The rumours swiftly traversed the grounds, carried on the backs of the men tending to Zhou Estate's gardens to the other many attendants of the Zhou Household.
But, it would be only an hour after I had left the Family Vaults that such news would reach the ears of the Majordomo and, consequently, the Zhou family head.
One as perceptive as myself could quickly catch onto the intense, almost combative attitude that seemed to shroud the once-tranquil gardens when an attendant fearfully interrupted my birdwatching.
The woman, clad in pale white robes, golden threads embroidering its edges in the style of chasing and leaping animals, was surprisingly well-dressed for a servant, her hair neatly tied up in a bun; the woman giving a low bow, her arms hidden beneath the sleeves of her robe.
"This servant humbly greets the Young Master."
Her voice was pretty, its tonal shifts carefully controlled, and whatever apprehension she felt was masked beneath layers of formality, submissiveness and grace.Yet, cracks slowly manifested across that mask of etiquette when I did not respond to her greeting, my eyes glued on her pale face, lathered in powder, my attention seemingly causing the woman to duck down her head in a bow as if to shield her face from my view.
For the young serving girl, it seemed as if she had caught the eye of the debauched second son of the Zhou Clan, his infamous reputation and equally controversial punishment was known throughout the Sect, and at this moment, she curses the Majordomo silently, bemoaning her lot in life as she waits apprehensively, to be plucked by the handsome monster in front of her.
Fortunately for her, I remained largely ignorant of her thoughts or my reputation; I could absorb only so many memories at once, and the many experiences and shared knowledge of Zhou Wen had slipped through my hands during the initial moments of my faux enlightenment.
This included the name of the young serving maid that danced on the tip of my tongue, pinching at the periphery of my thoughts as I tried my best to shift through memories, the drunken experiences and narcissistic perceptions clashing with the id of the Exalted Fire, throwing me into a crisis of identity.
Whilst my mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, the minutes ticked by in silence; the serving girl steadily grew more and more unnerved by the uncharacteristic quietness and stillness of the Young Master, the smell of blood and burnt sulfur clinging to his body and wafting off him in waves, causing her nose to twitch and her to take shallow gasps through clenched teeth to tolerate the stench.
This wouldn't do, not at all; I would need some time to meditate and bring some much-needed order to the chaos in my meridians that threatened to strip me of control; already, I could feel the tell-tale signs of arousal from my body; it hungered for release, alongside it, came tell-tale nausea and irritation of an alcoholic, the phantom taste and scents of wine only further souring my mood.
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This Zhou Wen was not a man who understood nor practised self-control.
While I had hopefully supplanted his control over his body, I could not override the natural inclinations drilled into it from years of unrelenting debauchery.
"I am not Zhou Wen... I am Zhou Wen..."
I mumble to myself repeatedly, my eyes flickering away from the serving girl, whose name remains far from my reach, unimportant in the face of my incompetence in taming the wild beast that is Zhou Wen's urges.
The girl seemed outright shocked by the oddity before her, to see the Young Master now pacing back and forth on the small bridge, his arms folded behind his back as he continued mumbling unintelligibly; a range of names, cultivation techniques and even more things she doesn't understand.
To her, there can only be one answer.
"The Young Master has suffered a mental affliction."
The Majordomo whispers; the pudgy man was dressed in faded grey robes of far more austere fashion than the other inner servants; one could barely consider them above rags from the noticeable stitching from past maintenance work on the ageing cloth.
The ever-smiling man was perhaps the only man who could enter and invite himself into the inner sanctum of the Zhou Household and present himself before the Zhou Patriarch without so much a word of greeting, and in this situation, he felt its use was warranted.
When Young Ma came rushing to him, babbling about the Young Second Master seemingly caught in the grips of babbling, self-introspection and dazed pacing, the Majordomo knew immediately that he had to judge the potentially disastrous situation for himself.
It took only a minute of observation for the fat old man to feel the Qi emanating from the Young Master to know immediately what had occurred.
"I believe he suffered from Qi deviation during his closed-door cultivation, which has caused significant backlash to both his Core and mind."
The Chief Steward states in his soft eunuch voice, though a smile remains affixed upon his face, it is clear from the crinkling of his eyes, how his generous cheeks tighten, and how thin his lips have become, that the pudgy man is clearly distressed by the news he has brought his lord.
Yet, if one were to expect a sympathetic or caring response from the Young Master's father, the Lord Patriarch, they would be found wanting, so the man, seated on his small throne of wood and gold, stares down at his Chief Steward, a bored expression on his face, his voice unconcerned, ringing out across the hall.
"Have him confined until he returns to his senses; should he seem not to recover, you may summon the services of a physician if they can be trusted to keep silent."
And with that, Zhou Ren, Patriarch of the Zhou Family, considers his paternal duties fulfilled and turns to more pressing issues of substance than his drunkard of a spare.