THE PALACE DOORS swung open.
Behind them was a scene bathed in golden light. The elaborate ornamental trappings of Guoshi Hall were flecked with gold dust. Pale yellow drapes hung to the floor, which was strewn with mats woven of soft golden straw, each soft cushion embroidered in gold thread—every detail exuded an imposing wealth.
In this ethereal glow, a man in loose-fitting robes sat by the window with his back to Li Qingqian, playing the qin with his head bowed. That qin was covered in human skin and strung with human hair. Set into the qin's body were nine human eyes, which spun and whirled with each of the man's movements.
Upon hearing the door kicked open, the man leisurely played a few last notes before muting the strings with a palm. "What brings a guest here so late on this quiet night?" he asked calmly.
Li Qingqian raised his bloody sword, his voice deep with hate as he bit out four words, "I come for vengeance!"
"Ah..." The guoshi laughed, light as smoke. "In all the Nine Provinces, there's no shortage of people—men and ghosts alike—who seek me out for revenge. But those with the ability to single-handedly break into the palace and come to the doors of my hall..." He turned his head, unhurried. "Those are truly few and far between."
As he turned, all the lights in the hall flared brightly. The Liao Kingdom's guoshi wore a golden mask. His black eyes flickered behind it inscrutably as he chuckled. "What kind of vengeance is Xianjun here for?"
"Blood vengeance," Li Qingqian said fiercely.
"Oh?" The guoshi rose to his feet with interest. "Whom did I kill?"
Li Qingqian knew there was no point in telling him Hong Shao's name. He said through clenched teeth, "The maidens sacrificed to the mountain... You know exactly what you did. You...liar!"
The guoshi was silent for a moment. Then he burst into laughter. "So Xianjun is this furious over a mere woman..."
Li Qingqian was shaking with anger, his eyes red. "You said you were looking for women with a certain appearance to take them in as priestesses, to teach them to read the will of the heavens. But in reality, it was to bury them alive on Phoenix Feather Mountain as sacrifices to the mountain god! Is this not the truth? Yes or no?!"
"No," the guoshi replied.
Li Qingqian was speechless with fury. However, he was a reasonable man. Upon hearing the guoshi's flat denial, he restrained his overflowing hatred. Eyes wide and chest heaving, he stared at the masked man.
The guoshi sighed. "Xianjun's assumption speaks to his ignorance. You accuse me in error."
"I...I..." Li Qingqian seemed to want to ask How am I accusing you in error, but he was too overwhelmed. The guoshi's response was nothing like he'd anticipated; he didn't know how to proceed.
"I did indeed take in those women," the guoshi said, "but saying I buried them alive in sacrifice to the mountain god is completely preposterous. Little Xianjun, let me ask you—how could Phoenix Feather Mountain have a mountain god?"
Li Qingqian blinked in puzzlement.
"Even the gods of the five evil mountains probably wouldn't be offered hundreds of live virgin sacrifices. And how does Phoenix Feather Mountain compare to them?"
"But—but..."
"It has no spiritual affinity. Its feng shui is deadlocked and inauspicious. You heard the rumors on the street and jumped to the conclusion that I wanted human sacrifices for the mountain god and thus capriciously pushed those hundreds of women into earthen pits to perish." The guoshi paused before continuing. ""Why would I waste my time on such a thing?"
Li Qingqian was unwilling to believe his opponent, but every word the man said was reasonable. The guoshi wasn't twisting any logic or hiding the truth, which left Li Qingqian indescribably lost. The look in his eyes was terribly weary and pathetic—as if the heavens had torn even the fire of revenge from him, leaving him with nothing but a cold and empty skeleton.
The guoshi watched him thoughtfully—watched as he lowered his head and stammered, watched as his eyes dulled and his determination left him. After a long interval, the guoshi raised his slender fingers to his mask and burst into a fit of giggles.
Li Qingqian looked up, his face deathly pale, at this man's strange behavior. In his bewildered eyes, the guoshi was like a man toying with a little bird. He laughed harder and harder, each peal like the rising of a frigid tide, until Li Qingqian's hair stood on end. "Why are you laughing?!"
"Pfft—l'm laughing because you're amusing. You're seriously too amusing. Water-Parting Sword Li-zongshi, your reputation for suppressing evil precedes you. I've looked forward to meeting you for quite some time. Are all the zongshi of this era so naive and innocent?"
Li Qingqian was stunned. "You knew who I was from the beginning?"
"With the sounds that sword was making outside, wouldn't I have to be deaf to miss it?"
"So what you just said was all a lie?" Li Qingqian spoke in a daze.
The guoshi sat back down on the qin stool, one hand on the zither, one hand on his knee. His eyes were bright and serene as he smiled sweetly. "Hm? Why would I lie to you? I've told you nothing but the truth. I never sacrificed hundreds of women to any mountain god, but I was indeed the one who buried them. Oh, not in exchange for the nation's prosperity, though..." He paused, chuckling again. "It was just for fun."
Li Qingqian was stupefied. "You—!"
"Do you know why I picked those women?" The guoshi strummed the strings carelessly and produced a stuttering stream of random notes. He looked down and laughed. "To be honest, the only thing they can blame is their resemblance to a certain bitch. She really made me hate her." He sighed, black pupils gleaming. "I wasn't happy."
"You... You're insane..."
"That's right, Iam insane," the guoshi giggled again. "But if I told you that I'm lovesick as well, would you believe it?"
"You—"
"Are you not curious about whom those women resembled?"
Li Qingqian didn't respond, but the guoshi was undeterred. "You see," he continued at leisure, "they all looked like this priestess I had...a lowly slave girl. I was generous with her, but she didn't respect me as she should. Instead, she repaid my kindness by doing something unforgivable. Then she vanished without a trace. I searched everywhere for her with no success. Then, many years later, I heard that a peerlessly beautiful woman had married a man in Chonghua. It was her."
The guoshi spoke of his all-consuming resentment in the most flippant of tones. "Tch, how moving. Everyone at the time said that such a pretty young thing must have been crazy to marry such a harsh and unfeeling man. Her looks were clearly unmatched, but for some reason, she insisted on stupidly clinging to a frozen chunk of wood with no understanding of romance. Truly, what an insult to her beauty."
Under his hand, the strings refined from human hair emitted a bloodcurdling shriek. The guoshi grinned. "I thought so too." He pointed to his own temple. "She must have had some problems up here, to wed that man by choice. You see, she was so naughty—she refused to be a good guoshi priestess and insisted on becoming someone else's nagging wife. Aiya, it really made me so mad."
The guoshi's voice was cheerful, as if he were chatting about inconsequential matters. "But what could I do? Someone in my position can't go around kidnapping brides. Therefore..." He leered savagely, baring two frightening rows of teeth. "I thought of an excellent method to rid myself of my unhappiness."
The guoshi studied Li Qingqian's paper-white face and laughed. "I, too, would marry," he said lightly. "Didn't they say she was a rare beauty, a beguiling temptress? So I insisted on marrying hundreds, even thousands of girls who resembled her. That bitch wanted to climb the social ladder, so I made sure to trample her into the mud. 'Devastating beauty'?" He laughed again. "Couldn't I have as many of those as I wanted? What was so special about marrying her?"
Never mind Li Qingqian: this time, even Mo Xi thought the guoshi must have been sick in the head. He was obviously mad.
"Look at me—I gathered hundreds of priestesses who all looked just like her. What did she count for?" The guoshi spoke raptly, his eyes gleaming. "I wanted wives, so I dressed them all in golden crowns and phoenix robes. I made them kneel before me one by one—"
Li Qingqian had held his tongue all this time, even though his face was waxy with horror. But at these words from the guoshi, his expression changed. "Hong Shao would never kneel to you!" he snapped.
He didn't expect the guoshi to merely glance at him and laugh without a word of denial. "Yes, there were those who wouldn't kneel."
Li Qingqian couldn't muster a response. The guoshi licked his canines, luminously white and sharp. He narrowed his eyes, his tone syrupy. "But all those who dared resist and refused, all those bitches..." He scoffed. "They learned to behave in death."
"You! You're such a—" Li Qingqian shook from head to toe with fury. Hatred coursed through him, but because he was a righteous man who never cursed, he couldn't find the words to hurl back at the guoshi. His face flushed scarlet as he sputtered through quivering lips, "Y-you..."
The guoshi just laughed, his eyes flashing with cruel satisfaction. "Why, those girls wanted to be arrogant and unbreakable? No problem—I buried them on Phoenix Feather Mountain and let the deadlocked feng shui refine them into vengeful ghosts!"
"Enough..."
"Plenty of disagreeable things happen in this world, and of course people don't always do as I'd like. I can't grant every one of my own wishes, but I can at least make it clear to everyone that they live at my mercy and die by my whims!"
"You must be insane... You're insane!" Li Qingqian could endure no more. With a flash of jade-green light, he swiftly drew his sword and struck toward the guoshi's neck. Mo Xi was a veteran of countless duels; he could instantly tell that Li Qingqian had perfected this move over the course of a lifetime. It was enormously powerful, capable of shattering stone and scattering snow. Certainly no more than three swordsmen on earth were a match for this strike.
But the guoshi didn't even flinch. From his lofty perch, he plucked the strings of his human-skin zither and produced a ringing twang. The glare of the Water-Parting Sword faltered, then blinked out completely.
"How—" Li Qingqian was stupefied. Even Mo Xi had never fathomed that such a mighty slash could be nullified so easily.
The guoshi rose and lifted two fingers, his silhouette swift as a ghost. Before Li Qingqian had gathered his wits, the guoshi had already reached out his hand and pinned Li Qingqian's blade between his fingers. With the slightest exertion of force, it shattered.
"You..." Li Qingqian leapt back and shook his head in horror. "How did you..."
The guoshi laughed. "How did I neutralize your sword so easily?"
Words failed Li Qingqian once again.
The guoshi's eyes sparkled serenely behind the golden mask as he carelessly tossed the sword hilt aside and slowly stepped closer to Li Qingqian. His hand shot out to brace against the pillar behind Li Qingqian as he edged in like a hungry panther. They locked gazes.
"It's the Water-Parting Sword." The guoshi's voice was low and sickly sweet. "How could I not know it?"
The last vestiges of blood in Li Qingqian's face had drained away. His back collided dully with the thick redwood pillar, leaving him no place to retreat. His pupils shrank as he stared into those eyes behind that golden mask. His heart plummeted. Were those... Were those the eyes from his memories? The eyes that had saved him and his brother from the flames of war, those almond eyes seemingly misted over by the rains of Jiangnan?
He couldn't be sure, and he was afraid to be sure. He felt cold, like every drop of his blood and every inch of his flesh had frozen over. His Water-Parting Sword technique had been developed from that green-clothed cultivator's sword manual. Who besides the man himself could possibly break his technique so easily?
But how could this raving madman in front of him—this dark and depraved guoshi—be his savior from back then? How? How could it be?! The only thing they had in common was the golden mask... Plenty of cultivators wore masks to conceal their faces. How could this lunatic be his benefactor?! How?!
He had already lost Hong Shao. He had lost his future. Now, the merciless heavens sought to raze even his past.
"No...no way... You can't be..." Li Qingqian trembled.
The guoshi's gaze was like a knife slicing into the space between Li Qingqian's brows. Slowly, he tore through skin and flesh to read the swordsman's horrified thoughts.
"Heh heh—although this Water-Parting Sword wasn't perfect, I was very fond of it in my youth." The guoshi chuckled lightly. "Listen—a sword of five years turns the seasons, a sword of ten years turns back time... Just from the first two lines, you can tell what kind of silly youth wrote this."
Li Qingqian shook his head. "No!" he cried, words tumbling madly from his lips. "You can't be him! There's no way!"
The guoshi didn't answer. He cast his eyes downward and bared his teeth in a cold leer. "Li Qingqian, since you learned from my sword manual, that more or less makes you my student. Dear disciple, this teacher knows that you must hate me, but there's plenty of fun yet to be had in my lifetime. All I can do is send you off ahead of me."
Li Qingqian's face was pale as bone. The guoshi chuckled. "Ah, I originally wanted to use the vengeful ghosts from Maiden's Lament Mountain to refine swords, but you came along, you little brat, and ruined my plan. Thank goodness you threw yourself into my trap—now I have something else to play with. Don't worry. Once you're dead, Shifu will definitely refine you into a powerful weapon. Be a good boy now, no tantrums."
Li Qingqian wasn't afraid of death, but he was afraid of this man. Could this lunatic truly be his savior, the man he'd always looked up to, that green-clothed cultivator?
"Did you...invent the Water-Parting Sword...and pass it to me? Were you...the man from...back then?" His voice was broken.
The guoshi only laughed. He said evasively, "To be honest, I didn't want to pass it to anyone at all. But... Never mind. Now that it's come to this, there's nothing left to say." He stood up, his eyes flashing with cold light. "Come along now—I'Il show you the real Water-Parting Sword! Shifu will teach you!"
Mo Xi inhaled sharply.
The guoshi's voice was still ringing. There was a dazzling burst of jade-green light, swift as a goose's shadow in flight and ruthless as thunder rending the skies. Hot blood splattered across the floor.
The vision flashed violently, and Mo Xi watched Li Qingqian collapse in a pool of his own blood. The guoshi sliced open Li Qingqian's chest with his sword and used his bare hands to rip out Li Qingqian's still- beating heart, followed by his quivering liver, intestines, and lungs. The guoshi cackled maniacally, his golden mask splattered with blood, the peals of his laughter swirling in unceasing echoes. Surrounded by scarlet, he licked at the blood on his lips and chortled softly. "Li Qingqian, you really, really shouldn't have fallen in love with a girl who looked like her. And you really, really shouldn't have learned this sword technique." He stared at Li Qingqian's corpse. "It was your fault for not knowing better," he said lightly. "Don't blame me in death."
At last, the guoshi stood and wrapped his bloody hand around Li Qingqian's neck. He dragged the swordsman's body out of the golden Guoshi Hall and into the starry night. A trail of fresh blood stained the gleaming bricks as the guoshi slowly towed Li Qingqian's corpse into the distance. As they disappeared around the corner of the palace, the guoshi's hoarse, unrestrained laughter rang out. He recited in a sighing voice filled with delight and madness:
"A sword of five years turns the seasons, a sword of ten years turns back time. This sword's edge sharp enough to part the waters..." He paused, then let out a shout of rapture and anguish, breaking the night's stillness. "This life...too short to part my heart from yours!"
Crazed singing filled the vision like a whirlpool, and everything began to fade. Without warning, Mo Xi dropped into an abyss of darkness.
When Mo Xi opened his eyes again, he saw a clear night sky resplendent with stars. The sparse brushstrokes of branches reached toward the heavens, and withered leaves trembled at their tips. The vision was over. He was back in Murong Chuyi's courtyard.
Mo Xi lay on the ground, his ears still ringing with echoes of This sword's edge sharp enough to part the waters, this life too short to part my heart from yours. Scenes from the vision played out before his eyes—from Li Qingqian and Hong Shao practicing swordplay outside their shabby dwelling, to the final bloodbath in Guoshi Hall.
He gazed into the dark sky and swallowed thickly, unsure how to feel. Only after a long while did a thought rise to the surface. He wondered— what if Hong Shao had never gotten sick in the first place? What if the heavens had blessed her with health and good fortune? Would those two have stayed together forever? The world would have one fewer sword demon and one more pair of lovers. The little drum would have become an old lady who still tagged along with Li Qingqian, as noisy as ever.
Could this have been possible?
Mo Xi wasn't sure. When he was younger, he knew very little of love; he believed that any couple could stay together so long as they persevered. Later, he discovered that wasn't the case. As it turned out, destiny was a force in this world. When couples in love weren't fated to last, they were destined for poverty, hostility, illness... All of these and more became unimaginable, unpredictable weights, hammering down on their interlocked hands.
When some people felt that pain, they let go. Those who persisted despite the hurt probably ended up just like Li Qingqian: gruesomely mauled, his bones shattered and tendons torn. He had been stalwart to the end, but still he broke. He endured all that suffering, only to end up unrecognizable.
Mo Xi rose. His eyes swept over the group's sleeping forms; the medicine hadn't yet worn off for the others. Finally, his gaze landed on Gu Mang, who remained unconscious as well. Mo Xi's heart felt painfully tight. He couldn't help but think that he and Gu Mang were the same— separated by the yawning chasm of class, crushed beneath the resentment of their homeland. Gu Mang couldn't bear that pain, so he had left Mo Xi.
In the end, Mo Xi was the one who had been left behind.
But perhaps their relationship couldn't be compared to that of Hong Shao and Li Qingqian. Perhaps Mo Xi and Gu Mang were never holding hands in the first place. Perhaps it was Mo Xi who had clung to Gu Mang's fingers out of a wishful, unrequited love, demanding that he stay and refusing to let him go. He didn't actually know if Gu Mang's declarations of love had been sincere.
Mo Xi closed his eyes and brought a hand to his throbbing temple. Slowly, he pulled himself out of the lingering illusion and his own heartache. The others had begun to stir as they woke from the vision, one after another.
Yue Chenqing had experienced neither suffering nor the helplessness of love, and so though he pitied Li Qingqian, he wasn't especially moved. The last scene had thoroughly disgusted him, however, and he retched as he struggled to his feet.
"That Liao Kingdom guoshi... He must be insane!" Yue Chenqing gulped for air after emptying the contents of his stomach. "What's he scooping out other people's organs for—was he a wolf in his past life?!" he asked weakly.
The two Murongs seemed mostly unperturbed. Murong Chuyi's eyes were closed in expressionless meditation, while Murong Lian leaned wearily against a decorative stone and said, "You know how sword spirits are—the more horrifically they died, the more powerful they are. There used to be a master artificer who liked to coat people in glue, peel off their skin, cover them in sugar water, and throw them into a wasp's nest..."
Yue Chenqing flapped his hands frantically, gesturing for him to stop, and then clutched at his stomach to retch loudly again.
Murong Lian stopped, disgusted by Yue Chenqing's antics. He braced a hand against the stone and pulled himself to his feet. After stretching briefly, he sneered. "At least I know now that Li Qingqian's Water-Parting Sword wasn't his own work after all. He learned it from that sword manual the Liao Kingdom guoshi gave him."
"They're not the same." Murong Chuyi spoke up.
"How are they not?"
"Li Qingqian developed his version of the Water-Parting Sword based on his own understanding. The foundation of his technique was 'the benevolent blade parts water, the righteous blade cuts sorrow; compassion despite lowliness, resilience against a thousand hardships.' But the core of that Liao man's technique was 'this sword's edge sharp enough to part the waters, this life too short to part my heart from yours.' One was based on righteousness, while the other was based on passion. They're totally different."
Murong Lian stared for a moment, then he scoffed, refusing to concede. "Ignorant Immortal, Ignorant Immortal—we may call you 'ignorant,' but you're actually just batshit crazy."
Yue Chenqing was protective of his uncle to a fault. He was still nauseous from disgust, but as soon as he heard Wangshu-jun speak to Murong Chuyi in this manner, he couldn't help but snap angrily, "You're not allowed to insult my fourth uncle!"
"Why can't I insult him?" Murong Lian looked askance at Yue Chenqing. "In all of Chonghua, save for His Imperial Majesty, is there anyone whom I, Murong Lian, may not insult?"
"Murong-dage, y-y-you're being unreasonable! I'm going to tell His Imperial Majesty!"
"Sweetie," Murong Lian retorted, "why don't you go tell your mother?"
Yue Chenqing paled and shook with fury. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, he saw a flash of white clothing and heard a crisp slap— Murong Chuyi had backhanded Murong Lian across the face.
Everyone was stunned into silence. The slap plunged Murong Lian into an insensate daze. He brought a hand up to his cheek in rage and shock. "You...you dare..."
Murong Chuyi's long sleeves and silk ribbons fluttered. Beneath his sharp brows, his eyes were as icy as a dagger's blade. "What wouldn't I dare?"
Murong Lian was on the verge of exploding, his peach-blossom eyes red with fury. "You bastard! This lord is—"
Murong Chuyi slapped him again. "Who do you think you are?"
Murong Lian had never been so humiliated by someone of his own generation. He was so mad he was seeing stars, and his hand trembled where he held his pipe. "You...you've got some nerve... I will report this to His Imperial Majesty—you—you don't know your place..."
Murong Chuyi narrowed his phoenix eyes slightly. His pale lips parted as he coolly recited Murong Lian's words back at him. "Tell His Imperial Majesty? Why don't you go tell your mother?"
Murong Lian flushed scarlet. A vein pulsed in his neck as he rushed forward to fight Murong Chuyi.
Murong Chuyi dodged to the side. With a wave of his sleeves, he intoned, "Make him get lost."
Yue Chenqing hadn't expected to receive such a command from his fourth uncle. Wide-eyed with shock, he nodded blankly. "O-oh, okay..."
"I wasn't talking to you," Murong Chuyi replied.
"Huh?"
Then Yue Chenqing heard the clacking of wooden armor—every last one of the bamboo warriors surrounding Gu Mang sprang to life and strode toward Murong Lian. Murong Chuyi stood with his hands behind his back, shielded by the horde of wooden automatons, and watched Murong Lian coldly. "Bid our guest farewell."
Wangshu-jun's rank ensured that he was flattered and respected wherever he went, but now, Murong Chuyi was sending a wooden army to boot him out. By the looks of it, if Murong Lian didn't leave of his own accord, they would knock him down and carry him away. Trembling with rage, Murong Lian pointed a shaky finger at Murong Chuyi. "I dare you!"
"Throw him out," Murong Chuyi snarled, his white robes flashing snow-bright. The bamboo warriors clattered noisily. They swarmed together and shoved Murong Lian out of the courtyard as ordered.
Having disposed of Murong Lian, Murong Chuyi turned back to them, unfazed. He took a seat at the stone table in the courtyard as if nothing had occurred. "Xihe-jun, sit."
Mo Xi had no words. The Ignorant Immortal was truly unhinged.
Yue Chenqing, for his part, was used to his uncle's disposition. "Fourth Uncle, can I sit too?" he asked earnestly.
Murong Chuyi didn't even look at him. "You stand."
".. Okay," Yue Chenging mumbled.
Murong Chuyi raised a finger. Two bamboo warriors quickly came forward from beneath the colonnade and set the table for tea. After two cups were poured and placed, Murong Chuyi continued conversationally, "Let's talk business. Now that we know what happened to Li Qingqian, what are Xihe-jun's thoughts regarding the fugitive sword demon?"
Mo Xi stole another glance at Gu Mang before turning back to Murong Chuyi. "He won't leave Chonghua of his own accord. He'll seek out the peerless beauty that the guoshi mentioned."
"But that sword spirit was so strange," Yue Chenging mused. "The Li-zongshi we just saw was such a nice person, so how come he's..."
"Li Qingqian is a sword demon, not a sword spirit," Mo Xi replied. "After his violent death, he was refined into the Hong Shao Sword. He likely retained some of his own thoughts at first, but the guoshi must have kept Hong Shao by him for a long time. It probably came into contact with significant quantities of resentful energy and fresh blood. Under those conditions, Li Qingqian's manner and temperament would become more like his owner's every day."
Yue Chenqing was startled. "So Li Qingqian's temperament had become similar to the guoshi's by the time we met him?"
"Mn," Murong Chuyi responded.
Yue Chenqing gave this some thought. "I see... Then the guoshi probably gifted the Hong Shao Sword to someone else, right? If it still belonged to the guoshi, it's unlikely that it would've landed in Murong Lian's hands."
Mo Xi shook his head. "Whoever owned the Hong Shao Sword last doesn't matter. The important thing is what Li Qingqian will do next."
"Correct," Murong Chuyi said. "Due to Li Qingqian's transfiguration, he behaves just as the guoshi would. Because his obsession is so strong, he's probably already lost his sanity, so we can't assume he would make decisions like a rational thinker. However, the object of his obsession is no mystery. He seeks the 'peerless beauty' of whom the guoshi spoke."
Mo Xi agreed with Murong Chuyi's analysis. After all, it seemed Li Qingqian had kidnapped those women not to kill them immediately, but to make them tell him the whereabouts of the other lookalikes. Then, with the information they gave him, he snatched them one by one to defile and kill. Li Qingqian probably believed that if this woman hadn't gotten married and provoked the guoshi's jealous resentment, Hong Shao wouldn't have met such a tragic end.
Li Qingqian had become a crazed monster. Mo Xi considered this and turned to the young man beside him. "Yue Chenqing, do you know who was considered the most beautiful maiden in Chonghua ten years ago?"