Chapter 83. The room fell silent, the light and shadow...
The room quieted down, and dust motes danced in the light and shadow.
The two, one sitting and one standing, were locked in a momentary stalemate.
It sits on a soft cushion, small in size, yet its presence is no less imposing than that of a red pine.
Perhaps the stone had come to life, and Xie Baoqiong was truly missing that muscle called fear.
Those vertical pupils, gleaming with a golden hue in the sunlight, scrutinized the small creature on the cushion.
The sparkling brilliance attracted Xie Baoqiong, and his eyes lingered on the two golden beads for a long time.
The pupils, which contract and then return to their original shape, resemble two breathing patterns naturally growing on the beads.
Xie Baoqiong's consciousness was almost sucked into it.
He was suddenly slapped on the forehead again, this time with a bit more force than when he pushed his hands away.
The force of the blow sent his head flying backward, and his body slammed onto the soft mat with a thud.
A tingling pain shot through her back, and Xie Baoqiong instantly regained her senses. She inwardly cursed Chishong's illusion, but quickly covered her head and got up from the ground.
He had just propped himself up with his hands when a heavy piece of cloth slammed down on him, plunging him into complete darkness.
But then, the culprit who caused all this came unhurriedly from above:
"Spending so much time with Xie Zhuo has made you quite eloquent."
Xie Baoqiong tugged at the robe covering him, the rustling sound of fabric around his ears was unclear whether it was him or Chishong making it.
When he emerged from beneath what seemed to be an endless robe, Chishong had changed into a butterfly-wing blue cloak, embroidered with dark, scale-like patterns in gold thread.
The golden threads shimmered faintly in the light, like golden scales occasionally emerging from a sea of clouds.
A gleaming vertical pupil cast a glance, its gaze, enveloped in blue, like that of a creature soaring through a sea of clouds.
Xie Baoqiong emerged from her outer robe, pushed it onto the cushion where she had just sat, and moved away. Chishong was a very strange person; if she hadn't been caught, she probably would never have dealt with such a person in her life.
"Lord Akamatsu, if there's nothing else, I'll be going back now."
Having just been brought back by Chishong using the Shrinking Earth technique, he realized that the spiritual energy fluctuations he had sensed earlier were probably Chishong's. Instead of staying here, he should go find the person Cao Zhuangling mentioned and the source of that gaze.
Akamatsu glanced at the disheveled child, ripped off his right glove which was halfway off, and tossed it aside without letting the child go.
A light red brocade pouch appeared out of thin air in his bare right hand.
Xie Baoqiong stopped in her tracks, her gaze unconsciously drifting towards the brocade pouch:
"Lord Akamatsu..."
The rest is self-evident.
"Give it to you?" Akamatsu finished the sentence for him.
Xie Baoqiong hesitated for a moment before nodding. He still needed a secret plan to put on a show for those who didn't know his identity.
"Then why did you give it away?"
The tassels on the brocade pouch hung down from Chishong's hand, their lighter pink color resembling a bracelet wrapped around his wrist.
Xie Baoqiong didn't think much of it and said what she was thinking at the time: "She was sick, and I have the spiritual power in the talisman myself."
Akamatsu was taken aback by his simple and straightforward thinking, and mocked him:
"You're kind to humans, though."
"Humans and demons are the same, Father and Brother have both said that." Xie Baoqiong couldn't help but refute Xie Zhuo and Xie Rongjing's words.
His inhuman golden eyes were filled with mockery of Xie Baoqiong's naive words, and Chishong asked a question that Xie Baoqiong had not expected:
"May I have your name"
Xie Baoqiong's expression was strange. Come to think of it, Chishong hadn't called his name in so long, could it be that he didn't remember it at all? Just as she was about to speak, Chishong interrupted her:
"It's not Xiaobao, it's not Qiong'er, it's not a name given to you by humans, it's your original name."
"Lin Mushi".
Xie Baoqiong uttered the name that hadn't been used for very long, and was pondering whether or not to mention Xiaochun's nickname for him.
Akamatsu read the name aloud with interest: "So it was a stone used as a tombstone." His expression was strange, and unusually, he didn't use his usual sarcastic tone to comment: "Truly... commonplace."
Xie Baoqiong nodded in agreement, it seemed that Chishong did have some redeeming qualities.
As he was thinking this, Akamatsu spoke again:
"Mu Shi, humans and demons are different. If Xie Zhuozhen really thinks so, why did you take the brocade pouch back from me?"
Put away those useless acts of kindness.
The red pine tree, having restrained its unruly demeanor, revealed a rare aura left by a thousand years, exuding a long and ancient fragrance.
Humanity is thriving while the demon race is declining. Upon encountering a junior who has been bewitched by humans, Chishong doesn't mind offering a few words of advice. Furthermore, this junior is receiving a lot of attention from Lin Zhechun, which he doesn't think is a good thing. Besides, since Lin Zhechun is involved, he finds it hard to resist intervening in the matter.
Or perhaps some personal feelings were mixed in.
Xie Baoqiong was stunned by the question, forgetting Chishong's last piece of advice. He didn't realize the trap in Chishong's words; his relationship with Xie Zhuo was never just that of a human and a demon.
Fortunately, he was quick-witted and wasn't stumped by Akamatsu's words:
"If Lord Akamatsu hates humans so much, why does he still serve as an official and protect the people?"
The air suddenly fell silent.
Xie Baoqiong's gaze slowly moved upwards from the hem of his clothes, which was only visible at eye level, and landed on Chisong's face, which was unreadable.
Even if he's slow to notice, he could sense that something was off about the atmosphere.
But unusually, Akamatsu showed no anger or sarcasm, only casting a gaze that had been washed away by time with a calm indifference.
He extended his left hand, which was still covered by a black glove.
Danger drew ever closer in her pupils, but Xie Baoqiong did not flinch. The next instant, a sensation unlike that of human skin touched her forehead and gradually slid down to her cheek.
Stiff, cold...
Xie Baoqiong, under Chisong's gaze, suddenly grabbed the latter's left hand.
The moment the large hand landed in his grasp, he sensed something was wrong. Although Chishong was a demon, its transformed body would not be as hard as its original form with scales; it should at least have the normal elasticity of skin.
The image of the red pine tree amidst the sea of clouds faintly surfaced in his memory, as if...
The hand he was holding was suddenly pulled away. Chishong ripped off the glove covering his left hand in front of him, and a large expanse of ink-black color rushed into Xie Baoqiong's eyes. The mechanical hand, made of indistinguishable material, was covered with countless golden array patterns, which shone brightly against the scale patterns on Chishong's sleeves.
"I made an agreement with one of my ancestors of the Dasheng royal family. The Dasheng royal family would share a wisp of dragon energy to help me transform into a dragon. Before I transform into a dragon, I need to protect the people of Dasheng, regardless of whether they are human or demon."
The lines on his left hand shimmered with golden light. Chishong stretched his stiff hand and murmured, "I thought it was a sure-fire deal..."
Although Xie Baoqiong had learned her lesson, she still couldn't help but steal glances at Chishong's left hand:
"Did Lord Akamatsu hurt his hand because he kept his promise?" So he hates humans, but that doesn't seem right either, there are monsters among the people of Dasheng.
The past, which had been buried deep in the earth, was dug up again. Facing the innocent kid in front of him who didn't even know that absorbing dragon energy was a forbidden technique, Akamatsu felt a rare urge to bring up the old stories again.
"No, I'm not that stupid to do something like that for humans."
Bringing up old stories again, he subtly mocked Xie Baoqiong's actions.
But Xie Baoqiong looked up, her face showing no trace of the shame implied in his words, and Chishong felt a sense of powerlessness, like punching cotton.
On the other end, Xie Baoqiong disregarded Chishong's inner emotions. He suddenly recalled Chishong's past argument with Lin Zhechun, and a surprising thought surged into his mind:
"Was your hand injured by the Imperial Preceptor Lin?"
In this way, it seems that Chishong's hatred for Lin Zhechun and his dislike of humans have a reason.
Chishong rested his left hand on the edge of the table beside him and tapped it lightly. His gaze followed the golden array patterns, tracing their outlines, and the intense emotions in his eyes faded.
"You're wrong. On the contrary, he gave me this prosthetic limb."
A look of surprise appeared on Xie Baoqiong's face, which had been stern since she entered the room.
Chishong caught a glimpse of Xie Baoqiong's changing expression, picked up the outer robe that Xie Baoqiong had trampled on from the cushion, and a wicked smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
He then deliberately threw his outer robe at Xie Baoqiong, ordering her around without any courtesy:
"Go and put this garment in the inner room."
Chishong's actions were tantamount to inserting an irrelevant trivial matter at the climax of the story.
Xie Baoqiong, engrossed in listening, pulled off the outer robe covering her head, piled it into a ball, and was about to throw it away.
Seeing his clothes being torn and ravaged in a fit of rage, Akamatsu casually offered a reminder:
“This clothing is a magical artifact. If it gets damaged, I’ll ask your father to pay for it.”
Xie Zhuo was a mortal; where would he get the magical artifacts to compensate Chishong? Besides, he himself was penniless. Thinking of this, Xie Baoqiong stopped what she was doing.
Chishong chuckled softly, placed his intact right hand over Xie Baoqiong's head, rubbed it for a while, and said with surprise:
"So even stones have a temper."
He then patted his subordinate on the head and urged him:
"Go quickly, and I can think about it and tell you the reason later."
Xie Baoqiong had just stepped into the inner room when there was a knock on the front door:
"Lord Chishong, Lord Xie has returned and requests your presence."
Chishong glanced at the busy figures in the room, responded, and the door opened and closed, leaving only Xie Baoqiong inside.
Xie Baoqiong, carrying a bundle of clothes, entered the inner room and casually tossed the clothes onto the table. The clothes piled up to the side as he moved, and the resulting gust of wind knocked several pieces of paper off the table, which slowly drifted to the ground.
Xie Baoqiong glanced guiltily outside, realizing that Chisong hadn't told him where to put the clothes beforehand.
He couldn't see what was happening in the outer room from his angle, so he assumed that Akamatsu couldn't see either. He squatted down and picked up the scattered papers.
While tidying up the papers, he inevitably saw what was written on them. Although he couldn't recognize all the human characters, the doodles on the paper, which were like portraits, made up for it.
Xie Baoqiong picked up the scattered papers and found that they were all portraits, some of which depicted people and others of demons with exposed animal ears.
He neither cared nor found it strange that there were so many portraits in Akamatsu's room, after all, Akamatsu himself was quite peculiar.
Xie Baoqiong put the paper back on the table, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed another piece of paper sticking out from the bottom of the cabinet under the table.
The floor was carpeted, so he simply lay down under the table and reached out to pull out the piece of paper that had fallen to the ground.
As before, his gaze casually swept across the portrait on the paper. Just as he was about to step back from under the table, the portrait on the paper matched the face in his memory.
He suddenly sat up straight, ignoring the thud that hit his head on the table, and clutched his head as he went back to examine the portrait.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
