Underneath A Thousand Skies ✔️

77 Foster Son, Don't Be So Crazy (14)

Xiang Feng propped his chin with one hand as the teacher droned on, his gaze drifting toward the sunlight flickering through the window lattice. His attention had left the lesson long ago. The teacher was once again lecturing the class on the dangers of miasma—how sickness was caused not by wounds or rot, but by evil air that seeped into the body through open pores.

"Remember," the teacher said gravely, tapping the board with her stick, "never bathe too frequently. Warm water opens the pores. That is how the sickness enters."

Several students nodded with solemn seriousness.

Xiang Feng merely lowered his eyes. Song Jia had told him something very different. He trusted her completely...more than the entire world combined.

He couldn't understand why Song Jia stubbornly persisted in sending him off to school. He would rather stay at home with her, and learn interesting new things.

At his right, a few village girls were whispering and stealing glances at him. Even at ten years old, they had learned to evaluate beauty with a woman's practicality. Though his scar startled them, his fine features were delicate and elegant...a child who would grow into a man pleasing to look at, worthy of bringing into one's household.

"If my mother approves," one whispered, "I'll ask to take him as my first husband someday. He'll look nice beside the family shrine."

"Mm, but you'll have to treat him gently," another murmured, thoughtful. "A husband that lovely needs protecting."

The boys, meanwhile, simmered in envy....not because the girls admired him, but because they already saw the future laid out before them.

A boy like Xiang Feng—beautiful, quiet, soft-spoken—would be taken as a first husband, seated near the family shrine, given silk robes and idle work like tending flowers or keeping the family account book.

He would pour tea in a warm room.

They would work the fields.

He would attend guests, displayed proudly before other matriarchs.

In the shadows, they hauled timber, slaughtered pigs, and dug trenches.

To keep the household running, they would have to sacrifice their blood, sweat, and tears.

And he?

He would only need to lift his eyes and smile, and the world would make room for him.

And because of that, they hated him.

So they elbowed him when passing, shoved him from behind, tripped him in the yard. Their voices were low, but sharp enough to bruise:

"Look at him. Born for sitting in someone's lap."

"Hands too soft to even lift firewood."

"Pretty little house-pet."

Xiang Feng didn't pay attention to any of them. He only attended school because Song Jia wanted him to. He kept to himself most of the time, and only replied when spoken to. He was indifferent to their varying opinions about him.

As usual, after his class in the morning ended, Xiang Feng picked up his things and hurried back home for lunch. Because the abandoned castle was inside a dense forest, he had to trudge for a bit before reaching the priestess house. The three of them unanimously decided not to leave a path, so it would be hard for anyone to follow them. To anyone not familiar with the geography of the forest, it would be easy for them to get lost.

Xiang Feng tapped the trunk of the tree that he recognized as the halfway mark to the priestess house. He was about to continue walking when he heard a rustle from somewhere up ahead.