Jiang Manyou's Analysis

Shui Qianyue withdrew a navy blue face mask from within her robes, wearing it over her mouth and nose. Her long hair was styled into a pair of twin pigtails, spiralling downwards much like the grooves and ridges of a pine cone.

Wearing the same black baggy robes as usual, mother-child swords concealed beneath, she stopped in front of room number 12. After knocking, she turned to glance over at the door of room 33, eyes glazing over slightly.

"Come in."

Shui Qianyue's stupor was burst abruptly by the sound of Jiang Manyou's sickly voice. She quickly entered, making sure to shut the door quietly behind her. Looking around, it was obvious that the room was neat and tidy, as if it was being frequently cleaned and dusted. The blinds were only partially shut, allowing a sliver of light to peer into the room against the walnut-brown walls.

Jiang Manyou lay in bed. Like an elderly man, his skin was pale and his face looked gaunt- it was as if he'd had an entanglement with a nine-tailed fox, his life essence having been drained away.

Shui Qianyue placed the bamboo basket down onto the dresser, unloading its contents of fruit and confectionery. While most of it was store-bought, there were a few homemade cakes and biscuits sprinkled within. Clearly, Shui Qianyue had spent a lot of effort and money to make sure that Jiang Manyou was catered to.

Jiang Manyou opened his eyes, his pupils switching quickly between dilation and constriction. Combined with his ghastly appearance, his sluggish demeanour made it seem like he was going to pass away at any moment.

He briefly looked at Shui Qianyue before looking down to examine the gifts she'd bought. An expression of guilt made its way onto his face, but before he could say anything, he broke down into a series of wet coughs. Seeing this, Shui Qianyue felt a stabbing pain in her heart- her valiant and charismatic friend, an unbroken man who never displayed weakness and took weal and woe in equal stride, someone who she thought of as an elder brother or a dodgy but caring uncle, was reduced to this helpless mess.

Worse, was the fact that death was a very real possibility for him. Shui Qianyue bit down on her lips as she thought of the worst case scenario, holding back the tears. 

"Qianyue, what's wrong?" Jiang Manyou asked, his voice sounding like that of an elderly man's.

Taking in a shaky breath, Shui Qianyue shook her head, discreetly wiping the corners of her eyes as she did so.

"Nothing, nothing at all. I-I just came to check up on you and bring you some snacks." She replied, picking up a bundle of grapes and picking a few off. "Here, try them. They're fresh from the western wilderness. Aunty Rou said that they're a staple fruit of the barbarian diet."

Jiang Manyou received the grapes cautiously but unsteadily, making the effort to avoid touching hands with Shui Qianyue, lest he accidentally infected her. He chewed and swallowed them with an audible gulp, smiling as he enjoyed their tangy sweetness.

Shui Qianyue watched him eat happily, feeling a combined sense of sadness yet joy at the same time. Seeing him derive enjoyment simply from eating fruit made her happy too, but the very fact that eating was perhaps the most active Jiang Manyou was able to be now upset her to no end.

After finishing the grapes, Jiang Manyou leaned back, letting out a noticeably more vigorous sigh.

"Qianyue, how have things been going lately?" He asked.

Shui Qianyue looked away slightly, recalling the unpleasant interactions she'd had over the last month. Various thoughts ran through her mind, but overall, it was a mess of conflicting emotions and priorities.

"Things have been alright. We've been getting more work lately since various factions have been taking advantage of our vulnerability. The case of chain murders I told you about hasn't been solved, but we've obtained more clues at least."

In the end, she withheld many words out of fear of aggravating Jiang Manyou's already poor condition. Things like the death of Miss Lian to the same sickness that Jiang Manyou had contracted from her, the rapid spreading of said sickness amongst the poorer denizens of Cang'An and the drastic increase in violent outbursts that the sickness seemed to induce.

However, the disease wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things. In Cang'An's time, there had definitely been worse plagues- in comparison, this one had a low innate lethality. In fact, more people were harmed as a result of the violent outbursts themselves rather than the actual sickness killing the patient.

That was how Miss Lian, the prostitute who Jiang Manyou loved dearly, passed away, after suddenly going crazy and attacking the people around her in a frenzy, subsequently falling off from the balcony near the third story of the Weeping Willow and splitting her skull open onto the pavement.

While Jiang Manyou was a martial practitioner and ought to be highly resistant to most sicknesses, this particular one seemed to be quite unique in that some people would be bedridden for weeks on end, while others would merely lose their sense of smell or taste for a few days. When an entire family caught the sickness, they often shared the same level of severity, either being severely affected or not at all.

But anyone who caught it would be prone to random violent outbursts until they recovered, regardless of how severely the initial symptoms affected them.

"That's good, that's good." Jiang Manyou muttered. He twisted his neck to get a better look at Shui Qianyue.

"How have things been going with Sihai Wuxian? Last I checked, you and he were flirting on the regular, be it during mealtime or during sparring."

Shui Qianyue looked at her feet, a sense of shame washing over her. Seeing the reticent behaviour and the lack of blushing or shyness that he expected, Jiang Manyou regained just enough vitality to frown.

"What happened? Tell me about it."

Shui Qianyue sighed forlornly. She mulled things over for a few moments before eventually deciding to come clean and explain what had happened that night.

Listening to her speak, Jiang Manyou couldn't help but shake his head.

"In the end, what you did was unnecessary."

Blinking in confusion, Shui Qianyue tilted her head in a somewhat iconic manner.

"What do you mean?"

Tsking, Jiang Manyou placed his hands together over his blanket.

"What could your suggestion accomplish? How would it help to confirm whether Sihai Wuxian is our ally or foe?"

Still puzzled, Shui Qianyue motioned for him to continue.

"Think about it. If he was working with the Twilight Order with the goal of luring our Nightwatchers into an ambush but didn't succeed in bringing any of you along with him, what would he do? He'd just return and say that he couldn't catch up to the impostor. Furthermore, you wouldn't be able to refute it since it's completely logical and ultimately, it would just strain the relationship between both sides, neither being able to trust one another."

He raised a hand to stop Shui Qianyue from talking, continuing his analysis.

"But what if he was innocent? Let's say that he really is our ally and managed to catch up to the impostor, but the latter, upon seeing that there were no Nightwatchers to ambush, decided to withdraw completely. What would Sihai Wuxian do in that scenario? Assuming that the person who attempted to lure him and the others refused to fight Sihai Wuxian and focused solely on running away instead, what would be the point in luring away a group of Nightwatchers if they can't even finish off a single cultivator? In that case, the only way to prevent himself from appearing suspicious would be to lie and say that he never managed to catch the impostor in the first place!"

"What I mean by this is simple. If they were planning to ambush a group of Nightwatchers, they would definitely account for the combat power of one or two cultivators like you and Sihai Wuxian, but in this scenario they decided that exposing themselves to deal with a single cultivator wasn't worth it and decided to retreat. For a different reason, the final outcome would be the same- trying to appear as if he never managed to catch up to the impostor and the loss of trust between us and him."

After the lengthy explanation, Jiang Manyou broke down into a coughing fit, coughing up a few specks of blood. As he wiped it off with a piece of linen cloth, he waved to signal that he was fine.

"The point is, is that your action of telling him to chase the impostor essentially backed him into a corner. The best outcome for him was to actually be ambushed, escaping alive. The worst would be death. No wonder you've never received any invitations from men your age- not only did you essentially try and kill the person you like, but you didn't even make it up to him. Tsk."

Shui Qianyue was enlightened to the error of her ways, realising how foolish she had acted. In truth, she probably wouldn't have made such a mistake ordinarily, but with the person in question being Wuxian, her emotions clouded her judgement.

Why?

Simple.

They had been getting closer over the course of a few months, sparring frequently, talking frequently, staring at the moon frequently… although Wan Qiushou had third-wheeled frequently as well. But Shui Qianyue couldn't help but notice that Wuxian continually tried to prevent them from getting any closer.

And this behaviour made her feel that he was concealing secrets. Obviously, everyone had secrets, let alone this strange individual who possessed cultivation techniques and a weapon fit for a noble scion who claimed to have amnesia, but the way he acted made her feel that he deliberately didn't want to hurt her and Wan Qiushou.

But how could he hurt them if he got closer to them?

The only way she could rationalise this in her mind was like this; the only way one could hurt the person they were close to in any significant way was to betray them. In this scenario, where Wuxian was so cognisant of the fact that he might end up hurting Shui Qianyue and Wan Qiushou was if he'd planned to betray them from the very beginning.

While Jiang Manyou's words didn't address this particular point of her concerns, it did at the very least show that her actions had not only relieved the problem, but directly exacerbated it instead. She had effectively been pouring salt into an open wound.

With slightly red eyes, Shui Qianyue looked up helplessly.

"What should I do? I basically tried to get him killed… how would he be able to forgive me? And it's practically impossible for our relationship to return to how it was before, right?"

Jiang Manyou adopted a sagely posture, despite appearing sickly and invalid.

"Bed him."

Shui Qianyue looked at him blankly.

"Pardon?"

Jiang Manyou cleared his throat.

"Bed him. By that I mean sleep with him."

Shui Qianyue stared at the sickly pale man lying in front of her, a sense of repulsion welling up from within. She stood up abruptly, taking the empty basket and making for the door.

"Hey!" Jiang Manyou called.

Shui Qianyue stopped in her tracks, directing a disdainful gaze in his direction, but stopping to listen nonetheless.

"If you're not willing to progress too quickly, that's fine too. A slower but steadier way to move forwards is to invite him to a free meal." Looking at Shui Qianyue's disbelieving look, he continued. "Trust me, no good man can resist a free meal from a pretty lady. In fact, that's exactly how my little Lian caught me. If you don't want to conquer his body using yours, the next best alternative is to conquer his stomach with your cooking!"

"…F*ck off."

"I'm being serious- and she's gone. Ah well, her loss."

Hearing the slam of the door, Jiang Manyou grinned roguishly, though his sickly demeanour made him seem more like a hopeless pervert than anything else. He began thinking about Miss Lian, ah those supple twin peaks, those succulent thighs, those plump buttocks. Jiang Manyou began drooling, though whether it was due to his lustful thoughts or his sickness instead, it was hard to tell since nobody was around to make an official diagnosis.

At the same time, he began storing many of the goodies Shui Qianyue had brought over away. A lot of these were quite expensive and exotic foods, having been purchased for no small sum of money. He himself was close to broke, partly due to being forced to cover Wan Qiushou and Sihai Wuxian's costs that one evening and partly due to splurging on his favourite girl.

"Lian always said that she wanted to try papaya… hehe, I'll surprise her once I recover."