When the drumstick was a few centimeters above the table, it shimmered once more and morphed into a feather. A violet feather with faint sparkles of starlight shimmering on its lustrous surface.

Yang Qing inwardly breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the feather. He immediately regained control of his body and booted out Feng Xin’s mutinous spirit.

He couldn’t help but thank his lucky stars that the coin had managed to respond to his muffled, desperate plea, smothered as it had been beneath Feng Xin’s beguiling voice. His last attempt at salvaging the moment had been to imagine the one bird in this entire world he wouldn’t dare eat.

Shitong, you really saved my skin there, Yang Qing thought, trying to calm himself as he looked at the violet feather with a mixture of fright, relief, and the tiniest twinge of regret.

Yang Qing held the feather tightly, examining it closely. This was the longest he had stared at that bird’s feathers without his insides twisting in rage and the reflexive, overwhelming urge to throw a punch. The sense of relief and gratitude he felt gazing at that violet feather felt strange to him. But his gratitude at not embarrassing himself in front of Tang Xiadan by eating the coin overrode whatever strangeness he felt toward being thankful to Shitong.

It doesn’t feel quite the same as his feathers, though. The exterior is the same, but the flow of energy, while close enough, still lacks his ’nature,’ Yang Qing noted as he studied the feather.

Tang Xiadan, on the other hand, had a crisis of thought running within him. He’d seen the obvious look of gluttony in Yang Qing’s eyes when the coin had been a drumstick. And now he could see the scholar’s eye of intrigue that Yang Qing showed as he studied the feather.

Tang Xiadan’s pupils trembled slightly, and he involuntarily clenched his fist as a frightening guess floated to his mind, given what he’d just witnessed.

Could that be why— He didn’t even want to finish that thought. His pupils shrank further as his worry grew. Luckily, Yang Qing was too preoccupied with the feather in his hand to notice the changes in Tang Xiadan.

He didn’t care much when he saw spirit beast meat being sold in restaurants, or humans partaking in it. He was a partaker himself, on occasion. He had no qualms about it, given that it wasn’t exactly new to him. Surviving in the Green Fog Region meant that at some point in your life, you were likely to have consumed another spirit beast, whether for dominance, to increase your strength, to recover from injury, or some other reason that necessitated it.

Spirit beasts eating each other was the norm. In fact it would be considered stranger if you didn’t, because the instant a cub was born, before they even had a drop of milk in their system, the first thing they would be given was meat and blood from some spirit beast, maybe even an ancestor, given that was how spirit beasts with low bloodlines usually passed down their inheritance. A body of some ancestor would be preserved to be consumed by descendants to improve their constitution or hasten their cultivation.

So spirit beast consumption was a way of life for them. But. Tang Xiadan wasn’t sure if he’d be okay with sending a friend to be someone’s delicacy or research specimen.

His worry deepened as he watched Yang Qing’s gaze grow increasingly fervent, the latter even taking a whiff of the feather in his hand. Tang Xiadan wasn’t sure when it had happened, but there was now a scroll next to Yang Qing’s other hand, and he was already jotting things down.

Driven by the instinct to protect his friend, even if it was improper, Tang Xiadan felt compelled to sneak a peek at what Yang Qing was writing.

The smell: The duplicate smells of apples, peach with a touch of lilac, and faintly warm spring air. While the original captures the scent of grapes, mango, and plumeria. Sometimes passion fruit too, though I can’t be certain if that scent is because of the blooming flowers from the Celestial Linden Tree.

In terms of similarity they do share that saffron and cardamom scent...

If used in tea or soups, would the sensory effects they represent be manifested in said drinks? Further study needed...

In a flash, Tang Xiadan tore his eyes away from the scroll when he felt Yang Qing’s attention stir as he put away the scroll.

"Sorry, I lost myself there for a bit," said Yang Qing, smiling apologetically at Tang Xiadan.

"No, it’s no problem," said Tang Xiadan, smiling back stiffly, trying to sound as perfectly normal and composed as possible, even though inwardly he was in a quiet panic about what mess he might have dragged his compatriot into, all the while debating whether to tell Sister Hong about Yang Qing’s request to meet her. Given what he’d seen of the latter, he wasn’t sure it was a safe request to make.

Tang Xiadan’s gaze fell on the feather in Yang Qing’s hand. "That’s an interesting image. I wonder what bird it belongs to. It’s my first time seeing such a marvel," Tang Xiadan said coolly, masking his disingenuous probe behind the question.

"It really is a marvel," Yang Qing said, sighing in pleasure as his gaze fell on the feather. "It’s much nicer to look at than the original," he added.

Tang Xiadan’s pupils constricted at the response. He wouldn’t say he had the best intuition in the world, but after years of dealing with all manner of dangerous situations, more so from capricious and mercurial humans who almost always hid vicious daggers behind gentlemanly smiles, he’d developed a sort of sixth sense for veiled emotional fluctuations beneath outward actions. Drawing on that experience now, he detected something unmistakably hostile in Yang Qing’s expression when he mentioned the original.

What happened to the original? Did you beat it to death because its flavor and scent weren’t to your liking?! Tang Xiadan internally fretted.

I can’t let him meet her. I’m sorry, Fellow Daoist, while I feel indebted to you and I’m a man of my word, this time I will have to be the villain and betray that word to keep a friend safe. I hope that feather will be enough. The coin should be able to transform into different feathers and drumsticks. Please don’t have designs on my friend. Her feathers don’t even smell that good. They smell closer to algae or moss... surely that wouldn’t go well with soup or tea, thought Tang Xiadan, making a vow to never let the two sides meet.

As for Yang Qing, after a brief infatuation with the feather and realizing it wasn’t the place, he had the Ancestral Dragon Jade transform into a milky-white pearl resembling the pearls on his coat. After a brief moment of admiring it, he attached it to his outer coat, where it blended perfectly with the others.

Looking once more at Tang Xiadan with an unconcealed, friendlier, and more appreciative expression (which Tang Xiadan didn’t appreciate at all, as he interpreted it as a silent message from Yang Qing saying he looked forward to meeting his friend and thanked him greatly for his part in it), Yang Qing cupped his fists at him.

"Thank you for your generosity. That coin is truly a marvel," said Yang Qing, sighing with deep emotion. Tang Xiadan’s heart jolted at the sigh and the statement.

"Think nothing of it," he said, forcing a carefree laugh. Really!! Think NOTHING of it, he emphasized inwardly.