The night deepened. Clouds veiled the moon and silence settled over the village, but inside the Tian household unrest brewed like a gathering storm.
Li Tian sat alone in the ancestral hall, a single candle guttering before him. His hands clenched so tightly on his knees that cords of muscle stood out along his forearms. He had not spoken since the clan meeting, yet his mind churned with an unquiet turmoil.
"Those fools," he muttered to the empty room. "One moment of weakness and the entire clan's reputation trembles." Scenes of the day replayed behind his eyelids—the agonized cries of Fu Yang, the villagers' rising wrath, Bai Nian's measured decisions. For the first time he truly felt how brittle the common folk's trust could be; stoke it the wrong way and it would become a fire no elder could easily smother.
He ground his teeth until his jaw ached. "Haaaah… I'm going crazy. One problem is never solved before another appears. But the main problem is still the frogs. Where are those damn frogs?" The thought of the missing spiritual frogs gnawed at him sharper than the memory of shamed sons or the village's whispers. The ceremony approached and the frogs were central—without them the clan's preparations would be compromised.
"The ceremony is approaching, and that bastard will now be accepted as a student. Humph—bastard." As he cursed, memories crowded in, unbidden and raw.
He saw himself younger—smiling awkwardly as a sibling draped a robe over his shoulders, the innocence of a boy convinced the world still belonged to him. Then the memory snapped like a reed. "Aah… why? Why are you leaving me here alone? Why choose that guy over me?
Why—" His sister's voice in his memory, her defiance when she told him she loved another. "Just leave me alone.I love him. Why shouldn't I? You're jealous—who are you to stop me?" She had left him then. Months later she returned, heavy with a secret. "Brother, please—have pity on me and on my child. Forgive me. I came back; we can be together again."
Li Tian's reply in that recalled moment was cold and final: "I do not speak to whores. I will pity the child, though. Take her to the pig shed. If she cannot accept that life, throw her out of my sight. I do not care whether she lives or dies."
So she had been shunned to the shed, and the weeks had been brutal. Fu Yang was born into that shame. His mother resented him for every mark he bore of the man who had left.
On restless nights she would press her hands to the infant's throat, strangling him briefly and weeping, "Why—why did you leave me?" Then she would stop, and the infant would breathe on.
One night a guard reported that she had nearly killed the child. "Enough," Li Tian had said then, eyes hard. "I do not care whether the boy lives or dies. I only want to see this bitch suffer." Shortly after, the woman had disappeared into the dark—whether she fled or died, no one could say for certain.
Snapped back into the present, Li Tian rose from his seat, a glint of hollow sadness passing his face as he left the ancestral hall. The night swallowed his footsteps.
—
In the medicine hall, Fu Yang lay on a straw pallet. The physician had examined him and declared there was nothing seriously wrong—only shock and exhaustion. Outside the thin walls, villagers whispered like a breeze through dry grass: pity here, quiet fury there. "Poor child." "He has suffered so much." "And still the clan protects its own when they are wrong." Each whisper planted a seed; left unattended, seeds like these took root and grew into a thicket no elder wished to fight.
Fu Yang opened his eyes slowly. The tear tracks on his cheeks shone faintly, but the welling had stopped. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—a private grin the dim room could not read. (They fell for it. Good. Very good. As long as they see me as a victim, I can hide in their shadow and cultivate unseen.)
He pulled the thin blanket up and allowed himself to sleep, the smile lingering like a secret.
—
The next day the elders delivered their verdict: Fu Yang would be accepted as an inner disciple without examination, and he would receive ten spiritual stones as compensation. The announcement spread like a balm; villagers breathed easier and Bai Nian's name was praised from every mouth. For the elders, it was a tidy solution—public sympathy pacified, the ceremony saved, the village reassured. For Fu Yang, it was another playpiece set neatly onto the board.
Days slipped by until the eve before the acceptance ceremony. Bai Nian and the other elders visited the medicine hall, their steps measured, their expressions soft as they posed gentle questions designed to test a child's spirit. "Little one, are you well here? Are they taking good care of you?" Bai Nian asked, his voice honeyed.
Fu Yang, still smudged with dust and the shadow of the night's drama, answered in a small, obedient voice, "Yes, sir. They take very good care of me and give me food and jerky."
"Haha—what a good child," Bai Nian said, smiling. The others exchanged quiet nods. Then, steered by duty, Bai Nian shifted the conversation to the night's incident. "So you took a bath, and Ryo gave you clothes. Tell me—what happened after that? Do you know how the building caught fire?"
Fu Yang replied simply, each word measured. "Sir leader, Ryo took me to a room. There was a huge bed and I lay on it." Mo Mi's face tightened in disgust at the innocence of the image. "I waited for Shin Tian," Fu Yang continued. "But suddenly Ryo came back and we fled immediately. The building was on fire. I stood there, looking at it burn. That's all I know."
The elders prodded further. "Do you know where Ryo is?" Xiang Xi asked, concern cracking his usual sneer.
"What brother Ryo is missing?"
The elder's understood this boy didn't know anything.And they left after asking other questions, like if he saw someone where was the last time he saw ryo?
On the narrow pallet, Fu Yang smiled inwardly as they departed. (Ryo—be grateful. Your sacrifice was not in vain.) The smile in his mind sharpened into something colder as he stifled a quiet, soft sound—half a chuckle, half a hiss of satisfaction. HEHEHEHE.