The Jiufang disciples were quick and efficient. Soon they had a fire burning and were warming their travel rations. They came to invite Ren Yijue to join them.
Ren Yijue was about to climb down when he thought of something and turned toward Qian Xuelang. “Would the Jade Beauty like to come too?”
At present, one of them was playing the stern face and the other the kindly face. This was the perfect chance to gather information. If Qian Xuelang joined them, Ren Yijue feared the boys would say nothing useful. Yet he wanted to ask all the same.
The young disciple who had come to fetch him stiffened, his lips moving slightly. Whether because of his upbringing or the earlier intimidation, he did not dare speak.
“I don’t like crowds. Go by yourself,” Qian Xuelang replied with his usual coolness. “Besides, I can hear everything from here.”
Ren Yijue had no choice but to go down alone. The disciple gave an involuntary smile, clearly delighted that Qian Xuelang would not be coming. Before long he brought Ren Yijue back to the fire.
The disciples shared some of their rations with Ren Yijue, who accepted without hesitation. Then the boy who had spoken rudely in the restaurant suddenly asked, “By the way, Senior Ren, how did you come to know that… that sort of person?”
He gestured toward Qian Xuelang in the tree, still looking indignant.
The eldest senior brother, named Jiufang Shixuan, said coolly, “Ziming, no talking while eating.”
Jiufang Ziming appeared to have been waiting for exactly that. He spread both hands for inspection. “Eldest Senior Brother, Brother Xuan, look. I’ve already finished eating.”
“Even so, you mustn’t behave improperly,” Jiufang Shixuan replied, unmoved.
Ren Yijue smiled. “Never mind. Young friend Ziming is innocent and lively. I rather like him. Since he is curious, I ought to answer. But first I have a question I’d like young friend Ziming to answer for me.”
Jiufang Ziming immediately grew excited. “Please ask, Senior. I’ll tell you everything I know!”
“I’m accompanying my friend on this journey, and I’ve only heard a little of Lady Jieyou. Lord Dingtao was entirely unknown to me. My friend may be proud by nature and rarely form attachments, but he is frank, upright, and noble, certainly no wicked person. I believe anyone he chooses to befriend must likewise be extraordinary. Why, then, do you all become so angry whenever Lady Jieyou is mentioned?”
“Well…” Jiufang Ziming instinctively glanced toward Jiufang Shixuan and hesitated. “Eldest Senior Brother?”
Jiufang Shixuan sighed. “Very well. Tell him. But gossiping about others behind their backs is not gentlemanly. Do not exaggerate or embellish.”
“No problem!”
Jiufang Ziming clapped his hands with a crack so loud that the disciple beside him jumped and nearly dropped his flatbread. The other boy glared at him.
“Since Senior Ren knows nothing about it, I’ll begin at the beginning.” Jiufang Ziming hugged his knees. A look of admiration crept across his face. “More than a hundred years ago, our Jiufang clan produced a prodigy. He was exceptionally intelligent from childhood. By twenty, he’d mastered the clan’s cultivation methods, and by forty, he’d developed a new art to supplement the Jiufang blood techniques. Senior Ren must know our methods depend on the purity of the bloodline. The purer it is, the faster one cultivates.”
Ren Yijue nodded. “I’ve heard a little of that.”
“The methods he revised greatly reduced the blood techniques’ demand for pure ancestry.” Jiufang Ziming rested his arms around his knees, his eyes shining unconsciously with admiration. “The clan elders valued him greatly. Although the clan head had children of his own, he wanted to choose a worthy successor by merit, and named him heir.”
The head of the Jiufang clan was actually that magnanimous?
Ren Yijue raised his eyebrows. “How… unexpected…”
“There’s more to surprise you,” Jiufang Ziming said with a snort. “At a certain age, Jiufang disciples must go out into the world to gain experience. He had no taste for empty fame and often traveled under a false name, leaving no trace of himself. So nobody knew where he had gone or what he’d done. The elders decided that when he returned, they would arrange a marriage for him. They even had a candidate prepared…”
“Ahem.” Jiufang Shixuan coughed in warning.
Jiufang Ziming caught himself and waved irritably. “Never mind that. It’s all in the past and has nothing to do with it. Anyway, by the time he returned, the marriage arrangements were almost settled, pending only his consent.”
Ren Yijue’s eyes shifted. “I imagine Lord Dingtao refused.”
Jiufang Ziming rested his chin on his knees and stared at the flames. “Yes. Lord Dingtao refused. He said he already loved someone and would never marry anyone else in his life.”
Several disciples sighed. Whether they admired his devotion or found him hopelessly stubborn was difficult to say.
“And that someone must have been Lady Jieyou?”
Jiufang Ziming nodded. “Yes. Lady Jieyou.”
Disgust crossed his face again. “She was actually a half-demon, but pretended to be an ordinary person and deceived Lord Dingtao. After they pledged themselves to each other, she slaughtered Taishu Sheng’s entire household and the Five Eccentrics, then sought Lord Dingtao’s protection. Bewitched by that woman, he was willing to stake his life for her. Not only did he ruin his future, he very nearly fell onto the demonic path and turned Daihai into a killing ground on her behalf…”
“Fortunately, the clan head arrived in time to avert that bloodbath. Lord Dingtao was subjected to family punishment and nearly expelled from the Jiufang clan. The elders pleaded for him, so he barely retained his name on the family register. Yet to this day he remains shut away in Tidewatch Pavilion.”
“Lord Dingtao was brilliant, destined to inherit the Jiufang clan. Had he become clan head, our family would surely have flourished in his hands, and the old clan head would not still be struggling to uphold it. He was upright and honorable all his life, except for the one mistake of letting that seductive demoness bewitch him. He brought shame upon the Jiufang clan and ruined half his own life.”
The more Jiufang Ziming spoke, the more indignant he became, feeling both sorrow for the man’s misfortune and anger at his choices. His voice naturally rose, as if he wanted Qian Xuelang to hear every word.
“His devotion itself wasn’t a problem. If she’d been a young lady from a distinguished family, people would have called it a beautiful romance. What a shame he gave his heart to the wrong person and ended up this way.”
A disciple glanced cautiously toward Qian Xuelang, then tugged Jiufang Ziming’s sleeve. “That’s enough. Lower your voice. He might hear.”
Jiufang Ziming pulled his sleeve away stubbornly. “So what if he hears? There’s nothing in what I said that can’t be heard. Even if he dislikes it, I’ll say it.”
At last Jiufang Shixuan intervened to smooth matters over. “In truth, no conclusion has ever been reached about the massacre of the Taishu household. But so many decades have passed that finding the truth now is unlikely. We cannot judge who the real murderer was. The clan’s young disciples all love and admire Lord Dingtao, so they inevitably transfer some of their resentment onto Lady Jieyou. Please don’t take offense, Senior Ren.”
His words were fair enough, but he had made no attempt to stop Jiufang Ziming’s account. Evidently he too harbored some resentment toward Shui Wuchen, though out of consideration for Qian Xuelang he spoke more tactfully.
Ren Yijue smiled. “I understand. But how did those two titles arise?”
“Well…” One disciple plucked a handful of grass and eagerly joined in. “They say that on the day Lord Dingtao rescued the beauty, he descended from the sky before everyone, saved the captive Lady Shui, and declared while holding her: ‘My wife and I are one. If my wife says she killed no one, then she killed no one. If you refuse to listen to reason, then I shall no longer reason with you!’ Then he split the waves of Daihai apart with one palm. Like this!”
He tore the handful of grass into two pieces down the middle.
Jiufang Ziming rolled his eyes. “You talk as if you saw it yourself.”
“Storytellers perform it every year, and there are books about it now!” the disciple protested. “Don’t think I don’t know you’ve secretly bought one!”
Jiufang Ziming went bright red. He glanced at the gently smiling Ren Yijue and felt even more embarrassed. Losing his head, he threw himself at the other boy. “I didn’t buy anything! Stop lying!”
The two tumbled together onto the grass. Jiufang Shixuan’s face immediately darkened. The other disciples, seeing the warning signs, rushed forward to break up the fight. “Hey, hey! Stop it!”
But rather than separating them, the supposedly helpful boys joined the excitement. After days of traveling under Jiufang Shixuan, they had scarcely dared speak out of turn or put a foot wrong. Now at last they had a chance to move their stiff limbs. Their true natures burst free as they enthusiastically “helped” pull the combatants apart.
Ren Yijue dodged sideways to avoid a stray punch and heard someone whisper encouragement: “Quick, Ziming! Try a ‘scoop the moon from the riverbed’!”
Ren Yijue: “…”
As expected of boys from a great clan. Even their choice of words is refined. They call a ‘monkey stealing peaches’ a ‘scoop the moon from the riverbed.’
Jiufang Shixuan: “…”
“You wretches!” Jiufang Shixuan thundered. “Get up and sit down properly, this instant!”
The disciples instantly sat up straight. Jiufang Ziming and the other boy had been nearly smothered by everyone’s enthusiastic efforts. It took some time for their heads to emerge from the pile. One had a bruise across his face; the other had a blackened eye.
The boys could tell from his voice that their eldest senior brother was genuinely furious. Heads drooping, they obediently apologized. “We’re sorry, Eldest Senior Brother.”
Jiufang Shixuan glared coldly at them. Then he suppressed his anger and bowed to Ren Yijue. “My discipline has been inadequate. I’m sorry Senior had to witness such a spectacle.”
Ren Yijue smiled. “What’s wrong with it? They’re young and enjoying themselves. Their lively dispositions make me rather envious. Young friend Shixuan needn’t grow so angry. Boys their age ought to get some exercise.”
The disciples nodded furiously like a chorus of little echoing insects. “Exactly, exactly!”
“How dare you say another word!” Jiufang Shixuan flew into a rage. “Senior is kindly saving you a little dignity, and you’re taking him seriously!”
The boys drooped again.
Jiufang Shixuan’s anger disturbed his injury. Before he could scold them much further, he began to cough.
“Eldest Senior Brother!” the disciples cried. They wanted to rise and support him but dared not move, so their hands hung awkwardly in the air, an absurd sight.
Ren Yijue produced a medicine bottle and handed it to Jiufang Shixuan. “Your injury isn’t serious. I happen to have one pill left in this bottle. Take it.”
Jiufang Shixuan hesitated. “This is…?”
He could tell Ren Yijue’s cultivation far exceeded his own, and he was not truly worried that the medicine was harmful. Rather, he feared accepting a favor too great to repay.
“Poison.” Ren Yijue smiled with teasing ambiguity. “Take it and you’ll drop dead on the spot. Let’s see whether you’ve the courage to swallow it.”
Jiufang Shixuan blushed. “Senior, I… that wasn’t what I meant.”
A disciple suddenly exclaimed, “Eh! Eldest Senior Brother’s blushing!”
Jiufang Shixuan turned away. His face changed from red to black. The other disciples, showing excellent loyalty, all lowered their heads to study the ground and pretended they had seen nothing. But they could not suppress their amusement; little snorts and rustling giggles escaped them.
Ren Yijue intervened in time to spare the boys Jiufang Shixuan’s wrath. “Go on. Take it.”
Only then did Jiufang Shixuan swallow the pill. It took effect almost immediately. He sat cross-legged to meditate while Ren Yijue turned back toward the band of apparently well-mannered little monkeys and smiled. “Now, where were we?”
A disciple captivated by his bearing raised his hand. “We were talking about how Lord Dingtao got his title!”
“Indeed.” Ren Yijue twirled his fan from his sleeve and tapped his shoulder. “I remember now. Who would like to continue?”
Jiufang Ziming snorted and was about to speak, but the movement pulled at his bruised cheekbone and he grimaced in pain. The disciple with his hand up suppressed a laugh. “That’s enough, Ziming. I’ll take over. Everyone was awed by Lord Dingtao’s power. That’s how the title came about. Afterward…”
The boy’s face gradually saddened. “Though Lord Dingtao was never removed from the clan register, his name became taboo within the family. So when we speak of him, we have to use Lord Dingtao instead.”
The Jiufang family placed great weight on blood relations. Jiufang Ce ought to have been an uncle or elder, perhaps even of a grandfather’s generation, to these disciples. Yet they had to address him by a title coined by strangers. No wonder it saddened them.
Ren Yijue pondered. “And what does ‘Lady Jieyou’ mean?”
“Well… Lady Shui is known for her wisdom. Long after the affair, some people gradually began to believe she might be innocent. When they faced difficulties, they sometimes sought her advice.” The boy hesitated. “But the controversy hasn’t subsided, and people don’t dare praise her openly. So they call her Lady Jieyou instead.”
Jieyou meant relieving others of sorrow and solving their troubles. A woman of such wisdom could scarcely earn a good reputation because of an unjust case. Even those who wished to praise her dared only compare her to a flower that understood human speech and offered solace.
Was that pitiable… or simply lamentable?
Ren Yijue sighed inwardly and looked toward Qian Xuelang.
At some point, Qian Xuelang had left the branch and was standing beneath the tree. The night was hazy. Pale violet moonlight fell silently across his veiled hat.
What was he looking at? What thoughts occupied him? Was he mourning Shui Wuchen’s plight, or thinking nothing at all?
Ren Yijue gazed at Qian Xuelang as at a riddle beyond his power to solve, and felt a sudden melancholy.