◎Footsteps on the Road, Soft and Hushed◎
The moment You Fusang heard Yan Rushi was awake, she headed straight for the sleeping palace.
Geng Ying trailed behind her, seething inwardly: news that the Venerable Lord’s own right and left arms had turned traitor mattered less than the fact that some sickly abandoned pawn had woken up?
Clearly she would have to find a way to get rid of that woman.
As if reading her thoughts, before Pagoda Palace, You Fusang flicked her sleeve and barred Geng Ying at the door. “You are not to enter.”
Geng Ying froze, two crocodile tears hanging at the corners of her eyes. “Venerable Lord…”
The answer she received was the sound of the palace doors shutting firmly.
Meanwhile, in the far southwest of the Nine Provinces, Qianji Tower.
Everyone within the tower respectfully welcomed Lu Qiongyin home, trailing behind her an Azure Bird. The others paid it no mind, assuming the Tower Master had picked up another Little Demon for company—but a sharp-eyed few caught sight of a tuft of white feathers at the bird’s wingtip, and seized their weapons as if facing a great enemy. “Tower Master, this is one of the Pagoda Ghost’s—”
“What are you saying?” Lu Qiongyin blinked, turned, and raised her hand; the Azure Bird obediently settled on the back of it.
Lu Qiongyin kissed the bird’s forehead and smiled with curved eyes. “Such a darling Little Azure Bird—what would it have to do with the Pagoda Ghost?”
This Tower Master Lu was an exquisitely gentle beauty, white robes trimmed in purple silk, her voice clear and soft, the kind that made people believe her against their will.
The subordinate nodded rapidly, then looked closely at the Little Azure Bird—and the white feathers had vanished without a trace, as if they had merely been glimpsed wrong earlier.
She hastened to say, “It was this subordinate crying wolf. Forgive my presumption, Tower Master.”
Lu Qiongyin waved a hand, her smile gentle. “It’s nothing. A little vigilance does no harm.”
She strolled into the tower.
Qianji Tower stood in the steepest, most remote corner of the Nine Provinces’ southwest, built of crimson agate and costly beryl crystal, glowing brilliantly amid withered, desolate trees—peculiar and eerie. No one knew where it had come from, no one knew the Tower Master’s true name; it was as if this sky-piercing tower had simply risen there overnight.
That was some several hundred years ago.
At first, the Tower Master merely saved passing travelers. This southwest corner was remote, thick with Devil Qi and miasma, yet a vital trade route; many merchants had perished here, and those spared death had miasma rot their lungs, leaving chronic illness behind. The Tower Master of Qianji Tower, it seemed, possessed medical skill, and could indeed work miraculous cures. Legend held that laborers and merchants need only bow before the tower before entering these lands, take a few life-preserving pills, and they could withstand the miasma’s affliction.
Besides saving people, the Tower Master had also punished villains.
The southwest bordered the edge of the Nine Provinces; gang brawls were common, as among all who walked the Dao. This tower soared shoulder to shoulder with the stars and glittered with agate and crystal—so naturally some harbored ill intent, robbing and stealing both.
Yet the Tower Master won every battle. Through a hundred years of wind and rain she stood unmoved, even showing signs of expansion—her martial arts were surely formidable.
The tower stood silent and still beneath the cliff, like its master.
The master’s name was Lu Qiongyin, taken from the sound of footsteps on the road; anyone who chewed on the name would picture a cat tiptoeing softly. Then one day, Lu Qiongyin went into the information trade—whether matters of a life afterward, or a life before, every word was accurate.
Thus she earned the fine reputation of “possessing intelligence on past lives complete as a Jianghu Sage, with arts of deduction rivaling Penglai’s Chunmu.”
In a blink, several hundred years passed. Qianji Tower’s fame gradually grew, gathering many believers; its power swelled, and the Nine Provinces slowly settled into a pattern: “the Yan Sect at the center, Solitary Mountain in the east, Pagoda City in the west, the Imperial Path Sect in the north, Qianji Tower in the south.”
Tower Master Lu kept the appearance of youth, warm and approachable—and was said to possess a thousand faces; no one had ever seen her true countenance.
She did not contend with the world, and for now no one had clashed with her. Some said her strength was passable, that she treated mortal cultivators and laborers well, but that against true powerhouses—the Yan Sect Master, the Old One of Solitary Mountain, the City Lord of Pagoda City, the Divine Hand of Imperial Path, the General of Penglai—she still fell short. Others said her strength was unfathomable, that those who crossed her were defeated so badly they found it too shameful to speak of it to outsiders.
But that was a matter for later.
The cultivators of Qianji Tower lived with her day and night, and gradually sensed an air of extraordinary tranquility about her. Some guessed she was a fallen Immortal who remained in the mortal dust because she could not see through some obsession. Others asked boldly—and at the question, Lu Qiongyin merely paused, then smiled faintly. “Everyone wants to become an Immortal, yet no one ever can. Ah, where in this world are there any Immortals or gods? There are only plentiful fools who torment themselves.”
Watching the Tower Master cradle cats and tease birds, no one would ever imagine her connected to the strife of the mortal world.
Yet the jianghu whispered that Qianji Tower had once allied with the Yan Sect to root out the Devil Cultivators of Pagoda; though the conflict between the Yan Sect and Solitary Mountain had interrupted things and the matter fizzled out, recently their Tower Master had grown very close with Fang Miaocheng of Solitary Mountain…
The work of exterminating Devils had likely never slackened.
To stay out of it would only earn the label of “Devil-sympathizer”—a crime already nailed to the board by the time anyone spoke of it. To charge forward now was merely to claim a name among the Righteous Path and a share of the spoils of Devil-slaying.
Indeed. Living in this mortal world, who would dare not attach themselves to the Righteous Path? And who does not turn toward profit?
Those who claim power and profit are worthless have mostly never tasted their sweetness. Even a blind man thinks he has no need of light.
“If a blind man opened his eyes and could see, how could he not be drawn to the light? Don’t you agree, Little Azure Bird?”
In Qianji Tower, Lu Qiongyin sat by the window at its very height, beneath the stars, the Azure Bird beside her having revealed its true form.
“Qingluan understands! A hundred years ago at your side, you already told me: the world is simply this way. Even those who do not chase profit are never free of its fetters. When heavenly treasures lie before you and you refuse to take them, they will only be seized by others. If others gain one measure, you lose one; lose one measure, and you are one grade beneath. If you neither fight nor seize, others will only deem you useless and incompetent, weak and easily bullied; only with power gripped in your own hand do your words carry weight. City Lord Zhuang Xuan—Qingluan is as she was a hundred years ago, following you unto death…” Qingluan knelt. “There is only one thing I do not understand: the seat of City Lord of Pagoda City was passed by you to You Fusang. Why, then, do you now raise the banner of the Righteous Path to perform this deed of ‘expelling Devils’?”
What puzzled her even more: were “they” not also Devil Cultivators?
Lu Qiongyin only smiled lazily. “What does the banner matter, so long as it lets us accomplish what we wish to do?”
“But I…”
“Qingluan, you never used to ask so many questions.” Lu Qiongyin cut her off. “Or have these years following Fusang led your heart astray?”
“How—how could that be!” Qingluan immediately bowed her head, speaking with utter sincerity. “Qingluan waited a hundred years for you… and finally you returned. That you were willing to acknowledge Qingluan—I am beyond grateful. You know that whatever your intentions, Qingluan obeys without condition, follows you unto death…”
Lu Qiongyin smiled faintly and nodded.
But in the depths of her eyes was mockery—
This Azure Bird was still just as much of an idiot.
In truth, You Fusang was not the least bit surprised by Qingluan’s betrayal. In fact, the moment she saw Zhuang Xuan’s face in Yan Rushi’s memories, You Fusang had already anticipated this moment.
Devil Cultivators too had Dao Hearts, and Qingluan’s Dao Heart was “Zhuang Xuan.”
The Azure Bird was clever but truly single-minded; pledging life and death to pursue her master—nothing worth wondering at. What was strange was that Zhuang Xuan had clearly been the sixteenth City Lord of Pagoda City, so why had she transformed into the Righteous Path’s Devil-hunting blade, even playing at “righteous and heretic cannot coexist” with her?
Truly laughable.
“But are you certain it’s Zhuang Xuan? What if this Yan woman is deceiving you?” Geng Ying chased after her. “She has precedent—can you trust her that easily?”
“Geng Ying, you know better than I: those Silver Needles, in tampering with memory, can only delete and conceal—they cannot fabricate from nothing.”
Geng Ying pursed her lips, conceding the point.
You Fusang added, “Besides, Yan Rushi had never seen Zhuang Xuan before. How would she fabricate anything?”
“Fine, fine. You’ve said so, so it is so.”
Hands on hips, Geng Ying sulked inwardly: You’ve said so—what right do I have to question you?
You Fusang shut the palace doors completely.
Within, she walked slowly, past bed-curtains layered like mist and cloud. Amid that mist, Yan Rushi had picked up her incense burner again, leaning against the bedside; catching sight of You Fusang, her eyes brightened, and she suppressed her pale, sickly look.
Clearly the aftertaste of a nightmare lingered: tear tracks still at her eyes, she coughed a few times and did not speak first.
Proper courtesy would have asked after her—but from beginning to end, what You Fusang cared most about was Yan Rushi’s body. Yet looking at her, looking into those eyes so sharply divided between black and white, an uncrossable gulf seemed to open in You Fusang’s heart.
She was righteous; she was heretic. They were enemies, fated to be irreconcilable.
So she spoke, her tone indifferent, even faintly mocking. “Does Young Sect Master Yan know how long you slept?”
“I…” Yan Rushi’s voice was very hoarse. “I don’t…”
You Fusang cut straight to it: “It was the people of Qianji Tower who struck you down.”
“Mm. Qianji Tower. Lu Qiongyin.”
You Fusang thought, as expected—yet found it strange. “Were you not returning to the Yan Sect? How did you cross paths with Qianji Tower’s people?”
“You’ll find it laughable, Venerable Lord?” Yan Rushi said self-mockingly. “The Yan Sect has long since been… occupied, nest and all, by Solitary Mountain and Qianji Tower. Perhaps in a few days the Yan Sect will no longer bear the name Yan—Fang, Lu, Zhou, who knows.”
You Fusang replied pleasantly, “Mm-hm, there is indeed such talk. It was Solitary Mountain’s Zhou Ling who threw you back to Pagoda City. She said you were the Righteous Path’s abandoned pawn.”
“Mm. Abandoned pawn—so that is truly how she sees me. And why stop at me? Mother and the Yan Sect too are but a single rook left hollowed-out on their chessboard, its value spent in the battles across the river, discarded at whim, divided up at whim…”
All merely under the banner of exterminating Devils, they would let the Yan Sect perish too.
At which step had it all gone wrong? Yan Rushi groped back through her memories, dazed—yes, the Profound Mirror, the Profound Mirror, all of it that damnable Profound Mirror! She could not understand how a strange mirror, a baseless charge, had landed on their heads and would not come off.
She ought to be angry; instead she was utterly drained—no strength for anger, no strength for complaint, no strength…
For anything.
In this chess game she was powerless to do anything, forever pushed along by another’s hand. Unable to trust anyone—or rather, everyone she could trust had been eliminated. And now she was even being made to harm another person… her Senior Sister…
Yan Rushi lowered her head and said nothing.
But You Fusang said, “Tell me everything you know of Solitary Mountain’s affairs. Will you?”
Yan Rushi stared at her blankly, something flickering in her eyes. She stayed silent a long, long while, and when she spoke again, she had gathered her incense burner into her arms once more. “I don’t know… so very much. In truth, two years ago, the Yan Sect did have dealings with Qianji Tower, and Mother did discuss the matter of exterminating Devils with that Tower Master. But I never saw the true face of that Tower Master Lu, never exchanged a word with her. Mother never used to hide things from me like this—perhaps she thought I would pass word to you…”
In truth, over these hundred years, Yan Rushi had cultivated on her own, and never had any contact with Senior Sister Fusang, now become City Lord of Pagoda City. You Fusang never sought her out, and Yan Rushi had no grounds to beg for an audience.
But who could blame it—on the day You Fusang fell into Devilhood, it was Yan Rushi who had blocked the Sect Master’s killing blow for her.
However unwilling Yan Qingjue’s heart was to admit it, admit it she must: this pair of Martial Sisters was deeply bonded, and in the matter of exterminating Devils—whether from concealment or wariness—she was loath to let Yan Rushi know too much.
Or put another way: one person fewer who knew meant one risk fewer. Thus, if the plan failed, Yan Rushi need not bear the blame; if it succeeded, Yan Rushi would share the glory.
Yan Qingjue had always thought of her daughter this way.
But Mother… Yan Rushi thought, this ignorance is not what I wanted at all…
“The Yan Sect, Solitary Mountain, Qianji Tower—the three were originally allies. But somehow—perhaps premeditated from the start, perhaps sudden…” Yan Rushi lowered her eyes. “Before the Yan Sect fell, I overheard pieces of their plans. They wanted to begin with the Pagoda Devil Qi. Perhaps discussing the Pagoda Token before you is teaching a fish to swim, but—what I know is that the Pagoda Devil Qi is something like an inheritance, and that is where they intended to strike… But some Elders said the Pagoda Devil Qi is in truth the malice of all the world’s people, never to be extinguished—that is why it is so powerful, so feared, so prone to Backlash, so hard to control…”
She sighed. “Beyond that, I know nothing more. I’m sorry.”
She had said all she meant to say; truly, she knew no more.
But neither was this wholehearted betrayal—abandoning light for darkness, the righteous for the heretic. She simply refused to hide anything more from You Fusang, refused to deceive her again.
The affairs of the Yan Sect, Solitary Mountain, and Pagoda City she had not yet untangled herself; everything more was merely words pinned on her by others, whose truth she had never understood. She did not want to become a convenient weapon, did not want to be a tool that only obeyed and never thought.
Moreover, the Blood Pact still bound her: You Fusang was master, she the guest, and lies and betrayal would invite Backlash. Fresh from grave illness, a spent arrow—she could hardly withstand that torment now.
And yet…
She did not want to turn her back on the Righteous Path either.
Yes—at the bottom of her heart she still believed herself the Young Lord of the Righteous Path, and could not consort with the Heretic Path Sovereign.
Since either way meant violating her Dao Heart, harming others and herself alike, Yan Rushi chose silence.
You Fusang did not press her.
She only gave voice to the words she had turned over and over before: “Young Sect Master Yan, look. The Righteous Path you cherish treats you as an abandoned pawn—and the Heretic Path you spurn…”
Her fingertip drifted to the back of Yan Rushi’s neck, where the Blood Pact’s markings began, “…the Heretic Path you spurn, the Devil Qi you spurn—along this Blood Pact, it guarded your life.”
Yan Rushi’s lashes trembled, but her eyes stayed downcast.
“Forget it.” You Fusang had no wish to torment her. “Young Sect Master Yan is a peaceful white dove; surely you’ve no wish to wade back into this sect strife. If Solitary Mountain or Qianji Tower comes after Pagoda City, I will handle them myself. As for you… stay here, heal well, and take no part in the war between righteous and heretic.”
Better a deserter than a corpse. So long as the green hills remain, there will be firewood to burn.
Was that so?
Yan Rushi was silent a long while, candlelight flickering in the depths of her eyes. Then, very suddenly, she raised her head and looked at You Fusang as if sealing some resolution.
“You Fusang.”
“You have seen it yourself—my knowledge of Solitary Mountain’s schemes was always half-understood. You say Solitary Mountain’s Zhou Ling threw me back here; then surely it was never so simple a reason as ‘abandoned pawn.’ They mean to use me to harm you—how, or when, I don’t fully know. Only…” Yan Rushi looked straight into You Fusang’s eyes, speaking with unusual gravity, “…I only wish to tell you: You Fusang, if ever I do anything that harms you, it will never be… my true intent.”
She enunciated every word: “You Fusang—no matter what, I will never harm you of my own will.”
