Once she uttered these words, the few of them were briefly taken aback. Zhou Zishu sat up slightly straighter, but did not pursue any line of questioning, as though he was turning something over in his mind while he waited for Gao Xiaolian to vent her emotions. He frowned.
Wen Kexing eyed him, and with a very natural gesture, placed a xiaolongbao in the bowl in front of Zhou Zishu with his chopsticks. Glimpsing this out of the corner of her eye, Gu Xiang hastily lowered her head, and pretended not to have seen it out of propriety. A while later, she stealthily raised her head again, her gaze roaming between the two men. She thought about it, felt that the situation was uneven, and placed one in Cao Weining's bowl too.
Cao Weining was instantly overwhelmed with delight by the favour he was shown.
On the other hand, Zhang Chengling was the only one who commiserated with Gao Xiaolian. He could not bear to see her cry, but as he was inarticulate, he did not know what to say. He could only carefully accompany her in her grief, and after a while, finally came up with something to say, "Miss...Miss Gao, don't be sad, my dad's dead too…"
Zhang Chengling bit his lip, silently reprimanding himself. It was nonsensical for him to say something like this--just because his own dad had died, did that mean someone else's dad deserved to die? He started to panic a little. However, Gao Xiaolian, knowing that he meant well, did not take it to heart. She squeezed out a smile for him in thanks.
At this moment, Cao Weining spoke up, "I heard that a while ago, Hero Gao personally escorted Hero Shen's remains back to Shuzhong. Afterwards...did something happen then?"
Gao Xiaolian reached up to wipe her eyes clean of tears and lowered her gaze, her expression settling--while this girl had been sensible since they first met her, she was, after all, a young lady from a wealthy family. Even when she left the house, she had her shixiongs to protect her, and she carried a hint of inexperienced naivete. Yet, in the short span of a few months, she had gone through too much and seemed to have become another person entirely. Her voice still quivered, but her emotions were already reined in.
She spoke softly, "Back then, Daddy said he wanted to send Uncle Shen off on a last journey with the other heroes. At first, he agreed to take Deng-shixiong and I along, but he suddenly changed his mind the day before we set off, and made me stay behind. I...at that point in time, I thought he was going back on his word, and had a fight with him, but Daddy was adamant about not bringing me along. He even said...even said a lot of things that didn't sound nice, things like how the current situation was tense, that we might run into much trouble on the way, that the Ghosts from the Valley are still lurking about outside, and I would slow down their journey…"
A teardrop slid down her cheek. Zhou Zishu said gently, "Your father must have been concerned about something that was inconvenient for him to voice, and made you stay behind out of consideration for your safety."
Gao Xiaolian nodded. "But I…"
Zhou Zishu said, "As long as you are safe and sound, you are preserving his bloodline on this earth, and have not let your father's efforts go to waste."
Gao Xiaolian bit her lip. A long while later, she continued, "I was unwilling to accept it, and planned to follow them sneakily after they left. But who knew that Daddy...Daddy sent people to keep me under surveillance, and left with shixiong. I sulked for half a month, before the shixiongs and shidis guarding me released me, and said that this was also an arrangement Daddy had made. They wanted to escort me to a place to meet up with them. At that time...I felt that something was amiss."
The few of them could not care about eating as they listened to her. Only Wen Kexing's expression was still rather placid; he did not interrupt, but ate slowly and with a rarely-seen genteel elegance. Occasionally, he placed small portions in Zhou Zishu's bowl with his chopsticks.
Gao Xiaolian said, "I snuck away when their guard was down, planning to go to Shuzhong to find Daddy, but...but I ran into Deng-shixiong on the journey there. He was grievously injured, and someone was hunting him down."
Cao Weining asked, "Was it the Ghost Valley…"
Abruptly, Zhou Zishu cut him off, opening his mouth to ask, "Do you recognise the person who was hunting him down? Were they people from the heroes' gathering at Dongting?"
Cao Weining stared at him with his eyes wide and mouth agape. He swallowed, then murmured slowly, "Zhou...Zhou-xiong, these words are probably best not spoken flippantly?"
Zhou Zishu leant back on his chair, and said in a soft voice, "According to Miss Gao, Hero Gao brought people from various major sects with him. If they were really the Ghosts, why would they hunt Deng Kuan down when Hero Gao has the advantage in numbers? Whose lives are they desperate to lose?"
Gao Xiaolian started to tremble all over. "Yes...you're right, they were the ordinary folk from the orthodox sects. They said that Daddy was the one who killed Uncle Shen, said he was the culprit who harmed the Zhang Family and the Taishan sect leader, colluded with the evil Ghosts to...to obtain the Lapis Armour. They even revealed the story of what Rong Xuan and the rest did all those years ago, how they stole the secret manuals of various sects with Daddy's involvement, and for the sake of his own reputation, Daddy concealed this part of the past, even attempting to kill witnesses, claim it for his own…"
Eyes wide, Zhang Chengling bolted to his feet. "What? He…"
Zhou Zishu raised his head to look at him, and commanded coldly, "Little tyke, sit down."
Zhang Chengling looked at him. "Shifu, she said...she said…"
Gao Xiaolian's voice suddenly soared in pitch as she screeched, "It's not true, they're talking nonsense, they're maligning my dad, my dad isn't that kind of person!"
Zhou Zishu merely said coolly, "Indeed, Hero Gao is not that kind of person. Miss Gao, do continue."
His voice was low, and seemed to have a sort of special soothing effect. Gao Xiaolian glanced at him, and felt that she had overreacted. Slightly ashamed, she cast her eyes downward, and continued, "Deng-shixiong told me to run...I was terrified out of my wits, and fled blindly. I was also afraid that someone would be chasing me down, so I avoided crowds on the road. Shixiong was grievously injured, I don't know if he...if he's still…"
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing exchanged a glance . By the looks of it, they thought, Deng Kuan's fate was most likely grim.
Cao Weining said, "Then you fled blindly, ran into the Black Poison Hag, and accidentally let your identity slip? Was this what tempted them, and made them kidnap you?"
Gao Xiaolian nodded. "I didn't accidentally let it slip. Someone had caught up to me, during which the Black Poison Hag interfered and took me away...they wholly believed that Daddy had the Lapis Armour, and that now that he was dead, those ghastly things would definitely be in my hands…"
She was yet another Zhang Chengling.
Gu Xiang interjected, "Oh, yes yes, after we were separated at Dongting the last time, Cao-dage and I bumped into Lord Seventh. Lord Seventh said that they were going to think of a way to save Zhou Xu's life, and we looked for you together for a while. But we just didn't know which faraway place where a bird wouldn't even shit you two ran off to in order to get hitched…"
Hearing that her words were becoming more ludicrous, Cao Weining hastily coughed once to cut her off.
Yet, Wen Kexing paused. Ignoring Gu Xiang's nonsense, he asked, "Lord Seventh said that there is a solution?"
Gu Xiang said, "The Great Shaman said that he's thought of some, and made us contact them after we've found Zhou Xu--according to rumours, those women in black are the surviving foes of the Nanjiang Black Shaman years back. The Great Shaman killed most of them in the early years, but then they conned a bunch of silly wenches from somewhere into becoming their followers, and have been scraping by for a good few years. This time, they've come to muddy the waters, and the Great Shaman said that this was a good opportunity to net them all. Cao-dage and I had nothing to do, so we went to keep a lookout, all in the name of gathering merits by doing good deeds. Who knew that we'd bump into Miss Gao? This time, we've struck gold gathering merits!"
Wen Kexing glanced at her with a strange look, frowned slightly, but did not say anything. Instead, he turned his head to ask Zhou Zishu, "What do you think?"
Zhou Zishu was silent for a long while, before he sighed and said, "Almost all those who know what happened have died, leaving only that one person. The victors and the losers are evident--why do you need to ask me such a question?"
At the same moment, Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman, the subjects under discussion, were also at an inn. Lord Seventh was happily playing with a chopstick, and was childishly trying his hardest to stand it on its end.
Unfortunately, the head of that chopstick was not flat, but had a slight curve to it. He had been trying for a long while without success, but was still determinedly positioning it with his full concentration, even neglecting his meal.
The Great Shaman watched him for a long time, then finally sighed. Gently, like he was coaxing a child, he said, "Beiyuan, stop playing. Eat your meal properly."
Lord Seventh made a noise of agreement, but still his gaze did not shift from the chopstick. The Great Shaman had to feed him spoonful by spoonful; this Great Shaman of Nanjiang looked frosty, and was not a man of many words, but he seemed to have infinite patience for Lord Seventh.
Lord Seventh was used to it, and ate each spoonful he was fed. The Great Shaman couldn't help himself from asking, "What are you doing?"
Lord Seventh said, "I want to stand this chopstick on its end."
The Great Shaman frowned, not understanding what he meant by that. He plucked the unfortunate chopstick from his hand, and jabbed it lightly at the table. As though the table surface was made of tofu, the Shaman punctured a hole into it, and the chopstick was planted steadfast in it.
Lord Seventh glared at him. "This method of yours is one of brute force, you can't do it like this."
The Great Shaman smiled indulgently, but did not say anything else, and merely watched him tinker around without comment as he fed him.
Lord Seventh muttered to himself, "One chopstick can't stand on its own. I need to find another chopstick."
As he spoke, he picked up the other chopstick. After a very long while, he had indeed precariously balanced the two chopsticks on their heads, propping each other up on the table. Carefully, Lord Seventh pulled his hands away, and started to speak extremely softly, as though he was afraid that a large breath would topple the chopsticks he had gone through so much trouble to erect.
The Shaman heard him say, "Achieving equilibrium--is really too difficult."
The Great Shaman was slightly confused, and asked, "What?"
Cheerily, Lord Seventh said, "If you desire a situation to result in something long-lasting and stable, it must be in equilibrium. Harmony is one sort of equilibrium, and division is another sort of equilibrium. The way to equilibrium is none other than…"
The Great Shaman pinched his nose bridge and interrupted him. "Beiyuan, stop rambling about irrelevant things."
Yet, Lord Seventh was not angry. As though he was used to being cut off, he continued, "To achieve the equilibrium you desire, there are many conditions that have to be fulfilled, and it is terribly difficult to achieve this. Firstly, both sides have to be equally matched. There cannot be a stronger or weaker side, otherwise, the stronger party will devour the weaker one. Being equally matched alone won't do either--there is a possibility that two equally-matched sides will struggle to the death to produce a victor. There still has to be a few natural, or man-made barricades that must not be crossed. Both parties will be afraid to strike out, as they are wary of destroying everything else but the rat that is their target. Both parties have their considerations, and refuse to be the instigators...ordinarily, in order for such a perfect and elegant equilibrium to happen, various coincidences have to occur in tandem--in other words, the heavens have constructed it. If it is a product of human hands, they need to advance with exceedingly cautious steps, laying down their pieces with care. One wrong step, and they'll lose the whole game. However, it is extraordinarily easy to ruin the situation."
As he spoke, he reached out to whisk one of the chopsticks away. The other chopstick fell accordingly and crashed right onto a plate of pastries, producing thin hairline cracks.
Lord Seventh smiled and said, "It only needs to be like this--remove one of the boards, and the situation in equilibrium is instantly dashed. But...why remove this board?"
The Great Shaman asked curiously, "What is it that you have spotted this time?"
Lord Seventh picked up the tea bowl, dipped his head and took a sip, then shook his head and smiled. "Reveal that, I cannot."