But the timing seemed bad. Chóng Fēi was already a hothead and already angry. And now Lìngxiāo's teeth were breaking from this injustice.
'I..do not know how to react. This is going to leave a mark on me too.'
Lìngxiāo's eyes blinked twice at their gossip, even while holding his gaze with Chóng Fēi. He couldn't believe—no matter what he did, intimate or normal—they were both being shipped since the day he had arrived here.
Both of their faces caught faint warmth which they ignored as always.
They both turned at the women at the same time. Their eyes held burning fire. One was raw, the other polished—his smile darkened but impossibly dangerous.
They immediately silenced.
The males split into two sides, revealing the women behind them, already submitting, letting the two masters decide what they wanted to bring peace here.
"I think I had ordered something, ladies." Chóng Fēi dryly sang.
His voice came a little from his nose for catching more cold than Lìngxiāo, his dominating smirk never fading. He took his sword from behind—at the right side of the table without turning there fully—and opened it.
"FĒI FĒI! You cannot do this to us!" That same girl whined, but no answer came from Chóng Fēi.
He was final.
The sword came out larger than it normally looked, glowing like white thunderstorms. The metal snake's crimson ruby seemed narrowed like an actual snake. But he handled it beautifully, as if it wasn't a hard metal but rope.
'That sword..'
Lìngxiāo immediately knew it was that same sword his father had given to him that day from his story.
His breath caught faintly at the scene. His hand went into the pocket of his robe where he hadn't forgotten to bring his things, holding a talisman but not taking it out yet. It just faintly pulsed between his fingers.
The blade had the generational official seal which was forbidden to be used elsewhere in the same way—just as any other clan.
'Is he going to create violence? I better control him here too.'
He took a step back when Chóng Fēi drew the sword, dodging it too, the elegant robe floating around him so that he almost struggled to keep it on himself. His slightly bloodshot eyes were still sharp.
"Fēi Gōngzǐ. Relax." He called lightly, though he himself had nobody to say 'relax' to.
"Easy, man. I have my head. It is harmless." Chóng Fēi said back, his gaze somewhere else across the room.
Lìngxiāo looked at him with silent amazement. The tone of him already said he was probably going to do some arrangement. But the way he drew out his sword, it looked like he was going to slice everyone's throat.
But Chóng Fēi cut a rope which was at the very corner of the room. Some metal wheels started to spin with heavy loaded sounds. People froze and looked up.
The females had already gotten busy justifying staying here. But their own mouths got shut when, where they stood, the wood cracked and the males moved to one side.
"Run!" The females were about to jump away.
"Ah, not so fast. I mean what I say." Chóng Fēi said.
A cage-like wood came down, caging them, and then the floor took them down to the bottom elsewhere.
"FĒI YOU ALWAYS DO THIS TO ME!" That same female cried out from downstairs, while others also yelled.
As decided—only one female remained with the makes, stood composes between them.
Some men blinked and looked down; some weren't surprised because they already knew it.
Chóng Fēi flipped his hair behind almost proudly, smirking like he had personally worked on it or something. Then he cut two more ropes so that the cage was pulled up, disappeared upwards into the ceiling, and the floor came back empty from down below.
A few men opened their mouths to compliment, but Chóng Fēi held a hand up lightly, signaling to sit down as he put back his sword.
"I know, I know. I did it great. What else can I do more than making nonsense into this old clan like a carpenter?" He said.
The men chuckled, agreeing with him for his intelligence and for working for the clan by his own hand like this.
'I did not expect him to do this by his own hands..'
Lìngxiāo kept his silent amazement within himself and came back to the seat, but didn't sit down, and couldn't help but ask. "Where will this take them, Gōngzǐ?"
"Outside the clan. Near the main gate. They can enter back, but not into this chamber unless I say so." Chóng Fēi answered, then cleared his throat. "Since there is no distraction now..we may come back to our discussion." He turned at Lìngxiāo. "Speak."
He took another scroll, catching the calligraphy brush with a spin as if he was going to write down everything Lìngxiāo said.
"Allow me to measure the weight of your words here." He added. "Nobody just sits here to show faces. Perhaps females, but men are for work. Work is for men."
Lìngxiāo held his gaze for a few moments, like reading his eyes. He felt more mature right here. The passion with the clan was in his every move—which only reminded him how hard he was already breathing inside here for this long, and that his plan with his life was totally different here.
His golden-brown pools held both confidence and confusion.
'Is he serious?'
'Does he actually know why Féng Xiānsheng might have sent me here? I do not believe I was allowed to talk against this rule.'
'But I would not stop no matter what comes on my way either.'
The contact wasn't uncomfortably long. Just a few seconds longer before he turned to his audience. His smile turned satisfied, sharp, and prepared. He knew what to say already.
"First, I would like to thank you again for inviting me." Lìngxiāo bowed to both Chóng Fēi and the others.
Others nodded and waited for his next words, all totally silent.
Lìngxiāo carefully measured his words so he didn't feel like he belonged from here once, but just knew by normally spending time here.
"As much as I know, this rule of execution is a tradition. Old. Untouched for the respect of it. It has always been a way of saving the town under the veil of justification." He said, pausing a bit.
Others nodded thoughtfully again. A few were staring like they already didn't like where this was going.
Chóng Fēi's chin rested over his palm, his eyes sometimes on Lìngxiāo from the corners of his bluish-gray pools, his hands moved with something only he knew—since Lìngxiāo didn't look at what he was writing.
For a moment, he wasn't questioning why Lìngxiāo was even trying to present something different.
'I thought he would argue. What is going on?'
But Lìngxiāo effortlessly spoke the rest of it. His tone was both empathetic on the surface but also firm. "I know how hard it is to let go of a tradition you have respected from the bottom of your heart. But the world changes."
"We grow with every breath we take. We learn how wrong we have been. We have a lot of histories like that to talk about. Such as our liberation war with the Gusu cultivators. We knew we were right. They were wrong."
The men nodded again, but a little later than before, as if not sure if they should agree or not.
"So it is time to come out of the circle of darkness you did not know you were already a part of it." Lìngxiāo invited gently yet professionally.
"We should stop punishing children while they did not even know what they did. Some were scared. Some had mental breakdowns. Some did it out of their own safety. In this world where we are much farther from advanced things to figure things out, and only our qì—which is limited within the larger picture of life—we often forget we have flaws and emotions." He added.
Chóng Fēi now silently blinked while listening to him and writing. He said nothing. He looked..impressed perhaps? Lìngxiāo wasn't sure if it really was, or if it was the calm before they had another argument at the tea break.
But he didn't stop.
"As a professional exorcist, I would like to present what exorcists and clans like Hàngwō understand the best." Lìngxiāo said with a soft nod to himself. "And this is connected to the Red Robe gûi too, I can say with confidence."
Now the males sharply looked at each other at the clan name, like it had triggered fire in them for no reason. The look held the long-buried history, mirroring the way they looked at Gusu cultivators.