THE HALL WAS SILENT. Jiang Xi forced a laugh, but his eyes held a hint of fear. "Wang Chuqing, have you lost your mind? What are you saying?"
Beneath his lavish sleeves, his hands balled into fists. He seemed to hear the sound of stone shattering; he was dizzy, almost delirious. "What possible relationship could that boy have to me?"
Jiang Xi's manner was dismissive, but Madam Wang's words had already taken him out of his shock and into terror, and from terror to suspicion and then fury. He'd thought himself alone in the world for so many years, without any kin—a son? Telling him now that Xue Meng was his son? How ridiculous.
Madam Wang swallowed a mouthful of acrid blood. She caught her breath before she went on, as if what she was about to say was humiliating, but persisted. "I know Shidi hasn't forgotten what happened back then. As for Meng-er… I would never lie to you."
Jiang Xi watched her, then began to laugh. His laugh was very rarely so unbridled, yet ridicule and anger filled his eyes. "My son?" He spat the words, every syllable freezing cold. "Shijie needn't spin such a laughable tale just to entrust your son to me. You could've just asked outright. In personality, in looks, in physique and temper, when has your son ever resembled me in the slightest?"
A violent unease kept him from acknowledging the truth; he struck out in his denial of it. "Must you use such underhanded tricks to convince me to clean up the mess you and Xue Zhengyong made? How could Xue Meng, Xue Ziming, possibly be my child?"
But his heart shuddered, and a voice at the back of his mind told him in his own icy tones: Yes, he is your child. Consider his age, consider how Wang-shijie left Guyueye. Ask yourself honestly, with the heavens as witness. Jiang Xi, think back…
But what was there to think about?! Jiang Xi lashed out like a trapped beast, crushing that voice of rationality in his heart to dust. Why should he remember? He'd been alone for more than twenty years. Now she was telling him he had a son—a son who opposed him in every possible way, wearing a face he hated, and belonging to a father that wasn't him.
Impossible. He, Jiang Xi, was no pathetic do-gooder with an excess of kindness; he'd never be a brainless fool. He wouldn't fall for it, he wouldn't believe this nonsense, he wouldn't…
"Xuehuang."
Madam Wang spoke into the silence. It was as if all the light went out of the blazing room: Jiang Xi felt himself plunged into a pitch-black night, caught in an unknowable void. Never in his life had he felt so lost.
Madam Wang's gaze was heavy on him. "Xuehuang," she said again.
"What do you mean?" His bloodless lips trembled.
"Shidi," murmured Madam Wang. "You know what I mean."
And he did. Xuehuang was his holy weapon; though others could make it react, no one else could summon the true strength his holy weapon possessed—save for his kin, whom Xuehuang would gladly obey.
Jiang Xi couldn't say a word. He didn't need to test it. If Madam Wang was willing to say such a thing, what was there left to prove? He was cornered, rendered mute.
"Did…" he rasped after a long beat, face pale, "Did Xue Zhengyong…know?" He seemed to sag with exhaustion now that his earlier madness passed.
"He's known all along," said Madam Wang, her gentle eyes filled with torment.
Xue Zhengyong had first seen her at seventeen, in the full flush of her youth.
He had been riding his little donkey through Yangzhou with a stalk of foxtail grass dangling from his mouth when he happened to run into Wang Chuqing, who'd come to the port to buy cloth.
Among all those beautiful disciples of Guyueye, none but Miss Wang caught his eye. Xue Zhengyong was a frank and straightforward young man; he went right up to her, smiling, to say hello. Her companions called him shallow, and Wang Chuqing herself was a gentle soul who was faintly embarrassed by the whole thing. She turned him away, blushing, then lowered her face and rushed off.
Miss Wang was soft-spoken and pretty, and for Xue Zhengyong, it was love at first sight. His feet brought him back to Guyueye again and again to see her. One year passed, then two, then three—he'd always come find her, be it at the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, or the Lantern Festival. Rumors of her affair with this rascal spread throughout Guyueye, and in the end, even the tender-hearted Wang Chuqing tried to drive him off in anger.
At the time, Xue Zhengyong was indeed a young rascal. He refused to be deterred.
"Go," she would tell him. "You're making things hard for me."
"You don't have a lover," Xue Zhengyong would reply, "and neither do I. I only come to see how you're doing. Once you get married, you'll never see me again."
Miss Wang was speechless.
Xue Zhengyong grinned. "I promise, I'll disappear faster than a bolt of lightning." He then paused, a note of concern creeping into his voice. "You…you don't have someone in mind already, do you?"
Miss Wang's cheeks went pink. She lowered her head like a blossom bending over water and said, "No," very softly.
But it was a lie. Of course she had someone in mind, and she wasn't the only one. The young man she admired was the object of many of Guyueye's female cultivators' affections—she liked her shidi Jiang Xi very much.
All the disciples of Guyueye knew Jiang Xi was scum. Within his generation, he had the most handsome face, the finest skills, the most mesmerizing voice, and the most untouchable heart. Those to whom he deigned to speak found him aloof and acerbic, but nevertheless, he was strong, vicious, and gorgeous. Shining stars like him collected girlish hopes by the bushel, but Jiang Xi valued girlish hopes about as much as he did pig offal. He cherished no one; when women offered up their hearts, he scorned them for their chatter, and when men offered up theirs, he called them freaks.
Jiang Yechen lived in a world of his own and hurt people with oblivious ease.
Like many of her sect siblings, Wang Chuqing had always carried a torch for Jiang Xi. She knew her looks left something to be desired, and she was older than him to boot. She never dared take the step of confessing her feelings. After all, Jiang Xi had never accepted any woman's affection. When others praised him, he ignored it; when others fawned on him, he didn't care a whit. If anyone ever mustered the courage to confess, he cursed them out until they ran away in hopeless tears.
Anyone brave enough to tell Jiang Xi their feelings was a hero in their own right. Madam Wang didn't think herself a hero, so she resigned herself to the notion that she and her affection would age together and be sealed in the same coffin.
One day, however, the sect leader summoned them both. "Our Guyueye Sect specializes in extending the lifespan by nourishing the primordial spirit. Most of our disciples will live over a hundred years. For generations, our sect leaders have devoted themselves to cultivation methods that prolong life, in hopes of finding the road to immortality, that we may roam the world forever even without ascension."
Indeed. Seeking the key to eternal life, the sect leaders of Guyueye tested all sorts of methods, which of course included Xuannü's3 dual cultivation techniques. Jiang Xi had a pure water elemental core, while Wang Chuqing's was pure fire. Both these youths were still virgins, so this cultivation method suited them perfectly. For this reason, the sect leader had summoned them to be each other's cultivation partner.
Wang Chuqing had loved Jiang Xi for a long time; she was of course delighted. Jiang Xi felt nothing in particular. He was entirely focused on cultivation and despised such trifling matters as love, which he found irritating as well as useless. How were there so many fools in the world suffering from unrequited affections? He couldn't fathom it.
"Love is a disease," he was wont to say. "You'd better get yourself checked out."
Who knew how many maidens' hearts had shattered upon hearing these words from the most beautiful man in Guyueye.
To him, not even the bedroom techniques of Xuannü should involve any emotion. Dual cultivation was a method like any other; since the sect leader had asked it of them, he wasted no time going into seclusion with his shijie and cultivating based on the scrolls provided.
But the adoration in the girl's eyes was impossible to ignore. As time passed, Jiang Xi gradually came to understand what this shijie felt for him. It frustrated him, made him uneasy. He was dual cultivating with her on the sect leader's orders, nothing more, and this technique specifically required clarity of mind and freedom from worldly desires. Their bodily union was only to facilitate the merging of their spiritual energy; any love or lust was forbidden.
To this end, Jiang Xi had warned his shijie several times to think of nothing else. "If your mind isn't clear, dual cultivating like this will lead you right into qi deviation. Your core will become volatile."
But how could Miss Wang control her own feelings? Eventually, at the end of one particular session, her surging emotions knocked her spiritual energy out of true—she became delirious.
It cost Jiang Xi a great deal to bring her inflamed core back under control, and he flew into a rage when he had finished. Why hadn't she listened? Why couldn't she stay focused?! "Continuing like this will kill you. We should stop."
At the time, she had been inconsolable. Somehow she summoned the courage to ask him, eyes glistening, "Yechen, when you cultivate with me, is it only because of the sect leader's orders?"
Jiang Xi's scowl deepened. "Why else?"
She'd known from the start that Jiang Xi was as cold as a glacial spring with a heart of unfeeling stone, but hearing him say it aloud was more than she could bear. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Humiliated, she reached up to wipe them away, but they kept coming, leaving her even more flustered. She scrambled to her feet, voice thick with her shame. "I'm sorry."
She turned and left without looking back.
For a long time after, Jiang Xi didn't bother to seek her out, and never spoke to her if he saw her walking by. Their interactions didn't escape the notice of several young and beautiful cultivators of Guyueye, who mocked her behind her back. "Throwing herself at him like that—did she really think she could catch Jiang-shige? She's delusional."
"She certainly thinks highly of herself. Dual cultivation is just dual cultivation. If she had qi deviated, she'd have hurt Yechen-shixiong for nothing. What a pest."
"What do you mean, dual cultivate? Shixiong did it as his duty, but she did it for her own reasons. Everyone knows she's in love with him. Hmph, if you ask me, she just wanted to take advantage!"
"Wang-shijie is older than we are, and she's more shameless too!"
The rumors went from mouth to mouth, all the way to the ears of Xue Zhengyong, who'd come as usual to spend Mid-Autumn with Miss Wang.
The gallant young cultivator was forthright but not stupid. He quickly put together what had happened and furiously told the gossips off before running around in search of Miss Wang. But by the time he found her, he didn't know what to say. He could only stare. "You…"
Wang Chuqing looked up from where she stood beneath a willow tree, her eyes still red from crying.
Xue Zhengyong grew flustered. "Don't cry—you don't have to listen to all that, you… You… I think you're great, I…I…"
Wang Chuqing turned her face to the rippling surface of the lake. "I lied to you. There is someone I like."
There was a long pause. "Mn," said Xue Zhengyong.
"Then why are you still here?"
Xue Zhengyong scratched his head. "But it sounds like he doesn't think of you like that… Since he doesn't, I… I can still talk to you, can't I? He won't mind." Met with her silence, Xue Zhengyong hesitated. "Will he?"
Miss Wang hung her head. "No."
What did Jiang Xi think of her? He'd only ever been following the sect leader's orders; she was the one who let her wishful thinking get the better of her. Everyone in the sect agreed that Jiang Xi was scum, but Wang Chuqing thought being labeled as such merely because he refused to accept another's love was perhaps too harsh. Jiang Xi never led anyone on or gave them false hope. They were the ones drawn to him like a moth to a flame; she'd known of his merciless apathy, yet gone running passionately after him just the same.
Now it hurt too much to go on. But by some twist of fate, it came to pass that either the disciples in charge of preparing the medicines had made a mistake, or perhaps there was some other reason, because Miss Wang soon realized she was pregnant.
Panic had gripped her then. What should she do? She could only imagine what her sect sisters would say, how they might jeer at her once it became known, and she scarcely dared contemplate how Jiang Xi would react. She was a complete mess, hopelessly lost for what to do. When she finally pulled herself together, she decided to go find the sect leader.
But when she arrived outside his door and raised a hand to knock, the cool, clipped voice drifting out froze her in place. It belonged to Jiang Xi.
"Shijie cannot control her heart; her core is growing more and more unstable. Now even the smallest spell throws her spiritual energy out of control. I'm afraid continuing will hurt her. I ask the sect leader to please retract the order. I cannot dual cultivate with her anymore."
"Oh, Xi-er. What if you talk to her and—"
"There's no use in talking; I've told her the same many times; there's nothing I can do. She simply isn't suited for this cultivation path. Chuqing's heart is too easily swayed."
"Then what are you proposing?" asked the sect leader.
"If no one can clear their mind of worldly desires, I will no longer cultivate this path."
The sect leader sighed. "I understand. You may go. Clearing one's mind of worldly desire is the hardest trial in the dual-cultivation path. In all these years, I don't know if anyone in Guyueye has been as unshakeable as you."
Jiang Xi paused a moment and asked, "Is it that difficult?"
"Extremely difficult." The sect leader examined him. "Tell me, after spending so much time with Wang Chuqing, were you never swayed in the slightest?"
Jiang Xi sounded faintly confused. "Swayed…in what way?"
The sect leader watched him for a long beat, but saw no hint of a lie in the young man's eyes. He seemed somewhat taken aback. "Jiang Xi, what is Wang Chuqing to you?"
"My da-shijie."
"And when you're dual cultivating?"
"My dual-cultivation partner."
"Nothing else?"
"Nothing." The sect leader's expression made Jiang Xi frown. "Should there be anything else?"
"No." After a long moment, the graying old sect leader sighed. "It's been so many years, yet no dual-cultivation disciple has ever managed to pass the trial of love. You are the first. Unfortunately, I can't think of a single other person who could complete this task with you."
Neither Jiang Xi nor the sect leader knew Miss Wang had overheard their entire conversation. If she had held onto any hope or illusion before, their talk chilled her to the bone and wiped out her remaining pride. She felt pathetic. How could she stay in the sect after this—how could she face anyone? She'd nearly buckled beneath her sect sisters' mockery as it was; if they learned she'd fallen pregnant with Jiang-shidi's child…
The thought made her shiver. No—she couldn't stay in the sect any longer. She fled Rainbell Isle that very night.
"You didn't elope with Xue Zhengyong?"
"No," said Madam Wang.
Jiang Xi closed his eyes. He didn't know what to say. He was a callous person, he did only have eyes for his cultivation path. After Madam Wang, he'd never so much as touched another woman. And back then, he was certain he felt nothing for this da-shijie—though when he'd heard that Madam Wang had eloped with Xue Zhengyong, he did frown.
Truly, worldly love was as fleeting as a flower's bloom; the women of the world were not to be trusted. Even this shijie who had supposedly loved him would run away with another young man at the drop of a hat. He grew to despise matters of romance—even now, the memory filled him with disdain.
Only today, twenty years after the fact, did he learn the truth from his da-shijie's own lips. But Miss Wang had become Madam Wang, and the greatest years of their lives had passed.
There was a stiff silence before Jiang Xi asked, "Then…why did you leave Guyueye?"
"I could no longer live under the same roof as you, Shidi." Twenty years later, Madam Wang could finally look at him peacefully. "Everyone has their pride. I couldn't face staying in the sect."
Jiang Xi said nothing.
"At first, I thought of killing Meng-er in the womb, but I couldn't bear to do it. So I traveled through all sorts of places, alone, and in Baidi City, I gave birth to our child. When Zhengyong found me, Meng-er was already more than a year old. He's always known."
She paused to cough up more blood. After her qi deviation, her core had always been volatile; she'd only suppressed it all these years by never using magic. Now, with Phoenix's Inferno scorching the skies, her life had reached its end.
Madam Wang slowly stopped coughing, her breaths growing thin. "Shidi, the tale of Zhengyong kidnapping me to Sisheng Peak to make me his bride was just a story he spread. He never wanted me…or Meng-er…to be hurt."
She looked around and glimpsed Xue Zhengyong's corpse; the sight seemed to stab into her. She still remembered the day of their wedding, when Xue Zhengyong had told her with a grin, All right, from now on, you have nothing to worry about. That bastard back at Guyueye humiliated you, but I won't. Now that you're with me, you'll live in glory all your life. As long as I'm here, you'll never feel shame again.
Madam Wang looked away, shaking. A gentleman's word was his bond, and Xue Zhengyong had kept his all his life. By his side, she had never had to put herself out in the world; she had always been protected. The tears she wept, the shame she felt, the blood she shed…all of it came after his death.
"He never cared that I was too weak to bear another child. He never cared that Meng-er wasn't his blood; he still treated him as his own. Xue Meng… Xue Meng is grown now, but he's never truly suffered…" She closed her eyes, her cheeks so pale they appeared almost translucent. "We can't protect him anymore."
Jiang Xi stiffened.
"Shidi, take these twenty years as my vengeance on you. Any resentment, hate, any scorn…lay it all at my feet, and mine alone." Madam Wang's voice was so hoarse now it was hardly intelligible. "I beg of you, help him… Don't let them hurt him." Her plea came soft as drifting willow fuzz. "Yechen, please…"
Phoenix's Inferno rose into the skies. Jiang Xi stood alone in the sea of flame, surrounded by blazing vermilion. He looked at the woman seated on the dais, her eyes closed as if in sleep. He was sure she had more to say. After all, she'd only just promised Xue Meng they'd meet again at Frostsky Hall. He waited patiently. He waited for her to stand up, to tell him it was all a lie. A joke, a farce.
He waited a long time, his expression darkening, until his heartbeat began to slow and his blood began to cool. But she said never a word more.
Madam Wang passed on with Xue Zhengyong. She'd once been a cultivator of high renown, known for her gentleness and virtue. Rumors later spread that Xue Zhengyong had stolen her away to be his wife; others told of how she'd eloped with him and left her sect behind. There'd been so many tales, yet none of them were the truth.
For years, many in Sisheng Peak had speculated that Madam Wang merely tolerated her husband, but that she was too timid to complain. In the end, it didn't matter what anyone else thought or said—the moment she heard of Xue Zhengyong's death, she'd lost the will to live. Was it love driving her desire to follow him, or something else? Perhaps she couldn't have said herself, even at the very end. Had she truly loved her husband, or was it only gratitude? Had her feelings for Jiang Xi disappeared long ago, or had they left their mark? She didn't know.
These questions, like so many in life, were destined to go unanswered. In her last moments, she hazily recalled the lines of a poem she'd read by the windowsill many years ago. With these sleepless nights I repay the care I've lost in your absence.4
In those days, she'd just married Xue Zhengyong, and she'd often reminisce about her youth spent in Guyueye. She looked up from her book and gazed out the window. The fogs of Sichuan were thick, drifting and scattering like celestial clouds—as if this, too, could be heaven.
Someone approached her from behind. In her distraction, she almost mistook him for Jiang Xi—but then a coat was draped over her shoulders. The dream shattered. Jiang Xi would never care whether she was cold or not. Madam Wang turned, her face framed by the light of the candle and the misty mountains beyond.5
Her young and handsome husband was smiling down at her. He scratched his head and said, "It's getting cold. I didn't want you to catch a chill."
The thick carpets of Loyalty Hall were patterned with pollia flowers, Madam Wang's favorite floral motif. Jiang Xi stepped out of the hall and left those blossoms behind, his expression still cold, but slightly more wooden than usual.
As he pushed open the creaking doors, wanting to be gone with all haste, he caught sight of the figure standing just beyond them, pale and motionless.
Xue Meng.