Chapter 10

That night, the Duan shui Mountain Manor was brightly lit all through the night. It wasn’t until the hour of the Mao (5–7 AM) that Sun Minfeng finally pushed the door open and stepped out. Dressed in plain clothes now mottled with bloodstains, he looked utterly wretched.

Ye Fusheng lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the morning light and teased, “Hey now, were you healing the sick or committing murder?”

“Slaughtering pigs,” Sun Minfeng spat, clearly at the end of his rope. He shoved aside the crowd waiting outside. “I’ve done all that needed doing. Now, stop bothering me!”

As he finished, he stumbled right into Chu Ximei like a rag, leaned against his back, snoring almost instantly.

Chu Ximei passed him off to the attendants behind him with an apologetic smile. “Well then, we’ll take our leave.”

Xue Chanyi swiftly settled the remaining matters, delegating tasks and arrangements, before she led Xie Li to the door and cautiously stepped inside.

Ye Fusheng, very self-aware, remained outside. A thick medicinal scent tinged with blood wafted to him through the door. From within, Xie Wuyi’s voice emerged, weak but in high spirits.

No one knew what was said inside, but before long, Xue Chanyi and Xie Li stepped back out. The young boy’s eyes were a bit red, and he kept sniffing now and then.

Ye Fusheng rubbed his own sore eyes, about to take the young master home for some much-needed sleep, when Xue Chanyi called after him

“Ye Fusheng, my master wants to see you.”

Her brow was furrowed, confusion written plainly across her face. She couldn’t imagine what business this wandering rogue, newly arrived, could possibly have with the Master of Duanshui Manor. She blinked meaningfully at him, clearly urging him to confess whatever secret he was hiding.

Unfortunately, the half-blind man decided now was the perfect time to feign obliviousness. With a grin, he breezed past her into the room, leaving the two outside staring in stunned silence.

Inside, the medicinal scent thickened. Only a single candle lit the room, its dim glow quickly easing the strain on his eyes. The bed was empty, but steam curled up from behind the screen.

A low, hoarse voice called out from behind it, “You. Come here.”

Ye Fusheng hesitated a moment, then walked over. Behind the screen, Xie Wuyi sat submerged from the chest down in a huanghuali wooden tub filled with dark medicinal broth. The pungent scent of herbs hung heavy in the air.

His lips were torn at the corners, likely bitten in pain when needles were removed. Traces of blood still lingered.

As soon as Ye Fusheng approached, Xie Wuyi opened his eyes. “Add some hot water.”

Ye Fusheng chuckled, lifting the kettle. “You summoned me just to fetch water? What am I, a servant boy?” He poured in a stream of steaming brown medicinal broth. Xie Wuyi didn’t flinch.

It was only their third meeting, but Ye Fusheng had already realized the Master of Duan shui Manor was nothing like the genteel figure the rumors described. He was sharp and intimidating, the kind to strip pretenses down to bare steel. But now, sitting quietly in the bath, he seemed subdued, like a sheathed blade. It gave Ye Fusheng a strange illusion.

As if through him he were seeing someone else.

His moment of distraction was swiftly punished. A hand shot out from the water like lightning and clamped around his wrist. Xie Wuyi held his pulse, silent for a moment before speaking.

“Your internal energy… it doesn’t come from Duan shui Manor.”

Ye Fusheng feigned innocence. “That’s because I’m not from Duan shui Manor.”

“Ye Fusheng, is that your real name?”

“It is now.”

“I once suspected you were lying,” Xie Wuyi said with a cryptic smile. “Now… Tell me, how did he die?”

“‘He’ who?” Ye Fusheng replied.

Xie Wuyi’s grip tightened. The three fingers on Ye Fusheng’s pulse nearly sank into his flesh.

The man quickly changed tack. “Ah… You mean the one who gave me the jade.”

“How did he die?”

“Riddled with arrows. Tragic, really.”

Xie Wuyi froze. Ye Fusheng seized the moment to pull back his hand.

“He died beyond the passes. His bones lie buried in some desolate wilderness. If the manor lord intends revenge, I’d suggest forgetting it.”

“Revenge… heh.” Xie Wuyi smirked. “And what did you call him?”

Ye Fusheng grinned. “Where we came from, none of us had names. Just before he died, he gave me that jade. It was only then I saw the character ‘Xie’ carved into it… Hah, seems he and you were fated. Maybe you were family five hundred years ago.”

“Do you want to know his name?” Xie Wuyi asked.

Ye Fusheng set down the kettle. “Please enlighten me.”

“He was called Xie Min. Courtesy name, Wuyi.”

A heavy silence fell over the room.

After a long while, Ye Fusheng blinked. “Wait a minute… that’s your name, isn’t it? Everyone knows you—the greatest blade under heaven, the unrivaled master of Duan shui Manor. Are you telling me he had the guts to impersonate you?”

He shook his head. “If that’s true, I’m glad he died beyond the border. Had he crossed paths with the real Duanshui Blade, he’d have been cut in two.”

“How do you know,” Xie Wuyi asked coldly, “that he wouldn’t be the one wielding the blade?”

Ye Fusheng replied slowly, “Because his right hand meridians were severed. If anyone would know that… wouldn’t it be you?”

Xie Wuyi’s eyes narrowed. “Then tell me, do you want to know why I crippled his hand?”

“Only if you first tell me: who are you really? What was your relationship with him? And where has he been hiding these past three years?”

Ye Fusheng answered easily, “We were both strays, clinging to each other to survive. Neither had a name or a future. We did dirty work to stay alive.”

Xie Wuyi studied him, turning over that cryptic answer in his mind. His body suddenly shifted. His left hand clenched the rim of the tub, knuckles audibly creaking.

Mountains and rivers, oceans and deserts even in this vast world, wherever there are people, there is jianghu. With so many eyes watching, so much dust stirred, how do you erase every trace of someone without leaving a ripple?

Only one way under heaven, all land belongs to the emperor.

“Heh. So he became a dog of the court. He really had skill…” Xie Wuyi sneered. “But you, you’re even more capable. There’s a saying: ‘Once you enter the court, it’s as deep as the sea. None escape but through death.’ He died for it. You walked out alive.”

“Even the tightest net has holes,” Ye Fusheng said. “I was just lucky.”

“If I say you’re capable, don’t be modest,” Xie Wuyi replied coldly.

“You think I hand out praise freely? But a dog is still a dog can’t help eavesdropping and snooping. You slipped into the manor under Chanyi’s wing, broke into the Forbidden Hall with Ali amidst the chaos… Tell me, what exactly are you after?”

Ye Fusheng sighed. “Why is it that people always think anyone trying to help must have ulterior motives?”

“Better to mistake kindness for malice than be stabbed in the back.”

“Well said,” Ye Fusheng nodded. “Once bitten, ten years scared of rope. That’s understandable.”

“You met Rong Cui,” Xie Wuyi said flatly. “What did she tell you?”

Ye Fusheng grimaced. “I thought the long-dead lady of the manor might want to talk about spirits or the supernatural. Instead, I got an earful of family drama.”

“What kind of drama?”

“Gratitude for raising, resentment for abandonment, affection through hardship, hatred unto death.” Ye Fusheng took two steps back and spread his hands. “If the manor lord’s interested, I can tell it all from the beginning.”

Xie Wuyi gave a subtle smile.

“It began over thirty years ago. A young and dazzling hero rose through the jianghu, admired far and wide. He married a renowned Poison Queen from the Western Regions a beauty, no less. A perfect pair. But the poison arts took a toll on her body, and after three years of marriage, she bore no child. The hero, believing ‘of the three unfilial acts, producing no heir is the worst,’ began frequenting brothels. He grew close with a famous courtesan who soon became pregnant already six months in. In the jianghu, reputation is everything. And the Poison Queen? Proud and fiery. Naturally, this turned into a full-blown disaster…”

“The Poison Queen didn’t lower herself to kill an unarmed woman,” Ye Fusheng continued, “but she wasn’t about to let the courtesan off easily either. She served her a cup of medicinal tea laced with something that left her once-gorgeous face ruined beyond recognition.
That hero, ashamed and furious, was about to lash out and discipline his wife only to discover she had finally conceived. He choked down his anger and chose to appease her instead. They reconciled, and he never again mentioned the woman carrying his illegitimate child. After all, what was a bastard born of lust compared to a legitimate heir from his legal wife?”

Ye Fusheng shook his head with a sigh. “But perhaps karma really does exist. By destroying the courtesan’s face, the Poison Queen ruined half her life. Yet her own ending was no better. In order to conceive, she had taken a forbidden potion that weakened her foundation. Worse still, the toxins she had long immersed herself in passed into the fetus. Her child was born with a strange illness blessed with an exceptional martial foundation, but covered in bizarre red markings that grew darker with age. By the time he turned seven, parts of his skin had already begun to fester.”

He glanced at Xie Wuyi. The man reached out and took the outer robe draped over the screen.

“The Poison Queen, upon examining him, realized her own child was dying of poison. At most, he’d live two or three more years before his entire body rotted away.”

Xie Wuyi rose slowly, throwing the robe over his shoulders. A faint surge of inner energy instantly dried the water clinging to him. His long hair draped loosely down his back.

“The heir they had longed for turned out to be a walking corpse. The father couldn’t accept it. Furious, heartbroken, he fought with the Poison Queen. She, devastated, fled with her son back to the Western Regions, desperate to find a cure.”

He tied his sash with practiced ease, then picked up a begonia-embroidered ribbon and began to bind his long hair. Once tied high, all traces of weakness vanished from his face. What remained was nothing short of overbearing brilliance.

Someone like him you look at him, and you’re a mere ant before a towering tree. But if he looks at you, you feel like a speck of dust.

Yet Ye Fusheng was still smiling, his expression gentle, like a warm spring breeze melting the morning fog.

He continued, “In the West, the Poison Queen took on a new identity. She delved into toxicology with renewed desperation. Fearing her son would grow up lonely, she bought a girl three years older than him to be his servant and companion. The girl was charming, loyal she treated the boy like a true brother. More than once she risked her life to protect him. Once, she even had half her finger bitten off by a wild wolf to save him.”

“The boy, moved by her devotion, asked his mother to take the girl as her disciple and teach her poisons and martial arts. He also gave her a name ‘Rong Cui,’ after her brows, as delicate as distant mountains in spring.”

“A year later, the Poison Queen discovered a rare herb called Hundred-Day Poppy that could suppress the poison in her son’s body through the principle of using poison to fight poison. She succeeded but the price was steep. Her own inner energy was depleted, and she became permanently crippled. Soon after, her old enemies found her. She was hacked to pieces and fed to beasts.”

Ye Fusheng’s voice grew quieter. “The two children secretly collected what remains they could, burying her in secret. From then on, they drifted through the cities of the West, always hiding, always moving, always practicing.”

Xie Wuyi picked up the Duan shui Blade, unsheathing it slowly, wiping the edge with a cloth.

“Years passed. The girl became a stunning young woman. The boy, too, grew into a strong and intelligent young man of sixteen. But due to his scarred, poison-ravaged body, he always kept himself tightly wrapped, showing only his face clean and handsome to the world. He had an extraordinary memory. Though he had only glimpsed the family’s blade techniques as a child, he managed to piece together a rudimentary form. Over the next five years, through revenge and countless duels, he perfected it. Thirteen moves in total nearly unbeatable in the West.”

“Many asked for his name. He remembered that when he was seven and left home, the only thing he had from his father besides the memory of his mother was a name prepared for him before he was even born: Min, as in ‘a gentleman like jade.’”

Ye Fusheng smiled faintly. “He called himself Xie Min. That name soon spread to the Central Plains. The hero his father had once claimed publicly that he was away in the Western Regions for secluded cultivation. So when word of ‘Xie Min’ surfaced, many believed he was the rightful heir. The father eventually wrote him a letter, asking him to return.”

He glanced at Xie Wuyi, watching as he gently set down the cloth and tightened his grip on the blade’s hilt.

“The young man wanted to fulfill his mother’s wish to be buried in ancestral tomb. He also wanted an explanation for all the years of suffering. He returned with Rong Cui. All the Central Plains praised him. His father even personally rode out to greet him and bring him home.”

“Father and son reunited blood is thicker than water. Their resentment was pushed aside, and they drank together. The father admitted his past faults, promising to make amends… until he saw the hideous scars on his son’s hands.”

Ye Fusheng took a deep breath. “Though the poison had been suppressed, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t flare up again. He was dying, and his body was maimed. No matter how great his skill, he could never produce heirs. What a pity, what a waste…”

Xie Wuyi stood and turned toward him, a strange smile tugging at his lips.

“So, that night, the father brought him into a hidden chamber beneath the estate. There, the boy saw someone, someone the same age, same build, and remarkably similar in appearance. He was stunned. And in that moment, his father struck, knocking him unconscious”

Before the words had finished leaving Ye Fusheng’s mouth, his vision blurred. Xie Wuyi had closed the distance in an instant. The Duan shui Blade came crashing down like a waterfall sharp enough to split stone.

It was the same move Xie Li had used before: “Falling Stream.”

Same blade. Same technique.

But when wielded by different hands, the difference was heaven and earth.

No one could see how fast the strike was. Even if they could they couldn’t dodge.

Ye Fusheng didn’t dodge.

His left hand rose to meet it. Though it never touched the blade, the invisible edge already sliced into his skin. Still, his fingers moved with grace, like a courtesan delicately plucking a flower. His fingertips skimmed the blade’s surface. His wrist twisted.

Blood trickled from the cut and pooled at his palm. But the blade caught between his fingers halted just a hair’s breadth from his neck.

Their eyes locked.

Ye Fusheng said softly, “Before he lost consciousness, he heard his father say this ‘From now on, you are Xie Min.’”