Transmigrating as the Heart Demon of the Ruthless Sword Venerable – Chapter 53
by Little PandaShattered Sound (Part 3)
So What If I Kill You
Tang Wenchun’s heart gave a sudden lurch, and she grabbed for Yu Zhaoming.
Yu Zhaoming had been about to press forward; the grip stopped her mid-stride. She turned her head, gaze meeting Tang Wenchun’s. “What is it?”
“No — don’t go,” Tang Wenchun said. “Yunzhongjun has to be furious right now. She might actually start killing people…”
Yu Zhaoming laughed despite herself. “Yunzhongjun does care somewhat for Senior Nüluo, yes — but with this many people present, she’d never flout her sect’s interests and turn on innocent bystanders.”
Oh, she would. Cross her, and she absolutely would. That person was a heart demon.
The thought blanched Tang Wenchun’s face. She bit down on her lip. “No. We have to get Shizun out of there right now. We have to leave this place, quickly.”
That bargain-bin Shizun of hers was only at Soul Emergence — no match for a Mahayana cultivator.
Yu Zhaoming was quiet for a moment. She looked at Tang Wenchun. “Is there something you’re hiding from me?”
Tang Wenchun’s face immediately arranged itself into a portrait of shock. “Nothing! Of course not!!”
Yu Zhaoming turned her head away. “In that case, I’m going back.” She walked on — but Tang Wenchun didn’t follow, and the gloom in Yu Zhaoming’s chest only deepened. She raised her eyes to the black clouds in the distance, clouds that hung heavy with a Mahayana cultivator’s crushing pressure — and, for once in a long while, a spark of fighting spirit kindled in her.
Host and heart demon shared their secrets. Her own cowardice, spinelessness, obsession, and darkness had formed her heart demon — so everything that heart demon was ought to be hers to command. What secret could exist that she had no right to know?
Yu Zhaoming’s eyes lowered. She thought of her Nascent Soul breakthrough — her heart demon’s hand closing over her sword, turning it back, guiding it with her into her own heart. In that moment, Tang Wenchun’s eyes had held nothing but her. Only her.
If Tang Wenchun could give her very life to Yu Zhaoming, why should a secret be beyond telling?
Tang Wenchun watched helplessly as Yu Zhaoming drew farther and farther away. She wavered, unable to step forward, staring at the brooding clouds in the distance. Yunzhongjun had treated her decently enough, true — but Tang Wenchun feared that woman all the same. Facing an enemy you had no hope of matching, wasn’t running away the sensible thing to do?
Ever since that voice had rolled across the whole of the Shenfeng Sect, she hadn’t heard so much as a murmur out of Yunzhongjun.
Perhaps Senior Nüluo had talked her down.
With Nüluo here, surely Yunzhongjun — heart demon or not — would hold herself in check… right…?
And there was Shizun. And there was Yu Zhaoming, still striding on ahead. However hard fear gripped Tang Wenchun’s heart — her legs had already begun to tremble with it — she simply could not abandon the two people who mattered most to her in this entire strange world. She didn’t know where the courage came from, but she scrambled after them and soon caught up with Yu Zhaoming.
Yu Zhaoming’s stride checked. Only once Tang Wenchun had drawn level did she turn her head. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll learn it sooner or later all the same.”
“Huh?” said Tang Wenchun.
But Yu Zhaoming didn’t answer again. She seized Tang Wenchun’s arm, formed a wind seal, and carried her skimming on the wind, faster now.
The front hall already had the look of a storm breaking over it. Every face there was ugly — the Shenfeng Sect disciples’ most of all. Yu Zhaoming quickened her pace — a Sword Sect disciple’s tread is light — and soon brought Tang Wenchun to Elder Xuanjiu’s side.
Elder Xuanjiu held her long smoking pipe, her back to them, but her voice slid into both disciples’ ears all the same: “Where did you two run off to? What took you so long?”
“To answer Shizun — we ran into Senior Nüluo and exchanged a few words with her,” Yu Zhaoming said softly. She surveyed the gloom draped over everyone present, then asked, “And this?”
“Someone’s come to steal the bride.” Xuanjiu stroked her pipe, looking for a moment as if she’d love a draw off it, then held back. “This rotten farce is no business of ours. When it starts, we simply stand quietly and watch.”
Both disciples answered, sweetly dutiful, “Yes, Shizun.” Xuanjiu’s face broke into a smile, and only then did she tip her head back toward the front of the hall. Tang Wenchun, sick with worry, followed her gaze.
Yunzhongjun stood at the head of the hall in white robes1, black umbrella in hand. Amid the festive red crowding every side, she stood out like a stain — like a mourner come to pay her respects. But a Mahayana cultivator’s pressure pressed down over the hall, and no one dared say a word against her.
Shen Feng hadn’t dared move a muscle. Only when Nüluo came running did that crushing weight abruptly loosen — his knees gave, and he collapsed where he stood, dragging in great gulps of air. Nüluo rushed to him and caught him in her arms.
“Shijie. The man is this useless, and you mean to marry him?”
Yunzhongjun’s voice rolled out slowly, steeped in contempt.
At that, the assembly finally understood: Yunzhongjun was doing all of this on purpose, every bit of it staged to humiliate Shen Feng.
The guests looked at one another. Elder Qin hurried forward — a Sound Sect elder, a friend of Shen Feng’s, and, by his own lights, Yunzhongjun’s senior. He frowned and began, “Sect Master. Nüluo’s marriage was decreed by your late master himself. That the wedding was left undone all these years was insult enough to the departed old Sect Master. You, his own disciple — this conduct is unfilial2 in itself, and it has held back Nüluo’s future besides. She is not like you: wed today, she is Lady Shen already. As her shimei, you ought to—”
He never finished. The air quaked with a violent burst of sound, and Yunzhongjun’s hand clamped around Elder Qin’s throat.
“The union has not been proclaimed to Heaven and Earth3 — how is she Lady Shen? And what virtue, what worth, does a Shen Feng possess to play this husband!!”
Elder Qin’s throat clenched. A hoarse wheeze scraped out of it as he stared at Yunzhongjun in raw shock. Yunzhongjun flung him down hard; he sprawled across the floor, gagged — and half a tongue dropped out of his mouth.
“I didn’t like what you said.”
The guests could only trade looks, and for a long moment nobody made a sound. Some pitied Shen Feng, some pitied the man who had spoken — but when even her own sect’s elder was dealt with like that, anyone who thought of stepping forward first had to stop and weigh whether they could face down a Mahayana cultivator’s fury.
As it was, every face in the hall had just been publicly ground into the dirt, and not one of them wore it well.
Yunzhongjun spared none of it a glance. Her face darkened — then her eyes fell on Nüluo’s wedding robes, and the expression softened. “Shijie, these clothes don’t suit you at all. Where is the Jiaoxiao Gauze I bought you before?”
“I…” Nüluo raised her head and looked at her shimei’s face. It wore its usual expression, the voice carrying its usual soft complaint, almost a coaxing whine — as if they weren’t standing in the middle of a wedding; as if she hadn’t just thrashed the man about to become Nüluo’s husband; as if she hadn’t shown this rudeness to the guests at Nüluo’s own wedding, to the elders of her own sect.
“Shijie.” Yunzhongjun took a step forward.
Nüluo felt Shen Feng flinch in her arms. She looked down and saw him staring at Yunzhongjun in terror. He was frightened of Yunzhongjun, Nüluo realized.
“I don’t like you holding him.”
So saying, Yunzhongjun reached out and gave the air a light, closing squeeze — and Shen Feng was torn from her arms as if by some colossal force, slamming into a stone pillar with a resounding crack. Nascent Soul cultivator he might be; blood still sheeted from his forehead in an instant.
“That’s a bit much.”
Tang Wenchun heard Xuanjiu say it low beside her. She glanced around: anger was surfacing on every face near them. Yes, Yunzhongjun was the Sound Sect’s Sect Master — but conduct like this, degrading the master of a sect that had always stood as the Sound Sect’s vassal, mutilating her own elders, chilled people to the bone. Worse: it left them thinking her virtue no longer matched the seat she held.
“You — how could you do this!!” Nüluo’s face blanched too. She stood and hurried toward Shen Feng, reaching to help him up.
But Yunzhongjun caught her hand. The faintest pull and Nüluo toppled into her arms, tilting her head back to meet Yunzhongjun’s eyes. Faced with Nüluo, Yunzhongjun’s expression stayed warm and unhurried. She coaxed, low: “Shijie, I did use a little too much force just now. I apologize to you for it. But you won’t marry him — all right?”
Nüluo looked at her in silence for a long moment. Then, voice trembling: “It’s him you should be apologizing to.”
Yunzhongjun’s face stiffened. Her gaze swept across to Shen Feng — by now hauled up by his disciples and set down to one side, hatred naked on his face. The instant Yunzhongjun’s eyes moved to him, he scrambled to smooth his expression into an awkward smile. “No need, no need.” Yet even as he said it, a thread of resentment crept into the way he looked at Nüluo.
“What — you blame my shijie for failing to keep me in line?”
Yunzhongjun took that look of his fully in, and spoke unhurried.
“No, no, nothing of the kind. If Sect Master Yun wishes…” His mouth snapped shut. With all these eyes on him, he was still the master of a sect; the words “take your shijie and leave” simply would not pass his lips.
His face flushed crimson. At last he looked to Nüluo, softening his voice. “It seems today isn’t quite fit for a wedding after all. Ahaha…”
His eyes on her face were all but pleading. Yunzhongjun would never listen to him. As things stood, only Nüluo could coax this great Buddha4 into leaving.
But against all his expectations, Nüluo refused. “Today is the wedding day we settled on long ago.” She turned to look at Yunzhongjun. “I am not going back with you.”
As though she hadn’t seen Yunzhongjun’s face darken by degrees, she went on: “I will never return to the Sound Sect. I have married into the Shenfeng Sect. I am its matriarch now.”
Yunzhongjun watched her in silence. Nüluo was trembling faintly — but she did not waver.
“Shijie.” Yunzhongjun’s voice grew softer and softer. “You’ve simply been bewitched out of your senses by him. I will settle all of this.”
Nüluo shook her head slowly. Her gaze sank into Yunzhongjun’s eyes, searching them as if for something. In the end, she lowered her own. “No. Shimei — if you still keep this shijie of yours in your heart, if you still remember you are your Shizun’s disciple, then turn back now.”
“…And let me watch, with my own eyes, as you marry another?” The softness in Yunzhongjun’s voice turned razor-cold in a breath. “Impossible! It couldn’t happen before, and it certainly can’t happen now!”
Nüluo’s head snapped up. She met Yunzhongjun’s gaze: those eyes were stained crimson, the color deepening by the second. Fear jolted through her; instinct pulled her back — but Yunzhongjun seized her.
“Don’t hide from me.” Her voice stayed soft, as if she were afraid Nüluo would be frightened. “Since you’re set on being the Shenfeng Sect’s matriarch… then there is only one way left. It can be settled very quickly. And once it’s settled, I’ve written a new piece — I’d like to share it with you, Shijie.”
Her voice was gentle, meandering, like so much household chatter — but the eyes she lifted were fixed on Shen Feng, and they were naked with killing intent.
Shen Feng began to shake beyond all control. He cried out at full voice: “Under heaven’s open light, with every sect assembled here — Sect Master Yun, don’t tell me you mean to kill me!!”
“Shimei!!” Shen Feng’s cry dragged Nüluo’s mind back. She called out, tears brimming, “You must not do wrong!!”
“…Shijie, I told you already. I don’t like it when you side with others.” Yunzhongjun’s voice was soft as her hand rose the smallest degree — Nüluo shot her one disbelieving look, then slumped unconscious into her arms.
“I will kill you. What can you do about it?” One arm cradling the unconscious Nüluo, Yunzhongjun lifted her palm a fraction, and a sonic wave dropped straight down toward Shen Feng.
And then a billow of smoke breathed out, walling itself in front of Shen Feng. Tang Wenchun saw those familiar smoke rings and inwardly swore. She whipped her head around — sure enough, at some point, Xuanjiu was no longer at her side.
“My, my — such a temper, Sect Master Yun.” Xuanjiu coughed a few times, quietly, and with perfect nonchalance wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, her smile as dazzling as ever. “But today is meant to be an auspicious day, after all. Hardly the occasion for spilling blood.”
Yunzhongjun’s eyes narrowed. “You’re of the Sword Sect…” She paused, then spoke. “Step aside. I have no wish to raise my hand against you.”
“Ai, my cultivation is no match for Sect Master Yun’s — by rights I should do as you say.” Xuanjiu heaved a long sigh, drew one breath of smoke, and watched the curls slowly unfurling before her through narrowed eyes. “But it can’t be helped. The Sword Sect’s ancestral precepts: never stand by while innocent kin are left to die. My sincere apologies, Sect Master Yun.”
The author has something to say:
Honestly, I’m rather fond of unhinged lunatics — and I’m just as fond of people with an unbending, blazing sense of justice. That’s why I love both Xuanjiu and Yunzhongjun. (No, that is not why I knife them.)
Tang Wenchun: shivering in terror
Yu Zhaoming: … I think Yunzhongjun is in the right.
Tang Wenchun: ?? What are you planning?
Agh!! I hit “publish” by accident.
Footnotes
- 白衣 | baiyi | In Chinese tradition white, not black, is the color of death: mourners wear plain undyed white to funerals, so white robes at a wedding are an open curse upon the union. Red, by contrast, is the festive bridal color surrounding Yunzhongjun here.
- 不孝 | bu xiao | Lit. 'not filial.' Filial piety (xiao) is the foundational Confucian virtue of devotion and obedience toward parents and elders, traditionally extended to one's master as to a father; to be branded unfilial is among the gravest moral condemnations in Chinese society.
- 昭告天地 | zhao gao tian di | 'To announce to Heaven and Earth.' A traditional Chinese wedding is sealed only when the couple bows to Heaven and Earth before the guests, formally proclaiming the marriage to the cosmos — a bride is not yet a wife until that rite is complete.
- 大佛 | da fo | 'A great Buddha' — a colloquial metaphor for an imposing, high-status presence who must be waited on hand and foot. Once such a 'Buddha' arrives, one's only hope is to placate it and coax it into leaving again.
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