When Jun Beiyue played Lishang, there was not a trace of sorrow in it at all.
At this very moment, gazing at Ziqing, his eyes were utterly hollow. This was a man who never easily let his anger show on his face, and even less so his sorrow—one could see his heartache, one could see his fury, but never his despair.
Perhaps only despair could truly be called sorrow.
The Lishang that Ziqing played, in truth, held no real sorrow either—she could play the sorrow of the melody itself, but never the sorrow of the heart. Perhaps, at least while she played, her heart remained vividly alive, never truly despairing.
But the Lishang that Xuanyuan Lige played carried only a single emotion: grief—grief so deep it verged on despair, despair so thorough that no trace of hope could ever be found within it. A true sorrow.
His entire world had always been dark.
Most people only come to realize, in their old age, that life is nothing more than a slow, step-by-step march toward death.
But he had never once been told, from the moment he was old enough to understand anything at all, “Li’er, when you grow up, you should do this or that.” Instead, he had always been told, “Li’er, before you die, you must do this or that.”
He had been only three years old when Mother Empress, her hands sheathed in those long, ornate nail guards, pressed down heavily on both his shoulders and told him, with the utmost solemnity, “Lige, before you die, you must lead our finest Eastern Qin cavalry to reclaim our ancestral homeland.”
At three years old, he truly hadn’t understood—what did it even mean to die?
He had secretly asked his tutor what death meant.
His tutor told him that death meant going somewhere very, very far away, never to return.
He remembered only that, at the time, he had been so afraid, so utterly despairing, that he’d asked his tutor why he had to die at all.
His tutor had told him, “Your Highness, there’s no need to fear. You have thirty years ahead of you. Thirty years is a very, very long time.”
He never quite knew when exactly he came to understand that thirty years wasn’t long at all—that was when he truly began to understand what death meant.
Perhaps, even now, he was walking toward it.
Eastern Qin, I will never return to you.
Ziqing, I will never return to you.
He had been sinking all along. From the moment he’d released Ziqing, he had closed his eyes, and in his mind surfaced that scene he could never forget.
Within that vast palace hall, Mother Empress’s hand pressing down on his shoulder, telling him, before you die, before you die, before you die…
Gradually, everything faded away. He seemed to lose all sense of himself entirely, his whole body growing thin and slight as a strip of purple silk, drifting endlessly downward into the depths of the sea…
Yet he had no idea that what now surrounded him was no longer blood-reddened seawater at all, but a vast expanse of golden light.
Deep within the boundless ocean, seen from afar, it looked exactly like a brilliant golden star, drifting slowly upward from the depths.
Drawn by this golden glow, countless schools of fish swam all around, of every size and every color, shimmering and iridescent, breathtakingly beautiful.
Gradually, the fish grew bolder, gently nibbling at his purple robes, at his silver hair. Seeing that he remained motionless, they gathered ever closer, forming a procession around him, encircling him entirely from head to toe.
Soon, the fish had lifted his silver hair and his purple robes, letting them billow freely!
His countless wounds had, at some point, already stopped bleeding entirely. Only his impossibly beautiful, immortal-like face still bore a few faint traces of blood; seen from a distance, he looked exactly like a banished immortal who had fallen carelessly into the sea while sleeping—peaceful, and impossibly beautiful.
Not far off, another golden glow drifted slowly upward alongside him—yet unlike him, all the fish seemed to fear this particular light, even though its owner wore a gentle, kindly expression and carried himself with the clean, refined air of a scholar.
To be precise, at this moment he truly was a scholar—having long since folded away his true Jiaoren form, surrounded now only by a ring of golden, shimmering scales. Baili Weisheng lounged lazily as though reclining on a couch, floating obliquely in midwater, one hand propping up his head, gazing from a distance at Xuanyuan Lige, whom he’d finally managed to rescue, muttering to himself endlessly.
“Born so handsome, and yet he doesn’t know how to live properly? How could he not see reason? Why did he have to fall for someone else’s wife of all people? Why so stubborn, going on about restoring Great Qin? Nonsense! Being a musician would’ve suited him far better—without him, who’s going to master the Blood Zither now?”
Only two missing notes remained to be found within Lishang.
Once those two missing positions were located, and matched with the meanings represented by the yin and yang emblems, the two notes those emblems represented could finally be confirmed.
These two emblematic notes, combined with the twelve notes from the Qinse Sea Valley, would form a complete, decipherable code.
That code was precisely the secret he sought.
Baili Weisheng was still muttering away when suddenly a small, brilliantly colored fish swam slowly toward him from ahead. He noticed it at once and hastily fell silent.
In the sea, the Jiaoren were held in reverence above all other fish, and among the Jiaoren, he himself, as the Golden Jiao, carried the noblest bloodline of all—every fish in the sea instinctively felt awe toward him, always keeping their distance.
Seeing the fish approach so boldly, Baili Weisheng couldn’t help but break into a happy smile, his eyes crinkling with genuine delight, bright and clear.
He even felt a flicker of nervousness, carefully reaching out a hand, hoping to touch the little fish.
The little fish hesitated a moment at his outstretched hand, but ultimately swam closer boldly, nibbled gently once, and quickly darted away!
Baili Weisheng was overjoyed—such a small thing, yet capable of bringing him such pure delight. In this moment, he looked exactly like an ordinary boy from next door.
But just as the little fish was about to approach again, he suddenly let out a muffled grunt and spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, spreading crimson through the water before him.
Soon, the red spread wide, and the once lively little fish was already floating belly-up—this blood was highly toxic indeed!
Baili Weisheng stared silently at the dead fish, his once clean, handsome face growing as dark and grim as it possibly could. All his earlier delight vanished entirely, a flicker of hatred burning in his eyes. He gently brushed the fish aside and swam toward Xuanyuan Lige…
Meanwhile, far, far above them on the sea’s surface, Jun Beiyue’s ship continued racing forward at full speed.
Jun Beiyue had shut himself in his cabin for three full days now—aside from delivering medicine, he touched not a single drop of water, saw no one at all.
No one knew exactly what he was doing there, keeping watch over Ziqing—only, from time to time, the sound of a zither could be heard drifting out.
Physician Gu, Yingzi, and Situ Haonan, waiting outside the door, listened in silence, feeling as though they’d heard this melody somewhere before, yet unable to place it as the very same Lishang the consort so often played.
Physician Gu sighed heavily, shaking his head over and over.
“This can’t go on. Young Master Situ, perhaps you should go try to reason with him!”
“By the time we return to port, word from Eastern Qin will surely have already arrived—they may well have already dispatched ships. Xuanyuan Zhaoxi deliberately leaked word of this beforehand. We really need to come up with some countermeasure! If Nanzhao ever investigates, that won’t…”
Situ Haonan looked at Physician Gu, unconsciously recalling Prince Baxian’s anxious expression as they’d departed, and he understood full well just how serious this situation truly was. Yet even so, he found himself unwilling, unable, to try reasoning with Jun Beiyue.
Anyone who truly understood Jun Beiyue would know just how much he had sacrificed, how much he had endured, all in the name of “the greater good,” ever since the age of fifteen!