“Cultivating myself physically and spiritually,” Zhou Zishu answered lazily. He put his carved flute up to his mouth, then blew, finally getting it to make sound… when others played the flute, it was a heavenly sound that entered the clouds, but when he played it, it was a demonic noise that pierced the ears, sometimes shrill, sometimes hoarse, and not a single note in-tune regardless, crowing and twittering. This was clearly not self-cultivation — it was a cultivation of any listeners’ endurance.

Covering his ears, Lord Seventh took the carving knife and wood piece out of his hands. His fingers were extraordinarily nimble; in just a few motions, the flute was fully shaped. It didn’t look any different from Zhou Zishu’s craft at a surface glance, but after the latter took it back, brought it to his lips, and then tested it out, the change was audible. He played out a folk ditty from the wildlands, which was actually quite nice.

At the end of it, he put the flute down with a smile. “You’re worthy of having been the number one capital dandy that could pick up and put down anything, from poetry, to songs, to dining, drinking, hustling, and gambling. All that playing around gained you a couple of tricks.”

Lord Seventh grinned. “He left?”

The other nodded.

“You didn’t go with?”

“I wanted to, of course, but there’s too much of a mess on their end. One praying mantis is hunting a cicada while having a hundred siskins behind it. I’ll wait a little, then go take an assessment. I’ll go fish him up when the time is right.”

“You’ll only fish him up? Nothing else?” Lord Seventh gave him a look. “If he was Jiuxiao, you wouldn’t be so unworried.”

Zhou Zishu smiled, shaking his head. “How could he be compared to Jiuxiao? He was just a kid, while he… knows what he needs to do. I can’t meddle in his affairs, either. He has to solve them by himself.”

As he talked, he stood up to stretch out his muscles. Sticking the short flute Lord Seventh had carved and his hip flask both into his belt, he turned away. “Thanks a bunch for the flute — if I haven’t guessed wrong, that Scorpion is the first siskin. I’ll go out, grab a flower-engraved pot, and get ready to take flight with him.”

Lord Seventh lifted his head to look at him. Zhou Zishu’s back was against the light; the look on his face was unclear, yet his cheeks appeared to be bordered with gold. “Go quick and come back quick,” he thus said with a smile. “Don’t neglect your healing time.”

Zhou Zishu waved, then strode out.

The other lowered his head, whittled out another little flute, blew the sawdust away, then put it up to his lips, as if to send him off.