Destiny in Cinders

It wouldn’t have been hard to figure out Madam Huai’s identity. Keensight was already a major city that was in the grasp of the Heavenly Demon Cult, which meant that its terrestrial veins were also controlled by the cult. The fact that Madam Huai was allowed to live at one of the nodes to sustain her life meant that she was involved with the cult somehow.

An Jing should’ve figured it out much sooner when he detected the familiar medicinal scent from her. Her reaction confirmed his guess too. She was indeed a close acquaintance of the manor lord and Majesty Yang Fist. Members of the demonic cult were fundamentally different from normal people; they wouldn’t even mourn the passing of their loved ones and accepted it as the workings of heavenly will.

”Child, I am not mad,” Madam Huai said when she noticed An Jing’s confusion. She looked away from the knuckle shard calmly without any trace of hate or resentment, only relief. ”Brother Feng, the apothecary, was too far gone on the path of evil. His sins compound upon each other and he deserves no forgiveness. It is all too reasonable that he, too, should suffer death at the hands of others, especially that of a good child like you.”

She looked at An Jing calmly and gave him a warm smile. ”Even if you slice him into ribbons, I would be happy that you’ve done so. This is the working of heavenly will. This deathly tribulation of his was in the making all the while now. As for Little Shu...”

She turned to look at the shard of the knuckle and spoke with an even more perplexed tone. ”He had always been a good person. His parents were the ones who fell down the path of evil and pulled him into the cult. He was undoubtedly a member of the divine cult and also one of its many sacrifices. However, he always made sure to do good. During his service to the cult, he never aided any evil act. He only fulfilled his duties to the cult, doing what he should do.”

”Such as chasing down a traitor of the cult like me?” An Jing said after a long stretch of silence. He raised his brow and gave the madam a solemn look. ”He must have played a part in the fact that Direlife Manor was able to exist in the mountains so near to the border. Even if he didn’t do anything heinous himself, he was no good person. He is an accessory of evil no matter how you put it.”

”Perhaps...” Madam Huai didn’t say anything to rebut An Jing’s statement. All she did was speak her mind. ”However, child, which one of us has been given a choice on the circumstances of our birth? Not you, not me. As long as we’re alive, the mere act of survival could result in the abetment of evil. Everything that happens is downstream of heavenly will. How we choose to walk the path chosen for us by heavenly will is the question to which the divine cult seeks an answer.”

She paused for a moment before asking sorrowfully, ”Can you let me see the shard?”

He handed it to her and she immediately began to caress it gently. She turned to her and said, ”Thank you... thank you... I was so worried not knowing how Little Shu had been doing... Finally, I have an answer.”

An Jing finally had a better idea of what the Heavenly Demon Cult’s original teachings were about based on what Madam Huai told him and Instructor Li’s last words. In a world filled with chaos and confusion, finding one’s own will among the noise, the ”divine spark” that guides our every action, is far from trivial. The struggles of life alone are not enough to find what truly guides our will along the unpredictable path that fate has charted for us. Ultimately, we are all subjected to the will of the divine, heavenly will.

Finding one’s own will, walking one’s own road, paving one’s own path, doing things aligned with one’s innate nature, following the goals set by oneself all while keeping to the path the heavens had charted for us, eventually becoming the truest version of ourselves. Such was the profound meaning veiled behind the notion of heavenly will. This philosophy aspired to achieve ”good” within its own framework. It just wasn’t concerned with superficial kindness or the wellbeing of the masses. The question still remained: How did the Heavenly Divine Cult end up as the Heavenly Demon Cult?

”Jing Xuan, even though the madam is a cult member, in actuality, it’s more likely that...” You Ruhui shuffled closer and told An Jing about Madam Huai’s past. By this time, she already had a decent guess of An Jing’s identity. She was a smart girl who was just a bit too sheltered during her upbringing. It didn’t take her much to be able to pick out the fact that this ”Dustdawner genius” had some kind of ties to the demonic cult from their conversation.

In fact, An Jing was the one who had killed the manor lord and betrayed the cult, escaping from their training grounds. Madam Huai’s acquaintances had more than likely perished by his hand. Yet, fate saw it fitting to bring such a ragtag group together. Such was its mysterious workings.

Though it all felt astonishing to think about, You Ruhui did understand it to some extent. No wonder he’s so strong and confident. Not only was he able to fight his way out of the cult. He also managed to ruin the True Fiend Cult’s plans! She did think it was rather odd that Madam Huai wasn’t mad at An Jing in the slightest. An Jing was also talking about everything calmly.

”Qi Soul Lending... I see, that’s your lifearc,” An Jing said. ”The manor lord also had the same lifearc. The lifevessel used to make the blood brew pills also required this matching lifearc to use!”

The pieces fell together in An Jing’s mind. It also helped him understand how Madam Huai remained such a kind soul despite being a proper member of the demonic cult.

”That’s why they kept you around! For your lifearc to be nurtured! They were waiting for you to die!” he muttered, looking intensely at her. ”I see... Madam, you are a living lifevessel that they were keeping alive this whole time!”

Apart from being formed by natural processes, the most common way to create lifevessels was to infuse the lifearc bearer’s soul essence into an object. Madam Huai had lived for much longer than she should’ve and helped people her whole life, building up a powerful lifearc. Whether she died of old age or unnatural causes, her soul essence would remain within the vicinity of Keensight’s terrestrial veins and congregate on an object, probably one that she often used. That object would then transform into a new Vitalboon Dish! Her death would allow the Heavenly Demon Cult to start another branch just like Direlife Manor!

Having understood everything, An Jing said, ”Madam, did it never occur to you that the start of your life’s troubles was too much of a coincidence? You were the sole survivor of an entire merchant convoy, a young girl who just so happened to awaken a lifearc. The Lord Inspector of the North just so happened to arrive on time to save you. Doesn’t it all sound like a play unfolding on a stage, with a story straight out of an elaborate script?”