WJ Chapter 131

Go Out the East Gate (4)

The triennial audience of the branch hall leaders was an extraordinarily grand occasion within the sect, and this year was all the more unusual — for it was the first time that Yun Changliu, since succeeding to the position, would personally receive all the branch hall leaders in his capacity as Sect Leader.

Prior to this, Yun Changliu had spent five years undergoing trials in the Wuze Realm and had barely shown his face before the congregation of the various branch halls. Even though word had spread among the branch halls about how the new Zhuyin Sect Leader was supremely gifted and possessed extraordinary martial prowess, no one had witnessed it with their own eyes, and the crowd remained half-skeptical about this young Sect Leader — all waiting for this very day to see the new leader’s bearing for themselves.

And among all the proceedings of the audience, the grandest of all was the banquet held on the day the branch hall leaders entered the city.

Yangxin Hall had begun preparations for the great feast days in advance, with group after group of people bustling about in noisy activity.

Yun Changliu, predictably, found it both noisy and tiresome, and simply tossed all the miscellaneous affairs to Wen Feng to handle, retreating into Qingjue Residence with Protector Guan for several days.

The one rare exception was that the Sect Leader had put considerable thought into preparing for Protector Guan — who was equally uninterested in all this — an elegant and stately set of attire, on the grounds that they could not afford to lose face.

Though every single member of the sect was firmly convinced that the Sect Leader simply wanted to see the Protector dressed in fine clothes…

Several days later, all arrangements were in order.

The contingents from all thirteen branch halls had entered Mount Shenlie and were about to enter the city.

This year’s banquet was scheduled for dusk. Yun Changliu brought Guan Wujue into Yangxin Hall, and found it transformed — utterly renewed.

The main hall had already been set with long banquet tables: brilliant candles blazing, brocade curtains and colorful screens. Nearly a hundred beautiful handmaidens stood in attendance on either side — it was like a celestial palace, truly unlike any ordinary day.

All the familiar faces were present, as if the two of them were the last to arrive. Standing at the entrance were the Left and Right Envoys and Wen Feng, chatting idly about something, laughing heartily when something amusing came up; upon seeing the Sect Leader they fell silent and composed themselves, bowing in greeting one after another.

Yun Changliu waved for them to dispense with the formalities and told them to continue their conversation, then took Guan Wujue by the arm and walked further inside. The dishes had not yet been served, but wine was already present, and quite a few people had taken their seats, drinking leisurely as they awaited the arrival of the branch hall leaders.

Over to one side, Ghost Gate’s Gate Master Xue Duxing and Deputy Gate Master Shan Yi were together; the reclusive and eccentric old man Guan Muyan sat alone somewhere else; to the left, Lin Wanxia had her arm around her two children, murmuring gentle words with a tender expression; to the right, Yun Guyan and Wen Huan. Husband and wife sat far apart, without so much as a single glance exchanged between them.

Viewed individually, each scene was familiar enough, but gathered all together like this, it felt lively and full of people.

At that moment, Guan Wujue suddenly remembered something important.

The position of Four Directions Protector had been vacant for a long time, and so if the seating at this banquet followed the old precedent, there should by rights be no seat for him.

Guan Wujue swept his gaze across the hall — it seemed to be no different from what was recorded in the ceremonial protocols, suggesting there had been no time to make changes. He leaned over and said quietly to Yun Changliu:

“Sect Leader, when the banquet begins, might you grant Wujue the favor of allowing this subordinate to stand in attendance behind you?”

Yun Changliu immediately knew what Guan Wujue was thinking the moment he heard this, and shot him a sideways glance, saying with amusement, “Nonsense. How can there be no seat for the Protector?”

With that, the Sect Leader gave the Protector a push in the direction of the inner chamber. “Go change your clothes first.”

“Really, you — this subordinate is not a woman. Must I really dress up in finery for a banquet?”

Guan Wujue laughed; he had been about to decline graciously, but after being pushed and jostled several times by the Sect Leader, he shook his head in resignation and went inside.

Yun Changliu walked alone past the colorful lanterns and fragrant candles on either side, and took his seat at the head of the table. Wen Feng, knowing he did not drink wine, stepped forward at just the right moment to present the Sect Leader with a tea set.

Yun Danjing happened to be seated just to his lower left, lounging in his seat with crossed legs at this moment, his hair bound with a purple-gold coronet, wearing a python-patterned robe with a jade belt, sword at his side hung with jadeite pendants — the very image of a spirited and handsome young man in the prime of his vigor.

He was taking small sips of a freshly uncasked fine wine, watching Wen Feng brew tea for Yun Changliu, and raised an eyebrow. “Can’t drink a single drop of wine — is he even a man?”

Yun Changliu made no reply, simply cradling his teacup and sipping from it with his head lowered, waiting for the Protector to come out. It was Wen Feng whose face darkened with irritation at the disrespectful remark, casting a displeased look at Yun Danjing.

Yun Danjing stared back at the attendant for a moment, then continued speaking to his elder brother. “Those branch hall leaders, none of them are good people. Coming here today, they must have a thousand schemes in mind — they want to test the new Sect Leader and see what he’s made of. If you can’t hold them in check, things will be very difficult going forward.”

Yun Changliu naturally understood all of this, and for some reason the impression that “the branch hall leaders are not good people” was particularly deeply rooted in his mind.

He was about to speak when a sudden sharp pain pierced his head, instantly robbing him of whatever words had yet to leave his lips.

“…!”

That rare yet not entirely unfamiliar pain caused Yun Changliu to involuntarily furrow his brows; his body lurched violently, and had he not happened to be seated, he would have fallen. A fragmented image flashed past — he grasped for it, but could not hold on.

His mind surfaced only a dim, chaotic swirl of figures and a nauseating smear of black-red mottled color; a trace of blue-green flickered near and far, and in the very next instant, it all dissipated like smoke.

Wen Feng was greatly alarmed and hastened to support him from the side. “Sect Leader?!”

Yun Danjing was also startled and abruptly stood up. “You — what’s wrong with you?!”

“It’s nothing…”

Yun Changliu shook his head through clenched teeth, leaning against the table to steady his breathing; only then did that needle-piercing pain gradually fade away. “…Just old memories acting up.”

As he spoke, Yun Changliu slowly opened his eyes. A flicker of bewilderment passed through his cool pale pupils, and was quietly suppressed in the very next instant.

What, exactly, had he forgotten?

……

By the time Guan Wujue came out after changing, Yun Changliu had already concealed every trace of anything unusual.

The Four Directions Protector was just about to ask the Sect Leader which seat he was supposed to take, when he suddenly realized something was off about the seating arrangement at this banquet.

A place had been set vacant beside Yun Changliu — there was nothing particularly strange about that in itself, because according to the old precedent, there had indeed always been a seat beside the Sect Leader for his principal wife.

However, Yun Guyan and Lin Wanxia were a married couple in name only and utterly estranged in spirit; the former Sect Leader had always kept that seat empty in memory of the late Lan Ningcai, and had never once allowed Lin Wanxia to sit there.

But now Yun Guyan had abdicated, and Yun Changliu had succeeded as Sect Leader. Since the current Sect Leader had yet to take a wife, this seat should by rights have been removed altogether…

Guan Wujue suddenly felt a foreboding chill crawling steadily up his spine. He abruptly noticed that everyone in Yangxin Hall — all these familiar faces — seemed to have their gazes fixed on him, carrying a strange, burning intensity.

In the very next moment, he saw Yun Changliu beckon to him, pointing calmly at the place beside himself. “Come. Sit.”

“…”

The magnificent scene before him instantly turned bleak. Guan Wujue froze. He did not move, and with difficulty managed to quirk the corner of his lips at the Sect Leader. “Sect Leader… Sect Leader, please don’t jest with Wujue like this…”

“Protector Guan,” Wen Feng bowed and made a welcoming gesture from the side, a graceful and fitting smile on his face. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

Before Guan Wujue could retort, his shoulder suddenly sank as Xiao Donghe came up from behind and draped an arm over the Protector’s left shoulder, saying with great solemnity. “May you be of one heart forever.”

With that, Xiao Donghe gave Guan Wujue a shove forward. Hua Wan sidled up from the other side at the same time, delicate fingers coming to rest on Guan Wujue’s right shoulder, and smiled with pursed lips. “May you soon be blessed with children.”

Guan Wujue: “…No, no, no — that is genuinely not physically possible.”

Watching everyone give him a push here and a shove there, Guan Wujue had no choice but to sit down beside Yun Changliu with a wry smile. “Sect Leader, no matter how you look at it… this is far too against all propriety.”

“This lord has no wife at present. What does it matter?”

“You have no wife now, but you will eventually. When the time comes, if your new wife hears that the Sect Leader once gave her seat to the Protector, who knows how aggrieved she will feel!”

Yun Changliu was entirely unconcerned, and replied with perfect confidence:

“If she is a woman so petty as that, this lord simply won’t marry her.”

Guan Wujue: “…………”

Over at the Ghost Gate’s side, Elder Xue Duxing had gone visibly dark in the face the instant he saw Guan Wujue actually sit down beside Yun Changliu, and said indignantly, “This… what a disgrace, what an utter disgrace!”

Shan Yi chuckled cheerfully, “Gate Master, why make such a fuss? Come to think of it, the young Protector is of Yin Ghost origin — by any reckoning, he is one of our Ghost Gate’s own. If that day truly comes, our Ghost Gate cannot afford to be stingy with the dowry.”

Across from them, Guan Muyan erupted in fury. “Bah, bah! — that young rascal Wujue is this old man’s adopted son! If anyone is paying, it’s Medicine Gate that pays — what business is it of yours to join in the fun?! All of you, get lost, get lost, get lost!”

At the seat of honor sat the former Sect Leader. Seeing Yun Guyan’s expression grow increasingly dark and stormy, Wen Huan had no choice but to soothe him helplessly. “It’s yours, it’s yours — Liu’er and Ah Ku are both your children… as they say, good fortune doesn’t flow to outsiders.”

It was fortunate that this bizarre exchange hadn’t been overheard by the Protector.

……

And so it was that after this round of teasing and merriment among the crowd, the auspicious hour arrived.

The gates of Xifeng City swung wide open, with a path of golden powder spread all the way through. Along the road, the Zhuhuo Guards were lined up in a grand ceremonial procession, bearing bright lanterns and five-colored pennant banners. Drums and music rose to the skies, flutes and xiao flutes sounding together; thirteen magnificent carriages entered in procession, each surrounded front and back by its own escort of guards and envoys — an imposing and splendid sight.

Outside Yangxin Hall, Xiao Donghe and Hua Wan came out to receive the guests, standing to the left and right of the long flight of steps, with Candle Dragon banners unfurling behind them. The carriages bearing the various hall leaders halted here; the thirteen of them proceeded on foot, and their attendants surrendered their weapons before ascending the steps.

Upon mounting the stairs, the leaders of the various branch halls and their accompanying envoys filed in through the main gate, and there before them they beheld the new Zhuyin Sect Leader seated at the high dais — white robes emblazoned with scarlet-gold dragon patterns, his bearing one of lofty serenity and peerless elegance. And to his right — remarkably — was the Four Directions Protector Guan Wujue, clad in a robe of ink-plum red set off by a red-robed jade coronet, his presence stern and commanding.

The assembled hall leaders were caught off guard all at once, unable to make sense of this seating arrangement. But the strings and woodwinds had already struck up, and they had no choice but to first observe the proper ceremonial rites — kneeling in obeisance, calling out blessings for the Sect Leader to reign for ten thousand years, presenting their tribute lists, and then each taking their seats.

Guan Wujue looked down from his elevated position, surrounded by the brilliant radiance of nearby candles and jewels, seated in the most honored place and gazing down upon the assembled below. The thirteen hall leaders knelt in the center to pay their respects, their attendants arranged in rows on either side, all bowing deeply. This was the most solemn of ceremonial rites, and to his own surprise, he received it alongside Yun Changliu.

The red-robed Protector suddenly recalled things of the past, and could not help but feel a wave of quiet melancholy rise within him. Back then he had thought that in this lifetime, he would never have the chance to sit in a place of honor at a banquet — yet by some strange twist of fate he had become the Four Directions Protector, and now found himself seated shoulder to shoulder with the Sect Leader…

Once the banquet formally began, countless exquisite dishes arrived in an endless stream, and the hall became a scene of lively toasting and clinking of cups; below, dancers and musicians performed in turn — a dazzling and magnificent spectacle.

Yet Guan Wujue’s mind was elsewhere. At first he was still able to deflect drinks on Yun Changliu’s behalf and deal with the probing verbal skirmishes from the various branch hall leaders. Later, when that group finally quieted down and began to eat, he found himself with nothing to do and growing bored.

Guan Wujue was always the type who refused to let himself be bored. Without any warning whatsoever, the red-robed Protector suddenly raised his hand and pointed at someone below, then turned his head and said quietly to Yun Changliu:

“Sect Leader, could you kill that person for this subordinate?”

Casually calling for someone’s death out of sheer boredom — quite in keeping with the Protector’s usual manner.

Perhaps out of sheer habit, words that would have alarmed anyone else failed to produce the slightest change in Yun Changliu’s expression of mild indifference.

The Sect Leader simply turned his head compliantly to look; the one the Protector was pointing at was a sharp-faced, simian-jawed middle-aged man. Not a hall leader — judging by his attire, he was some kind of guard captain… not someone he recognized.

Yun Changliu then asked, “Why?”

And then, “Who is this person? What is his name?”

“…” Guan Wujue fell silent for a moment, and said with difficulty, dredging through his memory, “He might be… surnamed Li?”

Yun Changliu gave him a long, quiet look, then after a pause asked, “On what charge?”

Guan Wujue glanced at the Sect Leader with a guilty conscience. “…No particular charge.”

Yun Changliu gave a soft laugh, raised his hand and tapped the Protector’s arm. “Wanting to kill a branch hall envoy on no evidence whatsoever — you really have been spoiled.”

Guan Wujue quickly laughed and said he would never dare, then drank another cup of wine.

His gaze quietly darkened.

…The pain had long since been forgotten — it felt like something from a very distant past. He had long since suffered greater and more agonizing hardships; looking back on it now, that frenzied impulse to kill with his own hands seemed childish and laughable.

Only the humiliation remained — that humiliation of being pinned to a cold floor, his clothes torn away, his blood sucked from him. Though the hatred that had once burned with an undying, unrelenting fury had long since faded, it was still not something he could easily forget.

It was like a deep wound — scabbed over, no longer painful, yet still lying across the skin. Every so often, a gust of wind would lift the sleeve and lay it bare.

Perhaps because he had glanced at Captain Li several times, the man finally turned around and, gathering his courage, looked back at the Protector.

The instant their eyes met, Guan Wujue clearly saw Captain Li’s brow furrow in confusion.

A chill swept through Guan Wujue’s heart, and his whole body went taut. He thought to himself: This is bad — surely he doesn’t still recognize me?

He had assumed that since he had been very young at the time, and more than a decade had now passed in the blink of an eye, he should not be recognizable. But on second thought, back then Young Sect Leader Changliu had killed that man’s hall leader for his sake — Captain Li must have a strong impression of that event. Now, seeing the Sect Leader still so close with him, this man might very well put two and two together by accident and figure something out!

— No. He would have to find a way to silence him.

The impulse to kill rose abruptly in Guan Wujue; he was quietly turning over in his mind how to act in a way that would utterly sever this potential source of trouble, when a shadow suddenly fell over him from ahead.

Yun Changliu’s voice came from just above his head, cool and unhurried. “Why aren’t you eating? Did this lord’s refusal to help you kill someone put you in a bad mood?”

Guan Wujue looked up with a start, and could not help feeling vexed at himself for getting so lost in thought — the Sect Leader had stepped away from the table and come back without him noticing at all. “This subordinate would not dare.”

Yun Changliu sat back down beside him, took his hand, and said in all seriousness, “Though this lord is happy to indulge you, the Protector should also know to observe the rules.”

Guan Wujue could tell from his tone that the Sect Leader had no intention of reproaching him whatsoever, and so played along with equal mock-solemnity. “Yes, yes, of course — Wujue thanks the Sect Leader for his guidance…”

Yun Changliu, heedless of all the watching eyes around them, reached over and placed a pair of chopsticks’ worth of food on his plate. “Don’t sulk. Eat something.”

Everyone in Xifeng City had long since grown accustomed to such things — but the branch hall leaders seated below were thoroughly taken aback by this display of hand-holding and chopstick-serving between the Sect Leader and the Protector, and a flurry of whispered exchanges rose and fell all around.

— Could it be that the Sect Leader and the Protector are truly as the rumors say…?

— It seems the Sect Leader and the Protector are indeed as the rumors say!

Just then, a sudden commotion erupted outside Yangxin Hall.

A group of grim-faced Zhuhuo Guards together with several enforcers from the Punishment Hall came pouring in through the gates of Yangxin Hall, all of them armed at the waist and radiating killing intent!

The music stopped abruptly, and everyone’s face changed color at once. The lead Zhuhuo Guard was seen to unfurl two large warrants — one from the Information Hall and one from the Punishment Hall — and began reading aloud in a loud, ringing voice:

“Li He, envoy of the Huai City branch hall! You stand accused of twelve major crimes, as follows:

First: in such-and-such year and month, you beat and abused over twenty congregation members to death — a crime of wanton and unlawful killing. 

Second: in such-and-such year and month, you embezzled sect funds in the amount of such-and-such — a crime of lining your private pockets at public expense. 

Third: in such-and-such year and month, you privately engaged in slanderous speech against the Sect Leader — a crime of disrespect and profanity toward your superior. Fourth…”

“…In light of the above, the traitor Li He has committed twelve major crimes, all proven beyond doubt, for which there can be no pardon! By order of the Sect Leader, he is to be executed on the spot this very day — with the Four Directions Protector to carry out the sentence on his behalf!”