Chapter 21: The Origin Core of the Inner Organs

Outside the gates of Guping City stood a thousand-year ginkgo tree, its spring leaves lush and spreading, and the city took its name from it.

Being near Ancient Qingqiu, the gates were checked rigorously year-round, with identity-verifying artifacts besides.

Several Envoys of the Demon Suppression Bureau were searching everyone at the gate.

Just at first light, a horse carriage with no driver came drifting through the morning fog, brimming with spiritual power, lanterns lit and hanging, bearing no emblem at all.

The Envoys, per orders, stopped it for inspection.

The carriage rolled to a halt. A hand lifted the curtain from within, revealing a strikingly handsome face. “Envoy.”

“What business in Guping City? Do you have Identity Talismans for entry?”

The youth handed over two Identity Talismans and said gently, “My elder brother is gravely ill. We heard a Divine Physician named Cang Zhou practices in Guping City, and have brought him here for treatment.”

“Where is this brother of yours?”

The youth lifted the curtain a little, revealing an azure silhouette lying on the soft daybed within.

The carriage looked plain enough, its space cramped, but spread across the daybed was a silk brocade carpet worth a fortune, and a purple cloak—clearly belonging to someone wealthy or noble—lay draped over the sleeping young man.

The Envoy couldn’t make out the man’s face. He reached in with his sword sheath to lift the fox-fur collar by his cheek.

Snap.

Seeing that cold sheath pointed at his brother’s face, something went glacial in the youth’s eyes. He seized the sheath, brow knotted. “What exactly are you trying to do, Envoy?”

Realizing how far he’d overstepped, the Envoy withdrew the sheath. “Proceed.”

The youth gave him a cold glance and dropped the curtain.

The carriage rolled on.

That one glance had left the Envoy chilled to the bone, as if some beast were marking him from the dark—hair rising on his neck. He couldn’t help thinking: surely this boy has nothing to do with the Demon Race?

But when he looked up, the carriage passed through the second checkpoint—and straight through the artifact that tested for demonic qi—without the slightest anomaly.

He let out a soft breath. Just a boy who dotes on his brother. I’m overthinking it.

The carriage passed into Guping City as if no one stood in its way.

Qingshan Qi turned slightly and spread his divine sense, expressionless, winding it around that Envoy and closing it silently about his throat.

One slight squeeze, and the man’s head would leave his shoulders. The residual spiritual power would be enough to keep him standing like a puppet for three days.

Just as Qingshan Qi’s fingers moved to trigger it, the person beside him mumbled something.

Ding.

The spider-silk-fine divine sense slowly snapped. Qingshan Qi cut his power, leaned down slightly, and smoothed Lin Zhuoyu’s disheveled hair. “Mm. I’m back.”

There wasn’t a trace of color in Lin Zhuoyu’s face. He didn’t answer; he only burrowed his forehead deeper into the soft brocade carpet and went on sleeping soundly.

Except it wasn’t sleep—the wounds were too grave, his life force draining, and he had simply passed out.

Qingshan Qi disliked crowds. Enduring the surrounding air, fouled with things that irritated and discomforted him, he drove the carriage to a secluded residence.

Knock, knock.

The gatekeeper of Cang Manor heard the knocking, rubbed his sleepy eyes, and opened the door. “First thing in the morning—who is it?”

Qingshan Qi lifted the curtain. “Be so good as to announce me. Qingshan has urgent business and requests the Divine Physician Cang’s aid.”

The gatekeeper eyed the plain, unadorned carriage with suspicion, but the tone suggested an acquaintance of his master’s, and he answered courteously, “Honored guest, one moment. My master has not yet risen.”

Qingshan Qi gave a low laugh, the very picture of understanding, and said softly, “Ten breaths. That’s how long you have to bring him to me.”

At those outrageous words, the gatekeeper opened his mouth to bellow—and saw the eyes beneath those thick lashes shift, silently transforming into a pair of eerie violet vertical pupils.

Gatekeeper: “…”

The gatekeeper went ash-gray and bolted.

“MASTER—!”

Moments later a half-dressed man came tumbling out of Cang Manor. One look at Qingshan Qi and he shuddered so hard he nearly dropped to his knees.

“Y-you-you… what are you doing here?!”

Qingshan Qi’s fox pupils narrowed. “You’re late,” he said idly.

Cang Zhou, whose fame spanned the Three Realms, went white. “It’s st-still before d-dawn—”

Qingshan Qi laughed. “Just teasing you.”

Cang Zhou: “?”

“As it happens, you’re still useful to me alive,” Qingshan Qi said pointedly. “Relax. Today I won’t kill you.”

Cang Zhou swallowed hard and hastily shoved a heart-settling pill into his own mouth, lest he faint from fright.

“Wh-what are the Young Master’s… orders?”

Qingshan Qi thoroughly enjoyed watching others cower before him. Unhurried, he stepped down from the carriage, a figure bundled in the purple cloak held in his arms.

One look, and Cang Zhou understood.

An Origin Core retains a residue of its owner’s divine sense; refine it by force, and you risk Body Seizure.

Every time Qingshan Qi came looking for Cang Zhou, it was to have those residues scrubbed from the Origin Cores. Assuming this visit was the same, Cang Zhou asked, well-practiced:

“Shall I cut out his Inner Core for you to refine, Young Master?”

Qingshan Qi’s pupils went cold as he looked at him.

Cang Zhou dropped to his knees with a thump, rabbit ears springing out in his fright. “Spare me, Young Master!”

Qingshan Qi looked away from him and, carrying Lin Zhuoyu, walked into Cang Manor.

Cang Zhou wiped his sweat. Every time I see this fox, my lifespan shortens by a few decades. Who knows what torments and terrors this visit will bring. It’ll be the death of me.

Thinking this, and valuing his life, he nonetheless scurried along, shut the manor’s great gate, and laid a Barrier over it for good measure.

Cang Zhou was a rare Rabbit Demon who had accidentally eaten spirit grass and gathered qi; his spiritual power was pure, without a trace of Baleful Aura. Hiding and scurrying for years, he had never been caught by the Demon Suppression Bureau—and had become a skilled physician besides.

He followed gingerly.

Qingshan Qi, familiar with the way, entered the master chamber, burned the rabbit nest with a casual flick of fire, rearranged things, and laid the person in his arms down with exceeding gentleness.

Cang Zhou found it novel. The ruthless, venomous Qingshan Qi, treating a person with such care—it was a first.

He stole a glance. Hss. What a face. Fair enough to pass for an immortal.

Another glance. And another.

As if he’d grown eyes in the back of his head, Qingshan Qi said evenly, “Look again, and I’ll dig your eyes out.”

Cang Zhou’s eyes snapped shut.

“Come look at him,” Qingshan Qi said.

Cang Zhou: “…”

Caught between advance and retreat, but with his life held in another’s hand, he could only shuffle over, eyes slitted, and feel for the pulse of the man on the daybed.

Qingshan Qi lounged lazily to one side.

Before long, Cang Zhou’s brow was knotted. “Young Master, this man’s meridians and inner organs are gravely wounded. He is at death’s door. He has not long to live.”

Qingshan Qi’s teacup paused mid-air. He sounded in a foul temper. “If he were up and bouncing about, why would I have come to you?”

Cang Zhou answered stiffly, “But he… his wounds are too severe. Everything depends on one strand of pure spiritual power guarding his heart-meridians. I—”

“If you cannot fix him,” Qingshan Qi said, eyes narrowing, “then what you mean is that you are useless?”

Cang Zhou dropped to both knees and swore solemnly: “I will do everything in my power!”

Qingshan Qi was quite satisfied with his cooperation.

Cang Zhou fed life-sustaining Spirit Pills to Lin Zhuoyu, sweating and toiling for half a day, until the sun hung high in the sky.

Sunlight poured through the window lattice and fell on Lin Zhuoyu’s porcelain-jade face, as though he might open his eyes the very next moment and smile at him.

Qingshan Qi watched, distracted, and seeing that Cang Zhou had begun the ritual work, frowned. “When exactly will he wake?”

Cang Zhou breathed out. Knowing there was no escaping it, he said, resigned to death: “Young Master, wounds of the meridians can still be healed with spiritual medicine. But the damage to his organs is too grave—his Origin Core is all but shattered. If it were Lord Qingxiao of Floating Jade Mountain, perhaps such hands might work miracles. With my half-baked arts… I can only keep him alive. Waking him… I fear will be very difficult.”

Qingshan Qi’s face went dark.

Cang Zhou thought: this is it, no dodging it now—and gritted his teeth. “Fine! Go ahead and kill me! I’ve had enough of your foul temper anyway, you wild fox! The sooner dead, the sooner reborn—in my next life I’ll come back a wolf, and I’ll swallow you in one bite to pay for this lifetime’s humiliation!”

At the same moment, Qingshan Qi’s voice drifted out, flat: “That works too.”

Cang Zhou: “…Hah?”

Qingshan Qi sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at Lin Zhuoyu’s face. With the light against him, that soft face looked all the more ghostly and eerie. Slowly he reached out and drew the sharp tip of a fox claw across that snow-white skin, bit by bit.

Between the brows. Down the bridge of the nose. Over the curve of the lips. Last, the throat.

“Just go on lying like this,” Qingshan Qi murmured, soft as a caress. “I like him this way.”

No need for him to look down on me as he does in my dreams, with loathing and mockery, demanding to know why I never came to save him. No need for him to live, that pure and Exquisite Heart set against a heart as vile as mine.

Let him simply lie here, a beautiful puppet at my beck and call—speak what I command, do what I command. Wouldn’t that be the best of both worlds?

Cang Zhou stared at him, beyond incredulous, thinking this wild fox had gone madder still.

Having said his piece, Qingshan Qi turned his head slightly, smiling pleasantly. “…And what was it you just said?”

Cang Zhou’s face changed. Before he could invent an excuse, a crushing spiritual power slammed down on him.

He hit the floor knees-first with a thud, blood pouring from mouth and nose.

“Y-Young Master…”

Qingshan Qi still had a use for him, and delivered only a light punishment, waving a careless hand. “Get out.”

Cang Zhou’s meridians nearly shattered; he scrambled away in blind panic.

He hadn’t made it out of the room when Qingshan Qi’s lazy voice drifted after him. “…See to it the Demon Suppression Bureau comes nowhere near this place. Otherwise—you know the consequences.”

Cang Zhou stiffened and fled.

Lin Zhuoyu still lay meek in the sunlight, like an exquisite statue of jade.

His severed meridians had been mended, fragile as glass now; in his organs there remained only that nearly shattered Origin Core, devouring his life force inch by inch.

Qingshan Qi didn’t care. Spider-silk strands of spiritual power held Lin Zhuoyu’s meridians in check.

“Brother?”

Lin Zhuoyu’s eyes opened, heavy with sleep. The dim pupils blinked, and then he smiled. “Little Qi.”

“Do you hate me?” Qingshan Qi asked.

“Of course not.” Lin Zhuoyu smiled warmly. “To fear for one’s life is only human nature. You did very well.”

The heart cannot be consumed by hatred, or it becomes a monster.

Rid the people of evil, so that no one else suffers as I did—family destroyed, home lost to a Great Demon.

“Wuyou dies here, and has no regrets in this life.”

“Get out.”

The veins at Qingshan Qi’s temple bulged. He cut the power savagely.

Deprived of its control, Lin Zhuoyu’s shell sank slowly, eyes drifting shut.

It isn’t supposed to be like this.

Lin Zhuoyu would never say such things.

A moment later, Lin Zhuoyu’s eyes snapped open—and without a blink, he slapped Qingshan Qi across the face with a sharp crack.

“Coward!”

Lin Zhuoyu raged at him. “I took pity on you as a human, looked after you at every turn—and you deceived me! I poured out my spiritual power to get you out alive, and you—craven, spineless—you turned and ran! How was I so blind, to know a demon like you!”

“Groveling coward that fears death!”

“Why don’t you go and die right now?”

Qingshan Qi caught his hand mid-swing, thinking expressionlessly:

Lin Zhuoyu would never lash out at him like this either.

The threads of spiritual power snapped; Lin Zhuoyu’s body went silently limp, sinking back into sleep on the daybed.

Qingshan Qi looked at his sleeping face, and for no reason he could name, a flicker of restlessness rose in him.

Nothing fits. Nothing at all.

He could not read Lin Zhuoyu’s heart at all, let alone guess his true feelings on what happened that year. Those two so-called “answers” just now had been nothing but his own self-deception.

Lin Zhuoyu had become a scalding yam he could neither hold nor drop—irritating when awake, and even meekly asleep, able to rake at the resentment scratching at his heart.

If only I could eat him. Let him melt into me, become one with me…

Melt…

into one?

Qingshan Qi sat in the shadow, staring fixedly at that face, eyes narrowing—and an idea came to him.

Cang Zhou was badly battered. He listlessly munched spirit grass, and it took a long while before the pain in his body dulled.

By the end of all the hassle, night had fallen.

With his rabbit nest burned down, Cang Zhou could only sulk off to sleep in the side room.

But in the dead of night, drifting half-asleep, he glanced over—and saw a “ghost” standing at the head of his bed. The moonlight fell across Qingshan Qi’s face, more terrifying than any vengeful spirit.

Cang Zhou fainted dead away.

He was soon shaken forcibly awake.

Two livid palm prints marked his face; his voice shook as he asked, “What are your orders, Young Master?”

Nothing like his lazy, listless self of daytime, Qingshan Qi was suffused with a rare, electric exhilaration, fox pupils contracted to needle-thin slits, a smile playing on his face.

“Do something for me.”

As if Cang Zhou dared refuse. He hastily begged the Young Master to command.

“Erase the divine-sense residue from an Origin Core for me.”

Cang Zhou was well practiced at this kind of “dirty work,” and nodded rapidly. “Yes, yes, of course. The Young Master’s command—I’m at your service.”

He dressed and waited for Qingshan Qi to take him to the Inner Core.

Qingshan Qi led him back to the master chamber.

Lin Zhuoyu slept in the moonlight.

Cang Zhou dared not guess the madman’s intentions anymore. He coughed dryly, waiting for Qingshan Qi to give the order before going to extract the man’s Origin Core.

Shk.

In the darkness, a faint, wet sound burst beside his ear—as though something had plunged into flesh and blood and pried something out by force.

Cang Zhou’s rabbit tail nearly exploded with fur. He turned, horrified—

and saw Qingshan Qi’s torso soaked crimson with blood, his claws drawing a perfectly intact Origin Core out of his own body, his fingers slick with hideous blood. Moonlight fell upon it, casting a single point of golden light into Qingshan Qi’s pupils.

“Y-Young Master!”

Qingshan Qi’s whole body shook with the monstrous pain, and yet he laughed, low and near-delirious.

A demon that loses its Inner Core has no spiritual power left to sustain it. Within a month, its intellect will fail, and it will become an ordinary fox—born at dawn, dead by dusk.

Qingshan Qi had dug it out with his own hands. “Erase the divine-sense residue from this Origin Core, and place it in Lin Zhuoyu’s organs.”

Cang Zhou’s breath hissed in. He stared at him, beyond belief. “Him? HIM?!”

“Mm.”

Cang Zhou knew this damned fox was mad—he just hadn’t known he was this mad. He couldn’t help himself: “Young Master, think carefully! Yes, your Origin Core could be placed within his organs and repair his Golden Core—but what if he takes your core and runs…”

At that hypothesis, Qingshan Qi actually laughed. “Wouldn’t that be perfect?”

Cang Zhou was frightened. “Then what… what do you stand to gain?”

Soaked in blood, his Inner Core gone entirely, Qingshan Qi looked ecstatic, staring fixedly at that beautiful face that so disgusted him.

Years of misdirected rage at everyone and everything had finally found its outlet.

Unlike that moment of life and death on Lingshu Mountain—where Lin Zhuoyu might have stayed out of pity, out of mercy for those thousands of villagers—this was one life traded for another, and for someone who had once been saved by him and willingly laid down his life for him.

If Lin Zhuoyu accepted this Inner Core of his own free will, it would prove that Qingshan Qi had been right all those years ago.

Tear up that savior’s face. Drag him down with me into the filth of Purgatory, until there is no telling you from me.

Picturing it, Qingshan Qi’s body shook with excitement, his laughter growing more gleeful.

Cang Zhou shuddered violently and took the blood-drenched Inner Core with trembling paws.

Moonlight fell, soft and white, across Lin Zhuoyu’s face.

Between his brows, a Gold Talisman turned silently, becoming invisible spiritual power spreading outward.

Through long streets and dense woods, past the city wall—the towering ginkgo trees of Guping City rustled in the wind, a few green leaves drifting down with the frost.

Yan Su touched down on the ginkgo tree, dusty from the road, his face white as paper.

The Gold Talisman in his palm glowed, flickering bright and dim.

Lin Zhuoyu was in this city.