Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 180: Sacrificial Lamb

Wuyi was merciless because next to Junjie Dai and the others, Xuanxian Luo's pain was like the sting of a fly. "You picked a fight because you wanted a girl. The girl didn't want you, and beating up her brothers and her fellow farm-hands wasn't going to ever make her like you. Eh?"

Moan.

"Not that you care, because you are not above a spot of forced love, eh, Xuanxian Luo? This is not the south. I didn"t approve of your way in the south, young man, but this is another country and we are all holed up in the fortress together, and if you so much as breathe garlic on a farm girl, with or without her permission, I"ll hang you with my own hands.

In fact, Xuanxian Luo, let"s be straight about this. You are the single most useless person in my whole group, and I"d prefer to hang you, because the message that I mean business would cost me nothing. You get me?" He leaned forward.

Xuanxian Luo moaned again. He was crying.

Wuyi hadn"t been aware that Xuanxian Luo was capable of crying. It opened up a whole new vista.

"You want to be the hero and not the villain, Xuanxian Luo?" he asked very quietly.

Xuanxian Luo turned his head away.

"Listen up, then. Evil is a choice. It is a choice. Doing the wicked thing is the easy way out, and it is habit-forming. I've done it. Any criminal can use force.

Any wicked person can steal. Some people don't steal because they are afraid of being caught. Others don't steal because it is wrong. Because stealing is the destruction of another person"s work. Rape is violence against another person. Using violence to solve every quarrel—" Wuyi paused in his moralizing lecture.

It's not that he really believed in it, but he knew they did, deep down it was rooted within them—worship of the heavens and the heavens told them to be righteous. He himself did not believe he was evil, but circumstances had made him a necessary one. Yet these subordinates of his, a group of ragtag, tended to use violence to solve every quarrel—he laughed aloud.

"It's our work, but it doesn't have to define us."

Xuanxian Luo moaned.

Wuyi leaned close. "Not a bad time to decide to be a hero and not a villain, Xuanxian Luo. Your current line will end on a gallows. Better to end in a story than a blade." He thought of Baijian. The man was a headstrong villain—easy to forget, but his notions of world fame lingered. "Finish in a song."

The small man wouldn"t look at him. Wuyi shook his head, tired and not very happy with his job.

He got up and stretched.

Liwei was right behind him. Of course. There he was, the prince of hypocrites.

She looked down at Xuanxian Luo, and then back at Wuyi. He shrugged at her.

She furrowed her brow, shook her head, and waved him on his way. He walked away.

He made a sighing sound, and stepped out into the corridor that ran from the recovery beds to the seriously injured ward. He walked a few paces and turned the corner only to find himself standing by Yuanjing Guan"s bed. The man had one leg bandaged from the crotch to the knee.

Guan's eyes opened. He had a very painful expression statue told Guan needed some sympathy.

This is not my day, Wuyi thought.

There was a pause long enough for vast conversations. For debate, argument, rage. Instead, they stared into each other"s eyes like friends.

"Well, brother," Guan said. "So it seems you are alive, after all."

Wuyi made himself breathe in and out. So he was cousin brother to this guy.

"Yes," he said, very quietly. Guan nodded. "And no one knows who you are," he said.

"You do," Wuyi said. "And the old man, Xilai."

Guan nodded.

"He knows I am from Yuanjing, but I don"t know how he knows that about you," he said. "Would you help me sit up?"

Wuyi found himself obligingly raising his brother on his cushions—even fluffing one of them. His brother, from a clan that sent so many people to kill him.

"I was sent to find you, they regret their actions. Some rumors said you were being corrupted in a demonic way," Guan said, suddenly, as if reading his mind. But even as he got those words out, his voice broke. "You weren"t, were you? The moment you came in front of me, I knew it."

Wuyi sat back down. He wanted not to get too deep into it. To have this conversation another day. Another year. This guy was a clueless young master in the true sense; he was a man but talking like a child.

The truth was that even if he was a reborn man, even if he had a statue of harmony to help him with his emotions, it was still his sore spot. The parents in this world disregarding him and the clan sending people to murder him for their own selfish reasons. Being called a bastard again and again, no matter how thick his skin was, some did get under his skin even if he did not accept this fact.

He did not consider them family; he wanted to burn that clan down and cook some meat in that fire to eat. He had no affection for them. But for some reason, when he saw Guan, he could not use his hate for clan on this man who fought demonics with all his strength .

Wuyi sat and looked at Guan, who still believed that they were brothers. That lie, at least, was intact for this guy.

"Clan got my guardians killed because it did not matter; the two Qi initiate guardians of a bastard did not matter," Wuyi found himself saying. He sounded remarkably calm. He was quite proud of himself, just for a moment.

Guan made a choked noise. "I heard about that," he said, after another mammoth pause.

Wuyi spoke, "Why was I able to identify you as kin? Why were you able to identify me?"

Guan shrugged, "The old ancestors of our clans meddled with laws to make our bloodline such that the pure-blooded ones will know. This is why no member of the clan can kill each other."

Wuyi shook his head, "That can't be true.If needed i can get you killed right now."

Guan nodded, "It doesn't mean you can't get outside help or have a very strong will to bypass the law, but in general, you cannot."

Wuyi nodded and asked again, "So they sent you?"

Guan nodded, "I was given a mission to find you and bring you back to the clan."

Wuyi sighed, "I was hidden very well. How did they track me?"

Guan replied, "I don"t know all the details, but I know they paid a high price. Your grandmother's clan used some brother of your past guardian's to track you."

Wuyi nodded, "So, are you a bastard too?"

Guan shook his head, "I am nobly born; my mother is from a low noble clan but not a commoner. Why do you ask?"

"Because this is something they would do to a bastard, I feel," Wuyi said bitterly.

Guan shrugged. "I don"t believe it; this was an important mission. I had to finish the mission, like it or not." He looked out the arrow slit by his head. "I did something terrible down in JingDu. I got some good men killed and did something despicable. I suffered a lot to find you."

Suddenly, Wuyi found Guan"s eyes locked on his again. "When I was kneeling in the mud, acting the craven, I realized that I had to avenge myself or go mad. And—let me say this, brother—I realized that I was alone. But now I have kin; I want revenge."

Wuyi sighed, "You are a foolish man, kin of mine. If you still don't see it."

Guan gave him a curious look, "What do you mean?"

Wuyi spoke, "Let me guess; your family is in the opposite faction of whatever faction that my father or grandfather would be."

Guan nodded, "Yes, that"s true. But since it was our faction that created the problem, it was only right for a member of our faction to come and fix it."

Wuyi smiled, and asked, "You don't find it suspicious they sent you so far with such a small number of people, no guardians looking for me? I agree that they sent people everywhere, but you, they sent in the direction where my past guardian's brothers are where I will be. Why do you think they did that?"

Guan paused and spoke, "Because they believe I will succeed in convincing you?"

Wuyi laughed, "Maybe, but not the way you think."

"What do you mean?" asked Guan.

"They did not send you to convince me the way you think. They sent you to calm my anger, they sent you here as a sacrificial lamb. They know they made a grave error, and now the situation is out of their control as they cannot hurt me. So they do the next best thing—offer a sacrifice to calm my anger and let bygones be bygones. When I saw you, I was supposed to have you killed by my men.

Once you died and the clan was notified, they would send someone more important, maybe my father or grandfather, someone who would be able to convince me. You were just given to me on a platter so you could quench the fire of vengeance in my heart against the clan by taking your life."