The sorrow and panic were like thousands of swords stabbing into his chest all at once. The moment landed sharp, yet there was no time to react properly.
It got clipped brutally again.
The room shattered like glass in front of him. His father's dead body fell into bottomless darkness from his grasp—only he remained up.
"Z-Zhù fù, no..please.." Lìngxiāo tried to stop him from getting swallowed by the darkness, his small hands failing to pull him up.
At first it was all dark, chillingly soundless. He kneeled down, touching the empty darkness like searching for whatever had swallowed him down.
But then the place shifted outside the clan. Voices started to fill the space.
"A child murderer!"
"How dare he kill his own zhù fù?!"
"He must be mentally sick!"
"He is not even eighteen for the execution."
"But he needs to be punished. Who knows whom he would kill next while his little golden-brown eyes seem innocent as ever?"
"We cannot keep him at our town."
It was none other than the people of Yún Xi saying this. He hugged himself on the cold wood of the carriage where he was caged. His eyes turned wide, unfocused, the lively rims disappeared from them.
Those words kept ringing into his ears like a curse, making his eyes watery with a fresh wave of tears. His lips twitched like his own face was glitching.
He didn't know if he should laugh at his cruel luck or cry his heart out.
But crying was something he didn't know how to do loudly or freely. Only tears fell from his eyes like sorrowful waterfalls until he couldn't see anything in this already darkened night. Only a few lamps were glowing, as if he had been thrown into the middle-hell where those people were the devils who would hunt him forever.
Everyone was there except Chóng Fēi himself.
Of course he wasn't there.
Perhaps he was sleeping at this late night or just..locked away so this news didn't reach his ears.
Lìngxiāo never wished him to even see or experience whatever he had. He wished all of the remaining people who were connected to him would just live fine while he was executed or just left this world by himself from his beloved Valley of the Mèi Xùe Lake view restaurant—where his father used to take him when they would get a day off and tell hauntingly beautiful ghost stories which he loved a lot.
Outside, Chóng Féng stood with the coldest face, talking to small sect leaders and answering questions to the common people as if they were thinking if they should keep him alive or kill him right here.
Lìngxiāo couldn't hear anything properly. He didn't want to either.
Chóng Féng seemed puzzled by the whole situation—because punishing a child under the age of eighteen this harshly, no matter how many common people voted for it, was never possible since the Zhèng clan had left strict restrictions here.
Everyone was there except little Chóng Fēi.
Chóng Féng was later yelling at the common people to shut up and listen to what he said—because they were just thinking about themselves, but he needed to think about his whole clan's future and this town. So this was not a place where he could give them any importance.
His words for Lìngxiāo's father were somehow too cruel, like he had hated him for a long time. The curses were filled with rage and hurt he couldn't pinpoint. But nothing seemed bigger than his own sorrow at the same time.
As a young boy in pain, Lìngxiāo didn't hear what he said after the last decision came—that according to their own town rules, he would be sent away from here. Then when he turned eighteen, he would be executed, because the crime was too horrible to not be looked after.
And he had no hope left to live again. He just..accepted his cruel luck, while he himself couldn't tell how and why that ordinary knife had become a way of slicing his own life. He couldn't remember if he really did it or not.
But it didn't matter right now either.
His carriage was later released with the destination of the mountain area which wasn't named back then. It was where they worked as an underground prison—where criminals from this town were especially sent as the marked people for execution, kept until the time had come to kill them.
But they were given no chance to prove themselves as innocent or to change themselves either.
Lìngxiāo held the wooden cage slowly, looking up from the gaps blankly. He still had the only thing Chóng Fēi had ever gifted him: that silver plate.
Even his father's one.
He looked up to Chóng Fēi's chamber which could be seen from here. The lamp seemed still on, pulsing softly.
He couldn't help but think if he had really slept or..not.
He had a feeling he had seen him peeking from there—but when Chóng Fēi realized Lìngxiāo was looking at him, he shut the window with a sharp, almost cruel thud.
Lìngxiāo's eyes fluttered, feeling hollow, wet and burning without enough water. But it didn't flutter only for that—also the sharp feeling of abandonment, like two times in the same day.
'He hates me too.'
'Well..he always did.'
'He was always after me because of zhù fù...'
'And now there is no reason to look back either..'
Lìngxiāo let out a heavy sigh and sat down slowly, leaning against the wood. He looked at that same bloody robe he was wearing, full of drops of blood and from his hand for trying to clean it off. H8s silver plates were still at his hand.
He touched the bold shape of the puffed-up bird then carefully cleaned them before putting them back securely into his robe. He missed his father's one which he didn't found there.
Only this plate and that very knife was with him. It almost felt like he wanted to ask the knife it really was done by him or not.
'If I ever get free from this cage..'
He looked up at the sky as if wishing or promising something which were only hollow words. A yearning which would never come true either.
'I would never let anyone cage me again. Nor let them touch my wings to cut away.'
'I would prove that I am innocent.'
Then echoed into his mind with the most hopeless tone: 'If I ever get free..'
His mind filled with deep bitterness which followed no rule. His mind shifting from the hopeless impossible dedication to the submission.
'If I get free..I would return to zhù fù where he might be still waiting for me.'
'Maybe I really am mentally sick to even remember what I did and then cry over it.'
'Maybe..I really did kill him..'
'He would probably hate me even if I ever meet him.'
'I was not able to make him proud. I became worse—a killer of the most respected person someone could ever be in this world.'
The carriage moved through the small hills the whole night. A small group of drivers was going together, gossiping random things, since this path wasn't haunted at all. There were more victims—or criminals—on other carriages. Some were younger, same age as him, and some were older.
The young ones looked like they had actually done great and big crimes, while they stared at Lìngxiāo blankly, like he looked too innocent for a murderer.
"Eh. Baby face, what crime did you do?" One called dryly. That boy was the same age as him.
Lìngxiāo wasn't really social. So he awkwardly looked away without answering, arms curling up to hug himself.
He had only talked with his father, Chóng Fēi, and a few times—with Chóng Féng. That was it. He didn't wish to make friends, because he didn't wish to, and Chóng Fēi wouldn't let him be with anyone, as if being his caretaker's son meant he had all control over him.
It wasn't frustrating for him. Nor did it feel too good. Chóng Fēi was mostly with his father, and he would work in the garden—or sometimes he would need to massage Chóng Féng's shoulders to get mercy over the big or small blames Chóng Fēi dropped on him.
Everything was..chaotic but somehow like a family. Chóng Féng was usually busy, so he would barely pay attention to punishing, just leave some conditions or ask him to do something, and the matter would get solved right there.
So..he didn't know if he would have thought that young man as cruel or fair.
He wasn't his friend—too little for that—but someone Lìngxiāo had seen since he was three. A little tornado who would drive away anyone else whom Chóng Fēi wanted a few times because the false blames kept coming over Lìngxiāo.
But he couldn't deny—he really would miss Chóng Fēi.
Right after his father.