Chapter 28#
Floating Snow#
Feng Xianyu was utterly baffled: “When did this happen? Zhuo Yu may not have the best temper, but he’s not exactly vicious, is he? Since you didn’t provoke him, why would he hit you?”
“How should I put it…” Kong Yan scratched his head for a long time, still unable to figure out how to explain it to Feng Xianyu. Finally, he stomped his foot. “Pfft! I can’t explain it to you! You’re so carefree, you don’t know how sinister people can be!”
“Fine, don’t explain then.” Feng Xianyu was even more puzzled. “But why are you blaming me?”
Just as he finished speaking, a joyous shout rang through the sky:
“The baby’s born! Mother and child are safe! It’s a young master!”
Feng Xianyu was stunned. He and Kong Yan both stared fixedly ahead.
Not far away, a familiar array of pavilions and towers stood complete.
Under the blazing morning sun, the glazed golden roof unique to the Green Sparrow Gate shone with dazzling light. From within the gate came the crisp cry of an infant. A man who had been waiting at the entrance for who knows how long, his face overflowing with joy, hurriedly called out “Hui’er” as he lifted the curtain and entered.
“…Father?” Kong Yan’s eyes trembled, as if he couldn’t believe it. “Mother?”
Although Feng Xianyu had never met them, he knew that Kong Ji had a dao partner who had since become an immortal, named Zhong Hui.
Suddenly, a gentle breeze blew, stirring the pear blossoms by the window. They fell in a flurry, carpeting the ground. Inside the room, Kong Ji and a female cultivator with a gentle face sat intimately together, smiling as they played with the infant in the cradle.
The baby didn’t understand what was happening, but still giggled happily, reaching out to grab the bronze bell hanging from the cradle.
Clink, clink…
With the sound, the flowers faded. Willow catkins flew like snow, and a cool wind swept through the valley, carrying the cuckoo’s call.
In a flash, lightning tore across the sky; thunder rumbled. Fireflies darted about, stars twinkled, frogs croaked in chorus, and the air smelled of earth. Then autumn winds arrived with a chill, and the last withered yellow leaf fell from a branch. A thoughtful youth picked it up, touched it gently, and it crumbled to dust in his hand.
“My child, come here.” Kong Ji called.
The youth turned back, saw his mother and father both beaming with open arms waiting for him, and immediately clapped his hands, tossing away the leaf fragments. Without looking back, he threw himself into his parents’ embrace.
Zhong Hui smiled as she draped a fluffy fur coat over him, pinching his chubby cheeks.
When he looked back again, it was even colder.
The sky was a gloomy white; the distant mountain peaks were capped with white, fading into the misty fog.
Soon, snowflakes like goose feathers drifted down. The lake surface had frozen into thin ice, which the youth broke by throwing in a pebble, startling a carp beneath the ice. It leaped out of the water, splashing him all over.
Kong Ji came storming over, furious.
From a distance, the youth made a face, grabbed a snake he had just dug out from underground—still hibernating—and ran off. He slipped unexpectedly in the snow, dirtying his fur coat. The snake, now awake, hissed angrily and slithered swiftly into the bushes.
Kong Ji, both angry and exasperated, picked up the youth and kept brushing the floating snow off him.
The youth just laughed, not minding the several streaks of mud on his face.
In the blink of an eye, spring passed and autumn came; time flew by like a shuttle.
The youth had grown to nine years old, looking like a ball of snow. One day, Kong Ji took him to the sword furnace. The youth pointed at the fiery red furnace and asked, “Is what’s inside mine?”
“It’s yours,” Kong Ji said. “When you grow up, you can name it yourself, alright?”
The youth looked curiously at the blazing flames in the furnace, his cheeks flushed red.
Kong Yan watched intently; seemingly he too missed those rare days of familial bliss.
Feng Xianyu almost didn’t recognize the Kong Ji in this dream: why did he later become so strict with Kong Yan?
When the youth was over ten, he followed his father out, and they went to Qingdu Mountain.
In Kong Ji’s dream, Feng Xianyu saw himself, dressed in bright red, standing out conspicuously—like a red porcelain bottle come to life. He was even absorbed in chattering endlessly with Zhuo Yu, although Zhuo Yu stood straight as a rod without replying for a long time. Unfazed, Feng Xianyu took a drink of water and was about to continue his efforts when he inadvertently looked up and met the gaze of the youth beside Kong Ji.
In an instant, sparks flew. Feng Xianyu instantly understood that his rascal friend had probably arrived.
Feng Xianyu saw his younger self walking cheerfully toward the youth, but behind him, Zhuo Yu was staring fixedly.
The youth’s face, not yet fully matured, already had an aura that warned others to keep their distance. His brows were deep, his eyes intense. Everyone else stepped forward to greet the guests, but only Zhuo Yu stood motionless, as if a shoulderful of snow had fallen on him alone. After a few breaths, Zhuo Yu gave the crowd a deep look—especially at Feng Xianyu, who was laughing the most joyfully among them—then silently turned and left.
Feng Xianyu hadn’t seen a young Zhuo Yu in a long time, but he unexpectedly found it amusing how the boy kept a straight face at such a tender age. The moment Zhuo Yu appeared, Feng Xianyu lost all attention for observing Kong Ji and his son, focusing solely on Zhuo Yu.
Later, the youth and Feng Xianyu slipped down the mountain to drink and got caught.
The next day, Kong Ji dragged the youth back to the Green Sparrow Gate, scolding him the whole way with a sense of disappointment that iron hadn’t become steel. The youth obediently bowed his head and admitted his mistake, looking genuinely repentant. Kong Ji’s heart softened again, and he let out a long sigh.
Zhong Hui heard about the youth’s exploits but didn’t get angry. She laughed heartily for a while, then straightened up with heroic spirit, grabbed her son’s hand, and headed for the door. Kong Ji was startled: “What are you going to do?”
“To drink, of course!” Zhong Hui said matter-of-factly. “What’s there to be afraid of? Your mother is taking you drinking. This time, we won’t go home until we’re drunk!”
Now Kong Ji was truly scared: “Oh my heavens, my little ancestor, he’s still so young, and you’re spoiling him.”
Zhong Hui pushed him away, stepped out the door, and without looking back, slapped a talisman onto the door to seal it. “Mind your own business.”
The youth stumbled as his mother pulled him along. Amid the loud banging of Kong Ji slapping the door panels, he stammered, “Mother, are you serious?”
“Serious, very serious,” Zhong Hui said, and directly pulled the youth onto her flying sword, riding the wind all the way to the nearest town.
It was the first time the youth had ridden a sword so fast. His face turned pale from the cold wind, his hair standing on end. Even after landing, he was still terrified. When he finally sat at the table, with Zhong Hui watching him with a smile, he found he couldn’t take a single sip. His whole body felt prickly.
Zhong Hui poured a full cup for him and asked kindly, “Why aren’t you drinking?”
The youth rubbed his hands under the table and mumbled, “…I don’t want to drink.”
“Really?”
Zhong Hui looked at him with a half-smile for a long time. The more the youth looked back at her, the more panicked he became, nodding frantically. Finally, seeing that her son really wouldn’t drink, she let him off: “Alright, if you don’t want to drink, just eat.”
Relieved, the youth quickly pushed the cup aside and began to eat.
After finishing the meal and paying the bill, they were about to leave when suddenly a commotion erupted at the back door of the shop.
The youth was studying the menu; hearing the noise, he glanced curiously and saw several shop assistants kicking and beating someone. Immediately, he frowned and shouted, “Stop!”
The assistants were startled. Seeing that the speaker was a richly dressed young master, they had some reservations and stopped in unison.
“What’s going on?” Zhong Hui walked over.
The shopkeeper quickly put on a smile and said, “It’s a little thief. Please don’t concern yourselves, esteemed guests. He stole several baskets of our ingredients. We finally caught him.”
“You can’t just beat him like that,” Zhong Hui said.
The youth had already walked over and bent down to check on the injuries.
The thief was small, thin, and weakly built, wearing shabby clothes that smelled foul, with disheveled hair. He was bruised in several places but kept his mouth tightly shut, refusing to cry out. Now he was covering his face with his hands.
The youth tried to touch him, but the other immediately flinched.
“Oh, he’s still a child,” Zhong Hui said.
The youth turned to the shopkeeper seriously: “How much did the things he stole cost? I’ll pay you back.”
Zhong Hui leaned on her knees and bent over: “You want to save him?”
The youth nodded.
Without further ado, Zhong Hui grabbed the little thief’s wrist, held her breath and concentrated for a moment, then opened her eyes and said, “He actually has some talent.”
One hand caught, the little thief could no longer cover his face. Only then did everyone see a huge blue patch on his face, covering almost half of it. At first glance, he looked like a Yaksha come to life. Several people took steps back.
Stung by the gaze of many eyes, the little thief seemed to break down. He scrambled up from the ground and tried to flee.
“Stop,” Zhong Hui said lightly, just two words, but the little thief seemed pinned to the ground by some force, unable to move an inch. Zhong Hui walked over to him and said, “My son saved you. Why not say thank you?”
The little thief hesitated for quite a while before squeezing out two words of thanks.
“Now I ask you,” Zhong Hui said, “Are you willing to come with us? If so, nod. If not, I’ll of course let you go.”
“…Where to?” the thief asked.
Zhong Hui replied, “A place where you can at least eat your fill.”
“Later, he followed you?” Feng Xianyu asked curiously, but from the corner of his eye he saw Kong Yan’s expression darken. After a long silence, he gave a low “hmm.” Feng Xianyu knew Kong Yan well enough; seeing his expression, he understood that this person must be significant. He immediately asked, “Who is he?”
Kong Yan was silent for a long time, watching in the dream as the little thief followed Zhong Hui and her son to the Green Sparrow Gate and entered as an outer disciple.
After washing the dirt away, changing into clean clothes, and carefully combing his hair, others realized he actually had regular, handsome features. It was just that the terrifying blue patch on his face was too startling—though among cultivators, that wasn’t really an issue.
“He had no name, nor did he give himself one. For a long time, everyone called him ‘A-Lan.’”
Kong Yan finally spoke, his tone cold.
“He himself said that because of the patch on his face, he had been abandoned at birth. He grew up begging and picking through trash. When he couldn’t stand the hunger, he stole food. In the sect, he trained diligently, rising early and returning late, never complaining. Although he didn’t talk much, if others asked him to do chores, he never refused, so he got along well with everyone. What’s more, he had an excellent set of meridians, perfectly suited for cultivation. Soon after entering the sect, he successfully drew qi into his body. When Father heard about it, and since Mother and I had brought him, he came to see him personally. Because there was no rule about accepting disciples with different surnames, Father had him stay by my side as a training partner. But in reality, he also listened to Father and Mother’s lectures, which benefited him greatly, and he advanced rapidly.”
Feng Xianyu was stunned: “I never knew about this.”
“A family scandal must not be spread abroad.” Kong Yan’s tone could have frozen ice. He gritted his teeth and said, “I saved his life, gave him the opportunity to cultivate the Dao. If not for me, how could he have listened to lectures under a sect leader? How could I have ever expected that in the end, I would be inviting a wolf into my home?”