SS CH57

“The late Emperor was single-mindedly set on destroying Qin Hebai. However, the Northern Hero’s reputation was too grand and his power too entrenched; even the late Emperor could not rashly move against him.” Ye Fusheng withdrew his hand, his indifferent tone carrying a trace of sharp, biting mockery. “By playing weak, Ruan Qingxing covertly demonstrated that he harbored no duplicity, temporarily regaining the late Emperor’s trust. If he wanted that trust to last—and thereby secure the long-term interests of the entire civil official faction—toppling Qin Hebai was an absolute necessity. And Ruan Feiyu… was the blade he prepared for Qin Hebai.”

“Because Ruan Feiyu had no other reliance besides this master of his. So even if he knew there was a tiger in the mountains, he had no choice but to march straight toward them, right?” Chu Xiwei sneered. “The rafter that sticks out is always the first to rot. For him to wedge himself between sovereign and minister, civil and military, and still reach the position he holds today, he truly deserves the title of ‘Southern Confucian’ after all. So… the second person who deceived the Emperor you spoke of is Ruan Feiyu?”

Gu Zheng possessed great martial prowess, but relying on him alone to fish someone out of the death cells without causing any complications would have been far too difficult—unless… there was another person holding actual authority over the matter assisting from the shadows.

Back then, wasn’t the person in charge of the Qin Case precisely the twenty-something-year-old Ruan Feiyu?

Ye Fusheng nodded with gratification. “The child is worth teaching.”

Chu Xiwei turned his head around. “He was the blade of Ruan Qingxing and the late Emperor at the time, riding high on a wave of unmatched glory. Why would he risk the crime of deceiving the Emperor to save someone alongside Gu Zheng?”

Ye Fusheng shrugged and shook his head. “That, I do not know. I only know that the matter he dabbled in was caught by Ruan Qingxing. To protect his disciple and ensure his own faction wasn’t implicated, Ruan Qingxing sold out Gu Zheng first. And that simple-minded grand-master of mine didn’t drag anyone else down with him; he just stiffened his neck and carried the whole burden until his last breath.”

He spoke flatly, even laced with a bit of banter, yet the rainy mist pooling in his eyes had frozen into ice accumulated over long years.

For some reason, Chu Xiwei thought of Gu Qifang.

He was only eight years old back then, and his memories of that woman were already blurred. By now, he couldn’t even recall her face, only vaguely remembering her brisk, decisive actions and the indifferent look she occasionally threw his way.

He had been too small then to understand what lay hidden within that gaze, yet children are often the most sensitive. Catching that look had made his skin crawl; he never dared to act up in front of Gu Qifang again, not even daring to breathe too loudly.

It was only now, when he was grown, that looking back on that gaze brought a sudden, startling realization—Gu Qifang’s single glance had carried a deeply resentful intent to kill.

Yet in the end, she had not acted, nor had she ever vented her anger through beatings or abuse. She had done her utmost to deliver him and Chu Xun safely to Yuzhou City. He still remembered when she turned her horse to leave; the defending commander, Lord Lu, had wished to repay her with wealth, only for her to sweep aside a hundred taels of gold with a single flick of her sleeve.

He still remembered the casual look she cast back, sweeping from the gold littering the ground to him and Chu Xun, and finally landing on the roadside grass and trees. Her gaze remained entirely unchanged throughout.

“I did not make this trip for wealth, nor did I make it for them.”

With that, she cracked her whip and urged her horse forward, a single rider vanishing into a cloud of dust.

In his youth, he had been ignorant and confused, and later it became a complex riddle. Only now, upon learning the truth, did he finally understand Gu Qifang’s attitude at that time—yet it left him understanding all the less what kind of awe-inspiring, unyielding integrity this woman truly possessed.

Lost in these thoughts, his pace slowed down. Noticing this, Ye Fusheng turned his head to ask, “What are you thinking about?”

“Your master…”

Before the words could fully leave his mouth, Chu Xiwei realized it was a mistake. Snapping back to his senses, he saw the smile on Ye Fusheng’s face had already frozen at the corners of his lips.

After a long pause, Ye Fusheng smiled again and said, “Thank you for keeping her in mind. The old lady would surely be deeply gratified.”

Chu Xiwei felt that his smile looked worse than crying, and was instantly filled with regret.

He didn’t know what to say. The words tumbled around his mouth a few times before he managed to steer the topic away. “These matters passed so many years ago, how do you know them so clearly?”

Ye Fusheng rubbed his chin. “Over these years, I’ve flipped through the case files of that year. When I was ordered to investigate unjust and false cases, I wished nothing more than to dig up the other party’s ancestors for eighteen generations. A major case like the Qin Case naturally required focused attention.”

Chu Xiwei’s eyes narrowed. “Chu Ziyu wants to overturn the cases for the wronged?”

“The New Policies require the laws to be clear and bright, so naturally they must first rectify the legal system. Reviewing old cases is an indispensable step. Ziyu has this intention, and the one who proposed it was Ruan Feiyu.” Ye Fusheng smiled faintly. “However, the business of overturning and reviewing cases began as early as seven years ago. Because of it, both the overt officials and covert guards were busy to the point of living like dogs and pigs. There’s no telling how many people were dragged out from the case files piled high in that single room. Therefore… before we could even untangle a clue, Chancellor Ruan, as the implementer of the new law, was stepped down first.”

He spoke implicitly, but Chu Xiwei caught the meaning quickly. “The turning of the earth dragon (the earthquake) can be considered a matter large or small. However, for Ruan Feiyu to be forced to resign, it must have been the old faction opposing the New Policies taking the opportunity to pressure Chu Ziyu.”

Ye Fusheng said with a beaming smile, “But he is about to be reinstated and take up great power once more.”

“A formidable opponent is about to return to the battlefield. One must either find a way to turn him into one of our own, or think of a way to do him in before the war begins.” Chu Xiwei looked up at the muddy mountain road ahead. “The person who commissioned the Soul Burial Palace to handle this matter must have had exactly this idea.”

When the Soul Burial Palace failed to negotiate peace, they released information to draw in the remnants of the old case, using them to pressure Ruan Feiyu. If it succeeded, everyone would be happy; if it failed, they would surely strike again, using this opportunity to leave Ruan Feiyu behind forever. The great affliction of their hearts would thus be eliminated, and the black pot of blame would be borne by these secretly manipulated remnants of the old case.

Ye Fusheng hypocritically praised, “Employing both kindness and might, killing with a borrowed knife—the person who cooked up this calculation possesses great scheme and intrigue. It’s just that his eye for judging people is a bit poor.”

“How so?”

“The first time I saw Chancellor Ruan, I felt this person was a thousand-year-old turtle, a ten-thousand-year-old tortoise.” Ye Fusheng laughed. “When you live too long, you grow tired of living. When you’ve seen too much, you get used to it. What do you think is left that could make him change his mind?”

“You think the person behind the scenes will waste their calculating mind for nothing?”

“I am no fortune teller on the street corners, how could I say for sure?” Ye Fusheng followed his gaze over. “Ah, we’ve arrived.”

The place they were at was not too far from the previous clearing. The surrounding vegetation was sparse, and the path beneath their feet was rugged. Looking ahead now, a steep mountain slope loomed before them. Due to days of continuous rain, the soil and water loss in this vicinity was severe; the mud, sand, earth, and stone on the ground had already loosened, and several large boulders stood exposed to the wind and rain, presenting a precarious sense of impending collapse.

Arriving here, Chu Xiwei lowered his voice: “Are you certain it is here?”

“There isn’t a more suitable place nearby.” Ye Fusheng threw his gaze into the distance. “Extrapolating from my own mind—if I were Boss He and his people, with a sea of blood-debt about to be avenged in a single morning, and at such a meaningful location to boot, I would certainly be unable to resist paying him back in his own coin.”

Chu Xiwei had been stubborn since childhood; fleeing before a battle was something that had never appeared in his life. Ye Fusheng was even more of a trouble-making character who held himself above all else. Even if it truly came to a life-and-death crisis, he would absolutely wield his blade and step forward to hack off a piece of flesh.

That they had left those three behind to come to this place was naturally not for the purpose of running away. If a fight truly broke out, even if both of them had unhealed injuries, taking down Boss He together would not be an issue.

Compared to Boss He who stood in the open, they cared more about the fire-mines.

Chu Xiwei had followed them all the way to Mount Anxi. Out of the five opponents, four had already appeared, leaving only that tall hulking man missing from sight. As the saying goes, “A spear in the open is easy to dodge, an arrow in the dark is hard to defend.” At this critical juncture, they had to exercise a few extra measures of caution.

Though they did not know how Xiu’er, a weak woman, had managed to evade the Soul-Capturing Technique and beat them at their own game by leading them to the valley clearing, it was by no means an unintentional act. Furthermore, seeing Boss He actively step forward, the fire of hatred rising in his eyes yet deliberately suppressed as he dragged out the conversation—no matter how one looked at it, it seemed like a tactic to stall for time.

As Ye Fusheng’s thoughts spun, he happened to catch Chu Xiwei’s side-glance. Their eyes met, both arriving at a mutual understanding.

“There are too many old cases related to the Southern Confucian, involving no less than several hundred remnants. Half of them ought to be the old, weak, sick, and disabled by now.” The corner of Ye Fusheng’s mouth quirked up. “For the five of them to dare to do this, they naturally have the determination to succeed or die trying. But they would never be willing to invite disaster upon those people again. Therefore, even if it means dying together, they will choose a method that can completely cut off any future troubles.”

Chu Xiwei smiled with inscrutable meaning. “For instance, a Zoujiao (a torrential mudslide/flood triggered by a mythical dragon)?”

Years ago, Ruan Feiyu designed a Zoujiao at Mount Anxi, burying and killing three thousand men of the Qin Army. Now that he had returned to this place, and it just so happened to be raining from the heavens, how could they not make good use of it?

Boss He had never pinned his hopes on being able to kill a generation’s Southern Confucian by his own hand. His purpose lay in dragging Ruan Feiyu to that valley ground, and then replaying the past, submerging himself and his enemies beneath the torrent, their bones hard to find, letting the dust settle forever.

Ye Fusheng had once come to Mount Anxi to investigate this case. While he wouldn’t say he knew it like the back of his hand, he was at least familiar with this place where the incident occurred. Coupled with the fact that no one knew just how many miscellaneous tricks Chu Xiwei had learned over these ten years, he was actually able to calculate the source where a Zoujiao was most likely to occur based on the growth of vegetation and changes in terrain. The two of them had calculated as they walked, thus saving themselves a wild goose chase and heading straight for this spot.

Sure enough, although the rainwater had washed away too many traces, Ye Fusheng’s nose—which was sharper than a dog’s—still keenly captured a faint scent of gunpowder as the wind blew against them.

On a heavily rainy day, fire-mines were easily dampened by rainwater. To guarantee detonation, they would certainly be placed in a sheltered spot; those stones on the middle and lower parts of the mountain slope were the perfect screens.

That tall hulking man must also be hiding near there.

Exchanging a glance, the two of them tapped their feet, simultaneously deploying their lightness skills to charge toward the mountain slope.

However, before they had even covered a chang, Ye Fusheng’s face suddenly changed. He reached out to grab Chu Xiwei, forcibly dragging him behind himself. At the same time, his right hand hurled the wild taro leaf, imbued with internal energy, flying out to the side, squarely knocking an object away.

It was a snow-white handkerchief, its edges embroidered with silver-thread cloud patterns. Having been infused with internal energy through a special technique, it actually acted like a flying blade, tearing through half of the leaf before its force spent itself, dropping into the mud and water, no longer clean.

“The grand show hasn’t even begun, why are you already trying to drive the actors off the stage?”

A gentle laughter rang out, sounding as if it were at the edge of the sky, yet seemingly right before their eyes. The tail-end of the tone dragged out slightly, carrying a hint of faint playfulness—not provoking hatred, only striking fear into the heart.

Chu Xiwei’s gaze turned cold, yet in this brief instant, he felt the hand Ye Fusheng used to hold him suddenly grow rigid, his palm seeping with a layer of cold sweat.

Having known this man for over ten years, he had never seen him in such a state of losing composure.

Chu Xiwei looked up, only to see a person stepping out from behind a large green boulder by the roadside. He wore a cloud-patterned cover-robe over a white base, and a silver mask on his face made him look like a phantom.

It was not yet dawn, and this person’s entirely white attire had actually failed to draw the attention of the two of them. Had he not actively struck out, they might have…

Chu Xiwei kept his countenance unruffled, but with a shift of his steps, he moved from behind Ye Fusheng to stand in front of him. His gaze was cold, his tone carrying mockery: “If Your Excellency wishes to watch a play, why not return to Mizong Ridge to call for a performance? Why stand here under the open sky getting drenched in the rain?”

The newcomer stretched the five fingers of his right hand, the two finger-guards appearing all the more cold and sharp in the rain. “How can those powdered and painted sheng, dan, jing, and chou compare to the vivid beauty of real-life grievances and scores?”

This meant the matter could not be settled peacefully.

Chu Xiwei knitted his brows, breaking away from Ye Fusheng’s hand to urge him to take a step ahead, but Ye Fusheng spoke up.

The cold rain lashed full across his face, yet it could not wash away the blood-red color in Ye Fusheng’s eyes. At this moment, he shed all of his usual laziness and indulgence, his entire being becoming sharp and bitter, like a blade drawn from its scabbard.

He stared at this person, his gaze moving all the way up from the cloud-patterned satin boots, fixing tightly upon that silver mask. His voice was hoarse, his tone carrying a command of life and death: “It’s… you.”

“Gu Xiao, ten years of no see, have you been faring well?” A laughter came from behind the mask, as if recalling something. “Oh, right, you are called Ye Fusheng now… Heh, is it because Gu Qifang died, and you felt you had no face to keep her surname, so you changed your name?”

Chu Xiwei’s heart gave a sudden leap. He turned his head to look at Ye Fusheng, only to find that the man’s face was completely devoid of any expression.

Ye Fusheng looked at that mask, turning those two sentences over and over in his mind, tearing them apart and crushing them. Suddenly, he recalled the strangely-behaved person in purple back at Jinshui Town, and said, “You are Mu Yan’an.”

Giving a soft chuckle, the person’s tone was actually quite gentle: “My surname is Helian, my given name is Yu. Yan’an is my courtesy name. You must remember it correctly this time.”