The Nine-tailed Fox watches the Crane grow up

"That's Shu Ai," Wu Yun whispers to Lan Tian, still in disbelief as he watches him pick up Shu Luan from the floor to hug him.

Lan Tian is incredulous too. "The Jade Emperor? Why is he pretending to be a human?"

"I have no idea," Wu Yun says. He can't believe what he's seeing, that the same Shu Ai who took out Shu Luan's eyes, and wrote his name with whip marks on Ling Yan's back is now ruffling a child's hair.

"In any case, Shu Luan wasn't lying, from his point of view he was raised by a human father," Cang Chuxi says, looking on at the domestic scene with a tender expression in his eyes.

It's easy for him to look on and see nothing but a caring father spoiling his son, but to Wu Yun the whole thing twists his stomach.

"Show me what you've been doing, little bird," Shu Ai asks, sitting down at the table and inspecting Shu Luan's calligraphy.

"I've been practicing, like you said," Shu Luan says, lifting another sheet of paper from the pile to show Shu Ai his improvement.

"It's very good, your strokes are much neater, I can almost read it."

Shu Luan pouts and throws his hand in the air, but Shu Ai is quick to laugh and ruffle his hair again.

"I'm joking little one, you've done very well." 

The breeze from the open window disturbs the stack of papers, and one of them flies away from the pile.

Shu Ai picks it up and inspects it, his eyebrows meeting above his gold eyes. "What's this?"

Wu Yun takes a closer look at the paper and realizes it's a drawing, childish and immature as it is, it shows someone swinging under a weeping willow. 

Shu Luan looks at the drawing his father is holding and shrugs. "Just a dream I had."

There's no sign of recognition on Shu Ai's face, which strikes Wu Yun as suspicious, he must have known about the tree. 

"It's very good, now how about your old father makes you some dinner?"

Shu Luan jumps up towards Shu Ai and hugs his waist. 

The memory dissolves with the sound of their laughter.

---

In the next memory they're still in the small house with the thatched roof, but Shu Luan is older. He's sitting at the table again, drawing furiously on a piece of paper.

His skills have improved greatly, and Wu Yun can clearly see Ling Yan's face rendered with precise strokes on the many sheets covering the entire table.

"Little bird, how about you come help your old father in the garden?" Shu Ai asks, poking his head through the kitchen's open window.

Shu Luan doesn't answer him.

"Little bird? Are you busy with your paintings?"

Shu Luan shakes his head, as if forcing himself out of a trance, and looks at his father, "Yes, sorry dad, I'll join you."

Shu Ai laughs, "My son is going to be a famous artist one day, with how much he paints."

Wu Yun scowls at the picturesque scene. Why is Shu Ai doing any of this? He knows whose face Shu Luan is obsessively painting. This must be another way for him to continue his torture, since Ling Yan managed to frustrate his plans, and escaped to the Underworld to piece together Shu Luan's soul.

Lan Tian notices his uneasiness, and rubs his back gently. "Is that Ling Yan?" he asks, nodding at the paintings.

Wu Yun nods.

Lan Tian smiles, wistful. "You were beautiful even in your past life."

His smooth voice carries some trace of sorrow, as if he regrets not having met him then. It fills Wu Yun with complicated emotions.

He hides his face against Lan Tian's chest and takes a sobering breath. "For all the good that did him."

---

In the next memory Shu Luan looks the same as he does now, and he's rummaging through a chest in his father's room.

He takes out a stack of letters, and scans then quickly.

Wu Yun is able to read part of it:

"I'm entrusting the soul of my greatest love to your care, his name is Shu Luan. I'm too weak now, and know I will soon die. I hope we can meet again after I reincarnate, I'm enclosing a token that will lead him to me, if he ever wishes to find me."

The letter is signed "Ling Yan".

"That's not your calligraphy," Lan Tian says, turning to Wu Yun with a frown.

No it isn't, it's much neater than anything Wu Yun has ever written, in the few chances he had to try, usually under Jiang Tanmei's disapproving glare.

"Ling Yan was from Immortal Mountain, he received a formal education, I'm sure he practiced often, but even if he wrote that letter, it doesn't explain why he would leave Shu Luan's soul with the same person who killed him!"

Wu Yun has always seen Ling Yan as more clever and more capable than him, but he will have to reassess that judgement if he really did something so foolish.

"Can we be sure this memory is real?" Lan Tian asks, turning to Cang Chuxi who is inspecting Shu Luan's face with interest.

"Well, I suppose it's real in the sense that he believes it's real," Cang Chuxi says, pointing at Shu Luan. "There might be other, suppressed memories, but it will be harder to access them, it will require a more powerful array, and his mind might resist it."

"Let's do it," Wu Yun says. He's fully convinced that there's more to this story than they're seeing.

Cang Chuxi frowns. "I won't do anything if Shu Luan doesn't agree to it. I know you don't trust him, but I've been spending time with him, and nothing in his behaviour leads me to believe he has ill-intentions."

Wu Yun levels Cang Chuxi with a searching look, boring into those odd pale pupils. He thinks he knows what's happening. Cang Chuxi must be used to spending most of his time alone, locked in his pavilion, away from everyone else, and now he has someone to talk with, laugh with.

It probably helps that Shu Luan is easy on the eyes.

"We'll ask him," Wu Yun says finally, making a mental note to be careful with what they say around Cang Chuxi

---

The next memory shows Shu Ai and Shu Luan hugging at the little house's door. Shu Luan is carrying a knapsack of his belongings, and wearing an amber amulet around his neck.

"My little bird is all grown up," Shu Ai says, hugging Shu Luan who is now as tall as him.

"I'll be back soon dad, and I'll bring Ling Yan to meet you," Shu Luan says, hugging him back.

Shu Ai claps Shu Luan heartily on the back, and says, "I'd like that, son, I'd really like that."

Wu Yun has to remind himself that this is a memory, and that there's no use in running over to Shu Ai and trying to strangle him with his bare hands, but it's a close thing.

"The memories are ending, we should be waking up soon," Cang Chuxi says looking around as the picturesque clearing, where the little thatched house sits, starts dissolving at the edges.

"Is it normal for us to see only the memories he already mentioned?" Lan Tian asks.

Now that he mentions it, Wu Yun realizes they've seen only what was necessary to corroborate what Shu Luan told them about his childhood and how he found out about Ling Yan.

Cang Chuxi shrugs, "It's possible his mind was attuned to these particular memories. The array doesn't show us a complete account of a person's life."

Wu Yun exchanges a look with Lan Tian, the sardonic tilt of his upper lip tells him they're thinking the same thing. That all of this is very convenient for Shu Luan.

---

As Cang Chuxi predicted they wake up minutes later. The incense still hasn't fully burned, even though to Wu Yun, it feels like they have spent hours in Shu Luan's memories.

"You've seen it? Now you know I was telling the truth," he says, looking up at Cang Chuxi with a look of hopeless earnestness. 

"I've learned that we've been calling you the wrong name all along, your father calls you Xiao Niao, right?"

His cheeks color and he looks away from Wu Yun. "That's just a milk-name, the letters said my name is Shu Luan."

Lan Tian frowns. "Your father didn't bother to give you a name until you found the letters? What's your father's name?"

"I've always just called him dad, or daddy when I was younger, the same way he called me little bird."

"I think until we can be certain of who you are, we should call you Xiao Niao, too," Wu Yun says, his smile deceptively sweet.

On the inside he's fuming. He can't believe Shu Luan, no matter how little he recalled, wouldn't be moved by the same impulse to kill the Jade Emperor as him. How would he be able to call the man who ripped out his eyes, and branded Ling Yan like cattle in front of him, 'father'?

This must be another one of Shu Ai's twisted tricks.

Wu Yun looks into Xiao Niao's innocent, humid eyes, and wonders. Is he just a pawn, or a willing participant?

The same thoughts run through Lan Tian's mind as he turns to Xiao Niao and asks him directly, "We believe there might be some hidden memories you aren't able to access, Master Cang can help us find that out, if you wouldn't mind."

Xiao Niao wavers, looking between the two of them and Cang Chuxi, but finally assents. "If there's something about my own life I'm not aware of, I want to know too."

---

Wu Yun and Lan Tian leave Master Cang's pavilion, with a promise to visit soon, if the antidote gives them any trouble. They haven't experienced any of the side-effects Cang Chuxi warned them of, not counting the aphrodisiac that he assures them once again isn't a known side-effect.

They're crossing the viewing bridge, their fingers linked between them, making their joined hands swing with each step when they stumble on Wan Mi.

Her emerald eyes travel to their joined hands, but she says nothing, although the corner of her lips twists up. 

"Master told me you practiced sword art with her," she says, to Wu Yun. "I was wondering if the two of you wanted to practice light-stepping with me, I'm very good."

Wu Yun smirks. "Does the little chicken flap her wings to jump high into the roofs?" 

She glowers and crosses her arms. "Light-stepping isn't the same as flying, even a dull, flightless creature like a fox should be able to do it. Those human cultivators do it all the time."

He lets go of Lan Tian's hand to skip towards Wan Mi and wrap an arm around her thin shoulders.

"Then lead the way mighty clucking bird of the skies, teach this dull fox some new tricks." 

Wan Mi protests but doesn't remove his arm. Wu Yun looks over his shoulder to see if Lan Tian is following them.

He isn't. 

In his place there's a squirming pile of robes lying on the bridge's wooden staves.

"Lan Tian?" Wu Yun asks, rummaging through the robes, his heart beating a frantic tattoo against his ribs.

Suddenly a blue, horned head springs out of the robes, the twin long whiskers sprouting from the upturned snout seem to droop in confusion.

Despite being no larger than an average snake, Wu Yun is sure he's looking at a dragon, and judging by his large amber eyes, the dragon is Lan Tian.

---

Xiao Niao begs tiredness, and leaves Cang Chuxi to go to the private room he arranged for him on the pavilion's upper floor.

He takes his mirror from under the thin cotton mattress and calls softly, "Father?"

A face appears in the gold surface. Severe eyebrows, and a cruel sculpted mouth, that pulls into a smirk when he sees Xiao Niao.

"Little bird, do you have news for me?"

Xiao Niao sighs. "It's not working, Ling Yan doesn't like me, let alone believe me, and I think he and that Lan Tian are growing closer. They want to search my mind for hidden memories."

Shu Ai's upper lip curls in contempt, and he scoffs. "They'll never get that chance. storm clouds are gathering, little bird."

---

A.N.: Xiao Niao means literally: little bird. I'm going to use the pinyin spelling every time the actual character is being addressed either in the narrative, or by another character, and the english translation when it's used as a term of endearment by Shu Ai. It's probably for the best that this novel will likely never be translated into Chinese haha.

I wasn't sure how to translate it, but basically a milk-name is a kind of family nickname that parents, siblings and close relatives call children in China, they can continue to call them this milk-name into adulthood, but only in a familiar setting. It's very private and most people wouldn't reveal it to any random acquaintance. So what Wu Yun is doing, suggesting they start calling Shu Luan, Xiao Niao, and then doing it, is some grade-a rude ass tomfoolery and we love him for that.