Crying
There is a fairy mountain in the southwest of Tongwang Continent, named Yaoxi.
It is rumored that the Yao Xizong were all cultivators of immortality, proficient in the art of transformation, able to turn flesh into bones and summon wind and rain.
The exact location of Yaoxi Mountain is unknown. Some have sincerely sought to find it, searching every nearby mountain gate in vain. Others, lost in their tracks, stumbled upon Yaoxizong, rested for a short while, and enjoyed a simple meal. For centuries, those seeking immortality or dominance have sought to have Yaoxizong emerge from the mountain, but all have returned in vain.
On the morning of June 22, 913 in the ancient calendar, it rained on Yaoxi Mountain.
Halfway up the southeastern slope of the ancient mountain, nestled among a few banyan trees, lies a loft. The banyan trees are thick and tall, their branches draped over the loft, forming a sturdy, simple swing. Now soaked by rain, it smells of green grass.
The attic was two stories high, made of the finest wood, impervious to moisture and humidity, and carved with designs of auspicious clouds and phoenixes. The first floor housed the living room and library, separated by a screen and filled with fragrant incense.
The owner of the attic was sleeping soundly on the second floor, not knowing what was going on.
Her hair was loose, only a few strands held together by a simple gray silk brocade headband. She curled up on her side, facing the floor-to-ceiling window. Her figure was still delicate, no more than fifteen or sixteen. The morning light outside was a bit glaring, and she felt uneasy, so she huddled down under the thin blanket and continued to sleep.
The window beside the bed offered a glimpse of the vast landscape below: swirling clouds, overlapping green hills. The view was breathtaking. Normally, there was a barrier in place, keeping out dust, rain, and sound. But today, for some reason, it had failed, and a few gentle raindrops drifted in, landing on Yunxiu's face.
The sticky darkness enveloped Yunxiu, pressing heavily on his chest.
Countless tiny, sharp, and dull cries came from all directions, like countless cold needles, piercing the depths of her consciousness. The sound was sometimes louder, sometimes softer, noisy and chaotic, converging into a tide of despair that almost drowned her.
She struggled in vain, but her eyelids were too heavy to lift at all.
After an unknown amount of time, the suffocating tide finally receded, isolated in a distant place, leaving only vague echoes.
Yunxiu trembled violently, finally breaking free from the invisible restraints, and struggling to open his eyelashes.
The fresh air, with the unique scent of mountain grass, trees and morning dew, rushed into my nostrils.
The sky was still a hazy crab-shell blue. Outside the window, even the sound of the most diligent senior brother Yan Xiu's sword breaking through the air during his usual practice had not yet been heard.
It turned out to be a nightmare.
Yunxiu lay on the bamboo couch, looking at the sparse wooden texture of the roof, a little dazed.
The sad voice in the dream still left a faint buzzing deep in the eardrum, making my heart heavy, and leaving a lingering feeling of exhaustion and confusion like a drowning person coming ashore.
She touched the coolness on her face and felt something wet like tears. She looked out the window and saw that it was still drizzling, turning the scenery into a thick, blurry fog, making it difficult to see clearly.
It must be that Yan Xiu wanted her to get up quickly, so he removed the barrier by her window.
Yunxiu let out a long sigh, her heart inexplicably turbulent. Unable to figure out where her troubles came from, she fiddled with her bed.
Yunxiu never participates in the early morning of Yaoxi Mountain.
She had long known that the imposing, arrogant senior brother would rise early to practice, often sternly reprimanding the other senior brothers and sisters for their incorrect movements. Senior Sister Yingtang...was usually out in the courtyard, tending to the flowers and plants, or rolling around with the small animals that lingered there. And her master, on the other hand, would often be up before dawn to write his own unique secret manual.
None of this mattered to Yunxiu. She always loved to sleep in bed until noon. Even when she woke up, she would close her eyes and listen for footsteps outside the door, wondering who would be waking her up today.
But today she lay alone for a long time, and the silence around her was still terrifying. Not even the annoying bird calls that usually occurred in the early morning could be heard.
Yunxiu sat up and shook his head, trying to get rid of the ominous haze.
Outside the window, the rain had gradually dissipated. A few wisps of gauze-like mist were being torn apart by the morning breeze, entwining themselves among the lush green peaks.
A few miles further up the mountain, several tall fruit trees rustled in the breeze, with heavy, bright red fruits hanging on the branches, like small lanterns.
The bright and vivid colors instantly brightened Yunxiu's mood.
She turned over and stood up lightly like a startled little bird.
The morning breeze, carrying the slightly sweet scent of wisteria flowers, blew across my face, completely blowing away the last trace of melancholy in the dream.
She tapped the window frame lightly with her toes, and glided out of the window nimbly. The hem of her skirt brought up a breeze, and she spun around and landed on a thick branch.
His fingertips brushed against the cool, dew-soaked fruit, and with a gentle flick, the plump, red fruit fell into his palm. Yunxiu's lips curled up, his mood brightening like the breaking light of dawn.
She carried a few warm fruits in her pocket and ran briskly through the courtyard, heading for the quiet courtyard surrounded by bamboo trees on the back hill. Bamboo leaves rustled in the morning breeze, and the dew-soaked moss on the bluestone path felt soft and cool under her feet.
That is Master’s residence.
Before she even approached the bamboo hut nestled behind layers of verdant bamboo, a strange intuition seized Yunxiu. She involuntarily lightened her steps, treading almost silently on the wet stone path.
The door of the bamboo house was closed tightly, and the windows were covered with fine Xiangfei bamboo curtains, covering the inside tightly.
However, just as she held her breath and approached the door, an extremely subtle and suppressed sound penetrated the barrier of bamboo and wood and penetrated into her ears.
It's crying.
It wasn't the overwhelming noise in my dream, but another kind of noise——
Dull, short, repeated, with the rough texture of a blunt instrument rubbing against wood, forced deep into the throat, then tightly stifled by something, leaving only broken, untuned sobs. Like a trapped animal desperately licking its wounds in a cage, or like... the uncontrollable, intermittent sobs of some heavy body.
The grief and sorrow saturated in the voice were as thick as insoluble ink, spreading silently and staining every dew-covered bamboo leaf outside the bamboo house.
Yunxiu's heart sank suddenly. The sweet warmth the red fruit had brought her faded in an instant, leaving only a cold, bewildered feeling and a heaviness tinged with immense grief. She froze at the door, her hand raised, hesitating whether to knock on the closed bamboo door.
However, she was only stunned for a moment, trying hard to dispel the heaviness that had inexplicably infected her.
"It must be some kid who got scolded again..."
Yunxiu forced himself to cheer up, and like countless times before, with a little excitement, he raised his hand to push the familiar bamboo door, and blurted out in a crisp voice:
"Master! I picked some fresh red fruits..."
As soon as the words fell, Yunxiu no longer heard the crying sound. It was as if it had never appeared.
“Squeak—”
The door was opened half a foot wide from the inside. The person who stuck his head out was not the master, but Qingwu, the boy sitting under the master, who always had a stern face and acted like a little adult.
Qingwu glanced at Yunxiu quickly, then lowered his eyes, his childish face as usual.
"Master is in seclusion, meditating, and seeing no one."
Qingwu's voice was dry.
"Senior Sister Yunxiu, Master has ordered you to go to the cold pond in the back mountains to practice martial arts today. You must concentrate and calm your mind, and not slack off."
After saying that, without waiting for Yunxiu to react, the door closed quickly and with an unquestionable meaning.
A slight "click" sound was heard, which was the sound of the latch falling from inside the door, completely ending her thoughts of wanting to see her master.
“Hey hey hey!! Qingwu! How dare you lock me out!!”
Yunxiu's angry voice startled the birds halfway up the mountain. The bamboo door was only half a person's height. She saw Qingwu walk in without looking back, and she was furious.
Even though her master had forbidden her from entering, she still didn't dare to break in - but she could only throw a few fruits...
“Ouch!”
Qingwu fell to the ground, holding his head.
Yunxiu seemed surprised and satisfied with her technique of hitting the target in one go, with a false apology on his lips.
Qingwu looked at her in horror as she picked up the fruit and threw it at him again. He got up in panic and said:
"Stop! This is Master's yard!"
"Ah? I'm giving Master some red fruit. They're very fresh, just picked!"
Say a word and throw one, and every one of them will hit the target.
The offerings given by genuine disciples to the master were all filial piety, and those who served them had to be treated with care. Qingwu was overwhelmed by the blow and glared at her angrily, but he had no choice but to pick up the red fruits from all over the yard and carefully deliver them to his master.
After throwing it all away, Yunxiu felt relieved.
Practicing? Yunxiu was wandering in the mountains, feeling lazy and not in the mood to practice.
She unconsciously deviated from the path leading to the cold pond in the back mountain and turned to another more familiar path leading to the courtyard on the east side of the mountainside.
That is the residence of the eldest brother Yan Xiu.
From afar, a clear and sharp sound could be heard, the sharp sound of a sword cutting through the air, carrying with it a chilling, repelling feeling.
Yunxiu's steps became lighter.
She jogged, her skirt brushing against the dew-covered grass, leaving tiny traces of water along the way.
Yan Xiu's yard was very simple, with bluestone paved on the ground and a few bamboos planted in the corner.
At that moment, he was practicing swordplay in the dim morning light, his back to the courtyard gate. His dark, muscular garb made his figure stand tall like a solitary pine tree, and each swing of his sword was clean and sharp. The surging sword energy stirred up scattered fallen leaves.
"Big Brother!"
Yunxiu did not enter through the door, but stepped onto a bluestone at the east corner of the fence and looked at Yan Xiu over the bamboo fence.
Yan Xiu, as his name suggests, exudes a sense of loneliness and profound concentration, like the twilight surrounding him, the depths of the deep, and the towering mountains. His figure is tall and straight, not the gentle and graceful figure of a jade tree, but more like a solitary cliff, tempered by wind, frost, and lightning, pointing upwards to the sky. His dark, tight-fitting garb constricts his figure, outlining his sharp, powerful lines, as if all his strength and edge are contained beneath a calm undertone.
His skin was a cool, jade-white, not bloodless, but rather covered with a thin layer of frost that never melted, exuding a sense of aloofness that kept him at arm's length. His features were profoundly chiseled, as if sculpted by the harshest mountain winds and the hardest rock. His brow bones, like jagged mountain ridges, slanted down into his temples, beneath which lay a pair of deep, intensely focused eyes.
At first glance, it appears a calm, dark gray, almost like black iron, like the shadows of a mountain at dusk. But at certain moments when light and shadow shift, the vast blue, approaching the end of the evening clouds, appears beneath the dark gray.
These eyes rarely reveal any emotion, and are always like two deep frozen lakes, locking all ripples beneath the ice.
His nose was as high as a mountain peak, and his thin lips, pale in color, were habitually pressed together, forming a cold, restrained arc. He wore no crown, but only a plain black headband, holding it up high. A few strands of hair dangled around his hard-lined jaw, making him look even more unapproachable.
The sky was filled with morning glow, and Yunxiu was stunned watching her senior brother practicing sword.
Yan Xiu's sword-swinging movement froze for a moment, almost imperceptible to the naked eye. He turned to look at his junior sister:
"You've changed your personality today, and you're up so early?"
Yunxiu also laughed, and she was about to answer——
"Buzz!"
An indescribable sharp pain exploded in her chest without warning.
It was like countless red-hot steel needles instantly piercing her skull and stabbing into her heart. It was as if an invisible, icy hand grasped her heart and squeezed it with all its might.
Yunxiu didn't even have time to let out a full cry of pain before his vision suddenly went black and the world spun around. All his strength was instantly drained from him, and he fell backwards like a puppet with its strings cut.
The expected pain did not come.
An inky figure, like lightning tearing through the morning mist, crossed the fence and appeared behind her in an instant.
The sharp sound of breaking through the air suddenly ceased. Yunxiu felt his body lighten, falling into an embrace with the refreshing scent of pine and cypress. The embrace was strong and firm, yet it also carried an indescribable stiffness and tension.
The severe pain subsided quickly like the tide, but I still felt a lingering fear.
Yunxiu curled up in the cool embrace, panting rapidly, cold sweat soaking her temples, and a large dark cloud still lingered in front of her eyes. She raised her head with difficulty, and her vision was somewhat blurry when she met Yan Xiu's downcast eyes.
"What's wrong with me..."
She pushed Yan Xiu away in a panic, frantically checking to see if she was still whole. Her heart was beating too fast, her body was unresponsive. She accidentally met Yan Xiu's gaze.
Those were a pair of extremely deep eyes, yet at this moment, they were churning with an intense emotion Yunxiu had never witnessed before. For a few moments, panic flashed through the depths of those inky pupils like a trapped beast, so fast that it almost seemed an illusion.
The unfamiliar look sent a chill down Yunxiu's spine. The elder brother's gaze on her was always stern, like a pine branch covered in snow on a winter's day. When had he ever experienced such a turbulent... strange emotion?
The rain clouds had dispersed. Morning light pierced the mist, and the dew on the bluestone slabs rose into tiny wisps of steam. Yunxiu rubbed his still aching chest, feeling as if he had been gored by a wild boar.
Yan Xiu, however, gripped his sword tightly and slowly approached, his voice as calm as usual:
"But what's wrong?"
Yunxiu looked at Yan Xiu and felt as if he was in a trance and had some hallucinations.
She actually heard some vague, fragmented sentences, like whispers, like confessions, floating in her ears after that inexplicable pain.
"Senior Brother," Yunxiu stared at Yan Xiu, not even thinking about turning back. He simply summarized those few words and blurted out:
"Have you been thinking about me?"
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