Meng Youmu was genuinely amused. The cracks finally appeared on her cold, expressionless face, and she suddenly burst into hearty laughter.
The moment was fleeting. Her laughter ceased as quickly as it had begun. With a frigid expression, she tossed the wooden needle and thread aside and crawled slowly out from under the table. Using the pale moonlight, she carefully scrutinized the person behind Feng Yun’ai.
Feng Yun’ai stood firmly in front of Feng Rong’s body, not daring to move. She didn’t want to presume what kind of relationship Feng Rong had shared with this woman.
Meng Youmu stared in silence for a long time before letting out a heavy sigh. “Feng Rong, to think even you would see a day like this.”
“Did you know my Master?” Feng Yun’ai asked, her body tense.
Meng Youmu’s expression was a tangled mess. The emotions in her eyes were like ripples on a pond—disturbed by a single water strider, shifting with every circle.
It wasn’t quite longing, but it was more than mere nostalgia. There was a hint of melancholy mixed with a trace of hostility, her gaze turning kaleidoscopic and strange.
Sang Chencao sat on the edge of the table, casually picking up a piece of the offering and taking a bite, showing zero respect for the statue of the Ancestral Master standing behind them. With half a rice cake in her mouth, she said cheerfully, “Don’t panic, Xiuxiu. She isn’t close with Feng Rong. She’s only close with Wen Lanxin.”
Feng Yun’ai couldn’t wrap her head around it. If she was close with Wen Lanxin, why would she harbor such hostility toward Feng Rong?
Meng Youmu leaned forward slowly, moving so close her face was almost pressing against Feng Yun’ai’s.
Feng Yun’ai held her breath. Seeing Meng Youmu’s hand reaching for her hair, she instinctively jerked away, only to realize that Meng Youmu wasn’t aiming for her—she was reaching for Feng Rong.
Meng Youmu gently brushed a stray lock of Feng Rong’s hair. Gradually, the last vestige of hostility faded from her eyes, replaced by an endless, weary resignation.
“You…” Feng Yun’ai started, her heart pounding.
Meng Youmu retracted her hand. “Wen Lanxin and I have a blood feud.”
Feng Yun’ai blinked, startled. She had assumed they shared a deep bond of friendship, never imagining they were bitter rivals.
As she spoke, Meng Youmu suddenly yanked down her sleeve, pulling her inner garment along with it to reveal half of her shoulder.
The movement was so abrupt that Feng Yun’ai instinctively looked away, but her eyes caught a glimpse of something—a thick, centipede-like scar running across the woman’s shoulder.
It looked as if the arm had once been completely torn off and then stitched back on.
Just as the thought occurred to Feng Yun’ai, it was confirmed.
“Wen Lanxin once severed one of my hands,” Meng Youmu said. “Afterward, every time I sought her out for revenge, I was defeated. She complained that my skills weren’t what they used to be, so she went out and found another hand to graft onto me. But by the time I wanted to challenge her again, she had abandoned the sword to live in seclusion as the ‘Soul-Shattering Needle.’ From then on… she never touched a blade again.”
Feng Yun’ai knew that must have happened after the Battle of the Cauldron Sea.
In the martial world, people lived and died for their grudges; seeking vengeance for every slight was common. Someone as obsessed as Meng Youmu was not a rare sight.
Meng Youmu shook her head. “She stopped using the sword. Even if I won, what would be the point? I simply gave up on my revenge. Later, I learned she had abandoned her blade because of Feng Rong. I became curious—just what kind of person was this Feng Rong?”
“Is that why you came to Cloud City?” Feng Yun’ai asked.
Meng Youmu nodded. She turned and walked toward the altar, waving Sang Chencao away. She picked out three sticks of incense, lit them against the red candle, and bowed thrice to Feng Rong before bowing thrice to the Ancestral Master.
Only then did she continue. “Indeed. I came to Cloud City back then and have lived here ever since. I never expected that in all these years, I would see Feng Rong’s face fewer than ten times in total.”
“She essentially became a living chronicler of Feng Rong and Wen Lanxin’s daily lives, knowing almost everything about them,” Sang Chencao teased. “Pity she never got the chance to duel Wen Lanxin, nor did she ever get the opportunity to cross swords with Feng Rong.”
Meng Youmu didn’t get angry. She merely gave a light huff and glanced at Sang Chencao. “This girl found out years ago that I had an old grudge against Wen Lanxin. She came to Cloud City specifically to find me, hoping we could team up to kill her. But I’d long since lost my thirst for vengeance. Besides, Wen Lanxin is not a woman easily killed.”
“I figured as much,” Feng Yun’ai thought. To deal with Wen Lanxin, Sang Chencao was willing to use every possible means.
Sang Chencao looked thoughtful as she leaned against a coffin. “Since you know so much about Wen Lanxin and Feng Rong, did you know they were the successors of the Moonlight Sect?”
Meng Youmu froze. After a long silence, she shook her head. “The only successor of the Moonlight Sect I knew of was Sun Qi.”
The rest of the martial world thought the same. After Sun Qi, the Moonlight Sect had vanished entirely. No one even knew the names of her disciples.
The reputations of Wen Lanxin and Feng Rong had been built by their own hands. One turned to the path of evil, while the other established the Hantian Alliance to purge the Borderlands of monsters—they were polar opposites.
“If even you didn’t know, then I wonder how someone else managed to find out beforehand,” Sang Chencao sneered. “Not only that, but that person somehow knew the methods to break the formations at Yellow Sand Cliff and Listening Goose Peak. In my opinion, neither Wen Lanxin nor Feng Rong were the types to pour their hearts out to others just because they were on good terms.”
“I knew for a long time that there was a formation on Listening Goose Peak, but I could never decipher it. If it was a Moonlight Sect formation, that explains it,” Meng Youmu said. “I heard rumors about the mountain formation being broken and found it quite shocking. It couldn’t have been done by anyone close to Feng Rong. In all these years, she was the only one who could go up that mountain. Even her close friend Sui Jianxue couldn’t step foot on the peak until after the formation was broken.”
“If it wasn’t an outsider, then it must be someone intimately familiar with the Moonlight Sect. Who were Sun Qi’s fellow disciples?” After asking, Feng Yun’ai immediately thought of the Moonlight Sect register she had seen beneath Yellow Sand Cliff.
