Spring’s chill had just passed, and the first green of summer was arriving — days that should have been filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers.

Yet the marshlands were entirely without such things.

In every direction stretched an endless expanse of green — deep green, pale green, yellow-green, brown-green — mingling and blending, blanketing the earth and obscuring the sky.

This was a green hell.

Zou Sifang felt as though his chest were about to burst. He had been running at full speed for nearly the length of one incense stick.

He remembered the paths of this place. In his youth, he had walked every inch of it himself, hauling pine planks to lay over the muddy pits and hidden pools, making a walkway for those who came to gather herbs. In this green palace, he had been the only king.

If today’s events still held any hope of reversal, it would be here.

No one could defeat him in the marshlands — he would always find a way to survive—

Plop.

A faint sound came from beneath Zou Sifang’s feet.

His legs went rigid. He knew what that sound was — it was the sound of stepping on duckweed floating over a mud pool.

How? He was certain there had been wooden planks here. It must have been the rain — that damned rain.

Behind him, not far away, the sound of Xiao Nanhui’s footsteps drew closer. Zou Sifang struggled to hold his sinking body steady, clutching the box tightly in his hands.

At least he had brought this box out with him.

Xiao Nanhui pushed through the endless reed thicket and the next moment saw Zou Sifang — already half-submerged in the mud pool. Sweat poured in rivulets down his face, giving him a drained, ashen pallor. Only those two eyes were fixed open, hard, betraying a will to survive.

“You want this, don’t you? Pull me out, and I’ll give it to you.”

Xiao Nanhui’s gaze fell on the palm-sized jade-green treasure.

She was not foolish — she knew Zou Sifang’s bargain was perilous. Pulling a person from a mud pool was no simple task. But if she did nothing now, certain matters would be beyond remedy.

There was not a single branch strong enough to bear weight anywhere around her. Xiao Nanhui could only reach out, grasp Zou Sifang by the shoulders, and try to drag him sideways and outward.

Xiao Nanhui’s strength was considerable — but it was precisely because of this that in an instant the ground beneath her feet bore twice the weight of a human body.

That wet, fragile earth began to sink over a far greater area. The mud and water around Zou Sifang surged instantly to his throat, and he had only time enough to let out a single broken cry before the muddy water crushed in on him until he could barely breathe.

Events unfolded too quickly for anyone to weigh or deliberate. In an instant Xiao Nanhui lunged toward the sinking ground, and at the very last moment seized the jade seal and held it in her hand.

In the next instant, Zou Sifang’s stiffened fingers were swallowed by the mud, and Xiao Nanhui followed closely behind and sank into it as well. When she had lunged forward, she had aimed to leap as far as possible, so her body had come down nearly vertical — which made her sink all the faster. She tried to grab at the branches and wild grass around her, but there were no deep-rooted plants in the marshlands — nothing gave her any purchase.

The mud swiftly swallowed her to the chest, and Xiao Nanhui’s breathing began to grow labored. The frantic pounding of her heart left her dizzy and ringing. A bitter smile crossed her lips. She and Bolao used to joke that if she died on the battlefield and her body couldn’t be found, they’d have someone carve a stone statue to bury in her place — at least that way, she could have herself carved a bit prettier. Now she wasn’t dying on a battlefield, but it seemed like nothing would be left of her at all.

Drawing a deep breath with great effort, Xiao Nanhui resolved to make one final struggle. She strained to raise the only arm she could still move, and clawed toward the surface of the mud.

She did not expect that in the very next instant, a pale hand reached down and seized hers.

Xiao Nanhui stared blankly at that slender, slightly spare hand, and raised her gaze upward to see a string of Buddhist prayer beads.

This must be the hand of the Buddha. Xiao Nanhui thought, a little dazedly — and then a cold male voice brought her back to herself. “Hold tight. I have no strength to haul up a dead person.”

Xiao Nanhui’s wandering gaze finally focused. She saw Zhongli Jing’s face, very close — beads of sweat upon it, and a few spatters of mud, which had stripped that perpetually pale and flawless face of its immaculate luster. His hair was also a little disordered, somewhat disheveled from the way he had pressed his body flat against the ground.

Yet at this moment, Xiao Nanhui suddenly felt that he no longer gave her that sense of guarded distance. The impression of fragility born of those fine features had disappeared, replaced by something resolute and unyielding.

Without thinking, Xiao Nanhui tightened her grip on the other’s hand.

With this outside force now intervening, Xiao Nanhui stopped sinking — yet the ground where Zhongli Jing lay holding her began to give way beneath him. He slowly adjusted his body, spreading himself as flat as he could over that fragile, boggy earth.

At last the two of them, hand in hand, seemed to reach a point of equilibrium, suspended in the mud pool together — though this equilibrium was so precarious that the slightest movement would shatter it entirely.

From somewhere in the distant reeds came the calls of Ding Weixiang and Bolao, distant and directionless. Xiao Nanhui tried with all her strength to call back, but after a few cries she dared not move again — even the faintest breath or tremor now could send them both sinking rapidly. Her shouts were swallowed by the cold, damp air all around, seemingly unable to carry any distance at all. Not a breath of wind moved through the reed thicket, and moisture condensed into rising fog.

The voices grew more distant, and the surroundings fell quiet. The two people lying on the wet, frigid earth were like two stones joined together — utterly still.

No one knew how much time passed. The last light of day faded from the marshlands and the temperature slowly dropped. Xiao Nanhui, with her stronger constitution, could still hold on — but Zhongli Jing had no martial training, and was already at the end of his rope. Xiao Nanhui could feel his hand trembling.

She spoke softly. “Let go.”

Zhongli Jing said nothing, but also made no move.

Xiao Nanhui was moved for just an instant — but then she thought of the jade seal she was gripping tightly in her other hand, and understood a little better why he was doing this.

Even so, as she stared at that hand wearing the Buddhist prayer beads at this moment, she still felt it must be the hand of the Buddha.

May the Buddha protect them. They would not die here.

Click, click, click.

Something was drawing closer.

Xiao Nanhui snapped her eyes open, her ears shifting alertly.

Click, click, click.

The sound was nearer now, coming from somewhere behind her. She could faintly hear the quiet crackling of grass and branches being pressed down.

Like hoofbeats on the ground. Xiao Nanhui’s heart leapt. Perhaps Bolao had found an animal to help. “Jixiang?”

The sound behind her stopped, and then warm breath puffed against the back of her neck. A slightly damp nose nuzzled at the top of her hair.

It was not Jixiang.

Jixiang knew her scent and would never sniff at her this way.

She felt a stir of apprehension. She squeezed Zhongli Jing’s hand firmly, and he slowly opened his eyes, his gaze settling on something behind her head — but still said nothing.

Xiao Nanhui’s eyes shifted from side to side, uncertain what was behind her. The next moment she felt the back of her clothing seized in a tremendous grip, and something began dragging her out of the mud pool. The force separated her hand from Zhongli Jing’s, which she had been clasping all this time.

Xiao Nanhui had no time to struggle — she was hauled free of the mud pool all at once. Her long-compressed lungs finally drew breath freely. She gulped deep mouthfuls of air and pushed herself up — her body heavy, waterlogged with mud — and raised her head to look.

It was a young stag, with a pair of large, liquid eyes. It shook its great antlers gently, then stepped toward Zhongli Jing and pulled him free in exactly the same way.

Xiao Nanhui hurried over to help Zhongli Jing up. By the time she raised her head again, the deer had already walked away, those great antlers disappearing among the waist-high artemisia, like some solitary strange creature.

In this extraordinary moment of survival against all odds, Xiao Nanhui murmured two soft words: “Thank you.”

The words were for the deer, and they were also for Zhongli Jing.

Only the other party seemed to have no time at the moment to acknowledge her thanks. He was struggling painstakingly to remove his outer robe — the mud had saturated the fabric, and the sash had become all tangled up, soaked and heavy, wrapped around him so that it simply would not come off.

Seeing this, Xiao Nanhui thought nothing of it, stepped forward, grabbed the cloth of his robe on both sides with both hands, and gave a forceful pull to each side. The “mud robe” finally tore in two with a sound.

Zhongli Jing froze for a moment, then lowered his head to look at the inner garment he still had on. When he raised his head again, the expression on his face was decidedly peculiar.

Xiao Nanhui belatedly looked at the two strips of torn cloth in her hands and wondered if she had frightened him, and patiently explained: “You could not have gotten it off that way — it would have been wasted effort. Out here in the wild, there’s no point in being particular.”

Zhongli Jing was quiet for a moment, then exhaled two words.

“Never mind.”

And without looking at Xiao Nanhui, he got to his feet and glanced around in all directions.

Xiao Nanhui took it as him simply being prickly, and bent her head to pick up the jade seal she had gone through so much hardship to obtain, cradling it in her arms, and also looked around in all directions. “What is it — do you know the way out?”

“I do not.”

The other party answered with complete matter-of-factness. Xiao Nanhui was barely able to keep herself from rolling her eyes. “The way you look, it doesn’t seem like you don’t know—”

Zhongli Jing said nothing, but walked a few paces to stand behind Xiao Nanhui.

Xiao Nanhui noticed that when this man stood upright he was actually quite tall — his spine straight, his shoulders broad and level. He was not powerful and sturdy like a martial artist, but he did not look like someone of frail health either.

He stood very close — so close that he was nearly chest to back with her. Close enough that Xiao Nanhui could feel the warmth rising from his body, and that distinctive scent of his was more noticeable than ever.

For some reason she could not name, Xiao Nanhui instinctively held her breath. Zhongli Jing, however, indicated that she should look toward the depths of the marshland.

Tonight there were drifting layers of cloud, and the moonlight was dim. Every blade of grass and tree in the marshland had lost its outlines, blurring into a murky, undifferentiated mass.

Suddenly, amid the murk, a faint blue light blinked into being. It rose slowly and drifted in circles, lingering among the rotting water grass and shallow streams.

Another blue light appeared, chasing after the first. Then a third, a fourth flickering into life in quick succession, drifting and dancing through the vegetation, filling the marshland that had been lost in darkness with flickering points of pale radiance.

“Fireflies.”

“Mm.”

Zhongli Jing took a few steps forward, and Xiao Nanhui tensed and grabbed his arm. “Visibility is still nothing like daytime — walk like that and the two of us will be right back sitting in a pit.”

Zhongli Jing lowered his gaze to the hand gripping his arm, and tried to make his voice sound as normal as possible. “Weixiang searched nearby during the day — he will not be coming back again so soon. Waiting here in place is the same as waiting to die.”

Only then did Xiao Nanhui realize, belatedly, that the body beneath her hand was trembling.

The temperature had dropped, and he was a man entirely without martial training, wearing wet clothes, who had lain with her in a mud pit for several hours. He truly could not afford to wait any longer.

But what to do? Find something to probe the way? In this pitch darkness, how long would that take?

“Have you heard the saying, ‘fireflies are born of rotting grass’?”

Xiao Nanhui nodded.

Fireflies favored damp, rotting vegetation, and came out to feed when night fell.

“If we avoid the places where fireflies are, it should be the firmer ground.”