Chapter 80: A Crimson Heart 2

When the Demon-Subduing Cave, which a moment ago had hummed and droned, had settled into stillness again, Lan Wangji turned his head and said to Wei Wuxian, 'Go on.'

In Su She's eyes the fury rose like a flooding tide, yet his upper and lower lips were sealed fast as glue, and his throat had gone dry and raw as fire. Sharper than the frustration of being unable to open his mouth and turn it against Wei Wuxian was the thing that now burned hottest in him: the humiliation of being held in check by Lan Wangji. Over and over he drew a finger across his own throat, trying to break the binding spell, and to no avail, so at last he looked toward Lan Qiren. Yet Lan Qiren's face was cold and unmoved, immovable as a mountain, and he would not so much as glance his way. Lan Qiren could have undone it; and once a Lan elder had loosed the spell, then out of respect Lan Wangji would surely not have laid it on him again. But the Moling Su Clan and the Gusu Lan Clan had known no little unpleasantness between them, and so at this moment Lan Qiren had no mind to help him at all.

The crowd grasped the lesson well enough: it seemed that the moment anyone tried to quarrel with Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji would seal his mouth, and for a while they were hushed as cicadas in the cold. Still, there is always some fearless soul who steps forward at such a time, and one sneered, 'Wei Wuxian, you truly live up to the name of Yiling Patriarch, don't you? How overbearing. So now you mean to forbid a man even to speak?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'How strange.'

Lan Sizhui said, 'Elder Wei, what is strange?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'This Sect Leader Su has been very strange ever since a moment ago. When the corpse horde first closed in, he was urging those whose Spiritual Power had been drained not to cling to life, to hurry up and die together; now he stops my mouth so I cannot question on. And he keeps on trying to provoke me, as if he dreads your living a single moment longer. What sense is there in that? Is that any way for an ally to behave?'

Brought up so by Wei Wuxian, more than a few felt a faint doubt stir within: this Sect Leader Su did indeed seem to have said rather too much today. But since no one else had ventured an opinion, they found it awkward to venture one of their own, and so all prudently chose silence. Another portion of them began to turn over in secret just what they had done before climbing the mountain, or along the way. Wei Wuxian looked at the Moling Su Clan disciples, who stood very far from the Gusu Lan Clan disciples, the latter not deigning to spare them so much as a glance. The longer he looked, the more something seemed off, and he asked Lan Wangji in a low voice, 'Hanguang-Jun, let me ask you something. The Gusu Lan Clan and the Moling Su Clan are both schooled in music, and Gusu and Moling both lie in the Jiangnan region, not far apart. By rights their relations ought to be passable, oughtn't they? Why does it feel as though the two clans are on such bad terms?'

Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi squeezed in close, and the moment Lan Jingyi heard, he said loudly, 'Of course they're on bad terms!'

Lan Wangji said, 'The Moling Su Clan is a branch that split off from the Gusu Lan Clan.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'What?'

Lan Sizhui clapped a hand over Lan Jingyi's mouth and said in a low voice, 'There's something Elder Wei doesn't know. The Moling Su Clan was founded by an outside-surname disciple who broke away from the Gusu Lan Clan and set up his own house. Since he could never shake free of the parent house's shadow, his clan's secret arts are much the same as the Gusu Lan Clan's — strong in music — and even the first-grade spiritual instrument of their clan head, Su Minshan, is a Seven-Stringed Guqin much like Hanguang-Jun's.'

Wei Wuxian glanced back at Su She's lowering face, utterly lost for words. Lan Jingyi wrenched free of Lan Sizhui and said with a huff, 'And it isn't only that — the truly absurd part comes after! This Sect Leader Su... all right, I know, keep it down! This Sect Leader Su not only copies us in everything, but is especially touchy about anyone saying he learned it from our Hanguang-Jun, and the moment they do he turns on them at once. How can there be such a man in the world!' Hearing him grow louder and louder, Lan Sizhui said helplessly, 'Jingyi!'

But Su She had heard every word plainly, his face an iron grey, both eyes alight with rage; he spat out a mouthful of blood and at last, by sheer force, broke through the Silencing Spell — yet the moment he opened his mouth his voice was so hoarse he might have aged ten years. 'What a fine Gusu Lan Clan, taking refinement and rectitude for its precept, a house full of famed gentlemen, first among the Hundred Cultivation Clans! So this is how it instructs its own disciples!'

Sect Leader Ouyang said, 'Sect Leader Su, with so great a foe before us now, let us not wound the harmony among our own ranks.' Su She sneered, 'Our own ranks? Look at the Gusu Lan Clan, every last one of them tangled up with Wei Wuxian — what manner of our own ranks is that?'

At his saying so, the other Gusu Lan Clan folk were none too pleased. Lan Qiren shot him a glance and said nothing, while an elderly high-grade retainer let displeasure show in his face: 'Su Minshan, even if you are no longer of the Gusu Lan Clan, you would do well to mind your tongue when you speak!'

At once a Moling Su Clan disciple stepped forward: 'Our sect leader broke away from your Gusu Lan Clan long ago. By what standing do you address him in such a manner?'

Lan Jingyi had long carried a bellyful of grievance against the Moling Su Clan, and said loudly, 'Whatever standing your sect leader holds today, isn't it because he once received the teaching of our Gusu? And now he bites the hand that fed him, and we still mayn't say a word?'

In the Demon-Subduing Cave the two parties began to glare at one another and trade sneers, and from the Moling Su Clan side someone cried again, 'The Gusu Lan Clan has so very many disciples — does that mean every one of them could found his own house? That is arrogance and self-conceit beyond measure!'

From the Gusu Lan Clan side came an instant retort: 'And who is it that is arrogant and self-conceited? Some clan plays its demon-repelling tune riddled with errors and omissions, and never even knows it!'

The instant those words were out, light broke all at once in Wei Wuxian's mind, clear as snow!

He said, 'It wasn't the food, and it wasn't the geomancy!'

The crowd started, and Wei Wuxian went on, 'You've all forgotten — after the mountain, there was one more thing you all did.'

Lan Sizhui said, 'What thing?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Killing Walking Corpses.'

Ouyang Zizhen blurted out, 'Ah — could it be like that time in Yi City, where there was something like Corpse Poison Powder inside the bodies of the Walking Corpses?! A-Die, when you killed those Walking Corpses and Fierce Corpses, did any oddly colored powder come spraying out of their bodies?'

Sect Leader Ouyang said, 'No powder, none at all!'

Ouyang Zizhen, unwilling to give up, said, 'Then... then some liquid?'

Jiang Cheng said coldly, 'Enough. If some strange powder or liquid had sprayed out after we slew the corpses, we would hardly have all failed to notice anything amiss.'

Ouyang Zizhen, who had thought himself onto the hidden key, flushed and began to scratch awkwardly at his ear; his father hastily pulled his overexcited son back down to sit. Wei Wuxian said, 'It does indeed have to do with killing the corpses. But the trouble lies not with the corpses — it lies with those who killed them.'

He turned toward Lan Qiren and said, 'Elder Lan, I should like to ask you a question.'

Lan Qiren glanced at Lan Wangji and said indifferently, 'Whatever question you have, can you not ask him, that you must come and ask me?'

Pedantic though Lan Qiren was, he was no reckless fool, and he too had already sensed something amiss, which was why he had borne with all of this so long; still, his face remained sour indeed. But Wei Wuxian had been on the receiving end of that sour face since boyhood, and afterward of countless others' besides, and had long ceased to mind it; thinking, moreover, that this was the uncle who had raised Lan Wangji single-handed, he felt there was all the less reason to take offense, and he rubbed his chin and said with a smile, 'I only feared that asking him too much to your face might anger you. But since you yourself bid me ask him, then ask I will. Lan Zhan?'

Lan Wangji said, 'Mm.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'The Moling Su Clan is a house that split off from the Gusu Lan Clan, yes?'

Lan Wangji said, 'Mm.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'And though they split off, the Moling Su Clan's signature arts were still ‘borrowed' from the Gusu Lan Clan, yes?'

Lan Wangji said, 'Yes.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'One of the Gusu Lan Clan's secret arts, the Barrier-Breaking Melody, has the power to drive off evil and repel demons, and of its forms the Seven-Stringed Guqin is the most profound and exalted, which is why the cultivators of the guqin are the most numerous. The Moling Su Clan followed suit, so their house too has the most guqin cultivators — am I right?'

Lan Wangji said, 'You are right.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Though the head of the Moling Su Clan carried the arts away from the Gusu Lan Clan and set up his own house, his own skill on the guqin never reached the summit, and the disciples he turned out often play riddled with errors and omissions — is that so?'

Lan Wangji said frankly, 'It is.'

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji traded question and answer, the one a line, the other a line, as though no one else were there. More and more of the crowd gradually came to hear that they were not merely mocking Su She but teasing the silk loose strand by strand, and so they listened more and more in earnest. Then Wei Wuxian said slowly, '...which is to say, even if, when they came up the Burial Mounds to kill the Walking Corpses, there was a stretch of melody in the Moling Su Clan's battle tune that was off, the Gusu Lan Clan would think nothing of it, taking it merely for the crudeness of their craft, a misremembered score, and would never trouble to weigh whether it was a slip of the hand or a deliberate error. Is that so?'

At that last question Su She's pupils contracted, the veins on the hand pressed to his sword hilt sprang up at once, and the blade slid silently half an inch from its sheath. And in the same instant Lan Wangji raised his eyes, and both he and Wei Wuxian saw in each other's gaze the faint glimmer of understanding.

He said, word by word, 'Just so.'

Su She drew his sword with a ring of steel, and Wei Wuxian turned the blade aside with two fingers, smiling, 'What's this? Don't forget — your Spiritual Power is wholly drained now. Of what use is it to threaten me so?'

Su She held the sword aloft, unable either to thrust or to sheathe it, and ground out through his teeth, 'You round on me again and again — what is it you mean to insinuate?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Was I too oblique, that you take it for insinuation? Then let me put it plainer still. Everyone here lost their Spiritual Power because they all did the same one thing. What thing? Killing Walking Corpses. And while they killed the Walking Corpses, this Sect Leader Su of the Moling Su Clan came up the road with you. He made a show of plying his guqin to repel demons, but in truth, without a soul the wiser, he had altered part of the battle tune into another strand of melody — one that makes a man lose his Spiritual Power for a time. You fought drenched in blood, and on the surface he fought alongside you, while in secret he worked his treacherous hand...'

Su She said, 'Slander dripping with blood!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'There are no few Gusu Lan Clan guqin cultivators present, are there? When you came up the mountain just now, was there or was there not an error in the battle tune the Moling Su Clan played?'

On this matter the Gusu Lan Clan's guqin cultivators were the most fit to speak, and they answered at once with one voice, 'Just so!'

Wei Wuxian went on, 'Sect Leader Su knew that many in the Gusu Lan Clan held you and the Moling Su Clan in full contempt, and so you turned that contempt to use. An evil tune may harm men, but it also makes demands on the player's Spiritual Power, and you alone, of course, could never sound out a force to strip Spiritual Power from near a thousand people — so you brought every guqin cultivator of the Moling Su Clan and had them play in concert with you! Of all the houses present only the Gusu Lan Clan might have caught the wrongness, yet they disdained to mind you, and even when they noticed you playing the battle tune wrong they took it merely for your poor mastery, your having mistaught your disciples too!'

Nie Huaisang gaped, dumbstruck, 'Can there truly be a tune so uncanny in this world, that merely hearing it strips a man of his Spiritual Power?!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Why not? If the sound of the guqin can repel demons, why can it not summon evil? There is a collection of secret tunes from Dongying, called the Collection of Turmoil, and what it sets down are all the evil tunes that pass through the land of Dongying — there are even secret killing tunes in it. Why then should it be impossible to make a man lose his Spiritual Power for a time? Elder Lan Qiren is right here. Ask him whether, in the forbidden-book chamber beneath the Library Pavilion of the Gusu Lan Clan, this very book is kept.'

Steadying himself, Su She sneered, 'Even if such a tune exists, in the years I studied at the Gusu Lan Clan I could not so much as enter the forbidden-book chamber, and never had the chance to see it. Afterward I never set foot in the Cloud Recesses again, and of this book I have not so much as heard! It is rather you — so intimate with this Collection of Turmoil, and on such uncommonly close terms with Hanguang-Jun — who would be likelier than I to have laid hands on it, would you not?'

Wei Wuxian said with a smile, 'Who said it had to be you who could enter the forbidden-book chamber? Is it not enough that your master may come and go there as he pleases? The method of altering the score was likely his teaching as well.'

As for who, holding rank and power, might come and go at will within the Cloud Recesses — Su She's master needed no naming; everyone knew it could be none but Lianfang-Zun!

Wei Wuxian said, 'A fine scheme you laid — rounding up the young of every house, luring so many people here to the Burial Mounds, the mantis stalking the cicada with the oriole behind. He himself, on the pretext of an injury, stays away to avoid suspicion, while you work hand in glove from within: one to break men's Spiritual Power with an evil tune, the other to drive the Fierce Corpses and ring the mountain with the Stygian Tiger Seal. In the end a thousand and more are wiped out to the last on my own ground, and who would believe it was not my hand that did it? Nor did you fear running afoul of me — for after all Wei Wuxian's name reeks, and with old grudges and new welling up together, with the crowd's blood at fever pitch, no one would heed a word of my defense; perhaps it would even rouse my old bloodlust afresh and set me to slaughter, sparing you the trouble of lifting a hand.'

Su She said, 'Laughable. Lianfang-Zun is already the Chief Cultivator commanding the Hundred Cultivation Clans, with no need to grasp for power or lord it over others. What does he gain by sending so many people here to their deaths? Slandering me is one thing, but to carry the slander all the way to Lianfang-Zun!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Since you swear so solemnly that I slander you, then do you dare, now, before all these people, to play once more the very battle tune the Moling Su Clan used to drive the corpses and repel the demons on the way up the mountain?'

Every guqin cultivator of the Gusu Lan Clan was here; if what Su She played now differed from what he had played before, he would be exposed on the instant!

Within the Demon-Subduing Cave the crowd quietly drew farther and farther from the Moling Su Clan, until without quite knowing it they had cleared a great open space, leaving them stranded alone in the middle. Wei Wuxian seized the moment: 'You won't? Fine, no matter. You had better take a look — what do you make of this?'

From his robes he drew two sheets of yellowed paper and gave them a shake, letting them be just barely made out as a written score: 'You thought we truly came away from Koi Tower empty-handed? In the hidden room behind the bronze mirror of Fangfei Hall, the two pages Jin Guangyao had torn from the Collection of Turmoil and concealed have already been found by us. We need only lay them before Elder Lan Qiren and have him judge whether the melody you played a moment ago is among them, and the truth will out at once!'

Su She sneered, 'You lie. How am I to know this isn't some score you scribbled down at random to slander me with.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Do you suppose I carry two scores about with me all day long, ready to whip out at a moment's notice? At any rate, whether it's a lie or not, Elder Lan Qiren will know at a glance.'

Su She had at first suspected a trick, but seeing Wei Wuxian's face wreathed in a sly smile and his tone so certain, while Lan Qiren took the pages and read with his brows drawing tight, his heart clenched, and he said, 'Elder Lan, beware a trick!' — and with that he reached out to snatch the two sheets away.

At that very moment, the ice-blue sword light of Bichen came sweeping at him. The sword at Su She's waist left its sheath to parry; yet at that one parry he suddenly came to himself: he had been had!

Su She's sword was named Nanping, and as it struck Bichen now and the blade light coursed along it — plainly, his Spiritual Power was brimming and whole!