"Senior Sister can call me Jieyan," the taller of the two women said. "Sister Yingxu and I joined the sect two years ago. My art is sleight of hand, hers is tumbling and acrobatics," she continued to explain, gesturing to her shorter companion. "Because our cultivation is shallow and our progress has been poor, we've been assigned to minor tasks outside the sect for the past several months. Recently, Elder Hyacinth assigned us here to tend to Elder Phantom. We were told that you would be returning soon and that we were to regard you as our Senior in all things."
"Aunt Hyacinth sent you?" Wu Ling said, a tempest of emotions flooding through him. At first, he'd hated his Aunt Hyacinth for failing to protect his mother when things went badly at the Bamboo Silk House. She was a powerful member of the Dark Half of the sect. If someone was going to cause trouble for his mother then surely she should have been able to stop it! After a few years, the hatred had turned into a form of resentment. He understood that she couldn't stop every tragedy from happening and might even have needed to bow her head to those above her in the matter of his mother's exile.
Blaming her for what happened to his mother was foolish. Blaming her for not visiting in all these years though… He'd never understood what kept her away. His mother told him not to bother about it, that she had her reasons, and that matters in the Dark Half of the house were complicated but whenever they struggled to make ends meet or when pains from her injuries flared up, he couldn't help but wonder if his mother had been abandoned by her sworn sister.
"Please," the shorter woman named Yingxu said, gesturing to the door leading to Wu Ningli's room. "Elder Phantom said we should take you directly to her when you return so she can explain. She said that if your sister Su Xiang arrived with you, she would be permitted to enter as well."
"No, Sister Xiang, you should stay away from this," Wu Ling said, taking a step away from Su Xiang's supporting arm and putting more weight on the elegant cane that Huang Yeyan had gifted him. "Aunt Hyacinth… she's not a good person," he said with some hesitation. "At least, she's not a good person the way most people would define it," he corrected himself. He didn't know why his aunt would send two disciples from the sect after all these years but the disciples she managed could be among the most deadly in the sect! "She's dangerous," he finally said, hoping that Su Xiang would understand.
"Where you go I go," Su Xiang insisted, stepping up next to Wu Ling and supporting him from the side. "We've faced other dangers together, how bad can your Aunt Hyacinth be?"
"You don't understand," Wu Ling said, shaking his head. "And even if I explain, it won't change your mind," he added with a wry smile. "Come on, let's go find out why they're here and why they seem to think my mother is a sect Elder."
Once they stepped inside, Wu Ling realized that a great deal had changed at home in the time they'd been away. Gone were the sparse furnishings mostly acquired secondhand or through Wu Ling's bartering in the years they'd been cast out of the Bamboo Silk House. In their place, rich carpets had been laid on the floor and fine furnishings filled the space. On one hallway wall, Wu Ling stopped to stare at a painting of a woman dressed in black, dancing with a bright silver sword. "What is this doing here?" Wu Ling asked the two disciples from the sect. "How is this here?"
"We retrieved many things from Elder Phantom's chambers in the sect," Yingxu said, as though it had been a simple matter to retrieve the things they'd been forced to abandon when they were exiled all those years ago. "Elder Phantom said that we should choose from among the paintings you left behind which ones would be displayed in public spaces. I thought this one would go well outside the Elder's bedroom."
"Ling'er, is that you?" Wu Ningli called from her bedroom. "Come in and I'll explain."
Both Wu Ling and Su Xiang paused in shock when they entered Wu Ningli's bedroom. As in the rest of their home, the simple furnishings had been replaced by luxurious ones that reflected the refined tastes of an experienced artist. On one wall, a massive painting had been hung, the largest and most ambitious thing Wu Ling had ever painted while living at the Bamboo Silk House. The painting depicted a waterfall spilling over rocks and flowing into a stream that wound through a foggy forest.
Looking at it now he could see the dozens of ways he could have done better but his mother had insisted then that what she wanted most for her room was a view of nature that couldn't be found in the city. That even this had been recovered sent shivers down Wu Ling's spine. Why had the sect kept these things all these years after exiling them? The smaller paintings that could be rolled up and stored easily he might understand, but to see so many familiar furnishings back in his mother's room… it was like everything they once owned had been kept for them. Waiting. For what?
"Ling'er, what happened to you?" Wu Ningli asked, sitting forward in bed and staring at Wu Ling's injured foot and the cane he supported himself with. "Tell me who did that to you," she commanded fiercely, a dark aura swirling around her as she imagined the people who had crippled her hands and feet doing the same thing to her precious son. In her hand, a shadowy phantom blade began to form though she barely seemed aware of it.
"It was a Burning Yang Sun Bear," Wu Ling said, looking down at the ground in embarrassment. "It rolled onto me while I was fighting it."
"You fought it with a paintbrush!" Su Xiang added. "You're lucky it only rolled onto your foot!"
"Calligraphy brush," Wu Ling corrected, as though that were the important part of the encounter. "And I had to write on it in order to freeze it. It's dead now Mother," he reassured her. "It's dead and I stopped it from hurting anyone else."
"Then I suppose that's fine," Wu Ningli said, the dark aura that had gathered around her fading and the curved blade in her hand evaporating as though it had never been present. "I want to hear the whole story, from both of you, over dinner tonight. That girl, Jieyan is a surprisingly good cook. She's not up to your standard for tea but her knife skills are exemplary and she's not bad with a wok."
"I'm sure she's fine if Aunt Hyacinth sent her to cook for you," Wu Ling said, taking a seat at his mother's bedside. "But mother, what's happening? Why did Aunt Hyacinth send a pair of outer sect disciples to tend for you after the sect has ignored us all these years? And why do they call you Elder Phantom?"
"The entire story is long and many of the details don't matter," Wu Ningli said, looking into her son's silvery eyes and taking in the feminine appearance he wore so well. Did he even realize how he'd allowed his bloodline to shape him as he grew up? She couldn't help but wonder if keeping so many things back from him had done more harm than good. Now that things had reached this point, however, there was little reason to hold back much at all.
"Let me start with a few simple truths that will prompt many more questions than they will answer," his mother began. "First, we were never cast out of the sect. Not entirely. The sect was forbidden from healing me and the Hall Master asked me to leave for a time to ensure that our enemies didn't take out their anger on the Bamboo Silk House but my identity plate still hangs in the Hall of Shadowed Names and my status as an Elder has never been revoked."
"When did you become an elder?" Wu Ling asked, both confused and understanding why his mother had said that each answer would only provoke more questions. "I thought only fourth-stage cultivators could become elders but weren't you only a Trusted Artist when…" When what? Had she really been crippled by a jealous rival within the sect? Somehow, the story he'd been told when they left the sect felt increasingly unlikely.
"I am a fourth-stage cultivator," Wu Ningli explained. "It's just that I never became an Exceptional Artist. Rather, I became an Elder when you were eleven and I broke through to become a Worldly Mystic. Our enemies may have crippled my body, but they could never rob me of the ability to cultivate my soul. Even confined to this bed there's still much I can do."
"That's the second time you've mentioned our enemies," Wu Ling said with a frown. "Why do I think you don't mean the enemies of the Bamboo Silk House?"
"Because I don't," Wu Ningli said, smiling at her observant son. "It's time that I explain the truth. About me, about your father, and about the people responsible for his murder. You need to know who our enemies really are because I promise you, if they learn that you've awakened as a cultivator, they'll stop at nothing to see you dead."