“Wei Yun, it’s really nice to have met you.”
When Wei Yun saw the golden-lettered paper spread out on the desk, a fleeting glint seemed to sparkle in his usually cold and tranquil eyes.
After a moment, his lips curved slightly, and he looked up again towards the dense night shrouded among the towering buildings outside the window.
The stars in the sky, amidst the seemingly endless night, appeared like a vast, majestic river, grand and boundless.
The room was silent, with only the flickering of the lamp.
The young man in brocade clothes slowly walked to the window, the night breeze brushing through his dense, long hair, while the copper pendant on the desk behind him shimmered with a faint golden glow under the dim candlelight.
Mysterious symbols appeared, barely visible, just like the countless stars in the sky reflected within, and as the pale golden disc turned, it emitted a scorching, brilliant light akin to a galaxy pouring forth.
Wei Yun turned back, just in time to see the sudden appearance of those fine, flowing lights, reflecting in his deep eyes like the fleeting shadow of fireworks.
He turned around and went back to the desk, taking the copper pendant in his hand.
As he rubbed the edge of the ornament, missing one tail feather on the relief of a phoenix, his knuckles gradually tightened.
From this copper pendant in his hand, everything seemed to become shrouded in mist.
Even that chatterbox… remained an unstable factor.
Whose pawn was she, after all?
And that mysterious person who had never shown himself, why did he want Wei Yun’s life?
That night, Wei Yun had a restless sleep.
Perhaps it was because, in his dreams, he returned once again to his childhood in the Wei family mansion, becoming the sickly child locked in the courtyard by his father.
The worn courtyard walls, the sparse weeds in the cracks of the floor tiles, and his father’s raised punishment stick.
“Wei Yun, do you realize your mistake?”
The green and dark patterned sleeve was raised, and the stick fiercely struck the eight-year-old Wei Yun.
Again and again, the stick fell, and the kneeling child always kept his back straight, his lips tightly closed without much color, never making a sound from start to finish.
“Wei Yun, do you realize your mistake?”
His father’s voice became more severe, filled with barely concealed fury.
This was the authority and dignity he could only show when facing Wei Yun.
But in the Wei family, he was always weak in front of others.
“Wei Yun, has never done wrong.”
No matter how many times his father asked, no matter how many years little Wei Yun was confined in that square courtyard, and no matter how painful the punishment stick was.
Little Wei Yun never felt he was wrong.
And he never admitted fault.
In the vast and deep Wei family mansion, living in the third branch, being a concubine’s son, Wei Changning had hoped his son would be as cautious and careful as he was, living discreetly, without drawing attention.
A weak man would never willingly embrace change, for he fears it.
Just as he still deeply loved Shen Shi, the mother of Wei Yun who had passed away less than a year ago, he still complied with the wishes of the third wife and married the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Jinzhou.
Wei Yun once hated his father, hated his cowardice, hated him for forcing himself to become a person as muddled as him.
Hated that he claimed to deeply love his mother, yet remarried someone else shortly after her death.
Hated that he succumbed to the so-called helplessness.
Even more, hated that he was deprived of the right to choose how to live.
But this cowardly man was, after all, his father.
He was the only blood relative in the deep and unfathomable Wei family mansion who genuinely cared for him, Wei Yun.
On the day of the great disaster of the Wei family, his father patted his thin shoulder, bent down to hug him, and said, “You were born frail, yet naturally rebellious… Wei Yun, you are stronger than your father.”
Though the man was cowardly and incompetent, he was also someone who did not easily shed tears.
But that night, the ten-year-old Wei Yun distinctly felt a trace of moisture gently falling on his neck.
The serious crimes committed by the eldest and second sons of the Wei family ultimately involved everyone in the Wei family.
Even though his father lived cautiously, taking care in everything, who could have expected that in the end, he still became a victim of the evil deeds of the Wei family’s eldest and second houses?
From then on, Wei Yun knew that all forbearance, retreat, and restraint were just excuses for the weak.
Life is like the morning dew.
And in this world, only power is eternal.
To escape a fate of being slaughtered by others, he had to become the one who controlled the life and death of others.
After ten years of upheaval, no one could truly know what kind of bloody trials the once frail child locked in the deepest mansion had gone through, how many desperate situations he had faced alone, before he finally became the young Imperial Advisor deeply favored by the emperor today.
And the years had already turned his once soft heart into one as cold as ice.
He cared about no one, not even himself.
Past events, like the reflection of dew-laden flowers, stacked one frame after another. Later, Wei Yun frowned slightly, in a state of half-sleep, he seemed to hear a very light and soft voice calling him:
“Wei Yun, it’s really nice to have met you.”
That was the voice of a girl, with a slightly rising tone, carrying seven parts joy and three parts timidity.
He suddenly opened his eyes, and what he saw was pitch black.
His breathing was slightly hurried, his chest rising and falling irregularly, as if he could still hear the voice of a girl echoing in his ears.
The copper pendant placed by his pillow emitted a faint glow, with a star disc rotating within it, hidden and visible, casting a sprawling star pattern, emitting a faint, bell-like, ethereal sound.
At this moment, the girl in another time and space was still sleeping soundly.
On the pitch-black screen of the mobile phone by her pillow, a light golden trace of a phoenix tail feather gradually appeared, with a small star disc hidden within it, quietly rotating.
“Wei Yun…”
In her sleep, she seemed to murmur softly.
When the clear sound reached Wei Yun’s ears, his pupils shrank slightly, and he stared at the copper pendant by his pillow for a long time, unable to move his gaze away.
Since that night, Wei Yun could occasionally hear Xie Tao’s voice, mostly in the dead of night.
Sometimes it was her unconscious mutterings in her midnight dreams, sometimes it was her ramblings when she stayed up late.
For instance: “I really want to eat crayfish… can’t afford it, never mind.”
Or: “I really want to eat braised pork… don’t want to cook, never mind.”
Or again: “This flavor of instant noodles is too delicious?!”
…
Sometimes Wei Yun would also hear her talking about him:
“How did Wei Yun grow up? He can recite ‘Zhi Lun’ backwards, if that’s not a devil, what is!”
“I wonder what Wei Yun is doing right now…”
“I kind of want to eat the osmanthus lotus root powder cake Wei Yun gave me…”
But such occurrences were rare.
Wei Yun noticed that only when a golden airflow emerged on the copper pendant, causing the star disc to rotate, could he hear her voice.
Time flies, just like flowing water.
Since school was about to start, and Xie Tao, who was engrossed in working part-time to earn money, had nearly half of her summer homework unfinished, she had to start rushing her homework late into the night.
Xie Tao, writing furiously at her desk, buried her head in her workbook when she encountered a math problem she couldn’t solve, “This is too hard…”
At that moment, Wei Yun, who had been busy overseeing the construction of the Astrology Pavilion and had not had a good night’s sleep for several days, was finally able to go to bed early, but was disturbed by her exclamation.
When he opened his eyes, the star disc was rotating on the copper pendant by his pillow, and he heard the girl’s frustrated sigh.
For some reason, in that instant, there was a hint of a smile in his eyes.
Like a spring blooming suddenly in a perennially frozen snowfield, the young master lay on the bed, caressing the copper pendant in his hand, his eyebrows relaxed, his gaze warm and radiant.
At dawn, Wei Yun was awakened by the voice of Wei Jing outside the door.
Due to his dislike of being touched by others, the Imperial Advisor’s mansion never kept maids to serve him. He took care of all the trivial matters of dressing and washing by himself.
After he had washed and changed into a gown made of crimson gauze with silver threads and dark patterns for court attendance, Wei Bo, who was standing by, timely offered a tray carrying a gold crown inlaid with jade.
Wei Yun turned to the side, facing a large bronze mirror, and put on the gold crown, tightened the hairband that matched the color of his robe and was inlaid with delicate jade pieces, gathering his thick, long black hair at the back.
While tying the sash from the screen around his slender waist, he seemed to remember something, and looked up at Wei Bo standing by, “Ask the kitchen to prepare a dish of osmanthus and lotus root starch cake.”
At the end, he added, “Put it in a box.”
Wei Bo was initially startled, then quickly bowed his head, “Yes, my lord.”
When Wei Yun boarded the carriage to go to the court, Wei Bo handed a box of cakes to Wei Jing.
“My lord.”
Wei Jing lifted the curtain and presented the box of cakes.
As the curtain was drawn closed again, Wei Yun looked at the box of cakes placed on the table. When he lifted his hand, the wide sleeve moved back to his wrist, revealing the copper pendant he had been holding in his hand.
He placed the copper pendant on top of the box of cakes.
As the gold light flickered and the box of cakes disappeared into thin air, his expression remained calm and undisturbed.
But as he sat back on the cushion, his gaze fixed on the copper pendant for a long while, his fingers tapped on the table, and suddenly, his lips twitched, and his expression became difficult to read.
Clearly, she was disturbing his peaceful dreams.
Why did he send whatever she wanted?
