Little Star (4)
The bright spots before his eyes gradually shifted from hazy to clear.
When he came to, he saw firelight flickering in the distance.
The originally cold and dark execution chamber had somehow gained a brazier in the corner, the charcoal fire crackling and popping inside, bringing warmth that seeped into his skin.
Guan Wujue blinked groggily. He was still lying on the ground, but now wrapped in two layers of cotton quilts.
Beside him, Xiao Donghe sat leaning against the wall, lost in thought. Noticing movement, he immediately turned his head anxiously. “You’re awake? How are you!”
Outside, the cold rain continued to pour down noisily. Guan Wujue coughed softly and shook his head to indicate he was fine. “How long was I unconscious?”
Xiao Donghe gripped his arm through the quilt, trying to keep his voice gentle. “Less than half a shichen.”
That earlier episode had been truly terrifying. Just thinking back on it, the Left Envoy’s heart still pounded fiercely. Now, seeing Guan Wujue looking so extremely weak, he didn’t even dare speak loudly, and could only comfort him rather awkwardly:
“You… don’t be afraid. The thunderclouds have moved away, the thunder won’t be as loud as before. It’s just that the rain will continue for a while longer.”
——Unfortunately, the “extremely weak” Four Directions Protector gave him no face at all.
Guan Wujue turned his head to stare at Xiao Donghe in horror, as if… watching a plump elephant performing ballet.
Xiao Donghe’s mouth twitched. Ignoring the Protector’s bizarre look, he tried to maintain his “gentleness” with a dark expression. “…I had the Punishment Hall people brew some blood-replenishing ginseng soup. Drink it and sleep peacefully. I’ll send you back in the morning.”
“Oh my, what’s gotten into Left Envoy Xiao?”
Guan Wujue finally laughed aloud in amazement. He showed no appreciation whatsoever, pushing the Left Envoy away with an extremely disdainful expression. “Had a change of heart? Did I scare you?… How pathetic.”
Xiao Donghe: “……”
“Didn’t I say I was fine? Left Envoy Daren is actually so easily frightened?”
“——You ungrateful bastard!!”
Xiao Donghe finally revealed his true nature. His face flushed red—whether from anger or embarrassment was unclear—as he said through gritted teeth. “Quite capable now, are you? Lie down properly right now!”
Guan Wujue, wrapped in the quilt, laughed endlessly. His complexion was still terribly poor, but his spirits had improved considerably. He was clearly in a pleasant mood, his eyes faintly shining in their depths.
Of course he was happy—the medicine’s consolidation phase had ended. He was now completely a medicine person whose heart blood could be extracted at any time, ready to be used for the Sect Leader.
After laughing enough, Guan Wujue propped himself up on his arm to sit upright and said seriously to Xiao Donghe, “I’m truly sorry about tonight. The Sect Leader’s Yin Ghosts were following me, so I really had nowhere else to hide… You didn’t spread word of this, did you?”
“I really owe you one.”
Xiao Donghe muttered gloomily, still very reluctantly extending an arm for Guan Wujue to borrow strength from. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell anyone. I brought in the quilts and brazier myself.”
Earlier, Guan Wujue had coughed up blood mouthful after mouthful and broken out in considerable cold sweat. Xiao Donghe feared he would catch cold but really didn’t dare move the patient carelessly, so he could only warm him up this way first. Now that the man had awakened and could speak and move, the Left Envoy could finally relax somewhat.
The execution chamber floor was cold after all. Xiao Donghe had the Protector lean against the wall first, then went out to bring in a bedding mat. He helped Guan Wujue sit on it and draped a quilt over him.
Guan Wujue truly had never seen Xiao Donghe being so diligent and uncomplaining. He couldn’t help mocking him repeatedly, ridiculing him for making such a fuss.
However, strangely, though Xiao Donghe was irritated and scolded back, his actions didn’t slack off. Afterward, he brought in rice porridge and ginseng soup, insisting on watching the Protector drink it all before he would rest.
Finally, after attending to the patient’s food and clothing needs fairly thoroughly, Xiao Donghe sat beside Guan Wujue. Watching him slowly sip the ginseng soup, he suddenly asked, “Speaking of which, the old injury you mentioned—where is it? Your chest?”
Guan Wujue froze slightly, then looked away and casually nodded with a “Mm.”
Xiao Donghe asked again, “When did you get it?”
“Back at the Ghost Gate.”
“How did it become this severe?”
Guan Wujue smiled faintly, answering a different question, “Left Envoy Daren, I’m not one of those criminals under your interrogation. Besides, you’re no longer in charge of punishments now.”
This meant he didn’t want to continue this topic.
However, Xiao Donghe’s expression didn’t change. He simply slowly drew something from his chest. Opening his palm before Guan Wujue, he said in a steady tone, “What medicine is this?”
There in Xiao Donghe’s palm lay a medicine pill, its appearance so familiar. Guan Wujue was suddenly alarmed. “You…”
Wasn’t this the medicine Wen Huan had sent that day!
Xiao Donghe spoke slowly, “I secretly kept one pill that day and had the Medicine Gate examine it in secret. They said many confusing things, but I only understood one sentence.”
“This is medicine used by a medicine person after having their heart pierced and blood extracted, for emergency relief and pain relief.”
“……”
Guan Wujue gazed at the Left Envoy for a long time, then sighed softly and drank the ginseng soup in one gulp.
Then he set the bowl aside casually and said calmly, “I say, Left Envoy Xiao, since you don’t understand medical principles, could you please not make wild guesses? Who says medicine for one type of person can’t be used by another type? As long as the effect…”
“——Still won’t admit it? When you first became a Protector, your body was as fragile as porcelain that couldn’t be touched. Every time you suffered any internal injury you would faint and vomit blood, wouldn’t come back without taking a trip to death’s door. You think no one remembers all that!?”
A pained expression appeared on Xiao Donghe’s face. He shook his head with self-mockery and laughed. “Ha ha… Indeed, a medicine person with damaged heart meridians would be like porcelain that shatters at a touch, wouldn’t they?”
Guan Wujue lowered his eyes and remained silent for a long time.
He now understood what lay behind Xiao Donghe’s earlier meticulous care and protection, that abnormal extreme caution.
It seemed he had been exposed after all. To have concealed it until now—he should actually be satisfied.
But if it was only this one thing…
Suddenly, the red-robed Protector raised his head to look at the Left Envoy, his handsome features relaxing with acceptance.
Guan Wujue laughed clearly, his voice crisp. “Entering the Ghost Gate severs all past ties—what’s past is past. So what if I admit it? Surely Left Envoy won’t look down on me just because I was once a lowly medicine person?”
However… Guan Wujue’s ready admission did not satisfy the Left Envoy as he had hoped.
“‘Entering the Ghost Gate severs all past ties’—what fine words about severing past ties!!”
Xiao Donghe suddenly moved closer. With a face full of fury, he yanked off Guan Wujue’s belt without discussion and began forcibly removing his upper garments.
The already weakened Protector Guan was completely unprepared. In moments, his outer and inner robes were torn open, revealing his pale chest. He was both shocked and angry. “Xiao Donghe, you——”
Xiao Donghe abruptly interrupted. “You once said this scar was left at the Ghost Gate.”
…There, starkly visible on Guan Wujue’s chest, was that massive, hideous and terrifying scar. It fell from his left shoulder, pierced through his chest, and extended diagonally to his right upper abdomen before disappearing.
Like a sword—a sword carrying resolute killing intent, willing to shatter to pieces rather than return.
“Here…”
Xiao Donghe pointed at his chest, breathing heavily from agitation. “Here! There should have been a needle mark, shouldn’t there? You made this scar yourself——”
Guan Wujue indifferently touched his own chest, stroking down the length of the scar. He was unconcerned, pulling his clothing closed. “Medicine people have lowly status. What’s wrong with wanting to conceal it back then?”
“The Ghost Gate opens once every five years. Ten years ago when you entered, you were only fifteen. That year the Sect Leader lost his memory, that year the medicine person Ah Ku had his heart pierced and blood extracted, died—died without a trace!”
“…” Guan Wujue’s heart sank, his expression suddenly growing cold. “What are you implying?”
“Cultivating a medicine person’s blood takes at least a year, requiring daily consumption of large amounts of medicine, the medicinal smell so strong it can’t be concealed. Last autumn when the Sect Leader’s Fengchun Sheng poison relapsed, you killed Yun Danjing without authorization and were expelled from Xifeng City for a full year… What were you doing during that year!?”
In the distance, lightning flashed across the sky again.
Outside the execution chamber, rumbling thunder echoed everywhere. The wind and rain that had just been lessening suddenly seemed to intensify again.
At some point, Guan Wujue’s face had grown even paler. He stared coldly and hard at the Left Envoy, each word measured. “I was inspecting the branch halls, by the Sect Leader’s orders!”
But his body was already trembling.
Xiao Donghe laughed coldly. “I’ve long found it strange—after you received that Bone-Crushing Whip punishment. Why did the Sect Leader always feel your injuries weren’t that serious?”
A flash of lightning illuminated his handsome facial features, and also illuminated his slightly reddened eyes and tightly clenched, trembling fists.
He understood now, he understood everything.
He understood what Wen Feng had been concealing, understood what the old Sect Leader had been thinking. As for Guan Wujue… and the medicine person he’d brought back, that so-called Ah Ku——
He understood everything.
Xiao Donghe’s eyes were splitting with rage as he suddenly roared, “Back then it wasn’t that the Sect Leader sentenced you to death at all—it was because you already had injuries that you were beaten into that state!!”
“Well done, truly well done… A medicine person with damaged heart meridians actually endured twenty strokes of the Bone-Crushing Whip without dying. Truly worthy of being a Four Directions Protector!!”
The moment those words left his mouth, overwhelming pain struck the Left Envoy’s chest like a heavy hammer.
Just steps away from him, the red-robed Protector sat there with a pale face, his slightly furrowed brow showing a somewhat hurt and disappointed expression. No one knew just how heavy the shackles this person carried on his back truly were.
“You’re the one…” Xiao Donghe clutched his head, unable to accept it, his ten fingers digging fiercely into his hair. “You’re clearly the medicine person Ah Ku that the Sect Leader wanted to find and bring back, to properly compensate and cherish!”
He took a deep breath and said in a trembling voice, “You… in doing this so cruelly and heartlessly, have you ever thought about if the Sect Leader learned the truth, how he would face——”
Xiao Donghe choked up. He clearly had a thousand more words wanting to pour from his throat, but at this point could say no more.
He suddenly thought: Yes, Wujue… doesn’t yet know that the Sect Leader dispersed his cultivation for him.
If he knew, would he go mad on the spot?
The long night stretched endlessly on.
For a moment, the torrential rain drowned out human breathing.
Guan Wujue gazed at the Left Envoy with tranquil eyes all along.
He shook his head and said softly, “Donghe, don’t be like this. Remember what I told you about how everyone has their own fate?”
Xiao Donghe’s chest tightened. He stared wide-eyed.
He heard Guan Wujue sigh softly, gazing into empty space, murmuring as if to himself, “I’ve always known… my life is cheap. Betting it all can just barely save one person.”
“Fortunately, I only wanted to save one person anyway.”
“Barely enough, yet also exhausting.”
Guan Wujue tilted his face up, his eyes full of desolation, a sad, dried-out color. “…To have come this far, I’ve truly already exhausted all my strength, expended all my heart and blood. As for other things, how could I have any energy left to worry about them?”
“I only know… I am the Sect Leader’s medicine.”
The red-robed Protector slowly curled up. He pressed his palm against his chest, which was beginning to ache again, yet his expression suddenly became warm.
After all these years, he always felt that thing struggling to beat in the dark, murky cavity of his chest was no longer his own heart.
Here… he was cultivating a medicine that could save Yun Changliu.
Guan Wujue laughed hoarsely: “And the Sect Leader, he…”
“He is my life.”
“I live for him, I die for him. This whole lifetime I seek only him. If… if I cannot save the Sect Leader, I truly don’t know what use I have in this world.”
“Donghe, I beg you… keep concealing this for me. Don’t tell the Sect Leader.”
……
Buddha said there are eight sufferings in life.
Birth, aging, illness, death.
Meeting those we hate.
Parting from those we love.
Not obtaining what we seek.
The five aggregates of clinging.
Guan Wujue felt he had already tasted nearly all these sufferings, yet sadly he didn’t even have a human life.
All he had was “good medicine tastes bitter.”
Because Ah Ku’s “ku” (bitter/suffering) wasn’t the ku of enduring hardship, nor the ku of experiencing pain.
Rather… it was the “ku” in “good medicine tastes bitter but benefits the illness.”