Chapter 24: Flower-Pluckers Are Human Too

MURONG LIAN RACED to the palace, but the emperor met this revelation with an attitude of pure nonchalance. As he teased the two golden beasts by the brazier—listening to them sing his praises in alternating duets of, "His Imperial Majesty is handsome and carefree," and, "His Imperial Majesty is gloriously majestic"—he reassured Murong Lian with a few careless platitudes, then told him to focus on cracking the case instead of worrying over other matters.

"The imperial palace is closely guarded. Even if Gu Mang did collude with that cook, what could he do? Pull down the sky?"

"Your Imperial Majesty must remain vigilant," Murong Lian said anxiously. "In the end, this incident is the result of this subject's neglect. If Your Imperial Majesty were to come to harm…"

The emperor stopped fiddling with his golden incense chopsticks and put them down. "Enough. You think we don't know you? Gu Mang escaped from your pavilion. You're only so anxious because you're afraid we'll be angry and hold you responsible." He shot a glance at Murong Lian with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Oh, A-Lian, you're our brother by blood. Be at ease. Would we punish you for something like this?"

Once the emperor ascended the throne, according to custom, he was to address his siblings and cousins by their official titles. However, in private, he still sometimes called Murong Lian "A-Lian"—when he needed to reassure him, the closeness of familial bonds had to be emphasized.

"As for Gu Mang, if you still feel uneasy, we'll send him to the prison. It would be a trial for him to escape that even if he grew wings."

With great effort, Murong Lian calmed himself and acquiesced. "Your Imperial Majesty, might this subject receive permission to perform an interrogation, should the case require it?"

"Go ahead. Why wouldn't you be allowed to interrogate someone?"

"Then this subject's use of torture—"

The emperor glanced at him, smiling, then snorted. "They say it's Xihe the Ruthless and Wangshu the Cruel. We see that this is true indeed. Is it that you can't get people to tell the truth without torture?"

Murong Lian cleared his throat. "Gu Mang is a special case, of course."

"Enough. Interrogate him however you like, but don't overdo it. We think Xihe-jun retains some kind of obsession with him. We found it amusing the first time you two bickered in the hall, but we'll be annoyed by a second round."

The emperor played with the jade beads in his hand and continued, lightly, "Keep yourself under control. Don't let us hear a formal indictment against you." He rolled his eyes. "One of you is an important military official and the other an imperial scion, yet for the sake of your personal grudges, you act like three-year-olds squabbling over a toy. Do you really think we can't tell?"

Murong Lian found himself unable to reply.

The rising sun emerged in the east. As the light of day pierced the darkness, the citizens awakened and rose from their beds, chattering and gossiping. News of the murders in the Mansion of Beauties the previous night was immediately leaked and swiftly spread across the imperial capital until it became the hottest topic of conversation for all the capital's citizens.

Somehow everyone, from the old and gray to children and youths, had a pithy comment to share.

"Almost everyone in the brothel was killed overnight! How tragic!"

"Aiya, aiya! Good heavens! Has the killer been caught?"

"He's long since escaped! Before escaping, he even left writing on the walls: 'Gold and treasure are a plentiful sight, but rare are the men who can last all night'!"

"The version I heard was, 'This humble one is lonely; sincerely seeking wives.'"

"Um… Who can say! In any case, the Mansion of Beauties is all sealed up now. No one can go in other than the officials investigating the case. But in my opinion, no matter if it was 'gold and treasure are a plentiful sight,' or 'this humble one is lonely,' it sounds like a case of seizing women rather than riches."

"Could it be a flower-plucking rapist with a penchant for murder?"

The more the story spread, the more ludicrous it became, and in the end, a certain storyteller came up with this tale: "There was so much unclean qi at the Mansion of Beauties that it attracted a lecherous vengeful ghost. On a dark and moonless night, he stole into the mansion—heh heh— and killed the men before defiling them, then defiled the women before killing them! That vengeful ghost was unnaturally virile. He defiled and killed more than seventy people in the Mansion of Beauties before the sun rose, and so indiscriminately that he even claimed elderly Official Yu!"

The tea-drinking customers were wide-eyed and speechless.

"Isn't that kind of insane?" One of the customers couldn't hold back and burst into raucous laughter.

"Young Yue-gongzi? Wh-what's brought this on?"

"Ha ha ha ha!" The one who had doubled over with laughter was Yue Chenqing, who was so idle that he had nothing better to do than collect rumors. He chuckled, "I've heard so many versions, but yours is definitely the funniest. Defiling and killing more than seventy people in one night! Bro, I'm afraid that rapist isn't virile—he's a two-pump chump!"

This shattered the atmosphere of terror. Everyone laughed and shook their heads. Even the maidens covered their mouths and giggled in secret. The storyteller was terribly embarrassed, but when he realized his heckler was the young master of the Yue Clan, he couldn't exactly chase him away in a huff. He could only smile along and say, "Yes, yes, Yue-gongzi is right."

And so, the tale of Virile Rapist Mounts Seventy in One Night was revised by the singular Yue Chenqing into Two-Pump Flower-Plucker Kills Brothel-Goers in Furious Rampage.

Probably the only people in the city who weren't in the mood to listen to this chatter were the friends and families of the murdered clients, the harried imperial guards, everyone at Shennong Terrace, and the two noble masters Xihe and Wangshu.

Within Wangshu Manor, an attendant spoke with their head lowered. "My lord. The servant you wanted from Luomei Pavilion is here."

Murong Lian had just smoked two pipes worth of ephemera. He was in a good mood indeed. "All right, let him in."

The servant hurriedly entered the hall, kneeling in front of Murong Lian to give his report. "This slave greets Wangshu-shenjun, may he receive ten thousand blessings—"

"Enough, enough, save your breath. You shared a room with that escaped cook, correct?"

"Yes."

"Come, tell me about him. What kind of person is he?"

"Um…he was brought to Luomei Pavilion five years ago," the servant replied. "Doesn't like to talk much, bit of a creep, often alone."

"Did anything happen that might have made him develop a grudge against brothel girls?" Murong Lian asked.

"Nothing like that, not exactly," the servant responded. "But I heard he was a lecher in the Liao Kingdom who always wanted to take pretty girls for himself. Apparently, he even slept with his sworn brother's wife."

Murong Lian sighed. "So he's a pervert."

He thought to himself that the rumors spreading among the people might not be too far off. The cook might indeed be a lecherous rapist with some kind of insane craving. Why else would he keep those five women by his side?

"What about him and Gu Mang?" Murong Lian asked. "Did they interact?"

"I don't think they were ever close."

Murong Lian murmured under his breath, then said, "I understand, you may withdraw."

After the servant left, Murong Lian spoke to the attendant. "Bring me my silver fox fur coat, the warmest one. I'm going to the prison to interrogate Gu Mang."

If Murong Lian was focusing on "interrogation," then Mo Xi was thoroughly intent on "investigation." He was analyzing every detail of the crime scene.

This Mansion of Beauties case was seriously bizarre. If the culprit was a vengeful ghost, how had it written anything? If they were a living person, why had they bothered digging out their victims' hearts?

Mo Xi ordered Shennong Terrace to continue examining the wounds on the dead in hopes of finding more clues. After examining each corpse one by one, the healers discovered traces of concealed sword-inflicted injuries. But those marks were quite peculiar as well, which only made the entire case all the more confusing.

"What's strange about the wounds?"

The healer hesitated before replying. "The Water-Parting Sword."

Mo Xi immediately looked up. "The Water-Parting Sword, Li Qingqian?"

"Exactly so."

"How could it be…?" Mo Xi murmured.

The swordsman zongshi Li Qingqian was a cultivator who had been born in Lichun.

He had been poor in coin and kind of heart. He'd roamed the lands for more than a decade, exorcising and defeating countless demons, but had also been helplessly naive. Oftentimes, he'd been the one risking his life to stave off calamity, but ill-intentioned cultivators had always ended up stealing his glory. Thus, even after ten years of hard work, he'd labored in obscurity.

Until the year he fought the battle of Maiden's Lament Mountain.

Maiden's Lament Mountain was in the Liao Kingdom's territory. It had once been known as Phoenix Feather Mountain, but the Liao Kingdom military had at one point gathered some hundred women from who knows where, dressed them all in crimson wedding robes, and buried them alive amid the sounds of their anguished wails.

The explanation given by the Liao Kingdom's guoshi had been: "The stars say that this mountain god requires sacrifices."

After those aggrieved women were buried, their hatred soared relentlessly up toward the heavens. Many roaming cultivators had come forward to try to exorcise them, but they had all died at the hands of the maiden ghosts. Therefore, the terrified local villagers below Phoenix Feather Mountain had renamed it "Maiden's Lament Mountain."

The mountain bride, all night she cried;

First she hates her helpless fate,

Second hates her ill-starred face,

Third their parting does she hate, a lost love left too late.

Garbed in scarlet, crowned in gold;

Once she laughs, face warped by hate;

Twice she laughs, blood streaks her face; Thrice she laughs, and with that last, forever seals your fate.

These verses told of the corpses of the countless beauties who had been buried alive on the mountain. Any crossing had to be completed within a single day when yang energy was at its peak, and the party could include no women, children, sick, or elderly. To do anything else would agitate the hundreds of vengeful ghosts upon the mountain. With the sound of three laughs, the ghosts would appear behind their victims, and all the travelers would perish on the mountainside.

After Li Qingqian heard of this, he went to Maiden's Lament Mountain to suppress the ghosts. At the time, even though he had defeated countless demons, he had never cared to build up his reputation, so not many people knew his name.

When the magistrate saw this young cultivator in patched-up clothes, looking like some nobody, he couldn't stand idly by. "Even though the bounty's high, there're hundreds of ghosts on that mountain, every one of them a terrible fiend. Xianzhang, don't put your life at risk."

But Li Qingqian only replied that he wasn't seeking riches. Then he walked up the mountain accompanied by nothing more than the sword at his side.

His trip lasted three days. Just as everyone began to sigh that another cultivator had died on the mountainside, the anguished howling of hundreds of women burst out of Maiden's Lament Mountain, along with a beam of jade-colored light that could be seen from miles away.

Later, when people described that sword, their expressions would grow dreamy and they would sigh, mesmerized by the past. "The WaterParting Sword forms," they would say, "can reach as far as the eye can see, even piercing the Nine Heavens."

All that glitters is not gold, but true gold always shines. Li Qingqian had been buried in obscurity for many years, but this battle finally brought him fame. To this day, countless storytellers still passionately recounted his austere strength of character—those jade-green robes fluttering in the wind, a sword in one hand and a soul lantern in the other as he floated down from the mountain path.

What's more, Li Qingqian had sealed hundreds of vengeful ghosts' souls during this battle. These souls couldn't have been better suited for refining weapons—any artificer would pay such a high price for them that Li Qingqian would never have to worry about food or clothing for the rest of his life.

But Li Qingqian didn't have the heart to sell them.

"Every one of them is a maiden from a pitiful family, buried alive as a sacrifice to the mountain at such a young age and made into a vengeful ghost to do harm. This was not their intent. It would be far too cruel to refine them into magical tools; they'd never be able to reincarnate."

So, Li Qingqian resolved to travel to an island with potent spiritual energy in the eastern sea and help these hundreds of souls pass on. Because their hatred was so deep and their number so great, it was entirely possible that it would take more than a decade to complete the task. Before Li Qingqian left, he passed his Water-Parting Sword Manual to his younger brother, reminding the young man to work hard in cultivating and to use these sword techniques to do good as much as he could.

As for himself, Li Qingqian vanished without a trace into the vast mortal world.

The healer from Shennong Terrace spoke cautiously. "Even though Li-zongshi is said to be righteous, these corpses bear the marks of the Water-Parting Sword. Could it be that the rumors are false?"

"Impossible." Mo Xi closed his eyes. "Before Li Qingqian became famous, I had the good fortune to meet him. He was indeed a righteous man; he would never do such a despicable thing."

"Then could it be his younger brother?"

Mo Xi shook his head. "The Water-Parting Sword is very difficult to cultivate. It would be impossible to use without ten, even twenty years of arduous work, and Li Houde has only possessed his elder brother's sword manual for a few short years. The timeline doesn't add up."

After the healer from Shennong Terrace completed their report, Mo Xi sat in the courtyard, eyes closed and brow knitted, carefully thinking through the connections between these events.

Li Wei asked curiously, "My lord, everyone at the street stalls is saying the culprit is a rapist. Some strange fixation made him kill a bunch of the people in a brothel, but he kept five beauties to carry off. Is that not how you see it?"

"It isn't."

Li Wei hadn't expected Mo Xi to so directly refute the city's hottest theory. He blinked, taken aback. "Wh-why?"

Mo Xi unrolled a scroll of spirit jade on the table. The names and appearances of the deceased, as well those of the five missing women, materialized on its surface.

"Come look at this."

Li Wei drew closer and looked at it intently for a good long time. He couldn't find any problems and so replied obsequiously, "This subordinate is too dull to perceive the workings of heaven."

"Pick out the best-looking five," Mo Xi said.

Li Wei loved doing things like comparing and ranking people, so he pointed at a few of the brothel's beauties with all due speed. "Her, and her…ah, nope, she isn't as pretty as the one next to her…"

As he happily made his selection, Xihe-jun said, "Have you noticed that not a single one of the maidens you've chosen was taken by this 'rapist'?"

"Huh…" Li Wei was stumped for a second, and his eyes widened. "It's just as you say…"

"He ignored the star songstress and beheaded many of the most beautiful courtesans to keep these five." Mo Xi looked at the little portraits on the jade scroll and crossed his arms as he murmured as if he were explaining himself to Li Wei, or as if he were sinking back into his thoughts. "He did not do this for women. 'This humble one is lonely; sincerely seeking wives,' likely doesn't reflect his true intentions."

At that moment, a servant of Xihe Manor hurried over. "My lord, my lord—"

"What is it?" Mo Xi turned, frowning. "Has something happened?"

"You had Xiao-Lizi keep an eye on Gu Mang's movements in the prison. Just now, Xiao-Lizi sent a message: Wangshu-jun suspects that Gu Mang had something to do with the Mansion of Beauties murder case, s-so…"

Mo Xi's expression instantly shifted. "So?"

"So he went to interrogate Gu Mang alone in the Chamber of Ice. That room—that room has no windows, so Xiao-Lizi had no idea what was happening within, and he didn't dare alert you without reason, so he waited until Wangshu-jun came out… But then he saw…Gu Mang was already… he was already…"

He pathetically swallowed, mustering the courage to continue.

But Mo Xi didn't wait for him to finish. He'd already thrown down the jade scrolls and rushed straight for the prison without a backward glance.