14. Old Stories from the Past (1)
Page 1 of 3
The story Cen Lan told began thirteen years ago, when the Jiang family came to Yangzhou to hunt down a pair of Xuan-grade twin demons.
With Sect Leader Jiang Qingzhu wielding her Serpent-Fang zither, none could stand against her. The disciples who accompanied her were all elites as well, and before half a day had passed, the two monsters lay slain.
As they returned in triumph, Cen Sanbian, the renowned grandmaster of Yangzhou, invited the entire party to his mountain estate. Under the pretext of celebrating, they spent three days and three nights boiling wine, discussing music, dancing, and playing instruments, indulging in revelry to their hearts’ content.
During that feast, Cen Sanbian became acquainted with a woman from an immortal sect. Though they spent only a few days together, they played their zithers beneath the moon, drank among the flowers, and spoke of everything under the sun.
At that time, Cen Lan was still a little girl with her hair tied in tufts. Lively by nature, she ran about the house helping to attend to the guests, and accidentally caught sight of her father’s intimacy with that woman. In the days that followed, the young Cen Lan, hiding in the shadows, even witnessed their secret meetings amid the sea of flowers and bamboo groves on the rear mountain.
“After the people from the immortal sect departed, Father pined for that woman day and night, and many white hairs appeared at his temples. Whenever he could not sleep at night, he would go to the Emerald-Mist Garden and play the zither until dawn. Worried about his health, I would bring him pastries and a padded coat and stay with him. In time, I developed the bad habit of staying up late as well. Later, Father’s health worsened day by day, and when I was eleven, he fell gravely ill and never recovered.”
“After Father became seriously ill, that woman sent people several times with pills from the immortal sect. Later, when Little Shen was born, she even entrusted a fellow member of the sect to come and build an alchemy chamber at our home. Yet she herself never came again.”
Ling Sichen said, “Their feelings ran so deep, yet in the end, they were destined to follow different paths.”
Cen Lan gave a soft, sorrowful sigh.
“The last time I saw that woman was on the day of Father’s funeral. I recognized her from afar. She was dressed in plain white, standing only at the edge of the crowd, watching us depart from a distance.”
“I see. May I ask whether this was also why Madam Cen is so wary of the immortal sects?”
“Yes.” Cen Lan recalled the past. “Mother later discovered the letters Father had exchanged with that woman and learned what had happened. Although Father always insisted that they were merely soulmates, with no romantic relationship between them, Mother has harbored resentment ever since. Later, she contracted a disease that covered her in mottled scales and suspected it had been caused by the medicinal vapors from the alchemy chamber. After that, she became even more adamant that no one in the family have any dealings with the immortal sects.”
Jiang Xiaoman sighed inwardly. So the old gentleman Cen had once been involved in such a romantic affair. There must have been several senior disciples accompanying that demon-hunting expedition back then, but which one had become entangled with Master Cen?
Ling Sichen saw what was on her mind and asked for her, “Do you know that woman’s name?”
Cen Lan nodded. “Her name was Jiang Rong.”
“Great-Aunt???”
Jiang Xiaoman’s eyes widened, and the words escaped her before she could stop herself.
*
Speaking of her Great-Aunt Jiang Rong, what made her most famous was neither her title as the immortal sects’ greatest pipa player nor her ability to control the one-of-a-kind divine beast Taotie. Rather, it was her glorious record of turning away hundreds upon hundreds of suitors, earning her the distinction of being the person in the immortal sects’ unofficial rankings who was “hardest to take as a cultivation partner” for many years.
Only recently had she been surpassed by the eldest young master of the Ling family. But she had been surpassed because she was old, not because she had lost her appeal.
As she herself put it: Those vulgar men are not even half as adorable as my Taotie.
It was no wonder that after all these years, Jiang Xiaoman still had no great-uncle by marriage.
Who would have thought? Great-Aunt, you were actually this sort of person. It seemed that thirteen years ago, Old Master Cen must have been more adorable than Taotie.
Yet in Jiang Xiaoman’s memory, although Great-Aunt kept her distance from men, she had many female companions who, like her, remained single despite being advanced in years. One of them was from the Wen family, and Great-Aunt always called her Fourth Madam.
Jiang Xiaoman vaguely remembered that whenever Fourth Madam came to visit her, she would bring several delicious honey pills and always say that Jiang Xiaoman resembled her great-aunt.
So that alchemy chamber in the left courtyard had actually been built by her.
In truth, Jiang Xiaoman and her great-aunt did not look all that alike. But Jiang Xiaoman had inherited from her father the same distinctive combination as her great-aunt: a rounded nasal bridge and an upper lip as thin as a cicada’s wing. Such unusual features were enough to leave an impression on anyone who saw them.
No wonder Cen Lan had been stunned for so long when they first met.
Ling Sichen continued, “Do you hate the immortal sects?”
Cen Lan shook her head.
“Father said she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and that the music she played was the most exquisite in existence. To be honest, I have never seen him so happy when speaking of a person or a thing. I once dreamed of entering the Jiang family to cultivate immortality, so that I could hear the music of the immortal sects with my own ears.”
Jiang Xiaoman grew anxious as she listened. “Then go and try!”
Cen Lan shook her head again and gave a deliberately carefree smile.
“When I was eight, Father took me to the immortal sect’s entrance examination. I passed, but in the end, Mother stopped me from going…”
Page 1 of 3
Page 2 of 3
When Cen Lan casually uttered the words “I passed,” Jiang Xiaoman felt five parts astonishment and five parts inevitability.
What astonished her was that Cen Lan had actually taken the entrance examination as a child.
In the mortal world today, there were only three paths available to anyone who wished to enter an immortal sect.
The first was to be born into nobility and enter the Jade Clarity Sect directly, for it accepted only princes and imperial descendants.
The second was to break through the Eighteen Ironclad Formations of the Xuanyang Sect. However, it was said that after completing even the first formation, scarcely anyone remained capable of standing on both legs. For commoners, it was generally a place one went only after growing tired of living.
The third, and the path chosen by most, was to participate in the entrance examinations established among the people by the three great immortal clans: the Ling family, the Jiang family, and the Wen family.
The examinations had originally been created to identify children of exceptional talent, allowing them to enter the proud immortal sects from a young age and study immortal arts, spells, and incantations. Even if they ultimately failed to attain the Dao and ascend to immortality, they could still master the skills needed to exorcise demons and make their way in the world.
Children born into great clans, such as Jiang Xiaoman and the others, naturally did not need to undergo such examinations. But they had heard that the standards were extraordinarily strict. Those who passed either possessed an innate and unusual talent or had an extraordinary abundance of spiritual energy within them.
With Cen Lan’s spiritual energy brimming to overflowing, she would probably have stood out even among the children of their clans. Thus, Jiang Xiaoman was not surprised in the least—only filled with boundless regret.
At last, she could somewhat understand the “three sighs” her father had once heaved over Old Master Cen.
Cen Lan, however, had long since made peace with the past. She smiled and said, “Let it be. I once thought I was destined to have no connection with the immortal sects in this life. Meeting you and the young master has fulfilled one of my wishes. But tell me, did the two of you conceal your identities and come here because of the water demon outside the city?”
“Not solely because of the water demon,” Ling Sichen replied. “Second Miss Cen, since we have spoken frankly with each other, I will not conceal anything from you. There is a more powerful monster on this estate. It can disguise itself as anyone. Therefore, I hope you will keep our identities secret from the others.”
A trace of tension appeared on Cen Lan’s face, but she still made an effort to nod. She had vaguely sensed that something was wrong with the atmosphere on the estate; she simply had never been willing to imagine the worst.
“Was my brother-in-law also killed by this monster?”
“Not necessarily,” Ling Sichen said. “But rest assured. Whether the culprit is a human being or a monster, I will drag it into the light.”
As he spoke those words, Jiang Xiaoman found herself looking at him involuntarily.
At that moment, the Second Young Master Ling seemed inexplicably tall and magnificent.
They were merely a few simple words, yet they rang with such force that they gave one an inexplicable sense of security.
The Penglai celestial generals from five hundred years ago, who had slain countless demons and protected the peace of the mortal realm in the tales, must have been much the same.
Hope flickered in Cen Lan’s eyes as well. After a moment’s thought, she said, “Very well. I will now tell you everything you wished to know.”
*
Only after Cen Lan recounted the details did they learn that on the day she had gone out earlier, she had visited the Divine Dragon Temple outside the city to pray for her family.
Influenced by Madam Cen, the members of the Cen family kept their distance from the immortal sects and did not revere the orthodox immortal path’s Divine Dragon. Every year, on the twenty-third day of the ninth month, the people of Yangzhou worshipped the Divine Dragon, and Cen Lan secretly went there on that day each year without telling her family.
As for Xing’er, it turned out that while she was alive, Cen Yuan had often harassed and molested her.
On the days when Cen Qiu went out to teach, Cen Yuan would even force her to attend his bedchamber. Xing’er had suffered every kind of humiliation, yet she had only dared to secretly confide in Cen Lan.
Thus, Cen Lan was not surprised in the slightest that Xing’er’s jewelry had been found in Cen Yuan’s possession.
Cen Lan gave a sorrowful sigh. “My sister knew that her husband was naturally lecherous. If Xing’er had made a great issue of it, my sister might have driven her out to preserve the Cen family’s reputation. She is strong and decisive when dealing with the outside world, but at home she is indecisive and often manipulated by her husband. There was nothing I could do.”
“Beast…!” Jiang Xiaoman cursed.
No wonder Xing’er, despite being Cen Qiu’s maid, had entrusted her life tablet to Cen Lan.
In that case, the signs that something had been moved in Xing’er’s room that day had probably been caused by Cen Yuan searching for the jewelry. They had nothing to do with the Strange Music, and once again, the trail seemed to have gone cold.
Page 2 of 3
Page 3 of 3
But why had he buried the jewelry?
Ling Sichen listened silently to Cen Lan’s account, apparently pondering something.
He had a habit of lightly scraping his chin with his fingers whenever he thought. He was doing so again now, and Jiang Xiaoman decided that he must have thought of something.
He asked, “Second Miss, you went to the Divine Dragon Temple on the twenty-third day of the ninth month, while Zhang Zhong was murdered on the twenty-fourth.”
Cen Lan nodded. “That is correct.”
“When you returned home that night, did you notice anything unusual?”
Cen Lan thought carefully.
“If we are speaking of something unusual, then yes. One thing did happen that day.”
“What was it?”
“A petty thief entered the estate that night and stole some jewelry from my room. None of it was particularly valuable, so it could hardly be considered a major matter.”
“Was the thief caught?”
“No. But it was probably a mischievous child from one of the nearby villages who climbed over the outer wall.”
“If the thief was not caught, why are you so certain it was a child?”
Cen Lan smiled and explained, “Because the thief also stole the seven-stringed zither from my room, then dropped it by the wall. Taohong found it there and brought it back. My zither is not heavy, so I guessed that the thief must have been a child who was unable to carry it away.”
A strange light flashed at once through Ling Sichen’s eyes.
“Could you take me to see the zither?”
*
Cen Lan asked Jiang Xiaoman and Ling Sichen to wait by the stone table outside the western side chamber.
She soon emerged, carrying a zither wrapped in silk cloth.
At a glance, Jiang Xiaoman spotted a jade ornament showing through a gap in the cloth and immediately recognized the instrument. It was the very same zither Cen Lan had played two nights before.
The light had been dim that night, so Jiang Xiaoman had been unable to make out its details. She remembered only the jade at the end of the instrument, which had appeared exceptionally translucent and radiant beneath the moonlight.
Ling Sichen raised an eyebrow. “You wrap it in silk?”
“This zither is a treasured relic left behind by my father. Whenever it is not in use, I keep it wrapped like this.” Cen Lan offered a gentle explanation. “Although the instrument is old, its carving is extremely delicate, and Father cherished it greatly while he was alive. After the theft, my sister also told me to hide it well, lest the thief return and steal it again.”
She placed the zither on the stone table and carefully began to unwrap the silk.
Layer by layer, the cloth unfolded, gradually revealing the instrument’s intricate grain and beautifully proportioned body.
The instant Jiang Xiaoman saw the grain, her expression changed. When the entire body of the zither came into view, she was so stunned that she could not speak.
This was—
This was an immortal zither of the Jiang family!
Page 3 of 3