After Elder Zhong's dismissal echoed across the courtyard like a temple bell releasing the faithful, Chen Xinyu found himself trailing behind His Highness Hua Ling along the serpentine stone paths that wound through Verdant Cloud Sect like threads of silver through jade. Sunlight painted everything in lazy golden strokes, transforming even the most mundane corners into something approaching celestial artistry.
Lost in the drowsy contentment that came with surviving another lesson without complete humiliation, Xinyu failed to notice when Hua Ling came to an abrupt halt.
Thud.
His face connected with the prince's back with all the graceless impact of a sparrow flying into a window. The collision sent stars dancing across his vision as he stumbled backward, clutching his forehead in bewildered pain.
"Ow! What in the—" The complaint died on his lips as Hua Ling turned, fixing him with a stare that could have frozen summer itself.
"You."
The single word carried enough arctic authority to make mountains bow. Chen Xinyu looked up to find himself trapped in close proximity to beauty so devastating it seemed almost cruel that the heavens had concentrated so much perfection in one insufferably cold person. Hua Ling stood mere hand-spans away, his elegant height casting Xinyu in shadow, features carved with the precision of master sculptors, and those jade-winter eyes holding depths that promised both salvation and destruction.
Such a criminal waste of beauty,Xinyu thought with bitter admiration, bestowed upon someone with the personality of a particularly judgmental ice sculpture.
"Why do you insist on following me?" Hua Ling inquired, his voice carrying the casual cruelty of someone commenting on the weather.
Xinyu blinked in genuine confusion. Isn't that literally my assigned purpose in this cosmic joke?
"What does Your Highness mean?" he replied carefully. "I am your personal attendant, as decreed yesterday evening."
"I instructed you: do not follow unless explicitly summoned."
Xinyu froze mid-step, his brain struggling to process this contradiction.
Before comprehension could fully dawn, Hua Ling pivoted with fluid grace and snapped, "Neither did I command you to halt. You will follow. Now."
What sort of riddle is this? Xinyu's thoughts spiraled into frustrated circles. I cannot possibly satisfy contradictory demands simultaneously!
Still muttering internal complaints about the impossible logic of demon princes, he hastened to match Hua Ling's measured pace.
Qingze materialized from the shadows like a loyal spirit, offering his customary precise bow. "Welcome, Your Highness."
"Qingze," Hua Ling commanded with characteristic efficiency, "retrieve my sleeping attire."
Qingze's gaze flickered toward Chen Xinyu, whose expression radiated pure panic—a silent plea that screamed Please, by all your ancestors, don't bring out the pink disaster!
Visibly torn between duty and mercy, Qingze inquired delicately, "Which particular set would Your Highness prefer this evening?"
"The choice is irrelevant. Select anything suitable." Hua Ling gestured toward Chen with the casual air of someone assigning a death sentence. "He will prepare it personally. You are dismissed."
Qingze bowed with the solemn dignity of someone attending a funeral. "As Your Highness commands." His departing glance toward Xinyu carried all the sympathy of a fellow condemned man.
Chen Xinyu approached the ornate wardrobe with the enthusiasm of someone approaching their own execution. He selected the first set of robes with trembling fingers.
"No."
He tried another, this one embroidered with subtle cloud patterns.
"No."
A third option, crafted from silk that seemed to capture moonlight.
Hua Ling's voice carried a dangerous edge: "Are you perhaps testing my patience?"
"Absolutely not!" Xinyu wailed internally, his face burning with frustrated mortification.
This is pure nightmare incarnate!
"I shall locate them myself," Hua Ling declared, rising with predatory grace.
"No, Your Highness! Please allow me—" Desperation made Chen Xinyu reach out without conscious thought. His fingertips brushed Hua Ling's arm—a contact so light it might have been imagined, yet it seemed to stop time itself.
The chamber fell into crystalline silence.
No one had dared such casual contact with Hua Ling in years beyond counting. Even his most trusted attendants maintained respectful distance, understanding instinctively that he existed in a sphere untouchable by common hands.
Hua Ling stared at the point of contact, then lifted his gaze to meet Chen's face with an intensity that seemed to pierce through flesh and bone to examine his very soul.
Chen recoiled as if struck by lightning, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird. "Forgive me! I didn't—"
"What," Hua Ling murmured with deadly quiet, "is this?"
He held aloft a silk robe that had clearly once been pristine white but now bore the unmistakable blush of rose petals—delicate, feminine, and absolutely incriminating.
Xinyu's soul nearly abandoned his body entirely. Why does that cursed thing still exist?!
"I can explain!" he gasped, reaching desperately for the evidence of his incompetence.
Hua Ling's voice remained calm as deep water, yet somehow infinitely more terrifying: "You cannot manage even the simplest of tasks."
Chen stretched upward frantically, his fingers grasping at empty air while Hua Ling held the pink robe just beyond his reach with the casual cruelty of someone dangling hope before the desperate.
Ridiculous,Hua Ling observed internally, watching this display with something between annoyance and strange fascination. He cannot even retrieve a simple garment from my grasp. Pathetically weak.
Yet something—perhaps exhaustion, perhaps an emotion too complex to name—made him lower his arm, allowing Chen to snatch away the offensive article.
"You may withdraw," he said, his voice carrying the weight of dismissal and inexplicable weariness.
Chen blinked in shock. That's the extent of my punishment?
He slipped from the chamber faster than wind through bamboo, his relief so profound it felt like rebirth. I was panicking for nothing! He wasn't even truly angry!
---
The next morning brought Elder Zhong's voice thundering across the training grounds like the roar of celestial dragons: "All disciples, assemble immediately!"
Master Zhou stood beside him with arms crossed, his expression carrying the gravity of unspoken storms.
"Master Zhou will select disciples for a mission of utmost importance," Elder Zhong continued, his words falling into the morning air like stones dropped into still water. "The farmlands surrounding Verdant Cloud City have fallen under supernatural influence. Crops refuse to grow despite proper cultivation. Villagers report strange sounds echoing through the night, and several individuals have vanished without trace."
Gasps rippled through the assembled students like wind through wheat fields.
Master Zhou stepped forward, his voice carrying the authority of decades spent facing the unknown. "Yan Zheng. Shen Yao. Lan Xueyao. Chen Xinyu."
"Wait, what?" Chen's voice emerged as a strangled whisper.
"Master Zhou!" Rourou's pout could have melted stone. "What about me?"
"No, Xiao Rou. Your cultivation remains insufficient for such dangers."
Lan Xueyao moved forward with her characteristic grace, cool as morning mist. "Master, I pledge to ensure her safety. Please permit her accompaniment."
Rourou's eyes sparkled like captured starlight. "Shijie, you are absolutely the finest person in all the realms!"
"We stand ready, Master," Yan Zheng confirmed with a respectful bow.
A quiet voice cut through the morning air like silk-wrapped steel.
"I shall join this expedition as well."
Hua Ling stepped forward from the gathered crowd, his presence transforming the atmosphere as surely as storm clouds gathering on clear skies.
Master Zhou froze as if struck by lightning. For one crystalline moment, something flickered behind his eyes—a ghost of memory, perhaps, featuring different eyes that held the same depths, the same dangerous beauty. The demon lord...
"Your Highness need not trouble himself with such mundane—"
"I insist," Hua Ling interrupted with the gentle finality of falling snow that could bury mountains. "I am here to expand my understanding, after all."
Master Zhou found himself unable to refuse. "Very well... if Your Highness wishes."
Meanwhile, Chen Xinyu stood on the verge of existential collapse.
Why?! Why must he accompany us as well?! It's merely a ghost investigation! Cannot I have one peaceful assignment in my entire miserable existence?!
Hua Ling, as if possessed of supernatural hearing, cast him a sideways glance—cold, unreadable, and somehow deeply amused.
Chen turned away with theatrical despair. I am thoroughly doomed.
---
As the chosen disciples descended the winding mountain paths, sunlight cascaded over them in molten gold, transforming their journey into something approaching legend. The city below pulsed with chaotic life—cart wheels rattling over ancient cobblestones, vendors calling out promises of fresh dumplings and honeyed sweets, street children darting between market stalls like schools of fish through coral reefs.
At the group's head walked His Highness Hua Ling, sword resting at his side with casual elegance, his bearing as regal as an emperor surveying his domain yet somehow utterly removed from the warm humanity surrounding him.
Several steps behind, Chen Xinyu and Shen Yao strolled together with the easy camaraderie of those who had survived countless misadventures side by side.
"Shen-shixiong," Xinyu grinned with mischievous delight, "perhaps you could charm this supernatural entity—assuming it manifests as an attractive maiden?"
Shen Yao erupted in delighted laughter. "With my natural talents? I could captivate any being, regardless of their form. Whether maiden, youth, or something entirely beyond mortal categories."
Xinyu scratched his head with genuine bewilderment. "Why would you even consider such possibilities?"
"You remain too innocent to comprehend such complexities, xiao yu ," Shen Yao replied with theatrical melancholy, fanning himself with exaggerated nobility.
Behind them, Rourou crept closer and tugged Chen's sleeve with conspiratorial urgency. "Yu'ge... do you believe malevolent spirits can truly possess living bodies?"
Xinyu leaned in with ominous theatrical flair. "Entirely possible. And if such a spirit sought a vessel..." he glanced at her playfully, "it would undoubtedly select you first."
"Yu'ge!" she yelped, delivering a solid thwack to his shoulder. "Don't terrorize me with such thoughts!"
Xinyu chuckled warmly, though internally he sighed with growing dread. The ghost truly isn't my primary concern... I suspect far more terrifying entities march directly ahead of us...
Up front, Yan Zheng walked in companionable silence beside Hua Ling.
The prince appeared stoic as ever—expression unreadable as ancient texts, posture perfect as carved marble—yet his supernatural hearing caught every word from behind. The laughter. The gentle teasing. The effortless warmth binding these young cultivators together like threads in precious silk.
And he remained... apart. Alone despite being surrounded.
Something heavy and unfamiliar settled in Hua Ling's chest like lead dropped into clear water. They trust each other so easily.....
"Is Your Highness well?" Yan Zheng inquired with gentle concern.
"Mm," Hua Ling replied with a faint nod that revealed nothing.
---
That afternoon found them before a lonely inn squatting beside the main road like a abandoned shrine to forgotten gods. The building appeared half-devoured by time—dust coating the windows like cataracts, silence so profound that even mice seemed to have fled this cursed place.
The innkeeper emerged from shadows behind the counter—a woman whose smile stretched too wide for her pale face, whose eyes held depths that reflected no light, whose voice carried the hollow echo of empty wells.
"We require four rooms for the evening," Yan Zheng stated with polite authority.
The woman tilted her head at an angle that suggested broken things. "Deepest apologies, young master. Only three chambers remain available."
Chen Xinyu's jaw dropped with theatrical dismay. "Three rooms?! Impossible! I refuse to endure Shen Yao's snoring for another night—it sounds like angry dragons!"
Yan Zheng ignored his protests with practiced ease. "His Highness will occupy one chamber. Shen Yao, Chen Xinyu, and I shall share another. The ladies may take the remaining room."
"Wait, wait—" Xinyu looked around in growing horror. "That arrangement means... I must sleep upon the cold floor again?!"