Chương 164: Chapter 161

I contemplate the Feng with incredulity, since it is the size of a small house, with the long neck and the impossibly erect bearing of a heron, a curved beak and a plumage that begins being of a deep red on the breast and that goes passing to orange, to gold and to white as it climbs up the neck, with a shine that clearly does not depend on the light that falls on it.

The tail is formed by long feathers that unfold over the grass like a ceremonial cloak, extended in the shape of a fan while it displays all its beauty. And it is looking at me. I swallow saliva, and discover that my throat is even drier than when I was crossing the canyon, because now, with that thing in front of me, I finally understand what all those books were referring to.

When I read Tianyu Feng, the Guardian Beast of the Empire, my head automatically translated that it was a pretty way of referring to a mythological part of the Empire, something necessary for the rituals, but never, not a single time, did it occur to me that the word beast was there because it is literally true, nor that Feng really meant that a Feng existed. The eastern equivalent of the phoenix of my world, the male of the Fenghuang.

All this time the Empire has had one in a valley behind a mountain, and they blessed me with one of his feathers when I was a month old. None of the three of us moves, I because I am petrified, Xia because she is still in the air and Lianhua because she has understood at once that what she has before her is not something she can defeat. With a great deal of care, almost with fear that an abrupt movement might turn out offensive, I lower Xia to the ground and release the technique.

Xia touches the grass, holds herself up on her own feet and stays with her mouth open looking upward. And thus a while passes that becomes interminable to me until I hear a voice inside my head.

"What did you think of my sect?" the voice tells me. And the first thing I do is start, because it is a masculine voice. It is deep, tranquil, with a touch of amusement, and it sounds so clear and close that for an instant my brain insists on searching for the man who has pronounced it. But right away I remember that the Fenghuang is not a single creature, but two, and the Feng is the masculine half. And however absurd it may turn out, knowing that reassures me a little.

Not much, but a little, because it means that I minimally understand the rules of the place I am in. As for the question, I weigh it for a scant second since I could answer what is expected. I know perfectly what the formula is, I have heard it a thousand times in other environments and I could recite it in my sleep.

But I have just come out of an interview in which I have had to measure every syllable in front of eight Elders, I am exhausted, I have a journey of several days ahead of me and I have not the least idea of what awaits me at the end of that journey, so I decide to be sincere.

"I have not been able to see much of it", I answer aloud.

"But it has too many staircases for my taste." And the Feng laughs. He laughs inside my head and he laughs outside too, with a series of clicks and deep trills that shake his breast and that make Xia give a start at my side. And when he finally stops, the voice returns and now it is clearly amused.

"Do you know how many people I have asked that same question?" he tells me.

"And do you know what they have always answered me?" And there, while I listen to him, I make a fairly important decision. Because I have just told the guardian beast of the Empire that his sect has too many staircases, and instead of striking me down he has laughed. Which suggests to me, and I hope from the heart that I am not mistaken, that this creature is not looking for reverences, but rather must appreciate a real conversation considerably more.

"As for the quantity, I have not the least idea", I tell him.

"But I am almost sure that the answer was always some variation of that it is a Great Sect and that it is the best in the world." And this time he laughs with much more gusto. He laughs so much that he lowers his head and shakes it, and for a moment I have before me the ridiculous and marvelous image of an immense phoenix splitting his sides laughing in the middle of a valley.

"You are completely right", he tells me when he recovers.

"Very few people have been as sincere as you." And since this seems to be the moment, and because I have a carriage waiting for me and an urgent notification stuck in my chest, I decide to take the initiative.

"If I may be permitted the boldness", I tell him with all the politeness I know how to compose while I incline in the chair as much as I can.

"Might I ask you for what motive you have invited me?" The Feng tilts his head with a quick and perfectly avian movement to observe me with one eye.

"At first, only for one thing", he answers me.

"But now that I have seen you, I also have a warning for you." And that answer throws me off, because I expected an explanation and there has arrived a threat wrapped in a gift, or the reverse, and I am still trying to decide which of the two parts worries me more when he continues.

"I wanted to thank you", he tells me.

"For the role you give the Fenghuang in your novel." And I am left with my mouth open, literally with my mouth open like an idiot in front of a mythological creature, because of all the sentences I had imagined I might hear today, on this mountain or anywhere else, that one did not figure even on the long list.

"You have read my novel?" escapes me.

"I have read it", he confirms to me with complete tranquility. And before I can decide what one answers to that, he goes on.

"I don't know where you got the story", he tells me, and now the tone has changed and there is no longer a trace of amusement in it.

"But that two Buddhist references escaped you in it was a fairly clumsy oversight, and one of those that can bring infinite problems to this world in the future." And my blood freezes, not because of what he says, which also, but because he has just pronounced the word Buddhist aloud, or inside my head, or however it is we are speaking, and there are two people less than three paces from me. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I turn my head so quickly that I almost hurt my neck, but I find that Lianhua is still standing behind my chair with her hands on the handles, her gaze fixed on some point and her expression completely empty, while Xia is exactly the same, planted on the grass with her mouth half open and her eyes lost, still as a porcelain figure.

"Don't worry", the Feng tells me.

"They cannot hear our conversation." I let out a sigh and then, with the greatest delicacy of which I am capable, because I have the fairly clear sensation of walking on thin ice, I ask him the question I cannot not ask.

"Forgive my impertinence", I tell him.

"But do you know what Buddhism is?" And the Feng lets out a short laugh, barely a brief sound, through his beak.

"What has a Fenghuang not seen in its cycle of death and reincarnation?" he answers me. And then he falls silent. He falls silent in an eloquent manner, with that silence that is not a pause but a full stop, the silence of someone who has said exactly what they wanted to say and who does not intend to add anything however much they are pressed.

And I, who am dying to press him, do not press him, because I have the certainty that if I open my mouth to ask what exactly that means, or what it is he has seen, the only thing I am going to achieve is, in the best of cases, to make him lose patience. So I do the only intelligent thing that occurs to me, which is to demonstrate to him that the warning has been received.

"About the references, you have nothing to worry about", I tell him.

"I have already written a version of the book in which I have eliminated them, and all the copies printed from now on will come out without them."

"It is a good idea", he answers me.

"And try, besides, not to speak of Buddhism in the future in this world." I register the warning, and decide not to ask about it not because it doesn't interest me, which it interests me enormously, but because I have just learned how this conversation works, and I know perfectly what I am going to obtain if I insist, which is nothing. But there is another thing I am indeed going to attempt, because it has stayed lodged in me since he said it.

"You have said to this world", I tell him, choosing my words with care.

"Does that mean there are others?" And the Feng looks at me with that enormous eye for a long while.

"There are things it is better you don't know with your current level of cultivation", he answers me at last.

"You will go on learning them naturally with time." And although it is exactly the answer I expected, I cannot help clenching my teeth since in neither of my two lives have I found anything more frustrating than someone who knows what you want to know and limits themselves to telling you that you will find out in due course.

"And now, since you have just told me that you have already resolved the matter for which I indicated to the Elders that they should bring you while they were hesitating over whether to interview you or not, only the second matter remains", he continues before I can insist.

"You must know that, whatever the plans they may have had for you, they are not mine and they are all the same to me." He straightens up a bit and suddenly the valley seems more silent.

"And precisely because they are all the same to me, upon seeing you I have understood that I must warn you", he tells me in a serious tone. Upon noticing his tone, I stay very still imagining the gravity of what he wants to tell me.

"First you must understand one thing", he tells me.

"Because of the particularities of my race, we see beyond what mortals see. Not better, nor farther. Beyond." He makes a pause.

"And upon looking at you, I have seen how the threads of destiny twist over you", he continues.

"Very soon you are going to find yourself obliged to choose between two options, and that choice is going to affect your whole life." I notice how my mouth goes dry again.

"One of those options is safer than the other", he tells me.

"But it will lead you to a life of sorrow and regrets."

"And the other will lead you to a life full of dangers and risks", he continues.

"But if you persist in it until the end, it will lead you to a door." And upon hearing what Tianyu Feng tells me everything else disappears. The valley, the tree, the nest, the mist, the heat I have gone through in the canyon, the carriage that awaits me and my father's urgent notification, everything, because in my two lives there is only one door he could be referring to, a door covered with inscriptions at the back of a cave that was collapsing and that began to shine while the ceiling fell on top of me.

"Do you know what that door is like?" I ask him, and my voice comes out considerably more tremulous than I intended.

"No", he answers me, and there is something resembling apology in that no.

"I cannot see images, and I only intuit that fork in your destiny because the choice is very close." I listen to him and stay a moment in silence because I don't know what to do with that. Sincerely, I don't know. They have just told me that before long I am going to have to choose between safety and regret, or danger and possibly the door that brought me here, and they have not given me a single clue as to what the options are nor when they are going to present themselves.

But at the same time I know perfectly what one does when someone gives you something like that, even if you don't know what to do with it, so I incline in the chair as much as my body permits me.

"I don't know what to do with this information", I tell him sincerely.

"But I thank you for your warnings." And the Feng takes a moment to answer.

"Don't be in such a hurry to thank me", he tells me when he does, and the tone continues to be serious.

"Because sometimes telling someone their destiny is the worst thing that can be done to them and, when the moment of that choice arrives, you may curse my name for having done it." I think about that for a second, and then I shake my head.

"I will not", I tell him.

"Because I know you have done it with good intentions." And then, because the sentence forms itself in my head and I don't have time to filter it, I say it aloud.

"Although I also know that, sometimes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions", I say finally. The Feng stays very still after hearing me.

"That is a good phrase", he tells me after a moment.

"I will remember it." And then, with a softness I had not heard from him until now, he adds the last thing.

"It is time for you to return home, child. And don't worry, because what you most fear is not the reason why you have to return." I open my mouth to ask, because he has just touched exactly the point that has been pressing on my chest since they told me there was an urgent notification from my father and I began to pray to the Heavens for a woman who only wants to paint, but I don't have time.

The Feng unfolds his wings and the warm wind of the wingbeats throws my hair backward again as he rises above us, climbs in two beats to the crown of the Wutong and disappears inside the golden nest without looking at us again a single time while a solitary feather falls onto my lap. At my side, Xia blinks while, behind me, I notice how Lianhua's hands tighten on the handles.

Both of them are looking upward, toward the nest, with the face of one who has just woken from a very vivid dream and has still not finished entirely returning.

"What happened to you?" I ask them as I carefully take hold of the feather. And Xia turns toward me all at once, with her eyes like saucers and her whole body trembling from the contained emotion she is carrying.

"I have been talking with the bird gentleman!" she blurts out. And a smile escapes me in spite of everything, because only Xia would be capable of calling the guardian beast of the Empire the bird gentleman.

"And what did you talk about?" I ask her. And then, to my surprise, her emotion goes out all at once and she lowers her gaze to the ground, joins her hands in front and stays hunched.

"I can't tell you", she tells me in a very small voice.

"He told me I can't tell you what we talked about because it could harm you." I look at her a moment, and decide not to press her because she has the face of one who is about to burst into tears.

"It's all right, Xia", I tell her with all the softness I can.

"It's fine." Then I lift my gaze toward Lianhua and she returns my look without telling me absolutely anything.

Not a word, not a gesture, not an explanation, only that perfectly firm and serene gaze I have spent twelve years learning to read and that at this moment is telling me, with all the clarity in the world, that she too has been given a message, that she too has received instructions about what she can and cannot tell me, and that I can ask whatever I want, whenever I want and in whatever manner I want and I am not going to get absolutely anything out of her.

So I let out all the air I have inside in a long sigh and let myself fall back against the backrest of the chair while I stroke the feather. A phoenix, or rather a Feng, which is similar but not the same. A warning about my destiny and a door. Two people in a trance whom they have made swear silence. And at the end of a journey of several days, something that has happened at the Imperial Palace and that is grave enough for my father to send an urgent notification to the Sect. What a morning.

"All right", I tell the two of them.

"It is time to return home."