Chapter 72: Wind Rises

What did she mean she didn’t know?

Did she not understand her own family’s origins, or were these legends simply not worth taking seriously?

Before Gu Xianwang could ask, Long Li gave a sigh-like chuckle. “Xianwang, I have no memories of my past.”

Gu Xianwang’s gaze froze, leaving her suddenly at a loss for words. Right then, a clink sounded from the ashtray as Third Sister Red shook the remnants of ash from her old silver pipe.

“That’s why I said you’re asking the wrong person.”

The remark felt less sudden than outright jarring. From their encounter in Guizhou to everything they’d been through on this journey, nothing in Long Li’s behavior suggested she was someone without memories. She was vastly more knowledgeable and perceptive than Gu Xianwang herself. What’s more, Long Li had mentioned she was always searching for something out in the wilds. If she had a specific goal in mind, how could she possibly know nothing about her own history?

Even more baffling, how could a person without a past end up as a collaborator with that blasted British Company on her own—and strike up an acquaintance with the inscrutable Rat Boss, no less?

No, there was a glaring logical contradiction here. “You say you have no memories, then how do you know your name is Long Li?”

The words were out of her mouth before Gu Xianwang could stop them, and regret hit her immediately. Long Li had no reason to lie to her about something like this, so why was she badgering an open wound in front of strangers?

Third Sister Red let out a sudden laugh. “Because someone told her, naturally.”

“Enough, Miss Gu. If your curiosity about the Long Family members comes solely from what Long Li’s told you, then this is plenty to go on.” She shook out her curly hair, brushing it lightly, a hint of fatigue flickering in her eyes. “Anything else will cost you extra.”

She couldn’t deny it—her whole reason for attending the Flower Fair and entering the Red Pavilion was to dig up intel on the Long Family members. And yes, most of her interest stemmed from Long Li. But when she pieced together everyone’s stories about them, the accounts connected logically enough on the surface, yet they were riddled with gaps. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with the basic shape assembled, but the next piece impossible to find. Maddening.

Judging by Long Li’s behavior so far, even she probably knew precious little about the Long Family members. Maybe that’s why she was partnering with those foreigners—to uncover her own origins? Their relationship with Third Sister Red was clearly a business deal, so full disclosure was unlikely. Then there was Master’s reaction to the Long Family members, and everyone’s faces at the Flower Fair when the Long Family Human Skin Map came up. Gu Xianwang suspected the ties between the Long Family members and these jianghu folk ran far deeper than mere legends.

Third Sister Red had to have more detailed information up her sleeve. The real question was whether Gu Xianwang should press for it right here in front of Long Li.

As she mulled it over, Ye Chan spoke up out of the blue. “How much for the rest of the intel?”

Third Sister Red turned to her. “What, you curious too?”

“Sure am.” Ye Chan shrugged. “From what you’ve said, the Long Family members sound like sitting ducks to you jianghu types—a fat sheep ready for slaughter. Sister Long might not remember her past, but you’re still willing to team up with her. That means she’s got something worth exploiting.”

“And if her identity was just some made-up story to fool her, why bother going to all that trouble to disguise her just for the Flower Fair today?”

“Fooling us would’ve been easy. Fooling you? Not so much.”

Third Sister Red listened with keen interest, idly fiddling with her empty pipe. “Can’t argue with that. But since I’m a few years your senior, let me offer some sisterly advice: curiosity can be a dangerous thing when it’s stronger than your ability to back it up. It killed the cat, after all.”

She lingered on the word “cat” in a way that sent chills down their spines, only stoking Gu Xianwang’s defiance. “I appreciate Third Sister’s good intentions, but you let Long Li bring us in and dangled that scrap of Long Family legend as bait. You’re not really expecting us to tuck tail and run now, are you?”

“Since you’re in the business, Third Sister, let’s cut to the chase. Put a price on the table—what do you say?”

Third Sister Red leaned back in her chair with a faint creak, eyeing the three of them with an ambiguous smile. “I live by one rule: if there’s no deal, there’s no grudge. Across the whole jianghu, no one’s fairer in business than me. That said, Ninth Master and I go way back—”

She was about to spell out the hard terms when Long Li cut in. “No need to strain things between you and Ninth Master over this. Let me handle it.”

Third Sister Red arched a brow slightly, concealing the flicker of surprise in her eyes, and raised her hand with casual indifference. “Very well. Suit yourself.”

Long Li nodded. “Actually, the reason Ninth Master Shang is so reluctant to mention the Long Family members probably has to do with an operation thirty years ago, when the entire jianghu banded together.”

Thirty years ago? That was two years before she was even born. Gu Xianwang instinctively furrowed her brow.

“The reason rumors about the Long Family have persisted for a thousand years without fading boils down to the Thieves’ Sect. As you know, grave robbers and Mountain Walkers were still fairly common back in the day. Especially this bunch of tomb raiders—their legacy never died out. From ancient times to now, they’ve even developed distinct schools. Among them, the Moving Mountain Daoists are the smallest in number. They only take one treasure and nothing more, and they’re exceptionally skilled at uncovering bizarre and eerie places. It was from them that the saying ‘When you encounter a dragon at the acupoint, you’ll find heavenly treasures’ first spread.”

Ye Chan loved stories like this and quickly asked, “But doesn’t ‘dragon’ refer to dragon veins?”

Long Li shook her head. “No. The true meaning of ‘encountering a dragon at the acupoint’ is finding traces of the Long Family in that tomb. Wherever the Long Family members have passed, there are bound to be extraordinary treasures.”

“That rumor should have died out along with the decline of the Moving Mountain school after the 1960s. But at that time, the Xieling faction had merged with the highwaymen, turning them into a force that robbed graves and ransacked mountains without restraint. They grew even stronger. Soon after, word spread among them that someone had encountered a man claiming to be a Long Family member while ambushing travelers in the southwest. The man was incredibly skilled, moving like a ghost, capable of taking on ten foes single-handedly. In the end, though, he was outnumbered, gravely wounded, and captured.”

“Under interrogation, they discovered that the legends of the Long Family were real. Not only that, but the Long Family members had recorded all the treasure sites they’d uncovered over a thousand years, tattooing them onto the bodies of every family successor—including the location of the secret ancient stockade where the Long Family hid their amassed wealth.”

Ye Chan was dumbfounded. “Holy crap, so the stuff in those novels isn’t entirely made up after all.”

Long Li shook her head. “All the clues to the Long Family Human Skin Map are in the hands of the Xieling faction. That bunch came from bandit stock—ruthless and cunning. You can’t believe a word they say. Especially the Xieling Chief back then, a man surnamed Liu with the nickname Sima. Rumor has it he started as a butcher, the kind who only cared about silver and not lives. Under his rule, though the jianghu lusted after the Long Family’s human skin map, no one dared to actually cross Liu Sima.”

Ye Chan’s eyes lit up. “Why’s he called Sima? Jianghu nicknames always have some special origin, right?”

Third Sister Red said coolly, “Because the guy was said to have the strength of an ox, a modern-day Wu Song. Once, to make an example for his men, he stood in the mountain stronghold and matched four Sweat-Blood Treasure Horses single-handedly. Folks said, ‘Liu Ye gripped two reins in each hand, feet planted firm as a mountain, breath steady in his dantian. No matter how the handlers whipped and shouted, those four mighty steeds couldn’t budge an inch. In the end, Liu Ye gave a fierce yank and dragged the whole team flat on their asses.’ That’s how he got the nickname Liu Sima.”

“Whoa, for real?”

Third Sister Red chuckled. “If you think it’s real, it is. If you think it’s fake, it is. Jianghu tales are always a mix of truth and lies. But Liu Sima’s skills went far beyond raw strength. He made his name as a brute, but in truth, he was sharp as a tack—a vicious schemer. Otherwise, how could he, with just a Copper Seal Plaque, command over a hundred thousand highwaymen across the Thirteen Provinces?”

Gu Xianwang said, “No matter how capable he was, a bandit was still a bandit. Times had changed by then—law and order were taking hold. How could they let a robber chief run rampant?”

Long Li replied, “Exactly. The outlaws’ reputations were loud, but they were spent forces. Seeing the writing on the wall, Liu Sima tried to use the human skin map as bait to rally the scattered bandits for a comeback. He personally led a team to excavate an Ancient Dian Kingdom tomb supposedly marked on the map. Sure enough, they found a wondrous treasure inside. But Liu Sima triggered some trap in there. He emerged gravely wounded and died not long after.”

“After his death, the Xieling group fell apart without a leader, splintering amid the great bandit suppression campaign of the era. Only small bands survived, skulking in remote corners of the provinces. But no one expected the centipede to die but not rot. At the end of the 1970s, a fake Daoist calling himself the Three No Daoist took up the Xieling Chief’s Copper Seal Plaque. In just a few short years, he managed to revive the faction and reclaim the old bandits’ territory.”

As she listened, Ye Chan realized the timeline was closing in on thirty years ago. She swallowed hard. “And then?”

“And then came the matter of the Three No Daoist offering up the Long Family Human Skin Map.”

Gu Xianwang frowned. “Who was it offered to?”

“Everyone,” Long Li said. “Thieves’ Sect members, treasure spotters, diviners, Rat-Walkers—even folks from the Eight Gates. Anyone interested could join the hunt.”

“Why the sudden generosity?” Ye Chan clicked her tongue. “If something seems off, it probably is.”

“It’s not without reason.” Long Li let out a sigh. “That emotionless old Daoist was fifty-nine at the time, but he was dying from an incurable disease. He had just built up his operation and wasn’t ready to let it all go. If the Human Skin Map he’d offered pointed to just some ancient tomb, it might not have drawn such a crowd. But no—it was a map of the Long Family Ancient Village.”

Ye Chan got it. “Now that’s a real treasure map. But what good would heading to the Long Family Ancient Village do for a dying old Daoist?”

Gu Xianwang recalled how Long Li had mentioned early on that the Long Family members and Xu Fu had been hunting treasures for Qin Shi Huang. “Could it be… that the Long Family members really found the Undying Medicine?”

“Perhaps. At the very least, everyone at the time was convinced of it.” Long Li paused before going on. “That expedition drew almost every big name in the jianghu—all the renowned experts from every faction threw themselves into it. The Thieves’ Sect held nothing back, and even both bosses of the Rat-Walkers tagged along.”

Her tone made the outcome plain enough, but Gu Xianwang still asked, heart in her throat, “Did they… make it out?”

Long Li shook her head.

Third Sister Red’s face fell for a split second, as if some memory had struck her, but she recovered quickly and scoffed. “They all died without a trace—no bodies, no nothing. The Fat Daoist was the only one who crawled out alive, and even he lost his mind. If Ninth Master Shang hadn’t skipped it on account of bad blood with the Yang Family, he’d probably have met the same end.”

Shock bloomed across Ye Chan’s face. Stories like this—whole gangs of jianghu heavyweights wiped out—belonged in movies about the rise of some devilish cult. She never imagined they’d come straight from real life. “No wonder the survivors treat the Long Family like a curse.”

Gu Xianwang pressed her lips together, words failing her. Truth be told, this tale tied up all the loose ends about the Long Family members into a neat, logical package. Her Master, one of the few survivors, would naturally shy away from any mention of them. The Long Family members, notorious secret-raiders of treasures, trying to break into the Witch Clan Altar made perfect sense. Long Li might have lost her memories, but as long as she kept living her own life, it hardly mattered if she truly was one of them.

Everything clicked together so neatly, so reasonably. So why did that nagging sense of wrongness linger?

Ye Chan finished her sigh with two big gulps of tea. She had gotten far too wrapped up in the tale; even as a mere listener, her throat was parched. A quick glance at her phone—disaster. “Sister Gu, it’s already four-thirty!”

Gu Xianwang tensed up on instinct. Damn it, she was going to be late. “I’m so sorry, but I have to head back before my Master gets home.”

Third Sister Red smiled with understanding. “No worries. I won’t keep you.”

Long Li rose to her feet. “I’ll see you out.”

Gu Xianwang dipped her head, checked her watch, thanked Third Sister Red over and over, and headed out with Ye Chan.

Long Li trailed after her until Third Sister Red called out, “Hey, not so fast. You gonna pay the tea tab or what?”

Long Li halted and murmured ahead, “You two go on downstairs and wait for me, alright?”

Gu Xianwang paused at the top of the stairs and glanced back at Long Li. Her heart eased a little. Yes, she was rushing home—but not that much.

“Sure, we’ll wait.”

Long Li smiled as she watched their backs vanish down the stairs. Then she turned, stepped back into the private room, and shut the door.

Third Sister Red was brewing a fresh pot of hot water. It bubbled right on the edge of boiling, steam roiling inside. A moment later, the kettle clicked off on its own.

“You already knew the Fallen God Fragrance was one of the symptoms of the Forbidden Witch Bone. So why back out at the last second?”

Long Li’s face might have been carved from jade, still and silent for a long beat. Then she let out a sudden, sharp laugh. “Who knows? I just did.”

“Jiegeng,” she said, using Third Sister Red’s real name. “Masks really are something else.”