"It was those two, father and son, who destroyed your family and stole your whole life!"
Sun Jin's voice echoed on and on in Jiang Qingyi's ears.
"Impossible... impossible..." Jiang Qingyi kept backing away, her face ashen.
"You must be lying to me! You're lying to me! You have to be!" Jiang Qingyi's mind was in chaos; she could not believe a word of what she had heard.
She refused to believe that her master was the son of the man who had murdered her family.
And it was in that very moment that Sun Jin found his opening—the hidden weapon in his hand flew straight at Jiang Qingyi!
But Jiang Qingyi simply tilted her head aside; the weapon sliced through the strands of her hair.
Almost in the same instant, she pressed her fingers together, used them as a sword, and slashed across his throat.
"Urgh..."
Sun Jin clutched his neck; blood sprayed out between his fingers.
"Save... save me..." Sun Jin reached a hand toward Jiang Qingyi, his pupils slowly dilating.
Jiang Qingyi watched him with eyes like dead water, without the slightest ripple.
A few breaths later, Sun Jin's hand fell limp to the ground. His eyes stared wide at nothing ahead, and blood soaked the earth red.
"Qingyi! Are you all right?"
Xiao Mo had finally caught up.
He saw his disciple's back, unharmed, and the corpses of the Blood Butterfly Pavilion cultivators around her.
Only then did Xiao Mo heave a sigh of relief.
At the sound of her master's voice, Jiang Qingyi's body trembled, and she slowly turned around.
The moment Xiao Mo saw the look in Jiang Qingyi's eyes, his feet stopped of their own accord.
Xiao Mo had never seen such a look on his disciple's face.
There was no light at all in Qingyi's eyes, as though the person had died and the soul inside her had broken.
"Qingyi, what happened?"
Xiao Mo took a step forward, but Jiang Qingyi swept out a blade of sword Qi that carved a line in the ground before him.
"Master... do you know?"
Jiang Qingyi spoke slowly, her voice seeming to rise from an abyss, steeped in despair.
"When I was very small—I think I was about one—I could already remember things.
I remember I had a very happy family.
My father was a merchant with a modest fortune. My mother was an ordinary woman, but she was gentle, and she loved me, and she loved my father very much.
When I was two, Mother gave birth to a little brother.
My little brother was adorable.
When he was a year and a half old, the first name he could say clearly was "Sister"...
From the day I was born, I never knew what worry was.
But the year I turned four, everything changed.
Some men forced their way into our home, and the moment they were inside they began slaughtering at will.
The guards, the servants, even the maid who looked after me—all of them died.
The stone paths ran with blood, and the pond in our courtyard turned bright red.
My parents shoved me and my two-year-old brother into a cabinet.
Father and Mother told us not to make a sound, no matter what happened outside, and not to come out.
Inside the cabinet, I held my little brother tight and covered his eyes and ears.
Before long, there were noises from outside.
Through the crack in the cabinet, I watched with my own eyes as those men killed my parents!
In the end they found my brother and me.
Right in front of me!
They killed my little brother!
Master, do you know what it feels like to watch your family die in front of you one after another, to beg for mercy and have it do no good?
They didn't even spare your two-year-old little brother!
Master, do you know that kind of despair?"
Xiao Mo: "..."
When Jiang Qingyi brought all of it up, Xiao Mo knew that she had already learned everything.
"My whole family died. Not one of them was left alive. I was carried off to a courtyard.
In that courtyard I saw so many people.
They strapped me to a bed, took a knife, cut open my back, and pulled out one of my bones.
It hurt so much. It really, really hurt.
I passed out from the pain.
When I woke up, there were corpses all around me.
Later I learned that the place where I woke up was called the Mass Grave...
I don't know how my wound healed, or how I lived through it.
Maybe Heaven took pity on me and had some immortal pass by and heal me.
But I know this—I survived!
From that moment, I swore to Heaven that I would live, and live well, and avenge my parents and my brother!
They killed my whole family, so I'll kill their whole family!
Innocent or not, not one of the enemy's family will be spared!
I'll kill his son and his daughter right in front of his eyes, and then I'll carve him into a thousand pieces, cut by cut!
Every last one of them dies!"
Jiang Qingyi raised her head, endless hatred burning in her eyes.
"All these years, your disciple has been secretly searching for whoever killed my family, but I never found a single lead.
That house had long since burned to ashes.
But Master...
Just now, while I was killing that man,
he said
that Master's father is the enemy who killed my whole family.
All so that one of my bones could be transplanted into Master's body.
Master, is that how it was?
Is everything he said true?"
Xiao Mo: "..."
"Master! Tell me it's not true! He was lying to me, wasn't he!"
Xiao Mo: "..."
Tears blurred Jiang Qingyi's eyes. Her right hand clenched the Xuanshuang longsword, and she screamed, nearly hysterical:
"Master! Answer Qingyi!"
"Master! Say something!"
Xiao Mo sighed, lifted his head, and met Jiang Qingyi's gaze straight on. "The man you killed was named Sun Jin. He was one of Prince Xiao's Manor's advisers, and everything he said was the truth.
It was Prince Xiao's Manor that killed your family, and I am the son of Xiao Jing, Prince Jing of Liang.
Your sword bone is in my body."
Hearing her master's words, Jiang Qingyi shook her head. "No, none of it is true... none of it is true... Master, you're lying to me. You're lying to me too, aren't you..."
"Qingyi, this is the truth."
"Liar!" In an instant the girl raised her longsword and leveled it before Xiao Mo's eyes. "Then why did you save me back then! Why did you bring me back to the mountain! Why did you teach me swordsmanship! Why did you treat me like your little sister, like your own daughter! Why! Why?!"
"Because I owed it to you," Xiao Mo said calmly. "I reached the Nascent Soul realm at eighteen. I thought it was my own heaven-sent talent; instead, a young girl's sword bone had been transplanted into me. One day a woman told me that girl was still alive, so I left the Prince's manor and set out to find you—to make it up to you."
"Make it up to me... The son of the man who killed my whole family saved me! Taught me swordsmanship! Raised me! You should have just killed me instead!" Jiang Qingyi roared.
Xiao Mo slowly closed his eyes. "Then kill me. Fulfill your oath. It's what I owe you."
Looking at the man before her, the longsword in Jiang Qingyi's hand trembled without pause, and tears rolled off her cheeks and fell to the ground.
In the end, Xiao Mo felt only a gust of sword wind sweep past him.
Xiao Mo slowly opened his eyes. The piece of skirt the girl had cut off was drifting up and away before him.
She held her longsword, turned, and walked away, her voice drifting back to him:
"From now on, you and I have nothing to do with each other..."