"Natsuki," I called out as I held tight to Xiaolan's feathers, "is it possible to kill someone who has severed death?"

"If his body is immortal, then we would have to directly destroy his soul. However, given that his soul has been separated, I am not sure it is possible for you to do this."

"...Can you do it?"

"I can. I can pull his soul out of his throat, even if it is not there, as long as it exists somewhere within the three thousand realms. However, I am not permitted to intervene."

I frowned.

"If I do a Spirit Severing... would I have the power to defend myself against him?"

"If you silence your filial piety, whether through a severing or simply through mental training, then you would be able to kill the Bai family and destroy his soul, which is probably safeguarded somewhere in one of the Bai family's treasuries. Considering his stature in the family... his soul is likely in the central vault in Zhaoqing, to which, by my understanding, even your Patriarch is not permitted access."

I winced.

"I'm... not sure I can do that. Jing Ke is one thing, but... family is absolute..."

"Do you not hate the Bai family?"

"I... hate them. Of course I hate them."

"Then kill them. That is the ultimate law of this world. Kill those you hate, and protect those you love. If you do not love them, then there is no need for you to protect them from your hatred."

"But that would be..."

I frowned, and a burning pain shot through the side of my torn cheek.

"It'd be un-Confucian."

For a moment I could no longer feel Natsuki's cold breath on my neck, and I wondered if she had disappeared into the wind, as she was always so wont to do.

For some moments I only felt the stinging pain of the cold air sinking into the open wound on the right side of my face. Under the simplest of Confucian laws, I owned my family a duty. And I would willingly perform it! If only— if only they would perform their own duty in return!

Suddenly—

"—Then we will have no choice but to kill your Confucius first. One or two severings, it does not matter. For the sake of your dream, we must see it to the end."

"In that case..."

I let out a sigh, then leaned down by Xiaolan's ear and whispered,

"Xiaolan, let's go to the Tower."

He chirped in approval.

Several minutes later, we landed at the plaza right in front of the Alchemist's Tower. Professor Jibeidi was waiting for us, a deep frown on her face.

I dismounted from Xiaolan's back, and immediately—

"Chunxue, did you get hurt?! What happened?!"

Professor Jibeidi cracked open an elixir, then rubbed its salve on the gaping wound in my cheek.

"Ah— well, I got into a—"

"Wait, Chunxue." Leaping off Xiaolan's back— though she had never climbed onto it— Natsuki put a hand on my shoulder. "Whatever you tell her, she will have to take responsibility for knowing. Keep that in mind before you say anything."

I nodded slowly. What I had said about a conflict between the Tower and the Bai family held for Professor Jibeidi as well. If I told her that Jing Ke was after me, then she would be picking a fight with the Bai family by helping me. I needed to grant her, and by extension the Tower, plausible deniability.

"I need to do some secluded cultivation, but I don't have a good place for that in the sect. Do you have a room at the Tower I can borrow? Oh, and I might do a severing."

"A severing?" Professor Jibeidi raised her eyebrows. "Isn't that... a bit dangerous?"

"Don't worry, Feixing. Whatever happens, I will protect Chunxue."

Professor Jibeidi rubbed her temples and sighed. "Well, if all you're here for is a room for secluded cultivation, then I can get you that much. I can get you up to thirty days, I think is the policy. Of course, for your convenience, it will only open from inside for the duration of your reservation. Nobody from outside will be able to open it until then, not even the Tower staff, without express permission from central management in the Imperial Capital. Does that work for you?"

Natsuki smiled dully. "That'd be a great help, Feixing. Let's go with that."

I turned to cast a glance at Xiaolan, who was sleeping only a few steps away from where he had landed.

And then I followed Professor Jibeidi into the depths of the Alchemist's Tower.

----------------------------------------

Natsuki and I sat in a small room somewhere in the Alchemist's Tower, with a small gap in the ceiling that opened onto the sky.

I spent one week healing my wounds. My dantian had been destroyed, but it had never given me anything in my first place, so I hardly missed it. The only thing I needed was the flow-paths of my meridians, and I guess this little gem that was my golden core, though I did not know how to use it.

And the next week I spent with my head in my hands, unsure how to proceed any further.

"Chunxue, what ails you?"

"I... don't know if I can really sever my filial piety. It's so difficult... Not the actual thing, but just the mental part..."

Natsuki put a hand to her chin and thought for a few moments.

"Let me offer you some words from a Buddhist scripture I once read when I was sojourning in the land west of here—

> As Avalokiteshvar and his disciples walked along a road to another village, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

> Avalokiteshvar replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but those who follow the Eightfold Path have nowhere to lay their heads." Then he said to another, "Follow me."

> This man replied, "Bodhisattva, first let me go bury my father."

> But Avalokiteshvar told him, "Let the dead bury their own dead. You must go and preach the Four Noble Truths."

> Another said to him, "Bodhisattva, I will follow you, but first let me bid farewell to my family."

> Then Avalokiteshvar declared, "No one who puts their hand to the plow and looks back can achieve the perfection of supreme wisdom."

I frowned. "I haven't heard this before. Where's it from?"

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Natsuki shrugged. "It's syncretic. But that is beside the point. The point is that your attachment to your family is holding you back."

I shook my head. "It'd hold me back from enlightenment, sure, just like my attachment to everything else in my life. But I'm not even close to enlightenment. I'm doing this for revenge. How could this help me?"

Truly, the closest I had ever been to enlightenment was the first time I had died, when I had no attachments and no hopes. Perhaps that is why I had been able to summon her, a power greater than anything else within this world. And yet, because of that, I had formed an attachment to this life, and when I was trapped in Wujiu's Avici, I could not use enlightenment to carve my way out. I had wished to live, and because I wished to live, I could only force my way out with Natsuki's power. Now that I sought to complete my revenge against Jing Ke, enlightenment would not help me. To kill for revenge was the most debased act there was. The Amitabha Buddha would grant no force to my efforts.

If not the Buddha, then perhaps...

"The Dao, maybe...?"

I closed my eyes and thought. If I could put a name to my Dao, it would be the Dao of True Trust. It was the Dao I held by my unflinching belief not in myself, but in Natsuki.

And yet, though this Dao could grant me power, it could not grant me the will to kill. That was something I had to claim for myself. With her power I could perform the severing, sure. But I had to will it myself. I had to wish, from the bottom of my heart, to kill my family. If I did not wish it of my own volition, then I could not proceed with the severing.

"It... all comes back to my will."

"Your will, yes. Only in the moment that you wish with all your soul to kill the Bai family can you sever them from your soul."

"But... I don't feel like I can will it. I don't feel like I can wish, from the bottom of my heart, to kill them. The guilt... the guilt is too much. Because family is absolute."

Natsuki stood. "I see. Then let me offer you some words from a scripture I read from the land west of here, not of Buddhism but of a neighboring religion. In this scripture, a great warrior is doubting whether it is just for him to kill his enemies, and this is what his God says to him:

> I am Time, the source of destruction that comes forth to annihilate all words. Even without your action, the warriors arrayed on both sides of this battlefield shall all be slain.

> Rise! Fight and attain glory! Conquer your enemies and let your kingdom flourish! Your enemies stand already slain by my hand, and you, my dearest child, can be no more than an instrument of my intention.

> Drona, Bhisma, Jayadratha, Karna— all these great warriors have already been destroyed by me. Therefore, kill them without uncertainty in your heart. Fight, and you shall be victorious.

I frowned. "I... don't get it."

"This scripture is about how humans cannot shoulder the weight of their own actions. It is, of course, barbaric to kill, and all humans know as much by instinct, which is why they fear the guilt of murder. But if you shift that guilt onto someone else, onto a God who can receive it all unshaken, then you can kill without guilt. Is that not precisely what this God is saying? Blame me for their deaths, so you may kill without taking guilt upon yourself."

Natsuki stepped in front of me and kneeled down.

"Of course, such a convenient God does not exist. It was an invention to assuage the delicate minds of humanity, who wished to kill but not to bear the weight of murder. But I exist. And I can serve this purpose for you."

I opened my eyes, and saw her eyes, staring right into mine.

"Do not take the guilt upon yourself, Chunxue. Push it upon me. Blame me. Call me a demon if you so wish. That is why I am here. If it will serve your wishes, then I will take on all of your guilt. I will take all of the weight upon your shoulders and hold it effortlessly to the sky, for just like the God of this scripture, human guilt cannot weigh down my soul. Kill your family, and blame me. That is all you have to do to realize your dream."

I could feel tears breaking down my face.

"No... no, how could I possibly blame you...?"

She leaned forward and embraced me.

"Blame me, Chunxue. If you cannot blame yourself, then blame me."

"No... no... I can't... I can't put that on you..."

"No matter how much you blame me, I will never feel guilt, no more guilt than what you would feel were you to step on an ant. Do not hold yourself back out of concern for me."

"It's not that, it's... how could I blame you when..." I could feel my voice streaking into sobs. "When I trust you?"

She was silent for several moments.

"...Do you trust me?"

Her voice was suffuse with surprise. I did not know why.

"Yes!" I cried out. "I trust you more than anything, more than anyone. So how could I blame you? How could I call you a demon?"

"Then..." she paused. "Then there is nothing I can say on the matter of your family. I will only say this: Chunxue, until our contract is complete, no matter what happens, I will not let you die."

I put a hand to my face and pushed back on my tears. I was stuck. The guilt of killing the Bai family was too heavy for me to bear, and yet, unless the guilt was borne, unless those strained relations were severed, I could not kill Jing Ke. That was my dilemma. There was, of course, a solution to this predicament, and that was simply to push the guilt elsewhere. But I could not do that. I could not push the blame onto Natsuki, and there was nobody else who could bear it.

And thus, puzzling over this dilemma, I spent another three weeks in secluded cultivation.