CH 60

Dan Yi was exhausted after this ordeal. He leaned tiredly on Chen Ziqi and didn’t say anything for quite some time.

“Does it still hurt?” Chen Ziqi asked, stroking Dan Yi’s face. There was still a thin sheen of sweat on it. 

“I’m fine now,” Dan Yi said, trying to push himself into a sitting position. His limbs were too weak, however, and he collapsed back onto Chen Ziqi’s body. This was the first time he had experienced having his neili go out of control, and he hadn’t thought that the effects would be this severe. Even though it had been fixed, he still felt extreme fatigue, as if his arms and legs were all made of immovable lead. Plus, he was currently held in Qiqi’s arms, and it was very comfortable. He wanted to remain like this for a while more.

When Lan Jiangxue and Diao Lie arrived, Dan Yi was nearly asleep.

Chen Ziqi had a pained expression on his face as he beckoned the two over to help him carry Dan Yi. He thought to himself that he really had to eat a little more and quickly build more muscle. Dan Yi could easily lift him onto his shoulder with one hand, but he couldn’t carry Dan Yi at all even after trying with all his might.

They set Dan Yi down gently on the bed in his sleeping quarters. Linghe brought a hot towel in and was about to wipe Dan Yi down when Chen Ziqi suddenly spoke up. “I’ll do it,” he said, surprising even himself. 

As such, Linghe and Lingguan both left. Lan Jiangxue also started walking off, then realised that Diao Lie was still standing where he was, looking worriedly at their Palace Master.

“Let’s go,” Lan Jiangxue said, elbowing Diao Lie in the ribs.

“What happened to him?” Chen Ziqi asked Diao Lie and Lan Jiangxue as he looked at Dan Yi. The latter was still fast asleep.

“He probably met with a bit of an accident when he was practicing his martial arts,” Lan Jiangxue said, surreptitiously signalling to Diao Lie to be quiet. “You can ask the Palace Master directly when he wakes up.”

Chen Ziqi still had many questions, like whether the Divine Dragon’s Howl and the Danyang Divine Martial Arts had a peculiar relationship.

“This subordinate will be keeping guard next door. Wang ye, if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask,” Diao Lie said. He looked anxious and clearly didn’t want to leave, but Lan Jiangxue kept pulling him away, and he had no choice but to settle for this.

Chen Ziqi nodded and gestured his agreement for them to leave. He waited for the heavy, carved wooden doors to close behind them before unfastening Dan Yi’s robes and wiping him down gently.

Dan Yi’s body didn’t look like a sixteen-year-old’s at all. He had a strong, symmetrical bone structure and solid muscles under his skin. He looked to be very strong in a lean, lithe kind of way, with his muscles flowing smoothly into each other. It didn’t look like the thick, meaty muscles that one usually built from practicing external martial arts. 

Chen Ziqi moved the warm, damp towel slowly over Dan Yi’s skin, and as he did so, he licked his lips, which had suddenly gone rather dry. He craned his neck to look at Dan Yi’s face, and on confirming that he was still fast asleep, reached out a hand to stroke the firm muscles on his chest.

Those muscles felt incredibly alluring to the touch. Chen Ziqi was addicted from the get-go, and he started having a good time touching and pinching Dan Yi all over.

“Qiqi, if you keep going, we’ll both be in trouble.”

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“What happened to you today?” Chen Ziqi asked, after having had his fill of teasing Dan Yi. He started towelling Dan Yi down in earnest. The sky was dark now, and he burrowed into the blankets, squeezing his head onto the same pillow as Dan Yi.

“I accidentally started practicing the fourth level of cultivation,” Dan Yi said. He still felt incredibly exhausted and couldn’t really open his eyes. He nodded off to sleep after saying this.

Chen Ziqi didn’t say any more. He silently observed Dan Yi’s side profile. This fellow was really, really handsome. He had never seen anyone else who was better looking than Dan Yi. If he kept being in close contact with his face, he probably wouldn’t find anyone else attractive, and might end up a bachelor for life. He moved his face close to Dan Yi’s neck and took a deep breath. He’d nearly been knocked out by that sickly sweet smell from the two sisters earlier today, and he needed to clear his nasal passages with Dan Yi’s pleasing scent. 

That clean, green scent was probably the smell of Wutong trees. The little red bird’s feathers also smelt exactly the same…

Dan Yi tossed and turned a little that night, probably because he still felt under the weather. At one point, he flipped over and snuggled against Chen Ziqi. The latter came half-awake, then subconsciously reached out to pull Dan Yi into his arms.

The next morning, when Chen Ziqi opened his eyes, he discovered that Dan Yi had disappeared, and a fluffy little red bird had taken his place!

Dan Yi felt very refreshed after a night’s sleep. His strength was fully replenished now. He looked up and saw Chen Ziqi lying on the bed with one hand supporting his head, smiling faintly at him. He opened his mouth to greet him. 

“Tweet!”

Tweet? Dan Yi flared out his wings in an instant. He stood up and turned around on the spot, then lifted his little feet and flapped his little wings. He finally realised that he had turned back into a little chick. He lowered his head and scratched at the blankets anxiously with a small foot, trying to think of a way to explain this.

“You’re awake. Do you feel fine?” Chen Ziqi asked, reaching out a finger to poke the little red bird’s fluffy butt.

Dan Yi cocked his head at Chen Ziqi, feigning ignorance. 

“Sure, keep pretending,” Chen Ziqi said, poking at the empty underclothes on the bed. “You’re telling me that Dan Yi walked out stark naked?”

The little red bird turned a full circle on the spot, then sat down on the bed in a little puff of feathers. Brilliant red light flashed, and a human-shaped Dan Yi appeared wearing scarlet robes.

Chen Ziqi looked very surprised. He thought that Dan Yi would be in his birthday suit when he changed from a chicken to a human. That was what the stories said, after all – there was a scholar who once took in a fox, who was actually a fox spirit, and hugged it to sleep every night. One day, he woke up to find that the fox had suddenly turned into a naked beauty lying in his arms. The scholar had immediately wrapped his arms around the beauty and did certain things involving the birds and the bees… ahem.

Chen Ziqi was strangely disappointed that he didn’t have a naked beauty in front of his eyes right now. He scratched his head in confusion. Had he actually been anticipating doing things that involved the birds and the bees with Dan Yi? 

Dan Yi pressed his lips together when he saw that Chen Ziqi remained silent. “When did you realise this?” he asked.

“Last winter,” Chen Ziqi said, sitting up. He pulled at Dan Yi’s sleeve. “But I wasn’t very sure at that time. I just had a vague notion that you and the divine chicken were related somehow.”

The scarlet sleeve Chen Ziqi was pulling on was made of a very soft and silky material that somehow also had a feathery feel at the same time. It felt very different from any sort of cloth Chen Ziqi had felt before.

Last winter… Dan Yi’s expression suddenly darkened. When he had gone over in winter to look for Chen Ziqi, how had Chen Ziqi treated him? 

Flicked his bum…

Plucked his feathers…

Stuffed his head into his mouth…

Dan Yi was originally concerned that Chen Ziqi would be scared, but his emotions suddenly became far more complicated. He didn’t know what to say any more, especially when a certain fellow snuggled into his arms, the better to cop a feel of that bewitchingly soft material that Dan Yi’s robes were made of. 

“Wow, are these robes made of your feathers?” Chen Ziqi asked, burying his face in Dan Yi’s chest and nuzzling him all over. That fluffy feeling was exactly the same as the little red bird’s feathers.

“Nn,” Dan Yi said. He looked helplessly at the fellow in his arms. The Emperors that had come before Chen Ziqi were all either shocked, afraid, or a combination of both when they first found out about the Dan family’s secret. His Qiqi, on the other hand… he was really a different kettle of fish.

“Where did your wings go?” Chen Ziqi asked, feeling Dan Yi up and down.

“They’re my arms,” Dan Yi said, catching hold of Chen Ziqi’s hands, which were still making free with his body. 

“Huh? Your hands aren’t your legs?” Chen Ziqi asked, looking confused for a bit before realising how silly that sounded. He lowered his head and suppressed a laugh. “Then, when you said you were a fenghuang, were you for real?”

Dan Yi reached out stealthily and circled his arms around Chen Ziqi before replying. “Nn. I’m a feng,” he said slowly. He was a male phoenix, a feng, not a fenghuang.

There was an ancient divine bird called the fenghuang. A popular belief amongst the people of the Empire was that the fenghuang was a five-coloured bird, but that was actually incorrect; only a divine bird that had red feathers from crown to tail as a true fenghuang. The males were called feng, and the females were called huang. The Dan family never had any huang born to it. In every generation, there was only one feng.

The Chen family, on the other hand, had ancient draconic blood of the Dragon God running in their veins. That was also why they were able to practice the Divine Dragon’s Howl. However, these two gongfa had to be practiced together in order for both to reach their full potential. 

Chen Ziqi kind of understood what Dan Yi was saying, but there were some things he still didn’t get. How could a bird turn into a human? And was Dan Yi a heavenly fairy or some kind of bird-man?

Dan Yi refused to answer these questions and dragged him off to eat breakfast instead. After eating breakfast, he made Chen Ziqi accompany him to the front palace as he dealt with the Cloud Palace’s official matters. His neili was still surging a bit in his body, and he felt much better when Chen Ziqi was by his side. He refused to let go of Chen Ziqi’s hand and held it wherever they went.

Chen Ziqi thought it wasn’t very appropriate for him to listen to the Cloud Palace’s secrets and tried to refuse.

“You already know the biggest secret in the Cloud Palace. There’s nothing left to hide,” Dan Yi said, a serious expression on his face. 

“… …” Well, Chen Ziqi had to admit that that did sound logical.

Chen Ziqi sat on a small stool next to Dan Yi and looked at the Wing Leaders assembled below the dais. These people didn’t look in the least bit surprised that he was there and simply bowed to Dan Yi as per normal, reporting to him without any hesitation whatsoever.

“Cheng Zhou has surfaced in Jiangnan, and he’s stirring up resentment against the Suxin Sect. He spread word that the Suxin Sect had massacred his family in order to obtain the manual for ‘Open the Heavens’, and he’s promised to share the gongfa of ‘Open the Heavens’ with anyone who goes forth with him to kill the Abbess Wuyin,” Lan Shanyu said. He had consolidated the recent reports and sieved out the most important ones to highlight to Dan Yi.

Cheng Zhou had left the Imperial Palace before the New Year, and nothing had been heard from him until now. So that was what he’d been up to. 

“Didn’t Cheng Zhou try to recruit Berry Brown?” Chen Ziqi asked Dan Yi quietly.

“He did,” Dan Yi said, turning slightly towards Chen Ziqi. He then schooled his face back into a cold, aloof expression and looked down solemnly at the subordinates gathered below the dais.

Cheng Zhou had actually gone straight to Lu City immediately after leaving the Imperial Palace and asked Chen Zimo to join him in seeking revenge.

Chen Zimo, however, had looked calmly and coldly into Cheng Zhou’s bloodshot eyes and said, “I owe nothing to the Cheng family. However, I will repay you for teaching me martial arts.” 

“What do you mean by that?!” Cheng Zhou practically shouted, slamming his fists violently onto the table. “The blood of the Cheng family runs in your veins!”

“Uncle, if you’re not in a hurry, perhaps you want to wait in Lu City until early spring?” Chen Zimo said with an icy smile.

When the last of the winter snows melted and the flowers started blooming, Chen Zimo knelt at the edge of Wangchuan Cliff as he accepted a thin, white bone from the Wind Wing.