The release of energy didn't take much longer to fade into the natural thunders and rain. The golden circle faded from the space under Lìngxiāo's feet, gone back to normal.
But some spaces left marks of something unusual having happened here.
The circle had a spot which held a strange looking symbol—three tall "◇" shaped diamonds meeting at the middle at their edges, and the joining point had a tiny circle which faintly pulsed into violet with crimson red.
It pulsed just twice like a dying heartbeat before becoming lifeless. Gone.
He panted softly, kneeling down on the ground. He looked at his left hand. The polished black skin faded back to its normal self. His hair fell back over his back heavily, all soaked, sticking tightly over his robes. When he opened his eyes slowly, they faded back to their original form.
He felt blank.
Not even looking or hearing the disaster his energy had made over this mountain. He was just looking at his both hands—one just come back to normal and another had that cut which had dried out but still throbbed with a dull pain.
He was more worried about his exposure than the problem with his memory and this energy. He knew it wasn't this serious to totally forget everything. He needed someone to tell him just enough to catch up. Asking Chóng Fēi wasn't a very good idea either.
He already suspected him to the greatest level.
All he was worried about since the day he had found this danger in him. He knew this form was a strange mix of something big—though it maintained no bloodline he could trace to his lost parents.
He just..had it.
And it was not safe to move around freely with. If anyone found out he was the hybrid form of black skin, white hair god—looks like that god form but mostly acts like the nine-tail fox core, but sometimes his own powers betray him by switching shades under his nose. As much as he knew it was possible to control, he didn't know why even he was failing at it.
The last one in the lost legend had been said really unsteady—people wanted to kill him. But the second one? Just a few found out about it, but the young man also disappeared into thin air.
No wonder his uncle had warned him about powers being abused at clans. If capable heirs like Wàng Wùjī were trapped like this—there was no second guessing that he wouldn't be trapped too, while this whole clan was after him and promise of better treatment.
He knew he wouldn't be treated more than a power tool.
They didn't knew he was that Xiǎo Lìng they didn't even remember nor they got the chance to find it out—because he was always out if reach.
He wasn't sure about today's Yínglòu cultivators—not only Hàngwō but all capable clans. He wasn't sure if they would protect or use. But Gusu cultivators would go wild by it. It might be another reason for a third liberation war between them again.
He felt the wind around him was more intentional and stronger at his aftermath. His curses were removing the marks around him, leaving no track of the symbols to be caught.
A feminine voice—perhaps that female curse whom he barely called by the name she had told him, just "the serpent," because of being a snake-type third rank curse—seemed to be calling him to wake up.
But the voices, rumblings of the sky, the falling parts of the mountain—nothing properly reached his ears. It wasn't a new thing. But today's one felt like too strong a loop to break.
So he just sat there without seeing anything properly which should have been in front of him.
The curses kept trying to reach him, but they were under his control to do something more than the limitations he had arranged. They couldn't even connect to Lìngxiāo's mind unless Lìngxiāo reached out—only Mō Qīn could.
So the voices were clipped and hitching even into his mind, just as the actual voices kept failing. The vein of his neck twitched as he tried to respond to them at least by turning toward them. But his muscles felt like they had locked into one place in the cold weather—or anything else.
When the veins felt like they were popping, like the cells of a lemon being squeezed, his eyes fluttered shut. The hand with the cut trembled as it clenched over the wet soil.
His mind felt alarmingly lighter—he himself didn't know how much memory might have already left his mind.
He felt younger than he already was as a young adult—back to his ten years old. At the middle time when his very simple past life was about to move towards the hardships and cracked reality. He wasn't today's Lìngxiāo for a moment.
He was Xiǎo Lìng.
For a moment, nothing from today's life he felt. Not even that permanent smile or the power reactions.
Not at least here, while he had no idea what might be happening outside his mind.
Only an ordinary boy.
"Xiǎo Lìng did it! I not!" He heard the little Chóng Fēi saying, wholly horrified in a childish way. "He wanted to share with me!"
The tiny tug over his robe felt too real.
So he slowly opened his eyes. He found himself younger, like that age he had just been feeling. His robes were plain white—which he used to wear when he used to stay in the clan with his father.
He was standing in front of Chóng Féng at the corridor—now much younger than he looked now, in a much more natural way. The natural way age gives, yet dimmed with something unknown. His gaze bored and not totally even angry—like he didn't know what to say while both were children.
He couldn't react immediately. He slowly turned to his right side where little Chóng Fēi's eyes were wide and hiding behind him.
"How many times..I have told you not to steal adult foods from my table?" Chóng Féng muttered. "Your zhù fù would answer me this. One less bowl of food for both of you today—since I have no interest in child abuse."
Lìngxiāo swallowed hard. He carefully placed a hand over Chóng Fēi's head, forgiving as ever, as he lowered his own head lightly. "I apologize...kindly do not yell at him more, Chóng Xiānsheng." Then carefully covered up. "I did wish..to share it with him."
Chóng Féng hummed dryly, his eyes going to his son clinging. "Hm. I know. What else, kid? You two eat my head just because I needed your zhù fù to take care of my brat while he drives away others."
Lìngxiāo just listened and nodded once in understanding. He wasn't uncomfortable here like he usually was when touched. He just stood up after gently making himself free from Chóng Fēi's grip, covering his arm with his sleeve a little awkwardly—since there were angry biting marks left by this bratty Chóng Fēi whenever he had refused to play with him and just helped his father. The bandages did a little to hide it properly, because he did it himself, not his father.
He didn't even tell those to him out of worry—because his father sometimes just dropped objections on Chóng Féng without any worry of losing the job.
But this objection was small and regular. Chóng Féng didn't even pay proper attention to it.
"And you, brat." Chóng Féng grabbed Chóng Fēi's arm. His gaze twitching with something unknown, like it was pinching into his skin.
"Pàpà I did nothing!!!" Chóng Fēi cried out like he was being pulled to be punished or something. "Scold him not me!"
His gray eyes wide and shining with stubborn tears which he wasn't even letting fall. His other hand tightened over Lìngxiāo's robe.
Chóng Féng's jaw tightened, his face flushed like he was seeing an innocent crime. "Enough. An HEIR does not cling to a caretaker's boy."
Chóng Fēi wasn't easy to handle even for his father. He bit at his finger, gripped his robe, and said, "All your fault that I cling! You both are bad! No playing with me!"
Chóng Féng stared with hot eyes. First at Chóng Fēi, and then Lìngxiāo. "Is this what you learn from his zhù fù?! Stop it. Or you would study two more hours extra."
"No!! I hate freaking those lore books!" Chóng Fēi cried out again, letting go of his hand and hiding behind Lìngxiāo's back.
"Keep some manners, brat." Chóng Féng groaned, almost facepalming.
"Mute shù fù isn't bad! You are!" Chóng Fēi clung to his waist like his personal saving shield.
Chóng Féng's eyes darkened. "What did you say again?"
Lìngxiāo's father soundlessly came forward, stopping the father-son's regular argument. The same royal blue robe Lìngxiāo was wearing as disguise. The face wasn't much clear.
The long hair floated behind. But it glitched between brown and white like a cracked memory only he could see.
Lìngxiāo blinked and looked up to him. Though he wasn't in his right mind into this whole situation, it felt wrong, new—as if he had found something he had lost long ago and was now seeing it right in front of himself.
"Zhù fù?" Lìngxiāo almost whispered in silent awe.
His father turned behind just lightly. The eyes seemed glowing beneath the shadow of his face. This also glitched.
But he didn't see it change, as he was looking at his hair.
He just smiled faintly to him—both of them—which felt like time had stopped.