Song of Everlasting Regret - Chapter 21

For more than ten years, although Lou Jing had repeatedly talked back to Lou Xuanzhi, careful consideration revealed that—apart from the still-unresolved matter involving Cao Ruxu—she had never truly committed any serious wrong.

On the contrary, she trained diligently, studied earnestly, and constantly strove to improve. Few disciples in the sect could compare with her.

Although her relationship with Lou Xuanzhi was not especially close, it had never reached the point of bitter hostility.

Even with the small amount of evidence against her, others still found it difficult to believe that Lou Jing hated her father enough to kill him with her own hands.

However, the past events Li Changhong mentioned appeared to provide a reasonable explanation for Lou Jing’s abnormal behavior.

Suppose Shen Zhongyin had told Lou Jing that he was her biological father and then deceived her into believing that the Qianyuan Sect and Lou Xuanzhi had caused Jiao Lan’s death.

If so, Lou Jing would seem to have sufficient reason to attack Lou Xuanzhi.

Years ago, Lou Xuanzhi had explicitly declared that Lou Jing was his daughter.

He had ordered everyone in the sect never to mention her parentage again. He had even punished sect members who questioned her origins in front of her.

Thus, no one dared speak about the matter.

That did not mean everyone had stopped doubting her ancestry.

Li Changhong was one of those who remained suspicious.

Now Lou Xuanzhi was dead, and Lou Jing herself was under grave suspicion. Li Changhong therefore had no remaining reservations and brought up the old matter again.

Pointing two fingers toward the ground, Li Changhong said to Wu Qingtian, “During Zhongwu Hall’s wedding celebration in Xuzhou City, all the subordinates Cao Ruxu took to pursue the Jade Buddha’s Hand died beneath Shen Zhongyin’s Blazing Core Palm.

“That wicked disciple was also present. Perhaps she and Shen Zhongyin had already met and made an agreement at that time.

“Look at what happened after she returned to the mountain. She showed no remorse, behaved with monstrous disobedience, contradicted the sect master, and even angered him until he coughed up blood. The first signs of her betrayal were already visible.

“Afterward, she descended the mountain, supposedly to investigate Cao Ruxu’s death. In truth, she probably went to meet Shen Zhongyin in secret.

“Otherwise, how could she have happened to encounter him so conveniently? It was clearly planned in advance!”

One incident after another was connected into a complete chain of cause and effect by Li Changhong.

Yun Yao did not fully understand the grievances and entanglements of the previous generation.

However, judging from Wu Qingtian’s expression, she knew that Li Changhong had not invented those past events. The matter was probably extremely complicated.

Every current sign was unfavorable to Lou Jing.

Even her uncertain parentage had become a fatal weakness—a possible motive for her alleged crime.

Although Yun Yao wanted to defend Lou Jing, she could say nothing more until other evidence was found.

After Yun Yao left, Li Changhong and Wu Qingtian went to the black prison.

Lou Jing sat with her back to the cell door, facing the wall with the narrow stone window.

Even when the door opened, she did not turn around.

Wu Qingtian said coldly, “Your elders have arrived, yet you keep your back to us and do not rise to greet us. Have you abandoned even the most basic courtesy?”

Lou Jing lowered her head from where she had been gazing at the sky outside.

“Did Martial Uncle Li not say that he had no martial niece like me?”

“You!”

Li Changhong swept his sleeve, his goatee trembling.

Because Lou Jing still had something to ask of them, she finally stood and bowed toward Wu Qingtian.

“Martial Uncle Wu.”

Her temperament remained stubborn.

Having been mistreated, she refused to bend and therefore ignored Li Changhong entirely.

“Martial Uncle Wu, I wish to keep vigil for my father.”

Before Wu Qingtian could answer, Li Changhong barked, “Impossible!”

“He is my father!”

Lou Jing gritted her teeth.

“Even if I am a condemned prisoner, I should at least be allowed to see my father off on his final journey!”

Wu Qingtian’s thick brows lowered as he appeared to hesitate.

Lou Jing seized the opportunity.

“Even if I cannot keep vigil, allow me to see him one final time.”

“What sort of place do you think the ancestral hall is?” Li Changhong demanded. “Allowing you inside would disgrace the Qianyuan Sect!

“You think you are worthy of paying respects to the sect master?

“To have his murderer keep vigil for him would be the greatest joke beneath the heavens!”

Lou Jing clenched both fists until the veins stood out on her hands.

“Did Martial Uncle Li personally see me kill my father?

“Has my guilt already been established beyond doubt?

“If not, what right do you have to use that accusation to prevent me from paying respects to him?”

“There is little difference at this point,” Li Changhong said. “We came here to make you account for everything you did after leaving the mountain.

“Today, do not think you can evade us again!”

Lou Jing glanced at Wu Qingtian.

Seeing that he remained silent, she knew there was little hope.

She gave a numb smile and repeated everything she had already told Yun Yao.

Neither man responded to her account.

After a while, Wu Qingtian called, “Lou Jing…”

Li Changhong caught hold of him and pulled him out of the cell.

Just as they were about to leave, Lou Jing suddenly raised her head and asked, “Elder Li, what will you do to atone if the investigation later proves that I was not the murderer, yet you caused me to lose my final opportunity to see my father?”

Li Changhong turned and met Lou Jing’s gaze directly.

Her eyes seemed to coil around him like venomous snakes. A layer of frost covered them, cold and entirely devoid of emotion.

Even Li Changhong, who had weathered countless storms, felt his heart tremble.

He replied gravely, “That day will never come.”

After Li Changhong and Wu Qingtian left, Wu Qingtian stopped in the dim passageway and pondered for a moment.

“What she said was reasonable.

“Regardless of whose daughter she truly is, the sect master raised her for more than ten years. Even if they were not related by blood, there should still have been affection between them as father and daughter.

“There would be no harm in allowing her to pay her respects.”

Li Changhong disagreed.

“Look at that wretch. Since learning of the sect master’s death, has she shed even a single tear?

“She is cold-blooded to this extent!

“Besides, she was capable of attacking the sect master. What affection between father and daughter could possibly remain? Is that what you call familial affection?”

Wu Qingtian said, “There are still doubts surrounding the matter. Most of our conclusions are inferences. Although there is physical evidence, there are no witnesses.”

“Even so, you know Lou Jing’s temperament.”

Li Changhong lowered his voice and cupped his hands toward the empty air.

“The ancestral hall is such a solemn and sacred place. What if she creates another disturbance like the one several days ago and offends the spirits of our ancestors?”

Wu Qingtian considered this for a moment, nodded, and sighed before walking away.

Li Changhong glanced back toward the cell and followed him outside.

Lou Jing sat listlessly inside the prison, unaware of the storms raging beyond its walls.

Everything inside and outside the cell was silent.

She emptied her thoughts and avoided thinking about anything, as though fleeing from reality.

The following day, the weather cleared slightly.

When someone came again, Lou Jing was lying upon the bed with her eyes wide open and her face expressionless.

The cell door opened.

A person shouted coldly, “Lou Jing, get up.”

It was Jia Yu, followed by two sect disciples.

They looked familiar, but Lou Jing could not remember their names.

She sat up.

Because Jia Yu remained standing, he looked down upon her from above.

“From today onward, I will be the one interrogating you.”

Lou Jing replied indifferently, “Elder Li and Martial Uncle Wu questioned me yesterday. I have already told them everything I know.”

“Who knows whether you concealed anything?”

Jia Yu had a long, thin face with prominent cheekbones, a narrow mouth, thin lips, and drooping outer corners to his eyes.

An excited light flashed in his gaze as his cold and severe features moved closer to Lou Jing, step by step.

“Lou Jing, you had better confess honestly. The longer you drag this out, the more humiliating it will become for you.”

Lou Jing leaned closer to him.

“I already feel humiliated—humiliated by your incompetence.”

Jia Yu’s face darkened.

He stepped backward and straightened his body, his tone becoming harsh.

“Traitor Lou Jing, did you collude with Shen Zhongyin during your first descent from the mountain?”

Lou Jing lifted her eyes to glance at him.

“I did not know him. What collusion could there have been? He nearly beat me to death. Would you collude with someone like that?”

Jia Yu appeared not to hear her and continued questioning.

“Did you secretly descend the mountain this time to meet Shen Zhongyin and plot the sect master’s murder?”

“I went down the mountain to investigate the cause of Cao Ruxu’s death.”

“You pretended to be captured by Shen Zhongyin and lured the sect master there—”

“No!” Lou Jing said heavily.

“You took advantage of the sect master’s lack of vigilance toward you—”

Even though she did not wish to engage with Jia Yu, she could not stop herself from responding when she heard such slander.

“I did not!”

“And used Dormant Dragon to cut open the sect master’s throat!”

“Jia Yu! If you are deaf, replace yourself with someone capable of understanding human speech!”

“You disregarded more than ten years of care and upbringing. You are heartless and ungrateful!

“You killed the sect master, did you not? Speak!”

Jia Yu’s voice grew increasingly loud as he shouted.

He seemed like a solid black wall pressing relentlessly toward her, leaving no space through which she could breathe.

He paid no attention to Lou Jing’s answers.

He did not resemble someone conducting an interrogation, but someone rebuking a criminal whose guilt had already been determined.

“Lou Jing, why have you stopped speaking? Is your guilty conscience troubling you?”

Lou Jing restrained the fury in her heart, though veins bulged across her forehead.

“If you wish to question me, have Martial Uncle Wu come.”

Jia Yu scoffed.

“Lou Jing, do you still believe you are the sect master’s beloved daughter and future successor, someone everyone must yield to?

“Yu Jingqiu now sits upon the sect master’s throne.

“You are nothing but a prisoner who defied all morality and murdered her own father. You are nothing.”

Jia Yu continued accusing her, speaking of those fabricated crimes as though they were established facts.

His voice was high and piercing as he repeatedly pressed the same questions.

He did not leave until nightfall.

He returned the following day and repeated the same infuriating questions throughout the day.

This continued for three consecutive days.

Whenever Lou Jing closed her eyes, Jia Yu’s grating words filled her ears.

His sneering face circled endlessly within her mind.

That night, Lou Jing had a nightmare.

In the dream, she held a long sword from whose blade blood continuously dripped.

Lou Xuanzhi knelt before her.

A vast, hideous wound stretched across his neck, and blood surged from it like a spring.

Lou Jing awakened in terror.

Her entire body was covered in cold sweat, and her heart remained filled with fear, guilt, and self-reproach that refused to fade.

Her mental strength gradually deteriorated, and her emotions became extremely unstable.

When Jia Yu came again that day, he demanded, “You killed the sect master—”

Lou Jing exploded.

“Shut your mouth!”

Because she had not slept through the night, her eyes were filled with blood vessels.

“You are all in such a hurry to declare me guilty. Perhaps you are the ones with guilty consciences, desperate to shift suspicion away from yourselves!

“Perhaps you are the murderer! You, or you, or you!

“Or perhaps it was Elder Li—your master!”

Jia Yu seized Lou Jing’s face.

The corner of his eye twitched.

“A desperate dog will jump over a wall. You dare falsely accuse my master!”

Lou Jing suddenly opened her mouth and bit the web between Jia Yu’s thumb and forefinger.

She used all her strength, immediately sinking her teeth deeply into his flesh.

The abrupt, heart-piercing pain caused Jia Yu’s strength to falter.

Before he could mobilize his inner force, Lou Jing kicked an acupoint below his knee.

Although she could not use much strength, his leg still went numb, as though all its power had been drained away.

Unable to support himself, his body tilted and began to fall.

Lou Jing seized his arm and twisted it behind him.

Following the momentum of his fall, she violently pushed him forward and pinned him against the floor.

Half-kneeling upon Jia Yu’s back, Lou Jing twisted his arm with one hand and pressed the other against the back of his neck.

Her expression was vicious.

“Even if Li Changhong were standing here, he might not dare treat me this way. What the hell are you?”

However, Lou Jing’s inner force was sealed.

Once Jia Yu recovered from his surprise, he released power from his dantian.

A violent burst of force threw Lou Jing off his body.

Jia Yu climbed to his feet, furious from humiliation.

He snatched the scabbard from one disciple’s sword.

“Lou Jing refused to cooperate with the sect’s interrogation and even attacked me. Both of you witnessed it.”

The muscles in Jia Yu’s face twitched.

His blood-covered hand gripped the scabbard.

“A person like you deserves to be severely disciplined.

“The sect master never struck you, and in the end he suffered the consequences. Today, I will teach you properly in his place!”

Jia Yu swung the scabbard viciously toward Lou Jing’s waist.

She raised an arm to block it.

Although she reacted quickly, she possessed no inner force to protect her body. The impact produced a burst of agony that felt as though the bone had cracked.

The two disciples attempted to stop him.

“Senior Brother Jia, if you injure her too badly, it will be difficult to explain matters to Martial Uncle Wu and Senior Sister Yu.”

Jia Yu was unconcerned.

“Yu Jingqiu is not yet sect master.

“Even if she truly becomes sect master, Lou Jing was the one who committed a wrong first. I am merely teaching her a small lesson. What could Yu Jingqiu possibly say?”

In his eyes, Yu Jingqiu was truly nothing to fear.

When Jia Yu prepared to strike again, he paused.

Realizing that going too far might indeed attract attention, he began striking only the areas concealed beneath Lou Jing’s clothing so that no one would see the injuries.

At first, Lou Jing managed to dodge twice.

Without inner force to sustain her, however, she could not move as quickly as Jia Yu, and most of the blows landed upon her body.

Jia Yu struck her more than ten times.

Eventually, Lou Jing stopped avoiding them.

She made no sound and merely stared directly at him.

Her eyes resembled those of a sharp-eyed wolf hidden in the night, watching its prey with a faint, chilling gleam.

Jia Yu’s heart trembled.

Feeling somewhat afraid, he stopped, muttered several curses, and left with the two disciples.