One thought after another flashed through Ding Songyan's mind. Weighing his words, he said:
"I don't know, Master."
Before Tao Wenshu could ask another question, he volunteered:
"I was attacked at the ruined temple outside the city and lost much of my memory. All this time, I've taken Ding Qingyan, the guise Demoness Ji assumed, to be my younger sister, and treated her with affection..."
He briefly recounted a few incidents from their daily life as "brother and sister," including telling her stories before bed and giving her a silver hairpin to keep among her treasured belongings. He focused on the three "nightmares" that "Ding Qingyan" had suffered the previous night and the oath he had sworn.
Finally, he gave a brief account of Ji Hanyi's conversation with Yan Changqing, along with what she had told him before leaving: "I've had a great deal of fun these past few days, so I'll let you live a little longer." He concealed only the secret of his return from death and his unusual ability to reach the Netherworld.
"Master, what does severing worldly ties mean?" Ding Songyan asked after finishing his account.
Wearing her heavy iron crown, Tao Wenshu said thoughtfully:
"On the orthodox path, severing worldly ties means leaving home to withdraw from the world and no longer concerning yourself with your relatives' affairs. On the Heterodox Path..."
She paused before continuing:
"It means leaving you all alone, without a single relative."
*Isn't that slaughtering an entire family? Demoness Ji's first "nightmare" hinted at something like that... Yan Changqing also said his entire family had been killed, and he alone had narrowly escaped... Looking at it now, perhaps his family was slaughtered precisely because someone took a fancy to his aptitude. He didn't escape disaster; an expert from two generations back