Over the following week, Mo Yuan allowed Die Feng to make many of the decisions in his stead that he would normally have made, because he just didn't feel up to it. For hours he would sit on his platform staring blankly at the comings and goings of his visitors who sometimes managed to get a word or a look, but after learning what she had done to bring him back only to then cut ties, had left him in a state of apathy and it showed.
Her voice was very much a part of Kunlun Mountain and he heard the whisperings of laughter, tears, happiness and mischief everywhere he went, only they were memories still locked in his mind and after a week of it, he soon grew tired of the constant clamour for his attention when all he wanted to do was lie back down and dream of her a little longer.
Only he didn't, instead he rose slowly off the platform and headed straight for the entrance while disregarding the group of fresh young faces looking at him in awe and reverence as he lowered himself to the low valleys for some fresh air and to think about how he was going to get her back when she had no inclination to return.
At that moment, there wasn't really anything he could do about it, not when he could barely stay awake for more than a few hours at a time, but he did intend on doing something, only he had yet to figure out what exactly. Only the moment he passed the two large boulders that marked the entrance to the low valleys then her laughter and gaeity suddenly filled his mind as the sea of flowers she had once loved came into view and instantly his mind was transported back to her earlier days as his Disciple.
Back then, she had come willingly enough, but the initial days had been exceptionally difficult for her. She did not like routine, chores, rules or anything that resembled a growling, because her parents had pampered her to a point where Die Feng had struggled to contain her wayward ways so she always ended up in his study writing out texts.
Only the sea of flowers that spread out for miles brought back one specific memory that he had never forgotten about, it remained in the back of his mind for every successive day that followed.
He had been taking a walk in that exact same spot all those years ago, when he suddenly caught sight of movement among the flowers, movement that should not have been there only the moment his eyes caught sight of nine tails swirling over the tips of the blossoms then he had quickly raised a an invisibility barrier to watch as she jumped and frolicked about the fragrant field while completely oblivious to him.
Sitting down on the same rock that he had sat down on back then, he dragged the entire memory back to the fore where it played out it in sequence. For a while he had watched her play with the flowers, the birds and the butterflies until eventually she grew tired of her little game, and without any warning she suddenly jumped high into the air where her entire body gave way to her true form.
In astonishment, Mo Yuan watched as she landed lightly among the petals. Dressed in a flowing peach blossom dress that billowed out behind her. This was the first time he had ever seen her in her true form other than the first day when he had stripped back Zhe Yans glamour spell, but in the short time that she had been with him, he noticed immediately how much she had grown.
She was beautiful. He immediately lost himself to the girl who then began to dance freely and without restraint among the blossoms. As his Disciple, she was a rough and tumble girl, who had no issues with speaking her mind or roughing it with Zi Lan until one or both were reduced to tears. And regardless of her small petite size, there was nothing dainty or fragile about her, if anything, he saw her as one of his Disciples who was more than capable of coping with the harsh training he put her under.
But the little girl dancing in the flowers and trailing a canopy of silk in her wake, was a far cry from that child. Initially he had worried that she would not manage among the boys, so in the earlier days, he had tried to make things a little easier for her, only she was not the kind of girl who deemed herself too fragile to be one of them, so if anything, she was always trying to prove that she was just as good as they were if not better which he was proud to see.
Yet the little girl dancing before him was anything but a boy. Light on her feet and full of rhythm, she was very much a female in the way she moved so gracefully and elegantly just like the butterfiles and birds that moved around her. And as he sat watching the girl dance, a small piece of gossip came to him. According to Ci Hang, he had seen her dancing in the tree tops of Zhe Yans Grove. He had said she looked alluring, but what Mo Yuan saw was something far more exquisite. All the layers of this child were intricately woven into a masterpiece so beautiful he could barely breathe.
Her hair was out and flying behind her as she flew through the flowers in a swirling twirling rush of high kicks and leaps and as she danced, her hands snatched at the flowers until she had a small bouquet of colour which she held onto tightly. Laughter filled the air, and what struck him immediately was he had never heard her laugh, it was the very first time. Like the sound of a wind chime lightly swaying in the breeze, her laughter was utterly infectious and because her face was lit up so beautifully, Mo Yuan couldn't help but smile along with her. In fact he also realized it had been a very long time since a genuine smile reached his eyes that they moistened at the sight of her.
Then before he knew it, the sound of the bell that rang out to call them all in for dinner reached them and it was only then that Mo Yuan was given yet one more insight into his youngest Disciple. Stopping in mid leap, her head turned slowly back to look towards the mountain. For a moment, it seemed as if the smile on her face had frozen in place but as he watched the smile fall away and her eyes moisten, something in him moved as he watched a single tear fall down her cheek.
She remained where she was unmoving for a moment, just looking down at herself, her dress and her hair which was by that stage wild and wind blown, but eventually she took a deep breath, before slowly making her way to the two boulders that would see her enter the main area where the obelisk was before stopping again. Her eyes rose up to look at the top of the mountain, and it was then that Mo Yuan noticed the deep sadness in her eyes before she slowly lifted her hands to replace the glamour spell, then dropping her bouquet of flowers on the ground at her feet, she slowly made her way back to the entrance with her head down, but not before stopping one last time to wipe away the tears.
For a long moment Mo Yuan had remained at the base of the mountain lost in thought. As far as he was aware, she seemed happy enough to be a part of the Kunlun Mountain family, but there was this side of her that she had unintentionally exposed to him and it told him that she was not happy at all and had been keeping it to herself, because no sooner did he enter the dining hall, then she was back to being a little boy with a whole lot to say only it was then that he noticed the sadness that was still lingering, one he had perhaps noticed before but didn't pay any attention to.
Now in the same field lost to his memories, he felt he could almost see her dancing all over again and with it came the same soft sadness that she had kept to herself until that day, and it was then that he realized he had perhaps fallen for her then. Not so much for her beauty or her exquisite loveliness, because that side of her was one he rarely saw, but for her bravery. It was much later that he realized where the tears stemmed from. Not once did she ever let on that she hated being a disguised female among men. She may have been just one of the boys when she was with them, but deep down the girl had been crying and the low valleys was where she escaped to in order to free herself, even if it was just for a short moment, while putting on a brave face for everyone elses sake including his it seemed.
And here his thoughts faltered. She had always been a brave girl, even when Yao Guang had thrown her into the water dungeon as punishment for some obscure offense he was still unaware of, yet she had remained brave during the entire ordeal and it was only when she finally made it back to Kunlun Mountain that she allowed herself a little moment to cry, which was all pushed back down the moment she awoke, She never allowed herself to dwell on anything or anyone once payment had been extracted. She moved on with her life and cut all ties cleanly.
And he saw this again with Li Jing. She took a moment to fully allow herself to cry and drown her sorrows in his best wine, only to then cut him out of her life and mind the very next day. And again wtih Xian Nu who was family to her. She may have also cried for their kinship, but it was over very quickly, once the girl left the mountain, any kinship they had was severed cleanly and instantly wiped from her mind.
Until of course a day came when the girl came back to steal his formation strategies and put him on the same path to being cleanly cut from her life just like that.
He had always known that she'd had feelings for him, but she never voiced them. Instead she showed him in little ways. It was in the special way she would smile at him, hold his hand whenever she thought that he needed a little comfort or even when he didn't, the way she would lean against him when she needed a little comfort which was something she would never seek from her brothers, only from him and even the way he would catch her looking at him. He knew that look, he had received it from countless women over the years, so he knew.
But he never said anything. For one, she had been his Disciple and she was too young by his standards even though she was of age to marry. He had wanted to wait until she graduated before he told her how he felt, because despite the growing feelings between them, she would not have coped with it. In many ways she had been a little too flighty of mind so he knew she wasn't ready for him. Only fate saw him leave her before he had a chance to tell her and in retrospect, he knew he should have told her the night before he had to leave her, then perhaps she would have waited for him like he'd asked her to.
But as these thoughts swirled in his mind, he realized one thing that he hadn't even given a thought. Just because she had cut him off as cleanly as she had with Yao Guang, Li ing, Xian Nu and anyone else she had met in his absence, that didn't mean he couldn't fight for her now. Taking a deep breath, his head lightly nodded up and down as he thought about how he was going to approach her, because he had every intention of doing so.
"Be prepared for me Seventeen......." he whispered as the first real smile since his return lightly lifted the corners of his mouth.