Cultivation Retirement Plan (BL)

bgm: decree

The moment Su Shiyu entered the hall, both Mo Yixuan and Su Shimeng were stunned by his appearance. While Su Shimeng instinctively stepped forward, Mo Yixuan stepped back and pulled the other with him, earning another look.

“What?” Su Shimeng hissed. 

“Just wait,” Mo Yixuan muttered back.

In their absence, it was Bai Tingyao who went forward instead, telling the two lantern-bearers to take their master’s cloak and leave as she guided Su Shiyu towards his seat at the head of the hall. Mo Yixuan noted that it was now right next to the table that had been converted into an altar for the blank painting. Su Shiyu didn’t seem to pay Mo Yixuan or Su Shimeng any attention, but only bent down towards his wife, nodding in response to her murmured words.

Finally, Su Shimeng couldn’t hold it in any more and blurted it, “Big bro, what happened to your hair?”

Su Shiyu seemed to stir at the words, but didn’t acknowledge them.

“Big brother!” Su Shimeng tried again, but Su Shiyu visibly grimaced and raised a hand to rest against his forehead as Bai Tingyao helped him sit down.

“Mengmeng, you can bother your big brother later,” Bai Tingyao’s melodious tones smoothed out the tense atmosphere. “He has a headache right now. Didn’t you have some questions to ask me, Daoist Mo?”

Mo Yixuan was studying Su Shiyu as well, privately noting his haggard face. “Does Sir Su need to retire for the night?”

This time, Su Shiyu did look up. He gave Mo Yixuan a long stare before slowly shaking his head. “I’ll be fine.”

“It’s been a long day,” Bai Tingyao added apologetically. 

“Sis, he’s not the only one with questions,” Su Shimeng spoke up. “I’ve got a few for you and big bro too.”

“Do you now?” Bai Tingyao’s voice sounded resigned. “Well, I suppose we should answer them sooner or later. Come on, let’s begin.”

She settled in the hostess seat across from Su Shiyu and dutifully waited while Su Shimeng attuned her to Equanimity. Her husband silently rested his head in one hand. When Mo Yixuan stepped closer, he realized that the man had fallen into a light doze.

“.......” He was almost tempted to shake the man awake when Su Shimeng called him back.

“Hey! We’re ready.”

Between the dozing members of Su Manor and his own missing disciple, there were too many factors for Mo Yixuan to consider at once. He shelved them to the back for now to focus on the matter at hand. If anything, Nan Wuyue should be able to summon him for help if he really needed it. 

Well, assuming his luck was good. Neither he nor his disciple seemed to excel in that department.

“Lady Bai,” he bowed politely as he stepped in front of the woman. The golden scales floated between them and a shimmering thread could be seen connecting it to Bai Tingyao’s heart. 

“Daoist Mo,” she said and seemed to sit up a little straighter. “What is it you wish to know?”

“You employed Ting’er around a year ago, correct?” Mo Yixuan began with the basics.

“Yes.” The scale didn’t move.

“Do you trust her?”

“Yes.”

“To your knowledge, has she ever set foot in the jade mines or on its grounds?”

“No,” Bai Tingyao replied confidently. The scales remained unmoving while Mo Yixuan waited. 

At last he asked, “Could you elaborate?”

“I spend most of my days in the house or out about town,” Bai Tingyao said. “That’s where I take Ting’er to run my errands with me. Sometimes I send her alone or with Yu-lang, but I can’t be sure what she does in her own time.”

Fair enough. Mo Yixuan went on to ask a few more questions, but all it did in the end was prove Bai Tingyao’s unerring faith in her servant girl. It’d be difficult to tackle Ting’er’s suspicious points when her mistress was so assured of her character. In the end, he simply decided to question her about other things.

“Lady Bai, have the Ghost Festival offerings been set up according to my instructions?” he asked.

This morning, he and Nan Wuyue had gone to the ancestral hall before meeting with Su Shiyu to draw up an entirely new array. Instead of waiting for the Jade Ghost to appear and capturing her themselves, this one kept normal ghosts out but would react as soon as demonic-tinged energy entered its premises, thus trapping the intruder in place. To ensure the Jade Ghost would head there instead of Old Madam Su’s quarters, Mo Yixuan had asked Lady Bai to set up a section near the hall dedicated to Old Madam Su that gave an impression of the woman’s presence there.

Bai Tingyao seemed to relax at the question and nodded. “Yes, I even set it up myself.”

“You didn’t have any servants help you?”

“No,” Bai Tingyao replied, then added, “Since they were Old Madam Su’s personal items, I only felt right handling them personally.”

Mo Yixuan looked at her in a new light as the scale remained balanced. At most, this went a good way in proving that the Bai Tingyao before him was no demon, or else she would’ve been caught in the array herself until they returned. He asked a few more questions to verify particular details, sometimes even rewording them to highlight specific points, before retreating with satisfaction.

“Thank you. That will be all.” Mo Yixuan moved aside and let Su Shimeng have his turn while his eyes drifted towards the entrance.

Still no sign of Nan Wuyue…

“Big sis…” Su Shimeng’s expression was complicated as he approached his sister-in-law.

“It’s all right, Mengmeng,” Bai Tingyao smiled at him gently. “Ask away.”

Equanimity was a treasure simply because it had the power to read hearts and deduce the truth inside no matter what the speaker claimed to believe or know. It was impossible to lie to it directly. Gritting his teeth, Su Shimeng took a deep breath and asked his first question.

“Is Su Yan’er the mother of me, Su Shimeng?”

“Yes.” Bai Tingyao didn’t even hesitate. Neither did the scale budge.

Su Shimeng nodded, then asked, “Did Su Yan’er give birth to Su Shimeng?”

“Yes.” No change.

Su Shimeng bit his lip, then went ahead with his final question. “Am I my mother’s only child?”

There was a pause. At last, Bai Tingyao’s eyes grew glassy. “Oh Mengmeng, what are you thinking?”

“Just answer the question, sis,” Su Shimeng pressed on desperately. “Did my mother have any other children?”

Bai Tingyao took a deep breath and shook her head. “No. Never, you silly child! You were always her only one!”

The scale remained balanced. Su Shimeng stared at it a few seconds longer before a long sigh of relief escape him. The next second, his head whipped towards Mo Yixuan. “You see?!” 

“You still need to question Sir Su,” Mo Yixuan said, unruffled. His eyes were back on Bai Tingyao, who was still frowning anxiously at her little brother.

“Was just getting to it,” Su Shimeng turned back and gently disconnected the thread from Bai Tingyao’s heart. “Thanks, sis.”

Bai Tingyao reached out to take his hand. “There’s no need to force it if you don’t want to, Mengmeng,” she said quietly. “You’ve gotten my answers and proven them all, right?”

“I know,” Su Shimeng nodded, “But sis, it’s better to be doubly sure.”

“If you’re certain…” Reluctantly, Bai Tingyao released him and went to help rouse Su Shiyu from his nap. 

To Mo Yixuan, the man was completely different from the first time they met him. His snowy mane of hair seemed like an ominous harbinger of death. Mo Yixuan had heard stories of people whose hair turned white overnight from extreme stress, but this was the first time he witnessed someone experiencing the same thing after a single day. He prodded Bai Tingyao for an explanation, but she only shook her head.

“He gets like this every Ghost Festival. It’s nothing to worry about.” She ran her fingers through some of her husband’s hair, playing with the snow-white strands. 

His hair changes every year? That doesn’t sound human… Mo Yixuan felt his doubts grow.

“What do you mean, every Ghost Festival?” Su Shimeng echoed his thoughts. “Sis, are you saying my big bro’s been dyeing his hair the entire time?”

“When the sun comes up tomorrow, his appearance will go back to normal,” Bai Tingyao explained. “...Mengmeng, the truth is your brother hasn’t been the same since he was rescued from the bottom of that cliff.”

“Huh?” Su Shimeng squinted. “But that was almost 18 years ago.”

“18 years isn’t very long at all,” Bai Tingyao murmured back. “Even now, he’s still cursed by the evidence of his guilt.”

Her fingers tightened around the hair in her hand and for a second, Mo Yixuan had the impression she was going to tear them out of Su Shiyu’s head. Instead, she relaxed and caressed the white strands before letting them fall down over Su Shiyu’s shoulders.

“What guilt, sis?” Su Shimeng pressed.

“An old story I’ll tell you about later,” Bai Tingyao moved to shake Su Shiyu’s shoulder. “Yu-lang, it’s time to wake up.”

Mo Yixuan didn’t know what he was expecting, but absolutely nothing wasn’t it. Su Shiyu’s eyes fluttered open after Bai Tingyao’s push before he sat up with a grimace.

“What...did I fall asleep?”

“Yu-lang, Mengmeng has some questions for you,” Bai Tingyao soothed. “It won’t take long.”

—

Shwp shwp shwp!

Nan Wuyue hissed as more leaves nipped past them and buried themselves in the wall behind him. What was going on? He’d almost broken free of this plant yao when it suddenly gained a boost in power, attacking him with more force and faster speeds than before. He didn’t think the creature was holding back, so what had increased its strength?

Cuts littered his face and arms where the leaves had torn through the fabric of his robes. He’d long run out of signal flares except the very last one which he was holding in reserve. The courtyard where they were battling had long been converted into a mess of rubble and vines, yet still that hadn’t attracted any attention.

Nan Wuyue hadn’t sensed any sound barriers or the like surrounding this space, but he wasn’t expecting to find something so obvious to detect with three cultivators on the premises. Either the servants had all been called away or—his eyes narrowed.

Or they’ve all been bewitched to ignore the commotion.

Who hadn’t heard famous stories of foxes in the past who had enchanted and ensnared their prey? With their latent yao arts and enchanting looks, they could easily make any human their thrall. Distracted by the thought, Nan Wuyue almost got impaled in the shoulder by a particularly sharp vine before he reacted in time. 

“Hah? I thought you were a threat, but this is all you can do?”

For the first time in this fight, he heard a voice: melodious, feminine, soft. Nan Wuyue’s head whipped back to see a throng of shadows gathering in one end of the courtyard. His eyes picked out the mass and realized they were all vines, crawling to a center point to congregate as a column of growth. Something was beginning to take shape in the middle, but Nan Wuyue didn’t feel like staying put to find out what. Of course, as soon as he made to escape, a fresh barrier of vines burst into bloom to block his way. 

“Little Daoist, we haven’t finished speaking yet.”

Nan Wuyue creased his brows at the familiar voice. Moments later, his suspicions were confirmed when the tangle of vines opened up to deposit a small, slim young maiden onto the cracked slabs of stone in the courtyard. She was dressed in silken robes of pale yellow, her hair neatly coiffed atop her head and adorned with modest accessories. Tendrils of vines peeked out from her sleeves, the ends adorned with clusters of small flowers, while a fine cloud of demonic qi hovered around her body as she stepped forward and bowed politely.

“Ting’er.” Nan Wuyue breathed as he suddenly recalled that she shared the same name as a medicinal plant. He never expected her true form to be the plant in question. “You’re a Yao who cultivated in a demonic way?”

“We do what we need to survive,” Ting’er said placidly. “Aren’t you the same, little Daoist?”

“What are you talking about?” Nan Wuyue narrowed his eyes as he looked for potential escape routes. This entire time, Ting’er had been preventing him from approaching the inner courtyard. But now that he knew she harbored demonic qi, a new idea sprang into his mind.

“You’ve been playing pretend,” Ting’er said. “What’s a wicked boy like you doing hiding away in a righteous sect?”

“Did you infuse the Jade Ghost’s spirit with demonic qi?” Nan Wuyue asked, ignoring her question.

“Do you see any other demonic cultivators here?” Ting’er scoffed. “With all those clues scattered left and right, you still didn’t figure it out? Even that silly master of yours only examined my spare body instead of tracking down my demonic core!”

“You shifted your consciousness,” Nan Wuyue realized. That too, fit in with the specialty of plant Yao—they could spread seedlings and grow roots as real plants did and control them as extensions of their body, moving their main consciousness between them at will. However, only the main body housed their cultivation cores. “What did you do with my master?!”

“Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?” Ting’er replied. “Of course I did nothing, or he would’ve caught on.  I expect he’s conversing with Lady Bai and Sir Su by now.”

“Then what are you planning with all this?” Nan Wuyue pressed.

“Me? Nothing,” Ting’er shook her head. “I’m only here to follow orders and keep you company. You have more than just this to show me, I hope?”

“Tch.” Nan Wuyue settled into a fighting stance as Ting’er gleefully rallied her vines to her side. The moment the two looked about to clash—Nan Wuyue turned tail and sped off in the opposite direction, fleeing out of the courtyard.

“Hey!” Ting’er reacted a second later and gave chase. “Don’t run, coward!”

Of course Nan Wuyue wasn’t running away. Instead, he had a fixed destination in mind: the ancestral hall. After the changes he and his master made to the special array, it should be a perfect trap for anything with a lick of demonic qi. 

And Ting’er in her present form was practically bathing in it.

Nan Wuyue ended up dashing along the outside of the Su Manor walls, vaguely pinpointing the location of the ancestral hall by the faint energy signature of the array prepared that morning. When he felt a shadow fall over him, he looked up to see Ting’er running effortlessly by his side atop the wall, her steps feather-light as her dress fluttered around her. The same couldn’t be said for the thick mass of vines trailing out from her sleeves, which thrashed behind her like monstrous extended arms. 

“Little Daoist, you can’t fight very well, but you run as fast as a rat,” Ting’er mocked.

Nan Wuyue ignored her and put on another burst of speed, getting a laugh in return.

Then Ting’er’s vines suddenly tensed; the next second a massive chunk of rubble and ceramic tiles came raining on top of Nan Wuyue’s head as she ripped out part of the wall. He quickly blocked with his sword, slashing through the shower of rubble as they fell heavily towards him. With a few well-placed blows, he even sent the biggest chunk back at Ting’er, who simply leaped into the air while her vine extensions caught the rock and crushed it to pieces.

“What’s the use of cultivating a human form when you need your true body to fight for you anyways?” he shot back.

Most Yao were born as beasts or plants, but prided themselves on perfecting human forms once they advanced in cultivation. It was not only a statement of their control over their feral, wild forms, but also a sign of power.

“Children like you won’t learn their lesson unless I’m a little rough,” Ting’er retorted and flung more debris at him. 

Nan Wuyue blocked again, but this time felt a familiar stinging pain; he glanced at his arms to see that Ting’er had snuck in a few projectiles of her own with the rubble, which flew past his sword to stab his left arm. This time they weren’t leaves, but tiny black seedlings that suddenly began to burrow into his flesh. Without hesitation, Nan Wuyue dug his nails in and tore them both out, tossing them to the ground in disgust as he continued running. Blood flowed from his fresh wounds, hot and dark.

Ting’er just chortled at the sight. “It looks like your blood is still human enough to nurture my seeds. Good, good!”

Good your mother, Nan Wuyue silently cursed. Fortunately, he could feel the array growing stronger as they drew close. Ting’er seemed to sense it as well, because she looked ahead with interest, giving Nan Wuyue enough leeway to flip up and over the courtyard wall before she could stop him.

“Little Daoist…” Ting’er paused on the wall as she watched the figure below her run straight towards the ancestral hall. “Do you really think I’m so stupid?”

Still, she grinned and chased straight after him, not caring a whit as the array flashed into being as soon as she stepped within its confines. In the center of the spell, sitting just outside the ancestral hall, was a small table upon which sat an ebony box filled with a silk handkerchief stained with a single drop of Su Yan’er’s blood. Both it and the box glowed brightly as a protective dome-like barrier materialized over the courtyard. Arcane symbols and complicated patterns shimmered briefly in gold upon its surface before fading away into nothingness.

Ting’er came to a stop a few feet away from Nan Wuyue, admiring the handiwork that hemmed her in as her vines drooped towards the ground.

“You’re trapped now,” Nan Wuyue took deep breaths as he stood in battle stance. “This array was specifically designed to contain demonic energy.”

“Your wording’s all wrong, little Daoist,” Ting’er replied while folding her hands behind her back. “It’s not me, but we.”

Nan Wuyue sensed movement behind him and immediately whirled back to see a thick wall of vines growing up from the very edge of the array, stretching above and over him to form a canopy above his head. All around the perimeter of the barrier, similar vines were arching towards the ceiling to create a dome of plant life.

Realizing that Ting’er meant to cocoon him in with her, Nan Wuyue slashed at the vines but found his blade bouncing right off. These had obviously been fortified against his sword. He immediately flew towards the narrowing opening above him, but Ting’er foresaw his actions and quickly beat him back down. Soon enough, even the dim light from the cloudy skies were extinguished by the mass of plant growth obscuring the view.

As Nan Wuyue crawled to his knees, he heard Ting’er’s voice hum softly in the darkness.

“Now then, let’s see which one of us is really the prisoner.”

—

“Impossible.” Su Shimeng nearly knocked into the altar as he backed away from his brother. “You’re lying, you have to be!”

But the scale of Equanimity remained perfectly balanced, a clear witness to the words it had heard from Su Shiyu’s mouth.

“What are the chances it’s faulty?” Mo Yixuan asked. He too, was perplexed by the man’s replies.

“That’s even less likely! This treasure is almost 300 years old. It’s never failed to gauge the truth!”

“Then Sir Su is telling the truth.”

“And I’m telling you again, that can’t be right!”

As with Lady Bai, Su Shimeng had asked his brother the same set of questions and gotten answers in return. However, they were completely contradictory replies.

Is Su Yan’er the mother of me, Su Shimeng? 

No.

Did Su Yan’er give birth to Su Shimeng? 

Yes.

As for the last question…

Am I my mother’s only child?

I don’t know.

“How could you not know?” Su Shimeng asked again.

“I don’t,” Su Shiyu maintained his stance.

“You’re lying to me.”

“No.” The scale didn’t budge. The statement was true.

“Su Yan’er, my mother, gave birth in this very manor,” Su Shimeng went on. “How can you claim I’m not her child while admitting she birthed me in your very next answer?”

“Su Shimeng.” Su Shiyu suddenly laughed. “What a name. Yaoyao said Su Yan’er chose it herself.”

“What do you mean—”

“Yu-lang, that’s enough.” Bai Tingyao’s voice cut through her husband’s, her tone absolutely cold.

—

{extra}

Mo Yixuan: Are you sure your scale isn’t broken?
Su Shimeng: It’s definitely telling the truth!
Shi Feng: Truth itself is a relative term.
Su Shimeng: What do you mean by that?
Shi Feng: For example, take Ah-Xuan. He’s universally recognized as the Peak Lord of Mt. Jingting and Nan Wuyue’s master. That is one truth.
Shi Feng: But to me he’s simply Ah-Xuan, a man I’d call my companion.
Su Shimeng: ……
Su Shimeng: You said all that just to forward your own shipping agenda?!
Shi Feng: What agenda? Did I mention anything about love? Of course, if you’re not averse then I’ll keep tal—
Nan Wuyue: Aren’t we forgetting something here?!
Nan Wuyue: Demons? Foxes? The hauntings at Su Manor?
Shi Feng: Shh now, don’t spoil things too soon for our inner courtyard crew.
Nan Wuyue: You’re not even on Su property!
Shi Feng: Yet.