Chapter 32
Yang Yuan didn't reply. She walked to the table next to Ye Mo, placed the zither on her back on it, stroked the strings, raised her eyebrows and looked out the window, catching a glimpse of the noisy street below.
The sky was hazy and the sun was nowhere to be seen. No wonder, it was almost winter, and the wind was always biting, making people shiver. People were coming and going on the street when a sudden flash of purple caught Yang Yuan's eye. She looked closely and saw that the person had noticed someone watching him and looked up at the building.
His cold indifference pierced Yang Yuan's heart.
Yang Yuan was greatly alarmed, and her hand, which was resting on the strings, suddenly plucked a few strings.
Ah Lu, who was lying drunk on the floor in the next room, suddenly sat up, her eyes bloodshot, staring at the door carved from yellow chrysanthemum wood.
Ah Lu was intimately familiar with the music; it was ingrained in his very being. He could pinpoint the location of the instrument with just one note. He stood up and quietly approached the wall next to the neighboring building, glancing back at Ye Min as he did so.
The latter was already quite drunk, and was fast asleep, hugging a stool. Fortunately, his long-standing habit of being pampered prevented him from snoring, and he curled up his legs and tucked his neck into his sleep.
Ah Lu rubbed her temples, approached the wall, and suddenly lowered her body. A dark aura dissipated into the air, and she nimbly flipped out of the window, grabbed onto the bricks and tiles, and pressed herself tightly against the wall to look. She turned her head and was shocked. She almost lost her senses and fell.
He caught sight of Yang Yuan's zither and figure, and his heart sank.
"Brother Yu, you're here."
The sudden woman's voice startled Ah Lu. He secretly looked for a place to get closer, grabbed the window frame with both hands, and stepped on the edge of the window to reach the window on the upper floor. He climbed down and saw the person inside.
As expected, Yang Yuan was here. Standing with her was a disciple of Hidden Sword Manor, and then a swordsman dressed in purple robes and white fur.
A Lu could tell from the man's attire that he came from Ba Dao Manor.
As soon as Liu Yu entered the room, he saw Yang Yuan standing next to Ye Mo. Surprised, he went straight to Ye Mo's side, grabbed her hand, and began to take her pulse.
Ye Mo noticed Yang Yuan's intense gaze and gently took Liu Yu's hand, putting it down.
"Brother Yu, I'm fine." Ye Mo looked up at Liu Yu, revealing the dimples at the corners of his mouth.
"...I thought you had come to your senses and asked me to take you back to the villa to recuperate, but you told me to go south. Why are you in such a hurry to go back to Yangzhou all of a sudden?"
Looking at her, Liu Yu noticed that she was still thin and dressed in Qin Feng clothes, with her hair tied in a ponytail at the back of her head, revealing her angular face.
"I'll come back to see you."
Ye Mo said this without blushing or skipping a beat, his eyes shining as he looked at Liu Yu, his gaze almost sweet as honey.
"By the way, I'm here today to introduce you to our ally."
Ye Mo turned around and looked at Yang Yuan, placing his hands together in front of his abdomen.
"This is Yang Yuan. You have met her at the residence of the Minister of the Imperial Treasury."
This wasn't the first time Liu Yu had seen this person; however, since they had been enemies last time and the room was dark, he had assumed the voice belonged to a grown woman. Now, standing right in front of him, he realized that the person was actually a little girl.
Yang Yuan merely picked up her zither, glanced at him, and walked behind the screen. Her indifferent expression vaguely reminded one of the snow wolves of the Kunlun Ice Plains, whose mere sight of them would make your legs tremble.
Liu Yu snapped out of his daze, bowed, and said nothing more.
"Brother Yu, you're unaware that I've returned to Yangzhou, aren't you?"
Liu Yu took Ye Mo's hands, stroked her dry hands, felt the coldness of her fingertips, and quickly breathed on them to warm them.
“I just said I was going south to buy things for the winter, and he didn’t suspect anything.”
Ye Mo slowly withdrew his hand and looked down out the window.
"Yang Yuan has already agreed to the alchemist's request. In a few days, you will come with me to Maple Valley."
"She really agreed?" Liu Yu wondered.
"I didn't completely agree, but she was willing to come with me, so she didn't mean to refuse."
Liu Yu remained silent for a long time before speaking:
Is this matter about to be closed?
Ye Mo turned his head to look behind the screen and said:
"Yes."
"What about Wu Shuang?" Liu Yu asked, watching her retreating figure. "Although he returned to Chunyang Palace to recuperate, Hua Bieli still frequently delivers medicine to him. I figured he's still a sorcerer, and we'll need him for a long time to come, so I didn't rush into anything. I just left a few people there to keep an eye on him. If he finds out you're using human blood sacrifice to forcibly enter the inner world again, I'm worried he might..."
"Brother Yu, do you like me?"
Before she could finish speaking, Ye Mo's sudden question startled Liu Yu. She stared intently at him, questioning his words.
"Amo?"
Ye Mo walked over with a light smile and put his arm around Liu Yu.
"Let's get married after this is all over, okay?"
Liu Yu's mind was still blank. He didn't know how to react to what Ye Mo said. He just looked at her hugging him and it was as if he saw that little girl from many years ago hugging him like this, with a sweet smile and dimples, asking for candied hawthorns.
Liu Yu reached out and hugged Ye Mo tightly, the small body in his arms becoming hot.
He knew Ye Mo was a master liar, always had been. She even used marriage as leverage to coerce him into helping her see the person she couldn't forget. He knew all of this.
But the person in his arms was real; she was truly there. Liu Yu breathed in her cool jasmine scent, which clung to her ear, and resignedly closed his eyes.
They were merely intoxicated by the east wind, yet had no fortune to enjoy it.
A-Lu, who was outside the window, nimbly climbed back into the house. Seeing Ye Min sleeping soundly, he picked him up and put him on the bed in the side room, covered him with a quilt, placed his light and heavy swords by the bed, moved a table to block the door, and climbed out the window again without looking back.
This matter had nothing to do with Ye Min. He was instructed by Ye Mo to deliver the jade pendant only to attract the attention of the Hidden Origin Martial Arts Association, diverting everyone's attention to Hidden Sword Manor so that he could escape. Leaving Hidden Sword and hiding in the territory of Evil Man Valley was simply to avoid alerting the enemy, so that he could search for the sorcerer in a longer period of time.
Ah Lu knew everything, but why didn't he tell Yang Yuan? Nobody knew.
He only remembered that when he went to pick up Ye Mo, he and his senior sister stood in the rolling yellow sands of Longmen, and he asked her curiously:
"Aren't you tired of watching over him like this?"
Now he knows the answer.
He placed his twin swords behind his back and returned to the window he had just been standing by. Yang Yuan was still sitting behind the screen, wiping the body of her zither. The other two people were nowhere to be seen. He looked around for a while, and just as he was about to leave, he heard the sound of a door opening.
Ah Lu reacted extremely quickly. The dark atmosphere dissipated and disappeared into the air. She grabbed the window frame with both hands and jumped inside, leaning against the wall.
Yang Yuan stopped wiping the piano. She looked up at the window and saw the gloomy sky reflected in her eyes, making her look dull and lifeless. The tension on her face had not lessened at all. Her face was sallow from being on edge for so long, and her lips were cracked.
A-Lu wanted to reach out and touch her face, but was stopped by a voice that suddenly appeared behind her.
"Miss Yang," the purple-clad swordsman said softly to the screen, remaining behind it without going in.
Yang Yuan paused for a moment, then continued wiping the instrument without replying.
“Amo said… she is very grateful that you are willing to help her.” Liu Yu looked at the wooden screen with peony carvings, listened to the sound of zither being wiped inside, and lowered his eyes.
“I only agreed to join you because of the plan she mentioned.”
Liu Yu gave a wry smile.
“Then, Miss Yang, whatever you want to know, I can tell you.”
Yang Yuan's hand, which was wiping the zither, suddenly stopped moving. Liu Yu had been waiting outside for a long time, and seeing that she didn't react, he tentatively asked a question, at which point a voice suddenly came from inside.
"Miss Yang?" Liu Yu asked.
“I want to know… what do you want the sorcerers to do for you by doing all this?” she said.
This time, Liu Yu didn't answer.
"She told me before that sorcerers can travel between the realms of the living and the dead, but she never said what their purpose was. You've been searching for so many sorcerers all these years, is it just to go to the underworld to see the dead and the souls of the dead?"
“No. No,” Liu Yu replied, slowly clenching his fist, the leather gloves rustling between his fingertips.
“Amo…she wants to bring them back to life.”
Seeing that Yang Yuan did not answer, Liu Yu continued:
"What she wanted was more than what ordinary sorcerers could do. There's a secret technique in some ancient scrolls that involves using the fresh blood of a young girl as a sacrifice during a spirit-gathering ritual when a sorcerer uses a spirit-gathering talisman. This can exchange life for life, allowing the departed soul to be reborn..."
Liu Yu was also a bit of a simpleton, keeping his head down and talking to Yang Yuan through the screen the whole time. Firstly, he was well-mannered and understood the difference between men and women; secondly, he had come specifically for Ye Mo's matter, and now that a friend was helping him, he had to be even more careful.
But if he took one more step, he could actually see A-Lu standing next to Yang Yuan, by the window.
He had already shown himself, intending only to take Yang Yuan away. However, he hadn't expected Liu Yu to return. Leaving now was impossible; he could only listen to what he had to say and try to escape as quickly as possible.
He stood behind Yang Yuan, his shadow falling on her. Knowing he was there, tears welled up in her eyes, and her hands trembled so much she couldn't touch the strings.
"Miss Yang, what's wrong?"
A man's voice came from behind the screen, and A-Lu immediately darkened and concealed herself. If she were to be exposed now, she wasn't afraid of death, but if she implicated Yang Yuan, her life wouldn't be enough to pay for it.
"The wind was blowing too hard, and I caught a chill."
Yang Yuan calmed down and took a few deep breaths.
"Oh. The horses are ready, we must go now."
Yang Yuan had just taken a step forward when A Lu grabbed her arm.
"Where to?" Yang Yuan asked.
“Naturally, we’ll go to Ba Dao Manor.” Liu Yu’s tone became more relaxed. “I’ve thought about it carefully. If we go to Cang Jian Manor, there will be many people coming and going from the sword-forging furnace, which will be inconvenient. Moreover, your zither has already been sacrificed with blood. After the zither’s sound resonates, it may be discovered by others, so it’s more convenient to go back.”
"Leave now?" Yang Yuan asked.
The person behind her gripped her arm, squeezing tighter and tighter, as if trying to pull her into her body. Yang Yuan endured the pain, not wanting to turn around or answer.
"Yes, immediately."
"No..." As soon as A-Lu uttered this word, Liu Yu, with his sharp ears, caught the sound. He frowned, realizing something was wrong, took the knife from his back, gripped it tightly in his hand, and strode over the screen.
Liu Yu looked closely and saw a white-haired woman holding a zither. She had her hair down, was holding the long zither in her arms, and was sitting on a stool with her head down, not saying a word.
"Was there something just now...?"
"Let's go. Don't keep them waiting." Yang Yuan barely managed to squeeze these words out of her throat. Without even looking up at Liu Yu's expression, she stepped over him and started to leave.
She had only walked a few steps when she suddenly stopped, turned back, and looked at the spot where she had just been sitting.
"The snow in the Central Plains is chilly; it's time to put on more clothes."
Having said that, he turned and left.
Liu Yu naturally had no idea who she was referring to. The maple leaves that fluttered year-round at Ba Dao Manor were always chilly in the breeze. He assumed she was cold and, naturally, thought of Ye Mo, so he asked the shopkeeper to bring her a few more cloaks.
He never understood the meaning of those words until he died.
On the third day after their return, Wu Shuang and Jiang Chengfeng led a group of martial arts practitioners to intercept Liu Yu and his group at Ba Dao Manor. They did not know how the news had been leaked, and Liu Yu only wanted Ye Mo to leave as soon as possible.
He had just fought his way out and wanted to go back to pick her up, but he found that the Lingxue Pavilion disciple who had followed her day and night had been disemboweled and thrown aside.
Ye Mo was nailed to the furnace by Qianye Changsheng, his lungs pierced through. His eyes were fixed on the sky and never closed again.
Just as Wu Shuang caught up, she saw Liu Yu slit his throat with a knife and commit suicide at Ye Mo's feet.
There was another person whose remains were never found.
Later, I heard from Ye Min that A Lu went to the Dragon Gate Desert and always sat on the roof of the Dragon Gate Inn, holding a Cave Immortal Guide that was flashing red light. She would sit there for a whole day, from morning to night, from dark to light.
Passersby didn't know his name or where he came from. They just saw a white-haired Ming Cult disciple holding a zither, his face still that of a young man, gazing at the desolate sand dunes of Longmen. The indifference in his eyes was like ice that even the scorching sun couldn't melt.
That lonely figure seemed to belong to someone who would never return.
"Are you done?"
A soft voice suddenly came from behind her, causing Hua Bieli to pause in her writing before continuing.
"It's almost finished, just one more sentence." After writing the last word, Hua Bieli put down the brush, looked at it carefully, closed the booklet, got up, walked to the door, picked up the basket, and turned to close the door of the thatched hut.
"How is it?" Wu Shuang asked, taking the hoe from her and then putting the hood in her arms.
"Don't worry, I'm really remembering every word you told me, Daoist! But Daoist, how do you remember so much? Could it be... that you are actually Yang Yuan's biological father, and that's why you know so much?" Hua Bieli turned her head, her eyes crinkling with a smile as she stared at Wu Shuang, seemingly wanting to get something else out of him.
"...Do not make fun of old friends."
"Hehehe... Okay, okay, I promise I'll never mention their names again!" Hua Bieli clasped three fingers together, clutching her chest as if making a vow.
"..."
"But speaking of which, where exactly did Yang Yuan go?" She stroked her chin, gazing at the scenery of Wanhua Valley in the distance.
Wu Shuang took a few steps and then stopped. He looked at the calluses on his hands, the result of years of sword practice. In his youth, he roamed the martial world, and later spent many years in Chunyang Palace, detached from worldly affairs. He also knew the methods of alchemists, so naturally he had long since disregarded life and death.
Faced with Hua Bieli's question, he didn't know how to answer.
All that could be heard was Hua Bieli singing as she gathered herbs:
"The sun sets over distant, green mountains; the sky is cold, and the white houses are poor."
A dog barks at the thatched gate; a traveler returns home on a snowy night.
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