Chóng Fēi's journey back into his childhood memories came to its end—before he remembered the most heartbreaking moment—when Lìngxiāo came back with a faint sigh of heavy disappointment and a few scrolls in his hands.
Chóng Fēi looked up, shifting a bit as he sat straighter with the child in his arms. He was careful not to let his eyes look glassy from the memory.
"What made you spend an entire twenty minutes in the criminal counter records chamber?" His gaze lowered to the small patch Lìngxiāo carried as he added, "And what did your mōs give you?"
Lìngxiāo's smile was soft but lost, thoughtful, a little firm on the surface. "Just for some reports, Gōngzǐ." He stepped closer into normal distance just to have a gentle look over the child, his hand going into the patch. "And as for what they gave me..."
Chóng Fēi raised a slow eyebrow, his gaze back on him. "What is it?"
But Lìngxiāo exhaled into the faintest shade ever and just put the patch securely into his robe instead of keeping it out, as he answered without any weight of too much importance. "An unclear clue related to the Red Robe gûi."
Then he added with a faint tilt of his head, lower. "I will present it to you and Fèng Xiānsheng once I am confident about it. Until then it shall stay under my control."
Chóng Fēi's eyes stayed on him for a second. The way he had admitted that he had the power to be dangerous to him—and that revelation about himself being the container type, which he wasn't even sure was true or really just a theory—didn't make it any easier to be friendly with him, even if they were getting along much better after the success of that rule he had dreamed of.
But at least he was sure about one ridiculous theory which he had been thinking since the moment Lìngxiāo had let out that sentence: "I have the ability. What if..I ever need to stab back..if you stand in my way..?"
His second theory was: this guy has a problem with mood swings, and perhaps he was a young single father whose child had died or something—which is why he remained unmarried, and maybe even a close friend had betrayed him, which is why he might be avoiding all kinds of connections.
The first one was him..being Xiǎo Lìng.
And he found the second one much more acceptable because of how protective he was of the children—as if it had a whole history.
He had at least learned to piece things together like this by reading a lot. Some characters were like this in the books he had read—not his favorite one, but others. This man kept proving those.
He was going to uncover everything for the sake of his curiosity before his deadline came—the one his nightmare, Skull Mummy, had set.
His eyes lightly shut for a second as if the name had felt like a needle in his nerves. He better not think about him, or he would show up again and ask, "Did you miss me?"
'Better not to even think about him. If his strange insecurities still drive him away within this month..I don't care what interesting backstory he might carry like a main character he always acts like.'
His instincts said that he might be lying about what he had found after that corpse had died—the one which had attacked him so violently out of nowhere. But for now he stayed away from making him alert.
He would search about it when he got the chance to check into Lìngxiāo's chamber—without sacrificing his own dignity, which wouldn't take much longer to run away if he was found touching someone else's things without permission. Nor did he have any clear acceptable information with proof already.
It would have been great if that sword had stabbed into Lìngxiāo's body instead of himself—then he would have had the advantage of checking out if his wild theories were right or wrong. But since that tool wasn't going to work without Lìngxiāo's hand, it would be useless even if he got it—which was impossible right now.
'I would need to check into the store room of the executed victims' belongings to see if..the mummy exorcist's same curse tool was left there or not. I think..last time when he had used it on me and I admitted those fucked-up things..he had given my own accused over it. And of course—fùqīn doesn't know it. He might have just simply tried to bring it into use and left it if it was never opened. This would be better.'
Lìngxiāo tilted his head, probably sensing Chóng Fēi's deep thinking. His tone softer as he asked, "Are you..alright, Fēi Gōngzǐ? You look upset."
Chóng Fēi cleared his throat a little louder than usual. He felt somehow embarrassed that the earlier memory had still left the mark of a wound at his eyes, and Lìngxiāo had caught it like nothing—while he couldn't even read what that guy hid behind his whole strange personality and professionalism.
'Why does he have to be so complicated?'
"I am fine. Just..you should have been more careful with the tool. You would have thrown away my whole privacy by it and I had no way to stop it." He answered, his tone back to the slightly stubborn and arrogant self. No tease like last time.
Then he muttered, "You are really bad at swordsmanship."
"I apologize. It will not happen again." Lìngxiāo quickly apologized humbly, which looked more like just trying to dust away that topic—and Chóng Fēi noticed it much better.
'He really doesn't like blades..and here my twenty percent of life has passed by just 'hu!', 'hei!', 'yah!' by the sword—that every single mistake from someone else feels like my skin is itching.'
'Maybe that is why life is fucked up. I am trying to dive into a guy's background while he holds the very thing I hate: needles. While he doesn't like blades that he flinches when guards raise theirs.'
"It's fine. We will go back to my clan now—if you have nothing more to do here." Chóng Fēi was about to turn towards the door.
After freeing his hands, he reached towards the child, his smile warm. "May I take him the rest of the path?"
The child also raised his hands towards Lìngxiāo as if he found him another safest place he could ever think of. The boy's black eyes wide and shining with wonder.
"Fine. I will have a nap all the way while returning. Hold him. I am tired of everything today." Chóng Fēi handed the child to Lìngxiāo and moved outside the prison realm, asking a guard to fix a carriage.
As he walked, Lìngxiāo followed him but a little behind—because again, another human reaction from him—he was distracted by the child. The boy was cooing to him like any toddler while he wasn't, gripping his soft silk veil and mostly cupping his face to keep attention all over himself more than the road. They had bumped twice against Chóng Fēi before even going outside the main gate.
That was a really domestic thing Chóng Fēi had ever felt in those years. It was like the way sometimes he had imagined his father getting bumped with his mother—faceless but beautiful imagination—and just chuckled without any words.
A really sweet family.
Lìngxiāo lightly lowered his head as a polite but faintly friendly apology—without saying that word again—when he bumped again.
His cheek flushed lightly and his smile tight, which made Chóng Fēi wonder if a man could be this shy without looking harmless. How would he even have performed in bed to have a child and then it died? So his head went wilder as he tried to save that theory, but the actions proved it wrong.
'Enough. Not like everyone is bored as my fùqīn that I hear the word 'sex' from him in the easiest way, like it was asking me to bring some scrolls!
'I should focus on the next tasks ahead: the safety for the children and managing things to prove myself to fùqīn.'
'No need to think..about his performance just because I am not purr at all.'
Chóng Fēi just also returned a silent bow of acceptance while swallowing down those thousands of thoughts: the revolution of his powers out of nowhere, the threat from him, the theories and old questions left unanswered.
The guards were about to repeat the pattern of respect—by the swords. He stopped it by raising a hand with his usual professional persona. "No need for that respect if you do not mean it. It is just repeating patterns and knocking on the doors of the souls of the unknown graves below our boots."
The guards silenced and awkwardly lowered their swords, watching them leave while a few gave those familiar glares he had just swallowed when he had come in.
"It's alright, Gōngzǐ. The ones who..deserved your blades are mostly gone. Leave them." Lìngxiāo again stepped in, reminding of the bloody bath he could have taken from the killing inside—but he hadn't gotten much bloody because he had thrown them into the burner after stabbing into their stomachs.
'Why bother getting my robes red for those pathetic men who can't keep their desires in check? Are they humans or mōs? They had choices to choose the right. They did not. They should be guilty. Not me.'
"Hm. Strange you did not start your lecture on lives so famous by now." He mumbled as they walked out and a carriage stopped for them.
"I do not stand for the people..who take advantage of the helpless. They did not get misunderstood by any situation like the children..they knew what they were doing." Lìngxiāo answered firmly, while his tone remained gentle as he carefully handled the child into his arms.
Chóng Fēi's lips twitched into a faint smirk as he still couldn't stop himself from actually finding him interesting and logical.
'If good people weren't blind and bad people had understood their mistakes..the world would have been different.'
"Right." He exhaled as he sat at his usual spot—right side—and watched Lìngxiāo settle beside him at a comfortable distance as the carriage started to move back to its destination.
"I try my best to always be right, Gōngzǐ." Lìngxiāo answered while he made the boy gently sit on his lap and watch the road with him, keeping him delighted and busy.
Chóng Fēi watched outside as well, his chin on his palm, looking at the empty road in the afternoon, sometimes looking at them thoughtfully.
'And this is your problem..because some imperfections don't exist in your dictionary—more than me.'