Two favors did not sound like many. But who was to perform them, how they would be performed, and what exactly would be required could change matters in countless ways.
Qian Xuelang pressed her. “What conditions will you set?”
The woman considered for a moment, repeatedly tapping her fingertips on the sword case. Her long, vivid-red nails struck its dull wood and metal, yet instead of making a racket, they produced a strange rhythm. “I’m in no hurry to discuss conditions. There is something I don’t understand. It may be important or insignificant, but I must clear it up first.”
Qian Xuelang thought, This woman is remarkably accomplished in music. That soothing melody is probably intended to settle my agitation, but I’m not angry at all. She’s wasted her effort. Music enters the heart deeply and changes people swiftly. Solemn music makes a person upright; seductive music leads a person astray. I wonder which kind she excels at, and whether she or Shui Wuchen is the more accomplished musician.
He practiced the zither only to cultivate his heart, without making a deep study of it. The feelings expressed in music were easily understood, but its techniques were difficult to master. However talented he might be, he would inevitably fall somewhat short of a specialist in an art that did not interest him. So he did not compare himself with this woman.
Though Qian Xuelang had thought it all through, he showed nothing on his face. “Go ahead,” was all he said.
Whether he would answer was another matter, depending first on Qian Xuelang’s mood and second on whether the woman’s question deserved an answer.
“This sword case was forged by the great forgemaster Wei Wenfeng.” The woman raised her head and stared at him without blinking. She abruptly descended the steps and spoke with exaggerated sweetness. “And as for the sword you’ve brought, I would say there’s an eighty- or ninety-percent chance that it came from the same forgemaster. Am I right?”
The woman was already frivolous and provocative in her manner. Now her voice was so honeyed it seemed almost to drip sweetness. Seeing her expressive eyes and alluring beauty, Qian Xuelang found it rather novel. He had little experience dealing with such audacious women. Though he recognized the tenderness in her expression, he felt no desire. He merely nodded.
The woman examined him again and again. His expression remained icy; not only was he unmoved, he showed not even the slightest wavering, as calm as undisturbed water. This only increased her interest. She reached out to touch Qian Xuelang’s shoulder.
Qian Xuelang looked at her coldly. His gaze suddenly shifted and settled on her wrist.
By some instinct, the woman sensed that if her hand actually came to rest on his shoulder, her wrist might soon be severed. She stopped it in midair with remarkable sensitivity, then withdrew it without the least embarrassment.
“Yes.”
When he said nothing further, the woman’s eyes moved and she asked, “I hear the great forgemaster was once a defender of the righteous path, devoted to driving out demons. Why would he forge such a wicked sword, one that bewitches people’s minds…?”
Qian Xuelang suddenly interrupted. “It is not a wicked sword.”
The Demon-Slaying Sword lay motionless on Qian Xuelang’s back. Qian Xuelang’s lips moved. He remembered the master who had vanished utterly from Heaven and Earth because of this sword, and Wei Wenfeng, whose mind had been thrown into chaos. Rarely did he betray such discomfort. “It… it isn’t a wicked sword that bewitches people’s minds. It is a sword that possesses feeling.”
No sooner had Qian Xuelang said this than clarity flashed across his mind, like a light appearing suddenly to someone walking in darkness. The thought was fleeting, impossible to hold, yet he felt he had somehow grasped something, though he could not fully comprehend it, much less express it in words.
He knew now that one thing was clear to him, though he did not yet know what that thing was.
So Qian Xuelang spoke again. “In a place of sacred purity, impure qi makes it difficult for ordinary people to survive. Yet what is pure remains pure, and what is impure remains impure. They have never been the same.”
Seeing his solemn, oppressive expression, the woman thought he had truly grown angry. She immediately stopped smiling and pouted ingratiatingly. “Hmph! You righteous sects are all talk. You call it a sword of feeling, but it has killed several people in Liuyanzhu. Can a few words of yours make those lives count for nothing?”
She did not know why Qian Xuelang was angry, but supposed it had to be one of the usual reasons: concern for the righteous sects’ reputation, self-righteous sentimentality, or the belief that any means were justified in the name of suppressing demons and protecting the Dao. She had no interest in the specifics. She merely did not want to provoke Qian Xuelang further.
Intelligent enough to read his expression, she raised the grave matter of life and death to stir Qian Xuelang’s guilt. Even without apologizing, she carefully avoided mentioning wicked or demonic swords again.
“Greed arose in their hearts, but they lacked the strength to claim the sword. Their lives were inevitably put at risk,” Qian Xuelang said coolly.
The woman caught the implication and replied without showing her hand. “You deliberately abandoned the sword in Liuyanzhu, and now you blame the people of Liuyanzhu for being greedy? What lofty arrogance! Couldn’t our people in Liuyanzhu simply have meant well and tried to safeguard a lost possession? Did they deserve to die? For all I know, your righteous sects planted the sword as a pretext to make trouble for Liuyanzhu!”
This was an even more shameless attempt to confound the argument. Whether Liuyanzhu’s inhabitants were goodhearted was one question, but the suggestion that everyone in Liuyanzhu would scrupulously leave lost objects untouched, even guarding other people’s possessions, was rather laughable.
Qian Xuelang had no wish to argue. He understood that the woman feared renewed fighting between Liuyanzhu and the great righteous sects. Only then did the twists and turns of her reasoning make sense. He shook his head. “You needn’t worry. It was truly an accident.”
He explained how the Demon-Slaying Sword had been lost. When he reached Ren Yijue’s part in the story, he hesitated. He did not know whether Ren Yijue would want his identity revealed, so he substituted the name Cangyuan.
The explanation did not differ much from what the woman already knew. She had only feared that the two men had some ulterior purpose. Yet this Jade Beauty seemed born with a face incapable of telling lies. Presumably he was speaking the truth.
So it had been an extraordinary coincidence and an absurd misunderstanding. There was no longer much reason for concern.
The woman set aside her frivolous manner and reclined on a couch. She picked up a small golden incense ball from beside it and toyed with it as she continued studying Qian Xuelang.
Recently, three troublesome figures had arrived in the normally uneventful Liuyanzhu: Qian Xuelang, Wan Yuntao, and the White-Jade Skeleton.
That damned Cangyuan had vanished somewhere. She could only hope he would flee far away and never return to Liuyanzhu to bring her more trouble. The boy was diabolically clever and an endless nuisance. Try to gain two parts of advantage from him and he would make you pay back three. He was impossible to deal with: she could not kill him, and catching him alive was certainly no easy task.
She had originally planned to join forces with the White-Jade Skeleton and first dispose of Qian Xuelang, who had been protecting Cangyuan. But now that Cangyuan had disappeared, the situation had changed. She would need a new approach.
Ideally, she would send Qian Xuelang far away and leave the White-Jade Skeleton to occupy himself.
That would free her to deal with Wan Yuntao, the inexplicable newcomer to the Third Veil. The demon was extraordinarily crafty. Among all the people she had met, perhaps only that boy Cangyuan could barely match his cunning, though Cangyuan was considerably weaker in actual ability.
And yet… Cangyuan’s temperament was much better. This demon was unpredictable and moody. She had no idea what madness had seized him before, when he wandered the Third Veil in a daze, seemingly searching for something, almost as if suffering from a delusion.
The more she thought, the worse her headache grew. She abandoned the thoughts and smiled. “Very well, then. I’ll state my two conditions now.”
“Speak freely.”
The woman looked up, rolling the golden incense ball between her palms. “Since the great forgemaster gave you this sword, you must have some connection with him, if not a debt of gratitude then at least a friendship. I once incurred a little enmity with him. My first condition is that you must not involve yourself in that enmity… Hm… no, not merely in our enmity, but in the entire chain of cause and effect between us.”
Of course she had considered asking Qian Xuelang to fight the great forgemaster for her. But this Jade Beauty was so cold, proud, and hard to approach that he would probably not appreciate her little ‘joke.’ If she brought death down upon herself by pressing the matter, it would be disastrous.
At those words, Qian Xuelang immediately knew who the woman was.
Hua Hanyan, the Desire Demon.
Qian Xuelang hesitated. Not become involved in their cause and effect…
The phrase cause and effect made the condition far weightier. It meant that he could not intervene in anything between Wei Wenfeng and this woman, nor in the grievances of other people drawn into that entanglement.
Hua Hanyan pouted. “If you won’t even agree to the first condition, how can I trust your sincerity? It seems the sword case isn’t important to you after all. Huanqing, go and…”
“Wait. I agree,” Qian Xuelang said. “State the second.”
Hua Hanyan smiled. “That’s more like it. As for the second… let me think. Hm… so nobody can accuse the people of Liuyanzhu of being cold-blooded and heartless, I’ll ask you to perform a duty that your righteous sects ought to consider their own. Five hundred li southwest of Liuyanzhu lies a small settlement called White Stone Village. It has been tainted by demonic qi…”
Qian Xuelang glanced at her. “How do you know that? Are you in league with the Heavenly Demon? Are you one of his demon thralls?”
His gaze made Hua Hanyan’s heart pound. Hiding her alarm, she cried out as though grievously wronged. “You! How could you think such a thing? You’re doing me a terrible injustice. In Liuyanzhu, it’s possible to find out almost anything one wants to know. I only just heard the news and ask you to investigate. Besides, if I really were a demon thrall, and the Heavenly Demon were spreading demonic qi everywhere, I would be scrambling to cover it up for him. Why would I ask you to drive the demons out?”
Qian Xuelang remained unmoved. “Just go there once?”
Hua Hanyan sighed mournfully, a trace of compassion in her expression. “Yes, just one visit. If you can save the people, that would be wonderful. If you cannot, then that is their fate.”
“Give me the sword case,” Qian Xuelang said.
Huanqing glanced at Hua Hanyan. Only after she signaled her permission did he hand over the case.
Qian Xuelang placed the sword inside it and walked straight out through the door.
Only when Qian Xuelang disappeared from the carriage did the two relax. Mister Huanqing moved over to join her on the couch, leaning near Hua Hanyan’s legs, and sighed. “Aren’t you afraid our master will be angry?”
Hua Hanyan lightly caressed his face. Her expression was full of contempt, while her voice regained its soft, alluring lilt. “Hm? Why would our master be angry? Have I done anything, my dear little Huanqing?”
Mister Huanqing breathed in the heavy fragrance rising from her skirts, the deep, cool scent of dragon-borneol. Like a snake, it slithered into his mind.
The overwhelming danger made every part of Huanqing’s body sting.
He shuddered and immediately shook his head. “No. Huanqing spoke out of turn.”