level_act23side_09_beg

Crack.

A thick layer of gravel has formed on the streets.

Most of the south side has been spared the effects of the Catastrophe, but at the peak of the storm, there was nowhere in Yumen where the sun could be seen.

Crack.

The lock is broken.

The furnace has been toppled, racks scattered everywhere, the yard littered with broken bricks and tiles.

The master of the house will never return to clean this up.

Yet the tree still stands.

Grandmaster.

Thank you for coming here to the Sword Forge.

The sword has been found, but she insists on returning it to you personally.

I need to talk to you.

Go ahead.

It's been more than a decade since I was last here.

It's like coming home, even though we're in the same city.

About Mr. Meng...

There's no need to say anything.

He knew it was wrong to put the whole city in danger. I reckon he had planned to atone for it from the beginning.

Still, my ill-considered actions have alienated the jianghu heroes of Yumen.

I will speak to my father and accept any discipline, once this crisis has passed.

And I will indemnify any losses suffered by the Sword Forge, as well as the costs of any repairs.

Lord Exorcist is fair and just. He will give them a proper answer.

However...

The events that transpired were sudden, and some misunderstanding is understandable. As for whether you lost your calm and stepped out of bounds... I will let you be your own judge.

I did what had to be done. My conscience is clear.

—Mm.

I'm sure you understand that the Shanhaizhong are even more dangerous to Yan than the Feranmuts.

The Feranmuts may be powerful, but we won the hunt a thousand years ago. Yan is even stronger now. There is nothing to fear.

True. Times have changed.

What is truly frightening is the shadow that had been cast on people's hearts since time primordial.

Heaven and earth, the moon and stars, wind and rain, the changing of the seasons... it is unfathomable, beyond our reckoning.

The Feranmuts were the same to the people of the time.

Ignorance breeds fear, which becomes twisted into religion. To those madmen, we are the ones we are the outsiders. We are the traitors.

Religion is simply another kind of obsession.

The Shanhaizhong's activities never waned, even after the Feranmuts faded from the public eye.

In the past centuries, they have absorbed bandits, pirates, robbers, and other sorts of villains. They use the Feranmuts as a shadow to conceal their activities.

Sui Regulator records indicate that the Shanhaizhong have done unmeasurable harm in the name of the Feranmuts.

The scale of their deeds is so widespread that complete elimination is impossible, and the vileness of their acts horrifying.

They have started to reach out to the proxies of your kin. They were thankfully foiled by the timely intervention of the Sui Regulator.

I doubt my siblings want anything to do with such 'disciples.'

However, the Sui's true form stirs from slumber, Yumen returns to its motherland, and the Shanhaizhong have infiltrated the city. It is a complex web, too complex to be a coincidence.

Do you mean...?

All under Heaven is the offender's Go board. The Shanhaizhong may simply be a piece in his game.

That's a serious accusation. Is it the Sui Regulator's official stance?

Or perhaps, the Shanhaizhong have already made contact with the Sui.

Therefore, the Sui Regulator sees this as the greatest Feranmut threat that Yan has faced in its history.

Yes.

Tracking the sword, dealing with the criminals, hunting the Shanhaizhong... you are the youngest Candleholder of the Sui Regulator, and son of the Lord Exorcist of Yumen. In this matter, your burden has no equal.

Yes.

In a world of chaos, decisions of life and death must be swift and forceful as thunder.

Err on the side of going too far.

Better to be too harsh, than too lenient.

That is what you think.

...Yes.

There is a young Zuo Xuanliao in you.

However, you seem to have forgotten Zuo Xuanliao's last instructions when he ordered you to do three things in three days.

Keep this secret, and do not disturb the people.

What was the ultimate goal of the imperial court when the Sui Regulator was established to deal with Feranmut matters?

Why has Yumen returned to the motherland, its survival at stake?

It's for the people in this city right now. The people whom you brought back to the camp.

...For all the people.

Never forget what all you do is for.

Maybe you were right in this instance, but a position of authority and holding the power to make decisions also means holding the power to kill or harm. Some mistakes can never be undone.

Though it shouldn't have been me to tell you all this.

Thank you for your guidance, Grandmaster.

The Catastrophe rages on. Go and help.

Boss, everybody, get in here.

This out-of-the-way alley is a blind spot in the Patrol Battalion's search routes. We're safe here for now.

Finally, a breather... is this all the men we have left?

We lost the rest on the street.

The Yumen soldiers moved much faster than expected, setting up watch around Catastrophe defenses and key roads in a very short time.

And those guards and brawlers who appeared out of nowhere. Cao, they were tough...

What about the Di beast we sent out?

None returned.

The other groups are probably no better off. If they were captured alive...

A rabble of greedy crooks who were recruited to not leave a trail to begin with. They won't give away anything important.

We've done what we came for. Let's go while we still have the Catastrophe, before Yumen can cut off our escape.

By the way... where's the Master?

Where is she at this crucial time?

She's...

You...

I took your sword. Now I'm giving it back.

Since you've returned it, I'll say you borrowed it.

I want to ask you a few questions. I'll only give it back after you've answered.

I know you're much stronger than I am, but don't try to take it by force.

Very well. Ask.

Why don't you look anxious at all? Don't you care about the sword?

A worldly possession. One that cannot be easily discarded.

I wouldn't say I don't care.

Either you care about it or not.

Shifu was right. The way that you beat around the bush can be annoying.

The one who said that...

Is the sword called 'Chongyue?'

'Shuo.'

Chongyue is my name.

Shifu often talked about this sword.

But maybe it's not just the sword that she wanted to see.

For the last couple of days, I've been thinking, is this Shifu's home?

Shifu taught us how to fight, taught us knowledge from the nomadic cities.

How to build sturdier houses to stand against the sandstorms, and how to listen to the pulse of the land in order to plant crops and dig for water, even in the barrens.

The nomadic city that Shifu talked about was tall and strong. I saw how the people turned back even an all-consuming Catastrophe, when they stood together with each other.

Everyone should have a place to call home.

If home lets us rest without fear of disaster or having to chase the seasons...

Then why did Shifu leave twenty years ago?

The man does not answer.

She was very ill, but she taught you kung fu?

We Anasa are gifted with strong bodies. Shifu said that when one has a home, one must learn to protect it.

We learned quickly, so that Shifu would not have to demonstrate over and over again with her sickly body.

My people thought about taking her away from the barrens to get treatment.

Shifu always answered, 'But how draining would the journey be? I would rather see how the Liedaozi I taught you to brew is coming along.'

Did you ever find a doctor?

The man shakes his head.

Not in the places I looked. I was going to look elsewhere, when I received an urgent message from Yumen.

The Shanhaizhong were wreaking havoc in Yumen. They asked me to return as soon as possible.

So Shifu's illness could not have been treated, even if she never left.

...Yes.

Shifu said that the cycle of life and death is something everyone goes through.

A little longer or shorter doesn't change anything.

What really separates us is the 'age' between life and death, and even more cruel 'illness.'

What can be seen but cannot be helped merely makes one troubled.

The first batch of Liedaozi was finished just before Shifu passed away. She drank it with us and heard us sing a song with no name.

It was an old song that the Anasa sang for our dead kin to put their souls to rest. Shifu asked what point there is in singing a song for her, if she can't hear it?

'Let me hear it while I still can.'

Good. She didn't die alone.

I was eating at the inn yesterday and saw that people were preparing to see you off.

Did you...?

Are you leaving?

It's been more than a hundred years. It's time to go.

You've been here so long. Isn't this your home?

Many people's homes are somewhere else in Yan, but they stay here to protect this city.

But where it's going, I can't go with it.

Would you have gone to look for Shifu, if she was still alive?

The spring comes and goes, leaving the autumn heart despondent.

Such is mortality.

You are like the Anasa.

Anasa. Those without roots.

(In ancient Sarkaz) ...Maybe.

The words and intonation are indistinguishable from a native.

The Anasa girl knows, however, that he is not one of her kind.

He has simply gone to many places and met many people.

Forget it. Here's your sword. I have nothing more to ask.

The man never answered any of the questions.

He neither answered, nor dodged them.

The Anasa suddenly understands how her shifu must have felt when she left.

I'm going home.

The Anasa girl falls to the ground.

She has passed out from sheer exhaustion.

Her injuries...

She pulled the sword...

The ancient sword leaves its sheath.

It looks no different, save for the vestige of an old friend, almost gone now.

The medium is the jade on her forehead...

She used to wear it, saying that it calmed her mind and warded off evil...

I see.

A move decades in the making.

But a poor one, if the sword was the only goal.

...The one in the city?

He had his eye on one corner of the board, ignoring the other.

Hah.

So this is what it is...

This is how you have fallen...

How amusing.

I want to see how you swallow it...

The shame.

'Sui?'

First the Lord Exorcist's tent, now the central room of Yumen's inner city. Have you never been taught that it is rude to come uninvited?

You?

You got your sword back.

Just now.

Looks like he has discovered your secret.

So you have met my brother...

You separate that part that belonged to It and sealed it away, while he wants to take its place.

The attitude with which the two of you treat It, what you are doing, is bold, and interesting.

But ultimately foolish and pointless.

Perhaps no more than what you are doing right now.

You're not here for the Catastrophe, for the city, or for what I hold in my hands right now.

You made all this mess just to ask for directions.

You wanted to know where the Sui is.

How dare you compare those things to It?

You are slow on the uptake.

It slipped my mind as to who would be so interested in It, other than the imperial court and my siblings.

You have forgotten what you used to be.

Only a Feranmut would seek out another.

Long time.

No see.

An utterance with a million connotations behind it.

Poignant lament, cold sarcasm, or seething anger, a thousand emotions exploded at once, then dissipated.

They dig wounds in the depths of memories immemorial.

In time beyond reckoning, It and It, They, engaged in dialogue form afar as such.

I came back to this land to settle our debts.

But what right does a fragment sealed in a trinket have to engage in dialogue with me?

I want to see you as who you truly are.

There's something I'm curious about.

You fled after the hunt, not to be heard from all these years. Why have you chosen to return to Yan at this time?

It was my brother who awakened you...

As for the Shanhaizhong that appeared with you...

They? Hah.

Just made some company on the way.

I encountered them in the desert. I shared the forming Catastrophe that I saw, and made a little show of power.

They were surprised that someone could know the Feranmuts so well. They were convinced that I was a herald of the Feranmut.

Some are pretentious, some sincere, but all strive to prove their faith to me, worshipping bits and pieces that they claim to have come from the Feranmuts.

They curse their own kind and imagine overthrowing all order. They look down on mankind, utter meaningless words, and implore me to communicate their faith.

Little do they know that the object of their faith itself stands before them.

If your encounter with the Shanhaizhong was by chance, and you had intended to sneak into the central room all along, in order to lock on to the Sui's location through Yumen's navigational coordinates...

Why are the Shanhaizhong here?

To destroy Yumen? Not very likely.

Until they met you, they didn't know there would be a timely Catastrophe in Yumen's path.

I'm not interested in mankind's petty machinations.

I just needed some hands to cause chaos.

In human terms, you manipulated your followers.

And?

To become infected with hysteria and start thinking about one's own existence, even denying it.

Only slightly more amusing than those who remain foolish, from their first moments to their last.

That is to say, not very amusing.

What would they think, if they knew their god thought so little of them?

Since when have we needed the faith of such puny beings?

Except for fools like the Sui.

Leaving so soon?

I spared some time for you only because you are Its fragment.

I've already wasted too much time.

I should have realized the other day when we fought. The scent of flowers and the sight of spring were too real to be achieved by Originium Arts.

Sui Regulator records speak of a beast by the name of Ya, who cuts away the seasons and holds them at its bosom.

You have Its memory, yet you dare call me in the human way!

'Ya?!'

What a disciple name, just like 'Sui!'

Cuts away the seasons?

Humans measure time in such silly ways.

It is no illusion. An illusion cannot be so real.

It ceases to exist in some other fleeting time.

It exists in this never-ending present.

Time has stopped.

Eight thousand years of spring, eight thousand years of autumn.

A maze that has no ending.

Time has not stopped.

A lone boat on a river, each one standing on one end.

A ripple spreads from the end of the boat.

You're trying to make me stay?

Yes.

You demonstrate incredible mastery of space, but I must make you stay.

Even if I can't.

I would have left Yumen by now, if things had gone according to plan.

For you, neither Catastrophe nor Yumen can compare in importance to the Sui.

For me, however, there is nothing that I care less about than the Sui.

For you, all that is happening outside is a fleeting cloud.

For me, it is the damaged walls, broken houses, suffering soldiers and civilians.

And... one old friend who died with regret.

The Catastrophe has not passed. They do not even know that you exist.

Someone must make a stand for Yumen.

I guess there's no one but me to do it.