Lady Wen
"Everything has its price. We drift further and further from the best of days, and never again can we go back to how things were."
Originally named Su Yingxiang, mistress of Jinxiang Palace and Long Xiang's master. She is skilled at working the Sound Wave Skill through lyre and pipa melodies, whether to heal or to wound. Her Internal Skill came from the Wen siblings, blended with the Supreme Bliss Cult's Demon Lyre Technique into a style of her own. With her own hands she built Jinxiang Palace, taking in pitiful women who had suffered at the hands of the world's prejudices. Her methods were as unyielding as Iron Chains Across the River, and no one in the Jianghu did not hold her in fear.
Before , she was the greatest beauty in the Jianghu. She and Shangguan Sun knew each other when they were still small children. The dissolute Shangguan Sun often led his playmates in bullying her; as a courtesan, cowed by the teachings of the music house, she was timid and fearful of this rich young lord. When they grew up, Shangguan Sun saw that she had grown ever more beautiful and was brimming with talent, and pressed the music house again and again to hand her over. Then the young Nangong Yuan rescued the beauty from peril like a hero, and won her heart.
Alas, in the end it was all a dream. Nangong Yuan saw his good friend Wen Wuwei gravely wounded and bedridden, and could not bear to watch him die with his regrets, so he yielded Yingxiang to him, and so opened a rift between the two of them that lasted twenty years. shaved his head and became a monk over it, and Shangguan Sun gave up on love as well. After Wen Wuwei passed away, Nangong Yuan came to Jinxiang Pavilion to see her, not seeking to mend what was broken, only to make amends. She would not forgive him: with drugged incense and lyre song she disordered his mind, making him lie with an ugly woman, and so Nangong Qian was born.
Later, Long Yuan lost an arm and went into hiding under another name, and she took his daughter Long Xiang as a disciple. joined the Beggar Sect and came back to see her, but she could love only one man in her life, so she became his sworn sister.
When Ruixing was eleven, she offered a palace as a gift to become her disciple and learn the human heart, and through this she built Jinxiang Palace. Though Ruixing calls her master, there is no true bond of master and disciple between them.
In truth she was the Dharma King of the Human Path of the Mud Cult. Exposed by Nangong Qian at the Wulin Assembly, even Jinxiang Palace's fine reputation could not break the Jianghu's prejudices. Seeing that all was lost, and to preserve Jinxiang Palace, she sent a secret signal to Painting Immortal to take her place as the true Lady Wen, while she herself pretended to be the demon who controlled the whole palace with the Corpse Heart Pill, taking the entire Human Path affair upon herself. She and Nangong Yuan died for love together, and were buried in the Nangong family graves.
Nangong Yuan
- In his youth he liked pauldrons and thought them very imposing; but after the parting he saw through the true nature of pauldrons and stopped liking them.[1]
- Lady Wen's tangled love with Nangong Yuan is a homage to Li Xunhuan and Lin Shiyin in Gu Long's Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword.[2]
- Nangong Qian is suspected to be the child she bore to Nangong Yuan after drugging him, but for now this is only Yuan Wuxian's one-sided account.
- In their youth, Wang Erzhuang and Nangong Yuan often wagered on who could make her laugh, but she only ever smiled for Nangong Yuan.
Schemes
- At the very end of The Battle of the Supreme Bliss Cult, she proposed cutting off Western Xia's reinforcements, trapping the Supreme Bliss Cult's leaders on Huashan and forcing them to send out their experts for a final battle with the alliance of the righteous factions.
- She suspected the Tang Clan of taking in the Ye siblings in order to hold them captive and seize their treasures. Duan Zhixiu, trying to save Ye Yunshang from the Tang Clan's clutches, sought aid from the Nangong Family and was refused; only then did Lady Wen find her opening, inciting him to commit the crime and bringing about the night raid on the Tang Clan. As for the Apricot Blossom Immortal turning the scheme back on them, using the name of a Jinxiang Palace disciple to present a Brocade Pouch and bring harm, that was something Lady Wen never foresaw.
- To Lady Wen, Zhao Huo was an anomaly; her schemes could not account for him.
- The poisonous smoke raised on Fengyu Mountain when Jinxiang Palace burned its sword sheaths and silk cords was arranged in secret beforehand by Lady Wen through the Second Senior Brother.
Notes
- By rights she should be about the same age as the , at least well into her forties, yet not the slightest trace of the years shows on her.
- Shangguan Sun says she is the orphan of a disgraced minister.
- Shangguan Sun: "Su Yingxiang. You gave your heart to Nangong Yuan, your body to Wen Wuwei, and twenty years of friendship to —so give your life to me as the price of an official post. This is what you owe me."
- She and Painting Immortal once each served a different master, and only through Ruixing were they reconciled.
- Mingyu, Painting Immortal, Long Xiang, and Sheng Xue all trained in paired silk and sword techniques that unite offense and defense, making them the obvious choices as Guardians; alas, they were drawn away during The Fengyu Mountain Incident, and so were defeated by Shangguan Sun.
- Had The Fengyu Mountain Incident not happened, after disbanding Jinxiang Palace she meant to travel far to the northeast and settle west of Changbai Mountain to live out her years. They say the snow there never melts all year round, and it is the homeland to which old friends' souls return. With nothing to do after retiring from the Jianghu, she thought, she might as well carry a cartload of Hidden Fragrance on a long journey, pay respects to the departed, and tell them: Nangong Yuan has finally become Wulin Alliance Leader, and everyone's dream will carry on.
- She makes ginseng chicken soup and gives both chicken legs to Long Xiang alone. Her cooking is excellent, but Zhao Huo has a chance to surpass her.[3]
- There is a saying in the Jianghu: "True feeling or false, the pipa asks the heart." Anyone who wishes to marry a woman of Jinxiang Palace, whoever they are, must first hear Lady Wen play a piece on the pipa. If the listener's Internal Skill and composure are lacking, they will surely fall into an illusion that strips their true face bare—at best capering and making a fool of themselves, at worst damaging meridians and channels and suffering Qi Deviation.