HUAIZUI'S OUTBURST was like the tolling of a doomsday bell. Mo Ran was overcome with a sense of foreboding. All the hair on his body stood on end, and his blood surged wildly through his veins. He had the panicked urge to flee this illusionscape, while simultaneously wishing he could rush into the past and throw himself in front of Chu Wanning to protect him.
"No… Huaizui… You can't…" he stuttered. But there was nothing he could do. All of this had already happened. He could only watch, scalp prickling, as a furrow appeared between Chu Wanning's sword-straight brows. Undaunted, he calmly met Huaizui's eyes.
"Run!" Mo Ran blurted, unable to stop himself. "Run!"
Chu Wanning had trusted Huaizui his whole life—he had trusted this shizun who raised him as a sacrificial offering; he trusted this father figure who had shown him kindness. Thus, even in his despair, he couldn't recognize the undisguised killing intent in Huaizui's eyes. Mo Ran stepped between them; he knew it was useless, but he couldn't bear to stand back and watch.
"Please, run…"
But Chu Wanning didn't move. Back as straight as a pine tree, he walked toward Huaizui, step after unfaltering step. He came to a stop before his shizun. His high ponytail fluttered behind him, and the wind blew his muddied robes into disarray.
Huaizui bit out each word between his teeth. "If you want to leave the temple, go ahead."
"Shizun?" Chu Wanning's phoenix eyes widened. He didn't sense Huaizui's menace; he mistook the executioner's sickle for a crescent moon in the window. In that moment he was even somewhat grateful, somewhat elated. He thought Huaizui had come around at last.
But the knife flashed cold, swinging down with murderous speed. "The moment you walk out of this courtyard, you will cease to be a member of Wubei Temple. We have been master and disciple for fourteen years, but going forward, we will have nothing to do with one another."
Those phoenix eyes remained wide, but the joy in them slowly faded to astonishment and hurt. Chu Wanning hadn't thought Huaizui would be so harsh. He stood unmoving for a long time before his lips parted.
Beset by horror, Mo Ran couldn't help softly reciting: "Please, please go, leave right now—stop talking and get out of here."
In the end, despite opening his mouth, Chu Wanning couldn't string together any coherent thought. Huaizui fixed his eyes on him. He was staking it all on Chu Wanning's attachment to him. For fourteen years, they had been each other's sole companions. Severing his relationship with his teacher would be like running a knife through his own heart. Surely he wouldn't—
Chu Wanning fell to his knees.
Huaizui froze. His mind snagged on one thought: Surely he won't follow through; how could he be so stubborn, so uncompromising?
Chu Wanning pressed his forehead to the ground, once, twice… He kowtowed nine times before raising his face once more. His eyes were clear and bright, but his cheeks were wet with tears. "The disciple Chu Wanning is grateful for Shizun's care and teaching. From now on…" He swallowed. What would follow? He didn't know; he couldn't continue.
Huaizui's figure shuddered in the blustering wind. His monk's vestments flapped chaotically, wide sleeves ballooning with cold air. His expression was grave and chilly, his lips drained of color as he stared at the youth kneeling before him.
No, not a youth—a block of wood! He'd carved him with his own hands, given him life with his own blood. He'd taught him with painstaking care and attention. He'd done so much and waited for fourteen long years all to bring this vessel to the ghost realm as a container for Chu Lan's souls—not to receive an earful of idealistic drivel about kindness and altruism. The audacity of this scrap of brushwood, this discarded kindling!
Flames of fury roared up in his chest, setting his eyes aglow and wreathing him in incandescent heat. In this mood, Huaizui was a terrifying sight. Mo Ran bent over Chu Wanning, trying to put his arms around him, to shield him with his body, but he simply could not touch him.
Chu Wanning remained on his knees, never flinching, stubborn in his principles, yet obedient in his remorse. As he looked at Huaizui's twisted mien, his chest was warm with an inexhaustible passion. This youth existed entirely for the sake of others. He was only a piece of timber, an object without a soul. As he knelt on the ground, the only person he'd never spared a thought for was himself.
"Wanning…" Mo Ran's voice caught in his throat. He reached up to touch his face with fingers that passed right through. "Please, I'm begging you… Go, please go…"
There was a soft clang, the sound of metal striking the ground. Mo Ran slowly turned his head. He spied a curved blade on the gray bricks—Huaizui's knife.
In the moonlight, the butcher's eyes shone with a bloody gleam. He kicked the knife across the bricks; it clattered to a stop next to Chu Wanning's knees.
"No, no no no—don't, don't do this." Mo Ran had lost his wits entirely. He scrambled to grab the blade, but it misted through his hand like a phantom. No matter how desperately he grasped at it, he couldn't move it. A slender hand reached out and closed around the knife Mo Ran could not touch.
Chu Wanning's shock had faded; his eyes were placid again. The moment Huaizui tossed this knife to the ground, even his anguish began to subside. Now, he only looked relieved.
"If Shizun wants my life, I'll give it back," said Chu Wanning. "If I must remain within the confines of these walls, there's no difference between living fourteen years and living a hundred and forty."
The look in Huaizui's eyes was nothing like the monk's usual expression. In that moment, Mo Ran saw the shadow of Xiaoman on his face. He saw that youth, on that rainy night in Lin'an, on the eve of his betrayal.
"Chu Wanning," Huaizui said, low and sinister. "If you wish to sever ties between us, I won't ask you to stay. Nor do I expect you to repay everything I've provided you these past fourteen years. But you must give back what you've learned from me." Huaizui narrowed his eyes. "I will have your spiritual core."
A cultivator's spiritual core was the most important source of their power. Even a person made from wood of the sacred tree was no different. As long as Huaizui had his spiritual core, it was possible he could create another Chu Wanning. And the next time, he would make sure not to teach him about justice or principles; he wouldn't allow him to learn kindness or compassion.
He wanted Chu Wanning's spiritual core—he wanted his beating heart.
Chu Wanning looked at him for a span. A monk was chanting in the temple's main hall, his voice rising like incense smoke on the wind.
Huaizui spoke in Mo Ran's ears again. His next sentences seemed to sap all of his courage and strength; his voice sounded infinitely aged. "As he looked up at me, I thought that perhaps, when Buddha forgave the people who hurt him, he had gazed upon them like this. He was showing compassion to his killer. The spirit put to the blade was showing compassion for the butcher covered in blood."
"No!" Mo Ran screamed.
But the blade flashed, whistling through the air. Mo Ran closed his eyes and hunched over on the ground. "No…"
Blood splattered as flesh was parted from flesh.
With a howl, Mo Ran crawled over to Chu Wanning, shaking his head, sobbing bitterly. He tried to cover Chu Wanning's wound with insubstantial palms; he tried to staunch the bleeding with his own spiritual energy. It was all useless. There was nothing he could do. He watched Chu Wanning endure the agony, casting a swift spell to stop himself from passing out. He watched Chu Wanning cut open his own chest, inch by inch, with that knife.
There was so much blood. Hot, scarlet, flowing blood.
How could he not be alive? What the knife plunged into was flesh—crimson, coppery, carved-open flesh.
How could he not be alive? How could he not be human?
Huaizui stood rooted to the spot, cruelty and menace etched into his face. But the light in his eyes was flickering, trembling, vacillating… Was this really what he wanted?
The illusion wavered and blurred. Huaizui's tumultuous emotions when he created this scroll manifested as the scene warped before Mo Ran's eyes. He saw countless flashes of the past materializing out of the blood, each of them vivid, each of them gentle.
He saw the eleven- or twelve-year-old Chu Wanning, standing on the shores of Jincheng Lake, having just received Tianwen. As he made to turn away, a haitang wood guqin with a curving tail rose on the lake's surface. The moment it broke the water, Chu Wanning's figure began to glow softly, as though he and the instrument were reflecting each other's light. Baffled, he reached out to stroke the strings of the guqin. "What's going on?"
Huaizui quickly surmised this guqin must also be made of wood from the Flame Emperor's sacred tree. They shared an origin and naturally resonated with one another. Surprise and excitement flitted across his face. "This is most likely your fated holy weapon."
"My fated holy weapon?"
Once his gladness passed, Huaizui's gaze became evasive. "Indeed—some people are born with a special constitution that innately links them with a holy weapon."
Chu Wanning laughed. "I have a special constitution?"
Huaizui deftly sidestepped the question. He ran his fingers over the wood of Jiuge's body and sighed. "You and this guqin share a connection. You could probably summon it even without a spiritual core… It's linked to you by blood."
The scene changed again. Mo Ran saw two figures walking on a road outside Lin'an. Huaizui trailed behind Chu Wanning, exhorting him to slow down.
He saw the steaming flower cake, saw Chu Wanning's smiling face through the mist. He saw Chu Wanning holding a palm-leaf fan in an inn, diligently fanning Huaizui as he sat in meditation. He saw Chu Wanning eating sweet osmanthus lotus root for the first time, his syrup-sticky lips parting as he laughed in delight with Huaizui.
The scene settled at last on a lotus pool in the summer. The water was blanketed in an endless expanse of jade-green leaves dotted by brilliant pink and white blossoms. Red dragonflies zipped elegantly to and fro on this splendid evening.
Chu Wanning, no more than five or six at this point, sat cross-legged and grinning, imitating Huaizui's posture. He watched his shizun with dark, shining eyes. "Shizun, Shizun, let's play one more time."
"No more playing," said Huaizui. "I need to recite scripture in the dining hall to soothe a departed friend."
"Can we play one more time before you go? Last time, I promise."
The boy didn't wait for the monk to answer before rolling up the sleeves of his dusty green robes. As the blossoms swayed over the pond, he reached over and cheerfully poked at Huaizui's reluctant hand. His youthful voice was sweet and clear, crisp as fresh lotus root.
"You're number one, I'm number one, which flower blossoms on the pond? A lotus flower blossoms on the pond. You're number two, I'm number two, which flower blooms in bunches true? An elm tree blooms in bunches true."
Watching his smiling face, Huaizui shook his head and reached over to clap Chu Wanning's hands to the beat of this childish game, smiling as well.
"You're number nine, I'm number nine, which flower flies in the wind? A dandelion flies in the wind. You're number ten, I'm number ten, which flower has no leafy friends? Wintersweet has no leafy friends."
Blood drenched his robes, like a rain-soaked red lotus. In the courtyard, Huaizui closed his eyes.
He…was just a broken fragment of wood.
That bygone laughter tinkled in his ears.
He was a body without a soul.
"Which flower blossoms on the pond? Ha ha, Shizun's so silly! A lotus flower blossoms on the pond, duh."
He was an empty vessel, a form he would offer to Chu Xun, the tree that would secure Huaizui's salvation, won with a century of toil! He wasn't human! He didn't have a soul!
"Shizun, take half of the cake—the bigger one's for you, the smaller one's for me."
Tears spilled from Huaizui's eyes.
He was shaking terribly, trembling with fright. He sprinted over to that child—that child with the blade buried in his heart, his spiritual core already cracking, on the verge of being dug out.
Huaizui knelt, howling in agony. He was a mirror of Mo Ran, who was still trying and failing to put his arms around Chu Wanning—his sobs seemed to draw up tears of blood, as if the blade plunged not into Chu Wanning's chest, but into his own throat, into his very soul.
How could this child not have a soul? He was the one who closed his eyes and refused to look, who sealed his ears and refused to listen. All along, he had known; in his heart of hearts, he could tell. In Chu Wanning's smile, in his earnestness; in his tolerance and gentleness; in his obstinate perseverance—he had always had evidence of a soul. But because of Huaizui's selfishness, in the name of atonement, he'd feigned deafness; he'd numbed himself.
Chu Wanning had never been a wooden sculpture, an empty shell. He was a person of flesh and blood, a human who laughed and cried…
"I had watched him grow up, day by day, since he was a child. He looked like Chu Lan when he was little, and like Chu Xun when he grew older. But I had never mistaken him for either of them."
Huaizui's voice cracked like a broken gong. "He was the one who gave me half of his cake, who tugged on my hand and called me Shizun. He was the one who sneaked over and fanned me on hot days, thinking I didn't notice. He was the one who kept me company for fourteen years in Wubei Temple—he smiled at me and trusted me, and said I was the kindest shizun in the whole world." As if swallowing bitter medicine, Huaizui muttered again, "The kindest shizun…"
In the illusion, Huaizui grabbed Chu Wanning's hand and severed the flow of his spiritual energy. The moment his spell was lifted, Chu Wanning fainted from the pain.
Huaizui embraced that body, so full of life, bleeding profusely. It was as though he were holding Chu Xun from two hundred years ago, after the Heavenly Rift opened above Lin'an, after he'd torn out his own heart to light the path of escape for his citizens.
But it was not the same. Chu Wanning was stubborn and prideful; he had a hundred quirks that were uniquely his own. He didn't like to sleep under the blankets, and when he was finished eating, he would bite down on his chopsticks and stare into space. He never liked doing laundry and would always shove all his clothes into one bucket to soak.
These were all his habits, his idiosyncrasies. They were unlike anyone else's.
The illusion went dark again. Mo Ran didn't mind—if he had to look at that scene a moment longer, he would fear for his own sanity. Out of the darkness came Huaizui's distant, rueful voice. "Truthfully, the moment he frowned and told me he wanted to go down the mountain to aid others, that he didn't want to sit around and wait for ascendance, I knew he was a living human being.
"I was weak and selfish; I nearly destroyed the child I had raised myself. He wasn't Chu Lan, and he wasn't an offering for my redemption. He was Chu Wanning, because I created him during the peaceful evening hour. As the temple bell tolled, he came to life beneath the dignified gazes of many gods and Buddhas. Thus I gave him his name.
"Yet this was the only thing I had given him. Because I had created him, I assumed he belonged to me, that I could use him for my own ends and sacrifice him if I wished. It wasn't until I saw him unhesitatingly slice into his own heart for the sake of his principles, just like Chu-gongzi…"
Huaizui's voice rattled with sobs; he could barely speak. After a long pause, he continued hoarsely. "Only then did I finally realize I hadn't given him his souls or his life. Those were all his own. Because… Because a weak, filthy sinner such as myself could never create a living being as pure and uncompromising as he. Never."