Chapter 11: Slave Collar

IN LI WEI'S OPINION, working as a housekeeper for a man who never spoke his mind like General Mo was the most exhausting thing in the world.

If time could flow backward, he would have chosen to work for Official Liu with his eighteen concubines instead. It was highly likely that the thoughts of the ruthlessly cold General Mo were more convoluted than all those eighteen concubines' put together.

But time could not flow backward. Li Wei cleared his throat and began again with utmost caution, asking, "My lord, have you visited Gu Mang?"

"…No."

"Oh." Li Wei sighed in relief. "Then it's best you don't."

"Why's that?"

"Um…my lord, how shall I put this? In Gu Mang's current condition, he probably doesn't even know who he is, never mind who you are. According to the healers' diagnoses, in the depths of his mind, he more or less thinks of himself as a strong and mighty male wolf."

Mo Xi's eyes widened. "He thinks he's a…what?"

"A strong and mighty male wolf."

Mo Xi stared. This was without a doubt the wildest sentence he had heard all year.

He rubbed at his temples and collected himself before carefully asking, "Which healer examined him and delivered that diagnosis? Are you sure there's nothing wrong with their brain?"

It was rare for Li Wei to see Mo Xi react with so much shock, and he couldn't hold back his snicker. But at the sight of Mo Xi's expression, he quickly and obediently schooled his expression to solemnity.

"My lord, none of us believed it when we heard either. That's why so many nobles went to the prison to settle their debts with Gu Mang when he returned. However, he couldn't even talk like a normal person. It only made everyone angrier." Li Wei paused before continuing. "Then His Imperial Majesty handed him to Wangshu-jun. Wangshu-jun also wanted to pry something out of his mouth. He tried everything, but no matter what, Gu Mang couldn't answer his questions."

Li Wei sighed as he shook his head. "He genuinely didn't understand that he was human."

Mo Xi had to digest this information for a long time before he looked up again, gaze pausing on the little clay teapot steeping hot tea. Steam rose into the air, those tendrils of mist floating about and entwining together.

"I also heard…his souls were damaged." Mo Xi paused. "What happened there?"

Li Wei was stunned. His lord wasn't usually the sort to ask for such news, so how had he learned about this? But he hurried to reply, "They are indeed damaged, but it's not clear what exactly happened. We only know that Gu Mang was already in that state before he returned."

"Already in that state before he returned…" Mo Xi repeated, frowning.

"Mn. When Gu Mang entered the capital, our healers read his pulse. They said his souls, heart vein, and spiritual core all bore traces of recent damage. The people of the Liao Kingdom are definitely responsible—we don't know what secret, shady techniques they employed, but on top of making him think he was a beast, of his three ethereal souls and seven corporeal ones, they somehow removed two of the corporeal."

Mo Xi was still for a while before asking with feigned indifference, "How would losing two souls…affect someone?"

"That depends on which two souls are missing. Shennong Terrace said that of the two souls Gu Mang had lost, the first had to do with memory, and the second was related to mind. Which is to say, he runs into issues in those two areas, but the absence doesn't significantly affect anything else."

Mo Xi lowered his lashes. "I see…" he murmured.

"Yes. Because he lost a soul related to the mind, in the beginning, he had entirely lost the power of speech. Wangshu-jun sent him to Luomei Pavilion, where the overseer trained him for a full two years before he could understand what people were saying or speak enough to get by—if barely." As Li Wei spoke, he let out a heartfelt sigh. "Ah, they used to call him 'Beast of the Altar,' and now he really isn't much different from a wild beast."

This was why everyone had been astonished when Gu Mang was sent back two years ago.

When the city gates had opened and the prison wagon bearing the traitor Gu Mang slowly entered Chonghua, civilians on both sides of the road had seen that General Gu was locked up alongside some wolves. Within the prison wagon with them was a buck, which the wolves proceeded to tear apart, spraying blood everywhere. Gu Mang didn't bother to dodge the spray, instead crouching placidly amid the pack. The wild wolves seemed to treat him like one of their own—a female wolf even dragged one of the buck's legs over to Gu Mang to court his favor.

Gu Mang had reached out and dipped his hand in a little blood. He'd licked at it indifferently but hadn't cared for the taste, and so had lowered his hand again…

Mo Xi listened in silence.

At this point, Li Wei scratched his head. "But, my lord, there's something I don't understand."

Mo Xi's dark brown eyes turned to look at him, impassive. "Hm?"

"Why would the Liao Kingdom go to the effort of destroying two of his souls if they were already going to send him back?"

"Perhaps he knew too much," Mo Xi said. "By extracting those two souls, they could tie up that loose end once and for all."

Li Wei was speechless. "Goodness, how cruel. Can he ever recover?"

Mo Xi shook his head as if many things were weighing on his mind and didn't respond.

Two of Gu Mang's souls had been removed. The only cure was to find and return them to the body. But in all the vast Nine Provinces, who could say where Gu Mang's two souls had gone, or if they still existed?

"I heard Wangshu-jun kept him alive so he could experience suffering worse than death," Li Wei said. "But I also heard he's awfully calm now, and not very interesting. Wangshu-jun seems to have made a miscalculation —oh, right." Li Wei remembered something and turned to Mo Xi. "My lord, have you seen Wangshu-jun since your return?"

Mo Xi shook his head. "No."

Although Wangshu-jun held an important position in the Bureau of Military Affairs, his role was in fact altogether idle and had no attendant obligations. He was highborn and arrogant due to his status; of the three hundred sixty-five days in a year, it was considered quite impressive if he showed up for fifteen.

Mo Xi looked up. "Why are you asking about him all of a sudden?"

"Honestly, these past few years, he's gotten worse and worse," Li Wei said. "If my lord should run into him, don't bother stooping to his level. You know all too well that he's always looking for ways to make trouble for you."

Mo Xi didn't find this the least bit surprising.

In Chonghua there lived three notable gentlemen whose characters exemplified the Buddhist values of virtue, mind, and wisdom. Jiang Yexue's serenity and indifference to public favor had earned him the title of Mind, while Princess Mengze's benevolence and integrity had earned her the title of Virtue.

Conversely, there were three infamous villains who perfectly exemplified the Buddhist poisons of greed, wrath, and ignorance. The one Mo Xi had to deal with most often was Greed. "Greed," of course, referred to one with an avarice for all that pleased, as well as a deep dissatisfaction when that hunger wasn't sated: this was the Wangshu-jun that Li Wei had mentioned.

Wangshu-jun's name was Murong Lian, and he was Gu Mang's former master. In the beginning, it was he who had chosen Gu Mang as one of the study attendants to accompany and look after their young master's needs at the cultivation academy.

Wangshu-jun never could have imagined that this little slave possessed such unbelievable natural talent. Within a few years, Gu Mang's cultivation level had greatly surpassed his master's. Jealousy made Murong Lian hateful, and he constantly picked on Gu Mang, beating him, cursing him, and punishing him whenever he experienced the slightest displeasure. Everyone knew he had a cruel temperament, and that his character was incredibly ill-suited to the "mercy" of his given name, Lian.

Let us recall the simplest example:

Once, when Gu Mang was exorcising demons, he came upon a small village. The villagers were plagued by sickness, and out of compassion, Gu Mang used Murong Lian's name to compel the imperial healers to prescribe them medicines. Although this was against the rules, it was an act entirely motivated by kindness. Any other master would only have scolded Gu Mang a bit.

Murong Lian was different. After he learned that Gu Mang had dared use his name to buy imperial medicines, he had launched into a furious flurry of curses. First, he'd given Gu Mang almost eighty hard lashes, then made Gu Mang kneel by the academy walkway for twenty days straight.

At the time, Mo Xi hadn't known Gu Mang very well. They hadn't interacted much, and he normally didn't use that walkway, so he'd known little about it.

That is, until one rainy day when Mo Xi happened to pass by and saw a silhouette. When he walked over to take a look, as it turned out, the person he had noticed was Gu Mang.

Gu Mang was completely soaked, black hair sticking to his freezing cheeks and raindrops streaming down his jaw. He knelt obediently amid the flow of the crowd with his hands around a wooden signboard with six words emblazoned on it in cinnabar: Slave Impersonates Master, Shameless Beyond Description.

Mo Xi stopped before him. Crystalline raindrops splashed off his umbrella's paper surface and gathered to flow off the ribs.

Those nearby cast curious glances their way, but when they caught sight of the soaring snake insignia on the young noble's robes, they lowered their heads and kept walking, afraid to look again.

"You…"

It seemed that Gu Mang had become dazed from sitting in the rain. He didn't even realize when an umbrella appeared over his head, nor did he notice that someone had stopped in front of him. When he suddenly heard someone speak from so close, he started, his eyes flicking upward as he woke from his daze.

A confused, soaked face came into Mo Xi's view. There were bloodstains at the corner of the kneeling youth's mouth and whip marks on his cheek. He was chilled to the point of shivering, like a dog that had been thrown out into the mud. Only those black eyes still shone, clear and unclouded.

That pathetic sight, paired with the wooden signboard, was as ridiculous as it was pitiful.

Mo Xi and Gu Mang might not have been close, but Mo Xi knew Gu Mang had requisitioned medicine with a fake identity because he couldn't bear to let a whole village suffer through illness. Thus Mo Xi went to Murong Lian's quarters at the academy and asked him for leniency.

Not only did Murong Lian refuse, he descended into a heated argument with Mo Xi. Finally, he sent for Gu Mang to come before him. In front of Mo Xi, he asked, "Gu Mang, do you know why the insufferably arrogant Mo-gongzi came to me today?"

Water was still streaming down Gu Mang's face. He numbly shook his head.

Murong Lian crooked a finger at Gu Mang, compelling him forward. He caressed Gu Mang's soaking cheek with hands that were terrifyingly pale. Smiling insincerely, he raised his sultry peach blossom eyes, their whites showing below the irises. "He came here for you."

For a moment, Gu Mang was visibly stunned. He turned to glance at the dark-faced Mo Xi, then looked back at Murong Lian. In the end, he carelessly wiped the rainwater on his face and grinned. "Gongzi, are you joking?"

Murong Lian was still smiling. "What do you think?"

No one spoke.

"Your skills grow by the day. If Mo-gongzi hadn't come in the rain solely to ask for mercy on your behalf, I wouldn't even know you had started fooling around with a young master from another family."

"Murong Lian," Mo Xi bit out. "I'm only speaking up for him in the name of justice. Keep those filthy insinuations out of your mouth."

Gu Mang blankly turned to look at Mo Xi. There seemed to be a hint of gratitude in those sea-bright eyes, but while Murong Lian's attention was elsewhere, Gu Mang shook his head slightly at Mo Xi.

Murong Lian shot Mo Xi a glance and snorted as if in threat. Then he turned around and sweetly said to Gu Mang, "Kneel."

Gu Mang did as told, gradually lowering himself all the way down and dipping his head before Murong Lian.

"Take off your upper robe."

"Murong Lian!"

"These are my quarters. Mo-gongzi, no matter how high your rank, you shouldn't be trying to scold me in my own rooms, no?" Murong Lian glanced at Gu Mang once more. "Take it off."

Gu Mang did as he was told. He took off his outer robe, exposing his strong and toned physique, lowering his lashes and saying nothing. Murong Lian slowly looked him over, from the lines of taut muscles to skin that glowed like honey under the lamplight. Murong Lian was very slender, and his eyes raked across Gu Mang's body the same way a perpetually freezing young scion would look over a fine fur pelt—as if he wished for nothing more than to tear off all of Gu Mang's skin and wrap it around himself, to make himself stronger.

Attendants hurried in and brought Murong Lian hot ginger tea. He took a sip and sighed. "Gu Mang, isn't it nice to have a spiritual core? Doesn't it feel good to have so much influence at the cultivation academy? Aren't you so happy you were able to befriend a dignitary like Mo-gongzi?

"I can't imagine who gave you the courage to lie about being Murong-gongzi for the sake of a prescription—and all to save a handful of lowborn villagers." Murong Lian snickered. He set down the teacup with fine-boned hands and suddenly looked up. "Have you forgotten your station from birth?!"

Gu Mang lowered his head even further. "I would not dare."

"Your holy weapon, your clothes, your spiritual core—everything you have today was bestowed upon you by the Murong Clan. You are nothing without Wangshu Manor!"

"Shaozhu is right to reprimand me."

After a long interval, Murong Lian burst out laughing. "But since you're so strong, I obviously can't mistreat you, lest you grow independent and end up serving someone else." He barked out an order to his attendants. "Go get the young master—" He drew out each syllable in a tone of extreme ridicule, mocking Gu Mang's presumption in daring to pretend to be the son of the Murong Clan, "—that present I prepared for him so long ago."

The other study attendants of the Murong Clan were also present. One of them, Lu Zhanxing, was Gu Mang's best friend. When he heard that Murong Lian wanted to give Gu Mang this particular "present," his expression grew unsightly. He fixed Murong Lian with a gaze that could almost have been described as a glare.

Murong Lian lifted a hand, commanding the attendants to open the box in front of everyone's eyes.

Every attendant paled, and one of them couldn't hold back from crying out:

"It's a slave collar!"

Gu Mang's head snapped up at these words, eyes wide. He stared at the sandalwood tray above his head, seeming numb.

The color had also drained from Mo Xi's face. Only the most disobedient, disagreeable slaves were fitted with a slave collar, which was intended for confinement and punishment. It could never be removed without the leave of the slave's master—much like a dog collar. Though being a slave was the greatest humiliation, being bound with a slave collar was yet another level of disgrace, lowering a man to the point where even other slaves would look down on him.

"Why don't you put it on yourself?" Murong Lian waved a hand. "Do you need me to say please, Young Master Murong?"