The sun was sinking in the west. The hour of the Rooster had not yet passed, and the hour of the Dog was fast approaching.
Shan Jiangfei carried a simple food box as he ascended the pavilion on the western side of Jingbo Tower. This was the first time since entering the palace walls that he had delivered a meal to someone other than *him*.
There wasn't much in the box—only two dishes, a soup, and a plate of pastries each time—yet it was the cleanest and safest meal in the world.
After turning past three flights of stone stairs and passing through a dark stone corridor, the crimson light of the setting sun spilled before his eyes. His first instinct was to look toward the stone couch, but finding it empty, he shifted his gaze toward the balustrade.
There, he saw a woman dressed in plain linen standing atop the railing. Her hem fluttered in the wind, making her silhouette appear as though it might topple at any moment.
Shan Jiangfei froze, and the basket in his hand fell straight to the ground with a thud.
"Miss Xiao!"
Hearing the commotion, the woman turned her head in surprise. A trace of unconcealed panic flickered across the dark-clad attendant’s face. His usually gentle eyes were fixed intently on her, making her feel a sense of unease.
She climbed down from the railing and opened her palm, her expression like that of a child who had done something wrong.
"Attendant Shan, I was busy with this and didn't notice you coming..."
Shan Jiangfei’s gaze fell upon her hand. Nestled in her palm was a fledgling bird with a yellow beak and downy feathers that hadn't yet fully grown.
"It fell from up there just now. I wanted to put it back, but I couldn't quite reach."
As she spoke, she pointed to a bird's nest tucked between the architrave and the eave pillar. Several fuzzy little heads could be seen huddled together in the nest, silent and still.
The attendant’s expression finally returned to normal. He stepped closer, carefully took the fledgling from her, examined it for a moment, and spoke softly.
"It's a swallow."
Her face stiffened for a fleeting second, followed by a sadness she couldn't hide.
Swallows nesting under the eaves were meant to be a sign of good fortune and joy. It was a pity that someone had borrowed that name only to personally strip away her fortune and her joy. Thus, she preferred not to believe in the sentiments humans attached to these feathered creatures, viewing them instead as the most ordinary of living beings in this world.
Over the past three days, this was how she had observed the world.
She saw birds building nests under the eaves, flying back and forth with slender blades of grass in their beaks, their delicate down trembling gently in the wind—soft yet resilient. She saw mayflies born in the morning only to die by dusk, and the morning dew on the grass drying in the sun. She saw the lake waters sometimes rippling, sometimes surging; clear and green when sunny, dim and turbid when overcast. She saw every shift in light as the sun rose and set, and the moon’s eternal radiance behind the colorful clouds.
It is said that after experiencing the threshold of life and death, a person will suddenly be plagued by many questions. She thought it would take her three to five years to understand those questions and find true liberation, but by the evening of the third day, she had stood up from that balustrade.
Because she saw that fledgling fall.
She hadn't expected to emerge from the abyss so quickly, but even before her mind could make sense of it, her body was already prepared to stand again. Perhaps thinking does not bring answers, but instinct does.
A slight itch tickled her palm. She looked down at the tiny creature squirming in her hand, her fingers filled with a cautious, uncertain care.
Seeing this, Shan Jiangfei felt the tension in his heart ease slightly.
"Leave the bird to me, Miss. I'll have someone bring a ladder and put it back in a moment. You should eat while it's still warm; cold food is hard on the stomach."
Shan Jiangfei picked up the food box from the ground. As he slid the lid aside, he realized that the fall had caused half of the two dishes to spill. They were clearly no longer fit to eat.
"I am clumsy and have ruined the meal. Please wait a moment, Miss; I will go and prepare another portion immediately."
Shan Jiangfei packed up the food box, tucked the fledgling into his sleeve, and prepared to leave.
She hesitated for a moment before calling out to him.
"Excuse me... where is His Majesty right now?"
He paused and answered truthfully.
"His Majesty is currently within Jingbo Tower."
In fact, His Majesty had been in Jingbo Tower for the past three days.
The woman was unaware of this and let out a soft sigh of relief, seemingly glad that her timing was right.
"Don't worry about dinner for now. I'll trouble Attendant Shan to lead the way; I have something I wish to discuss with His Majesty."
Heaven knew how long he had been waiting for those words. The dark-clad attendant complied readily.
"Please follow me, Miss."
****** ****** ******
Another long corridor, another dark tunnel.
After walking for an unknown amount of time while brushing against the mottled stone walls, Shan Jiangfei finally stopped. A candle flickered ahead, illuminating the entrance to a stone chamber.
She blinked and stepped inside, glancing around.
There wasn't much to see. Like everywhere else, everything here was made of stone. A stone desk, stone stools, stone lamp-bearers. He sat behind the stone desk with his head bowed, reviewing memorial scrolls, his expression as cold and hard as the stone itself.
She knew he was likely angry with her. But as for what exactly he was angry about, she wasn't quite sure.
Perhaps she should adopt a softer posture like an ordinary woman, step forward to say some sweet words, and listen to him say some in return so they could both be happy. But she knew she couldn't do it. Just the thought of such a scene made her skin crawl.
She was a person of military standing who had been to the battlefield. To put it kindly, she valued her dignity more than her life; to put it bluntly, she was as stubborn as a mule.
Having come to a clear realization of her own nature, she straightened her back, dispensed with the formalities, and even forgot her original intention of "discussing" things. She pointedly avoided looking in his direction.
"I want to go out for a walk."
After a long silence, a single word finally came from that direction.
"Fine."
To her surprise, he agreed quite readily. This instead made her feel a bit awkward.
"Then... then I'm going?"
He didn't even lift his head to look at her.
"Go."
The woman hesitated on the spot for a moment, looked down at her clothes and boots, and finally walked away, muttering something under her breath.
Only when the sound of her footsteps had completely vanished did his gaze finally shift from the open scroll before him.
Not a single word had been written on the scroll. Upon it sat a polished, rounded bronze paperweight in the shape of a golden toad. From the toad’s bulging belly, one could see the reflection of every corner of the stone chamber—including the expression on the woman's face just moments ago.
The man reached out, pinched the golden toad, and moved it aside. He lifted his brush and dipped it in cinnabar.
"Jiangfei."
The attendant, who had not yet left, answered in a low voice.
"What are your orders, Your Majesty?"
"Send people to follow her. Don't let her leave the city, and don't let her go anywhere deserted. Aside from that, let her be."
"Yes."
The bright red tip of the brush moved swiftly. In the blink of an eye, only two or three of the dozen scrolls piled on the desk remained.
"Is there any news of Lu Songping?"
"He still hasn't been found. It's as if he vanished into thin air; even his body hasn't been located."
"Have men keep an eye on the major thoroughfares around Yu'an. Order the various provinces to watch for his movements. Report immediately if there is any news."
"Yes."
Just as the attendant’s figure disappeared at the entrance of the stone chamber, the final scroll on the desk was finished and neatly stacked on the lacquer tray to the side.
The figure behind the stone desk rose slowly, walked to a nearby stone wall, and pushed open a hidden door.
On the other side of the door, smoke swirled. The room was cluttered with a chaotic mess of herbs, minerals, birds, beasts, and insects. A physician dressed in white was tending to a row of steaming clay stoves. He turned around in shock at the sound.
"This humble subject greets—"
"Dispense with the formalities."
the man waved his hand dismissively and sat down on a grass basket filled with licorice.
Hao Bai observed his expression and relaxed his posture slightly, picking up a fan painted with elegant bamboo to tend to the fire. The flames singed the edges of the fan, and medicinal soup bubbled over from the vents of the stove. It felt as if his heart were bleeding.
He felt he wasn't brewing medicine so much as serving a prison sentence. As long as that woman didn't recover, he wouldn't see the sun outside for a single day.
"How is Miss Xiao? Has she been taking her medicine on time?"
He asked with extreme caution. The man on the grass basket answered curtly.
"She has left the tower."
"Left?" The white-clad physician was dumbfounded. "But... but wasn't she just recently hovering between life and death?"
"Perhaps your medical skills are superb, and the medicine worked instantly."
The man bestowed the high praise without changing his expression, but Hao Bai only felt the head on his shoulders becoming even more precarious.
He was still young. He hadn't been to a brothel yet, nor had he met a woman who, unable to pay for her medicine, would offer herself to him in gratitude. Yet at this moment, his mind had already composed a tragic prison memoir of a physician from a prestigious family who tried to save the world, only to be crushed into dust by a tyrannical noble due to a single lapse in care.
He took a large gulp of cold tea. When he spoke again, his voice was still dry.
"As the saying goes, it takes a hundred days to heal broken bones and tendons. Her flesh wounds are fine, but I fear the injury to her back and waist might have affected the bone. That area was already damaged when she plucked the flower from the Tower of Soaring Clouds in Mu'erhe; this is a new injury on top of an old one. Furthermore, even if the body is free of pain, it doesn't mean the heart is. People... they tend to get stuck in dead ends..."
"She isn't that fragile."
The other man clearly knew what he was leading up to and cut off his complaints with blunt finality.
Hao Bai’s train of thought came to a screeching halt, leaving him momentarily dazed. He didn't know if the man's attitude was a good or bad thing for him.
The row of jars began to whistle at that moment, white steam pushing against the lids, shrouding the surroundings in a misty haze. The man's face flickered within the clouds of steam, making it impossible to tell if he was pleased or angry.
"The matter I asked you about the day before yesterday—is there a conclusion?"
Recalling the purpose of his trip to Que City, Hao Bai immediately braced himself.
"At first, I didn't dare make a judgment, but after my maternal grandfather examined it in detail, we basically have a lead." He paused, seemingly wanting to create some suspense. "Does Your Majesty remember the strange poison that afflicted Zou Sifang, the head of the Zou family in Mu'erhe?"
"I remember. You even swindled a sarira from me to treat him."
Hao Bai’s face reddened, and he coughed twice to cover it up.
"That sarira was indeed precious, but I was desperate to save a life. Besides, given the situation then, Your Majesty needed him alive..."
"Get to the point."
"This poison does indeed come from the same source as the mechanism on the Secret Seal. It was once called the 'Heart-Piercing Thorn.' Its origins are unknown, as are the toxins used to create it. From the earliest records, it was used to paralyze livestock during sacrifices to the gods. If a human is struck by this poison, the symptoms are exactly like Zou Sifang’s—they retain a breath of life but appear as a corpse, only passing away after nineteen days."
"And after they pass away?"
Hao Bai was stunned, clearly not expecting the other man to grasp the critical point so quickly. The long explanation he had prepared was now useless, so he could only state the facts plainly.
"There are rumors that those struck by this poison experience a 'terminal lucidity' or even a phenomenon of returning from the dead after they stop breathing. But these are only recorded in unofficial histories and legends; no one has ever witnessed it personally..."
"In your opinion, is it credible?"
Hao Bai brushed the ash from his hem and said with an air of righteousness, "As a physician, I do not believe in ghosts or gods. I must seek the truth from facts. Without seeing it with my own eyes or hearing it with my own ears, I cannot draw a conclusion."
"Very well. I'll have Weixiang take you to see Xu Rui's body in a moment."
"But... but..."
But he was a physician, not a coroner!
"What? Is Master Qu feeling homesick after being away for only half a month? I recall that several elders of the Qu clan are currently in the city; you should have no worries for your family."
Was he using his entire family's lives as a threat? Hmph, the Ancestral Master didn't lie—the Imperial family is truly wicked. One is wicked, two are wicked; the father is wicked, and the son is wicked too. Wicked for generations, a whole nest of wickedness...
"Qu Mo?"
The man called his name softly.
Hao Bai slumped his shoulders dejectedly.
"This humble subject obeys the decree."
****** ****** ******
Xiao Nanhui walked out of Jingbo Tower alone.
Jixiang had been settled in the Black Feather Camp to eat and drink his fill; the wound on his rump would likely take some time to heal. As the sun set, the streets and alleys gradually became lively, making carriages and horses inconvenient, so she simply walked toward Yanfu Street.
On the way, she saw the vendor selling sweet tangerines again. After some thought, she decided not to buy any and instead turned the corner toward Xiaofu Residence.
the elderly shopkeeper of Xiaofu Residence was dozing on a bench. Upon waking and hearing Xiao Nanhui say she wanted to take all ten jars of "Cloud Leaf Fresh" she had saved over the past three or four years, he thought he was still dreaming.
The shopkeeper asked her three or four times if she really wanted to take them all, repeatedly reminding her that Cloud Leaf Fresh had to be stored in a cellar and would spoil if not drunk within three days of being taken out.
She only smiled and said she knew, then picked up the wine and walked out of Xiaofu Residence.
She was always in the habit of saving good things. Even when she occasionally enjoyed them, she would only take a little, never consuming everything at once. That felt too insecure.
But Bolao was always the opposite. She never saved the best for last; if there were fresh grapes, she would eat them all until she was so full she had to lean against a wall.
Xiao Nanhui had spent a few years studying at an academy, but Bolao barely knew a handful of characters. She couldn't even summarize the principle of "carpe diem," only saying: *To die under a grape arbor is to be a romantic ghost.*
So, from childhood to adulthood, no fruit or fine wine ever lasted the night in the manor. The only exception was these ten jars of Cloud Leaf Fresh.
She had saved them through hard work and much hiding. She had thought that one day, when she was old and couldn't walk, when she could no longer go to the battlefield or earn silver, she would still have a sip of good wine. She had imagined how grand it would be to possess ten jars of wine worth their weight in gold, and how she would place the wine before that "live-for-the-moment" fool, proving her own foresight without needing to say a word.
However, she had never imagined that while she had managed to keep the wine through all her schemes, she hadn't been able to keep the person.
The person who could have shared a drink with her was gone, and she no longer needed to wait until she was old.
Xiao Nanhui carried the ten jars of wine and walked alone into the bustling crowd. Perhaps in this life, companionship is always fleeting, and loneliness is the norm.
As night deepened and the lanterns were lit, Wangchen Tower was at its most boisterous.
Today was the Flower-Washing Festival. The beauties in the tower all wore fresh flowers in their hair. In the center of the courtyard, where lanterns hung high, a winding stream had been laid out with pebbles. Jade cups and fruit platters floated in the stream, and the air was thick with the scent of flowers and wine. The summer evening breeze brushed against the beauties' exposed skin with an intoxicating warmth.
She stood by a small arched bridge made of pine wood and watched for a while. Several soft, fragrant girls carrying umbrellas passed by and leaned toward her, but even after realizing she was a woman, they didn't immediately turn cold. Seeing her carrying ten jars of wine and looking as though she had something on her mind, they instead tugged at her arm, wanting her to join them for a drink.
She declined with a smile, suddenly understanding why people liked coming here. This was the place with the most "life." Everyone who came here was treated with warmth, yet no one would ask where they came from, much less where they were going.
Her fingers were beginning to ache from the weight of the ten jars. Only then did Xiao Nanhui make her way toward the back courtyard.
Before she could turn the corridor, she ran straight into two familiar figures.
Yao Yi wore a very gaudy cyclamen in his hair. To match the dark, almost black-red of the flower, he wore a red jacket with gold-thread braiding, making him look like a variegated pheasant.
Wu Xiaoliu wasn't much better. He had a loofah flower tucked behind his ear and wore a bright green vest, looking like a toad spirit.
Like master, like servant; these two were becoming more alike by the day.
Over there, Yao Yi was rapidly giving instructions to his subordinates, but it was Wu Xiaoliu who saw her first, his whole body beginning to stammer.
"Xiao... Xiao..."
Yao Yi was clearly at a critical point in his instructions and was very impatient with his servant's dazed look. But when he looked up and saw her, his shifty little eyes also froze in a rare moment of shock.
Xiao Nanhui rubbed her itching nose and was about to greet them and head inside as usual, but to her surprise, the man opposite her suddenly slumped his brows.
"How could you..." He paused and walked over quickly, lowering his voice. "How could you just come out wandering like this?"
Xiao Nanhui put on an indifferent air, stretching her arms and legs.
"I'm much better now, it's no trouble."
Yao Yi was speechless, staring intently at her reckless, wandering face.
"I wasn't asking about that..."
"Then what were you asking about?"
The sharp-tongued Manager Yao of Wangchen Tower was actually stumped. Before he could figure out how to answer, a distinguished guest arrived at the front hall—judging by the posture, it was likely a scion of some noble house.
Xiao Nanhui squinted to get a better look, but her vision suddenly went dark as a piece of floral cloth smelling of cosmetics was thrown over her head.
She was furious and about to snap, but Yao Yi’s sneaky voice hissed in her ear.
"Don't speak! Someone's coming!"
She froze, instinctively not wanting to cause trouble for her friend, but then she felt a bit aggrieved. She had just survived a great ordeal and escaped death; her only remaining friend was being so cold to her. No, this wasn't just cold—it was appalling.
Yao Yi didn't care what she was grumbling about internally. He pushed her with near impatience, and she was led like a grinding mule into a room.
"Wait for me here a moment. I'll go greet those people outside and then come find you."
Yao Yi dropped those words and "bang," closed the door.
The large floral cloth slowly slid off Xiao Nanhui’s head, revealing her confused and bewildered face. She recalled that when she used to visit this stingy manager, he had never looked so disgusted. Could it be that being bedridden for so long had truly made her look presentable to no one?
She placed the wine jars on the table and, still wearing the floral garment over her shoulders, walked to the dressing table in the corner. She leaned in close to the bronze mirror on the table and looked left and right for a while, but found nothing wrong with her face.
The bronze mirror seemed to have been neglected for too long; it was somewhat dull. She grabbed a floral handkerchief from the side to wipe the surface, leaning in even closer to see clearly.
Just then, the door behind her was suddenly pushed open.
A figure darted inside, closed the door quickly, and leaned against it, panting for breath.
This Yao Yi, he moved quite fast.
"You're back?"
Xiao Nanhui, holding the floral handkerchief, slowly turned her head—only to see Su Pingchuan’s face, filled with utter shock.
