The Daixiao River, swollen with floodwaters, had submerged several more small paths. The rain had not yet ceased when the wind rose again; fallen leaves swirled upon the river’s surface, spinning round and round as autumn drew ever closer.
Rumors whispered that the floods in southern Yuzhou had worsened. In the countryside outside Jiugao City, families fleeing the disaster were a common sight. The transition from peaceful days to widespread panic seemed to have happened in a matter of days. Occasionally, the wretched remains of those who had perished by the roadside were found; if the nearby villagers encountered them, they would sometimes help with the burial to appease the souls of those strangers, avoiding the involvement of officialdom.
Today, however, was different. The corpse had drifted down from the upper reaches of the river. By the time it was discovered, much of its clothing was in tatters. A passing beggar had found it first, and seeing no one around, had stepped forward to scavenge, hoping to find some "dead man’s coin." Instead, he pulled out a medallion. Meddlesome villagers drove him away and, upon seeing the medallion, insisted it was military property. Furthermore, rumors had been circulating that nearby villages had recently been raided by bandits, making this sudden appearance of a corpse particularly frightening. Someone reported it to the authorities immediately. By the time the bailiffs arrived with the coroner, evening was fast approaching.
A crowd of onlookers had gathered by the riverbank. The latecomers listened to the wild fabrications of those who had arrived early, while those who had arrived early had no idea where their own stories had originated. Some said the corpse looked fierce and must have been a river pirate; others said it was covered in blade wounds, surely the victim of a vendetta among martial artists; still others claimed a plague had broken out upstream and this might be a "pestilence corpse" that everyone should stay far away from. In short, every sort of rumor was flying.
In truth, death is the least mysterious thing in this world, especially to those who deal with corpses every day.
It was merely a poor old man who had drowned, yet even in death, he was subjected to such gossip. Fortunately, it was neither a bizarre murder nor a terrifying plague. Once it was recorded in the ledger, this out-of-town assignment would be considered finished.
The coroner quickly finished his work, whispered his report to the bailiff, and turned to pack his tools, preparing to leave.
Seeing this, the crowd erupted into another round of chatter, seemingly both skeptical of the coroner’s conclusion and faintly disappointed that the spectacle they had watched for half the day was ending so abruptly.
In truth, they did not love the spectacle so much as they hated the moment they had to withdraw from the observation of another’s pain and return to their own miserable lives.
On a bridge not far away, Qin Jiuye withdrew her gaze from the distance. For some reason, she suddenly thought of Kang Renshou by the Ershui Strand. Her heart gave a sudden throb; she shook her head silently and continued her hurried pace back toward the village.
She had only taken a few steps off the bridge when she felt her foot catch on something. Nearly stumbling into a heavy fall, she stopped and looked down, only to find that the straw sandals she had worn for only a few days had quietly snapped a strap.
Her heart was beating a bit fast. She paused for a moment before pulling a thin hemp rope from the medicinal basket on her back. She crouched down, attempting to bind the broken shoe so it would last until she reached the village.
A flurry of chaotic footsteps approached from a distance. She didn't pay much mind until a gust of wind carrying a faint, unpleasant odor swept past. She instinctively looked up, only to find that the people around her had moved away. The bailiffs from the riverbank were carrying the corpse past her.
The coarse cloth covering the body fluttered in the wind. She caught a glimpse of the drowned man’s mud-stained leg; tied to that leg was a strangely styled knee pad, faded white from the river water and nearly slipping off.
Qin Jiuye’s eyes froze. Her gaze was pinned to the corpse’s leg, unable to move. It wasn't until the bailiffs were about to turn the street corner that her soul seemed to snap back into her body. Dragging her broken shoe, she rushed toward the dilapidated stretcher and yanked back the cloth.
Startled by the person blocking their path, the lead bailiff was about to bark a reprimand, but when he saw the expression on the woman’s face, his voice softened.
"What is it? Someone you know?"
She did not speak, merely standing there clutching the filthy shroud.
The bailiff was about to say more when the coroner, carrying his wooden box, caught up from behind. He signaled the bailiff to move aside and stepped forward, positioning himself between the woman and the corpse.
He was all too familiar with such scenes. Without even looking up at her, he spoke rapidly.
"My condolences. The dead cannot return to life; do not grieve excessively. Are there other family members at home? The features of the drowned are usually heavily distorted, and this body has been soaking in the river for a long time. If you aren't certain, you can call other family members to help identify him..."
The coroner’s voice droned in her ears. Qin Jiuye blinked. The man’s face was right before her, his eyes half-closed as he prattled on, yet she felt as though the scene she had just glimpsed beneath the shroud was etched into the back of her eyes, impossible to escape.
Whether it was the coroner and the bailiffs, the river flowing silently nearby, or the cloth-covered corpse, everything felt surreal, like a dream. Her feet felt as though they were treading on cotton; her fingertips turned icy, and her tongue felt numb. After standing there stiffly for a moment, she reached out and gripped the coroner’s shoulder with a death-grip.
"...How did he die?"
The coroner instinctively looked down at the hand on his shoulder. He couldn't understand how someone who looked so frail could possess such terrifying strength.
Becoming somewhat impatient, he shook her off and stepped back.
"I have already examined him carefully. He died of drowning. This was not a robbery or a murder. I advise you, miss, not to waste time entangling yourself with the authorities. Better to prepare the coffin and funeral arrangements early..."
"Examine him again." The woman’s voice sounded as if it were coming from a hollow piece of dead wood, empty and frightening. "I told you to examine him again."
The coroner was also growing irritated. His haggard face was set with deep-sunken eyes; he had clearly been exhausted from traveling everywhere these past few days. Jiugao used to be a peaceful place where nothing major happened, and a government coroner’s job was considered a leisure post. But recently, Jiugao had been restless. Corpses were being discovered one after another in the wilderness. As the only competent coroner in the Prefectural Magistrate’s office, he hadn't closed his eyes for three days and nights. Now, faced with someone making a scene, he forced his heavy eyelids open and glared at the woman.
"I say, miss, do you not understand the official tongue of Longshu? I said he died of drown—" The coroner’s angry voice cut off abruptly. When it resumed, it carried a hint of uncertain hesitation. "Qin... Shopkeeper Qin?"
Qin Jiuye’s icy hand finally slowly released the man. The coroner widened his eyes and peered at her closely before confirming he hadn't mistaken her.
"It is Shopkeeper Qin, isn't it?"
As it happened, this coroner was the very one who had examined Kang Renshou’s body at Ershui Strand. He had had a brief "clash" with Qin Jiuye back then, so he still had some impression of her. After a moment of stunned silence, he finally regained his composure and turned to look at the corpse on the straw mat.
"Who was this person to you?" He remembered something halfway through and fished out a soggy money bag and a medallion from his person. "These were found on him, hidden close to his skin in his inner tunic. They were the only items left on him. See if you recognize them..."
Before he could finish, the items were snatched away.
Qin Jiuye gripped the tattered money bag, stared at the unfamiliar wooden medallion in her hand, and finally looked at the unrecognizable human shape on the stretcher. After a long silence, she finally spoke.
"He is my A-weng."
The woman’s voice remained flat. No emotion could be seen on her nearly numb face, and not a single tear shimmered in her eyes.
The coroner was a man accustomed to scenes of life and death. Most relatives of the deceased would wail or collapse the moment they heard the news; those like the woman before him were rare. He instinctively swallowed, thought for a moment, and then, using a white cloth to gently tilt up the corpse’s swollen, grayish-blue face, he explained one by one.
"Shopkeeper Qin, his money bag was still on him, which means it wasn't bandits. Besides that, I have examined his entire body. Aside from some abrasions caused by the river current after death, there are no other fatal wounds, nor any signs of poisoning. Look at the silt in his mouth and nose..."
As the coroner spoke, he reached out to pry open Qin Sanyou’s mouth. Qin Jiuye finally couldn't bear it and spoke hoarsely.
"Did you perform an autopsy? If he truly drowned, there should be water accumulated in the throat and lungs..."
The coroner’s hand slackened, seemingly incredulous at her reaction.
"Shopkeeper Qin, you are half a professional yourself. Why bother confirming these things just to torture yourself? Besides, if you saw him cut open, you would feel miserable every time you remembered it. Isn't it better to keep the beautiful memories of the past?"
Why would she need to see Qin Sanyou cut open to feel miserable? She had already seen him at his worst.
A spasm-like expression crossed the woman’s face. She waved her hand while turning her head away, her eyes fixed on the distant Daixiao River. Her voice was strained and strange from suppression.
"You don't know him. He worked the boats for twenty whole years. You could tell me he choked to death on a biscuit, and it would be more believable than saying he drowned."
"That’s how it is for those in the river trade—they make their living from the water and are eventually taken by it. The trackers back in my hometown were never home either; they went without shoes and swallowed cold rice with river water just to earn a few extra coins when the water rose. In the end, they died on some random shoal and their families never even knew..."
Someone in the crowd started it, and others gradually began to chime in.
"Besides, when a person gets on in years, anything can happen. Eyesight fails, hands and feet can't keep up. If the heavens aren't kind, a boat can capsize in the blink of an eye."
"Exactly. Where do you think those fishermen who never returned went? Why do boat-owning families keep a shrine to the River God at home? It’s because they fear the heavens are heartless."
The people who had thought the spectacle was over now crowded back in. Their faces were full of sympathy, and their words held no malice, yet the way they surrounded the woman felt inexplicably terrifying.
They offered parched consolations, countless lips opening and closing, every word they uttered being reasonable and true—yet to Qin Jiuye’s ears, they were as laughable as the catchphrases of Xue Si from Yuxiang Village.
She shook her head, refusing to listen to those voices.
"Impossible. It’s impossible. My A-weng’s body was always robust. Aside from some pain in his legs, he ate more than I did and was stronger than me. He was punting a boat to deliver vegetables just last month; how could he capsize because his hands and feet weren't nimble..."
The crowd grew larger. The coroner, unable to bear seeing the woman suffer, tried to lead her away from the throng, whispering advice.
"Miss, I’ve seen much in this profession. Those who work hard every day and don't eat well often develop hidden ailments. Because they are used to hardship, they endure as long as they can, but once the illness strikes, most can't be saved. Don't grieve or blame yourself; this has nothing to do with you. Just think of it as him being liberated, no longer having to suffer. Besides, the dead cannot be brought back..."
*The dead cannot return to life; better to offer condolences.*
These were the words she had said most often since entering the medical profession. Hearing them from someone else today felt bizarre.
The coroner said he had seen too much of life and death; had she not seen the same?
But does seeing too much of life and death make one numb to it? Especially when it wasn't a stranger, but Qin Sanyou—her A-weng, her only A-weng...
Qin Jiuye stopped abruptly. Her bloodshot eyes turned toward the silent river behind her, as if searching for something. In the next moment, she rushed toward the riverbank. Her feet, weak from exertion, stumbled as she stepped into the river water.
The crowd gasped again. Some wanted to step forward to pull her back, but they were intimidated by the terrifying aura radiating from her and hesitated.
Qin Jiuye was oblivious. She stood exactly where Qin Sanyou had been found, wading with difficulty through the rushing current, looking back and forth.
"Where is the sampan? The sampan he used to punt..."
The coroner, who had hurried to the bank, was stunned. The onlookers exchanged glances.
"What sampan? The man is gone; why worry about a sampan?"
"The current upstream is very swift, with so many rapids and shoals. The boat was likely washed away or sank to the bottom..."
"Yes, miss. Even if he wasn't on his own boat, it’s common for boatmen to fall in. Besides, so many boats have capsized these past few days. If you ask around, you'll see you aren't the only one who met with disaster."
The crowd continued their chatter, but Qin Jiuye could no longer hear them clearly. Her fragmented thoughts struggled to function. She suddenly remembered that Qin Sanyou’s sampan had been broken by her during the Sword Appreciation Assembly. She had asked Jin Bao to find someone to repair it, and Qin Sanyou, unable to wait, had hitched a ride on another boat to leave.
So, if he truly met with misfortune while boating, he must have been on someone else’s boat when it happened.
A cold sensation crawled up her body from the soles of her feet, like the icy, soft fingers of a water ghoul drawing circles and writing characters on her skin.
Water, a boat, and the people on that boat...
Everything reminded her of that mysterious isolated island, of those figures hidden in the mist and thunderstorms, and the name of that evil villa.
She was still clutching the items the coroner had given her. Thinking of something, she hurriedly poured the contents of the money bag into her hand. There were ten taels of silver.
Old Qin would never use such an elegant money bag, nor would he carry ten taels of silver around.
Furthermore, although at first glance it looked like ordinary silver, a closer inspection revealed that it was neither broken bits cut with shears nor standard ingots circulated in the market. The shape was strange, as if it had been kneaded by a pair of iron hands—like dough, without any sharp edges. And this was not the first time she had seen such a technique.
The small gold nuggets Li Qiao had left her were exactly like this. Although she didn't truly understand the missions and rewards of the assassins from the First Villa under Heaven, she could guess. For someone like Li Qiao, the only work that earned gold was killing. He knew the gold came from a dubious source, so he had intentionally destroyed its original form, kneading it into shapeless lumps so that she wouldn't be targeted by people in the martial world when she spent it later.
That was Li Qiao’s habit, and the habit of those born of the First Villa under Heaven.
However, the person who gave Qin Sanyou the silver certainly hadn't done so to protect him. There was only one other possibility: the person who gave the silver didn't want to leave a trail of its circulation, even if the silver was merely boat fare for an old boatman.
In the ordinary countryside, far from the martial world and the shadow of blades, there were countless reasonable guesses to explain why an elderly man might drown. But in the darkness, a powerful intuition struck Qin Jiuye’s heart like a bolt of lightning. The light flashed incessantly, and the thunder roared; the noisier the voices of others became, the more she knew that none of it was the truth.
Qin Sanyou had been murdered.
Murdered by the people of the First Villa under Heaven, or someone connected to them.
The river water in early autumn was already cold. The chill instantly soaked through her shoes and socks, penetrating her flesh and bone, yet Qin Jiuye seemed completely unable to feel it.
She stood in the river, letting the water wash over her feet and legs.
On the night of the incident at Dingweng Village, she had felt a moment of relief. Relief that Qin Sanyou hadn't been there to suffer the fear with her, relief that she didn't have to painstakingly explain where those troubles came from, relief that she didn't have to hear his long and useless nagging one more time.
But it turned out he hadn't escaped this calamity after all.
It made sense. That was the First Villa under Heaven, famous for "uprooting the grass and the roots." How could they miss someone so close to her? After the incident at Dingweng Village, Qiu Ling had sent men to patrol and guard the area. Those people couldn't do anything there, so they naturally turned their "root-and-branch" gaze toward others. And she hadn't even thought of this, spending every day desperately earning money to soothe her own minor grief.
It felt as though someone were swinging a thousand-pound iron hammer against her skull. She didn't dare think further, nor could she.
The woman’s body began to tremble involuntarily, whether from the icy river or from heart-wrenching sorrow.
Just when everyone thought she was about to collapse into the river, she suddenly steadied herself. Step by step, she returned to the bank and bowed to the startled coroner.
"Thank you for your help, sir. I was rude just now; please do not take it to heart."
The coroner, who traveled the streets and alleys and had seen all sorts of temperaments, didn't mind. He pitied her for the loss of her kin and waved his hand.
"No need for such formality, Shopkeeper Qin. Where is your home? If it’s some distance away, I’ll have them help you carry him back..."
"No need."
Qin Jiuye declined the coroner’s kindness and signaled the two bailiffs to set the body down.
No one liked the job of carrying a corpse, especially a bloated one that had been soaking in water. The bailiffs looked at each other, hesitated for a moment, but ultimately complied. The woman wrung the river water from her hem, carefully wiped her hands, and then helped the corpse on the stretcher sit up.
The onlookers realized what she was about to do and shook their heads one after another.
They didn't believe a weak woman could get a waterlogged corpse home. A few men seemed to want to step forward to help, but as they drew near, they were repelled by the odor emanating from the body and could only stand awkwardly to the side.
Yet the woman skillfully produced several ropes from her person, tore strips of cloth from her hem to tie them together, and fashioned a cloth harness. She carefully looped it around the corpse, acting as if she couldn't smell the terrible odor at all. She pressed the body tightly against her back and tied a dead knot across her chest; she intended to carry the corpse on her back.
The crowd suddenly fell silent. The coroner’s face showed his pity, and he couldn't help but step forward to advise her.
"A person’s body becomes heavier after death, not to mention he’s soaked with river water..."
The coroner stopped mid-sentence because the "weak woman" had already lifted the old man’s corpse from the ground.
Her movements were practiced; clearly, this wasn't her first time doing such a thing. But every tiny movement betrayed a tremor, and what was nearly crushing her was clearly more than just the weight on her back. It was also something invisible.
It was the memories she couldn't erase and the feelings she had never spoken aloud.
When Qin Jiuye was very small, Qin Sanyou wasn't the stubborn old man he was now. He used to love letting her ride on his shoulders as he wandered about.
The adults of the village would go out in groups to work or run boats. Every time the hour for returning home arrived, the children would gather at the village entrance and the ferry crossing to watch. As soon as a boat docked, the children would swarm forward. Though she was small and thin and trailed behind, she only needed one glance to pick out Qin Sanyou’s figure from the crowd. Then she would cheer and throw herself into his arms. He could lift her with one hand and set her on his shoulders, carrying her all the way back to the village.
The younger Qin Sanyou didn't have a hunched back yet; he could carry her steadily to many places. Back then, she felt her A-weng’s shoulders were the highest, safest place in the world. From those shoulders, she could look out at the furthest horizons; the whole world was beneath her feet.
The moment she climbed onto A-weng’s back, she was the happiest child in the entire village.
She would babble and shout, and Qin Sanyou would happily let her cause a ruckus. When passing villagers laughed and teased them, Qin Sanyou would be a bit embarrassed, but he would still nag everyone he met, telling them this was his little granddaughter, named Jiuye.
Whatever Jiuye wanted, he would do. She was his own granddaughter; anything was fine.
Later, she grew up. Whether because she became heavier or taller, Qin Sanyou no longer lifted her onto his shoulders.
Then, one day, she suddenly realized she could see the top of Qin Sanyou’s thinning, mottled head.
Without realizing it, she had grown taller than Qin Sanyou—or perhaps Qin Sanyou’s back had bent further and further, so bent that he could no longer lift her and hold her high above his head as he once had.
Qin Sanyou stopped carrying her, and she stopped chasing after him like a child, crying to ride the "big horse." After Aunt Yang left, her heart was often filled with worries, all of which were related to earning silver; there was no room for anything else.
She had carried so many corpses for the sake of earning silver, yet she had never once carried her A-weng.
The heavens were punishing her this way, making her carry Qin Sanyou’s corpse today.
Longshu had ten thousand rivers, and those ten thousand rivers branched into so many tributaries. The road home was so long, cold, and treacherous, yet her A-weng had still followed the Daixiao River, enduring a thousand hardships to find her.
"A-weng, let’s go home."
Qin Jiuye tightened the belt, firmly supporting Qin Sanyou’s stiffened legs. She set off, one step at a time, toward the distant Dingweng Village.
***
