The rain drummed on the eaves. In the silence, Shi Mei took a sip of tea, and as if he’d made up his mind, he said, “Let me show you something.”

     He took out a rusted bronze mirror from his qiankun pouch. The edge of the mirror was engraved with a flying phoenix and a roaming dragon, as well as the sun, moon, and universe.

     “This mirror is called Yesterday’s Mirror. It is a relic of my father’s. My father’s surname is Mu… Shizun should have guessed it to some extent already—Mu Yanli and I are half-siblings.”

     After he finished speaking, he bit his finger and dripped blood onto the mirror. The mirror began to fog up, and when the fog dissipated, a hazy image appeared on the mirror. The image gradually condensed and formed, giving rise to a clear scene and face…

     This was the viewing platform of Tianyin Pavilion. In the scene, it was a hot summer day. There were lotus flowers in full bloom and red dragonflies flying low in the lotus pond below the viewing platform.

     A woman in gorgeous clothing stood by the railing, her raised pinky finger marked with cinnabar. She was feeding the fish with crumbs from a plate of pastries, causing the carp pond to fill with excitement and eagerness. Although this woman was born delicate and beautiful, she was extremely cold. When she turned her head to speak to her attendant, he could see that she had a pair of slightly upturned phoenix eyes but a somewhat fierce beauty.

     Chu Wanning frowned slightly as he looked at her, then looked up at Shi Mei.

     “She is not my mother.” Shi Mei seemed to see Chu Wanning’s doubts and smiled. “She is Mu-jiejie’s birth mother, Lin-shi.”

     Soon after, a young woman wearing a silk-embroidered dress and a Tianyin Pavilion maid’s bun entered the scene from the edge of the bronze mirror. She was about seventeen or eighteen years old, with a delicate face that was gentle and virtuous.

     Shi Mei caressed the mirror and said, “This is my mother. …She is the descendant of Song Xingyi, the Lord of Huabi. Guyueye raised her as livestock and did not give her a name. After she escaped, she wanted to give herself a name, but Song was a major surname of the Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts, so she didn’t dare take it. She used the character ‘Hua’ from the ‘Lord of Huabi’ and took a homonym name, since then calling herself Hua Gui.

     “Gui means to return home. After my mother discovered that the Butterfly-Boned Clan could return to the demon realm, she has always hoped to bring all of her clan members home.”

     The mottled bronze mirror could not hide Hua Gui’s stunning beauty as she spoke respectfully and gently to Lin-shi. Chu Wanning noticed that Lin-shi was always cold in the scene, and while all the other maids were very frightened, only Hua Gui had a sweet smile on her face and spoke with the utmost sincerity to her mistress.

     Chu Wanning raised his eyes. “How did she enter Tianyin Pavilion?”

     “It was that high-ranking disciple from Tianyin Pavilion who helped her. In fact, what is written in the books isn’t the truth. After my mother escaped from Guyueye, she didn’t leave his side. They were so in love at the time, and my mother begged him to find a way to free the people of her clan. The disciple listened to her and managed to steal Tianyin Pavilion’s tribulation fire to help her."

     There was a slight crease along Chu Wanning’s brow as he thought to himself, So that’s it.

     The records in history books weren't always accurate. Some truths would slowly be eroded by the flow of time, and when the people of that era grew old and faded, no one would ever know the true nature of the past.

     Shi Mei paused for a moment, then continued, “Two years later, the cultivation world gradually forgot about the incident of tribulation fire at Guyueye. It just so happened that at that time, Madam Lin of Tianyin Pavilion gave birth to a daughter. Lin-shi had an eccentric temperament and wasn’t good at taking care of children, so she needed a few quick-witted young ladies to help her. The disciple took this opportunity to bring my mother to the pavilion. From then on, my mother was Lin-shi’s maid.”

     Hearing this, Chu Wanning looked into the bronze mirror again. He didn’t know when the scene in the mirror had changed—Lin-shi was reading a book by the window of the pavilion as Hua Gui stood by her side, dutifully coaxing a baby she held in her arms.

     At first glance, the scene seemed very gentle; the mistress was graceful, the servant girl was loyal, and the child was loveable and innocent.

     But upon closer reflection, there was a dark undercurrent.

     “...She later replaced Madam Lin.”

     “...Mm.” Shi Mei said, “After staying at Tianyin Pavilion for a long time, my mother recognized this sect’s transcendent status in the cultivation world. At that time, she was still somewhat naïve and came up with an idea that she thought was better than returning to the demon realm.”

     “What is it?”

     “To become the Madam of Tianyin Pavilion.” Shi Mei said, “A word from the descendants of the gods is worth a thousand gold. She thought that as long as the Pavilion Master could open his mouth, no one in the cultivation world would harm her in the future—at least no one would blatantly slaughter Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feats.”

     The light and shadows shifted, and the situation on the mirror’s surface changed. It was still the same viewing platform as before, but during the winter of an unknown year.

     The lotus flowers below the platform were all dried and withered. There were no dragonflies and no red carp jumping in the pond. Those lively creatures and the cold beauty, Lin-shi, of the past were gone. Instead, there was falling snow, the faint fragrance of winter plums, and the back of a woman wearing a thick white fox-fur coat.

     After a while, a man approached, and she turned her head at the sound of his voice, her beautiful face shrouded in the fine, fluttering fox fur. She smiled at him, eclipsing the fresh snow.

     At this moment, it was unknown what methods Hua Gui had used to cause the then Tianyin Pavilion Master to repudiate his first wife, and Lin-shi died shortly after. The high-ranking disciple who had helped her also died mysteriously.

     She finally attained her wish and became the madam of the Tianyin Pavilion Master, the descendants of the gods.

     The sky was gray, with heavy snowfall. Hua Gui walked up to her husband and first bowed to him, then stretched out her hand with a smile and touched the hair of the little girl at his side.

     “...It’s Mu Yanli?”

     Shi Mei smiled. “Yes.”

     “...”

     “Shizun, do you not quite understand why Mu-jiejie, as the daughter of Lin-shi, is so devoted to my mother and doesn’t care about her own biological mother?”

     Chu Wanning didn’t comment and continued to observe the situation in the mirror.

     Mu Yanli only looked to be about four or five years old at the time and was held in Hua Gui’s arms without the slightest resistance. She even hugged Hua Gui’s delicate neck and laughed as if she were very amused by her stepmother.

     Shi Mei said, “Lin-shi was anxious and melancholic by nature and had little affection for children. After Mu-jiejie was born, her condition became more and more severe, to the point that she would harm other people or herself. Once, when my mother wasn’t watching, she took a pair of scissors and stabbed the back of Mu-jiejie’s hand four or five times. When my mother returned, it was she who saved Mu-jiejie, who was already in tears.

     "A birth mother who would have stabbed her to death or someone who had loved her dearly since childhood. Mu-jiejie chose the latter.”

     The scene changed, and there was a window with a thin layer of frost on the outside along with a red blessing of longevity. It must have been just after the New Year one year, and Hua Gui was sitting at a rosewood table to write.

     Beside her sat two children, a boy and a girl. The girl was aloof and cold, while the boy had gentle eyes and brows. They were Hua Binan and Mu Yanli as children.

     “Alright.” Hua Gui smiled as she picked up the rice paper and blew on it, then said, “Look at the medical sect’s magic elixir recipe your mother copied. It’s well-written, isn’t it?”

     Mu Yanli, whose voice was still youthful at the time, said in a high-pitched voice, “Of course what mother wrote is beautiful.”

     Shi Mei was even younger and didn’t know how to speak like a child. He just sat there and smacked his fingers with delight as he watched the two of them laugh and play.

     “My father was obsessed with cultivating all day long and was regularly negligent in watching over me and my sister. Mu-jiejie and I were both taught by my mother personally.” Looking at the scene in the mirror, Shi Mei recalled, “She taught us how to read and write and taught some of the most basic of small spells.”

     “She knew how to use spells?”

     “Only a little.” Shi Mei paused. “This was a fake move to scare ordinary people. I’m afraid that it can’t even beat the weakest of cultivators.”

     “...”

     “But she was willing to accompany us and be with us day and night.” With a sigh, Shi Mei’s gaze became a little stiff. “No matter how scheming she was and how she treated outsiders, she treated me and Mu-jiejie with the kindness of her heart and soul.”

     The scene on the surface of the mirror spun quicker and quicker, as if time were passing through the gaps of his fingers like water. In this rush of various scenes, Mu Yanli and Shi Mei gradually grew up.

     And throughout this process, Hua Gui protected the brother and sister every step of the way.

     On a stormy night, she lulled Mu Yanli to sleep.

     On a clear afternoon in the middle of summer, she fed Shi Mei red bean and barley soup.

     All of these things occurred little by little.

     “Later on, when I reached the age to learn magic, my father personally taught me the spells of Tianyin Pavilion, but my talent was too lacking to learn them. He was very disappointed, and I also felt that I was a useless, mediocre person at that time—after all, Mu-jiejie had successfully established her foundation when she was eight years old, and even after I put in all my effort, I didn’t even have the slightest sense of qi.”

     In the scene, little Shi Mei sat by the pond in a daze, with an even smaller sword resting on his small knees.

     Hua Gui walked across the wooden bridge, her brows furrowed as her long skirt trailed behind her. She looked around and found the lone, musing child, and her anxious expression finally relaxed.

     She walked to his side, bent down and said a few words to him, then held Shi Mei in her arms and walked back to the end of the garden.

     “Having spent a lot of time in Guyueye, she had seen many people with weak spiritual power who were able to gain a place in the cultivation world by practicing at the medical sect.” Shi Mei said, “She didn’t cause trouble because Guyueye once abused the Beauty Feasts. She convinced my father and let me begin cultivating the path of medicine and poison from then on.”

     When Shi Mei previously spoke about the private affairs and intrigues between men and women, Chu Wanning knew that Hua Gui was a woman of ability, but he didn’t know enough to say to what extent.

     But when he heard this, he suddenly clearly felt the incisiveness of this woman…

     —

     To her, Guyueye was like a hellish nightmare, devouring her for the first half of her life. If it were an ordinary person, even if they didn’t hate the medical sect to the core, they would still have a grudge against it and dislike it. But she knew very well what the medical sect was, what she needed, and how to do it.

     She had a pair of extremely calm eyes, and she would never act rashly, even if her hatred was as deep as the sea.

     “She had always been very methodical in her planning. Before taking one step, she may have already thought of the next hundred steps that follow. So in addition to taking care of me and Mu-jiejie, she also had the energy to go around and gather the whereabouts of the people of the clan, to hide them from the world and provide them with shelter.”

     But it was clear that the Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts' situation hadn’t changed. Moreover, Chu Wanning remembered that Madam Hua had died a long time ago, at a young age. There must be some hidden reason behind this.

     Chu Wanning had a vague speculation in his mind, connecting the various rumors about the Butterfly-Boned Clan and the descendants of the gods. He asked, “...Later, Madam Hua’s identity… was exposed?”

     Shi Mei didn’t answer immediately. His eyes glinted with an overly bright light, which was very sharp at first glance, like deep hatred. But upon closer inspection, it was like a tidal wave of sadness.

     “It shouldn’t have been exposed,” he said. “My father had no brains and couldn’t sense anything wrong with my mother at all… But he was a descendant of the gods after all. Even though the blood of the gods in his body was very little, he still had some innate perceptiveness.”

     He lowered his eyes to look into the mirror. The scene had shifted to the Tianyin Pavilion Master’s room, where a man with slightly graying temples lay on a sickbed.

     “When I was nine years old, this man fell seriously ill. The best doctors were brought in to see him, but couldn’t find the cause of the illness.”

     Shi Mei sneered, “Actually, after knowing the inside story, the truth is evident. He was an heir of the gods, and my mother was an heir of the demons. After the war between the gods and demons, the Demon Lord placed a curse that, from then on, there can be no union between gods and demons, and those who violate it will die. My father’s strange illness was caused by this ancient curse, but this was unknown to him. As for the gods, perhaps out of pity or perhaps because they wanted to embarrass the Demon Lord; in any case, one night, a god appeared in my father’s dream and told him the whole story. Then also said… if he wanted to survive, he needed to sever all ties with the demon woman.”

     Chu Wanning looked at Shi Mei’s somewhat fierce face and waited for him to continue.

     He knew that things definitely weren’t as simple as cutting ties.

     Shi Mei said, “After waking up from the dream, my father was furious. Tianyin Pavilion has always been a place where everything goes their way, and his position in the cultivation world was so extraordinary that everyone respected him and treated him as a god. But this woman… this piece of flesh like a pig or dog to be slaughtered, this dual cultivation furnace, had actually schemed against him, used him, and deceived him.”

     “...”

     “She nearly even caused his death. She’s so vicious, so…”

     He took a deep breath. Even though he suppressed his emotions well, Shi Mei’s voice still sounded a little hoarse.

     He squeezed his teacup tightly. The tea inside had already gone cold, but he hadn’t finished drinking it. As his thoughts surged, he squeezed too hard, and with a “bang,” the porcelain cup exploded.

     Tea splashed everywhere…

     The mirror was also splashed by the tea, and the scene was blurred by the amber liquid. One could vaguely see the man on the sickbed summoning Hua Gui.

     He stepped off the bed barefoot, exchanged a few words with her as if nothing had happened, then walked to the door with a smile. He turned his back to Hua Gui, then closed and locked the door.

     The man turned back toward his wife. In the light of the mirror distorted by tea stains, a leopard-like face emerged.

     Shi Mei suddenly shuddered, flipped the mirror over, and slammed it face-down, turning his back to the mirror and no longer looking at it again.

     The veins on the backs of his hand protruded like the twisted roots of a tree, and hatred surged in every blood vessel.

     After a long while, he buried his face in his hands, and his voice sounded extremely exhausted.

     “He…”

     Only one word was said before pausing.

     “This beast…” He seemed to have a monstrous flood of hatred to vent and a thousand words to curse, but with so many things fighting to come forward, he didn’t know which words to say and fell silent again.

     Shi Mei paused again and again. He should have looked at this bronze mirror many times before, but even after so long, after so many years, he still felt such hatred.

     Slowly, he stopped shaking, and all of this hatred eventually became a seemingly dull sentence.

     “That day, my divine father ate my mother alive.”