Lord Emperor, Your Little Phoenix Has Run Off Again!

The night before the wedding, I climbed out of the Lord’s bedchamber window.

Below the window, three hundred and sixty attendants lifted their heads in perfect unison.

I was hugging my wedding robe to my chest, standing on the glazed tiles, staring back at them.

Yunying, the foremost of the attendants, was still holding my phoenix crown. Her face was as white as if lightning had just struck her.

“Little Highness,” she said, her voice shaking, “where are you… going?”

With great solemnity, I stuffed the robe into the Qiankun Pouch.

“Out for some air.”

“But tomorrow is your wedding to the Lord.”

“That’s exactly why I’m going today.” I jumped onto the ridge and waved at her. “Tomorrow there won’t be a chance.”

Yunying nearly dropped to her knees.

Everyone in the Ninth Heaven knew: Lord Xuanyan was cold and self-possessed, and had held the heavenly law for thirty thousand years. Even the Thunder Lord, who once trod a single immortal herb to ruin while drunk, had been made to copy the Heart-Clearing Sutra a hundred times.

And I, Feiling, the last little phoenix in the heavens, had already run away from his palace twice.

The first time, I burned a hole in his soul-suppressing jade pillow. Afraid I could not pay for it, I fled to the mortal world that same night and sold sugar paintings.

The second time, I heard that after marrying I would have to learn three hundred scrolls of heavenly rules. I was so frightened that I crawled into the dragon palace of the South Sea and hid inside a pearl oyster for seven days.

Both times, Xuanyan came to fetch me himself.

The first time, he stood in front of my sugar-painting stall in the mortal world, rapped his knuckles lightly on my forehead, and said, “Will selling sugar paintings pay for a jade pillow?”

The second time, he fished me out of the pearl oyster, wiped the shell dust from my face, and said, “Good hiding. Next time, pick somewhere that doesn’t leak firelight.”

He always spoke in that light, even tone. But there was always the ghost of a smile at the corner of his eye that he could not quite hide.

So this third time, I figured it would not be a big deal.

I left him a note.

I tucked it under the marriage contract, and wrote only eight words.

Do not miss me, my Lord. I have gone out to play.

Of course, there was a small line underneath.

Three days at most. I will be back when I am done playing.

I was just about to spread my wings when a chill voice sounded behind me.

“Three days?”

My foot slipped, and I nearly rolled off the ridge.

Xuanyan was standing in front of the bedchamber door. I had not noticed when he got there. His silver-white outer robe was unfastened, his long hair loose over his shoulders, as if moonlight had settled all over him.

He was holding my note.

The wind in the Ninth Heaven was very light.

But in that instant, every attendant seemed frozen solid.

Yunying could not even hold the phoenix crown steady.

I gave a dry laugh.

“My Lord, you’re still awake this late?”

“My wife intends to flee her wedding. This lord cannot sleep.”

His voice was not loud.

But the moment the word “wife” landed, a whole ring of people gasped.

The tips of my ears went hot with a rush.

“We haven’t bowed to Heaven yet. That doesn’t make me your wife.”

Xuanyan lifted his eyes to me.

“The contract is sealed. Heaven and earth have consented. And the phoenix true feather is with this lord as well.”

He opened his palm.

A crimson-gold feather lay quietly in his hand, its tip burning with a small, unending flame.

I had plucked it for him myself, when I was drunk.

I had been sprawled across his knees, clutching a jar of wine, and announced with tremendous swagger, “Xuanyan, from now on I’ve got your back. Whoever bullies you, I’ll burn.”

When I woke the next day, I wanted to bury myself under the roots of a wutong tree.

Yet Xuanyan had kept that true feather in perfect condition.

And he carried it on him every single day.

I cleared my throat, trying to salvage some dignity.

“My Lord, the true feather was the folly of my youth.”

“Mm.” He nodded. “This lord is older. He knows it very clearly.”

Around us, the attendants bowed their heads and fought back laughter.

Flustered and furious, I glared at him.

“Don’t you come any closer.”

Xuanyan did not move.

He only raised his hand and pressed the true feather lightly to his lips.

Something burned in my chest, and the phoenix phantom behind me nearly burst out of my back.

This man was too good at this.

He had the face of someone who had never touched a speck of mortal smoke, yet he could always use the calmest tone to say the most lethal things.

I turned and ran.

The instant my fire wings unfurled, half the Lord’s Palace lit up.

Yunying screamed, “My Lord, the little Highness has run off again!”

Xuanyan watched the direction I flew, and for a long moment said nothing.

A heavenly general knelt at the foot of the steps, trembling.

“My Lord, shall we seal the Southern Gate of Heaven?”

“No need.”

“Then shall this subordinate summon the wind-chasing beasts?”

“No need for that either.”

Xuanyan folded my note and tucked it into his sleeve.

He lowered his eyes and smiled.

“Ready the carriage.”

The heavenly general blinked.

Xuanyan stepped down from the dais. His voice was cold, yet every attendant in the palace heard it clearly.

“This lord will go and bring his wife home himself.”

I did not know that this sentence would later spread like wildfire through the Ninth Heaven.

Things like “the Lord indulges his wife beyond all reason,” or “the cold war god descends to the mortal world for love,” or “your little phoenix has run off again.”

I only knew that I flew all the way to the Southern Gate of Heaven, and just as I was about to slip down to the mortal world, the gate general blocked my way with a miserable face.

“Little Highness, please, have mercy on us.”

I blinked.

“You’re going to stop me?”

The general shook his head again and again.

“We would not dare. But the Lord gave orders: if you came, this subordinate was to ask you one thing.”

“Ask what?”

The general carefully offered me a jade box.

Inside was a steaming pile of osmanthus cake.

Beside it lay a warm jade tablet, carved with a line of characters.

“The night road is cold. Take the cake.”

I stared at the warm jade, and my nose suddenly stung.

That was just how he was.

When I run, he does not panic.

When I make a fuss, he does not get angry.

When I say I do not want to marry, he only asks me what I am afraid of.

But I cannot tell him.

What I am afraid of is not the wedding.

What I am afraid of is the Mirror of Fate, three days from now.

The phoenix race is born with a fate of rebirth. On the wedding day of a phoenix who has come of age, the Mirror of Fate shows the calamity of her partner.

If the mirror shows red, it means a hundred years of devotion.

If the mirror shows black, it means I will become his death.

And yesterday, I went to look at the Mirror of Fate in secret.

Black mist churned inside the glass.

Xuanyan stood in a chasm of ten thousand zhang, my phoenix true feather buried in his chest.

He was drenched in blood, and still reaching out to shield me.

I heard myself, inside the mirror, sobbing and screaming, “Xuanyan, don’t save me.”

But he only smiled.

He said, “Feiling, don’t be afraid.”

Before the mirror shattered, I saw his soul split apart, inch by inch, and the whole world turn white.

So I have to run.

As long as there is no wedding, as long as fate is never sealed, he will not die because of me.

I picked up the osmanthus cake and bit into it.

The cake was still sweet.

But my tears nearly fell onto it.

Beyond the Southern Gate of Heaven, the sea of clouds churned, and the mortal world’s lamplight glimmered faintly below.

I drew a deep breath and spread my fire wings.

“Tell the Lord I’ve gone to the mortal world to play for three days.”

The heavenly general asked quietly, “And after three days?”

I did not look back.

“After three days, tell him not to wait for me.”

The words fell, and I turned into a streak of crimson light and dropped into the mortal dust.

Behind me, the bells of the Ninth Heaven suddenly pealed.

One after another, until the sea of clouds boiled over.

Those were the bells that announced the Lord’s departure.

My heart skipped.

It’s over.

He is really coming to catch me.

The first time I met Xuanyan was at the very bottom of the Demon Abyss.

Back then, I was not yet the little phoenix that all the heavens doted on.

I was just a nestling whose tail had been scorched bare by demon fire, locked in a black-iron cage.

After the Phoenix Clan fell, the demons took me.

They said phoenix true blood could brew a Longevity Pill, that phoenix bone could forge an indestructible blade, that phoenix heartfire could break the heavens’ wards.

So they came for my blood every day.

A small bowlful.

Then another small bowlful.

I shook with pain, but I did not dare to cry.

Because the moment I cried, the fire on my body would slip out of control and burn me even worse.

The Demon Clan’s young master pinched my wing and laughed.

“Little thing, hold on a bit longer. Once the elixir is done, this young master will turn you into a lantern and hang you over the hall door.”

Back then I did not understand what a lantern was.

I only knew I was about to die.

Then one day, the sky of the Demon Abyss split open.

Silver-white sword light came down from above, and half of the demon palace collapsed like paper.

Xuanyan walked in on that sword light.

He wore snow-colored battle armor, his brows and eyes as cold as snow on a high mountain.

The Demon Clan’s young master grabbed me and held me in front of him.

“Xuanyan, take one more step and I’ll crush her heart meridian!”

Xuanyan stopped.

I thought he would retreat.

After all, I was only a useless little bird.

But he looked at me, and suddenly asked, “Does it hurt?”

I froze.

The young master froze too.

Xuanyan asked again.

“Feiling, does it hurt?”

That was the first time anyone had ever called me by my name.

Not a Catalyst.

Not little beast.

Feiling.

My nose stung, and tears plopped down.

“It hurts.”

In the next instant, silver-white sword light pierced the young master’s wrist.

He screamed and let me go.

Xuanyan caught me and gathered me into his arms.

His embrace was very cold.

But when his palm came down on my back, the touch was so light it was as if he feared breaking a single feather.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”

From then on, there was one more little phoenix in the Lord’s Palace.

When I first arrived in the Ninth Heaven, every immortal was afraid of me.

Afraid my demonic qi had not cleared.

Afraid my phoenix fire would slip its leash.

Afraid that if I was the least bit unhappy, I would burn their halls down.

Only Xuanyan was not afraid.

When I had nightmares at night and turned back into my true form to burrow into his covers, he would lift me to the side of his pillow.

When I burned his memorials, he simply had Lord Wenqu bring another set.

When I stole a drink of his cold pool wine and got so drunk that I clung to his waist yelling “pretty brother,” he only carried me back to the bedchamber and made me drink hangover soup the next day.

That soup was so bitter I wanted to die.

Crying, I said, “Xuanyan, you don’t love me anymore.”

Without a flicker of expression, he scooped up the second spoonful.

“I am making you drink it because I love you.”

I did not believe him. I turned my head and made to run.

He put his hand on the back of my neck, his voice mild.

“Finish it, and you get osmanthus cake.”

And so, with no backbone whatsoever, I drank it.

Everyone said Xuanyan was cold.

But I had seen him comb my feathers at dawn, and I had seen him sit by the lamp late at night, mending the cloak I had torn with my claws, stitch by stitch.

He said little, yet he remembered every one of my little flaws.

I was afraid of the dark, so he hung star lanterns all along the corridor outside his bedchamber.

I was afraid of pain, so every time he drew the demonic qi out of me, he first gave me a sweet plum.

I was afraid of Heavenly Lightning, so he moved the night-watch general of the Thunder Office thirty li farther away.

Later, I slowly grew up.

From a furry little ball into a young maiden who could take human form.

The day I took human form, I stood in front of the mirror, looked down at my crimson-gold hem, and was so happy that I spun around three times on the spot.

When Xuanyan pushed the door open, I was just tripping forward over my own skirt.

He caught me.

I crashed into his arms, my forehead against his chest, and heard a very soft heartbeat.

That heartbeat skipped once.

I looked up at him.

“Xuanyan, am I pretty?”

He was silent for a long time.

Long enough that I began to think my transformation had failed and I still had bird down on my head.

Then he looked away and said quietly, “Pretty.”

I immediately grew smug.

“Then can I get married now?”

The hand Xuanyan had on my shoulder tightened slightly.

“Who do you want to marry?”

“I don’t know.” I thought about it seriously. “If I marry, I’ll marry the person who treats me best.”

He looked at me.

“What counts as best?”

I counted on my fingers.

“Buys me osmanthus cake, lets me sleep in, cleans up my messes when I get in trouble, and hugs me when I’m scared.”

Xuanyan lowered his eyes.

“That’s not a high bar.”

“Of course it isn’t.” I lifted my face and smiled. “So, will you marry me?”

Back then, I did not yet understand liking.

I only knew that Xuanyan was the person I wanted to see the moment I opened my eyes, the person I would bring candied haws for even when I ran off to play, the person I wanted to fling myself at and complain to the moment I suffered the slightest grievance.

But Xuanyan looked as if my words had burned him.

He turned and left, his back straighter than usual.

I chased after him, shouting, “So you don’t want to?”

He did not turn around.

“Wait until you come of age.”

I did not understand what coming of age meant.

I only knew that from that day on, he never again let me burrow into his covers as I pleased.

Nor did he let me cling to him and refuse to let go when I was drunk.

He even set an extra ward outside the bedchamber.

I was so angry that I burned at it with phoenix fire half the night.

The ward did not budge.

The next day, with two dark circles under my eyes, I went to settle accounts with him.

He was reviewing heavenly documents. When he saw me, he held out a plate of osmanthus cake.

Eating, I accused him, “You’ve changed.”

He asked, “How have I changed?”

“Before, I could hug you whenever I wanted. Now you won’t let me.”

His brush stalled.

“Feiling, you’ve grown up.”

Chewing the cake, I mumbled, “So once I’ve grown up, I can’t be hugged?”

Xuanyan glanced at me.

I still remember that look.

Restrained.

Gentle.

And behind it, something like a sea that could not be spoken aloud.

“You can,” he said at last. “Just not carelessly.”

“Then what counts as not careless?”

He was silent for a moment.

“After we are married.”

That day, I went red to the ears like the spineless thing I was.

But when the wedding day truly came, I ran.

Not because I did not want to marry.

Because I wanted it too much.

So much that I was afraid, if my heart softened for even a moment, I would put on the wedding robe knowing full well it would kill him.

In the third month in the mortal world, the peach blossoms were at their height.

I came down in a wutong grove outside Qingzhou, folded my wings, and changed into a pale yellow dress.

Here was the first ingredient I needed.

The wutong heart.

Word had it that outside Qingzhou stood a wutong tree ten thousand years old, whose heartwood gave off fire and could keep a soul from splitting.

If I could get it, and then find the Return-to-Origin Pearl of the South Sea and the red lotus heart of the Demon Abyss, perhaps I could shield Xuanyan from the death shown in the Mirror of Fate.

I had just stepped through the city gate when I heard a storyteller in a tea shed.

“Have you all heard? The night before the wedding in the Ninth Heaven, the Lord’s little phoenix ran off again!”

My steps halted.

The tea shed was packed.

The storyteller slapped the table. “This is the third time! The Lord let the first two go, but this third time, they say the Lord is furious and has already come down to the mortal world to catch her!”

I quietly hid my face under my bamboo hat.

An old woman selling wontons beside me was listening with relish.

“Why did the little phoenix run?”

The storyteller lowered his voice.

“Why else? Spoiled and arrogant. The Lord dotes on her so much that all the heavens know it. She leans on his affection, and now she even dares to flee her own wedding.”

Something pricked at my chest.

That isn’t it.

I am not spoiled and arrogant.

I am only afraid he will die.

I was about to leave when a light laugh came from the corner of the tea shed.

“The gentleman has it wrong.”

That voice was cold and familiar.

My whole body went stiff.

Everyone turned toward the sound.

A man in white sat by the window, brows and eyes like snow, a cup of hot tea held between his fingertips.

He was not wearing the Lord’s ceremonial robes, and had bound his hair with nothing but a jade pin.

But the moment he raised his eyes, all the noise in the shed fell silent.

The storyteller stammered, “Y-young Master, what is your esteemed opinion?”

Xuanyan set down his teacup.

“She is not spoiled and arrogant.”

My heart was beating so hard it nearly burst through my chest.

He was looking toward the place where I was hiding, and a hint of a smile rose in his eyes.

“She is simply timid, and her first instinct is to run.”

The tea shed erupted.

I turned and walked away.

But I had taken only two steps when his unhurried voice came from behind me.

“Feiling.”

I pretended not to hear.

“I’ve bought the osmanthus cake.”

My feet, with no backbone at all, paused.

And in that one pause, an arm closed around my waist.

Xuanyan’s sleeve swept over, carrying me entirely into his arms.

The bamboo hat fell to the ground.

Everyone in the tea shed saw the phoenix fire mark between my brows.

The storyteller’s wooden block clattered to the floor.

“L-little phoenix?”

Xuanyan held my waist with one hand and picked up my hat with the other, unhurried.

I lowered my voice and hissed through my teeth, “How are you this fast?”

He looked down at me.

“My wife ran off in such a hurry, she forgot to bring money.”

I felt at the Qiankun Pouch.

Empty.

Xuanyan put a pouch of spirit stones into my palm.

“This lord has come to deliver money.”

I stared.

He handed me a packet of osmanthus cake as well.

“And to bring you home on the way.”

Everyone in the tea shed held their breath.

My ears burned red, but I still steeled myself and pushed at him.

“I’m not going back.”

“Why not?”

“I still have things to do.”

“What things?”

I pressed my lips together and did not answer.

Xuanyan looked at me for a while, then sighed.

That sigh made me feel guilty.

“Feiling.” He reached out and lightly pinched the edge of my sleeve. “If you do not want to marry, this lord will not force you.”

My head snapped up.

There was no anger in his eyes.

Only a faint weariness.

“But you must at least tell this lord why you ran.”

I nearly told him.

But the image in the Mirror of Fate flashed before me.

The cold chasm.

The blood.

The shattered soul.

I bit my tongue and forced myself awake.

“I just don’t want to marry.”

Xuanyan’s gaze darkened slightly.

I did not dare look at him.

I only pushed the osmanthus cake back into his arms.

“The Lord is of noble station. You can marry whoever you like. Stop clinging to one thoughtless little phoenix.”

When I had said that, while he was still stunned, I turned into firelight and shot out of the tea shed.

Behind me, someone cried out.

I did not dare look back.

Because I was afraid that if I did, I would see him sad.

And I was even more afraid that I would not be able to leave.

The wutong heart was in Phoenix Cry Mountain, north of Qingzhou.

But Phoenix Cry Mountain was no ordinary mountain.

There was a ward at its foot, and the Wutong Clan, half immortal and half demon, lived within.

They guarded that ten-thousand-year wutong tree, and held its heart to be the clan’s greatest treasure.

If you want the wutong heart, you cannot take it by force.

You have to pass three trials.

The first trial: the heart’s question.

The second: the fire’s test.

The third: the exchange of lives.

I stood before the mountain gate, looking at the two characters “exchange of lives” carved into the stone tablet, and my back went a little cold.

The wutong youth guarding the gate sized me up.

“Young lady, have you come for the heartwood too?”

I nodded.

“To save someone?”

“To save someone.”

He glanced at the fire mark between my brows, and his expression changed.

“A phoenix?”

My heart lurched.

I had deliberately hidden what I was before coming. I had not expected to be seen through anyway.

The youth took half a step back, his tone turning cold.

“The Phoenix Clan owes my clan a life. And you still dare come asking for the wutong heart?”

I froze.

“Owes a life?”

He sneered.

“Playing dumb? Thirty thousand years ago, your Phoenix Clan took the heartfire of our holy maiden, made her fail her rebirth, and brought her to Soul Scattering. And now you want to take our heartwood? Dream on!”

I opened my mouth.

I was still small when the Phoenix Clan fell. There was much of the old history I did not know.

But I did know that if this old grievance was real, then the wutong heart would be harder to get than I had imagined.

“I can make amends.”

“Amends?” The youth’s eyes were full of hatred. “With what? With your phoenix heart?”

I fell silent.

If it really could save Xuanyan, then perhaps it was not impossible.

The youth seemed startled by my silence.

He frowned. “You really would trade your life?”

I was just about to answer when a soft voice came from behind me.

“Of course she would.”

I turned.

A white-robed Fairy came walking out of the mist, frost flowers embroidered on her skirts, a dot of silver marking the center of her brow.

Shuangyuan.

A high immortal of the heavens’ Fate Office, and one of the names once spoken of as Xuanyan’s intended bride.

Before I appeared, everyone had assumed the Empress would be her.

She was refined in appearance, and she spoke softly.

But whenever she looked at me, there was always something like a needle hidden behind her eyes.

“The lady Feiling even dares to flee the Lord’s own wedding,” Shuangyuan smiled. “So what is offering up a phoenix heart in apology, compared to that?”

I watched her warily.

“Why are you here?”

“Naturally, to search for you on the Lord’s behalf.”

She walked over to the wutong youth and held out a jade token.

“I am Shuangyuan of the heavenly Fate Office, ordered to investigate the theft of the Soul-Suppressing Lamp. Someone saw the lady Feiling carry it away when she fled her wedding.”

My expression changed.

“I did not.”

Shuangyuan sighed.

“Your Highness, I know you are willful. But the Soul-Suppressing Lamp keeps a hundred thousand dead of the Northern Reaches at rest. It is not a thing for you to play with.”

The wutong youth immediately went on guard.

“You stole a heavenly Magic Tool?”

“I did not.”

But the moment I said it, the Qiankun Pouch lit up on its own.

A faint blue glow shone out through the cloth.

My heart sank. I opened it, and inside, sure enough, lay a small bronze lamp.

Soul fire flickered within it. It was the Soul-Suppressing Lamp.

The wutong clan members closed in around me at once.

A flicker of triumph crossed Shuangyuan’s eyes, quickly replaced by grief.

“The lady Feiling, you have disappointed the Lord so.”

I gripped the Qiankun Pouch tight.

So she had come for me.

She knew I had come for the wutong heart, and so she had slipped the Soul-Suppressing Lamp into my pouch beforehand.

As long as the Wutong Clan believed me a thief, they would never give me the heartwood.

And once I was dragged back to the heavens, Xuanyan would be shamed through me as well.

One arrow, three hawks.

I said coldly, “Shuangyuan, when you went through my pouch, you forgot one thing.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

I lifted my hand and swept it out.

A cluster of crimson-gold flame flew out of the Qiankun Pouch.

That was my phoenix fire.

Phoenix fire does not lie.

Whoever has touched what is mine, the fire remembers their breath.

The flame circled in midair, then darted straight at Shuangyuan’s sleeve.

Shuangyuan’s expression shifted slightly.

She stepped back, and a frost talisman flew from her sleeve and scattered the flame.

“Is Your Highness trying to silence a witness?”

The wutong clan grew angrier still.

“Seize her!”

Dozens of vines burst up from the ground and bound my hands and feet.

My instinct was to burn them.

But this was the wutong grove. If a fire started here, the ten-thousand-year wutong tree would suffer too.

So I forced myself to hold back.

The vines drew tighter and tighter, until my wrist bones ached.

Shuangyuan came close, her voice so soft that only I could hear.

“Little phoenix, do you really think the Lord would fall out with the entire Fate Office for your sake?”

I raised my head and looked at her.

She smiled.

“You are nothing but a lone bird he picked up in a moment of pity. Without you, he is still the Lord. With you, he is only a joke to the heavens.”

That sentence went into me like a needle.

That was exactly what I feared most.

That I would drag him down.

That I would become his joke.

That one day, everyone would say Xuanyan had lost his judgment over a little phoenix.

I clenched my teeth and said nothing.

Seeing my silence, the triumph in Shuangyuan’s eyes deepened.

“Take her away.”

The wutong clan was about to move when a sweep of snow-colored sword light suddenly fell beyond the mountain gate.

The vines snapped all at once.

My body went light, and I fell into a familiar embrace.

A cold fragrance filled my nose.

Xuanyan had come.

He held my waist with one arm and gripped an undrawn longsword with the other, his gaze sweeping over the crowd.

“Who wants to take her away?”

Dead silence all around.

Shuangyuan’s face went pale, but she forced herself to make a salute.

“My Lord, the lady Feiling stole the Soul-Suppressing Lamp. The person and the goods were both caught together. Shuangyuan was only carrying out heavenly law.”

Xuanyan did not even look at her.

He lowered his head, and looked first at my wrists.

The vines had left a ring of red marks.

His eyes went cold in an instant.

Panic rose in me, and I hurriedly hid my hands in my sleeves.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

Xuanyan took my hand.

“You’re lying.”

His fingertips passed over the red marks, and spiritual energy settled over them gently.

The pain dissolved at once.

My nose stung, and I nearly lost hold of myself.

Shuangyuan stood frozen where she was.

“My Lord, the Soul-Suppressing Lamp…”

“Last night, this lord handed the Soul-Suppressing Lamp to the Fate Office himself, for safekeeping.”

Xuanyan finally raised his eyes.

Shuangyuan’s expression stalled.

He said mildly, “This lord would like to ask: how did a Magic Tool sealed by the Fate Office end up in her Qiankun Pouch?”

Shuangyuan’s face went a shade whiter.

“Perhaps Her Highness slipped into the Fate Office…”

“After she fled this lord’s bedchamber last night, she went straight to the Southern Gate of Heaven, then to Qingzhou. The heavenly mirrors recorded her the whole way.”

Xuanyan’s voice was not loud, but every word drove Shuangyuan back a step.

“You, on the other hand, went to the tea shed where she was staying, half a shichen ago.”

I froze.

He knew all of it?

Xuanyan lowered his eyes to me.

“Did you really think this lord was at ease letting you run about alone?”

I ducked my head, conscience-stricken.

Shuangyuan bit her lip.

“So the Lord means to take her side?”

Xuanyan smiled, suddenly.

The smile was faint, and cold enough to make a person shiver.

“This lord’s wife. Naturally this lord takes her side.”

My heart gave a violent jump.

The wutong clan looked at one another.

Shuangyuan’s eyes went completely red.

“But she fled her wedding first!”

“That is this lord’s family business.”

Xuanyan tightened his grip on my hand.

“It is not for the Fate Office to comment on.”

I looked up at him, and saw only the hard line of his profile.

He was protecting me.

Without a moment’s hesitation.

Even though I had just said in the tea shed that I did not want to marry him.

Even though I had embarrassed him so badly.

He had still come.

Shuangyuan was not willing to let it go.

“My Lord, she came to Phoenix Cry Mountain for the wutong heart. The wutong heart is the Wutong Clan’s greatest treasure. If she takes it by force, that is another crime.”

Xuanyan looked down at me and asked.

“You want the wutong heart?”

My fingers curled.

“Mm.”

“To save whom?”

I did not dare answer.

Xuanyan looked at me, his gaze as deep as the night.

After a long while, he turned to the wutong clan.

“The three trials of Phoenix Cry Mountain. This lord will pass them for her.”

I grabbed his sleeve.

“No!”

The trial of exchanging lives. Who knew what would be exchanged?

But Xuanyan turned his hand and caught my fingertips.

“The person you want to save, is that person important to you?”

My eyes stung.

Important.

More important than my own life.

But I could not say it.

I only lowered my head and nodded, very slightly.

Xuanyan looked at me, then sighed.

“Since that person is important, this lord will go with you.”

At that, the wind on Phoenix Cry Mountain went still.

I heard my own heartbeat, one beat more disordered than the last.

I wanted to push him away.

But his hand was so warm.

And suddenly, I could not bear to.

The Wutong Clan Head came out of the mist, a white-haired old man.

He looked at me, then at Xuanyan.

“The Lord is of noble station. Will you really run the trials for her too?”

Xuanyan said mildly, “She is timid.”

I was about to protest when he added one more line.

“This lord is afraid she will be hurt.”

My ears burned completely.

The Wutong Clan Head was silent for a long while, then finally stepped aside.

“Then enter the mountain.”

Shuangyuan stood where she was, her nails nearly digging into her palms.

Xuanyan led me by the hand through the mountain gate.

As I passed Shuangyuan, she suddenly said in a low voice, “Feiling, you cannot save him.”

My steps halted.

She knew.

She knew there was a calamity hanging over Xuanyan.

I turned to look at her.

Shuangyuan’s lips curved up, her eyes full of malice.

“The Mirror of Fate has already shown black. No one can change that.”

A chill went through me.

Xuanyan felt me go stiff and asked quietly, “What is it?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing.”

But my palms were already slick with sweat.

Xuanyan held my hand a little tighter.

“Feiling.”

“Mm?”

“Don’t be afraid.”

He had said those two words to me many times.

In the Demon Abyss.

On the night of thunder.

Every time I got in trouble and thought I was about to be thrown away.

But this time, what I feared was not for myself.

It was for him.

The first trial of Phoenix Cry Mountain: the heart’s question.

The Wutong Clan Head led us to a water mirror.

“The mirror shows the obsession of the one who seeks the heart. If the obsession is not true, the mountain gate will send you out itself.”

I stepped before the water mirror.

Ripples spread across the surface.

The first thing that appeared was the Demon Abyss.

Me as a child, curled in the cage, wings mangled and bleeding.

Then Xuanyan.

He walked out of the sword light and reached down to lift me up.

The image shifted, and became the cold chasm inside the Mirror of Fate.

Xuanyan, the phoenix true feather buried in his chest, blood soaking his white robes.

My face went dead white.

Outside the mirror, Xuanyan’s fingers stiffened slightly.

He had seen it.

I wanted to cover it, but it was already too late.

In the mirror, I knelt in the snow, sobbing my heart out.

“Xuanyan, don’t save me.”

The Xuanyan in the mirror only smiled.

He reached out to touch my face, and his fingertips dissolved into broken motes of light.

“Feiling, don’t be afraid.”

The water mirror cracked with a snap.

I took half a step back and bumped into Xuanyan’s arms.

He did not ask.

He only raised his hand and wrapped mine, cold as it was, in his.

The Wutong Clan Head’s expression was complicated.

“The obsession is real.”

The second trial: the fire’s test.

Beneath the ten-thousand-year wutong tree lay a pool of blue flame.

Whoever seeks the heart must enter the pool with their natal fire. If the flame can merge with the wutong’s blue fire, the trial is passed.

I was just about to step forward when Xuanyan stopped me.

“Let me.”

“You have no fire.”

“I have sword intent.”

“This is a test of fire, not of swords.”

I glared at him, furious.

“Xuanyan, stop always blocking for me.”

He looked at me.

“Then stop always dying for this lord.”

My chest jolted.

Our eyes met, and neither of us spoke.

So he had understood after all.

I bit my lip and jumped into the blue flame pool first.

Phoenix fire blazed up from my body.

The blue flame was very cold.

So cold it felt as if it would freeze my bones until they split.

I let out a stifled groan of pain.

At the edge of the pool, Xuanyan’s expression changed on the instant.

“Feiling!”

“Don’t come in!”

I clenched my teeth hard.

Phoenix fire and blue flame collided, and it felt as though thousands of ice needles were darting wild through my body.

But I could not retreat.

I wanted to save him.

I wanted him to live well.

Even if he married someone else afterward, even if he no longer remembered me, he had to live.

The moment that thought was born, the phoenix fire surged.

The blue flame was wrapped, little by little, in crimson-gold light, and finally became a small blue seed of fire that fell into my palm.

I had passed.

But the moment I stepped out of the pool, my knees gave way.

Xuanyan caught me.

His hands were shaking.

It was the first time I had ever seen him like that.

The Lord who passed judgment and took lives in the Ninth Heaven without a flicker of doubt, holding me, his fingertips actually trembling.

“Does it hurt?”

That question again.

My eyes ached terribly, but I deliberately smiled.

“A little.”

He looked down at me, and there was something like wind and snow pressed behind his eyes.

“A little, and you cry?”

Only then did I realize that tears had fallen at some point.

He wiped them away for me.

Far too gently.

“Feiling, did you run out here for this?”

I said nothing.

“For that scene in the Mirror of Fate?”

I still said nothing.

He bent down suddenly and rested his forehead against mine.

His cold fragrance wrapped around me.

His voice was low and rough.

“Are you a fool?”

Finally, I could not hold it in.

“I don’t want you to die.”

The moment those words left me, the tears would not stop at all.

“Xuanyan, I saw it. You will die in the cold chasm because of me. The true feather in my chest will pierce through you, and your soul will shatter. You are so strong, you could live for so very long. What right does it have, because of me…”

He held me tighter.

“Not because of you.”

“Because of me.”

“Feiling.”

He lifted my face in his hands and made me look at him.

“The Mirror of Fate shows a calamity, not an ending.”

I was stunned.

“What does that mean?”

“Calamities can be crossed.”

“But in the mirror you died.”

“The mirror can lie too.”

He said it calmly, but I saw the darkness flash once through his eyes.

Suddenly I understood that something was wrong.

“You knew already?”

Xuanyan was silent.

My heart sank, bit by bit.

“Your old cold-essence poison is real too, isn’t it?”

He still said nothing.

I shoved him hard.

“Xuanyan!”

He sighed.

“An old wound left from the battle in the Demon Abyss thirty thousand years ago. Not serious.”

“Not serious?” My voice cracked. “In the Mirror of Fate your soul shattered into pieces!”

“That is the worst possibility.”

“So you kept it from me?”

“And did you not keep your flight from me?”

I was stuck for an answer.

He reached out to take my hand.

I stepped back.

“It’s not the same.”

“How is it not?”

“I hid it from you to save you.”

“This lord hid it from you so that you could marry in peace.”

I looked at him, my eyes red.

“How can you be like this?”

Xuanyan said quietly, “Because this lord is afraid too.”

I went still.

He stood by the blue flame pool, his silver-white hem lifted by the wind, and in his eyes was something I had never seen before.

“This lord was afraid that if you knew, you would do exactly what you are doing now. Throw everything aside and take the risk for me.”

He looked at the red marks on my wrist, then at my fingertips, scorched by the blue flame.

“Feiling, this lord raised you. It was not so that I could watch you trade your life for mine.”

My throat tightened.

“But I am not a little bird you keep in the palace that does nothing but eat cake.”

I lifted my head and said, word by word, “I am a phoenix.”

His gaze shifted slightly.

“A phoenix is born knowing how to be reborn in flame. And how to protect the people she wants to protect. You have shielded me thirty thousand times. Why can I not shield you once?”

Xuanyan looked at me and said nothing for a long time.

The wind blew past the blue flame pool, and the wutong leaves rustled.

At last he walked over and took my hand again.

“You can.”

I blinked.

He lowered his head and kissed my scorched fingertips.

In that instant, my whole body went rigid.

But Xuanyan looked as though he had done nothing more than the most natural thing in the world.

“But the next time you shield this lord, you must tell this lord first.”

My ears burned red.

“Why?”

“Because this lord wants to shield you too.”

The third trial: the exchange of lives.

The Wutong Clan Head took out a heart of wood.

The heartwood was only the size of a thumb, blue-gold, like a beating heart.

“The wutong heart can guard the soul, but it must be exchanged for something of equal worth.”

I asked, “What is of equal worth?”

The clan head looked at me.

“One heart-guard scale from a phoenix.”

Xuanyan said at once, “No exchange.”

I pressed his hand down.

“Exchange.”

“Feiling.”

“It’s only one scale.”

“A phoenix’s heart-guard scale is bound to the heart meridian.”

“I know.”

His gaze darkened.

“You know, and you would still exchange it?”

I looked up at him.

“You just said I could shield you.”

Xuanyan was left with no words.

Suddenly I wanted to laugh.

So this was what it felt like to leave the Lord speechless.

But in the next moment, I could not laugh anymore.

When the heart-guard scale was torn away, it hurt more than the blue flame had, down to the bone.

I bit down on a cloth and the pain turned everything dark before my eyes.

Xuanyan held me and poured his spiritual energy into me again and again.

“That’s enough.” His voice was cold and unsteady. “This lord does not want the heartwood.”

I gripped his sleeve hard and would not let him move.

“I want it.”

“Feiling!”

I looked up at him, my voice faint with pain.

“Xuanyan, don’t be fierce with me.”

He froze instantly.

I knew that was the one thing he could never resist.

Sure enough, the anger in his eyes crumbled, leaving only heartache.

“All right. Not fierce.”

Seizing the moment, I handed the heart-guard scale to the clan head.

The blue-gold heartwood fell into my palm.

The instant I had it, I could hold on no longer, and fainted.

Just before I lost consciousness, I heard Xuanyan say beside my ear, “Feiling, this lord regrets it.”

I wanted to ask what he regretted.

Regretting picking me up and bringing me home?

Regretting betrothing himself to me?

Or regretting coming with me to run the trials?

But I had no strength to ask.

When I woke, I was lying in a mortal inn.

A calming incense burned in the room.

Xuanyan sat by the bed, a bowl of medicine in his hand.

By reflex, I shut my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

“Since you’re awake, drink your medicine.”

I opened my eyes a slit.

“How did you know I was awake?”

“Your tail feather is moving.”

I looked down. At some point a crimson-gold tail feather had popped out behind me, swaying guiltily.

I hurriedly hid my tail under the blanket.

A flicker of a smile passed through Xuanyan’s eyes, and then his face was stern again.

“Drink.”

I smelled the medicine, and my whole face scrunched up.

“It’s bitter.”

“Bitter or not, drink it.”

“I just had my heart-guard scale torn off.”

“Which is exactly why you must drink it.”

“I’m a patient.”

“Patients have no right to refuse medicine.”

I glared at him, cheeks puffed out.

“You don’t dote on me at all.”

Xuanyan paused, the spoon in his hand.

He suddenly took a packet of osmanthus candy from his sleeve and set it beside the bowl.

“One sip, one candy.”

I sat up at once.

“Deal.”

He looked at me, and his gaze softened a little.

I took two sips of medicine, then remembered something.

“You said you regretted something just now. What was it?”

Xuanyan was silent for a moment.

“Regretting that I let you be afraid all on your own, for so long.”

My heart felt as if it had been gently struck.

He set down the bowl and wiped a smear of medicine from the corner of my lips with his thumb.

“Feiling, this lord does not blame you for running.”

“Then what do you blame?”

“Blame that every time you run, you do not take me with you.”

I was stunned.

Xuanyan said quietly, “You want to save me, then we save together. You want to change fate, then we change it together. And if you truly want to run, tell this lord at least.”

I asked in a small voice, “If I tell you, you’ll let me run?”

He looked at me.

“I will.”

I did not believe him.

In the next instant he leaned in, his breath falling by my ear.

“But this lord will follow.”

My face went hot in a rush.

“That’s cheating.”

“Mm.”

He admitted it without a shred of shame.

“Learned it from my wife.”

I was left speechless, and could only bend my head to the medicine.

When the bowl was empty, I held the osmanthus candy in my mouth, and the ache in my chest really did seem to fade.

But I still could not go back.

The wutong heart was only the first ingredient.

The Return-to-Origin Pearl of the South Sea, the red lotus heart of the Demon Abyss, were still waiting for me.

More important, Shuangyuan already knew about the Mirror of Fate.

She would not stop here.

That night Xuanyan kept watch by the bed, and I pretended to be sound asleep.

When he closed his eyes to regulate his breathing, I quietly pushed back the blanket.

This time, I left a second note on the table.

I wrote it more carefully than the last one.

Do not miss me, my Lord. I have gone to fetch the second ingredient.

Then, after thinking it over, I added one more line.

The osmanthus candy was delicious.

I pushed the window open softly.

I was just about to jump out when Xuanyan’s voice came from behind me.

“Feiling.”

My whole body went rigid.

He opened his eyes, and they were perfectly clear. There was no sleep in them at all.

I gave a dry laugh.

“What a coincidence. You’re awake.”

Xuanyan rose and unhurriedly put on his outer robe.

“Not a coincidence.”

He picked up the note from the table and glanced at it.

“This lord has been waiting a long while for you to run.”

I said nothing.

He walked to the window and held out his hand to me.

“Weren’t you going to fetch the second ingredient?”

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

“You’re really letting me go?”

“Mm.”

“Not taking me back to the heavens?”

“No.”

He paused, and a hint of a smile rose in his eyes.

“This time, this lord will run with you.”

The Return-to-Origin Pearl of the South Sea was not obtained.

We had barely reached the South Sea when an urgent decree came from the heavens.

The Soul-Suppressing Lamp had truly been stolen.

The dead of the Northern Reaches ran wild, battering at the gates of Heaven.

And the last breath left in the heavenly mirror was phoenix fire.

Rumor exploded across the Ninth Heaven overnight.

“The little phoenix failed to flee her wedding, flew into a rage, and stole the Soul-Suppressing Lamp.”

“The Lord bent the law for her. That’s the only reason the Qingzhou business was suppressed.”

“The Phoenix Clan was tangled up with the demons back then, and the demonic qi in her never cleared. Who knows whether she was planted at the Lord’s side on purpose?”

Every sentence was a knife.

Xuanyan gripped the decree, his face cold enough to frighten.

But I had suddenly gone calm.

“It’s Shuangyuan.”

Xuanyan looked at me.

“I know.”

“She wants to force me back to the heavens to stand trial.”

“This lord will not let them touch you.”

I shook my head.

“I want to go back.”

Xuanyan’s brows drew together.

I put the wutong heart into his hand.

“Use it first to guard your soul.”

“Feiling.”

“Listen to me.” It was the first time I had ever spoken to him in such a serious tone. “If Shuangyuan dares to make this blow up, it means she still has another move in reserve. She knows about the Mirror of Fate, and she knows about your old cold-essence poison. She does not only want to ruin my name. She wants to force you to choose between the heavens and me.”

Xuanyan said coldly, “There is no choice to make.”

“I know.” I looked at him. “But I want everyone to know that it was not you who lost your judgment for my sake. It is that they were wrong from the very beginning.”

Xuanyan was silent.

I reached up and gently smoothed the frown from between his brows.

“You have protected me so many times. Let me stand on my own once, all right?”

He took my hand.

“If they hurt you…”

“Then you take my side again.”

I smiled on purpose, lightly.

“Didn’t you say it yourself? Your wife. Naturally you take her side.”

Xuanyan looked at me for a long time, and finally said quietly, “All right.”

The day we returned to the Ninth Heaven, immortal officials packed the space outside the Phoenix Trial Terrace.

As I was brought onto the terrace, the murmur around me came at me like a tide.

“That’s her.”

“The Lord actually let her stand trial?”

“The breath of phoenix fire can’t be wrong, can it?”

Shuangyuan stood on the other side of the high terrace, her eyes faintly red, as if she had suffered a grievance the size of heaven.

The Master of the Fate Office personally presented the evidence.

A shattered Soul-Suppressing Lamp.

A wisp of crimson-gold fire trace.

And half a phoenix tail feather.

The Master of the Fate Office said coldly, “Lady Feiling, do you plead guilty?”

I looked at that half feather, and suddenly smiled.

“No.”

An uproar below the terrace.

Shuangyuan said softly, “Your Highness, at this point, why keep denying it? If it was only a moment of willfulness, admit your fault to the heavens, and perhaps the Lord can still plead for you.”

I looked at her.

“How do you know the Lord would plead for me?”

Shuangyuan paused.

I walked step by step to the evidence.

“Because from beginning to end, you have been betting that he would protect me.”

Her expression shifted.

I picked up the half feather.

“This is not my feather.”

The Master of the Fate Office frowned.

“A phoenix tail feather. There is only one phoenix in all the heavens. If it is not yours, whose could it be?”

“Only dyed with fire.”

Phoenix fire blazed in my palm.

Inside the flame, the half feather slowly revealed its true form.

The crimson-gold faded, and it became a silver-white frost feather.

The terrace went instantly silent.

Shuangyuan’s face went white.

I raised my head and looked at her.

“Fairy Shuangyuan, how did your natal frost feather come to be dyed with my phoenix fire?”

She forced herself to stay composed.

“I do not know. Perhaps you stole my frost feather to frame me.”

“Very well.”

I nodded.

“Then look at the second item.”

I raised my hand and summoned a cluster of firelight.

The firelight took shape in midair as an image.

It was the memory stored in the phoenix fire inside my Qiankun Pouch.

In the back alley behind the tea shed in Qingzhou, Shuangyuan used a frost talisman to open my Qiankun Pouch and put the Soul-Suppressing Lamp inside.

The image was perfectly clear.

The immortals erupted.

Shuangyuan’s face was paper white.

“Fake! The phoenix fire is under your control. Naturally it shows whatever you want it to show!”

The Master of the Fate Office said heavily as well, “A fire image alone cannot convict her.”

I had known they would say that.

So I looked below the terrace.

“Wutong Clan Head, would you be willing to testify?”

The mist parted, and the Wutong Clan Head of Phoenix Cry Mountain came walking with a staff.

Every immortal’s expression changed.

The Wutong Clan had never involved itself in the affairs of the heavens.

If they were willing to come, it meant this was no simple matter.

The clan head stood on the Phoenix Trial Terrace, his voice old but clear.

“What happened in Qingzhou, this old man saw with his own eyes. Fairy Shuangyuan first used the Soul-Suppressing Lamp to frame Lady Feiling, and then used a frost talisman to scatter the evidence of the phoenix fire.”

Shuangyuan took a step back.

“You are talking nonsense!”

The clan head looked at her coldly.

“The Wutong Clan does not meddle in the quarrels of the heavens. But we do not give false testimony for anyone either.”

The murmur below the terrace grew louder.

Seeing that things were going badly, Shuangyuan suddenly knelt toward Xuanyan.

“My Lord, Shuangyuan admits that the Qingzhou business was my folly. But the theft of the Soul-Suppressing Lamp was absolutely not my doing. Lady Feiling would tear off her own heart-guard scale for the wutong heart. To change fate, what would she not do?”

At those words, every gaze fell on me.

Xuanyan’s face went cold in an instant.

But Shuangyuan, as if clutching at the last straw, wept, “Do you all know that the Mirror of Fate once showed a black omen? Lady Feiling is the Lord’s death calamity! She feared the wedding would reveal the truth, so she fled. She stole the Soul-Suppressing Lamp to suppress the dead of the Northern Reaches, and hide the calamity of the cold chasm!”

The terrace below blew apart entirely.

“A death calamity?”

“No wonder she fled her wedding!”

“If she really would bring about the Lord’s death, how can she be made Empress?”

My fingertips went cold.

This was Shuangyuan’s real second move.

She meant to lay the calamity between Xuanyan and me out before everyone.

She meant to make the heavens force Xuanyan to give me up.

Shuangyuan raised her head, tears sliding down, her voice pitiful.

“My Lord, everything Shuangyuan has done, she did for you. You hold the heavens in your hand. How can you be dragged into a death calamity by a single phoenix?”

Many immortal officials knelt with her.

“Please, my Lord, think again!”

“Please, my Lord, dissolve the betrothal!”

“Please, my Lord, put the heavens first!”

One after another, like sledgehammers coming down.

I stood in the middle of the Phoenix Trial Terrace, and suddenly could not breathe.

This was the very scene I feared most.

Everyone saying I would be the death of him.

Everyone saying he could not choose me.

I wanted to step back, but a hand closed around me from behind.

Xuanyan had come to my side without my noticing.

His palm was very steady.

“Lift your head.”

I lifted my head and looked at him.

He looked out over the terrace full of immortal officials, his voice cold.

“The Mirror of Fate showed black. This lord has long known.”

The immortals went quiet.

“The old cold-essence poison. This lord has long known of that as well.”

Shuangyuan’s pupils contracted.

Xuanyan went on. “On the day the Soul-Suppressing Lamp was truly stolen, Feiling was in the South Sea, and this lord was with her. The Dragon Lord of the South Sea can bear witness.”

He raised his hand.

The water mirror image of the Dragon Lord of the South Sea appeared.

“This lord testifies. The lady Feiling was indeed in the South Sea that day, and did not leave it for a single step.”

The Master of the Fate Office’s face went sour.

Shuangyuan gritted her teeth.

“But the trace of phoenix fire…”

“The phoenix fire trace, you took from her heart-guard scale.”

One sentence from Xuanyan, and the whole hall fell into dead silence.

The last of the color drained from Shuangyuan’s face.

Xuanyan raised his hand, and another image surfaced in midair.

It was the inn, at night.

After I fell into a deep sleep, Shuangyuan’s spirit butterfly slipped in through the window crack, landed on the bloodstained cloth, and took away a little of my phoenix fire and heart-guard scale trace.

I stared at Xuanyan in shock.

He explained in a low voice, “After you fell asleep, this lord set an image-recording formation.”

I suddenly remembered what he had called closing his eyes to Regulate Breathing that night.

So he had guessed long ago.

Shuangyuan slumped to the ground.

The Master of the Fate Office still tried to struggle.

“Even so, where is the Soul-Suppressing Lamp now?”

Xuanyan looked coldly at Shuangyuan.

“Ask her.”

Shuangyuan suddenly laughed.

She laughed until tears came.

“Yes. I stole it. But I did it all for you!”

She scrambled to her feet, and a bronze soul lamp flew from her sleeve.

The Soul-Suppressing Lamp!

The dead of the Northern Reaches howled inside it, and black qi shot into the sky.

Shuangyuan’s eyes were full of madness.

“Xuanyan, I have accompanied you for three thousand years! I kept the Fate Office for you, I divined destiny for you. Why is it her, in the end?”

The instant the Soul-Suppressing Lamp shattered, a black tide of dead souls rushed at the Phoenix Trial Terrace.

Immortal officials screamed and scattered.

Xuanyan drew his sword and stood in front of me.

But the moment he called on his divine power, frost formed between his brows.

The old cold-essence poison had flared.

My chest clenched hard.

The scene from the Mirror of Fate was playing out again.

The chill spread from his palm, and yet his sword light still shielded me.

“Feiling, get back.”

Get back, again.

Don’t be afraid, again.

Suddenly I did not want to hear it anymore.

I stepped out from behind him.

Xuanyan’s expression changed.

“Feiling!”

I turned and smiled at him.

“This time, it’s my turn.”

I took out the wutong heart and pressed it into his palm.

Blue-gold light instantly guarded his soul.

Then I pulled out my own phoenix true feather, the one he had kept for so long.

The true feather that had pierced him in the Mirror of Fate now burned with the fire of rebirth in my palm.

I finally understood.

The true feather in the mirror was never the blade that killed him.

It was the fire that saved him.

The instant the black mist rushed in, I spread both wings.

Phoenix fire swept across the Phoenix Trial Terrace.

Not fire out of control.

Fire of rebirth.

The dead souls screamed in the flames, then slowly went quiet.

They were not burned to nothing. The firelight washed the resentment from them, and they turned into motes of starlight that rose into the Heavenly River.

Shuangyuan stared at me in disbelief.

“Impossible… you tore off your heart-guard scale. How can you still be reborn?”

I stood in the fire, shaking all over with pain, and smiled.

“Because I am not alone.”

Xuanyan’s divine power surged from behind me and braided with my phoenix fire.

Cold and heat.

Snow and fire.

As if they had always been meant to be that way.

On the Phoenix Trial Terrace, everyone saw it.

The phantom of the Mirror of Fate rose in midair.

The surface that had been churning with black mist was burned through, little by little, by the phoenix fire.

The scene in the cold chasm changed.

Xuanyan no longer stood alone in the snow.

I stood at his side, holding his hand.

The phoenix true feather did not pierce his chest. It turned into a twin-heart seal and came to rest in both our palms.

The mirror face shone with gold-red light.

A hundred years of devotion.

No.

For every life to come.

The immortals fell to their knees.

“Fate has been changed…”

“The phoenix has been reborn, and the Lord’s soul is steady!”

Shuangyuan lay collapsed on the ground, her face like ashes.

Xuanyan sheathed his sword and walked to stand before her.

“Shuangyuan. In your capacity as a Fate official, you stole the Mirror of Fate, stole the Soul-Suppressing Lamp, framed the Empress, and caused the dead of the Northern Reaches to run wild. By heavenly law: your immortal bones are stripped, and you are sent to Wuwan Prison for three thousand years.”

Shuangyuan looked up, and at last she was afraid.

“My Lord, I was wrong. I only liked you too much…”

There was not the slightest ripple in Xuanyan’s eyes.

“Liking is no reason to harm.”

She looked at me then.

“Lady Feiling, please speak for me. Aren’t you the softest-hearted of all?”

I looked down at her.

Once, her words had made me afraid. Made me doubt whether I deserved to stand at Xuanyan’s side.

But now, suddenly, I was not afraid.

I had my fire.

And I had the person I wanted to protect.

“My heart is soft.”

Hope lit in Shuangyuan’s eyes.

I went on, “But I am not stupid.”

The heavenly general stepped forward and dragged Shuangyuan away.

She screamed and struggled, and her voice slowly receded.

The Phoenix Trial Terrace was quiet at last.

I turned to look at Xuanyan, but my legs gave way.

The fire of rebirth had used up all my strength.

Xuanyan caught me.

This time, he did not hold back.

In front of all the immortal officials under heaven, he pulled me tightly into his arms.

I heard his heartbeat.

Very fast.

Very disordered.

“Feiling.”

His voice was low and hoarse.

I leaned against his chest and said quietly, “I’m fine.”

“Lying again.”

I laughed a little.

“Then are you going to punish me?”

Xuanyan’s arms tightened around me.

“Punish.”

My heart clenched.

“Punish me with what?”

He lowered his head until his forehead rested against mine.

Everyone on the Phoenix Trial Terrace was still kneeling.

But there was only me in his eyes.

“Punish you by marrying this lord.”

My face went red at once.

“Whoever heard of such a punishment?”

“The Lord’s Palace punishment.”

“That’s unreasonable.”

“Mm.”

He said quietly, “Only unreasonable toward you.”

Below the terrace, someone could not hold back a soft laugh.

And then, every immortal official under heaven ducked their heads, shoulders trembling.

I was so embarrassed I wanted to bury my face.

But Xuanyan turned with me in his arms to face the assembled immortals.

His voice was clear and steady, and it carried across the whole Ninth Heaven.

“This lord proclaims before Heaven and earth today.”

“Feiling is not a death calamity. She is the one place this lord belongs, in this life and no other.”

“The betrothal is not dissolved.”

“The Empress’s seat admits no one but her.”

At that, starlight fell from the Heavenly River.

I raised my head to look at him, and my eyes slowly grew hot.

So this was what it felt like to be chosen without wavering.

Not me hiding behind him.

Not him standing alone in front of me.

But the two of us standing together in the wind.

His hand holding mine.

My fire burning in me.

Let no one try to make us let go.

After the business at the Phoenix Trial Terrace, I slept for seven whole days in the Lord’s Palace.

When I woke, a ring of people had gathered around the bed.

Yunying had cried her eyes into peaches.

The Dragon Lord of the South Sea had sent three chests of night-luminescent pearls, for my health.

The Wutong Clan Head sent a branch of blue-gold wutong, and said that if I ever needed heartwood again, I should write first, and not go tear off scales in person.

The Thunder Lord was the most absurd.

He gave me a copy of The Complete Guide to Fleeing a Wedding.

The moment he put it in my hand, Xuanyan confiscated it with a cold face.

The Thunder Lord knelt on the spot.

“My Lord, this minister only wanted to give Her Highness the Empress something to laugh at.”

Xuanyan opened it to the first page.

On it was written: Item one. If you wish to evade the Lord’s pursuit, first burn his image-recording formation.

Xuanyan’s face was blank.

“This year’s salary for the Thunder Office is halved.”

The Thunder Lord went away weeping.

I huddled under the blanket, shaking with laughter.

Xuanyan turned and looked at me.

“Something funny?”

I immediately acted well-behaved.

“Not funny.”

He walked to the bed and tucked the blanket in around me.

“Does your body still hurt?”

I shook my head.

Actually, it still hurt a little.

The place where the heart-guard scale had been torn off sometimes went hot, as if a new scale were slowly growing in.

But compared with losing Xuanyan, that bit of pain was nothing at all.

Xuanyan clearly did not believe me.

He laid his hand just above my heart, and his spiritual energy slipped in gently.

His touch made my face hot.

“What are you doing?”

“Seeing whether the scale has grown back properly.”

“You don’t need to touch there for that.”

He lifted his eyes to me.

“Shy?”

I immediately put on a brave front.

“Who’s shy?”

There was laughter in Xuanyan’s eyes.

“Your ears are red.”

I pulled the blanket up to cover half my face.

“It’s hot.”

“Mm.”

He nodded with complete seriousness.

“Phoenix fire runs strong. It is hot.”

I suspected he was teasing me.

But I had no proof.

Another half month passed, and the heavens began preparing the wedding again.

This time, no one dared say I was unworthy of Xuanyan.

The Fate Office had a new master, who delivered the new marriage contract in person.

The Mirror of Fate hung before the great hall, and its gold-red light lingered and would not fade.

While Yunying helped me try on the wedding robe, she smoothed the sleeves and sighed quietly.

“Little Highness, you won’t run again this time, will you?”

I looked at myself in the mirror.

A crimson-gold wedding robe, phoenix patterns sweeping from the hem all the way up to my shoulders.

Unreasonably beautiful.

I blinked.

“I won’t run.”

Yunying had just let out a breath.

I added one more line.

“Probably.”

The phoenix crown in her hands nearly fell again.

“Little Highness!”

I laughed and caught the crown.

“I’m teasing you.”

But on the night before the wedding, I still could not sleep.

Not from fear.

From being too happy.

I sat by the window and looked out at the ten thousand star lanterns beyond the Lord’s Palace.

Xuanyan had hung those lanterns himself.

Long ago, I had been afraid of the dark, so he hung lights for me to see.

Now I was no longer afraid of the dark, and he still hung them.

Suddenly I wanted to go see him.

So I climbed out the window, as familiar with the route as ever.

I had just landed on the ridge when a soft cough came from behind me.

I turned.

Three hundred and sixty attendants lifted their heads in perfect unison to look at me.

The scene was very familiar.

Yunying clutched the phoenix crown, her voice trembling.

“Her Highness the Empress, where are you going this time?”

I was silent for a moment.

“Out for some air?”

Yunying’s vision went black.

In the next instant, the door of the Lord’s bedchamber opened.

Xuanyan stood in the moonlight, white robes like snow.

He saw me on the ridge, and was not surprised.

He only held out his hand to me.

“Come down.”

I crouched on the ridge and asked on purpose, “Aren’t you coming to catch me?”

Xuanyan looked at me, the smile in his eyes very faint.

“Are you running this time too?”

I thought about it.

“Running.”

The attendants around us gasped.

Xuanyan was not angry.

“Running where?”

I spread my fire wings and leapt lightly.

Not running outward.

Flying toward him.

Xuanyan caught me steadily.

I threw myself into his arms, wrapped my arms around his waist, and looked up, laughing.

“Into your arms.”

Everything went quiet for a moment.

Then Yunying covered her mouth, and her eyes went red again.

Xuanyan lowered his head to look at me, and at last the corners of his mouth curved.

“Route approved.”

I clung to him and would not let go.

“Then I’ll run like this from now on.”

“You may.”

“Will you still catch me?”

“I will.”

His arms tightened, and he lifted me clean off the ground.

“Catch you for a lifetime.”

My cheek pressed against his chest, I heard that heart beating steady and sure.

No cold chasm.

No shattered soul.

Only him and me.

On the wedding day, the Ninth Heaven was bathed in radiance for ten thousand li.

I walked the heavenly steps with my hand on Xuanyan’s arm.

All those voices that had doubted, mocked, and pressed him to give me up were gone.

Every immortal official bowed in salute.

“Welcome, my Lord. Welcome, Her Highness the Empress.”

I looked at Xuanyan.

He was already looking at me.

When the rites of Heaven and earth were complete, the Mirror of Fate gave a single clear chime.

In the mirror were reflected a crimson-gold phoenix and a snow-colored longsword.

The phoenix circled the blade in flight.

The blade shielded the flame, and did not go out.

I suddenly remembered that long ago, I had asked Xuanyan that if I married, I would marry the person who treated me best.

Back then, I did not understand.

Now I understand.

Best does not mean he always stands in front of me.

It means I can safely put my back in his hands, and stand proudly at his side.

After the rites, Xuanyan led me back to the Lord’s Palace.

The moment we stepped into the bedchamber, I saw a packet of osmanthus cake on the table.

Pinned beneath it was a note.

I opened it.

The writing was Xuanyan’s.

If my wife wishes to go out for some air, she may bring this lord along.

I could not help laughing out loud.

“My Lord, are you afraid I’ll run again?”

Xuanyan closed the door and walked slowly toward me.

“Afraid.”

I went still.

He raised his hand and took off my phoenix crown.

“Afraid you’ll hurt and not say so. Afraid you’ll feel wronged and not speak of it. Afraid you’ll go off alone again to change some fate.”

He bent his head and kissed the fire mark on my brow.

“And even more afraid that when you run, you won’t know that this lord has been waiting all along for you to look back.”

My eyes stung.

“Then I won’t run anymore.”

But Xuanyan shook his head.

“You may run, if you want to.”

I looked at him, puzzled.

He took my hand and pressed a kiss to the twin-heart seal in my palm.

“Just remember to run toward wherever this lord is.”

Outside the window, the star lanterns swayed.

I rose on my toes and hugged him first.

“Xuanyan.”

“Mm?”

“I like you.”

His eyes went soft in an instant, softer than words could carry.

“This lord knows.”

I was not satisfied.

“You’re supposed to say you like me too.”

Xuanyan lowered his eyes and smiled.

That smile was like spring thawing a snow mountain, and the moonlight in the whole hall turned gentle.

“Feiling.”

“Mm?”

“This lord loves you.”

My face burned fiercely, but I still could not stop smiling.

“Then you still have to buy me osmanthus cake in the future.”

“I will.”

“And let me sleep in.”

“I will.”

“And clean up my messes when I get in trouble.”

“I will.”

“And if I want to run again…”

Xuanyan lowered his head and kissed me softly.

The rest of my words were swallowed between his lips and teeth.

A long while later, he answered in a low voice, still against my lips.

“Then this lord will come and fetch you.”

I closed my eyes, and my heart was as sweet as if it had been filled with osmanthus candy.

After that, that saying still made the rounds in the Ninth Heaven.

My Lord, your little phoenix has run off again.

Only now, whenever Xuanyan heard it, he would calmly set down his memorials, rise, and walk out.

The attendants would ask, “My Lord, off to catch the Empress again?”

He would smile.

“Not to catch.”

“To bring her home.”

And every time I ran off, I would not go far before I looked back.

Because I knew that no matter how far I flew, there would always be a star lantern burning behind me.

And there would always be someone who crossed the nine layers of cloud sea, treading the moonlight, coming after me.

He would reach out his hand to me.

The way he had in the Demon Abyss, all those years ago.

He would say, “Feiling, come home.”

And I would throw myself into his arms and answer, smiling.

“All right, my Lord.”

“Your little phoenix is back.”

I had thought that once I was married, I would settle down a great deal.

As it turned out, I did not know myself as well as I thought.

Three months after the wedding, I ran from the Lord’s Palace for the fourth time.

This time it was not to flee a wedding.

Nor to change fate.

And not because I was afraid of drinking medicine, either.

I went to prepare a birthday gift for Xuanyan.

The problem was that I did not say so in advance.

That morning, Xuanyan went to the Hall of Heavenly Law for a council, and before leaving he made a point of warning me.

“The wind is strong today. Don’t go sleeping by the edge of the cloud sea.”

I curled up on the soft couch, a plate of osmanthus cake in my arms, and nodded.

“I know.”

“Did you drink your medicine?”

“I did.”

“Don’t pour it into the flowerpot.”

I looked up, startled.

“How did you know?”

Xuanyan looked at the immortal orchid by the window, which was growing exceptionally well.

I followed his gaze, and coughed guiltily.

“It looked like it needed building up too.”

Xuanyan’s smile was neither quite a smile nor quite not.

“Last night it opened its mouth and said it was bitter.”

I said nothing.

The Lord is too clever. Sometimes it seriously damages a marriage.

In the end, under his watch, I obediently finished the medicine.

It was so bitter that my whole face scrunched into a ball.

Xuanyan fed me two candied fruits, then bent down and kissed my forehead.

“Wait for this lord to come back.”

I caught hold of his sleeve.

“When will you be back?”

“Before sunset.”

“And if those old men in the Hall of Heavenly Law drag you into another argument?”

He paused.

“This lord will end the council early.”

I was satisfied.

But the moment his back was turned, I pulled my little bundle out from under the bed.

When Yunying came in with tea, she caught me just as I was stuffing a map into my robe.

Her face went white.

“Her Highness the Empress.”

I held up one finger at her.

“Shh.”

Yunying’s eyes moved from my bundle, to the window, and then to the note already written on the table.

Her voice changed completely.

“Your Highness… you’re not going to run again, are you?”

I corrected her.

“Not running. Going out.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Of course there is,” I said with perfect confidence. “Running is leaving without a word. Going out means I left a note.”

Yunying looked at the note on the table.

There were only four words on it.

Gone out for a bit.

She drew a deep breath, as if she were about to cry.

“Your Highness, that’s called leaving a last will.”

I laughed at her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back very soon.”

“How soon is very soon?”

I thought about it.

“Before sunset.”

Yunying looked even more despairing.

“The Lord is coming back before sunset too.”

“Which is exactly why I have to be back before him.”

I patted her shoulder.

“Keep my secret for me.”

Yunying knelt at once.

“Your Highness, please don’t make this hard for me. Last time the Thunder Lord only gave you a book on how to flee a wedding, and his salary was halved. If I help you hide this, the Lord will have me sweeping the Southern Gate of Heaven for three hundred years.”

I crouched down in front of her and said quietly, “But I want to give him a surprise.”

Yunying blinked.

I spread the map out for her to see.

It showed the Silent Valley at the far end of the Heavenly River.

“Xuanyan’s old cold-essence poison has been stabilized, but every full moon, his soul still runs cold. I looked through the old texts. There is a kind of star sand in the Silent Valley that can be made into a soul-warming lamp. If it sits in the bedchamber, he won’t wake up in pain at night.”

Yunying’s eyes went red at once.

“The Lord wakes up in pain at night?”

“He doesn’t say so.”

I lowered my eyes.

“But I know.”

After we married, I discovered that Xuanyan was actually very good at enduring things.

When he hurt, he did not frown. When he was cold, he did not call for me. Even when the chill crept out from between his bones in the middle of the night, he only rose quietly and sat by the window to Regulate Breathing.

Once I woke and saw him sitting under the moon in his outer robe.

Frost at his fingertips.

His face whiter than the moonlight.

I hugged him from behind, and only then did he seem to come back to himself.

“Did I wake you?”

He said it so lightly.

So lightly that my chest ached.

That night I held him and passed my phoenix fire into him, little by little.

He kept saying it was enough.

But when I felt his hand, it was still cold.

So I had to go to the Silent Valley.

Star sand falls only once every three hundred years.

Miss today, and I would have to wait another three hundred.

After Yunying heard it all, she finally gritted her teeth and stood up.

“Your Highness, I will keep the people of the Lord’s Palace away from you.”

I was overjoyed.

“Good. Yunying, you are the best.”

“But you must promise me, Your Highness: if you run into danger, send word at once.”

“I promise.”

“No showing off.”

“I promise.”

“Don’t pour the medicine into the immortal orchid.”

“…That too?”

Yunying nodded seriously.

And so I had to agree, with tears in my eyes.

Half a shichen later, I climbed out of a window in the rear hall of the Lord’s Palace, so practiced at it that even I felt a pang.

The Silent Valley lay at the far end of the Heavenly River. No wind blew there, no birds sang, and even a spell falling made no sound.

They say a shattered star was once buried in that valley.

After the star struck the ground, its light sank into the earth, and on the day before the full moon, every three hundred years, it condensed into a handful of star sand.

When I arrived, there was already someone in the valley.

Not Shuangyuan.

Shuangyuan was still in Wuwan Prison copying heavenly law. They say she broke down sobbing at the hundredth copy, and swore she would rather be struck by lightning than read the six words “do not act on selfish desire” one more time.

The people in the valley were several wandering immortals from the Northern Reaches.

They wanted the star sand too.

When I landed, the grey-robed immortal at their head narrowed his eyes.

“Her Highness the Empress?”

I nodded.

“Are you all here for the star sand as well?”

His smile was not polite.

“Her Highness has the Lord to protect her. What does she need star sand for? Better to leave it to us.”

I glanced at the bottom of the valley.

The star sand had not fully formed yet.

“Star sand belongs to no one. Whoever gets it first, keeps it.”

The grey-robed immortal’s face turned cold.

“Does Her Highness imagine this is the Lord’s Palace as well, where everyone must give way to her?”

I rolled my wrist.

“You misunderstand.”

“Oh?”

I said seriously, “In the Lord’s Palace, it is mostly I who give way to Xuanyan.”

The wandering immortals froze.

In the next instant, they attacked at once.

The Silent Valley made no sound.

Sword light, talisman paper, and ice spikes all flew at me in silence.

I spread my fire wings and dodged. The phoenix fire swept along the valley wall and drove the two in front back.

Once, I would probably have panicked while fighting.

But after what happened at the Phoenix Trial Terrace, these scenes no longer frightened me.

I knew I was not just a little bird that Xuanyan had to shield behind him.

My fire could be reborn.

And it could protect.

Seeing that force would not work, the grey-robed immortal suddenly crushed a black talisman.

The star sand at the bottom of the valley was poisoned by black qi, and the golden sand-light turned dull.

My expression changed.

“Stop!”

He sneered.

“If we cannot have it, then no one will.”

Without thinking, I rushed into the bottom of the valley.

Phoenix fire wrapped the star sand and burned the black qi away, bit by bit.

The black qi had the power to corrode the soul, and it followed the flames toward my palm.

I bit my teeth against the pain.

But when I thought of Xuanyan’s cold white face under the moon, I held on.

Just as I was about to lose my grip on the black qi, a streak of snow-colored sword light came down from the sky.

Before the grey-robed immortal could react, the sword qi blasted him away.

I did not need to turn around to know who it was.

It’s over.

The Lord had ended the council early.

Xuanyan landed behind me and said not a word.

The quieter he was, the more frightening.

Guiltily, I pushed the star sand deeper into my robe.

“What a coincidence.”

Xuanyan looked at my palm, scorched by the black qi.

“Coincidence?”

I managed to squeeze out a smile.

“You came out for some air too?”

He raised his hand, and snow-colored divine power swept the whole valley.

The wandering immortals scrambled to their knees.

“My Lord, forgive us!”

Xuanyan did not look at them.

He walked up to me and took hold of my wrist.

The instant his spiritual energy covered the wound, I sucked in a sharp breath of pain.

His eyes went darker.

“Feiling.”

I admitted my fault at once.

“I was wrong.”

“Where were you wrong?”

“I shouldn’t have gone without you.”

He was silent.

I lowered my head, my voice growing smaller.

“And I shouldn’t have shown off.”

He still did not speak.

I looked up at him.

There was no anger in his eyes.

Only a fear held down very deep.

My heart softened at once.

“Xuanyan, I only wanted to make you a soul-warming lamp.”

I opened my other hand, and a small handful of golden star sand lay in my palm.

“It can keep you from being so cold when the moon is full.”

Xuanyan looked at that handful of star sand, and his fingertips trembled slightly.

There was no wind in the Silent Valley.

But I seemed to hear a soft sigh from his chest.

“This lord knows.”

I blinked.

“You know?”

“When you were going through the old texts, you were holding the book upside down.”

I said nothing.

“When you hid your bundle, half a map was sticking out.”

I said nothing at all.

“When you wrote that note, the ink dripped on your sleeve.”

I no longer wanted to speak at all.

Xuanyan looked down at me, and at last a helpless smile appeared in his eyes.

“Feiling, every time you try to hide something from this lord, you do it very earnestly. And very obviously.”

My face went red.

“Then why did you let me come out?”

“Because you wanted to do something for this lord.”

He said.

“This lord did not want to stop you.”

I stared at him.

Xuanyan healed the wound on my palm and put the star sand into a jade vial.

“But this lord also said, if you want to run, run toward wherever this lord is.”

“This time I wanted to give you a surprise.”

“Mm.”

He took my hand.

“This lord is very surprised.”

I looked at him suspiciously.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then why do you look like you’re about to punish me?”

Xuanyan said mildly, “A surprise is a surprise. A punishment is still a punishment.”

I immediately tried to pull my hand back.

It did not come.

“Punish me with what?”

He looked at me and said, unhurried, “From today on, you will light the soul-warming lamp for this lord every night.”

I blinked.

“That’s it?”

“You will also sleep beside this lord.”

My ears burned instantly.

“What kind of punishment is that?”

Xuanyan lowered his eyes, his thumb stroking gently over the newly healed wound on my palm.

“Punishing this lord.”

My chest ached.

He was like this every time.

Worried half to death, but never able to bring himself to really punish me.

I threw myself into his arms and hugged his waist.

“Xuanyan.”

“Mm.”

“From now on, when I go out, I’ll definitely bring you.”

“Good.”

“But you have to promise me something too. When the moon is full and it hurts, you’re not allowed to endure it alone.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“All right.”

I looked up at him.

“You’re not allowed to lie to me.”

Xuanyan lowered his head and kissed my brow.

“I won’t lie to you.”

In the end, that soul-warming lamp was truly made.

The lamp was carved from wutong wood. Its wick was a wisp of my phoenix fire, and Heavenly River star sand was melted into the oil.

Every full moon, it would glow with a layer of gentle golden light.

Xuanyan sat beneath the lamp reviewing memorials, and I lay across his knees eating osmanthus cake.

Halfway through the cake, something occurred to me.

“By the way, what happened to those wandering immortals?”

Xuanyan turned a page of the memorial.

“Sent to the Thunder Office for punishment.”

“Isn’t the Thunder Lord still having his salary docked?”

“Mm.”

“Then won’t he take it out on them?”

Xuanyan glanced at me.

“No.”

I had just relaxed when he added.

“This lord set the punishment himself.”

“Punish them with what?”

“Copying the Regulations for the Safe Travel of the Empress three thousand times.”

I nearly choked on my cake.

“Since when does the heavens have regulations like that?”

Xuanyan said calmly, “Since today.”

I was stunned.

“You wrote it just now?”

“Mm.”

“How many articles?”

“Not many.”

He handed me the memorial.

I looked down.

Article one: When the Empress travels, the Lord travels with her.

Article two: If the Empress travels without informing the Lord, it shall be deemed that the Lord failed to accompany her in time, and the Lord shall be punished by making up the difference.

Article three: No immortal official may obstruct the Empress in eating osmanthus cake, but must remind her to take her medicine on time.

Article four: If the Empress pours her medicine into a flowerpot, the flowerpot is equally guilty.

I stared, dumbfounded.

“What crime has the flowerpot committed?”

Xuanyan raised his eyes toward the immortal orchid by the window.

With no wind at all, the orchid moved, and its leaves trembled.

Clutching the memorial, I collapsed laughing into his arms.

Xuanyan steadied me so I would not fall.

“So happy?”

“Happy.”

I looked up at him.

“Because you’re less and less like the Lord in the rumors.”

He asked, “How does the rumor go?”

“Cold, self-possessed, unapproachable.”

“And now?”

I thought about it.

“Jealous. Shameless. Punishes flowerpots. And secretly swaps my medicine for something sweeter because I don’t like it.”

Xuanyan raised an eyebrow.

“You knew?”

“I’m not stupid.”

I leaned against him and poked him in the chest.

“Xuanyan, actually, I really like things the way they are now.”

He took my hand.

“Which way?”

“I don’t have to keep guessing whether I’m a burden to you, or be afraid that fate will tear us apart again one day. I can get in trouble, I can wheedle, I can take risks for you, and I can be caught and brought back by you.”

I paused and looked at him seriously.

“But I know you don’t love me because I’m a phoenix, and you didn’t choose me because the Mirror of Fate showed gold-red.”

“You chose me only because I am Feiling.”

Xuanyan’s gaze went soft.

“Mm.”

He said quietly, “Only because you are Feiling.”

I smiled, satisfied.

Outside the window, the star lanterns lit up one by one.

The soul-warming lamp brought back from the Silent Valley burned quietly, its golden light falling on his brows and eyes, and on my hair.

Suddenly I felt that in this life I had run to a great many places.

From the Demon Abyss to the Ninth Heaven.

From the wedding chamber to the mortal world.

From the Phoenix Trial Terrace into the fire of rebirth.

And from the Lord’s Palace to the Silent Valley.

But no matter how I ran, in the end I would always run back to his side.

Not because I had nowhere else to go.

But because wherever he is, is where I belong.

Xuanyan set down the memorial and wiped a crumb of cake from the corner of my mouth.

“What are you thinking about now?”

I put my arms around his neck and said, grinning, “Where to run next time.”

His hand paused.

I hurriedly added, “With you.”

Xuanyan looked at me, and at last he smiled.

“Approved.”

“Will you still bring me home?”

“I will.”

“Every time?”

“Every time.”

Satisfied, I settled into his arms.

The soul-warming lamp flickered softly, like starlight falling to the mortal world.

Outside the Ninth Heaven, another attendant came running in a hurry.

“My Lord, Her Highness the Empress says she wants to go out again!”

Xuanyan held me and did not move. He only answered mildly.

“I know.”

The attendant asked cautiously, “Shall we ready the carriage?”

Xuanyan looked down at me.

I winked at him.

The smile in his eyes slowly spread.

“Ready two wind-chasing beasts.”

“My Lord is going himself?”

“Not to chase.”

Xuanyan took my hand, and the twin-heart seal in his palm glowed faintly.

“To run with her.”

Later, the heavens brought in a new rule.

Whenever Her Highness the Empress went out, the immortal officials along the way were not to block her, not to kneel, not to make a fuss, and above all not to shout “the Empress has run off again” the moment they saw her spread her fire wings.

The rule was drafted by Yunying.

The reason was simple.

Once, I had only flown from the Lord’s Palace to the Medicine King’s Hall to fetch candied fruit. I had barely crossed half of the cloud bridge when the Thunder Lord, in a panic, sounded the Phoenix-Chasing Great Bell.

The bell rang out across the Ninth Heaven.

Heavenly soldiers donned armor, attendants ran in all directions, and three layers of wards were sealed at the Southern Gate of Heaven on the spot.

When I came back with the candied fruit, Xuanyan was just coming out of the Hall of Heavenly Law.

He was in full court dress, his brows and eyes cold, a crowd of ashen-faced immortal officials trailing behind him.

The Thunder Lord knelt at the foot of the steps and said, trembling, “My Lord, this minister thought Her Highness the Empress had…”

He did not dare finish the words “run off.”

I landed beside Xuanyan and pushed the bag of candied fruit behind my back.

Xuanyan looked at me, then at the Thunder Lord.

“She went to the Medicine King’s Hall.”

The Thunder Lord knocked his head on the ground.

“This minister knows his crime!”

“What crime?”

The Thunder Lord said with difficulty, “This minister should not have mistaken Her Highness the Empress for fleeing… going out.”

Xuanyan said mildly, “Wrong.”

The assembled immortals froze.

Xuanyan took my hand and gathered my cold fingertips into his palm.

“The mistake was sounding the Phoenix-Chasing Great Bell too late.”

I looked up in shock.

The Thunder Lord was stunned too.

Xuanyan went on. “If she truly meant to run, by the time the bell reached the Hall of Heavenly Law, she would already be in the mortal world.”

I said nothing.

Is this man protecting me, or studying how to catch me?

That same day, the heavens gained two new things.

One was A Handbook for Distinguishing the Empress’s Normal Outings from Abnormal Escapes, drafted by Yunying.

The other was the Phoenix-Chasing Bell, forged by Xuanyan’s own hand.

The Phoenix-Chasing Bell did not bind my soul, and it would not trap me.

It only gave a soft ring when I was too far from him.

The sound was very small, like a drop of rain falling on jade steps.

The first time I heard it, I was in the mortal world buying candied haws.

Ding.

I looked down, and the little bell on the red cord at my wrist was glowing.

The stallkeeper asked me, “Miss, that bell is lovely. Where did you buy it?”

Chewing my candied haw, I thought about it.

“My husband gave it to me.”

The stallkeeper smiled. “Then your husband must dote on you.”

I was about to nod when a familiar voice came from behind me.

“And is very good at finding her.”

I turned.

Xuanyan stood at the far end of the crowd, his white robes tinted with a little tenderness by the mortal world’s smoke and fire.

He was holding an oil-paper packet.

“Osmanthus cake?”

My eyes lit up.

He walked over and handed me the packet.

“The Medicine King says you may have two extra pieces today.”

I took it and immediately held my candied haw up to his lips.

“Then you have one.”

Xuanyan looked at the glossy red hawthorn, and the space between his brows moved in a way almost too small to see.

I knew he was afraid of sour things.

But he still bent his head and bit one off.

In the next instant, his expression was still cold, but his fingers quietly tightened around mine.

I fought back laughter until my shoulders shook.

“Sour?”

“Passable.”

“My Lord, your ears are red.”

He looked down at me.

“It’s hot.”

Copying the tone he had once used, I nodded seriously.

“Phoenix fire runs strong. It is hot.”

Xuanyan finally laughed.

The mortal market was crowded. No one knew that he was the Lord whom everyone in the Ninth Heaven revered, and no one knew that I was the little phoenix who had once fled her wedding three times.

They only saw a white-robed Young Master and a girl in a red skirt walking side by side down the long street.

The girl eating cake, the Young Master clearing the crowd for her.

Someone bumped my shoulder, and before they could apologize, Xuanyan had already reached out to steady me.

“Slow down.”

I looked up at him.

“Xuanyan, have you ever regretted it?”

“Regretted what?”

“Picking me up and bringing me home.” I shook the Phoenix-Chasing Bell at my wrist. “I run off so much, and I’m always getting into trouble.”

Xuanyan stopped walking.

The lights of the long street fell into his eyes.

“No.”

He said it too quickly. So quickly that it seemed the answer had been sitting in his heart for many years.

“If I could do it again, this lord would have found you sooner.”

My nose stung, and afraid of crying in the street and losing face, I threw myself into his arms.

“Then you have to keep finding me from now on, too.”

“I will.”

“No matter where I am?”

“No matter where you are.”

“No matter how far I run?”

“No matter how far you run.”

I lifted my head and asked on purpose, “And if I run somewhere you can’t find me?”

Xuanyan looked down at me, his eyes both gentle and certain.

“Then this lord will wait right here.”

I blinked.

He said, “So that the moment you want to look back, you can see me at a glance.”

In that instant, the mortal world’s lights were loud and bright, and the river of stars above stretched ten thousand li.

I suddenly understood that home is not a place where someone locks you in.

It is that no matter where you fly, someone is willing to leave a lamp burning for you.

After that, I was never afraid of running far again.

Because all the heavens knew the Lord would wait.

And I knew too: I would always turn back, and come home to him.