WJ Chapter 112.2

Morning Wind (1.2)

But after only a moment, Yun Changliu stopped again and looked back over his shoulder into the distance.

Still the same tangled undergrowth, barren slopes, and layered rocks — no different from any deep mountain wilderness, seemingly without anything amiss.

…And yet the feeling of wrongness persisted. He could not let it go.

After a long silence, Yun Changliu ignored the Yin Ghosts’ attempts to stop him and strode forward again. With every step he took, the unease grew heavier — until at last it had become outright dread, swaying precariously at the edge of his heart, yet driving him onward all the same.

“Please, Young Sect Leader, stop!” the Yin Ghosts called urgently.

Yun Changliu grew more agitated still. He walked faster, and said in a cold voice, “Why do you keep blocking my way? Can it be that there is something ahead that cannot be seen by—”

His voice caught in his throat.

Yun Changliu stopped short, shock draining his face of color. Among the shadows between the trees in the distance, several figures had flickered past. That distinctive black fitted uniform, those spiraling flame patterns embroidered at the hem — it was unmistakably…

The Zhuhuo Guards!?

The color drained immediately from Yun Changliu’s face.

Was he seeing things?

In this place, so far from Xifeng City — why would there be Zhuhuo Guards patrolling here?!

A shock like lightning crackled through his mind. Yun Changliu stamped hard against the ground and launched himself upward. The two Yin Ghosts lunged forward to intercept him, but they could not hold him. With a few swift leaps the Young Sect Leader cleared the tree line — and what lay before him was unmistakably a column of more than a dozen Zhuhuo Guards.

The dread that had been building in Yun Changliu’s chest suddenly swelled into something enormous. His heart lurched, as though something sharp had pierced clean through it without warning.

He withdrew his qinggong, landing abruptly in front of the Zhuhuo Guard formation, and demanded in an icy voice, “What are you doing here?!”

The air instantly pulled taut. A sword-drawn silence settled over the wild forest. The lead Zhuhuo Guard knelt. “We beg the Young Sect Leader’s pardon — we dare not comply with this order! We are here on the Sect Leader’s command, guarding this restricted area. Please, Young Sect Leader, withdraw.”

The two Yin Ghosts had caught up as well, taking up positions flanking Yun Changliu on his left and right, heads bowed — a stance that could at any moment become a hold. “Please allow us to escort you back to the city, Young Sect Leader.”

Yun Changliu quietly lowered his gaze.

His handsome face betrayed nothing — no joy, no anger. Beneath his fine white robes, his body was rigid as a drawn bow.

After a long pause, the Young Sect Leader bit gently at his lip and let out a faint, weary exhale. He slowly raised his eyes and spoke in a composed voice. “…Very well. I will not make things difficult for any of you. Tomorrow, I will ask my father directly.”

The Zhuhuo Guards and Yin Ghosts all exhaled with relief.

None of them noticed the Young Sect Leader quietly lowering his sleeve, his fingers sliding down to his waist, coming to rest against something hard and cold.

He had not disarmed after training that morning. The long whip was still coiled at the Young Sect Leader’s waist.

It was nothing more than an ordinary long whip — nothing like Yun Guyan’s divine Dragon-Chasing Whip. But in Yun Changliu’s hands, it was more than sufficient for what needed to be done right now… and it would not easily kill his own people.

The Young Sect Leader found this most satisfactory.

The next moment, the sound of splitting wind tore through the mountain air.

****

BOOM!!

The iron door shuddered and split apart with a thundering crash, toppling inward on both sides in a clamor of crumpling metal.

Brilliant white light poured in from outside, flooding the iron chamber and illuminating several stunned faces.

Yun Changliu stood in the doorway. His long hair was loose and disheveled, his robes torn, his whole body trembling as he struggled to breathe. Behind him, nearly a hundred Zhuhuo Guards lay scattered across the ground, unable to rise.

Yun Changliu raised his pale face with a vacant expression. He had fought his way in — fending off attacks from all directions while pulling his blows to keep from taking lives, and all the while preventing any of the Zhuhuo Guards from getting inside to sound an alarm. Now his internal energy was nearly spent, and his vision swayed and refused to focus.

Yet he could still make out his father, Uncle Huan, and Elder Guan.

He used what remained of his strength, and walked forward into the chamber.

In truth, the moment he had caught sight of this chamber in the distance — so uncannily like Medicine Gate’s blood-extraction room — the moment he had seen nearly a hundred Zhuhuo Guards standing in grim readiness, his heart had already been shredded to pieces.

And yet a faint sliver of hope had endured, still struggling in its last breath, still begging — please, let it not be that cruel truth.

Sunlight poured through the dark chamber and fell gently upon the face of the boy locked to the iron bed — beautiful, fine-featured, familiar.

…It also illuminated a blood-soaked long needle resting before his chest, and two large bowls of freshly drawn blood.

Ah Ku’s long lashes lay still against his cheeks, his brows relaxed, as though he had simply fallen asleep in the warm sunlight.

But his lips were ashen. His skin was ashen. He looked as though every drop of blood had been drained from his body, along with every trace of life.

The hands and feet bound by the iron bed’s mechanical shackles hung limp and motionless. They were covered in wounds and smeared with blood — testament to the desperate, involuntary struggling of a person enduring the torment of a needle through the heart while willing himself to stay awake.

Only moments ago, he had been forced to experience with full and waking clarity the agony of a long needle piercing through the heart’s chamber. And now he lay perfectly still, eyes closed, making no sound — no longer able to offer his little Young Sect Leader a reassuring smile.

The world tilted and went dark.

Yun Changliu stood there, his face the color of ash, his head tipped back, staring at Ah Ku on the iron bed — so near, and yet seeming to recede into some unreachable distance. He did not move.

This is not real.

This is not real.

Ah Ku left to study medicine under a master. Just a short while ago he was laughing and saying his goodbyes.

He was waiting for Ah Ku to come back. He had already spoken to his father — the moment Ah Ku returned with his training complete, they would be permitted to be together, and would never be parted again.

When that day came, he would do for Ah Ku what his father had done for his mother — lay down fifty li of red silk, and stand beside him in red robes to bow before heaven and earth. Ah Ku was so beautiful; red robes would suit him perfectly.

And after that? After that… he would inherit the position of Sect Leader, and do everything in his power to keep Xifeng City well, to spare it the worst of the blood and strife. If Ah Ku found such quiet days dull, he would simply give him Medicine Gate to run.

And time would pass like this, one gentle day after another. They would stand together to watch the peach blossoms of every early spring. Until the years turned and the seasons cycled and both their temples went grey, until they died and were buried side by side, and people told stories of them in the jianghu for generations.

That was what was real.

Not this. Not this.

In the chamber, the other three exchanged stunned looks. None of them had anticipated things taking this turn. Yun Guyan’s voice at last grew unsteady. He reached out toward his eldest son in alarm, crying, “Changliu, you—”

The moment Yun Guyan’s hand touched his eldest son’s shoulder, a scream tore from Yun Changliu’s throat — raw and desperate, the sound of something shattering.

Yun Changliu’s head snapped back as he gasped violently for air, the tendons in his neck standing taut, tears pouring in streams down his burning red eyes.

In an instant, a pain like slow dismemberment swept through his entire body. The iron bed swam in his vision, and the Young Sect Leader crumpled forward like a puppet with its strings cut.

Alarmed cries rang out and overlapped inside the chamber. Yun Changliu could not make out whose voice was whose. He was caught by Yun Guyan before he hit the ground, then was seized by a violent wave of nausea — and when he opened his mouth, it was a rush of blood that came out.

He heard Guan Muyan shouting:

“Terrible news!!… Fengchun Sheng… is triggering…!”

“…There’s no time!… The medicinal blood… must be administered immediately…!”

Yun Changliu convulsed, blood spilling from his lips without stopping. His chest burned as though set alight, and he could feel his organs being eaten away by the poison, contracting into a shapeless mass of flesh and blood.

He strained with everything he had to keep his eyes open. He could make out several dark, demon-like silhouettes surrounding him. One of them was holding a bowl of blood in both hands.

…How strange. He could not even make out their faces, yet he could see that crimson blood swaying gently inside the bowl. It was a red so vivid it curdled the eye — the only lurid, living color against the black void swallowing his sight.

Yun Changliu clenched his teeth and fought with everything left in him. Tears of despair fell like rain. His father’s arms locked around his limbs, pinning him, pulling him tight. Uncle Huan forced his jaw open with steady hands and poured the warm, iron-sweet blood into his mouth.

He tried to retch. But Guan Muyan struck a pressure point on his throat and, through a technique of directed pressure, forced him to swallow and swallow and not stop.

Yun Changliu lay there with his eyes open as layer upon layer of black fog rolled across his vision. Yet at the very bottom of his deadened gaze, an image remained fixed — an iron bed, standing upright.

No. No. Let him die… Let him die cleanly, was that too much to ask?! Everything has been wrong from the beginning. He should have died. Why didn’t he die back then…

Yes. Why didn’t he die then?

How was it that he could no longer remember… ?

What was he, what kind of creature was he — drinking the blood of the person he loved most, living on until now, causing the death of the person he loved most!

And what kind of fool — every single person around him, everyone he had cherished, had been deceiving him, and he had been kept blind to it all!

Suddenly, a figure appeared again at the entrance to the chamber. Wen Feng, arriving on horseback at word of what had happened, leapt down and took one look inside — and went white to the lips, crying out in horror, “Young Sect Leader?! Gods above — what — what is this—”

In that moment, Wen Huan caught sight of his son with his peripheral vision. He called out in a calm, commanding voice, “Feng’er! Bring the other bowl of blood from the table!”

Wen Feng steeled himself, rushed inside, and carefully lifted the other bowl of medicinal blood, carrying it over. Wen Huan swiftly exchanged the bowls. His hands were firm and unyielding, but his voice was low with pity and remorse as he murmured, “Young Sect Leader, please don’t do this… it will be all right now, you will never have to suffer like this again…”

Yun Changliu finally closed his eyes, numb, and ceased to struggle.

So. Wen Feng had known as well. They had all deceived him.

Truly every last one of them. Every single one…

Ah Ku. His Ah Ku. That person had spoken of living and dying together — so why had it come to this? A needle through the heart to draw blood — how much pain must Ah Ku have endured? In the end it was he who had made him suffer like that. And that iron bed, how cold it must have been — he had sworn he would never let him lie on one again…

Blood was poured once more down his throat. Yun Changliu’s mind was already a fog of confusion — the pain of Fengchun Sheng surging and ebbing — and his consciousness began to drift toward a strange and distant place.

There, Yun Changliu felt himself fracturing into countless pieces. One was cold and indifferent. One was sobbing. One was pleading. One had gone mad. One was numb. And countless thousands more besides, all crying out at once in countless thousands of voices, until the noise cracked him apart from within.

In the end, he sank into the dark like a heap of ash burned to nothing. It seemed as though a white light flickered at the far edge of his memory, gnawing — tearing a figure in blue robes apart piece by piece.

His memories grew hollow, emptied out — a vast and gaping fissure where something had been.

The peach-blossomed wooden house. Blood splashing across the floors of Medicine Gate. The Wolong Platform in a snowstorm on a winter night. A river surface adrift with lanterns and reflected stars. The drum and gong of a bridal procession through a small town… one by one they dissolved into drifting vapor, fading until nothing remained.

He had never had the fortune to meet someone.

And so, he had never had the misfortune to lose anyone.