The Black Oriole: Wanling’s Deception and the Priest’s Fall

After finishing their words, they turned away, leaving the choice entirely to Kunhong.
Kunhong remained in seclusion for three full days, never stepping outside his room.

This was no easy decision. The scars of that massacre—the extermination of his clan—were still vivid in his mind. No one could simply pretend that nothing had happened and return to serve the very people who had murdered his father.

And yet, his thoughts kept circling back to Kun Buyu. Even when they were being hunted down, even in his most desperate hour, Kun Buyu had clung to one belief: “One day, I will return, and those bastards will pay the price!”

His father had always wanted to go back.

On a night of biting cold winds, Kunhong finally made his decision. He sought out Wanling, whom he had not seen for some time, and laid bare everything.

“You want to go back?” The crimson mole at the corner of Wanling’s eye suddenly burned with a strange brilliance.

“Yes. This is something I must do. Once I return, I do not know what awaits me—whether fortune or disaster. Wanling, you are not of the Kun family. You need not risk this path with me. I have already written the release papers. From this day forth, you are no longer bound as a servant of the Kun clan. You are free.”

He extended his hand. Resting on his palm was a letter, thin but weighty—it was the last gift he could offer her.

Yet she did not take it. The paper fluttered from his hand and landed upon the yellow dust.

“The freedom I seek,” she said softly, “is not something you can give.”

A few days later, the appointed day of the Golden Feather Squad arrived.

Gongsun Bai and I were already waiting beneath the willow tree near the bluestone path, ready to witness the conclusion of this tale.

The Golden Feather Squad came as promised: twelve golden steeds, twelve men clad in gleaming armor, blazing like sunlight itself. They truly had no concept of keeping a low profile…

At dusk, as the sun sank and shadows lengthened, a piercing cry of an eastern oriole split the air. The door creaked open, and a thin figure stepped out, wearing the same long robe he had donned seven days earlier.

Dongge dropped to his knees, not daring to meet the man’s gaze. “Young Master.”

From the figure’s hand slipped a piece of black jade, engraved with a single character—Kun. Dongge cast one glance at the token before lowering his head even further. This was the heirloom of the Kun family, passed down only to its successor.

“Let’s go,” the figure said softly, almost tenderly. He raised his head, eyes fixed on the road ahead. “Back to Beiji.”

And so, they departed.

I exchanged a glance with Gongsun Bai as the Golden Feather Squad rode off, taking Wanling with them. Yes, Wanling—for this was her scheme all along.

The night before, Wanling had slipped into Kunhong’s chamber and fought him in a battle to the death. The outcome was swift: she had won, effortlessly. Afterward, she pinched his mouth open, forcing a black potion down his throat, while with the other hand she pierced into his consciousness and chanted a curse the likes of which he had never heard.

Agony overtook him. It was as if he had become a dying fish, pinned down and flayed alive, every nerve seared. When the torment finally subsided, he found his mind hollowed, his body frail, stripped of all strength.

Before him stood Wanling—his hair now tied in his style, his clothes draped upon her frame. She plucked up the black jade, fastening it around her neck.

“Wh… why?” His voice came out hoarse, ragged.

“Why?” She sneered, the resemblance between them uncanny—seven parts by nature, and now perfected through artifice until she was his very image. “Because wanting is enough. Your Kun clan had its glory for years. Isn’t it time the opportunity was handed to the Wan clan instead? Kunhong, don’t hate me. I’m saving you, can’t you see? With your weakness, with your foolish kindness—you’d never survive in Beiji, among wolves and tigers. The Kun clan needs a ruthless hand to lead it, not a coward too soft to crush even a worm.”

Fury blazed in Kunhong’s eyes. “Wanling!”

She pressed her palm against his head, voice like ice. “Sleep well.”

Darkness claimed him.

“So the one who returned to Beiji with the Golden Feather Squad was not Kunhong, but Wanling?” I asked Gongsun Bai, half in jest. “Doesn’t that count as fraud?”

“According to the timeline, this should have happened three years ago,” I mused aloud. “Three years ago, I was still secluded in the mountains, unaware of the world’s events. Do you know exactly what happened back then?”

“Three years ago, Taixi Year Twenty-Eight. It is remembered as the year of Beiji’s rise, also known as the ‘Crying of the Black Oriole.’” Gongsun Bai’s voice was calm, deliberate. “In truth, it was a calamity of their own making. Among the four kingdoms of Yichuan, Beiji’s lands were the poorest, flanked by the powerful tribes of Chaoshi and Guokang, enemies on all sides. The role of the High Priest existed to deter those threats. Yet Beiji destroyed its strongest shield with its own hands.”

“After the Kun clan was wiped out, Chaoshi and Guokang began to stir, raiding the borders. The Dongyi kingdom seized the chance to take Luohu, a key territory. Beiji was crumbling, teetering on the brink of ruin. And then—the last heir of the Kun clan returned. The High Priest came back.”

He paused, then smiled faintly. “But the truth is, it wasn’t Kunhong at all. It was Wanling, wearing his face.”

I lifted my gaze toward the fiery horizon of the illusion. The sky was aflame, the earth like a river of molten red. Heaven and earth seemed fused into one.

“The returning priest was given a name: the Black Oriole.”

“What does that mean?”

“In Beiji, there is a bird called the eastern oriole. Its feathers are beautiful, but its nature is vicious. It can track a man for thousands of li, and most of all—it bears grudges.”

Just then, an oriole streaked overhead, its crimson beak splitting the air as it followed the Golden Feather Squad into the distance.

“It is said someone once stole an oriole’s egg, and the bird pursued him for ten years. By day it shadowed him, by night it hurled stones against his window. After a decade, the oriole finally struck, blinding the man’s eyes—then dashed itself to death against a tree. Since then, the people of Beiji use the oriole as a symbol of relentless vengeance.”

“But she was called the Black Oriole,” I murmured. “Does that mean… something even fiercer?”

Gongsun Bai gave me a helpless look but explained anyway: “It meant her vengeance was darker, harsher. Once she assumed the mantle of High Priest, she unleashed thunderous wrath. Within, every man who had taken part in the Kun clan’s persecution met a brutal end. Without, she led armies to punish Chaoshi and Guokang, nearly annihilating them. The Dongyi, terrified, meekly returned Luohu. This was her justice—an eye for an eye, blood for blood.”

I closed my eyes, picturing Wanling, blade in hand, striding across a battlefield drenched in red. At an age when she should have been carefree, she became a weapon, a stepping stone, a ladder of corpses. Few fates could be more merciless.

Meanwhile, after Wanling’s departure, a caravan slipped across the border into Beiji. Among them lay a young man, silent, motionless, like a corpse. His eyes smoldered with fury, and at night he would weep in broken sobs.

This was Kunhong.

Wanling had arranged for him to be smuggled back, alive but powerless. The stage was now hers—to overturn Beiji’s world.

My heart stirred with anticipation. Compared to love stories, I preferred the storms of politics, the clash of kingdoms. Just as I was ready to follow her tale with Gongsun Bai, the world around us suddenly split in two.

A thin barrier shimmered into being, cutting the illusion apart. No matter how I tried, I could not pass through.

“What’s happening?” Gongsun Bai asked.

I tried again to summon my Bodhi Art, but it failed. “Someone has sealed these memories away.” Only one person could have such mastery—Wanling. And Kunhong’s fragmented recollections, his missing pieces, must also be her doing.

Yet Wanling was dead. That she could leave behind illusions strong enough to bar me still stung my pride. It felt like one scholar being silenced by another’s brilliance. Frustrated, I attempted to break through by force—

The sky darkened, the earth shuddered. A coil of black smoke rose from the sunset—it was the web of causality itself, showing us the path to escape.

Normally, these threads only appeared when I chose to leave. For them to surface now meant the illusion was collapsing. If it shattered, Gongsun Bai and I would be trapped here forever, nothing more than fragments in Kunhong’s memory.

“No time to explain! Follow that smoke—we must leave, now!” I shouted.

He frowned. “Do I look like a bird to you?”

“What about lightfoot skills? You martial artists can leap like monkeys, can’t you?”

“…You give me far too much credit.”

The ground quaked again. No time for bickering. I clambered onto his back, tugging his ears like reins. “Run!”

The smoke was fading, rising higher with every moment. Gongsun Bai carried me with astonishing speed, leaping from stone to stone. But the smoke drifted faster still.

“Higher! Jump higher!” I yelled, stretching my hand.

He grit his teeth, leaping again and again. At the final instant, I pushed off his head, soaring upward just enough to grasp the edge of the causal line.

He grabbed my leg at the last moment, and together we dangled like candied fruit on a skewer—until the world flipped upside down and hurled us free.

The illusion dissolved.

When I opened my eyes, sunlight was already flooding the room. It was noon.