Her snow-white hair spilled forward, hiding her face like a hazy curtain drawn before her eyes, allowing her to hide behind it and weep in secret.
Even Tianxuan Mountain, which had seemed as impregnable as an iron prison, had eventually fallen. During those frantic years of flight, she had not dared look back, had not dared hope, and had refused to admit that she was waiting. Yet it turned out that someone really had been carving a mark on the boat to search for a lost sword, returning again and again in search of her.
But the tides of the world tossed every vessel about, and human strength ultimately had its limits. After years of displacement and wandering, all that remained was a sword sunk beneath the water and an old friend gone forever.
Unlike Wei Fu, Yugong Zhaoye did not possess a perfect memory. Only now did he finally remember why the shape of Yun Lake had seemed so familiar the last few times he had seen it.
Among Xie Wangshu’s belongings was a bloodstained hand-drawn map. It used what she called “bandit markings”—a collection of bizarre symbols that only she herself could understand. The late king, Yugong Fengting, had worried that she might have left behind unfinished business and had gathered many people to decipher it. After tremendous effort, they finally determined that it was simply a map of the Luoyue Mountain region in Yanyuan, containing no messages or clues at all.
Yugong Zhaoye had studied that map countless times. He still remembered the dried black-red bloodstains spreading outward from Luoyue Mountain at the center, soaking all the way to the edge of the parchment, where there lay a blank, gourd-shaped body of water.
Jiang Fengxun had said that she had been living in seclusion within this Heavenly Pit for five years. Calculating the timing, Xie Wangshu and Jiang Fengxun might once have been separated by no more than a single step. Yet they had lacked just that little bit of luck and ultimately passed each other by.
The thought turned over several times in his mind. Accompanied by the faint sounds of Jiang Fengxun desperately suppressing her emotions, Yugong Zhaoye quietly buried it in the deepest corner of his memories.
How could he possibly say it aloud?
It was true that Xie Wangshu had entered Yanyuan multiple times. It was true that she had been ambushed near Luoyue Mountain. It was true that Luoyue Mountain lay only a few dozen li from Yun Lake. Yet she had never told anyone that she was searching for someone. Was Yugong Zhaoye really supposed to step forward now, as Xie Wangshu’s son, and declare with finality: My mother died while searching for you. She died because of you?
If Xie Wangshu knew he could be that tactless, she would probably appear in his dreams just to slap him across the face.
There was no need to pry open old regrets and savor them piece by piece. The past was the past. He could think of no words of comfort, and so silence was better.
A difficult-to-ignore gaze pricked the back of his neck. Yugong Zhaoye sighed inwardly and turned around. As expected, he met Xie Youlan’s complicated expression, one that seemed hesitant and conflicted, as though a fishbone were stuck in his throat.
Before Xie Youlan could speak, Yugong Zhaoye raised a hand and said, “No need to thank me.”
“…Who said I was thanking you?” Xie Youlan snapped. “Stop flattering yourself.”
Yugong Zhaoye replied calmly, “The friendship between my late mother and your mother belonged to them. It has nothing to do with the next generation. There’s no need for thanks between you and me, so don’t take it too much to heart.”
Xie Youlan exploded. “So who said I was thanking you?!”
As he sat there sulking awkwardly, Cheng Yu added fuel to the fire from the side.
“His Highness is so young, yet his breadth of mind is remarkable. Truly, heroes emerge in their youth. He’s far steadier than certain people in their thirties.”
Xie Youlan flew into a rage. He quickly glanced at Jiang Fengxun and, seeing that she was not paying attention, lowered his voice and provoked Yugong Zhaoye.
“If you’ve got the guts, say that to Wei Fu too.”
Yugong Zhaoye gave him a cold look.
“Childish.”
Xie Youlan jabbed Cheng Yu with his elbow.
“See? He doesn’t dare.”
Everyone looked at him with indescribable expressions.
“…”
What exactly was he so proud of?
The group huddled together, whispering like mischievous children gossiping behind their teacher’s back. Yet the moment Jiang Fengxun looked up after collecting herself, they instantly straightened their backs and sat properly, staring at her with innocent eyes as though nothing had happened.
No one knew what they were pretending for.
The melancholy in her heart resembled storm clouds after rainfall. The sky had not yet cleared, but somehow the clouds had grown lighter and thinner.
Jiang Fengxun cleared her throat.
“Continuing from where I left off… That year, too many things happened. So many that it felt unnatural. It was like the collapse of a tall building—once it begins, no one can predict what will happen next.”
“The monkeys brought back from Timo Kingdom were always kept separately in an enclosure. The people assigned to guard them were careless and often shirked their duties, passing the work off onto the laborers.” She pulled at her lips in a bitter smile that was difficult to classify as either mockery or absurdity. “Nayan Zhun never managed to make progress in his research, and the matter of Red Fever was shelved for years. But others took advantage of the opportunity. The Yilin laborers captured wild monkeys from the mountains and bred them with the Timo monkeys. By a twist of fate, they accidentally created the very Red Fever plague that Helan Zhenjia had always wanted.”
At the time, Longsha was not the only force keeping an eye on Tianxuan Mountain.
There were also the surviving Yilin exiles, still dreaming of restoring their fallen kingdom.
The first person to contract Red Fever was a laborer who had been scratched by one of the monkeys. The disease then rapidly spread to the others living with him, and even the miners deep in the mountains were not spared. The Yilin spies who had infiltrated Tianxuan Mountain delivered infected wild monkeys to their accomplices waiting outside. Seeking blood for blood, the first target of their retaliation was Sulü Yingpan, the very man who had once led the army that conquered Tianxuan Mountain.
The outbreaks erupted almost simultaneously on both fronts. Nayan Zhun had barely managed to bring the situation in the mountains under control when the death of Sulü Yingpan shook the imperial court. Combined with the assassination of Helan Zhenjia and the turmoil within the Ten Aspects Sect, no one had the spare attention to deal with Tianxuan Mountain. Its secrets were now exposed before the eyes of foreign powers. In the end, Emperor Tianbao chose to cut off his own arm to save the body, dispatching elite imperial troops to thoroughly eliminate everyone who knew the truth.
All of the surviving Yilin inhabitants in the mountains were silenced. Only Nayan Zhun, Jiang Fengxun, and a handful of other core personnel were placed under the protection of a tightly guarded military escort. They traveled south through the heartland of Yanyuan and eventually boarded a ship at a ferry on Yun Lake.
A string inside Yugong Zhaoye slowly tightened.
“Madam Jiang, could there have been another secret facility on one of Yun Lake’s islands where they continued experimenting with the plague within Yanyuan?”
“It’s hard to say.” Jiang Fengxun shook her head. “Because I never reached that island. I don’t know whether exile and confinement awaited me there, or whether they intended to make further use of me.”
“What happened then?” Xie Youlan asked.
Jiang Fengxun adjusted the cloth covering her face.
“I suddenly fell ill aboard the ship and developed symptoms similar to Red Fever. Fearing I would infect the others, and seeing that my condition was severe and likely beyond saving, they simply threw me into the lake and left me to live or die on my own.”
“After falling into the water, I was swept by an underwater current into a crevice among the rocks. Holding onto my final breath, I swam through the passage until I reached its end—and arrived here.”
For years, Jiang Fengxun had assisted Nayan Zhun and dealt with all manner of strange parasites. She had consumed enough anti-parasite and anti-plague medicines to fill a sack. Combined with the poisonous gu already residing in her body, she had no idea which poison ended up attacking the other. Yet somehow, the deadly Red Fever inexplicably burned itself out within her before long.
But that was not the end of it.
The following month, because she failed to receive her antidote on schedule, the poisonous gu that Nayan Zhun had planted inside her finally activated.
The pain was so intense that she hovered between life and death. In her delirium, perhaps believing she was witnessing the final memories before death, a passage of text suddenly surfaced in her mind. She began silently reciting it over and over. She did not know how much time passed, only that the agonizing pain throughout her body gradually lessened. Eventually, exhaustion overtook her and she lost consciousness.
When she awoke a day later, she discovered that she had not died.
Thinking back on the text she had recited, she realized it was none other than the Scripture of Movement and Concealment, which she had secretly learned from the Linghua Sect.
During the years she and Wei Huaijun lived in seclusion at Tianxuan Mountain, she had spent several years seriously practicing internal martial arts under his guidance. Unfortunately, she had little talent in that area. At most, it served to improve her health. Later, after her family was destroyed and she fell into the hands of the people of Yanyuan, she became occupied with surviving under Nayan Zhun’s command, and her martial training gradually fell by the wayside.
Only now did Jiang Fengxun finally understand just how profound and mysterious the Scripture of Movement and Concealment truly was.
No wonder Xie Jing had gone to such lengths to obtain it.
Thereafter, whenever the poisonous gu flared up, she would silently recite the Scripture of Movement and Concealment to regulate her internal energies. Because the Heavenly Pit was isolated from the outside world, she was free from worldly distractions and could devote herself to studying it in peace. Gradually, the poison attacks changed from occurring daily to every few days. Eventually, they returned to the former pattern of only once a month. The pain also lessened significantly, and as long as she used her internal energy to suppress it in time, it no longer affected her.
The unpredictable twists of fate manifested themselves fully in her life. At the point where all roads seemed exhausted and death appeared certain, a path to survival emerged instead. Trapped within an isolated Heavenly Pit cut off from the world, she unexpectedly found freedom once again.
If one were to say Heaven favored her, Jiang Fengxun had spent her life being swept helplessly along by the currents of fate, suffering loss after loss, rarely enjoying even a few peaceful days. Yet if one were to say Heaven despised her, it had repeatedly allowed her to survive impossible situations. Her loved ones and enemies had all passed away, while she alone remained behind, as though forgotten by time itself, quietly living in a forgotten corner of the world.
“One day, a young woman who wanted to drown herself in the lake was swept to the cave entrance by the current. It was the first time in many years that I had seen another living person,” Jiang Fengxun said softly. “Lately, I have felt increasingly exhausted. In the past, I always resented fate and struggled against it. But this time, it feels as though I finally understand the message it has been trying to give me. My time is nearly up.”
Even though they had long suspected as much, hearing her say it so plainly felt like an icy blade piercing straight through the chest.
Xie Youlan gripped Cheng Yu’s hand tightly, barely managing to keep his expression from crumbling.
“She said that her husband had tormented and humiliated her beyond endurance and that she no longer wanted to live. I gave her a medicine for self-defense. Its effects were similar to the pills used by the Ten Aspects Sect. Anyone who took it would become a quiet living corpse that did nothing but breathe. If she fed the pill to her husband, she would finally have some peace.”
“As repayment, I asked her to do one thing for me. I wanted her to deliver that ring to the Liu’an Pawnshop. I thought that if you recognized it, you would find a way to come here looking for me. What’s wrong?”
Yugong Zhaoye and Cheng Yu exchanged silent glances, their expressions darkening. At the same moment, a chill ran down both their spines.
The ring had eventually found its way into Xie Youlan’s hands. Recognizing it as one of Jiang Fengxun’s possessions, he followed the trail all the way here. Everything had unfolded exactly as Jiang Fengxun intended.
Except for one crucial detail that had been reversed.
According to the rumors, the woman had become the unfeeling living corpse. Her husband, the villagers, the corrupt yamen runner who had stolen the ring, and many innocent townsfolk had all died from a mysterious disease.
The victims developed red rashes and blotches across their bodies. Once the skin broke, they bled uncontrollably until every drop of blood was drained from them.
Those were the characteristic symptoms of Red Fever.
Jiang Fengxun had once suffered from Red Fever. The most obvious explanation was that Jiang Fengxun had infected the woman, who then spread it to others, causing the epidemic to erupt within the village.
But careful examination made that explanation impossible.
Jiang Fengxun had survived.
The woman had survived as well.
Jiang Fengxun’s unusual constitution might explain her immunity. But the woman was merely an ordinary villager. How could she coincidentally also possess a body immune to every poison?
Or was it possible that anyone who entered this rocky passage had somehow been specially chosen by Heaven itself—and that once inside, they could no longer contract Red Fever?
After listening to the entire account, Jiang Fengxun fell silent for a long while before speaking slowly.
“My recovery back then was so mysterious that even I cannot tell whether I was truly cured or merely coexisting with the disease like the wild monkeys of Timo Kingdom. Because of that uncertainty, I was extremely careful when helping that young woman. I never touched her directly. It is unlikely that I infected her.”
“Then there is only one other possibility.”
She lifted her gaze.
“The villagers who contracted the strange illness were infected with Red Fever… from another source.”