The mudflats at midnight were so silent that one could hear the sound of storks wading through the water. Shen Linlin’s shouts drifted through the air, hanging for a long time without response.
Xiao Nanhui glanced at Shen Linlin’s slightly contorted face and suddenly felt a flicker of pity for him. Was there truly anyone else in this world who could not even enter their own home?
Shen Linlin himself seemed unable to fathom it. He snapped his supple whip, lashing it hard against the ground. The tip of the whip kicked up a large clump of mud from the sodden sandstone, sending it flying accurately toward the distant Shen Yangyang.
An instant before the mud could strike the woman, the deer beneath her moved. With a gentle flick of its massive antlers, it swatted the mud aside.
"How rude," Shen Yangyang said, her voice lazy, her movements matching her tone. Her legs were crossed leisurely, and the night-luminescent pearls hanging from her toes shimmered in the darkness. "Since when does a younger brother speak to his elder sister in such a manner? It is one thing to use foul language, but to actually attempt bodily harm?"
The youth showed not a shred of remorse; his only regret was that he hadn't thrown the guard's saber instead.
"You were the one who started this provocation! This is a task entrusted by A-po. If it is delayed, can you bear the responsibility?!"
The woman called Yangyang tilted her head, surveying the group standing on the mudflats before shifting her posture on the deer's back.
"You are so dim-witted. The five or six people you brought back before were all wrong. And now you expect me to open the gate for you? If A-po decides to investigate, who will take the blame?"
Upon hearing this, the boy’s face flushed a deep, angry red. Ignoring the presence of outsiders, he began to curse right then and there.
"You lazy, despicable, shameless wench! Whenever A-po asks, when have you not snatched the credit and pushed the blame onto me?! I spent half a month squatting in that foul, filthy ghost-trap of Yueyuan without so much as a bath, while you’ve been hiding here in leisure!"
Shen Yangyang did not get angry; instead, she laughed. Even the stag beneath her seemed to find it amusing, snorting twice through its nose.
"You were the one who insisted on showing off and taking on this troublesome chore. I was kind enough to let you have your way, and yet here you are, biting the hand that fed you."
"If you hadn't been constantly instigating things, how would I have ended up in this state?! It's all because A-po is getting old and has lost her mind, believing your lies and ruining me! If Father were still alive, he would never have stood by and watched!"
Due to his extreme agitation, Shen Linlin’s spittle flew a great distance, landing right on Xiao Nanhui’s eyelid.
She wiped it away expressionlessly, feeling the muscle in her eyelid—already twitching from lack of sleep—throb even more violently.
To think she had given up chasing that bastard Yan Zi and traveled thousands of miles to Huozhou to find someone, making such a great sacrifice. Now, not only was she deprived of sleep in the middle of the night, but she also had to stand in these shoe-soaking mudflats listening to these two ridiculous siblings bicker.
At this thought, she finally lost her patience and stepped forward.
"I don't give a damn about your father, mother, grandparents, brothers, or sisters! Does the Shen family want to see us or not? Give us a straight answer!"
Shen Yangyang finally shifted her gaze to the others, but it was only a fleeting glance, as if she didn't truly care to look closely.
"There is a ritual of communion occurring in the manor tonight. I promised A-po that I wouldn't let a single fly inside."
She could have said she wouldn't let a single *person* in, but she specifically mentioned flies.
Xiao Nanhui wasn't sure if the remark was directed at Shen Linlin or her, but she felt that perhaps this woman was a true member of the Shen family. Even without silks, satins, or a carriage, she was permeated with the arrogance born of wealth and power.
She suddenly looked down on Shen Linlin a little less. At least he still had the shadow of an ordinary youth about him, though in a few years, those traces would likely be ground away to nothing.
In terms of fighting, no one present was necessarily a match for her and Ding Weixiang. But in the face of power, martial force was merely a tool for enslavement. If one wanted power to bow its head, one had to use even greater power to crush it.
"Since the head of the house finds it inconvenient, we shall take our leave," the man beside her said unhurriedly, his tone devoid of any disrespect. "My surname is Zhongli. Please report this to your master afterward, Miss."
Having spoken, he didn't spare Shen Yangyang another glance. He gently took Xiao Nanhui's hand and prepared to turn away.
"Wait a moment!"
The deer-herding girl finally sat up straight. She stared at the young man who seemed difficult to read, appearing to weigh her options. Eventually, she patted the head of the deer beneath her, whispered a few words, unfastened the bell at her waist, and stood up on the deer's back.
The stag raised its head and let out a long, haunting cry. Simultaneously, the bell in Shen Yangyang’s hand emitted a dull, muffled sound. The entire herd instantly broke their collective gaze and began to stir. Thousands of hooves rose and fell on the sandstone; the subtle friction of fur and the breath snorting from deer nostrils disturbed the very air.
In an instant, the herd parted to both sides, yielding a small path leading deep into the cedar forest. At the end of the path was a single-arched gate spanning two stone mountains. Atop the gate stood a solitary beacon tower, with fires flickering at its four corners, casting long, sharp shadows of the gate's defensive spikes.
However, Xiao Nanhui’s shock at this moment did not stem from this miracle-like scene, but from a connection deep within her memory.
If the feeling had been vague when she first saw Shen Linlin driving the livestock in Yueyuan, seeing Shen Yangyang’s actions and the bell in her hand now made her certain of where her restless unease originated.
She had encountered identical bells more than once before.
Once was in Sechi, when she had gone out alone to find food. That servant Puhuna, who was with An Lü, had such a bell tied to his wrist.
The other time was at the Changmi Platform in Jiaosong County. When Yan Zi attempted to assassinate the King and steal the Secret Seal, and the Black Feathers were closing in, a faint sound of a bell from the crowd had pointed out an escape route for him.
If it were only that, she might not be so guarded. What she truly cared about were the runic scripts engraved on the bell.
Back when she and the Emperor were evading Puhuna’s pursuit in the Western Ling wilderness, they had encountered a pack of wolves. The lone wolf that had come sniffing for blood had a blood-red talisman on its head, and the characters on it were extremely strange. Even earlier, the catalyst for the raid on the Royal Tent on that snowy day had been Su Pingchuan’s black horse. That horse had runes written in blood on its head, and those runes were the very same characters.
At the time, she had simply assumed it was Nanqiang mysticism. Thinking back now, she had never actually encountered such arts in Bijiang, nor had she seen similar scripts in daily life there.
The sound of the bell and those ancient, untraceable characters all pointed to a potential, unknown connection between the Shen family and Puhuna.
Perhaps that secret art did not originate from Nanqiang, but from the North.
And the descendants of the Kuyi Clan, who were rumored to speak the language of beasts and birds, had actually left Western Ling entirely after that cataclysmic flood and settled in the North.
The art of beast-taming might seem like a minor path, far inferior to the techniques of moving mountains or turning the tides of fate. But if one looked at the bigger picture, aside from flora, living creatures were the most numerous things in this world. Wherever there were living beings, there was an opportunity to stir up storms.
Upon deeper reflection, it was truly terrifying.
Shen Linlin, five paces away, naturally had no idea what she was thinking. He was still immersed in the shame of losing his confrontation with his sister and was eager to find an excuse to vent his frustration elsewhere.
He kicked the guard from the Zou Manor and glared fiercely at Zhao Ximei.
"What are you standing there for?! Get to the deer park and start cleaning! If it's not done by dawn, I'll have you tied up and sent to the Murhe Bear family!"
As soon as these words were spoken, Zhao Ximei’s face looked as if she had seen a ghost. She and the guards vanished in the blink of an eye.
Xiao Nanhui watched from the side, sighing inwardly.
To think that the Zou family had built their fortune on the medicinal ingredient "Blood Before the Tomb," which was plundered from the flesh and blood of countless wild deer. Now, with Zou Sifang’s whereabouts unknown, the entire Zou household was enslaved by the Shen family and sent to herd deer. Even a mistress like Zhao Ximei, who once lived in luxury and ordered others about, had to stoop to serve four-legged beasts. Anyone hearing of this would have to remark on the karmic cycle of heaven.
Taking a deep breath, she followed behind Ding Weixiang, looking for a chance to sidle up to "the person" and tell him her deductions regarding Puhuna. However, with Shen Yangyang following them almost step-for-step, she worried that insufficient evidence might alert the enemy. She could only suppress her heavy thoughts and walk silently with the others toward the gate between the mountains.
The ground beneath them was still the damp mudflat. It wasn't so much a path as it was a strip of ground cordoned off in the shape of one. Without the deer herd, it would have been impossible to find. As for whether the other paths hidden in the dark thickets held other dangers, Xiao Nanhui did not know.
Passing through the cedar forest, they entered the gate. The road inside remained narrow, with towering rock walls on either side. Occasionally, there were narrow passages between the walls that could only fit one person; it was impossible to tell if they were natural fissures or man-made.
The left side of the mountain had already been hollowed out, riddled with massive black holes left by coal mining. The right side was a sheer cliff, as if sliced by a blade. Years of rain had washed the cliff face, forming a steep rock wall devoid of vegetation. Countless grottoes, large and small, had been carved into it. At first glance, they looked like the caves used by ancients to carve Buddha statues, but a closer look revealed no statues—only empty stone platforms.
She had never seen such a strange structure before and intentionally slowed her pace to look closer.
The bases of those stone platforms were petal-shaped, resembling lotuses. Because of their age, the carved patterns were worn, making it impossible to discern the era of the craftsmanship.
Xiao Nanhui stared intently until a massive cavern appeared ahead.
This cavern, deeply embedded in the mountain, was different from the ones she had seen before. It was large enough to hold hundreds of people. Its inner walls were covered in carved runes and patterns, stretching densely from the floor to the high ceiling, converging at a small hole in the center of the roof. A black liquid dripped from the hole, landing precisely on the only stone platform in the cavern.
Several guards in gray clothes passed by with torches. The firelight illuminated the back wall of the cavern, and Xiao Nanhui noticed a patch of charred blackness spreading across it. It didn't seem natural, yet it didn't look like pigment either.
There was a pungent smell in the air, very noticeable despite the recent rain. It was the smell of fire oil.
She looked at the circular stone platform and finally understood what was carved there. Those petals were not lotuses, but flames. The grooves between the flames and the platform were filled with flowing black fire oil. It wasn't hard to imagine the scene inside this cavern once a spark ignited it.
The person beside her seemed to notice her gaze and spoke in a very soft voice near her ear.
"That is where the Xishen tribe of the North performs their cremation rites."
Xiao Nanhui was stunned. Cremation meant burning the corpse.
Aside from high monks in temples, few commoners followed this rite, let alone princes, nobles, or the imperial family. Whether it was "soul clothing" or "longevity vessels" (coffins), everything was designed to keep the body intact so the soul could ascend to paradise and be reincarnated with a whole body. An incomplete body, or the absence of one, was considered a great misfortune.
"The Xishen people believe the soul is immortal. After death, the spirit can become a ghost or god, or inhabit the living creatures and plants of the world to protect their living kin and lovers."
"But what does that have to do with cremation?"
"If a person is dead, the soul is gone. The living body is like an emptied vessel. At that point, it must be burned as quickly as possible, otherwise, other things will occupy it."
*Other things? What things?*
Xiao Nanhui wanted to ask more, but Shen Yangyang had stopped ahead.
"I can only take you through the first gate. To enter the second, you must see A-po."
A mere local clan, yet they maintained two manor gates—what grand airs they put on. But in these desolate mountains, who were they showing off to? Or perhaps, this wasn't a display of wealth, but a genuine mode of defense.
Whether it was the three palace walls of Que City or the layered courtyard layout of the Feather Forest Villa, they were all defensive measures. As for who they were defending against, everyone had their own reasons.
In her daze, several fully armed gray-clad guards carrying torches walked straight toward them from the cavern. Xiao Nanhui’s gaze fell on the scabbards at their backs.
Those blades were not the usual goose-wing sabers or straight sabers used by guards. They were curved and pointed, like a crescent moon on a clear night.
She pulled her gaze back, only to meet Ding Weixiang’s eyes. Their gazes met briefly before they both looked away, pretending nothing was amiss.
It truly was a small world.
When she was returning to Chizhou from Murhe, she had fought several scimitar-wielding assassins on a broken bridge. If she hadn't had Pingxian in hand then, the grass on her grave would be three feet high by now.
The heat of the torches approached. The gray-clad warriors arrived in an instant, followed by another person.
It was a silver-haired old woman dressed simply. At a glance, she looked no different from the elderly women in Que City who doted on their grandchildren. But when she raised her head, one could see two pale, clouded eyeballs set in that aged face. Her thin lips were deeply sunken into her chin, looking like a scar on an old elm tree—a terrifying sight.
Aging is a natural state, but for some reason, the marks time had left on this face felt like a horrific punishment.
"Greetings, A-po." Shen Yangyang bowed respectfully.
The old woman opened her mouth to Shen Yangyang, her two parted lips becoming a dark hollow in a tree trunk.
"How many people?"
Shen Yangyang answered clearly, "Three."
"Is it truly three?"
Xiao Nanhui frowned, unable to understand why this question needed debate. Had the Shen family lost their minds mining coal in this godforsaken place? Three people—it wasn't thirty or three hundred. How could one miscount?
However, Shen Yangyang did not think so. Her expression instantly became fearful, and her proud neck slumped.
"Yangyang’s skills are lacking. I ask for A-po’s punishment."
The old woman said nothing more. Her pale eyeballs rolled and stopped on Xiao Nanhui’s group.
Wait. Her eyes... wasn't she blind?
Or rather, she was indeed blind, but she could see things ordinary people could not?
Xiao Nanhui thought of the blind priest who had placed the sacrificial horse mask on her during the Zhuming Festival, and then of the collective gaze of the deer herd on the mudflats.
If all living things in heaven and earth were truly just vessels, then whose soul and whose spirit resided within them? It was a thought one dared not follow to its conclusion.
Perhaps the souls of humans lived within the bodies of those deer watching her. And the palace servant who tried to assassinate her at the Jiaosong Palace, or Zou Sifang, who was clearly dead yet appeared in broad daylight—were the spirits within those shells truly human?
Xiao Nanhui couldn't help but shudder.
Then, she saw the old woman reach out a withered hand and beckon in the air.
Shen Linlin, standing behind her, gave her an unceremonious shove.
"A-po is calling you over."
***
**Extra: The Paper Kite**
The youth A-Shan often felt that his life had ended before it even began.
He no longer remembered anything about his biological father or mother, nor did he remember why he was called A-Shan. Perhaps the person who gave him that name hoped he would be a "good" (Shan) person. But his circumstances made that name a joke from the moment of its birth.
Just like the man himself.
From the day his memories began, he was trained to be someone else’s double. He had seen many people and imitated many people. From observing the skin to the bone, and from the bone to the soul.
Beneath those beautiful or hideous skins lay complex, stubborn, heartless, and greedy souls. He endured the torments of those souls and turned that suffering into the insight needed to read people.
Ten years of self-cultivation. He believed there was no skin he couldn't see through, no soul he couldn't fathom. He understood those people, and thus, playing their parts came naturally to him.
If he needed to be a prince, he was a prince. If he needed to be a prisoner, he was a prisoner. Ugly or beautiful, tall or short, male or female—he could always become what others needed. He was like a lump of clay, molded and flattened into any shape, except his own.
He never thought he would ever walk under the sun with his own face.
The first time he saw "that person," the other was just a young prince—a prince exiled because of a fatal flaw.
The late Emperor had secretly brought him and a dozen others to a dark room for that person to choose his future puppet shadow. There are no secrets in the royal family; a prince can only have one shadow. The rest were rejects.
The moment he saw the boy’s face, he lowered his head in despair. He was too old, and his features were too different from the other’s. He wouldn't be chosen. And if he wasn't chosen, he wouldn't leave that room alive.
The Emperor pointed out three children to step forward, but the boy rejected them one by one.
After an unknown amount of time, he felt those feet stop in front of him.
"Raise your head." The boy’s voice was still youthful but very firm.
He was too nervous, too afraid, to the point that even though he heard the command, he couldn't drive his stiff body to react.
A cold hand took his. The hand didn't use much force, but it held a certain steadiness, pulling him up from the ground. His gaze rose from the dust until it was level with the boy’s.
He hadn't looked closely during that first hurried glance, but now he saw the boy’s eyes were black and bright. They seemed clear, yet held a depth unbefitting his age.
"Father, I have chosen."
The Emperor pondered for a moment before stating the fact. "This person does not resemble you."
The boy nodded, his tone unhurried. "That is exactly why I chose him. Features can be changed, but if his true face is too similar to mine, I worry that even Father might one day be unable to tell the real from the fake."
It wasn't unheard of for a shadow to replace the master. Yet those masters still chose shadows who looked like them. That was a form of arrogance, and also a form of stupidity.
He thought no one else would ever understand that logic as he did.
He stood there in silence, his wooden expression turning into one of bewilderment. He suddenly felt that behind those black eyes was a soul he could never fully grasp. For a moment, he didn't know whether to feel lucky for being chosen or terrified.
He entered within the three palace walls. Among all the shadows under heaven, he was the one with the highest status. He was the most beautiful mask, the most perfect puppet, the most vibrant paper kite.
But his face did not belong to him, his limbs did not belong to him, and the direction he wished to go did not belong to him.
"The happiest moment for a paper kite is the moment it is about to fly into the sky. Because at that moment, it sees the sky and feels it has infinite possibilities and a future, unaware that it is tied to a string, and the other end of the string is in someone else's hand."
This was what a half-mad female slave who dressed him back in the slave camp had told him. He always remembered the paper kite in her hand—tattered, with half a wing broken, never to fly into the blue sky again.
Just like him now. Though he wore beautiful clothes, he could never walk out of those three palace walls.
At first, he watched the blue sky every day. Later, he only stared at the treetops. Later still, he learned to keep his gaze permanently lowered. His world consisted only of the square bluestone tiles within the palace, one after another, with no end in sight.
Years later, that boy finally returned. By then, he had grown from a boy into a youth. His stature and features had changed greatly, but those eyes remained pitch-black and deep.
"A-Shan, do you know why I chose you back then?"
*Because I don't look like you, so I'm easier to keep in your grip.*
"This humble one is dull and does not know Your Highness’s mind."
"You know," a cool voice said with a hint of a smile near his ear. "I chose you because you understand me. From the moment you looked up at me, I knew: we are the same kind of people."
A-Shan’s thoughts stalled at those words. Many people had said he was like them—his eyes were like theirs, his nose was like theirs, his mouth was like theirs—but no one had ever said they were the same *kind* of people. He was just a lowly death-row prisoner; how could he be the same kind of person as a prince?
This had to be a test.
"Your Highness overestimates me, I..."
He put on a submissive act, but the other interrupted him.
"Do you like your own face?"
He shook his head in confusion, then lowered it again, lost. He hadn't looked in a mirror for a long time. He no longer remembered what he originally looked like.
"Whether you like it or not isn't important. What matters is that you must remember your own appearance."
*Why?* No one cared what he looked like. Even he himself had long since stopped caring.
"If a person doesn't even remember their own appearance, then when they wake up every morning, haven't they forgotten who they are? How can someone who cannot even play themselves well play the part of another?"
He froze. His gaze rose from the large tiles of the bright corridor and fell upon the face he had once tried his best to imitate. The other was observing him with an indescribable calm and peace.
"You are actually older than Weixiang. Do you still remember the surname of your father or your mother’s house?"
He shook his head gently. "Reporting to Your Highness, this humble one is an orphan. My parents are unknown."
"The word 'Shan' (Goodness) is too extravagant for you. Why not turn it into a surname instead?" The youth looked at the glazed tiles on the palace wall, where a young azure-winged magpie was preening its feathers in the grey-blue light of dawn, preparing to spread its wings and fly as the sun rose. "I like the way things look before they have begun. Your name shall be Shan Jiangfei."
*Before things... have begun?*
Or was something, at this very moment, beginning anew?
***
**Glossary**
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 沈央央 | Shen Yangyang | Shen Linlin's elder sister. |
| 阿婆 | A-po | "Grandmother/Elderly Woman"; a respectful address for the matriarch of the Shen family. |
| 钟离 | Zhongli | The Emperor's alias/pseudonym. |
| 息慎 | Xishen | An ancient northern tribe mentioned in the text. |
| 焚化礼 | Cremation Rite | A ritual of burning the dead, unusual in traditional Han-style culture. |
| 枯衣氏 | Kuyi Clan | An ancient clan rumored to have beast-taming abilities. |
| 阿善 | A-Shan | The original name of the Emperor's shadow/double. |
| 单将飞 | Shan Jiangfei | The new name given to A-Shan; "Jiangfei" means "about to fly." |
| 陵前血 | Blood Before the Tomb | A rare medicinal ingredient mentioned as the source of the Zou family's wealth. |
