Hearing this, Jing Luo left without the slightest hesitation. To ensure the two could speak freely, he went all the way down to the middle of the mountain, far enough that eavesdropping was absolutely impossible.
The atmosphere inside the thatched cottage gradually grew heavier.
Shi Yi Ming refilled Fu Xi Yan’s tea. Fu Xi Yan held the bowl and slowly drank.
Before entering the jianghu, the Palace Master of the Immortal Treasury Palace and the Master of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror had seemed to Fu Xi Yan like superstars from his previous life. He had heard stories about them, but they existed impossibly far away. Now one had become his future father-in-law, while the other sat across from him behind a closed door for a private conversation.
Looking back at the past year, his life had been turned upside down. Yet he had reached this place one step at a time through his own choices. So even though the person sitting before him was practically acknowledged beneath Heaven as the number-one martial artist, Fu Xi Yan felt strangely calm.
Shi Yi Ming asked, “Do you know why I founded the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror?”
Fu Xi Yan thought, There’s no Baidu Baike here to give me your organization profile, and I certainly haven’t watched your founder interview. How would I know? He guessed randomly. “To uphold fairness and justice beneath Heaven?”
Shi Yi Ming shook his head. “Because I possessed the supreme treasure known as the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror.”
Fu Xi Yan lowered his head, took another sip of tea, then nodded. “I see.”
“Everyone believes the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror is a single treasure. What they do not know is that it can divide into two, one called the Heaven Mirror and the other the Earth Mirror.” Shi Yi Ming paused slightly at this point, then suddenly changed the subject. “Jing Luo came to find me and told me many things, including how you and Yuan Jin stormed Southern Yu’s imperial palace. He described everything in great detail. What you said that day, ‘the cries for justice of Southern Yu’s hundred thousand commoners…’ made me deeply ashamed.”
His fingers slowly rubbed the rim of the tea bowl. After a long silence, he repeated, “Deeply ashamed.”
Fu Xi Yan looked at the wrinkles on his face, his graying hair, and the sorrow in his eyes. Some of the resentment Fu Xi Yan had felt toward him for being an unworthy teacher gradually eased.
Indeed.
No human being was perfect.
“In order to study the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror, I ignored too much and missed too much. In the end, I failed Heaven and Earth, and Heaven and Earth abandoned me.”
Shi Yi Ming spoke the words very calmly, like the stillness after a violent storm, when the world began to recover and the things battered by wind and rain slowly returned to life. A little color finally entered his pale face. His habitually lowered eyes rose slightly as though he had begun examining the world anew.
Faced with a subject this difficult, Fu Xi Yan could only remain a listener.
Shi Yi Ming did not mind carrying the conversation alone. He continued at an unhurried pace. “When you stormed Southern Yu’s imperial palace, the younger Taoshan brother injured you. Yet an instant later, you stood up completely unharmed. Recovery that immediate is a property of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror. The Earth Mirror is inside you.”
Fu Xi Yan’s mouth opened slightly while countless thoughts flashed through his mind. The moment Shi Yi Ming said that the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror actually consisted of two treasures, Fu Xi Yan had already developed a vague suspicion. Hearing it confirmed now brought the strange relief of dust finally settling.
He exhaled. “When my mother was pregnant with me, I was infected with the Taotie Gu. My soul should have been devoured, leaving me as a veget… leaving me as a body without a soul. But she said she saw a ray of light enter her stomach, and afterward the soul inside stabilized and the Taotie Gu stopped causing trouble. She didn’t know what that light was, but at the time, she was near the Heavenly Lake on Mount Huaying…”
This was Fu Xi Yan’s greatest secret. His mother had emphasized repeatedly in her letter that he must never reveal it to anyone. Because of that, even Pei Yuan Jin did not know, or perhaps assumed Fu Xi Yan’s instantaneous recovery came from the Taotie Gu. Looking back now, his mother had probably already guessed the origin of that light.
The Heaven-and-Earth Mirror was a supreme treasure of the mortal world, outside even the Heaven-Earth-Profound-Yellow ranking system. Shi Yi Ming had built a righteous-path faction capable of standing alongside the Immortal Treasury Palace solely because of this treasure. That alone showed its power.
Shi Yi Ming said, “The Earth Mirror was a gift I left for my daughter.”
Fu Xi Yan’s face slowly turned red. Embarrassed, he said, “I’ll find a way to take it out.”
Shi Yi Ming smiled faintly, apparently pleased by his answer, yet shook his head. “The Heaven-and-Earth Mirror is a supreme treasure born from Heaven and Earth. It never belonged to anyone. I am merely someone chosen by the Heaven Mirror, while you are someone chosen by the Earth Mirror. At most, you and I stand as equals. There is no question of one being above the other. Besides, I studied the Heaven Mirror for many years without finding the answer. Perhaps you are more suitable.”
Fu Xi Yan possessed nowhere near that level of confidence.
According to Shi Yi Ming, the Earth Mirror had been inside his body for many years. Aside from carrying around a Cai Wenji with no cooldown, Fu Xi Yan had never felt anything else.
Elio’s Notes: Cai Wenji is a healing-focused hero in the mobile game Honor of Kings. Fu Xi Yan compares the Earth Mirror’s constant regeneration to having a healer whose skill is permanently available.
Seeing his confusion, Shi Yi Ming slowly stood, walked beside him, and crouched. “You said there is a Gu inside you. Let me see.”
Fu Xi Yan immediately lay flat and let him examine whatever he wanted. It was not because Fu Xi Yan lacked caution. He simply understood that in front of a powerhouse like the Master of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror, excessive suspicion and resistance were meaningless.
Shi Yi Ming placed his right hand over Fu Xi Yan’s true essence. Fu Xi Yan had no idea what he did, but the Taotie Gu inside suddenly seemed to contract rabies and began darting around wildly. This was the first time Fu Xi Yan had ever distinctly sensed it moving.
True qi surged violently from his true essence and circulated through his meridians at three or four times its normal speed. The sensation of overflowing fullness felt so pleasant that Fu Xi Yan almost wanted to begin attacking the middle Dao-Entry Stage immediately.
But Shi Yi Ming’s brows tightened until they nearly trapped a mosquito between them. Only after a long while did he release his hand. “The Earth Mirror was swallowed by it.”
Fu Xi Yan froze, then found the conclusion surprisingly reasonable. Since this was the Taotie Gu, naturally it devoured practically anything. But the Earth Mirror could still function, which meant the Gu clearly had not digested it.
Shi Yi Ming said, “If we remove the Earth Mirror, the Taotie Gu will begin eroding your soul. If we leave it inside…”
Fu Xi Yan quietly supplied, “I’ll keep getting fatter forever.”
Shi Yi Ming glanced at him and stroked his beard. “The Earth Mirror’s greatest ability is not healing injuries. That is merely because, as a treasure born from Heaven and Earth, it naturally carries immortal energy. The true purpose of the Heaven Mirror and Earth Mirror is transmission.”
“Transmission?”
“The Heaven Mirror contains a cultivation method. Unfortunately, I cannot open the Earth Mirror, so I do not know what lies inside it.” Shi Yi Ming sighed. “But the Earth Mirror chose you, so you will certainly be able to open it. Unfortunately, when you were threatened by the Taotie Gu, it remained inside your true essence to preserve your life. All these years, it has never been able to perform its intended function.”
Hearing this made Fu Xi Yan unbearably curious. The Heaven-and-Earth Mirror was a supreme treasure. A cultivation method contained within something like that was basically the equivalent of the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth or the Nine Yin Manual in a Jin Yong martial-arts world. The Taotie Gu might come bundled with something resembling the Star-Absorbing Art, but its principle was to consume other people’s true qi and return only a portion. How could that possibly feel as secure as cultivating strength himself? Not to mention that the Gu ultimately had another master behind it.
Elio’s Notes: The Great Shift of Heaven and Earth, the Nine Yin Manual, and the Star-Absorbing Art are famous fictional martial arts from Jin Yong’s novels. Fu Xi Yan is using them as shorthand for “legendary secret manual” versus a dangerous power-stealing technique.
His eyes glittered brightly at Shi Yi Ming, practically asking, So what am I supposed to do?
Shi Yi Ming asked, “Who placed the Taotie Gu inside you?”
Fu Xi Yan hesitated before answering, “Mo Xiao Ran.”
Shi Yi Ming did not appear surprised. If Fu Xi Yan’s mother had encountered the Earth Mirror, then she must have been somewhere around Mount Huaying. From there, the identity of the person behind the Gu was not difficult to guess.
“There are many ways to remove Gu,” Shi Yi Ming said. “One is to have the Gu master remove it personally.”
Fu Xi Yan shook his head. Asking Mo Xiao Ran for help would inevitably require paying an even greater price.
“If your mastery of Gu exceeds the Gu master’s, you can forcibly remove it.”
Fu Xi Yan: “…” His mother had already tried that road and failed.
Shi Yi Ming said, “If neither method works, only the final option remains.”
Fu Xi Yan: “…”
Hadn’t he just said there were many ways to remove Gu? They had reached the final option this quickly? That meant there were only three! Was three supposed to be a lot? Even four threes together would not dare boast like this.
Elio’s Notes: Fu Xi Yan’s “four threes” joke evokes card games such as Dou Dizhu, where four cards of the same rank form a powerful bomb. His point is simply that even four threes would not have the nerve to claim “three is a lot.”
Fu Xi Yan quietly complained inside his head to ease his nerves, but his ears remained carefully attentive.
Shi Yi Ming said, “Kill the Gu.”
Fu Xi Yan’s brow twitched. “How?”
“You possess the Earth Mirror, so your body cannot die. Therefore, directly cut open the true essence…” As Shi Yi Ming continued explaining, he noticed Fu Xi Yan’s face becoming paler and paler, as though he might faint at any moment, and finally stopped.
Fu Xi Yan wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. “If someone just started doing it, I could shut my eyes, grit my teeth, and get through it. But hearing the process described while imagining it is genuinely terrifying. The Earth Mirror might stop me from dying, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling pain.”
Shi Yi Ming said, “We can use mafeisan.”
Elio’s Notes: Mafeisan is the legendary anesthetic traditionally associated with the physician Hua Tuo. Ancient accounts credit him with using it to induce anesthesia before surgery.
The instant Fu Xi Yan heard there was anesthesia, he revived. “You have some?”
“Yes.”
Fu Xi Yan nodded. “Fine. Let’s do it.” Wasn’t this basically a C-section? So many people could survive one. There was no reason he could not!
He abruptly became enthusiastic. “When do we start?”
Shi Yi Ming said, “Wait a little longer.”
“For what?”
Shi Yi Ming stood, folded both hands into his sleeves, and gently said, “The moment the Taotie Gu dies, Mo Xiao Ran will know.”
He spoke so naturally and sincerely that he had no idea what kind of shock that sentence caused Fu Xi Yan.
In Fu Xi Yan’s mind, Mo Xiao Ran had married into the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror and therefore must have been the weaker party. The Mirror Master had merely been deceived into approving the marriage. But Shi Yi Ming’s words completely reversed that relationship. The Master of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror was actually wary of Mo Xiao Ran?
Had something happened after Mo Xiao Ran married into the family? Considering Shi Yi Ming had agreed to Song Qi Yun founding Ghostshadow Organization, it suddenly did not sound impossible.
Fu Xi Yan’s furtive glances were far too obvious for Shi Yi Ming to ignore. “What do you want to ask?”
Fu Xi Yan said, “Why did you agree to Mo Xiao Ran marrying your daughter?”
The question was extraordinarily abrupt, and Fu Xi Yan had already prepared himself for Shi Yi Ming to explode in anger. Instead, the old man merely sighed deeply, placed both hands behind his back, and walked outside. When passing the folding screen, he glanced back. “It’s stuffy inside. Come out for some air.”
Fu Xi Yan set down his tea and hurried after him in tiny steps.
Shi Yi Ming stepped onto the flagstones and lowered his head to inspect the moss. “To comprehend the cultivation method inside the Heaven Mirror, I remained in this thatched cottage for twenty full years. Apart from the young attendants serving me, I rarely saw anyone. Once I gradually stopped needing food, I had Qi Yun take those attendants away.”
Fu Xi Yan was shocked. No longer needing to eat, wasn’t that genuine grain abstention?
Elio’s Notes: Bigu, literally “avoiding grain,” is a traditional Daoist practice associated with abstaining from ordinary food. In cultivation fiction, it commonly develops into the ability to survive without eating.
Shi Yi Ming passed through the fence and followed the path to the mountain’s edge. He looked down at the swirling clouds below and the landscape hidden beneath layer after layer of mist. “When Luo Ying brought Mo Xiao Ran up the mountain, something had gone terribly wrong with my true essence. At the time, had I refused, nobody on this mountain would have survived.”
Even today, Shi Yi Ming still remembered the way Mo Xiao Ran had looked at him. It was not simply cold. Coldness at least possessed a temperature. Mo Xiao Ran’s gaze seemed to possess none at all, or perhaps it was simply impossible to understand. He had calmly, plainly, yet sharply looked Shi Yi Ming over from head to toe, seeing straight through him. The lake of Shi Yi Ming’s heart, undisturbed for decades, had finally rippled because of that gaze.
Fu Xi Yan was horrified. Everyone in the jianghu believed Mo Xiao Ran had married into the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror to obtain its protection. But according to Shi Yi Ming, Mo Xiao Ran had practically broken through every layer of defense and stolen the enemy base!
After reading the letters left by his mother, Fu Xi Yan had already accepted that Mo Xiao Ran was the most dangerous person alive, bar none. Yet he still believed Mo Xiao Ran was not omnipotent. After all, Pei Xiong Ji and Shi Yi Ming existed. One had once forced Mo Xiao Ran into a miserable retreat, while the other supposedly sheltered him. Both seemed even stronger. Yet Shi Yi Ming had now personally overturned that understanding.
“Do not blame Luo Ying. She is a kind child. I was the one who failed to protect her.” Shi Yi Ming then dropped an even larger bomb. “And allowed her to be refined into a King Puppet.”
Fu Xi Yan’s heart violently clenched. Even after recovering, his scalp remained numb.
After receiving the three Puppet Arts manuals, he had read all of them. Mastery of Puppet Arts contained records about King Puppets. They were the highest class of puppet, able to retain their original intelligence and reasoning while having their martial arts forcibly elevated by two or three entire realms!
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind. Family affection was one of the most impossible emotions in the world to measure. Some people would place righteousness above family. Others would protect their loved ones without regret until death. What choice had Shi Yi Ming made?
Or perhaps Mo Xiao Ran controlling the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror all these years already represented Shi Yi Ming’s answer.
Shi Yi Ming seemed not to notice Fu Xi Yan’s growing vigilance. “That day, I reached an agreement with Mo Xiao Ran. He promised never again to commit acts that harmed Heaven and reason, and never again to use Puppet Arts.”
Fu Xi Yan remembered the two paper figures dancing on the streets beside West Lake, followed by the pair tearing each other’s heads apart. His scalp, which had only just recovered, went numb again. He could not resist tattling. “He used Puppet Arts. He broke his promise.”
Shi Yi Ming said, “The Puppet Path has stood within the jianghu for so long not solely because of Puppet Arts. The most important part of our agreement was the first condition.”
Was he defending Mo Xiao Ran?
Fu Xi Yan’s heart went up and down. He had no idea why Shi Yi Ming wanted this conversation alone. If it was because of the Earth Mirror, Fu Xi Yan had already offered to return it, only for Shi Yi Ming himself to refuse.
…
Could this be about Mo Xiao Ran?
What made Mo Xiao Ran most terrifying was his mind: temperament combined with calculation.
Fu Xi Yan thought darkly, Don’t tell me even the Master of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror has been brainwashed?
Still, Jing Luo had deliberately left Fu Xi Yan alone with Shi Yi Ming. Presumably he was certain the old man would not harm him.
After hesitating, Fu Xi Yan said, “Mo Xiao Ran’s schemes are unfathomably deep, and he is extraordinarily skilled at acting. You cannot trust him easily.” Looking back, everyone beneath Heaven called Mo Xiao Ran a great devil, yet throughout Fu Xi Yan’s actual interactions with the man, he had personally witnessed almost nothing incriminating.
Killing Tie Rong Rong?
At worst, that was cleaning up his own sect. At best, eliminating a danger to the people.
Saving Fu Xi Yan repeatedly?
Those were good deeds.
Using tiny paper figures to frighten people?
Just a prank.
Helping defend Southern Yu’s imperial palace?
Yet that time, he deliberately allowed Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin to leave.
And throughout the entire new-city scheme, he never appeared at all.
…
If Fu Xi Yan’s mother had not left those letters behind, with Aunt Fei Fei confirming them, Fu Xi Yan might genuinely have been deceived by Mo Xiao Ran’s behavior. And that moment of complete trust would unquestionably have been the moment Fu Xi Yan was in the greatest danger.
Shi Yi Ming smiled bitterly. “I once foolishly hoped that if he could truly abandon evil and live peacefully, then what would it matter if I gave him Mount Huaying? In the end, it is only a piece of land.”
More than a piece of land. There was also a daughter!
But Fu Xi Yan knew that because Shi Luo Ying had already been refined into a King Puppet, there was no way to turn her back into an ordinary person. As long as Mo Xiao Ran lived, she could remain alive. If Mo Xiao Ran died, she would die with him.
And unlike ordinary puppets who possessed no independent intelligence, she still retained some quality of life.
If Fu Xi Yan were a father…
Fu Xi Yan had no children, so he casually substituted Fu Fu into the hypothetical question. He immediately realized he could not guarantee that he would refuse the compromise either. At the very least, his family member would still remain alive in this world.
Fu Xi Yan asked, “When did you realize he had not actually settled down?”
Shi Yi Ming said, “Before the new-city incident, both he and Qi Yun appeared inside Southern Yu’s imperial palace.”
Fu Xi Yan’s first reaction was that merely appearing inside the Southern Yu imperial palace did not prove Mo Xiao Ran participated in the new-city scheme. But he quickly realized that they were not holding a court trial. They did not require airtight evidence. Mo Xiao Ran’s appearance inside Southern Yu’s imperial palace was enough to reveal his position.
And during Northern Zhou’s internal unrest, he and Song Qi Yun had also happened to appear in Haojing at the exact same time…
From Fu Xi Yan’s perspective, he could not understand what transactions or cooperation they had reached with the two emperors, nor what circumstances they had manipulated from behind the scenes. But based solely on their identities as the head of the Puppet Path and the leader of Ghostshadow, believing the two of them had gathered together to do something decent would require a miracle!
Fu Xi Yan asked, “Then what do you intend to do?”
Shi Yi Ming sighed. “After dragging things out for so many years, there must eventually be an ending.”
＊
Mount Huaying.
To someone unaware of its significance, this martial-arts holy land, famous alongside Mount Fujun, looked no different from an ordinary mountain. It possessed the same layered peaks and lush forests. The hottest part of the year had already passed, and cool early-autumn wind drifted through the mountains. Bright zinnias lining the road swayed gently, silently singing the final notes of their flowering season.
Unlike Mount Fujun, which was covered in Immortal Treasury Palace sentry posts, Mount Huaying remained completely open. Nearby villagers could climb the mountain whenever they wished to gather firewood or pick fruit. That had been one of Shi Yi Ming’s original rules. He lived on the mountain, nothing more. He would not bar visitors merely because someone came with hostile intentions, nor would he descend to welcome anyone simply because they possessed noble status. Mo Xiao Ran had never changed this after taking control either. Mount Huaying remained simply a mountain. Come if you wished. Leave if you wished.
This was the greatest difference between the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror and the Immortal Treasury Palace. Fu Xi Yan knew little about the former and therefore blamed Shi Yi Ming for failing as a teacher. Those who truly understood the man, however, found nothing surprising about his behavior.
The Immortal Treasury Palace actively upheld justice. When the Puppet Path harmed innocents, the Palace rallied the righteous martial world to suppress it. When the Spirit Sect slaughtered common people, the entire Palace mobilized to stop the tragedy.
The Heaven-and-Earth Mirror was different.
Shi Yi Ming functioned more as an arbiter of the martial world. When people of the jianghu encountered disputes they could not resolve, they climbed Mount Huaying and asked Shi Yi Ming to judge fairly. Those who suffered injustice could likewise seek help from Mount Huaying.
Strictly speaking, the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror had only four and a half genuine members: Shi Yi Ming, Shi Luo Ying, Song Qi Yun, Tang Gong, and half of Mo Xiao Ran. Shi Yi Ming had never acknowledged Mo Xiao Ran, but the jianghu generally counted him anyway. Everyone else was effectively a guest retainer who supplied their own expenses, accepted missions issued by the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror, and exchanged that service for martial-arts guidance from the Mirror Master.
Shi Yi Ming had lived in seclusion on Mount Ba for years. After Mo Xiao Ran assumed control of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror, he expanded those exchanges to include all kinds of spiritual treasures, spiritual artifacts, and martial techniques. This retained many old guest retainers and attracted plenty of new ones, so Mount Huaying never truly declined.
The mountain remained the same. The bustle remained the same. Yet this was no longer the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror it once had been.
Pei Yuan Jin left everyone accompanying him at the foot of the mountain and climbed the peak alone.
He did not use qinggong. Instead, he followed the mountain path commonly used by villagers and walked upward one step at a time. Yet the farther he traveled, the more martial artists appeared. Some descended from above, others emerged from the forest. Upon seeing him, each offered a slight bow, then silently fell into step behind him.
Pei Yuan Jin’s face might not be universally known, but nobody in the jianghu failed to recognize the Crimson Dragon King in his hair.
By the time he reached the Heavenly Lake, twenty or thirty people densely followed behind him. They lacked the disciplined organization of Immortal Treasury Palace members, but remained quiet and watched from a distance as he approached an isolated wooden cottage.
Two buildings stood beside the Heavenly Lake.
One was an estate Mo Xiao Ran had constructed more than ten years earlier. It occupied little land, yet its luxury was astonishing. The jade inlaid throughout the building alone represented an amount of money capable of making anyone speechless.
The other was the wooden cottage where Shi Yi Ming had once lived. After he moved to Mount Ba, only Shi Luo Ying continued living there.
A small plaque hung beside the cottage. On it were the words Shi Residence.
Every guest retainer of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror knew that although Mo Xiao Ran and Shi Luo Ying were husband and wife, they had lived separately for more than ten years. Most people had never even seen the two appear in the same place. Calling them “the most familiar strangers” would have been too generous. They were simply strangers who happened to be strangers together.
Pei Yuan Jin knocked on the door. After a moment, a gentle female voice came from inside. “May I ask why Young Master Pei has come?” With so many Heaven-and-Earth Mirror retainers aware that the Immortal Treasury Palace’s Young Master had climbed the mountain, naturally she had already received word.
“To find someone.”
“Who?”
“My spouse.”
Silence filled the cottage for a moment. Then the wooden door opened, revealing a plainly dressed woman who looked somewhere in her forties or fifties yet still maintained the style of dress of a young maiden.
She was short and extraordinarily thin, almost as though a gust of wind could blow her away. Only her eyes were strikingly bright. Whenever she looked directly at someone, that person inexplicably felt as though whatever they were saying must be extraordinarily important.
Pei Yuan Jin bowed. “Miss Shi.”
Shi Luo Ying returned the greeting. “Young Master Pei.”
Shi Yi Ming was actually around twenty years older than Pei Xiong Ji, but the two had always treated one another as peers. Since Pei Yuan Jin and Shi Luo Ying were their children, this form of address was not particularly inappropriate, aside from the fact that it completely ignored Mo Xiao Ran’s existence.
Although this was their first meeting, both spoke casually.
Shi Luo Ying said, “I didn’t know Young Master Pei had already married. I failed to offer congratulations. Please forgive my discourtesy.”
Pei Yuan Jin said, “We haven’t married yet. When we do, I’ll invite Miss Shi to drink the wedding wine.”
“All right.” Shi Luo Ying nodded. “Did your spouse come up the mountain? Do you need my help finding them?”
Pei Yuan Jin glanced at the people standing behind him, then nodded. “Thank you.”
Shi Luo Ying said, “It isn’t convenient for me to keep you here. Come again tomorrow.”
Pei Yuan Jin immediately turned around and descended the mountain without another word.
He never told Shi Luo Ying who his spouse was, and she never asked. His relationship with Fu Xi Yan was hardly a secret, and among the many guest retainers of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror, naturally someone would know.