RAIN HISSED DOWN on the roof. Shi Mei took a sip of tea. When he spoke again, it was decisive, as if he'd made up his mind. "Let me show you something."
He produced a stained copper mirror from his qiankun pouch. Its frame was patterned with flying dragons and soaring phoenixes winging their way through the sun, moon, and stars. "This is the Yestertide Mirror. It belonged to my father, surnamed Mu… I imagine Shizun's already guessed it. Mu Yanli and I are half-siblings."
Shi Mei bit his fingertip and let a drop of blood fall onto the mirror's surface. The copper fogged over; when it cleared, a hazy illusion had appeared inside. Slowly, the picture took shape, and the details sharpened…
They looked down upon the lookout platform at Tianyin Pavilion. It was a hot summer day, and the lotus pond beneath the pavilion was in splendid bloom. Red dragonflies dipped low. A sumptuously dressed woman stood by the railing, scattering scraps of pastry from a small dish. Fish leapt from the water to catch the crumbs falling from her red-painted fingers.
Though she was beautiful, her features were severe. She lifted her head to speak to her servants, revealing upswept phoenix eyes—slightly sultry, and sharp in a way that spoke to her confidence in her looks.
Chu Wanning frowned slightly. He looked at her, then again at Shi Mei.
Guessing the source of Chu Wanning's confusion, Shi Mei smiled. "She's not my mother. That's Mu-jiejie's mother, Lady Lin."
As they watched, a pretty girl in an embroidered dress, her hair done up in the style of Tianyin Pavilion's servants, walked onto the scene. She looked to be no more than eighteen, her face soft with youth and her manner gentle.
Shi Mei ran his fingers over the mirror. "This is my mother… A descendant of the Jade-Hearted Lord, Song Xingyi. Guyueye reared her like an animal; they didn't give her a name. She wanted to choose her own after she escaped, but Song is one of the Butterfly-Boned clan's noble surnames. She dared not use it for herself, so she took the word hua from Jade-Hearted Lord's title—Hua Bi Zhi Zun—and chose a homophone. From then on, she went by Hua Gui. Hua to mark her heritage, and Gui as in return home. Once my mother learned the Butterfly-Boned clan still had a chance to return to the demon realm, it became her dearest wish."
The tarnish on the mirror failed to hide Hua Gui's stunning beauty. She was speaking deferentially to Lady Lin. Though all the other maidservants seemed to be on tenterhooks before their chilly mistress, Hua Gui smiled and approached her warmly.
Chu Wanning looked up. "How did she end up at Tianyin Pavilion?"
"The disciple who bought her originally. One part of the story isn't true—my mother didn't leave him after she escaped Guyueye. They were deeply in love, and my mother begged him to figure out how to save her clan members. At the time, the disciple hung on her every word—he stole apocalyptic fire from Tianyin Pavilion and helped her accomplish her goal."
A crease remained between Chu Wanning's brows. So that was what happened. Not all historical records were correct. Some truths were slowly worn away by the deluge of time; when all the witnesses grew old and died, no one would know the whole story anymore.
Shi Mei paused for a beat. "As two years passed, the cultivation realm gradually forgot all about the Guyueye fire. Around the same time, Lady Lin of Tianyin Pavilion happened to give birth to a daughter. The lady had a strange temperament and no enthusiasm for childrearing, so she needed a few nimble maidservants to help. The disciple who loved my mother took the opportunity to bring her into the pavilion, where she became Lady Lin's handmaiden."
Chu Wanning looked back down at the copper mirror. At some point, the scene within had changed to that of Lady Lin reading by a window while Hua Gui stood by her side cradling and cooing at a swaddled child. It was a gentle scene. The mistress was poised and elegant, her maidservant devoted and loyal, the babe sweet and silly. Yet he sensed dark things lurking under the surface. "She took Lady Lin's place."
"Mn," said Shi Mei. "After spending some time in Tianyin Pavilion, my mother noticed how high Tianyin Pavilion's status in the cultivation realm was, above all other sects. Back then, she was still naïve. She came up with a plan she thought was better than returning to the demon realm."
"What was it?"
"Become the pavilion master's wife. The word of a descendant of the gods was law. She imagined that, if the pavilion master ordered it, no one in the cultivation realm would dare harm Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts, at least openly."
Light and shadow whirled and spun in the mirror. The scene settled on the same lookout platform, but now it was the winter of some unknown year. The lotus flowers had withered and died; there were no more dragonflies, and the red carp remained submerged in their watery home. Both the lively creatures and the coolly beautiful Lady Lin were gone, replaced by falling snow, the fragrance of wintertime plum blossoms, and a woman bundled in white fox-fur, seen from behind.
A man approached, and she turned to him, her beautiful face nestled in the soft fur. When she smiled, it was a sight more striking than the new-fallen snow.
Hua Gui had somehow managed to convince the pavilion master to divorce his wife. Mysteriously, Lady Lin had died soon after, alongside the high-ranking disciple who'd once helped Hua Gui escape Guyueye. She'd finally achieved her goal of becoming the wife of Tianyin Pavilion's master, a descendant of the gods.
The sky was a leaden gray, dappled with huge flakes of falling snow. Hua Gui stepped toward her husband and bowed in greeting, then reached out with a smile to stroke the hair of the little girl beside him.
"Mu Yanli?"
"Yes," said Shi Mei.
Chu Wanning fell silent.
"Is Shizun wondering why, despite being Lady Lin's blood daughter, Mu-jiejie would choose my mother over her own?"
Instead of replying, Chu Wanning peered into the mirror. Mu Yanli couldn't have been older than five. Hua Gui had scooped the child up, and when her new stepmother teased her, the girl wrapped her arms around Hua Gui's slender neck and laughed to her heart's content.
"Lady Lin was sullen and taciturn, hardly a loving mother. After Mu-jiejie was born, Lady Lin became unbalanced and began to hurt herself and others. Once when my mother wasn't in the room, she jabbed the back of Mu-jiejie's hand with a pair of scissors. She left a handful of bloody holes in her child's skin before my mother returned and stepped in to save the sobbing Mu-jiejie. Between a mother who would stab her to death and a nanny who'd doted on her since she was born, Mu-jiejie picked the latter."
The scene changed. Frost lay thick on a window plastered with auspicious red paper cutouts. It must've been shortly after the new year. Hua Gui sat before a sandalwood table, writing. Two children clustered beside her, a girl and a boy. The girl was cool and distant, but the boy had gentle features and a soft disposition. These were the young Hua Binan and Mu Yanli.
"All done." Hua Gui picked up the page and blew on the ink to dry it, her voice sweet. "Look, your mother's copied the medicinal sect's pill formula—isn't it nice-looking?"
Mu Yanli still had the piping voice of a child. "Everything Mother writes is pretty," she chirped.
Shi Mei was so young he couldn't even babble. He sucked on his thumb, watching them tease and joke with each other.
"My dad was devoted to cultivation; he didn't spend much time disciplining us. She was the one who looked after both Mu-jiejie and me." Staring at the mirror, Shi Mei sank into memory. "She taught us to read and to use some of the simplest spells."
"She knew spells?"
"Only a few." Shi Mei paused. "Little tricks used to spook commoners. She was probably no match for even the sloppiest cultivator."
Chu Wanning waited for him to continue.
"But she was our constant company, day in and day out." Shi Mei sighed, his eyes glued to the mirror. "No matter how calculating she was, no matter how she treated outsiders—she loved us more than anything."
The scenes spun faster, light and shadow slipping by like a shuttle between a weaver's fingers, like water spilling from cupped hands. Within those flickering images, Mu Yanli and Shi Mei slowly grew up. Hua Gui sheltered them every step of the way. On stormy nights, she lay with Mu Yanli until she fell asleep. On hot summer afternoons, she spoon-fed Shi Mei cooling red bean soup. The mirror filled up with the minutiae of their lives.
"When I came of age, I learned cultivation. Father personally taught me Tianyin Pavilion's techniques, but I lacked talent and was slow to grasp them. He was bitterly disappointed. I, too, thought I was a useless failure—after all, Mu-jiejie had established her foundation at the age of eight, but after all my work, I still couldn't even sense qi."
Within the mirror, a small Shi Mei sat blankly by the pond with an even smaller sword on his knees. Hua Gui appeared, her heavy skirts clutched in her hand and a deep frown between her brows. She strode over the floating wooden bridge, her eyes scanning the edges of the pond until she caught sight of Shi Mei's lonely figure. Relief lit her face. She made her way to the boy and bent to say something they couldn't hear. After a time, she took Shi Mei into her arms and turned back, carrying him into the garden and away.
"She'd been raised at Guyueye and seen many spiritually weak people carve a niche for themselves in the cultivation realm through the medicinal arts. Although Guyueye had once abused Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts, she didn't scorn these arts; she convinced my father to let me cultivate the path of medicine."
When Shi Mei had told the tale of those lurid affairs, Chu Wanning had gleaned some idea of Hua Gui's competence—though how skilled she was, he couldn't say. Now, he vividly felt the sharpness of this woman's fangs. To her, Guyueye would've been like a nightmare out of hell, one that'd devoured most of her life. Anyone else would've had reservations about the medicinal sect, if not the deepest hatred for it, and refused to come near it again. But Hua Gui possessed cold and penetrating eyes. She knew exactly what the sect was, what she needed, and how to get it. She never let the depth of her loathing impair her decisions.
"All her plans were meticulously thought out. Every step she took had been worked out to the hundredth step after. Even while raising Mu-jiejie and myself, she continued to seek out other members of our tribe and go to impossible lengths to help them live in safety."
Yet despite her grand plans, the status of Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts had gone unchanged, and Madam Hua had passed away long ago. What had happened? Chu Wanning recalled the rumors about Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts and the descendants of the gods, and thought he had some idea. "Madam Hua's identity…came to light?"
Shi Mei didn't answer him immediately. A sharp glint flashed through his eyes; at first glance, the sentiment might've been bone-deep hatred, but on further inspection, it was a grief deeper than the sea. "It shouldn't have. Father wasn't very bright, he never noticed anything amiss about her… But he remained a descendant of the gods. Even if the blood was thin in him, he had some special intuition."
He looked down at the mirror. The vision that had taken shape showed the bedroom of Tianyin Pavilion's master, where a man with white-streaked hair lay in his sickbed.
"The year I turned nine, he fell gravely ill. It was a baffling sickness; even the best doctors couldn't figure out what was killing him." Shi Mei scoffed. "But it was quite obvious if you understood what was going on. My father was a son of the gods, and my mother was the daughter of demons. After the great battle between the two tribes, the Demon Lord cursed them—forever after, there could be no union between gods and demons. All transgressors would die.
"Father didn't know his sickness was the work of that ancient curse. As for what happened next, perhaps the divine realm acted out of pity for their descendant or simply out of vindictiveness against the Demon Lord. Regardless, one night, a deity appeared to my father in a dream and revealed everything. If he wanted to survive, the deity said, he had to cut all ties with the demoness."
Chu Wanning studied Shi Mei's twisted face in silence. He knew whatever happened next hadn't been as simple as a cutting of ties.
"Father woke in a blinding rage. Tianyin Pavilion had always acted with impunity, and his status in the cultivation realm was unparalleled. Everyone revered him as if he was really a god, but this woman…this vessel for dual cultivation, this pile of moldering meat anyone could butcher at will, had dared to plot against him, to use him, and to lie to him. She'd even nearly killed him. She was a malicious, poisonous creature. That's why—"
He sucked in a deep breath. Despite the pains he took to keep his voice even, it still came out hoarse. His fingers tightened on the cup. The tea in it had cooled, unfinished. As the moment stretched, he lost control of his strength. With a sickening crack, the cup shattered, and tea splashed onto the mirror's surface.
Amber liquid blurred the scene within. Chu Wanning could faintly make out Shi Mei's father summoning Hua Gui to his sickbed. He rose, barefoot, and spoke to her as if nothing was wrong. Smiling, he went to the door and—with his back to Hua Gui—lowered the bolt with a click.
He turned to face his wife. A twisted grimace appeared in the smeared reflection.
Shi Mei flinched. Suddenly he swept the mirror off the table, turning his face away. Tendons protruded from the back of his hands like twisted roots, every vein pulsing with terror and hate. After a moment, he buried his face in his hands.
His voice was heavy with utmost exhaustion. "He…" He fell silent after the first word. "This beast…" Loathing threatened to crash over him like a wave; a storm of scathing hate roiled in his throat, yet the tempest's fury died before it reached his lips. Everything he wanted to say fought to leap first from his tongue, and so instead he was rendered mute.
Shi Mei took a moment to master himself. He'd likely watched this scene in the mirror play out many times, but despite the years that'd gone by, his abhorrence still threatened to overwhelm him. Slowly, he stopped trembling. That maelstrom of hatred emerged as merely a few unassuming words:
"That day, my holy father ate my mother alive."