Kneeling before Mu Dishi, Ma Jingguo's tear-filled eyes remained fixed on the light blue robe, now ruined by the dark, spreading stain of blood. His mind screamed in silent protest; his heart refused to accept this reality. A pain ten thousand times sharper than any arrow wound tore through him. If he could turn back time, he would have thrown himself over Mu Dishi's body, shielding him from every shaft with his own flesh until there was nothing left of him but a shield of bone and blood.
Despite the numbness in his chest, Ma Jingguo looked up at Mu Dishi, his large, puppy-like eyes shining with a faint, tragic smile. "Xiao shushu, I'm sorry."
Before Mu Dishi could react, Ma Jingguo's fingers moved like lightning, tapping Mu Dishi's chest—once on the left, once on the right—sealing his acupoints.
"What are you doing? Release me!" Mu Dishi demanded, his voice strained and thick with the first stirrows of panic.
"Xiao shushu, I am a man of nothing," Ma Jingguo said, his voice trembling as fresh tears welled. "No one would remember me if I died today. But you... you are different. You are my everything. I know that if something happens to you, I will go mad. I would turn the martial arts world upside down, hunting every soul responsible until the rivers ran red."
He let out a small, bitter chuckle that broke into a sob. "I would probably become the most hated demon roaming the earth. Countless lives would be lost to my grief. So, if one of us has to die, I would rather it be me. I don't have your strength, Xiao shushu. I can't be like you—I could never peacefully seal myself away in a cave and wait for the end."
"Do you know... how lonely someone has to be to hide inside a cave?" Mu Dishi asked, his voice cracking. He was stunned to feel the warmth of his own tears finally spilling over, trailing down his cheeks.
Ma Jingguo's face brightened at the sight. A strange, sad joy filled him; he knew those tears belonged to him. They were the first proof he had ever truly had of the depth of Mu Dishi's heart. He reached out, taking Mu Dishi's right hand and pressing it firmly against his own left cheek.
"I don't know," Ma Jingguo smiled through the tears. "Xiao shushu chased me out before I had the chance to test the loneliness for myself." He leaned in closer, his breath ghosting over Mu Dishi's skin. "Xiao shushu... have I ever told you that I very, very like you?"
"Yes," Mu Dishi pleaded, his composure shattering. "Now release me!"
"Xiao shushu, for you, I am willing to do anything." Ma Jingguo leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Mu Dishi's eye, tasting the salt. He smiled down at him. "These tears are so sweet, Xiao shushu."
"Jingguo, let go of me!" Mu Dishi's voice was desperate now. "I won't die so easily. I've been soaking in medicinal baths since I was a child. Even a poison this strong will take days to truly take hold of me!"
"Sorry," Ma Jingguo whispered.
He didn't listen. Instead, he lowered his head to the open wound on Mu Dishi's arm. He began to circulate his own internal energy, not to heal himself, but to act as a vacuum, drawing the black, venomous blood out of Mu Dishi's veins and into his own mouth.
Mu Dishi watched in silent horror, unable to move, unable to stop the madness. As Ma Jingguo swallowed the bitterness of the Yueguang poison, a terrifying change took hold. Starting from the roots, Ma Jingguo's dark hair began to lose its color. A ghostly, silver-gray spread like a rising tide across his head, draining the youth from him with every drop of poison he took.
"Age under the Sun," Mu Dishi mumbled, his voice a terrified whisper that barely carried in the cold air.
He watched in a trance of pure horror as the vibrant life was sucked out of the man before him. It wasn't just the hair; it was the very essence of Ma Jingguo's youth. Fine lines began to spiderweb across Ma Jingguo's forehead, deepening into heavy wrinkles that mapped out a lifetime of stolen years in a matter of seconds.
"Jingguo, stop! Please, stop!" Mu Dishi cried, his voice breaking into a jagged sob. The tears streamed down his face, hot against his cold skin. "I've already watched my entire family die before my eyes. I cannot watch you die, too! Stop this madness!"
But Ma Jingguo remained deaf to the pleas. He was a man possessed, his focus entirely on the dark venom he was pulling into his own body. Mu Dishi could only watch, paralyzed by the acupoint seal, as Ma Jingguo's hair turned from gray to a stark, ghostly white. His strong, steady hands withered, the skin becoming thin and translucent, spotted with the marks of age.
When Ma Jingguo finally pulled away from Mu Dishi's arm, the man who looked back was unrecognizable. The vigorous youth was gone; in his place sat a man who appeared to be in his seventies, his frame suddenly fragile and bowed by the weight of decades.
"Release me," Mu Dishi pleaded, his voice a broken thread.
With a trembling, skeletal right hand, Ma Jingguo finally reached out and tapped the release points. The moment the seal broke, Mu Dishi didn't pull away; he lunged forward, gathering the frail, white-haired man into a crushing embrace.
"Why?" Mu Dishi choked out, burying his face in the coarse white hair of the man who had just sacrificed everything. "Why would you do this?"
"Because..." Ma Jingguo began, but the voice that came out was no longer the bright, melodic tone of a young man. It was a raspy, weathered rumble, heavy with the rattle of age. He chuckled weakly, the sound vibrating thin in his chest. "Because I love you a hundred times more than that bastard Wang Biming could ever love you."
He leaned back slightly, looking at Mu Dishi through eyes that were still familiar, yet surrounded by the folds of time. "Xiao shushu... now it's your turn to call me shushu. Look at me... I'm much older than you now."
Mu Dishi's heart felt as though it were being shredded. He reached out, his fingers trembling as he traced the new lines on Ma Jingguo's face. He leaned in and pressed a lingering, reverent kiss to Ma Jingguo's left cheek.
"From now on," Mu Dishi whispered, his forehead resting against the other's, "do not call me xiao shushu anymore. You have earned the right. Call me by my name."
Ma Jingguo shook his head slowly, a faint, stubborn spark of the boy he used to be shining in his aged eyes. "No," he insisted, a ghostly smile touching his wrinkled lips. "I like calling you xiao shushu. It makes me feel special... because I'm the only one in this world who gets to call you that."
Miao Mingzhu stalked up the mountain path, her silk robes stained with the slush of the road and her heart black with fury. Her eyes widened as she crested the hill, taking in the carnage surrounding the small hut. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the scent of scorched wood from the ruined kitchen.
She smirked, a dark, twisted satisfaction bubbling up when she saw the arrows scattered across the ground and pinned into the pavilion beams. They were her arrows. Her handiwork.
"Mo Ehuang, you bitch!" she screamed at the sky, her voice echoing off the silent peaks. "How dare you lie to me? Sending me an empty chest! If I find you, I'll turn you into my living test subject. I'll brew the strongest poisons known to man and drip them into your veins. I'll make sure you can't live and you won't die—you will suffer in my hands for an eternity!"
She stepped over the cooling corpses of the Mo Clan disciples, her eyes scanning for her target. She finally spotted a figure lying in the snow, a withered, broken woman gasping for air.
As Miao Mingzhu approached, Mo Ehuang reached out with a trembling, skeletal hand and gripped the branch leader's ankle. "Miss Miao... save me..." she wheezed, her voice a dry rattle.
"Save you?" Miao Mingzhu let out a harsh, jagged laugh that held no warmth. "Why in the world would I do that?"
She knelt slowly beside the woman, her expression shifting from mockery to a cold, predatory seriousness. She reached out and clamped her hand around Mo Ehuang's throat, squeezing until the woman began to choke and gag.
"You promised me three thousand gold ingots," Miao Mingzhu hissed, her face inches from the other woman's. "But you sent me an empty chest. You wasted my time, you wasted my toxins, and you insulted my craft."
She gave one final, brutal squeeze before standing up and kicking the withered hand away from her ankle with a look of pure disgust.
"I'll pay you... I'll pay you everything... as soon as you help me," Mo Ehuang pleaded, her eyes wide with the terror of the approaching noon.
Miao Mingzhu smirked, a cruel glint in her eyes. She stepped forward and ground her heel into Mo Ehuang's outstretched hand, relishing the sound of the woman's scream. "Miss Mo, who do you take me for? I, Miao Mingzhu, only give a person one chance to earn my trust. And you? You threw it away for a few pieces of gold."
She looked down at the rapidly aging woman with a sneer. "Good luck lying here in the sun. I suspect if you stay exposed like this, you'll be a hundred years old by tomorrow morning. If you even, make it to the frost."
She turned on her heel, ready to leave the wreckage behind. But she had only taken a single step when a sharp, white-hot pain shot through her waist. Her legs turned to lead, and she found herself frozen, unable to take another step.
The air in the room grew heavy as Mu Dishi appeared like a vengeful ghost. In a blur of white and blue silk, he seized Miao Mingzhu and vanished into the bedroom, slamming her down into a chair before she could even process the strike.
"Cure him," Mu Dishi commanded, his voice as sharp as a winter frost. He pointed a trembling finger at the man on the bed—a seventy-year-old stranger wearing Ma Jingguo's face.
Miao Mingzhu didn't panic. She adjusted her collar, a slow, mocking smirk spreading across her lips as she studied the withered man. "The Mu are doctors. The Miao are poisoners," she said calmly. "I am sure you are familiar with 'Age Under the Sun.' It is a jealous toxin. He can never again walk freely beneath the sky. During the day, he must remain in the dark. If the sun touches his skin, he will age decades in hours. He will wither and turn to dust."
She paused, her eyes glinting with a challenge. "I suggest you hide him somewhere the light cannot reach. Somewhere like... the Mu Treasure Cave."
"Give him the antidote," Mu Dishi demanded, ignoring her taunt.
"And if I refuse?"
"You will die."
"If I die, he dies with me," Miao Mingzhu countered smoothly.
Mu Dishi's jaw tightened. He knew she was right. Ma Jingguo's breath was becoming a shallow rattle; there was no time for torture. "What is your price?"
Miao Mingzhu's smile turned imperious. "Mu-gongzi, if we are to trade, let us do it by your family's rules. An exchange of equal value. Give me your most precious possession for his life."
Mu Dishi looked at Ma Jingguo. To him, the man on the bed was the only thing of value in the world, but he knew that wasn't what a woman like Miao Mingzhu sought. "What do you want?"
"The Mu treasure map."
"I tore it into five pieces and scattered it to the winds long ago," Mu Dishi said.
"But a man with your mind must remember every line," she insisted.
"I care nothing for that map. I glanced at it twice and put it from my mind."
Miao Mingzhu scoffed, standing up to leave. "Then stay here and watch him die."
"Miss Miao," Mu Dishi called out, his voice heavy. "If you save him, I will tell you how to open the door to the cave. Even if someone finds all five pieces of the map, they are useless without the key."
Miao Mingzhu froze, her eyes widening in surprise. "A key? Agreed. Release me."
Mu Dishi stepped behind her, his fingers moving in a blur as he extracted three golden needles from her spine. Freed from her paralysis, Miao Mingzhu reached into her sleeve and withdrew a small, vibrant green snake. "Where is the wound?"
"I was the one struck," Mu Dishi replied. "He sucked the poison from my blood."
Miao Mingzhu shook her head, a look of genuine disbelief on her face. "Does the boy have a death wish? That means the poison is rooted in his very marrow."
"Can you save him?"
"I can save his life," she said, her tone turning professional, "but the damage to his essence is done. Some things cannot be undone."
She reached into her shirt, pulling out seven small, colorful pouches. She took a single pill from each, placing the rainbow of medicine into Mu Dishi's palm along with a teacup. "Crush these. Use your internal energy to grind them into a fine dust."
Mu Dishi obeyed, his palms glowing with a faint light as he pulverized the medicine. Once he handed the cup back, Miao Mingzhu looked at her small snake with a flash of genuine regret. "Baby, I'm sorry," she whispered. With a swift, practiced flick of a blade, she decapitated the creature, draining its dark, shimmering blood into the cup of powder.
"Drink," she commanded, propping Ma Jingguo up. "Drink it all and use your internal energy to guide it through your veins."
Ma Jingguo swallowed the bitter, metallic mixture. As he circulated his qi to open his critical acupoints, his body convulsed. He spat a mouthful of black, clotted blood onto the floor and immediately slumped back, falling into a deep unconsciousness.
"Jingguo!" Mu Dishi cried, rushing to him. He grabbed the man's hand, but his heart nearly stopped—Ma Jingguo's skin was as cold as mountain ice. Panic, raw and absolute, masked Mu Dishi's face.
Before Miao Mingzhu could even turn around, the edge of Mu Dishi's sword, Honglei, was pressed against her throat.
"He isn't dead, you fool," she explained, her voice bored. "His body is a battlefield right now. The medicine is hunting the poison. He'll sleep for an hour, maybe more."
Mu Dishi didn't move the sword, but his breathing slowed as he watched Ma Jingguo's face. Slowly, miraculously, the deep furrows on his forehead began to smooth. The withered skin regained its elasticity, blooming with a faint, healthy color.
An hour passed in suffocating silence. Finally, Ma Jingguo's eyes fluttered open. The wrinkles were gone, his face once again that of a young man, but as he sat up, his hair remained a stark, snowy white.
"Xiao shushu... I'm so thirsty," Ma Jingguo rasped.
"No water until morning," Miao Mingzhu spoke up from the table. "Water will only dilute the essence of the snake's blood. You must endure it."
"She's right," Mu Dishi whispered, his hand shaking as he stroked Ma Jingguo's white hair. "You have to be patient."
Miao Mingzhu stood, extending a hand. "I have kept my word, Mu-gongzi. Give me the key."
Mu Dishi looked at Ma Jingguo's white hair—a permanent mark of his sacrifice. "His hair... it will stay this way?"
"I told you, some damage cannot be undone," she said with a shrug, her voice devoid of apology. "A trade is a trade. He has his life, and you have your secret. In the Jianghu, that is as fair a deal as one ever gets."
Mu Dishi reached up, sliding a simple, elegant hairpin from his own hair and handing it to her. "Miss Miao, that cave is a graveyard. I have only been there twice, and only with Uncle Long. I advise you to stay away."
Miao Mingzhu laughed, the sound echoing in the small room. "A cave of treasures without traps is just a hole in the ground." She took the pin, turning toward the door.
"Wait," Mu Dishi called out one last time. When she looked back, his eyes were full of a strange pity. "The Mu Treasure Cave holds only death for those who seek gold. It does not contain what you are truly looking for."
Miao Mingzhu simply waved a hand dismissively and vanished into the snowy twilight.