Among the elders who had lived long lives, Xiao Nanhui had often heard of such a phenomenon: when a person is on the verge of death, their soul briefly revisits their entire life before departing the physical shell.
She had never believed it.
She hadn't believed it as a child, and she still didn't believe it as an adult.
She felt that a person’s life was far too long; how could it be traversed in a mere instant? She thought the roads she had walked, the rivers she had crossed, and the wild thickets she had passed were all laid out like a single line, requiring the same amount of time to travel once more.
But she had never imagined that those scenes would be stacked atop one another, like layers of spring pancakes from a street stall.
And to pierce through those layers, one only needed a single hole.
A bottomless hole leading to the past.
She felt herself falling continuously through the darkness—falling into a bottomless dry well, a ninety-nine-story ancient pagoda, a sky without land.
Gradually, the surrounding scenes became clear.
She saw her six- or seven-year-old self crossing the wind-swept Gobi Desert. Behind her, the silhouette of the ancient city of Suyuan was fading; above her was a sun as large as a platter, and beneath her was the scorching, cracked earth.
She had walked a very long way. The dried sweet potatoes she carried were finished, and her waterskin had long been empty. The dazzling sun swayed above her head. She saw flocks of vultures circling her, and then came the sound of hoofbeats. At the edge of the horizon, a general appeared on horseback.
Half of the general's face was hidden by his armor, but he revealed a pair of young and gentle eyes. She gripped his hand tightly, refusing to let go, until he lifted her from the ground and placed her high upon the horse's back.
Later, she saw herself in new clothes, timidly following Xiao Zhun into the Marquis’s Manor. Chen Si stood before the grand gates, nodding to her with a smile, while Du Juan—still wearing her hair in the twin loops of a young girl—stepped aside to reveal a table laden with steaming food.
She had shoveled the food into her mouth ravenously. Looking up, she saw Du Juan reaching out; thinking she was about to be scolded, she hurriedly stuffed another large mouthful in. But Du Juan only wiped the corner of her mouth and pressed a porcelain spoon into her hand.
Later still, she saw Xiao Zhun leading a "wild boy" with a round face and bean-shaped eyebrows into her room. Only when the visitor spoke did she realize it was actually a girl. The moment Xiao Zhun left, the little girl—who looked like a doll from a New Year painting—suddenly changed her expression and snatched away her fruit plate and snacks. The next day, Xiao Nanhui used a grape as bait, trapped her under a wicker tray, and the two of them rolled around on the ground in a flurry of fists and kicks.
Her vision shifted. She had grown taller, but that thick-browed girl remained the same height. The two of them, disguised as men, went to a building filled with the warmth of lanterns and the scent of wine, happy as could be with a beauty on one arm and a handsome youth on the other. From a back window, she saw several burly servants beating a young page in the courtyard, so she jumped down and gave them a thrashing. The page looked up, revealing a pair of shifty little eyes, his first month’s wages clutched tightly in his arms.
She saw herself on the battlefield for the first time. Pingxian had sliced off half a bandit’s head. Blood splashed across her face, blurring her vision so much she couldn't open her eyes. The shaft of her spear was so slick with gore that she nearly lost her grip, forcing her to wipe her hands haphazardly on her horse’s rump. Her dappled, scruffy mount mistook this for an "order to retreat" and bolted, not stopping until they were ten miles away from the battlefield.
She saw herself transform from a panicked recruit who always needed protection into a steady and decisive warrior of Tiancheng.
She saw herself go from being alone to having companions and family.
Her eyes watched her past self, and her past self’s eyes were always fixed on Xiao Zhun.
She was constantly growing, yet he remained as he was on the day they first met, his elegance unchanged through the decade.
She saw herself running and chasing behind him day after day, hoping that time would wait for her so she could catch up to his footsteps.
She saw herself waiting and longing beneath the manor’s long corridors night after night, hoping that time would pass quickly so she could see his figure returning home the moment she opened her eyes.
She saw herself grieving his griefs and resenting his resentments, thinking of how to achieve military merit on one hand while secretly gathering every scrap of evidence regarding the massacre of the Xiao family behind everyone's back.
She saw herself on her twentieth birthday, walking through a sea of Sasanqua camellias in full bloom, stepping toward the main hall of Yongye Temple.
*No, don't go there.*
*Don't ask for that divination stick.*
*If you don't ask for it, how could those terrible things come true?*
But the more she struggled, the further she fell.
She wanted to rush forward and stop herself, but she only drifted further from that figure.
In the darkness, hands seemed to be gripping her, holding her, dragging her down.
"Xiao Nanhui, wake up. How long do you intend to sleep?"
Who was it? Was it Du Juan?
If she opened her eyes now, she would surely see Du Juan’s reproaching face and knitted brows.
She should pull the covers over her head and pretend to still be asleep. Du Juan would open the small window of the room, remark on the fine weather, and then unceremoniously strip the blankets away.
She should say she had a nightmare, that something terrible had happened and everyone had left her. Then Du Juan’s heart would soften, and she would pat her back and speak to her in a gentle whisper.
She should hurry to dress and put on the wrong shoes, suspecting her lazy maid had played a trick on her, and then run out the door only to collide head-on with the old butler carrying a bowl of chili noodles.
The sun should still be early. The time she possessed should still be much, much more...
But why? Why did she know that all those things, which should have followed naturally, would never happen again?
Xiao Nanhui opened her eyes. What met her gaze was that face with its soft contours but overly cold expression.
His eyes were as deep as the bottomless dry well in her dream, sucking in all the surrounding light, leaving only a world where he and she existed.
She opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out.
The corners of her eyes were swollen and aching from crying; her temples were damp.
Her nose and mouth breathed; her heart beat. She felt she was still alive, yet she also felt she was already dead.
They say that only at the moment of waking can one realize a dream was a dream.
And she only now realized that the past twenty years of her life had been the great dream. Upon waking, she was still alone; from beginning to end, nothing had ever changed.
Her expression was numb, but tears fell uncontrollably.
She closed her eyes again.
"Let your servant sleep a little longer, Your Majesty."
"Fine." Her lips and teeth were pried open by cool fingers, and a pill the size of a pearl was pushed into her mouth. "But you must live first."
Her tongue pressed against the pill, feeling the bitter taste gradually spread. She remained almost motionless.
She didn't want medicine to save her life; she wanted medicine that could take her back into the dream. Or perhaps medicine that could wake her from this one.
She wanted to open her eyes and have someone tell her that all of this was fake, that everything she had experienced was merely a nightmare.
"What? You don't want to live?"
His voice was still cold and clear, devoid of emotion, yet it felt like cold reality striking her.
He was always like this. No matter what happened, nothing could disturb his composure in the slightest.
If it were any other time, she would have felt wronged and wanted to argue out of spite, but now there was only an endless exhaustion in her heart.
"How could that be?"
Her voice was very soft, stumbling through the empty darkness a few times before finally settling.
A long while passed before his voice rang out again.
"Then why did you bury the item I entrusted to you with that maid of yours?"
The figure curled upon the stone couch stiffened, then shrank into an even smaller ball.
Xiao Nanhui had expected he wouldn't let her off easily, but she hadn't thought he would press her so quickly, not giving her even a moment to breathe or heal.
She finally struggled to sit up. Looking at his profile, which flickered in and out of the darkness, she whispered, "She wasn't a maid. She was my..."
She was her family, her friend—the most inconspicuous yet most important person in her life.
But she was gone.
She remained forever on that slope of wild grass and scattered stones at Douchen Ridge. Only she and the moonlight remembered her final appearance.
A sharp ache rose in her eyes again. She sniffed to suppress it, her voice carrying a strange, forced lightness.
"The situation was urgent then, and I had no certainty of my own safety. I did not dare carry the item Your Majesty entrusted to me, so I left it in a safe place. I made a mark when I buried her. Your Majesty is benevolent; since you found the item, you surely would not leave her be. I can finally be at peace..."
"A fine 'at peace' indeed." His voice was colder than ever, his sarcasm undisguised. "Regrettably, I cannot live up to the word 'benevolent' from your mouth, nor do I have the inclination to deal with the corpse of a servant girl."
She was silent for a moment, then shook her head.
"You wouldn't..."
"What makes you think I wouldn't?" His voice suddenly drew close, the echoes clashing against the four walls with an urgent intensity. "If you die, your hatred and your concerns will be entrusted to the ethereal void of human hearts. And you must know that the most unreliable thing in this world is the human heart."
She smiled bitterly, whether to hide her feelings or in self-mockery.
"So what? Your Majesty's heart is far more reliable than a person like me. I thought I could do many things. I thought fate could be overturned. I thought that from the day I practiced martial arts and gripped a weapon, I would never again be bullied or powerless to resist. But the result? I couldn't even protect the person closest to me."
In the darkness, there was the sound of boiling water being poured into a vessel, followed by the sound of a ceramic pot being set down.
"Whether a person is strong does not depend on whether they hold a weapon in their hand."
Was that so? Perhaps. But so what? Born an orphan, drifting through life, the ways to change one's fate were far too few. If they could, who would want to survive in this world by licking blood from the edge of a blade?
She grew angry. The sorrow and rage suppressed within her chest for so long poured out at this moment.
"Your Majesty was born standing at the peak of the mountains, with ten thousand miles of land beneath your feet. Even if you held nothing but a string of prayer beads, no one could harm you in the least. But I was born ordinary. How could Your Majesty understand the suffering and the cold and warmth of the ordinary?!"
Her injuries and illness were not yet healed. After becoming agitated, her chest felt stifled, and her vision darkened in waves.
The man’s cool fingers brushed against her cheek, gently wiping away the cold sweat from her brow. He was so tender that not a trace of offense could be seen; instead, he possessed the lingering affection of a lover.
"So you only now understand that everything in this world is inherently unequal and unfair? And because your life is ordinary and lowly, you can simply give it up? You are like this—was your dead maid the same?"
"You...!"
She could not out-argue him, could not best him. She could only clench her fists fiercely and shrink back into the darkness, her last bit of refuge.
"Even if I no longer wish to live, I will not trouble Your Majesty to worry."
He remained unruffled, throwing out the final blow to crush her.
"Before Attendant Xiao dies, does she not wish to know the whereabouts of that purple-clad assassin?"
As expected, she stopped abruptly. The dim numbness in her eyes faded slightly, but then she remembered something. Her gaze toward him held a bit of anticipation and a bit of cowardice.
How could he not understand what she was thinking? He deliberately avoided her gaze.
A white porcelain bowl was placed before her, the medicinal soup within still carrying a perfect hint of warmth.
"If you want to know, drink it."
She seized the bowl and swallowed the liquid without blinking, not even noticing if it was bitter or astringent. Then she stared at him fixedly, waiting for him to fulfill his promise.
He stared at the porcelain bowl, a terrifying emotion hidden beneath his half-lowered eyelids after a thousand layers of disguise.
Even now, he could not tolerate her showing such urgency for that man's sake.
"He went southwest. The secret guards followed him all the way. The last time they found his trail, he was already at the border of Chizhou."
The woman stood up unsteadily, one hand supporting herself on the edge of the stone couch, the other deathly tight around his hand resting on his knee.
"I am also Your Majesty’s personal guard, and I have fought him before. I am willing to go and assist. At a critical moment..."
He gave a cold snort.
"What, do you mean to say that at a critical moment, you can sacrifice your life?"
She did not speak, only looked up at him with stubbornness.
Those were eyes filled with abundant emotion, burning intensely. Even after suffering pain, enduring betrayal, and being trampled upon, they had not become completely numb or dead.
And he had never possessed such a gaze.
People are generally like this: the more they lack something, the more they are drawn to it.
In the end, he could not bear to keep looking at her and rose from the stone couch.
"Xiao Nanhui, your life may be utterly insignificant, because even you do not care for it. You think your revenge is grand, but in the face of death, none of it has any meaning."
Death.
Such an ordinary yet heavy word. When she was on the battlefield, she had always brushed past it, but only now did she understand its true meaning.
"Then what has meaning?"
The heavy sound of a mechanism operating, mixed with the grinding of stone against stone, came from deep within the darkness.
"Living. Only living has meaning. Only by living can you feel, experience, and choose."
A flowing breeze blew against her face; she felt her hair fluttering slightly.
"My foster father..."
"Marquis Qinghuai, Xiao Zhun, has defected. That purple-clad swordsman took Bai Yun. The Xiao family has colluded with the Bai clan." His voice returned to its flat tone, devoid of any detectable emotion. "As a commander of a battalion who has defected, he is an enemy of Tiancheng. You should be clear on this point."
She was clear, and that was why she was in pain.
"But there must be some hidden reason for this..."
He did not turn around, but his back exuded an unmistakable chill.
He should tell her: if she mentioned that man one more time, he would send people to kill him.
But when the words reached his lips, they turned into something else.
"If you live, perhaps you will be able to see his end."
The moment the words fell, the stone door fully rotated. The heavy sound ceased, and the surroundings returned to silence.
Xiao Nanhui looked up. On the other side of the door was the silent night sky. Starlight and moonlight poured into the room, appearing brighter than ever to her after being in darkness for so long.
Dazed, she stood up and walked toward the brilliant night sky, only then realizing why the view here was so expansive.
This was Jingbo Tower.
The last time she had come to this tower, it was daytime—spring was warm, the scenery bright, and a gentle breeze was blowing.
Now it was late at night; midsummer had arrived, filled with heat and the drone of cicadas.
Not far away, the entire Imperial City lay beneath her feet. The eternal lights illuminated the streets crisscrossing in every direction, as if the veins of the earth were glowing and pulsing with life. And at the very tips of these roots and branches slept one ordinary, mundane household after another. Day after day, they saw the same people, did the same things, and lived unchanging lives.
To be a mundane person in such a world had once been her lifelong dream. Because she thought that if she didn't possess much, she wouldn't have to experience the taste of loss.
The tears in her eyes had long since dried. She stared blankly into the distance, not noticing the sound of his departing footsteps.
"Whether to live or die—think it through here."
***
