The Truth from Thirty Years Ago

Ye Yun forced himself to his feet, his internal organs seared as if by raging flames. Though he had managed to kill Prefect Zhou in their battle, the Youming Sect's dark arts were truly bizarre. Lingering yin energy still rampaged through his meridians. He took a deep breath and circulated the Returning Origin Art from the True Martial Secret Manual, forcing the invading yin energy out of his body bit by bit.

Just then, the long saber in his hand gave a faint tremor. Its blade quivered gently, producing a soft hum, as if something were trying to communicate with him.

Thank you... young master... A weak female voice sounded directly in Ye Yun's mind, wavering like a candle guttering in the wind. I have... a small, improper request...

Ye Yun wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and gently stroked the blade. "You want me to help uncover the truth about what happened back then?"

The long saber trembled faintly. A glimmer of ghostly blue light appeared along its edge, then dimmed again, serving as an answer.

"Rest for now." Ye Yun sheathed the saber and lightly tapped the scabbard three times with his fingers. "Once I've dealt with things here, we can talk."

The female ghost's presence gradually faded, and the long saber returned to its ordinary appearance. Ye Yun surveyed the surroundings. The entire courtyard had been reduced to ruins. Prefect Zhou's body lay faceup in a pool of blood, the edges of the grotesque wound across his chest tinged with an uncanny black, as if something had corroded it. The four black-robed men's corpses were even more horrifying—three had been drained of their blood and essence, reduced to dried husks; the fourth had been cut in two by Ye Yun's saber, his innards spilled across the ground.

Urgent footsteps and shouts came from the distance. Ye Yun quickly steadied his breathing and suppressed the churning Essence Qi inside him, then put on his familiar look of utter exhaustion.

"Brother Ye!" Yan Xiao Liu rushed into the courtyard with more than a dozen constables. Seeing the scene before him, he gaped in shock. "Th-this... what happened?"

"The female ghost and Prefect Zhou both suffered grievous injuries." Ye Yun coughed twice, pretending to be weak. "Before he died, Prefect Zhou used some kind of dark art, and the female ghost... cough, cough... I don't know where she went."

Yan Xiao Liu eyed Ye Yun suspiciously, then scanned the battlefield. More than half the courtyard wall had collapsed, and the ground was riddled with crisscrossing trenches, the deepest over a foot deep. How could a fight in which both sides suffered grievous injuries have caused such destruction? These were clearly the traces of a life-and-death struggle between masters!

But when he saw Ye Yun's warning look, Yan Xiao Liu wisely held his tongue. He turned to the constables behind him and shouted, "What are you standing around for? Clean up the scene! Take all the bodies back to the yamen! Remember, if anyone says a single word about what happened today..." He drew a finger across his throat.

The constables fell silent with fear and hurried to work. Ye Yun patted Yan Xiao Liu on the shoulder. "I'll leave this to you. I'm going to see the Wang family head."

Wang Fu had been waiting for Ye Yun in the main hall of the Wang Mansion. As soon as he saw Ye Yun approaching, the old steward hurried to greet him. "Lord Ye, the family head is waiting for you in the inner room."

Ye Yun nodded and followed Wang Fu through the winding corridors. Along the way, he noticed that the mansion's layout was quite deliberate—its artificial hills and flowing water followed the pattern of the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams, and bronze mirrors hung at every turn in the covered walkways. Clearly, some expert had arranged it to ward off evil and protect the household.

"These were left behind by that Daoist thirty years ago." Wang Fu noticed Ye Yun's gaze and offered an explanation. "The household really has been more peaceful since they were put in place."

At the door to the inner room, Wang Fu knocked softly. "Master, Lord Ye has arrived."

"Come in." A hoarse voice came from inside.

Ye Yun pushed the door open and saw an old man with white hair and beard sitting in a grand armchair. This was Wang Shouyi, the current head of the Wang family. He looked to be around sixty, with a haggard face and sunken eyes, clearly tormented by nightmares for a long time.

"Lord Ye, please sit." Wang Shouyi signaled a servant to bring tea. Once the door had closed, he got straight to the point. "I heard that... that thing has appeared again?"

Ye Yun lifted his teacup and took a small sip. "Not only did it appear, it also perished together with Prefect Zhou, who came from the provincial government."

"Prefect Zhou?" Wang Shouyi furrowed his brows. "Impossible... That thing's resentment is immense. How could an ordinary prefectural clerk possibly..."

"Prefect Zhou was a member of the Youming Sect." Ye Yun set down his teacup, his gaze sharp as a torch. "Family Head Wang, now that things have come to this, are you still going to conceal the truth about what happened thirty years ago?"

With a clatter, the teacup slipped from Wang Shouyi's hand and shattered on the floor. His face turned deathly pale, his lips trembling. "You... how do you know about the Youming Sect?"

Ye Yun did not answer. He simply watched him in silence. A deathly stillness settled over the room, broken only by the heavy breathing of the old steward, Wang Fu.

After a long while, Wang Shouyi sighed, seeming to age ten years in an instant. "Forget it... Now that thing has appeared in the world, the Wang family will likely be unable to escape this calamity. Lord Ye, ask whatever you wish."

Wang Shouyi motioned for Wang Fu to fetch an old wooden box. Inside lay a yellowed family genealogy and several faded letters.

"This began thirty years ago..." Wang Shouyi's voice was low and hoarse, as if each word weighed a thousand catties.

"My father was still alive back then. I was the Wang family's eldest legitimate son, and I had a younger half-sister named Wang Yun." His fingers gently traced a name in the genealogy. "That girl was strange from childhood. She was always saying she could see unclean things. At first, everyone thought she was just making up nonsense like any other child, until the year she turned seven..."

Wang Shouyi's gaze grew distant, as if he had returned to those nightmare years.

"Three Daoists came to us that day. They claimed to be cultivators from Xuantian Temple and said Yun'er had a body attuned to the netherworld, making her a cultivation prodigy. They wanted to take her up the mountain to train. My father naturally didn't believe them. But then the Daoist leading them performed magic right there, conjuring a golden lotus from thin air and making a dead tree bloom... Who among ordinary folk could wield such power?"

Ye Yun frowned slightly. He had never heard of Xuantian Temple. But the magic of conjuring objects from thin air and making dead trees bloom bore some resemblance to the Youming Sect's Illusory Form Art.

My father agreed at once and even offered them a large sum as a betrothal gift. Wang Shouyi continued, "But the day after those men settled in, strange things began happening in the mansion. First, the big black dog guarding the gate suddenly died, its blood completely drained. Then Li, the kitchen maid, was found dead in the woodshed, her eyes... her eyes gouged out..."

As he spoke, Wang Shouyi's hands began to tremble despite himself. Wang Fu hurriedly offered him a cup of hot tea, but he waved it away.

"The worst happened on the night of the seventh day." Wang Shouyi's voice seemed to scrape its way through clenched teeth. "Yun'er... Yun'er strangled her own birth mother, Lady Liu, and... and gouged out her eyes! The night watchmen saw it with their own eyes. They said Yun'er was unbelievably strong—four or five burly men couldn't hold her down. Her eyes... they were completely black, without a trace of white..."

Ye Yun's heart jolted. All-black eyes were a typical sign of someone controlled by the Ghost-Seeding Art! The Youming Sect excelled at refining living people, and women born in a yin year, yin month, and yin hour were the ideal vessels.

"What happened after that?"

"Those three Daoists took action and subdued Yun'er with talismans." Wang Shouyi wiped the cold sweat from his brow. "Just as they were about to take her away, a disheveled Daoist arrived at the mansion. Without a word, he attacked them..."

As Wang Shouyi continued, his story grew more vivid, as if that earth-shaking battle were unfolding before their eyes.

"Though the disheveled Daoist was dressed in rags, his methods were astonishing! With a wave of his hand, he unleashed thunderous force and drove the three Daoists back again and again. They fought from the inner courtyard to the front hall, then from the front hall to the roof... In the end, they turned into four streaks of light and flew out of the city. And Yun'er... took advantage of the chaos to flee back to her own courtyard..."

Ye Yun pondered. To face three Youming Sect cultivators alone, the disheveled Daoist must have been an expert of the orthodox path. He just didn't know which sect or school he belonged to, or why he had happened to appear at the Wang Mansion.

"What happened after that? How did Miss Yun..."

"She threw herself into a well." Wang Shouyi closed his eyes. "The whole mansion was in chaos, and no one noticed her. By the time we found out, all that remained were a pair of embroidered shoes by the well... and... and the pair of eyeballs that belonged to her birth mother..."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop abruptly. Wang Fu edged unconsciously toward the door, while Ye Yun remained perfectly still, lightly tapping the scabbard with his fingers as he pondered.