After questioning several passersby on the street, he finally confirmed that the house before him was indeed the old Su family residence.

The Su family had left this old house more than a decade ago. After their departure, the regicide shook the world, and "Heart Demon" Ning Yi became the most taboo name in the land. Before the Jingkang Incident, there was of course a round of purges of various things related to the Ning and Su families, but it did not last long.

After the Jingkang Incident, Kang Wang Zhou Yong ascended the throne, changing the era name to Jianshuo. In Jiangning, this so-called land of rising dragons, the old Su family residence had been sealed off. During this period, the Jurchen's war disasters burned to Jiangning twice, but even after the city fell, this old house remained quiet and undisturbed. There were even rumors that Wanyan Xiyin or some Jurchen general had specifically entered the city to visit this old house.

Throughout the Jianshuo era, although the "Heart Demon" Ning Yi had always been a major concern for the court and the head of the rebels, his prowess in assassinating the emperor and resisting the Jin was still vaguely recognized in some public opinion circles – phrases like "He's bad, but he's really capable" were not considered particularly rebellious, at least not by Crown Prince Junwu, who was stationed in Jiangning and along the Yangtze River defense line. Even the Princess's mansion, which was mainly in charge of public opinion at the time, did not crack down too harshly on such things.

The house was, of course, destroyed after the Fairness Party entered the city. Initially, there was large-scale looting and burning, and the residences of wealthy households and the warehouses of shops in the city were all severely affected. This house, which had been sealed for a long time and contained little more than wooden buildings and old furniture, did not suffer much damage in the initial round. A force with the banner of Gao Tianwang even occupied it as a stronghold. But gradually, rumors began to spread that this was the former residence of the Heart Demon Ning Yi.

Several scattered forces turned their attention here.

A group of madmen under Zhou Shang first waved their flags and tried to rush into the house and set it on fire, attempting to reduce this symbol of the "Heart Demon" Ning Yi to ashes to boost their reputation. After being driven out by Gao Tianwang's people, people from Shi Baofeng, Xu Zhaonan, and even those under the banner of "Fairness King" He Wen came, and for a time, several negotiations and then fierce fighting broke out here.

Several bloody massacres took place. When people calmed down and looked carefully, they found that although the forces participating in these firefights were carrying the flags of various parties, they were not the main force of each faction. Most were small, inexplicable gangs that had haphazardly planted flags. None of the major generals of the Fairness Party's five largest forces, even from Zhou Shang's madmen's side, had explicitly stated that they wanted to occupy this place.

Whether there was behind-the-scenes manipulation by the five forces was perhaps difficult to say, but on the surface, no major figure had clearly stated their opinion on the "Heart Demon" Ning Yi – neither protecting nor opposing him – which was a continuation of the Fairness Party's ambiguous attitude towards the southwestern forces in the long run.

Noticing the existence of this attitude, the remaining small forces became active and treated this house as a no-man's-land testing ground.

For the first month or so, there were occasional "dragons crossing the river" trying to occupy this place, hoping to leave a deep impression on the Fairness Party's five high-level figures. For example, the recently famous "Big Dragon Head" sent a group of people to occupy this place for three days, saying that they wanted to open the doors wide here. Although they were driven out, they gained a few days of fame.

After that, there were various mixed battles until things got bigger and bigger, almost leading to a firefight of a thousand people. The "Fairness King" was furious. The "Dragon Sage" of his "Seven Sages" led a team to seal off the entire area, arrested most of the combatants regardless of what banner they were flying, and then publicly executed them in the nearby square, giving each person twenty military sticks. It was said that dozens of sticks were broken before suppressing this trend of large-scale firefights.

After that, the scale of fighting in the old Su family residence area became much smaller. Most of the occurrences were just confrontations of dozens of people. Small groups carrying Zhou Shang's flag came to open casinos, people carrying Shi Baofeng's flag came to run black markets, and some dragons crossing the river would run over to occupy a courtyard, entrenched here for ten or fifteen days. Some people tore down brick walls and sold them. After a while, they discovered that the Su family's wall bricks could not be counterfeited or authenticated. Either it was complete fraud, or they brought buyers to choose on the spot, which could be considered various kinds of business.

"Young man, you can't go in there. It's very chaotic."

When he dragged a kind-looking old Fairness Party grandma on the street to ask, she kindly advised him.

"I want to see the old house of the Great Southwestern Demon King, Grandma."

"Demon's old house? Everyone says it's the old house, but who knows which one it is... you can't find it..."

The old grandma said this.

But of course he still had to go in.

It was already evening. Ning Ji spent fifteen copper coins at one of the entrances of the mansion, buying a broken flag from a Jianghu person, supposedly allowing passage inside. The flag belonged to the "Revolving King's" "Unborn Army," a small faction under the Unborn Army called "Evil Star," claiming to be very powerful.

"Take this flag, and you can walk on the main roads inside. But some courtyards without proper entrances cannot be entered. Seeing that you look kind, I advise you to come out before it gets completely dark. You can pick out a brick you like to take with you. If you really encounter trouble, shout loudly..."

Ning Ji nodded obediently, inserted the flag behind his back, and walked towards the road inside. This was originally the side of the old Su family residence without a gate, but the walls had been torn down, revealing the courtyards and passages inside.

The Su family's old house had been built and expanded for nearly a century, consisting of more than forty courtyards. It was not as big as a palace, but it was definitely not small. The passages between the courtyards were paved with old, thick bluestone bricks, which still seemed to carry a trace of the past, but the air carried the smell of excrement and a slight stench. The walls on the sides were mostly half-walls, some with large holes in them. People in the courtyards leaned against the edges of the holes, looking at him with fierce expressions.

Ning Ji didn't mind these things. He looked into the courtyard. The surrounding courtyards were occupied. The trees in the courtyard had been chopped down, probably chopped into firewood and burned. Many of the houses with traces of the past had collapsed. Some had opened their doors, inside was dark, showing a sense of coldness. Some Jianghu people were used to making fires in the courtyards, and the ground was littered with debris. Beside the bluestone-paved passage, people poured the filth from their chamber pots into the narrow ditches, and the stench could not be dispelled.

There were other pedestrians on this road. Some people pointed and looked at him. Others, perhaps like him, had come to "visit" the former residence of the Heart Demon, walking with the protection of some Jianghu people. Seeing the chaos inside, they couldn't help but shake their heads. At a fork in the road with a half-decayed green wall, someone said that the one beside them was the former residence of the Heart Demon, and it cost twenty copper coins to enter.

So Ning Ji also gave the money.

Many people lived in the courtyard inside. Some had built sheds for washing clothes and cooking. The main houses on both sides were relatively well-preserved, two rows of houses at a ninety-degree right angle. Some people pointed out which rooms were Ning Yi's former residence. Ning Ji just looked at them silently. Someone came over to ask, "Young man, where are you from?" Ning Ji did not answer him.

This large mansion was now a mix of people. With the five parties' tacit consent, no one enforced the law inside, and anything could happen. Ning Ji knew the intention of their questioning and the intentions of those pointing fingers in the alleys outside, but he didn't mind these things. He had returned to his hometown and chose to be courteous first.

If this courtesy was not respected, he would no longer give anyone face in his old house, and he would no longer have any scruples.

Perhaps because his silence was too profound and unpredictable, the people in the courtyard did not do anything to him. After a while, someone else was attracted by the "former residence of the Heart Demon" gimmick. Ning Ji turned around and left.

The sunlight gradually slanted.

Only a few leaves and old tree branches stretched from the other side of the courtyard wall above the passage, casting dim shadows. Ning Ji walked and watched along the passage of this mansion. Several beautiful gardens in the old Su family residence in his mother's memory were long gone. Some rockeries had been pushed down, leaving ruins of stones. This dim mansion extended, and there seemed to be all kinds of people. A knight carrying a sword brushed past him. Some people were sneaking around in the corner, talking business with others. On the other side of the wall, there seemed to be strange noises coming out...

There were three courtyards, all claiming to be the place where the Heart Demon used to live. Ning Ji looked at them one by one, but could not tell whether these words were true. The small courtyard where his parents used to live had two small buildings facing each other. Later, one of the small buildings burned down, and they all lived in the other two-story building.

Of course, he could no longer find the traces of those two small buildings, let alone see the ground left after one of them was burned down.

His mother's memories were all stories before he was born.

Since then, he did not know how many spring rains and autumn frosts had fallen on this mansion, and how many winter snows had covered the ground. By this time, the things of the past were submerged in this ruin, and it was difficult to distinguish them clearly.

There were also some slight traces left.

Ning Ji saw on an old brick in a courtyard wall a series of marks that looked like height measurements. The marks only reached his shoulder, and he did not know which parents of which child in which courtyard had left them here.

On an old table with only three legs left, someone had left strange graffiti. There were many words around it, one line seeming to write "Xiao Qi is a silly melon." Someone else had carved the three words "Hello Teacher." The graffiti included suns, small flowers, and strange-looking boats and crows.

The sun set. The light converged between the courtyards. Some courtyards lit bonfires. In the darkness, various people gathered in their own mansions. Ning Ji sat on a courtyard wall, occasionally hearing a man in the opposite mansion shouting, "Jin'e, bring me some wine..." The dead mansion seemed to have some life in it again.

He had turned around twice in this large mansion. Most of the sadness came from his mother. What he thought was that if one day his mother came back, those things of the past could no longer be found, how sad would she be...

After such a round, he went out from a fork in the road on the other side of the mansion and onto the road outside. At this time, a large, round moon was hanging in the sky, seeming to look down on this world more intimately than ever. Ning Ji still had the flag inserted behind his back, slowly passing through the road with many pedestrians. Perhaps because of the rumors of the "God of Wealth," there were some stalls on the nearby streets,

The stalls were lit with lanterns and torches, attracting customers.

Ning Ji walked for a while, but a voice in the chaotic sounds in front caught his attention.

"I... I used to hit that Heart Demon Ning Yi's head... I hit the Heart Demon Ning Yi's head..."

In the swaying torchlight, it was a ragged beggar kneeling by the roadside, telling such stories to the people by the road. One of the groups seemed very interested in his story, and the old man at the head squatted down in front of him.

"You said... you used to hit the Heart Demon's head?"

"Please, sir... give me some food... give me some food..." The beggar reached out to the front.

The old man took out a few coins from his pocket and first gave him one coin: "Tell me, if you tell it well, I'll give you more."

"I, I hit the Heart Demon Ning Yi's head, hehe, I... my name is Xue Jin, Jiangning... everyone knows, everyone knows... my Xue family's 'Dachuan Cloth Shop,' back then... was on par with the Su family... big cloth shop..."

The beggar was wearing a broken felt hat, seemingly having suffered some injuries. He spoke intermittently. But Ning Ji had heard the name Xue Jin. He sat down by a stall on the side. The group led by the old man also found a place to sit down and even ordered snacks, listening to the beggar speak. The stall owner selling snacks chuckled and said, "This madman often comes over and says he hit that Heart Demon's head. I think it's true that he was hit on the head. Don't be fooled by him, everyone."

But the old man just smiled: "Just for fun."

"Back then... I... hit the Heart Demon Ning Yi's head... why did I hit him... back then, that girl from the Su family... Su Tan'er, she was so beautiful and capable, in the future... she was going to inherit the Su family's business. I, hehe, wanted to marry her. Who knew... that scholar would become the Son-in-Law..."

"That Heart Demon... the Heart Demon Ning Yi back then, was a scholar... it was because I hit him that he became enlightened... I remember... that year, they got married, the Su family's young lady, hehe, eloped..."

The beggar spoke intermittently about the things of the past, about how beautiful and charming Su Tan'er was, and how dull and silly Ning Yi was. He also occasionally added the identities and names of their friends, how they knew each other when they were young, how they interacted... Even though he hit Ning Yi, Su Tan'er did not really become hostile towards him. Then he talked about the past extravagance, how he, as the young master of Dachuan Cloth Shop, lived his days, what kind of good things he ate...

The surrounding people listened, some laughing at him for going crazy. If Ning Yi was really a fool, how could he have gotten to where he was today?

Someone mocked: "Then Ning Yi's becoming smart is thanks to you..."

Someone also said: "This person was indeed rich back then, but the world has changed! Now is the time of the Fairness Party!"

These words did not interrupt the beggar's memories of the past. He talked in detail about the night he beat up the Heart Demon, what kind of brick he used, how he walked behind him, how he smashed it down, how dull and silly the other person was... The old man at the stall even had the stall owner send him a bowl of food. The beggar held the food, muttered some nonsense, put it down and picked it up again, and put it down again...

"Heart Demon..." he said, "Saying that the Heart Demon was called the No. 1 talent in Jiangning... the first poem he wrote was... was still what I asked..." That year, the moon... you see, it was such a big moon, so round, I remember... that was the six-boat convoy of the Puyang family, Puyang Yi... where did Puyang Yi go... it was his family's boat, Ning Yi... Ning Yi didn't come, so I asked his little maid..."

"I asked her... why didn't Ning Yi come, didn't he... not have the face to come... I also asked that Su Tan'er... you don't know, Su Tan'er is so beautiful, but she has to inherit the Su family, so she let that scholar become the Son-in-Law... I asked him, you chose such a scholar, he is so powerful, he can definitely write good poems, why doesn't he come, and even says he's sick, lying, right... then that little maid, took out the poem written by her son-in-law..."

"I still remember that poem... it was about the moon, that poem was..."

The beggar knelt in front of the bowl of food, staring blankly at the moon. After a long while, his hoarse voice slowly sang the poem. It was probably something that was often sung in Jiangning brothels back then, so he had a deep impression. At this time, in his hoarse voice, the melody of the lyrics was still complete.

"When will the moon be clear..." he sang slowly.

"...With wine, I ask the azure sky."

"...I do not know what year it is tonight in the palaces on high..."

"I want to ride the wind and go back."

"Yet fear the crystal and jade mansions..."

"So high and cold, I cannot bear, Dancing, I will make my shadow clear..."

"How can it compare... to this human sphere..."