Though the meeting was getting bitter for the people present here, they kept their mouths shut because they were desperate to break out of this cursed town.
Chóng Fēi cleared his throat at the same time. But before Lìngxiāo could fully take it as a bad sign, Chóng Fēi just turned to sneeze again.
Lìngxiāo didn't pay attention outside too much.
He sniffed after pressing the napkin he brought with himself and then continued. "Curses and gûi are different species. Curses are born cursed. But human souls..they are something innocent like a white paper. If they are touched by evil, they turn evil easily or are abused by becoming souls without peace. The Red Robe Gûi is also this kind of soul who somehow did not get their peace, or they are locked into this world by evil magic."
He paused with an exhale before adding. "So the problems start from here. Children's souls are the whitest paper. A great target. And our future—which we are destroying under the title of bringing justice."
His voice softened as the next words came more firm but like something he wished he had at his time too. He felt his eyes feeling numb. "They can be fixed if listened to from the heart. I do not know what you all have gone through..but as elders who have responsibilities to keep them safe—if we do not save them, who would? They have emotions like us too. They need their family. Someone who would be by their side without leaving...like pillars which would stand above their heads until their last breath."
Everyone was dead silent.
They looked at each other, but now there was wonder, thoughtfulness—like they had never thought of it that way.
The only woman there stood silent and motionless. Perhaps feeling like the motherhood inside her was wrapping the feelings around herself more deeply.
Chóng Fēi swallowed softly, his brush stopped at the middle of his writing where he had visibly caught Lìngxiāo's last words—"until their last breath." The ink almost overflowed before he quickly moved it to the tray to release the extra ink, like he was lost between a really deep thought. He was also really silent, didn't speak a word even for the feedback till now. He just wrote fast and caught the details with a skilled hand which was a little unsteady by now.
Lìngxiāo also took a moment. This sniff was more like holding back the whole weight within himself without exposing too much. He didn't even know if his eyes were watery from the cold or if he was actually..
The rest of their life, simply were following to cut away the danger from the root before they grow poison. But not that the poison can be misunderstood with water or liquor. Perhaps even the poison could be good if they paid attention—and he would hit exactly all of the points here, no matter if this throne he was sitting on was borrowed and he didn't care.
But he raised his head again, his smile soft as young rose petals. But it was bittersweet and hopeful. He took out a journal scroll which he had brought with himself.
The title was 'Heartless Innocent Gaze,' boldly written in golden ink over black paper.
That was nothing else but his own misunderstood murder story which had somehow always been on top of other stories here, while back then he didn't know what actually happened. But perhaps it was the hot news because they used to live under a powerful clan.
He had told one of his curses to bring him one a few moments before this meeting when he was at his room, since before today he hadn't come to this land for the second time. Not like he didn't remember what had happened.
Absolutely not.
He just wanted to see by himself too how these people had framed it, what misunderstandings and real messages were more into it, and testing the waters to see how bad it would be to even accidentally get exposed here.
It would be too bad..
Because even at the day when he had somehow returned back to Yínglòu Chéng from Xuè Gusu, he was once captured by them after Mō Qīn saved him, and his name was registered as his old name which people of this town mostly remembered—but not the whole Yínglòu.
But he is that Xiǎo Lìng as Lìngxiāo.
So if they found out Xiǎo Lìng—a Yínglòu citizen—once broke in, they couldn't prove his existence. But if they found out Lìngxiāo was Xiǎo Lìng—he would be exposed badly, and he didn't know if any single clan could come forward for him since he had no clan of his own to take responsibilities and risks like a flock does, nor was he under-aged.
He broke into the town and indirectly killed a lot of cultivators there.
He couldn't be saved easily.
He felt Chóng Fēi's strange gaze over the scroll. He didn't move his neck, just his eyes. And he saw him—looking at it with weight within his bluish-gray pools. His throat looked tight.
Lìngxiāo's lashes fluttered over his dimmed eyes for a moment.
'Does he still remember it..? The way I did? Perhaps not.'
'Better if not. I do not want him to hold something so..dark within himself as I did..while I know already that he has nobody to share it with.'
Suddenly Chóng Fēi froze for a single breath as if he felt Lìngxiāo was looking at him. He looked fully at his eyes—too tense that Lìngxiāo's breath paused into his chest for a moment.
Then he turned away sharply, blinked to himself, hurried to change the scroll which had gotten filled up by now.
"You may continue." He muttered without looking at him.
Lìngxiāo nodded once, holding up the scroll with both hands so that everybody could see it more properly.
They seemed to immediately recognize it.
His smile softened faintly to himself, yet his gaze was over the people.
'Since you had nobody beside yourself..I would be by your side, Xiǎo Lìng..not as a different person but a shade you never knew you could have grown if you had not raised your hand..towards the emptiness to be held..and then even after losing this hand, you have learned to stand for yourself.'
"Case number twenty-five. Heartless Innocent Gaze. Familiar, is it not?" He asked to the people almost too softly, closed his eyes once like grounding the silent lake into his eyes before he looked back at them.
'I cannot be evil. All I could do is..speak and change what was hurting me and others..'
"A young boy of ten. Xiǎo Lìng. The killer..of his own zhù fù.." Lìngxiāo spoke. His own voice soft yet bitter here. He looked up. "I would like to give a proper analysis over this child..who could have been saved if someone had listened to him. A murder in everyone's eyes. But just a hopeless child within his own."
Nobody answered, but the way their adult colorful gaze which framed their souls differently—told already that they knew it more than regular news scrolls at morning. A few seemed actually trying to remember his old self and compare to him, because no exorcist before had ever really bothered to talk about the case.
Those cases were just something they spread around, hated themselves and left it. Their own matter only. Nobody also bothered because nobody bothered to listen back then.
They still did even now.
The town had not changed at all, even if they were silent for now. A few were struggling to understand within this poison so much in number to let them grow.
A few were even about to say something while standing from their places. Their brows twitched with mocking anger.
Lìngxiāo swallowed, watching blankly.
'I have not started yet. Yet they have already started getting aggressive. Not just me..but nobody can make them realize their mistake if they never wish to fix their mistakes.'
'But I do not care about any risk anymore..the only thing I fear is..dying before my life puzzle is solved. Without writing the last chapter..of my story..'
But surprisingly, Chóng Fēi raised a hand without looking at them and said flatly. "Sit down."
Lìngxiāo's eyes snapped gently to Chóng Fēi's side again.
"But, Gōngzǐ. This is—" the man tried to say again.
"I said SIT. DOWN. Or the door is open. You can leave." Chóng Fēi cut in sharply, his expression darkened. His voice trembling with a mix of rage and annoyance. "Do not forget whom you are trying to cross. I am still not getting the Thorne without making my blood into water."
Then he added with his usual arrogance. "Be glad that your throat is still whole. I am not giving you any space just because you are my zhù fù's friend. Remind you, when my head is boiling with blood I just draw the sword. No yelling—which you all already give no value. No explanation either. My title is Dancing Blade for a reason."
Others who had perhaps started to argue after this man, silenced and shifted uncomfortably, pulling down the other man to sit back without creating more chaos.
The one who got insulted greatly—was also a sect leader, older than Chóng Fēi.
So being scolded this sharply by someone so young made him stare with a dead bloodshot gaze which he could barely hide as he sits down.
Lìngxiāo was left with the heaviness in his chest and a lot of questions. His calm eyes on him.
'Intentionally or not..perhaps you actually cared for the children..in a way I cannot see without standing at the place where you stand..'