The brocade-robed man’s eyes snapped open, sharp light flashing. The qin player extended his arm to pluck the strings; suddenly clouds thickened and rain fell urgently. The qin music plunged downward, grief piercing to the bone. Even this listener felt great sorrow and resentment surge in his heart from the qin music.
Was this using emotion to fight him? The brocade-robed man closed his eyes again. Even if resentment and anger bound his heart, he wouldn’t let someone else manipulate his emotions!
The qin’s sorrowful and angry sounds continued without cease as the brocade-robed man adjusted his mind. Having cultivated to this point, how could his mood be disturbed by a single piece of qin music?
The strings vibrated, faster and faster—thunderbolts suddenly descended, heavy hammers struck drums, shattered rain flowers burst from the drum surface and fell back onto it, pounding out clamorous sounds, like cold rain dripping continuously from eaves, dripping through a broken roof onto pale lips and teeth, swallowed down while shivering with cold, freezing the organs thoroughly.
From this bone-piercing cold, an even colder killing intent gradually seeped out.
The fingers resting on the stone railing tightened, pressing marks into the hard white jade. His subdued mind suddenly surged with wild resentment and murderous intent.
Resentment and anger bind the heart, fearing one will lose one’s true nature. What binds is one’s own heart; what is lost is one’s own nature. Sound itself has no emotion—how does it move the human heart? It’s merely one’s own heart moving one’s own nature. Qin music is a dead thing; it cannot produce resentment and murderous intent. It’s merely a trigger, drawing out all the resentment and murderous intent hidden in his heart.
But having these insights at this moment was truly inappropriate. The emotions pent up so long, once fully drawn out, were becoming impossible to suppress. His brows drew tighter and tighter; the aura on his body churned, cold and severe, beginning to spread downward from the platform’s peak. Several cultivators responsible for guarding the high platform, sensing the edges of this aura, showed alarm on their faces and retreated further toward the platform’s edge.
Atop the platform, Li Chi who plucked the strings remained perfectly composed. The qin music shifted under his fingers again, each sound growing heavier, like a heart about to burst from the chest—generous and passionate, upright and proper.
This was still a sound of sorrow and anger, yet it suddenly dispersed the resentment and anger in the brocade-robed man’s heart. This wasn’t water breaking through a dam in decay, but opening sluice gates to direct the flow.
When the last qin note dispersed long and leisurely, the brocade-robed man opened his eyes again.
He turned to face Li Chi, who sat cross-legged holding his qin, and said solemnly, “Duji.”
“Li Quan,” Li Chi slowly returned the qin to its case.
Watching Li Quan’s unhurried manner, Duji suddenly laughed. So unconcerned, as if he hadn’t just released the wild confusion in his own heart with that piece.
One’s true nature is originally pure and clear, yet the seven emotions confuse the mind, losing that original clarity and illumination. People become trapped and stuck in dead ends without knowing it. That piece just now could be called soul-shaking. After the shaking, though sorrow and anger remained, they wouldn’t reach the point of wild confusion or losing one’s dao.
Duji removed a jade button from his clothes, touched a technique into it with his fingertip, then tossed it to Li Chi, saying, “I have other matters and must leave first. Brother Li, if you have any need, you may seek me with this in the future.” With these words, his form flickered and vanished.
….
The Liang capital, palace walls towering and deep.
It was said that Liang belonged to wood virtue and esteemed the color green. Therefore, just seeing a palace building with walls painted in pepper-green plaster, one could know that whoever lived within must have an extraordinary status. Moreover, skilled guards stood watch outside every door and window of this palace building.
“I want to see Father! You dare block me?!” Inside the palace hall, Xu Yourong, dressed in a bamboo-green skirt, angrily rebuked the guards at the door.
“Princess, forgive us.” The guards at the door said this, yet didn’t retreat a single step. If she tried to force her way through, they would block her with their spear shafts.
“You… you!” Xu Yourong’s face flushed red with anger, both worried and afraid, yet had no other recourse. She had even tried tunneling—but since several months ago, this palace building where she’d grown up was no longer hers. Several people among her own guards had been replaced; the rest no longer obeyed her orders and instead imprisoned her here, guarding every place tightly so that not even a bird could enter or leave. Though they still provided fine clothes and food, how could she not worry and fear?
She had also tried refusing food, but the untouched meals they brought were simply taken away unchanged. They were only responsible for providing; they didn’t care whether she used them.
Xu Yourong persisted for several days before giving up. She dared not die—she was the first to discover her royal brother’s disappearance.
Several months ago, her royal brother claimed illness and withdrew to recuperate. She went to visit but was stopped outside, told it was to avoid infecting her. But what kind of illness would make her royal brother unwilling to speak even a single word to her through a window? What kind of illness would make all the visiting physicians speak vaguely?
Too many things about this were wrong. After thinking it over for a long time, she finally confirmed one thing: her royal brother had disappeared.
Only in this case would they arrange to claim illness and avoid people. Though they could have someone impersonate her royal brother, however perfect that impersonation might be, it could never fool her in the end—because she and her royal brother were siblings from the same mother.
But those people’s actions were far faster than she imagined. Xu Yourong only managed to leak this information to the Disciplinary Bureau before being imprisoned.
Her father still lived; Liang Kingdom’s king still lived! What kind of person could do such a thing? What kind of person dared do such a thing?!
Her father… what state was he in now?
Xu Yourong dared not think deeply, yet couldn’t help but think deeply. This royal palace where she’d grown from childhood, the home she knew so well, now felt strange and terrifying. But she still couldn’t die—she had to find a way. Even if she couldn’t leave the palace building, she at least had to contact people outside…
At the palace entrance, Xu Yourong gripped the spear shaft blocking her, eyes wide and teeth clenched, seemingly at the extreme of anger. But suddenly her form swayed, forcefully gripping the spear shaft, she viciously threw her shoulder toward the spear point.
Clang.
A finger-wind struck, breaking off the spear point.
Xu Yourong was shaken by the transmitted force, the spear shaft flew from her hands, and she fell sitting to the ground.
Outside the hall, a figure had appeared at some unknown time, slowly drawing back into his sleeve the hand that had just flicked out the finger-wind. He wore a lotus-green brocade robe, and though it was only autumn, had already donned a black cloak lined with fur. His skin appeared even more pale and translucent, even his lips so pale they had little blood color. Though this made his appearance even more outstanding, it increasingly showed a sense of sickness. Yet from the finger-wind he’d just released, one could tell he was absolutely not some sickly person.
The guards at the door had already knelt to beg forgiveness. Duji waved his hand, dismissing them. These guards were just ordinary martial artists, only blocking Xu Yourong from leaving the hall. Though Xu Yourong hadn’t cultivated, as Liang Kingdom’s only princess, she’d been raised with rare treasures since childhood. Though she appeared a delicate woman, her strength was no less than a warrior trained for years. That the guard was momentarily deceived by her and lost control of the spear shaft for an instant was nothing strange. The ones truly guarding this palace building were two cultivators. With them watching, even if Duji didn’t intervene, nothing would go wrong. These two cultivators were now hidden to the side. Though they hadn’t shown themselves, they still bowed to Duji.
“Ah Ci,” Duji looked down at her from above, “you want to get injured, then see a physician?”
His temperament now was extremely different from when he was in Gannan City. Those gorgeous, heavy clothes made him look sickly and weak, yet his form was extremely upright. His eyes were light-colored, his gaze extremely indifferent. Anyone swept by that gaze couldn’t help but shrink back. Though his appearance hadn’t changed, he seemed like a completely different person from the brocade-robed man who had mocked the Disciplinary Bureau outside Gannan City.
“Don’t call me that!” Xu Yourong said furiously. Her expression simultaneously showed “just as I suspected” and disbelief, glaring at him angrily like all betrayed people.
Duji paid no mind and slowly approached, continuing, “But even if you saw a physician, what then? Anyone who enters this palace building will only be my people.”
Xu Yourong clenched her teeth. That had indeed been her plan. Though these people didn’t care whether she ate, she had deduced from many tests that they didn’t want her injured. Their refusal to care about her hunger strike just showed they wouldn’t be threatened.
“What have you done to my royal brother?” She rose from the ground, looking up at Duji, yet refused to retreat a single step. “And my father?”
“I didn’t intend to do anything to him, just wanted him to stay put for a while. Unfortunately, he escaped. I haven’t found him, and he probably won’t live much longer. As for your father…” Duji gave a “heh” sound. His voice was light and slow, yet Xu Yourong couldn’t help but tremble.
“Why fear me? You haven’t wronged me, and you even helped me once. I won’t do anything to you.”
“Now I only regret helping you back then, regret not letting you die earlier in the ancestral shrine!” Xu Yourong said hatefully.
Duji showed no anger at all, saying calmly, “If I had died then, your royal brother wouldn’t have lived until now either.”
“What do you mean?” Xu Yourong’s heart suddenly filled with greater unease.
“You don’t know?” Duji suddenly laughed. “True, a father who’s done filthy things doesn’t want his children to know. He wants to appear wise and great before you.”
He abruptly stopped laughing. “Your royal brother should have died thirteen years ago. He got a disease no medicine could cure; he could only live by exchanging blood with relatives. Your blood and your parents’ blood were all unsuitable. Guess whose blood kept him alive until now?”
Xu Yourong’s face suddenly went white; she instinctively wanted to shake her head.
Duji gripped her jaw. “You’re connecting it all now, aren’t you? Your good father naturally couldn’t let you know—otherwise how would he explain to you that he didn’t forget me in the ancestral shrine by mistake, nor was he forced to release me to exchange blood for his son. He truly, genuinely wanted to starve his younger brother to death in that ancestral shrine.”
Xu Yourong struggled desperately. Tears streamed from her eyes; she wanted to say something, but the hand gripping her jaw, though it looked delicate, was solid as an iron clamp.
Duji released his hand before her tears could fall on his hand, continuing, “Count it up—your brother hasn’t had a blood exchange in almost five months. In another month or so, if he doesn’t come back, he probably won’t have any life left to speak of the future.”
“So if you have a way to contact him, you’d better have him obediently return.”
Xu Yourong forced herself to stop crying, wiped her face, her voice still carrying tears. “Even if I had a way to find him, with you imprisoning me here, even if I had heaven-reaching abilities, how could I use them?”
“In three days, I’ll naturally release you,” Duji said calmly, his voice carrying a chill.
Xu Yourong shivered. Being clever, she immediately understood something, her face going white as she asked tremulously, “What are you going to do? What will you do to my father?”
Duji didn’t answer, only curved his mouth—the arc sharp as a blade.
“Little Uncle!” Xu Yourong finally showed a pleading expression. “Please, if you still remember what Ah Ci once did for you, please don’t kill him!”
Duji didn’t answer. Having said what he wanted to say, he turned to leave. But Xu Yourong already understood his meaning. She clenched her hands, her nails digging painfully into her palms, and shouted sorrowfully and angrily at Duji’s retreating back, “If you’re going to kill my father, then why keep me alive?!”
“You haven’t wronged me yet,” Duji said without turning back, his voice carrying back.
Xu Yourong understood his meaning. She hadn’t wronged him, so he wouldn’t touch her. For the help she’d once given, he would even provide for her in brocade and luxury. But if one day she became his enemy, that would be the day he moved against her.
But Xu Yourong was destined to become his enemy. She was closer to her father and brother; she and his enemy were one family.
But what of it? Long ago, when he was locked in the abandoned old ancestral shrine by Xu Chang and could barely hold on, it was Ah Ci who happened to wander in and secretly brought him food, then pestered Xu Chang until he had to give him better treatment, visiting daily so that Xu Chang temporarily gave up his plan to starve him to death.
Xu Chang had originally wanted to wait until Ah Ci forgot about him before acting, but before that, Xu Kang contracted that strange disease first.
Duji walked out of the palace building with a calm expression. Ah Ci wasn’t just Ah Ci—she was also Xu Chang’s daughter, Xu Kang’s sister, Princess Xu Yourong of Liang Kingdom. She would become his enemy in the future, but she hadn’t wronged him now, and she had shown him kindness. So should he kill her now for something he could already foresee in the future? His great revenge was about to be fulfilled. When he left the Liang capital to search for Xu Kang, his heart still held confusion, but after one piece of music, his dao was no longer wildly lost.
Since vengeance must be clear and distinct, then kindness must naturally be clear and distinct as well.
…..
Gannan City, atop the high platform.
In Li Chi’s palm rested that jade button, his fingertips turned, yet he pinched a string fine as silk thread.
Hatred.
This Seven Emotion Trigger of hatred on Duji’s person hadn’t fully condensed yet—he’d only plucked away half a strand. But this half strand of hatred trigger wasn’t his greatest gain from this encounter.
Li Chi casually twisted this half strand of hatred trigger into the qin strings. He raised his head, the corners of his mouth seeming to lift yet not, karma dark and hazy in his eyes.
“Liang.” His gaze moved from the direction of the Liang capital to another distant place. “Sui.”