Chapter 76: Flight by Night, the Eighteenth

Within the largest Spirit Treasure Pavilion in all of Lanling City.

Among the curio shelves, dazzling and artfully arranged, were displayed countless top-grade spirit-jades and finely wrought weapons, and through this maze wandered no end of cultivators, picking things up, comparing them with care, weighing the prices, and those at leisure drifted over to trade a few idle words.

One said, 'A Chief Cultivator? The great clans have been squabbling over it of late, haven't they. Has it been settled?'

'What's there to squabble about? They can't stay a heap of loose sand forever, a host of dragons with no head. Set up one cultivation chief to lead the hundred families, and I'd call that no bad thing at all.'

'Doesn't sit right, though. What if we end up with another Qishan Wen Clan...'

'How could it be the same? The Chief Cultivator would be raised up by the clans together. Not the same, not the same at all.'

'Heh, they call it raising up, but everyone knows in their hearts it's only ever the same few jostling for it. As if the turn would ever fall to anyone else.'

'Chifeng-zun's set hard against it, I hear. He's thrown Jin Guangshan's hints, broad and plain alike, back in his face more times than I can count. There's plenty of grinding still to come, if you ask me.'

'And the Chief Cultivator's seat takes only one man. If it ever does pass, who's to sit in it? They could squabble over that for a few more years yet.'

'Either way it's a worry for the few up top, none of our concern. Small fry like us couldn't manage it if we tried.'

One man steered the talk elsewhere. 'The Library Pavilion Completion Ceremony at the Cloud Recesses last month, which of you present went along? I went myself, and standing there to look, found they'd rebuilt it exactly as it was before. No small feat, that.'

'Indeed, no small feat. A cultivation manor that vast, a fairyland of a century's standing, not the sort of thing thrown up again in a moment or two.'

'Come to think of it, there's been no shortage of happy news lately.'

'You mean the Seventh-Day rite for Jin Zixuan's son? A whole spread of bright pretty trinkets, and the little one wouldn't fancy a single one of them, wailed fit to lift the roof off Douyan Hall, then the moment he laid eyes on his father's Suihua he laughed and laughed and wouldn't stop, tickled his mother and father half to death. They're all saying he'll surely grow into a great sword-immortal one day.'

Not far off, a man in white had taken up a jade pendant-tassel and was turning it over in his hand, studying it closely, and at the words he gave a small smile.

A woman cultivator's voice carried over. 'The little Madam Jin's fortune is fine indeed... blessings like that must come of giving up ascension in a former life.'

Her companion answered, 'Seems it's true after all, that a thousand graces and ten thousand virtues are worth less than being born to the right womb. The woman herself is plainly nothing so special...'

The man in white knit his brows faintly. Mercifully the sour little murmur was at once drowned beneath someone's booming voice. 'The Lanling Jin Clan is the Lanling Jin Clan for a reason. An infant only a few days old, and already such grand display.'

And have you stopped to consider who the little one's father and mother are? Could anyone afford to be careless? Never mind that the young Madam Jin's husband would never stand for any carelessness — were the spectacle even a shade too modest, would her Granny or her brother allow it? By the full-month rite a couple of days from now, I fear it will be grander still.

'Speaking of which, do you know, they say this Full-Month rite... has invited someone.'

'Who?'

'Wei Wuxian!'

The Spirit Treasure Pavilion fell still for an instant.

Someone said in disbelief, 'This... I'd thought it nothing but loose talk. They truly invited him?!'

'They did! It's been confirmed these past days. Wei Wuxian will go.'

Someone said in disbelief, 'What on earth is the Lanling Jin Clan thinking? Have they forgotten what he did at Qiongqi Path, slaughtering the innocent?'

'Invite a man like that to Jin Ling's Full-Month rite, and who would dare attend? I, for one, certainly won't be going.'

At this no few jeered inwardly: you haven't even the standing to receive an invitation, so why fret over whether you'll go?

The man in white arched a brow, his choice made, and stepped out of the Spirit Treasure Pavilion.

A few paces on, turning into a narrow lane, a figure in black rose up before him. 'Young Master, have you bought what you came for?'

Wei Wuxian tossed him the dainty sandalwood box in his hand, and Wen Ning caught it, opened it to look, and within lay a White Jade Tassel Pendant, the jade clear through, its soft light shifting as though it held a life of its own.

He said, delighted, 'It's beautiful!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'A pretty little thing this small doesn't come cheap. After your sister's money went on a new set of robes, this nearly outran it, and now there's not a single coin left. Go back and wait to be scolded.'

Wen Ning said hurriedly, 'She won't, she won't. With Young Master giving a gift for Maiden Jiang's child, gege's sister won't scold you.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Those are your words, mind. When she scolds me, you'll be the one to take the blow for me, remember.'

Wen Ning nodded, then added, 'Young Master Jin Ling is sure to love this gift.'

But Wei Wuxian said, 'This isn't the gift I mean to give. It's only a small fitting. Those wares in the Spirit Treasure Pavilion, fine to look at aside, what use are any of them?'

Wen Ning was taken aback. 'Then what gift have you prepared, Young Master?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'The workings of heaven are not to be disclosed.'

Wen Ning said, 'Oh.'

And true enough he asked no more. So Wei Wuxian held it in for a spell, then could hold it no longer. 'Wen Ning, isn't this the moment you're meant to go on burning with curiosity, pressing me without let until I tell? How can you just say oh and let it drop? Don't you want to know what the gift is???'

Wen Ning stared blankly at him, then at last caught on. '...I do! Young Master! What gift have you prepared, after all?'

Only then did Wei Wuxian draw a small wooden box from his sleeve and dangle it before Wen Ning with a faint smile. Wen Ning took it, opened it to look, and blurted, 'What a formidable Silver Bell!'

This 'formidable' did not mean how exquisitely it was made, though in its pure silver hue and the lifelike Nine-Petaled Lotus chased upon its body the craft might be called the very summit of the art; what drew Wen Ning's wonder was the fierce, strong power held within so small a bell.

Wen Ning said, 'Young Master, this past half-month and more, shut away in the Demon-Subduing Cave with day and night turned upside down, never coming out, was it this you were making?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'That's right. Once that nephew of mine has this Silver Bell hung on him, no demon or spectre of any lesser grade need think to come near him. You mustn't touch it. If you did, I expect you'd be in a bad way for a while.'

Wen Ning nodded. 'I can feel as much.'

Wei Wuxian drew out the tassel pendant and fastened it beneath the Silver Bell. The two matched together most handsomely, and he was well pleased. Wen Ning said, 'Still, since you're going to Young Master Jin Ling's Full-Month rite, Young Master, when you see Maiden Jiang's husband you must hold yourself in, whatever you do, don't fall to blows with him...'

Wei Wuxian waved a hand. 'Set your mind at ease on that, I know my measure. For Jin Zixuan's sake in inviting me this time, I won't say an ill word of him for a whole year.'

Wen Ning scratched his head and said, abashed, 'When Young Master Jin sent someone down to the foot of the Burial Mounds with the invitation before, I was certain there had to be some trick to it, and it turns out I'd mistaken him entirely. I truly wronged him. Who'd have thought it, Young Master Jin is a good man after all...'

Around midday, the two passed by way of Qiongqi Path.

After its rebuilding, Qiongqi Path had long since been renamed, though what it was called now Wei Wuxian did not know, and others never seemed able to remember either, so most of the time it was still called Qiongqi Path. At first he marked nothing amiss; yet as they came to the heart of the valley, Wei Wuxian felt more and more that something was wrong.

There ought not to be so few travellers.

Wei Wuxian said, 'Anything strange about?'

Wen Ning rolled his eyes back white, and a moment later the pupils dropped down again. 'No. Too quiet.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'It is a touch too quiet.'

He could not catch so much as a thread of that inhuman clamour which on ordinary days filled his ears at every turn.

Wariness rising in him, Wei Wuxian said low, 'Go!'

He had barely turned about when Wen Ning's hand shot up and caught something out of the air.

It was a feathered arrow, loosed straight at Wei Wuxian's heart!

Wei Wuxian jerked his head up to see, on both sides of the valley and along the cliff faces, from every quarter and every corner, a great many men emerging — some three hundred in all, most clad in the Sparks Amidst Snow Robe, though a few wore other colors, each with a longbow slung across his back and a treasured sword at his waist, faces taut with wariness, fully armed. Using the mountainside and one another for cover, every swordpoint and arrowhead was trained upon him. The feathered arrow that had first flown toward Wei Wuxian had been loosed by the man at their head. Fixing his gaze, he saw that the man was tall of build, his skin a touch dark, his features handsome, and very familiar.

Wei Wuxian said, 'Who are you?'

That man, having loosed his arrow, had meant to say something, but at this question he forgot every word of it and, in great fury, said, 'You dare ask who I am? I am — Jin Zixun!'

Wei Wuxian remembered at once. This was Jin Zixuan's elder cousin; he had seen the man twice before.

His heart sank straight down. What had filled it before was all the joy of going to the Full-Month feast for Jiang Yanli's son, but in this moment that joy scattered like smoke and was cast over with a shadow. Still he would not let himself think it through to the bottom, would not let himself guess why these men should lie in wait here.

Jin Zixun said loudly, 'Wei Wuxian, I warn you, lift the wicked curse you've laid this instant, and I can treat it as though nothing happened, pursue it no further.'

Wei Wuxian was startled to hear it. Even knowing it would be taken for a denial, he had to have it clear, and blurted, 'What wicked curse?'

As expected, Jin Zixun took him to be feigning ignorance. 'You still dare play the fool?'

He wrenched open his own collar and roared, 'Good. Then I'll let you see just what wicked curse it is!'

Across Jin Zixun's chest, packed thick and close, were pits and holes great and small!

The small ones were small as sesame seeds, the large as soybeans, scattered evenly over his body, a thing to chill the flesh.

Wei Wuxian gave it but one glance. ''Hundred Holes'?'

Jin Zixun said, 'That's right! The Hundred Holes Curse, the very thing!'

The Hundred Holes Curse was a most sinister and venomous spell.

Years ago, leafing idly through the books while copying texts in the Library Pavilion of the Gusu Lan Clan, Wei Wuxian had come upon an old volume, and where it spoke of this curse there had been an illustration: in it a man's face was calm, seemingly free of pain, yet over his body had already opened many black holes the size of coins.

At first the afflicted feels nothing, and most take it for no more than their pores grown coarse. Before long, though, those small openings widen to the size of sesame seeds, and the further it goes the larger and the more numerous the pits grow, until the whole body is overrun with black holes great and small, as if turned into a living sieve, ghastly past all bearing. And once the skin's surface is sown over with these sores, the curse begins to spread inward to the organs, at the least bringing belly-pain past enduring, at the worst rotting away the five viscera and the six bowels!

That Jin Zixun should have caught so sickening and so intractable a curse stirred in Wei Wuxian, for a moment, something almost like pity. Yet pity or no, he still thought Jin Zixun an utter fool, and said, 'You've caught the Hundred Holes Curse. What do you mean, waylaying me? What has it to do with me?'

Jin Zixun, who seemed sickened too at the sight of his own chest, drew his robe shut. 'Apart from a thief like you, forever at his crooked, devilish tricks, who else would lay something this vicious and venomous on me?'

Wei Wuxian thought, oh, there's no shortage of those. Did Jin Zixun fancy himself so well-loved?

But not yet wishing to say it outright, to enrage Jin Zixun and worsen things, he said, 'Jin Zixun, I don't play games in the gutter like this. If I meant to kill someone, I'd let everyone know that man died by my hand. And if I wanted you dead, you'd look a thousand times worse than you do now.'

Jin Zixun said, 'Weren't you so arrogant? You dare to do it but not to own it?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'It wasn't my doing. Why should I own it?'

A murderous glint came into Jin Zixun's eyes. 'Courtesy first, then force. Since you won't turn back to the shore, I'll spare you no courtesy either!'

Wei Wuxian halted his steps. 'Oh?'

What 'no courtesy' meant was plain enough.

There were two ways to break the Hundred Holes Curse. Apart from having the caster wound his own attainment and withdraw the curse of his own will, there was one most thorough remedy:

Kill the caster!

Wei Wuxian said with scorn, 'No courtesy? You? With these few hundred men of yours?'

Jin Zixun swept his arm down, and every disciple set arrow to string, taking aim at Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning at the valley's lowest point. Wei Wuxian raised Chenqing too, and the flute's shrill note tore through the valley's silence.

Yet after a moment's waiting, no answering sound came at all. Jin Zixun said, 'This whole stretch we cleared out long ago, only waiting on you to come. Blow till you drop, you'll call up no handful of helpers here. This place is the grave we've prepared for you with such care!'

Wei Wuxian sneered, 'Then this is you courting death yourself!'

As he finished, Wen Ning raised a hand and snapped the red cord at his neck from which a single Talisman Casting hung.

With the red cord broken, his body swayed, the muscles of his face beginning by degrees to warp, and from his neck up to his cheeks crept several black fissures. All at once he threw back his head and loosed a long, inhuman roar!

Among the three hundred and more lying in wait were no few masters of the Night Hunt grounds, yet none had ever heard a Fierce Corpse give voice to so terrible a sound, and as one their footing went hollow beneath them. Jin Zixun's own scalp prickled; he flung his arm up and gave the order. 'Loose!'

Arrows came down like a cloudburst!

Wen Ning split a slab of rock with his bare hands, heaved it high, and turned aside every shaft. When the arrow-rain had spent itself, a hundred and more cultivators leapt down from the cliffs and bore down upon the two in the valley floor. Wei Wuxian fell back a few steps, then in a flash sidestepped, twisting clear of a sword-edge stealing in at him.

Jin Zixun had already come at him while Wen Ning grappled the hundred-odd others. Seeing that Wei Wuxian wore no sword, only a flute that for now could work no effect, he laughed aloud. 'This is the price of your arrogance. No sword at your side, let's see how you fight back now!'

With a flick of his hand Wei Wuxian loosed a rank of talismans burning with green flame, beating Jin Zixun's swordlight into a sudden dimness, and Jin Zixun, barely done laughing, took fright and hurried to meet it in earnest. The two fought a while at close quarters, and then from Wei Wuxian's sleeve something flew out. His gaze froze; he cried out within that it was ill.

That something was the very gift prepared for Jin Ling. Holding it so dear, fearing to fling it about and crush it, and forever wanting to draw it out and admire it, he had tucked it only shallowly into his sleeve, and now in the fury of the fight had carelessly flung it loose, straight toward Jin Zixun. Jin Zixun, taking it for some hidden dart or poison, meant first to dodge, but seeing Wei Wuxian's look change utterly he thought better of it and snatched it up. He found a fine little wooden box, and on the box a line of small characters carved: Jin Ling's name and the eight characters of his birth. Jin Zixun was startled an instant, then understood, and burst into great roaring laughter.

Wei Wuxian's face darkened, and word by word he said, 'Give it back.'

Jin Zixun hefted the little box and jeered, 'This is a gift for A-Ling?'

A short way ahead Wen Ning fought a hundred single-handed, slaying till sky and sun went dark. Jin Zixun said, 'You don't truly believe you'll be attending A-Ling's Full-Month feast, do you?'

That single line set Wei Wuxian's hand trembling faintly.

Just then a voice shouted, 'Hold, all of you!'

A white-robed figure dropped lightly down into the valley and planted himself between Wei Wuxian and Jin Zixun. At the sight of him Jin Zixun cried out, losing his voice, 'Zixuan? Why have you come?!'

Jin Zixuan, one hand bracing on the hilt at his waist, said in anger, 'You tell me what I've come to do!'

Jin Zixun said, 'And A-Yao?'

Jin Guangyao was the helper who should by rights have appeared here to lend him strength. Last year he had looked on Jin Guangyao with great disdain, holding him cheap and low, but now the two were on better terms, the past no longer the present, and so he called him by the familiar name. Jin Zixuan said, 'I've kept him held at Koi Tower. Were it not that I saw something wrong in his look and pressed it out of him, was this the reckless way you all meant to go about it? You've caught the Hundred Holes Curse and told me nothing at all, breathed not a word, and would do a thing like this!'

That Jin Zixun had been struck by this vile Hundred Holes Curse was a thing he could scarcely bring himself to speak of. For one, his looks and his frame had always been fine, and he had ever prided himself on being dashing; he could not abide having anyone learn he had been afflicted with so revolting, so unsightly a curse. For another, to be cursed at all was to admit his cultivation fell short, that his Spiritual Power's defenses were weak — a point even less fit for outside ears. And so he told only Jin Guangshan of the affliction, begging him to seek out the finest curse-masters and physicians. But physician and curse-master alike were at a loss, and just then, with Jin Ling's Full-Month Banquet drawing near, Jin Zixuan went and invited Wei Wuxian of his own accord. Jin Guangshan had been reluctant from the start, and so he counseled Jin Zixun to turn the matter to their advantage — to waylay and kill Wei Wuxian on the road to the banquet, sparing the need to let him set foot upon Koi Tower. Wei Wuxian was Jiang Yanli's shidi, and the Jin and Jiang couple were devoted to one another; Jin Zixuan would prattle every trifling, worthless thing to his wife, and they feared he would let the secret slip — that Wei Wuxian would not come — and so they had kept Jin Zixuan in the dark all along. The thing was, at bottom, a little shabby, and seeing it laid bare, Jin Zixun felt a touch of guilt; but in the end his life mattered more, and he said, 'Zixuan, keep it from your wife for now — once I've rid myself of these things, I'll come and make my apologies to you all!'

When Wei Wuxian had last set eyes on Jin Zixuan, he had still worn all a youth's proud high spirit; now, settled into a household, he seemed much steadier, his words landing with weight, and with a darkened face he said, 'There's still room to turn this matter round. Hold your hands, all of you, for now.'

Jin Zixun, both furious and frantic, said, 'What room is there left to turn it round at this pass? Can you not see these things on my body?!'

Seeing him seem about to throw open his robe once more and bare that pitted chest, Jin Zixuan said hurriedly, 'No need! I've already heard it from Jin Guangyao!'

Jin Zixun said, 'Since you've heard it all from him, then you should know I can't wait. Or is it that, seeing him your wife's shidi, you'll throw over your own kinsman's life for her sake?!'

Jin Zixuan said, 'You know full well I'm not that kind of man! And the Hundred Holes Curse on you is by no means certainly his laying, so why such haste! Wei Wuxian is, after all, a man I invited to A-Ling's Full-Month feast. Going about it this way, where does it leave me? Where does it leave my wife?'

Jin Zixun raised his voice. 'It's best of all if he can't attend! What is Wei Wuxian, that he's fit to attend a family feast of ours? Whoever touches him comes away covered in black filth! Zixuan, you invite him, and you don't fear that you and your wife and A-Ling will carry a stain you can never shake off all your lives?!'

Jin Zixuan shouted, 'You hold your tongue!'

Rage filled Jin Zixun's heart; his hand bore down, and the little wooden box that held the Silver Bell and jade tassel was crushed to powder in an instant!

Wei Wuxian watched with his own eyes the thing in that palm reduced to dust, his pupils shrinking sharply, and struck a palm-blow at Jin Zixun. But Jin Zixuan, not yet knowing what the box had held, flung up a hand to bar the blow and shouted, 'Wei Wuxian! Have you not had enough!'

Wei Wuxian's chest heaved violently, his eyes ringed red. Jin Zixuan and Jin Zixun were, after all, cousins known to each other from childhood, a friendship of one or two decades, and truly he could not well take an outsider's part now, nor did he in fact care at all for this Wei Wuxian; he steadied himself and said, 'First make this Wen Ning hold his hand, tell him not to run mad, don't let the thing grow worse.'

Wei Wuxian said in a rasping voice, '...Why will you not have them hold theirs first?'

All round was the relentless clamour of jeering and brawling. Jin Zixuan said in anger, 'What's all this stubbornness for, even now? Everyone calm yourselves, come with me first to Koi Tower, lay it all out and confront each other honestly, get the matter clear, and so long as it wasn't your doing, no harm will come of it!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Hold my hand? The moment I make Wen Ning hold his, ten thousand arrows fly as one, ten thousand swords run me through, and I die without a whole corpse left! And go to Koi Tower to lay it out?'

Jin Zixuan said, 'It won't be so!'

Wei Wuxian gave a cold laugh. 'It won't? On what do you stake that? Jin Zixuan, I have a question. When you first invited me, did you truly not know their plan to waylay and kill me?!'

Jin Zixuan was startled, then said in fury, 'You! Wei Wuxian, you — you must be mad!'

Wei Wuxian, forcing down a hatred that rose like a flood to the heavens, said coldly, 'Jin Zixuan, get out of my way. I won't touch you, but you don't provoke me either.'

Seeing him so set, unwilling to bow his head, Jin Zixuan moved suddenly, as if to seize him. 'Why will you not yield, even once, even a little! A-Li, she...'

Just as he reached his hand toward Wei Wuxian, there came a dull, strange sound.

That strange sound was too near, far too near, and Jin Zixuan stood stunned. Lowering his head, only then did he see the hand that had pierced clean through his chest.

At some moment Wen Ning had come to their side, and across one half of his expressionless face were spattered a few drops of scalding, glaring blood.

Jin Zixuan's lips moved, his look somewhat dazed. Yet still he held on, and carried that half-finished sentence through to its end:

'...she's still waiting for you to come to Koi Tower for A-Ling's Full-Month feast...'

The look on Wei Wuxian's face was as dazed as his. For a little while yet he had not grasped what, in the end, had happened.

What had happened?

How, in the space of a breath, had it come to this?

No.

It shouldn't be.

Somewhere, something must have gone wrong.

Wen Ning drew out the right hand that had run through Jin Zixuan's chest, leaving behind a hole cold to the heart's core.

Jin Zixuan's face twitched as though in great sorrow, as if he thought the wound nothing much, that he could still stand. But in the end his knees buckled, and he was the first to fall kneeling.

Cries of terror rose and fell on every side.

'The Ghost... the Ghost General's run mad!'

'He's killed him, he's killed him, Wei Wuxian had the Ghost General kill Jin Zixuan!'

Jin Zixun bellowed, 'Loose! What are you all standing dumb for! Loose your arrows!'

Yet as he turned his head, a black figure stole near him ghost-like before his face, his throat tightened, and a pale great hand with veins bulging seized him by the neck.

'Aaaaaaahh——————!!!'

Wei Wuxian stood where he was, blank, not stirring.

No.

It wasn't so.

He had held Wen Ning well in check just now, he truly had.

Even with Wen Ning roused by him into his frenzied state, he should still have been able to govern him.

All along he had governed him perfectly.

He had had no thought at all of killing Jin Zixuan.

He had had not the least intent to kill Jin Zixuan! Only in that one instant, for some reason he could not say, he had suddenly failed to hold him... had suddenly lost control!

Jin Zixuan's body could bear up no longer and pitched heavily forward, falling to the ground with a thud.

All his life he had been proud and high-handed, setting great store by his looks and bearing, fond of cleanliness to the point of a faint fastidiousness, yet now he lay cheek-down, fallen in utter wretchedness amid the dust. The spots of blood on his face and the single cinnabar mark between his brows were one and the same deep crimson.

Staring at his eyes as they slowly lost their light, Wei Wuxian's mind was a chaos. The ground about had become a sea of blood with screams rising on every side, yet he could no longer hear a thing.

The only thing he could hear was one voice in his heart, demanding in a frenzy:

Didn't you say you had your measure?

Didn't you say you could keep it in check?

Didn't you say there was no danger at all, that nothing could possibly go wrong!!!

Wei Wuxian's mind was a blank, and after he knew not how long, his eyes flew open.

What he saw before him was the pitch-black vault of the Demon-Subduing Cave.

Both Wen Qing and Wen Ning were in the Demon-Subduing Cave.

Wen Ning's pupils had dropped back down into the whites of his eyes, the frenzied state already left behind, and he seemed to be speaking low with Wen Qing; seeing Wei Wuxian open his eyes, he silently knelt to the ground. Wen Qing, her eyes red, said nothing at all.

Wei Wuxian sat up.

After a long silence, a surging hatred welled up in his heart all at once.

He drove a kick into Wen Ning's chest and sent him sprawling to the ground.

Wen Qing flinched in fright and clenched her fists, yet only lowered her head and pressed her lips.

Wei Wuxian roared, 'Who did you kill? Do you know who you've killed?!'

Just then Wen Yuan came running in from outside the hall, a grass-woven butterfly perched atop his head, beaming with delight. 'Xian-gege...'

He had meant to show Wei Wuxian the butterfly he'd daubed in new colour, but on coming in he saw a Wei Wuxian like some vengeful demon, and Wen Ning curled on the ground, and was stunned on the spot. Wei Wuxian whipped his head round, his feeling not yet reined in, his eyes dreadful, and Wen Yuan startled with his whole body, the butterfly slipping from his head to fall on the ground, and burst at once into loud weeping. Fourth Uncle hurried in, bent low, and carried him out.

Wen Ning, kicked sprawling, crawled up again and knelt straight, not daring to speak. Wei Wuxian gripped him by the collar, hauled him up, and roared, 'Kill whoever else you like — why did you have to kill Jin Zixuan?!'

Wen Qing, watching at his side, longed to come forward and shield her brother, but forced herself to hold back, and grieving and terror-struck both, let the tears fall.

Wei Wuxian said, 'You've killed him, so what is shijie to do? What is shijie's son to do?! What am I to do? What am I to do?!'

His roars hummed through the Demon-Subduing Cave and carried out beyond, and Wen Yuan wept harder still.

With the child's distant weeping in his ears and before his eyes this brother and sister in their terror, neither knowing where to put hand or foot, Wei Wuxian's heart grew darker and darker. He asked of himself: 'Why, all these years, have I shut myself away on this Burial Mounds? Why must it be I who suffers all this? Why, at the start, did I have to walk this path? Why have I made myself into this? How do others see me? What in the end have I gained? Have I gone mad? Have I gone mad? Have I gone mad!'

If only, at the very beginning, he had never chosen this road.

Suddenly Wen Ning said low, '...I'm... sorry.'

This was a dead man, without expression, who could not redden the rims of his eyes, still less shed a tear. And yet, in this moment, on this dead man's face was suffering true and real.

He said again, 'I'm sorry...'

'It's, it's all my fault...'

'I'm sorry...'

Listening to him apologize over and over, haltingly, Wei Wuxian found it, all at once, absurd beyond measure.

It was not Wen Ning's fault at all.

It was his own fault.

Wen Ning in his frenzied state was only a weapon. And the maker of this weapon was he. The one it obeyed was he, and his command:

In that moment of bared swords and bent bows, with killing intent running wild, and with him never sparing, in his ordinary dealings before Wen Ning, to let his hostility toward Jin Zixuan show — when Jin Zixuan moved, Wen Ning, in his mindless state, took him for an 'enemy', and without a moment's thought carried out the command to 'slaughter'.

It was he who had failed to keep the weapon in hand. It was he who had been too proud of his own power. And it was he who had overlooked, until now, every ill omen, trusting that he could press down any first stirring of loss of control.

Wen Ning was a weapon, but had he chosen, of his own will, to become a weapon?

A man this timid by nature, fearful and stammering — had he, before now, under Wei Wuxian's command, killed and killed and taken joy in the killing?

Years ago, given a bowl of lotus-root soup by Jiang Yanli, he had carried it all the way from the foot of the hill up to the Burial Mounds without spilling a single drop, and though he could not drink it himself, he had watched with great happiness as others finished it, even pressing them to say how it tasted, imagining the flavour for himself. Having killed Jiang Yanli's husband with his own hands — was he at ease now?

Even as he took every wrong upon himself, he was still apologizing to him.

Wei Wuxian, gripping Wen Ning by the collar, looked at his pale and lifeless face, and there rose suddenly before his eyes Jin Zixuan's face, smeared with dust and blood, filthy, and just as pale and lifeless.

He thought too of Jiang Yanli, who through such bitterness had at last come to sweetness in marrying the man she loved; thought of Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli's son, A-Ling, the child for whom he had chosen a courtesy name, no bigger than a scrap of a thing, only seven days into the world, who would laugh at the sight of his father's sword and had delighted his mother and father beyond bearing. In two more days it would be his Full-Month feast.

Dazed, thinking and thinking, Wei Wuxian all at once wept.

He said, blankly, '...Will someone tell me... what am I to do now?'