WJ Chapter 115

Morning Wind (4)

That exquisite and elegant wooden house was instantly swallowed by raging flames. The smoke thickened, and soon the sounds of cracking and splintering rose one after another.

The clouds had grown heavy, and the sky overhead had darkened at some point. Ah Ku stood rigidly upright, head tilted back watching the fire, as heat-wave winds tousled the boy’s black hair and crimson flames danced in the depths of his eyes.

He watched helplessly as his most beloved wooden house turned black and ugly. Tongues of fire licked up into the branches of a peach tree behind the house, and that peach tree caught fire too — its delicate blossoms and jade-green leaves all reduced to blackened, curling ash. Then the four trees beside it, then more than ten further on, the fire spreading until not a single tree in the entire peach grove could escape its fate.

Except for the open clearing before the house where everyone stood, everything in all directions was crackling and burning, and the whole world was bathed in the red glow of flames. With a tremendous crash, the house’s roof beam finally gave way and collapsed in a thundering ruin.

Ah Ku’s face was expressionless. His heart held no sorrow — it was as still as death.

Now, at last, he truly had nothing left. He had surrendered his freedom, surrendered the Duanmu surname and his identity as a young master of a prestigious family. His enviable gift for medicine had been abandoned and wasted. Drawing blood had damaged his heart meridians and broken his foundation. Yun Changliu, who had once been willing to protect him, had forgotten him. And now even this last sanctuary that had belonged to him alone had been burned down by his own hand…

He had nothing left. It was as though he had burned himself away in the fire too, and the pride that had been born into his very bones was shattered to pieces. Whether from the choking thick smoke, or from excessive blood loss and physical exhaustion, Ah Ku began to feel his breathing grow labored, his vision blurred once more, and his consciousness drifted further and further away.

Suddenly, a cool drop slid down his cheek.

Not tears — he was not crying.

It was raining.

That was Ah Ku’s last conscious thought.

And then he knew nothing at all.

****

Several days later.

The peach blossoms at the foot of Mount Shenlie were nearly spent, but the snow outside Ghost Gate had yet to melt.

The Ghost Gate within Xifeng City was a rather unusual place. It was divided into two tiers — the Outer Gate and the Inner Gate — and was presided over by Great Elder Xue Duxing as its Gate Master. The Outer Gate served as the command post for the Zhuhuo Guards and the Yin Ghosts, where all official business was handled; the Inner Gate, however, was a purgatory. Every five years, a cohort of children and youths between the ages of ten and eighteen would be sent inside, to undergo a brutal ordeal between life and death.

The previous five-year cycle had ended just half a month ago. The next five-year cycle was to begin tomorrow.

An old man and a young man came walking up along a winding mountain path.

The remarkably handsome young man had changed into a new set of black robes, which made his complexion appear even paler. His long hair was swept up and bound with an ink-black hair ribbon, falling loose over his overly thin shoulders. He walked on for a moment, then said lightly, “…Old man, you had some sort of history with the Duanmu family, didn’t you.”

Guan Muyan kept his head down, watching the path, and did not answer Ah Ku.

The latter continued to sigh unhurriedly:

“…It seems that’s really the case. Back when I asked you to teach me the techniques of Wanci Manor, I hadn’t much hope of it — yet you actually agreed to teach me. Later I came to understand that it was you who suggested to the Sect Leader to bring me in as a blood-medicine vessel for the Young Sect Leader.”

Ah Ku cast a sidelong glance, his expression hovering between a smile and something else:

“…Does it feel satisfying, getting your revenge?”

The old man still said nothing. Ah Ku took it to mean he was too embarrassed to respond now that he’d been exposed — after all, it was said that the Hundred Medicines Elder had not a single close friend or confidant, nor even an enemy to speak of — so Ah Ku paid it no further mind, only saying:

“I still have to thank you for being willing to give me a new identity. Without it, the inspection upon entering Ghost Gate would have been a genuine nuisance. Don’t worry — this business of adoptive father and son, we both know full well what it actually is, and I will absolutely never call you Father.”

By the time he finished speaking, the two had arrived before Ghost Gate. As far as the eye could see, white snow blanketed the mountain rock, and a lacquered black iron gate was set into the stone, carved with images of Zhulongs — the Candle Dragons — rearing up in furious majesty. At the top of the gate jutted a sculpted figure of a black-faced demon with protruding fangs — forbidding and sinister in the extreme.

And just outside that iron gate, a plum tree stood with a trunk of extraordinary girth and age, its branches laden with red blossoms.

Against the backdrop of that grim black gate, those scarlet blooms blazed like rouge — wild and alluring — and waves of dark fragrance drifted out, intoxicating to the senses.

Ah Ku’s steps slowed. He tilted his head back and gazed for a long moment at the red plum, murmuring softly, “What kind of plum tree is this? It’s so beautiful.”

A white-robed man stood beneath the tree. Wen Huan, who had been waiting there for some time, stepped over to Ah Ku’s side and said, “This is a cinnabar plum. Every day, those who die within Ghost Gate have their bodies dissolved into blood-water to nourish this tree. That is why it has grown so tall and so vividly red.”

Ah Ku mused thoughtfully. “It’s truly beautiful. If I were to die, to sleep beneath such a lovely plum tree would not be a bad end.”

In that moment, he noticed something curious: it seemed that just now — just at the instant he laid eyes on this plum tree blazing like fire — he felt, with a sudden clarity, that he no longer loved peach blossoms at all.

Wen Huan said, “Although the Sect Leader was unwilling to come and see you off, he asked me to bring your new name back to him. Have you decided on it?”

Ah Ku reached up and broke off a branch of the cinnabar plum from the tree. He planted himself on the ground, sitting with his legs outstretched, and used that plum branch to write characters in the snow.

Wen Huan bent down to look, and saw several lines of free and flowing script traced in the snow:

“O Heaven, I wish to be with you always, bound together without end or decay.

Though mountains crumble and rivers run dry, Though winter thunder shakes the earth and summer snow falls from the sky, Though Heaven and Earth themselves merge into one — Only then would I dare to part from you.”

Before Wen Huan and Guan Muyan’s eyes, Ah Ku finished writing out this poem — Shang Ye — and then suddenly pressed his palm down over two of the characters.

He channeled his internal energy into his palm and released it in a single burst; in an instant, snow crystals scattered in all directions, and every last written character was wiped away. Ah Ku lifted his hand, and there in the snow, starkly revealed, were only the two characters he had deliberately spared.

The young man turned his eyes toward Wen Huan, raised a finger and pointed at the snow, and said, “My name.”

Wen Huan read them carefully, and spoke them softly, “Wu… Jue.”

Guan Wujue — No Parting — gave a nod, rose unhurriedly to his feet, and walked through the snow toward that black gate. He knew that the moment he pushed it open, five years would begin — five years during which he, with a body severely injured and gravely ill, must compete within the most brutal and bloodthirsty place of the Zhuyin Sect against over a thousand youths for one of the few hundred places among the living.

Five years. It was truly a very long time.

The young man stopped before the gate and closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against the cold, unyielding iron. He traced the carved dragons on the door with his fingertips and tried to imagine how the Young Sect Leader Changliu would pass these five years.

Now that the bondage of the Fengchun Sheng poison had been lifted, and Yun Changliu was the honored Young Sect Leader of the Zhuyin Sect — however he thought about it, Changliu ought to live freely and happily.

In five years, he would surely have learned to laugh loudly and play freely, found things he enjoyed and foods he liked, no longer deferring to others’ preferences in everything.

He would have made many close friends by then, and perhaps would have married, with children of his own — with absolutely no possibility of keeping anyone particular in his thoughts.

He would have come to understand much of the ordinary matters that ordinary young men understand, and would no longer naively and innocently sing love songs to people, or say such absurd things as wanting only to hold someone close.

Those peculiar little habits of his would surely have been corrected by then too — he would no longer be so frightened of strangers that he hid behind others, no longer forget his way and need to be led by the hand, no longer be so poor with words that he let himself be teased and taken advantage of.

Most importantly… he would no longer be lonely, and would certainly no longer wish for death.

There would no longer be any need for some reckless young fool who, with all the brazen arrogance of youth, had declared he would serve as his medicine-companion and keep him alive — no longer any need for someone to drag him down from Wolong Platform in the teeth of wind and snow.

A familiar, stabbing ache surged suddenly through his heart meridians. Guan Wujue’s lips trembled slightly; he dug his fingers into the iron gate, gritted his teeth, and bore it without making a sound.

He said to himself, with a ferocity that was almost vicious: If I truly become a useless, broken thing, then dying inside Ghost Gate would be just as well.

With that thought, a surge of savage, violent energy rose violently in his chest. Guan Wujue threw both hands against the gate; with a grinding, groaning protest of iron, the massive door swung open. Inside lay only dimness — a long flight of steps descending into the earth, stretching downward as though without end, and an atmosphere of eerie, unsettling dread instantly seeped outward.

The black-robed young man’s face was paler than ever, his breath coming lightly and unevenly. After a long moment, he did not look back — only raised a hand in a casual farewell, and said: “Uncle Huan, Wujue is leaving. Take good care of yourself and the Sect Leader.”

That single, offhand sentence said, he stepped through Ghost Gate and walked unhurriedly down those long steps.

In an instant, the darkness swallowed the thin and frail figure whole. Guan Wujue, fifteen years of age, walked alone into the shadows filled with slaughter and death.

****

Xifeng City. Yangxin Hall.

“Guan Wujue…”

Yun Guyan murmured the new name over a few times, stroking his chin. “Tsk, it does sound a bit better than Ah Ku, I suppose. That little brat has quite a way with names.”

Wen Huan could only smile without replying. He dimly sensed a stirring in the darkness behind him — most likely that shadow, named aloud by the Sect Leader himself, suppressing once again the grief and anguish that threatened to break free.

Yun Guyan murmured again to himself, “This lord gave him leave to go. It was he who insisted on walking into death. That being so — granting him the end he sought was being true to his wish. Surely this lord has done right by him, after these few years he kept company with Liu;er? Isn’t that so?”

Wen Huan understood that the Sect Leader was not truly asking for his opinion, and so he remained silent as before. Yun Guyan sat on the throne and leaned back, and for a long while said nothing more.

Silence stretched between master and servant, until suddenly hurried footsteps sounded outside the hall. A Zhuhuo Guard had just stepped briskly inside, mouth already opening to report, when the commotion outside grew louder still — and Wen Feng, heedless of everything, shoved past everyone attempting to block him and burst directly through the doors!

Wen Huan’s expression darkened at once. He was just about to rebuke his son harshly for this breach of conduct when Wen Feng dropped to one knee, looked up with a face so stricken he seemed on the verge of desperate tears, and cried, “Sect Leader — Father! What do we do — the Young Sect Leader, he — he —”

Yun Guyan’s eyes sharpened dangerously, and he demanded in a cutting voice. “What has happened to the Young Sect Leader?!”

Wen Feng broke apart entirely: “The Young Sect Leader has entered the Wuze Realm!!”

Those words fell like a thunderclap out of a clear sky. The expressions of both master and servant in Yangxin Hall shifted violently. Yun Guyan whipped toward Wen Feng, his voice stunned and furious. “You — what did you say?!”

The Sect Leader’s presence surged outward involuntarily like a collapsing dam, and Wen Feng was crushed under its weight, barely able to breathe. With great difficulty he raised a certain object — wrapped in a brocade of gold — above his head in both hands, and pressed his face to the ground, forcing the words out in a hoarse rasp:

“Reporting to the Sect Leader… the Young Sect Leader went alone… into the Wuze Realm. Wen Feng was powerless to stop him… Only the Candle Dragon Great Seal is here. I beg the Sect Leader to punish this one for his failure!”

Yun Guyan’s face drained of all color. He stumbled suddenly backward a step. Wen Huan rushed forward to support him, and heard Yun Guyan murmuring incoherently:

“Impossible… This lord never gave the Candle Dragon Great Seal to Liu’er… He dared to take it without leave?! How could he dare — how could he — the Wuze Realm! How could he possibly —”

This wholly unexpected catastrophe left Yun Guyan utterly undone. Even the habitually steady Wen Huan felt a roaring in his ears and darkness before his eyes.

The Wuze Realm — what kind of place was that? They had both entered it themselves. It was a place that could drive a person to madness while still alive!

According to Yun Guyan’s plan, he had intended to have Leng Pei instruct the Young Sect Leader for two years, making every possible preparation in full — and also to wait until Yun Changliu was somewhat older before having him enter with several trusted companions.

Yet who could have imagined, who could have —

No one knew what thoughts had occupied Yun Changliu’s mind during those days he sat alone in Changsheng Pavilion after the amnesia had plunged him into silence.

Facing an incomplete and unknowable past, and a heavy, boundless future — was he in pain? Was he lost? Had he at last reached the point where he simply could bear it no more?

The Young Sect Leader was, above all others, most accomplished at concealing his innermost feelings. Even when rebellion and defiance grew thick and jagged inside him, he never let them show on the surface to wound others. Just as in the past, when he had defied his father’s orders and slipped out of Changsheng Pavilion in secret to find Ah Ku — when he had left Medicine Gate injured and climbed Wolong Platform alone — never before the fact had anyone been able to sense what was coming.

This time was no different.

He had taken his father’s seal without permission, opened the Wuze Realm on his own authority, and entered without attendants. As the stone door closed behind him, the young sect leader in his white robes wore an expression as coldly indifferent as the frost of early winter.

He had not come here in a moment of impulse, to inflict suffering upon himself.

He simply found the outside somewhat vexing, somewhat noisy. He saw too many fawning faces; too many rare and precious objects were brought before him; too many attendants tried to coax him into enjoying a great many new and novel things…

Yet in the Young Sect Leader’s eyes, all of it was utterly, entirely dull. He required no entertainment. Since he was destined to take on the burden of leading the Zhuyin Sect, he wished only to be quick about it.

To quickly finish what he was meant to do.

To quickly repay what he owed.

And then, quietly, undisturbed —

No one knew that Young Sect Leader Changliu’s thoughts had begun, once again, to drift slowly toward a dark and dangerous place. By the time this was understood, it was far too late to speak of it.

Yun Guyan rushed at once to the place where the Wuze Realm lay. At the entrance in that unremarkable mountain rock face, the stone seal had unmistakably been opened, and there was no longer any way to undo it.

Wen Huan stepped forward to examine it more closely, and nearly fainted where he stood. In wretched anguish he turned back, and reported to Yun Guyan, “Five years…”

“…”

Yun Guyan closed his eyes.

He clenched his jaw, forcing the words back for a long moment, before finally cursing out. “Unfilial wretch!“

The Wuze Realm was in its essence a great sealed formation. Once opened from within, it could not be opened from without — one could only wait for the set time limit to expire before the formation would cease its turning.

This meant… even if Yun Changliu were to die within those stone walls tomorrow, Yun Guyan would have to wait five full years before he could collect his son’s remains.

And within the Wuze Realm, beyond the bare minimum of food and water, there was not a single thing to offer comfort — only trials of every brutal kind, an unending torment of body and spirit.

More terrifying still was the loneliness within it, the utter severance from the world outside. Boundless emptiness. Boundless darkness. The faint, ceaseless sound of the formation turning never stopped, coaxing forth the deepest fears buried in a person’s heart. Such conditions, given only a little time, were more than sufficient to break even the most unyielding, iron-blooded man into weeping collapse.

In his day, Yun Guyan had spent one year inside the realm, and had already been celebrated as a legend. But five years — five years was nearly two thousand days and nights, more than twenty thousand hours!

Yun Guyan stared at the mountain rock in a daze, as though his very soul had scattered. Wen Feng knelt nearby not daring to speak. Wen Huan forced himself to offer some comfort. “The Young Sect Leader will be watched over by fortune. Sect Leader, please do not let grief overwhelm you…”

Yet his own heart felt as if it were being cut by knives. However resilient Yun Changliu’s nature, he was still a child of only fifteen. The Fengchun Sheng poison had only just been lifted; he had barely recovered from a serious illness; and he had lost so many memories, leaving his spirit unsettled and adrift…

How could the Young Sect Leader, all alone, endure this endless span of five years?

Bitterness filled Wen Huan’s chest, and his thoughts drifted unbidden back to the black-robed young man whose solitary figure had stepped without hesitation through the gates of Ghost Gate.

The Wuze Realm’s sealed formation, capable of driving a person to madness — and the brutal tempering of Ghost Gate, soaked through with blood and slaughter. Which of the two could more truly be called a living hell?

These two children — could it be that even in their descent into purgatory, they were to go together side by side…

And Yun Guyan lowered his heavy eyelids, raised two fingers and waved them faintly, weary beyond words. “Hush. Don’t speak. Don’t speak.”

The mountain wind swept over his head. That invincible Sect Leader of the Zhuyin Sect — in a single instant, he seemed to have aged and withered utterly. Yun Guyan paid no further heed to the Wen father and son who stood by with things left unsaid. He dropped his head, clasped his hands behind his back, and bent with exhaustion, stepping unevenly over the mountain rock, making his way back toward the dark outline of Xifeng City.