Upon the waters of Lixin Lake, a gaily painted pleasure boat drifted with the waves. It appeared to wander aimlessly, yet it had unknowingly circled the island twice along the same path.
Beside the long window of the cabin, Xu Qiuchi slowly opened his eyes.
"Did you hear something?"
Five paces away, Liu Caiwu stood with her back to him. She listened quietly for a moment before speaking tonelessly.
"The area is wide and unobstructed, and this isn't your carriage, Second Young Master. It is only natural for there to be some noise."
Is that so? But the "noise" he spoke of was no ordinary sound.
Xu Qiuchi did not press further. He knew that if there were truly danger nearby, she would not be any slower than him to notice it.
"Have you been soaking for a quarter-hour yet?"
Liu Caiwu did not answer.
Her sleeves were rolled up high, her hands submerged entirely within a water vat painted with withered lotuses.
Upon her rarely exposed wrists, faint dark spots were visible, resembling either birthmarks or old scars. Small red fish in the vat darted between her fingers. She stared at them until their curiosity faded and they swam away; only then did she withdraw her hands from the water.
A warm summer breeze drifted into the boat, stirring the hem of the green-clad woman’s robes. She picked up a clean cloth from a wooden rack beside her and meticulously wiped the droplets from her arms before rising to walk toward the man by the window.
Suddenly, a hand shot out from behind a small green bamboo table, grabbing her hem.
The dark green fabric was bunched into several creases. Liu Caiwu’s silhouette froze.
Her still-damp fingers abruptly clenched, while the man sprawled beside the bamboo table remained entirely oblivious.
This Master Liang, who had boasted of his bottomless capacity for wine, was now dead to the world. He no longer possessed the vigor he’d shown earlier when he’d pulled at her hand, demanding a song. If one were to toss him headfirst into the lake right now, he likely wouldn't struggle once.
A low chuckle came from the window, Xu Qiuchi’s voice tinged with a strange sense of schadenfreude.
This laughter evidently acted as a catalyst for ill intent. The corners of Liu Caiwu’s mouth sank. She bent her left knee slightly and pressed down ruthlessly.
The woman appeared slender and graceful, yet the entire boat shuddered from her movement. The bamboo table beside her instantly took flight before slamming back down, landing squarely on Liang Shian’s chest. Then, a plain silk slipper, devoid of any ornament, stepped onto the table, exuding a sense of ferocity amidst its elegance.
*Slender willows turn into a thousand blades; the descent is like a collapsing mountain.* The woman’s entire weight was channeled through the bamboo table onto Liang Shian. He could not struggle or escape; his breath was cut off instantly, and his face turned the color of pig’s liver. He flailed his four limbs like an overturned turtle, yet he could not budge an inch from beneath her foot.
Perhaps Master Liang’s gasping was too grating, for Xu Qiuchi finally turned his head.
Liang Shian had come to drink with him, accompanied by at least seven or eight servants and guards waiting on the shore—to say nothing of his father in the capital, who sent a fast-horse messenger with a letter every other day. Once he sobered up, someone would have already replaced his wine-stained clothes and boots, and a meticulous maid would feed him sobering soup at the perfect temperature. If he wished, he could even lounge in bed for three days and nights, rising only when the mood struck him.
Xu Qiuchi looked at that young but already bloated face, inexplicably remembering himself years ago—a greenhorn who had been forced to down half a catty of strong spirits.
He hadn't possessed such good fortune back then.
In the depths of winter, the road from Sunshi Street back to the Qiu Manor was freezing. Those people had intentionally "lost" his outer coat and sent away his servants and carriage, forcing him to walk back through the streets with one foot bare.
Upon returning to the manor, what awaited him was a caning from his father. Thanks to Aunt Huaiyu’s pleading, he was spared a dozen strokes but was sentenced to kneel in the ancestral hall, forbidden from seeing anyone. The physical pain compounded with a cold; he was besieged by fever and aches. In the end, it was the young girl swordsman—who had been angry with him just the day before—who secretly brought him a bowl of ginger soup, allowing him to pull through.
He still remembered looking at her face, smudged black by charcoal. One moment he was shivering, the next he couldn't help but laugh out loud, and as he laughed, he began to vomit...
"What are you laughing at?"
Liu Caiwu’s voice snapped him back. Xu Qiuchi looked up to see her scrutinizing gaze, as if she were looking at a fool.
Xu Qiuchi withdrew his gaze, shaking his head with a sigh.
"Why such a heavy hand, Manager Liu? If his guards come to collect him later, how am I to explain this?"
Though his words were merciful, his face showed not a shred of pity. He clearly didn't care whether the Master Liang on the floor lived or died.
"You didn't look after your own guest. Since you handed him to me, do not blame me for handling him poorly." Liu Caiwu finally lifted her foot and yanked her skirt free. As she left, her slipper ground harshly against Master Liang’s fingers. "After all this effort, we haven't gotten more than a few useful sentences out of him. You’ve been watching from the shore for so long—did you actually find that place?"
Xu Qiuchi nodded, then shook his head.
"I suppose I have found it. However, it isn't easy to enter and investigate at a moment's notice. It’s better to return later when it's crowded and lively."
"If you are afraid, just say so."
Xu Qiuchi ignored the sarcasm. He lazily set down a medium-length bamboo tube and flicked the red string tied to it with one finger.
"Manager Liu should thank Miss Xiao Zhou. This new toy she gave me is truly interesting. One needn't get close to see things a hundred paces away clearly. It saves us the trouble of getting our shoes wet."
Liu Caiwu huffed coldly.
"You're overthinking it. Even if you want to board Qionghu Island, you must wait for Di Mo to give you the chance."
"If Manager Liu truly makes a move, is there anyone you cannot handle?" After saying this, Xu Qiuchi’s eyes darted back toward Qionghu Island. "I didn't intend to linger, but just as I decided to leave, I happened upon something interesting, so I watched a bit longer."
Liu Caiwu followed his gaze. In the distance, where the lake light shimmered, a small boat drifted vaguely. A man and a woman sat upon it. It should have been a beautiful scene of a couple boating, but a closer look revealed their expressions were frantic. Their oars were flying, yet they lacked the knack for it; after a long time, they were still spinning in circles in the same spot.
Liu Caiwu’s brow twitched as she sensed something.
"What? Are there others besides us?"
"Who knows? Perhaps fellow travelers, or perhaps they are just busy with their own affairs."
The nobleman leaned back against the window. Once the smile vanished from his face, his appearance changed completely, gaining a cold austerity rarely seen.
After a long silence, just as the green-clad woman was about to turn and leave, the man by the window suddenly asked:
"After my mother learned of your identity back then, how exactly did she accept you?"
Liu Caiwu froze. Even the light swirling in her beautiful eyes seemed to congeal.
The sun was at its zenith, the sunlight on the lake was bright, and even the wind was gentle. Such a scene was meant for friends to boat together, to drink and talk, to share their beautiful hopes for the future.
Unfortunately, there were no dear friends on this boat—only three people with divided hearts.
After a long time, Liu Caiwu finally spoke.
"I don't know." Her usually melodious voice was now incredibly dry, every word sounding as if it had been ground by sand. "I don't know. By the time I found out, she had already known my identity for a long time."
Xu Qiuchi gave a noncommittal smile, whether amused by the answer or simply remembering something else.
"Do you think she regretted taking you in?" After asking, he deliberately answered himself. "Oh, I forgot. A person like my mother... even if she did regret it, she likely wouldn't have mentioned it to you."
Liu Caiwu’s face turned pale in an instant.
From the day the person she followed departed, a knife had been plunged into her heart.
With every word the man by the window spoke, that knife sank an inch deeper.
She had once thought the blade had already vanished into the depths of her chest, only to realize today that it was a knife of infinite length. As long as that matter was triggered, it could always sink deeper.
She slowly lowered her head. Her hands, which had been dripping earlier, were now dry, yet she felt as if sticky blood were seeping from between her fingers.
That was her true color.
Even if she washed away the crimson and donned green robes, she still could not hide the scarlet hue that bled from her very bones.
Xu Qiuchi watched the expression on Liu Caiwu’s face, and the smile on his lips finally faded.
He was born sensitive to the shifting tides of human emotion. He was easily hurt by sentiment, and over time, he naturally learned how to use sentiment to hurt others. As a child, whenever he missed his mother, he would torment her in this way. But as an adult, he rarely did so.
Because he knew that even if he didn't, she spent every day in torment.
And was he any different?
He firmly believed there was no one else in this world as foolish as his mother. Especially that stingy shopkeeper—a woman as shrewd as her, how could she do something so foolish?
Not far behind them, the drunken Master Liang woke from a nightmare of "breaking a boulder on his chest." He groaned as he rolled over and crawled up, hugging a nearby jar to dry heave. After a while, he collapsed back onto the cushions with a thud, passing out again.
A splashing sound came from the gunwale as a duck, returning from a swim for food, nimbly hopped onto the boat. It shook its wings, wiggled its tail, and headed straight for Master Liang, pecking at a loose thread on his sleeve.
Xu Qiuchi closed his phoenix eyes and beckoned to the fluffy white ball.
"Come here. Stay away from that filthy thing."
He spoke to the duck as a matter of course, and the duck, as if truly understanding human speech, waddled over to him.
He reached out, and the duck hopped into his palm.
Xu Qiuchi held the duck in his arms, leisurely smoothing its feathers.
"That man Du said I have a hard life. If you ask me, our Shopkeeper Qin has it even harder." He extended a finger to scratch the duck’s fluffy chest, and the duck pecked his finger crossly. "If you had recognized me sooner and stuck with me, perhaps you'd be better off."
Before his voice could fade, a newly opened letter landed squarely on him.
"A letter from Miss Jiang. If I'm not mistaken, there should be a good show to watch tonight."
Xu Qiuchi slowly picked up the paper, which was as thin as a cicada's wing, and skimmed it. He let out an unhidden sigh.
"Our Shopkeeper Qin must not have been having a smooth time lately. I didn't want to cause more complications, but alas, some things simply cannot wait."
Liu Caiwu spoke briefly.
"Better a short, sharp pain than a long, dull one."
"Very well. Have Xin'er send her an invitation to board the ship as well."
Liu Caiwu paused, asking a rare follow-up question.
"After what happened at the Su Manor, you still intend to pull Miss Qin into this game?"
Xu Qiuchi let go, and the duck immediately jumped down and ran off.
"She is already in the game. There is no harm in seeing through it. Besides, didn't we agree to watch the play? If the cast isn't complete, what's the point of watching?"
"Even if Miss Qin is willing to come, the person you want to test might not show himself."
Xu Qiuchi smiled.
"Would Manager Liu care to make a wager? As long as Qin Jiuye appears, he won't dare not to come. Because he has a guilty conscience."
****** ****** ******
In the dark depths of the ship’s cabin, neither sunlight nor the reflection of the water could penetrate the semi-transparent silk screen.
Behind the screen, an ambiguous shadow swayed gently.
It was a pair of lustrous, smooth, jade-like feet. However, a closer look revealed an unnatural redness at the tips of the toes, like the color of frostbite after walking miles barefoot in the snow.
The shadow behind the screen shifted. Something collided with the woman’s every movement, producing a series of fine *clack-clack* sounds.
As it turned out, the jade-carved bathtub was not filled with water, but with lustrous, plump pearls the size of pomegranate seeds. As the woman slowly turned her body, the pearls scrambled to roll over her, leaving behind a layer of fine, white pearl powder.
Zhu Fuxue slowly stepped onto the floor, which was covered with three layers of fine silk and one layer of fox fur.
Her crimson toes sank into the softness, yet she felt as if she were standing on a bed of steel needles.
The veins at her temples bulged. The woman’s vermilion lips pressed tight. Behind her, the jade tub silently cracked, then shattered without warning.
The pearls poured out, rolling and bouncing across the soft cloth and fur, as if mocking the futile efforts she had made.
Miraculous elixirs, immortal medicines, strange prescriptions, and wondrous treatments—she had tried hundreds, if not thousands, yet in the end, everything remained the same.
Zhu Fuxue once again thought of that far-fetched legend.
The closest she had ever come to liberation was when she accidentally heard a wandering physician speak of the former First Seat of the Luosha Sect.
At that time, the Luosha Sect had no Sect Leader, only a First Seat.
The one who could inherit the *Xizhu*—the Pearl-Washing Palm—was the First Seat. The First Seat would challenge the world with martial arts but never concerned themselves with the sect's affairs; with a pair of iron palms alone, they could establish the sect's place in the martial world.
However, that era of the Luosha Sect did not last long, for the Pearl-Washing Palm was a technique that barely one in a thousand could learn.
And the last First Seat to practice this palm had vanished over twenty years ago.
Rumor had it that the First Seat had used *Tiannan Star Sand* to enhance the technique. Though it tempered the bones and sinews, it left behind an incurable hidden ailment. When it flared up, the practitioner had been known to crush their own bones; even at a young age, they possessed a fickle, bloodthirsty, and violent temperament.
But later, this First Seat supposedly met an extraordinary physician who cured her. It was for this reason that the First Seat left the Luosha Sect and retired from the martial world, taking the Pearl-Washing Palm into obscurity with her.
Zhu Fuxue had been unable to hide her wild joy. She sent everyone in the sect to find that extraordinary physician, but they never found the person.
Disciples in the sect began to tactfully advise her to give up, saying the physician might have just been telling a made-up story. After all, anyone who came into contact with Tiannan Star Sand could never erase its traces for life.
She firmly believed the wandering physician's words were not baseless. The scars left by Tiannan Star Sand *could* be cured; it was only that she had met nothing but incompetent quacks, which was why she continued to suffer. What she didn't believe was the end of the story.
How could a master who had inherited the Pearl-Washing Palm be willing to leave their sect, or even the martial world, to live as a nameless, ordinary person?
And for the sake of this killing art, she had to endure this torture-like agony every day. How could she let such talent go to waste?
*Xizhu* (Washing Pearls), *Xi Zhu* (Washing Zhu).
To her, the name of the palm technique carried a sinister undertone.
As long as she remained, the Luosha Sect needed no Pearl-Washing Palm to strike terror into the hearts of the martial world. And how could she, Zhu Fuxue, be compared to a self-deprecating, long-faded former First Seat?
Thus, she killed that famous wandering physician and used his blood to moisten her feet, thereby proving that the previous physician's remedy was also useless—and that she hadn't killed the wrong person.
People of the martial world did not kill physicians, believing it invited bad luck and cut off one's own retreat. But at some point, she had developed a penchant for killing them.
The reason she was still suffering was simply that there were too many incompetent physicians in this world.
Survival of the fittest, out with the old and in with the new—what she did was no different from what Di Mo managed.
The ship swayed with the lake water. A final pearl continued to roll back and forth on the floor.
Zhu Fuxue lifted her foot and slowly crushed the pearl beneath it.
She turned toward the shadow behind the screen. As she spoke, the pearl beneath her foot shattered into powder.
"My feet are starting to hurt again. Where exactly did Yuxiao go?"
Behind the silk curtain, the young male disciple lowered his already bowed frame even further, his voice stiff with restraint.
"Reporting to the Sect Leader, Yuxiao left on a small boat early this morning. He said he was going to find new Wusong seeds for the Sect Leader."
The shattered pearl continued to crunch and groan beneath her foot. Zhu Fuxue’s gaze fell upon a pair of blood-red embroidered shoes nearby.
"Since he isn't here, you shall take his place."
The young disciple trembled violently, terror instantly crawling over his entire body.
Everyone in the Luosha Sect knew: of all the parts of the Sect Leader's body, her feet were the hardest to serve. It was said that when she was practicing in her early years, she had stood in an icy pool and used toxins to temper them for three days and nights to seek a breakthrough. Consequently, she was left with an incurable ailment. When it flared up, the pain was bone-deep; it could not be massaged, nor could it be soothed.
Those were not a pair of feet, but a faceless executioner, a walking guillotine. As red as the embroidered shoes on those feet were, that was how many young men had bled out and lost their lives to them.
Before Yuxiao came to the Luosha Sect, almost no one dared to look at those red shoes twice.
That Yuxiao had come from the "Number One Villa Under Heaven," and his endurance was indeed different from ordinary people. The first time he served her closely, three of his bones were broken, yet he was able to serve as usual the next day. In the blink of an eye, he had endured for three years. Now, the Sect Leader took him wherever she went, but this "honor" was not something an ordinary person could bear.
At the very least, he was unwilling.
The young disciple’s mind raced with calculations, while his face assumed a mask of fear and trepidation.
"The Sect Leader is wise! How could this disciple be unwilling?! It is only that my hands and feet are clumsy, and I am truly worried I cannot serve you well, so I... I..."
"Since you can do nothing well, what use is there in keeping you?"
Before Zhu Fuxue’s voice had even faded, the shadow cast upon the silk curtain slowly approached.
The young disciple prostrated himself on the ground, shivering, hardly daring to lift his head. He felt the woman’s silent footsteps drawing near, and his life was coming to an end...
Suddenly, a flurry of urgent footsteps sounded outside the dim cabin—another disciple of the sect.
"Reporting to the Sect Leader! It's Yuxiao, he... he..."
The messenger's voice suddenly dropped for some reason. Zhu Fuxue spoke coldly.
"Since he's back, why haven't you told him to crawl in here?"
The messenger hesitated, unable to speak. In the next moment, the screen was crushed by an invisible force. Zhu Fuxue walked out barefoot, wearing only an outer robe.
Seeing this, the disciple quickly lowered his head.
"It is better if the Sect Leader sees for herself..."
The woman’s bare legs flashed before his eyes, leaving a trail of pearl-powdered footprints on the floor.
"Lead the way."
The disciple answered in a low voice. As he walked quickly with his head down, he reported urgently.
"He was tossed onto a boat and drifted here from the center of the lake. We didn't notice at first, but once it got close, we found..."
Zhu Fuxue stared at the figure writhing in a pool of blood on the deck. After a long while, she suddenly began to laugh. As she laughed, every inch of her flesh seemed to quiver. She didn't think it enough, shaking off the layer of pearl powder clinging to her before stopping. She slowly crouched down and reached out to touch Yuxiao’s already ashen face.
A trace of a smile remained on her face, but a fierce fire burned in her eyes. The expression made her look like a beautiful madwoman, offering a final bit of pity to her dying "lover."
"I look away for one moment, and how did you turn yourself into such a ghostly mess?"
Yuxiao seemed to feel something and opened his eyes groggily.
A hole had been opened in his neck. The position of the wound was ingenious—right between the windpipe and the spine. It left him paralyzed and bleeding profusely, yet he would not die instantly. It was the pinnacle of the craft of killing.
A sliver of breath remained, and he struggled with that final surge of will.
He saw the familiar red embroidered shoes step into the blood. He couldn't tell if his own blood had stained the shoes so red, or if they were simply that color to begin with.
Zhu Fuxue gently grasped the boy’s soft hair and lifted his head, whispering close to him.
"It is one thing to go to the Lotus Market to take a contract without my permission, but to return having lost so pathetically... you have made me lose all face."
The blood-covered boy wheezed. The moment he saw the woman, a final spark of hope ignited in his dimming eyes. He pleaded desperately with his punctured throat.
"Sect Leader... Sect Leader, save me! Yuxiao was wrong, Yuxiao knows his mistake! Sect Leader, do not abandon Yuxiao. I am willing to accept any punishment, I can do anything..."
Zhu Fuxue sighed, her voice full of regret.
"Even now, do you still not understand? The more you are like this, the more bored I feel."
As she spoke, she let go. The boy fell back to the deck. Splatters of blood flew onto her embroidered shoes, quickly merging with the vivid red.
Zhu Fuxue looked at the person on the ground, but her mind flashed back to that black-clad youth by the shore of Lixin Lake, with his arrogant, untamable eyes.
"Actually, your mistake wasn't going to the Lotus Market. It was that you couldn't even handle a wild dog who has nothing, and yet you dared to return to me in such a wretched state. I do not care if you are absolutely loyal; I only care if you are worth showing off."
The boy in the bloodstain continued to struggle unwillingly.
"Yuxiao... only made a mistake once..."
"A mistake once?" Zhu Fuxue’s voice sounded absurdly surprised as she whispered in Yuxiao’s ear. "He left you with one breath just to humiliate me. He knew my identity and still chose to do this. Such an interesting person is truly rare these days."
The person in the pool of blood was still gasping, his desire for survival driving him to twist his stiff neck.
"Yuxiao is willing to serve the Sect Leader alongside him! No, as long as the Sect Leader is willing, I will not compete with him for anything! I will do whatever I am told! Just... just let me stay..."
"Haven't you heard the saying? Out with the old, in with the new." Zhu Fuxue’s voice shifted, suddenly becoming gentle. "Don't worry, I will avenge you. After you die, I will find a way to kill that ugly girl beside him. That way, one will have no servant, and the other will have no master—a perfect pair. Don't you agree?"
Vine-like shadows crawled slowly across the deck. The Luosha Sect disciples who had been watching nearby vanished in the blink of an eye.
Zhu Fuxue’s voice rang out, sounding somewhat hollow.
"In consideration of the many boring hours we spent together... I shall give you a swift end."
***
**Glossary**
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
---|---|---
落砂门 | Luosha Sect | Literally "Sinking Sand Sect" or "Falling Sand Sect."
洗珠掌法 | Pearl-Washing Palm | A unique and painful martial technique of the Luosha Sect.
天南星砂 | Tiannan Star Sand | A toxic substance used to temper the body for the Pearl-Washing Palm.
朱覆雪 | Zhu Fuxue | Sect Leader of the Luosha Sect. Her name means "Red Over Snow."
狄墨 | Di Mo | A character mentioned as a rival or associate of Xu Qiuchi.
乌松子 | Wusong seeds | Likely a medicinal or toxic plant used by Zhu Fuxue.
花帖 | Flower Invitation | A formal invitation to a social gathering or "show" on a boat.
