Arrogance, Part Three

Yet after stroking it a while, Jiang Cheng forced himself to rein in those threads of hostility.

Displeased though he was, as the head of a sect he had broader reckonings to weigh, and could not act on impulse like some boy in Jin Ling's mold. Ever since the decline of the Qinghe Nie Sect, the Lanling Jin Clan and the Gusu Lan Clan, the two remaining among the three great houses, had grown close indeed, for their clan heads kept warm personal ties; he alone held the Yunmeng Jiang Clan apart, standing, one might say, isolated among the three. Hanguang-jun Lan Wangji was a renowned cultivator of the highest repute, and his elder brother, Zewu-jun Lan Xichen, was the head of the Gusu Lan Clan; the two had always been on good terms, and if a rupture could be avoided, far better not to rupture at all.

Then again, Jiang Cheng's sword Sandu and Lan Wangji's sword Bichen had never formally crossed, and who would fall to whom remained unknown. He held this inherited treasure, the ring Zidian, in hand, yet Lan Wangji's qin, Wangji, carried a fearsome name of its own. What Jiang Cheng could least abide was to come off the worse, and without complete certainty of the outcome he would not contemplate raising a hand against Lan Wangji.

Slowly Jiang Cheng drew back the left hand that had been stroking the ring. It seemed Lan Wangji had set his mind on meddling in this affair, and to go on playing the villain would do Jiang Cheng no good. He would mark this down for now. Having weighed it, he turned his head, saw Jin Ling still seething with a hand clapped over his mouth, and said, 'Since Hanguang-jun would discipline you, take this one lesson from him. To get to reprimand another house's juniors is no small feat.'

His tone was mocking, though whom he mocked was unclear. Lan Wangji never sparred for the last word, and heard it as if he had not. Jiang Cheng's words still carried barbs, and turned again: 'What are you still standing there for—waiting for the quarry to fling itself onto your blade? If you can't take down whatever's in Mount Dafan today, then don't bother coming to me ever again!'

Jin Ling shot Wei Wuxian a vicious glare, though he dared not glare at Lan Wangji, who had sealed his speech; he sheathed his sword, made his bows to the two elders, and withdrew, bow in hand. Lan Sizhui said, 'Sect Leader Jiang, the Gusu Lan Clan will repay every Immortal-Binding Net that was destroyed, to the full count.'

Jiang Cheng gave a cold laugh. 'No need!' He chose the opposite direction and strolled off down the mountain. Behind him his retainers fell silent and followed, knowing a thorough scolding awaited them on their return, their faces drawn and rueful.

Once their figures had vanished, Lan Jingyi said, 'How can this Sect Leader Jiang be like that!' Only after speaking did he recall the Lan family teaching—never to speak ill of others behind their backs—and, in fright, shot a glance at Hanguang-jun, shut his mouth, and shrank back. Lan Sizhui gave Wei Wuxian a faint smile. 'Young Master Mo, we meet again.'

Wei Wuxian tugged at the corner of his mouth. But it was Lan Wangji who spoke, his command plain and brief, without a trace of ornament: 'Go and work.'

Only then did the several juniors recall what they had come to Mount Dafan to do; they put away other thoughts and waited respectfully for further instruction. After a moment, Lan Wangji added, 'Do your utmost. Do not overreach.'

That voice was low and resonant, the kind that, heard up close, would set the very heart trembling. The juniors answered properly, not daring to linger, and made their way into the depths of the forest. Wei Wuxian thought to himself that Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan were truly two wholly different men—even their single word of counsel to the young ran exactly opposite. He was still thinking this when he saw Lan Wangji give him a nod so slight it was almost imperceptible, and could not help being mildly startled.

From his youth, Lan Wangji had been so insufferably solemn it set one's teeth on edge—grave and inflexible, as though he had never once been lively, with not a grain of grit to be borne in his eye, and he had utterly disapproved of Wei Wuxian's practice of the Ghostly Path. Lan Sizhui had surely already reported to Lan Wangji his suspicious conduct in Mo Village, and yet Lan Wangji still inclined his head to him; it must be thanks for relieving the Lan juniors of their plight. At once, without thinking, Wei Wuxian returned the courtesy, and when he lifted his head again, Lan Wangji's retreating figure had already vanished.

After a pause, he turned and started down the mountain.

Whatever the quarry in Mount Dafan might be, he could not have it. Of all people Wei Wuxian might contend with, he would never contend with Jin Ling.

Of all people, it had been Jin Ling.

Among all the sons and nephews of the Lanling Jin Clan, he had truly never imagined that the one he met would be precisely Jin Ling. Had he known, how could he have jeered that Jin Ling was 'born of a mother but left without one to raise him'? Had anyone else said that to Jin Ling, he would have made the man learn what it meant for trouble to come out of the mouth. Yet the one who said it was, of all people, himself.

Standing still a moment, Wei Wuxian raised a hand and struck himself across the face.

The slap rang out, hard and loud, leaving his right cheek stinging; just then a rustling came from the bushes nearby, and Wei Wuxian glanced over to see a flower-donkey's head poke out, and let his hand drop. This time the donkey came nuzzling up of its own accord. Wei Wuxian tugged at its long ear and said with a bitter smile, 'You wanted to play the hero rescuing the maiden, and left the gallant deed to me.'

The flower-donkey was snorting and grumbling when a wave of cultivators came up to meet them from the far end of the slope. After Lan Wangji had swept the mountain with a single sword stroke and cut down all four hundred-odd Immortal-Binding Nets, those who had been hesitating back in Buddha's Foot Town had surged up the mountain anew. Every one of this crowd counted as Jin Ling's rival; Wei Wuxian mulled a moment whether to beat them back down again, then, on reflection, silently stepped aside to let them pass.

This crowd of mixed-colored disciples from various houses grumbled as they went: 'That little Young Master Jin—the Jin and the Jiang both spoil him so. So young and already this overbearing and tyrannical; if one day he takes over the Lanling Jin Clan, heaven help us all. None of us will be left to live!'

Wei Wuxian slowed his steps.

A soft-hearted woman cultivator sighed, 'How can they not spoil and dote on him? He lost both parents when he was barely so high.'

'Shimei, that's no way to talk. So what if he lost both parents? The world is full of orphans. If every one of them carried on like him, where would we be!'

'And Wei Wuxian—he really could bring himself to do it. Jin Ling's mother was Jiang Cheng's own elder sister, the shijie who raised him with her own hands.'

'Jiang Yanli was wronged too, raising up such an ingrate. And Jin Zixuan fared even worse—all because of some old grudge with Wei Wuxian, he came to that end.'

'How is it Wei Wuxian had a grudge with everyone...'

'No surprise there. Apart from that pack of mad dogs he kept, did you ever hear of him being on good terms with anyone? Enemies everywhere, and the wrath of heaven and men upon him—even with Hanguang-jun it was mutual loathing, fire and water that could not meet.'

'Speaking of which, we owe today to Hanguang-jun...'

After walking a while, the babble of a flowing stream suddenly reached Wei Wuxian's ears.

It was a sound he had not heard on the way up. Only now did Wei Wuxian realize he had taken the wrong path down the mountain and strayed onto another.

Leading the donkey, he came to the edge of the stream. The moon had climbed to the treetops; nothing of branch or leaf overhung the bank, and the water lay broken with frost-white light. In the reflection, Wei Wuxian saw a face shifting unfathomably with the current.

He brought his palm down hard upon the water, scattering that absurd, laughable countenance, then lifted the dripping hand and, with the stream itself, scrubbed away the powder and paint in a few rough strokes.

What the water gave back was a strikingly handsome young man—clean, as though rinsed by moonlight, brow at ease and eyes clear, the corners of his lips faintly curved. Yet when he bowed his head and gazed intently at himself, the water-beads clinging to his lashes fell like tears, dropping without cease.

This was a young and unfamiliar face—not that of Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch who had once overturned heaven and earth and walked through storms of blood and slaughter.

After staring at this face a long while, Wei Wuxian scrubbed it a few more times, rubbed his eyes, and sat down heavily at the stream's edge.

It was not that he could not bear the attacks of others' tongues; after all, when he first made his choice he had understood with perfect clarity what road lay ahead, and had long since warned his own heart—remember that one teaching of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan: to do what one knows cannot be done.

It was only that, having taken himself for a heart of unyielding stone, he was in the end no plant or tree, but a man.

The little flower-donkey seemed to sense his low mood, for it did not, as was its wont, bray impatiently, but stayed quiet a moment, then flicked its tail and wandered off. Wei Wuxian sat at the stream's edge, unresponsive; it looked back, stamped a hoof, and still he paid no heed. The flower-donkey could only return, sulking, and bit at the front of his robe, tugging and pulling.

Go or stay, either would do; but since it had come to biting, Wei Wuxian got up and went with it. The flower-donkey led him beneath a few trees and circled a patch of grass. In the grass lay a qiankun pouch, and overhead hung a torn golden net—surely dropped by some luckless cultivator wrenching himself free. Wei Wuxian picked up the pouch and opened it; inside was a jumble of odds and ends, a gourd of medicinal wine, Paper Talismans, a little demon-revealing mirror, and the like.

Rummaging a while, he pulled out a Paper Talisman at random, and all at once a tongue of flame leapt up from his hand.

What had caught fire was a Yin-Burning Talisman—so named because it takes yin energy for fuel, igniting of itself on meeting yin energy, and the denser the yin energy, the fiercer it burns. That it had flared the moment it was drawn out meant a Yin Spirit lay not far from Wei Wuxian.

At the sight of the flame, Wei Wuxian gathered himself in guard and held it up to test the direction. Turned east, the fire dwindled; turned west, the flame shot up sharply. He took a few steps that way and saw a white, hunched figure appear beneath a tree.

The talisman paper burned out, its embers falling from his fingertips. An old man stood with his back to him, muttering some low, mumbling sound.

Wei Wuxian drew slowly nearer, and the words the old man mumbled grew clear.

'It hurts, it hurts.'

Wei Wuxian asked, 'Where does it hurt?'

The old man answered, 'My head, my head. My head.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Let me see.'

He stepped a few paces to the side, came around to the old man's flank, and saw on his forehead a great, blood-red hole. This was a dead soul, most likely murdered by a blow to the head with some weapon. He wore burial clothes of fine material and workmanship, a sign he had been properly encoffined and laid to rest. This was no living person's stray soul.

And yet, on this Mount Dafan, such a dead soul should by no means have appeared.

Wei Wuxian could not puzzle out the wrongness of it, and felt only that something was amiss; he leapt onto the donkey's back, gave it a slap and a shout, and spurred it off in the direction Jin Ling and the others had taken into the mountain.

A good many cultivators were lingering near the old grave mounds, minding their stakes in hope the prey would come to them. One bold soul held up a Spirit-Attraction Flag, but summoned only a crowd of wailing, lamenting Yin Spirits. Wei Wuxian reined in, swept his gaze around, and called out clearly, 'Pardon me—a word. Where have those young masters of the Jin and the Lan gone?'

Having washed his face, he did indeed find someone willing to answer. One cultivator said, 'They've left here for the Goddess Shrine.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'The Goddess Shrine?'

That rural family, having heard every Immortal-Binding Net had been broken, had crept quietly back up the mountain and were among the night patrol. The middle-aged man, eyeing this fellow's clothes and that snaggle-toothed donkey, took him for the madman who had just rescued them, and rather awkwardly feigned indifference; but the round-faced girl pointed the way for him: 'Over there. It's a stone-grotto shrine on this mountain.'

Wei Wuxian pressed on, 'And which deity is enshrined within?'

The round-faced girl said, 'It's—it's, I think, a natural stone image of a goddess.'

Wei Wuxian nodded. 'My thanks.'

At once, in desperate haste, he raced off toward the Goddess Shrine.

The idle man taking a wife, heaven's thunder splitting the coffin, the bridegroom mauled to death by jackals, father and daughter each losing their souls in turn, the splendid burial robes... like beads, one by one, strung into a single unbroken thread. No wonder the Compass of Evil could point to no direction, and the Spirit-Attraction Flag would work all the less. They had all underestimated the thing within Mount Dafan.

It was not at all the thing they took it to be!