Chapter 104

Chapter 104

Back on Du Island, Guan Heng had told Ning Qiuyan about the Guan Family’s agreement himself. But they had never discussed it in depth, and Ning Qiuyan hadn’t pressed him for every last detail.

All he knew was that Guan Heng had gone to Du Island alone, and that the Guan Family had been unwilling to let him remain lonely forever, so they had found him through the Blood Supervision Council. From then on, every descendant of the Guan Family would spend a few years on the island during their lifetime.

But why would that agreement have anything to do with Qin Weizhi?

Silence fell.

Only after a very long while did Qin Weizhi speak again.

The old acquaintances were gone, and so much of the past had been buried by time that there was no one left to tell it to. Now that he had a chance to reveal Guan Heng’s secrets in front of Ning Qiuyan, Qin Weizhi seemed very interested indeed.

“In the Fifth Year of Yuanfeng of the Qing Dynasty, Marquis Zhennan’s merit in defending the realm from outside threats and pacifying it within had grown so great it eclipsed the sovereign. The emperor was muddleheaded and believed slanderous words, and overnight, the winds changed… The Lord Marquis anticipated danger even in times of peace and had long expected it. That March, I received his secret order to go beyond the frontier and bring back someone-a gray-robed figure.”

In truth, he did not seem to care whether Ning Qiuyan was listening at all. His manner of speech naturally became less colloquial.

Because compared with anything else, what mattered was saying it aloud.

Ning Qiuyan’s fingers curled unconsciously. “A gray-robed figure?”

Could it be the person responsible for Guan Heng’s turning?

Qin Weizhi did not notice Ning Qiuyan’s unease. The long blade in the cabinet was reflected in his eyes. “That person came from a land of ice and snow. Legend had it they were originally a demon trapped beneath a thousand feet of frozen ice. No one knew how they met. The Lord Marquis only said that, long ago, that gray-robed figure had owed his father a favor.”

Ning Qiuyan stopped interrupting and quietly waited for Qin Weizhi to continue.

“No one had ever seen the gray-robed figure’s face. No one knew their sex, and no one knew what they truly were. It was only said that they did not age or die, that they lived year-round in a snowfield sealed in ice for ten thousand li, and that they had the ability to bring the dead back to life.”

Qin Weizhi went on.

“The Lord Marquis’s given name was a single character, Wei. Because my own name clashed with his, I had suffered no end of suppression, yet he was the one who took a liking to me. His kindness toward me was as heavy as a mountain. I obeyed his order to find this person and searched the snowfields for a full three months, freezing both my big toes until they were ruined.”

“By the time I returned, it was still too late.”

Even though these were events from a thousand years ago, Ning Qiuyan’s expression still shifted slightly as he listened.

The words he had found in the library records last year-“extermination of nine clans”-suddenly rushed into his mind.

“Once the imperial edict was issued, all one hundred and seventeen members of the Guan Family were fed gut-searing poison. Only one softhearted jailer spared the life of a newborn from a concubine’s branch who was only two days old,” Qin Weizhi said. “The poison was called Fudi Powder, named for how, once it took effect, blood would pour from all seven orifices, the abdominal pain would become unbearable, and the victim’s limbs would claw at the ground. Its toxicity was vicious. It did not kill on the spot. Instead, it made people suffer all the torments of purgatory, their hands and feet going rigid before they slowly died. There was no antidote.”

“I stood outside holding the infant and sent that blade and the gray-robed figure in.”

“A long time later, the gray-robed figure carried Guan Heng out. The skin on their exposed hands was bluish gray, while all the poison in Guan Heng’s body had been purged. Only his eyes were bloodred.”

Hearing this, Ning Qiuyan hurriedly asked, “Was it the gray-robed figure who saved him?”

“Saved?” Qin Weizhi repeated oddly. He did not explain, only continued, “I heard the Lord Marquis make Guan Heng swear a poisonous oath. He made Guan Heng promise to protect the infant, made Guan Heng repeat the oath word by word: as long as he did not die, the Guan Family would never perish.”

“The Lord Marquis also commanded that, as long as even one breath remained in the future Guan Family-even if there was only a single survivor-they were to stay by Guan Heng’s side forever and never allow Guan Heng to be lonely for all eternity.”

To evade pursuers, Qin Weizhi carried the infant away first, temporarily parting from them.

He fled beyond the frontier with the baby. A month later, he heard news from the imperial capital: the hundred-plus members of the Guan Family had all died in prison, their throats sealed the instant blood was drawn. Whoever did it had been ruthless and steady enough. Those hundred-odd people had barely had time to taste the agony of Fudi Powder.

Though it had clearly happened a thousand years ago, Ning Qiuyan still felt his heart pound with shock as he listened, and he could not stop trembling.

That heavy grief seemed to make him feel it as if it were his own, yet he could not take even the smallest share of it from Guan Heng.

Three months later, on a night beyond the frontier, Qin Weizhi found Guan Heng after he had lost his reason.

After the turning, Guan Heng had pale skin and eyes like blood-dark ink. He no longer possessed the noble bearing of the past. Kneeling among severed limbs, he was like a beast that could never sate its hunger, knowing only how to madly gnaw at flesh and blood.

“That Mr. Guan of yours, the merciful and kind one who only drinks animal blood…”

At this point, Qin Weizhi turned back and glanced at Ning Qiuyan.

“Do you know that for years afterward, I didn’t dare take him anywhere crowded?”

There was no need to deliberately describe how brutal Guan Heng had been after losing his reason. Qin Weizhi’s implication was already clear enough.

Ning Qiuyan could not say a word in rebuttal.

Qin Weizhi said, “Unfortunately, there were frequent wars then, and refugees everywhere. I could not control him every single time either.”

Those years were already very, very far in the past.

Perhaps to Qin Weizhi, that had been a time when they depended on each other for survival, a life-shaking ordeal greater than the heavens. A few years were enough to stretch into the entire first half of a person’s life.

When he reached this point, he paused for a long time before speaking again.
“Then, one day, Guan Heng suddenly came back to his senses…”

Ning Qiuyan’s face went even paler.

To regain lucidity after losing his reason, yet still clearly remember every single thing he had done-it was hard to imagine what Guan Heng must have felt at the time.

“No. Perhaps he had been clear-headed for a long time already. He simply refused to face reality.” Qin Weizhi’s tone gradually changed. “Late one night, he finally left without a word. I kept my promise and still raised the orphaned descendant of the Guan Family until he was fifteen, but all that time, I kept searching for him.”

“But after all the hardships I went through, when we met again that year, all I had done was kill a few lowly fishermen, and he decided to act on behalf of Heaven. He tore my head from my body with his own hands.”

At this point, Qin Weizhi actually let out a low laugh.

Gentle smile lines gathered on that face, but there was not the slightest trace of amusement in his eyes.

The hair on Ning Qiuyan’s body stood on end. He asked, “Back then, had you also…”

“Yes. I had undergone turning too,” Qin Weizhi said. “Unfortunately, the one who performed my turning was only some scholar who came from nowhere. Even he himself was still a Newborn.”

“I spent thirty years buried in the mud by the sea.”

“The land shifted. The mud dried out. Then finally, one day, I bit a mountain villager passing by.”

The hatred he could no longer conceal finally spilled over.

Qin Weizhi recalled, “When I met Guan Heng again, he was accepting the honor of being one of the first founders of the Blood Supervision Council-as a leader, as the embodiment of mercy and strength.”

In terms of power and status, there was a vast gulf between Qin Weizhi and Guan Heng.

They had known each other at the end of the road. They had fallen into the filth together.

Yet Guan Heng had crawled out, brushed off the dust, and stood once more upon an unreachable cloud.

Why?

Without Qin Weizhi, there would never have been any so-called Guan Family that came after. They had clearly fought and clawed through hell together. Qin Weizhi was clearly the one who had given Guan Heng everything. On what grounds was he the one cast aside?

And on what grounds could Guan Heng wipe clean the blood on his hands, transform himself into the most merciful and authoritative existence among the Vampires, be revered by countless people, and stand on the moral high ground looking down at his own benefactor?

“If not for me, if I hadn’t found the gray-robed figure back then, he would be nothing.”

Qin Weizhi’s teeth clenched so hard they seemed about to grind out blood.

“The world’s oldest Vampire bestowed upon him incomparable power.”

Ning Qiuyan understood everything now.

Qin Weizhi did not care at all about any earth-shaking reform of the Vampires, nor did he care whether the Vampires ruled the world. Times had changed, and birth and status were no longer divided into noble and lowly. What he wanted was to stand in a position equal to Guan Heng-or even higher than Guan Heng-and possess the same overwhelming power.

He had been qualified for it. He had simply brushed past it once before.

The room was quiet for a long time.

Only the dazed human’s breathing sounded slightly hurried.

Qin Weizhi, however, calmed down. He smiled at Ning Qiuyan. “It’s all right. If I could find the gray-robed figure once, I can find him a second time. There is still so much time ahead.”
—
The ancient capital was deathly still, wind and snow raging together.

Deep within the prison, withered grass covered the ground. The lamplight was as small as a bean. Several flashes of cold steel swept across human throats. Corpses piled up like a mountain, pairs of eyes wide open, hair scattered among the dry grass, faces pressed into the muddy ground.

It was like a long, continuous movie shot. Perhaps he really had seen it in some historical film before; even the scene came with a clear musical score. Out of professional instinct, even at a time like this, Ning Qiuyan still knew exactly where the sound should enter and where it would be best to fade out.

A bell rang somewhere in the city, like a wooden fish struck in an ancient temple. More corpses fell. More blood seeped out from among the withered grass.

A mournful song rose.

The camera suddenly shifted, sweeping over an ink-dark, gray-blue sea, then over a silent little island.

The wind passed over treetops heavy with snow, roaring toward the far side of the sea, only to be cut off at the island’s cliff. The place was barren and desolate, without a single blade of grass.

Across a thousand years, a solitary figure appeared on the pitch-black rock.

At last, the wind drew near, brushing through his disheveled, damp long hair and revealing those cold, valiant phoenix eyes Ning Qiuyan knew so well.

His entire body jolted violently. Ning Qiuyan woke from the dream with his heart pounding like a drum. He had actually dreamed of the scene from a thousand years ago, when the Guan Family had been annihilated.

The laughter and warmth of Du Island felt as if they had only happened yesterday.

During Spring Festival, Guan Heng had come down from the third floor and stood behind him, lightly pinching the back of his neck as he kindly admired the festive window cutouts the younger generations had made on the table. That night had been exceptionally lively. They had taken a group photo in the hall, and every person’s face had been filled with a happy smile.

White-haired Uncle Kang, young and taciturn Guan Ziming… Generation after generation of the Guan Family had lived peaceful, stable lives, quietly fulfilling a vow made a thousand years ago.

Beneath the surface of the sea, waves surged violently.

That stretch of history had long since been drowned by time. It was an unknown secret, a wound of the Guan Family, and no longer something later generations deliberately remembered.

Only Guan Heng still remembered.

Ning Qiuyan was an unexpected intruder. He had come to Du Island and entered their lives. Knowing he would eventually come to understand Du Island and everything about Guan Heng, he had never been in a hurry to learn it all.

Because this mystery was addictive.

He had never imagined that, under circumstances like these, the answer would be revealed without warning.