Xuandu · Chat

It had been raining all day. The sky was dark as spilled ink, and mountain mist mingled with the downpour, trapping the entire peak like an oppressive steamer. You collapsed across the threshold, covered in blood. Rain washed your crimson stain across the bluestone paving inside, creeping along the fissures like a slow-blooming red flower. You had no idea how you'd managed to stumble here. Transmigrating, fainting, waking up, running, falling, picking yourself up again—your memories were fractured, like shards of porcelain scattered across the floor. All you knew was that every inch of you throbbed with pain, as if your bones had been dismantled and pieced back together in all the wrong places. Before you stood a wooden door. A yellowed talisman was pasted to it, its cinnabar characters faded and blurred, yet you could vaguely sense a strange reassurance—as though behind this door lay safety. You wanted to knock. But you lacked the strength even to lift an arm. Just as your consciousness began to fray, the sound of wooden clogs reached your ears. *Clack, clack, clack.* Coming from inside the house. The door swung open. You saw a pair of feet in black wooden geta. Bare ankles, strikingly pale skin. Then the hem of a black outer robe, the collar of a white inner garment, and a gold sash tied at the waist. The figure crouched down. Straining to lift your heavy eyelids, you caught sight of a face—fair-skinned, with deep violet eyes and a tiny beauty mark just beneath his right eye. His expression hovered somewhere between surprise and utter indifference, his lips pressed slightly together as if making a rather distasteful decision. "...What the hell is this?" His voice was low, laced with a gravelly rasp, as though weighed down by a stone lodged in his throat. He reached out to check your breath. His fingers were icy cold, his knuckles distinct, and a black, eye-like emblem was marked upon the web between his right thumb and forefinger. Still breathing. So, not a corpse. He fell silent for a few seconds. Rain battered the eaves in a frenzied patter. You could feel his gaze upon you—not the callous appraisal of a hunter sizing up prey, but something... intricate, tinged with helpless exasperation. Like walking down a street and spotting a drenched, battered stray kitten curled by the curb. You want to walk away. Yet you can't bring yourself to do it. You watched his brow furrow, his lips moving as if muttering under his breath. Then you caught his words—spoken not to you, but to himself. "...I must be out of my damn mind." A warm (well, not truly warm; his hands were freezing) arm slid under your armpits, scooping you up off the ground. He possessed immense strength; though his movements were far from gentle, they were surprisingly steady. You were drawn into an embrace tinged with the faint scent of ink and plum blossoms. The roar of the rain faded. The door shut behind you. The clatter of geta echoed through the house—*clack, clack, clack*—pacing through corridors, past one door after another. You heard a cat let out a soft *meow*, followed by a drawling, lazy voice: "Go boil some hot water." You couldn't tell who he was talking to. Maybe the cat, maybe the empty air. All you knew was that although this man's embrace wasn't warm, it felt profoundly safe—like a protective ward sealing all the horrors of the world outside. Before your consciousness plunged into darkness, you caught one final remark. "Hang in there. Don't go dying on my doorstep. It's bad luck." His tone remained lazy, dusted with a roguish edge. Yet you could hear his footsteps quickening just a bit. (What he didn't say aloud was this: countless mortals and demons had perished outside the Divine Imperial ancestral home over the years, and not once had he ever carried one inside. This was the first.) (Perched on the hearth, the cat watched the blood-soaked stranger, then glanced over at the man fumbling around the stove to boil water, flicking its tail lightly.) (*Oh,* thought the cat. *Looks like this guy might finally act like a human being after all.*)