Chapter 10: Dream of Fireflies

Use infatuation to lure the heart, and nothing is beyond reach.

Even after returning to Pagoda City, Yan Rushi remained in a heavy, half-conscious daze. She didn’t know who had carried her, held her — someone seemed to sigh, dabbing the blood from her face and the front of her robes with a handkerchief; the nails were slightly long, scraping faintly against the side of her neck.

It stung a little.

It also tickled.

Yan Rushi wanted to open her eyes, but couldn’t. After a while, her five senses finally returned. The face before her was so near and yet so far — first came the far-off scent of Ambergris and sandalwood, reminding her of a cold sea and drifting driftwood. Yan Rushi felt vaguely as if she were drowning, her heart damp, mist rising in her eyes, her hands clutching the driftwood and refusing to let go, as if it were her only chance at life.

The sick are always unreasonable. Yan Rushi clutched those hands, pressed her cheek closer, and felt the faint, near-dead blue veins at the inside of that person’s wrist. That person brushed the hair from her ear and gently stroked her cheek; a sigh too faint to hear fell into the aloeswood-scented air — and when that familiar white aloeswood fragrance filled her senses, it stung Yan Rushi so sharply she wanted to weep.

Nightmares, wounds, illness, and old memories were all her barriers, and one who cannot undo her barriers can never stand on her own again. A mother without the Verdant Mountain Sword could no longer hold up the Yan Sect… Yan Rushi thought muddledly. And without the Yan Sect, I… am nothing at all.

She drew closer to the person before her, cheek settling into the hollow of their neck, greedily taking some of…

…the warmth she should not crave, that had no right to exist.

“Venerable Lord!”

Yan Rushi vaguely heard someone call the person before her that.

It really is Senior Sister… she thought then. If it’s Senior Sister, it’s fine to be held a little longer, isn’t it?

Before she could think further, a hand covered her eyes — feather-light, faint, carrying a gentleness no Devil Cultivator should have.

It was something Senior Sister had done for her once, long ago.

A hundred years ago, on a silent summer night in the Yan Sect’s Back Mountain, Senior Sister had taken her hand, and on that always-calm face appeared a rare, slightly flustered smile. She had led her into the woods, and at a certain spot gently covered Yan Rushi’s eyes.

Yan Rushi had laughed and said, why cover my eyes? Could Senior Sister have forgotten I have night blindness?

You Fusang had only said softly: I’m afraid you won’t adjust.

Adjust to what?

Before she could ask, You Fusang let go.

The instant she opened her eyes, the expected darkness did not descend — instead, everything was clear. For some reason, the leaves of the night forest all glowed, and the small pond before them was bright as a bronze mirror, so limpid, as though moonlight had soaked into the water and lit it with radiance.

Yan Rushi was so entranced she nearly forgot to blink.

“The pond… it’s glowing?”

“No,” You Fusang replied. “Those are fireflies.”

Yan Rushi understood at once and looked closely.

The summer night’s wind was cool. Faint-blue fireflies fluttered down in soft showers, more brilliant and dazzling than the stars at the sky’s edge.

Yan Rushi watched, heart stirring, and didn’t watch her step — her shoe crushed a dry leaf, and the tiny sound startled a few nearby fireflies.

“Shh. Don’t disturb them…”

You Fusang carefully caught her hand; Yan Rushi leaned into her, fingers winding around her wrist.

Where no one could see, someone’s ears quietly went red.

Seven or eight stars beyond the sky’s edge, two or three drops of rain before the mountain. The bright moon, the clear breeze, and the drifting fireflies — all had scattered like cloud and smoke.

Those fireflies, more radiant than stars, flickered once through Yan Rushi’s muddled head — like a wild goose crossing clouds, leaving no trace. Why was she thinking of this? Yan Rushi smiled wryly to herself. A hundred years of seas becoming mulberry fields; the Yan Sect teetering on the edge of ruin; she had lost her home, and the Senior Sister she’d known best had become the unreachable City Lord of Pagoda City, an addiction to bloodshed lurking in those golden pupils.

Once, Fang Miaocheng had still been a civil official of Solitary Mountain, gentle and peaceable, never speaking with a barb in every sentence, mockery in every word — much less flaunting someone’s life, and the manner of their death, in such inhuman provocation.

And once, she had watched Fang Miaocheng duel a Yan Sect cultivator, ending at first touch. Fang Miaocheng’s moves had been simple and rigid — nothing like now, the White Silk Ribbon swift as lightning and fleeting as dew, every form flowing with her breath, vicious and unforeseen.

Viciousness is no sin; in cultivation, the strong devour the weak.

The whole world has spent a hundred years cultivating.

It was I who grew worse, and so now I am no match for anyone.

“Venerable Lord, I truly don’t know what happened!” The moment she left the palace chambers, Geng Ying wailed her innocence. “I just watched what they said, what they cursed, then the Yan one drew her bow and nocked arrows, the Fang one called out the White Silk Ribbon, then they fought and fought and fought… the Yan one was caught off guard and got the worst of it, and the Fang one was plenty vicious too — stepping on her shoulder, trying to make her kneel…”

You Fusang’s face went cold, but she only said, “Just had to go pick a fight and reap what you sowed.” After a moment’s thought, she rested her hand lightly on the door. “Qingluan, assign more people to look after her. If she wakes, tell me. Whatever she asks for, grant it.”

Qingluan obeyed.

Over the following days, servants came and went through the vast City Lord’s chambers. External wounds were easy to treat; internal ones were not. Spring had plainly arrived, yet Yan Rushi lay wrapped in a brocade quilt, a fine sweat on her face while her hands and feet were ice-cold. She couldn’t sleep — every time she closed her eyes she saw her frail mother and the Yan Sect’s long-collapsed mountain gate. The night dew was heavy; You Fusang did not appear for long stretches, and often Yan Rushi was alone in the hall, a pearl lamp by the desk. Her eyes followed the flame’s dance, and before long the tears came and would not stop.

On the fourth day she fell asleep with two dark bags under her eyes — and began to burn with fever, flipping and turning through nightmares. Now and then she remembered her mother teaching her the bow as a child: drawing the bow, stringing it, choosing the arrow, setting the arrow — Yan Qingjue had walked her through every step, meticulous, gentle and kind.

Yan Rushi woke in the night, staring at the empty chamber, her face soaked through.

It was the sixth day before You Fusang learned of Yan Rushi’s unrelenting fever. These days she had been in Pagoda City’s high tower, combing through the Pagoda Token from the beginning. Every City Lord of Pagoda City had cultivated the “Pagoda Token” — an art of ten levels, yet of the first sixteen City Lords, none had passed, at most, the seventh level. You Fusang, however, had reached the fourth level upon merely entering its gates, and had now cultivated to the ninth.

This was the reason those Devil Cultivators revered her so.

But You Fusang understood: the higher this art climbed, the closer it drew to destruction.

At the Qingming Banquet on Solitary Mountain, Geng Ying had only skinned a single head. In the moonlight the blood hadn’t looked so distinct — a few drops had spattered her shoes, and the smell of blood had come winding up in threads, and, astonishingly, it had stirred the glutton in her stomach. In that moment You Fusang realized with a start: she was… close to losing control of her desires.

Lust for slaughter. Lust for hatred. Lust for cruelty.

It shouldn’t be like this…

Realizing it, she had panicked utterly and fled as fast as she could.

The Pagoda Art had been hidden in the Sea of Consciousness of the previous City Lord; that City Lord was now gone, and the Sea of Consciousness dispersed with her, but part of the Pagoda Token remained permanently in You Fusang’s consciousness. She had been admonished: learn one level, behold one level, and never reach beyond your grasp — even the righteous risk Qi Deviation from overreaching, let alone Devil Cultivators cultivating a “Heretic Art”?

You Fusang’s cultivation had lingered at the ninth level for a very long time. She would not look behind her — and the art of the tenth level had never surfaced in her consciousness.

You Fusang was also deeply averse to it.

Because the “Pagoda Token,” at its root, was the destruction of others, of the world, of oneself.

Now, with such heavy killing karma upon her, would it… soon be her own turn?

Coming out of the high tower, You Fusang stood dazed a moment in the daylight, then lowered her eyes to find her hands dripping, the stench of blood fouling the air behind her, enough to make her retch.

Someone came forward to wipe away the blood.

You Fusang gave a flat glance and asked only: “Has her fever broken?”

The clever one understood at once that she meant Yan Rushi and answered in a rush: “It’s down, it’s down, Venerable Lord — that’s why we’ve come looking for you!”

Before the words finished, a young servant came charging over in a panic. “Venerable Lord! That Yan Rushi… she’s broken out of the palace! Sick as she is, she runs like the wind — we, we didn’t dare force her, that’s — that’s why I came to tell you!”

“Where did she go?”

“Lady Geng Ying’s Gu Refinement grounds…”

Geng Ying was the finest Gu refiner in Pagoda City. Her refinement grounds, where insects and plants intertwined in bloody filth, were hardly cleaner than the Pagoda Tower.

Fierce Beasts that Geng Ying raised free-range prowled there often too.

With a body full of sickness, charging into a place like that… where did she find the guts?

The servants watched You Fusang withdraw her hand, wring out her blood-soaked sleeve with a sickening drip, drip — and in the next blink, she was gone.

Geng Ying’s Gu Refinement grounds were a dense forest, grasping vines sprawling on every side, the faint sounds of bloodsucking drifting through like a mist barrier, giant ancient trees growing with grotesque exuberance until they blotted out the sky. You Fusang didn’t know the place well, but her cultivation far outstripped Geng Ying’s; those protections of hers were mere decoration in You Fusang’s eyes.

When she found Yan Rushi, the girl was using her long bow as a blade, the tip buried in the heart of a Fierce Beast. Fine sweat soaked the hair at her brow, her chest rising and falling; the illness had not fully broken, the corners of her eyes still crimson.

Seeing You Fusang, she called out in a rasping voice, “Venerable Lord…” — her own sleeves half-soaked in blood, and yet she was the one to demand of You Fusang, “You… you’ve killed someone?”

“Is that any business of yours?” You Fusang smiled without a trace of feeling. “Why don’t you tell me, Young Sect Master Yan, what brings you trespassing here.”

“You’ll only laugh if I say.” Yan Rushi’s strength gave out; she lowered her eyes. “The truth is… I don’t understand it myself. These past days I’ve been caught in nightmares, never sure whether I’m awake or dreaming. There’s me training on the mountain — a bow, plainly aimed at birds, insects, beasts, and yet what falls is a blood-soaked heart… Facing a wooden stake alone, a swing of Sword Qi cleaves a living person in two… I know they’re dreams, but I grow more and more uneasy, because they’re too detailed, too familiar — as if I’d done it a thousand times already. It shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t…”

She had never killed anyone, yet the sensations in those dreams were so real. Yan Rushi was at a loss; the long bow slipped from her hands and crashed into the blood-fouled mud with a muffled sound. Not daring to meet You Fusang’s eyes, she hung her head and murmured, “Senior — Venerable Lord, is this real? Or some joining of dream and reality? I don’t understand… In the dream I’m hunting something, or being hunted by someone, and when I come back to myself, the bow in my hands is buried in this little beast’s chest. The blood is real, and so is the death… I don’t understand…”

“There’s nothing to understand,” You Fusang cut through her rambling. “This time you can’t tell dream from reality and what you cut down is a beast. Next time, perhaps, it’ll be a person. Hm. Young Sect Master Yan, do you know what this is?”

Yan Rushi looked blank. “Wh-what?”

You Fusang’s smile bloomed, brilliant beyond all reason. “This is the omen of Falling into Devilhood.”

Yan Rushi went entirely still.

It had not come without warning, things reaching this point.

Harboring resentment opens the door to Devilhood — and what person in this world is without grievance? Let alone Yan Rushi, her family destroyed, her fortunes adrift, the restoration of the Yan Sect a distant haze… and now, her very body steeped in Pagoda City, where Devil Qi ran thickest.

You Fusang asked again, “Where is your Hand Warmer?”

Yan Rushi looked utterly lost. “What… Hand Warmer…”

The Hand Warmer that warded off Devil Qi’s corruption had plainly been forgotten entirely.

You Fusang was so exasperated she almost laughed. She closed the distance, her shadow falling over her, golden pupils utterly cold. “Are you afraid, Young Sect Master Yan?”

“Afraid… of what?”

“Becoming a Devil Cultivator.”

Yan Rushi froze a moment, and instead of answering, pressed down a self-mocking smile at the corner of her mouth.

You Fusang took it for retreat and said, “Yan Rushi, find your Hand Warmer and practice the Yan Sect’s sword arts again. The righteous sects’ swordplay naturally purifies the heart. It will keep you from…”

“— Venerable Lord, what if I said I’m not afraid?”

“What did you say?” You Fusang was startled.

“I am not afraid of becoming a Devil Cultivator.”

Yan Rushi drew a breath and repeated it, word by word. “I am not afraid of becoming a Devil Cultivator.”

“Why?”

“Because it would make me strong.” Yan Rushi’s voice was soft. “Venerable Lord — more than being spat on by the world, I hate being powerless…”

You Fusang laughed. “There’s more to being a Devil Cultivator than the world’s scorn. The Devil Cultivators you’ve seen in Pagoda City are the rare few who survived. They look glorious, but at night they toss and turn with the bloodstains of the slaughter that came before their Devilhood swimming before their eyes. Worse — most drowned themselves in the very instants before Falling into Devilhood. Blood, carnage — and what they clawed out with their bare hands was their own heart.”

Matters of Devil Cultivators were always the bloodiest.

Hearing this, Yan Rushi indeed went pale and still.

You Fusang laughed softly again. “Young Sect Master Yan, you think far too simply. This world is not black and white.” She turned to leave. “Your heart is unsteady. You are not yet worthy to cultivate the Devil’s path.”

And privately, You Fusang did not wish to see Yan Rushi fall to the Heretic Path either.

But in the flash of her turning, an arrow tore out with a snarl, splitting the wind and burying itself in the ancient tree where You Fusang stood — three inches deep into the wood.

The fletching left outside rang out with a zheng, shaking loose a spray of daylight.

Yan Rushi held the drawn bow and raised her eyes. “I respectfully ask the Venerable Lord: what would make me worthy?”