Escape, Quietly

He had no part in that promise, so he should have let the topic go. Deep down, he had already drawn a line between himself and the original body.

But the memories he had swallowed—the consciousness belonging to another puppet—came crashing back. The puppet, half-mad from karmic corruption, screamed inside his head: Why separate yourself from the original?

I am the original!

Am I not a part of the original? The original is Tang Shuyu, and "I" am also Tang Shuyu. If the original can pretend to be "Lin Qingyun," doesn't that mean I am also "Lin Qingyun"?

What "his" and "mine"—it's all "Tang Shuyu's"!

Tang Shuyu kept his head lowered, saying nothing. He Zhuoming waited for a while, her neck aching from craning upward, so she glanced down at the ground and quietly reached up to rub her neck.

Then Tang Shuyu's voice sounded from above her head: "Xiao He, do you not like the Pear Garden?"

He Zhuoming frowned, thinking over the question. "It's okay, I guess. I don't like it, but I don't dislike it either. The Pear Garden is actually pretty nice—the buildings are beautiful, the food is good, and the musicians here have been very kind to me..."

"But the Earth Immortal of the Pear Garden is still too dangerous. I saw with my own eyes how he made branches grow out of someone's body for no reason. That person was a bit short-tempered, sure, but I don't think he deserved that."

At the mention of branches growing out of a body, the eerie scene resurfaced in He Zhuoming's mind, and she felt goosebumps rising all over her skin. She hugged her arms and rubbed them, then said worriedly to Tang Shuyu, "He's so unpredictable, and you have such a sharp tongue. What if you say the wrong thing someday and he decides to use you as fertilizer?"

He Zhuoming usually couldn't catch Tang Shuyu's sarcasm, but occasionally, a stroke of insight would let her discern that most of what he said wasn't exactly kind.

But she was magnanimous. She knew Tang Shuyu meant no harm, so she let it slide.

Not everyone was as broad-minded as she was, though! The Earth Immortal of the Pear Garden seemed quite petty, so He Zhuoming genuinely worried for Tang Shuyu's safety.

Tang Shuyu was still gazing at her. He couldn't quite understand the look of deep concern in He Zhuoming's eyes. She looked at him as if he were something fragile, something easily hurt.

But in truth, he was just a block of wood. Even if his neck were twisted off, he wouldn't feel any pain.

The original could feel pain.

The original was more perfect. The original had all five senses intact. The original had come into this world as a human—the original had even had parents once.

So when the original heard Xiao He speak, did the feeling in his chest differ?

Perhaps his heart wouldn't ache the way this one did, because his chest wasn't solid wood—inside it beat a real, lively heart.

When the original was wounded, the cuts bled flesh and blood, not cold, hard wood grain.

...

He Zhuoming grew tired of waiting. She tugged at Tang Shuyu's sleeve and shook it. "Why aren't you saying anything? Don't tell me you still haven't made up your mind?"

As she spoke, her whole face scrunched up. "It's been so long! Do you really like the Pear Garden that much?"

Tang Shuyu's scattered thoughts were jolted back, but instead of answering her question, he asked another: "So you don't like the Earth Immortal?"

He Zhuoming blinked and glanced around warily, mumbling, "Can I say that outright? I don't want to become flower fertilizer..."

Tang Shuyu said, "You won't become flower fertilizer."

He Zhuoming's eyes widened. "You didn't see that poor guy! He didn't even do anything—just raised his voice a bit. Oh, and those wandering souls are terrifying too. You live here—don't you have nightmares?"

Tang Shuyu smiled slightly. "I don't sleep, so I don't have nightmares."

He Zhuoming asked, "Is not sleeping for the same reason you don't eat?"

Tang Shuyu said, "Something like that."

He answered like that, but in his heart, he wondered: the original didn't eat either?

The puppet didn't know much about the original's habits, because the original never communicated with them.

Just then, a roar rumbled across the sky—a tremendous sound that swallowed everything, even drowning out the music from a few walls away.

He Zhuoming was drawn by the huge noise and looked up at the sky: enormous fireworks bloomed, illuminating the night in a brief burst, their multicolored glow flickering across rooftops and tiles.

He Zhuoming let out a "wow" and grabbed Tang Shuyu's sleeve, shouting, "Fireworks!"

Tang Shuyu replied calmly, "I know. The Divine Palace sets off fireworks every time the seasons change."

Inside the shrine, it had been so quiet—quiet to the point of emptiness. He could neither leave the shrine nor see anything. The begonia tree that served as his antenna to feel the outside world was forever in bloom, defying the laws of seasons.

So the sound of fireworks each season was the only signal the Blind Puppet had to mark the passing of seasons.

But this was the first time he had seen the shape of that "signal" with his own eyes—the colorful glow of the flames reflecting slowly expanding shadows in his pupils.

He Zhuoming's excitement was brief. The ceiling of ancient craftsmanship was what it was; even the grandest fireworks couldn't compare to the dazzling displays of the modern world.

Besides, staring at them too long made her eyes hurt.

She lowered her head and rubbed her eyes, then caught sight of Tang Shuyu still tilting his face up to watch the fireworks.

He watched with unusual intensity, his eyes unmoving. Because of the prolonged direct glare, a few tears of irritation clung to his eyelashes, glistening wet.

He Zhuoming reached up and covered his eyes. "Stop looking! Staring at it too long might blind you."

Tang Shuyu said, "Fireworks vanish in an instant. It'd be a shame not to watch."

He Zhuoming comforted him. "They're just fireworks. We can buy our own to set off later—I have money. I'll buy some for you."

Her palm pressed too firmly, and she felt Tang Shuyu blink, his dense eyelashes brushing against her palm again and again.

His lashes were still wet with tears, dampening He Zhuoming's palm slightly.

Tang Shuyu pulled her hand away and smiled with lowered eyes. "Alright. But Xiao He, you haven't answered my question."

He Zhuoming thought for a moment, then said, "You're asking about the Earth Immortal? To be honest, my feelings about him are complicated."

"I was captured by that Corrupted Deity before, remember? I almost got eaten by that red monster. The Earth Immortal saved me back then, so he's kind of my lifesaver. But I know he didn't come to save me on purpose. More than saving me, he probably wanted to get rid of the Corrupted Deity causing trouble in the Divine Palace. Saving me was just a side thing..."

Tang Shuyu asked, "If that red monster wasn't going to eat you, would you still be afraid of it?"

The question came out of nowhere, even cutting off He Zhuoming mid-sentence. He was the one who'd asked about the Earth Immortal first, and now he was suddenly losing interest in the topic, instead asking questions that left He Zhuoming utterly baffled.

He Zhuoming scratched her head, looking surprised. "Huh? I haven't thought about that. Because it's a monster... I mean, it's not human, right? How can I 'what if' something like that?"

She was completely lost, staring blankly at Tang Shuyu. Tang Shuyu, realizing he'd been abrupt, first put on a bright, charmingly deceptive smile out of habit. "It's just a hypothetical. There are plenty of monsters in this world, and not all of them are evil. There are good ones too."

He Zhuoming fell into thought, while Tang Shuyu kept smiling and waiting for her answer.

Behind his back, though, his hands had already clenched into nervous fists.

He Zhuoming thought for a long time before answering, "I haven't met many monsters, so I don't have much experience. If there were good monsters..."

"As long as it didn't look too scary, I think I could accept it."

Tang Shuyu was a bit dissatisfied and confused by this answer. He frowned and was about to say more when He Zhuoming stood on her tiptoes, clamped her hand over his mouth, and said crossly, "You're not allowed to ask me any more questions!"

To make sure Tang Shuyu couldn't speak again, she pressed her hand over his mouth extra hard this time.

Tang Shuyu indeed couldn't speak now. All he could do was look at He Zhuoming with his eyes, raising one eyebrow. Though he couldn't speak, his meaning was clear enough: why not?

He Zhuoming frowned. "You keep asking and asking, but you won't answer my question. That's emotional coldness."

The half of Tang Shuyu's face not covered by her hand slowly squeezed into an innocent expression. He pointed at the hand covering his mouth.

He Zhuoming let go, but not before warning him, "Don't ask me anything else, don't ramble on—just answer the question I asked you!"

Pale red finger marks lingered on the lower half of Tang Shuyu's face. His lips parted slightly, but he didn't speak right away.

The bead chain under his left ear swayed, its moonlight-lit sheen rolling down to the collar of his robe.

He Zhuoming had been watching his face, but with the notoriously fleeting attention span of the young, she soon found herself staring at the glimmer on Tang Shuyu's collar instead.

Today, Tang Shuyu's collar was pulled unusually high, nearly covering his entire neck. Was he hot today?

He Zhuoming was openly spacing out when she suddenly heard Tang Shuyu's soft reply: "Alright."

Her gaze snapped back to his face. "Alright... alright what? Leaving the Pear Garden?"

Their eyes met. Tang Shuyu blinked, the corners of his mouth curving into a bright smile. "Mm. I promise you—I'll leave the Pear Garden with you."

So what if it was an agreement between Xiao He and the original? Either way, it was an agreement between He Zhuoming and "Lin Qingyun." He was just fulfilling an oath "he" had made. And if agreeing would make Xiao He happy, why wouldn't he do it?

He smiled down at He Zhuoming with lowered eyes, and sure enough, she lit up at once—so overjoyed she couldn't contain it, and jumped to her feet.

But she only jumped once before clapping a hand over her mouth and glancing around cautiously, like a thief.

Suppressing her smile, she grabbed Tang Shuyu's arm excitedly and whispered, "Then when do we leave? If you leave the Pear Garden, do you have to give back all the magic and swordsmanship you learned?"

"Feixian told me that the big sects take that really seriously..."

As she muttered, He Zhuoming's mind conjured up some strange scenarios, and she asked worriedly, "They won't make you destroy your cultivation or something, will they?"

Her expression was vivid and animated, and Tang Shuyu almost laughed. The faint, meaningless smile on his face deepened, his eyes curving so much his lashes nearly covered his pupils.

He deliberately teased her: "They might."

He Zhuoming sucked in a sharp breath. "That strict?"

Tang Shuyu said with all seriousness, "After all, the Pear Garden is a major sect that directly venerates a True Deity."

He Zhuoming's face scrunched up completely, her smile gone.

The more she scrunched her face, the more Tang Shuyu wanted to laugh, until he almost couldn't hold it in any longer.

He had to turn his head away, staring at the empty wall to compose himself, and pressed a hand over his face, rubbing it.

He Zhuoming agonized for a while, then said, "Then... how about we just sneak away quietly? Oh—"

She suddenly thought of a great idea. Slipping her arm through Tang Shuyu's, she said seriously, "The festival procession is still going on inside the palace, right? While everyone's busy, we can sneak out through the teleportation array. How about that?"

Tang Shuyu turned his head back to look at He Zhuoming and saw that she meant it—her expression was grave, her gaze earnest.

For Tang Shuyu, this was also a proposal he had never heard before.

Because under normal circumstances, no one would say to the master of a house, "Why don't you run away?"

His chest ached again, faintly, as if something was trying to grow inside that solid-wood cavity. The puppet had never been human. If he had any experience being one, he would know that when a human grows any new organ, it always comes with pain.

He leaned down slightly, bringing his head close to He Zhuoming's, and whispered like a fellow thief: "Alright. It just so happens I know a way out of the Divine Palace..."

The fireworks hadn't ended. The Divine Palace was rich enough to keep the festival's fireworks going from night until dawn.

The explosions and the colorful flames intertwined, flickering on and off as they cut through the darkness. In the gaps between bursts, moonlight quietly illuminated every path.

He Zhuoming held Tang Shuyu's hand, jogging nervously behind him. Afraid her skirt would get in the way, she lifted the hem and clutched it to her chest.

She dreaded running into anyone. Whether it was a white-robed attendant or a Pear Garden musician, anyone they met on the way might cut short this spur-of-the-moment escape. To He Zhuoming, the concrete image of running away was two people dashing furtively through narrow, dark spaces.

But now she was running with Tang Shuyu through an open area. Even though it was night, the road ahead was brightly lit by the moonlight, and she could still hear the distant sound of drums and music carried by the night wind—the noise of the procession.

The high walls on both sides grew sparser, and the scenery became wilder.

The path could hardly be called a road anymore; it was nothing but a stretch of weed-choked wasteland.

The drumbeats and the crack of fireworks grew very distant. When He Zhuoming looked up at the sky, she could only see clumps of colored light on the far horizon, while the sound of water filled her ears.

Between the thick, lush weeds ran a sunken river, its current sounding full and wet.

Tang Shuyu slowed and stopped running, turning to watch He Zhuoming. She was bent over, hands on her knees, panting, her other hand still held in Tang Shuyu's grasp.

At first, it was He Zhuoming holding Tang Shuyu's hand. But as they ran, it had shifted, until Tang Shuyu was the one gripping He Zhuoming's hand tightly. He held on far harder than she ever had—his palm and fingers pressed against her skin with hardly any gap, fused together as if his hand had grown out of hers.

The pounding of his heart squeezed his lungs so fiercely that He Zhuoming couldn't catch her breath for a long time. Eventually, she lifted her head and asked in breathless, halting words, "Did... did we make it out?"

Tang Shuyu patted her back to help her breathe. "Mm. We made it out."

In truth, they hadn't.

How could they possibly have escaped?

The original was only tied up with some matters for the moment—he wasn't dead. And besides, he couldn't leave the Divine Palace anyway.

Merely walking to the edge of the palace had nearly made him collapse. The red threads buried deep in his bones pulled at every limb, and if someone had given him a hard shove right now, he would probably shatter into pieces scattered everywhere.

But this was already the farthest he could go.

He Zhuoming had no idea what was going through his mind. Once she got the affirmative answer, she flashed him a silly smile, then waved her hand. "Then I need to sit down and rest for a bit. I ran so hard I'm exhausted."

Tang Shuyu steadied her arm. "Walk a few more steps. Rest by the river—you can see the moon on the water."

He Zhuoming obediently followed behind him. The wild grass on all sides rose to both their waists. Tang Shuyu pushed and trampled the thick growth down, clearing a path ahead of He Zhuoming.