“You…” Zhuge Heng’s lips trembled slightly, his cloudy eyes filled with disbelief.
It seemed that he had exhausted all his courage and strength before finally managing to utter one word in a trembling voice.
“…It was you?”
Zhuge Mingyun smiled as if mocking herself.
She nodded.
“It was me.”
“You… You actually had contact with Zhuge Lin? You actually joined forces with an outsider to deal with your own father and your own family? You…!”
Zhuge Heng clutched his chest and staggered backward several steps.
Seeing this, Zhuge Buyi hurried forward to support his arm, but Zhuge Heng refused his help. He forcefully shook Zhuge Buyi’s hand away.
“Good, good! I’ve painstakingly planned for the Zhuge family for so many years, carefully calculating and exhausting myself for decades. Who would have thought that in the end, I had raised a whole nest of ungrateful wretches around me!”
Perhaps because he was simply too angry or for some other reason, Zhuge Heng’s face flushed red. He pointed at Zhuge Buyi, then turned his finger toward Zhuge Mingyun.
“My good grandson… My good daughter…! Where is Zhuge Lin? Where is Zhuge Lin?! Come, let me see my good younger brother again. Yes, he’s still the most capable one in the entire Zhuge family. So what if he failed to become family head back then? He still turned out to be successful! With just a few words, he managed to turn this old man’s own people against him!”
“…You brought this on yourself!!!”
Zhuge Mingyun suddenly interrupted Zhuge Heng in a sharp voice.
She widened her eyes, and two streams of tears ran down from them. Only then did a little light finally ripple through those eyes, which had been as still as an ancient well.
“What am I to you, Father? Your eldest daughter with mediocre talent? The most obedient and well-behaved child in the family? Or an object you can place wherever you like?
“Have you ever really treated me as your daughter? All these years, have you ever respected my thoughts and choices? Father, have you ever loved me? Ask yourself honestly: have you treated me as a child, or as a dog or cat that obeys you completely, one that comes when called and leaves when shooed away?!”
“…”
These words seemed to strike Zhuge Heng even harder and hurt him more deeply than the moment he learned that Zhuge Mingyun was the traitor in the family.
In a daze, it seemed as though all his weight had shifted onto his dragon-headed cane. He stood there like a withered piece of wood, his former dignity and pride completely gone. It seemed that all it would take was for someone to give him a gentle push, and he would tumble out of the world like an empty, dented soda can.
“In your eyes… I, Zhuge Mingyun, have only ever been a dog?”
Zhuge Heng drew in unsteady breaths and shook his head repeatedly. Every word came out with difficulty and bitterness.
He seemed so incredulous that all he could do was repeat Zhuge Mingyun’s words, one sentence at a time.
“You think I don’t love you, that I don’t care about you…?”
A flash of pain crossed Zhuge Mingyun’s eyes.
But she said nothing. She could only grit her teeth, slowly curl her fingers, and clench her fists so tightly that her entire arm trembled.
“You were my first child, Xiaoyun! Your mother died early, leaving me with you and Xiaoya. All these years, I raised the two of you from infancy, feeding and clothing you myself! I gave you the best resources and the best life. Everything I could give, I gave to you, especially you! Your talent wasn’t high, and you had no interest in dealing with underworld spirits… That was fine. I never expected you to take over my responsibilities. I assigned you to the archives and let you stay at the mountain residence because I wanted you to live a safe and happy life forever…”
“Zhuge Mingyun… Tell me, how have I wronged you?! Even between you and Xiaoya, you were always the one I favored! I drove Xiaoya out to live independently and let her grow up on her own. No matter how much she complained or how tired she said she was, I never softened. If she were the one saying these things to me today, I could understand it to some extent. But you… All these years, I never once wanted you to experience even the slightest hardship or suffering. And now, at your age, you’re still questioning whether… I love you? You are my most precious daughter! Zhuge Mingyun, can you say such things and still face your own conscience?!”
Zhuge Heng really was old. His voice was hoarse and strained as he shouted, and he could barely remain standing. He could only support himself with the cane in his hand.
He never dreamed… No, he never imagined, even in death, that Zhuge Mingyun would be the one to betray him.
Zhuge Mingyun was born during the happiest, most loving year of Zhuge Heng and his wife’s marriage. She was their first child. Parents pour a somewhat different kind of affection into a child like that, and in Zhuge Heng’s case, this manifested as constant planning and favoritism.
Zhuge Mingyun’s talent was extremely mediocre. That was fine. Zhuge Heng would shelter her from the wind and rain.
Zhuge Mingyun didn’t want to go out and gain experience or inherit the mantle of a spirit master. That was fine too. Zhuge Heng created a position out of nothing specifically for her as an archives administrator, allowing her to remain at home and live a leisurely life.
Normally, the children of a family head were expected to move out of the mountain residence and establish their own households once they turned eighteen. But Zhuge Heng doted on Zhuge Mingyun and allowed her to live with him. Even after she got married, he permitted her to continue staying at the mountain residence.
Zhuge Heng might have wronged many people in his life, but he believed that he had absolutely, unquestionably treated Zhuge Mingyun well.
“If I didn’t love you, with your talent and grades, you would have been expelled from the main branch long ago! If I didn’t love you, why would I carefully plan everything for you? Why would I take you with me wherever I went? If I didn’t love you… If I didn’t love you, then the person who died more than twenty years ago wouldn’t have been Li Guizhen. It would have been you!!!”
Zhuge Heng breathed heavily.
Now that the secret was no longer a secret, he might as well lay everything out in the open and argue honestly about it.
“My child, the person whose blood is drunk from the Soul-Transferring Cup is already determined by fate. Do you know how heartbroken I was when I saw your name on the Fate Wheel back then? It was me! I was the one who defied our ancestors’ warnings, risked going against the Fate Wheel’s will and drastically changing the family’s fortune, and tricked Li Guizhen into drinking that bowl of blood in your place! I made her die in your place! I was the one who saved your life and kept you from dying young. I did so much for you, and now you’re standing here questioning me?”
“Stop acting…! You’re saying all these hypocritical things, but who exactly are you putting on this act for?!”
Zhuge Mingyun’s tears flowed more and more freely. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her expression had taken on a hint of ferocity.
“My life was completely arranged by you, according to your own wishes, from the moment I was born! I hate studying those disgusting ghostly scribbles. I hate dealing with those disgusting ghosts!”
“I wanted to go out and study, but you wouldn’t allow it. You said the children of the Zhuge family had to stay in the Xuangu Mountain Range, and that you could protect me only if I stayed in the mountains. But when will you finally understand that I no longer need your protection?!”
“My grades were terrible. I never deliberately worked hard to improve them because I wanted you to understand that I really wasn’t cut out for this. I wanted to leave these mountains. I wanted to see the outside world. But what did you do? You’d rather trap me in that tiny archives room than let me leave!!!”
Zhuge Mingyun had hardly ever left these mountains since birth.
When her mother was still alive, she would occasionally take her outside to look around. Back then, Zhuge Mingyun had loved the prosperity of the cities outside. She liked the tall buildings and cars with wheels, and she liked how the children outside could carry their schoolbags and go to school together.
She said that she longed for such a life, and her mother had smiled and agreed, telling her that once she was a little older, she would send her to study in the city and play with the other children.
Zhuge Mingyun asked whether her father would refuse. Her mother replied that it didn’t matter if her father disagreed. She would make the decision for her, because her father always had to listen to her(the mother).
So Zhuge Mingyun genuinely looked forward to growing up. But when she reached the age when her mother was supposed to fulfill that promise, her mother was gone.
The last words her mother left her before passing away were to behave herself, take good care of her younger sister, and listen to her father.
Her mother could no longer make decisions for her.
Her life was completely handed over to her father’s control.
“You said you did so much for me. You said everything you did was for my own good. You said you were always carefully planning things for me. Fine. Then I’ll ask you just one question.”
Zhuge Mingyun gritted her teeth through her tears.
“…How did Zhou Chuang die?”
Hearing that name, Zhuge Heng’s entire body shook.
His mouth hung open, but for a long time, he could not utter a word.
Seeing his expression, Zhuge Mingyun smiled instead.
“What’s wrong, Father? Nothing to say? Or have you lost the ability to speak?”
Zhuge Mingyun was not the kind of person who liked to fight for things, nor was she rebellious. Although she sometimes felt unwilling and regretful about her father arranging, planning, and even controlling her entire life, she never truly wanted to resist him or turn against him.
The only time in her life she had ever gone against Zhuge Heng was over the matter of choosing a spouse.
“You’ve always wanted me to follow your arrangements and go through my entire life step by step according to your plans. So it wasn’t just my studies and work. You even wanted to arrange my spouse for me. But I didn’t like a single one of the boys you chose.”
“Were you furious back then? Did you think I didn’t appreciate what you did for me? Because I didn’t listen to you or accept the choice you made for me, you were angry, but you didn’t want to take it out on me, so you piled all your old and new grudges onto Zhou Chuang instead?”
Zhuge Mingyun had married late for two reasons. One was that she didn’t want to obey Zhuge Heng’s arrangements. The other was that she met the person she truly loved quite late in life.
She first met Zhou Chuang at the entrance to the main family’s residence. At the time, she was going out to help Zhuge Heng with some business, while Zhou Chuang had come on behalf of the Spirit Supervision Bureau to retrieve some records from the family.
The old man responsible for guarding the stone gate pushed it open with all his strength. One young person stood inside the gate and the other outside, and their eyes met through the slowly opening stone doors.
Love is completely unreasonable. The two quickly fell for each other. It was their destiny.
But when Zhuge Heng learned about it, he was unhappy.
He looked down on Zhou Chuang, believing that he came from a poor background and wasn’t particularly capable. His pockets practically rattled with emptiness. The only thing in his favor was that he had passed the entrance examination for the Spirit Supervision Bureau at a young age and secured a stable job. But what use was that? For someone who wanted to marry the eldest daughter of the family head, that young man was still reaching far above his station.
But Zhuge Mingyun was very firm. She said she would marry no one but Zhou Chuang.
His usually obedient daughter had finally stood her ground for once, and Zhuge Heng couldn’t persuade her otherwise. There was nothing he could do, and after dragging things out for two or three years, he finally agreed to the marriage with a long face.
The day she married was the happiest day of Zhuge Mingyun’s life. Nothing else even came close.
She originally thought she could remain happy like that forever. Unfortunately, fate did not go as she wished. She enjoyed that wonderful life for only three years.
In the third year of their marriage, Zhou Chuang was killed by a curse cast from a high-ranking underworld spirit during a mission. Not even his bones were left behind. At that time, Zhuge Mingyun had just become pregnant with the child born of their love.
“Father, you don’t know this, but for a long time after Zhou Chuang died, I hated you. I hated you for assigning him that mission, for insisting that he personally follow up on it, for not giving him more authority or more life-saving artifacts. You took my husband away from me and left my child without a father.”
“But later, I thought, how could I hate you? After all, you didn’t know an accident would happen during his mission. You must have blamed yourself and suffered over what happened. You wouldn’t have wanted it either. And I was your daughter. I couldn’t hurt you or hate you. If I had to hate someone, I could only hate Heaven and this cruel fate.”
“But, Father, you deceived me so cruelly.”
“It was only recently that I learned the truth. The curse that killed Zhou Chuang didn’t come from an underworld spirit at all. It came from you. You were the one who placed the death curse on him.”
“So I was right to hate you from the very beginning. The person who made me lose my husband was my own father. The person who made my daughter lose her father was her own grandfather… Why, Father? Why did you insist on killing him? Just because Zhou Chuang wasn’t someone you had chosen? Just because you looked down on his abilities and his background? You thought he wasn’t good enough for me, that he was reaching above his station, so you decided to kill him? You decided to take his life?!”
By the end, Zhuge Mingyun was practically screaming.
Her throat hurt, but she seemed unable to feel it.
After all, compared with her miserable life, this little bit of pain was nothing.
“And then what, Father? Twenty years ago, you killed my husband. Now, twenty years later, are you going to kill my daughter too?!”
Zhuge Lin approached Zhuge Mingyun about six months earlier.
At first, Zhuge Mingyun didn’t believe a word he said.
He told her that the Zhuge family was hiding an enormous conspiracy, that Zhuge Heng had actually been involved in her husband’s death, that her daughter was also in danger, and that Zhuge Heng coveted Qianyi’s life… But how could that be possible?
Zhuge Heng was her father. They had lived together day and night for fifty years, and she knew him very well. Although the old man was somewhat controlling, arrogant, and conceited, there was absolutely no way he could do something so vicious and ruthless.
But soon, the evidence was laid out before Zhuge Mingyun piece by piece. Only then did she realize that she had been terribly wrong, wrong in a way that was both ridiculous and outrageous.
There was a world of difference between having someone casually tell you about something and discovering it little by little for yourself. The depth of the feelings these two experiences brought about was completely different. That was why Zhuge Mingyun began deliberately guiding Qianyi to discover everything and find the cruel truth buried in the Xuangu Mountain Range for herself.
Afraid that Qianyi might not be able to handle it alone, and worried that she would feel frightened, helpless, and lost, Zhuge Mingyun also specifically asked Zhuge Buyi to help secretly.
Buyi was a good child. She had raised him herself and understood his temperament. He was kind and pure. Although he did not really believe that his grandfather was the kind of person she described, he was still willing to keep her secret and actively helped her arrange everything.
Her daughter was also very clever and brave. After being guided to discover the suspicious details, she escaped from this man-eating mountain overnight with the help of her older brother Buyi.
After, Zhuge Mingyun no longer knew what she should do, much less how she could do the right thing.
Could it be that because her father had controlled her entire life, destroyed her happiness, and even wanted to harm her only daughter, she could grit her teeth, ignore everything else, and plunge a sharp knife into his chest?
…Impossible.
Zhuge Heng was ruthless and cruel, capable of striking down his own family without mercy. Zhuge Mingyun, however, could not be as cruel and heartless as he was.
All she could do was destroy everything he valued with her own hands, then, at the very end, stand here and question him.
“You don’t understand, child. You don’t understand anything!”
Zhuge Heng looked as though someone had suddenly torn away the carefully arranged disguise he had worn for years, exposing his true appearance to the light of day, and was visibly panicked.
“Zhou Chuang was from the Spirit Supervision Bureau! He had a terrible temper and was stubborn, with no sense of proportion. He only believed in his own reasoning! Back then, he discovered that there was something suspicious about Li Guizhen’s death and had been investigating it secretly! I had been tolerating his little actions all along. For your sake, I could turn a blind eye, but that boy was too clever. If I kept indulging him like this, he would soon uncover the secrets of the family!”
“The family’s secrets absolutely cannot be known by outsiders. If the matter of the Soul-Transferring Cup leaked out, and the artifact that sustained the family’s glory and splendor was stolen, the Zhuge family would become a huge laughingstock! What did you expect me to do? How am I supposed to face the souls of our family ancestors after I die?!
“Besides, the Spirit Supervision Bureau has long been dissatisfied with our Zhuge family having a monopoly over everything. Do you know that? The people above have wanted to deal with our family for a long time. They simply haven’t found a suitable pretext. But if they started with Li Guizhen’s death and uncovered more of our family’s affairs… If the number one family of the Nether Path became a den of murderers, and the painstaking efforts of our ancestors were ruined, I, Zhuge Heng, couldn’t bear the consequences! For the sake of the family, Zhou Chuang had to die!!”
“This family was already a den of murderers!!!
“For a thousand years, how many legitimate daughters have you sacrificed? Those poor girls and their parents didn’t even know until the day they died that their deaths weren’t fate or accidents, but conspiracies! What does that illusory family glory even mean? Zhuge Heng, when will you finally understand that in this world, only people matter! People are what matter most!!!”
As she screamed in agitation, Zhuge Mingyun stamped on the fragments of the Soul-Transferring Cup beside her feet, crushing them.
A crisp cracking sound rang out, and Zhuge Heng’s entire body trembled.
After that, he seemed to suddenly come to his senses.
He calmed down and stopped arguing with Zhuge Mingyun.
Leaning on his cane, he approached her unsteadily and supported her arms with both hands, as if trying to soothe her.
“Xiaoyun, listen to me. There is only one girl in the direct line of the main family in this generation, and that’s Qianyi. If there were any other choice, I absolutely, absolutely wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice Qianyi. But this is something we can’t avoid… How about this? Let’s not talk about these things for now. Tell me where Zhuge Lin is. Our most urgent task is to stop him from going mad.”
“Li Guizhen and Zhou Chuang were family, but you’ve now destroyed the family’s formation and let so many underworld spirits in. These underworld spirits are slaughtering our family members too. Those are living human lives as well. Listen to your father. Let’s deal with this first, all right? We can sit down and talk about everything else slowly afterward. Your father will admit his mistakes. I was wrong…”
Zhuge Heng’s current tone and expression were exactly like the way he had coaxed Zhuge Mingyun into staying in the Xuangu Mountain Range when she was little.
Back then, he also used that same tone and expression to gently tell her that everything Father did was for her own good and that she should listen to him.
But Zhuge Mingyun was no longer the little girl she once was.
Memories overlapped across several decades. The Zhuge Mingyun of the past had always been obedient and compliant, but this time, she finally found the courage to stand up for herself.
She violently shook off Zhuge Heng’s hands and looked at her aging father, who no longer possessed the imposing stature and authority he once had.
He was old. After being shaken off like that, he lost his footing and staggered, nearly falling to the ground.
“…Only this way, only by destroying everything, can you finally give up completely.”
Zhuge Mingyun’s eyes could no longer shed tears. They were so dry that they hurt.
“Otherwise, as long as you still harbor the thought of making a comeback, as long as there is even the slightest possibility that this man-eating family will rise from the ashes, as long as that so-called Shaosi is still alive, Qianyi will remain in danger.”
“Father, you spared my life and let me steal all these years from Ah Zhen. I wronged her, and I wronged Zhou Chuang. These sins were forced upon me by you. Today, why don’t you repay them together with me?”
Zhuge Heng’s pupils contracted violently.
Fu Sang, watching from the side, suddenly felt like clapping again.
However, to avoid ruining this touching atmosphere, he just thought about it and didn’t actually do anything.
Tired of sitting, he jumped down from the edge of the huge boulder. He raised his eyes to look at Liu Dongfeng, only to find that the man’s expression was complicated, clearly burdened by something on his mind.
Fu Sang looked at him and raised an eyebrow slightly.
Liu Dongfeng seemed to notice his gaze. He came back to his senses and took the initiative to explain.
“Zhou Chuang… was my senior fellow disciple. When I joined the Spirit Supervision Bureau, he was the one responsible for training me.”
“Oh.” Fu Sang nodded, understanding.
“You didn’t expect that after so many years, you’d hear a familiar person’s story from someone else’s mouth under these circumstances?”
“Something like that.” Liu Dongfeng sighed.
“Back then, Zhou Chuang suddenly put aside all the work he had on hand and applied to the higher-ups for special authorization. He said he wanted to investigate something secretly, but he wasn’t sure he could succeed. To avoid unnecessary danger, he never disclosed anything about the case to anyone. All the evidence and details were known only to him.”
“Later, he died in the line of duty during a mission. The target of that mission was only a fourth-rank Violet Corrosion. Nobody expected such an accident to happen. The Spirit Supervision Bureau suspected that there might have been a conspiracy behind his death, but they couldn’t find any evidence. In the end, they could only let the matter drop.”
“So until just now, the case Zhou Chuang had stubbornly investigated back then was a secret we thought could never be solved.”
Fu Sang listened absentmindedly.
In fact, he wasn’t particularly interested in hearing the righteous Liu Dongfeng’s story about his righteous old friend.
He pursed his lips, just about to say something, when the ground beneath his feet suddenly began to shake violently!
The tremors were very intense. The ground and the stone walls shook together, making it almost impossible for anyone standing on the ground to keep their balance.
And what came along with those tremors…
Fu Sang frowned and instinctively looked toward Cui Xing Gate.
Although it was called a “gate,” Cui Xing Gate was actually just a fissure that had naturally formed in the stone wall.
However, he wasn’t sure whether it was his imagination, but from this distance, he noticed that the gap in Cui Xing Gate seemed to be gradually widening.
Fu Sang narrowed his eyes, trying to get a closer look.
But he soon realized that he didn’t need his eyes to see it at all.
Because in the next instant, turbulent, chaotic yin energy surged out from behind Cui Xing Gate, scrambling over one another as they rushed toward them like a tsunami, forcefully occupying every corner of this world.
Pain, unwillingness, resentment…
Everything that had trapped souls and prevented them from being reincarnated for a thousand years was here. They had been imprisoned behind the gate for nearly a thousand years, and now they had finally found an opportunity to regain their freedom.
The roars and wails of countless souls came from behind the gate.
The Cui Xing Gate was about to open.
