Xiao Nanhui opened her eyes to find herself lying flat on her back at the very bottom of a set of stone steps.
Raging flames burned behind a massive stone door. The tongues of fire were like the probing tentacles of a monster, occasionally curling into the doorway before swiftly retracting.
She stared blankly for a moment before gathering her shattered consciousness and struggling to her feet.
A few steps behind her, Ding Weixiang had already helped Su Wei up. She lunged forward, grabbing the man’s hand to inspect the wound where he had been pricked in the palm.
Amidst a trace of lingering blood, a faint black dot was visible in the center of his palm, looking like a speck of grime embedded in fine jade.
Xiao Nanhui looked at him nervously, her voice even more strained than her expression.
"How do you feel? Is anything wrong? Does it hurt? Is there..."
He watched her quietly, a hint of childish mischief in his eyes, waiting for her to run out of words before he spoke slowly.
"No."
"B-but why?" she stammered, still turning his hand over to examine it. "Didn't you say the mechanism was poisoned? Wasn't that the poison Zou Sifang was afflicted with?"
Beside them, Ding Weixiang remained silent, but she felt it wasn't because he had nothing to say, but rather because she had already asked everything he wanted to know.
Su Wei pondered for a moment, then answered seriously.
"Perhaps because the mechanism is so old, the poison on it has lost its potency."
Lost its potency? That box containing the Secret Seal had been soaked in the northern marshes for who knows how long, yet it hadn't lost its potency then—it had left Zou Sifang half-dead for half a month.
Xiao Nanhui felt he was patronizing her, but she had no evidence and didn't know how to argue. For a moment, she felt a mix of anger and grievance.
Her emotions were written clearly on her face, and he naturally saw them. Yet he deliberately avoided the subject, instead signaling Ding Weixiang to scout their surroundings.
"We cannot stay here long. We lit Shen Shian up like a sky lantern; the Shen family will not let this rest. Once the fire dies down, they will gather all their forces and swarm in. It will be a fierce battle then."
Knowing that further questions were useless, Ding Weixiang tore a piece of his hem and tied it to a wooden stick to make a torch, illuminating the area.
They were in a dark, secret passage. The air was damp and stifling. The torch in Ding Weixiang’s hand dimmed, turning a weak, dull red.
The flames outside the stone door were still consuming the oxygen within the cavern, and the temperature was steadily rising. Xiao Nanhui rubbed her aching knees, the joy of their narrow escape gradually cooling.
"This doesn't look like a good place. It seems like it hasn't been opened in ages. Could it be the Shen family's ancestral tomb?"
"There is moisture here; it shouldn't be a dead end within the mountain. As long as we follow it, we will surely..."
Ding Weixiang stopped mid-sentence.
"What is it?"
She leaned in curiously, then froze in her tracks as well.
In the weak light of the torch, she saw clearly that the secret passage split into two paths just a few yards ahead.
Xiao Nanhui took a deep breath. In the brief silence, she was the first to speak to Ding Weixiang.
"You take him this way. I'll lead them down the other."
Before Ding Weixiang could speak, the man behind them delivered a swift verdict.
"No." He spoke the word quickly, his voice low but carrying a finality that brooked no argument. "If we are to separate, it can only be me with her."
After a long silence, she heard Ding Weixiang’s voice, each word deliberate.
"This subordinate begs to disobey."
Xiao Nanhui let out a long sigh.
They were back to the same situation as when they first entered the cavern. The three of them each had their own stubbornness, like three segments of an orange that could never be cleanly separated, pulling back and forth until the entire fruit fell apart.
She didn't want it to be like this.
"Perhaps we can all go together..."
Ding Weixiang glanced at her.
"Even if this path leads outside, it hasn't been trodden in years. There's no guarantee every path is clear. If we are delayed by an obstacle, we will be caught by the Shen family's pursuers."
She was unwilling to give up. "Then how about I go scout ahead first..."
This time, it was Su Wei who glanced at her.
"How do you know if the path splits again further down? How do you know how long it will take to reach the end?"
She finally fell silent, and the secret passage lapsed into a deathly stillness once more.
After a long while, Ding Weixiang took a step forward.
The torch in his hand illuminated his face, and she had never seen such an expression on him. It was as if, in a single instant, he had wagered all his honor as a swordsman, and in that same instant, lost all his skill and pride.
"I gave an oath to remain by my Master's side, to follow in life and death, and never to abandon him. How can I break my word?"
"If you follow me, she will surely die," Su Wei said. "And if she dies, I shall not live."
Xiao Nanhui was stunned.
She had once fantasized about the circumstances under which she might hear his true feelings. But now that she heard them, there was not a shred of joy in her heart.
Ding Weixiang was also speechless, staring blankly at the man with the bleeding palm and the indifferent expression.
After a long time, Su Wei’s voice rang out softly in the passage again, his tone the same as always.
"You and I have been master and servant, inseparable for many years; you know my temperament best. What I wish to do, I will surely do. What I have done, I never regret. Life and death, meeting and parting—it is only a matter of time. All choices eventually lead to the same end. You are a warrior; you must maintain your sharp edge. Do not let yourself be shackled because of me, lest you miss the moment to draw your blade."
Ding Weixiang lowered his head, his gaze falling upon the scabbard in his left hand.
He still remembered the words this man had said to him on the day he was gifted the blade and his name.
*A bird of prey is most alert just before it takes flight; a sharp blade is most keen just before it is drawn.*
Over the past years, he had kept those two sentences in mind at all times, carving them into his very marrow as the standard for his every action. He had never imagined that a "decisive stroke" could be so difficult.
If possible, he wished he had more time to think, or to leave something behind.
But he understood: fate rarely grants much time to those making a choice.
"The blade and scabbard rely on each other. Without the scabbard, even the sharpest blade will one day break. Every strike must return to the sheath; this subordinate firmly believes I shall see my Master again."
Having spoken, he held his blade across his chest and gave a solemn bow of farewell.
"Weixiang accepts the command and takes his leave. Master, please take care."
With that, he stood up, handed the torch to Xiao Nanhui, stepped back a few paces, and gathered his inner energy. Then, he drew his blade and slashed through the wooden beam supporting the stone wall.
With a massive roar, collapsing stones and sand poured down, instantly sealing the fork in the passage.
The man gazed silently at the pile of rubble for a long time. Only when the dust had settled did he turn around.
"Let's go."
Xiao Nanhui raised the torch to light the path ahead, which led to parts unknown.
Where were they going? She didn't know. But she knew they had no way back.
The torch in her hand dimmed again, but fortunately, it did not go out. This meant Ding Weixiang’s judgment was correct—this path should lead to the outside.
Yet the road ahead seemed endless, and an uneasy sense of the unknown spread quietly through the darkness.
She walked in front with the torch, her heart heavy with an empty ache. She scrambled for a topic to break the silence.
"You said earlier... you said..." She hesitated for a moment, her voice dropping. "You said if I died, you wouldn't live either. Were those words... for real?"
There was only silence behind her; no one responded.
She suddenly regretted asking such a question. Of all the things to talk about, why did she pick that? One couldn't fully believe such sentimental words from anyone, let alone from him.
"Actually, I just thought it sounded like something out of a play. I was just asking which play it was from..."
As she tried to backtrack, there was finally some movement behind her.
But it wasn't the sound of speech.
With a dull thud, the footsteps behind her vanished.
Xiao Nanhui slowly turned her head. In the weak firelight, she saw only the silhouette of him kneeling on the ground. His long hair spilled from his shoulders onto the floor, and his pale fingers gripped the earth tightly, his fingertips devoid of any color.
She barely knew how she stumbled back to him. The torchlight flickered wildly, making it impossible to see his expression; only then did she realize it was because her hand holding the torch was trembling uncontrollably.
"It is nothing. Do not be afraid."
After saying this, he coughed heavily twice. A few dark spots fell onto her robes and sleeves, looking like the drops of vermilion ink he used when reviewing official scrolls.
She looked down at the red on her hand. In a daze, it felt as if raindrops were falling continuously, trapping her in the rain. The memory of the shrike growing cold in her hands surfaced uncontrollably, and fear grew wildly in the depths of her heart, refusing to be dispelled.
She heard her own dry, raspy voice utter a trembling plea.
"Don't die. You can't die..."
Even when a great blade had been swinging toward her head on the battlefield, she had never been as panicked and helpless as she was now. Because she had always felt she possessed very little, she was never afraid of losing anything.
But just now, just when she thought she possessed the most beautiful thing in the world, fate was trying to snatch him away.
"I will not die."
He raised a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, then used his other clean hand to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes. He shook his head gently, signaling her to stop repeating those meaningless words.
"I did not keep the Qu family in the capital for so long just to make an enemy of them." He took an exquisite flat porcelain bottle from his sleeve and poured out a pill, examining it. "I had intended to let Qu Mo try it first, but it seems there is no chance for that now."
Without further hesitation, he swallowed the pill.
She remembered how, back in Muerhe, Hao Bai had used the Buddha's bone sarira as a medicinal catalyst to successfully save Zou Sifang. Hope flared within her instantly.
"Is it the antidote?"
He didn't answer directly, but instead took her hand.
"From what you have seen and heard during this trip to the Shen family, you should have formed some conclusions. For me now, the worst outcome is not death..."
In the weak firelight, she saw those eyes—usually so calm and clear—begin to lose focus, with only a final
