Crimson Qi, Exiled Beautiful Lady Falls in Love with a Shy Demon

True Colors

Different looks had different weight.

From the strangers, they were lighter than feathers, but his mother's gaze rooted his feet to the ground. Minh's would have dropped him down if he did not lower his eyes.

Xi took a deep breath in, met their looks --except for Minh's who still studied his sandals-- one last time and marched off to the boat that the construction workers sat apart from the others. He insisted on skipping the send-off ceremony. Being rowed across the water on a float decorated with lotuses and dancing maidens, with a wreath of faery flowers on his head on top of becoming a dragon was too much to bear in one day.

The breeze had died down, and the surface of the lake went to the mirror stillness again reflecting with equanimity the beauty of nature and the construction mess. Xi broke the water-mirror with his oars, trying to row away from everything he had left ashore.

Jiang did not come to bid him farewell, nor Zijun. It could not be helped. Some links break off as the chain of one's life weaves on, even if it is not as long as that of a mage or a dragon.

The Radiant Forge loomed ahead.

Xi disembarked in solitude and checked the Forge for flaws, adjusted a coil that did not need it, then stood in the niche designed to hold the Ascendant.

Designed to hold me, he corrected himself pedantically and could not resist searching the shore for Minh's figure. His eyes found him next to his mother, waiting for the ritual to start.

This is good. But he ached from head to toe.

Xi closed his eyes and extended his understanding out of his alcove, floated it through the Forge.

The oiled parts moved, heating up, and more than a thousand needles pierced his body, connecting the energy points. He knew it was going to happen, and he still heard himself scream on the edges of his consciousness.

He also heard something he should not have been hearing: the splash of oars in the water.

What? Who?

The structure barely wobbled as the unknown perpetrator climbed it, but it shook violently when he landed an unexpected hit on the piping.

The metal rang, and the voice echoed. The familiar voice. "Xi, snap out of it! Whatever spell the faery put you under, please... Please!"

The assailant of the Forge was not a he, it was a she...

Another blow of metal on metal, and the hiss of the escaping steam.

Fighting nausea, still clinging to magic, Xi groaned, "Zijun, what... why? Stop."

She surged towards him along the platform, a hailstorm of light footfalls, each pushing the burning needles deeper into him. "No, no, it is you who must stop... don't you understand? They faery tricked you. This is madness, Xi, madness. I came to save you---"

An explosion rocked the world, forcing his eyelids opened.

He looked past Zijun's feverish eyes and flushed face to the shore, where the burning pieces of the workmen's boats rained into the lake. The bits that hit the water hissed louder than the damaged pipe, still burning with the unnatural flame. What remained on the ground turned into a bonfire.

The explosion made the Forge sway, though it miraculously withstood the blast. It still worked, sluggishly, but it worked.

"We are alone now," Zijun said happily, pushing the wild, coarse hair out of her face. "Nobody could come and mess with your head."

The gathering on the shore was scattered by the blast. Most wandered aimlessly, confused. Minh laid face down in the dirt.

Rustam bounded towards the red-headed sprite that stepped out the fire. She danced, taunting the black-clad mage with sinuous hands.