That familiar, mocking laughter froze Xie Lian’s blood solid. He whirled around, and sure enough, behind him sat a snow-white figure in a cry-smiling mask. His hands were tucked inside the expansive sleeves of his funeral garb, and he was watching Xie Lian from the altar.
White No-Face!
Xie Lian drew his sword and lunged. White No-Face caught the point of the blade between two fingers, sighing as he did.
“Just as I thought. This appearance suits you very well.”
Wearing their masks, the two of them looked identical from head to toe. No one but the two men themselves could have differentiated one from the other as they clashed in a whirl of white.
White No-Face easily evaded all of Xie Lian’s strikes, and as he did, he asked “Your Highness, you buried your parents in such deserted, foreign soil. Didn’t you think that might wrong their memory?”
Xie Lian’s heart sank. “You touched my mother and father’s bodies?! Did you desecrate their corpses?!”
“No, just the opposite,” White No-Face said. “I helped you give them a proper, solemn burial.”
Xie Lian was taken aback.
“I helped you by carrying them to the Xianle Royal Mausoleum, and I even dressed them in a pair of rare, exquisite robes that will prevent them from rotting for thousands of years,” White No-Face added. “The next time you visit them, you will still be able to see the same faces you knew from when they were alive.”
He then told Xie Lian the location of the Royal Mausoleum and how to enter. This should have been something the king and state preceptor told Xie Lian, but before they were able, they had both either died or disappeared.
Xie Lian was stunned—and suspicious. “Why do you know how to enter the Royal Mausoleum?”
White No-Face smiled. “I know everything about Your Highness.”
“You don’t know shit!” Xie Lian hissed.
He still wasn’t used to spitting such vulgar words from his lips. As if White No-Face had seen through him, he looked Xie Lian up and down and said gently, “Don’t worry, it’s all right. From now on, there will no longer be anything that can hold you back. There won’t be anyone to hold unnecessary expectations of you, and there certainly won’t be anyone who knows who you are. You are free to do anything you want.”
His words planted a strange feeling in Xie Lian.
Why had this monster come here today?
To express his goodwill.
Although the very idea seemed absurd, Xie Lian’s instincts told him that it was true. Providing his parents with a proper burial, trying to console him…it all came from this intent.
That must mean he was very, very happy—happier than any other time Xie Lian had met him. It was like he was exceptionally delighted to see Xie Lian like this, and it was making him unconsciously gentler and kinder. That kindness actually made Xie Lian feel a flash of gratitude, one so keen that it might have brought him to tears, but that was drowned out by overwhelming disgust.
“Don’t be so happy so soon,” Xie Lian said frostily. “I still won’t allow a creature like you to remain in the world. Once I’ve wiped Yong’an from the map, I will come for you. You’d best prepare yourself!”
White No-Face opened his arms wide and shrugged. “I happily welcome you with open arms. Even if you come intending to kill me, I will still be here waiting for you. When you’ve truly become strong enough to defeat me, you will be able to take up my mantle. However—”
The smile under the mask seemed to fade.
“Will you actually destroy Yong’an?”
“What do you mean?” Xie Lian demanded.
“You could make your move right now. Why choose to move in three days? Are you hesitating now that things have finally come to a head? Could it be that, even with your kingdom destroyed and your family dead, you still don’t have the courage to seek revenge? Will I witness another of Your Highness’s failures?”
The word “failure” stabbed his ears. Xie Lian raised his sword and lunged, but he was sent to the ground by one kick from White No-Face—and the creature had somehow snatched away the black sword. His gentle tone was now condescending.
“Do you know how you’re acting right now?”
Xie Lian grabbed the snow-white boot on his chest, but no matter how hard he pushed, it wouldn’t move an inch. He remained firmly pinned down by that foot, trapped on the ground.
White No-Face leaned down slightly. “You’re like a sulking child. You don’t yet have the resolve.”
“Who says I don’t?!” Xie Lian cried angrily.
“Then what are you doing right now?” White No-Face questioned. “Where’s your curse? Where are your dead? Your father and mother, your soldiers, your citizens—how truly pitiful that they had such a god thrust upon them! You couldn’t protect them while they were alive, and you can’t avenge them after their deaths! You useless trash!”
He put more of his weight onto the foot on Xie Lian’s chest. Trickles of blood began to creep from the edges of Xie Lian’s cry-smiling mask, choked from his lungs.
White No-Face lowered the hand that gripped the sword, and its black jade tip prodded against Xie Lian’s throat. As it traced the cursed shackle there, the feeling awakened memories Xie Lian had pushed down.
“Would you like me to remind you what it feels like to be pierced by a hundred swords?”
Overwhelming fear made Xie Lian’s breathing hitch. He was too terrified to move.
After successfully scaring him, White No-Face became amiable again. He withdrew his boot and helped Xie Lian, who was frozen in terror, to sit upright.
White No-Face grasped Xie Lian’s chin and pushed it in a specific direction. “Come, look. This is what you look like right now.”
He forced Xie Lian to view the desecrated divine statue upon the desecrated altar.
The flower and sword in the crown prince statue’s hands were gone. It had been burnt by blazing fires, hacked by axes, and pelted by vegetables, lifted and smashed to the floor. Half of it was burnt black and there were limbs missing—it was a tragic sight to behold.
“Who do you have to thank for becoming like that?” White No-Face asked. “Do you think it’s me?”
He was trying to forcefully indoctrinate Xie Lian once again. New ideas were being poured into his mind, filling him with more and more confusion, more and more doubt. He had even forgotten his anger.
“…What do you want? Why do you cling to me?” Xie Lian wondered, his tone distracted.
“I’ve told you,” White No-Face replied. “I’ve come to guide and educate you. The third thing I will teach you is this: if you cannot save the common people, then destroy them. They will revere you only when you crush them underfoot!”
When White No-Face said those words, Xie Lian’s head suddenly throbbed like it was going to explode. He clutched at it and screamed.
It was the vengeful spirits! There were so many, and they were shrieking and wailing inside his mind—Xie Lian’s head hurt so much that he wanted to roll on the ground. White No-Face, on the other hand, started laughing.
“They cannot wait any longer,” he cooed gently. “If you don’t unleash the plague of Human Face Disease within three days, if you cannot give them a target to curse, then you will become their target. And do you know what will become of you then?”
Xie Lian could feel the freezing black sword being stuffed into his hand once again. A voice resounded in his ears.
“You no longer have the choice to turn back.”
When the throbbing headache finally faded, Xie Lian dropped his hands and opened his eyes. Inside the broken-down Temple of the Crown Prince, he was alone. The white-clothed man who was his exact likeness had long since vanished.
He didn’t know how much time had passed, but night had fallen. It was dim and shadowed inside the Temple of the Crown Prince. Xie Lian’s heart stuttered when he realized something.
