Chapter 132:
How My Lord Aches for the Flower, How I Ache for My Lord
XIE LIAN TUCKED the pearl away and went to investigate the commotion.
Several heavenly officials emerged from the giant crude hut, asking, “What’s going on with General Nan Feng?”
“Look who I’ve captured!” Feng Xin called out.
He crashed out of the woods, dragging a black-clad individual by the arm. The heavenly officials were shocked as he hurried over.
“Ling Wen!”
The one whom Feng Xin had seized was indeed Ling Wen.
“Just as you predicted, Ling Wen returned to try to steal the Brocade Immortal!” Feng Xin told Xie Lian.
After removing the cursed shackles, Xie Lian’s spiritual powers had increased explosively to the point where he was practically Jun Wu’s equal—the Brocade Immortal could no longer exert control over him. Ling Wen had gone missing during the great battle and was nowhere to be found afterward; she had been turned into a budaoweng doll by Hua Cheng, but the spell on her was set to release automatically after a certain amount of time. Xie Lian figured she would likely return to steal the Brocade Immortal, so he took off the robe and asked Ghost City to spread the word. Sure enough, Ling Wen took the bait.
Even as an apprehended fugitive, Ling Wen still didn’t seem panicked as she was taken to the conference hut. The moment Pei Ming came in, he grasped her firmly by the shoulders and sat her down in front of a table.
“Ling Wen—we’ve finally found you! You must pay for your sins!” he admonished, his voice dark.
“…”
Dozens of heavenly officials surrounded her. Their eyes were like those of starving wolves and bloodthirsty tigers, their expressions practically savage. Ling Wen finally felt a twinge of trepidation.
“…What are you all planning?”
Thump! A towering stack of reports and scrolls was thrown before her. It was nearly the height of a full-grown man, and so heavy that the table and chairs shook.
Pei Ming slapped the scrolls with a resounding thwack. “These. Take care of them.”
“…”
Although Ling Wen breathed a sigh of relief, it was quickly followed by bafflement. Before she could even fully exhale, there was another round of noise. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump!
Many thumps later, dozens more stacks of documents and reports had crashed down around her, each looming high overhead. Ling Wen was completely surrounded. Dozens of heavenly officials babbled at her from the cracks between the stacks.
“We’ve been waiting for you for days now! Hurry and help us figure this out!”
“Take care of these too.”
“Remember to fill out the missing sections.”
“You better get it done within the hour!”
Ling Wen was speechless. “…”
After a grueling battle that lasted a full day and night, Ling Wen was finally released from the temporary conference hall. The mess of scrolls and reports had been taken care of—every single one had been categorized and organized neatly, and everything was in order. The heavenly officials cheered as they received their palaces’ accounts, and each scurried away to double-check. On the other hand, Ling Wen’s face was ashen. The dark circles under her eyes had disappeared while she was on the run, but they had now returned with a vengeance.
Once everyone had finished checking her work, there was much rejoicing.
“Noble Jie is the most efficient of us all, that’s for sure!” Pei Ming praised. “Now everything’s squared away!”
“Everything’s in order! Many thanks to Lord Ling Wen!”
Amidst all the praise from the crowd of heavenly officials, Ling Wen could do nothing but chuckle dryly—such was the fate of a criminal. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing.”
There were still many heavenly officials in the hall with accounts that needed sorting. They hadn’t been as quick to shove their work on Ling Wen, but at the sight of this display they could sit still no longer, and she was surrounded once more.
“Umm, actually, I’ve got some books that I forgot to give you, my lord. I was wondering if you might take a look…”
Ling Wen was, yet again, speechless.
Xie Lian had been crouching outside the temporary conference hall eating a steamed bun, and after he finished, he brushed his hands clean and finally rescued Ling Wen from her suffering.
“Everyone, let’s figure this out later. Let Ling Wen catch her breath first.”
No one had cared when he spoke up in the past, but things were different now. Several people responded, “Your Highness is right,” and didn’t dare say another word. Ling Wen, her eyes closed and a hand over her forehead, sat in her chair waiting for the other heavenly officials to exit. Only once the conference hall was deserted did she turn to Xie Lian.
“Congratulations, Your Highness—your spiritual powers have returned. What a good strategy; now, you can even count ghosts among your worshippers and make them obey your orders. How incredible.”
“They’re not my worshippers,” Xie Lian replied. “They’re just friends from Ghost City. I asked them to help out.”
Ling Wen nodded, her face full of understanding.
A moment later, Xie Lian spoke again. “Ling Wen, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you.”
“Your Highness can go ahead,” Ling Wen said.
“San Lang—I mean Hua-chengzhu,” Xie Lian started. “He wore the Brocade Immortal you created, but it didn’t work on him. Do you know why?”
“So it’s this question,” Ling Wen said. “I thought Your Highness already knew.”
Xie Lian blinked.
“Tell me.”
Ling Wen shook out her sleeves and straightened her posture. “Your Highness, you’ve heard the legend of the Brocade Immortal, right?”
“I’ve heard it,” Xie Lian replied. “You forged it yourself.”
“You could say that,” Ling Wen said. “Although I never imagined the resentment gathered on the robe would transform it into an evil being. But I did kill Bai Jing to hasten the Kingdom of Xuli’s collapse. That’s not untrue.”
Xie Lian listened intently as Ling Wen continued.
“The robe made the rounds throughout the Mortal Realm and passed through countless hands. So many people chose to use it to murder, to harm, to deceive. While they could theoretically dispel some of its resentment by doing so, Bai Jing isn’t that kind of person.
“He didn’t like being used by those people; he hated them. But his resentment wasn’t provoked when he met recipients who were more like him, and a special sort of giver—instead, they’d make him happy.”
“And how are those special givers and recipients different?” Xie Lian asked.
“You put the Brocade Immortal on Crimson Rain Sought Flower, but there was not a single trace of malicious intent or desire to harm in your heart,” Ling Wen answered. “And you trust him with your whole being. Crimson Rain Sought Flower is the same when it comes to you—no, in fact, he’s even more so. But what really made Bai Jing resonate with him was that he would already do anything you asked of him without hesitation—it didn’t matter if he was wearing the Brocade Immortal or not. And that includes dying for you.”
“…”
“That was also how I managed to guess that the boy next to you was Crimson Rain Sought Flower,” Ling Wen said. “Although I don’t know much about the affairs between you two, I figured there wasn’t a single other person who could fit the bill.”
“Why’s that?” Xie Lian asked.
Ling Wen raised her hand and pointed. “Your Highness, what’s that around your neck?”
Taken aback, Xie Lian moved on reflex to cover it with his hand.
“I’ve seen similar trinkets before,” Ling Wen said. “Some unusual ghosts give their ashes to their lovers.”
Countless scrolls and reports had passed through the Palace of Ling Wen, so it wasn’t strange that she had seen such things before. Truth be told, Xie Lian had already guessed the truth of this crystal-clear ring…but he still squeezed it tight when he heard Ling Wen say it out loud.
“Something like that is rare and precious indeed,” Ling Wen said. “But because it’s too beautiful a gesture, it often ends in tragedy. Thus, the concept left a rather strong impression in my mind.”
“What do you mean, ‘it often ends in tragedy’?” Xie Lian asked.
“To be so deeply in love that it blinds your reason… Giving someone an object tied to your life can have many tragic or terrifying consequences,” Ling Wen said. “A pure heart is made to be trampled. All those keepsakes made of ashes…some were stolen by interlopers, some were shattered by their recipients. Basically, none of the stories ended well. Although, Your Highness is an exception; you’ve kept it almost flawlessly.”
After a long silence, Xie Lian said, “You said ‘more like him’ and ‘resonate with him.’ So was General Bai Jing like that as well?”
Ling Wen smiled lightly. “How else could I have deceived him?”
“It wasn’t really deception though, was it?” Xie Lian said. “I’m sure you knew I was intentionally spreading the word, but you still took the bait.”
“Come now, it’s a good defensive device,” Ling Wen said.
“If you only thought of it as a defensive device, you wouldn’t have taken such risks to steal it in the first place. And after you failed, you still took it to Mount Tonglu.”
“What else was there to do besides take it to Mount Tonglu?” Ling Wen said apathetically. “I was already exposed, wasn’t I? Your Highness was the one who caught me red-handed.”
“Honestly, you could have covered the matter up with excuses,” Xie Lian said. “Just spread a few bribes around; you might’ve been demoted or had merits deducted, but you wouldn’t have ended up a fugitive. My point is…you wanted to help General Bai Jing become a supreme, which would allow him to return to his senses. Right?”
Ling Wen let out a small laugh. “Your Highness, don’t say it like I would do anything for him. I’m the cold-blooded type who doesn’t truly love anyone, after all. Why would I do something like that?”
“Is that so?”
“Let it be so.”