After Jiang Chen left, a hidden door slid open in the wall behind Fang Zesheng. Two clan enforcers dragged Fang Lin out and dumped him in a chair, still bound, his pride broken in every possible way.
The Moon-Gazing Tower belonged to the Fang clan. That was why Fang Heng had chosen this place to poison Jiang Chen.
Fang Zesheng raised a hand. The enforcers loosened the gag and cut the ropes. Fang Lin did not move. He sat in the chair like wet mud.
He had been listening to the whole conversation, gagged and bound, watched by the enforcers. He could not speak. He could not move.
"You saw it all." Fang Zesheng said. "He beat you with real skill. No tricks, no schemes. There is a gap between you and Jiang Chen — naked, obvious, and you never saw it."
Fang Lin said nothing. But the look he gave his father was almost a plea: Please. Stop talking.
"You saw it all." Fang Zesheng went on. "Your father, because of you, has lost face."
Fang Lin's eyes dropped. The light went out of them.
Fang Zesheng walked over, gripped his son's chin, and forced him to look up.
"You saw it all." Fang Zesheng said. "Our clan, because of you, is mocked."
Tears spilled down Fang Lin's face. He tried to stop them, tried to push them back — a useless, doglike struggle against his own weakness.
Fang Zesheng's voice kept coming: "For you, I cut off your cousin's resources. For you, I gave up profit after profit, just to buy you a place in the inner academy. For you, I swallowed every insult. And you — in front of the whole city — you became a joke. Now you wallow in self-pity like garbage. You made me a joke too!"
"I didn't want — I didn't want—" Fang Lin shook his head, sobbing, and finally screamed: "I didn't want any of this!"
"Then prove it to me!" Fang Zesheng roared.
The middle-aged man, the one who now held the clan's power in his fists, let the pressure go. He cupped his son's face in both hands and said, gently: "Prove it to me... my son."
* * *
Leaving the Moon-Gazing Tower, Jiang Chen's steps were not heavy.
To be honest, since entering the inner academy, he had stopped worrying about what the Fang clan might do. Money and power meant nothing next to the academy. As long as he pushed forward in cultivation, he would one day hold a post in the State of Zhuang — perhaps even in the capital, Xin'an. The local gentry of Maple City were beneath his concern.
Except for one thing: Fang Zesheng had mentioned An'an today. That woke the killing intent in Jiang Chen.
Let the Fang clan do whatever they wanted to him — he could bear it. But if a single one of their people so much as bullied An'an at the schoolhouse, he would not stand for it. Their father was dead. Their stepmother had remarried. An'an had no one but him.
"Are you full? Hey — stop wiping that on my clothes!"
Jiang Chen peeled An'an's head off his shoulder. She had been pressed against him, secretly smearing a mouthful of grease across his sleeve.
Jiang An'an blinked her big eyes. Her mouth was already clean, but her lips pouted in utter innocence: "You won't even wipe my hands..."
Jiang Chen surrendered at once. He sighed: "Look at me. Is there a clean spot left? Fine. Go ahead."
He had given up.
An'an's busy little hands wiped and wiped, then she remembered something: "What did you say just now?"
"I asked... ugh." Jiang Chen sighed again and came out with it: "Cai's Mutton Shop?"
"Mm-hmm!" An'an nodded wildly. She reached up, grabbed her brother's face with both hands, and yanked it to the left. "This way!"
Jiang Chen leaned back, annoyed. "I know the way!"
An'an was already bouncing. "Giddy-up!"
Jiang Chen carried An'an toward the mutton shop.
"Oh, right." An'an suddenly remembered a real errand. "Teacher wants you to come to the school tomorrow."
Jiang Chen frowned. "Did your teacher say what for?"
Little An'an thought for a while, buried her face in her brother's chest, and said in a muffled voice: "I don't know."
Jiang Chen's heart sank with worry.
* * *
At the same time, in the city lord's mansion, a conversation was taking place that only two people in the world would ever hear: Dean Dong and Wei Lin.
"...If I'm right, with that bait, they can't resist. The moment those heretics surface, we close the net and slaughter them all!" Wei Lin clenched his fist. "That's the whole plan."
"Sound plan." Dean Dong nodded, expression unchanged. "But I doubt it will work."
"Why?"
"You think—" Dean Dong looked at him with a mocking eye. "The people who slaughtered Little Grove Town are going to walk back into Maple City?"
"What do you mean?"
"I know nothing of your Bone Path, and I don't know what's so tempting about the thing you worked so hard to obtain." Dean Dong said. "But the Three-City Trial is a major event. This city will be thick with guards. Is that thing worth the risk to them? Fools could not have sacrificed Little Grove Town right under our noses. And you aren't even sure they're Bone Path, are you?"
"Then we try anyway, Dean Dong!" Wei Lin said. "Little Grove Town is old news. This prefecture must have answers!"
"How sure are you? You would gamble the safety of every citizen of Maple City on your confidence?"
"Maple City is mine. My mind is made up!"
Dean Dong slammed the table and stood: "Maple City belongs to the State of Zhuang!"
"Dean Dong, think." Wei Lin forced his tone down. "In Qin. In Jing. Even in Yong, next door. Could they do this? Sacrifice a whole town? Thousands of people? Generations of souls that should have rested?
"The Clear River Water Palace moves a finger, and every army in the county shifts. A Heart-Devouring Demon appears, and the whole county's enforcement rushes to the hunt. They know everything about us. We know nothing of them!
"Do you want to see it again? It's time. We have to probe the bottom of this."
Wei Lin sank into his chair. "Yes. We all carry blame. The names the dead cursed before they died — yours would be in there, and mine too."
His voice was tired: "We'll do it your way. The academy will cooperate. And if those heretics truly come again, let me see whether good and evil find their reward."
"If they really are Bone Path, the Nether Candle should mean a great deal to them. It came from... there."
"Either way, this time I'll back you fully. Let's hope the Three-City Trial doesn't become a joke for the whole county."
"They may come, or they may not. This prefecture can only try." Wei Lin muttered, then changed the subject: "That Zhu Weiwo — can he really not make it back? Nothing's happened to him?"
"His battlefield isn't here." Dean Dong turned his head, as if through the window he could see some far corner of the sky. "He's a man destined to shine at the state academy. A trial slot would be wasted on him. I want Zhang Yuan to win that seat."
"Then Maple City will have two state-academy talents. You've planned it all perfectly."
"I'll train them with everything I have. Consider it... a small redemption."
In the dark room, someone sighed.
The chair was empty.