Overview
As the newest Living Envoy of The Order, he always wears a strange smile — one that warms you like a spring breeze, and then makes you go cold.
What is he actually thinking? Very few can work it out. But there is no doubt that his every move steers this tangled game one step further towards an ending that seems unknowable and has in fact been settled all along…
Yan Cui was born with an exceptional gift for the sword, and later, under the guidance of “that one”, he came to master the two-sword style outright: both the left and the right path are flawless, and at full burst he can leave even the finest master with nothing to defend against.
Over years of practice Yan Cui came to know the great weakness of the two-sword style — it is strong at the wings and weak at the centre. To cover that natural flaw he began thinking constantly about how to strengthen the centre, and out of that thinking he gradually shaped a killing move of his own:
Tribulation
Yan Cui begins with a simple opening form that forces his opponent to block, and then in an instant brings both swords together, condenses Sha-Chi at the edges of the two blades, and drives straight into the enemy’s centre; under sword aura of that concentration an ordinary opponent’s meridians simply shatter. Even a master who manages to take the move meets the next instant, when both swords sweep through him together and leave him badly wounded — like a calamity there is no avoiding.
Heaven and Earth
The strongest killing move Yan Cui developed to make up for the weakness at the centre.
As the name says, Yan Cui first leaps into the air, then in mid-air rapidly gathers a great mass of Sha-Chi into the blades of both swords at once, and in a single instant slashes at his opponent with countless alternating strokes of sword aura — this is “Heaven”. Once the Sha-Chi in the blades is spent, he immediately brings the two swords together in front of him and dives out of the air through his opponent at tremendous speed, so that there is no avoiding him — this is “Earth”. For that reason the move is also called the Heaven-and-Earth Strike.
Early Life
Yan Cui was born in the twentieth year of The Order. From birth he loved the sword, and in his early years he set his heart on becoming a fine swordsman.
In the thirty-sixth year of The Order, in order to learn the sword, he entered the school of Gu Pingyong — the Sky-Spanning Swordsman, a sword master of great fame throughout the Wulin — and became his disciple.
Yet within the three months he spent there, all Yan Cui practised every day was thrust, chop, sweep and withdraw. Gu Pingyong set store by steadiness and calm, but whenever Yan Cui practised he could not help adding flourishes of his own on top of the sword forms, which made Gu Pingyong furious; every session ended in a scolding. After several months Yan Cui’s sword arts had not advanced at all, and the whole school dismissed him as untalented and a show-off — and still he never doubted himself, so every night he went to a quiet stand of trees halfway up the mountain and practised there.
In his hands the sword was nothing but an obstruction; the standard postures were chains holding him, and the sword dance that belonged to him was still locked inside his soul.
Then, late one night, Yan Cui swung a lifeless stroke in the middle of his frustration. Out of the darkness a voice laughed loudly at his stupidity, and said it had watched with its own eyes a genius swordsman being strangled.
Yan Cui challenged it, and the figure behind the voice said outright that at this rate all he would ever learn was a house-name sword art to win himself a reputation among the great sects. Yan Cui retorted fiercely that he had taken up this sword art in order to stand in the Wulin free and with dignity. The other said the direct meaning of the sword is only victory; if you cannot win, the outcome is usually a single road — death. There are ten thousand moves that win, or you could say there is only one: the move that answers the call of your own heart.
At those words Yan Cui saw it all clearly, and from then on he never forced himself to imitate forms, only followed his own heart when he struck. This enraged Gu Pingyong, but this time, faced with his master’s furious anger, Yan Cui would not obey. He said, in front of the whole school, that his master’s sword art was an empty frame. Gu Pingyong went red to the ears and swept out. The others looked at one another; Yan Cui alone watched his master leave with cold eyes. Once he had said it, his mind was long since made up to flee the school.
Yet not long after he reached that decision, Gu Pingyong turned about and sent him out with several senior brothers on a “very important” task — and that sudden show of favour shook Yan Cui’s resolve to leave.
But the moment the party was out of the school and into a dense forest, the senior brothers with him turned savage and drew their swords to surround him. Gu Pingyong had used the task as cover to have the others kill Yan Cui out there, and clear away the disciple who had defiled the school’s name.
As they were about to strike, the mysterious figure who had been guiding him from the shadows stepped in and saved him. That man was Zuo Shang, a Nether Envoy of The Order. Zuo Shang had long been quietly building his own forces, and this time he had come under The Order’s name to wipe out Gu Pingyong; while scouting the defences of the Changkong Sword School he had come across the anguished Yan Cui. Zuo Shang saw his gift at a glance, and, loving talent, resolved to draw him into his own service.
Yan Cui thanked Zuo Shang for his life, and learned from him that Gu Pingyong’s skill was no longer what it had been. Yan Cui asked to take Zuo Shang as his master, and Zuo Shang left him a single sentence before vanishing laughing into the night.
“If you want to enter my household, come to me with a gift. I believe you know what I want.”
Yan Cui was clever, and of course he heard what Zuo Shang meant: kill Gu Pingyong and bring him as tribute. So Yan Cui hid in the deep mountains and trained hard for a full year. In that year, whenever he thought of Gu Pingyong finding the corpses of the disciples he had sent to kill him and not finding his, and the fear that would come with it, a strange pleasure rose in his heart.
In the thirty-seventh year of The Order, with his sword arts at last mastered, Yan Cui took up his sword and walked towards that “world-famous” master of his. He heard the forced calm of fear in his master’s voice, and, ignoring Gu Pingyong’s trembling rage, made him draw without a moment’s hesitation; one final move sealed his throat and ended the life of the “Sky-Spanning Swordsman”.
Carrying Gu Pingyong’s head, Yan Cui met Zuo Shang again. He swore to Zuo Shang that he would use the sword in his hand to kill every one of those “elders” of the Wulin who lived on reputation, and make the sword truly have blood and dignity in it.
From then on Yan Cui was one of Zuo Shang’s disciples, and the sharpest blade hidden at his side, carrying out countless dark tasks for him.
In the fortieth year of The Order, the Nether Lord Mu Tianmiao was murdered, and Zuo Shang took the post of the Nether Lord; Yan Cui entered The Order in the role of a guard at Zuo Shang’s side, ranked among the Living Envoys.
On the fourth day of the fifth month of The Order’s fortieth year, Zuo Shang and Soul fought their decisive duel in a place of the deepest secrecy, and in the end both were gravely wounded and both lost their martial arts.
Afterwards the gravely wounded Zuo Shang met Yan Cui in secret and gave him a task of the highest secrecy:
The Order was in the critical stretch of a handover between old and new powers, and beyond it the assassins’ organization of the western regions, Shadow, was stirring. So Zuo Shang meant to turn his wound to use with a play of “feigned madness”: sustain the impression that he was still gravely wounded, while in fact assuming the person of an orthodox figure — “Young Master Bai” — and leading the forces he had built in secret to purge The Order in the name of the orthodox path. Yan Cui, for his part, was to pretend that he had betrayed Zuo Shang and gone over to Shadow, and in fact use Young Master Bai’s forces to destroy both Shadow and The Order, until at the last Zuo Shang, in the person of Young Master Bai, formally united every power in the Wulin and founded a new world.
Yan Cui took the task, and then began slowly to open a line to Shadow. In the course of it he discovered that Shadow’s leader, the “Heresiarch” Xie Wutian, was a man of utterly changeable temper who liked to abuse the women around him, and so Yan Cui decided to enter the game in his own person.
In secret he began an affair with Yao Wugu, Xie Wutian’s wife, who had been abused by him all along, and by his “spear work” he made her devoted to him, obeying his every word.
Then he pretended to plot with her: the two of them would find a chance to kill Xie Wutian and Zuo Shang together in one stroke, unite Shadow and The Order, and afterwards live as a pair of immortals. Under Yan Cui’s practised “spear work”, his handsome looks and a stream of sweet talk, Yao Wugu soon agreed.
At the same time Yan Cui formally opened his line to Xie Wutian. Zuo Shang was gravely wounded, and his refining of the Blood-Coagulating Poison Pill was by then common knowledge. With the “intelligence” Yan Cui brought, the two of them agreed on this:
Post Shadow’s fierce general Zang Wudi to hold the Suspended Bridge, the only road into Yecheng, and kill and take the pill before the Black Escort Agency could carry it into the city. Use that as the bait to draw The Order into a plan to attack Shadow, with Yan Cui inside passing word out, so that The Order is hurt again. As one hidden scheme after another unfolded, the great curtain was drawn slowly back…
Rainblood II: Ye City
Before dawn on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of The Order, Yan Cui stood to one side and watched Zuo Shang kill Shadow’s general “Sword Without Shadow” with a single sword; then he carried the body back to his own tent.
In the hour of the Snake on the sixteenth day of the seventh month of The Order, Yan Cui met the Living Envoys Old Gui and Chang Hong and the escort Shisi in the Chamber of Secrets to discuss how to attack Shadow. Afterwards Yan Cui passed the intelligence straight to Shadow.
Before dawn on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of The Order, Yan Cui and Zang Wudi waited on the Suspended Bridge for word. After a round of mockery and needling, Yan Cui pretended to leave in humiliation. Not long after, Zang Wudi fought the arriving Soul and was killed; once Soul had gone, Yan Cui turned back and carried Zang Wudi’s body to his own tent as well.
At the third quarter of the hour of the Tiger on the seventeenth, to draw Yao Wugu closer still, Yan Cui took her into his tent to “do battle” again. After that he kept up the pretence that he had already killed Zuo Shang and had wholly betrayed The Order.
On the afternoon of the twenty-first, under Yan Cui’s fine acting, Xie Wutian finally believed that Zuo Shang really was dead, and hurried off to the road to The Order’s secret tomb to divide the spoils with Young Master Bai and Yan Cui.
Through the talk Yan Cui kept showing weakness, and lulled Xie Wutian further; at the last, pretending to be driven into a corner, he said he would hand The Order over freely if Xie Wutian granted him one request — and that request was that he wanted to see Yao Wugu pull Xie Wutian’s carriage.
Xie Wutian laughed aloud that Yan Cui had no ambition worth the name, and then ordered Yao Wugu to pull his carriage. And just as Xie Wutian was utterly off his guard, Yao Wugu struck: a hidden weapon flew from her waist and struck his right eye. Then the carriage slaves, already won over by Yao Wugu, tangled Xie Wutian up in an instant and exploded, and the tyrant who had ruled Shadow for decades died just like that, without quite knowing how.
Then the delighted Yao Wugu fawned on Yan Cui once more, and Yan Cui took the moment to finish her. Young Master Bai praised him warmly, and drove away.
Once Young Master Bai had gone, Yan Cui called Soul out of the trees — he had sensed him long before. He had left last precisely because he wanted to see Soul’s sword arts for himself.
The two of them fell at once into a fierce death-match. In the end Soul was the better and defeated Yan Cui, but at the cost of taking six of Yan Cui’s sword wounds and lying unconscious for three days.
Yan Cui never did see the curtain fall on that tangled game, but he was sure that he had given all the strength he had to that grand goal, and that to the very last moment of his life he had not failed a swordsman’s duty. He died with nothing left to regret.