CHAPTER
45
JIEYUAN
—∞—
Meiyao gave a sigh. A deep, long exhale of air, as profound as any Jieyuan had ever heard. “Ten years ago… Ten years ago, my mother mysteriously disappeared in a mission outside the sect.” Meiyao had her brows furrowed. She wasn’t looking at him. Rather she seemed fully concentrated on a particular spot in the middle of the pond. “That’s, at least, the official story. In reality…”
She trailed off. Just as Jieyuan was thinking she’d changed her mind, she resumed speaking. “I’d been on a trip outside the sect, visiting Yiming with Wanxin and Yunzhu. When we returned…” Meiyao swallowed. Her voice came out thick, charged. Though he’d been looking forward, like her, he had all of his attention on his peripheral vision, on her. “When we returned… I found out she’d been abducted.”
There was another long pause. Meiyao licked her lips. “It… It took me a while to get all the details. Yongyi, Yuyan, Zhaoyong—they’d all been there. They’d been having a meeting. Apparently, some high-realm cultivator was overflying the sect, noticed my mother somehow, and then barged in. Tore the ceiling apart and descended there. The man demanded they hand my mother over, lest it comes to a fight, and my father… he told everyone else to step down.”
Meiyao pursed her lips. “Now, I’m not . I that fighting wasn’t an option. They couldn’t have stopped the man, not by force. It didn’t matter what his soulsign was—if it was above Redsoul, then they had no chance. But— But my father could’ve at least . Tried to argue, tried to convince the cultivator it wasn’t a good idea, called up on the envoy… But no. Yuyan and Zhaoyong told me that Father had argued against it, but Yongyi told me the truth. He did .”
At her sides, Meiyao’s hands were clenched tightly into fists. “And then, after the man was gone, taking my mother with him, my father ordered the matter . Nobody was to look into the man or where he was from. He’d been specific, even, that I wasn’t to be told any of it. It was Wanxin who found out and told me, after which I pressed the others for answers.”
There was another long exhale. Meiyao seemed to be trying to calm herself, and it didn’t look as if she was having much success. “Honestly… we were never close, my father and I. To begin with, my father and were never close. They must’ve at least gotten intimate at some point, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, but I don’t think I ever saw the two of them alone together. Always there’d be someone else, usually Yuyan. I can probably count on one hand the times the two talked to each other without it turning into a fight. Why they even married is beyond me. It…”
Here, Meiyao glanced back at the door, then lowered her voice to little more than a whisper. “It was Yuyan Father was after, for her status as the chief protector’s daughter. That much is obvious. How my mother came into the picture, why he married her, is something nobody has been able to explain to me. Not Mother, not Yuyan, not Grandfather. Mother avoided the question, Yuyan would say that they loved each other—which couldn’t be any more of a lie—and Grandfather would just give me this sad look and remain quiet. Sometimes… Sometimes I even wonder whether I’m really his child. I certainly I weren’t.”
Meiyao then looked at him, and he turned to face her. Her green eyes were bright, vivid, narrowed, and there was no little bitterness in her expression. “So? Have I satisfied your curiosity?” The words came as a challenge.
Jieyuan met her gaze evenly. Even incensed like this, she was a vision. “I’m not a particularly curious person,” he finally said. “But you’re right in this case—I want to know more about you. Earlier, you asked me whether I was friends with your brother. And I don’t think we’re quite there. With you, however, I’d like to think I am. Am I wrong?”
The reason he’d gotten closer to Meiyao was indeed because he thought he might get something out of it. That he was attracted to her hadn’t been a factor—if anything, that’d have been a reason to , because that was the kind of distraction he was better off avoiding. But he had grown to care for her. It wasn’t just because of whatever mysteries she might hold that he was interested in her history, in her background. He was genuinely interested in Meiyao, in a way he couldn’t remember ever being interested in someone before. He to get involved in her life, to be a part of it, even if it weren’t for his ambitions.
Jieyuan wasn’t a good person, a virtuous person. He’d never held any illusions otherwise. He’d always been selfish. Everything he did had always been for the sake of his own goals, to satisfy his insatiable, intangible for power. Being raised by a cutthroat merchant hadn’t helped any. Right now, though? Right now he’d have stuck around Meiyao, helped her, even if there was nothing for him in it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he didn’t see a point in lying to himself, either. It was what it was.
“I…” Meiyao blinked. Her mouth opened, then closed. “I… .” She abruptly looked away, staring fixedly at nowhere.
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Jieyuan didn’t take his eyes off her.
Then she slumped forward, kicking lamely with her legs, disturbing the waters. The reflection of the gleamstone ceiling rippled, shimmering. “No. You’re not. You’re not wrong. We… I consider you a friend.”
Jieyuan smiled, and he noticed that though she still didn’t look at him, the corners of her lips had likewise curled up.
She didn’t say anything else, and neither did he. The ensuing silence was a pleasant, tranquil thing, as they just sat there, eying the waters. Meiyao kept on kicking softly at the water. Eventually, though, Jieyuan felt the need to fill it.
“What this room, anyway?” he eventually asked.
Meiyao shot him a glance. “They didn’t tell you?”
“I was pretty much just told you were in here and ushered inside.”
“Hmmm. This place is a shrine of sorts, where the Liangshibai stationed here in the palace can get in touch with the Gleamstone Valley. Usually, only Liangshibai are allowed inside. Exceptionally, they’ll sometimes let in non-Liangshibai in here to pursue the Concept of Crystal, but that’s seen as a pretty significant privilege.”
Concept pursuit. That wasn’t something Jieyuan had thought of in a while. It was how cultivators raised their affinity with a specific Concept. They’d do something related to that Concept while Communing. It wasn’t something he’d looked deeply into, though, mostly because it wasn’t something he’d had to worry about yet.
The hymns he’d been using were aligned with Fire, and the Concept you didn’t have to pursue was the one you were aligned with, because your affinity with it was already as high as it could be from birth. And Absolute Will Command was already at Violetsoul when he assimilated it, even if he didn’t have access yet to its higher-realm forms, so he didn’t need to pursue its primary Concept—Authority—to advance its realm further down the line.
And thank the Heavens for that. He already had a hard enough time as it was keeping up with Meiyao and Daojue. Juggling Concept pursuit on top of that wouldn’t have helped any.
“You came straight here, though, didn’t you? You’ve been here before?”
“The last time I was in the palace,” Meiyao said. “In… visit. I like it here. I’d often go to the Gleamstone Valley with my mother and Yuyan. This reminds me of it. Of those times.”
Meiyao’s posture shifted. She sat up straighter, and her legs stilled. “My mother…” She soundlessly worked her jaw, like she was chewing on her words. “I don’t know what that cultivator wanted with her. She’s probably dead. It’s been over a decade since she was taken. But… I’ll climb up the cabal ladder, high as I can go, then I’m going looking for her.”
Meiyao’s eyes narrowed, jaw clenching. “And… And if she’s indeed dead, I’ll avenge her.”
“Well.” Jieyuan got to his feet, and then extended a hand down to her. “I’m sure you won’t need any help, but I’d like to think I’m good at both search murder. And I have a sneaking suspicion we’re in it for the long haul.”
Meiyao looked up at him, frown fading, replaced by an expression he couldn’t quite decipher. Not nearly as mysterious, though, was the little smile that came afterward—or how Meiyao grasped his hand, and let herself be pulled up.
With a pulse from her cleansing ring, she was dry again.
“Good to go?” he asked her. He considered, briefly, whether to raise the matter of the Viridian Death Cult, but he reckoned he was better off not pressing his luck. Based on the progress he’d made today, it was just a matter of time before he found out more. And it didn’t seem like Meiyao was likely to do anything rash, so regardless, it was mission accomplished.
She looked over to the door. “I am.”
They set off walking together. Midway, though, she started slowing her pace, though still gazing straight ahead. Then he felt her presence in his mind. Matching her slower pace, he accepted the mind-link.
Meiyao’s voice rang in his mind.
If it hadn’t been for all the training he’d undergone, Jieyuan would’ve frozen.
. .
, Meiyao replied.
It was only then that Meiyao turned to face him, coming to a sudden stop. Her mouth opened, then closed, and her words rang in his mind.
Jieyuan stopped beside her.
.
Empty? Jieyuan’s thoughts raced. Focusing on Huaxin’s presence rather than Meiyao’s, he asked, The Heart shown it had some degree of control over the Fatebloom Woods.
, Huaxin answered. With a not insignificant undertone of confusion.
Meiyao called.
He focused back on her. . It wouldn’t do him much harm to mention the statue and the cabin. In fact, he’d been counting on others finding out about them, anyway.
, Meiyao sent. And she glanced at his chest. notice
Jieyuan was more preoccupied with how they’d disappeared. Most likely the elder who’d found the place had taken the statue for themselves, gotten rid of the cabin and the stump the Fatebloom Heart had been on, and kept it a secret from the sect. Or the elder reported them, but the sect was keeping it a secret and Meiyao wasn’t in on it. Or maybe someone had gotten to the Fatebloom Woods even earlier.
Thinking this far, he found that it didn’t matter what had happened—the only person who could connect him to it was Meiyao, anyway. There was no reason to worry.
It was then, though, that the Fatebloom Heart beat ominously in his chest, much like it’d done when he’d looked at the Viridian Death Forest from afar.
Jieyuan could’ve groaned. Well, . That sounded suspiciously like a reason to worry. Apparently, when the Heart wasn’t pulling him from the verge of death, he could count on it to work as some kind of mysterious doom alarm.
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