Chapter 18: 18 Fusang Land

◎Fearing only that the Dao-bond has grown too deep◎

Fusang Land. A hundred years ago, Yan Qingjue traveled here and saved You Fusang from among the Fierce Beasts.

This was the most widely told anecdote about Fusang Land in the mortal world.

Of course, it usually came trailing a set of verdicts behind it: “Sect Master Yan’s kindly, righteous deed—little knowing she would rear a Pagoda Ghost that betrays teacher and sect.” “You Fusang, heart of a wolf and lungs of a dog, scourge of the land—she should have died beneath the Fierce Beasts’ claws!” And so on.

In truth, very few had ever laid eyes on Fusang Land, let alone set foot within it. Those of Yan Rushi’s and Geng Ying’s caliber could, at most, glimpse it from afar; only the likes of You Fusang, Yan Qingjue, and Fang Miaocheng could actually enter.

As for the woman at Fang Miaocheng’s side whom she had met in the Ghost Market—provisionally, You Fusang guessed her to be Zhou Yun, the Eldest Lady of Solitary Mountain—You Fusang could not quite probe that woman’s cultivation.

There were only two explanations. First: her cultivation stood above You Fusang’s own, unfathomable. Second: she had little cultivation to begin with, and entering the Ghost Market, shaved down by the Ghost Emissaries, almost nothing of it remained.

Given the choice, You Fusang naturally leaned toward the latter—no one wants the enemy to suddenly gain a powerful helper. Besides, if it really was Zhou Yun—a cultivator who had poured her whole being into medicine—she had likely neglected her own cultivation and possessed no great skill. Yet judging by how deeply Fang Miaocheng relied on her, You Fusang felt that woman couldn’t truly be so incapable. The world worships strength, and Fang Miaocheng should be no exception. If one insisted on an explanation, then perhaps—one chance in ten thousand—this Divine Physician Zhou Yun had once saved her life, which made her sheathe her claws and devote herself entirely, playing the part of the sweet lover. After all, the mortal world was hardly short of storybooks about Divine Physicians and Fox Demons; perhaps the two of them had genuinely stumbled into one of those plots?

Oh well. Oh well. Lovers’ stories in this world never obeyed reason anyway.

You Fusang gathered her wandering thoughts, and before leaving Queen Mother Peak cast one last look at the thinning Cloud Sea.

Ghost Market. Qianji Tower. Fusang Land.

“The Yan Sect’s calamity, Solitary Mountain’s scheme, Pagoda’s bewilderment… the answer has always lain with one and the same person.”

“The calamity of Solitary Mountain glimpsed three hundred years ago was a fox.”

So then—Fang Miaocheng, and Pagoda, and Fusang Land…

In the flash of a spark as she stepped back from Queen Mother Peak, You Fusang’s foot struck a great stone off-kilter—likely a plaque once, its coloring long since faded—where two characters could just barely be made out at the top: “In youth…”

She lifted a hand; devil qi rustled, and the characters on the stone stele gradually emerged.

“In youth I hated my shallow Dao-bond; now I only lament it runs too deep.”

In that instant she seemed to have returned to the Yan Sect just after a sudden rain had ceased. Behind her came a soft rustle; someone leaned against her shoulder clutching scrolls, eyes drooping, reading aloud in a low voice: “In youth I hated the bond was shallow; now I lament it runs too deep…”

That person’s voice was utterly clear and lovely—like jade pendants striking, like a clear spring’s plinking. You Fusang listened quietly, her fingertip rubbing the corner of some page, long since having stopped turning them.

After a few lines, Yan Rushi stopped reading. She draped herself over You Fusang’s back and secretly played with her hair. “Senior Sister. Senior Sister. Senior Sister.”

“What is it?”

“Senior Sister, tell me—what does ‘bond’ mean here? Fortune’s bond? The Dao-bond? Or…”

Yan Rushi gave her hair a light tug, pressing closer, her gaze meeting You Fusang’s. She smiled openly, looked straight into You Fusang’s eyes, and asked in a voice only the two of them could hear: “A bond of love?”

In a single breath, the sound of rain went out. The empty mountain, the red leaves, every hue of autumn blazed brilliant. You Fusang saw only a pair of candid, smiling eyes before her—and, looking down, the ends of their hair, unexpectedly twined together.

“Bond, my foot!” An unbidden hand seized Yan Rushi’s ear, yanking a cry out of her. That person fumed: “We all agreed to go to Lin’an together, and the whole group waited on you alone. Yan Rushi, do you or don’t you understand that words must be matched by deeds?”

From the voice alone she knew it was Yan Qingjue—but scolding in a tone You Fusang had never once heard. Unlike her cold, distant relationship with You Fusang, Yan Qingjue and Yan Rushi were mother and daughter, master and disciple—and at times their romping and laughter made them seem like sisters.

Yan Qingjue’s looks were as clean and spare as her name: long-ink strokes outlining the corners of her eyes, plain dark robes with white patterning at the cuffs, black hair hanging down her back. Between Yan Rushi and her, the eyes were the most alike—both bright as dots of lacquer, deep and black, quick and clear.

At the unexpected sight of You Fusang, Yan Qingjue’s expression visibly faltered—reminding You Fusang of an actress in the Pear Garden who forgot her lines: she had just sung “fair hours, lovely scene” when suddenly—”meeting an enemy on the road”—her half-smiling face collapsed at once, too fast even to hold the false smile.

You Fusang was used to it.

Yan Rushi looked left, looked right, hugged You Fusang tighter, and pleaded her case to her mother. “I already said I don’t want to go down the mountain! Senior Sister Fusang is still reading on her rest day—there’ll be no one to play with me!”

“Yan Rushi.” Her mother called her by her full name then, very stern. “Everyone is waiting for you.”

Yan Rushi jumped, hemmed and hawed for a good while. “Fine. Fine.”

She left, looking back with every third step, her gaze still fixed on You Fusang—as if to say, Senior Sister, call me back! One word from you and I’ll defy Mother on the spot!

You Fusang shook her head slightly and did not call out. She gathered up the scrolls scattered by the water’s edge, and when she raised her eyes again, Yan Qingjue was staring at her heavily—an expression identical to the one Zhuang Xuan would wear years later, though Zhuang Xuan’s had carried more of debt, while Yan Qingjue’s carried disgust. Both were gazing at something through You Fusang—love, hatred, or grudge—while You Fusang alone remained wholly unaware of it.

Yan Qingjue studied her, deliberating a long while, before finally saying, “Fusang has never been to Lin’an City, has she? A rare rest day—come along and enjoy yourself.”

You Fusang blinked, faintly taken aback, and said, “All right.”

Yan Rushi, thoroughly satisfied, took her hand. “That’s more like it!”

In the mountains, the rain stopped.

After the rain the earth was fragrant; a clear breeze stirred a page—and the page explained, neatly and plainly, the question of Yan Rushi’s that had earlier died unanswered.

Which “bond” was it, exactly?

“The Dao-bond.”

In youth I hated my shallow Dao-bond; now I only lament it runs too deep.

A shallow bond may yet be won through cultivation; a deep bond advances and retreats not at one’s own command.

Not at one’s own command. Advance and retreat, hemmed in on every side—it had never once been hers to command.

On the road back from Penglai to Pagoda, the summer flowers thinned away mile by mile; wind and sand raged, driving off the clouds.

Only the orchid outside the Pagoda Palace remained, its white-porcelain veins of green curled at the base of the leaves, gathered into a single lonely shadow.

The palace doors stood wide open. In the days since, the interior had been arranged in perfect order. Yan Rushi sat by the latticed window, borrowing a little daylight to polish her long bow. At the sight of the newcomer she looked up, faintly startled. “Venera—”

But devil qi swept in; a hand covered her eyes, blotting out all the light. You Fusang said softly, “Forgive me.”

Yan Rushi asked nothing more. The devil qi was domineering, yet considerate of her condition—it never caused her discomfort.

But there remained something she could not understand. Now that You Fusang and Yan Rushi had formed a blood pact, their divine channels and memories should be mutually accessible. Within the pact, You Fusang was master and Yan Rushi guest; You Fusang could keep her own consciousness locked away while freely probing Yan Rushi’s.

Peering into another’s memories was hardly an honorable method—but a hundred years into devilhood, You Fusang had long forgotten righteousness and honor. She was simply too curious about Fang Miaocheng.

Yan Rushi had a grudge against Fang Miaocheng and had crossed blades with her many times. Surely…

In a mere instant, You Fusang released her hand, her expression faintly stunned—as if she had learned a great deal, and as if she had understood nothing at all.

Yan Rushi’s memories differed little from what she had said before.

A mother long absent from the Yan Sect, reappearing bearing the charge of theft; the mist-shrouded Yan Sect engulfed overnight in the smoke of war; on the flight, sleeping in wind and dew—she picked up a half-shattered jade bracelet by the roadside and lifted her eyes, dazed, to see Pagoda City’s devil qi flickering in and out of the wind and sand.

The Young Lord of the Righteous Path, without looking back, plunged into Pagoda’s smoke-fouled towers.

So many grimy, dust-caked memories—and yet Fang Miaocheng’s figure appeared in scarcely any of them. Only the occasional carrier pigeon, delivering some bloody, mangled thing, as a threat.

You Fusang found it strange, always feeling that some piece of information had slipped through…

But here was Yan Rushi, staring blankly at her, clearly waiting for an explanation.

Looking at her, You Fusang seemed to have returned to that clear rain on the Back Mountain long ago—a pair of limpid eyes a hand-span away. Something in her softened. “Sorry. Through the blood pact, I looked into your memories.”

Yan Rushi blinked, vaguely stunned. “Does the Venerable Lord suspect me? Suspect me of disloyalty, of insincerity…”

As she spoke she smiled, fragile, her voice still thick with tears, brows and eyes lowered—none of her former pride. Those bound by blood pact to a devil cultivator were the most unsettled of hearts, safe nowhere, forever terrified of abandonment; inexplicably parted for days, then upon reunion met with nothing but an interrogation dressed as an inquiry.

It would sit ill with anyone.

You Fusang looked at her—and the soothing palm came down after all.

“Nothing of the sort. I have never doubted you, Junior Sister Yan.”

When You Fusang returned to Pagoda, Geng Ying, shut up in the study, received the news like a general amnesty.

“Finally done copying that wretched book! Finally done copying that wretched book!” She repeated it gleefully several times over, then went bouncing back to her little room, radiance itself, and surveyed it in a slow circle, counting her Silver Needles and treasured instruments—only to startle at finding a few of them missing.

Her face abruptly cooled. She snatched a Spirit Bell from the desk and flung it out the door—instantly came the sound of someone dropping to their knees outside.

That Geng Ying was ill-tempered and capricious was common knowledge in Pagoda. One unlucky word to displease her, and blood splashing three feet was routine. There was a running joke in the city: rather than provoke City Lord Fusang, never—never—touch the reverse scale of that little ghost Geng Ying.

“Was it you? Hm? Or you?” She seized the collars of several attendants in a row, fury already sparking in her eyes.

The attendants knelt, trembling like leaves, kowtowing. “Even with eight hundred lives, this lowly one wouldn’t dare…”

But to their astonishment, Geng Ying dropped the matter. “Forget it, forget it—forget it! Maybe I remembered wrong.” She waved them off, releasing them, clearly in an excellent mood. “Finally done copying books! Time for a grand slaughter in the Pagoda Tower!”

Her Poison Needles had a hundred strange and varied effects, every one of them accompanied by lethal poison—one careless touch meant sudden death, and everyone else fled from them. Geng Ying did not believe anyone but herself could handle them. Maybe one of those devil cultivators had stolen them… always eyeing her guardian post covetously. Hmph—stealing her things while she was under the Venerable Lord’s punishment? Looking to die!

Geng Ying cursed those people a hundred and eighty times over in her heart, plotting her revenge for when she came out of the Pagoda Tower.

—Naturally, it would never occur to her to suspect that reclusive Young Sect Master Yan.

At that same moment in the Pagoda Palace, Yan Rushi nestled against You Fusang’s chest, murmuring a docile “yes.”

But in the shadows her brows were knotted tight; a short needle buried in her jet-black hair was cold as the Cold Moon. Fierce poison flooded her body, endless pain surging in layer upon layer like a rising tide—and yet, the effect was unmistakable.

The effect was… concealment. Of memory.