Elio’s Notes: “Da Lang, drink your medicine” is a famous Water Margin reference. It evokes the scene, popularized by later adaptations and memes, in which Pan Jinlian brings poisoned medicine to Wu Dalang. So yes, the title is supposed to sound ominous.
Yugong Zhaoye snapped a branch as thick as his wrist with a crack. He was sorely tempted to throw the firewood he had gathered directly onto Xie Youlan and roast him on the spot. Ying Yue hurried to placate him. “Forget it, forget it. My sister is still in his hands. Your Highness, be the bigger man. Endure it once, then endure it again. Take one step back, then another.”
Yugong Zhaoye: “…”
Cheng Yu sighed with profound feeling and reiterated, “Longsha is finished.”
Everyone’s clothes were soaked through. Although it was the height of spring and they were sheltered from the wind at the bottom of a deep pit, the mountains were cold. They were unlikely to freeze to death, but being drenched was miserable enough. Even the boatman was helping clear a space for a fire, yet Cheng Yu—a perfectly able-bodied man who could run and jump—had been monopolized by Xie Youlan. Unable to move, he could only sit on the ground and serve as a pillow.
And Xie Youlan was not finished. Even with his eyes closed, he refused to behave. Apparently displeased that Cheng Yu’s attention had been stolen by everyone else, he scratched lightly at his palm and complained unreasonably, “Guide Cheng, you’re the one who led the way. How did you manage to lead us straight into a pit? Look at us, soaked from head to toe. Were you trying to turn all of us into candied snowballs?”
Cheng Yu flicked away his troublesome fingers and patiently replied, “I can’t take credit for this. Palace Master Xie is blessed with extraordinary fortune. Heaven couldn’t bear to watch you keep circling the lake, so it gave you a smooth ride and delivered you here.”
Xie Youlan resentfully withdrew the right hand Cheng Yu had flicked away, then stubbornly laid his left hand back down. “I know you’re being sarcastic. What Sect Leader Cheng actually means is that Heaven eventually punishes the wicked, right?”
Expressionless, Cheng Yu lowered his eyes and pinched the inside of Xie Youlan’s arm.
He did not use much force, but the flesh there was particularly tender. Xie Youlan nearly shot upright on the spot and let out a low hiss. Instead of getting angry, however, he looked at Cheng Yu and laughed. “Fine, fine. I’ll stop talking, alright? …So what exactly happened?”
It was not only Longsha that was finished. Beizhu Palace was finished too.
“After Your Excellency clutched your chest, coughed up blood, and fainted, the wind and waves on the lake grew worse, and then it started pouring.” Cheng Yu explained calmly, “Our boat struck a submerged reef and the hull sprang a leak, so everyone had no choice but to abandon ship. We originally planned to wait for the waves to calm down and find a nearby island to shelter from the storm. Then His Highness suddenly had a flash of inspiration and remembered that the woman in the rumors had jumped into the lake during weather exactly like this.”
“The day before yesterday, we searched more than ten islands and found nothing. If we were heading in the wrong direction, continuing that way would only waste time. His Highness thought this was a rare opportunity. If we could recreate her movements under exactly the same conditions, we might be able to discover where she eventually came ashore.”
Xie Youlan: “…”
“You call that a flash of inspiration?” He sat bolt upright from Cheng Yu’s arms in disbelief, his blazing gaze sweeping across the group of lawless assassins. “And all of you have the nerve to call me a madman?”
Ying Yue looked up at the sky. Cheng Yu looked down at the ground. Only Yugong Zhaoye, wearing an expression that clearly said What nonsense are you starting now?, countered with perfect righteousness, “Yours is a character problem. I’m simply willing to try things. How is that the same? Besides, didn’t it work?”
“So all of you dragged the entire household along and swarmed into this godforsaken place without a single person considering how we were supposed to get back if the boat sank. You even skipped the part where someone calls for help.” Xie Youlan gave them a little round of applause and praised them coldly. “Truly courageous and resourceful. Wonderful.”
The boatman lowered his head in shame.
“…”
Yugong Zhaoye, however, would never bow his head and admit defeat so easily. “Someone can drift ashore clinging to a piece of wood. If there’s no boat, we can swim back. What’s the big deal? You were unconscious on the way here, and no one let you sink to the bottom, did they?”
“…”
He delivered the final blow with a sneer. “If you have that much free time, Palace Master Xie, spend it nursing that body of yours that coughs up blood whenever the wind blows. Stop worrying about useless things.”
Unable to argue, Xie Youlan lay back down in a sulk. “How long was I unconscious?”
“Not long. Less than two shichen.” Cheng Yu’s face showed no trace of amusement. He said softly, “Your internal injuries are severe. His Highness and I tried to help you, but your internal breath is weak and the true qi in your meridians is chaotic, yet at the same time extremely fierce and domineering. It won’t tolerate interference from an outsider. We were afraid that forcibly channeling qi into you might injure you instead, so we didn’t dare act rashly.”
“You…”
He paused, seeming to weigh his next words over and over, as though once they left his mouth, he might tumble over some invisible cliff from which there would be no return.
Xie Youlan watched him silently, his gaze clear.
Cheng Yu’s voice became as soft as leaves stirred by a breeze.
“Why, after all this time… have your internal injuries still not healed?”
Every sect in the jianghu that cultivated internal arts had methods for treating injuries caused by qi. It was a life-saving skill that everyone learned. For a great sect with foundations as deep as Beizhu Palace, miraculous medicines and martial-arts manuals should have been readily available. How could Xie Youlan’s injuries have dragged on for so long without healing?
Or had his injuries already reached the point where even Beizhu Palace could do nothing?
Anyone who had examined his condition could think of the ominous possibility hidden within it. That was also why Xie Youlan preferred to seek help from outsiders rather than his own people. The internal turmoil at Beizhu Palace had not completely subsided. If he lost the ability to protect himself and an enemy discovered his weakness, his choices would be death or something worse than death.
He wanted neither.
“Listen to you asking that.” Xie Youlan laughed. With pressure so suggestive it bordered on flirting, his fingertip traced slow circles across Cheng Yu’s palm. “You can’t bear the thought of me dying?”
From what he knew of Cheng Yu, this upright gentleman would probably answer with some lofty platitude—or simply pretend he had not heard.
Instead, Cheng Yu unexpectedly nodded. His manner was not solemn, but it was unmistakably sincere.
“Don’t die.”
Xie Youlan: “Oh.”
Xie Youlan: “Then I’ll hang on a little longer.”
Xie Youlan: “And when you were holding my hand while I was unconscious just now, were you trying to take advantage of me?”
Cheng Yu: “…Your hands kept moving while you were unconscious. You were waving them around and scraped one against a rock, so I held you still.”
Xie Youlan: “Which hand?”
Cheng Yu lifted his left hand.
Xie Youlan raised it before his eyes. Across the knuckles on the back of his hand was a bloodied scrape about the size of a fingernail. A thin, bright-red scab had already formed over it. The skin around it was stained by plant sap and carried the faint smell of medicinal herbs. Cheng Yu had clearly applied medicine to the wound.
Xie Youlan turned his hand over and stared at the long scar across his palm. “No wonder. I kept feeling as though my hand hurt in my dream.”
“What did you dream about?”
Xie Youlan shook his hand as though flinging away droplets of illusory, icy water. “Nothing. I dreamed about a debt collector… Did you feed me medicine while I was dreaming? What was it?”
“Pills for preventing epidemics,” Cheng Yu said. “His Highness said that if this really is where that woman eventually came ashore, we should guard against infectious disease.”
Xie Youlan gave an acknowledging hum, then abruptly realized something was wrong. “Aren’t pills supposed to be swallowed whole? Why was it so bitter?”
At last, a hint of a smile appeared on Cheng Yu’s face, the corners of his eyes curving gently. “His Highness was worried that you wouldn’t be able to swallow while unconscious and might choke to death, so I dissolved them into a medicinal decoction and poured it down your throat.”
“Yugong Zhaoye!” Xie Youlan surged upright in fury. “You’re vicious!”
Yugong Zhaoye, who was warming himself by the fire: “?”
He casually plucked a cocklebur and tossed it at Xie Youlan. “Thank you for the compliment.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.” Leaning against Cheng Yu, Xie Youlan sat upright. The sight of Yugong Zhaoye finally reminded him of the subject that had been interrupted earlier. “And after we fell into the water? How did all of you get through the mountain?”
Guide Cheng answered dutifully, “This is what the local mountain people call a Heavenly Pit, also known as a Dragon Pool. Places like this are often hidden deep among the mountains, with underground rivers running beneath them and no one knowing where those rivers lead. They’re remote, inaccessible, and strange, so ordinary people often believe them to be the dwelling places of divine beasts or wild monsters.”
He pointed toward the dark cave where the sound of flowing water could be heard. “This underground river extends all the way to the reefs deep in Yun Lake. Whenever heavy rain causes the water level to rise, lake water flows backward from the other end and forms an underwater current. We followed the current into the underground river and eventually swam here.”
Never one to let a grudge go unanswered, Xie Youlan seized his chance. He picked up several cockleburs and flicked them toward Yugong Zhaoye.
Despite his internal injuries, he still possessed the ability to snap a sword with a flick of his finger. The burrs tore through the air with sharp whistles. “So what you mean is that woman was swept into an underground river by the current and had some sort of adventure inside the mountain. All that talk about a white-sand shore and a wild forest was fabricated. Why would she lie?”
Yugong Zhaoye tilted his head away from the flying projectiles and answered steadily, “Because someone told her not to tell anyone.”
“Who?”
A long wind descended from the horizon and swept across the Heavenly Pit, circling through the treetops. As the branches and leaves swayed, Ying Yue suddenly caught sight of a black figure from the corner of his eye.
Someone was standing silently upon a branch, looking down at them from above.
Every hair on Ying Yue’s body stood on end. His saber left its sheath with a metallic shing, and his scalp prickled.
He thought he had never reacted faster in his life.
Yet in the next instant, Yugong Zhaoye had already appeared before the dark figure like a ghost, launching a sweeping kick in midair.
No one saw when he moved. He did not even make a sound. He simply intercepted the watcher as naturally as breathing, his movements light yet viciously sharp. Both figures were dressed entirely in black, their robes flaring as they rose and fell in pursuit of each other like two great birds fighting in flight. Their exchanges were so swift that the scene possessed a strange, almost unsettling beauty.
Xie Youlan narrowed his eyes at the figures overhead and picked fault as though searching for cracks in an eggshell. “Did that monkey cultivate into human form?”
Cheng Yu glanced sideways at him. “Can’t beat him anymore, can you?”
“Nonsense,” Xie Youlan denied immediately. “I’m injured, so I let him handle it. Besides, didn’t you notice too?”
Ying Yue’s eyes widened in astonishment.
Cheng Yu smiled at him and pointed toward the cockleburs scattered on the ground.
“Walls have ears.”
So those two had not been acting like idiots earlier. They had been signaling each other and coordinating when to strike.
It had looked far too convincing to be an act.
Within the space of a few sentences, the fight above had already been decided. The stranger’s movements were strange and agile, but in a direct fight, they were no match for Yugong Zhaoye. Unable to escape, the figure was struck in the shoulder by a palm and sent falling from midair. They stumbled upon landing before regaining their balance.
Ying Yue and Cheng Yu were already waiting below, blocking both front and rear.
A bird had flown into a cage.
There was nowhere left to run.
At some point, the cloth wrapped around the stranger’s head had been cut loose. It slid down over one shoulder, revealing a pale face.
A woman.
The hair at her temples was completely white and pinned up with nothing more than a tree branch, yet her face had not withered with age. She was strikingly beautiful, radiant enough to turn heads. Most arresting of all were her peach-blossom eyes, deep and captivating in a way that seemed almost capable of stealing the soul.
For a moment, everyone’s gaze moved back and forth between her face and Xie Youlan’s.
Yugong Zhaoye gave a dry cough and apologized with unusual guilt.
“This junior has offended you. My apologies… Madam Jiang.”
She did not answer, as though she had not heard him. As if trapped inside a nightmare, she stared fixedly at Xie Youlan in the distance.
Chaotic true qi surged violently through Xie Youlan’s chest. The corner of his mouth twitched, forcing out a smile that seemed at once joyful and sorrowful, emotional and mocking.
“Long time no see, Mother. You really made me search for you…”