Chapter 24

Jiang Yu’s expression didn’t so much as twitch. Chin still propped on her hands, she smiled sweetly. “That’d be a waste. I don’t even have a storage pouch anymore, and I only own a few outfits.”
She blinked at him, fluttering her lashes for good measure.
He took in her pretty, stubborn little smile, the way she refused to back down, then glanced at the suspiciously crisp knife-cut. The corner of his mouth hooked up as he let out a quiet, ambiguous hum, lifting his eyes to look at her.
“Junior Brother, I want a crane. Right here.” She leaned forward, pointing to the tear with a soft laugh. “A red-thread, golden-eyed crane.”
Meeting the open anticipation in her eyes, his fingers slid idly along the torn edge of the cloth. He pretended to mull it over. “Perhaps… there is room for negotiation.”
“Then say it, Junior Brother,” Jiang Yu prompted, following his lead.
He toyed with a copper coin, voice smooth and unhurried. “Senior Sister… how about you answer a question for me?”
“What kind of question?”
Deep in his eyes, something startling and tightly leashed flickered, like a storm barely held at bay. “Will Senior Sister truly take everything concerning me… seriously?”
The question caught her off guard. She froze for a heartbeat, then nodded quickly.
“Why?”
“Well, because you’re my junior brother, of course.” Jiang Yu silently patted herself on the back for that answer.
“Is that so?” Shen Anzhi gave a soft, leisure-laced chuckle. Candlelight danced in his eyes, gilding the curve of his lips until his smile looked even more careless, with a teasing warmth that was unmistakably intimate. For a moment, Jiang Yu’s mind went blank.
“You’ve answered my question,” she reminded him, seizing the opportunity. “Now you have to keep your word. A gentleman’s promise can’t be taken back.”
“Senior Sister,” Shen Anzhi replied, one brow lifting, “I’ve never once claimed to be a gentleman.” He said it with disarming frankness.
Yet the copper coin turning between his fingers spun faster and faster.
“Senior Sister, you can leave now.”
“Junior Brother, is that a yes or a no? If you don’t say it, I’m not going.” Jiang Yu’s vision blurred; she watched Shen Anzhi vanish from his seat, and in the next breath she herself reappeared outside the tightly closed door, unceremoniously expelled by a formation.
He’d asked her to come in, only to throw her out again…
Jiang Yu clenched her fists. She drew her arm back and stopped her punch with a finger’s width of air still between her knuckles and the door, the fist landing uselessly on empty space.
Once she finished her mission, she was absolutely staying away from this black lotus.
Best if they, never met again.
Still, he hadn’t thrown her dress out after her, and Jiang Yu wasn’t completely immune to that small mercy. Feeling vaguely defeated, she went back to her own room, only to see something very familiar lying on her table.
A powder-white storage pouch embroidered with peonies sat quietly on the surface.
Jiang Yu picked it up in delight and opened it, everything inside was exactly as she’d left it. She glanced left and right, but saw no one. Who had gone into the mountains to find it and bring it back to her?
Could it be… Shen Anzhi?
Warmth rose in her chest. So he had remembered.
Which meant he’d gone back into those mountains before his injuries were even healed…
She pinched the pouch between her fingers, moved by a feeling she couldn’t quite name.
Content, Jiang Yu hugged the storage pouch to her chest and flopped onto the bed. The moment she closed her eyes, a strange drowsiness crashed over her like a wave.
Her fingers twitched, but she couldn’t summon a shred of strength.
The candlelight wavered, casting twisted shadows across the walls as a tall, dark silhouette pushed the door open without a sound.
The figure paused in front of her dressing table, scattered with hairpins and beads. In the bronze mirror, the faint outline of a metal mask and a sharp jawline appeared.
That cold, deep gaze locked onto the reflection of Jiang Yu lying on the bed. Terror shot through her; she squeezed her eyes shut, body frozen, unable to move.
Who?
She couldn’t make a sound.
I’m dead… Only the worst kind of people pick this hour to drop in on sleeping girls.
The masked man rummaged quietly through her things for a while, then seemed to hesitate. He turned toward the bed, hand lifting until it hovered a mere inch above the quilt.
Jiang Yu instinctively held her breath.
“No… something’s off. There’s no scent.” His voice was low and muffled, tinged with disdain. He turned away and left.
As soon as he was gone, Jiang Yu jolted up like a carp flipping out of the water. She crept over to the door, eased it open a crack, and when she saw the hallway empty, hurried next door to pound on Shen Anzhi’s door.
“Junior Brother, Junior Brother…”
A heartbeat later, the door swung open.
“There was a man in a black metal mask in my room just now, ”
Shen Anzhi lowered his eyes and listened patiently as her words spilled out like beans from a split sack. When she finally finished, he brushed past her without a word and pushed open the door to her room.
The two of them stepped into the dim light; the candle on the table crackled softly.
Shen Anzhi scanned every corner with a wary eye and didn’t sense even a trace of demonic qi. “A pity. He’s already gone.” His long lashes swept downward. Jiang Yu had latched onto his sleeve with one hand, practically glued to his arm.
“I don’t know if he’ll come back. Senior Sister can’t possibly not follow, ”
Realizing she was clutching him, Jiang Yu quickly let go and curved her lips into a smile. “Of course I’ll follow.”
Pinching a scorch talisman between her fingers, she remembered the masked man’s comment about “scent,” stepped closer again and gave his sleeve a little tug. “Junior Brother, do I smell like anything to you?”
Shen Anzhi’s steps paused. His gaze slid from her hand on his sleeve up to her round, pretty face, still carrying a hint of baby fat.
The girl rose onto her toes, leaning forward just a little. “Hurry and smell. That masked man seemed to be looking for something with a particular scent.”
Shen Anzhi huffed a quiet laugh. His eyes lingered for a heartbeat on the pale line of her throat, then, almost against his will, he bent closer. At this distance he could make out every lash fanning over her bright eyes.
Her lashes fluttered, and something in his chest gave an odd little leap. He swallowed; his Adam’s apple moved slowly as he took a light breath, then went rigid, turning his head a fraction. Her natural scent slipped past his defenses, soft and sweet, like a ripe peach… or the chestnut candies he favored.
“There is,” he said, rubbing the coin between his fingers as he leaned in again to look her in the eye, answering honestly. “Just a bit. Nothing unusual.”
“Oh.”
Jiang Yu flashed a sly grin, seized him by both arms, and rose on tiptoe to sniff at his collar. When she lifted her gaze, she ran straight into a pair of dark, unreadable eyes. She chuckled twice and stepped back. “Junior Brother, you smell very nice.”
He could feel her breath, light and unsteady, brush the skin at his throat. His voice dropped. “Oh?”
Jiang Yu smiled. “Soapwort and… something fruity and sweet. Though this time, I don’t smell it anymore.”
Thinking back, every fleeting whiff of that mysterious scent had coincided with his injuries. She couldn’t help wondering if the two were connected…
She was just about to ask when the candle went out with a sharp pfft.
Making his rounds in the dark corridor, Ning Hechi heard voices and mounted the stairs, taking them two at a time until he stopped outside the room. “Miss Jiang, Young Master Shen, do you require assistance?”
“It’s fine,” Jiang Yu called back, deliberately raising her voice. “Young Master Ning, someone was just rummaging through my room. You all should be careful!”
“Understood.” Ning Hechi followed her directions and checked the room again. Sure enough, there were clear signs things had been disturbed.
“Why don’t you move down to the second floor and stay with my fellow Penglai disciples for the time being, Miss Jiang? If that person comes back with ill intent, you won’t have to face him alone.”
“That sounds nice. More people, more lively,” Jiang Yu replied cheerfully.
Shen Anzhi’s fingers tapped idly against his arm as he shrugged. “I don’t mind.” His eyes, however, rested steadily on Jiang Yu’s smiling face.
Ning Hechi went on, “There just happen to be two empty rooms beside mine. Someone’s been airing them out regularly. The two of you alone up here on the third floor is rather isolated. Why don’t-”
Seeing Jiang Yu about to agree, Shen Anzhi looked down at the coin in his hand, irritation flickering through his chest. “There’s no need to trouble you, Young Master Ning.”
He stepped forward, the picture of courtesy, the smile on his lips smooth and warm as he neatly cut off the rest of Ning Hechi’s sentence. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Jiang Yu’s eager expression and said, “In any case, Senior Sister is of my sect. She should be lodging with me. If she goes to borrow another sect’s rooms and Senior Sister Gu hears of it, she’ll be angry, don’t you think? Isn’t that right, Senior Sister?”
Jiang Yu blinked at him, baffled. What has any of this got to do with Gu Shuyu? Is he just picking a fight with me now…?
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her body wouldn’t move. Her eyes widened in shock.
Shen Anzhi, what are you pulling now?
He lifted a brow. “Senior Sister’s silence counts as agreement.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and turned away. “Young Master Ning, you should head back early.”
Seeing them thus, Ning Hechi did not insist further and took his leave.
Only once the sound of his footsteps faded down the stairs did Shen Anzhi release her.
Jiang Yu finally found her voice. “Junior Brother, why did you silence me!”
“But of course, I didn’t want to miss out on the ‘liveliness’ around Senior Sister.” Shen Anzhi’s smile flashed, quick and sharp, a current swirling beneath the surface of his eyes. “Heh. You were in quite the hurry to trot off with him.”
Her heart gave a little jolt. Is Shen Anzhi… being jealous?
Realizing where her thoughts were straying, Jiang Yu forced down the smile tugging at her lips and shook her head so hard she could’ve rattled it loose. “Not at all! I didn’t want to go at all. Um… Junior Brother, how about… I sleep on the floor again, is that okay?”
Shen Anzhi pushed his door open and paused when he didn’t hear her steps. “Keep up. Close the door.”
Jiang Yu pouted and followed him in. The first thing she saw was the red dress laid out on the table, the tear now spanned by a vivid red crane with golden eyes, so lifelike it seemed ready to burst out from the ring of white cranes around it.
“Junior Brother, you’re amazing.” She lifted the dress, genuine admiration in her voice. When she turned to smile back at him, her face lit up like a spray of fireworks. “The crane is beautiful.”
For a moment, her dazzling smile washed his vision blank. Shen Anzhi’s heart stuttered; he turned away almost reflexively and slipped behind the folding screen. His fingers, hidden in his sleeves, had gone quietly white at the knuckles.
He didn’t answer. Jiang Yu, pleased as a cat in cream, spread out her bedding on the floor, pulled the quilt over herself, and let her mind drift.
The sound of water trickling from the bathing tub drifted to her ears, and her thoughts trickled right along with it, inevitably conjuring Shen Anzhi’s face. In such a setting, it was hard not to let one’s imagination wander.
She tugged the quilt up to hide her grin. “Junior Brother, thanks for getting my storage pouch back.”
“Just happened to be bored and wandered into the mountains to pick it up,” came his languid answer.
Steam rose in soft billows around the wooden tub. Shen Anzhi rested his forearm against his brow, the tips of his lashes tinged faint red. Droplets slid along the hard lines of his face and down over the ridge of his Adam’s apple.
What on earth was I doing…
Jiang Yu chuckled softly. “Yes, very coincidental…” He really won’t admit it, will he.
“You patched my clothes by lamplight and tracked down my pouch,” she went on lightly. “Junior Brother, you have a very kind heart, but your mouth is harder than granite. From now on… keep being this ‘nice,’ all right?”
“Does Senior Sister truly think I could ever be a ‘good person’?” Shen Anzhi turned his gaze toward the screen, as if he could see her through it.
“Out of the countless beings in this world, expecting everyone to be purely black or white is its own kind of cruelty,” Jiang Yu replied. “So long as you keep your heart steady and don’t betray your own conscience, then for yourself, you are already a ‘good person.’”
Shen Anzhi neither agreed nor refuted. When he finished bathing, he dried off, tied his belt with care, and stepped out from behind the screen.
His footsteps were light and unhurried. He drew breath to speak, but all he heard was the slow, even rhythm of someone sleeping.
In the wavering candlelight, Jiang Yu lay snug under the quilt, only half her pale face showing. Her black hair spilled over the pillow; she slept deeply, a picture of quiet peace.
Shen Anzhi stopped short, momentarily stunned. His gaze rested on her unguarded sleeping face, and the corner of his mouth tilted up in the faintest of smiles.
Not a shred of caution in you, Senior Sister.