What the others thought of, the Eldest Princess, who was already uneasy and anxious, could naturally also think of. She raised her head to meet Kong Hou’s gaze, her frightened eyes carrying several parts compromise.
Under everyone’s gaze, she stood and said: “Thank you for Xianzi’s concern. Everything is well.”
“That’s good then.” Kong Hou saw the Eldest Princess’s features carried melancholic energy and sighed. “Back then, the Eldest Princess wanted to hear me play a kong hou piece, but due to coincidental circumstances it couldn’t be done. Meeting again today, let me make up this kong hou piece.”
Hearing these words, the Eldest Princess’s expression became even more uneasy. Back then she had forced Ji Kong Hou to play a piece in front of everyone—this was something everyone now wanted to deliberately forget. However, they had forgotten that while they could play dumb and claim ignorance about many things, the person involved might not necessarily be willing to cooperate.
“No… no need…”
“The Eldest Princess need not be polite.” Kong Hou pulled out her phoenix-headed hairpin. The hairpin transformed into a massive phoenix-headed kong hou, and under everyone’s amazed and worried gazes, Kong Hou lightly plucked the strings once. “With this piece, I wish all the people under heaven peace and prosperity.”
Emperor Jing Hong felt somewhat uneasy inside. He unconsciously turned his head to look at the empress beside him. The empress lowered her head drinking tea, seeming not to have noticed his gaze. Emperor Jing Hong was stunned, suddenly remembering many years ago, when he was not yet emperor—whenever his heart was anxious and restless, looking toward his wife would always earn him her comforting smile.
After he became emperor, he had rarely sought help from the empress in front of outsiders. Looking at the empress’s profile that was no longer young, Emperor Jing Hong felt somewhat dazed. It seemed he hadn’t been alone with the empress, sharing their hearts, for a very long time.
Delicate hands plucked the strings. The sound of the kong hou arose, the haunting music like a demon that could bewitch the heart and mind, stirring up people’s most genuine emotions.
The expressionless empress, the regretful and remorseful emperor, the civil and military officials with varied expressions, and the Eldest Princess ceaselessly weeping and calling out “Yanxing.” One kong hou piece drew out countless human joys and sorrows, partings and reunions.
The Yanxing from the Eldest Princess’s mouth was her former husband, a talented scholar known throughout the world. The Eldest Princess and Scholar Yanxing had been loving husband and wife, harmonious as the qin and se instruments. Later, Scholar Yanxing had been framed by treacherous people and lost his life in the Court of Judicial Review. The Eldest Princess was grief-stricken to the point of despair, hating the deposed Emperor Ji to the bone. Even toward Kong Hou, this five or six-year-old fallen princess, her hatred overflowed like the heavens.
The man she loved had died at the hands of the muddled emperor’s trusted ministers. Though the Eldest Princess still appeared to be a bright and charming woman on the surface, she had long since gone mad inside. She hated the incompetent emperor, hated those treacherous ministers jealous of the worthy and able, hated everyone in the Ji clan.
What she hated most, however, was being separated from Yanxing in life and death, never to meet again. After Yanxing’s death, she had done many things for her elder brother. After overthrowing the deposed Emperor Ji, she became the honored Eldest Princess. Her every laugh, curse, and anger had to maintain the imperial family’s dignity, and she had never shed a single tear for Yanxing.
Yanxing had been dead for thirteen years. The pomegranate tree she had planted for him had long since blossomed and borne fruit, yet she couldn’t wait for the person who would eat pomegranates with her.
Proud, strong, and cold—all emotions became nothing under this piece. The music was the floodgate opening the dam. Emotions accumulated over many years surged out and could no longer be restrained.
Kong Hou looked at the Eldest Princess covering her face and weeping bitterly, and sighed softly.
When she was young, she only felt the Eldest Princess was aggressive and extremely unfriendly toward her. Now stepping outside that grievance and looking at the Eldest Princess and the Ji imperial dynasty’s enmity again, all that remained for Kong Hou was sighing.
She had been ignored by her birth father. As a princess, she had rarely seen her own father emperor.
The Eldest Princess had originally been a woman of refined heart and orchid nature, but had been destroyed by the former dynasty’s treacherous ministers.
The two of them—one a princess of the former dynasty, one the Eldest Princess of the current dynasty—were actually both victims of this great calamity.
After the music sounded, the empress had a moment of absent-mindedness, but didn’t completely fall into her own emotions. She looked at the emperor beside her who seemed both sad and happy, turned her head away, stood up, and walked toward Kong Hou.
Just as she was about to approach Kong Hou from behind, the white-robed immortal lord standing beside her, cold as a sculpture, turned his head to look at her. In his dark pupils was an emotionless scrutiny.
The empress stopped walking and curtsied to the white-robed immortal lord.
She had never seen such a strikingly handsome man. Even Young Master Yanxing, who had been famous throughout the capital back then, was far inferior to this immortal lord.
The music stopped abruptly. Kong Hou stood and walked to the Eldest Princess who had cried until she nearly fainted, extended her hand, and lightly touched the Eldest Princess’s forehead. The Eldest Princess’s crying gradually stopped. She raised her head to look at Kong Hou, her face full of tear stains, extremely disheveled.
Placing a handkerchief in the Eldest Princess’s hands, Kong Hou didn’t console her, only smiled at her, then stood and looked toward the assembled ministers.
Some sorrows, when hidden in the heart for too long, would become pain carved on the tip of the heart, unable to find release even unto death.
Weeping was sometimes not weakness, but an outlet for emotions.
Clutching the soft handkerchief in her hand, the Eldest Princess gradually came back to her senses. She wiped her face—it was entirely covered with undried tears. Using the handkerchief to wipe her face, only then did she come back to her senses in her daze. This handkerchief… was given to her by Ji Kong Hou?
She looked around. Almost everyone still hadn’t recovered from the music and hadn’t noticed her loss of composure. Biting the corner of her lip, her emotions complex, she stood up: “Thank you, Kong Hou Xianzi.”
“Don’t you feel much better in your heart now?” Kong Hou smiled at her. “Remember to rest well and open your heart, otherwise it won’t benefit your body.”
The Eldest Princess smiled bitterly: “My beloved is gone. For this widow, what does it matter whether I weep bitterly or grieve?”
She had promised Yanxing she would live well, so she absolutely wouldn’t break faith with him. Who knew if, decades from now at the Bridge of Helplessness, he would appear?
As a princess of the former dynasty, Kong Hou had no standing to console her further. She only tapped the top of the Eldest Princess’s head: “If that’s so, then please take care, Eldest Princess.”
“Thank you.” The Eldest Princess’s voice was very small, but for cultivators, it was already sufficient to hear clearly.
“Kong Hou Xianzi, can you let me see him one more time?” As soon as these words left her mouth, the Eldest Princess immediately changed her mind. “Forget it, forget it. Better not to see him again. He would still be a graceful young gentleman, while I’ve become a woman with wrinkles climbing to the corners of my eyes. Better to meet than not to meet.”
Life and death, old age and youth—these were the most ruthless blades in emotions. Even the most beautiful love could only be helpless before them.
Kong Hou didn’t understand romantic love, but in the Eldest Princess she saw pain and reluctance. Such persistent love—even death couldn’t sever it. Could this thing called romantic love actually have such powerful force?
“Xianzi.” The empress looked at the officials throughout the hall who had lost their wits, walked before Kong Hou: “I wonder how to wake them?”
Kong Hou shook her head: “Those without concerns in their hearts will wake very soon. As for…” Her tone suddenly paused. The Shuishuang Sword cut through the long sky, flying straight toward an official sitting in a corner.
Not expecting Kong Hou would suddenly explode with emotion, she was stunned for a moment, and an absurd yet terrifying thought surged in her heart. What if Ji Kong Hou came to the mortal realm and didn’t want to leave? Then wouldn’t the entire realm become objects in her pocket?
Immortals and mortals were different. Things that left these mortals helpless might be insignificant small matters in an immortal’s eyes, truly not worth mentioning.
“As for evildoers, they should face judgment before the heavenly way.”
After discovering he was being hunted, that official sitting in the corner suddenly let out a strange cry and retreated repeatedly.
But Kong Hou clearly didn’t plan to let him off so easily. The magical artifact in her hand blazed with great light. “Found you.”
Only then did the empress understand—it turned out there was someone with unclear identity and unclear purpose among them.
The captured official struggled on the ground for a while. Seeing Kong Hou’s expressionless appearance, he opened his mouth to plead: “Please forgive this lowly one, Immortal. This lowly one knows his error.”
“Immortal?” Kong Hou raised her eyebrows. “My identity—how did you learn of it?”
“I… I saw the immortal’s heroic bearing from afar this morning, so I have some understanding of Xianzi’s identity.”
“Is that so?” Kong Hou looked at the official kneeling on the ground unable to move, her tone strange: “I thought you were a subordinate sent by evil cultivators, and that even the epidemic outbreak now couldn’t be separated from you all.”
“That’s not so.” The official hastily said, “The epidemic’s infectious power is strong. How would we lowly ones dare approach?”
“We lowly ones—which people does this refer to?” Kong Hou pointed at heaven and earth. “Please explain clearly, fellow daoist.”
Hearing the words “fellow daoist,” the captured official’s entire body went rigid, then returned to normal: “This lowly one doesn’t understand what the immortal means.”
Kong Hou laughed coldly, using her sword to point at this person’s nose: “As a cultivator, one should stay far from the red dust, not letting oneself be stained by too much red dust. You, as a cultivator, disguised as an ordinary person, hiding among civil and military officials, carrying malevolent energy—you’re definitely connected to the epidemic.”
The moment she stepped onto the sacrificial platform, she had discovered thick malevolent energy and resentful energy from the southeast direction. Then hearing the Crown Prince say the most severely affected areas of the epidemic were also these regions, Kong Hou had an understanding in her heart.
Evil cultivators were audaciously bold, using living people’s lives as sacrifices, borrowing the lives of the mortal realm’s common people to realize some absurd ambition. Lingyou Realm’s management was strict, and all the major sects would protect the common people under their names, so it was very difficult for evil cultivators to find such a massive group of people for sacrifice.
To avoid the cultivators of famous orthodox sects, the mortal realm became the best choice. Though spiritual energy here was thin and there were no spirit flowers or spirit grasses, there were many people, and no orthodox cultivators came to interfere.
Weak humans were like leeks waiting to be cut, crop after crop. With these dead wrathful spirits, that magical artifact sufficient to change the color of the heavens was about to be awakened.
Kong Hou guessed that with evil cultivators’ contempt for humans and their love of watching them in miserable conditions, they would definitely arrange for subordinates to lurk among humans, then smugly appreciate how people walked from worry toward despair.
This mentality of evil cultivators enjoying appreciating others’ misfortunes was not something normal people could understand.
Arriving at the great hall without attracting attention, she took advantage of when everyone heard the music and their spirits were in a daze to control this evil cultivator—it was the simplest method.
Having lost the disguise of an ordinary person’s shell, this evil cultivator looked black and withered, like a desiccated corpse crawling out of a graveyard, both evil and terrifying.
The empress’s face turned somewhat pale: “Kong Hou Xianzi, your meaning is that this epidemic that caused countless deaths is not a natural disaster but a man-made calamity?”
So many common people’s lives and deaths, countless families’ destruction, was actually because of these people with unclear identities…
Were these demons? Immortals? Or monsters?
“Perhaps.” Kong Hou looked at the malevolent energy on the evil cultivator’s body that was similar to the southeast direction, stomped the evil cultivator under her foot, and pressed him to the ground. “What is the method to break this soul-sacrificing array?”
**Author’s Note:** Kong Hou: I said I’d catch you, so I caught you. Did I need to inform you in advance?