(1) Strife Within the Household

The small hillside, having just weathered a brutal purge, lay unnervingly silent, a killing chill hanging thick in the air over every inch of it. He Yan glared with open displeasure at Chu Mingxi, dressed in men's clothing and wearing not a trace of powder or rouge, and said with undisguised scorn, "I'd imagined you'd be some woman of ruinous, world-toppling beauty, the kind who could steal a man's very soul the way you've stolen my eldest martial brother's. Now that I see you, though—handsome enough, I suppose, but far too plain, nothing that could ever be called world-toppling at all. I can't for the life of me understand why my eldest martial brother's whole heart belongs to you, why he'd be willing to endure the agony of ten thousand ants gnawing at his heart every time the love-gu struck, all for some woman a thousand miles away, and never once bow his head to it. Where exactly am I lacking, compared to you?"

"That your whole heart, your every thought, has been consumed by A-Yuan all this time is bitterly ironic, coming from you—to love someone and yet be willing to torment him so mercilessly, what kind of love is that supposed to be?" Hearing He Yan's declaration, Chu Mingxi felt her own heart shatter. Her A-Yuan had endured the agony of ten thousand ants gnawing at his heart for nearly fourteen years, until he could bear it no longer, until his very life had burned down to nothing but ash and ember—what manner of hellish torment must that have been? To resort to such vicious cruelty simply because love had gone unrequited—He Yan was nothing short of utterly deranged.

"Of course you don't understand why A-Yuan chose Xi'er. Xi'er understands what's in A-Yuan's heart, and gives everything she has to help him realize it; while you—you care only for yourself, with not the slightest regard for the grand vision A-Yuan carries in his heart for Tianyin Pavilion, for the common people of this world, for his boundless compassion. A person so selfish as you—how could A-Yuan ever love someone like that?" Yue Heng, standing beside her, glared coldly at He Yan, his face full of contempt.

"That's exactly what I've been saying..." He Yan turned her gaze toward Yue Heng, then toward Xiaoba. The two of them, leading a band of Tianyin Pavilion's people, had ruthlessly crushed her and Jiang Ri's forces—some slain outright, others forced to surrender. And Zhou Mengda, unskilled in martial arts, had been kept back at a teahouse at the foot of the hill, waiting on standby, so as not to be endangered by the fighting between the two sides.

"My eldest martial brother handed over every single person close to him to you—he really did play favorites, didn't he? We searched my eldest martial brother's entire body and still couldn't find the golden owl token. Judging by how things look today, my eldest martial brother must have given even that to you as well..." He Yan's face twisted into a mocking sneer. "Just look at this Yue fellow, so worked up over this—could it be the two of you have been carrying on behind my eldest martial brother's back all this while? And here he's been, stubbornly guarding his own fidelity to you like a fool..."

"Watch your filthy mouth..." Before He Yan could even finish her sentence, Yue Heng had already surged forward and struck her twice across the face, the sharp cracks ringing out clearly, leaving five bright red finger-marks blazing across both her cheeks at once. She spat out a mouthful of blood, unable even to keep her footing, while Chu Mingxi grabbed hold of Yue Heng's arm, shaking her head gently to stop him from striking again.

It took He Yan a great deal of effort to steady herself once more. Pressing a hand to her swollen, reddened cheeks, she gave a cold laugh. "Go ahead and kill me if you dare—once I'm dead, you could turn this entire mountain upside down and you'd still never find my eldest martial brother..."

"Hand A-Yuan over this instant! If you refuse, we'll never see him anyway—we might as well just kill you now and send you down to keep Jiang Ri company." Yue Heng's face twisted with murderous fury as he shouted at He Yan.

"If you want to see my eldest martial brother, you'll need to show a bit more sincerity than that." He Yan untied a small cloth pouch from her waist and drew out a red pill from within, pointing it at Chu Mingxi. "This is a special poison I went to great lengths to obtain from a shaman in Nanzhao. If you want to see my eldest martial brother, you'll have to swallow it. I know Second Martial Brother is a skilled physician, but even the finest cook can't conjure a meal without rice—this poison is laced with all manner of toxins our own land here in the Central Plains knows nothing of, and there's only this single pill. Once you swallow it, no matter how skilled he is, without knowing exactly what poisons have gone into it, brewing an antidote would be next to impossible—and besides, he isn't even here. This poison has no antidote to begin with. I spent years searching all across Nanzhao just to find this one perfect thing, all for this very day. Swallow the poison, and I'll take you to see my eldest martial brother—you'll even have time enough to reminisce together over old times."

"Mother, you absolutely mustn't..."

Standing beside Xiaoba, his face concealed behind a mask, the thirteen-year-old Tian Xu had been silent for a long while, but hearing He Yan's proposal, he rushed forward in alarm, seizing Chu Mingxi's hand and urgently pleading with her not to do it. Yue Heng and Zhou Mengda, along with Xiaoba, all voiced their objections in quick succession as well.

"Mother?" Hearing Tian Xu address Chu Mingxi as "Mother," He Yan stared at him in shock. Though Tian Xu was considerably taller than most children his age, his still-cracking voice betrayed his true age clearly enough. Because his face had been covered, He Yan had felt a flicker of suspicion earlier—who was this boy?—but since his features, so strikingly similar to Cheng Siyuan's own, had never been revealed, she hadn't given him much thought at all. Now, though, that single word, "Mother," left her utterly stunned, her eyes going wide with disbelief.

"Whose bastard child is he, yours and some other man's?"

The instant these words left He Yan's mouth, Yue Heng and Xiaoba each drove a fist hard into her chest and stomach, their strikes so swift she had no chance to react at all. He Yan was sent flying backward, crashing down some distance away, coughing up mouthful after mouthful of blood, and before she could even catch her breath through the pain, Tian Xu delivered a kick to her body as well. Chu Mingxi had originally had Tian Xu wear the mask purely for his own safety, to keep secret the fact that Cheng Siyuan had a son at all—but now, in the urgency of the moment, the word "Mother" had already slipped from his lips, and there was no longer any point in keeping his face hidden, so Tian Xu removed the cloth covering his face. That familiar visage filled He Yan's vision, and Tian Xu's true identity was instantly, undeniably clear.

"Do you see clearly now, whose son I am? How dare that filthy mouth of yours slander my mother?"

Between the searing pain wracking her body and the crushing despair of seeing Tian Xu's face so plainly now, He Yan broke into a fit of wild, half-weeping, half-laughing hysteria. "So this is how thoroughly I've lost, is it? My eldest martial brother even has a son already. To protect the two of you, mother and child, he was willing to sacrifice himself to this very extreme—and yet he never once so much as looked my way..."

Unable to contain himself any longer, Xiaoba snapped furiously, "The Master never once had any feelings for you at all—you simply deluded yourself into imagining otherwise. What is there to 'lose' when there was never any contest to begin with?"

He Yan flew into a wild, trembling rage, clutching the pill tightly in her shaking hand as she shrieked at Chu Mingxi, "Then you deserve to die too—go and die alongside my eldest martial brother! At least that way the two of you can be reunited as husband and wife. Well? Are you going to eat it or not? If you refuse, I'll crush it right here, and you'll never have the chance to collect my eldest martial brother's body at all..."

"Do you truly expect me to believe A-Yuan is in your hands simply because you say so?" Chu Mingxi was, by nature, a cautious woman. Though it had indeed been Jiang Ri and He Yan who had led the surprise attack on Cheng Siyuan more than thirteen years earlier, nothing in this world was ever absolute, and after so much time had passed, who could say what might have changed since then?

Hearing this, He Yan tucked the pill back into her small cloth pouch, then untied another pouch from her waist, drawing out a jade pendant from within, and sneered coldly, "This is something my eldest martial brother always carried on his person—take a good look, do you recognize it?"

The instant Chu Mingxi's eyes fell upon the jade pendant in He Yan's hand, a thousand emotions churned within her at once, grief and joy tangled inseparably together. That pendant was the very one she had fastened at A-Yuan's waist with her own hands on the day they were married. There might be other things she couldn't recognize, but that jade pendant—even reduced to ash, she would know it anywhere. And this meant that what He Yan claimed wasn't false after all—A-Yuan truly was in her hands.

As the Wooden Owl Token-holder of Tianyin Pavilion, overseeing intelligence throughout the southwestern reaches of the Tang empire, He Yan's frequent dealings with Nanzhao, given their geographical proximity, came as no surprise at all. Nanzhao's warm, humid climate bred an abundance of poisons and medicinal herbs, and the shamanic traditions flourished there, worlds apart from the medical practices of the Central Plains. He Yan had gone to extraordinary lengths in her scheming—determined to keep Zhou Mengda from spoiling her plans, she had taken the immense trouble to seek out this poison all the way from distant Nanzhao, while luring Chu Mingxi into her trap near Hongzhou, in the southeastern territory under Jiang Ri's jurisdiction, a location worlds away from Nanzhao, ensuring Zhou Mengda would have no way of reaching Nanzhao in time to find an antidote. In truth, she cared not in the slightest who won or lost in today's battle—her sole target, from the very beginning, had only ever been Chu Mingxi herself.

Though she had never even properly met Chu Mingxi, hadn't so much as laid eyes on her before this day, she could still hate her with such consuming ferocity—a woman's jealousy truly was like a wildfire sweeping across open plains, capable of reducing everything in its path to ash, leaving not a single blade of grass standing. The very reason Yueyue Manor employed no young female servants at all traced back to this: Chu Mingxi, having witnessed firsthand the destructive obsession that jealousy born of love could unleash in He Yan, remained forever wary of it, unwilling to let such a tragedy of rivalry and favor-seeking ever repeat itself around Tian Xu. After all, Tian Xu was the young heir of Yueyue Manor, and she feared that some young woman might scheme her way into his bed, hoping to secure status and favor through such means—and so, well in advance, she took every precaution to eliminate that possibility entirely.

"I'll eat it."

Faced with this, Chu Mingxi seemed to have no other choice left if she wished to see Cheng Siyuan, and so she agreed at once, decisively—though this immediately drew a chorus of objections from everyone around her. But Chu Mingxi had come this far solely for Cheng Siyuan's sake—how could she possibly turn back now, empty-handed?

Hearing this, He Yan's spirits soared at once—the plan she had spent so long scheming was finally about to come to fruition.

"Now that's more like it—my eldest martial brother has waited such a long time for this day..." He Yan, entirely unbothered by the pain still wracking her body from the blows dealt by Yue Heng and the others just moments before, said with open delight, "Follow me." She shot a glance at the other three, their faces twisted with fury yet utterly powerless to stop her, savoring the moment with obvious satisfaction. Chu Mingxi, without another word, set off at once, and Tian Xu, Yue Heng, and Xiaoba had no choice but to follow close behind, leaving Yueying and the rest of Tianyin Pavilion's people behind to stand by and await orders.

He Yan led them to a cave mouth not far behind where they stood, and came to a halt. She untied the pouch holding the poison once more, drawing it out and handing it to Chu Mingxi. "To see my eldest martial brother, you'll need me to guide you through this winding, treacherous cave—without me, even knowing full well that my eldest martial brother lies just beyond it, you'd never manage to make your way through. Let me say this plainly, right from the start: swallowing this is your only option—don't even think of trying to kill me instead. But don't worry, this poison won't act too violently, and it won't kill you outright right away—an hour or so should be enough time for the two of you to catch up on old times, don't you think?"

"Mother, you mustn't..." Seeing this, Tian Xu rushed forward and seized Chu Mingxi's hand, shaking his head as he pleaded, "You can't... you absolutely cannot..."

Chu Mingxi looked at her son, her tone unwavering and resolute. "Xu'er, you've grown so much now—surely you deserve to see your father in person at least once, rather than only ever knowing him through a portrait, or through what others have told you of him. If he can't hold on much longer, then as his son, it falls to you to see him through to his final journey, and to bring his remains home to the manor to be laid to rest..."

"But Xu'er cannot go on without Mother either..." Tian Xu wept, and Chu Mingxi's own eyes brimmed with tears as well.

"Enough of this weeping and wailing. Are you going to eat it or not? If not, I'm leaving—whether your eldest martial brother dies alone in some foreign land is none of my concern."

Yue Heng, unable to contain his fury any longer, was just about to strike her again, when, in that very instant of distraction, Chu Mingxi took the poison and swallowed it whole. The taste was so strange and bitter that she winced even as she forced herself to chew it down, and the sight drew a chorus of startled cries from everyone around her...

"What courage!" Seeing that Chu Mingxi had truly swallowed the poison, He Yan tossed her a sheepskin pouch with delight. "There's water in there—it'll go down easier with a bit of water. See how thoughtful I've been?"

"Xi'er... you... you..." Chu Mingxi took the pouch and drank a few mouthfuls. Yue Heng's face had gone completely pale; he cursed himself bitterly for having let his attention slip even for that one instant, giving Chu Mingxi the chance to swallow the poison at all.

"There's no need to say anything more..." Chu Mingxi gave Yue Heng a reassuring touch, then turned urgently to He Yan. "I've done exactly as you asked—shall we go now?"

And so He Yan lit the torch mounted before the cave entrance and started inside. Before Yue Heng, Tian Xu, and Xiaoba even had a chance to ask after Chu Mingxi's condition, they saw her following after He Yan, and so, hearts pounding with dread, they had no choice but to follow close behind.