Futile Devices Scans

As the leader of the assassins, Yu Gong Zhao Ye should have been most concerned with the Red Fever plague that Yeguang had been investigating for so long when he heard the words Tianxuan Mountain. Instead, the first thought that surfaced in his mind was: But Wei Fu never got the chance to see his father one last time.

The question Jiang Feng Xun had refused to answer remained lodged in his chest, neither advancing nor retreating. Regret sloshed back and forth inside him like a half-filled cup of water. I should have let him come. I shouldn’t have made him obey. I shouldn’t have left him standing there waiting again and again. No matter the obstacles, I should have brought him with me. A single thought could become the distance between heaven and earth. Regret came so easily, yet fate never gave anyone the chance to walk backward and choose again.

Beside him, Xie You Lan’s brows twisted into a knot. He held no affection for Wei Huai Jun, yet he had to admit that Wei Huai Jun and Jiang Feng Xun had been husband and wife who relied upon one another. Worried about reopening her wounds, he asked hesitantly, “Then afterward…?”

Knowing exactly what he was concerned about, Jiang Feng Xun answered bluntly instead. “After falling into Yanyuan hands, I suffered somewhat, but at least I survived. It couldn’t compare to being free, but compared to many others, I was fortunate.”

Xie You Lan remained silent for a long while. Seeing the discomfort on his face, Jiang Feng Xun added, “I never sought help from Beizhu Palace. First, because once the bowstring is released, there is no turning back. I could never lower my head and submit to Xie Jing. Second, because the situation on Tianxuan Mountain was too complicated. Even Beizhu Palace likely could not have interfered.”

Xie You Lan merely responded with a muted, “Mhm.”

Both mother and son looked lost in thought and unwilling to speak further. In the end, it was the ever-reliable Sect Master Cheng who stepped forward and asked the most important question.

“Madam Jiang, when you say the situation was complicated, are you referring to the Ten Aspects Sect using the people of Yilin to test medicines and secretly creating the Red Fever plague in an attempt to invade Longsha?”

“How do you know that in such detail?” Surprise flashed across Jiang Feng Xun’s face. “Or have I been secluded for so long that the whole world already knows?”

With his eyes lowered, Xie You Lan lazily answered for Cheng Yu. “Don’t let his honest appearance fool you. This man only tells half the truth whenever he introduces himself. Before becoming the head of that impoverished sect, he spent his days working for the Longsha royal family.”

“Bihua?”

“You know about it?”

“Then it all makes sense.” Ignoring Xie You Lan’s astonishment, Jiang Feng Xun instead turned her gaze toward Yu Gong Zhao Ye. “Then this prince was also part of Bihua?”

Though confused, Yu Gong Zhao Ye nodded politely. “Madam Jiang had dealings with Bihua?”

“You resemble someone I once knew… a friend.” She hesitated before continuing. “There was an assassin in Bihua. I don’t know whether it was her real name or merely a codename. She was called Wang Shu.”

Instantly, both Cheng Yu and Yu Gong Zhao Ye stopped breathing.

Xie You Lan immediately became alert. “What’s wrong? Who was that?”

Cheng Yu stared blankly ahead. “She was half my master, my former superior, and the final leader of Bihua…”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye ended all uncertainty with three simple words.

“My mother.”

Everyone: “…”

A deathly silence descended.

Staring at Jiang Feng Xun, Xie You Lan asked darkly, “And how exactly are you connected to his mother?”

Although she felt something about the situation was strangely off, Jiang Feng Xun still answered seriously.

“The Red Fever plague he just mentioned, and my acquaintance with Wang Shu, are actually two knots tied in the same rope. The years on Tianxuan Mountain were far too complicated. Even three days and three nights might not be enough to tell the whole story, so I’ll only speak of the most important matters.”

As for what truly happened after Tianxuan Mountain fell to Yanyuan, most stories claimed that Su Lü Ying Pan had slaughtered tens of thousands of Yilin survivors and remnant soldiers to terrify the former royal family and destroy any hope of restoring the kingdom.

In reality, the Yanyuan commander only executed a handful of rebels who refused to surrender as a warning. Most of the remaining captives were turned into laborers. The strong men were sent deep into the mountains to mine ore and quarry stone. The elderly, women, and children were ordered to clear land and cultivate medicinal plants along the outskirts.

Xie You Lan frowned. “If they were only mining and growing herbs, why make it sound so mysterious?”

“That depends on what they were mining and what they were growing,” Jiang Feng Xun replied. “You’ve heard of the many strange techniques used by the Ten Aspects Sect. Things like Soul Seizure, or drugs that make people feel no pain and grant them monstrous strength. In truth, those are all effects produced by medicine.”

“Tianxuan Mountain possessed abundant mineral resources. Most important was a gold mine, though there were supposedly coal and iron deposits as well. The deep mountains were also rich in rare flowers and medicinal plants. For that reason, Yanyuan sealed off the entire mountain range under heavy guard. Mining operations were conducted there, and a separate area was designated for the Ten Aspects Sect to cultivate medicinal ingredients. Conveniently, they could also test their drugs on the laborers.”

Because of her beauty, Jiang Feng Xun and several other attractive women had been singled out during the first inspection of prisoners and confined separately. They received different food and clothing from everyone else.

By then, she was no longer the naïve Palace Master’s wife she had once been. She understood that such things were never given freely. The price would be paid with her own body.

Wei Huai Jun was dead. This time, no one would descend from the heavens and carry her out of hell.

So what should she do?

Preserve her dignity through suicide? Fight back and be tortured to death? Or cling to life in humiliation?

Compared to the alternatives, taking her own life seemed almost like the most dignified and merciful option.

Yet why was it that a man like Xie Jing could commit evil as he pleased, while the only way for her to protect her dignity and chastity was to die? Why was every path to survival granted by heaven so narrow and difficult? Were virtues like benevolence, kindness, and integrity truly wrong? If not, why did they weigh so heavily upon a person?

Jiang Feng Xun did not want to die. Nor did she want to submit herself to others.

She wanted to remain standing and live.

She wanted to carve out a path for herself.

Presenting beautiful captives to the capital was a Yanyuan tradition. Su Lü Ying Pan intended to select several attractive women and send them back to Luoling. The most beautiful would be offered to the Emperor. The next finest would be gifted to the Ten Aspects Sect. One would be reserved for Na Yan Zhun, the elder sent by Helan Zhenjia to oversee affairs at Tianxuan Mountain. And of course, Su Lü Ying Pan intended to keep one for himself.

After all the sorting, selecting, and evaluating was done, Jiang Feng Xun was ultimately sent to Na Yan Zhun’s side.

Unfortunately, amidst the misfortune there was one stroke of luck: this elder did not seem particularly eager where women were concerned. His attention was focused almost entirely on researching medicinal ingredients.

In her youth, Jiang Feng Xun had read extensively from miscellaneous books and studied many medical texts. Though she could not be called an expert physician, she had cultivated the Xingcang Scriptureand learned some internal martial arts from Wei Huai Jun, giving her a strong understanding of the body’s meridians.

After observing for several days, she gathered her courage and spoke openly with Na Yan Zhun.

Na Yan Zhun apparently felt she could be useful. More importantly, Jiang Feng Xun was from Dongyu rather than Yilin, so there was little risk that she would betray him out of national resentment. He therefore made the decision to keep her on as an assistant.

The Ten Aspects Sect’s original purpose in cultivating herbs and refining medicines on Tianxuan Mountain had simply been to improve their inherited repertoire of charlatan tricks. By using drugs to make people unnaturally strong and insensitive to pain, they hoped to increase the combat effectiveness of soldiers. As strange and sinister as those medicines were, they were not originally intended to kill.

However, more than a year later, sensing Emperor Tianbao’s ambition to wage war against Longsha, He Lan Zhen Jia sent a secret order to Tianxuan Mountain, instructing Na Yan Zhun to develop a medicine capable of “pacifying an entire city without expending a single soldier.”

No matter how potent a poison might be, its destructive reach remained limited. Throughout history, the only toxin capable of bringing down thousands upon thousands of people had been plague.

By this point, Jiang Feng Xun and Na Yan Zhun had developed a smooth working relationship. She attempted to persuade him by arguing that such a thing violated the natural order and would shorten one’s lifespan. She hoped either to delay the project indefinitely or simply declare it impossible. Yet behind He Lan Zhen Jia stood the ambitious Emperor Tianbao. The secret order represented the Emperor’s will, and there was no possibility of refusing it.

Na Yan Zhun therefore began his experiments.

His first subject of research was the “Red Fever” disease He Lan Zhen Jia had mentioned. Victims developed red blotches across their skin that gradually spread over the entire body before causing uncontrollable bleeding until death from blood loss. The symptoms were horrifying and matched He Lan Zhen Jia’s vision of a plague that would terrify the world like the work of a demon god.

The problem was that Red Fever only appeared in extremely hot, pestilential regions. Outside Timo Kingdom, cases were exceedingly rare.

Na Yan Zhun had heard that Timo Kingdom possessed a custom of eating raw monkey brains. He therefore ordered more than a dozen monkeys to be transported from Timo over a great distance. After one or two months of investigation, he discovered an extremely fine parasite within their brains and determined it to be the true source of Red Fever.

The parasite lived inside monkey brains without causing illness in its host. Yet once it entered the human body, it produced the terrifying Red Fever disease.

Unfortunately, the parasite itself was remarkably fragile. It could not survive independently and existed only within the brains of living creatures. Once separated from its host, it died quickly.

Though terrifyingly lethal, it lacked sufficient means of transmission. Outside Timo Kingdom, very few people spent their time eating raw monkey brains, and even fewer would willingly consume the brains of infected victims.

As a result, the Red Fever project was temporarily abandoned.

Nevertheless, the monkey-brain parasite inspired Na Yan Zhun. The solution he ultimately presented to He Lan Zhen Jia was a different parasite discovered within the stone snails of Tianxuan Mountain. Unlike the monkey parasite, this one could survive in water.

Once a person drank contaminated water, symptoms would appear within a day or two. The illness closely resembled typhoid fever and could spread to family members sharing the same food and living space. Unless medicine was administered quickly to eliminate the parasites, the resulting high fever and coma often proved fatal.

Hearing this, Cheng Yu suddenly understood.

“During the war years ago, agents of the Ten Aspects Sect infiltrated Zhoujin City ahead of the army and poisoned the water supply, spreading plague throughout the population. Both soldiers and civilians suffered horrific casualties. Yanyuan caught Longsha completely off guard and advanced all the way to the gates of Bihan City. So this was where it all began.”

Methods this monstrous had to be hidden with the utmost care. Otherwise, their practitioners would become enemies of the entire world.

Cheng Yu and Yu Gong Zhao Ye had spent nearly half a year undercover in Luoling, the capital of Yanyuan. They had even infiltrated the Ten Aspects Sect headquarters and killed He Lan Zhen Jia, yet they had never heard the slightest mention of Tianxuan Mountain.

Jiang Feng Xun turned her face slightly away, as if unwilling to dwell on the subject.

“Later, a major disaster struck the Ten Aspects Sect. He Lan Zhen Jia died, and I heard their headquarters was blown into the sky. Tianxuan Mountain itself did not change much. People from above merely came demanding more stone snails. It was around that time that Wang Shu somehow bypassed the guards and secretly infiltrated Tianxuan Mountain.”

Wang Shu’s luck was excellent.

At first glance, she chose Jiang Feng Xun as the easiest target to manipulate.

Unfortunately for her assumptions, Jiang Feng Xun possessed a photographic memory. The moment she laid eyes on Wang Shu, she recognized her as a disguised outsider.

She obediently allowed herself to be “captured” and cooperatively handed over the antidote formula for the parasite plague. She even provided additional prescriptions for Red Fever and several other epidemic diseases.

By the time Jiang Feng Xun finished writing, Wang Shu was almost overwhelmed by the unexpected success.

“Are they threatening you?” she asked. “Do you want to escape? Do you have family or friends? Is there anyone you’d like me to deliver a message to?”

The words struck Jiang Feng Xun like a club to the head.

She froze.

Then a tear fell without warning onto her clothing before shattering against the fabric.

More than anything, she wanted to escape.

But fate clung to her like an inescapable curse.

The predicament she had once suffered in Beizhu Palace had returned once again, locking her inside another cage.

Jiang Feng Xun knew far too many secrets. To ensure her loyalty would never waver, Na Yan Zhun had planted a poison parasite inside her. If she failed to take the antidote each month to suppress it, the poison would inevitably flare up and kill her within three days. It was already too late.

“I can’t leave.”

Coming back to herself, she forced a smile at Wang Shu. She suspected it looked awful, because Wang Shu frowned.

“The plague killed so many people in Longsha. Some of that sin belongs to me as well. Perhaps this is Heaven’s retribution.”

Jiang Feng Xun carefully folded the dried prescriptions and handed them over.

“You’re someone who saves the world. You’re far more remarkable than I am. If one day you can break open this cage, I would gladly die by your hand.”

As soon as she said it, she felt that she was imposing too much on the other woman. It sounded a little mad and undignified, so she hurriedly amended her words.

“Of course, it’s fine if you don’t attack it either. This place will be destroyed sooner or later…”

A cool, firm touch suddenly brushed lightly beneath her eye. Wang Shu reached out and wiped away the tears at the corner of her eye. As a martial artist, her fingertips were rough and dry, not particularly gentle, yet they carried a quiet strength.

“Then it’s settled. Wait a little longer for me.”

Wang Shu spoke as casually as though they were arranging to visit the market together the next day.

“Before I come back, don’t die.”

…

Jiang Feng Xun had long been alone in the world. It had been many years since anyone had given her a promise of any kind. Even knowing there was scarcely a one-in-ten-thousand chance it would ever be fulfilled, she had secretly looked forward to it for a very long time.

“That year, the Commander brought back highly confidential intelligence from Yanyuan. Thanks to it, Longsha’s Southern Dipper Division was able to prepare in advance during Yanyuan’s retreat, contain the plague in time, and avoid a catastrophe of unimaginable scale.”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye rose to his feet and performed a formal bow toward Jiang Feng Xun.

“On behalf of the people of Longsha, this junior thanks Madam Jiang for saving countless lives.”

Cheng Yu and Ying Yue bowed alongside him.

Jiang Feng Xun returned the gesture and said quietly, “I dare not accept such praise. To be able to atone for even a fraction of my sins is already a blessing.”

Standing behind Yu Gong Zhao Ye, Ying Yue lowered his head in shame. The older generation of Bihua would sometimes lament that the younger generation was inferior to those who came before. He had always laughed it off on the surface, but deep down he had never entirely agreed. It often sounded as though those predecessors all possessed heaven-shaking powers, capable of turning the tide of the world through sheer force of will, so extraordinary that they scarcely seemed human.

Now he finally understood.

A true assassin could infiltrate Tianxuan Mountain alone, cross thousands of miles without a trace, come and go unseen, prop up a collapsing edifice, and save countless lives through their own efforts.

Like Jiang Feng Xun, he looked toward Yu Gong Zhao Ye expectantly, wanting to hear more about that woman.

“Where is she now? Has she been doing well?”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye lowered his eyes and composed himself.

After a moment of solemn silence, he replied, “After the wars ended, my mother entered Yanyuan several times. Five years ago, near Luoyue Mountain in Xizhou, she was ambushed by Yanyuan assassins and succumbed to her injuries.”

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