Miao Qing left, her face wreathed in a coquettish smile, swaying as she went.
The Bone Mask Messenger was a complicated man. She had spent a long time in his company, yet she could never read him through and through.
His manner today might have been a test — to see whether she had discovered the Dao Child. Or it might have been a word of warning, reminding her to mind her footing and not let slip that she had found him.
Everyone had gathered in the Bone Path for the sake of one shared ideal, yet before that final goal, each of them kept his own small designs.
As for the Second Elder, his intentions were far plainer. He cared not at all what Miao Qing might drag out of the interrogation. Perhaps he had nothing to do with Ji Xuan's affair; or perhaps he knew perfectly well that she would wring nothing from her prisoner either.
For such a wily old thing as that, she did not even bother guessing at his thoughts. She would only be led astray; he could never be fathomed.
As for the thread involving the seized water folk, few enough hands had been set to watch it.
Miao Qing herself had told no one she would appear upon the banks of the Clear River. Whoever could guess so much must know her intimately well.
She had no idea who the one lurking in the dark and passing messages might be, and to interrogate them one by one would serve no purpose—for it was entirely possible they truly knew nothing.
She feared the Dao Child's secret leaking out, and after that escape from the jaws of death, that anxiety had spilled over in a way she could no longer hold back.
But now the Bone Mask Messenger had plainly begun to suspect, and the Second Elder was no fool either.
A Dao Child, once born into the world, did not awaken at once. On the contrary, one was held fast by all that surrounded one at birth, and only afterward came the long, drawn-out process of breaking free and awakening. Until then, the Dao Child was not strong. What determined one's strength was only the cultivation undertaken after coming into the world.
This also meant a Dao Child might well be destroyed before awakening... or supplanted.
This was why Miao Qing acted in secret — especially now that the Grand Elder had shown so little investment in the search for the Dao Child.
As the Sacred Maiden, as the fated worldly consort of the Dao Child, what she wished to do was hasten his awakening.
And so, once she was certain Jiang Chen was the Dao Child reborn, she arranged three things.
Three things, three choices.
She meant to unsettle, even shatter, the moral convictions Jiang Chen already held, and then help him find himself again.
The first thing was meant to make him ponder the state, the court. The second was meant to make him think on the relations between the human race and the water folk, and on the human race itself.
As for the third... it could only be postponed for now.
The Grand Elder was out of contact somewhere in the State of Yun, no one knew what had befallen him. The Second Elder and the Bone Mask Messenger had both yet to declare their positions. Perhaps this was not a good time at all.
It was too dangerous, after all. She thought.
Her mind unsettled, she walked back to her room.
So much so that she forgot she had never been the sort to flinch from danger.
When he was very young, his father told Jiang Chen that the water folk were simply the people who lived in the water.
Like humans, they had their own thoughts and feelings, their own kin and friends, their loves and their enmities.
In truth, this was also the common understanding of all.
And this understanding had not come about for nothing. It had been forged over ten thousand years of humans and water folk living together and grinding against one another, by the labors of countless wise and able figures in both races.
And now, someone was quietly abducting water folk, draining their Dao Veins to refine Meridian-Opening Pills. As though, to obtain a perfect Meridian-Opening Pill, men would not scruple to drain the Dao Veins of cultivators.
It made Jiang Chen feel that this world of his had fallen into a madness, a kind of absurdity.
"You think this sort of thing never happens?" Zhao Yan's handsome face flushed crimson from drink, and his words grew ever more careless.
It was already deep into the night, and Jiang An'an had long since gone to sleep. Unable to sleep after finishing his cultivation, Jiang Chen had slipped out in the small hours to find Ling Chuan and Zhao Yan.
The three brothers gathered at Zhao Yan's home to drink, until their eyes swam with drunken haze.
When talk turned to the troubles weighing on their hearts, it was the youngest, Zhao Yan, who dismissed them with the most contempt.
"There are plenty who eat men, and Xiong Wen is only one of them!" He laughed as he breathed out wine-reeking air. "You think not? It's just that most people don't eat so openly — they eat in a different way, and so you think the man-eaters are few. Third Brother, you're too naive!"
"Your third brother isn't naive." Ling Chuan had drunk a great deal too, but even drunk, the man would not let himself go slack and wild. He leaned half against his chair, let out a slow breath, and said, "He, ah, has something he believes in."
"And you, my eldest brother, what do you believe?" Zhao Yan patted his knee and grinned. "So young, and already going about all day like a kindhearted old man. Why is that?"
"I believe human nature is good at its core. I believe no one truly wants to eat another man. Most of the time it is done under duress, and if they had any choice, they would not do it. I believe everyone wishes to stand clean and untarnished in the sunlight."
"Third Brother is a bit naive... but you, you're a fool!" Zhao Yan could barely keep his seat, so he rested against his armrest with a vigorous wave of his hand. "Don't give that sort of man any chance!"
Jiang Chen slumped over the table, pouring himself another cup and downing it, the wine flushing his face. Through half-lidded eyes he said, "The boss is the sort who bears no ill will toward others. So many things he could never bring himself to do, and so he thinks others wouldn't do them either."
"A man's heart is made of flesh and blood after all." Perhaps it was that he had truly drunk too much; tonight Ling Chuan was a little stubborn. Or perhaps he had always been a man of deep obstinacy, and only when sober chose not to argue.
"Some flesh puts forth sores — that flesh is rotten!"
"It was good before the sores came."
"No, no. The heart of some men is not made of flesh — it is made entirely of rotten sores!"
"Nonsense, Xiao Wu. A rotten sore can never grow into a man's heart."
Ling Chuan was genuinely drunk now. The men among them had not used that name, Xiao Wu, for a very long time.
Zhao Yan burst into a breathy laugh. "Not all men are men, my silly brother."
"And not all men are not-men either." Watching from the sidelines, Jiang Chen seized on the flaw with precision, and said with great confidence: "The reason men are men is that most men are men. Otherwise why would we be called men rather than ghosts?"
He raised his right hand high, drunk as he was. "Therefore, I declare! The boss is right!"
Ling Chuan split into a grin, laughing with a naive, contented innocence.
"To hell with it all!" Zhao Yan rolled over in his turn and flopped back against his chair. "This godforsaken place, I wouldn't care who lives or dies in it. Except for you lot... and Old Tiger..."
Suddenly he burst into tears. "Wah, wah, wah. And Fang Heng. That bastard Fang Heng!"
On ordinary days, none had been more dismissive of Fang Heng than he. Only at such a time, when he let go of everything and drank himself blind, would he ever speak such words.
Jiang Chen wobbled as he poured himself another cup, swirled it, and said: "To that bastard Fang Heng."
Then he downed it in one go.
Zhao Yan wept a few moments, then stopped, and turned indignant instead. "Old Tiger's been gone to Jiuxia for so long now, and never a word from him. He's a bastard too!"
"Right, another bastard!"
Half-drunk and half-awake, Ling Chuan cut them off with an unexpected correction: "It's a bastard tiger."
Deng Shu, no one knew from when, was leaning against the door outside, hands tucked into his sleeves. Listening to the voices within the room, he let out along sigh, his voice full of regret: "They are all still just children..."
The night wind curled through his sleeves, and a single drop of blood fell silently.
But before it could touch the ground, some power caught up with it, and scattered it into nothing.