Chapter 23#
Memory#
Hearing the little servants’ voices, Zhu Anning’s expression shifted.
Blood slaves again?
The matter of blood slavery was the deepest wound Zhu Anning carried — the thing he hated most in all the world.
Even with his fractured memory, he had never forgotten the sensation of a cold blade against his skin. His wrist, his back, the inside of his thigh — thick blood trailing slowly downward, caught in glass vessels set out in advance. That blood was carried away for the pleasure of those above, and he was left crumpled on the floor, face pressed against the cold stone, shaking, unnoticed.
After all — he was only a blood slave. Who would care? If he hadn’t met Gongzi, a worthless life like his, how would he have survived to today.
Zhu Anning’s chest churned. He wanted to call out to the novice and ask for details — but Li Guanghan was beside him, and he couldn’t afford to let anything show.
He held firm to his identity: he was Li Guanghan’s benefactor now, not the wretched little blood slave he had once been.
Zhu Anning drew a slow breath and tried to settle his roiling emotions before they drew Li Guanghan’s notice. But when he looked over, he found that Li Guanghan’s attention wasn’t on him at all. He seemed lost in thought.
“Shifu?” Zhu Anning said quietly.
Li Guanghan came back to himself and looked at him. “Feeling better?”
“Much better.” Zhu Anning smiled weakly. “Whatever medicine Shifu gave me — it’s remarkable. My spiritual veins have never felt so unburdened.”
Li Guanghan ruffled his hair. In his mind’s eye, unbidden, flashed the image of Yin Yuheng — blood-soaked. He said nothing.
He didn’t notice the change in himself. But to Zhu Anning, he looked faintly distracted — like someone not entirely present.
Zhu Anning’s gaze flickered. He laughed inwardly, cold and quiet.
He knew exactly what medicine he’d taken.
Shixiong’s heart’s blood.
Pure heart’s blood, combined with a special spiritual compound and formation array, infused into his meridians — it could repair damaged spiritual veins and elevate one’s innate gifts.
The person whose blood was drawn, of course, would endure immeasurable pain, and might even sustain lasting damage to their foundation.
A pity he hadn’t been there to witness it. He would have liked to see Shixiong suffer.
That was what he told himself. But his mood was somehow flat, less satisfying than he had expected. He couldn’t identify the reason and decided it must be because he hadn’t watched it with his own eyes.
Not getting to take revenge directly — of course that’s less gratifying.
He was still turning this over when Li Guanghan rose. “Rest for now. There’s more medicine tomorrow.”
More tomorrow? So the blood-drawing would happen again?
Li Guanghan stood to go — and found his sleeve caught by Zhu Anning’s fingers.
“Shifu — where are you going? I want to come.”
Li Guanghan frowned slightly. “You’re injured. You shouldn’t be moving around.”
“Shifu…” Zhu Anning made himself look pitiful.
Li Guanghan looked at him, and his resolve softened, as it always did. He sighed. “Fine.”
He didn’t actually prefer such gentle, yielding dispositions in people — but if this was the young boy who had saved him all those years ago, he found that he liked whatever form he took.
…
Being hunted and driven to Fengliang — that had been the lowest point of Li Guanghan’s life.
He had not yet cultivated the Way of Nine Coldnesses then. He had not yet become this detached from feeling.
He had been the Penglai Divine Lord, revered by all — possessing everything one could imagine.
The path of cultivation was divided into six stages: Qi Condensation, Foundation Building, Golden Core, Yuan Ying, Soul Separation, and Huashen. Each breakthrough was a trial between life and death. A cultivator at the Golden Core stage was already considered a figure of power; at Yuan Ying, a true great. Those at the Soul Separation stage were rare in the world, and those at Huashen could be counted on one’s fingers.
Li Guanghan had broken through to the Soul Separation stage before he was a hundred years old, and his name had resounded everywhere. He had assumed this would continue — that his path would always be clear — until the sect he had given everything to protect betrayed him.
That day, he had been traveling when a distress message arrived from the sect. He returned immediately. He crossed the turquoise sea, stepped onto Penglai Island — and before he could even speak, he was caught in a sword formation and cut to pieces.
When the smoke cleared, he saw that those turning their blades on him were his oldest companions, the people he had called friends.
Facing his shock, they let a flicker of guilt show in their eyes.
“This is for Penglai, in the end…”
“The Cyan Sea Formation is complete — it only needs a powerful living soul to anchor it.”
“Once the formation activates, every disciple in the sect will develop spiritual bones.”
“You’ve always protected everyone. Help us one more time.”
“Don’t blame us — you have your own faults. You’ve always been above us all. Did you ever think about how that felt?”
All of them speaking at once. Li Guanghan had never imagined they would say such things. The revulsion that moved through him was physical.
He had risked his life for Penglai — and the people he had protected had been thinking this all along.
He was a joke.
He laughed three times — a sound like breaking — and a tear of blood ran down his face. For the first time in his life, he turned his sword against his own sect. But every trap had been laid specifically for his weaknesses, and despite his strength, his injuries were devastating.
He still managed to escape, barely, stumbling off the island.
Yuanzhou was not far from Penglai. By the time he reached a forest near Fengliang, he had nothing left.
He fell into the mud and closed his eyes. In the moment before consciousness left, he thought: this is how it ends.
A life of thunder and brilliance, and he would die here in the dirt, pathetically.
He hadn’t expected to ever open his eyes again.
The person who saved him was a small boy — young and slight, and yet he had given over precious medicinal pills, and then dragged himself along, somehow bringing Li Guanghan to a safe shelter in the mountains.
He couldn’t see the boy’s face clearly. He only remembered the sensation of small hands binding his wounds.
“Why save me?” he asked, his voice barely working.
The companions he had given his whole heart to had betrayed him. And this unknown child was giving everything he had.
He heard the boy’s voice: “It was nothing — don’t worry about repaying it.”
Nothing?
Giving me precious pills, bringing me food every day — that’s nothing? You save someone and won’t even let them thank you. How can someone like you exist?
Li Guanghan laughed — and for just a moment, the fury and pain that had been covering his heart lifted.
I’m not entirely wretched, he thought. I may have been badly betrayed, but I’ve also met someone as pure and clear as the moon.
His heart softened, a little more each day. Until the afternoon when a demon beast lunged — and the boy stepped in front of him and took the blow, falling to the ground in a pool of blood. In that instant, he understood: this boy was not only his benefactor. He was his redemption. He was the greatest fortune of his life.
In his darkest despair, he had met his moon. And the moon had made him believe that this world was not only darkness and ugliness — that there were things in it still worth protecting, still worth caring for.
His eyes were unclear, his legs unreliable. He could only drag himself forward, bit by bit, toward the boy. He reached out and felt a handful of blood.
He would rather that blood had been his own.
If I survive this, he had thought, I will protect him for the rest of my life. I will not let him shed another drop of blood.
“I won’t let anyone make you bleed again,” Li Guanghan said. “Whoever harms you, I will destroy. There is nowhere worth caring about in this entire world — except you.”
“When I recover, I’ll go back and clear out Penglai. What they called a paradise beyond the world was never anything more than a nest of filth. Once it’s clean, we’ll build the finest house and live there, just the two of us, and see no one else. Would that be all right?”
He had heard the boy sigh. “How can you think that way? This world is beautiful. Yes, there are unpleasant people and circumstances we can’t escape — but I still love it. If you have a grievance, address it. Don’t take it out on the whole world.”
Li Guanghan had been startled into stillness. And he realized, only then, how close to the edge he had been — how nearly his heart had turned to darkness.
The boy had pulled him back from it. But he could never be what he had once been — someone who loved all of humanity. The shadow of that near-fall had left its mark.
So he had cultivated the Way of Nine Coldnesses.
Derived from the detached path, yet different from its boundless compassion. He became cold and indifferent, regarding the world as inconsequential — all of it, except for that one boy.
His boy was also a piece of his own heart’s foundation — the last remaining light and warmth in his cold and empty self.
In the wandering years that followed, he had been separated from the boy without warning, and never learned his name. He had traveled everywhere searching, desperately, without rest. Eventually he came to Chaoge, made an arrangement with the Emperor, and became the National Preceptor of the Li Dynasty.
He never stopped looking. Until one day a message reached him, and he traveled through the night to Fengliang and brought Zhu Anning home.
From this day forward, he had thought, I will be good to him.
…
Yin Yuheng stepped into the Guoshi Manor once more, still wearing his red court robes.
He normally dressed in white, which suited his gentle, jade-like quality. Today’s red, seen from a distance, was like a blazing cloud of color at the edge of the sky.
Striking. Impossible to ignore.
Yin Yuheng walked slowly toward the Wentian Platform and found Li Guanghan and Zhu Anning already waiting.
Zhu Anning’s color had improved considerably. When he saw Yin Yuheng, his eyes lit up.
“Shixiong,” Zhu Anning said, deliberate. “What happened? You look so pale.”
“…I’m fine.” Yin Yuheng’s complicated gaze rested on Zhu Anning for a moment. He didn’t say a word about the blood.
He reached out and gently ruffled Zhu Anning’s hair. He smiled, tired. “As long as you’re getting better — that’s what matters.”
The blood-drawing was Li Guanghan’s idea. I agreed to it myself. That isn’t Shidi’s fault. How could I blame him for it? And seeing Shidi recover — honestly, I am glad.
I’m only very disappointed in Shifu. I don’t hate Shidi.
It was not the answer Zhu Anning had expected. He went completely still.
Looking at the unforced warmth and relief in Yin Yuheng’s eyes, Zhu Anning’s lips trembled. “Shixiong — you — you—”
You don’t hate me?
How can you not hate me? Doesn’t it hurt? You’re supposed to resent me — to be furious, jealous, broken—
But Zhu Anning found that while Shixiong was indeed jealous, crushed, in pain — all of it, exactly as he had intended, every last scrap of pride and belonging stripped away — he still didn’t hate him.
Zhu Anning almost couldn’t believe it. He felt faintly unmoored.
“Anning, go and rest.” Yin Yuheng smiled wearily. “Shixiong needs to speak with Shifu.”
Zhu Anning knew what that “speaking” meant. His expression changed. “I’m not going.”
He wasn’t leaving. He was going to watch —
He refused to believe that someone truly this clean, this purely good, existed in the world.
Yin Yuheng looked at him with patient exasperation. “Behave. Go lie down. Your meridians are still damaged — stop trying to push through it.”
“Get better soon,” Yin Yuheng said, coaxing him gently. “Didn’t you say your memory is incomplete? That might very well be because of the damage to your spiritual veins. Don’t you want to remember the things you’ve forgotten? Once you’ve healed, perhaps it will all come back.”
The prospect of recovering his memories — that was, undeniably, compelling.
Zhu Anning missed his Gongzi so terribly.
He wanted so badly to remember — what Gongzi had looked like.
“It won’t be long now.” Yin Yuheng smiled and touched Zhu Anning’s hair gently, then reached over and adjusted the jade hairpin that had come slightly loose.
It was the very hairpin Yin Yuheng had given him. Zhu Anning had worn it every day since, without ever replacing it.