THE YILING MATRIARCH

Chapter 24 : Where everything leads

Nie Huaisang had not changed much in the time Meifeng had not seen the man other than maybe growing his hair out a few inches and being named as the Nie clan leader, but he was the same outside of that. His eyes still betrayed a sense of trembling uneasiness when he found himself in their commanding presence. Wangji, who had actually dragged the infamous headshaker into the room after Huaisang was caught listening to their conversation, stared down the clan leader even though the other man had every authority to arrest his old friend for his disrespectful behavior. This was not the case, however, as Wangji and Meifeng's eyes were treated with Huaisang's teary-eyed expression.

"Lan Wangji, I'm not the one who followed you from Traverse Mountain! When I arrived, a strange dog attacked me, and I could not dare go anywhere else. P-please, it has been hours since then, so let me go!" Meifeng and Wangji shared a glance over the pleading man's head, silently debating whether or not they could trust Huaisang. While he had never given them a reason to doubt his sincerity or pause at his actions, they had no idea who they could still believe this person they had once known as fellow students twenty years ago.

Wangji did, as part of his own test, laid down a fan he had discovered on the mountain that belonged to Huaisang and placed him near the Man-eating castle that had almost consumed Jin Ling and left a Devil's mark on Meifeng when she had tended to her nephew. When Wangji revealed this to him, Meifeng noticed a shift in his posture; it spoke volumes to her as a person who could expertly read people that Huaisang had something to hide, namely his knowledge of that place.

Huaisang was under Meifeng's scrutiny the entire time as he began trying to explain his presence there at the castle while 'hiding' behind the fan that was returned to him. "I- I only followed you two there. I swear I don't know anything about that place! Not about the sword there either!" There it was; something Meifeng could go on as she spoke to him. Never had she or Lan Zhan mentioned the sword, so how did he know about it? This was what she liked in talking with men like this who lost their composure at the first sign of being in deep trouble with people who were intimidating. Calmly pouring herself a cup of tea, Huaisang's face never left her gaze as she spoke as the 'good cop' in this scene compatible to Wangji being the 'bad cop'.

"Since you said you don't know anything, please just sit there and listen if anything I say triggers your memory. You see, I've heard stories from the locals in town that anyone who goes near that man-eating castle will be eaten alive, like Mr. Jin Ling almost was. If no one has survived like the stories go, why does everyone say the bodies are eaten?" Sweat was now accumulating on Huaisang's brow at her question, rubbing his cheek with the tip of his fan as he avoided her knowing gaze. "In my opinion, it's obvious that someone came up with that story so that no one comes near that place. Then there's how sophisticated the formation of Traverse Hill is, which strikes me as a little bit odd, if I must say so. Without a spiritual beast that is good at following scents, or possessing the inner strength that Huangang-Jun has, a person wouldn't be able to go leave a place with no door or windows. Without any magical weapon, it would be twice as difficult to get inside. So, Nie Huaisang, my theory is that the man-eating castle, the formation and the barrier around it, are actually methods set in place to keep people away from Traverse Hill and protect its secret. Does this sound familiar to you in any way?"

The longer Meifeng had spoken, the more Wangji noticed her method was slowly wearing down on Nei Huaisang until he could no longer hold back the water boiling inside him yearning to be released. Breaking down in front of their very eyes, he told them everything he knew about Traverse Hill. "T-the castle does belong to the Qinghe Nie clan. It's a tomb belonging to countless blades belonging to Nie Clansmen named the Tomb of Blades. M-my brother's, Nie Mingjue, is the one you found. It's tradition, since the sixth Nie Clan Leader, to bury the sabers of past clan members with hundreds of corpses that are about to turn so that the sabers won't cause trouble for the newer generations. The sabers are full of violence and killing intent, and they continue to want to destroy evil spirits, so we collect corpses from all around to keep the sabers in check while also suppressing the resentful energy of the corpses-" Suddenly seeing how judgemental the two looked, he panicked and said, "We d-didn't kill them! We j-just collected them to keep the sabers from causing problems!" The longer explanation hurt Meifeng's head to listen to, but Wangji seemed to understand.