LADY YU had been deeply in love with Cui-er, yet death had separated them at a young age. She'd intended to spend the rest of her life remembering her late husband. But the horrific effects of that dark night haunted her, a nightmare that had stretched into reality and left behind a seed of evil.
After realizing she was pregnant, she became restless and wracked with anxiety. Sometimes she felt she'd failed her husband, and wished to rid herself of the child in her womb. At other times, she felt the child growing within her was innocent. Though its father was monstrous, that wasn't the babe's fault.
It was then that bad news found her again, this time from the Yu family. The Yu patriarch had fallen on the road while traveling to visit his daughter at the villa. Though the injury hadn't seemed serious, he took a sudden turn for the worse and fell gravely ill.
When she heard, Lady Yu threw caution to the wind and hastened back to her parents' house. She remained at her father's sickbed, too afraid to tell him what had happened. She feared he'd seek revenge on the Cui family, and that his fury and panic would damage his already fragile health.
But even with the apple of his eye keeping watch at his bedside, Lady Yu's father never recovered. He was an old man and had struck his head when he fell. He passed away not long after. Her mother withstood her grief to make the funeral arrangements, but shortly after, she too fell ill.
The Yu family line had continued via single sons for a number of generations. Now, during Yu Mo's time, the family only had a single daughter. The rest of Yu Mo's relatives lived far away; even if they wanted to help, there was little they could do. Standing up to the Cui family was out of the question. Wary of stressing her sick mother further, Lady Yu continued to hide her pregnancy.
"Most women in her situation would weep and wail, or simply allow themselves to be trampled and submit to the will of her husband's family. Lady Yu was an ordinary woman; she'd never traveled the jianghu. Yet even after the hardships she'd endured, she remained unbending as steel. She was truly a person to be admired."
Feng Xiao looked up at the sky. The rain had subsided, the drizzle fading into scattered drops. Cui Buqu, however, was already soaked to the skin. Of course, Feng Xiao wasn't much better off. On any other day, he'd likely have frowned and gone back to the manor to wash and change. But tonight, he suppressed the impulse and remained where he was. He could hardly believe it himself.
He didn't urge Cui Buqu to return to the manor. He knew Cui Buqu hadn't come simply to tell him a tale from the past; he was also speaking to the occupant of the grave. Besides, Feng Xiao wanted to know what happened next. Since he'd guessed wrong about the beginning, there had to be more unexpected twists.
"She was strong," said Cui Buqu. "But even for the strongest, things don't always go as they wish."
With the death of her father, Yu Mo lost the family member closest to her. It was this that ultimately pushed her to keep the child. At least then there'd be someone at her side with the same blood running through their veins. But Yu Mo was a widow of the Cui family; it was impossible for her to give birth to this child in secret. She therefore approached Cui Yong and explained.
Cui Yong had thought putting Cui-san under house arrest had resolved the whole sordid matter. Lady Yu's news stunned him beyond words. When he heard she wished to keep the child, he of course objected. If she gave birth to a babe now, everyone would know the child wasn't her late husband's. Cui Yong understood the child would still be a Cui, but an affair between a man and his sister-in-law was an ugly scandal to be buried at all costs.
Lady Yu, however, had prepared her arguments, and they were persuasive. Even if she didn't keep this child, she'd one day have to adopt a son from the clan; this was the only way she could continue Cui-er's legacy. In that case, she might as well give birth to the child in secret and tell everyone she'd adopted them from a distant branch of the Cui clan. He could then be entered as Cui-er's son in the records. It would be the best of both worlds.
Lady Yu was determined, and her proposal was feasible. After thinking for a long time, Cui Yong agreed. Lady Yu settled down in the new villa, and Cui Yong dispatched trustworthy people to serve her.
But no secret can be kept forever. News of Lady Yu's pregnancy quietly spread. Eventually the gossip reached the ears of Cui-san's wife, Lady Lu.
Lady Lu came from a prestigious family as well, and couldn't possibly tolerate such an insult from her husband. She flew into a rage. If the child's origins should leak, it would bring great shame to the family. As Cui-san's wife, she would be humiliated. She hatched a plan to secretly swap out the medicine Lady Yu was taking for a healthy pregnancy. Yu Mo didn't notice at first, and almost suffered a miscarriage. Though she fortunately realized something was wrong in time to save the child, the drug had damaged her body and the child's natural vitality. The birth was extraordinarily difficult, and she remained bedridden after.
A chill wind blew, and Cui Buqu coughed. "I was sickly as a child and late to speak. My reactions were sluggish, and I enjoyed sitting by myself the entire day, ignoring everyone around me. They thought I was slow in the head or mute."
"Your parentage needed to be hidden, and a sickly child would have a hard time just surviving to adulthood. It was impossible for you to carry on Cui-er's legacy in any meaningful sense. Cui Yong must have regretted his decision."
Cui Buqu smiled. "Correct, he regretted it."
On behalf of this child, the Cui family had gone to great lengths to quash any rumors. They'd invented a distant branch family from whole cloth and had spent endless hours comforting Lady Lu, lest she report the affair to her family and incite conflict between their clans. All this for a child who was weak and sickly from infancy, for whom all their efforts might go to waste.
But if Cui Buqu died in childhood, everything would neatly be squared away, and the Cui family's shame would be no more. Thus Cui Yong resolved to kill him. Ridding himself of a child was a simple matter; he hardly needed to lift a finger. The only obstacle was Lady Yu.
Though Lady Yu was herself frail, she could sense her child's position was precarious. She kept him with her at all times and taste-tested all his food. As she watched the trusted attendants around her gradually be replaced with new faces, she realized keeping her child safe might not be within her power. She dragged her sickly body out, looking for someone who could help her.
She went not to Cui Yong, nor to the Cui family's eldest son. Instead, she went to the fourth son, Cui Pei, and entrusted him with her fatherless child. She knew she hadn't much longer to live, and she begged him to take care of Cui Buqu. Cui Pei couldn't bear to refuse her. He agreed to her request.
Not long after, Lady Yu joined her late husband in death. Cui Pei was yet unmarried, and he traveled often. Afraid he wouldn't be able to protect the child when he was away, he went to Cui Yong with the young Cui Buqu in his arms and begged his father to spare the child's life out of respect for Lady Yu's dying wish, even if it meant sending him from Boling or concealing his name and identity.
Of his four sons, this illegitimate youngest son was Cui Yong's favorite. Though he thought Cui Pei soft, he heeded his pleading and agreed to spare the child's life, on one condition: He was to be noted down as a servant in the household and would grow up as one. No one was to reveal his true identity.
Years passed, and gradually the storm of these events died down. The younger generation of the Cui family grew up, and though they knew nothing of the incident, all of them knew that the family was raising a Cui as a servant. When the senior members of the clan occasionally mentioned it, their expressions took on a strange cast, and they picked their words with care, as if there were many things they were unable to say. Any curious child who asked questions received a scolding. Over time, they gleaned that the child in question—a boy who lacked even a name—was full of secrets, and that the senior members of the family scorned him too.
Children might be ignorant, but they could be more sensitive than adults believed. These young ones picked up on the feelings of their seniors, and understood they were free to bully that child to their hearts' content. They gave him various nicknames for their own entertainment, like A-Cao and A-Hua—grass and flower, or A-Gou and A-Mao—dog and cat. They threw strange insects at him, mixed incense and mud into his food, and even went so far as to punch and kick him.
Despite his poor health, the child fought to survive. He was unwell almost every day, forcing his ailing body through menial tasks alongside the Cui family servants. He knew there was no point in reporting the bullying. The only person who'd protect him was Cui Pei, but Cui Pei was often away and not always there to shield him. Yet no matter what, he refused to die. Gradually, he learned how to avoid the bullies or fight back. He still found himself targeted at least once a week; it was inevitable.
Cold and fever were his constant companions. King Yama continued to kick back his soul to the land of the living, but his body grew frailer and frailer.
He wasn't even permitted to attend the same classes as the rest of the Cui family but had to hide outside the building at the corner of the wall and listen to the few words he could catch. Ignored and unseen, he used reeds to trace out characters. His fingers silently slid along the sand, writing out the Spring and Autumn Annals and Zuozhuan.
Whenever Cui Pei returned, it was a good day. Cui Pei would take him to Doctor Sun to recuperate and bring him to the old villa, where he'd pay respects to his deceased mother and speak of her memory. Cui Pei broached the idea of bringing the child with him on the road more than once, but Cui Yong never agreed. Cui Pei couldn't defy his father even for his nephew's sake and besides, the boy was weak; he couldn't endure the strain of long travel.
The other adult members of the Cui family looked upon the boy with pity and contempt. Unlike the children who bullied him outright, they sighed about how brave he was to have survived to the age of nine. He lived, ate, and dressed exactly like the servants of the Cui family. Cui Yong didn't go out of his way to torture him, but he did make a point of avoiding him. The boy could tell Cui Yong was perplexed that, despite all the hardship and illness, he'd managed to live this long.
But the boy wasn't dull and foolish as they believed—he knew how to protect himself. He calculated his way through crises and threw himself into survival. He was simply too young. The house was his prison; he spun around in circles, stumbling and groping about, all to find a way to survive in this hostile place.
Cui Pei had told him he did have a name. His grandfather had named him Cui Jie, steps, ostensibly out of hope that the child would be like the stone stairs beneath his small feet, rising up step by step as he found his way forward. But the child knew full well that wasn't the real meaning behind Cui Jie—his grandfather had named him after the stone steps trodden on by thousands.
He didn't need that name. He would rather be A-Mao or A-Gou than Cui Jie.
At the age of nine, he fell more gravely ill than ever before. He lay alone in bed, ignored by all and growing worse by the day. Fortunately, Cui Pei happened to return before he succumbed completely and carried him on his back to Doctor Sun. At the time, the Zhou dynasty had been in power, and Cui Pei had won the emperor's favor with his outstanding scholarly talent. Cui Pei had to go to the capital to meet the emperor; he couldn't stay. He temporarily entrusted his nephew to Doctor Sun.
The boy knew then that his opportunity had finally come. He begged Doctor Sun to let him go—he should tell everyone in the Cui family that he'd died and been buried. After all, the Cui family was hoping for his death. The moment he was gone, the enormous stone weighing on the hearts of the family would vanish, and they could breathe a great sigh of relief.
Even at nine, the boy had realized that Cui-san's wife, Lady Lu, had repeatedly sought to kill him, and that though Cui-san knew, he chose to do nothing. The boy had avoided her attempts a few times, but he couldn't avoid them forever. Perhaps his grandfather Cui Yong might one day show him a sliver of softness, but Lady Lu and Cui-san would never. He had to leave. Even if he perished out there in the world, at least he'd die beneath the boundless open sky.
Doctor Sun had some knowledge of the boy's background and couldn't bear to reject his pleas. In the end, he agreed to keep the boy's secret and concocted some pills for his illness that he could take with him. He gave him some travel money and clothes, then took him to a merchant group that was traveling south.
As Cui Buqu continued, Feng Xiao listened in silence. Cui Buqu's telling was plain and straightforward, free of any exaggeration, yet the history he divulged was heart-wrenching.
Feng Xiao had encountered people with lives more wretched than Cui Buqu's, but none of them had survived to adulthood. He'd also encountered people as tenacious as Cui Buqu, but those people—including himself—hadn't experienced even a tenth as much hardship.
When the heavens wish to bestow great responsibility on someone, they batter his spirit, exhaust his body, starve him, and buffet him with setbacks. All to enhance his capabilities. Anyone could recite the classics, but how many people could endure to the end? How many people would crumple from exhaustion halfway and give up?
"Doctor Sun pitied you. Why didn't he take you in himself?" Feng Xiao asked.
"The doctor's relatives and friends all live here," said Cui Buqu coolly. "How could he fight the Cui family for my sake? He did his best within the bounds of his fate. That was the greatest kindness he could do me, and I benefited from it."
"So you changed your name to Cui Buqu to signify that you 'won't go' back to the Cui clan ever again?"
Cui Buqu shook his head, then raised a fist to his mouth and coughed softly. "Lady Yu birthed me. She wished me to carry on Cui-er's legacy. I use Cui as my surname in honor of this wish. As for Buqu…they all wanted me dead. They were waiting for me to die." A meaningful smile curved his lips. "But I'm going to live. Buqu—I won't go to my death. I'm not going to die. No matter how sick I am, no matter how painful it gets, I will continue breathing."
He turned back to the gravestone as Feng Xiao watched from behind. A fire seemed to ignite in Feng Xiao's heart, a heat that was nameless and indescribable. After a moment, he looked away and said, "Where did you go after heading south?"
"I found a place to settle down and live out my life."
Those had been troubled times, and he'd been a lone child. No matter how mature or circumspect he was, there was a high chance he'd encounter people who meant him ill. Doctor Sun had sent him off with a reliable group of merchants to afford him some measure of safety, but once they'd reached their destination and finished their business, they'd return home. It was impossible for anyone to protect him at all times.
The leader of the merchant group saw he was a bright lad and asked him to stay with the caravan as an extra set of hands. Cui Buqu weighed his options; being alone was dangerous, so he agreed. He followed the merchants and learned how to keep accounts, as well as how to read others' speech and mannerisms. He learned more words and interacted with more people. But the knowledge didn't make his body any stronger. As he grew into adolescence, his latent illness increasingly affected him. The merchant leader loved and cherished him greatly. He had no children of his own, and he raised Cui Buqu as an adopted son, going so far as to find a famous physician to treat him.
But such times couldn't last. The leader accidentally offended a group of thugs called the Qixing Gang. They killed him, and Cui Buqu lost his pillar of support. He wandered alone for many years afterward, adrift, until he met the man who would become his master, Fan Yun.
Cui Buqu was a precocious child. He had an eidetic memory and could recall many events from his childhood, even if some of the details had faded. Many years later, when he took charge of the Zuoyue Bureau, he'd secretly sent men to investigate the merchant leader's death.
"That Qixing Gang must have met with a tragic end."
Cui Buqu's thin lips curved slightly again. "The leader of the Qixing Gang was backed by a demonic sect from the jianghu, the Hehuan Sect. He was sure no one would dare confront them. I merely used a small trick to provoke Linchuan Academy, the largest sect in the south, and turned them against the Qixing Gang. They annihilated them."
Whoever said those with no martial arts couldn't survive in the jianghu? Anyone who made an enemy of Cui Buqu would die without knowing what hit them.
"So for all those years, you never intended to leave the Cui family alone. You were just waiting for your opportunity."
"Cui Yong cares deeply for his reputation. Let him watch as the Cui family crumbles away and he loses all his authority. For him, this will be a fate worse than death. As for Cui-san, he's been confined to Boling Commandery for years. His wife despises him, and they argue incessantly. He couldn't stand the loneliness and took a mistress, but his wife found out. There's no peace in that family. He's being slowly ground down, and that's much more painful than dying from a quick stab."
"Before, you said Cui-dalang, the eldest son, was secretly aiding Linchuan Academy. Was that true?" asked Feng Xiao.
Cui Buqu frowned and coughed. "Of course it's true. I'd already devised another method of dealing with the Cui family when evidence of Cui-dalang's crimes turned up. Why waste the opportunity? There's no need for me to expend effort needlessly."
Feng Xiao smiled broadly. "Brilliant! I love a good revenge story. Now this is the Cui Buqu I know—when there's vengeance to be had, he'll show no mercy."
Still coughing, Cui Buqu hunched over before the grave.
Feng Xiao found the sight of it unbearable. "All right, story's over. Lady Yu heard you as well. You've returned to avenge her!" He yanked Cui Buqu upright. "Look at you; you've got one foot in the grave yourself. I'm afraid if you stand here a moment longer you won't make it to sunrise, and I have no plans to return to the bureau without enjoying the show!"
He hadn't pulled hard, but Cui Buqu staggered and almost fell. Feng Xiao caught him, the robe under his fingers so wet one could wring water from it. "If I weren't here, could you even walk back under your own power?" Feng Xiao pursed his lips, then reluctantly pulled Cui Buqu onto his back.
"If you weren't here, Qiao Xian or Zhangsun Bodhi would be. There're also the Zuoyue guards." Cui Buqu spoke between coughs, but he sounded calm enough. "I imagine the Cui family's looking everywhere for us. If we go back now, it should at least be interesting."
"Hah! Can a thousand of your Qiao Xians and Zhangsuns compare to even one of me?" Feng Xiao sneered, complaining with every step he took. "You're a bag of bones; so pointy! Consider yourself lucky my venerable self deigns to carry you while you're sopping wet like this. My robe is ruined."
Since Feng Xiao was carrying him, Cui Buqu didn't snipe back. He'd spent too long buffeted by the wind and rain and felt groggy. He pressed his forehead to the nape of Feng Xiao's neck, soaking up his body heat to warm himself, then sighed comfortably. "You're the lucky one, getting to carry my venerable self."
"I'll drop you right now. Don't believe me?"
"If you do, you won't be able to enjoy the show."
They continued in this vein until their figures faded into the distance. Only the solitary gravestone remained, with the dark lantern before it. As the rain ceased, the sky cleared, and the moon showed itself once more, painting the lantern and inscription an icy silver. Green leaves fell from the canopy, dripping frost-colored rainwater that trickled down the stone like a woman's tearful smile.