WJ Chapter 123

Ru Fen (1)

Follow along Ru’s tomb, 

And cut the sprouting branches there. 

Now that I have seen my lord again, 

He will not cast me far away.

——

Within the sleeping quarters of Yangxin Hall, a misty vapor drifted behind the folding screen.

Guan Wujue’s voice drifted through, laced with quiet sighs. “Will you stop crying? Five years and you haven’t improved one bit.”

“Pfft,” Wen Feng stood outside the screen, bracing himself against the table, his eyes red from holding back tears. His voice came out choked, yet he forced a stubborn front. “Who’s crying?”

He had never imagined he would meet Ah Ku again in this world — and even less imagined that when they did meet, it would be like this.

The blue-robed child who used to compete with him every day for the Young Sect Leader’s attention was gone without a trace. Wen Feng wanted nothing more than to burst through that screen and shout at him — how did you end up like this, how could you be so gravely wounded, what in the world happened to you—

But when he finally opened his mouth, all that came out was a nasal mumble. “…Your wounds can’t get wet. Be careful when you wash.”

Silence stretched behind the screen, then came the soft rustle of fabric.

Guan Wujue had changed his clothes. Dressed in white, his hair unbound, he stepped out slowly and murmured, “Wujue is nothing but a broken ghost. I dare not trouble Attendant Wen with such concern.”

Wen Feng understood — Guan Wujue was deliberately reminding them both of their current stations. The former Sect Leader and his own father had forbidden him from ever breathing a word about the past to the Sect Leader. He had no choice but to go on concealing it, to treat the man before him as a complete stranger, a Yin Ghost he had never known.

But Wen Feng could not make peace with it. He washed his face and came back, forcing a weak smile. “To think the Sect Leader would even lend you Lady Lan’s jade pendant. What, have you come back to fight me for the place at his side?”

Guan Wujue pressed the Yin Ghost face-armor back over his face, stepped around the attendant, and walked toward the door — cold and indifferent. “Attendant Wen speaks too highly of me. Once one passes through Ghost Gate, the past is severed. Wujue is nothing more than a Yin Ghost of Ghost Gate now. I only know how to kill. Everything else — I have forgotten.”

The two had not yet reached the outer hall when a clamor of voices reached them.

The blood that had splattered across Yangxin Hall moments ago had given everyone present a terrible fright. Xiao Donghe had barely finished his expression of gratitude before hurrying off to change his clothes. When Yun Changliu had made clear he intended to shield the Yin Ghost, no one had dared speak against him openly. But now that several moments had passed and people had gathered their wits, voices of dissent rose again.

In the end it was Xue Duxing who stepped forward and silenced them. “Liu Wanjun repeatedly defied and disrespected his superior — that is a grave offense of insolence. His death was entirely warranted.”

Xue Duxing carried great prestige within the Zhuyin Sect, and once he spoke, those who had been angling to stir trouble dared not say another word. But Yun Changliu watched his expression and knew the Elder was not finished.

Sure enough, Xue Duxing paused, then asked with some hesitation, “And yet — Liu Wanjun’s words were not without merit. Why are these prisoners to be released? We ask that the Sect Leader provide an explanation.”

Yun Changliu patiently repeated what he had said only minutes before. “They will not be released for nothing. They will be ransomed.”

“Send letters to the eight sects that attacked us.” Sect Leader Yun tapped the prisoner list on the table, his expression blank. “Payment per head.”

A strange silence fell over Yangxin Hall.

Behind the door, Guan Wujue barely managed to keep from laughing out loud.

Xue Duxing wondered if he was dreaming.

Their new Sect Leader — who every day carried himself as though he were above all earthly concerns — had just worn that same lofty expression and spoken in that same unhurried tone to say two words: Pay up?!

“What,” Yun Changliu said coolly, “do none of you know that the Zhuyin Sect is short on funds?”

The shock that followed was even greater than the last.

Right Envoy Zhao Cuo stared in disbelief, his words stumbling over themselves. “Sh-sh-short on — what?!”

Money?

The Zhuyin Sect is short on money?!

Good heavens — they were a fearsome demonic sect, their name enough to make children stop crying in the night, their reputation shaking the entire jianghu. Every one of their masters was a wild and ruthless hero who had dyed their blades red in the Red River and ridden horses across snowy peaks!

These “heroes” spent their days drinking freely and feasting on meat — when had they ever been troubled by something as vulgar as coins?

Yun Changliu pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation.

His father had spent years nearly burning through every last reserve the sect had. The Zhuyin Sect now was all splendor on the surface and rot within. Not destitute, exactly — but if the squandering continued, the day of reckoning would come…

The trouble was that his subordinates had been so thoroughly spoiled by the old Sect Leader that they had no concept of thrift — pfft, governing with thrift!

Enough to drive a person to despair.

And sure enough, the uproar below resumed:

“Would the Zhuyin Sect stoop to such petty gains!”

“Our enemies attacked Xifeng City — we should be making an example of them! How can the Sect Leader be so small-minded…”

“And besides — if we demand ransom, what makes you think they’ll actually pay?”

“What if those sects refuse? Then we’d just be spending more money feeding all those prisoners!”

…

Outside the door, Wen Feng coughed softly, then ventured a sideways glance. “…Only knows how to kill?”

Guan Wujue ground his teeth in fury. “You — are you completely useless?!”

Wen Feng blinked, and said with perfect righteousness, “Do you not know that I am a personal attendant? Everything I was trained in from childhood was the art of serving. How exactly am I supposed to help in a moment like this?”

Guan Wujue pressed a hand to his forehead and drew a long breath, tilting his head back.

He felt around for the half-jade pendant Yun Changliu had given him and fastened it at his waist. Then he shot Wen Feng one final withering glare — and with the air of a man who had given up entirely — walked out.

The moment he emerged from the inner room, the hall fell abruptly silent.

Every gaze locked onto Guan Wujue.

There was a reason for this. The Yin Ghosts wore black from head to toe, much of it layered with leather armor and iron buckles — nothing to distinguish one from another by appearance or build. They all shared the same rough, hard, lethal quality of men born for death.

But now Guan Wujue had changed into loose white silk robes. The soft fabric draped over a slight, almost fragile frame and exposed pale skin. He was so thin as to seem genuinely delicate — bearing no resemblance whatsoever to what a Yin Ghost was supposed to look like. He looked more like a sickly, pampered young master of some noble house.

And yet over his face he still wore that cold, hard, fearsome black armor. The contrast was striking to behold.

Yun Changliu glanced at Guan Wujue, then turned and hooked two fingers toward Wen Feng, beckoning the attendant over.

His reason for sending Wen Feng to take the Yin Ghost away had not been only for the bath — though the bath had certainly been necessary. There had been another purpose: he had wanted Wen Feng to take the opportunity to sound out just what this Yin Ghost was about — the one who had drawn his blades and killed without a word of warning.

Liu Wanjun had deserved to die. And this Yin Ghost’s skill and judgment were things Yun Changliu genuinely admired. It was precisely for those reasons that he had moved without hesitation to shield him…

But as Sect Leader, he could not afford to keep a subordinate who killed his superiors on impulse, without explanation. Unless there was something particular about the situation, he could not keep this Yin Ghost.

Wen Feng understood without a word spoken. He bent low and murmured to Yun Changliu, “He said… he overheard some rumors among the disciples on his way here. Then, entering the hall, he saw Liu Wanjun showing disrespect to the Sect Leader. He couldn’t contain his killing intent in time.”

Yun Changliu frowned, baffled.

How was that a reason?

A Yin Ghost’s loyalty to its Sect Leader was not strange in itself. But the first and most essential principle of the Yin Ghosts was obedience — a Ghost who could not master its own impulses would never have survived Ghost Gate in the first place. So what exactly was going on with this one?

Did it not know that what it had done could have cost it its life?

Then again — this person did not seem to particularly fear death…

Wen Feng glanced at Guan Wujue kneeling below, then leaned in close to Yun Changliu’s ear. “Don’t take it to heart, Sect Leader,” he whispered. “He is a broken ghost, after all.”

“Wen Feng believes,” the attendant said, with an expression of great mystery and authority, pointing to the side of his own head, “…that up here, he is — a little bit broken.”

Yun Changliu’s confusion instantly dissolved. A look of quiet understanding crossed his face as he murmured softly, “…I see.”

Guan Wujue inhaled the wrong way and quietly coughed twice.

Wen Feng felt deeply satisfied. Back when they were small, he had never once been able to get the better of Ah Ku with words. But the wheel of fortune turns — and at last he’d had the pleasure of getting one over on this person, saying what he liked while the other couldn’t argue back, couldn’t retaliate, and had to sit there and take it…

Inside Yangxin Hall, as the debate over what to do with the prisoners had now been interrupted several times over, impatience was mounting. “Sect Leader…”

Yun Changliu’s head was throbbing.

But he also knew that as long as he held this position, there was no escaping these things. He was about to speak when a calm, unhurried voice drifted up from below:

“Wealth does not spring from nothing. If there are those who spend, then there must be those who toil to accumulate what is spent. Why should the darens here take offense at that?”

It was the white-robed Yin Ghost — the one who had just severed Liu Wanjun’s head with two blades and then crushed it underfoot… the very one the Sect Leader had shielded.

Whether Wen Feng’s remark had stung him or not, Guan Wujue’s tone was perfectly neutral, but the words themselves were soaked in biting contempt. Someone immediately roared in fury, “How dare you! A mere Yin Ghost, spouting nonsense in Yangxin Hall?! Which cohort are you from? Elder Xue, look at this — this—”

The outburst came from Li Chengyuan, Deputy Hall Master of the Information Hall, a subordinate of Right Envoy Zhao Cuo. Xue Duxing did not respond. He was staring fixedly at the jade pendant at Guan Wujue’s waist, his expression complex, as he ventured carefully:

“You… you are the Sect Leader’s man? Has the Sect Leader already taken a shadow?”

Yun Changliu had also been quietly astonished at the Yin Ghost’s audacity. His expression grew faintly cool as he began, “He—”

“—Gate Master has it wrong.”

Guan Wujue let a small smile play at the corner of his lips beneath the cover of his face-armor, well aware that his scheme of borrowing the jade pendant to borrow the tiger’s authority had worked. Aloud, his voice remained cold. “Of the several hundred Yin Ghosts within Ghost Gate, every last one is a blade in service of the Sect Leader. Of course I am the Sect Leader’s man. Who else would I be — Deputy Hall Master Li’s?”

Those words cut right to the heart. Li Chengyuan broke out in a cold sweat, his eyes going wide. “You — you Yin Ghost, shut your mouth at once! Sect Leader, you must see clearly — this old Li has never had a treacherous thought in his life!”

“…”

Yun Changliu slowly narrowed his long eyes, gazing at Guan Wujue for a long moment in silence, then unhurriedly picked up the teacup on his desk and took a small sip.

Guan Wujue felt his skin prickle under the Sect Leader’s stare and cursed inwardly. He hadn’t actually wanted to make a spectacle of himself — but he simply… simply could not bear to watch the Sect Leader being pressured into speaking.

He could only smile bitterly to himself: So be it. Even if I end up thrown into the Punishment Hall and beaten to death for this, I accept my fate…

Then a voice challenged him. “Easy to say — but why would the three sects and five orders willingly suffer such a loss and still hand over ransom money like obedient children?!”

Guan Wujue composed himself. Having already spoken, he had nothing left to lose. He maintained his upright kneeling posture and replied steadily, “Simply spread the letters far and wide across the jianghu. The three sects and five orders came here under the banner of the righteous path. If they refuse to pay — not only will their own disciples lose faith in them, they will have no footing left in the jianghu either.”

Yun Changliu’s finger resting against the corner of the desk gave a small, involuntary twitch.

The eight letters he had just drafted — meant to be dispersed to the jianghu through the Information Hall once he had dealt with his subordinates — were sitting right now in the study next door.

What manner of creature is this broken ghost…

Another skeptical voice spoke up. “But by releasing so many skilled fighters, are we not letting tigers return to the mountains? They will come back to bite us!”

“The eight sects lost face so badly that some will certainly be itching to regroup and try again. But if the Sect Leader treats the prisoners generously and releases them without taking so much as a hair from them — then anyone who dares attack Xifeng City after that would be branded a contemptible villain by everyone in the jianghu.”

“What if they bide their time — three or five years — wait for the world to forget, and then repay kindness with treachery?”

“This alliance of three sects and five orders came together because the former Sect Leader’s sudden abdication left a gap for enemies to exploit. And even then they still lost. Three or five years from now, when the Sect Leader’s foundation is firmly established — who would dare come again?”

One by one, voices rose in challenge, and one by one, Guan Wujue answered them from where he knelt — swift and exact, each response silencing another bluster. His bearing was nothing like that of a mere assassin.

The crowd exchanged looks of quiet amazement, each privately speculating on what kind of distinguished background this white-robed Yin Ghost must have had before he entered Ghost Gate. But Ghost Gate’s rules forbade any questions about the past — however curious they were, it could only remain a private thought, not a word to be spoken aloud.

As the last voices of opposition fell quiet, Guan Wujue paused to catch his breath, then turned and bowed his head to the young white-robed Sect Leader. In a low, steady voice he said:

“The prisoners now held in the Punishment Hall will not only bring in a rare and considerable sum — they also buy Xifeng City precious time to recover and regroup. This is truly a rare opportunity.”

“The Sect Leader’s vision reaches far. No doubt this plan was decided from the very moment the three sects and five orders first moved against us — simply waiting for the ice on the Red River to thaw before sweeping them all into the net.”

Guan Wujue pressed his forehead to the floor before Yun Changliu. “The Sect Leader is wise.”

The crowd had barely processed what had just happened. Every face wore the same blank expression.

Yun Changliu had been sitting at the head of the hall, rather leisurely sipping his tea, when he noticed that the clamor below had gone quiet.

He raised his eyes and found everyone staring at him.

The Sect Leader raised an eyebrow with perfect composure. “Why is everyone looking at this lord? Did he not explain it rather well?”

“Yes, yes…”

“Ah, the Sect Leader is wise, the Sect Leader is wise…”

“It was we who were too slow-witted…”

“Are there any further objections?” Yun Changliu asked.

The heads below shook as one.

Yun Changliu’s brow smoothed with quiet satisfaction. “Very good, then. The Yin Ghost stays. The rest of you — dismissed.”

Moments later, the assembly filed out in a daze, as though walking out of a dream.

The hall grew quiet quickly. Only Yun Changliu, Wen Feng, and Guan Wujue kneeling below remained.

Having somehow managed to weather this, Guan Wujue let out a small, quiet breath.

He had flown into a killing rage, then spent the next stretch parrying the questions and challenges of the sect’s inner circle. What little qi and spirit he had left was nearly wrung dry. Now that the tension was releasing, his head was beginning to swim.

But he could not allow himself to lose composure in front of Yun Changliu. Guan Wujue bit the tip of his tongue and considered whether he ought to show some self-awareness and get ahead of things — prostrate himself and beg pardon first for the string of transgressions.

Then came Yun Changliu’s calm, unhurried voice, “Wujue. Remove your face-armor.”

Guan Wujue’s breath stuttered. The Sect Leader’s sudden use of “Wujue” sent a tremor through him from head to toe — his head spun, and for a moment he nearly couldn’t hold his kneeling posture.

When he processed the three words that followed, his heart sank slowly, steadily downward. His voice came out hoarse.

“This subordinate… is hideous to look upon. I dare not offend the Sect Leader’s eyes.”

Guan Wujue did not want to remove the face-armor. He knew well enough that he must look dreadful in this wasted, sickly state — at least he had that much self-awareness.

Wen Feng nearly choked. He stared at Guan Wujue with an expression of strangled indignation, his handsome face turning red.

Yun Changliu, unaware of the attendant’s reaction, shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. This lord does not judge by appearances.”

Ghost Gate took in many abandoned orphans, the majority of them discarded precisely because of their looks. Every manner of unfortunate appearance had passed through — faces with disfiguring features were not even uncommon. The Sect Leader would naturally take no offense.

Guan Wujue was silent for a moment. Seeing from Yun Changliu’s manner that there was no way out of this, he stiffly raised his hands.

That black Yin Ghost face-armor was steadied at its edges by thin, long fingers, and slowly — lowered.

Guan Wujue closed his eyes for a moment, then — with great reluctance — lifted his face.

He raised it once, then couldn’t help dropping it again immediately. His long, dark lashes trembled uncontrollably.

“…”

Yun Changliu’s throat moved. He stared at Guan Wujue, his expression one of indescribable complexity.

…The Yin Ghost in white robes and dark hair knelt just a few steps away with his eyes downcast — wearing an expression of wounded self-consciousness.

This… this person…

What possible misunderstanding did he have about his own “hideous appearance…”?!

Wen Feng took the timely opportunity to murmur in Yun Changliu’s ear, “You see, Sect Leader — just as Wen Feng said. This person’s head really is a little bit… off.”

The Sect Leader raised his sleeve with an air of casual indifference and coughed lightly, then shifted his gaze away. “…From now on, in this lord’s presence — the armor need not be worn.”