"So you weren't crippled by someone in the Bamboo Silk House but by the Sanguine Saber Sect?" Wu Ling asked, his mind and heart shaken by the series of revelations his mother had provided. Not only did he have a half-sister and a powerful sect that wished for his death, but his own mother had attempted to fight that sect to free his sister and her mother? And she'd nearly succeeded!
"I'm sorry for deceiving you all these years," Wu Ningli said, lowering her head. Keeping secrets in a sect like the Bamboo Silk House couldn't be more normal but hiding so many things from her son had left a scar in her heart. Seeing him struggle with the revelations now that everything had to come to light only made the ache worse.
"I felt it was better to pull you away from the Bamboo Silk House and hide our conflict with the Sanguine Saber Sect until we found out whether or not you would awaken and become a cultivator. If you were meant to live a mortal's life, I wanted it to be a happy one undisturbed by vengeance or strife."
"I always thought you were an Artist first," Wu Ling said, feeling yet another pillar on which he'd built his life shifting under his feet. He'd admired his mother for making her way as an Artist in a world that saw little value in them but it turned out she was a powerful Mystic instead. Had he ever really known his mother?
The question shook him to the core as he realized that, much like when his father had been cast out of the Shining Blade Hall for his actions, his mother hadn't been unjustly crippled by her own sect. Instead, the past several years of suffering had been the result of her own actions, even if they were noble ones. It cast a different light on the past few years that he'd struggled to care for her without the protection of a larger sect. He'd blamed his father for their suffering for years. Now, how was he supposed to feel about the life they'd been forced into since his mother attempted to claim her vengeance?
But, since she was trying to rescue his sister and her mother, could he really fault his own mother for her actions? And if he couldn't, how should he feel about his father after all these years? He didn't know. He could only sit and listen as his mother continued to explain the things that had long been kept from him.
"I was an Artist first," Wu Ningli explained. "I was an Artist and a Sword Dancer when I first arrived in Shining Sword City but I became something different from that when I struggled to make it here. You know how the sword sects feel about Artists here. After being rejected by sect after sect, told again and again that they would welcome me only if I married into the sect, I was full of bitterness and anger. You can't imagine how many men attempted to take advantage of me, trying to coerce me into a relationship just so I could find a way forward in my cultivation. Then the Bamboo Silk House offered me a place to use my talents for more than just the entertainment of drooling men," she said with a hint of heat behind her words.
"I cultivated the Phantom Soul Blade for a time and I won't lie to you," she said, meeting Wu Ling's silvery gaze with her own. "I took pleasure in ending the lives of a number of men who had committed crimes against women. Assassins in the Bamboo Silk House generally have considerable freedom in selecting their targets and most of mine were men who were too wealthy or too powerful to suffer the consequences of deflowering young women and casting them aside or worse. After a while, I became one of the best assassins in our branch."
Wu Ling nodded in understanding as his mother told her tale. In a way, her quest to join a sword sect had been like his need to join an art school. Few schools would accept male artists in the Outer City and those that did were only interested in wealthy cultivators who followed the arts as a secondary path. If Wu Ling had attempted to enroll openly, he'd have faced just as much rejection as his mother.
"I thought that my life would be one of increasing darkness until I met your father," Wu Ningli continued. "He burst into my life with the radiance of the sun and I fell so deeply in love that I couldn't see a way to live without him. For all that he was surrounded by women hoping to attract his attention, he turned away almost all of them," she explained. "He was very open and honest about his goals. He said that Love was his Virtue and that he intended to build his harem of people who not only loved him but could love each other as well. Further, he would only consider women who were as gifted in cultivation as he was because he couldn't bear the heartbreak of knowing that he might spend hundreds of years loving someone only to spend thousands of years mourning their death," she said wistfully. "It wasn't easy, but I eventually managed to capture not just his eyes but his heart."
"So you left your sect for him?" Su Xiang asked, taken in by the romantic story. In her mind, Wu Ningli had become a beautiful flower in darkness suddenly opening toward the light. The couple had set out to build a romance that would last for millennia. Most people would find a union between a Warrior of the Shining Blade Hall and an Assassin of the Bamboo Silk House to be impossible but here sat the proof of their love, defying the odds by not only getting married but building a family. After hearing about the consequences of Yun Kong's actions, it had been easy to dismiss him as womanizing trash, but hearing how he took Love as his Virtue, Su Xiang instantly understood why Wu Ningli would throw away her life in her own sect to chase such a radiant lover.
Eventually, everyone in the Shining Blade Hall would dedicate their lives to a Virtue. Su Xiang's father dedicated himself to Justice while her mother dedicated herself to Redemption. Listening to Wu Ningli's tale unfold however, something began to stir within her that resonated with Yun Kong's path in a way nothing else ever had. Unconsciously, she leaned forward, hanging on Wu Ningli's every word and etching them deep into her own heart.