Zhu Yan – Chapter 14

 The child wriggled around in his arms and tried to avoid his fingers with a face full of fear. The boy could have easily subdued the little girl, but in the end, he stopped and sighed quietly: “If you don’t want to forget, then don’t forget… maybe it’s fate. Even if I will really die by your hand in the future, today I almost killed you by mistake, so we can consider it to be even.”
 The child didn’t understand what he was talking about, she just stared at him strangely.
 “Remember, don’t tell anyone what happened today.” In the end, he only said one sentence, “Otherwise, not only you, but even the entire Red Clan will face a disaster; do you understand?”
 “Yes! I promise I won’t tell anyone!” She broke away from him and answered with a crisp reply. Then she looked up at him and asked eagerly, “Would you… Would you teach me magic some other time?”
 “…” The boy looked at her noncommittally and said lightly, “Let’s talk about it when we meet next time.”
 After the last word, he left without looking back. She reluctantly followed him a few steps, calling after him to turn back. However, the boy had recovered his usual calmness and indifference, and there was no trace of the sadness she had seen in the sky from a moment ago, as if what had happened just now was just a dream.
 Yeah… It must have really been only a dream.
 Master once cried into her arms? This is something that only happens in dreams, right?
 He said he would teach her the next time they met, but since that day, she has never seen the boy again. Whether it was on the white rock or in the cave, he could never be found again; even the four-eyed bird was gone. Jiuyi Mountain is so big, he changed the place to practice, how could she find him?
 He must have avoided seeing her in purpose. Is it so embarrassing to be seen crying? Or is she so annoying that he just hid because he didn’t want to teach her?
 That’s all right. But she also forgot to take back the feather that the four eyed bird gave her that day. If he doesn’t show up, who would she ask for it?
 A month passed in the twinkling of an eye, it was the time for the Red King to leave the temple. The child empty-handed and bitter, could only follow her father back to the Western Wilderness Territory.
 As soon as she returned to the Red King’s Mansion, she ran to find Yuan and told him about the boy she met in the Valley of the Kings; she couldn’t tell to others about this big secret she had, but growing up with him, she always shared with Yuan every little secret in her heart.
 Yuan smiled upon hearing this, “Ah-Yan seems to like that big brother very much, doesn’t she?”
 “No! He’s so mean and stingy!” She stomped her foot and muttered, “He said he was going to give me a feather! But he didn’t keep his promise, what a shame!”
 Yuan squeezed her wrinkled nose and smiled softly: “It’s just a feather, why bother?”
 “But I want to fly! Fly like that white bird! If I can’t fly, it’s also good to be able to put the bird’s feather on as a dress.” She hugged Yuan’s neck and muttered, “You, abyss people, can all come and go under the water. But we Kongsang people can’t do anything! We can’t fly and cannot swim!”
 “…” Yuan hugged her, but his eyes dimmed.
 “How could that be?” His voice was low and thoughtful, “You Kongsang people have conquered Liuhe – the Six Kingdoms, and even the Kingdom of the Sea is already your territory.”

 After returning to Heavenly Wind City, the days passed one after another. The child was lively and forgetful; spending time with Yuan every day, she gradually started to forget the young man in the Temple of Jiuyi Mountain.
 However, in the beginning of the spring of the next year, the Red King’s Mansion unexpectedly received a gift from afar: it was a long scroll wrapped in silk, and the scarlet lacquer was covered with the stamp of Jiuyi Temple.
 “What is this?” The Red King was a little surprised, “Is from Jiuyi Mountain?”
 Two attendants came forward and opened it carefully, but from the inside fell out two huge white feathers, shining like two top-quality shark silk, which surprised everyone.
 “Wow…oh!” She was stunned.
 Even the Red King was stunned by this sudden gift: “Is this the white feather of the divine bird?”
 The Chongming Divine Bird changes its feathers only once every six decades. These feathers are collected in the Jiuyi Temple as a precious treasure. They are as white as snow, warm as velvet, inviolable by water and fire, and can ward off evil and poison. They are treasures for the Emperor and his Royal Family. Other vassal Kings have no right to own such precious things unless they are given by the Royal family as gift.
 “Unexpectedly, these was given to you by the young priest?” Anxiously looking at the cinnabar seal, the Red King glanced at his daughter curiously, “Ah-Yan, when did you get acquainted with the young God? Have you seen him?”
 She was about to say something when she suddenly remembered the agreement that she made with the elder brother that no matter who would ask, she must not mention the events of that day with anyone. She quickly shook her head and said, “I… I haven’t seen him!”
 “I hope you didn’t see him,” the Red King said with a sigh of relief, but he was still puzzled, “then why would he send you gifts all of a sudden?”
 “That… That’s because…” Her little mind started to spin fast and invented a lie quickly, “That’s because I and Chongming are good friends!”
 “Chongming?” The King was stunned for a moment. “Did you make friends with a bird?”
 “Mm-hmm!” She nodded vigorously, but didn’t know how to continue the lie. However, the Red King did not ask any more questions, he just took a thoughtful glance at his little daughter: “The young Priest has always lived in a deep, isolated place, and none of the six kings have been able to get to know him. But you have this ability…”
 But she just danced with delight: “Come on! Come on! Cut it up and make clothes for me!”
 The father looked at his innocent little daughter, with a strange expression in his eyes. After thinking for a moment, he turned towards the housekeeper and asked him to call the tailor.
 On the day when the feather coat was finally tailored, she put it on happily, admired it again and again in front of the mirror, and suddenly spoke to her father earnestly, “Father, I’m going to study the Dharma at the Jiuyi Temple! I want to be able to fly!”
 The father, who had always been firm, did not object immediately this time, he reflected for a moment, then said, “Although there are very strict rules in the Jiuyi Temple that they cannot accept women, you are only a child after all.” I will ask the Great Priest in private and see if they can make an exception for you and let you become an anonymous disciple, so you can go up the mountain and practice for a few years.”
 “Great!” She cheered and whirled in her feather coat like a happy dove.
 In the autumn of that year, when the leaves of Jiuyi Mountain were turning withered and yellow, the nine-year-old followed her father to the Jiuyi Temple for the second time.
 Before she left, she reluctantly hugged Yuan by his neck, kissed him, and muttered: “I’m leaving! But I’ll be back as soon as I learn to fly!”
 “Mm-hmm.” Yuan nodded and smiled, “Ah-Yan is so smart, she will learn it very fast.”
 “It’s going to be a long time… I will miss you very much.”

She was gloomy, playing with the long blue hair of Yuan wrapped around her fingers, she complained, “There is not even a woman there, it’s all uncles and grandfathers, all of them have cold and stern faces, which is not fun at all.”
 Yuan patted her chubby face and smiled, “It doesn’t matter. When Ah-Yan laughs, even the ice will melt.”
 “But still, I can’t bear to leave Yuan.” She muttered, “I won’t see you for a long time!”
 “Here, I’ll give you this.” After thinking for a moment, Yuan hung something around her neck, it was a white jade ring. It was made of an unknown material, it looked like jade or colored glaze, with a hint of red floating inside. “This is ancient dragon blood. It’s very precious. It can protect you from all the poisons in the world. Wearing it, it’s the same as having me by your side.”
 She pierced the jade ring with her thumb and turned it around her finger. Knowing that it was the precious treasure that Yuan had been wearing all along, she could not help but burst into tears and smiled: “Okay! I will carry it with me every single day!”
 “Don’t show it to other people,” he whispered, “you understand?”
 “I understand.” She nodded obediently, and put the jade ring in her close-fitting coat, “I will wear it on the most inner side, no one will ever see it!”
 But why? At that moment, as a child, she didn’t think too much about it.

 In the depths of the Jiuyi Temple, she met the young man for the second time.
 This time, he changed his commoner clothes and put on a magnificent formal dress, with a white robe hanging to the ground, a jade belt tying his long hair, holding a piece of jade bamboo slip into his hand. He stood behind the Great Priest in silence. He was as handsome and gorgeous as a God from the Heavens. He watched her walking in from the height of the Main Hall, his face hidden behind the mist rising in spirals from the treasure cauldron, no happiness or anger could be noticed on his face.
 “Ying, this is Princess Zhu Yan, the youngest daughter of the Red King I mentioned to you before. She’s nine years old. She sincerely wants to learn the cultivation method.”
 The Great Priest took her little hand from the Red King and came to the disciple, “You are 18 years old now, and the power of the prophecy has disappeared, you can go out of the valley to take in disciples; if you are free, teach her, just let her be an anonymous disciple.”
 She looked at him timidly, for fear that he would say something she didn’t wanted to hear. If he really refused, she would definitely remind him that he had promised to “teach her magic skills when they meet next time”!
 However, the young man lowered his eyes, looked at her for a moment, and just said indifferently: “I am not a good teacher; it will be very hard for her to follow me to study the Dharma.”
 “I’m not afraid of hard work!” She cried at once. “I can live in the cave with you!”
 He paused, then said: “It’s going to be very lonely, too.”
 “No, no,” she smiled, and grabbed his hand, almost rubbing against him, “there used to be only dead people in that valley, and of course you were alone; but from now on, I’ll be there with you! You will never be alone again!”
 His hands were cold, but for the first time there was a glimpse of warmth in the boy’s eyes.
 He said: “Then, from now on you will have to listen to my words, and cannot lie to me.”
 “Good!” She nodded fast and vigorous.
 “If you don’t obey, you will be beaten!” The boy finally grasped the soft hand of the little girl and said to her word by word, with serious eyes, “Don’t cry when the time comes.”

……

 The past is like smoke, scattered and gathered together in front of us.
 Speaking of it, he made it clear from the beginning that as a master, he has the right to beat the disobedient apprentice; she was beaten today, and it seem that she had no right to complain.

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