Li Qiao felt as though he had plunged back into the boundless nightmare of the previous night.
The summer lake water remained frigid. As it touched his skin, which was burning from the heat of violent combat, it instantly sent a violent shudder through his frame.
The dark green waterweeds, stretching from the depths to the surface, submerged him in an instant. Those soft, slender grasses, of which only fragments could be seen from above, possessed roots beneath the surface that resembled the tentacles of a monster. Their thorny stems snagged his struggling body, and their slimy filaments offered no purchase, dragging him toward the depths of the lake bed—toward the rotting branches and decaying leaves that had not seen the sun for years.
The Divine Path, which had once been bathed in holy light and received the worship of the world, lay silently at the bottom of the lake. The broken stone statues flanking the path were now smothered by massive, lush waterweeds. Grey-black deadwood thrust out from the silt like sharp swords, waiting to impale those who fell into the abyss.
A century of prosperity, a century of desolation, a century of oblivion.
The blood that once flowed upon the sacrificial altar dispersed in the water; the scorching animal bones turned into cold, wet silt, extinguished alongside the pious prayers that had been whispered in the heart ten thousand times.
In this pitch-black, silent lake bed, nothing could make a sound. No one could hear his cry.
His heart hammered violently, causing his pupils to tremble, yet his limbs were so stiff they could not move an inch. His fingers, locked in a spasm, gripped the rusted blade that was now only half its original length. The weight of the metal dragged him deeper into the abyss. He could feel the lake water, churned with silt, seeping into his ears, his nose, his mouth, and every single pore, wrapping around him ubiquitously, seeking to bury him alive beneath this boundless, suffocating darkness.
He was born in darkness, and to the darkness he would eventually return. Past memories transformed into wave after wave of black water, pinning him to the deepest part of the lake. He was a drowning man unable to seek life, or perhaps he was already a lonely ghost haunting these deep waters.
The ringing in his ears gradually faded, and the surroundings fell into a dead silence. Li Qiao closed his eyes amidst the swirling silt and currents.
He did not know how much time had passed when, through a blur, it seemed as though something was tugging at his body. He could not move at all; he could only allow that thing to lead him toward an unknown direction, like a paper kite drifting through the void.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
What was that sound? It seemed to come from within his own body, yet also seemed to vibrate from the thing pulling him.
The surrounding darkness remained limitless, offering no foothold, much like the Great Void. The thing dragging him paused occasionally, then surged with renewed effort. Several times it nearly lost its hold on him, only to find him again, persistent and unyielding.
He wanted to speak to the other party: *Don't waste your strength, this won't work.* But his mouth and nose felt as though they had been sealed shut with mud and sand; he could not make a sound. He wanted to wave his hand, to signal for them to give up early, to not linger with him in this bottomless darkness—to leave quickly while they still could. But he didn't even have the strength to lift an arm.
He could only allow that force to lead him, surfacing and sinking several times, until the darkness that weighed a thousand pounds finally began to peel away...
*Splash!*
A woman’s soaked head, topped with a large patch of waterweed, broke the surface. Her already thin face had turned a slight shade of green from the prolonged dive, but her eyes were brighter than the stars, radiating a silent, stubborn tenacity.
She was pulling a person. The man was much taller than her, his back pressed against her front, nearly crushing her into the water. She could only paddle her limbs desperately, struggling to navigate through the dead branches and vine-like weeds.
She swam slowly, but she did not stop until her feet touched the silt. Only then did her expression soften slightly.
An unconscious body is always exceptionally heavy, let alone one soaked through with lake water; he felt as heavy as the iron bulls used to suppress river spirits.
Qin Jiuye used the last of her strength to drag Li Qiao onto the shore. Worried that the vanished enemy might suddenly reappear, she dragged him into a patch of reed marshes half a man's height before she dared to catch her breath.
Her beautiful skirt was drenched, tangled with messy waterweed roots. Her carefully styled hair had completely unraveled, half of it hanging down against her face like two shiny strips of kelp.
However glamorous and proper she had looked when boarding the boat tonight, she looked just as wretched and disheveled now by the lakeshore.
Qin Jiuye haphazardly pushed her hair back. While panting, she anxiously slapped the youth’s face.
"Li Qiao? Li Qiao!"
When there was no response for a long time, she ignored all propriety and tore open his collar to check him over.
Aside from the gash on his left forearm, there were no other obvious wounds on his body. However, his chest did not rise or fall. He was cold and stiff, devoid of breath, no different from a corpse that had drowned.
She called his name a few more times. The wrist she used to prop herself up beside him suddenly throbbed with pain, as if something had poked her.
Qin Jiuye looked down and, unsurprisingly, saw that rusted, broken blade. The sword had suffered the same fate as its master; it had snapped in two. The tip was nowhere to be found, leaving only the hilt and half the blade.
Yet even in this half-dead state, he had not released his grip on the hilt in his left hand.
But what was the use? Such a piece of scrap metal—even if held tightly, had it not failed to protect him?
Panic was gradually replaced by a rising flare of anger. She stood up, lifting her wet, heavy skirts, and kicked the obstructive blade aside.
"If you keep playing dead, I'll sell this scrap metal of yours by the pound! Do you hear me?!"
The person on the ground remained motionless. Qin Jiuye finally knelt back down as if resigning herself to fate.
The youth’s face was paler than ever before. His lips were tinged with a purplish-blue hue, and his eyes were tightly shut. His long lashes were frozen in place, trembling only when a drop of water fell upon them.
She was familiar with this sight. It was the final look a dying person left for their kin.
Grey, stiff, and lifeless. No light in the eyes, no rise in the chest, no warmth in the body.
As a wandering doctor who had once traveled from village to village along the rivers, she had seen such scenes many times.
But seeing it many times did not mean she was immune to the pain or invulnerable to the sight.
Her master’s most prized skill was the ability to face death with tranquility. But she had been a poor student; to this day, she had made no progress in that regard.
In every moment of confrontation with death, she could see Aunt Yang’s shadow in those faces that emitted the scent of decay.
Her once vibrant and full Aunt Yang had curled up on that straw mat mixed with tattered cotton, her entire being looking as though it had been drained by something, turning into a small, shriveled heap. Flies crawled brazenly across her face, and no matter how she tried to shoo them away, they never left.
Qin Jiuye’s hands began to shake. Even her vision seemed to blur because of the lake water streaming into her eyes.
She knew this was nothing more than an illusion deep within her heart, yet she could not escape it. Like someone who knows they are dreaming but cannot wake, she could only wait for the darkness to fade and the dawn to arrive.
But she couldn't wait.
She still had things to finish. Aunt Yang was dead, but Li Qiao could still be saved.
*Slap!*
She struck herself hard across the face, and her gaze finally grew steady.
Qin Jiuye took a deep breath and looked back at the youth lying on the ground.
His lips were soft but cold, pressed tightly together like an ink painting soaked in water, losing the last of its color. She used force to pry open his clenched teeth, reaching in with her fingers to clear out the silt and weeds. Then, she took a deep breath and leaned down.
After delivering three breaths, she straightened up, placed her hands over his broad chest, and began to press down firmly. As she pumped, she muttered in a trembling voice.
"I told you to chase someone. Not only did you fail to catch them, you managed to capsize your boat and fall into a ditch. And after falling in, you actually expect me to save you. If I’d known it would be like this, I should have been the one to do the chasing..."
The person on the ground still gave no reaction. His brows were knit tight, as if trapped in a very deep, very dark nightmare from which he could not wake.
She was both angry and anxious. Her movements grew more forceful, and her voice took on a tone of gritted teeth.
"Back on the Su family's boat, didn't you seem quite lively? You left me alone on the deck and vanished in the blink of an eye, and then you had the leisure to watch me make a fool of myself. If I’d known you were this useless, why would I have brought you to this Jianghu territory? And why did you insist on following me onto the boat just now?!"
She scolded him while pressing down, her movements eventually turning almost into pounding. After repeating this several times, the person on the ground finally coughed, spitting out a mouthful of black, muddy water.
Qin Jiuye let out a long breath, her entire body instantly losing its strength as she slumped to the side.
Li Qiao’s coughing came in fits and starts. Having just been pulled back from the brink of death, his consciousness was still muddled, but he instinctively began to grope around his surroundings.
Qin Jiuye tilted her head and glanced at him. She immediately remembered how, when she first saved him, he had lain half-dead on the bed but refused to let go of his blade. She crawled over, picked up the broken sword she had kicked aside, and handed it to him.
"Stop looking. It's here."
The pale youth turned his head. His glazed eyes finally took in the scene before him. In the next moment, he suddenly reached out.
The blade was heavy, and her arm was already aching from holding it. Just as she was about to let go, she felt her wrist tighten. She was hoisted from the ground by a great force and pulled into a cold, wet embrace.
He held her tightly, like a drowning man clutching his last piece of driftwood.
Qin Jiuye’s eyes darted around. Her gaze first landed on the youth’s wet temples, then slowly fell upon her own hand—the one that had been offering the sword.
Only then did she realize that what he had instinctively gripped was not the rusted broken blade, but her hand.
She had offered him a sword, but he had embraced her.
Something seemed wrong about this. But she was truly exhausted and didn't want to waste the energy to struggle, so she simply let him hold her.
The youth remained silent. His soaked clothes clung to him in a dark mass. His eyes were pitch black, bearing the same expression he’d had the day he stood up from the water vat in the Hall of Listening Winds—a kind of hollow numbness.
After a while, he finally spoke in a raspy voice.
"I'm so cold."
She twisted her neck, feeling as though her bones were about to be crushed.
"You fell into the lake and your clothes are soaked through. Of course you're cold."
He seemed to calm down slightly, finally loosening his grip. He glanced at her equally wretched dress and then lowered his head.
"I lost the person. Sister, please punish me."
Qin Jiuye didn't speak, her gaze hovering over the top of his head.
His reaction when he did something wrong had always been different from ordinary people. He wouldn't argue, wouldn't deflect, wouldn't explain. He would simply accept the matter as his own fault and then ask for punishment.
Previously, she hadn't thought about the reason behind this. She had simply thought it was a fine character trait, believing she had picked up a treasure and that Guoran Hall was about to have a reliable "Second Manager."
Qin Jiuye withdrew her gaze, her tone unconsciously turning cold.
"If you couldn't handle that Ciyi Needle, you should have just said so. Why try to show off? The Protector was nearby; I could have just gone to find him..."
"You are not allowed to go find him!"
Before she could finish, he interrupted her urgently.
But the water he had inhaled was still churning in his lungs. No sooner had he raised his voice than he broke into an uncontrollable fit of coughing.
Looking at his pathetic state, Qin Jiuye’s heart softened. She instinctively reached out to pat his back, but the moment her hand extended, she snapped back to her senses. The scene before her felt inexplicably absurd.
She stood up without a word, intending to leave barefoot. The figure on the ground immediately struggled to crawl up, speaking hurriedly.
"The matters Sister entrusted to me before... I have settled them all."
Qin Jiuye paused, clearly unable to recall what she had entrusted to him.
Two or three paces behind her, the youth fumbled through his wet clothes. From a hidden spot at his waist, he pulled out a coin pouch. He quickly poured out its contents and held them out in his palm before her eyes with great care.
"The accounts Sister mentioned... I have collected them one by one. Seven accounts in total, plus one recent credit that hadn't been recorded yet. It's two taels and forty-seven wen in total."
Qin Jiuye stared fixedly at the handful of broken silver and copper coins in the youth’s palm. It was a long time before she reached out to take them.
"You've worked hard."
These were words of comfort and affirmation, but she almost never said these three words to him.
She only said them to villagers or travelers she didn't know well.
In the past, when checking the ledgers at the end of the month, she would be happy for a long time just by clearing a single bad debt. But now, as he placed the recovered money before her, she didn't look happy at all.
Why? What was wrong with her? He didn't understand, nor did he know what to do.
A breeze blew across the lake. Li Qiao shuddered, and an indescribable unease, along with the chill, began to sweep through his body.
In the moment of his hesitation, Qin Jiuye had already reorganized the two taels of silver. She separated a small portion and handed it back to him.
"This is the money for the sugar cakes I owed you from last night. Count it carefully, and we are even."
Even? What did she mean, even? He didn't like that phrasing.
Li Qiao’s fingers tightened, the copper coins nearly deforming in his palm.
"Is Sister punishing me? Since we were on the boat, you've been avoiding me at every turn. If I have done something wrong, please tell me. I will change quickly, I won't do it a second time..."
"What did you do wrong? Why would I punish you?" Qin Jiuye kept her back to him, her voice as cold as the north wind in the twelfth lunar month. "At the end of the day, you are merely a pharmacy assistant I hired for three months, and I am merely a cheap boss you've temporarily sought refuge with. Between us, there was never a 'loving family' relationship. I won't ask more of you, and you needn't follow me everywhere. It's better if we maintain our previous distance."
As her words landed, Li Qiao suddenly looked up, as if he had finally found a flaw in her speech. He asked urgently:
"Didn't Sister say before that if you didn't wait for me, you would go find that man named Qiu? Why then did you chase after me alone?"
As soon as he spoke, the woman’s expression indeed stiffened.
But she only hesitated for a moment before instantly regaining her cold demeanor.
"How do you know I didn't go look for him? Since I am working for the Protector, if I discover the whereabouts of a wanted criminal, I must confirm their location."
She even wanted to say that before she pulled him out, she didn't know if the person who fell into the lake was friend or foe. But she held the words back.
Her anger wasn't the kind that wanted to bicker or argue.
Her anger was the kind that had nowhere to be vented and could not be voiced, making her want the other person to experience the same torment she felt.
As she finished, the youth indeed pursed his lips and asked in a low voice:
"Is that all?"
Qin Jiuye paused, then pulled a soggy oil-paper packet from her person.
"Also, you dropped something on the boat."
The youth glanced at the oil-paper packet, wrinkled and soaked by the lake water, but did not reach for it.
"That was meant for you anyway."
Had it not been for the Ciyi Needle appearing so suddenly, and his decision to give chase being a spur-of-the-moment thing, Qin Jiuye would have suspected he had left it on the boat on purpose.
Qin Jiuye spoke again, her voice still dry.
"Why give me this?"
"Didn't Sister ask me to check the price of stone sulfur at the east city market? Today, while I was collecting debts near the Lower Estuary Village, I happened to run into some northern merchants resting at a tea stall. They were hawking sundries while they drank. I saw this among their goods, so I bought some on the spot. I used my own money."
Every word he spoke was perfectly natural. It seemed he was afraid she would ask more, so he wove the beginning and end of the story together in just a few sentences.
She should have stayed angry. But for some reason, that anger was now mixed with other emotions, making her feel as though she were being torn apart.
Qin Jiuye took a deep breath and shook her wet hair vigorously, droplets of water flying onto the youth.
"I still have to find the sampan. Let's leave it at this for tonight. We'll talk about anything else tomorrow."
Having said that, she turned to leave.
But the moment she stepped forward, the youth ignored his soaked clothes and followed her, dripping water with every step.
Qin Jiuye paused and hardened her heart, turning back.
"Don't follow me!"
Li Qiao’s footsteps stopped abruptly. He didn't dare move forward again.
He watched as the woman’s emotional silhouette carved a path through the messy shoreline, quickly disappearing into the night.
He didn't know how much time passed, but the soaked youth remained standing there, dazed.
He thought he should continue to chase after her, but the emotion in her words acted like a curse, pinning him to the spot. His limbs felt more stiff and sluggish than ever before, and his chest felt as though a giant boulder were pressing down on it, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
What a strange feeling. He had clearly left that dark, sunless lake bed, so why did he still feel this suffocating despair, as if he were drowning?
The air seemed to have been sucked from his lungs; something had been pulled from his body along with her departing footsteps. When he possessed that thing, he had never felt its existence, but now that it had vanished for a mere moment, he felt cold all over, agonizingly pained, unable to move a single step.
What was wrong with him? Was he sick? Was it a poison flare-up? Or was it some unknown ghostly thing from the Treasure Mirage Pavilion playing with his body...
To stay alive, he had seen no fewer than a hundred kinds of lethal poisons and strange parasites in this world. But what could be more fierce and violent than Qingfeng Powder, something that made one sink into it, unable to extricate themselves?
Just like the first time the poison flared up after he stopped taking Qingfeng Powder, he was defeated by this pain, left at its mercy, without the slightest power to resist.
But at the same time, he was savoring the joy and sweetness of having once possessed it all.
He was so addicted to that feeling that he could not bear even a sliver of it slipping away. He was like a drowning man, waving his arms desperately, trying to grasp something. But in the end, aside from the cold lake water slipping through his fingers, nothing remained.
***
**Glossary**
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
---|---|---
璃心湖 | Lixin Lake | Literally "Glass-Heart Lake."
慈衣针 | Ciyi Needle | Likely a title or name of the antagonist/technique.
晴风散 | Qingfeng Powder | The addictive drug/poison Li Qiao is afflicted with.
果然居 | Guoran Hall | Qin Jiuye's business/pharmacy.
阿姊 | Sister | Li Qiao's form of address for Qin Jiuye (A-zi).
两清 | Even / Settled | To be clear of mutual debt or obligation.
