MURONG LIAN GRIMACED. "Do you remember when I punished Gu Mang with a month of confinement?"
"I do, but what does it have to do with this?"
"If someone approached Qingquan Pool while they were weak, they might be possessed by malevolent spirits," Murong Lian said. "Gu Mang was hungry, so he knelt by the pool. He even tried to catch those fish with his bare hands."
"Huh? Murong-dage, how come you know about that?"
"I know everything that happens at Luomei Pavilion." Murong Lian cleared his throat. "Gu Mang trying to catch fish attracted the attention of the sword spirit Li Qingqian, who was suppressed inside the pool. So Li Qingqian temporarily took over his body…"
"Ah," Yue Chenqing said. "Then Li Qingqian triggered the malevolent qi in Gu Mang's heart and made him go on a rampage?"
"No," Murong Lian said. "He wasn't able to, at the time. He was extremely weak and couldn't possess Gu Mang for long. The only sort of vessel he could occupy long-term would be feeble, on the brink of death; Gu Mang was merely hungry." His gaze was sharp. "So Li Qingqian used the limited time he had to do one thing."
"What thing?"
"He severely injured someone."
"Oh, that cook!"
"Exactly," Murong Lian said, his voice chill and eerie. "Li Qingqian took control of Gu Mang, then used that sword array to injure the Liao Kingdom cook wit
hout killing him. In this way, he created a target suitable for long-term possession. Then he waited for the right opportunity to trigger the malevolent qi in Gu Mang's heart, making him go berserk and break the barrier. In the chaos, Li Qingqian used the cook's body to escape."
"If he understands Gu Mang so well and was even able to trigger Gu Mang's malevolent qi, he has to be from the Liao Kingdom!" Yue Chenqing said.
"Li Qingqian wasn't from Liao, but now that he's somehow become a sword spirit, it does sound like he was a Liao cultivator's weapon." Murong Lian considered for a moment, then added, "And it would have been an elite cultivator's weapon."
He lowered his head, using his pipe to poke incautiously at those miniaturized weapons. "Look, can you tell which one is its true form?"
This wasn't difficult; it was more or less a foundational skill taught by the Yue Clan. Yue Chenqing closed his eyes and studied the flow of spiritual energy for a bit. Then his eyes flew open again as he reached out to pick up a very small, shrunken sword. "It's this one!"
"Good." Murong Lian picked up the bean-sized sword, placed it in his palm, and noiselessly recited an incantation. A brilliant light burst from his hand, and the bean-sized blade became a slim, light sword with a taotie (a mythical beast) pattern on its hilt, every inch gleaming with jade-green light. The words Shao: Red Peony were carved on the blade in seal script.
"Eh? This sword obviously has a jade-colored hilt, so why is it named Red Peony?" Yue Chenqing asked, perplexed. "These two words were obviously branded by the sword spirit itself after someone was sacrificed to the blade. Li Qingqian died for the sword, but it's not called Qingqian Sword or the Water-Parting Sword. Why is it called the Hong Shao Sword?"
"Don't worry about why," Murong Lian said. "Destroy the blade first."
"D-d-destroy it?" Yue Chenqing sputtered and shook his head. "No, that's too hard! Breaking weapons imbued with spirits is a high-level Yue Clan technique—I can't do it!"
Murong Lian swore under his breath. "How long would it take you to go back to Yue Manor and find someone who can?"
"There isn't anyone else!" Yue Chenqing said. "That technique is too dangerous, so my dad doesn't pass it on to just anyone, and he isn't even in the capital right now…"
"Then what about your bofu?"(Father's elder brother)
"He doesn't know how!"
"What about your fourth uncle?!"
Yue Chenqing felt wronged. "You know what he's like! He never pays any attention to me. Even if he were in the capital, I wouldn't know where to find him…"
"On and on with all these excuses!" Murong Lian said angrily. "All this whining and we're still stuck with you, however rubbish you are! You're up!"
Only when one requires knowledge in real life does one regret their previous lack of learning. As of now, Li Qingqian had been identified as a sword spirit, but whether he would let them leave alive was still up for debate. Even if they managed to escape, it would be for naught if they couldn't then destroy this Hong Shao Sword.
Yue Chenqing could only grimace. "Okay, then I'll try. But in case I fail, could you…"
"Don't worry. I'll definitely disembowel you if you fail," Murong Lian said darkly.
Yue Chenqing went quiet.
It was just as Yue Chenqing said: destroying an ordinary weapon wasn't difficult—find a strong man who could break boulders over his chest and have him bend it in half, and that would be the end of it. Destroying a weapon imbued with a spirit was far more onerous.
Yue Chenqing bit his fingertip hard enough to draw blood, put Hong Shao on the ground, and began to draw a talisman around it. The talisman was terribly complicated, and he didn't remember it with that much clarity to begin with, which meant he had to fix it again and again. Watching this, Murong Lian grew profoundly impatient.
"Are you done yet?"
"Don't rush me. The more you rush me, the more mistakes I'll make."
"Hurry up! I want to go home and smoke!"
Now that Murong Lian was craving ephemera, his expression became more and more unsightly, the rims of his eyes faintly reddening as a sickly flush suffused his pale face. He lowered his head to look at his pipe only to see another filthy jiangshi bloodstain he hadn't wiped clean. He found himself feeling even more disgusted as he closed his eyes and leaned to the side.
"I'm done, I'm done! I'm done drawing! I've finally got it!" Yue Chenqing cried at last. Hastily sitting with crossed legs, he closed his eyes and formed a seal in front of the blood array.
Murong Lian endured the irritation surging in his chest and glared through narrowed eyes at this youth, who earnestly began to chant the incantation and perform the spell. As Yue Chenqing recited, the array on the ground glowed with gentle white light, as if wisps of immortal qi were enclosing Hong Shao.
"Thy blood fills the furnace, thy bones become the blade."
The glow grew steadily brighter, and Hong Shao emitted a sharp shriek from within the array and shuddered slightly.
"This sword of water's gleam was once a yearning dream."
Li Qingqian obviously felt something strange happening from his end of the cave. He spun around, his face a rictus of fury as he gnashed his teeth. "That rascal from the Yue Clan! Ruining my work!"
He made to fly over and attack, but was stopped by Mo Xi's sword. Li Qingqian grew even more furious. "Move aside or else!"
His Water-Parting Sword maneuvers were so fast they merged into a ghostly blur, but nevertheless, he could not escape. The clanging of metal and the flying of sparks filled the dim cave.
In desperation, Li Qingqian threw his head back and shrieked, a massive cloud of black miasma exploding from his chest. The black qi coalesced into a hissing spiritual talisman in his palm and shot toward Gu Mang.
This was the highest-level Demon-Summoning Talisman of the Liao Kingdom. No more than ten people in all of Liao were versed in its use. The talisman burst in midair to become hundreds of flying arrows wreathed in plumes of demonic qi. They flew hissing in Gu Mang's direction. Just as they were about to pierce the barrier around him, Mo Xi leapt through the air to land in front of Gu Mang. Holding the Shuairan sword straight up in front of him, he twisted the blade, light illuminating his features.
"Lotus Snake Formation, open!" Mo Xi bellowed.
Shuairan's sword form shattered into thousands of motes of red light in his hands, blossoming like lush lotus flowers. Each fragment of the sword landed in the form of a snake with gleaming scales, which launched into the air and tore Li Qingqian's talisman apart.
Yet at that moment, Li Qingqian jumped behind Gu Mang, concentrating the sword qi around him to blast a hole through the protective barrier. Mo Xi whipped around and kicked Li Qingqian square in the chest. Li Qingqian spit out a mouthful of filthy blood, but at the last second, he used what remained of his strength to mercilessly implant the DemonSummoning Talisman within Gu Mang's chest.
Gu Mang's clear blue eyes snapped open. The malevolent qi in his body immediately and explosively increased.
Mo Xi tensed. "Gu Mang…"
"Thy blood fills the furnace, thy bones become the blade. This sword of water's gleam was once a yearning dream…"
On the other side of the cave, Yue Chenqing's incantation was like a curse encircling Li Qingqian.
Panting, Li Qingqian's face paled further, but he staggered to his feet with a hand pressed to his heart. He threw his head back in laughter.
"No matter how you try to suppress him," Li Qingqian panted, "you're no match for the control that the Liao Kingdom's DemonSummoning Talisman exerts!" He swallowed a mouthful of bloody spittle, eyes crimson. "Gu Mang, come!"
Greenish tendons protruded from Gu Mang's wrists. With an explosive boom, he burst free from the bamboo warrior's immortal-binding ropes. In the next breath, a wisp of black qi flew out from his forehead and reduced Yue Chenqing's immobility talisman to ashes.
Gu Mang looked up through those blue, lupine eyes and tore apart the last and thickest loop of immortal-binding rope, which had been wound around his waist. He strode toward Li Qingqian and knelt before him.
"Awaiting orders."
Li Qingqian clenched his jaw and pointed at Mo Xi. "Kill him!"
"Understood."
The Demon-Summoning Talisman demanded a terrifying quantity of spiritual energy from its caster, so in controlling Gu Mang thus far, Li Qingqian had used only ordinary techniques to awaken Gu Mang's demonic qi. The rest would hang on this moment. No matter how high the cost, Li Qingqian had to rely on Gu Mang for this final salvo.
Malevolent qi swirled around Gu Mang's body, the blue of his eyes so bright they glowed nearly white. A colossal blaze in the shape of a wolf's head flared to life behind him.
The bamboo warrior creaked as it readied.
Gu Mang lifted a hand and, without so much as a twitch of his finger, sent the bamboo warrior that had sought to launch a sneak attack flying into the wall of stone.
Those blue eyes reflected Mo Xi's black figure. Pausing, he dully repeated his orders: "Kill you."
He shot forward to attack.
While Mo Xi had his hands full fending off Gu Mang, Li Qingqian seized his chance to leap behind a stone formation. His expression was livid; he looked like he wanted to wring Yue Chenqing's neck into a fountain of blood.
Murong Lian had, of course, noticed this series of events. Even though Li Qingqian's abilities outclassed his own, the sword spirit had expended too much energy and was faltering like an arrow at the end of its flight. Facing him wouldn't be out of the question.
"Hurry up, I'll stall him!" Murong Lian said to Yue Chenqing.
He flitted behind the stalagmite and flung out a Water Demon talisman that transformed instantaneously into its eponymous demons. They rose from the ground one after another to tear into Li Qingqian.
"The sword subsumes thy soul, my bidding lights thy way."
Yue Chenqing had reached the end of his incantation. Black water spilled forth from Hong Shao's blade to pool around the blood array.
On the other side of the rocks, Li Qingqian swept away the charging horde of demons with a flick of his sword and leapt toward Murong Lian. His sword technique had once been terrifyingly powerful—but at this precise moment, a shudder ran through him. Shuairan's tip struck Li Qingqian's wrist, and his blade fell clanging to the ground.
If a sword spirit's true form was destroyed, they were instantly annihilated no matter how strong they had been. Li Qingqian was certainly aware of this crucial fact; the only reason he had eaten the hearts of cultivators to supplement his cultivation and remained in Chonghua all this time had been to find a way to reclaim his true form from Murong Lian. But Murong Lian had been too well-guarded; Li Qingqian had been utterly unable to get close to him. On top of that, no matter how many people he'd eaten or souls he'd absorbed, the seal on the Hong Shao Sword prevented him from merging with the blade and accessing his true powers.
That was why he had used demonic curses to lure Gu Mang out of his prison—he'd wanted to use him to steal back Hong Shao.
But who could've known…
Li Qingqian had prepared for thousands of contingencies, but he'd never anticipated that Xihe-jun would leave a tracker on Gu Mang that would allow him to chase him down so quickly…
Li Qingqian's eyes were scarlet, and his chest heaved as he howled in outrage. "I can't die, and no one can stop me! It's no use!"
He shouted this over and over, but his spirit form could hold on no longer. He fell to his knees, his hands bracing him over the ground.
Fucking hell. Among his three pursuers, why did one of them have to be a descendant of an aristocratic artificer clan? This was truly…truly…
As Li Qingqian thought, wild laughter bubbled up from his throat, the sound indescribably distorted and hateful.
Come to think of it, no matter whether he'd fought for good or for evil, whether he'd persevered along the righteous path or fallen into a den of demons, the heavens had never once treated him with mercy. And what of that saying, "I decide my fate, not the heavens"? For all his desperate struggling, what had he managed to achieve? How laughable! How very laughable!
Li Qingqian watched as, in the distance, Yue Chenqing's work made Hong Shao shake miserably. His heart seized with hatred. His struggle and descent into depravity over the past few years, the blood that had soaked him through… The memories came back against his will, one after another.
Li Qingqian was filled with a sudden dogged refusal to accept this outcome. "Gu Mang!" he shouted. "Come, take the sword!"
Gu Mang was fighting intensely with Mo Xi nearby. As this shout resonated throughout the entire cave, his blue eyes shifted. He turned to rush toward Li Qingqian, but Mo Xi grabbed his shoulder and held him.
Gu Mang looked back at him. "I'm taking the sword," he said coldly. "I don't want you."
What he meant was that his current mission had become taking the sword rather than killing Mo Xi.
Mo Xi still didn't let go, and Gu Mang's eyes narrowed further as his tone grew more clipped. "I don't want you."
Those blue eyes, paired with the way he bit his lip in frustration as he said something so suggestive and willful—I don't want you—
Mo Xi knew that Gu Mang didn't mean anything by it, but a fire blazed to life in his chest nonetheless. He threw up a hand to cover Gu Mang's face, refusing to even look at him. "Is it your choice to want me or not?!"
"Let go."
"You want to take the sword and not me, right?"
"Yes," Gu Mang said.
His firm and ringing words made Mo Xi's rage burn only more fiercely. "Wasn't the order to kill me?" he snapped. "You can't take the sword before you do that!" l
Those blue eyes glazed over. That sounded…about right?
Although a person controlled by the Demon-Summoning Talisman could follow orders well enough, rarely could they think for themselves. This was why the Liao Kingdom cultivators who employed this technique usually expressed their orders very explicitly, precisely marking out the start and end of each command. It was obvious that Li Qingqian had learned the technique in secret, and that he therefore didn't know the proper method by which to control a subject.
Thus, even though Gu Mang was strong, he was confused.
Those lupine eyes swept back and forth over Mo Xi again and again, as if assessing whether what Mo Xi said was true, or weighing whether the person in front of him was worth biting.
Then he made his decision. "All right. I want you first. Then the sword."
"Gege wants you. How could I not want you?" Once, those black eyes had smiled and shone as Gu Mang gazed at Mo Xi in the night, his expression lazy and carefree. Strong arms had pulled Mo Xi close—his shidi and comrade, his lover and young master.
In the forest near the battlefield, Gu Mang had pressed in and kissed Mo Xi—first tenderly, then with blazing passion.
The want you from back then had been answered with a moment of stolen pleasure.
The want you of now was followed not by tenderness, but by the unsheathing of a demonic blade that struck at Mo Xi, fierce and sharp. The legs that had once trembled around Mo Xi's waist were now both vicious and well-aimed, lifting high and kicking hard.
No matter how much malevolent qi Gu Mang absorbed, his core was broken. Though he was exceptionally strong, he was no match for the pureblooded descendant of gods, Mo Xi. And that was to say nothing of how well Mo Xi knew Gu Mang's fighting style—each move, every strike…
When Gu Mang turned to kick, he met only empty air. Mo Xi turned to grab his ankle and glanced at him sidelong before offhandedly catching the flying blade Gu Mang threw. Spiritual energy blazed, and the thin blade in his hand splintered into shards.
"What a coincidence." Mo Xi paused for a second before speaking, his tone like ice. "I want you as well."
Gu Mang had no chance to respond before the world spun before his eyes as Mo Xi threw him to the ground. Mo Xi's strong frame pinned him down in a manner almost brutally dominant, forcing him to the cave floor with his knees at Gu Mang's hips, one hand around his wrists and the other gripping him by the jaw.
In all of Chonghua, none knew the Liao Kingdom better than Mo Xi. Other than Medicine Master Jiang, he was perhaps the only other individual who could lift the Demon-Summoning Curse. He held the violently squirming and resisting Gu Mang still and stared down into those blue eyes that darted around with unease.
"Want you."
Gu Mang's face was flushed in Mo Xi's grip, but he ground out his insistence through gritted teeth.
Yes, this was the order he'd been given, but the way it sounded…
Mo Xi's heart flared with searing heat. He looked at Gu Mang struggling underneath him, staring up at him fiercely, helplessly. Like a spark landing in a pile of firewood, an urge rushed through Mo Xi's mind— an urge to tear Gu Mang to shreds, to hurt him in the most intimate of ways, to make him regret, to make him beg for mercy.
At that moment, Mo Xi found himself with second thoughts about uttering words so coarse and simple as "I want you as well." Had he chosen this phrasing to help Gu Mang more easily understand him—or had the years of hunger piled up in his heart seized this opportunity to spill forth?
This self-doubt frightened Mo Xi. At the same time, Gu Mang's eyes welled up in discomfort beneath him, his blue irises hazy with a sheen of involuntary tears. He panted, lips parting as he tried to speak again.
To stop himself from thinking any more terrifying thoughts, Mo Xi covered Gu Mang's mouth. "Behave," he ground out. "I'm lifting the curse for you."
Gu Mang made furious noises of displeasure beneath him, and even tried to bite Mo Xi's fingers.
"It'll hurt." Mo Xi's hot exhales sank down. He stared into Gu Mang's eyes, their faces so close. "Bear with it."