Chapter Text
During the entire walk to the Alchemy Commission Yanqing and Yunli refused to speak a single word or look at each other even once. A fact that was starting to worry Jing Yuan as the buildings around the Healer’s Market slowly came into view in the distance. Normally the two children would be bickering left and right about the most mundane topics, but he has never seen them ignoring each other to that extent. Something must have happened during their spar.
“G-General?”
Jing Yuan brought a hand to his chin. He had only witnessed the last moment before he stepped in, so it presumably happened before that. If their exhaustion and ragged appearance were any indicators, they must have been fighting for at least an hour. Miss Yunli in particular seemed almost furious, maybe Yanqing said something inappropriate to her? Wouldn’t be the first time after all…
“Uhm, General, excuse me…”
But what worried him the most was the fact that Yanqing looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack when he appeared in front of them. It was nothing like the happiness and eagerness to please that the boy would usually display in his company. Jing Yuan couldn’t help but feel that he was missing something. Something incredibly important. He should probably pay more—
“GENERAL JING YUAN, SIR!!”
The tall man was thrown out of his thoughts by the sudden shout. He looked around and noticed a guard staring at him nervously. Apparently, they had arrived at the Healer's Market without him noticing. He cleared his throat.
“Oh… uhm, I must apologize. It seems that I was caught in my own mind.” He discreetly glanced behind him to make sure that Yanqing and Yunli were still following him. “I’m here on urgent business. Is the Dragon Lady currently present?”
“A-ah, yes, she should be back at her clinic now. I think she has finished treating all the wounded from the Borisin attack a few minutes ago.” The guard answered stiffly, straightening up his posture.
Jing Yuan nodded solemnly. “Good to hear, how many casualties do we have?”
The guard looked down, his grimace partly hidden behind his helmet. "Around the hundreds, I believe. Of course, I don't know the exact numbers, but I saw a lot of bodies being brought in and out the entire time. But all things considered, it could have been much worse, I think. Fortunately, we had lots of help from our allies due to the upcoming wardance."
The general’s expression darkened. Yanqing and Yunli who had joined his side by now had also been listening, deep scowls etched on their faces. The blonde boy gripped his arm with shaking force, his teeth biting down on his lips drawing blood. Jing Yuan laid a hand on his shoulder, hoping that it would reassure his young protege. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke up again. “I thank you for your report. We’ll be going to see the Dragon Lady now.”
The guard saluted him as the trio entered the market. The tall tree in the middle of the plaza bloomed splendidly as always, giving a stark contrast to the stressed alchemists running around the place. It seemed the aftermath wasn’t quite cleared up yet after all. Jing Yuan surveyed the area until he spotted Bailu in front of her clinic. He made a straight beeline for her, making eye contact with Yanqing and Yunli beforehand to ensure that they weren’t going to run off at the last second.
Bailu was looking around with a concerned expression, seemingly waiting for someone or something when she noticed the general walking towards her. "Ah, General Jing Yuan, it's good to see you. Back for another check-up?" Her voice was trying to be chipper as always, but the tall man could clearly hear the fatigue behind it all. "Uhm, have you heard from Yanqing and Yunli? I assumed they would be coming along with the other combatants involved with the Hoolay fight but they are nowhere to be found and no one has seen them yet. Are they..." Her voice dripping with worry trailed off before she could finish.
Jing Yuan smiled slightly before he answered, "Yes, I have. In fact, that's the exact reason I am here." He stepped aside to reveal the two troublemakers behind him. The little blood from their wounds had long since dried up, but they still looked pretty beat up.
At first, shock washed over Bailu's face at the state of their bodies, however, it was quickly replaced by overwhelming relief. "Oh, thank Lan, you are still alive..." She sighed, her hand hovering over her heart. "When you two weren't brought along with the other wounded for treatment I had assumed the worst. You were up against Hoolay himself, after all. So, I'm really glad that you only suffered a few small cuts and bruises. Nothing I can't fix up right away." The small dragon girl finished with her hands on her hips, chest puffed up in confidence.
She beckoned the three inside her clinic and started rummaging through one of her cabinets searching for medicine with her tail wagging happily behind her, not noticing the fact that Yanqing and Yunli were awkwardly avoiding her gaze and that Jing Yuan had to hold back a defeated sigh.
“Uhm… L-Lady Bailu?” Yanqing nervously raised his voice.
“Mmm-hmm?” The girl hummed without turning around, her head still buried in the cabinet.
“We… didn’t exactly… get those wounds from the fight with the Borisin.” Yanqing fidgeted with the hilt of his sword around his waist.
“Ah, found it.” Bailu pulled out a tiny box filled to the brim with various ointments and faced her patients again until finally, the boy’s words seemed to enter her mind. “Wait, what did you say?”
Yanqing forced down a gulp and continued, “Me and Yunli… kinda thought that we could get a quick spar in. And we maybe went a little overboard. So, nothing out of the ordinary, right?” At the end of his speech, he started to chuckle nervously, a small drop of sweat forming on his temple. “Y-yeah, exactly.” Yunli also chimed in with a chuckle of her own, rubbing her arm in anxiety, but not before shooting Yanqing another death glare. Bailu took notice but ultimately decided to shelve that for later. The boy's words took priority for now.
She sought Jing Yuan’s gaze with an incredulous expression on her face, hoping that she had just misheard. The general only sighed in response. “Believe me, if it were any other day, I’d find this all incredibly amusing. But well… it's true, unfortunately."
The dragon girl closed her eyes and put down the box she was holding with agonizing slowness. She then took a deep, deep breath and…
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU TWO!!!”
Yanqing and Yunli flinched immensely as Bailu angrily stomped her foot and stormed towards them, eyes holding the ire of entire generations. She grabbed the two by their hands and forcefully dragged them deeper into the clinic where the patient beds were standing. "Lie down! And no excuses!" Yunli wanted to protest but quickly decided against it, after witnessing the anger, but also pain, in the healer's look.
As they lay down, Bailu pulled out an ointment from her box and began applying it to their wounds with more force than what was probably necessary while grumbling the entire time. "I swear to Lan, do you have the slightest idea how worried I was about you two? First, you basically vanish into thin air after defeating Hoolay. Nobody knew where you were or if you were even still alive, it didn't matter who I asked. And now I learn that you pretty much just went 'Ehe, guess we'll spar and potentially worsen the injuries we've suffered during the literal fight of life and death earlier' without telling a single soul." She tried to put a slightly mocking lilt into her voice at the end, but instead, it took her everything to keep it from breaking down.
A tear was beginning to prickle at her eye as she continued, now quieter. "It's not just now, but almost every day you come to me bloodied and bruised and inches away from a life-altering injury, just because you two idiots can't keep your damn hands off each other." Her hands briefly stopped when Bailu eventually realized that she was too harsh with her words. Her own feelings notwithstanding, she should never allow herself to shout at her patients. All the stress was apparently reaching a boiling point. And she hated that.
Yunli winced while Yanqing felt guilt claw at his heart. Another important person in his life he kept disappointing. “Lady Bailu, I-I’m sorry, I—” He tried to speak but was quickly interrupted by the small healer now wearing the same guilt on her own face. “Please, don’t be. I should be the one to apologize, I said too much. It has been a very long day.” A defeated breath left her lips. “After all, I promised you and the general years ago that no matter what I would always patch you up when you’re hurt. That hasn’t changed.”
Bailu let warmth flow back into her gaze slightly reddened from the tears as she eyed the boy with affection. She had known him since he was found as a little baby, no parents or caregivers anywhere to be seen. She didn't even realize when he grew up so much. The boy always had a certain knack for getting himself hurt, be it from overexerting himself on his training or from his frequent missions as a Cloud Knight lieutenant. And she healed and brought him back on his feet every single time. It didn't take long before he felt like a little brother to her.
After she finished treating most of Yanqing's wounds, Bailu turned to Yunli as she prepared to do the same for her. "I want to apologize to you as well. We might not have known each other for more than a few weeks, but my outburst earlier was really uncalled for. I'm glad that you are here and that Yanqing can finally call someone his friend."
At that, Yanqing's face took on a scarlet red hue as he stammered, "I-I have a lot of friends!"
In response, Bailu just snickered weakly. "If you can call your sword collection that then yeah, you have lots of friends."
"I should have never told you that..." The boy grumbled under his breath. Bailu's giggle grew in volume as she returned her attention to Yunli. However, when their eyes were about to meet, the dark-haired girl looked away with what seemed like a mixture of guilt and irritation on her face. "You... you don't have to thank me. I'm not sure I deserve to call myself his friend."
The healer raised an eyebrow at the unexpected reaction but decided to let it be for now. That was something the two needed to talk about on their own. With one last satisfied nod, she finished her treatment. "Well anyway, that's that. The medicine needs at the very least another forty minutes to truly take effect, so keep your movement to an absolute minimum during that time, understand? I'll be outside if you need me for anything."
With that, Bailu left the room and closed the door behind her, coming face to face with a smirking general. He obviously overheard their entire exchange. The small girl’s cheeks turned a light pink as she released a deep breath she didn't even realize she was holding. "General, may I have a word with you?" Jing Yuan just smiled warmly. "Of course."
Bailu plopped herself on a nearby chair before she started speaking. "Do you know what exactly happened during their spar? They couldn't even look at each other properly and Yunli in particular seemed almost... angry with Yanqing."
Jing Yuan sighed. "Unfortunately, I do not. After they secretly vanished at the Scalegorge Waterscape I hurried to find them and when I did, they were already like this. I can only guess what happened. But it does seem more serious than usual."
Bailu nodded. "Yeah, I thought so as well... I may even have an idea why, although I'm not exactly sure." She waited for a moment before looking up at Jing Yuan with a determined, but also a little hesitant, expression. "Please don't take what I'm going to say now to heart… but I think that you may be partly the reason for their recent fallout."
Confusion crossed the general's face as he tried to make sense of her words. "What do you mean?" He finally asked after a second of silence.
The dragon girl avoided his gaze briefly before continuing. "I don't really want to disclose this, but after the Stellaron Crisis Yanqing told me in confidence that he lost most of his faith in his skills during the fight with that Stellaron Hunter." She closed her eyes as her body shook from the memory. "For Lan's sake, I will never forget how he was lying here with that gashing wound in his chest and how delirious he was from the fever. The entire time he was crying out to you, that he failed you and that he didn't deserve to call himself your retainer." Tears began flowing freely again from her eyes while Jing Yuan just stared at her in knowing pain, unable to respond.
"He almost died on me in that room, not because of the wound, he survived worse. But because he didn't want to live anymore after he thought he failed you. All the while you were busy beating that stupid emanator of Destruction to a pulp. And before you say anything, I know that that was your responsibility as an Arbiter General, I won’t hold that against you. But you have to realize that the moment you picked that orphaned boy up, you were no longer just a general. You now had another responsibility as a guardian, as a father. So please act that way. Yanqing needs it no matter how mature or reliable he may seem on the outside."
Anguish spread itself across Jing Yuan’s face as he stepped forward and put a consoling hand on the now shaking girl’s shoulder. When it finally came out, his voice sounded even more tired than ever. “I know, Bailu. Trust me, I know. I’m not allowed to make any excuses, so I won’t. However,” He raised his gaze. “I don’t think I have the right to fully see him as my son. After all, once the time comes when I’m struck by mara, he will be the one who has to strike me down, the same as I did with my master. If we treat ourselves as family, I don’t think that he —that I— could follow through with that.” He closed his eyes, taking a hitched breath. “I wouldn’t be able to leave him alone in the world.”
Bailu shook her head with widened eyes, unable to hide even a little bit of her sadness. “Jing Yuan, it’s already too late for that. Even if Yanqing doesn’t voice it, he wants to be seen as your son. And for all intents and purposes, he already is, he always was. Time is too precious to keep yourself from your loved ones forever. So please, I'm begging you. Be with your kid." She sniffled, her throat raspy and dry. "Or else I fear that he won’t be there for you anymore when the time comes.”
They stood still for a few seconds, the air hanging heavy from their conversation. Finally, Jing Yuan let out a deep and pained sigh. “I will try, Bailu. I promise you. I guess I might have just been afraid to fully let him in, a part of me still is, honestly. But you're right, that's no excuse and it's already too late anyway." Finally, a tiny, hopeful smile crept back into his face. "And thank you, truly. For everything you did for him and will continue to do.” He bowed before a stunned Bailu, her emotions mirrored by her eyes like clouds on a moonlit lake.
“Heh, I will hold you to that.” She whispered with a ragged breath while wiping her eyes. They both started to chuckle when suddenly, a muffled shout pierced through the silence like a bullet.
“SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!”
Jing Yuan and Bailu shared a quick, shocked glance and immediately burst through the door into the patient room. In there they were greeted by the sight of a furious and distressed Yunli glaring at and grabbing the collar of a resigned Yanqing.
The small healer couldn’t form a coherent thought. She, and the general as well, were only able to stare at the scene in disbelief, wondering what could have possibly happened during that short amount of time.
-A few minutes earlier-
Yanqing and Yunli watched as Bailu left the room, an awkward silence soon enveloping the two. With a slightly pained groan, the boy leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes until eventually, the quiet was broken by the girl next to him.
"She really cares about you, huh..." Yunli's voice almost seemed frail as it trailed off at the end.
"I guess that means we're on speaking terms again?" Yanqing answered playfully, a little bit of energy returning to him again. "But yeah, she does. Even though most of the time, I don't think I fully deserve it."
Yunli narrowed her eyes. "Why do you think that?" She asked, a small bit of animosity seeping through. Yanqing, however, didn't seem to notice it as he replied. "I mean, all I ever do is worry her and the general to death. You've seen it just now; if I were more capable, I wouldn't get injured so much and Lady Bailu wouldn't assume that I've died."
At that, Yunli sat up in her bed with a quiet hiss to glare at the rambling boy. "You do realize that you've got everything backward, right? You're more than capable, you just hesitate all the time which then leads to injuries." She truly didn't understand it. Why was he, a prodigal swordfighter who could easily keep up with her, so hung up on the notion of disappointing everyone? It annoyed her, to the point that she felt her previous anger which should have somewhat cooled down by now flare up again.
Yanqing, unaware of all of this, furrowed his brows as he glared back. “It’s because I’ve failed before and if I’m not cautious I will fail again. I cannot allow myself that. Too much hinges on my responsibility as a lieutenant of the Cloud Knights.” He broke their staring contest. “It’s not like you would be able to understand.”
Fury and hurt crawled into the dark-haired girl’s glare as she stood up from her bed and stomped towards her rival. “Why would you believe that?” She paused unsettlingly after each word, having to try her hardest not to immediately explode.
"Because…" Yanqing met her gaze head-on, his eyes starting to dampen as he raised his voice. "Because you are actually amazing. Because you don't have to worry about failure, you can do anything you want and succeed anyway. Because next to you I'm just… not good enough." He dropped his head again, afraid to look at the girl in front of him.
Every possible emotion crossed Yunli’s face while she was looking down at the defeated boy. She hated the sight; she hated how this prodigy she came to respect so much continued to beat himself down. He was supposed to be formidable, to be headstrong, to fight with her as an equal in every sense of the word. She just wanted him to be her Yanqing again. She wanted to laugh with him, bicker with him, spar with him. There was not enough time for all the things she wished to do with him together.
So, her mind gave up its control over her body and completely let her emotions take over.
Yunli grabbed her rival by the collar, voice, and expression inches away from breaking down, and shouted with all her might.
“SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!”
A second passed as Yunli scowled at Yanqing and he stared back at her in surprise and resignation. Meanwhile, the door to the room slammed open and Jing Yuan and Bailu barged in. After shaking off her shock, the dragon girl tried to step forward to intervene but was held back by the general’s arm. “Let them sort this out themselves,” he voiced silently with his mouth.
The two teenagers noticed nothing of that as they continued their staring contest. Finally, some fire was returning to Yanqing’s body which he used to retort loudly. “What do you mean ‘what’s my problem’?! I’m just saying that you are better than me and that I’ve already had too many failures to allow myself another one! What part about that is so hard to understand?!”
Yunli gaped at him in disbelief as the barrel holding back the last bits of her feelings began to crack. “There is absolutely nothing about this to understand! You are an incredible fighter and person; you can stand with me on equal footing, no one else my age could even dream of achieving that. So, what are you so afraid of, Yanqing?!”
The boy shut his eyes, trying unsuccessfully to blink away the forming tears, and shouted back. "I don't want anyone to leave me! Everyone only likes me because I'm strong and gifted! But what if someday I'm not anymore and I eventually prove myself to be useless?! I've already failed the general and the Luofu twice, it won't be long before I fail you too, and then—"
The barrel shattered.
"YOU COULD NEVER!!" Yunli screamed with her voice rising several octaves, shocking Yanqing and herself as well, as she let go of his collar and instead grabbed his face with both hands and brought it closer to hers. The sudden vicinity caused both their cheeks to flush, their foreheads touching ever so slightly as their respective visions were solely filled with the others.
They were stunned for a solid second before Yunli continued again, her voice now much frailer than before. “You could never fail me, Yanqing. Of course, there are mistakes to be made, that is inevitable. But I would never fault you for them or leave you over them. Not unless you were to give up. I won’t let you.”
At that point, Yunli stopped thinking about what she was saying and just let it all pour out. "Anytime you would fail, me, and everybody else who cares about you will help you stand up again. So please, don’t stop trying.” Slowly, the red in her cheeks grew deeper in shade. “You are strong, you are crafty, you are the funniest person I have ever met, your swordsmanship is a sight to behold, you are an ideal I learned to strive for and for the rest of my life I won’t allow you to be anything less than an absolute badass in front of me!”
Yunli was now panting heavily as if she had just run a marathon. Her eyes were glassy, and her heart was racing like a machine gun but still, she couldn't tear her gaze away from Yanqing. Even though she never wanted to admit it, she had to concede that he truly had a certain beauty to him. The way his long blonde hair fell partly over his shoulder now that it had been undone, beckoning her to comb through it with her fingers, the way his cute boyish face usually lighted up when he smiled, and the way his golden eyes glimmered adventurously even through the dark.
Likewise, he stared back at Yunli, with eyes wide and mouth hanging half-open. The non-existent distance between them and her admissions made him dizzy, his mind reeling and trying to form even a single coherent thought. He couldn’t help but admire every single facet of her, her molten amber eyes that looked like they had an entire sunset captured inside of them, her wavy dark-blue hair that trailed wildly and freely behind her everywhere she moved, and her now puffy face from which he wished he could just whisk away the sadness contained in it.
"Yunli, what..." He breathed quietly but a loud sob followed by a sniffle at his side suddenly pulled him and Yunli out of their reverie.
They whipped their heads in the direction the noise came from and finally became aware of their previously unnoticed audience. Bailu was crying up a river with a comically large snot hanging from her nose as she unsuccessfully tried to hold back a big, dopy grin. Jing Yuan, meanwhile, was just standing there with crossed arms, a sagely smile gracing his lips while nodding approvingly.
Immediately, Yunli jumped away from Yanqing like a bristled cat, face flushed crimson red from ear to ear even more than before after she finally regained consciousness over her actions and words. Her eyes darted back and forth between her rival and the two onlookers as the girl searched frantically for a way to get out of this situation. When she couldn't find one, she instead jabbed a finger at Yanqing, an undignified expression covering her entire facade.
"D-d-d-d-don't you dare get the wrong idea! I was just trying to cheer you up because I couldn’t bear seeing you like this and... and..." Yunli promptly faltered after being met with the initial disappointment in Yanqing's look. She would be lying if she said that she didn't know that his Lan-forsaken puppy dog eyes would be the death of her someday in the future.
The young girl covered her face with her hands as she let out a pathetic groan. “Ok… maybe I did mean every single word I’d just said. I mean, I do care about you and all that, and I don’t really know why, and I have no clue why looking at you makes me so… weird, and… but…” Her rambling grew more and more incoherent until it eventually turned into a whine. “Ugh, why am I even saying all that crap?!”
Yunli buried her head even deeper in her hands, wishing desperately for the ground to swallow her whole. Fortunately, a loud laugh bubbling up through the awkward atmosphere prevented her from spouting even more damning things. She raised her gaze in surprise to look at Yanqing on his bed doubling over because he couldn't contain himself. A sliver of annoyance that instantly turned into delight at hearing the sound flickered through her as she proceeded to pout at him. "H-hey, what's so funny about that? Do you want me to punch you?" However, in the end, she couldn't hide a grin of her own forming on her face.
“Ah, I’m sorry.” Yanqing giggled uncontrollably as his laughing fit subsided somewhat and he wiped a single tear from his eye. He stared at his rival with overwhelming fondness contained in his look, an action that Yunli was mirroring. Hah, he sighed internally. She really is amazing. A comfortable and content silence enveloped the room, a silence that was soon broken by another sniffle from Bailu.
“Aww, what a cute display.” She chimed in after finally getting rid of her snot by blowing her nose into a tissue offered by Jing Yuan. “However,” Her voice and expression became chilling, cutting through the air like a blizzard. “What did I say about keeping movement to a minimum, hmmm? You’ve now put an extension on your rest period, you know~”
Yanqing and Yunli immediately froze, their minds panicking and preparing for the worst. But, to their surprise, the dragon girl just put up a teasing smirk instead, while turning her head towards Jing Yuan. “Unfortunately, I won’t have the capacity tonight to house you two in my clinic. So, general, if you’d be so kind, could you make sure that these two troublemakers sit still over the night~?” She chirped with a wink.
Jing Yuan instantly understood her agenda and the assignment. "Why yes, of course, Lady Bailu." His smile turned into a smirk as well. "That would just have to mean that Miss Yunli is going to stay the night at our house tonight."
“HUH?!” The two rivals yelled in unison. “Does that mean I have to sleep in the same room as him?!” Yunli jabbed an accusing finger at Yanqing, the earlier atmosphere seemingly forgotten. “No way, his room probably stinks.”
“WHAT?!? I’ll have you know that my room is the cleanest of the entire Xianzhou fleet… presumably. What happened to all the compliments from before, anyway?” Yanqing quipped back, easily falling back into their usual banter. He didn’t know why, but it always felt… strangely comforting in a way. And honestly, he preferred it like that.
“T-That was only to cheer you up. And you’re cheered up now so it should be fine. Or can little Yanqing not handle a tiny bit of fighting anymore?” Yunli stuck out her tongue and turned away bashfully, trying to save face.
In return, Yanqing just sighed and shook his head in condolence. "And that attitude is exactly why you have such a hard time finding friends. You can consider yourself lucky that you at least have me." His voice turned to slight mocking at the end as he hoped that it would rile his rival up. And it worked.
Yunli whipped her head back into his direction, pure annoyance now plastered on her face. “Oh, says the right one, as if you’re that much better. Maybe you’re the lucky one. Besides, you—”
“Alright, alright, stop it you two!” With her voice and eyes dripping with exasperation, Bailu jumped between the two fighters and held out her arms trying to placate them. “You can continue your little lover’s quarrel anywhere you want, but not in my clinic. You have the entire night ahead of you for that.”
“LOV—?! WE’RE NOT LOVERS!” They sputtered in tandem, their faces immediately plunged into deep red again.
Yunli thought that she was going to lose her mind. There was no way that she was in love with that brat calling himself a swordmaster, what with his stupid, pretty face and his infuriating, thrilling attitude that always kept her on her toes and his annoying, gentle voice that she wished to hear in her dreams and…
Her thoughts ran away from her while she stood rooted in place. Oh Lan, she was in love with him. For quite a while even, it seemed. Yunli had always thought that falling in love would come with more fanfare, but the realization itself was rather… plain, anticlimactic even. And that irked her for whatever reason.
She decided to take a short glance at the boy in front of her, with him seemingly having had the same idea. The way his golden eyes now felt like they were piercing straight into her soul, made Yunli falter before she could utter even a single letter, her legs beginning to feel like jelly.
She didn’t know what match she was fighting anymore, but if she stayed here, even if just for another second, she knew that she’d be declared the loser.
So, she decided to run. “A-anyway, so I just have to sleep over at your place for a single night? Easy, not even a challenge. I’ll be going ahead now. Bye~” And before anyone could comprehend what was even happening, Yunli vanished through the door with a wave.
Yanqing was the first to regain his bearing. "He— hey, Yunli! Do you even know where you have to go?!" He yelled and proceeded to run after the swordswoman, but the general's voice held him back for another moment. "Wait, Yanqing, before you go…" The young boy spun around, his face questioning but still betraying a little wariness for what his master was about to say. "We… need to talk about something important. Can we do that later?" The general's expression was determined but also somewhat uneasy at the same time, a sight that Yanqing was definitely not used to seeing.
He hesitated briefly but ultimately decided to think about this more deeply later. "Yes, of course, General."
Jing Yuan smiled in relief. “Thanks, Yanqing.” After that, his lips took on a more teasing appearance again, his eyes beaming with their usual mischief. “Don’t worry, I won’t hold you back any longer. Go get your girl.”
Yanqing almost tripped over his own feet at that, his face betraying his utter embarrassment. “SHE’S NOT MY GIRL!” He shouted indignantly, voice cracking to before unknown heights as he sprinted through the door, hurrying to catch up with Yunli.
Jing Yuan chuckled lowly and watched the retreating silhouette of his student/son wistfully before letting a slight sigh escape his lips. "Well, I'd better be going as well. Wouldn't want to return to my house being already lit on fire."
Bailu also giggled warmly, having watched the entire scene with fondness. “Yeah, you better go. I hope your house will still be standing tomorrow.” They both shared a quick laugh before the dragon girl grew more serious again, her face, however, still carrying a lot of tenderness.
“Jing Yuan?” She called out softly which the tall man responded to with an affirmative hum. “Don’t overexert yourself. And please remember your promise.” His face flashed with short uncertainty, but it was quickly replaced by overwhelming resolve.
“Of course.” He showed Bailu a serene smile. “I hope the rest of your day will pass uneventfully.”
“Thanks, same to you. Take good care of them.”
"I will." With one last chuckle, Jing Yuan turned around and began his track back home with unhurried steps. The artificial sun was already kissing the horizon, dipping the surrounding scenery in a warm, orange glow. He hummed to himself peacefully, taking his time to watch the mechanical cranes fly through the sky, finishing their last deliveries of the day. After all, he had trust in Yanqing and Yunli that the two wouldn't completely thrash the house on their own until he was back…
Hopefully.