Chapter 82: Loyal Heart, Part Nineteen — 4

He turned and ran toward the Blood Pool, and Lan Wangji, never a step behind, went shoulder to shoulder with him. The Spirit-Attraction Flag, blood-red against the white robe, proved indeed the finest of targets: not a single Fierce Corpse paid the others any mind, looking through the living who brushed past them as though they were not there at all, and with eyes gone red, every one of them came hurtling at Wei Wuxian alone.

The horde came on wave after wave, and the path Wen Ning had cut open was always swiftly filled again by fresh Walking Corpse, so that he would charge back to carve it open once more. Within the Demon-Subduing Cave the greater part still had no time to withdraw, and some even yet lacked the strength to walk; they watched Bichen's sword-light sweep wildly through the cave, a whole row of Fierce Corpse hewn into pieces, only for the next row to surge up at once, the wailing and the shrieks shaking the heavens until they all but burst through the vault of the Demon-Subduing Cave. In no long while this horde had ringed Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji round on every side, so that the two could scarcely draw near the Blood Pool; all about them the mounds of corpses heaped ever higher, while the encircling ring drew ever tighter. Seeing it, the juniors burned with anxiety and drew their swords and turned back, one after another, and Lan Jingyi, catching sight of someone cutting down corpses and fighting his way clear, called out, ‘Could you lend a hand? If you can still lift a sword, come and help! Even a little would be something!’

The man said, 'Get lost!!!'

Lan Sizhui said, 'Never mind him, Jingyi. We'll manage on our own!'

Hearing their voices, Wei Wuxian roared, 'Wen Ning!!! Throw them out!!!'

Wen Ning said, 'Yes!' With one hand he seized Lan Jingyi, and with the other he was about to take hold of Lan Sizhui, when Lan Sizhui cried out to him, 'Ghost General, I can't go out, let me stay!!! Or I'll regret it the rest of my life!!!'

In the instant they came face to face, Wen Ning's form went rigid, and Lan Sizhui, seeing that he no longer reached for him, lifted his sword at once and cut his way back in. Lan Jingyi and the others took the chance and slipped past him as well. Jin Ling was being dragged out by Jiang Cheng, half-hauled and half-carried, brushing past several Fierce Corpses on the way. Drawn by the Spirit-Attraction Flag on Wei Wuxian's body, those corpses fixed their red eyes on that one direction and looked through the two of them as though they were not there. Jin Ling cried, 'Uncle! I—'

Jiang Cheng said coldly, 'If you dare go back, then don't call me uncle.'

Jin Ling's head snapped toward him; Jiang Cheng flung him outward and barked, 'Stay put!' Then, gripping Sandu, he charged back into the Demon-Subduing Cave. Jin Ling started, then said, 'Uncle, wait for me!' and followed all the same.

And within the Demon-Subduing Cave, the ring closing about Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had shrunk to less than a zhang across.

Bichen's light was clear as ever, and the talisman-fire blazed without end; and yet, these Fierce Corpses were simply too many.

Wei Wuxian had only just flung out a handful of Talisman Casting when he sensed, keen and sudden, the press of danger; glancing aside, he found indeed that a Fierce Corpse had clambered up the corpse-heap nearest him and, jaws gaping, came lunging for him. His hands were empty; with a curse he reached into his sleeve, and groped at nothing, and his heart lurched up into his throat.

His talismans were, it turned out, already spent.

Lan Wangji too had marked the peril on his side and was about to drive a backhand stroke when, with a sudden shrill cry, the Fierce Corpse split clean in two in midair.

No. It had been torn in two. And the thing that had torn it was there before every eye.

A blood-soaked, crimson Fierce Corpse stood atop a man-high mountain of bodies and sea of gore, a still-twitching half of corpse trailing from each of its two hands, gazing down upon Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.

Lan Jingyi's mouth had fallen open and would not close, and Ouyang Zizhen murmured, '…ancestors above… what is that thing?'

In the heart of everyone who saw it ran the same single thought — what is that thing?

This nameless Fierce Corpse, sprung as if from nowhere, was unlike any they had ever seen: from head to foot a blood-soaked scarlet, as though it had just crawled up out of the Blood Pool, gaunt to the bone and frightful beyond words.

The horde under the Stygian Tiger Seal's command had its attention drawn too by this strange one of its own kind, and giving over the siege of Wei Wuxian, they turned, hesitant and wavering, to look that way.

The blood-corpse took two steps.

It came swaying forward, its joints cracking and clicking as it went, as though loosening its sinews. Dark-red blood dripped from its limbs and trunk, trailing along its whole path.

A resentful, savage chill of the most piteous and vicious kind poured off it, and as it drew slowly nearer the other Fierce Corpses began to creep back. Many a face went ashen, and not one dared breathe a sound.

Lan Wangji moved to shield Wei Wuxian, but Wei Wuxian pressed down the hand that held Bichen and said in a low voice, '…wait.'

He stared and stared at that blood-corpse, a guess taking shape in his mind, his chest pounding, and he said again, 'Wait.'

The blood-corpse halted about a zhang before them, then suddenly threw back its head and gave two high cries.

Each cry came shriller than the last, and all of them clapped their hands to their ears.

Across the surface of the Blood Pool there rose a faint ripple.

At first it was as though a single pebble had dropped; yet the ring of it spread on and on, wider and wider, as if something were stirring beneath the thick, clotted blood.

Suddenly, a hand burst up through the blood!

The hand caught hard at the bank, its five fingers gouging deep into the ground. Rising after it to break the surface came a scarlet face, half-rotted, its features past all making out.

A second blood-corpse had crawled up out of the Blood Pool.

At once the whole surface of the Blood Pool began to turn and churn, seething as though it boiled, gurgle upon gurgle, and more and more heads broke the surface. A third, a fourth, a fifth…

Each one bore a coat of ghastly gore, a snarling face, and a shrill, roaring cry. And no sooner had they climbed from the Blood Pool than they fell at once to slaughtering the other Fierce Corpses.

The horde under the Stygian Tiger Seal's command was stirred up as if by a red blade thrust wildly among them, churned into a sky-wide spray of shredded flesh, corpse-pieces, and black blood.

Jin Ling said, shaken, '…what in the world are these things? Why are there Fierce Corpses still in the Blood Pool? Weren't all the Fierce Corpses on the Burial Mounds said to have been burned away?'

Beside him, Sect Leader Ouyang, shielding his son, said, 'Some were not!'

Lan Jingyi said, 'Which ones weren't?'

Sect Leader Ouyang said, 'Those… those…'

He could not bring it out: those remnants of the Qishan Wen Sect on the Burial Mounds in that year, after the ones who came to wipe them out had killed them — those fifty-odd corpses had every one been cast into the Blood Pool.

Suddenly Jin Ling shouted, 'Look out!'

A blood-soaked, crimson shape dropped down before him; Lan Sizhui raised his sword and gave back two steps, and the blood-corpse rose slowly to its feet.

This was an uncommonly small and stooped blood-corpse, its skull seemingly smashed open in a hole, its thin white hair, soaked in the bloody water, plastered sparse and straggling to its brow; with its half-rotted flesh besides, it was sickening and dreadful beyond measure, hard to look upon. Once it had got to its feet it came hobbling and limping slowly toward Lan Sizhui, and the juniors, hearts in their throats, hurried to close round him.

With the living suddenly so many, the blood-corpse grew wary, a rasping in the depths of its throat. The young men braced as before a great foe, and Lan Sizhui said quickly, 'Don't move!'

Tense though he was, he was somehow, for reasons he could not name, not afraid.

If this thin, spindly blood-corpse had eyes still, it must have been staring at him; it cocked its head, and even put out a hand, reaching slowly toward Lan Sizhui, as though it wished to touch him.

That hand was caked with gore, like a chicken's claw gnawed away to ruin, and every one of the young men felt his skin prickle. Jin Ling raised his sword to ward it off, and Lan Sizhui blurted, 'Young Master Jin, don't!'

Jin Ling said, 'Then what do we do!'

Lan Sizhui said, 'All of you… all of you, don't move for now.'

The blood-corpse gave two thin little cries; he steadied himself and reached out slowly toward it in turn.

Just as he was about to touch it, a fresh wave of the horde came pouring in, and the blood-corpse whipped round, loosed a long howl, sprang into the air and flung itself into the horde, tearing left and biting right like a thing gone mad, blood and flesh flying. The bellow of its cry was so loud and terrible, its movements so swift and savage, that it was worlds apart from what it had been a moment ago before Lan Sizhui. Wen Ning, hurling several Fierce Corpses aside, his whole body shaking, cried out to that corpse, 'Is it you?'

The other paid him no heed.

All the blood-corpses were slaughtering on in a frenzy, and Wen Ning shouted, 'Is it you?'

The whole of the Demon-Subduing Cave was a din of shrill cries high and low, and not one of them answered him, and not one of them could.

In less than half a shichen, all the sounds died slowly away.

The Demon-Subduing Cave, when it was all over, was for all the world a scene of hell out of some painted scroll.

The blood-corpses began, one after another, to gather toward Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.

Tall and short, man and woman, old and young, all of them blood-soaked asuras and fiends. Yet upon these shapes Wei Wuxian saw some shadows he knew.

Wen Ning murmured, 'Fourth Uncle…'

'Granny…'

He named them one by one, and the more he named, the more his voice shook.

Wen Ning said, 'Have you been here all this time, waiting?'

Were he a living man, those eyes would surely have gone red by now, and wept.

Wei Wuxian's lips trembled faintly; he meant to say something, and yet, in the end, he did not say it.

He bowed his head low and made a grave, deliberate bow, and said in a hoarse voice, '…thank you.'

Lan Wangji made a bow as well.

These blood-soaked Fierce Corpses, savage past all bounds in the slaughter a moment before, now stood before the two of them with the same dreadful aspect, but their movements a little clumsy; raggedly, out of time with one another, they bent and lifted their hands, returning the bow.

Then, as though something had drawn the very spirit and breath of life from their bodies, every one of them fell.

The blood-red bodies, like brittle porcelain, cracked apart inch by inch, breaking smaller and smaller. It seemed that one more gust of wind would leave nothing at all.

Wen Ning threw himself to the ground and gathered these crimson ashes with his hands. Once he had them, he stuffed them by the fistful into his robes, and soon his robes were full. Seeing this, Lan Jingyi scratched his hair, unfastened one of his own sachets, tipped out the spices inside, crouched down and held it out to him, saying, 'Here!'

At that, several of the other young men followed suit. Only Jin Ling looked at them, looked at Wen Ning, his face unreadable, and made no move, his brows frosted over, drawing a little apart. And with seven or eight hands now thrusting sachets and cloth bags toward Wen Ning, he found himself at a loss instead.

Lan Sizhui said, 'Ghost General, do you need help?'

Wen Ning said quickly, 'No need, you…'

Lan Jingyi said, 'All these bones and ashes — you'll never finish gathering them on your own!'

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji came over and said, 'Don't go gathering them carelessly — you've no gloves, you'll catch the corpse-poison.'

Hearing this, the young men gave up the thought. Lan Sizhui said, 'Senior Wei, Hanguang-Jun, and Ghost General too — thank you all this time…'

Suddenly, from among the crowd, a cold voice came: 'Thank them for what?'

Lan Sizhui and the others turned to look, and the one who had spoken was, again, that Fang Mengchen.

He had risen to his feet, and with a face full of fury he said, 'What is this supposed to be?'

Lan Sizhui, bewildered: 'What is what supposed to be?'

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji looked his way too, and Fang Mengchen said sharply, 'I'm asking you what this is supposed to be. Atonement? Surely you haven't all truly begun to feel grateful to him in your hearts?'

And in the Demon-Subduing Cave there was a dead silence, not even a murmur to be heard.

The taste in everyone's hearts just then was a hard one to bear.

They had come with great pomp and clamor to wipe him out, and ended up wiped out themselves. They had waved their banners and cried for the scourge to be cleansed, and in the end had to lean on that very scourge to save their own lives.

One scarcely knew whether to call it absurd, or eerie, or mortifying, or simply senseless. They felt only that they themselves, so full of righteous indignation, leaping about in this great drama, had cut no very glorious or dignified figure.

Speak gratitude to Wei Wuxian's face? It seemed far too unseemly; yet having, after all, been saved by him, to say outright that there was no gratitude at all seemed equally unfitting. In such a case the best course, it appeared, was only to hold one's silence.

Seeing no one answer him, Fang Mengchen grew angrier still. He thrust out his sword and said, 'Do a few good deeds with a great show of feeling, make out that you've repented, and the mountain of blood-debt on your hands is wiped clean at a stroke?'

Wei Wuxian sidestepped and dodged it. Someone came to make peace: 'Brother Fang! Don't lose your head, let it go…'

The words were no sooner out than the man knew he had spoken wrong, and sure enough Fang Mengchen's eyes went red. He said, 'Let it go? What do you mean, let it go? The blood-debt of a slain parent — you say let it go and it's let go?'

He demanded loudly, 'Wei Wuxian killed my mother and father — that is a fact, so why does he now seem to have turned into some kind of hero? Do a few good deeds, and in the blink of an eye people are made to forget what he's done? Then what do my mother and father count for?'

Among the crowd, Jin Ling clenched his fist, when of a sudden a sharp pain shot through his shoulder — it was the five fingers Jiang Cheng had laid there, gripping slowly tighter.

Jin Ling could not make out his expression, and said in a low voice, 'Uncle…'

From Jiang Cheng's side came a cold laugh of unreadable meaning.

At this, Wei Wuxian spoke.

He said, 'Then what is it you want, exactly.'

Fang Mengchen started. Wei Wuxian said, 'What is it you want, in the end? Nothing but to see me come to a wretched end, and so dissolve the hatred in your heart.'

He pointed to Yi Weichun, lying unconscious in the crowd, and said, 'He lost a leg; I'll be hacked to ten thousand pieces. You lost your parents; and I — my family was broken and dead long ago, I was cast out by my own clan, a homeless cur, and I never so much as saw the ashes of either of mine.'

Wei Wuxian went on, 'Or is it the remnants of the Qishan Wen Sect you still hate? These remnants of the Qishan Wen Sect, as you call them, died once already thirteen years ago. And here, just now, in this very place, for my sake, to save you, they died a second time. This time to ashes and nothingness.'

He said, 'I ask you, what more is it you would have?'

Fang Mengchen glared and glared at him, and at length, through gritted teeth, said, 'It's no use. I tell you, Wei Wuxian, no matter what you do, do not count on my ever forgiving you, or forgetting the blood-debt owed for my parents.'

He said loudly, 'Never!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'No one is asking you to forgive me. The things I have done — it is not only you who remember them. I remember them too. You will not forget, and I, still less.'

After meeting his gaze head-on for a while, Fang Mengchen felt a thousand feelings throng his heart and every thought turn to ash.

His life had, beyond all doubt, been saved by Wei Wuxian and the rest; but to let the grievance be dissolved at that he could not bring himself to. And if he wished to take revenge on Wei Wuxian, alone and outmatched, there was nothing he could do. In the end he could only give a great cry, turn, and rush out of the Demon-Subduing Cave.

After he had rushed out, someone said, 'There won't be any more hordes coming, will there? We're really safe now, aren't we?'

At the sound of that voice, everyone's head ached: 'Him again!'

Nie Huaisang looked about, and seeing no one answer him, asked once more, 'Then does that mean we… can go too?'

That question, at least, was the right one to ask. Just now every soul there longed to sprout wings on the spot and ride a sword straight home. A woman cultivator said, 'Two shichen should be about enough — how much of everyone's Spiritual Power has come back by now?'