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“There’s nothing wrong.”

“Is that so?”

“Y-yes,” said the nervous man unconvincingly.

“Curious. Tell me, Yang; has anyone ever told you before that you are utterly incompetent at any semblance of lying?”

Yang—of distant relation to Yang Bintong, actually—winced, then began to babble.

This wasn’t their first interrogation of the day, and it definitely wouldn’t be their last. Unfortunately. Zhu Li wasn’t sure he could take another round of Chen gushing over his objectively assholish grandmother like a lover would. Nor could he stand Ling’s endless groveling grating on his ears. Nor was he in a great mood in general because of yesterday. Nor was he even helpful to this situation other than being an intimidation factor.

Maybe he should have just stayed home.

No, no. He couldn’t foist all the sect drama onto Chu Ran’s shoulders and then dance away to parts unknown. Only a prat would do that.

Chu Ran had his back to him, hands clasped behind him and face hidden from view. On the flipside, Yang’s saggy mug was turned in his direction, its fold barely visible in the poorly lit cell. Zhu Li, for his own part, was leaned against the door with one foot on it, arms crossed. A scowl had been pulling at his lips all day, his victories against it ephemeral in nature; whether that was contributing to Yang’s jumpiness, he couldn’t say.

“You know something about that odd funeral, hm? I can tell from the way you sweat when it’s mentioned. Come, speak. I would hate to have to use drastic measures to make your short time left in this world worse. Perhaps I could even make it easier, with the right incentive.”

Zhu Li tuned back into the conversation right then. He watched Yang’s fluctuating expression; the old man seemed somehow more fidgety at the prospect of a reward.

Chu Ran waited patiently for him to crack. Meanwhile, Zhu Li grappled with how he would have to grit and bear the presence of these stubborn bulls for just a few hours more. Their moral cohorts had been swiftly kicked out of the Miasma Caves’s barrier last night, so these elders were truly the last bastion of shameless, self-disserving obstinance, the final layer of trash that was soon to rot away and let the land it was poisoning heal.

There would eventually come a day that he would stop mentally dissing these people. As things stood, he needed to vent about them in some capacity or he’d explode. Again.

Zhu Wuji had lightly scolded him about his outburst when he’d put in his request, saying that there were much better ways to have gone about it, but she’d still granted it. She’d conceded that while he hadn’t been wrong in what he’d said and done, emotional fits were generally looked down upon.

That had just made him more upset. Whenever someone said something that they knew would piss people off, why would the people they provoked then be castigated for their inevitable reaction? Why was it such a controversial thing to slap someone who couldn’t keep the shit they’d eaten in their own mouth?

Whatever. There was a reason he was so okay with being alone and far removed from any position of power. His preferred state of calm was more fragile than he’d like to admit; it would never hold up in situations where he couldn’t just kick people he didn’t like out of his general vicinity, but instead had to actively put up with them because politics. That imaginary scenario alone put the ghost of a headache behind his eyes.

“Care to elaborate on that?”

Chu Ran’s voice brought him back. He’d spaced out again. Whoops.

“No, I-I wouldn’t,” Yang said, trembling. “It’s nothing.”

“Hmm. That doesn’t seem to be true at all, does it? I wonder what has you so fearful? Anyone who would want to hurt you is likely locked up alongside you, you’re already paying your dues here, nobody will come after your family… I fail to grasp what keeps you quiet. Is it perhaps the afterlife you’re concerned about? I’m sure that confessing to any wrongdoings will earn you a lighter sentence in the underworld.”

Yang remained quiet, shrinking into himself for good measure.

“You don’t seem to have a care for the afterlife, so it can’t possibly be that,” Chu Ran continued. “In that case, perhaps this is just a tale told through all the annals of history—pride overcoming logic, leading to one’s downfall. The embarrassment and shame you’re feeling at your own folly is absolutely tragic.”

Yang’s face took on a tinge of terror. It just made Chu Ran laugh, the sound cold as it bounced off the filthy walls.

“I can sense it. That burrowing, writhing feeling in your gut betrays you well enough. You’re guilty of something—so guilty, it’s sewing your mouth shut with an intangible thread. It’s too late to care about reputation and dignity for you, so I can only assume that you’re trying to avoid the discomfort that comes with a confession of your sins.”

Zhu Li watched Chu Ran’s back intently as the man stepped forwards, then crouched in front of Yang, low enough so that the tip of his sheath bumped against the ground. While it was hard to see from this angle, Zhu Li was pretty sure he was leaning in towards Yang, breaching his personal space.

“You should confess now,” he said quietly, “lest I elevate that discomfort to something so much worse.”

An unmistakable sense of impending doom prickled through the air at his tone, sending goosebumps across Zhu Li’s skin. He couldn’t conceive of a scenario where Chu Ran’s malice would ever be directed towards him, and in moments like this, he was grateful for the lack of possibility.

As if lining up with his thoughts, Yang’s fragile courage seemed to quickly evacuate him. He stammered out a series of meaningless noises before stringing together a semi-coherent sentence.

“I-I-I don’t know anything! I just—I was told to make new copies of things the day after the funeral and burn the old ones!”

“New copies? Do give some detail about that. Take deep breaths if you need to—I’m assuming you do.”

It took way longer than it should have, but Yang eventually sputtered out between pleads that he’d been in charge of rewriting registries with a certain name removed, then burning the original copies. There had been other papers and scrolls he’d been told to burn, too, and been threatened to not look at them upon pain of retaliation.

Whose name had been omitted? He didn’t know, because the original files had literal holes where the person’s name had been. What had been on those mystery scrolls? He didn’t know that either, because he somehow didn’t have enough curiosity or disobedience to even stick them between his teeth.

All in all, it was a waste of time. Just like the interrogations that had come before them.

Was there a way to just crack a skull open and see what information was inside? Maybe a method was in the mystical lands far up north, where there were fantastical machines, living stone guardians, a library containing every surviving book in circulation, and jing running about on the streets. Zhu Li was highly considering making the journey just to learn and never again have to deal with this situation during his lifetime.

“What a shame that one was mostly useless,” Chu Ran mused as they hoofed it back to Ling’s cell.

Zhu Li huffed. “Only mostly?”

“There was a tiny bit we could use from what he said. We might be able to finagle something out of Ling.”

What bit he was talking about, Zhu Li didn’t know. He’d definitely stopped paying attention at some point. “More like you’ll be doing that alone,” he grumbled.

Chu Ran chuckled. “Not a fan of this interrogation business? The Hans’ problems were much more simple when the involved parties had problems with each other. Alas, when everyone’s in cahoots, the process gets significantly more tedious. Life would be so much better for me if everything needed could be wrung out of just one person. To be frank with you, I would be enjoying this a lot more if the other two weren’t aggravatingly impervious to intimidation. Cultivators… well, former cultivators appear to be a different breed.”

Yeah. A different breed of nonsense. “Good luck getting anything out of them.”

“Have some faith in me, Doctor. I may yet take my sword to them.”

Thus commenced many hours of back-and-forth with Ling, and only sometimes Chen.

Eventually, in exchange for a promise to live at her original home, Ling gave them their end goal.

“The funeral was before my time as an Elder, and I lived on the other side of the sect from the Zhu Estate. What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t worry about; I never much cared for politics unless they directly affected me. But if there’s anyone that does know anything about it—and might even be directly involved in the coverup—it’s that bastard, Chen Tuweng.”

At that point, Zhu Li raised his brows. Chen hadn’t ever been brought up in Ling’s presence to prevent her from getting anything over them, yet she’d brought him up all on her own.

“Oh? You dislike him?” Chu Ran prodded.

“No one ever liked that prick,” she said with a scoff. “Madam Meng hand-picked all the Elders here, but even then, he was the one that clung to her thighs the most. He was a talentless nobody before her; his only virtue is his undying loyalty to her every whim. To everyone else, he was an annoying and creepy obsessive. Anything you’d ever want to know about what the Madam was doing, he would know about it in disturbing detail.”

“And how would one go about getting that information from him?”

The older-looking woman grimaced, then went into a sudden, momentary coughing fit. With how stuffy it was in here, it was little wonder as to why she would want to live the rest of her life outside.

“That’s going to be the difficult part. Ever since her death, he’s been determined to take her secrets to the grave. I’m not sure that even taking a blade to him would get him to confess. The only person that he’d ever willingly divulge information to has been long dead.”

“There’s no other way?”

“I wish there was. He’s otherwise unflappable. If I knew a method to get him talking, I…”

She trailed off, her sunken eyes taking on a distant look. Eventually, she shook her head and changed the subject. “Unless you can either raise Madam Meng up from the dead or read minds, there’s no getting that information out of Chen Tuweng. My apologies.”

Great. So we’re back at space one of this shitty game of qi, Zhu Li thought acerbically, shifting in his stance to leave. This was a waste of time.

“Raise Madam Meng from the dead, you said? What an idea,” Chu Ran repeated, catching Zhu Li off guard. “Thank you for the insight, Ling. Your request shall be taken care of.”

For some reason, he sounded contemplative, like he was seriously considering ‘invoking the spirits’ as an option.

Zhu Li watched him suspiciously as he spun on his heel and left. Once they were outside and a good distance away from any relevant ears, he had to ask, “Do you know necromancy or something?”

Chu Ran’s brows jumped up at the sudden question. To his credit, his pace didn’t slow at all. “What?… Oh, no. Nothing quite like that, I’m afraid. Say, does necromancy even exist, or is that just some superstition meant to scare the rabble?”

Great question. Zhu Li had no idea how to answer it. Resources in Jin were as inconclusive on the matter as they were regarding most things, but the world was weird. Weren’t the concepts of yao and jing way weirder than simple reanimated corpses, anyway?

“No idea,” he answered. “You just seemed like you had some kind of plan.”

Chu Ran went unusually quiet for a minute. It was during this time that Zhu Li realized they weren’t headed for the exit, but for Chen’s yet again.

He gave a delayed, cryptic response of, “Meng Ruoxue does not need to genuinely be alive for the desired effect.”

Okay, what was that supposed to mean? Zhu Li waited a bit for clarification, but when it became clear that none was forthcoming, he had to prompt him. “So… you’re going to fake her resurrection?”

“Something like that, yes.”

Zhu Li had been one-hundred-percent joking, yet there was a serious look on his companion’s face. There was still no in-depth explanation, either. He was suddenly torn on whether he should dig further or just wait and see what Chu Ran had up his sleeves.

They wound through the dark hallways and stairs to arrive at Chen’s cell yet again, because of course these three couldn’t have been placed close together. That would have made something about this experience easy when the Dao had already decreed that this needed to be as annoying as possible.

However… he was noticing a stiffness in Chu Ran’s movements that definitely hadn’t been there before Ling. By the time he actually did decide to ask after it, Chu Ran paused in front of Ling’s door for a few seconds, then wrapped his fingers around Shenhuan’s hilt and barged in.

Alarm shot through Zhu Li’s veins. What was that? Was he actually going to cut Chen up?

He pursued close on Chu Ran’s heels, only to pause when he was actually in the cell.

The door swung shut behind them with a resounding whump.

When they’d visited before, Chen had all but stuck his nose up at them. ‘Her grandson you may be, but her equal you are not,’ he’d said. ‘I swore that I would never say anything about Madam Meng’s business,’ he’d proclaimed. ‘Madam Meng was the smartest, most beautiful woman in the sect, and her loss is felt daily,’ he’d simpered on and on, complete with a glaring look for their audacity to ask about her.

Now, though? Now, he had a blank, glazed-over cast to his eyes as he stared up at Chu Ran from his spot on the floor. The look itched something in the back of Zhu Li’s mind, digging its claws in deeper until he had to think: Where have I seen this before?

There was no time for him to dredge his mind for that answer.

“Hello, Tuweng,” Chu Ran practically crooned. The tone of his voice sent bumps raising along Zhu Li’s arms. “What’s with that look? Don’t you remember me?”

Right before the eyes, that vacant expression turned into one of complete adoration. Chen’s eyes lit up, sparkling with unshed tears, and his hands went to grab Chu Ran’s free one. “M… Madam Meng!” he exclaimed, emotion inundating his voice. “Madam Meng, of course I would never forget you! You are as radiant as ever!”

What… what. What? What the fuck?

Zhu Li was frozen near the entrance, his breath caught in his chest. His eyes bore hard into Chu Ran’s back—the man hadn’t magically turned into his grandmother, so that wasn’t a possibility. The way the other had spoken and the fact that he wasn’t immediately recoiling from Chen’s spotted hands meant that he had probably… expected this?

“That’s good,” Chu Ran continued. “Is everything ready for the funeral tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Chen’s face briefly morphed into one of confusion. “It hasn’t already happened?”

Chu Ran chuckled. “Is your mind going? It hasn’t. Are you saying that the preparations aren’t done yet, and you haven’t done what I asked you to?”

Eyes widening, Chen tensed up. “No, no, Madam, I have! Everything has been as you’ve dictated! My mind is just a tad fuzzy today, for some reason.”

“That’s quite alright. How about we go over all that’s been accomplished to jog your memory?”

Chen’s head bobbed up and down like a hammer crushing garlic. “Yes, yes, of course. We gathered everything and had it all buried. Those involved know not to speak of anything, and all others have been told to say nothing. You’ll be inconvenienced no longer.”

The confusion Zhu Li had over this scenario was set aside at that. Buried? Anytime people said they’d buried something that wasn’t a seed, it rarely meant anything good.

“You’ve done well,” Chu Ran replied. “You must bring me to where you’ve buried them. I’d like to make sure.”

“Of course, Madam Meng! This way!”

Chen all but scrambled to his feet and darted for the door—which happened to still be directly behind Zhu Li. He had to dart out of the way to avoid being run into by the veritable madman.

However, instead of going through the door, said madman turned to look at him like he was shit he’d just stepped in. “What are you doing, disciple? You’re the one with the lantern! You go in front!”

It took every catty of self-control Zhu Li had to not ask him who the hell he thought he was talking to. Crushing down both his burgeoning questions and ire, he led them all out of the penitentiary.

In a segue that wasn’t not too interesting and very much mind-numbing, they procured a horse for Chen, rode off into the snowy outskirts of the sect, and had to suffer through his endless droning on about how great Meng Ruoxue had been, how kind, how thoughtful, how grateful he was that she’d taken him in, blah, blah, fucking blah.

Having no brainpower he was willing to spend on that nonsense, Zhu Li tried to mentally prepare himself for what was coming with speculation.

This whole time, Chen hadn’t wavered in his belief that Chu Ran was Meng Ruoxue and Zhu Li was a random disciple. Similarly, Chu Ran hadn’t broken character even once, and Zhu Li had followed suit in the impromptu performance.

Once the initial shock had waned, Zhu Li recalled Shenhuan’s illusory capabilities. He’d made that one fool senior in the Han Estate misperceive her surroundings, so it made sense that he could make another fool senior misperceive reality entirely.

His gaze went over at Chu Ran, who was just a little ahead of him to sell the ‘elder-disciple’ act better. It then trailed down to Shenhuan’s hilt, still clasped in Chu Ran’s unyielding grip.

That was also a damning piece of evidence. Unlike Dusha, the sword must not work without physical touch.

Well, him being a gossiper and interrogator checked out, then. Psychological warfare and espionage would be impressively easy if he could just convince other people that he was someone else.

This was also reason number twenty-four he was glad to be on Chu Ran’s side instead of against him. Getting one’s mind screwed with wasn’t the most appealing prospect.

…He hadn’t already been, right?

No, he would have known by now. And Chu Ran explicitly does not screw over people he likes.

But he should definitely still ask questions after Chen pissed off.

Speaking of that, he had no idea where the chatterbox was dragging them off to. The ground beneath the horses’ hooves had stopped being an actual road quite some time back, and they were winding through trees in an area to the sect’s north. As far as Zhu Li was aware, there was nothing out here—and that was likely the point, considering.

At an unremarkable spot in their winding journey, Chen announced that the path ahead was no place for horses (like that hadn’t been true for the past hundred zhang), had them all tie their horses up, then began to scale the mountainside that was getting progressively more steep.

Guhui brayed at their retreating backs, clearly upset at being separated. Zhu Li shot her a tired glance.

To his (very small) credit, Chen had a good sense of direction. It wasn’t too much longer before he stopped at unremarkable spot number two, then spun on his heel, looking proud of himself. “It’s right here, Madam,” he said, pointed at an undisturbed patch of snow. “Far, out of the way, and with no landmarks, as you said.”

He then shot a glare at Zhu Li, as if to warn him not to say anything. The latter hardly cared about his antics, however; he instead looked to Chu Ran for a cue.

The other’s head was bowed towards the snow. His eyes narrowed slightly, and then Zhu Li sensed an electrical current run through the already biting air.

“That’s quite a few chi down,” he subsequently announced. “You did well, Tuweng.”

Chen looked smug—if slightly puzzled at the wording—for all of one second, as Chu Ran made a show of releasing Shenhuan’s hilt.

The man’s expression fell the very instant the illusion dissipated, after which it morphed into gradually intensifying states of horror and confusion once he realized that it was not his beloved Madam Meng—plus one irrelevant disciple—that was standing before him, but two men.

“What?” he said. Were he a more pleasant person, Zhu Li would almost feel bad for how heartbroken he looked. “What is… what happened? Madam Meng… no, she’s dead, she… what did you… what did you do to me?!”

His confusion turned to anger. “I was just talking to Madam Meng, but it was just you two again?! What witchcraft did you use on me?! Heretics! Unorthodox bastards! Zhu Li, you unfilial grandson, how could y—oof!”

Chen was sent sideways onto his hip, landing hard in the snow. He looked up at them with wild, now-fearful eyes, a hand on his cheek.

Who was the offender? It wasn’t Zhu Li, who had just been personally insulted, but Chu Ran, who had seemingly slapped the nerve right out of Chen’s entire being.

Zhu Li blinked in surprise.

“Mind your tongue,” Chu Ran said plainly, voice eerily airy as he took his hand back. “Speaking out of turn is quite unbecoming. Did your gracious benefactor forget to tell you that? You think she would have tried harder to raise you out of the muck. Run along, now; you’ve fulfilled your purpose, and I’m sure you’re quite capable of finding your own way back to your hovel.”

Chen’s brows drew together and his teeth bared. He looked furious, humiliated, and somewhat terrified, but even still, he didn’t move.

“Why on earth are you still sitting there, Cheng?… Ah, you’re nervous. Is it because you’ve been tricked into betraying your Madam?” Chu Ran gave a fairly nasty laugh. “The sun’s already set on that, I’m afraid. There’s not a thing you can do about us knowing now. Feel free to be ashamed about it for the rest of your short time in this world, or go off yourself in a snowdrift—whichever is more convenient for you.”

The old man’s face turned red as amaranth. “You… you… you have no shame! No respect for your elders!” he spat vehemently. “I know of you, Sect Head Xin! You’re the son of that charlatan, and you inherited his disgusting ways! The Dao sees you! It knows!”

He clearly needed another slap or five.

Before Zhu Li could step forward to deliver it for him, he was gently blocked by Chu Ran’s arm.

“If you knew my father was disgusting, you would have learned not to act like him by now,” he said, unaffected by the goading. “And if behavior is hereditary, your parents must be quite horrendous. Now take the hint and leave, lest I bury you under the snow myself. That will be quite a slow and unpleasant death.”

After losing his nerve yet again, it didn’t take much more to send Chen on his way.

Once he was out of sight, Zhu Li huffed, narrowing his eyes on the place he’d disappeared to. “Guhui’s probably going to kick him,” he observed in a dark tone. “She hates it when people are riled up.”

No response came from Chu Ran. Brows knitting together, Zhu Li turned back around to see what was wrong, only to nearly be knocked off-balance by a heavy weight crashing into his right side.

He quickly stabilized both himself and the weight, holding onto it with two hands as he pushed it back a bit for a look.

It was Chu Ran—hand on his forehead, eyes screwed shut, breathing irregular, and knees actively giving out beneath him, his form dragging heavier on Zhu Li’s arms with each passing second.

His body moved on its own, steered predominantly by over a decade of medical training. He quickly moved them both into a kneeling position, the snow crunching beneath their legs, and then shifted Chu Ran so that he was resting more comfortably against him, one arm around his shoulders. The man didn’t protest at all, practically boneless as his cheek came to rest against Zhu Li’s shoulder—his hand fell away from his head in a not-so-great sign.

No time was wasted grabbing his wrist to check him over. All too soon, Zhu Li learned the reason for his sudden collapse: acute qi exhaustion.

Qi reserves were roughly analogous to how much breath a person could store in their lungs; while qi constantly flowed in and out of the body, cultivators kept a lot more of it inside at once than civilians did. In this instance, Chu Ran could be described as being very much out of breath.

Zhu Li furrowed his brows. Had Shenhuan really taken that much out of him? Maybe it wasn’t that convenient, if it couldn’t hold up for even a quarter-shichen.

He quietly passed Chu Ran some qi to assuage the dizziness and nausea he had to be feeling.

After some time, the other raised his head and blinked his bleary eyes. After bracing a hand against Zhu Li’s chest, he sat up a bit better, appearing to be more than a little dazed.

“Hey,” Zhu Li whispered.

Chu Ran’s head whipped up from its bowed posture, but all that predictably accomplished was making him dizzy again. He let out a sad little whine of pain, which had Zhu Li’s free hand going from his wrist to pet his head in comfort.

“Easy,” he murmured. “You used up a lot of qi pulling that stunt.”

“Ah… did I? How foolish of me,” Chu Ran answered distantly. “Thank you for looking out for me, Doctor… ah, did I fall on you? I seem to have blacked out for a second. My apologies.”

“You overdid it on your qi expenditure. Does Shenhuan take that much for its illusions?”

The other stiffened slightly for a fraction of a second, then relaxed, letting out a little laugh. “No hiding from the intelligent, is there? Yes, it does. My companion is a useful but demanding one, especially to delude someone for so long. I knew what I was jumping into before I did it.”

That stiffness earlier made sense, then. “How does it work?”

“Oh, the illusions? Only the Heavens know the exact machinations of their own creation, but it’s a much more limited thing than it should be. Firstly, I need to know enough about a target to know what would get to them, and secondly, they would need to be weak enough in mind or body to be affected in the first place. After that, I tell Shenhuan what to do, and then the target’s own mind conjures the rest of the lie for me.

A shiver suddenly went through him. He huddle closer into Zhu Li’s side, drawing his fur cloak tighter around himself. “Ugh, this cold… anywho, a very important aspect of it is that the illusions are as fragile as a dragonfly’s wings. If they lack enough plausibility or clash with preexisting memories—or if the target is too of mind, which is especially annoying—they fall apart. If they fit the first time, they persist, so then the lie must be kept up indefinitely afterwards unless I desire for my bush cover to be burned to ash. Take my advice, Doctor; it’s much less cumbersome to lie the regular way.”

“Still sounds useful.”

“Yes, it can be. My head aching for the next half-day is my prize for daring to use it more than a few minutes at a time.”

He then tilted his head towards the ground. “A shame we didn’t have the clairvoyance to bring shovels. Not that the frozen ground would give us much leeway as it is, or that I have the energy to help warm it up. I can barely warm my own self up…”

Zhu Li hugged him closer. “It’s fine. We can just bring people back here. You said you sensed where it is?”

“Mm, vaguely. While there’s definitely one chest-shaped object beneath the dirt, trying to use qi-sense through solid walls is even more draining than Shenhuan is.”

“…You used a qi-draining technique when you were in the middle of another qi-draining technique?”

Zhu Li narrowed his eyes when Chu Ran gave a rather sheepish, “Ah. Yes, I suppose I did.”

He started shifting uncomfortably under the burden of Zhu Li’s doctoral glare. Good. He should feel bad. If he didn’t start taking care of himself, Zhu Li was going to start subjecting him to the worst, most drawn-out, and most boring lectures of all time. A fine hell for someone who liked gossip and exciting stories would be something that was neither.

“Ah, Doctor, you mustn’t be too upset with me. This was for the greater good, and if my illusion had dipped at any point, Chen would never have led us here. How would we have gotten closer to solving this ancestral mystery without his brilliant insight and incessant flattery? On that note, ah… how are we going to bring people back to this place? Is there anything you can see, landmark-wise?”

After holding his glare for a moment longer, Zhu Li made the decision to let that issue go for now. There were other, more pressing matters to be given attention right now.

“No,” he answered, sighing, “but I know what to do.”

Following much maneuvering of human resources and a not-so-fun venture of tying (and then having to un-tie) his cloak to a tree as a makeshift flag, the two of them were relegated to the sidelines while miscellaneous disciples warmed up the ground with their combined qi.

Zhu Canxi was also here, for some unfathomable reason. She stood next to Zhu Li, bouncing on her heels a little in equally unfathomable excitement.

He was only looking at her a little strangely. Once she inevitably took notice, she started staring right back at him. “What?”

“Why are you here?” he answered bluntly.

She looked nearly offended. “Why can’t I be here?”

“No one said you can’t be. I’m just wondering why you are.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I want to see what’s so exciting over here. That’s all. Is that reason acceptable enough for you?”

“Mn. How’s it going with Junyan?”

Her face immediately went red, painted with instant regret at having come here. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How are things going with Sect Head Xin?”

“Great, obviously.”

His lack of flustering made her even more flustered. She should have known better than to try to bite back in a ‘whose face is thicker’ fight.

“Was there suspicion that things would be going poorly?” Chu Ran asked from nearby, a quizzical look on his face. “I fail to imagine why anyone would think so. We get along just fine in public, don’t we?”

She snorted. “Yeah, you do. Do you also get along well in private?”

“Yes, I should think so,” he answered lightly, making her face pinch up.

Zhu Li cleared his throat to keep from laughing. Her attempts to get one over them weren’t really working, were they?

“Haa… forget it,” she grumbled, then reached into her sleeve. “I wanted to give this back to you anyways, gege. Here.”

She cautiously passed him that familiar bottle of alleged instant-death poison. “I don’t know if you meant to leave this with me, but I ran some tests on it anyways and… well, I don’t want it around me anymore.”

Zhu Li, who already had it in hand, gave her a blank look. “So it’s fine for me to have?”

“It’s…” Her face twisted up a little. “It’s a gift given to you, so I can’t just get rid of it, but I don’t like you having it either. If it cracks or if the top comes even a little loose, you’re probably going to die. Like… immediately. Dusha might give you a few more minutes, but that’s it.”

He blinked, looked down at the bottle, then turned to look at Chu Ran.

The man just smiled. “If you recall, I did say it was deadly. Those bottles undergo rigorous quality control and are internally lined with metal, however. The chances of them breaking open on accident are nearly none.”

“But not totally,” Zhu Li riffed, narrowing his eyes.

“No, granted, but I’ve been carrying around my own bottle for years and have yet to meet with incident.”

“You need to poison people to death regularly, then?”

He beamed at him mysteriously in lieu of answering. The sight wasn’t super surprising to Zhu Li, but it was to Zhu Canxi, who visibly blanched at the implication.

“Um… I’m going to go help them dig,” she said, moving away from them.

“Oh, dear,” Chu Ran said, putting a hand to his cheek. “Have I made a bad impression?”

Zhu Li didn’t deign to answer that, his eyes following Canxi as she picked up a shovel to help.

Some time later, four chests were successfully excavated from a hole in the ground. They were completely unremarkable, made of lacquered maple and having zero markings whatsoever. The most prominently strange thing about them was that their lips had been sealed shut with copious amounts of wax—something done only with contents that one wanted to preserve, not destroy.

Also, according to the disciples, one was inordinately heavy, one was rather light, and two had contents that weren’t secured properly, judging by the rattling sounds they made.

Zhu Canxi looked down at their bounty with a puzzled and concerned expression. Her brow was spotted with sweat, her clothes were speckled with dirt, and her shovel was held in her hands like a weapon that could protect her.

“Should we open these here, or should we take them back to the Estate first?” she asked.

Zhu Li was observing them with a frown, too. Rationally, they should wait until everything was secured at an actual residence instead of the middle of the woods before opening anything, but… he had to admit that he was more than a little curious.

Actually, that was a severe understatement. His skin was suddenly itching with the desire to tear the trunks open and see what was inside, to finally solve his personal, lifelong mystery of what mental demons had caused his own mother to be awful to him, but only five-percent of the time, at most.

But what the hell were they going to find in them? What could it possibly be? Skeletons? The ashes of the dead? Evidence of crimes too horrible to speak of?

“Let’s open one,” he suggested, “just to make sure that it’s what we’re looking for.”

He looked to Chu Ran for… something. Some kind of confirmation that he wasn’t making a mistake opening it now instead of later, maybe.

Upon surely noticing his hesitation, Chu Ran simply gave him a small smile, the tilt of his head moving his loose hair to the side. “This is quite exciting, isn’t it, Doctor?” he asked. “Uncovering ancient secrets like this is the staple of many a good novel.”

I won’t blame you if you can’t wait, he seemed to imply.

Zhu Li then looked at his sister, who was bouncing on her heels again. She locked eyes with him, then offered him the same kind of smile. “What? I’m not going to argue, gege. It’s not unreasonable to check first. If it’s not what we’re looking for and happens to belong to someone else, it should go to them, not us.”

Alright. That was three yeses. Time to face the proverbial tiger.

Stomach in knots, Zhu Li approached the trunk that had been labeled ‘heavy,’ forcefully pried its lid open, then took a look at its contents.

It was scrolls, some books, and loose leafs of paper.

Upon closer inspection, some of the books were labeled as journals, some of the loose pieces of paper were letters, and some of the scrolls were oddly fancy, with wooden rollers and ties of red, brocade silk.

Marriage scrolls? Nothing else would ever be tied with red silk, as far as he knew. And why were there so many?

Getting a weird feeling in his gut, he reached out and took one, untied its silk, unfurled it…

And nearly dropped the thing straight back into the trunk.

He stood there, frozen and wide-eyed.

“Doctor?” he heard Chu Ran call out behind him. “What’s wrong? What did you find?”

Zhu Li opened his mouth for a brief moment, but had to shut it. He couldn’t yet articulate what he was looking at.

“What is it?” Zhu Canxi was next to ask. Her crunching footsteps through the snow came in close. “What’s that…”

She, too, trailed off at the scroll’s contents. He could feel the air tense around her as the shock settled into her bones.

On this scroll, which was dated to no less than forty years, sat a man that was the spitting image of Zhu Li himself.

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The author says: a commenter a few chapters back predicted that zhu li resembled someone. well, you were right!
but now, the question is this: who is that someone? vote now on your phones

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