The Smiling Red Panda 微笑的红熊猫

9. Mo Xiu, Mo Jingtang's Eyes

"Jingtang, have you seen— what the hell…?"

Mo Ran entered the room to see Jingtang stained and splashed with ink.

"Aha… hello." Jingtang rubbed his chin, staining the ink further.

"What happened? You need to bathe, I'll get you new clothes."

"I'm so sorry, I made a mess." Jingtang said sheepishly.

The two boys stared at each other before the older one sighed, "Tell me later."

"Yes, Shixiong."

The younger one hurried to the springs while Mo Ran left to look for Jingtang's spare clothes in his disciple room.

Jingtang was able to rub off the ink from his skin with the bathing oils available, but he had no hope for his clothes being salvaged. A few minutes later, Mo Ran's figure entered his peripheral.

"I'll leave the clothes here, but I'm not leaving till you tell me what just happened."

"Ah…"

Now if it was any other day, it'd be strange, anyone would have thought that Jingtang just made a mess on his own. But Mo Ran recently found that the boy was prone to being bullied and would never tell anyone until Shi Mei called him out on it. Those ink stains looked too intentional to be an accident.

"Alright, some disciples were just playing—"

"Don't lie."

"Wait I'm not even finished." Jingtang sighed, "So they were playing until I came, I think I caught them doing something but they got annoyed and threw ink. That's all."

"That's all? Give me names."

"Wait wait wait, I don't even know their names—"

"Describe their faces."

"Calm down, I'm fine already." Jingtang laughed, it was awkward but it was happy.

In a strange way, his father was showing concern and getting mad for him. He missed this.

Mo Ran couldn't help but sigh. "A'Tang, why are you so nice? Get mad a little, a lot of the disciples might start ganging up on you just because they think you're easy to bully."

He called me 'A'Tang', Jingtang grinned contentedly. I'm happy enough, I don't care anymore.

"Fu— Shixiong, thank you for your concern. But it won't kill me, I'm better than them anyway." Jingtang jokingly boasted.

"Yeah, you are." Mo Ran smiled softly. "I wish more people were like you, I'm envious you know?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You're such a nice kid, my mother would have loved you." Mo Ran said, "You know when I first met you I thought you were how my mother would have looked like when she was your age, so I wasn't that mad when Shizun decided to take you in so quickly. And coincidentally, you also had purplish eyes."

"…"

Jingtang, who was leaning on the ledge while the rest of his body was in the water, lowered his head in his arms. His heart ached, not only did that trigger something in him but it was so familiar and he couldn't place his finger on why or how.

"My mother would have loved you as a son." Mo Ran's voice drifted off.

———

Wushan Palace was cold, the frosty wind blew into the hall freely and snow slowly entered and made it even colder than it already was.

The nineteen-year-old Mo Jingtang was sitting on the floor by his father's throne, he didn't mind the cold, he'd already gotten used to it. It's been two years since his capture and his uncle's death, and he would often stay by his father's side like this.

"A'Tang, can you sing me a song?"

Without a word, Jingtang hummed a tune for his father, his eyes closed and lips pale. He leaned his head on the arm of his father's throne as he sang.

Slowly, his humming turned into words.

"Have you learned that outside?" Taxian-jun raised his head to look at Jingtang.

The boy didn't answer, he remained singing and Taxian-jun didn't interrupt him again.

The song seemed to have cheery lyrics, reminiscent of Jingtang's youth, but like how it was sung, it was now as sad as his frame.

Mo Xiu was a beautiful young man capable of replacing a palace full of immortal beauties. His hair like ink cascaded over his shoulders, long lashes lay over pale cheeks hiding a pair of black-purple irises and his fair face that only moved when he sang was lit by the moonlight shining through the entrance of the hall that was left ajar.

When one stole a glance, they could only sigh that they couldn't reach such a beautiful creature.

And when he paused he resembled a well-made statue of a sitting maiden, but the crafter seemed to be conveying a sense of loss and mourning.

Shortly after Jingtang finished singing, he laid his head tiredly on his father's knee.

"You have her eyes." Taxian-jun said to him seemingly out of nowhere (in Mandarin there's no specified term for pronouns so he could be referring to anyone).

This confused Jingtang, his mother? But he was told he had his father's eyes, even the purple glare was the same. His lashes fluttered as he slowly opened his eyes, they shifted up to his father.

"You have my mother's eyes." Taxian-jun spoke again, looking more absentminded than ever.

Oh.

Jingtang's gaze softened.

"I'm happy." Taxian-jun sighed, "You look like my mother. I'm happy you look like my mother and not me… oh. Don't be sad, I don't like it when you look sad…it feels like mother and Chu Wanning are frowning at me."

Jingtang bowed his head, kneeling before his father and holding his hand, leaning forward to show him his face. His phoenix-shaped eyes were tilted a little downwards, he looked sad even when he thought he was smiling.

"I'm not sad, father."

"You're not? You're… that's good." Taxian-jun drifted away, his eyes unfocused.

Jingtang lowered his head further and wept, he was alone again. What could he do? He couldn't resent a corpse.

Gold streamed down his face, a face that was the most irresistible forbidden fruit especially when he cried or smiled.

His father had just told him that he looked like his grandmother and his mother, did he also look like them when his eyes squeezed shut and cried golden tears and when he pressed his lips tight, trying not to sob? He felt ugly and incomparable to those fairy-like beings.

From experience, he knew that his mother was beautiful even when he was expressionless, and from what his father told him, his grandmother was just as beautiful.

What is he compared to them?

A broken body— a broken body? Why is he a broken body?

Wait where did this memory come from?

———

Jingtang's head shot up.

"Well, I'll get going. I was just asking if you knew where Shi Mingjing was." Mo Ran's voice said.

"Wait!"

"Huh?"

"I—" What did he want to say? Jingtang shut his eyes. "Nothing, sorry. I thought I remembered where he went."

"Oh, okay." Mo Ran seemed to have nodded, "See you around. When I catch those kids, I'll beat them up."

"Don't bother, you'll only get punished." Jingtang laughed dryly.

After he left, Jingtang was tempted to look for Shi Mei, but for selfish reasons. In the end, he decided against it and went back to his room, he thought he was being too dependent on Shi Mei and didn't want to bother him.

He wanted to take a nap. If anyone needed him, they could just wake him up.