The old man turned his ear towards them. He gave a neurotic twitch, and the chains on him jangled together with the movement. Furtively, Zhang Chengling tugged at Zhou Zishu, and asked in a small voice, "Shifu...those chains, are they stuck through his pipa bones?"
Zhou Zishu shushed him, glanced over with a frown--and discovered that the chains on this old man weren't wrapped around him, but were pierced through him. Though the pipa bones, through the kneecaps, the wounds there had festered, leaving only bone. In Zhou Zishu's view, to be able to still survive like this was already a difficult feat.
The stench within the house was overpowering, with faeces and piss everywhere. The original colours long faded past recognition, the old man's clothes could not even cover his body, totally depriving him of the decorum a human being should have had. He opened his mouth, and like he had not spoken in a very long time, his pronunciation was slow and slurred as he asked them hoarsely, "Who...are you? Where is...Long Xiao?"
Ye Baiyi asked, "Is Long Xiao a quadriplegic in a wheelchair? He's dead--how was he related to you?
Hearing this, the old man was stunned for a long while. Suddenly, he opened his mouth wide. The expression on his face seemed to be one of hearty laughter, but not a single bit of sound came out. Then, a few murky teardrops slowly seeped out of the corner of his eye, fell instantly, and vanished. Ye Baiyi ignored him, merely squatted down to examine the iron chains on him, and let him laugh and cry intermittently like a lunatic.
A good while later, Ye Baiyi finally extended his hand to Zhou Zishu. "Lend me your sword."
Zhou Zishu knew that he was intending to use Baiyi to break the chains, so he loosened it from himself and handed it over. Taking the sword, Ye Baiyi hacked at a length of chain. There was a sharp "clang", but that chain did not budge in the slightest, and had not even a dent. Instead, the Baiyi sword in his hand trembled continuously.
Looking at it, Zhou Zishu felt his teeth ache.
That old man suddenly spoke up. "You don't have to...waste your energy, it's useless."
Ye Baiyi asked, "What abominable sin did you commit that made that quadriplegic hate you so?"
The old man was silent for a moment, then said, "I committed… the only thing I've done to let him down was to raise such a...son like him."
The few of them exchanged looks. Now, they understood why Long Xiao's shame had turned to fury then when Ye Baiyi had said "unless you're Long Que's son"--this old glutton was practically a divinity, with the way he had accidentally been right about such an implausible relation.
A long while later, Wen Kexing suddenly asked, "You said that his name was Long...it isn't the 'filial' (xiao) from 'filial piety', is it?"
Feeling that Wen Kexing was truly prodding at sore spots, Zhou Zishu jabbed him with his elbow. Not daring to duck away, Wen Kexing bore the brunt of it, and gazed piteously at Zhou Zishu as he rubbed his rib bone.
The old man laughed hoarsely, "I must have committed the greatest sins in my previous life, as severe as murder and arson, and is suffering karmic retribution in this one!"
The old man leant against the bedpost. Extending a hand that resembled the skin of a tangerine, he rubbed that bedpost again and again. Having spoken for a while, his tongue seemed to have limbered up. "This was mine and Yu Zhui's bedroom back then, and that little beast was born here. Come to think of it, us husband and wife will both die in his hands. Heh, isn't this fate?"
Zhou Zishu asked in a gentle voice, "Yu Zhui is your esteemed wife?"
That old man's face was too ghastly to lay eyes on; it was impossible to tell whether it was beautiful or ugly, joyful or melancholic. But when the two words "Yu Zhui" were mentioned, that face overgrown with trenches appeared to relax much. A teardrop was still trapped in the deep wrinkle by his mouth. It glimmered, but did not fall regardless. He sighed. "I lost her because she gave birth to the kid. After Yuzhui was gone, I built the Puppet Manor, and dismissed the servants…"
Zhang Chengling looked at Wen Kexing in shocked amazement. He was finding this Senior Wen even more incredible, because he had been right about even this. The old man continued, "I promised Yu Zhui to raise that little beast properly, but he was born unable to stand. So I imparted to him every drop of knowledge I had, my life's worth of it, thinking that even if he could not master anything else, he could still have had the ability to support himself, ai!"
Ye Baiyi asked, "If it was so, why did he want to imprison you?"
The old man's whole frame started to tremble. After a long while of silence, he finally murmured, "It was for the Yin Yang Manual."
Other than Zhang Chengling, the gazes of the other three people grew serious as they stared unblinkingly at this half-dead old man. Zhou Zishu asked in a soft voice, "Is it...Madam Rong's Yin Yang Manual?"
The old man nodded, and said slowly, "New flesh regrows on dead bones, as Yin and Yang are reversed--"
There was no intractable disease in the world that the legendary sacred artefact of the Healers' Valley could not treat. Even the Green Vixen wished that it could heal her face; who would thirst for it more than a highly ambitious man who had been born paralysed?
Zhou Zishu thought quickly, and asked, "Wasn't the Yin Yang Manual sealed within the Lapis Armour together with the Fengshan Sword Manual and the Six Harmonies Cultivation Mantra from the very start? Did he think that the Lapis Armour was with you?"
"Lapis Armour?" That old man scoffed. Shaking his head, he said, "You all, are wrong. I was the one who crafted the Lapis Armour all those years ago, but it's only a lock. If you want to obtain the things sealed within it, the five pieces of Lapis Armour are useless. Even six pieces, seven pieces, eight pieces are useless. It still lacks a 'key'."
Ye Baiyi raised an eyebrow. "The key is with you?"
The old man said woodenly, "I don't have it."
Ye Baiyi chased him for answers. "If it's not in your hands, whose hands can it be in?"
The old man laughed almost self-deprecatingly. "Yes, you don't believe it. He didn't either."
Zhou Zishu regarded him closely for a long while, then suddenly asked, "Senior Long, you do know whose hands the key is in, don't you?"
The old man turned his head to face Zhou Zishu as if he could see him. Nodding, he said, "You're correct, I do--I made a vow back then. No one could reveal where it was, and no one could be told of the key's whereabouts. Long Xiao...Long Xiao's insane."
Ye Baiyi narrowed his eyes, and pressed on, insistent. "So, you're someone who knows about what happened between Rong Xuan and the others thirty years ago?"
The old man nodded his head in silence, but before Ye Baiyi could ask, he said, "I can't speak of it. Rong Xuan and his wife are benefactors who saved my life. I promised Madam Rong this. I can't speak of it."
Ye Baiyi replied coldly, "This is not up to you."
The old man laughed, and moved his leg over with strenuous effort. Feeling around for the metal chain that had been pierced through his kneecap, he lifted it for Ye Baiyi to see, and continued to make light of it, "What else can you do to me? Long Xiao, that little beast...has already kept me captive for three years. What else can you do to me?"
Looking at this old man, for whom even exhaling was a chore, lean against the bedpost with a faint, barely-there hint of a smile and a languorous demeanour, Zhou Zishu was suddenly reminded of those words that General Fan Kuai of a past era had uttered, "I am afraid of not even death; why would I refuse a mere cup of wine?", and he could not help himself from speculating what kind of person this Long Que was.
He was shockingly talented, yet, for one person, he would seclude himself from the bustle of humanity, and single-handedly construct the highly mysterious and perilous Puppet Manor; for a promise, to keep a secret, he lived through three years of Hell on Earth, and not even his own biological son could loosen his tongue...Zhou Zishu suddenly felt that because there was this old man--who was clinging onto his last breath of life--before his eyes, no one else in the whole jianghu was fit to be called a "noble hero".
The arm that Wen Kexing was hugging him with tightened abruptly, as though he wanted to press Zhou Zishu's whole body into his own. Zhou Zishu frowned slightly. Turning to look at him, he found Wen Kexing staring numbly at Long Que. There was no trace of laughter on his face, and for one moment, Zhou Zishu even thought that a glint of moisture might have flashed past in those incredibly dark eyes of his. But it was there for only a brief instant, and then it was gone.
He heard him tell Ye Baiyi. "Hey, old freak, since he's not willing to speak, stop asking for people to dislike you."
Ye Baiyi ignored him. Grabbing Long Que's arm, he said coldly, "I don't want to know about the Lapis Armour or the key or whatever it is. I only want to ask, how did Rong Xuan and his wife die all those years ago?"
He was gripping him so tightly that the veins on the back of his hands were bulging. An expression of pain showed on Long Que's face at the overly-tight grip, but still he insisted, "I'm not…"
Wen Kexing frowned, set Zhou Zishu down, and passed him off to Zhang Chengling. For some unclear reason, he snapped at Ye Baiyi in anger, "Old freak, haven't you had enough?"
Then, without prior warning, he suddenly made trouble by launching an attack at Ye Baiyi's back.
As Zhang Chengling supported Zhou Zishu's weight, he stared dumbly at Wen Kexing and Ye Baiyi brawling in a dizzying whirl of motion, slack-jawed. He did not understand at all why these comrades of earlier had suddenly fallen out with each other.
The commotion when these two brawled was not minor; this prison which held Long Que captive started shaking like there was an earthquake, as they went at each other with the force of demolishing a house. Each move of Wen Kexing's was wicked and brutal, as he was no longer holding back out of consideration for their relations. Incensed, Ye Baiyi rebuked, "Rascal, are you crazy?"
Wen Kexing humphed coldly. "You're an eyesore, and I want to beat you up. Can't I do so?"
Whenever Zhang Chengling encountered something that he did not understand, he asked for clarification, and thus, he asked Zhou Zishu, "Shifu…"
Zhou Zishu ignored him. His brow was tightly furrowed as the events seemed to suddenly take on an approximate shape in his mind. Suddenly enlightened, he pushed Zhang Chengling away, walked to Long Que's side, and sat down.
Long Que tilted his head to listen for a moment, then asked, "You've been injured?"
Zhou Zishu said, "Your son did this."
Long Que started to laugh. In a low and hoarse voice, he said, "That's fine...look at me, you're still decent."
Zhou Zishu did not speak, but started to closely examine the chains on his body. When it came to traps and mechanisms, he was completely at a loss; when it came to instruments of torture, however, none were more familiar with them than the ex-leader of Tian Chuang. Still, even after Zhou Zishu had looked over it repeatedly, he could not tell what that metal chain was made of. So he gave up, and told Long Que, "I'm at the limit of my abilities. Now that your son is dead, what's going to happen to you?"
Long Que thought about it, and said calmly, "It's time for me to die too--I should have died a long time ago, but he didn't let me. Now, no one can control what I do. In my whole life, the thing I regret the most is not educating Yu Zhui's son well. I know that he's my son too, but I always felt that he took Yu Zhui's life. If only...all these years, if I had only been a slightly better dad, I wouldn't have harmed him so."
Zhou Zishu felt there was reason in these words, and did not know how to comfort him either. In the end, he admitted honestly, "That is true."
By this point, Ye Baiyi and Wen Kexing had literally raised the roof. The two of them leapt outside and continued their fight, but this dark prison was greatly brightened all of a sudden. As though he could feel the sun, Long Que reached a trembling hand out to it, and sighed in deep satisfaction.
Zhou Zishu was about to speak when Ye Baiyi, unable to tolerate it any further, raged outside the house, "What are you sticking your nose in this for, rascal? Long, I have to know what happened to Rong Xuan all those years ago no matter what. He was my disciple!"
With this roar, even Long Que was given pause. Wen Kexing's leg froze in a horizontal sweep mid-air. Holding this comical posture, he regarded Ye Baiyi with an odd gaze, ruminating that since Rong Xuan and Long Que were of the same generation, and Ye Baiyi was Rong Xuan's shifu...could this Ye person really be a long-lived tortoise bastard?
Ye Baiyi glared at him frostily, and turned to return to the house. Standing in front of Long Que, he looked down upon him from a height, and said stiffly, "Back then, Rong Xuan stole the Six Harmonies Cultivation Mantra from me, left the mountain, and never returned. Today, because of what he has left behind, the pugilist world of the Central Plains has invoked the Realm's Command. Do I not deserve to know what happened all those years ago?"
Long Que asked, "You are Ye...Ye…"
"I am Ye Baiyi."
Long Que took a deep breath and shook his head, sighing. "I didn't think that Senior would still be alive…"
An elderly person whose hair and whiskers were entirely white was addressing a person with a young man's face "Senior"--this scene before his eyes was extremely uncanny.
Zhou Zishu thought for a bit, then interjected, "I stumbled across a Puppet Manor trap with two human puppets, male and female. There are many human puppets in this manor, but all of them are bare-headed, polished, and made from the same mould. None of them are like that couple, who were made with great detail and resembled actual human beings. Senior Long, that pair of human puppets of yours, were they you and your esteemed wife, or Rong Xuan and his wife?"
Long Que closed his eyes. A long while later, he finally replied, "Rong Xuan and his wife."
Zhou Zishu said in a soft voice, "In the end, they dashed each other's skulls to smithereens."
Long Que's hand trembled almost unnoticeably. Ye Baiyi asked, "Rong Xuan underwent a qi deviation?"
Long Que nodded silently, and said, "Indeed. Before Madam Rong died, he had already descended into insanity from qi deviation. Madam Rong died at his hands."