Gu Mang sat by the window of the inn.
He had already woken up long ago. Seeing the barrier Mo Xi had set up, he also knew that Mo Xi had temporarily gone out to take care of something. So he was not anxious at all. He obediently sat there, waiting for him to return.
He had been tormented so severely by now that his senses and emotions had become unbearably dull. He rarely experienced any strong emotions. Joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness were all like water that had been diluted in his world, becoming faint and muted.
But as he watched the pale white of dawn slowly spread across the horizon, he thought about how, once daylight came, it would be the day he had arranged to meet his “older brother.” He was about to have an elder brother. He was about to have a family.
Even so, he could not help showing some happiness.
He rested against the window, gazing expectantly at the sky as the clouds gradually flushed red and the rising sun slowly emerged above the horizon.
After thinking for a while, he got up and took out the white clothes Mo Xi had bought for him.
He always felt that he was clumsy and careless, and clothes this clean were simply too easy for him to soil. So although he liked them, he had not really dared to wear them.
But today he was going to meet his older brother.
So today was different.
When Mo Xi returned, the sky was just about to brighten, at the boundary where night and dawn overlapped.
He pushed open the door and, in a daze, saw someone standing by the window.
Tall and slender, with refined features, his long hair tied with a jade clasp, his snow-white robes hanging all the way to the floor.
For one brief moment, Mo Xi’s heart gave a heavy jolt.
He almost wanted to believe that everything that had happened in Hunyuan Cave last night had only been a dream, and that the person leaning by the window was Murong Chu Yi.
That Murong Chu Yi had come to keep their appointment.
But he hadn’t.
Slowly, Mo Xi saw clearly that the person standing there and looking at him was Gu Mang, who had changed into his new clothes.
Quietly.
Obediently.
Filled with anticipation—
Waiting for him to bring his older brother back.
“Mo Xi?” When Gu Mang saw him return, he was happy at first. Then he noticed that Mo Xi’s clothes were covered in blood and became confused. He walked toward him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Mo Xi said nothing.
In truth, he could not say anything more.
Of the people who had returned from the sealed grounds of Hunyuan Cave, there were only three. Aside from Xiao Lan’er, who had been sent to the medical hall for treatment, both he and Yue Chen Qing were nearly speechless.
After Yue Chen Qing had gone through his sobbing and wailing, he had simply sat beside the blood pool in a daze.
He was probably constantly thinking about what he had said and done to Murong Chu Yi in the past, remembering how he had believed Jiang Ye Xue’s words and pushed his already solitary Fourth Uncle toward an even colder abyss.
Murong Chu Yi had left behind no keepsake.
The only thing that could barely be considered one was probably the broken and damaged Bamboo Warriors scattered throughout the cavern.
They now obeyed Yue Chen Qing’s commands because they had lost the person who had personally carved them into existence.
But in Hunyuan Cave, when Mo Xi accidentally touched one of them, it still shrank down to the size of his palm and quietly lay on the ground, as though it were waiting for him to bring it back in order to fulfill someone’s final wish.
Mo Xi picked up the tiny Bamboo Warrior and placed it in Gu Mang’s palm.
Gu Mang stared blankly at it.
But he was only slow, not stupid.
He had always been considerate and understanding, even though sometimes that very understanding brought him nothing but more suffering.
The room was frighteningly quiet.
After a while, Gu Mang asked softly,
“He isn’t coming, is he?”
“…”
“Does he… not like me?”
Mo Xi raised his hand and pulled him into his arms.
Suppressing his grief, he said to Gu Mang, “No. He has some things of his own to take care of, so he had to leave first. He likes you very much, which is why he asked me to give you this little bamboo man. Once he finishes what he needs to do, he’ll come back.”
“How long will that take?”
“It might take… a very, very long time…”
“…”
Gu Mang remained silent.
After a long while, he asked softly,
“Mo Xi, why are you crying?”
Why was he crying?
The upheaval in Hunyuan Cave had happened within the span of a single night, yet it seemed to have completely overturned everything that had accumulated over more than a decade.
Jiang Ye Xue’s gentleness and kindness had been false.
His loving relationship with Qin Mu Jin had been false.
Murong Chu Yi’s selfishness and heartlessness had been false.
Even all of His Majesty’s words had been false.
It seemed that Gu Mang had been living inside a scheme where every trap was linked to the next.
He had treated people with sincerity and shown them his wholehearted trust, yet what he received in return was mask after mask.
He had once believed that everything he had done for his country and people was right. He had drawn such a clear line between gratitude and resentment, right and wrong.
Yet after one shocking upheaval, he discovered that they had all merely been pieces on a chessboard.
Just how ruthless was the current His Majesty’s heart to scheme for Jiang Ye Xue to deceive Lu Zhan Xing, sacrifice the lives of seventy thousand soldiers, and then force Gu Mang into a position where he had no choice but to obey his commands?
Five years as a spy.
Bearing the guilt and bloodshed while forcing himself onward alone.
Even risking his life to reclaim the final fragment of the Blood Demon Beast’s remnant soul, only to once again lose his consciousness as a human being and miss the opportunity to recognize his own older brother.
—
They had paid so much because they hoped to bring an end to the war and restore peace to the Nine Provinces.
Yet in the end, all they had done was sharpen the sword in His Majesty’s hand.
He felt endlessly exhausted.
Because of the upheaval at Hunyuan Cave, Mo Xi could no longer remain in Lin’an with Gu Mang to search for that reclusive great cultivator.
The tragedy of the Yue family quickly spread throughout Lin’an and then across all of Chonghua like a wildfire.
The entire nation was shaken.
Together with Gu Mang, Mo Xi helped Yue Chen Qing handle the aftermath and accompanied him as he escorted the coffins back to the imperial capital.
The funeral proceeded like a silent, absurd play.
The royal family had to preserve its dignity and could not openly reveal the shameful deeds Yue Jun Tian had committed in the past. But there were no walls in this world that could keep out every whisper.
Everyone actually understood what the truth had been.
That made the mourning and eulogies seem especially ridiculous.
Through the fluttering white funeral banners and the densely packed crowd of mourners, Mo Xi gazed from afar at the solemn figure of His Majesty pouring wine upon the altar.
His fingernails dug deeply into his palms.
What exactly did this man regard his subjects, his soldiers, and his people as?
The Yue family’s mourning did not last very long.
Aside from Yue Chen Qing himself already having no heart for it, there was another, more important reason.
Chonghua was indeed facing frequent battles with Liao.
While His Majesty was still conducting the memorial rites here, people from the Military Affairs Office were already waiting there to report the situation at the border.
The heavy smell of gunpowder hung in the wind.
Jiang Ye Xue had been right.
The war between Chonghua and Liao had not subsided simply because they had obtained the Blood Demon Beast’s remnant soul.
Instead, it had become ready to erupt at any moment.
At the funeral, everyone was anxious.
Even several of the usually most optimistic princes and nobles understood—
A great war between Chonghua and Liao was imminent.
“I heard the Liao Imperial Preceptor has created another new spell. He already used it during the fighting at the border. That spell is like a plague. In just two or three days, it can cause everyone in several cities to become infected with demonic aura.”
“My heavens, what are we supposed to do?”
“Who knows? I heard the Directorate of Arcane Arts and Shennong Terrace have already been trying to find a way to break it. I only hope they can come up with something quickly. Liao has been continuously stationing troops at the border these past few days. I’m afraid they’ll soon launch a major attack.” The speaker’s face was ashen. “If there’s no way to resist this demonic aura, who would dare charge into battle? Wouldn’t that just be sending themselves to their deaths?”
“Anyway, I absolutely won’t go to the front lines…”
Whispers spread throughout the crowd.
On one side was the Yue family’s immense grief.
On the other, several old nobles were quietly discussing how to preserve their own lives amid the approaching flames of war.
Human beings’ joys, sorrows, and worries truly did not connect with one another.
Yue Chen Qing had no intention of remaining at the burial grounds and receiving condolences that contained little genuine sincerity.
He returned to the Yue residence.
So many people from the Yue family had died that the estate was now terrifyingly empty.
He walked slowly beneath the covered corridors.
Every time he reached a certain place and recalled something from the past, his heart would ache so badly that it felt as though he could not breathe. His body would hunch over, and he would have to sit there for a long while before he could force himself onward.
He was clearly still so young.
Yet overnight, it was as though every bone and joint in his body had rusted.
Even walking had become so difficult and stiff.
He came to the entrance of Murong Chu Yi’s artifact-forging room and stood there in a daze for a very long time.
This was one of the most difficult places to enter in all of Chonghua. It required secret arts and a command incantation.
But Yue Chen Qing seemed to have received some sudden inspiration, or perhaps he simply placed his faith in something.
He raised his hand and pushed open the door.
The little mechanical puppet guarding the entrance creaked out from a hidden compartment and asked,
“Who goes there?”
The voice was low and as pleasant as jade shattering on Kunlun Mountain.
But it was the voice Murong Chu Yi had left behind while he was alive.
Yue Chen Qing seemed wounded by that voice.
His chest hurt so badly that he could not speak.
He did not know what the secret art or command phrase was.
He merely bent down, buried his face in his palms, and choked on his sobs.
“Fourth Uncle.”
His sobbing became loud, heart-wrenching cries.
The little puppet merely watched him silently.
Yue Chen Qing knelt curled up outside the artifact-forging room and sobbed,
“Fourth Uncle, I miss you…”
That absolutely could not have been the incantation.
Yet the tightly shut doors of the artifact-forging room gave a deep rumble.
With a creak, they slowly opened to both sides.
Yue Chen Qing stared blankly.
Then he slowly stood and walked inside.
The things inside were somewhat disorderly.
Their owner had been an extraordinarily busy person.
Blueprints covered the walls, depicting all kinds of mecha and magical artifacts. Many were still merely ideas Murong Chu Yi had conceived while alive, and he had never had the time to realize them one by one.
Yue Chen Qing looked through them one after another.
The Greed, Anger, and Delusion of Chonghua.
Despite having such a terrible reputation, what Murong Chu Yi had forged while locking himself inside the artifact-forging room were all things that benefited people.
Wooden armor for drawing water.
Artifacts for warding off evil…
These sketches were still piled upon his desk.
Murong Chu Yi had been cursed and unable to approach anyone, so all the kindness he held toward this mortal world had been left behind in these countless volumes of drawings and records.
He had probably once believed that his life would be long.
Although loneliness was difficult to endure, at least he could realize these ideas one by one with his own hands.
Yue Chen Qing flipped through the things on his desk.
Some mortise-and-tenon pieces.
Several round nails.
The intricate joints of the Bamboo Warriors.
Every time he picked up something, he would examine it carefully for a while.
And whenever he thought about why Murong Chu Yi had made these things while he was alive, the pain in his heart grew worse.
Greed, Anger, and Delusion.
Greed, Anger, and Delusion.
The most heartless artifact-maker of all.
Outside the window were nothing but curses and insults.
Inside the room was a man worrying about the world.
The meticulous notes beneath every blueprint made Yue Chen Qing choke up, his eyes growing wet.
Sometimes he had to endure the pain in his heart for a long while before he could continue reading.
Only then would he understand that one wooden construct had been designed to help an elderly person move more conveniently, while another magical treasure had been created to keep a child safe.
Yue Chen Qing even discovered a stack of Indestructible Vajra Talismans modeled after the Yue family’s handwriting.
He clutched the stack of talismans in his hands.
Suddenly, he understood.
Back then, when Li Qing Qian, the Sword Demon, had run amok, when the people of Chonghua had been terrified and poor people had been unable to afford the Yue residence’s protective talismans, the person who had silently sent talismans to those poor people had not been Jiang Ye Xue.
It had been…
Yue Chen Qing held those yellowed sheets of paper.
It felt as though someone had punched him violently in the stomach.
He bent over and began to weep in unbearable grief.
It was Fourth Uncle.
All along, Greed, Anger, and Delusion had not been him.
戒定慧—Precepts, Meditation, and Wisdom—had been him.
That gentle person.
That broad-minded person.
The person who, even when forced into a desperate situation, had continued to hold firm and live without shame before his own conscience…
All of them had been his Fourth Uncle, Murong Chu Yi…
“Fourth Uncle… Fourth Uncle…”
Yue Chen Qing sobbed brokenly.
He trapped himself inside this tiny artifact-forging room.
The water clock continued turning quietly and soundlessly.
The ink in the inkstone had not been washed away.
A writing brush still lay beside the white xuan paper.
It was as though Murong Chu Yi had merely hurriedly stepped out because of something and would return at any moment.
The lifeless objects knew nothing of sorrow.
The mechanical diagrams filling the room did not know that their master would never return again.