Chapter 21: Have Mercy

MO XI DIDN'T SPARE her a glance. He continued to stare murderously into Gu Mang's eyes.

The official knew Mo Xi's temper was fierce and that he was unpredictably impulsive, so she didn't hold back a cry of warning. "Xihejun!"

Still, Mo Xi said nothing, as if he was enduring something with all his might. Only after several long moments did he loosen his grip, letting Gu Mang fall to his knees in the snow. He turned to look at the windblown flurries, and his vision gradually blurred.

The official let out a breath of relief and made obeisance once more. "Many thanks for Xihe-jun's understanding."

Mo Xi stood quiet in the heavy snow, his back to the crowd and his hands clasped behind him.

But as the official moved to help Gu Mang up from where he had fallen in the snow, Mo Xi turned his face, his voice low and muted. "Hold it."

"What is Xihe-jun's command?"

"I will go as well," Mo Xi said.

Startled, the official replied, "Powerful cultivators cannot be present in numbers during Shennong Terrace's examination in case of fluctuations in the flow of spiritual energy. Even if you come, you'll have to wait outside the hall…"

"Very well." Mo Xi still hadn't turned. His tone was terrifyingly stiff, each syllable bitten out. "Then I will wait outside!"

Any further attempt to attempt to dissuade him would have been inappropriate for someone of her station. Thus the official took Gu Mang back toward the palace of Chonghua, Mo Xi following in their wake.

Approximately two hours later, snowy owls were sent out from the palace, urgently summoning every important official to come forth and confer.

It was the dead of night, and this imperial order had pulled almost every high-ranking member of the court from their beds. Elder Yu of Chengtian Terrace had the worst luck: this asshole just so happened to be enjoying the pleasures of a brothel in the northern quarter of the city, and right at the crucial moment, a fat bird crashed through the window-screen.

"Hoot! An order from His Imperial Majesty! An order from His Imperial Majesty!" it shrieked. "Every high-ranked official is requested to come to the throne room at once to discuss Gu Mang's case!"

Elder Yu promptly wilted. "Wasn't his case dealt with ages ago?!" he cursed as he dressed. "How has something come up all of a sudden?!"

"Aiya, Your Excellency, don't be upset." A woman clad in scanty and sensual garb rose from the bed to help him dress. "If His Imperial Majesty has sent an urgent summons, he must have his reasons."

"Reasons, my ass! It's so late—he doesn't give us a moment's rest!"

The woman pressed supple fingers to the elder's lips as she smiled wearily. "Your Excellency shouldn't say such things. The walls have ears."

"What do I have to be scared of? I'm only saying these things to you." Elder Yu rolled his eyes. "The current emperor does what he wants when he wants. This isn't the first time he's hauled us out in the dead of night. He's young and vigorous but doesn't stop to think about our old bones. We can't handle this kind of excitement!"

"Your Excellency, what are you saying?" the woman gently scolded. "You're always so fierce with me—it's more than I can take. Hee hee, if your bones are old, what does that make mine?"

These words couldn't have been any more insincere—Elder Yu had quite obviously just withered. But he ate her words up, chuckling as he pinched her powdered cheek and kissed her nape once more. "I'm off," he said. "Little darling, I'll come see you again tomorrow."

The woman giggled girlishly and saw him out, naturally making a great show of being unwilling to let him go. The moment the door closed, however, her face fell. "Old trash," she spat. "Can't get it up and looks like a damn toad that's taken a dung bath. I sure as hell wouldn't be serving you if you weren't so rich."

She moved briskly behind a screen to bathe herself and change into clean clothes, then sat at the dressing table to redo her makeup.

The woman had been at this brothel for many years and had long since left her youthful beauty behind, but she was good in bed and willing to put up with a great deal. She always did her best to serve her clients no matter how revolting she found them, never letting her honorable guests see any trace of her discomfort. That was why a number of older customers who were getting on in years still flocked to her.

Those younger maidens are so fickle. They don't say anything, but you can see it in their eyes. You're the best, Yu-niang, honest and sincere.

Anytime Elder Yu and his ilk said such things to her, she was secretly cackling.

Yu-niang was neither honest nor sincere. After working in this kind of place for more than a decade, her face had become caked with thick makeup that she could never take off, and she had developed and refined her skills to perfection. With each arched brow and smiling glance, she concealed every hint of her true feelings, even when she was about to die from disgust.

How else could she compete with those tender, supple young bodies?

Yu-niang faced the bronze mirror and carefully traced over the lips that Elder Yu had kissed of their color. She picked up a lip paper and pursed her lips over the small sheet of dark crimson silk as she sat to wait for her second client of the night to push open the door.

She didn't wait long before the rosewood door creaked open.

Yu-niang hastily pasted on her warmest expression, smiling as she looked up to greet her guest. "Gongzi, you…" When she laid eyes on the newcomer's face, she seemed to lose her voice. After a few beats of silence, her vermilion lips parted around a terrible scream.

The man at her door was soaked in blood.

This man was covered in bandages, and his eyes were thoroughly bloodshot. Scarlet drenched his hands, and a sticky eyeball was impaled on a finger of his left hand. He glanced at her. "Don't scream," he rasped.

Then he slowly walked in, lifted his hand to stuff the eyeball into his mouth, and chewed a little before swallowing.

It seemed that for him, eating an eyeball was akin to imbibing a holy medicine: an expression of bliss suffused his face. He licked his lips and slowly turned to look at Yu-niang.

"Get me a pot of tea," he said. When Yu-niang made no move, his tone grew impatient. "Go get me a pot of tea!"

Tea? What tea?

Scared out of her wits, Yu-niang slid from the embroidered bench with a thump, her body convulsing uncontrollably. She wanted to get back up, but her hands and feet were ice-cold, completely unresponsive, incapable of aught but quaking.

She shook for a spell, then let out a mad, bloodcurdling scream and staggered toward the door. "Help! Help me—there's a ghost… A ghost!"

Elder Yu had just left, and as she thought of him now, he really did seem tall, mighty, and fierce. She began to shriek hysterically. "Elder! Elder Yu!"

Yu-niang burst through the door with a crash, stumbling as she tried to run out.

Strangely, the eyeball-eating man didn't move a mote, as if he didn't care where she ran off to. Bloodstained lips parted to reveal a mouth of flashing teeth, and he leered cruelly.

"Elder—! Ahhhh!"

Yu-niang reached the stairway. When she saw the scene below, her legs gave out. She collapsed heavily, without the strength to rise.

At some point, the entire first floor…all the way to the wooden stairs…had been…covered in corpses…

The only exception was the center of the brothel's hall, where a handful of prostitutes huddled together, terrified out of their wits, their pretty faces awash in tears.

An important official—Elder Yu of Chengtian Terrace—lay dead on one of the tables, two bloody holes where his eyes had once been.

Yu-niang shook her head again and again. "No…no…"

Why hadn't the imperial guards noticed such a terrible event? Why— why hadn't Yu-niang heard any screaming, when she had been only a wall away?

A leisurely voice spoke from behind her, as if its owner had read her mind. "It's not like the nation of Chonghua is the only one with secret techniques. If I don't want anyone to hear me, I have no shortage of methods to employ."

Footsteps echoed.

The man wrapped in bandages stepped out from the shadows, holding a teapot patterned with peonies. Tilting his head back, he poured a good half of it down his throat. He gurgled and swallowed, then carelessly tossed the pot away.

It crashed to the floor and shattered.

"You don't need to be afraid. I won't kill you yet." The man stepped forward and grabbed Yu-niang's hair, yanking her down the wooden stairs to throw her toward the other lucky survivors. Then he pulled up a chair, unhurried, sat down in front of them, and looked them over one by one through bloodshot eyes.

After a long interval, he said, "I want all of you to look at each other's faces. I'll give you an incense time."

With that, he waved a hand from where he sat, and the brothel's doors slammed shut. With another wave, three of the corpses rose from the ground, including Elder Yu's. They limped, stooped and unsteady, toward the middle of the hall.

Among the women, Yu-niang was the only one who could still speak. It seemed the others were so frightened that their souls had fled their bodies. "Wh-what…what…do you…"

"You mean to ask, what do I want with you?" The man spoke for her, then laughed derisively. "Didn't I already say it? I'm giving you an incense time to look at each other's faces."

"But then, then…what?"

"Then what?" The man carelessly stroked his chin, taking a moment to think. It was as if this extremely simple question had stumped him.

At this point, the three corpses had drawn near the women, and the eyeless Elder Yu reached out to take Yu-niang's arm.

"No!" Yu-niang screamed in terror. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"

"He's scaring you?" the man asked lazily, turning to look at Elder Yu. "Old geezer, you're dead already. How come you haven't stopped groping people?"

Elder Yu looked up and emitted a gurgling noise, as if he were piteously trying to explain something to the man.

The man snorted twice. With a wave of his hand, a burst of black qi swept out to strike Elder Yu in the forehead. The old man went limp and fell to the floor, spasming and convulsing before ultimately melting into a puddle of gore.

"So much babble, so annoying."

The other two corpses seemed to sense something in this; their footsteps became even stiffer, their movements more cautious. In the end, they slowly dragged six chairs over and carefully placed them next to the brothel girls before bowing.

"Please, take a seat," the man said. If it weren't for the fact that he was covered in blood and had just orchestrated this entire evil scene, his tone could have been considered courteous. "What, do you need a hand?"

Though the girls were terrified out of their wits, they could hear what he said—yet they seemed to be frozen. Only after a long while did they muster the strength to clamber upright, shaking with fear. Each of them sat on a chair, unwilling to let either the bandaged man or those two corpses touch them.

"Wh-who…are you?" Yu-niang said, choking up.

"No need to be hasty," the man said. "Once you do as I say and answer a few of my questions, I'll let you know, of course." He thought for a moment. "Oh, right. As a reminder—don't go hoping anyone will come rescue you. I've cast a barrier on the door. No one will find out about this anytime soon."

He slowly turned his head, gazing toward the tightly closed brothel doors. He licked his lips, the red in his eyes deepening, and laughed. "Shall we get started?"

Perhaps Luomei Pavilion had drawn away the imperial guard's attention, or perhaps the bandaged man's secret techniques were as powerful as he claimed. For the time being, just as he said, not a soul knew what was happening in the north quarter of the city.

Chonghua's imperial capital was yet peaceful.

High-level cultivators, each the occupant of a key ministry position, arrived on the imperial steps one after another. Mo Xi had already been waiting outside the throne room for a long time; once Murong Lian arrived, he refused to stand anywhere else, insisting on the spot right next to Mo Xi.

In the wind and snow, Mo Xi's side profile seemed even sharper and more grave. Murong Lian glanced at him, then looked forward again.

"Xihe-jun, have you really waited in this heavy snow all this time?" he murmured mockingly.

Mo Xi made no sound, quietly letting the snow blanket his shoulders. Murong Lian watched for a while, but when it was clear Mo Xi had no plans to respond, he spoke again.

"On that note, let me ask you something: when you lost your temper outside Luomei Pavilion, was it because you realized Gu Mang's mind might not really be damaged?"

Mo Xi closed his eyes, a faint darkness creeping over his face.

But Murong Lian had no tact. He continued without reservation, "Would you really have choked him to death if no one had intervened? From what I know about you, I doubt it."

Mo Xi remained silent.

"The two of you—"

Finally, Mo Xi wheeled around and snapped, "Murong Lian, are you done?!"

The snowy night was still, the atmosphere outside the hall solemn. Xihe-jun's outburst frightened every cultivator on the scene. They craned their necks to peer toward the source.

Murong Lian's pride had been dented, and his face flashed green, then pale, in bursts. Right as he opened his mouth to say something, the red lacquer doors opened, and a messenger official emerged to perform obeisance to these important officials.

"Honored shenjun, His Imperial Majesty invites you in."

Murong Lian ground his teeth. "You! Just you wait!" he snarled.

Mo Xi swept furiously forward, the dagger at his waist flashing as he left Murong Lian behind.