Winter on Nan’ao Island was like a cooler summer—one could get through winter in a single layer. Where the flames reached, clothes turned to ash. Skin first reddened, then blistered with transparent burns, large as eggs, small as beans, burning from collar downward.
Hearing the screams and seeing Wu Ping’s face twisted in agony, Wang Daxia felt no satisfaction from revenge—only the pain of confirming his father’s death.
After a year of pursuing his father’s killer, Wang Daxia had countless times imagined the possibility of his father’s survival to comfort himself. Now even that last hope was gone—his father had been buried in the cold Yangtze River a year ago, his bones lost forever.
Torturing his father’s killer couldn’t heal the pain in his heart. Wu Ping’s piercing screams left Wang Daxia’s heart unmoved—he even found them annoying.
When the fire burned to the lower abdomen, even chest hair was singed off one by one. Seeing the flames about to spread below the navel and turn him into smoked chicken, Wu Ping couldn’t endure it: “I confess! I confess everything! Please give me a quick death!”
Wu Ping hadn’t killed only Wang Qianhu among court officials. As early as the forty-first year of Jiajing, he had guided Japanese pirates and earned “commission fees.” Acting as an inside man, he helped pirates capture his hometown Zhao’an, where fellow villagers were burned, killed, and looted, and the defending Qianhu Zhou Hua was also killed by pirates.
With blood debts piling up, Wu Ping knew he couldn’t live and only sought quick death with less suffering.
Wang Daxia poured a bucket of water to extinguish the fire.
The informant was the owner of a dock inn by the river in Yichun, Jiangxi. This was a black inn doing illegitimate business, well-informed about both legal and illegal activities. Wu Ping had brought men and weapons, wanting to use the same tactic of robbing wealth in weakly defended Jiangxi for New Year money. He found this place to ask the owner about local wealthy households for targeted strikes.
The owner first mentioned the most famous people in local Yuanzhou Prefecture—the retired Yan father and son.
After returning home, the Yan father and son had expanded their residence, renovated ancestral graves, and even had golden chamber pots. It was said their burial of the Duke of Yan’s repudiated daughter was extremely extravagant—just digging up burial goods would provide for several lifetimes. They were Yichun’s wealthiest people.
Wu Ping was cautious and first scouted the Yan residence. He found the Yan family’s wealth was real, but they kept over a thousand servants as guards. Nominally servants, they were recruited to stricter standards than military units—strong soldiers and horses. Robbing them would be difficult. This fat meat was tempting, but the bones were hard enough to break teeth.
Wu Ping gave up. The owner gave him a second option, saying a large official ship was coming from Nanchang—ostensibly an official returning home, but actually a money shop transporting silver under an official’s name, since bandits and road bullies only dared rob civilian and merchant ships, fearing officials.
Judging from the Yan family’s great wealth, the inn owner’s information was reliable. Wu Ping gathered men and ships to intercept the official ship. This time, they successfully captured the ship but discovered it was truly an official ship, not a silver ship. Moreover, the cargo hold had been blown with a hole, river water poured in, and they couldn’t move all the chests before the ship sank.
This business was a loss, so Wu Ping decided to attack Jiujiang County to compensate. Previously seven pirates could take a county seat—he thought this time should be no problem.
But unexpectedly he miscalculated again. Three years later, defending garrison soldiers still had pathetically poor fighting ability, but at least knew basic skills like archery and firing muskets, unlike before when they’d abandon cities and flee after a few pirate attacks.
Wu Ping failed again.
“Wait!” Wang Daxia interrupted: “The official ship’s cargo hold was blown with a hole—wasn’t that your people infiltrating the cargo area?”
Wu Ping said: “Of course not! We decided to rob on impulse—where would we have opportunity to plant our people on the official ship? Moreover, we thought it was a silver ship then. Silver is so heavy—if the ship has a hole and sinks quickly, all the silver feeds the fish and we get nothing.”
Wang Daxia drew his short knife and punctured the crystal blisters burned on Wu Ping’s body: “Who blew it up?”
Wu Ping shook his head desperately: “Don’t know! Everyone on the ship died. Perhaps thinking they couldn’t escape anyway, they decided to burn bridges and sink the ship rather than let us profit—mutual destruction!”
“We failed attacking Jiujiang County and immediately retreated. Passing through Yichun, I went to find the inn owner to get back the information money—we were badly cheated by his broken intelligence. But when we arrived, the inn was already ash. They said a guest’s warming charcoal ignited bed curtains and burned down the inn. The inn owner had drunk that night, slept too deeply, didn’t hear the shouting, and burned to death inside.”
With the person dead, money definitely couldn’t be recovered. Wu Ping had to bring his pirates back to Guangdong and return to old business, recruiting soldiers. He didn’t dare use that golden seal robbed from the official ship, so he gave it to subordinates to trade far away in Macau, specifically seeking foreign merchants. Foreign merchants liked collecting these official-marked items—a seal with characters was worth much more than melting it into an ordinary gold ingot.
One word—”greed”—had actually become Wang Daxia’s only clue to finding his father’s killer. Beginning with greed, ending with greed.
Going round and round, the clues again pointed to the Yan father and son.
This was a scheme to kill with borrowed knives, step by step pushing Wang Qianhu toward death. Wu Ping got information from the black inn in the Yan family’s hometown and had first scouted the Yan residence. When the official ship encountered pirate attack, the cargo hold was blown with a hole—clearly there was a mole on the official ship, and this mole wasn’t one of the pirates.
This mole knew Wang Qianhu’s escorts had ability to resist pirates and worried the large official ship might break through the pirate encirclement, so he first blew up the ship, making escape impossible.
With inside and outside cooperation, Wang Qianhu would certainly die, and using pirates’ hands, no one could guess there was actually a mastermind’s manipulation—even the vicious pirates were just his chess pieces.
The black inn owner should have been silenced by the mastermind.
Such skilled methods, meticulous planning, post-event murder and silencing, leaving absolutely no evidence, and malicious intent to eliminate his father quickly—this could only be Yan Shifan!
Wang Daxia’s eyes blazed with killing intent. He handed Wu Ping to Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou for disposal and immediately rushed toward Jiangxi.
Wang Daxia had only one thought: Kill him! Even if the Heavenly King wants to protect him, I’ll still kill him!
Wang Daxia rode day and night without stopping. At each post station, horses collapsed from exhaustion. Wang Daxia changed to a fresh horse and continued riding, even eating on horseback.
Reaching the Yangtze River, the south was warm. The Yangtze in deep winter only had thin ice along the banks—the river water wasn’t frozen and boats could still travel. He bought passage toward Jiangxi. Just boarding the boat, he was so exhausted his vision blackened and he fell asleep.
In a daze, the joyful music of “Phoenix Seeking Phoenix” played, the suona especially melodious, almost tearing the goose-feather snow drifting from heaven into fragments.
Wang Daxia heard Lu Ying knocking: “Hey, are you ready? The auspicious time is coming—don’t delay fetching the bride. Stop looking in the mirror—can you see flowers in it? The newlyweds are most important. Today you’re definitely the most handsome man—even I bow in defeat.”
Wang Daxia opened the door wearing bright red wedding attire, asking his superior and best man Lu Ying: “Is my hat straight?”
Lu Ying also wore all red with a black gauze hat, with large red silk flowers inserted left and right on the gauze—truly a scarred but handsome young master.
Lu Ying never adorned her hat and gauze with flowers, but this time as Wang Daxia’s best man, she broke precedent for celebration.
Wang Daxia wore bright red Shu brocade with “flowers blooming in wealth” pattern over his left shoulder, hanging to his robe hem—a wedding custom where grooms wore red decorations to fetch brides.
Wang Daxia wore a black gauze hat with two golden flowers on top and a pair of colorful peacock feathers as long as arms.
Lu Ying said: “The hat is straight, but too many ornaments. Two golden flowers suffice—why add peacock feathers?”
“They look good,” Wang Daxia spun in place. “And eye-catching enough—Caiwei will spot me immediately.”
Lu Ying unceremoniously yanked the peacock feathers from his hat: “With these towering peacock feathers, you’d have to duck entering doorways. If feathers brush the door frame and fall off, wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Besides, the bride holds a feather fan covering her face the whole way—she sees the fan, not you.”
Wang Daxia only cared about his own beauty and forgot this detail, so he gave up and went out wearing the golden flowers.
The bride lived next door—a short distance, but protocol couldn’t be skipped. Wang Daxia rode a white steed, best man Lu Ying rode a bay horse, and they went next door to fetch the bride.
Blocking doors, demanding red envelopes, passing each checkpoint, even composing wedding urging poems on the spot—how could Wang Daxia compose poetry? Lu Ying came to his rescue, fluently reciting poems ghostwritten by her family’s advisors.
Finally, bride Wei Caiwei emerged in bright red wedding dress, hands holding a feather fan covering her face, entering the flower sedan. Wang Daxia was so happy his smile nearly reached the golden flowers on his hat—from today, Caiwei and I are proper husband and wife.
They walked to the wedding hall to bow to heaven and earth.
The master of ceremonies sang: “First bow to heaven and earth!”
They bowed toward the door.
“Second bow to parents!”
They turned to bow to Wang Qianhu sitting in the place of honor.
But in the instant they turned, the living Wang Qianhu became a spirit tablet reading “Spirit Position of Late Father Wang, Courtesy Name Boda.”
What was happening?
Wang Daxia rushed over. The moment his finger touched the spirit tablet, everything around vanished. The wedding hall became a mourning hall, wedding clothes became mourning clothes. Only the suona’s high-pitched music remained unchanged, changing from “Phoenix Seeking Phoenix” to “Grand Funeral.”
“No! No!” Even in dreams Wang Daxia couldn’t accept his father’s death and woke with a loud cry.
Upon waking, his body burned like fire, his throat felt sandpapered, every bone ached. Just sitting up made him dizzy, collapsing back on the pillow—he lacked even strength to get up.
A boat worker brought a bowl of porridge: “Guest, you’re ill. Drink some porridge.”
Wang Daxia had no appetite, his voice hoarse: “Have we reached Yichun?”
The worker said: “Not yet. It’s raining heavily outside, with strong winds and waves on the Yangtze. Being nighttime, we dare not travel and have docked at a port. We’re now at a dock inn. You were ill and couldn’t be awakened, so we carried you to the inn to rest until the rain stops before sailing. Guest, you’re seriously ill—you must quickly see a doctor or minor illness will become major.”
Wang Daxia was too weak to persist, so he stopped being stubborn and gave the worker a silver corner: “Quickly get the best doctor. Keep the rest as reward.”
He had to recover to seek revenge on Yan Shifan. In his current state, he could hardly kill a chicken.
Getting money, the worker went to find a doctor. Just reaching the main hall downstairs, he saw a “Miraculous Healing” banner and a wandering doctor eating fish noodles, with a medicine chest on the table.
Author’s Note: The two Xias reunite.