I knew not how He Ruobi possessed such far-reaching powers that he could obtain such a letter. It revealed more than just the Second Leader Jin Wenguang’s unilateral overtures toward the Prefect of Suizhou; it was, in fact, a reply. It turned out the two shared a deep history. The Prefect, a man both timid and desperate to protect his career, had used both threats and bribes in hopes that Yanfeng Stronghold would refrain from any major movements—at least until his current term of office was completed. Jin Wenguang’s words suggested he had no desire for a grand uprising and merely wished to hold the mountain and live out his days, promising to do his utmost to dissuade the others. Clearly, he had failed. One could imagine how this betrayal of promise had offended the Prefect, explaining why the local suppression had been so fierce in the early stages. This, in turn, had only provoked the bandits' fighting spirit; of the eight leaders, three had only recently joined the mountain after their neighboring strongholds merged.
I finally understood the "lack of a plan" the secret envoy He Ruobi had mentioned. The forces within the stronghold were not a unified whole. If Liu Yuan saw this letter, a bloody internal struggle would surely erupt. My mission was to find a way to make this letter play its part, naturally and subtly.
Among the eight leaders, the three newcomers were younger and had been persuaded to join by Jin Wenguang. They were essentially of the Jin faction, and Liu Yuan treated them with cold indifference. Their original leader was a man named Qiu Yiqing—young, capable, and a formidable martial artist. Liu Yuan was particularly suspicious and wary of him, and it was only through Jin Wenguang’s mediation and protection that the three of them fared as well as they did. As it happened, this man had openly expressed his affection for me. I first coaxed him into my confidence, then feigned a look of worried confusion, asking him why Liu Yuan had been so furious with Jin Wenguang.
Qiu Yiqing, hearing my vague question, pressed for details. I told him that while serving Liu Yuan at night, I had seen him receive a letter. After reading it in his robes, he had cursed "that man named Jin" in a rage before falling into a brooding silence and secretively hiding the letter away.
For a Great Leader to grow suspicious of the Second Leader was a matter of life and death for those involved. Upon hearing this, Qiu Yiqing fell into deep thought. He asked if I could find a way to see the letter or simply steal it. I feigned panic and refusal, but after a few days, I finally brought the letter to him. With a furrowed brow and tears in my eyes, I told him I had risked everything for his sake and begged him not to betray me—that he must find an opportunity to ask the Great Leader to grant me to him, or else he would not have the letter. After a brief bout of flirtatious banter, I pretended to be too weak to resist as he "snatched" the letter from me.
What followed was perfectly logical. Qiu Yiqing showed the letter to Jin Wenguang, and once the arrow was on the string, it had to be fired. Meanwhile, on the surface, He Ruobi continued to cultivate his relationship with Liu Yuan, drinking and laughing with him to lower his guard, while secretly delivering the military supplies to Jin Wenguang. Thus, on the day they struck, the two factions of leaders fell upon each other in a chaotic brawl. Liu Yuan was indeed a cunning old fox; had I not crushed the Mother Gu at the critical moment, he might have actually succeeded in killing Jin Wenguang.
The bandit plague of Suizhou thus ended in a fratricidal massacre.
On the journey back, Biyao happily counted on her fingers. "This is a first-class merit. If you gather three or four more, Miss, you can be promoted to an Envoy!"
I shook my head with a smile. "How could such major events happen every year? We still have a long wait ahead of us."
As she spoke, Biyao thought of that man named He and pouted in annoyance. "That fellow is truly impolite. Setting aside how he acted back then, he didn't even send his men to escort us back to the capital. Instead, he made us blend in with this crowd of scholars heading for the imperial examinations. We’ll have to wait half the day in line at Chaoyang Gate!"
Her words left me feeling a bit hollow as well. Indeed, I too had assumed we would return to the capital together, or at least that he would assign some troops for protection. Who would have thought he would seemingly have another mission immediately? He claimed his manpower was insufficient and didn't leave us a single soul. But in truth, these were all irrational expectations. We were merely colleagues working the same field who had crossed paths for a night; he had no obligation to look after me. If he had been overly attentive or protective simply because I was a woman, it would have actually meant he believed a weak woman could achieve nothing and lacked even the ability to protect herself.
After our return, rumors spread through the Temple of a newly appointed Envoy. Biyao was incredibly excited, guessing a dozen versions of the person's age and appearance, though it was all blind speculation with no way to verify. That was until the man appeared at a banquet. His page held a pot of the precious "Ou Bi" peony, while the flower I wore in my hair was called "Qinhuai Night White." This was the method of recognition agreed upon between myself and the new Envoy.
I heard the guests call him the Third Young Master Wei. I learned that he had entered the Wujing Sect at a young age and was returning to the capital for the first time in six years. That Ou Bi peony was said to have been planted by Ouyang Xiu, a man obsessed with peonies, in Luoyang. At one point, only a single specimen remained; it was moved to the Wujing Sect and nurtured with secret techniques, yet it had produced fewer than ten offspring. The Ou Bi was a haughty flower; even in ideal soil, it bloomed only once every three years, and then only a single blossom. The one he brought had an exquisite stem and leaves as green as the flower itself, with a crystalline luster that shimmered like carved emerald. It was the finest of the fine, surely a contender for the top prize of tonight’s Peony Feast alongside the "Palace-Illuminating Red" and the "One-Foot Yellow."
He wore a robe of dark cyan and a crown of green jade, matching the color of the peony. His demeanor was elegant and his aura noble, yet his temperament was entirely different from how he had been in public and private before. He was now gentle, refined, serene, and humble. A faint smile played on his lips, and he seemed to listen to everyone with sincere warmth. His conversation was sharp and witty, yet always possessed a high-bred charm. I found myself overlaying this face with that of He Ruobi, feeling instead that He Ruobi’s crude and jesting words were more natural and familiar—at least... those had been for me alone.
This time, he was willing to look at me and speak to me with civil grace, following all the customs and protocols of the Pingkang Ward. I felt my heart grow incredibly cold. This Envoy, who was younger than I, had unknown merits to his name, yet his mouth was filled with the most lies. He was right; in this place of pleasure, lies were the best commodity to sell. The cheapest and most ridiculous thing was the truth—a true heart, true love, true words, a true everything.
We had both seen the way the other used lies to kill. The irony of fate was that we were now forced to trust one another.
Tonight, I naturally would not mock him again; perhaps only when I ridiculed him was I being real. I served him soup and delicacies, urged him to drink and eat, and he took the penalties for me during the drinking games. Between us, there was nothing but tender whispers and fervent attentiveness.
Finally, amidst the climax of the crowd's cheering, he personally took a pair of shears and cut that solitary, proud, and priceless Ou Bi. He rotated it, inspecting it, delicately plucking two imperfect leaves. He then removed the withered Qinhuai Night White I had worn all evening and pinned his Ou Bi into my hair.
Once again, I was forced to share a room with him. After the exchange of intelligence was complete, I sat on the bed and said mockingly, "Does the Lord Envoy intend to read books all night again?"
"I have no such leisure," he said. Then, he pushed open the window and vanished in a streak of light.
From then on, the world knew that the Third Young Master of the Duke of Wei’s house had won a beauty’s heart with a single Ou Bi. My name, Silver Lamp, and his name could no longer be separated.
When Biyao learned the new Envoy was him, she was struck dumb for a long time before finally reacting by slamming the table and cursing. I merely laughed. "It’s just as well. My market value has been rising lately; I should thank this man for his high-profile show, making me 'his' woman."
In truth, having known him for so many years, his mind was never hard to read. It was not a drifting willow catkin, but the sky where the sun and moon reside—just like his name. He loved no one, not even himself. His heart held nothing but ambitions that weren't even particularly lofty; he didn't actually fight for anything, but was simply intoxicated by the process of exercising his own intellect and ability.
I was assigned under his command and went on over a dozen missions with him. Not once did he fail to lead from the front, killing the enemy personally. This was because even within the Temple, someone of his cultivation and martial prowess was rare, but also because he had a vengeful, cruel streak—a taste for hurting others as well as himself. The heavier the injury, the more satisfied he seemed. I had seen him spend six consecutive hours torturing a single criminal with a variety of methods to pry out a vital piece of intelligence. I had also seen him trade life for life, letting a blade stab him just an inch from his heart, only to pull it out nonchalantly and calmly crouch down to retrieve the target object from the corpse’s robes.
I learned how to bandage wounds everywhere and how to use various medicines, all because he was injured so frequently, often to the point of falling into a coma where he could not treat himself. In those moments, I could look at him quietly for a while, when our eyes and mouths were no longer filled with coldness or deception—a rare moment of truce.
Until she appeared.
The Chunan Night Banquet was something he attended every season and loathed every season. That time, because he had tasked me with eavesdropping on Ling Chunan, he accepted the Wen family’s invitation to attend the farewell banquet for the border generals. I knew he hated noise and that such a small matter wasn't worth his personal presence. I hadn't expected him to come, yet I saw him enter with rare, hurried steps. His gaze swept to a certain spot and fixed there, his expression softening for a fleeting moment with a tenderness I had never seen before.
I froze for a second, then felt like laughing. So, he too could have a moment of truth. So, he too had begun to care for someone.
During the banquet, I provoked him with my words, yet he only offered a faint smile and occasionally played along. I knew him too well; he was using his methods on the person he cared about, stirring their heart. A sharp sarcasm rose to the tip of my tongue—he knew these tricks better than a woman like me who was professionally "fickle." Even the top courtesan of Willow Tower could do no better, could she?
In truth, I could have said it. He never minded my acerbic wit, especially with a lover present, as he had to maintain his poise. But considering he had recently been injured and was exhausted from work, I felt a twinge of pity.
I saw her at the auction house in the White District. It turned out she was his cousin and childhood friend. Her beauty was only above average, and her personality didn't seem particularly special. We met again a month or two later at the Ziyun Pavilion during the Sacred Birthday Festival. Although he was always meticulous about his attire, his elegance that day seemed particularly deliberate. A sudden urge to disrupt things rose within me. I caught his sleeve under the corridor and smiled. "Where is the Lord going?"
Just as I knew him, he knew me. He said calmly, "Is Miss Silver Lamp not busy attending the feast?"
He was always like this; even his questions or counter-questions were extremely faint, his tone barely rising at the end, as if it weren't a question but a definitive judgment. I laughed. "The one I was supposed to meet tonight—I had long planned to stand him up, but I hadn't made up my mind. Seeing Master Wei, I must certainly cast him aside. I shall go wherever you go. There’s nothing shameful about that, is there?"
In truth, I was counting on his innate noble grace and refined manners; he never shamed anyone, especially a woman. I had rarely spoken such shameless, rogue-like words. He was about to refuse, but then he thought for a moment and a strange smile curled on his lips. "She likes you very much."
"Who?" I naturally assumed he meant some man, wondering if he really was just going to see a friend.
He didn't answer. He turned and walked away, leaving me to follow or not as I pleased. If I hadn't spent years pitting my wits against his, I surely would have been fuming. But I was the one who had cast aside my dignity first, saying "I shall go wherever you go"...
It turned out that *this* one was his true love—a demon girl. As expected of her race, she possessed a beauty that lived up to her natural gifts, looking delicate and pitiable, yet lively and spirited. Her innocence and simplicity were such that even I couldn't help but feel a sense of protective affection. I began to understand his feelings a little. Those of us who have seen too much of the world's filth cannot fall in love with our own kind; we can only be drawn to such light and warmth.
***
