Chapter 85 The tall, red pine tree stands amidst the madness…

The tall, red pine crane stood before the table, which resembled a raging storm, and disdainfully picked up a shapeless wad of cloth above it and shook it.

Only the bright floral pattern on top proved that this was an outer robe he had worn not long ago.

The fabric unfolds and returns to its original shape.

With a flick of his fingertips, the outer robe in his hand moved without wind, broke free from his grasp, and flew to the clothes rack to hang up neatly.

"Come in."

Without turning his head, Chishong suddenly spoke.

Xie Baoqiong, who was peeking in from the doorway, glanced around at the empty surroundings and knew that the words were directed at him.

She jogged lightly into the house.

The door slammed shut behind Xie Baoqiong, sending a gust of air brushing against the back of his neck and bringing a chill.

He stopped, glanced at the closed door behind him with a puzzled look, touched the back of his neck, slowed his pace, and moved closer to Chishong.

Her fingers, now gloved again, tapped idly on the table, drowning out Xie Baoqiong's footsteps.

Chishong's cold eyes lowered, just in time to meet Xie Baoqiong's upturned face. Her watery almond eyes, filled with an innocent purity, reflected his face.

He didn't really like cubs; they were always troublesome and naive.

Lin Zhechun's "tolerance" and "good intentions" towards Xie Baoqiong stemmed more from a strategy to disrupt Lin Zhechun's plans and a desire to see Xie Zhuo make a fool of himself.

He asked knowingly, teasingly, "Why didn't you play house with that father and son from the Xie family? Why did you come here to play with me?"

Xie Baoqiong didn't catch the sarcasm in his words. Knowing that Chishong knew his identity, she didn't try to hide it and asked curiously, "What is playing house?"

Chishong once again felt a sense of powerlessness in the young man before him that he had never felt even in front of Xie Zhuo. Apart from the time when his hand was broken, he had not felt this emotion for a long time.

The cubs are such a hassle.

But then he remembered something, his eyes narrowed, and he swallowed the feeling of suffocation:

"How long have you been in human territory?"

Xie Baoqiong blinked, not immediately revealing that he had only been down the mountain for a few months. He felt that Chisong wasn't hiding anything good, so he included the year he had taken human form in the inscription:

"About two years."

Before he could finish speaking, Chishong leaned down, his hands resting on the table, and his strikingly beautiful face suddenly drew close, revealing an expression of disbelief.

A long, cold breath, typical of a cold-blooded animal, washed over Xie Baoqiong's face, bringing a chill. He remained motionless, letting Chisong's gaze sweep over him inch by inch like a snake's forked tongue.

Time slipped silently through the gap between them, and they didn't know how much time had passed.

A light laugh escaped from Chishong's nostrils, and a soft sigh mingled with laughter reached Xie Baoqiong's ears:

"...to be too clever for one's own good."

"Lord Chishong?" Xie Baoqiong asked, confused, not understanding why Chishong would suddenly say that.

Akamatsu straightened up with a smile, pointing to his head with his finger, his expression unreadable.

"You're a fool with a fool's luck."

Xie Baoqiong understood this immediately:

"I'm not stupid."

Chishong gave a perfunctory reply, lacking Xie Zhuo's patience in coaxing a child. He bent his right index finger and tapped twice on the paper on the table.

"One is missing, did you take it?"

Xie Baoqiong peeked over the table, then quickly looked away. The stack of papers on the table were the portraits he had scattered, and the one that Chisong had mentioned was now lying in his sleeve. He had come back to find Chisong not just to hear the story, but more importantly, to find the person in that portrait.

He neither admitted nor denied it, but instead asked:

"Lord Akamatsu, what are these portraits for? Who are the people depicted on them?"

“The cultivators who have recently entered and left the city might be infected with the epidemic…” Chishong paused, “Didn’t Xie Zhuo tell you?”

Seeing Xie Baoqiong shake her head blankly, Chisong tapped his finger lightly, tidying up the scattered papers on the table, and moved away from Xie Baoqiong, showing no intention of continuing the conversation.

"But one of them is a sorcerer."

Seeing that Chishong remained silent, Xie Baoqiong spoke loudly, took out the portrait of Qiankun from her sleeve, grabbed both sides, and raised it in front of Chishong.

"You mean this person? Do you know him?" Akamatsu narrowed his eyes, staring at the portrait on the drawing paper.

He wasn't particularly handsome, with half-white hair tied in a messy bun. He looked to be around forty or fifty years old, and his eyes, with their whites showing, revealed a shrewdness.

"I know him." Xie Baoqiong nodded his head, which was hidden behind the paper, and the portrait swayed with his movement: "This is the kidnapper who arrested me in the capital."

Without figuring out Chishong's attitude towards the people in these portraits, he only explained his relationship with Cao Zhuangling and didn't mention anything else.

"So it was for revenge." Chishong casually brushed aside the matter of Xie Baoqiong taking the portrait, without any intention of taking it back.

Seeing that Chishong's attitude had softened, Xie Baoqiong tentatively asked, "Does Lord Chishong know where this person is?"

"have no idea."

As Akamatsu spoke, he beckoned with his finger, and a piece of paper floated from under the stack of portraits into his hand.

Xie Baoqiong wasn't exactly disappointed, but the excitement he felt when he first discovered the portrait vanished instantly. His arm, which had been holding the portrait high, fell limply, and the paper hung loosely beside his legs.

Akamatsu's voice rang out again: "Do you know human writing?"

Xie Baoqiong looked up, puzzled: "I know... a little."

A piece of paper was suddenly handed to him.

"This list has the addresses of these people; take a look for yourself."

Xie Baoqiong quickly scanned Cao Zhuangling's name, noted down the address that followed, and then returned the list to Chishong.

"Thank you, Lord Akamatsu, you are a good demon."

Chishong, who had never received such simple and unpretentious praise before, frowned as Xie Baoqiong showed her obedient side and put the portrait in her hand back on the neatly stacked paper.

He scoffed, thinking that children were just naive and easily fooled.

He might not be a good demon.

But in the blink of an eye, Chishong saw Xie Baoqiong, whom he had thought was well-behaved just a moment ago, climb onto the chair behind the table and sit down, blinking her eyes as she looked over.

The lines between his brows deepened: "Aren't you going back to find your father?"

"Lord Chishong, the story isn't over yet." Xie Baoqiong hadn't forgotten her other purpose for coming here.

He didn't take him seriously as a storyteller in a teahouse. Chishong remained calm and unmoved.

Xie Baoqiong, who had just sat down, felt his body lift up into the air, his lower body getting further and further away from the chair. He paddled awkwardly like a duck swimming for the first time.

Sensing that the spiritual energy on his body was not malicious, he was able to relax and gradually became more skilled at swiping towards the red pine.

Just as he reached out his hand, about to touch Chishong's clothes, from three feet away, an invisible barrier separated them.

The spiritual energy converged, forming a transparent shield that trapped him inside and pushed him outwards:

"Go find your father."

But the thought that it wasn't his own home brought a strange sense of comfort to his heart.

The spiritual energy shield made a crisp clicking sound, drawing Chishong's attention.

Xie Baoqiong's face was pressed against the spiritual energy shield facing him, and a hint of resentment could be faintly seen.

Seeing the expression on the face that resembled Xie Zhuo's, the spiritual energy shield surrounding Xie Baoqiong trembled twice in response to Chisong's mood.

Chishong's face was unpleasant, with an expression of disgust.

As the spiritual energy shield shook, Xie Baoqiong's body rolled over, her face falling to the ground, and Chishong's expression returned to its indifferent state.

The spiritual energy shield dissipated in front of the door, releasing the dizzy Xie Baoqiong inside.

He rubbed his head, maintaining the position he had been placed in, and spoke:

"Lord Chishong, you haven't given me the brocade pouch yet."

The crimson brocade pouch landed on Xie Baoqiong's head with a thud, rolled down, and was caught by him.

Xie Baoqiong's fingers were pinching the crimson koi in the brocade pouch. The two red koi, one large and one small, seemed to be swimming with their tails trailing behind them in his dizzy vision.

He asked a question out of the blue:

"Lord Akamatsu, are humans really that bad?"

The moment she asked the question, Xie Baoqiong's mind seemed to be filled with the image of an autumn reed field, where white, fluffy reed flowers grew on large patches of withered yellow stalks, ready to fly between heaven and earth with just a gust of autumn wind.

He obtained Cao Zhuangling's whereabouts, and by following the address on the list, he could find the person behind the scenes.

With his goal of descending the mountain about to be achieved, he felt no joy as he had anticipated; instead, a growing sense of unease began to creep in.

As everything was about to settle down, he felt lost about the future. Should he reveal his identity and return to Sishui Mountain, or should he stay in the mortal world for another hundred years under the identity of Xie Baoqiong?

A hundred years is not a long time for a demon; Su Xiaochun was not even an adult at a hundred years old.

Xie Baoqiong felt that his heart was the heart of a human being who became greedy.

He wanted everything: he wanted to cultivate diligently and become an immortal; he wanted Xie Rongjing and Xie Zhuo to treat him well; he wanted... he wanted Xie Zhuo to still smile and call him Xiao Bao even after knowing who he was.

He seems to be becoming more and more like a human being, just as Xiaochun said.

Chisong remained silent for a long time, with only the occasional sound of wind rattling the windowpanes inside. Xie Baoqiong sat on the carpet, waiting for an answer that would allow him to turn back into a demon.

Perhaps wanting to get rid of him quickly, Chishong gave Xie Baoqiong an answer she hadn't expected:

"A person's goodness or badness cannot be judged in a categorical way." Chishong's voice sounded behind him, his cool tone adding a touch of mockery in the latter half of his sentence:

"In any case, as far as I'm concerned, Lin Zhechun is the worst person imaginable."

He nudged Xie Baoqiong, who was squatting on the ground, with the tip of his shoe: "Get up. Don't get all dirty here and spread the word that I bully children."

Xie Baoqiong shifted his position and stood up as he moved. He wondered if Chishong still had a reputation, and temporarily put aside his hesitation. But Chishong's words had quietly planted a seed in his heart.

“But the Imperial Preceptor Lin gave it to…” Xie Baoqiong remembered Lin Zhechun’s several times of protecting Chisong, and couldn’t help but speak up. His eyes glanced at Chisong’s left hand, which was covered by a glove.

This was told to him by Akamatsu himself.

Chishong's face turned gloomy, and his eyes, which had gleamed golden in the light, now looked like clear gems covered with a layer of dust.

He flicked Xie Baoqiong's forehead in an annoyed tone: "Don't speak up for him in front of me."