Futile Devices Scans

Elio’s Notes: The chapter title’s “fox howls and the dragon sings” (狐啸龙吟) plays on the familiar phrase 虎啸龙吟, “the tiger roars, the dragon chants.” The source swaps the tiger for a fox, fitting the chapter’s fox imagery around Wei Fu.

“Xiao Ying!”

A clear greeting floated in through the window.

Yugong Zhaoye was packing his luggage inside the room. Without looking back, he gave a small “Mhm,” his hands continuing methodically as he folded his clothes into neat squares and placed them properly upon the wrapping cloth.

The visitor slipped through the window with a whoosh, landing lightly and soundlessly. A faint citrus fragrance clung to her as she leaned over with great interest to watch him work from behind.

“Leaving for Yanyuan tomorrow?”

“Mhm.” Yugong Zhaoye let out a small sigh. “Could you use the front door next time instead of climbing through the window?”

“Climbing through the window is convenient.”

“No manners.”

“When you kill someone, do you politely knock on the door first and ask, ‘May I come in?’”

“Are you here to kill me?”

“…”

“In short, proper assassins don’t use the front door. It’s a rule handed down by the founding master. Learn it.”

Yugong Zhaoye finished folding the last piece of clothing and sighed with the weariness of an old man.

“Weren’t our ancestors bandits, Mother?”

Xie Wangshu wore a narrow-sleeved fitted outfit, her gray hair tied high and fluttering in the spring breeze passing through the room like some bird spreading a beautiful tail.

She leaned carelessly against the edge of the table, casually plucked a small kumquat from the potted plant, and crunched it between her teeth. Unable to out-argue her son, she simply began making things up.

“Aiya. Close enough.”

“There’s a fruit plate right behind you, and you insist on picking from the plant…”

Yugong Zhaoye’s teeth ached merely from watching her.

Xie Wangshu loved everything sour and citrusy—mandarins, oranges, pomelos—and chewed without the slightest change in expression.

“Close enough.”

Yugong Zhaoye sighed involuntarily.

“Not even remotely.”

Kumquats had originally been grafted from citron by gardeners. They were neither wild plants nor cultivated for eating, but purely for ornament, prized for their brilliant color and fragrant scent. They had not originally been especially fashionable. But because rumor claimed that “Noble Consort Xie” loved them, Emperor Zheng’an, Yugong Du, had them cultivated in the palace throughout the year, and eventually they became widely popular throughout Bihan City.

After the crown prince ascended the throne—that is, after the current king, Yugong Fengting, succeeded him—Xie Wangshu was elevated to Dowager Consort, and the fashion gradually faded.

The pot inside Yugong Zhaoye’s room had been raised there for years. It flowered and bore fruit two or three times annually, and every time Xie Wangshu visited, she plucked several fresh kumquats from it.

The thief never left empty-handed.

Perhaps that was ancestral bandit blood at work too.

Xie Wangshu clicked her tongue, circled Yugong Zhaoye once, and inspected him from head to toe.

Not especially satisfied, she criticized, “You’ve sighed three times in the space of a few moments. Are you qi-deficient? Can you really go to Yanyuan in this condition?”

Yugong Zhaoye immediately swallowed the next sigh already rising to his lips and asked with a taut expression, “What did you come here for?”

Xie Wangshu answered immediately, “I want you to handle something for me while you’re there.”

Yugong Zhaoye stared at her in disbelief.

Nothing about her expression or tone showed the slightest hint that she was asking someone for help. She behaved as though she had come to collect a debt, and even while asking a favor she continued crunching away on his kumquats.

“Do I need to kneel and receive the imperial decree?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Xie Wangshu waved one hand and lazily leaned against the edge of the table, clearly very accustomed to issuing orders.

“When you go to Yanyuan, help me find a sword. According to the information I recently received, it should be in the possession of the Yanyuan royal family. It might be stored in the palace or some treasury.”

“…”

Sending a fifteen-year-old youth who had barely entered the world to search for a sword inside the heavily guarded Yanyuan palace—

Who knew whether she thought far too highly of him or simply did not take him seriously at all.

Yugong Zhaoye very much wanted to ask whether he would also have to dig up the imperial mausoleum if the sword had been buried there. Then he reconsidered and realized that the mausoleum might actually be less heavily guarded than the palace, so he endured the humiliation and nodded.

“What does the sword look like? Does it have a name?”

“A black sharkskin scabbard, a sword guard patterned with Yazi, and the inscription ‘Moon Soul’ carved into the blade.” Xie Wangshu scratched her cheek, adding thoughtfully, “It’s a very good sword.”

Elio’s Notes: Yazi is traditionally one of the dragon’s sons in Chinese mythology and is associated with battle, killing, and weapons, making its image a fitting decoration for a sword guard.

The name suited Xie Wangshu rather well.

Yugong Zhaoye silently committed it to memory.

“Your sword? How did you lose it? Why did it end up in Yanyuan hands?”

“What do you mean yours or mine? Ours.” Xie Wangshu applied pressure immediately. “That is our family’s ancestral treasured sword.”

Yugong Zhaoye said, “Setting aside for the moment why our bandit family possesses an ancestral treasured sword… you lost the family heirloom, and you only remembered to look for it now?”

“Cough, cough, cough!”

Xie Wangshu looked as though a clump of dog fur had lodged in her throat. She hurriedly tried to clear herself of blame.

“Strictly speaking, I wasn’t the one who lost it. And I have always been working! Very! Hard! To find it. I only just received a lead, didn’t I?”

“You—”

Yugong Zhaoye pushed the packed bundle aside to make room for himself, sat down, took three deep breaths, and adopted an attitude of calm, respectful listening.

“Start from the beginning. Tell it generously. Don’t only pick the parts that make you look good.”

Xie Wangshu lifted her head toward the sky and whistled.

“#￥%…&*”

Yugong Zhaoye did not understand a single word.

“What?”

“Back then, your father passed our mountain stronghold, so I invited him up as a guest. We got along very well, exchanged our family heirloom swords, then he left and you came along. Not long afterward he died, the sword was lost, changed hands several times, and eventually ended up with the Yanyuan people. Now I’m sending you to retrieve it. That’s all.”

His thoroughly unreliable mother even resorted to threats and inducements.

“A son repaying his father’s debt is perfectly reasonable. Your father lost it, so of course you should retrieve it. Besides, this sword has been passed down through our family for generations. It’s very suitable as a token for pledging yourself to someone for life…”

Although Yugong Zhaoye had always known that he was not Emperor Zheng’an’s biological son and that his birth father had been someone else, and although he also knew that Xie Wangshu was a madwoman who followed every whim that entered her head, this thunderbolt of information still made his temples throb.

“You call that pledging yourselves for life?”

Xie Wangshu clicked her tongue and lightly smacked him on the shoulder.

“So old-fashioned. The late emperor never complained. Why is a child like you being so fussy?”

“That’s not what I mean…” Yugong Zhaoye pressed a hand against the vein throbbing in his forehead and struggled to explain. “I mean, when you gave away the family heirloom sword, were you actually treating the matter solemnly?”

How had Xie Wangshu answered him back then?

It seemed to have been some irrelevant remark that did not answer his question at all.

Yugong Zhaoye had still been too young then, a boy who did not yet understand the taste of love, and therefore had not grasped what she truly meant.

Driven half-mad by his own mother, his head throbbing with aggravation, he abruptly rose with a blank expression and walked toward the door.

“I’m going to tell His Majesty right now that I want to become a monk.”

“Hey! Don’t be impulsive!”

Xie Wangshu hurriedly grabbed him and immediately poured out a torrent of sweet words.

“How can you retreat before the battle has even begun? Son, even if you won’t consider your ill-fated father and mother, at least think of yourself. You’re not that young anymore. Someday, when you meet the person you love, you’ll need a respectable token of affection, won’t you…?”

Despite all his complaints, Xie Wangshu was right about one thing.

It was the family’s treasured sword, an heirloom left by their ancestors. They could hardly allow the Yanyuan people to profit from it.

In the end, Yugong Zhaoye did retrieve the sword along the way, taking it from the Spirit Tower at the Ten Aspects Sect headquarters.

Then, when he could otherwise have withdrawn safely, he charged through danger and, with a splash, fell straight into the deep, black, freezing underground river.

The family’s treasured sword had only just entered his hands and had not even had time to warm there before it was left forever upon the wall of the fractured cliff.

That day, Yugong Zhaoye had clutched the sole remaining scabbard tightly, submerged in boundless darkness, and looked back one final time toward the sheer rock face.

But both his eyes were blind.

He saw nothing.

Perhaps it had been an omen.

The one he loved had not even possessed a shadow, and the token of affection could never be recovered.

His destined ending in this lifetime was apparently to become a monk after all. There was no point struggling against it.

Time rose and fell like the tide.

Within the dream, years turned backward, frame by frame returning to the past. He seemed to be sitting unhappily on the bed in his room, yet at the same time he stood within the spring light of a vanished year, quietly watching the sharp and dazzling Xie Wangshu through the window as he waited for her answer.

“Right?”

Xie Wangshu lowered her lashes toward the tips of her shoes and said lightly:

“I think our family’s treasured sword is actually quite effective.”

It was indeed…

Extremely effective.

A soft, warm kiss fell between his brows, trying to drive away the worries of his dream.

Half asleep and half awake, Yugong Zhaoye caught the clear, bitter fragrance of gentian incense and thought hazily:

It really did pinpoint my beloved with a single sword.

“A’Ying.”

Wei Fu loosely held him through the brocade quilt, even keeping his breathing light and gentle as though afraid he might somehow blow Yugong Zhaoye away.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

Yugong Zhaoye shook his head.

Of course there was some discomfort the first time, but it only felt a little strange. Everything remained completely within what he could tolerate.

He practiced martial arts, so his muscles and tendons were supple. Wei Fu also dragged him into sword practice at every opportunity, leaving his body accustomed to flexibility.

Even stranger was the peculiar way he and Wei Fu complemented one another whenever either of them acted on impulse.

Yesterday, when Yugong Zhaoye said, “Then come here,” it had been entirely spontaneous. In truth, he had not even thought through what should happen afterward or exactly how they should go about it.

Wei Fu, however, had carried him onto the bed, reached back, and pulled open a side cabinet containing an entire drawer packed with bottles and jars.

Yugong Zhaoye had given them a rough glance.

Forget merely going to bed.

There was probably enough medicine there to bring someone back from the dead.

How could a spur-of-the-moment impulse ever compete with long premeditation?

Yugong Zhaoye immediately understood his place in the situation.

“You kept frowning in your sleep.”

Wei Fu leaned closer and kissed him.

“I was afraid I hurt you…”

But he had been so careful that it had almost become tormenting.

If this had not been Yugong Zhaoye’s first time and he were not still slightly unable to put aside his dignity, he would have flipped Wei Fu over long ago.

The frown had come from being irritated by Xie Wangshu in his dream.

Yet Yugong Zhaoye had never remembered this event before.

Could the family sword really have worked some kind of magic?

He looked at Wei Fu’s face, whose vivid brilliance could not be hidden even by the dim light, and wondered silently:

Does this count as being acknowledged by the token of affection?

Now that he was awake, his brows naturally relaxed and his breathing became peaceful. Yet he said nothing.

He simply gazed quietly at Wei Fu as though seeing him anew.

Something like a feather brushed Wei Fu’s heart, leaving behind a delicate itch.

He moved closer.

“What is it?”

Yugong Zhaoye’s throat was slightly tight from sleep, making his voice low and hoarse.

“I dreamed of my mother.”

“She appeared to you in a dream?!”

An invisible tail instantly shot upright.

Wei Fu became alert at once, grabbing Yugong Zhaoye by the shoulders and bombarding him with questions.

“Is Madam Xie satisfied with me? Did she have anything she wanted to entrust to me? Should I prepare incense and candles today and go pay my respects? What flowers and fruits did she usually like?”

“…Why are you so nervous?”

Yugong Zhaoye yawned lazily.

“With the family’s treasured sword as witness, she should be quite satisfied.”

Wei Fu stared at him in complete confusion.

“Hm? What treasured sword?”

Yugong Zhaoye selected only the parts of the story that were less infuriating and told him.

The more Wei Fu heard, the more solemn his expression became, as though someone had plucked every hair from his tail.

At the end, he asked with utmost seriousness:

“When are we attacking Yanyuan?”

Yugong Zhaoye: “Huh?”

“That is the family’s treasured sword!”

The fox spirit threw himself into Yugong Zhaoye’s arms and wailed:

“I’m going to take back the token of affection that belongs to me!”