Never Let You Go, Again

16: The Selfless Patriarch

The plans proceeded. Jin Ling unveiled which men had been the closest to Jin Guangyao, from records and from his own memory. The possible traitors were arrested and interrogated for quite some time. However, only very few confessed. None of the sect leaders could decide whether the others were guilty or not, because they had neither proof nor admission of guilt. Of course, every single sect leader and elder personally believed there was but one person who could torture the truth out of the men. But, alas, the Yiling Patriarch kept his vow, for once.

While Gege, Little Rulan, Nie-xiong and A-Cheng discussed their future strategies animatedly in the evenings, all Wei Wuxian did was pour the tea for them. Lan Zhan couldn't help but feel as though Wei Ying was behaving like a decent and obedient bride would at her in-laws' place. And this continued to such a hilarious extent that even Lan Zhan's grumpy Shufu got closer and closer to his nephew-in-law even more than he was to his direct nephews. Though Lan Zhan was sad to see him trying so hard to please all, he was secretly amused.

Turns out, A-Ying isn't like a girl only in bed, he internally chuckled.

But of course, a good wife living a peaceful life is a role that Fate would never let the Yiling Patriarch play. He still had a lot of suffering to go through, with still much to pay for. 

A month passed by, eventless except for a Jin's occasional confession. The revelations led Huaisang's scouts to many places, all that used to be Rusong's murderer's headquarters. Unfortunately, the culprit was always ahead. He was constantly on the move, barely escaping from the expert Nie spies.

The Sect Leaders and Elders had split the work up among the sects. The Jins were to see to the detainment of their traitors. Proud as they were, if any traitor escaped, they would bear responsibility, seeing as those under custody were being held in their own Koi Tower and were of their own sect.

The Lans were to find out all they could about the situation in the surrounding villages and town, countryside and city; they were to alert others on any corpse attacks, and were also to take care of any casualties. After the death of Wen Qing, it was the Lans who had the best Doctor, hence they were responsible for the public's health. Moreover, the temporary Chief Cultivator was Lan Xichen, so, naturally, his sect should look into the situation across the land. In the meantime, the Elders and Hanguang-Jun were engaged in seeing to and interrogating the guards from the night of the theft.

The Nies, without doubt, were directly put in charge of the scouting. They would keep an eye out for more traitors and the criminal. Huaisang also volunteered to help Er-Ge with scouting the surrounding lands for incidents. None other than Director Nie could handle something this secretive.

The Jiangs were given the one task that could perhaps be called the hardest — especially to Lan Xichen. They were given the duty of getting the words out of the men in custody: forcing the truth out. Not one person denied that anyone but the Jiangs could take on the role of Torturer. What with a Sect Leader who tortured mock Yiling Patriarchs for decades, this shouldn't be too hard. And the decision was perfect: only a month had passed, and over half the arrested Jin-traitors had confessed!

The more minor sects and clans, like Zizhen's Ouyang Sect, devotedly helped the four major sects (though none took part in the Jiangs' task).

While the whole pugilist world was busy and bustling with excitement, deep in the hills of Gusu was a dense forest, so dense that no noise could enter it, nor leave it. Neither would you be disturbed, nor would you be heard. If you walked into this thick mountainside woodland, you would reach a clearing. To your left would be more wood that led to a small, cheery home and a major Sect's compound further on. To your right, you would hear the sound of running water, bubbling in an ice-cold healing pond, cascading from a special waterfall. Rays of sunlight peeked in through the tall canopy, its light beams scattered here and there, like thousands of golden stairways to heavens.