“Do you think he’s sick?! I kindly asked him whether he had been wrongfully accused. I told him that whatever I could do, I would do my best to help. And what happened? Not only did he coldly reject me, he also gave me a thorough scolding! Who could take that?!”
In a guest room at Cangcui Pavilion, Zhuge Buhuo sat on a chair and slapped his thigh hard, loudly reporting Fu Sang’s evil deeds to Huo Wei.
Huo Wei sat behind the tea table, wearing an inactive monitoring bracelet. She was elegant and beautiful, and even had the leisure to pour tea for the two brothers who had just been met with a cold shoulder.
“Ah, he’s just like that. You’ll get used to it.” Huo Wei took time out from her busy schedule to offer a few words of comfort.
“How do you get used to that? Tell me, how do you get used to that?! If you get a cold ass after putting your hot face against it, then you just keep putting it there? You never give up until it gets warm? I’m telling you, your temper is just too good. I don’t have a masochistic tendency!”
Zhuge Buhuo angrily downed the tea in one gulp, only to bare his teeth from the heat.
“You can’t really put it that way…” Huo Wei coughed twice.
“I was young and hot-blooded back then. Mainly, my competitive spirit had been provoked. Zhuge Fusang was the biggest tiger I had ever encountered on my social road. Back then, my younger self told me, ‘If I can’t warm up this ice tiger, then I’ll stop being surnamed Huo!’ I absolutely refused to admit defeat. I absolutely refused to let him become a huge stain on my bright social road. I just held onto that stubborn belief and kept going at it with him. And after going at it for so long, it just became like this. Actually, he’s a good person. It’s just that the way he talks and does things is quite infuriating, so really, you’ll get used to it.”
“Thanks for sharing the experience of those who came before me, but sorry, I don’t want to know at all. Hah, who the hell is Zhuge Fusang? What kind of level is he at that I have to rush to be nice to him and make friends with him? There’s no such logic!”
Zhuge Buhuo had worked himself into a rage.
He waved his hand and looked Huo Wei up and down. As if he had suddenly discovered something from that one glance, he asked strangely:
“Wait, that’s not right. Weren’t you two accomplices? Then why was he locked in that pitch-black little room with chains around his wrists, while you’re happy and free, wandering around the garden, and even staying at home like the lady of the house, brewing tea and receiving guests? Nothing was delayed for you at all. What, you two came together, he’s the prisoner and you’re the VIP?”
“Eh? Isn’t he the principal offender and I’m the accomplice? I’m just a nobody. I guess they could tell I’m just a little rookie and thought I definitely couldn’t plot something that big, so they couldn’t be bothered to waste resources on me.”
Huo Wei shrugged and casually brushed off the matter with one sentence. After hesitating for a long time, she finally could not resist and revealed at lightning speed:
“…To tell you the truth, I actually think Fu Sang being a prisoner is just an act. I think there’s more to this matter, but he didn’t tell me the specific situation, so I don’t know anything. Everything is just my guess. You two just need to know this, but don’t tell anyone else, okay?”
“Hah, if I were him, I wouldn’t tell you the secret either. Who could stand such a big leak?”
Despite the teasing, Zhuge Buhuo continued afterward:
“But now that you mention it, why do you think there’s more to it? What exactly happened at the time? Hurry up and tell me about it. I will help you analyze it.”
“Ah… There are so many things involved in the middle. It’s not very convenient to talk about. Let’s just forget it.”
In the end, reason defeated her gossipy heart. When Huo Wei thought about how telling this story would not only require her to explain in detail the serial deaths of the direct-line daughters that Zhuge Qianyi discovered, but would also involve the grievances between Zhuge Lin and the generation before them, she thought about it and decided to forget it.
First, it was troublesome. Second, she was genuinely afraid that she might accidentally reveal some earth-shattering secret and ruin Fu Sang’s plan.
“…Anyway, you’ll know when the time comes. I’m afraid that if I tell you too early, you won’t be able to handle it.”
“Won’t be able to handle it…?” Zhuge Buhuo did not quite approve of Huo Wei’s choice of words.
Besides, who is more likely to be unable to handle something big than you, Miss Huo?
He sighed and waved his hand.
“If you don’t want to say it, I’m not interested in listening either! Anyway, I just came over to ask about the situation. As long as you two know what’s going on, that’s enough. If you need anything, come find me and Buyi anytime. The two of us are always on standby! We’re all brothers and sisters. I believe you two aren’t the kind of people who would do that. If we can help, we’ll definitely do our best… Oh right, there’s one more thing.”
Halfway through speaking in his careless manner, Zhuge Buhuo suddenly remembered something else, and his expression and tone immediately became serious.
“The commotion around Fu Sang today was too big. The family head personally went out and brought him back, and they even used the main entrance. There was no intention of covering it up at all. A lot of people heard the news and came to watch the excitement when he arrived. Everyone knows that he’s the disciple of Zhuge Lin, who was expelled from the family back then. Now I’m mainly worried about his current situation… If Zhuge Can finds out, Zhuge Can will cause trouble. You know who Zhuge Can is, right?”
Huo Wei sneered.
“Of course I know.”
Wasn’t Fu Sang locked in that little dark room back then because that person stirred up trouble?
“He’s been in a wheelchair for so many years and still hasn’t settled down? Fu Sang made him suffer so badly back then, and he still dares to cause trouble for Fu Sang? He still hasn’t accepted it?”
“Who knows? Mainly, the two of us aren’t very familiar with him either. We played together for a while when we were kids and went to school together. I didn’t like him even back then. To put it bluntly, he was extremely snobbish. Anyway, whoever was in the limelight, he would play with them. Whoever was even slightly on the fringe, he would lead everyone in excluding them. Wasn’t that how he treated Fu Sang back then? He just didn’t expect to kick an iron plate and end up making himself half-dead.”
“After he became disabled, he hardly came out anymore. He stayed at home all day. I heard that he still hasn’t let it go and is still thinking about taking revenge. He hates Fu Sang so much that even his bones itched. He stays in his room stabbing a doll of him. Now that this has happened… As they say, ‘when someone falls into a well, throw a stone down on them.’ I feel like he’ll cause trouble. Anyway, you guys should be careful.”
Huo Wei frowned.
After a moment, she sighed lightly and nodded.
“Okay, I understand.”
……
Fu Sang had nothing else to do at Jiangchen Residence.
During the day, he had to play the role of a prisoner under confinement. He could not take a single step out of this room, and he still wore chains around his wrists. Although they did not prevent him from holding his phone and playing the Klotski puzzle game, even that thing would become boring after playing too much. When he thought about it, his favorite way to kill time was kissing Qi Changying.
Kissing him while gripping his neck, kissing him while straddling him, kissing him while pressing him onto the bed.
When he got tired of kissing, he would close his eyes and sleep. The room’s window was blocked by thick curtains, allowing very little light to enter. This made Fu Sang’s sense of time extremely blurred, and whenever he woke up, he often could not tell whether it was day or night.
Someone came twice to deliver food, leaving it on the small balcony by the window, which required Fu Sang to open the window himself to take it.
The people of the family were aloof. Not only did they live deep in the mountains and old forests, they even had to imitate recluses beyond the mundane world when it came to food, as if they did not eat worldly smoke and fire. For example, lunch consisted only of stir-fried green vegetables and radish soup. There was not even a trace of meat, except for a few bits of minced meat and droplets of oil floating faintly in the soup.
This really did not arouse Fu Sang’s appetite. He casually pushed the food around with his chopsticks, ate a couple of bites just so he would not be hungry, and stopped.
Dinner was even more miserable. There was only a bowl of rice fried with eggs and carrots, accompanied by a small dish of pickles.
Fu Sang practically counted the grains of rice as he ate. He was completely uninterested and put down his chopsticks after eating only a few grains.
“You need to eat a little more, Fu Sang.”
Qi Changying sat beside him, looking at the bowl of fried rice that had barely changed, and frowned.
This person was not very particular about other things in life, but he was extremely picky with food. Qi Changying had realized this long ago.
If it was food he liked, he could eat a few more bites. If he did not like something, he would rather remain hungry than take a single bite.
“None of your damn business. Mind your own business.”
Fu Sang said the usual mantra.
“…You’re too thin.”
His wrists were so thin that the bones were clearly visible, rubbed red by the hard and heavy handcuffs and chains.
They also looked very slender, as if one hand could completely wrap around them.
“A person needs to be stronger. Only then can injuries and illnesses heal faster. Not to mention people, even when cattle, sheep, and horses give birth to young, only the strong ones can survive. The frontier was bitterly cold, and weak children could not even make it through the winter.”
“That’s the law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest. If Heaven thinks I’m the inferior one, then I can go die.”
Fu Sang stood up from beside the table and returned to the bed to lie down.
His previous illness had not fully healed, and now there were new injuries on top of it. Combined with his exhaustion, Fu Sang felt tired all the way down to the depths of his soul. No matter how much he slept, it was never enough. He had only just woken up, yet he was sleepy again.
He lay diagonally on the small bed with his eyes closed. After a quiet moment, he suddenly said, “Come here.”
Qi Changying did as he was told and walked over, sitting beside the bed.
“What is it?”
Fu Sang did not speak. He silently pulled up his wrist, then used his other hand to lift his own clothes and pressed Qi Changying’s hand against his waist and abdomen.
When his fingertips touched the warm, delicate skin of a human body, Qi Changying’s fingers trembled slightly. As if burned, he curled his fingers and pulled his hand back.
But Fu Sang firmly gripped his fingers, not letting him escape.
“Don’t you like touching this?”
The faint smile at the corner of his lips was full of malice.
“What, you still think I’m too thin? Then how about this? I thought you did a good job last time, but I don’t really like forcing people. It’s no fun. So, if you’re willing to seriously do it for me again, I can consider eating a little more next time.”
Look at how good he was at doing business.
It was clearly a suggestion made for his own good, merely hoping that he would not be so picky and would eat a few more bites while he was sick. Yet once it came from him, it became so reluctant, and he absolutely had to make the other person exchange something else for it.
Qi Changying remained silent and did not answer.
Actually, Fu Sang was not genuinely thinking of making this deal either. He simply hated Qi Changying saying things that sounded like concern, so he deliberately made things unpleasant for him.
But, to be fair, Qi Changying did make him feel good last time, to the point that he had been reminiscing about it these past few days.
But it was different for Qi Changying. For him, that should have been the most extreme humiliation he had suffered in his life, something he was unwilling to remember again. Fu Sang did not think he would want to do it a second time.
“…”
Sure enough, when faced with a difficult question, Qi Changying lowered his head and avoided his gaze.
Qi Changying did not know much about such things. After all, he had grown up in a frontier military camp and had barely even seen any girls around his age. He was too busy training and fighting every day, let alone find time to study such things.
He had only heard the soldiers talk about such lewd topics in private, saying that when one was away from home, one still had to resolve one’s desires. Apart from the union of men and women, using one’s hands could barely satisfy it as well.
But wasn’t this kind of private desire supposed to be dealt with alone in a private place? He had never thought that someone else could openly ask for help with such a thing, much less imagined that Fu Sang specifically wanted him to use his mouth.
Qi Changying did not understand these things. Asking Fu Sang for guidance under those circumstances was obviously inappropriate, and he could not bring himself to ask either. He could only try and figure it out little by little according to his instincts.
He did not know whether he had done it correctly. He had no person or situation to use as a reference. He could only rely on his feelings and felt that Fu Sang should have liked it, or at least been barely satisfied.
As for himself…
“Knock, knock, knock!”
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of knocking on the door.
Qi Changying subconsciously looked at Fu Sang.
Fu Sang glanced at the time.
It was already curfew.
His free time.
“Go back.” He sat up and spoke concisely.
Qi Changying immediately turned into smoke and hid inside the snake-bone nail on the table.
Fu Sang picked up the long nail and ghost-blood whip and casually put them into his pocket.
“Come in.” After confirming that there was no yin energy remaining in the room, Fu Sang called out.
Before the person outside unlocked the door and pushed it open, Fu Sang seemed to think of something. He lowered his eyes, reached for the still-warm bowl of fried rice on the table, picked up the spoon, and ate two more bites.
It was really terrible.
The person who came to see him was Zhuge Mingyun.
Zhuge Mingyun looked to be in her late forties or early fifties. She had a strong scholarly air about her, dressed in a dignified and proper manner. Her features were also upright and delicate, but her complexion was pale, and an exhaustion that could not be dispelled lingered between her brows and eyes.
She kept her eyes lowered and never looked up at Fu Sang. When she spoke, her tone was as flat as water.
“The family head had something come up tonight and could not come to see you, so he instructed me to fulfill his promise.”
As she spoke, she took a key from her pocket and stepped closer.
Fu Sang cooperated by raising both hands, letting her unlock him.
During this time, he openly observed the expression on Zhuge Mingyun’s face.
It was strange.
From the first time he had seen her in the interrogation room of the Spirit Supervision Bureau, Fu Sang had noticed something. Zhuge Mingyun had an abnormal numbness to her. Standing beside Zhuge Heng, she was like a pool of dead water, seemingly only knowing how to mechanically carry out orders, without any thoughts or emotions of her own.
The only moment she had shown any fluctuation was when Zhuge Heng had negotiated terms with Fu Sang, saying that he would not deal with the blood oath on Buyi, which was equivalent to handing the entire Zhuge family over to Fu Sang to manipulate.
At that time, she trembled slightly. Only once, so faintly that it was almost imperceptible, but Fu Sang still noticed it.
“Aren’t you worried about your daughter?”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly, keenly catching the subtle change in her eyes.
This was one of the few signs of life she was capable of showing now.
“Your daughter, Zhuge Qianyi, is still missing. Aren’t you worried at all?”
“…”
Zhuge Mingyun’s expression did not change. She remained silent and did not answer.
The key turned with a soft “click,” and the handcuff around Fu Sang’s wrist opened.
His skin was thin and pale. After being rubbed by the cold, hard metal for a day and a night, a ring of redness now surrounded his wrist, with even fine threads of blood seeping from some places.
He moved his wrists around while listening to Zhuge Mingyun say:
“My ID card is with you. You can use it to enter anywhere, including Yunling Mountain Residence. But it would be best not to approach the ancestral hall of the mountain residence. If you are discovered, it will be very troublesome.”
Zhuge Mingyun’s voice was cold and indifferent, almost without any fluctuation. After giving him the instructions, she added:
“If there are no other problems, I’ll leave first. During curfew, there are generally no people moving around outside, but I still hope you will be a little careful and avoid getting yourself into unnecessary trouble.”
From beginning to end, Zhuge Mingyun deliberately avoided the question Fu Sang had just asked about Zhuge Qianyi, as if she had not heard it at all.
Seeing that she insisted on pretending to be deaf, Fu Sang did not continue asking.
There was no point asking anyway.
He responded to Zhuge Mingyun casually, watched her turn around and walk away, and only then did he withdraw his gaze.
Afterward, he walked out of Jiangchen Residence and looked around.
The family’s curfew was from ten at night until five in the morning. During these seven hours, the people of the main branch were not allowed to move around outside freely. Those who violated it would naturally be dealt with according to the family rules.
Fu Sang did not know why they still maintained this rule that should have been eliminated long ago. Perhaps it was so that when people mentioned their family, they could conveniently add a compliment about what a mysterious and elegant “great family” with such profound cultural heritage they were.
After roughly figuring out the direction, Fu Sang did not hesitate at all and walked directly toward the mountain residence.
If Zhuge Mingyun had not specifically mentioned it, Fu Sang might not have remembered this matter.
But since she had specifically instructed him not to approach the ancestral hall, he was all the more determined to go over and take a look.
Yunling Mountain Residence was where the core of the family lived, mostly elderly men and women. The place was very large, with bamboo groves, artificial mountains, and flowing water inside. The feng shui layout had clearly been carefully arranged. The scenery was extremely elegant, and the overall configuration gave off a good feeling.
Zhuge Mingyun was the family head’s eldest daughter and had very high authority. She could go anywhere without obstruction, and the mountain residence was naturally no exception.
Fu Sang twirled her ID card around his finger and smoothly passed through the mountain residence’s main gate.
He had come to the mountain residence before, following Zhuge Lin, so obviously, that had been nearly twenty years ago. Over the course of twenty years, the mountain residence had undergone several renovations and expansions, to the point that the scattered impressions in Fu Sang’s memory were no longer useful.
But by instinct, he believed the ancestral hall was the small square building behind the family head’s pavilion.
Because at this moment, it was the only place in the mountain residence with its lights on.
The old men and old women of the family loved pursuing retro elegance. The buildings in the mountain residence were all made entirely of wooden mortise-and-tenon structures, completely imitating ancient architecture. Even the windows were covered with paper. Presumably, they were not using electric lights inside either, because through the blurred window paper, Fu Sang could see the swaying warm-colored candlelight.
So he went retro as well. He wandered to the side of the small building, chose an inconspicuous spot, poked a hole through the thin layer of window paper with his fingertip, and leaned closer to look inside.
Sure enough, rows of white candles were lit in the ancestral hall. The points of light gathered like a river, collectively illuminating the little building.
The small building had a very high ceiling. Hanging from the four sides of the beams overhead were layers upon layers of copper coins, covered in thick dust and traces of rust. They looked quite old. Zhuge Heng had also specifically mentioned that these were the soul-weeping coins once used by the ancestors of the Zhuge family.
Looking downward, several scroll paintings hung beneath the copper coins. But it was too dark, and with only the candlelight and such a great distance between them, Fu Sang could not clearly see what was on them. He could vaguely make out human figures, so he guessed they were probably portraits of the ancestors or something similar.
The most important offering table was placed directly in the center of the ancestral hall. It was covered with offerings, incense sticks, and densely packed ancestral tablets.
The tablets were all made of black walnut, with vermilion lacquer and gold-painted characters. The tablet at the top, which was worshipped separately, was particularly large, while the tablets at the bottom were smaller and more numerous, packed together row after row.
The small tablets formed a circle, surrounding a huge bronze bell in the middle. The patterns on the body of the bronze bell were simple and intricate, and at a glance, it was clearly no ordinary object.
Apart from that…
His gaze fell on a certain spot. Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly and narrowed his eyes.
Even at this hour, there was someone in the ancestral hall.
