Qing Heng disappears without a trace. The man supports himself on a tree branch with one hand, lightly leaping down. He spits out the grass he’d been chewing and keeps his eyes fixed on the direction Qing Heng went, speaking in a low voice.

“Mother?” His lips curl into a smirk, but there’s no real amusement in his eyes. 

“How interesting… the Immortal General has a child now.”

His curiosity is piqued. He’s genuinely curious—how could an Immortal General, whom no one else can even touch, have a child?

Meanwhile, Qing Heng is entirely unaware of the man’s growing curiosity and intrigue. Inside the natural herb furnace, he is holding his little one. His palm against the cub’s back, using his inner strength to help expel the poison.

The furnace’s temperature is high. Ming Qiao’s small clothes have all been removed, leaving him sitting bare-bottomed on Qing Heng’s lap. Expelling the poison is no easy task, but Qing Heng is patient, working slowly and carefully.

Time passes, and the sky changes from bright to dark. Ming Qiao, in and out of consciousness since entering the furnace, now groggily opens his eyes to complete darkness. His little head is dazed, and he thinks he’s gone blind.

“Mother?” The confused and frightened child reaches out with his small hands, grasping blindly. 

When he finally catches hold of his mother’s big hand, his trembling voice is filled with fear, “Qiao Qiao can’t see! Qiao Qiao can’t see anything!”

Qing Heng: “…”

Just as Qing Heng is about to comfort him, he realizes that his little one, unable to see his mother, has already started shedding tears.

“Qiao Qiao will never see mother again”, he cries.

Ming Qiao isn’t afraid of becoming blind, he’s only scared of never seeing his mother again. In the darkness, the little one tilts his soft face up, tears streaming down pitifully.

After a moment of silence, Qing Heng pulls a glowing pearl from his storage bag—a luminous pearl. He places the large pearl in the furnace.

In an instant, the “blind” child regains his vision. Ming Qiao blinks hard, first looking at his mother, then at the pearl, before lowering his head in embarrassment.

Sigh…He cried too early—how embarrassing!

Seeing the tips of his ears turning bright red, Qing Heng can’t help but reach out to gently pat his little head. “Qiao Qiao, are you afraid of the dark?”

To distract the little one, Qing Heng starts chatting with him. Ming Qiao shakes his head, then, after a moment, nods.

“A little bit.” he admits.

It’s a fear he can overcome. Sometimes, when daddy goes out and doesn’t come back for days, Ming Qiao stays home alone. At night, he lights a lamp, cuddles with Mimi, and eventually falls asleep.

“This luminous pearl, put it in your storage ring.” Qing Heng says, pulling out another pearl. In addition to the large one, he also takes out a few small ones for Ming Qiao to play with.

Ming Qiao obediently stores the large night pearl, holding the smaller ones in his hand, playing with them. “Mother, the pearls are so pretty.”

“Mhm. If you like them, I’ll find more for you to play with in the future.”

Qing Heng watches him play for a while, pausing the process of expelling the poison. There is still poison in Ming Qiao’s body, and it needs to be cleared, but the child is too young. Forcing the poison out for too long at once might overwhelm his small body.

Seeing Ming Qiao still playing with the pearls, Qing Heng reaches out to touch his stomach—it feels a bit empty. Qing Heng has trained to the point where he doesn’t need to eat, but Ming Qiao still needs food.

“Qiao Qiao, I’m going to find you something to eat. Stay here and be good, alright?”

“Okay!” Ming Qiao replies, obediently sitting in the furnace to wait for his mother.

Qing Heng hesitates for a few seconds, looking at him, but eventually decides to leave. If he could, he would take Ming Qiao with him, but in his current condition, the boy isn’t fit for outdoor activity. 

Once Qing Heng leaves, the furnace quickly falls into silence. Ming Qiao rolls the small pearls on the ground, playing by himself.

“The pearl is coming!” 

“The pearl is running away!”

The little one mutters to himself, entertaining himself with his game. As he plays, he suddenly lifts his head. “Was it just his imagination, or did it feel like someone was watching him from above?”

“Mother?” He raises his little head, calling out, but there’s no response, no sound at all.

Ming Qiao continues to tilt his head, his expression full of caution. He calls out again: “Who is it? Who’s outside?!”

As he asks, he gets up from the ground. Inside the furnace, it’s bright and well-lit, but outside, the world is pitch black.

Ming Qiao doesn’t leave the furnace. Instead, he clutches the small night pearl in his hand, ready to throw it. But then he hesitates—it’s a gift from his mother, and he can’t bear to throw it away.

After a moment thinking, Ming Qiao puts the pearl away and picks up a small rock from the ground instead.

“Whoosh!” He throws the little rock outside. There are plenty of rocks in the furnace, so the cautious little one picks them up one by one, throwing them out with all his might.

The barrage of stones tires him out, leaving him breathless inside the furnace. Meanwhile, the man outside, who had only wanted to take a peek at the boy, is caught off guard and hit several times by the flying rocks.

“Agh…” The man takes a few steps back, wincing.

He had been careless. He hadn’t expected that the soft little boy in Qing Heng’s arms would turn so fierce once separated from him.

As the man recalls the little face he had glimpsed, he can’t help but think that the boy’s features—delicate as a painting, bear more than a passing resemblance to Qing Heng.

“It’s impossible…” he mutters, frowning. Despite the resemblance, he refuses to believe that the boy is Qing Heng’s child.

Just as he stands there, contemplating whether to take another look, he hears footsteps approaching from not far away. 

Qing Heng has returned. He didn’t bring back much food. Worried about leaving the boy alone for too long, he didn’t dare to stray far. He only found some fruit nearby.

Hearing the approaching footsteps, the man quickly leaps into the trees, concealing his presence.

“Qiao Qiao, I’m back.”

“Mother! Hug!”

“Slow down. Why are you sweating? And your face is so red.”

Qing Heng returns to the furnace and catches the little one who throws himself at him. He notices that the child’s complexion doesn’t look quite right.

Feeling safe in his mother’s arms, the little one points outside and says: “It felt like someone was watching me, so I picked up stones and threw them.”

“Do you hit anyone?”

“Probably not.”

Ming Qiao recalls the sounds from earlier, then shakes his head and says in his soft baby voice: “I don’t hear anything.”

Not hearing any sound or seeing anyone, Qing Heng figures the little guy must have been mistaken. With that thought, Qing Heng sits down and begin feeding the freshly washed fruit to the little one.

“Tomorrow, I’ll roast some meat for you to eat.”

“Mother can roast meat?”

“…”

Qing Heng pauses. He can roast meat, but it’s not exactly his strong suit. Someone once ate his roasted meat and ended up with a stomach ache, disappearing for days. Recalling that past experience, Qing Heng suddenly doesn’t have much to say.

Meanwhile, the man perches in the tree, eavesdropping, nearly falls off when he hears the words “roast meat”. His expression turns complicated as he glances toward the furnace. After a moment, he turns and leaves.

The next morning. Qing Heng stayed up all night, watching over Ming Qiao, unable to close his eyes even for a moment. He needed to monitor the little one’s condition constantly.

The child, who had slept in his arms all night, now has a flushed face, normal body temperature, and steady breathing and heartbeat. Seeing that Ming Qiao is still asleep, Qing Heng gently lays him down and goes outside to find something to eat.

As soon as he steps outside, next to the furnace, he sees a perfectly roasted rabbit. Its skin is golden and crispy, and the meat inside looks tender and juicy, with an enticing aroma.

Beside the rabbit is a pot of hot water.

Qing Heng stares at the rabbit and water for a few seconds before calling out, expressionless, “Wu Ye, come out.”

No one came out. Qing Heng touches the rabbit’s warm outer skin, then picks up the roasted rabbit and water. Since no one is showing up, he doesn’t bother calling again.

With the fragrant roasted meat and hot water, Ming Qiao’s belly is soon round and full.

“Mother, your roast meat is so yummy!”

Ming Qiao pats his belly with satisfaction, his eyes curving into happy crescents. He praises his mother’s cooking and, in the process, can’t help but mention his father.

“It’s just as tasty as daddy’s roast meat!”

If he hadn’t seen his father, he would’ve thought this roast meat was made by him—because the flavor is exactly the same. Hearing Ming Qiao mentions his father, Qing Heng smoothly changes the subject. “Besides roasted rabbit, what you like to eat?”

“Red berries! And fish!”

“Alright, red berries and roasted fish. You’ll have them by lunchtime.”

Qing Heng repeats the foods Ming Qiao likes, casting a subtle glance outside. By noon. Sure enough, when Qing Heng goes out, there are roasted fish and red berries waiting.

For two days in a row, Qing Heng focuses on purging the poison from the little one’s body, while at mealtime, he simply goes outside to grab the ready-made food.

Ming Qiao enjoys the delicious meat, the variety of fruits, and the savory fish soup. But the more he eats, the more his little face shows suspicion.

Why does all this food taste exactly like what his father made? He wants to ask his mother who cooked all the food, but just as he opens his mouth, his mother quickly changes the subject.

After holding it in for two days, on the third evening, Ming Qiao lays under a small blanket, obediently closing his eyes to sleep. Not long after his eyes are shut, Qing Heng leaves the furnace.

A few minutes later, the little one, who has been pretending to sleep, sneaks out of bed and quietly follows his mother. He is small and his legs are short, making it difficult to keep up with the adults.

Luckily, Qing Heng doesn’t go far. A few hundred meters away from the furnace, Qing Heng slashes the top of a tree with one sword strike, then immediately thrust his sword toward a figure jumping down from the tree.

“You’ve been spying on me for days. What are your intentions?!”

“What intentions can I have? I just want to spar with you.”

The man who jumped down, Wu Ye, dodges Qing Heng’s sword while casually explaining: “We agreed before, remember? We said we’d have a duel to see who wins.”

Wu Ye is referring to a duel Qing Heng had once casually agreed to.

But Qing Heng glares coldly at him, pressing the matter further. “If you want to challenge me, why don’t you show yourself?”

Given Wu Ye’s personality, if he wanted a duel, he would’ve shown up long ago. It had been days, and the man hadn’t appeared once.

Wu Ye hesitates for a moment, and in that split second, Qing Heng almost manages to run him through with his sword.

“You’re so ruthless with me, but you’re so gentle with your little one.”

Wu Ye has always been eager to challenge Qing Heng. He wants to see if the famed sword of the Immortal General is as powerful as people claimed. But this time, after seeing Qing Heng, Wu Ye didn’t immediately seek him out for a duel. The reason is simple— He saw Qing Heng’s child.

Curiosity has gotten the better of him, and he couldn’t resist watching how Qing Heng interacted with the little one. After observing for several days, Wu Ye realizes that Qing Heng is in the process of purging poison from the child. In such a situation, it isn’t possible to take Qing Heng away for a duel.

Wu Ye doesn’t mention this, but Qing Heng already figures it out. Lowering his sword, Qing Heng’s eyes stared at Wu Ye’s face. Wu Ye, feeling unnerved under his stare, speaks in a less casual tone than before: “Qing Heng, what’s with that look…?”

Why does it feel so dangerous? Indeed, Qing Heng’s look is far from friendly. Over the past few days, no matter how much Qing Heng tried to divert the conversation, the constant mentions of Ming Qiao’s father became impossible to ignore.

Even though the so-called “love letter” that Ming Qiao had brought out was actually Wu Ye’s challenge invitation. There is no doubt that the “daddy” Ming Qiao keeps talking about is Wu Ye.

“No matter who you are, from now on, don’t show up in front of me again.” Qing Heng can accept having an extra child in his life. But he will never allow that child’s father to be a part of his future.

Wu Ye: ???

Wu Ye is utterly confused. He stares at Qing Heng, baffles, wanting to ask for clarification. But before he can say a word, a small figure comes running over from a distance.

——————————————

The author’s note:

The little one, excited: “It’s daddy!”