After an injury, sleep could seem deep while remaining extremely fragile. Xie Ying struggled through tangled, chaotic dreams, repeatedly pulled half awake by faint movements outside them. Dizzy and disoriented, he could scarcely tell whether he was sleeping or awake.
Although Jiang Guan deliberately moved as quietly as possible, Xie Ying still heard footsteps brush near him, felt a dry hand rest lightly against his forehead to test his temperature, and sensed an outer robe, half dried beside the fire, being carefully spread over him.
Those tiny movements were furtive as a thief. Xie Ying almost laughed inwardly. The tension that always kept his mind drawn tight as a bowstring slowly loosened. He gradually sank into a vast, deep, peaceful sleep.
When he woke again, opening his eyes still revealed darkness. Only the faintest patch of trembling light remained in his vision, more illusory and indistinct than distant stars.
Xie Ying could not tell whether the brief sensation in his chest, like stepping unexpectedly into empty space, counted as despair. He pushed himself upright. A pair of hands immediately reached over and supported his back. Only then did Xie Ying realize with a start that Jiang Guan had been sitting beside him the entire time, so quiet he was almost soundless. Xie Ying had not even distinguished another person’s presence.
Had he truly become accustomed to a stranger in only half a day? Or had his vigilance and judgment deteriorated together with his eyesight?
The thought pricked at him like a needle. Before he had time to properly taste its bitterness, however, Jiang Guan wrote into his palm: Firewood gone. Need find exit.
Xie Ying: “…”
Serves me right.
This must be retribution for interrupting someone’s crying over and over and refusing to respect his grief.
After falling into the underground river, they had fortunately washed onto a shallow bank. Over the years, water had deposited weeds and driftwood nearby, enough to make a temporary fire and save them from immediate misery. But it could not last.
There was no wind or rain underground, but there was also no food and no new firewood. One could hardly indulge in melancholy on an empty stomach. Xie Ying sighed, flattened the cotton-like unease filling his chest, and concentrated on the immediate problem. “Let’s go. Can you still manage?”
Jiang Guan drew a circle in his palm. Yes. With Jiang Guan supporting him, Xie Ying stood and turned slowly in place several times to regain his balance. After losing his sight, not only direction but even his own limbs seemed unfamiliar and difficult to command.
Through lack of experience, they only realized when preparing to depart that Xie Ying needed something to serve as a walking stick, allowing him to probe the path ahead.
Unfortunately, the thickest branches nearby were no broader than a finger, and Jiang Guan had already carefully collected them as makeshift torches. He looked around using the weak firelight. Something dark lay some distance away. His eyes brightened. He released Xie Ying’s hand and hurried toward it.
Xie Ying, abandoned where he stood: “…Where did you go? Why did you run off?”
Apparently, blindness made a person’s heart more fragile as well. The instant Jiang Guan stopped pressing close beside him, Xie Ying actually felt strangely uncomfortable.
Fortunately, Jiang Guan quickly returned and happily placed a long, straight, solid object in his hand.
“What is this? Where did you pick up—” Xie Ying touched cold metal and stopped. “A scabbard?”
Forgetting that he could not see, he instinctively raised his face toward the darkness overhead. Jiang Guan followed the motion and looked toward the pitch-black chasm above. The divine sword remained embedded deeply within the hard stone wall. They had been unable to pull it free. Unless something extraordinary happened, it would remain forever inside this mountain where sunlight never reached.
Jiang Guan lifted Xie Ying’s hand. Xie Ying knew what he wanted to ask. Lowering his head, he traced the fine patterns on the scabbard. “This belonged to a Longsha general.”
“In the tenth year of Zheng’an, he died on the battlefield. His sword was taken by the enemy, passed eventually into the Yanyuan court, and was offered at the spirit pagoda of the Ten Aspects Sect’s main altar.”
“I actually came to the Palace of Dispelling Calamities to retrieve this sword. Assassinating Helan Zhenjia wasn’t originally part of the plan. I was forced into it.” A helpless sound emerged from his throat, half laugh and half sigh. “And then the wild duck broke its leash and ran all the way here.”
Jiang Guan could not laugh at all.
Xie Ying had not named the general, but the fact that he had infiltrated the main altar specifically for this sword was enough to show how important it was. Yet that precious relic had been lost because Xie Ying saved him.
Jiang Guan did not even dare write in his palm. The guilt radiating from him was almost tangible. Sensing that Jiang Guan was about to dissolve into the ground from shame, Xie Ying comforted him. “It’s not as serious as you think. If it were truly irreplaceable, it wouldn’t have been left sitting there for years. Besides, it saved our lives in the end. You could say an ancestor was watching over us from beyond, and the sword fulfilled its purpose.”
The word “ancestor” was oddly suggestive; it sounded as though the sword’s former owner might be related to Xie Ying. Jiang Guan wanted to ask, but he was not sure whether the subject might touch a taboo. While he hesitated, Xie Ying had already gripped the front end of the scabbard and begun tapping the ground ahead. Jiang Guan hurried to catch up, holding a torch in one hand and Xie Ying’s free hand in the other. Hand in hand through the darkness, they followed the winding underground river downstream, stumbling onward step by step.
The journey was long and monotonous. The ground was treacherous, and without the outside world as reference they could judge neither time nor distance. They could only continue walking. When all Jiang Guan’s makeshift torches had burned away, they stopped at another shallow bank to rest, dozed in exhaustion, then continued despite hunger.
After an unknown length of time, the underground river widened. The terrain gradually flattened. Even the thick darkness of the cavern seemed to thin. They rounded another bend. Suddenly, Jiang Guan saw an enormous expanse of daylight ahead. The brightness made his eyes ache. The endless underground passage had finally reached its end.
At that moment, every bone and muscle in his body screamed from exhaustion. The joy of escaping death mixed with countless other emotions. Jiang Guan exhaled long and hard. Then he abruptly turned and embraced Xie Ying.
Caught unprepared, Xie Ying steadied himself by planting the scabbard against the ground. The fresh scent of grass reached him. He did not even need to ask. “You can see the exit?”
Jiang Guan nodded vigorously against his shoulder. Something warm struck Xie Ying’s neck. The crybaby had started again.
Xie Ying curved his lips mockingly, yet his hand naturally came to rest against Jiang Guan’s back. The uneven ends of the roughly cut hair met his fingers. His heart softened.
Everything they had experienced was dangerous enough to feel unreal. They were unquestionably unlucky. Yet surviving all of it was also extraordinarily fortunate. Now that hope was truly within reach, Xie Ying felt little bitterness. Instead, he sincerely thought that enduring hardship and supporting one another beside this crying Young Master had created, in its own strange way, a rather remarkable connection.
The final stretch of the underground river connected directly to the open river beyond, leaving no ground to walk upon. They removed their outer robes and entered the water, swimming together through the submerged opening.
Once they reached the middle of the river, Jiang Guan looked around. Endless green spread before them. Trees grew dense and towering, and the overwhelming greenery felt both refreshing and unsettling. There was no sign of the Ten Aspects Sect’s main altar. There was not even a narrow mountain trail. Only wild, untouched wilderness.
Jiang Guan had known nothing of the terrain since being captured. Xie Ying could not see. Judging from Jiang Guan’s description, they had probably traveled eastward through the interior of Jiangqing Mountain and emerged by accident within the connected Chisong Mountain Range.
The good news was that the Ten Aspects Sect was unlikely to pursue them here. The bad news was equally obvious. Nature was far more dangerous than the sect.
They found a level place and climbed ashore. Late spring was giving way to early summer, and the weather was already warm. Beneath the clear midday sun, their wet clothes dried quickly upon a large stone, and all the chill carried from underground evaporated beneath the blazing light.
At last they could rest properly. Jiang Guan gathered several wild fruits nearby and shared them with Xie Ying, temporarily relieving their hunger and thirst.
After everything they had gone through—falling from cliffs, plunging into rivers—the word “disheveled” was almost excessively polite. Once the Young Master had filled his stomach, he could no longer tolerate being covered in soot and dirt and decided to wash himself thoroughly. Xie Ying had an injury across his back and should not have gotten it wet, but Jiang Guan’s enthusiasm proved contagious. He washed too.
The river had been warmed slightly by the afternoon sun and felt like smooth, cool silk across their skin. Both stood bare-chested in the shallows, pale skin and relaxed shoulders resembling two finely carved jade figures. Jiang Guan removed Xie Ying’s bandages, carefully avoided the long red scabbed wound behind his left shoulder, then scooped water in his hands and washed Xie Ying’s loose hair.
At first, he thought the rough texture was merely dirt and dried blood. He crushed a few soap pods and carefully worked them through the strands. Then black water began running through his fingers. He had washed the color out of Xie Ying.
“Who lost his color?”
Xie Ying lay with his eyes closed beneath the sun, lazily enjoying the Snail Young Master’s repayment of kindness. “I had to disguise myself as the Commandery Prince of Ganyang’s son. Naturally I dyed my hair to match. Otherwise I’d have exposed myself.”
Elio’s Notes: “Snail Young Master” riffs on the Chinese folktale of the Snail Girl, who repays kindness by quietly doing household work. The chapter title plays a separate repayment-of-kindness joke with the stork in Jiang Guan’s name.
Hair colors among the northern countries tended toward pale silver. People of Yanyuan and Wuchi often had chestnut or brown hair; Xiling and Dongyu people generally had pure black hair; Longsha and Qiyun had varying shades of gray. Centuries of intermarriage had blended these differences enough that, unless a color was particularly unusual, most people hardly noticed.
Xie Ying’s natural hair was extremely pale, almost rice-white mixed with a hint of gray, its soft sheen like a handful of moonlight covered in frost.
Jiang Guan had never particularly cared about hair color. Today, however, he discovered infinite satisfaction in washing Xie Ying’s hair. Like some reverent jade craftsman, he patiently polished away the rough outer layer to reveal the luminous stone beneath. Meanwhile, he felt secretly fortunate. Fortunately, when he burned hair into ash before, the thought of cutting Xie Ying’s hair had never occurred to him.
Xie Ying patiently endured the scrubbing. Once they finished, they went ashore. He instructed Jiang Guan to gather ramie growing near the river, crush it, and apply it to his injury to reduce swelling and pain. That way no one’s hair would need to suffer again. Following the river, they found a dry cave some distance from the water. Xie Ying directed Jiang Guan to gather mugwort and burn it, fumigating the cave thoroughly before they finally had a temporary shelter barely worthy of the name.
Jiang Guan carefully settled his lifesaver onto a bed made from dry grass and leaves. Then he picked up the dagger taken from the Ten Aspects Sect guard. He looked eager to try hunting.
This time Xie Ying could not accompany him or give directions. The anxiety he felt resembled that of a mother watching her child go off to war for the first time. He asked three times, “Are you sure you can do this?” Jiang Guan patted his chest, clearly meaning Just watch me. Then he marched off full of confidence.
Xie Ying… found watching somewhat difficult. He could not see.
Under ordinary circumstances, surviving in the wilderness for ten days or half a month would have been no different from living at home for him. Now he was a severely restricted blind man. If he encountered any energetic wild prey, it was difficult to say who would be hunter and who would be hunted. Relying entirely upon Jiang Guan, a delicate Young Master, they might well end up living on bark and cold water.
Pitifully, a teenage boy who had not even experienced first love was being forced prematurely to learn what parents meant when they worried over children traveling far away. Xie Ying listened for a while and decided he could not continue this way.
He cleared his thoughts, regulated his breathing, entered meditation, and circulated his internal energy to heal. Unfortunately, a portion of his attention remained tied to Jiang Guan outside. He could not concentrate completely.
Any rustling wind or moving grass startled him. When there was no sound for too long, he worried even more. He imagined an entire procession of disasters: Jiang Guan falling into a ravine, sliding down a slope, tumbling into the river, being chased by wolves or tigers, bitten by insects or snakes, or eating poisonous plants and fruit. He waited in this deeply pessimistic state for an unknown length of time. At last footsteps sounded at the cave entrance.
Xie Ying’s eyes snapped open.
Whether because the internal cultivation had helped or because the daylight was so bright, his vision seemed slightly clearer. Everything remained mostly large blurred patches of color, but he could at least distinguish brightness from shadow and separate colors.
The largest patch of color came rushing toward him, carrying the scent of grass and leaves. The footsteps and breathing were a little heavy. But apparently nothing terrible had happened.
Xie Ying asked calmly, “You’re back? How did it go? No injuries?”
Jiang Guan dropped an assortment of objects with a tremendous clatter, then burrowed close like some warm little animal. Wet fingers eagerly pushed a cool, round object into Xie Ying’s mouth as though offering treasure.
Xie Ying’s first instinct was to spit out anything of unknown origin. Then he remembered that if Jiang Guan dared feed it to him, Jiang Guan must have tasted it himself. Then he worried that perhaps both of them would be dead from poison in fifteen minutes. Finally he comforted himself with the thought that after surviving cliffs and rivers, surely they could not die here. He bit down.
The face that remained calm even if the heavens collapsed abruptly twisted into an expression of extreme suffering. His refined features crumpled. He caught the culprit and whispered one faint word:
“Sour.”