Chapter 33

Chapter 33: Dreamlike Illusions

Sunless Residence was unnervingly quiet.

Mo Ting Feng stared at the neatly folded moon-white gauze dress on the table, his thoughts slipping out of his grasp. He couldn’t stop seeing it—the way Song Wei Chen had sat onstage and played Guang Ling San.

She had looked so much like her.

And now that he thought of it… the second time he’d met Sang Pu, she had also worn moon-white gauze.

It was at the Mid-Autumn moon-viewing banquet at Marquis Zhao’s Manor. That night, the marquis’s residence overflowed with nobles and guests, beauties drifting like clouds. And yet Mo Ting Feng saw only her.

Moon-white gauze again—only this time, the collar was embroidered with cassia blossoms, as if the moon itself had left its scent on her.

Her face held more color too. It was a festive place. She looked like she belonged in that brightness.

Men crowded around her—admirers, flatterers, people who wanted to claim a smile. Mo Ting Feng had his own share of visitors and greetings to endure. He laughed, he spoke, he played the game—

And all the while, his attention kept returning to her.

Halfway through the feast, Sang Pu played the guqin and sang Autumn Swan, perfectly matching the occasion. Her technique and tone carried something ancient and lofty, as exquisite as a swallow’s cry carried on the evening wind.

The old marquis’s madam was delighted. She took Sang Pu’s hand and spoke intimately with her for a long time.

Mo Ting Feng watched from his seat, and a thought slid into place like a key.

Soon, they would hold the Heaven’s Will Bright-Ghost Rite, a grand ceremony that still lacked a suitable music-officiant.

Wasn’t Sang Pu the perfect choice?

And she happened to owe him a “debt.”

Mo Ting Feng smiled, pleased with himself. An excuse—clean, reasonable, unavoidable.

“Young Master Mo,” an elderly man said as he approached, white hair and beard catching the lamplight, “I hear you’ll soon take over as Grand Master. So young and accomplished—congratulations.”

Mo Ting Feng looked up and recognized him at once: the Crown Prince’s Tutor, Xu Zheng.

He stood and returned the greeting promptly. “Tutor Xu, forgive me. I should have gone to pay my respects first…”

They spoke for a time—politics, courtesy, the careful dance of words.

When Tutor Xu finally took his leave, Mo Ting Feng’s gaze snapped back to Sang Pu’s seat.

Empty.

The banquet wasn’t over. She wouldn’t leave early.

He rose and went to find her.

He found her in a quiet corner of the garden, alone by the water, watching the moon as if it belonged to her.

“We meet again,” he said, sitting beside her.

Sang Pu flicked him a glance. “If we count how many times you looked at me tonight, we’ve already met plenty.”

Mo Ting Feng laughed. “Miss, doesn’t that reveal you’ve been watching me too?”

“People like us,” Sang Pu said, voice calm, “are trained to read faces and act along with the scene. When I look, why would I look only at you?”

“People like you?”

“People like us.”

Mo Ting Feng leaned a fraction closer, smile sharpening. “Then what do I have to do to make a Miss like you look only at me?”

Sang Pu smiled. “Words like that—honeyed talk for butterflies and bees—shouldn’t come from the future Mo Clan Grand Master.”

She rose from the stone. “Young Master Mo, don’t forget your status.”

She turned to leave.

“Wait.” Mo Ting Feng stood too, catching the moment before it slipped away. “They say music is Brahma’s hidden language. It reaches from heaven to earth, moves through yin and yang, and can even connect to ghosts and gods.”

He looked at her steadily. “Soon we will hold the Heaven’s Will Bright-Ghost Rite. We lack a suitable music-officiant. Would Miss lend me a hand?”

Sang Pu studied him. “Is this the plan you came up with to make me ‘look only at you’?”

“Yes,” he answered honestly. “And if you refuse, I’ll use the debt you owe me as leverage.”

Sang Pu laughed.

When she laughed, it felt like even the moon softened.

“Come,” Mo Ting Feng said, gentling his tone. “Someone like you shouldn’t stay away from the banquet too long.”

They walked back side by side. In the eyes of others, they already looked like a painting.

As they moved, Sang Pu turned her head slightly. “You clearly know who I am. Why do you keep calling me ‘Miss’?”

Mo Ting Feng’s gaze didn’t waver. “Sang Pu means a tryst between a man and a woman. I assume the madam in that courtyard gave you the name. I’m waiting for your true name.”

He paused. “Only a true name lets two hearts meet.”

Sang Pu stopped walking.

“That is my true name,” she said.

Then, quieter, with something like weary certainty: “People like us don’t deserve a past or a future. Life is already a dreamlike illusion. So whatever I’m called right now is my true name. Whatever I say right now is my true heart.”

“Sang Pu,” Mo Ting Feng said, speaking it carefully, like an oath.

And for an instant, her face seemed to overlap with another—something deeper, older, unbearably familiar.

“I’m Song Wei Chen,” she said, voice even. “It means tiny as dust. It fits, doesn’t it? Ordinary people like us… in your eyes, we’re born as dust, lives as cheap as grass.”

Song Wei Chen…

Mo Ting Feng snapped back to the present so sharply it hurt.

This wasn’t Marquis Zhao’s Manor. He wasn’t the Mo Clan Grand Master.

What was he doing—letting his mind wander like this?

He was a Dust Warden. He shouldn’t be this distracted, this tangled, this… soft.

That little liar had run off angry and wronged. Tonight had been his fault, and he knew it. He should go see her. He should apologize.

But she wasn’t at Venerable Manor.

He searched the Dust Warden manor, thinking she’d be sulking somewhere in a corner. All he found was the White Robe tossed under a tree.

Had she gone back to that man?

He slipped to Moonwatch Tower in secret.

Wrong again.

The wind picked up.

Mo Ting Feng couldn’t find her. Anxiety gnawed into his bones, and guilt hollowed him out. For the first time in a very long time, panic cracked through his composure and showed on his face.