Date: Unknown
Place: Unknown
Years had passed since the accident.
A dim room lay buried in shadow—dust thick in the air, fragments of broken furniture scattered across the floor. The faint light that slipped through a cracked window revealed only decay and silence.
In the corner, a boy sat motionless. He was no longer the small child from that snowy night; Zixiao had grown, at least nine years old now. Yet his body was still covered in wounds. Some were old scars, others were fresh and raw—thin, cruel marks that looked as if carved by a whip.
He wore a tattered gray shirt and pants that had long lost their color. His black hair hung over dull, lifeless eyes as he stared into the darkness of the room, expression blank, breathing faint.
Chains bound his wrists and ankles, their cold metal biting into his skin. But the most disturbing sight was the heavy iron collar locked around his neck—a symbol not just of captivity, but of ownership.
Zixiao had no memory of how long it had been since that night. When he had first awoken, it was in this same dark room—his body chained, his wounds festering.
Later, he learned the truth.
After the incident years ago, a group of wandering bandits had discovered his unconscious body buried in the snow. Seeing no value in saving a dying child, they instead saw profit. They sold him like an object—to a wealthy household known as the Jie Family, a powerful name in a small mountain town resting atop the Snowy Sky Mountains.
Since then, his life had been nothing but servitude and pain.
The silence of the room shattered as the door burst open with a violent crash. A large woman stomped in—her face smeared with thick layers of powder and rouge, her body draped in bright red silk that did little to hide her cruelty.
"Get up, you useless brat!" she barked.
She seized the iron collar around Zixiao's neck and yanked hard, dragging him out of the room as his chains rattled across the floor. The metal scraped his skin, but he didn't scream. He no longer had the strength to.
---
"Welcome a guest," the matron snapped as she dragged him across the courtyard. "He's come to treat your master—my husband. Do it right."
Zixiao's body dragged behind her, chains clinking like a broken rhythm. The matron spat the words at him as if she were naming a debt. "Don't mess this up. If you fail, you don't eat tonight."
The master of the household, Jie Zhaosan, lay in the inner room. Though age had bent his spine and wrinkled his face—he looked closer to eighty—his cruelty remained undiminished. The whole town whispered about his sins. Recently, drunk and lecherous, he had harassed a sixteen-year-old girl on the main road while she shopped; she had screamed for help, and an old man had answered—beating Jie until he was half dead. That beating left him broken and confined to a sickbed, swollen with fever and rage.
Zixiao did as he was ordered. His legs dragged, his wounds a chorus of aches, but obedience was the only currency he had left.
"Now run to the town's entrance gate," the matron ordered coldly. "The old doctor should be waiting there, wearing a straw hat—if the information he gave me was right."
Zixiao nodded weakly. He hadn't eaten in days; his stomach ached, his body was thin and trembling. Yet he forced his legs to move, obeying without a word. Disobedience had a price he could no longer afford.
The moment he stepped out of the Jie residence, the world changed.
The main street of the mountain town was alive with noise and motion. Snowflakes drifted lazily through the air, landing on stalls crowded with vegetables, spices, and steaming buns.
"Get my cabbages! Don't buy from that other fool—his are weeks old!" a shopkeeper shouted from across the street.
"Hah! Weeks old? Yours rot faster than your tongue!" the rival seller barked back, slapping his face with a cabbage leaf.
In an instant, the shouting turned into a scuffle. People gathered, laughing and cheering as fists flew and vegetables scattered across the snow.
Zixiao didn't even glance their way. His bare feet left faint prints on the icy road as he walked silently toward the town gate, his thin figure almost swallowed by the bustling crowd.
To reach the town's entrance gate, outsiders had to climb over ten thousand black stone steps, winding up from the foot of the mountain. The stairs were perpetually slick with snow and ice, swept clean only by the bitter winds of the constant mountain storms. Not just the road—the entire town seemed trapped in a jade-white world, as if winter had claimed it forever.
At the gate, Zixiao finally saw the figure he had been told to meet.
An old man stood leaning slightly on a crooked staff, dressed in loose blue silk robes that fluttered in the cold wind. A yellow straw hat shaded his face, and a long, curling pipe trailed smoke lazily into the air. His white beard flowed down like river mist, giving him an aura of wisdom and age.
"Ah… so this is my little helper," the old man murmured, eyes twinkling beneath the brim of his hat.
Zixiao approached cautiously. The man bent slightly, studying the boy's face for a long moment before handing him a medicine pouch, worn but neatly tied.
"Carry this," he said softly, almost as if testing him. "Lead the way, hero."
At the cue, Zixiao straightened, gripping the pouch tightly, and silently led the old man toward the Jie Family estate, every step echoing against the black stones.
On the way to the Jie residence, the old man's eyes never left Zixiao, though the boy remained unaware of his gaze. A quiet grief stirred within him at the sight of the child—wounds etched deep into his small body, a life weighed down by suffering far too early.
They reached the Jie residence without incident. At the massive redwood gates, the matron paced anxiously, her eyes darting back and forth as if she could summon help by sheer will.
The moment she saw the old man, she bolted across the courtyard and fell to her knees before him. "Old Master Mu Feng! For the gods' grace, please… please save my husband! We will pay anything!"
Mu Feng bent slightly, placing a calming hand on her shoulder. "All right, all right," he said, his voice steady and measured. "I need to see the patient first to determine if I can help him. Please, release my leg."
The matron scrambled to her feet, flustered but obedient. "This way, please," she urged, leading him inside.
The mansion was immense—crafted of deep red wood, sprawling over half a kilometer, each beam and carving radiating wealth and authority. The scale of the residence gave it the aura of an ancient fortress, simultaneously magnificent and oppressive.
"This is the room, Master Mu Feng," the matron said, leading Zixiao and the old man to the door behind which Jie Zhaosan lay.
Mu Feng's gaze remained calm. "Open the door."
At his command, the matron pushed the massive door ajar—but the instant it moved, a putrid stench rolled out, followed by a swirling green mist that coiled through the room like a living thing.
Mu Feng reacted instantly. With a swift motion, he swept Zixiao up into his arms, holding him close so the boy would remain untouched. Before the toxic substance could reach them, Mu Feng's hand slashed through the air. A powerful gust of wind erupted from his palm, pushing the green mist violently back into the chamber.
He inhaled sharply, studying the lingering haze. "From the smell… and the way the mist moves, it appears to be poison," he said, voice calm but authoritative. "But it is… not a normal one."
Zixiao clutched him tightly, eyes wide with fear, as the old man's presence radiated both power and unshakable control over the danger.
---
Mu Feng took two small, metallic spheres from his sleeve and hurled them into the room.
The moment they struck the floor, tiny apertures appeared across their surfaces. The spheres began sucking in the poisonous green mist, each movement precise and effortless. Within a minute, the noxious vapor that had dominated the chamber vanished completely, leaving the room clear and safe.
Calm as still water, Mu Feng opened his hand, and the two spheres returned obediently. Without a hint of urgency, he turned to the matron and said, "All right. For the next step, I will need the boy's help."
The matron froze, her face pale. "But Master… he's a slave. He shouldn't be—"
Mu Feng cut her off, voice steady yet firm. "What? You don't want me to cure your husband?"
He settled gracefully onto a traditional wooden bench, the air around him radiating unshakable authority. The matron's protests died on her lips, replaced by hesitation and fear.