Ten days passed in the blink of an eye. On the night before the duel, the golden silkworm finally stirred.
“Important people are always busy, Cangyuan. I imagine you’re running yourself ragged right now. I wonder if you still have the leisure to hear this old man’s news.”
Ren Yijue set the golden silkworm on the table and smiled. “No matter how busy I am, I can spare that much time. Well? What did the Living Corpse say?”
“He’s waiting,” Elder Silkworm replied gravely.
Ren Yijue frowned. “Waiting? For what?”
“For Venerable Cloud-Chi to die.”
Ren Yijue’s face tightened abruptly. “What death? Who said he was going to die? When did the Living Corpse develop a feud with Lord Pu?”
The golden silkworm flickered. From the other end, Elder Silkworm replied, “He hasn’t. It’s that rumors have suddenly spread through Liuyanzhu about Venerable Cloud-Chi’s duel for vengeance. Apparently someone went to ask him about it deliberately. The Living Corpse simply wants to see how capable you two really are. As for the rest… if you want to know the whole story, you’ll have to strike a bargain with this old man.”
The implication was…
Ren Yijue’s eyes moved, and he smiled faintly. “Elder Silkworm, you’ve kept countless stories and secrets tucked away in your bag, and you’ve never cared to share them with anyone. Yet now you’re in such a hurry to force a bargain on me. It seems someone has made you uneasy.”
“Hmph. That’s why I hate doing business with you,” Elder Silkworm said. “Other people say that even if friendship comes to nothing, the deal can still go through, but you use friendship to wring every last advantage out of me. Still, you’re right. However large the order, an old man has to be able to stomach it. Now that the turmoil keeps growing, these old bones aren’t made of iron. I fear I’m not blessed enough to enjoy the profits.”
Ren Yijue hesitated, then asked seriously, “Then tell me plainly. What do you want?”
“This old man knows you’re resourceful, well-traveled, and well-connected. I want you to find me somewhere to retire, preferably a place away from all these disputes.”
Ren Yijue was astonished. “Is it that serious?”
“Serious? It isn’t serious at all! If this old man hadn’t been experienced and quick with words, there might no longer be any Elder Silkworm in the world. But I only wish to retire. How could you call that serious? If you agree, I can give you some information right now.”
Ren Yijue considered for a moment, thinking of several places where his master had lived. He replied slowly, “Very well, Elder Silkworm. I’m in Jingyuan now. Come find me at once… no. Where are you? I’ll come to you. I’ll give you a token so you can leave, and you can tell me everything you know. Let’s be clear: everything.”
“No problem. Since you’re so straightforward, I’ll let you have a little taste first. Listen carefully. Recently, someone calling himself White-Jade Skeleton—”
Before he could finish, a scream came from the other end. The golden silkworm went dark.
Ren Yijue’s expression changed drastically. He rushed outside and was about to knock on Qian Xuelang’s door, an alarmed cry already rising in his throat, when he forced it back down.
Since that day, Ren Yijue had not spoken to Qian Xuelang for several days. How swiftly the ten days had passed. On one side stood the Jade Beauty, on the other his dearest friend. However hard he tried, he could not change the outcome. Those two faced it with perfect composure, leaving only him heartbroken and at a loss.
Ren Yijue paced outside the door. I complained so bitterly to the Jade Beauty that day. If I go to him now asking for help, how would that look? Besides, he’s dueling Lord Pu tomorrow. Even if I hate the thought of that fight, I shouldn’t distract him at such a crucial moment. Never mind. I’ll go by myself.
Given the difference in strength between Qian Xuelang and Jing Pu, what harm could there be in asking him for help? But whether one chose to care or not was a matter of the heart, not the practical problem.
Ren Yijue drew back and hurried away alone.
As Ren Yijue disappeared, the door opened. Qian Xuelang sat inside, glanced at the empty doorway, then turned his gaze to the sword case. “His temper is even worse than yours.”
The Demon-Slaying Sword gave no answer.
Qian Xuelang took up the sword case and slowly walked out. “Or perhaps it isn’t temper at all, nor some pointless pride. He simply doesn’t want to disturb me. He once said he pitied me. That day at the city lord’s residence, I didn’t entirely understand. He lamented that my heart was as hard as stone. Even now I understand only a little, but I know he cares deeply about me.”
“He cares just as deeply about that little snake.”
Qian Xuelang entered the spring and continued at an unhurried pace. “The little snake is reasonable, but he came in full of hostility. Ren Yijue must have spent a great deal of effort calming him down. And yet in the end we still agreed to fight. Naturally Ren Yijue was heartbroken and miserable; that is why he said those things to me. But why did he say I pitied the Golden Buddha Maiden?”
Jingyuan came into view. Qian Xuelang stepped out of the water and watched ripples spread across its surface, like ripples through his own heart.
After all, this was an old blood feud from sixty years ago. If the Qian Xuelang of sixty years ago and the Qian Xuelang of sixty years later had not changed in the slightest, that would mean his state of mind and beliefs had never changed either.
If he had wanted to remain the Qian Xuelang of sixty years before, he would never have descended the mountain with Ren Yijue.
Indeed, over these past days he himself had often thought about the words he had spoken almost without knowing why.
“She bent before me and begged, then fired ten poisoned nails, hoping to wound me gravely while I was distracted so I wouldn’t harm the little snake.”
Qian Xuelang did not know when his thinking had changed. Had Jing Pu never appeared, he would never have given that thoroughly wicked couple another thought. Yet when describing the Golden Buddha Maiden’s final volley of poisoned nails, this understanding had come to him as naturally as breathing.
When had he grasped it? When had his thinking shifted? Why had he suddenly understood the true reason she attacked?
Not even Qian Xuelang himself knew.
“Ren Yijue called that pity. Is it?” Suddenly, understanding dawned on Qian Xuelang. “I see. This is what Ren Yijue meant. She fired the nails to hurt me, but I understood that she did it because she wanted with all her heart to protect her child.”
“Of course what she did was terribly wrong. But now I understand why she did it. I understand… and so Ren Yijue was… was so upset.”
Qian Xuelang shuddered. All at once he understood the reason for the heartbroken look in Ren Yijue’s eyes, and why Ren Yijue had said those things.
“I… I saw the Golden Buddha Maiden, but I didn’t see the little snake.”
Qian Xuelang stepped backward, splashing through the water. For a moment his thoughts reeled. “I saw the Golden Buddha Maiden’s love for her child, but I never saw the little snake’s love for his mother. His question that day wasn’t pointless. He wasn’t asking about the Golden Buddha Maiden, or about the two snakes as a couple. He was asking about his mother, his dying mother.”
“The Golden Buddha Maiden was already close to death. The husband and wife had both died at my hands. Their wrongdoing had ended. If, as she lay dying, the Golden Buddha Maiden had truly bowed and pleaded…”
Qian Xuelang’s face suddenly went pale. The world seemed to spin, and Wei Wenfeng’s grief-stricken face rose before his eyes again.
“Master… Master hurt Wei Wenfeng so deeply. When hatred arose in his heart, I told Wei Wenfeng back then, ‘But Master is already dead.’”
“I do understand… I understand. Haven’t I lived through this already? I, too, wanted to ask Wei Wenfeng for a little mercy,” Qian Xuelang murmured. “What that little snake wanted to ask was the same thing I asked back then. Was that debt of wrongdoing already settled?”
“I said the Golden Buddha Maiden didn’t deserve it. The Golden Buddha Maiden had committed murderous crimes, and even in death all that happened was that she was stopped, not that her debts were wiped away. The Golden Buddha Maiden was guilty, and death could scarcely repay what she’d done. Of course the little snake understood that. But without his mother, where would his own life have come from? It was I… I who pushed him toward bearing that guilt.”
Wei Wenfeng chose to keep Master with him and never see me again. The little snake has chosen to shoulder the crimes and duel me tomorrow.
They had both made their choices.
“Ren Yijue thought I felt pity for the Golden Buddha Maiden. That gave him hope. He… he hoped I might see the little snake too.”
“But I didn’t see him. At last he understood, and that’s why… that’s why he looked at me… that way.”
At this point, Qian Xuelang grew strangely calm. Unlike the burning, unbearable ache in his chest during previous moments of Dao understanding, he felt none of that now. Instead he spoke with the composure of someone describing an ordinary, self-evident fact.
“I see. This is what Ren Yijue wanted me to understand. To ask without feeling and to know without being moved are useless. He was right. Precisely because he is a man of so many feelings, he lost his usual composure. He wanted me to understand, wanted me to be moved.”
As his heart grew still, Qian Xuelang’s voice grew gentler. He stepped out of the water, now perfectly undisturbed, and saw his reflection in the mirror-like walls of Jingyuan.
So Ren Yijue’s anger was born for my sake, and his tenderness arose because of me.
What sort of feeling is that?
For the moment, Qian Xuelang no longer wished to chase after Ren Yijue. He studied his reflection on Jingyuan’s walls, bent down, and scooped up a handful of water. Naturally, the water soon slipped away, leaving only the damp sensation on his palm.
After a little while his hand would dry, as though the water had never run across it.
Qian Xuelang’s cultivation was so advanced that he could pass in and out of the spring without getting wet. Water could touch his body only if he chose to touch it.
If he wished to feel more of the water, he had to relax and immerse his hand completely.
And so Qian Xuelang did.
The water was cool and soft. It could wash away filth, yet soaking in it too long might harm the body. In this way, it was rather like love.
What sort of feeling was this, after all?
Qian Xuelang’s hand now touched the water without the slightest barrier, but his heart still seemed to be veiled in gauze. He lowered his head slightly and stood in the quiet of Jingyuan like a statue submerged in water.
His heart was stirring, more powerfully and audibly with every moment, as though it might lift that veil at any instant.
Qian Xuelang kept thinking of Ren Yijue: of the anger in Ren Yijue’s eyes that day, of Ren Yijue’s heartbroken determination, and of the desolation on Ren Yijue’s face.
For no reason he could explain, Qian Xuelang suddenly tasted a trace of sweetness in his mouth. It arose from nowhere, not the returning sweetness of tea but a real, unmistakable sweetness.
In that instant, he suddenly understood.
With Ren Yijue’s intelligence, once he realized Qian Xuelang felt no pity, he ought to have let all his warmth grow cold. Yet he had allowed his feelings to swell unchecked and still poured himself into them completely, hoping only that Qian Xuelang would open his eyes, lower his gaze for a moment, and listen to his heart.
The endless current of water was surging after Qian Xuelang.
He withdrew his hand from the water, and heard the sound of gauze falling away.