IN CHONGHUA'S SISHU TERRACE—
"Elder Zhou!"
"Greetings to Elder Zhou!"
Zhou He was a strict person, and he had a rigid habit of changing his clothes. Outside, he wore the formal robes of his own family, but the moment he returned to Sishu Terrace, he went first to the bathing room to change into Sishu Terrace robes, no matter how important the tasks awaiting him. Given his station, no one would give him grief for wearing formal robes, but Zhou He insisted on the uniform of Sishu Terrace cultivators.
Every agency in Chonghua had a uniform that represented their function. Most popular among young men were the tailored black combat uniforms of Mo Xi's Bureau of Military Affairs with their narrow waist, tapered sleeves, turned-down collar, golden buttons at the hems, and golden tassel at the lapels. Most popular among young women were the uniforms of Shennong Terrace, jade-green robes of peacock silk perfumed with eaglewood incense, and a gauzy white silk coat worn over top.
In comparison, the standard attire of Sishu Terrace was less appealing—a pale blue robe with a standing collar and narrow sleeves, nothing else.
Some interpreted Zhou He's obsession with his uniform robes as a compulsive disorder, while others attributed it to superstition, among various other theories. In reality, the reason Zhou He insisted on changing was a simple one: he loved his work. With every assignment he accepted, he felt an indescribable sense of ceremony. Changing into the uniform robes marked the beginning of a ritual.
He was about to enjoy an intoxicating ecstasy.
"Elder Zhou, the gu worms and magical implements have been prepared. The specimen is waiting in the Asura Room and is currently in stable condition."
Zhou He strode down the long corridor as he adjusted the steel claw gauntlet on his left hand. At this, he paused in shock. "Stable? How stable?"
The attendant nodded. "Extremely stable. There's no strong reaction as of yet."
Zhou He didn't immediately respond. After a long moment he murmured, "The legendary Beast of the Altar indeed."
Sishu Terrace's Asura Room was deep underground. As Zhou He neared it, the iron chains over the doors retracted with a clang, and the stone doors carved with the indomitable figure of the stalwart warrior Xingtian slowly swung outward.
A gust of freezing air swept from the gap.
The guards flanking the stone door performed obeisance toward Zhou He. One of them shook out a sable overcoat, preparing to drape it over the elder's shoulders. Zhou He raised a gauntleted hand: there was no need. He walked straight in.
The Asura Room was a cold cell roughly twenty yards wide. Because most experiments were best conducted at freezing temperatures, the inner walls of the Asura Room were built of bricks cut from ancient Kunlun ice. The walls, ceiling, and floors were all ice, and at first glance, it was like walking into a mythical palace of mirrors.
At present, Gu Mang was sitting in the middle of the Asura Room, his eyes closed in meditation.
Zhou He walked over and looked at this man with interest. He'd seen many test subjects during his tenure here. Most broke down in terror as soon as they crossed the threshold of Sishu Terrace, never mind the Asura Room. He had never seen anyone like Gu Mang, who acted as if this was nothing out of the ordinary.
Had this person lost his mind so completely that he didn't know what he would face here? Or had the Liao Kingdom's black-magic tempering given this mortal's body some special ability, making him unafraid of pain or death?
Either way, it was bound to be a fascinating examination. Zhou He grew more and more excited; he licked his lips, his long fingers gripping Lieying, the falcon at his waist.
Perhaps because of the exceptionality of Gu Mang's identity and reactions, Elder Zhou He, who had grown accustomed to seeing his specimens as beasts, felt a fresh curiosity toward this subject. He couldn't help wondering—what was Gu Mang thinking right now?
Gu Mang seemed to have read his mind. He slowly opened his eyes to reveal a lupine blue stare and spoke two words: "It's cold."
It's cold? That's it?
Zhou He stared intently into those clear blue eyes, as if trying to dredge up some more turbulent emotions. But there were none. How could there be any? How could Zhou He uncover the slightest hint of his true feelings if Gu Mang didn't want him to? Who did he think Gu Mang was?
The emperor's unsuspected spy.
The agent who had infiltrated the Liao Kingdom for more than five years.
The General Gu who had endured endless judgment, criticism, abuse, death, and guilt, yet had gritted his teeth and walked down the long road into the dark.
When he'd first defected to the Liao Kingdom, the Liao officials hadn't dared believe it. They'd tried hundreds of different tortures and all their malicious methods, but none had pried a solitary secret from his mouth. How could Zhou He possibly succeed?
"It doesn't matter," Zhou He said. "Very soon, the cold won't bother you." He raised a hand. At the beckoning of his fingers, the assisting attendants entered the Asura Room. "Begin," Zhou He intoned.
Through dense lashes, Gu Mang looked up at those Sishu Terrace cultivators standing in formation in their pale blue robes. Each held a wooden tray arranged with daggers, gu worms, magical implements, and medication. The daggers were for slicing open flesh, the gu worms and implements were for conducting black magic experiments, while the medicine was something quite precious—the finest Divine Tincture of Life, for preserving his life at critical moments.
The cultivator closest to him lifted a tray with a roll of snowwhite bandages. Gu Mang knew this wasn't for binding wounds, but to fill his mouth and keep him from biting through his tongue to end his own life.
Gu Mang closed his eyes. He remembered now that this was the second time he was experiencing such a scene, the first being in the Liao Kingdom. Though the Time Mirror hadn't returned much of what passed in the years he defected, this scene was so painful it must've been an exception—
He had buried Lu Zhanxing's head on the shores of the SoulCalling Abyss. Then, just as the emperor planned, he put on a show of having been pushed to the edge and defected to the Liao Kingdom in a fit of rage.
The great hall of the Liao Kingdom was paved with golden-red bricks, such that the entire hall seemed to be aflame. The full court of civil and military officials resembled a horde of monsters and demons, each with their own grotesque elements. Liao's youthful ruler wore the beaded crown and sat atop the lofty throne. He was a child of no more than sixteen, and exerted no control over the demons skulking beneath the throne. Their true master was the golden-masked man who stood at his ruler's side.
The guoshi of the Liao Kingdom.
Gu Mang remembered taking a knee, bowing as he offered up proof of his allegiance—a jade scroll containing detailed records of Chonghua's secret techniques from the past century.
Though the most important techniques had been excised, this scroll was still one of Chonghua's most important classified records. The Liao Kingdom court officials' eyes shone when they glimpsed it, and even the King of Liao craned his neck, anticipatory glee showing on his face.
Only the guoshi chuckled through that golden mask with its grinning eyes. "General Gu, let's not talk about the offering yet. Why don't we first discuss why you wish to turn your back on Chonghua?"
Gu Mang indignantly recounted his experiences after the defeat at Phoenix Cry Mountain to the gentlemen of Liao. When he mentioned his sworn brother's execution, tears flowed down his face, his voice breaking with sobs.
Even before his defection, many in the Liao Kingdom had heard rumors of Gu Mang's treatment after Phoenix Cry Mountain. Now, as they heard the tale from his own lips and gazed at that jade scroll filched from his own nation, their suspicion began to fall away.
"I've thoroughly experienced the disgrace Hua-guozhu (founding euler of the nation) felt back then," Gu Mang said in the end. "Instead of remaining in Chonghua to be humiliated, I'd rather follow in the footsteps of Hua-guozhu and defect."
Hua Po'an was the founding ruler of the Liao Kingdom. Was there anyone at the scene who couldn't see the similarities between Hua Po'an and Gu Mang? The Liao ruler was immediately convinced, his voice shaking slightly with barely concealed excitement. "S-since this subject has had such a realization, then…"
Halfway through, he suddenly felt he had overstepped. He snapped his mouth shut and shot a glance at the man beside him, meeting the guoshi's smiling eyes. Cold sweat soaked through the Liao ruler's heavy robes. He swallowed and hastily added: "Th-th-then we'll await the guoshi's counsel!"
The guoshi narrowed his eyes in a smile, clasping both hands behind his back and turning toward Gu Mang, who was kneeling below. "General Gu, Beast of the Altar. This one is indeed familiar with your famous military prowess. The sworn fealty of a mighty beast is naturally a blessing from the heavens to our Liao, a cause for great celebration. But…"
The guoshi's voice grew soft. His eyes, which had been curved in a smile, suddenly snapped wide, glinting with cold light as he looked out at Gu Mang through the eyes of the golden mask. "But, General Gu," the guoshi said, "do you know what Hua-guozhu did first, when he forsook Chonghua?"
As those cold, slender eyes studied Gu Mang, he felt a pain like the bite of a venomous snake. The guoshi smiled faintly, but those black eyes held not a hint of mirth.
"Hua-guozhu ordered his most loyal attendants to tie him up, and over the course of three days and three nights, tore Chonghua's techniques and all its magic from his body… Then he poured the breath of black magic into the vessels of his heart. With one determined act, he broke all ties—with Chonghua, and with his honored teacher Chen Tang."
The ominous glint of cruelty gleamed brighter with every word he spoke. By the end, that golden mask seemed to have melted through from hot malice; one could almost see that terrible and wicked face beneath.
The guoshi smiled a menacing smile. "General Gu, since you seek to follow in Hua-guozhu's footsteps, you know what proof of your allegiance we require. Do you not?"
And thus Gu Mang was escorted into the Liao Kingdom's Soul-Tempering Room.
It was a room remarkably similar to Chonghua's Sishu Terrace— a cold chamber built from dark ice, its attendants dressed in near identical pale blue robes. The trays that held magical implements, gu worms, daggers, and bandages—all were exactly the same.
The interrogation and the tempering were conducted simultaneously over three days and three nights. The flesh of his back was flayed open along his spine. Gu worms that ate spiritual energy were seeded deep in the wounds, and thousands of puppet strings crawled along his blood vessels, snapping and scrambling every meridian that ran with Chonghua's magic and making a gory mess of his viscera.
That guoshi sat in a rosewood chair, legs crossed, arms folded over his knees, studying Gu Mang. While he suffered, while he wailed, while he endured a life worse than death, saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth, his flesh mangled, his organs sliced to pieces, the guoshi would gently ask him, "General Gu. Do you regret it?"
He asked him: "Going from white to black is as difficult as going from black to white. You need to be sure—once your body is filled with black magic spiritual energy, only the Liao Kingdom, in all of the Nine Provinces and Twenty-Eight Nations, will take you in. Does your hatred of Chonghua run so deep?"
Gu Mang was already soaked in his own blood, but this was nothing; the greater agony came from the puppet strings burrowing deep into his back like the eight limbs of a crab. Those thousands of steel-silk threads had surely been refined with truth-compulsion magic. Whenever he lied, the strings threaded through his body bristled with sharp thorns, their barbs sinking deep into his flesh, ready to tear him apart.
His vision had long since gone blurry with blood, tears, sweat… everything. He heard the Liao Kingdom's guoshi crooning a question: Do you really hate them? Hate them enough to meet them with blades drawn, hate them enough to become their enemy for life?
Convulsing, Gu Mang felt himself about to vomit. He lowered his head, choking as he laughed. Yes… Yes, I hate them, I hate them so deeply…
Steel thorns pierced bone and his entire body twitched. But Chonghua's Beast of the Altar still clamped his mouth shut, not saying a word, not revealing a thing. He endured the agony of his body, lips tremoring as he spat out fragmentary words.
Yes. I hate. I don't regret.
From now on, I, Gu Mang, cut all ties with Chonghua. I, Gu Mang, am defecting to the Liao Kingdom, swearing loyalty to the Liao Kingdom. For vengeance, I am willing to be tempered, to fall onto the demonic path; never will I feel regret.
Never…regret…
Bloody tears streamed down his face. He had been tortured to the point of madness, his hair disheveled and face covered in filth, like a vengeful ghost cackling in despair. He didn't know how he kept his mouth shut, but whenever he couldn't bear it, he would work to remember the past.
He thought of the emperor speaking on the Golden Terrace. General Gu, we ask you to believe us. We have never, and will never, see you as cheap pawns, as lowly slave-born bodies.
He thought of Lu Zhanxing telling him, Mang-er, keep going. Whatever you choose, your Lu-ge will be happy for you.
He thought of Mo Xi…
He felt a heart-wrenching pain the moment he thought that name.
He remembered the cool summer breeze the first time he saw Mo Xi, and the clarity of Mo Xi's eyes when he turned. He remembered the first smile Mo Xi had shown him and the sorrow on his face at their last farewell.
It had been more than ten years since. And it wasn't that he'd never been moved, that he'd never wanted to recklessly risk it all and accept what Mo Xi offered, to believe the two of them could truly cross that chasm and share a lifetime together.
But… When all was said and done, they couldn't overcome fate or defeat destiny.
How would his princess, his highness, his little shidi, feel after learning of his defection? He would probably hate him, wouldn't he?
Hopefully he would.
Don't be so impulsive anymore, don't be silly and oppose the court, don't try to vouch for me… You absolutely mustn't do anything like that…
Mo Xi.
I'm sorry. Your shixiong really, really loves you.
Every uttered "I love you," every word of warm affection I ever said was true. And from now on, every "I hate you," every mocking insult will be false.
You absolutely, absolutely…mustn't regret that when Shixiong defected, you weren't at my side, that you couldn't attempt to persuade me one last time, that you couldn't stubbornly attempt the impossible.
Because…
Gu Mang's tears fell endlessly down his cheeks, mixing with his sweat and blood, soaking that ruined, nearly inhuman face.
Because the one who transferred you to the frontier and delayed your return wasn't the emperor at all… The person who suggested that was me! It was me… I was the one who was too weak; I was too afraid to let you see me leave, too afraid to hear you try to convince me, too afraid to see the heartbreak in your eyes again. I was afraid that if you looked at me, I wouldn't be able to leave.
I'm sorry, I have to go, I must go. I'm sorry—in the end, I still chose Chonghua, chose my brothers, chose this path, and so I had to part with you.
I'm sorry…
More blood trickled from his forehead into his eyes. That handsome face he held so dear slid away with his tears, and Mo Xi disappeared. In his hazy scarlet vision, he saw the flames and defeat at Phoenix Cry Mountain. He saw brains smeared into the ground. He saw those with whom he had once sat round a fire, drunk wine in the snow, advanced and retreated, chatted about daily rations and the nation's ideals. They looked at him from across the shores of the flowing river of the underworld.
Gu Mang had a vivid hallucination. He saw himself floating on that vast netherworld river, just about to swim across, just about to take hold of their hands—
Wait for me.
Wait for me—I'm coming, I'll bring you home, I'll take you back.
An excruciating agony assailed him. The demon claw clinging to the white bones of his spine had drunk its fill of Chonghua's magic techniques and spiritual energy. It ripped itself from his flesh, yanking back against exposed bone.
He screamed.
Seventy thousand comrades, his unblemished soul, the future he dreamed of—all vanished with this vicious tearing. Black magic spiritual energy mixed with faewolf blood flooded into his body.
Those brilliant, smiling faces of his comrades and his brothers dwindled to nothing in that field of scarlet…
Gu Mang heaved. From now on, he could never go back. Never again…
He knew he could never again walk among them.
"Tsk, tsk…" The guoshi took the opportunity to grab his face, stroking a thumb over that cheek mottled with blood and tears as he cooed. "General Gu. Do you regret it? Do you grieve for that bright and honorable magic of your motherland that's been stripped away?"
Gu Mang convulsed and shivered. His body was not strong. He had a great dread of pain and suffering; he would balk at pulling a thorn stuck in his nail or drinking medicine even when sick. But this fragile body contained a soul that hadn't the same softness. Gu Mang looked up, his eyes blood red, and hoarsely said, "No."
Surprised, the guoshi stared into his eyes but couldn't find the slightest waver or hint of deceit in those black irises.
Gu Mang's soft lips quivered. He weakly, stubbornly, and softly said, "I don't regret it, I want revenge…" Weeping, he let his face crumple, a ferocious howl tearing its way from his throat. "I want revenge!"
The guoshi finally seemed moved. He released Gu Mang's jaw. Slowly, he lifted that hand to gesture to the attendants. "Come."
At his command, his subordinates nearby responded immediately. "Awaiting the guoshi's orders!"
"Carve all the black magic spells of Liao into his bones."
"Yes!"
The guoshi reached out and patted Gu Mang's head with a hand covered in his own blood, caressing it as if Gu Mang had somehow proven himself. "General Gu, do you know what this means?" An indecipherable light glinted in the guoshi's deep brown eyes. "For the rest of your life—no matter if you lose your memories, or if your bones shatter, or if your eyes are gouged out and your tongue is cut away—as long as but a single shard of bone remains, you will be under the control of our black magic. You will never escape. Everything you can use, the only thing you will use, will be our filthy techniques carved into your bones, scorned by all the world. You will never be able to forget them."
He grinned, exposing sharp, white fangs in an eerie smile. "Congratulations, General Gu. You belong to my Liao Kingdom now."
Gu Mang's vision flickered, dreams overlapping reality. That golden mask disappeared, replaced by Zhou He's scowling face. Zhou He lifted Gu Mang's chin with Lieying's sharp tip. "What are you thinking about?"
Gu Mang made no sound.
Whether he had been an acceptable general he didn't know, but at least he had always been an exemplary spy. Even if his memories were broken and shattered, even if he found himself confused and bewildered at many points, he had guarded this secret with his life. Regardless of whether it was the Liao Kingdom, or Lu Zhanxing, or Mo Xi, he'd always held safe those truths he must not say. In this respect, he had never failed at being a spy.
Gu Mang's silence appeared to anger Zhou He. "I'd very much like to see how long you think you can last," he growled darkly.
An array glowed to life. Chains rattled out from all sides, restraining Gu Mang's limbs and neck. Zhou He turned to his attendants. "You may begin."