth feathers disheveled. Its beady black eyes glanced at him dejectedly, and as if sensing a shared plight, it hopped a step toward him.

A bright light suddenly appeared behind me:

"Young master, why did you get up?"

Xie Baoqiong turned around and saw that it was the maid left behind by Lin An, and the sparrow that had shrunk back into the corner beside her:

"I'll play with it for a while, you can go out now."

The maid glanced at it in the light, but without suspicion, she left the lamp behind and went out.

The door clicked shut. Xie Baoqiong glanced at the half-open window, took down the cage, placed it on the table, and ripped off the outer cloth. He rummaged through his sleeve and found a ribbon-shaped magical artifact; he remembered that this artifact could increase movement speed.

Brown birds, bathed in the moonlight, took flight on the wind, their gray markings reflecting a unique light under the moon.

Xie Baoqiong chased after a sparrow flapping its wings, leaping over the window and running towards his freedom:

"My little bird has run away, catch it quickly!"

The people in the room, who were already watching his movements, became alert when they saw him climb out of the window. The moment he made a sound, some of them chased after the birds.

However, the sparrow enhanced by the magical artifact was clearly no longer the small bird that could be caught at will. In addition, Xie Baoqiong kept saying that she wanted the sparrow. Before long, the whole courtyard was in chaos.

The culprit who caused all of this seized the moment when everyone's attention was not on him, and disappeared without a trace, heading straight for the mountain gate.

Now that he knows that Lin An is behind Shuang Mu, he's not going to be foolish enough to stay on the other side's turf.

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Author's Note: I'm considering changing the title after the main story is finished.