Murong Chuyi looked as though he was in a very bad state of mind. He had always been a person who seemed detached from the mortal world, with little emotional fluctuation ever showing between his brows and eyes. Even when he had argued with Yue Chenqing on Bat Island and left in anger before, he had kept his emotions tightly restrained.
But at this moment, he was like a cold lake in early spring. Something had already begun to break free from its hiding place beneath the frozen surface. Even with Mo Xi and the others standing some distance away, they could clearly sense his restlessness and dejection.
“What? You’re asking about a household that lived beside the docks more than thirty years ago?” The innkeeper was bouncing his plump belly as he clattered away on his abacus. He was thoroughly enjoying counting the money, so he only hummed absentmindedly. “Ah, yes, I used to work around the docks when I was younger, but there were so many households living beside the Lin’an docks. Even if there weren’t a hundred, there were at least eighty. How would I remember every single one?”
“That family was surnamed Chu.”
The innkeeper hummed and hawed. “There were plenty of people surnamed Chu too. It’s not a rare surname in Lin’an.”
Murong Chuyi was asking about a family surnamed Chu… from more than thirty years ago?
Mo Xi thought for a moment and immediately understood.
During the Duanyang Festival, Yue Chenqing had once mentioned that over the years, Murong Chuyi seemed to have been deliberately searching for his true family. In fact, he did not have many clues. He only knew that he had been picked up and adopted by Murong Huang in front of a temple when he was a baby. The only thing in his swaddling clothes had been a scrap of paper, on which the crooked character “Chu” had been written. Other than that, there had been nothing.
Among the Murong line, men were given single-character given names, while women were given two-character given names. But Murong Huang had been frail and sickly when she was young, and a fortune-teller had said that giving her a man’s name would make her easier to raise. Thus, the Sovereign had made an exception for their branch of the family. However, Murong Huang had always thought two-character names sounded nicer. After adopting this abandoned infant, she used the “Chu” character left behind by his birth family as the basis and gave him the name Murong Chuyi.
It seemed that Murong Chuyi had recently obtained some new clues, which was why he had come to Jiuxiang House and was asking the innkeeper about events from more than thirty years ago.
Sure enough, Murong Chuyi did not leave. Instead, he took a gold shell coin from his Qiankun pouch and pushed it toward the innkeeper with two fingers.
“Please think a little more carefully.”
The moment the innkeeper saw the gold shell coin, his chubby fingers counting on the abacus immediately stopped. As he pocketed the shell coin, he looked up with a smile.
“My honored guest, you’re being too polite. Actually…”
But his smile suddenly stiffened when he got a clear look at Murong Chuyi’s face.
Murong Chuyi asked, “What is it?”
The innkeeper seemed as though something buried deep within his memory had suddenly been pried loose. He stared at Murong Chuyi for a long while, his expression dazed and bewildered. Then he suddenly let out an “Ah!” and his eyes widened.
“—It’s you?”
But immediately afterward, he shook his head repeatedly.
“No, no, it’s her?”
He then rubbed his face vigorously.
“No, could it be that you’re her…”
The innkeeper’s words were completely jumbled, and he seemed both shocked and confused. Yet Murong Chuyi appeared to understand what he was implying. He grabbed the man’s arm and stepped forward, an uncertain light flickering in his phoenix eyes.
Murong Chuyi lowered his voice.
“More than thirty years ago, at the Lin’an docks. You know something, don’t you?”
The innkeeper looked as though he were dreaming. It took him quite a while to come back to his senses. Seeing the surrounding customers and workers casting curious looks at the two of them, he tremblingly pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his greasy face. After hesitating for a moment, he said to Murong Chuyi,
“Immortal Master, you… please come upstairs with me first. Let me sort through my memories… Let me think it through. I’ll tell you upstairs.”
The two of them then headed toward the staircase.
Seeing Mo Xi’s sword brows slightly furrowed, Gu Mang followed his gaze and asked,
“Do you know that pretty person in white?”
He had just learned the word “pretty” from the boatwoman. Seeing that Murong Chuyi was good-looking, he simply decided to call other people pretty people.
“…”
Mo Xi said, “I know him. You knew him before too. You just forgot.”
“Oh. Then should I go say hello to him?”
Mo Xi immediately grabbed him by the wrist and pressed him back down, shaking his head.
“He has his own private matters to deal with. Besides, you and he aren’t particularly close. Meeting him now would only be awkward.” Mo Xi spoke softly. “Eat your food first.”
As they spoke, footsteps came from the staircase. The innkeeper led Murong Chuyi into a private room. Although Mo Xi and the others could no longer see the two of them, their voices grew increasingly clear.
The tinkling of porcelain cups sounded, followed by the noises of tea being poured. Then the innkeeper’s somewhat weak voice came from behind the bamboo curtain.
“…May I ask, Immortal Master, what year were you born?”
Murong Chuyi gave his year of birth.
After hearing it, the innkeeper repeated it several times under his breath, seemingly calculating something. Then he sighed repeatedly.
“Could it really be… really be as she said back then?”
Murong Chuyi’s voice was smooth as jade soaked in water, but the emotion concealed within it was like molten lava flowing beneath a rock.
“If the innkeeper knows something, why not speak plainly?”
“I… sigh, I truly can’t be certain. But Immortal Master, your appearance…” As he spoke, the innkeeper sighed again. “All right, all right. I’ll tell you everything I know first.”
“It really was something that happened more than thirty years ago…”
The innkeeper slowly began to speak, his voice sounding so distant and dazed.
“More than thirty years ago, I came to Lin’an and worked around the waterways and docks. Back then, I was dirt poor. I barely had enough to eat from one meal to the next. Sometimes, when I was desperately hungry, I’d pick up half a piece of flatbread someone else had thrown away, or eat two bites of a steamed bun.”
“One time, when I was picking up steamed buns beside the docks, the owner of a little eatery by the water saw me. He was a kindhearted man, so he invited me into his shop to sit for a while and fried me a bowl of fried rice and made me a bowl of seaweed and dried-shrimp soup.”
“The old man had two daughters and one son. The three of them helped their father run the little eatery. I still remember that it was his eldest daughter who fried the rice. She put in a spoonful of lard and a big spoonful of soy sauce. It was a huge, heaping bowl, fragrant, hot, and steaming. …Whenever I was short on money, I often went to their shop to eat. But I never ate for free. After eating, I’d help them with heavy and rough work.”
The sound of slurping tea came from behind the curtain. The innkeeper drank a few more mouthfuls of tea to calm himself before continuing.
“The family was indeed surnamed Chu. They were all kind people. Their youngest son was still little, while the two sisters were rather famous beauties in Lin’an City. As soon as they reached fifteen, quite a few wealthy merchants came to propose marriage. But their father doted on them dearly. Because of their family status, those wealthy merchants could never possibly marry them properly as wives. And the old man absolutely refused to let them become concubines. He would rather let the two girls choose for themselves than hastily marry them off.”
“Beautiful flowers without owners naturally attracted people’s attention. The sisters’ names spread farther and farther at the time, and the men coming to propose became increasingly difficult to deal with. Eventually, they even attracted some domineering noble lords. When persuasion didn’t work, they resorted to force, coercing their father into handing the girls over.”
“What happened afterward?”
“Afterward…” The innkeeper let out a long sigh. “Actually, I didn’t witness what happened next myself. At that time, I had begun working in boat transport and traveling for business. I was in Quanzhou for more than a month. By the time I came back, the Chu family’s eatery had already been burned to the ground, reduced to scorched earth.”
Murong Chuyi: “!”
“I asked the neighbors around there, but they all stammered and hesitated, unwilling to say much. I was young then, and I couldn’t stand seeing something like that happen. Without thinking, I rushed to the government office to report it. The Grand Secretary told me that the Chu family couldn’t withstand the marriage proposals that had practically broken down their door, so the whole family had moved away from Lin’an City.”
Murong Chuyi’s cold, deep voice faintly carried an anger that was almost impossible to suppress.
“If the whole family moved away, why would they burn down their old home?”
“That was exactly what I thought too. I knew right then that the authorities hadn’t told me the truth. Sigh, the Chu family had been kind to me after all. I couldn’t bear to let the matter simply pass without explanation, so I kept searching for clues in Lin’an City and asking other people… Later… later…”
“What happened later?”
Even though so many years had passed, recalling the old events still caused the innkeeper great pain. His voice trembled. He drank several more mouthfuls of tea before lowering his voice.
“Later… I went searching on my own. In the end, outside Lin’an City, I actually found… found Old Master Chu’s body. His head had been severed from his body…”
When he reached this point, he couldn’t help shivering, and his eyes reddened. He neither dared nor wished to describe the details any further. After taking a moment to steady himself, he continued.
“I was frightened and heartbroken. I was crying bitterly when I suddenly heard—there, from deep inside that haystack, I vaguely heard some faint, rustling noises. So I crawled over and looked. I saw their youngest son hiding deep inside the haystack, staring at me like a little kitten. His whole body was covered in blood too.”
By the time Mo Xi heard this, he was already filled with fury.
At that moment, there was a sudden crash from behind the bamboo curtain—the sound of a porcelain cup shattering.
The innkeeper exclaimed, “Immortal Master, you—”
It seemed that Murong Chuyi had been too furious and too tightly restrained, and had accidentally crushed the teacup in his hand.
“Your hand has been cut… cut…”
Murong Chuyi said calmly, “It’s nothing.”
There was a rustling of silk cloth. It seemed that he had taken a handkerchief and was wiping away the blood.
Then he said quietly,
“Please continue.”
The innkeeper gave an “Oh,” staring blankly, his eyes red. He had not recalled this matter for many years. Now that he was going through every detail again, his emotions gradually rose to the surface.
He was silent for a while before continuing.
“That child was still very young. When I asked him questions, he couldn’t explain himself clearly. When I asked where his sister had gone, he only cried. So I buried Lord Chu and took the child onto the boat I used for my merchant work and raised him there. He wasn’t old enough to remember things yet. I hoped he would live a peaceful life in the future, so from then on, I never mentioned this matter to him again. I hoped that when he grew up, he wouldn’t remember this hatred…”
“Slowly, day by day, even that child who could barely speak stopped remembering the incident. The people in the city gradually forgot about the Chu family too… until one day.”
He paused before continuing.
“The eldest daughter of the Chu family suddenly came back.”
“But she was already completely different.” The innkeeper sighed mournfully. “Her hair was disheveled, her face filthy, and she had gone mad. She kept repeating that she had a child, but she had foolishly abandoned that child at the time. Whenever people asked what child it was or who the father was, she couldn’t answer clearly. When they asked where her younger sister had gone, she would only cry and say not to blame her, that she had her reasons.”
Murong Chuyi: “…”
The innkeeper took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his nose, speaking sadly.
“When the authorities heard the news, they took her away for an examination. After determining that her mind had suffered an enormous shock and that she would never recover, they stopped bothering with her. The villagers pitied her and gave her an isolated little hut to live in. At first, many people went to visit her. But gradually, everyone realized that she only repeated the same few incoherent phrases, and they found it boring. In the end, no one was willing to pay her any attention.”
“I did take her younger brother to see her, but her younger brother didn’t recognize her at all and didn’t remember her anymore. And whenever she saw the child, she would start crying. She said she shouldn’t have been so cruel, shouldn’t have abandoned her own child. She said that no matter how much she hated someone, she should never take that hatred out on a child. She also said she had seen the child turn into a ghost, sitting in a pool of blood and staring at her. Sigh…”
“Although there was no evidence whatsoever to prove what happened back then, I mostly understood that the Chu family had never moved away together as the authorities claimed. Rather, some influential noble from the royal capital had taken a fancy to those two girls and forcibly abducted them. I’m afraid Lord Chu was so desperate to protect his daughters that they cruelly killed him, while the youngest son was left in the haystack to fend for himself.”
The innkeeper fell into a daze after saying this.
“At the time, the eldest Chu girl said she had a child, and she kept shouting that her younger sister must not blame her, that she had her reasons. Gradually, people began to speculate that perhaps, in order to stay alive, she had done something she shouldn’t have and caused her younger sister’s death… That was why she was the only one who came back alive, while the second Chu girl had disappeared.”
Murong Chuyi’s expression gradually darkened. He seemed unwilling to accept that this was the truth.
“…”
“Because of this speculation, people began distancing themselves from her, mocking her, and making fun of her madness.”
“At the time… I didn’t stop them either, because I didn’t know her very well. In the past, the second Chu girl had always been the gentler and more outgoing one, while the elder sister didn’t talk much. So I thought perhaps she really had done something to her own sister and had been driven mad by guilt. This matter remained a knot in my heart all these years. It wasn’t until she was on her deathbed that I finally learned—”
Murong Chuyi was startled. He abruptly interrupted him, his voice hoarse.
“What? She… she’s already gone?”
“She passed away several years ago…” The innkeeper sighed sadly and guiltily. “…When she died, I went to see her off. Perhaps it was a final moment of clarity before death. For a brief while, she regained her senses. At that time, she told me…”
The innkeeper fell silent for a moment, seemingly considering whether he should reveal this final secret to him.
In the end, perhaps because he was looking at Murong Chuyi’s face, which bore an extraordinary resemblance to that of an old acquaintance, he finally said,
“She said that back then, when she and her younger sister were abducted by the nobles, she knew they couldn’t escape. So she pretended to submit, willingly undressing and serving them, deceiving them into lowering their guard. At last, she found an opportunity to let her younger sister escape. But her younger sister thought that she had actually disregarded their father’s murder and sold herself out just to survive. She hated her so much that she said she would rather die than accept her sister’s kindness.”
Murong Chuyi: “…”
“Only then did I realize that the villagers had all misunderstood her. She had never sacrificed her sister in order to survive herself. Her so-called ‘reasons’ were actually because of this…”
“She urged the second Chu girl to run away, but her sister refused because of the misunderstanding, so she couldn’t make it happen. She was frantic with worry. Then she thought of how they were already in the royal capital, surrounded everywhere by powerful aristocratic clans and nobles. Even if her sister listened to her and escaped, how far could she possibly get?”
“The eldest Chu girl thought about it day and night, and eventually came up with an idea. While she had been deliberately flattering and accompanying the nobleman who kept her, she had seen quite a few members of prominent aristocratic families. So her final plan was to set up a scheme that would allow her younger sister to receive the protection of one of them.”
“So that the second Chu girl could live a good life without suffering humiliation, she kept watching and choosing. She was thinking about who might kindly take in a lone orphan girl. That noble had to be kind enough, upright enough, and prominent enough to be able to suppress even someone one rank above him in official standing. In the end, she narrowed her targets down to two people.”
Murong Chuyi asked, “Who?”
The innkeeper said,
“Fuling Lord Mo Qingchi, and First Wangshu Murong Xuan.”
Mo Xi unexpectedly heard his father’s name in the middle of this conversation, and his phoenix eyes suddenly widened.