After a cloud of smoke, Kui Yanqing had vanished. Ming Huashang and the others were right outside — yet none of them had seen him run out. There must be a hidden passage nearby; Kui Yanqing had used the chaos to escape.
Xie Jichuan led the pursuit of Kui Yanqing, while Ming Huazhang remained to handle the aftermath at the Kui household. Kui Moyuan and Kui Zhutan stayed with Wu Kong in one of the side rooms to recover. Kui Bai Xuan, however, was held back.
Ming Huashang noticed this and deliberately slowed her steps — but Ming Huazhang caught her anyway. With the upper half of his face covered by a mask, his expression was unreadable, but those starry eyes settled steadily on Ming Huashang, leaving her no room for wishful thinking: “You three — go search for evidence.”
Ming Huashang sighed inwardly. With grounds this large, there was so much to search. Ming Huazhang was clearly determined to keep her from hearing what came next. Ming Huashang could only follow the example of the others and bow: “As you command.”
Kui Bai Xuan, too, understood the situation. Once the extra people had left and the door had just closed behind them, Kui Bai Xuan voluntarily knelt before Ming Huazhang. “My lord, you came because of the puppets, did you not.”
Ming Huazhang sat at the head seat, upright as a jade idol. He concealed any reaction and asked, “What puppets?”
Kui Bai Xuan gritted her teeth and confessed of her own accord: “This commoner deserves to die. Some time ago, I was blinded by vanity and fame and committed the treasonous act of making prohibited puppets. After completing them, I regretted it. Even when the distinguished patron came back with further demands, I kept stalling and never delivered the work.”
Ming Huazhang raised an eyebrow. His cool voice gave nothing away: “And so you are expecting a reward for that?”
Kui Bai Xuan gave a bitter smile. “How would this commoner dare. I was out of my senses at the beginning, but later came to my senses — only to find myself already in an impossible position. I knew I would not come out of this unscathed. It was while in this state of dread and despair that I happened to witness Senior Apprentice-Brother and Junior Apprentice-Sister performing a puppet duet — and then quarreled with Master — with that scoundrel Kui Yanqing. My emotions completely collapsed, and I came up with the idea of staging a haunting as revenge.”
Kui Bai Xuan gave a self-mocking smile. “It turns out I was utterly foolish — I actually thought that faking my own death could torment those people. Harming oneself can only be used to threaten those who care about you. Apart from that, it is completely useless. Even if I had died, Kui Yanqing would not have felt even a moment’s remorse. After all that upheaval, I have come to understand: floating reputation and worldly gain are nothing but external things. All my life I have fought and grasped for them — but what I truly sought was only for someone to love me and value me. I thought I had nothing. Yet it turns out Senior Apprentice-Brother, Junior Apprentice-Sister — and even my father — were all thinking of me.”
She raised her head. A brilliant light flared in her eyes, and in that moment her unremarkable face was no less radiant than any beauty: “My lord, all this commoner desires for the remainder of her life is to stay with her family and begin a new life. I beg you for mercy! As long as you will spare my father’s life and mine, I will willingly hand over the puppet blueprints and the patron’s information.”
Ming Huazhang appeared completely unmoved: “I could obtain those things by capturing Kui Yanqing. Why should I agree to your terms?”
Kui Bai Xuan said, “Since we have come this far, I will speak plainly. The distinguished patron initially approached Kui Yanqing, but Kui Yanqing’s puppet-making craft had fallen into neglect from years of socializing at banquets. Every single puppet was made by my own hands. No one knows the details better than I do. Kui Yanqing used the promise of my marriage to Senior Apprentice-Brother as an enticement, and I genuinely wanted to distinguish myself before that powerful figure — so I worked on the commission myself with great care. But when I completed it and looked at those puppets — so lifelike, so uncannily human — a chill crept up my spine, and I realized I had likely gotten myself into very serious trouble. Breaking the contract would only mean offending that great personage, so I steeled myself and left some special preparations in the puppets.”
Ming Huazhang’s eyes were like a still, cold lake. His fingers moved slowly over the saber hilt. “What preparations?”
“Powder from butterfly wings,” Kui Bai Xuan said. “This is what female butterflies use for courtship. Wherever the powder is left — even a single speck fallen along the path — a male butterfly can follow the scent and track it.”
Kui Bai Xuan had been abducted as a small child, then sold into bondage in a wealthy household, and later fell to the southern market after offending someone. She had suffered too many losses, and had been forced to learn: a person must always keep one card in reserve. Otherwise, those above her would leave not even bones behind.
The patron had been very pleased with the sample and soon asked her to produce more of the same kind of puppets. Kui Bai Xuan was even more frightened: she understood that a patron who spoke with such open confidence had no intention of letting her live.
So she kept dragging her feet, unable to bring herself to finish the second batch. On the fourteenth day of the second month, she had a great quarrel with Kui Yanqing — the marriage proposal was only the trigger, but the true cause was that her progress was too slow and she had thoroughly exhausted Kui Yanqing’s patience. He locked her in the workshop and refused to let her out until the work was done.
Kui Bai Xuan sat in that cold and dark workshop, and the last thread holding her fraying sanity finally snapped.
If she didn’t finish, she would die. If she did finish, even if the powerful patron didn’t silence her, Kui Yanqing would squeeze the life out of her forever — so what difference was there between life and death? What had she ever done wrong? Why was the world unwilling to grant her even a fraction of mercy?
With clear eyes, she went about doing a mad thing. She stayed awake through a full day and night, remaking the half-finished puppet into a woman’s body — an exact replica of herself.
When it was done, her eyes were a net of red threads, yet Kui Bai Xuan felt not the slightest exhaustion. She placed the puppet on the floor, smashed the area into disorder to fake a murder scene, and then waited for people outside to discover her.
Making a puppet bleed was a technique she had learned long ago — and with bitter irony, she had learned it because of Senior Apprentice-Brother.
Kui Bai Xuan’s life had been a dark, wordless shadow play. Kui Moyuan was the only ray of sunlight that had ever stumbled into it. She could never forget how, in the aftermath of those times when she had been violated and humiliated, he would come to her as if he knew nothing, drape a garment over her, bring her outside, and gently wash her face.
Kui Bai Xuan could not help but love that warmth, yet sunlight loves only sunlight. A new junior apprentice-sister arrived at the Kui household — a woman everything Kui Bai Xuan was not — and Senior Apprentice-Brother’s gaze quickly moved away.
Kui Bai Xuan hated the woman who had taken Senior Apprentice-Brother away. Even when Kui Zhutan stumbled over to greet her, she would cruelly shove her to the ground.
As time went on, Kui Zhutan stopped daring to approach Kui Bai Xuan. But Kui Bai Xuan could not stop her apprentice-brother from loving her apprentice-sister. He would secretly sing tender, sentimental verses with Kui Zhutan, their voices weaving into each other. Kui Bai Xuan watched that scene from far away. Just a few steps apart, and yet to her they were an uncrossable chasm.
Even though she had also learned puppetry using silk threads.
She had practiced for years, refining it to perfection. And in the end, it amounted to nothing more than a one-person performance, with no audience.
Though her puppet theatre never drew a watcher, she did learn a new technique: making a puppet bleed. The operator, singing the verses of parting and death, would secretly pull a fine thread at the crucial moment, withdrawing a hidden layer, allowing the blood prepared inside to flow out. But this puppet mechanism was so intricate and the demands on the operator so high that it was rarely seen.
From this, Kui Bai Xuan had conceived the idea of making a puppet die in her place. On one level, this was her revenge against the Kui household; on another, she hoped that through this false death, she might escape with her life.
Everything that followed developed even more smoothly than she had imagined. The person who opened the door was her Senior Apprentice-Brother. She hid out of sight and, when he pushed the door open, pulled the thread loose and let the blood flow.
Senior Apprentice-Brother found nothing amiss. As the people outside scattered in fright, Kui Bai Xuan seized her chance to emerge, then went to find Hua Nu as she had planned.
She knew Hua Nu harbored improper intentions toward her. Going to him now was no different from a lamb walking into a tiger’s den — but she had no choice. In her wild determination to take revenge on everything, she went to find the person she most despised, already prepared to sacrifice herself.
To her surprise, Hua Nu made no move to press for anything further. He only watched her in silence. Under Hua Nu’s protection, Kui Bai Xuan began her ghost-playing within the household grounds. She carried a puppet identical to herself and performed her one-person show in the deep of night — and even when passersby caught sight of her, she did not restrain herself.
She went about making a scene in the Kui household, frantic and uncontrolled. She herself did not know whether, in her heart, she wished to be discovered or not.
When she placed the false corpse, she had also harbored a dark and humble wish — if Senior Apprentice-Brother saw her dead, would he grieve? But Senior Apprentice-Brother had not mourned her death. Instead, it was the little Junior Apprentice-Sister who had been visibly downcast for many days.
How laughable the things of this world could be.
If not for this group of black-clad figures who had descended from nowhere, Kui Bai Xuan might never have learned the truth in all her life. She had pursued Kui Moyuan for so many years — yet in this moment, she suddenly felt herself let go.
Loving someone is not wrong. Not loving someone is not wrong either. And everyone was right: Senior Apprentice-Brother and Junior Apprentice-Sister were simply the most fitting match.
She was so tired. If it were possible — she wanted to go somewhere without a master, without a senior apprentice-brother, and start over.
Ming Huazhang showed no reaction — even though what Kui Bai Xuan offered was very tempting to him. The Xuan Xiaowei had received intelligence suggesting someone might move against the Crown Prince’s investiture ceremony, and Ming Huazhang had traced the lead to the Kui household.
The person behind it was not difficult to guess. Among those with cause to oppose the Crown Prince, the pool was not large. But what truly mattered at this juncture was not retaliation — it was ensuring the investiture ceremony proceeded without incident.
The Empress’s mind changed with the wind. No one could guarantee that if the ceremony failed, the Empress would still be willing to pass the throne to Prince Luling. With the future of the Great Tang and the Li imperial family’s decade of silent endurance hanging in the balance, the investiture three days from now could not afford a single mishap.
Ming Huazhang maintained his expression of cool, indifferent disinterest, and said: “Hand over the butterfly wing powder and the male butterfly. Do not attempt any tricks. You have made enemies — there is no shortage of people who want you dead. Only if you make a full and honest confession does any chance of protecting your whole family exist.”
Kui Bai Xuan’s eyes brightened. She hurried to comply: “Thank you, my lord! I have kept the butterfly wing powder with me at all times — it is all here. The male butterfly is in the garden. Please follow me.”
Kui Bai Xuan offered up a slender-mouthed porcelain vial with both hands. Ming Huazhang examined it carefully, turning it once to verify it was not poisoned. He opened it and glanced inside, then said coolly, “Lead the way.”
Ming Huashang, Jiang Ling, and Ren Yao were standing in Kui Yanqing’s room, searching for evidence in the dark. Jiang Ling had a head full of question marks, and found an opportunity to ask: “Ming Huashang, how did you know what kind of person the killer was?”
Ming Huashang had only walked around the crime scene and accurately identified the killer’s sex, age, and personality — it was truly astonishing. Ming Huashang said: “It’s not as mystical as it seems, actually. If not for all the clues laid out in the days before, I couldn’t have built the picture either.”
“Still remarkable.” Jiang Ling said, “You had only just finished speaking when the Kui household servant recognized it as Kui Bai Xuan. That was extraordinary. I was starting to think you and Ming Huazhang had rehearsed the whole thing as a performance.”
“That’s right.” Ren Yao, unusually, agreed with Jiang Ling for once, and asked: “Huashang, how did you actually do it?”
Unable to fend them off, Ming Huashang explained: “All things in the world follow their own patterns — and killers are no different. What a person has experienced shapes how they think and what they do, and those patterns leave traces. What’s more, people who have lived through similar things tend to think in similar ways. So as long as you identify the traces they have left behind and categorize them, you can form a general picture of what kind of person they are and what they have been through. I was only doing the work of categorization. The credit belongs to everyone.”
Ren Yao could not entirely picture what that experience felt like, but she grasped the general meaning of what Ming Huashang was saying.
Ming Huashang was empathetic and reasonable, highly attuned to others’ feelings. With emotional perception this keen, she could pick up on the psychological traces a killer had left at a crime scene and work backwards to infer what kind of person the killer was.
Ren Yao marveled at this and said with sincerity: “You are the most exceptional young woman I have ever encountered. General Han was not wrong about you. I believe that in time, you will make a name for yourself within the Xuan Xiaowei.”
“Please, don’t.” Ming Huashang could not accept such a compliment. “I only want to live a quiet and peaceful life. Let others build the great achievements.”
Jiang Ling turned the thought over for a while and finally came to a realization. “Wait — something doesn’t add up. If you could sketch out a portrait of the killer from the start, you should have been the first one called here! We spent days investigating, and the whole time our direction was wrong — we didn’t even get the sex right. Hasn’t all this been a waste?”
Ming Huazhang had just reached the doorway and happened to hear these words. He paused, then kept his expression neutral as he knocked on the door to alert those inside that he had arrived: “Did you find any evidence?”
Ming Huashang turned around and, seeing it was Ming Huazhang, brightened at once. “Second Elder Brother, you’re here! We found some letters and account books, but we’re not sure whether they count as evidence.”
“They do.” Ming Huazhang was concise and direct. “Take everything that could be of value. We’ll look through it all properly once we’re back.”
Jiang Ling understood and let himself loose rummaging through boxes and drawers with the enthusiasm of a ransacker. Ming Huashang picked up on something slightly off, and asked: “Elder Brother, what do you intend to do here?”
Ming Huazhang inwardly sighed. She was far too perceptive — she had already caught it from that one remark. Since she had, there was no reason to conceal it, and he said straightforwardly: “A fire will break out here. The entire Kui household will burn.”
An operation this sweeping left even Ren Yao and Jiang Ling unable to conceal their astonishment. After Ming Huazhang left, Jiang Ling could not help saying: “Burning down someone’s whole home over a few puppets — the Xuan Xiaowei really is ruthless.”
“No.” Ming Huashang did not turn around. She watched the upright silhouette growing smaller in the night ahead and said, “It’s the exact opposite. He did this to protect those people’s lives.”
Kui Moyuan and Kui Zhutan had already received the judgment that fate had for them. They had two choices: stay and keep the Kui household’s wealth, bearing the consequences that came with it; or let the household burn down, lose all their possessions, but take on new identities and live elsewhere, outside the capital.
Kui Moyuan and Kui Zhutan naturally chose the second option without hesitation. Wu Kong’s neck still bore the redness of finger marks, but he could manage to speak. “Young man, the Kui household has accumulated considerable wealth over the years. By rights, this inheritance should be yours. You are throwing it all away — do you have no regrets?”
“None.” Kui Moyuan looked at the dark compound and said, “This is my Master’s wealth — not mine. A man worthy of the name should earn money by his own hands. How could he spend his days hoping to inherit someone else’s property?”
Kui Moyuan looked at Kui Zhutan. She quietly took his hand. A thousand words passed between them in silence.
Kui Moyuan had thought it through clearly: the Kui household had now gotten itself into serious trouble. Even if it were given to him, he could not hold onto it — so he might as well wander the world with the woman he loved.
Kui Yanqing had never kept anything from him, and Kui Moyuan naturally knew about the unusual commission. From the very beginning, he had felt uneasy. The craftsmen who built imperial tombs were silenced afterward — once the Second Apprentice-Sister finished those puppets, could she still come out alive? He had urged his Master to let it go on many occasions, but his Master’s eyes were blinded by fame and fortune and would not stop no matter how good the moment to quit.
So when he discovered Kui Bai Xuan’s false death, he didn’t expose her. He helped her keep the lie. Partly it was guilt — he had known the Second Apprentice-Sister’s situation all along but had never dared to stand up and stop it. He owed her for that. And partly it was to save his own neck.
He understood that the Second Apprentice-Sister had feelings for him, but pity and guilt were ultimately not the same as love. Kui Moyuan held Kui Zhutan tighter and said: “Besides — this household holds too much evil within its walls. All these years living here, I was never happy. I miss those earlier days when Master and I roamed the world freely. Master has no desire to look back, but I can take Zhutan and build a home that belongs to just the two of us, from nothing.”
Wu Kong watched the two of them, so deeply devoted to each other, and couldn’t help looking over at Kui Bai Xuan with a worried expression. But to his surprise, Kui Bai Xuan seemed quite calm. She could not yet bring herself to feel genuinely happy for her Senior Apprentice-Brother — but she said with sincerity: “I wish you both happiness.”
Kui Bai Xuan and Kui Zhutan met each other’s eyes. Both gave a faint smile and then looked away.
All these years, disputes over the household and entanglements of feeling had been real. There had been moments when they genuinely despised each other. But they were still apprentice-sisters. When the other was treated unjustly, violated, or threatened with her very life — both would protect each other without a moment’s hesitation, doing everything within their power.
This world was saturated with self-interest and wickedness — it was not a beautiful place at all. But neither was it completely ugly, nor steeped in false virtue. In places you did not know, someone was quietly loving you.
Tung oil had been poured in every direction. A single spark fell, and the fire leapt skyward. Wu Kong watched the Kui household burn with great, roaring flames, and suddenly recalled an image from years ago — himself and his apprentice-brother rehearsing a piece together.
The piece they had been practicing then was the one that later became Kui Yanqing’s signature work: Passing On.
One song of Passing On. When the song ends, all is truly passed on.
Wu Kong, father and daughter, and Kui Moyuan, husband and wife, exchanged no words about where they were each headed. Perhaps never meeting again in this life was, after all, the best possible ending.
·
Kui Yanqing had flung the smoke bomb, and while the others were blinded, he had swiftly opened the hidden passage in the room and fled for his life.
The passage exit was inside a dry well. Kui Yanqing climbed out, scrambled and stumbled his way to the Bodhi Temple.
The temple served as a medical hall, a school, and also an inn. A payment of incense money was enough to rent a small courtyard or guest room within. The Bodhi Temple’s western section was home to quite a few scholars and traveling merchants. Kui Yanqing scaled the temple wall; he was in such a panic that he gave no thought at all to how conspicuous this would look to others. He knocked on the door — bang, bang, bang.
After a moment, the door opened. Inside was a thin, sickly-looking young man who had the appearance of a down-on-his-luck scholar. Seeing Kui Yanqing, his expression became even more unpleasant: “It’s you? Where is the item?”
“Something terrible has happened!” Kui Yanqing said frantically. “A group of men in black showed up at the Kui household — they’re going to kill me! You promised me: as long as I completed what Prince Wei asked for, you would guarantee my safety and prosperity!”
The scholar’s expression darkened further. He cast a quiet glance behind him — dense grass and trees all around, only the night wind sweeping through. The scholar stepped aside: “Come in first and explain.”
Kui Yanqing, still in the grip of terror, stepped inside. The scholar carefully scanned the area behind him, assured there was no one following, and then firmly shut the door. He did not invite Kui Yanqing into the room and asked directly: “How did you get here?”
“The hidden passage.”
The scholar felt a measure of relief and asked again: “Were the puppets finished?”
Kui Yanqing’s expression was guilty. He shook his head.
The scholar had not expected anything else, but disappointment was still hard to hide. He asked: “Were the puppets all made by your own hands?”
A flicker of something passed through Kui Yanqing’s chest — but years of taking credit for his apprentices’ work had worn down what little shame he’d had left, and he answered without blinking: “Of course. Every piece was done personally by me — no one else handled any of it.”
Kui Yanqing thought that by exaggerating his own talents, Prince Wei would value that skill and take even greater pains to preserve his life. The scholar did nod with genuine admiration: “You have worked hard during this time, Director Kui. Now — describe those black-robed figures to me: what did they look like? What markings did they have? What did they say to you?”
The scholar’s questioning made Kui Yanqing realize he knew essentially nothing about those mysterious men. He tried hard to recall, but his only impression was a sea of black.
That day, he had been searching Kui Bai Xuan’s room for the blueprints. That miserable woman had given him trouble even in death. Kui Yanqing knew Kui Moyuan was hiding things from him, but the most pressing matter now was finishing the puppets Prince Wei had commissioned — everything else could wait.
He had no time to investigate Kui Bai Xuan’s death and had poured all his energy into making the puppets. The puppet techniques had been his to begin with — he had taught them to Kui Bai Xuan. He firmly believed that as long as he found the blueprints, he could reproduce the work.
He had spent several days searching and had at last found the hidden compartment — only to be knocked unconscious before he could even take a single look at the blueprints. He was roused by the sound of broken fragments of conversation, and recognized Kui Bai Xuan’s voice among them. The shock nearly stopped his heart.
But both his hands and feet were bound, and his mouth was gagged. All he could do was glare to express his fury.
As for the black-clad men who had tied him up — he realized he had not seen the other person from start to finish, let alone registered any of their features.
Kui Yanqing frowned and said: “I didn’t get a clear look at the one who bound me. But through the screen I could see a black-robed man — very tall, wearing half a mask. The lower jaw and face structure were impressive, and the voice sounded quite young.”
There was no shortage of people in the capital who matched that description. The scholar was somewhat disappointed, though he had never expected much from Kui Yanqing.
Kui Yanqing was still frowning, trying to remember — why did he have a strange sense of familiarity? That voice — he seemed to have heard it before.
Young Master Cui!
The very instant that surname surfaced in Kui Yanqing’s mind, a sharp pain stabbed into his abdomen. He stared at the man before him in disbelief.
The scholar withdrew a short blade, looking at him with contempt, and let him fall to the ground: “A common entertainer of the lowest calling, and yet he dares to try to climb into the Prince’s good graces. Laughable.”
Saying this, the scholar frowned, and then his pupils suddenly contracted: “Wait — you were knocked unconscious. Why were you placed in a room with a hidden passage?”
But it was already too late. In the dark night, a flash of snow-white light cut through the air, and before the scholar could run, he was already caught and subdued by the black-clad figures. Xie Jichuan stepped forward, personally dislocated the scholar’s jaw with his own hands, then produced a handkerchief and wiped his hands with unhurried ease. He looked down at Kui Yanqing with a gentle smile: “Jingzhan was right. Once a person loses control, death is not far off. You were too panicked. What you should have noticed — was that it was we who carried you into the room with the hidden passage.”
“But it doesn’t matter.” Xie Jichuan let go. The handkerchief drifted slowly to the ground. He revealed the first genuine smile he’d had in many days: “Using your worthless life to draw out one of Prince Wei’s trusted confidants — worth it. I hope in the realm of the dead, you get to live the life of luxury you always dreamed of.”
Kui Yanqing’s eyes stared wide open, fixed blankly on the night sky, as if he had just seen something of extraordinary shock. Xie Jichuan turned and saw the direction of the Kui household glowing with great, roaring flames.
“So they burned it all down,” Xie Jichuan said, shaking his head. His expression was gentle, but those eyes held not a drop of warmth. “Good. A clean end to it all.”