Hei and Matriarch Radiant Jade were standing just outside of the Crimson Moon Sect and the conversation had reached a standstill.

“If we’re done here, I’ll lead you to the others,” Hei said. He still had a few things to do before he could leave, and he would rather do them sooner than later.

“Mm. We’re done.”

With her acknowledgement, Hei led the way, travelling around the outside of the broken guardian formation until he reached a black dome. There were six women standing on the outside of the dome which took up a decent amount of space.

Hei walked up to the dome and placed a hand on it. Soon after, the dome started to warp and wobble as it was sucked into his hand.

After it was completely absorbed, a group of several hundred women was revealed. They had been under the protection of this formation Hei had set up through some of his synchronised units earlier.

Looking at their faces, Hei could detect a general unease. That was to be expected. They had experienced quite a shift in their circumstances in the past few minutes. They were surely wondering what was to become of them.

“As of now, you’re all free to go,” he said. “The Crimson Moon Sect is no more.”

There was a moment of silence as they parsed the information, followed by an array of responses. Some remained silent in disbelief, some were obviously happy, and others were doubtful. But all of that soon turned into a widespread feeling of relief.

Hei waited for the reactions to die down before he spread out a sea of black flames, from which, came the group of men and women he had taken into his storage space. He then projected the images of nine young women in front of the crowd.

“If you have any relation to these young women, please come forward.”

He hadn’t even finished his words before he heard a few exclamations.

“Tha- That’s my daughter!” A woman pushed her way past the others and ran to Hei, grabbing his robe. “Please tell me she’s okay!”

She looked around to the other women in the area, but she couldn’t see anyone who looked like her little girl.

Aside from her, the was a man who also ran up to Hei. When he saw that woman, his eyes opened wide.

“Shurong!”

“Laogong?” The woman, Shurong, turned around to see her husband standing right there. It had been months since they had seen each other. She ran up to him and they embraced each other.

After separating, she looked around her husband, looking for another person.

“Where’s Jian?”

She looked into her husband’s eyes, but what she saw caused her heart to drop to the pit of her stomach.

Her husband shook his head. “He tried to fight back, and…” He sighed.

That was enough for her to understand the situation, and overcome with emotion, she collapsed into his arms.

“Why did this have to happen to us?” She asked, as her tears soaked her husband’s robe.

“It’s my fault,” he answered. “I wasn’t strong enough to protect our family.”

“Don’t say that.” She looked up into his eyes and used her thumbs to wipe away his tears. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“If only I had-”

She shook her head, causing him to stop speaking.

They stood there in silence until they heard a voice. The same voice which had led to their reunion.

“I understand that many of you have suffered tragedy, you have my condolences, I can only apologise for not having acted sooner, but in the case of these nine young women, I can assure you that they are safe and sound.”

“Did you hear that? He said our little girl is okay.”

“Mm. I heard it.”

Both of them couldn’t help smiling through their tears. The news had truly set their hearts at ease. But they would never be able to forget the fact that they had lost their beloved son through this ordeal.

***

After gathering all of the nine disciples’ relatives, Hei helped the other people organise themselves and gather into groups of familiar people using the same method of projecting images and having related parties gather.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, most of the people there had acquaintances. Only a handful were all alone.

During that time, the Zhu Clan’s Demon Slayer Corps completed their work and had extracted everything from the sect, leaving it an empty shell of its former self.

All of the Zhu Clan members gathered where Hei and Matriarch Radiant Jade were, along with Honghuo, Ju Li, and the other women.

Seeing the Zhu Clan’s flags flying proudly, the people Hei had personally rescued retreated behind him. They all outwardly displayed their negative feelings, which ranged from fear to fury. Hei noticed that one young lady, in particular, was very riled up. The same went for the husband of the husband-and-wife pair from earlier.

The Zhu Clan’s members could see the hurt that had been caused, and collectively, they weren’t able to handle the kind of reaction they were getting from the aggrieved.

They were plenty used to getting hateful gazes, and even fear wasn’t an odd emotion to be confronted with in their line of work, but there was always the mental barrier of the other side being demonic cultivators.

How were they supposed to respond when the people they risked their lives to protect feared and hated them?

“Is this how you felt all these years, Yimin?”

Auntie Yimin turned her gaze to the elder who had spoken. He was standing next to her, and the sadness in his eyes was plain to see.

“Mm. It’s very similar.”

The elder sighed. “What do we do about this?”

Auntie Yimin shook her head. “I’m not sure there’s anything we can do.”

The elder turned to the other Zhu Clan members behind him, who nodded their heads.

“We’ll follow your lead on this one, Yimin.”

“Mm.”

The Zhu Clan arranged themselves into ranks, standing neatly behind Auntie Yimin in rows of five. Jing’er and Xiaoli were standing slightly behind her on either side.

Auntie Yimin took a step forward as did the rest of the Zhu Clan.

The people behind Hei huddled closer together.

Auntie Yimin withdrew a sword from her spatial ring and held it out in front of her with both hands open. The other members of the Zhu Clan did the same and followed her lead as she squatted and allowed her knees to touch the ground.

They placed their swords down in front of them before resting their hands on their thighs.

Auntie Yimin spoke.

“We are sorry.”

The rest of the Zhu Clan mirrored her words.

“We know that our words cannot reverse what’s been done. No amount of apology will erase the pain in your hearts. We know. But we will provide compensation for your losses. Know that all those responsible have already paid the price. Not one of them remains alive. We denounce their evils and do not condone the atrocities they have committed.”

She clenched her hands into fists, gripping her robe.

“But yesterday, they were Zhu Clan. Today, they are Zhu Clan. And they will forever be Zhu Clan.”

She slid her sword forward and returned her hands to her thighs before bowing her head.

“If you cannot forgive them, then do not forgive us.”

***

The place was silent for a long while. The Zhu Clan had offered their heads in repentance. No one expected such sincerity.

For many, their sparks of hatred had been dowsed by such a display. Even the father who had lost his son was unable to strike out in anger.

Hei watched all of this in silence, not intending to intervene. He could see that the Zhu Clan’s apology had been well received. He was also surprised that they would go this far when, for all intents and purposes, they did nothing wrong.

It was one thing for Hei to be able to see this, but not everyone could. The others could only take the Zhu Clan’s word for it that the evildoers had been punished.

For one young lady, that was far from enough.

She picked up a nearby stone and hurled it straight at Auntie Yimin’s head, landing a solid blow, drawing blood.

“You think you can just apologise and everything will be okay? Screw that!”

She huffed and puffed as her anger bubbled.

“Compensation?! How can you compensate for the loss of my family?! I’ll never see them again!”

She walked up to Auntie Yimin and pulled her head up by her hair.

“You people took them from me! I’ll-” Her eyes opened wide and started to water when she saw the tears in Auntie Yimin’s.

After a moment of hesitation, she threw Auntie Yimin’s head down and struggled to pick up her sword, which was extremely heavy.

“Ngh.” She used all of her strength to pull it out from its sheath. The wight of it caused her to lose her footing, but she managed to catch herself.

Breathing heavily, she held the sword up in the air above Auntie Yimin’s neck.

Xiaoli and Jing’er had the intention to intervene, but before they could move, they heard a voice projection from Auntie Yimin.

[Stand down, you two.]

[But-]

[Stand down!]

[Auntie Yimin…]

[It’s okay.]

Xiaoli and Jing’er weren’t the only ones who had such thoughts. Hei’s fingers were twitching under his robe as he watched the scene unfold.

The young lady took a few breaths then tightened her grip. “I’ll never forgive any of you!” With those words, she swung the sword down.

During its motion, Xiaoli’s and Jing’er’s hearts tightened. Everyone watched in shock as the young lady swung to kill.

But Hei’s fingers relaxed.

That was because, just as the sword was set to make contact with Auntie Yimin’s neck, someone appeared and stopped it in its path. It was Honghuo, who had stepped in to catch the sword.

The young lady was scared for a moment, but she recognised him as one of the two who had come to rescue her.

“Let go!”

She struggled to wrestle the sword from Honghuo’s grip, so much so that her palms were in pain from her efforts. But her efforts were in vain. The sword didn’t move at all.

“Why are you getting in my way?!”

Honghuo looked into her teary eyes. “You know that what you’re doing isn’t right.”

“They killed my family! They deserve to die!”

“It wasn’t them.”

“How do you know?! Am I just supposed to take their word for it?! They’ll obviously say they didn’t have anything to do with it!”

“Ju Li.”

Honghuo called out to his sister, who walked to his side, facing the young lady. He placed his free hand on her head and stroked her hair.

“She’s all I’ve got left.”

The young lady turned her gaze to Ju Li and seeing her and Honghuo together caused her to loosen her grip on the sword.

“You aren’t the only one. The Zhu Clan took away everyone we love.” Honghuo pointed to the people behind him. “Believe me. If any of them played a hand in this, I would be the one swinging the sword in your place.”

“But…” The young lady let go of the sword and fell to her knees, crying. “What should I do?”

Honghuo tensed up. He didn’t know what to do with this. He turned to his sister, who averted her gaze. He then looked towards Hei, who was conveniently reading a scroll.

‘This is payback for last time, isn’t it?’

Honghuo scratched his head and looked back to the young lady.

“To be honest, there’s a part of me that hates them too. It’s hard to reconcile that with the knowledge that they weren’t the ones who did us wrong.” He sat down cross-legged and looked into her eyes. “But we can decide whether this will eat up the rest of our lives.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s true that our families would want to be avenged, that has already happened, but I think that even more than that, they would want us to live long and happy lives. Don’t you?”

“But how can I be happy? I’ll never be able to forget this. It will always hurt.”

“I know. We’ll never forget. But we don’t have to. Just as we’ll continue to feel the pain of loss, we’ll always have the times we shared.”

Honghuo stood up from his seated position, bent down, smiled and extended his hand out to the young lady.

“Let’s not let the pain of losing them outweigh the joy that they brought to our hearts.”