Chapter 111 – Don’t Take That Mask Off

Lī'ya took the time of two breaths to move again.

She took a quick step inside, pulled Zhì Yuǎn's sleeve so he would pass, and slid the mat door shut behind them until it touched the frame.

Zhì Yuǎn stopped beside the entrance, running his eyes over the curved walls of the room and the grooves near the frame, which followed the same pattern as the corridor they had just crossed after leaving the teleportation matrix. Now that he knew the pattern of the sap channels in Vhōl's hall, the difference of this sector stood out at once. Here, far from the movement of the plazas and inns, the lines carved into the living wood ran much closer together, overlapping matrices of surveillance and containment in dense layers that locked the entire branch—a silent sample of the force the Red Leaf Clan used to guard the quarters of its own heiress.

Even so, the woman seated at the workbench had entered without a single line in the corridor giving any sign.

"Mother…" Lī'ya's voice came out a tone lower than usual, her small hands gripping the hem of her skirt while her ears remained stuck to her red hair. "What are you doing down here? Wasn't the meeting in the dome supposed to last until night?"

Seated on the cushion, the woman slowly turned the clay bowl between her fingers. One of her nine white tails moved across the floor, pushing aside a dry leaf before settling again beside the ceremonial skirt.

"The guards of the eastern plaza came up with the report before the two of you entered Master Vhōl's workshop," the mother said, taking another sip of the tea. "While your father continued at the table with the other chiefs and you crossed half the trunk on the teleportation matrices to return home, I thought it better to come down and wait here."

The matriarch's emerald eyes rose from the bowl to her daughter's body.

"After all, you spent so much time in this room, drove your maids out with shouts, and today decided to stroll the tree with this human wearing your mark. I had already been thinking of how to arrange your union ceremony before the gathering of young talents…"

She interrupted her own sentence.

Her eyelids narrowed a thread as her gaze descended along the neck, the wrist, and the line of Lī'ya's waist.

The silence lasted an instant, until the woman set the bowl on the wood and released a long sigh of pure disappointment.

"By the roots, Lī'ya…" she murmured, resting her forehead on the tips of her fingers while a short laugh escaped her throat. "You are still a virgin."

Blood rose all at once up Lī'ya's neck. The girl's face turned the color of her own hair, and her tail gave a hard jolt behind her legs.

"M-Mother!" Lī'ya choked, looking in terror from the corner of her eye at Zhì Yuǎn standing beside her before stamping her foot on the floor. "Why are you saying these things in front of him?!"

"Because I thought my youngest had finally come to her senses after so long of dragging her feet!" the mother retorted, opening an amused smile at seeing the smoke coming out of her daughter's ears. "You kept him here for so long, rubbed the ceremonial mask in the faces of the Five Hegemonies, and didn't let the boy touch a finger on you? What were the two of you doing locked in here all this time? Just chatting?"

"He was injured!" Lī'ya shouted, closing her hands into fists beside her skirt, without the courage to lift her eyes from the floor. "I found him in the forest all broken and disfigured, he couldn't even move! I was taking care of him, that's all!"

The matriarch arched a brow, amusement shining in her eyes. She shifted her attention from the shrunken daughter and slowly turned her face toward Zhì Yuǎn.

"All broken, is he?"

Her pupils shone a deeper green for the span of one heartbeat, piercing the fox carving to see what lay beneath.

The pale hand circling the rim of the bowl stopped mid-gesture.

The nine white tails spread across the floor rippled lightly in unison. An instant later, the woman raised the silk sleeve to the middle of her lips, letting out a low giggle that made Lī'ya's ears rise in confusion.

"Well…" the mother said, eyes shining above the sleeve as she looked back at her daughter. "At least now I understand why you locked the door and sent poor Hāi'na away from here. With the face he hides, even I would be too possessive to let the maids change his water."

Lī'ya blinked twice, brows furrowing.

"Face…?"

The matriarch's smile stopped. She looked from Lī'ya's confused face to Zhì Yuǎn's motionless mask, and then back to her daughter.

"Don't tell me you carved a mating mask for him without even having taken the bandages off his face first."

Lī'ya's cheeks puffed.

"I saw his eye!" she defended herself, pointing at Zhì Yuǎn. "And he asked for a mask before taking the cloths off because he didn't want to draw attention in the tree! Besides, I'm not shallow like those women from the other clans who choose their man by the face! His scent was already more than enough!"

The mother let out a short, clean laugh, shaking her white hair.

"You really are a fool, Lī'ya." She wiped the corner of her eye with the tip of her little finger. "But since you still haven't seen it, then you'll continue without seeing it. Don't take that mask off his face."

Lī'ya's chin rose, stubbornness lighting in her pupils.

"And why wouldn't I take it off?! He's in my room and the mask is mine!" She turned her body toward Zhì Yuǎn and already raised her right hand toward the wooden chin. "Let me take it off just a little so I can show my mother that—"

She never reached the maple.

A cold current of air caught Lī'ya's wrist in mid-air, pulling her hand back to the side of her skirt without hurting the skin, yet leaving no room for reaction.

"I was serious, girl," the mother said. "While you only smell him, you still think you're in control of that hard head of yours. The day you look at what's under there, then there really will be no turning back."

Lī'ya tried to pull her wrist free and huffed when the wind released her.

"I'm not some little girl easily fooled by a pretty face, Mother!"

"If I hadn't lived for hundreds of thousands of years and didn't have your father, my daughter, even I would have swooned right now just from peeking," the woman provoked, giving another giggle that left Lī'ya mute and red to the tip of her nose.

Zhì Yuǎn remained with arms crossed near the door, observing the figure seated at the workbench.

"The Matriarch is generous with her compliments," Zhì Yuǎn said, tone grave and calm. "But I believe she did not come down from the dome only to speak of my appearance."

"You may call me Sī'vra, boy," she answered, resting her elbow on the low workbench and supporting her chin on her palm to study him from top to bottom.

The amusement vanished from the depths of Sī'vra's green eyes, giving way to that ancient weight Zhì Yuǎn had already felt twice before—in the voice that had crossed the chaotic darkness and in the warrior in worn armor upon the floating rock.

A fine wrinkle appeared between her brows.

"Old Vhōl even sent me a message as soon as the two of you left his room," Sī'vra commented. "He said you held the recoil of three veins of the tree with a bare hand without burning a single hair on your arm. I came thinking I would find some ancient cultivator of the human alliance hiding his foundation with artifacts."

She tilted her head to the side, the nine tails motionless behind her back.

"But there is no cultivation in you at all, boy. Your center is as mute as a river stone. Even so, your flesh weighs more than that of any beast of royal lineage sitting up there with my husband today, and there is some energy embedded in your bones that not even my eyes can decipher. It is far too pure to be the Qi of this world."

Lī'ya turned her face quickly toward Zhì Yuǎn, ears standing upright at hearing her mother say that without a joking tone.

"How is it not Qi?" the girl asked. "He said he needed to recover his cultivation after he fell in the forest…"

"Whether he had cultivation or not, what remains in the carcass did not come from ordinary training," Sī'vra answered, without taking her eyes from the slits of the mask. "In all my life, I have only heard of bodies with this robustness in the legends of those born with a Divine Physique." She smiled lightly at Zhì Yuǎn once more. "I do not know from which hole you fell into our woods, young man, nor what kind of enemy managed to leave someone with a body like this bedridden for so long."

"It was only a miscalculation in heavy work, Matriarch," Zhì Yuǎn answered in the same flat tone. "And your daughter took care of the rest."

Sī'vra observed the firm posture of the man who held her gaze without quickening his breathing or bending his spine by a single cun.

"I have had many sons and daughters throughout the ages, boy," Sī'vra said, voice descending to a quieter tone as she glanced at Lī'ya. "Most of them did not have the strength to cross the barrier of the Immortal Realm and left long ago. But none of them, nor anyone who has ever been born in the history of this world, came close to the talent my girl carries in her hands."

Lī'ya shifted her bare feet on the floor, pride wanting to rise in her chest, yet still paralyzed by the shame of moments before.

"That is why her father never forced her to accept any of those suitors from the five lineages," Sī'vra continued, turning her green eyes back to the mask. "And that is why I would not mind her choosing a human without foundation that she herself picked up in the woods… if she had asked how many females had already passed through his bed before deciding to call him hers in front of the entire clan."

The room sank into a dry silence.

Lī'ya's ears froze atop her head. The smile that had begun to return to her face extinguished at once.

"W-what are you saying?" Lī'ya's voice came out short, emerald eyes running from her mother to the profile of the wooden mask beside her. "He fell alone in the forest, Mother! You're making this up!"

"I am not blind, foolish girl," Sī'vra said with implacable calm. "You grew up seeing only me and your father sharing the same roof throughout the ages and refused suitors for half a century thinking every man would be only yours. But a man who lives alone does not carry the essence of other women embedded so deeply in his own blood and his own destiny. And it is not the mark of only one. There are several."

Lī'ya took half a step back, her tail stopping completely motionless behind her skirt.

She slowly turned her face upward, staring at the side of the wild-maple mask she herself had carved and engraved in the dark of the early hours, as if waiting for him to say that her mother was mistaken.

Sī'vra rested her hands on her knees and raised her chin toward the masked man:

"Did I err, Zhì Yuǎn?"

Behind the slits, Zhì Yuǎn's dark eyes did not blink, nor did they deviate from hers.

"The Matriarch's eyes are precise," Zhì Yuǎn answered, without the slightest hesitation. "I have seven wives."

Beside him, Lī'ya's breath caught in her throat.

She did not shout, did not stamp her foot, and did not release any of her usual sharp replies. Her small fingers, which until an instant ago had been nearly touching his sleeve, closed slowly against her own palm. Her face lost its color and lowered toward the floor, ears drooping to the sides while a knot of shame and confusion tied her tongue in front of her mother.

Sī'vra observed her daughter's silence for a moment and then looked back at Zhì Yuǎn, surprised by the cold frankness with which he had admitted it to her face.

"Seven…" Sī'vra repeated, rising from the cushion in a fluid movement while the nine tails gathered behind the dress. "And still has the courage to say it while looking into my eyes inside my own house. You truly have no fear of death, or you trust this hard body of yours too much."

“Lying would be disrespectful to you and your daughter,” Zhì Yuǎn said.

Sī'vra sighed and walked to the door, passing beside the two and leaving the cold perfume of white flowers in the air. Before sliding the door on its rails, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at her daughter, who remained mute and with head lowered in the middle of the room.

"Your father will still be stuck in the agreements with the other chiefs for the next few days, and that cub of the Tigers has too much pride to go tell the main hall that he retreated before a human," Sī'vra said. "The two of you have much to discuss alone. When you decide what you want to do with the mark you gave, Lī'ya, come up and tell me."

The mat door slid and closed with a low click.

The footsteps outside vanished into the curved corridor without making a sound.

In the middle of the room, Lī'ya remained motionless, her back to the door, looking at her own bare feet with fists closed beside her skirt.

Zhì Yuǎn did not try to console her, nor did he open his mouth to give excuses. He walked to the low workbench where Sī'vra had been seated, picked up the teapot that was still releasing steam, poured a clean bowl of warm tea, and set it on the edge of the wood beside Lī'ya. Then he sat on the mat and crossed his legs, waiting in silence for her to speak first.