The words had weight.
Perhaps history too. He understood the bitter thought behind it. 'Well… it is not wrong. Cultivators tend to cheat more than normal humans. But they also orbit each other with the same thing to do.'
'Does he have no one to talk to properly in this haunted town?'
He could not help but ask softly, "So you do not want to believe anyone, Gōngzǐ?"
His words made Chóng Fēi look at him, still guarded. "Personal matter." Then back to Lìngxiāo's hands with the needles. "Do not ask those without handing me one of a kind like this about your own." Then added firmly, "And it is my choice if I would share or not. Yours is yours. And I do not like spreading—which is something the people here are good at."
A small silence filled the air.
Lìngxiāo tilted his head at the condition, blinked. It almost made him chuckle. 'He has opened his shop of sharing personal things in exchange for silver? But he would also hand the item if he wishes? Interesting.'
'Is he talking about the people of Yún Xi about the 'spreading' he speaks of? So the people did not really change. A family argument is breaking news. And clan news spreads even faster.'
He took up his needles once more. "This is… the hardest trick." He called him lightly, who was staring elsewhere. "You might find it impressive if I am not wrong."
This time it made Chóng Fēi stare at it for a straight few minutes without breathing.
"T-this can NEVER be without qì!"
He hissed in disbelief while pressing the warm cloth over his own cheek tightly, knowing it would hurt more by now, his one eye lightly closed from the press.
"But it is." Lìngxiāo said with a gentle, confident smile.
The needles were shaped into a small snake ready to bite. It was made with more needles, and the details were unbelievable. Its eyes were made with blue needles while the whole body was made of red needles.
No more white.
"No. Not possible." Chóng Fēi shook his head slowly while staring there, literally overflowing in untold excitement and disbelief. But this time it felt positive. "Is it your finger or illusion? Are you even human?!"
Lìngxiāo held back another wider smile at Chóng Fēi's excitement. The young man's eyes almost glowed alive after a long time.
"Whatever you think of me…" Lìngxiāo said as he realized this man was not going to believe if he was human or not.
He watched him while remembering the past times—ten years ago when Chóng Fēi was only ten and Lìngxiāo was fifteen.
'I wonder if he knows who I am. Not Lìngxiāo as people know. Perhaps not. Strangely, I do not even remember my own Zhùfù's face, while I remembered other few things before I left this place. And now established as Lìngxiāo—I cannot expose myself again. Let them think I am dead or lost. The clan has humanized poisonous snakes everywhere.'
'He looks like he has gone back to childhood, which was already tight. Chóng Féng Xiānsheng must have been too cruel on him even now.'
'He still has a little bit of his buried self in him.'
"Do not drop this time. I am going to check. I am serious." Chóng Fēi said while his finger was ready against to poke.
Lìngxiāo echoed through his nose while his lips pressed together by the whole situation. "I would not, Gōngzǐ."
Chóng Fēi really lightly touched the needle, careful not to break his own skin. His eyes were about to come out when no light poking dropped the needles. He almost desperately searched for an objection that Lìngxiāo might be cheating. He searched for strings which might have kept the shapes, Lìngxiāo's qì.
But there was nothing.
"I am going to be insane. Come on, submit that you are betraying my stupid gaze." Chóng Fēi looked over Lìngxiāo's finger where the whole figure stood.
He only gained another gentle shake of his head.
Chóng Fēi glared more carefully at the skin. The skin was fine earlier, but now the needles seemed to be digging down slowly, close to collapsing. A really tiny drop of blood forming just recently.
Lìngxiāo did not flinch, but he did realize this could not be angled longer.
Chóng Fēi's gaze faintly flickered with a little worry as the needles struggled to stand and Lìngxiāo's finger was probably getting too many tips of needles which would look scary as if any curse had masked him.
He cleared his throat, sitting straight. "Um… alright, alright. You should just leave it now. It… really is real." Then mumbled like the hardest thing in the world, "You proved me wrong."
Lìngxiāo finally let go of the needles. His finger disappeared from the base, then caught all the needles with the same hand without dropping any on the ground, nor any of it digging into his skin.
He put all the needles back into his scroll-shaped bag. He kept only five red needles outside for treatment, his gaze on Chóng Fēi, who was lost in the physics of how this had been possible, his gaze unfocused on the bedsheets.
"You seem impressed, Gōngzǐ. Am I right?" Lìngxiāo brought him back to reality.
Chóng Fēi landed against the headboard while his eyes shut, exhaling silently like he had no doors left to deny it—like he always had the ability to make people in front of him make fools wasting time on one.
"Hmm…" He only managed this while his cheeks had a gentle blush again—embarrassment even at admitting his awe.
Lìngxiāo felt it like any shift of what he used to be and what he was now. He was also one of the people this young man used to criticize effortlessly, or just run away by blaming tiny things because his father's gaze was more dangerous than any curse.
He had shifted from who was nothing to who is something nobody properly understood even now—the best version of himself which he could be proud of. Not because he had been always busy to please everyone, but mostly like he properly gazed on this part of his life at the chaos between his personal life and professional life.
After a livelihood silence, Chóng Fēi spoke again while eyes still shut, "This is… nothing less than the shrine you have survived. It would be a waste if no prize is present here."
Lìngxiāo found it unexpected from this man once more.
'When did he become a reward giver from keeping things to himself?'
'Or… has he grown too much love for the complicated competitions to even add this reward?'