“How many words out of your mouth are actually true?”
Tan Congye stared fixedly at Ying Laixian’s battered and bruised appearance before finally extending a hand toward the man on the ground.
Ying Laixian remained dazed for a long time, while Tan Congye kept his hand steady in place.
“Thank you.”
Ying Laixian offered his thanks first, then used Tan Congye’s leverage to pull himself up. In that brief moment, he had felt as though he were back in the past, though which time it was, he could no longer remember.
Tan Congye withdrew his hand, his gaze turning distant for a split second. “You’ve put on enough of a performance. You didn’t need to go this far just to fake pity.”
The words hanging on the edge of Ying Laixian’s lips froze instantly. The physical pain on his body paled in comparison to Tan Congye’s short, biting sentence. “What do you mean?”
Tan Congye pressed his lips together as he looked over the injuries covering Ying Laixian’s body, speaking coldly, “There was actually no need for me to send you away first, yet you insisted on proposing it. At first, I simply wanted to see what you were up to, but staging this entire physical ordeal is your ultimate explanation.”
Initially, Tan Congye had believed Ying Laixian was nothing more than a parasite who relied on his looks to make a name for himself in the pugilistic world. Later, he learned that this man moved fluidly between the imperial court and the jianghu with grand ambition. But now, he suddenly felt as though Ying Laixian harbored not a single shred of ambition.
Every single move this man made played out right before his eyes, yet he could not fathom the underlying reasons for them.
“How did you get these injuries?”
Ying Laixian wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t manage it. From the very beginning, he had tried his absolute best to appear completely composed in front of Tan Congye, yet as always, every single word this man spoke carried devastating lethal force.
“If I told you that after you left, a formidable expert showed up and did this to me, would you believe it?”
Ying Laixian’s gaze was clear and steadfast, nearly causing Tan Congye to sink into it.
“I’ve been keeping a close watch on this area,” Tan Congye said. “And I never sensed anyone approaching your position. Ying Laixian, you should know very well that there are at most three people in this world with the strength to conceal their presence right under my nose. Even if Wei Heng came, he couldn’t leave things so completely untraceable. Are you telling me the person who attacked you was an immortal?”
“No,” Ying Laixian said with a bitter laugh. “Do you genuinely believe I inflicted these on myself just to win your sympathy?”
Of course Tan Congye didn’t truly think that. Regardless of what kind of person Ying Laixian was, though he couldn’t see through him entirely, the man never played on sympathy, and would certainly never resort to such clumsy tactics.
Yet everything happening to Ying Laixian defied Tan Congye’s expectations. Just as he had said, who else could possibly slip past his notice?
Ying Laixian looked at Tan Congye in silence, feeling a bitter gall flood his throat. The taste lingered repeatedly at the back of his tongue, and like his tears, he swallowed it down from start to finish. “I think there’s no longer any need for us to cooperate.”
Tan Congye stiffened all over.
Ying Laixian continued, “Cooperation requires mutual trust, Tan Congye. Since I chose to cooperate with you without prying into your secrets, you should offer the same courtesy in return. Since you don’t trust me, it seems our partnership has run its course. Of course, to repay you for coming to Yunchen and saving my life this time, I will still leave you with a clue.”
Ying Laixian’s words felt like a direct dismissal, intensifying the frustration already burning in Tan Congye’s chest. He abruptly seized Ying Laixian by the wrist and yanked him close, his gaze dark and fierce. “Do you take me for a fool to toy with? Ying Laixian, I am no Zhong Xiwu; I won’t be turned completely upside down by your pretty face and a few smooth words. Cooperation is on my terms, who do you think you are to call the shots?”
He had anticipated that Tan Congye would be angry, but not that his fury would burn this intensely. Ying Laixian adjusted his emotions, showing no panic whatsoever in the face of the other man’s wrath, and instead offered a faint smile. “You want to continue our partnership? It’s simply because you want the clues regarding Longye Palace that are in my hands. I can tell you everything, and then our cooperation ends right here.”
Had this been earlier, Tan Congye would have agreed without a moment’s hesitation, because he had never intended to entangle himself deeply with Ying Laixian from the start.
Yet now, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, whether from a pure curiosity about the man or something else entirely, he suddenly found himself unable to consent to ending their relationship.
“Give me a reason.” Tan Congye’s deep eyes were like an abyss; he refused to believe Ying Laixian was suddenly halting their cooperation merely because of his suspicions.
Both of them were sharp minds. Tan Congye hadn’t trusted Ying Laixian from day one, and Ying Laixian was well aware of that fact, hadn’t he allowed the partnership to continue anyway?
Ying Laixian said, “What if I told you that if we continue to work together, I will end up dragging you to your death, and I don’t want to implicate you?”
Tan Congye watched the myriad shifting emotions roiling in Ying Laixian’s gaze. He couldn’t distinguish the truth from the lies; if Ying Laixian really could drag him down to his death, what would become of Ying Laixian once he was gone?
“How many people do you think in this whole world could kill me? Could it be that all those sword saints happen to have a grudge against you?”
“I’m telling the truth,” Ying Laixian said. “Believe it or not, that’s up to you.”
Tan Congye fell silent for a long moment. “You knew from the very beginning that certain matters would implicate me, so why wait until now to call off the partnership?”
Too many things felt contradictory; no matter how Tan Congye turned them over in his mind, he couldn’t make sense of them.
Ying Laixian hesitated. “Well, like I said before, you left me to die once upon a time, so I harbored a grudge and planned to drag you down with me.”
Tan Congye demanded, “So now your conscience suddenly woke up?”
Ying Laixian smiled. “As I also said, because you saved my life once before, after turning it over in my mind, I decided I still didn’t want to drag you down.”
“How many words out of your mouth are actually true?”
“That depends on how much you choose to believe.”
Tan Congye felt he had never experienced such a crushing defeat, being completely manipulated by a single person whose heart bobbed up and down without ever finding a stable place to rest.
“Who was that person who came just now?” Tan Congye’s gaze dropped to the fair skin of Ying Laixian’s neck, where a stark, horrifying wound had been left behind. An injury like that required extreme physical closeness to inflict.
Ying Laixian knew this man had dropped his aggressive stance. No formal reconciliation had been spoken, but both of them had let go of their tension, implicitly accepting that once this incident concluded, they would go their separate ways with no further ties.
“A demon,” Ying Laixian said, twitching his wrist to signal Tan Congye to release him. “A demon even my teacher cannot handle.”
Tan Congye’s eyes narrowed. Someone even Wei Heng couldn’t handle—across the entire realm, he could only think of two possibilities. But since Ying Laixian had stated earlier that it wasn’t one of them, then.
“It’s not the person you’re thinking of,” Ying Laixian said, then added, “Or perhaps not.”
Tan Congye felt the whole matter was shrouded in mystery. Ying Laixian hadn’t laid everything out completely, and many things were likely beyond what he was meant to know, but at least this man had opened up and offered an explanation.
Tan Congye remarked, “This demon of yours knows your every move, and even followed you all the way here. This has been going on for a long time, hasn’t it? Why hasn’t he simply killed you?”
“Perhaps killing me would strip away his amusement.”
“Everything you’ve said lacks any solid basis.”
“Many things in this world lack any basis,” Ying Laixian countered, echoing Tan Congye’s words. “Take you, for instance. You clearly don’t believe a single word I say, yet you still willingly waste your time here listening to me spin these so-called stories.”
This remark struck right at the heart of Tan Congye’s thoughts.
“You’re right,” Tan Congye said. “Your collaboration with Jiang Yunmiao has likely been going on for years. Why did you wait until working with me to finally come to Yunchen? He’s a useful blade in your hands, yet he hasn’t even been unsheathed yet. Could it be that in your heart, he’s more useful than Zhong Xiwu?”
Unsure how his train of thought had wandered back to Jiang Yunmiao, Ying Laixian answered without any evasion: “I have a twelve-year pact with my teacher. Within those twelve years, I am never to step foot outside of Yunwu for even half a step.”
Tan Congye intended to press further, but Ying Laixian cut him off directly. “City Lord Tan, smart people only choose to cooperate with smart people, but they don’t necessarily like smart people. Do you know why?”
“Because smart people always try to be too clever, whether it’s you or me, we’re both guilty of that. We’ve stayed here long enough; I’m afraid Fang Xu and the others are starting to worry.” Ying Laixian flashed a friendly smile. “I don’t want to keep them waiting.”
Fang Xu and Jiang Nv had managed to find four replacement horses and bandaged their wounds, finally waiting long enough for Tan Congye and Ying Laixian to return.
“Young Master!” Jiang Nv couldn’t remain calm the moment she laid eyes on him. “Those injuries on your body?”
“It’s nothing,” Ying Laixian said lightly. “An old friend.”
Jiang Nv’s face darkened. “Them again? They really are like ghosts that refuse to scatter!”
Tan Congye observed the expressions of both Jiang Nv and Fang Xu from start to finish. After Ying Laixian offered his explanation, neither of their faces showed much surprise, suggesting that such occurrences were already commonplace and the culprits behind them were naturally the “them” Jiang Nv had referred to.
Just what kind of people were they?
Fang Xu fished a porcelain bottle from his tunic, extracted a pill, and handed it to Ying Laixian. “My master always told me to keep this on hand, saying that if the Young Master ever sustained injuries, taking one would help alleviate the pain.”
Ying Laixian swallowed it without a shred of doubt. “He goes out of his way. How are your injuries?”
“Just minor scrapes,” Jiang Nv said. “We’re fine. But you, Young Master, you must have suffered severe injuries. Since we couldn’t find a carriage, the journey ahead might be tough.”
The wounds on Ying Laixian’s body were neither too light nor too severe, but they looked startlingly conspicuous. He himself didn’t mind; he had endured these agonies far too many times already.
“It doesn’t matter. Once we reach Yishui City, we can properly rest and recuperate.”
White Paper Hall and Dongcang lay in opposite directions. Gravely injured as he was, Ying Laixian could no longer endure grueling travel, so they had no choice but to head back to Yishui City first and plan their next steps.
Fang Xu asked with concern, “Would the Young Master care to ride with me?”
Before Ying Laixian could refuse, Tan Congye cut in, “Just take care of yourself. I’ll carry him.”
Ying Laixian: “Unnecessary.”
“In your current shattered state, making it to Yishui City would be difficult enough, let alone crossing a desert.” Tan Congye refused to listen to any arguments from Ying Laixian. “They’re worried about you, but I have no patience to watch you two lingering and dragging out our time. If you want to get back sooner, listen to me and don’t waste any more time.”