One hour after Pu Huna disappeared, the rain finally stopped.

Two or three more hours passed before Lu Songping arrived with several black-clad shadow guards.

Due to the landslide, the entire Black Feather Camp was delayed for quite some time before they could dig through the mud and sand to enter the valley. The entire valley lay in ruin — the rain had doused the flames in the undergrowth and forest, and had also soaked the already-loose mountainside thoroughly, with mud and earth constantly sliding down to bury the road they had cleared earlier.

Xiao Nanhui was gripping the iron spade she had used the day before to transplant the plum tree, digging into the mountainside one shovelful at a time.

She had already been digging for three solid hours. After the rain stopped, the cool breath of early autumn spread through the mountains, yet she was drenched in sweat, several layers of clothing soaked through.

Lu Songping stood not far away beneath a small pine tree that had been knocked sideways by the mudslide. The other shadow guards stood even further back, standing at attention in the morning mist, indistinguishable from the pines and cypresses around them.

“Stop digging.”

Lu Songping finally spoke, but Xiao Nanhui had no intention of stopping.

“There’s an opening here — they all left through this. If I dig it open, I can lead people to pursue them.”

“They left several hours ago. How do you propose to give chase?”

“Even if I can’t catch up, there will be clues. Once I know which road they took out, I can dispatch people to set up checkpoints at the provincial borders to intercept them.”

“If that’s the case, I could deploy troops directly to block the key routes — that would be faster than you digging through earth and moving mountains here.”

Xiao Nanhui was irritated by this and drove the spade sharply into a crack in the rock.

“Lu Songping, you have nothing better to do! Why not go find Ding Weixiang, or that man Luo He — why are you here pestering me?!”

Lu Songping’s expression remained impassive, clearly having mastered seven or eight parts of that certain someone’s composure.

“Deputy Ding has been assigned to other important matters, and as for Master Luo He, his whereabouts have not yet been located. For now, my mission is to take you away from here.”

“Take me away from here?” A short laugh squeezed out from between her teeth, sounding worse than crying. “Take me where? Are you taking me to pursue them? Or back to Black Feather Camp?”

“Back to Quecheng.”

Lu Songping drew something from his sleeve and unfolded it.

Xiao Nanhui had seen such things before — they had three jade seals that had to be broken one by one when the contents were read aloud.

It was an imperial edict in the Emperor’s own hand.

“This one is here under imperial orders, requesting that Miss Xiao return to the city.”

Xiao Nanhui snatched the edict away and flung it to the ground. The four black-clad shadow guards who had been standing nearby all immediately looked down.

“He is already gone — whose orders are you even following?! Lu Songping, this is deceiving the sovereign — you are deceiving those above and concealing from those below!”

Lu Songping looked at the furious face of the woman before him, and merely bent down to pick up the edict, gently dusting the dirt from it.

“To see the imperial edict is to see His Majesty. What you just did would be enough to have your head cut off ten times over.”

Xiao Nanhui let out a cold snort.

“If you want my head, say so plainly — no need for such roundabout talk.”

Lu Songping turned his wrist, and the front face of the edict was brought directly before her eyes.

“This edict was written one month ago, and bears His Majesty’s private seal. You may look as clearly as you wish.”

The air around them suddenly fell very quiet.

She stopped speaking. Her head slowly dropped. The fingers gripping the spade had already seeped blood from the exertion and friction — she seemed completely unaware of it, only gripping tighter, pouring out ever greater force to dig at the sand, soil, and stone that seemed inexhaustible no matter how much she moved.

Lu Songping watched quietly from beside her for a moment, then suddenly spoke.

“Miss Xiao, I have accompanied His Majesty for more than ten years. What he wishes to do, no one can stop him. What he wishes to prevent, he always finds a way to ensure he does not find himself in a passive position.” He paused briefly, choosing his words carefully, before finally delivering his last sentence. “His decision to leave with the Xiao Family was one he made long in advance. Do you understand?”

Xiao Nanhui still did not speak, digging one shovelful after another.

The mountainside shifted and collapsed with a thunderous crash, instantly filling in the opening she had spent the entire morning digging.

She stared at the barrier formed by the merciless stone, as if seeing her own self struggling in the face of a merciless fate.

Not far away at the base of the mountain, a few surviving hens were fleeing in all directions in a panic, yet the distant mountains were unnaturally calm — even the indistinct mist that hung after the rain had dispersed, giving everything an air of clear weather and open skies.

Xiao Nanhui finally set down the spade in her hands.

Though she was a bit slow at times, she was not a fool. She naturally understood what Lu Songping had said.

If he had not wanted this, even ten Xiao Zhuns or a hundred Xiao Dais could not have stopped him from finding an opportunity and escaping with his life.

When all was said and done, he had made up his mind long ago — this time he would face everything alone, and bring about what he called a resolution.

But why? Why did she feel such pain, such dejection, such disappointment?

She still remembered when they had escaped from Chizhou and she was questioning An Lu in the prefect Sun’s water dungeon — he had said to her then: the sky is vast and the waters are wide; how could it be too small to hold someone standing shoulder to shoulder with him?

Yet in the end, she still had not become that person standing at his side. At the most critical, the most final moment, he had chosen to step forward, leaving her standing in place.

He had also said: if a bond of affection cannot withstand testing, then do not let it be tested.

Yet in the end, he had still thrown the harshest test at her.

After a long silence, she finally spoke in a low voice.

“Very well. I will go with you.”

The spade drove hard into the earth, and she said each word one at a time.

“But before I go, I need to retrieve something.”

Before the already-collapsed stone house, Li Yuan Yuan slapped apart a piece of stone pinning down a roof beam, then bent over and moved those rocks away one by one.

A pair of hands unexpectedly extended from the side, pushing the heaviest piece out of the way.

Li Yuan Yuan dusted off her hands, stretched her back, and turned to work on the other side. That pair of hands followed like a shadow.

This happened three or four times before the owner of those hands finally spoke.

“This junior has a request, and asks the senior to grant it.”

Li Yuan Yuan did not even lift her eyelids, still bent over clearing the soil and stones piled on top of the chicken coop.

Xiao Nanhui stepped back a few paces, went down on one knee, and performed a formal bow.

“This junior has a request, and asks the senior to grant it.”

Li Yuan Yuan continued without stopping, but still spoke.

“If I do not grant it, what will you do?”

What could she do? Nothing but kneel here until heaven and earth grew dark and her heart shattered. But if the other person had made up her mind, what then could she do?

Xiao Nanhui’s thoughts turned over a thousand times before she suddenly spoke.

“Does Senior not want her plum tree anymore?”

Li Yuan Yuan did indeed turn around, her drooping corners of her mouth pressing together like a curved blade.

“You dare threaten me?”

“This junior would not dare.” She had finally learned the so-called arts of thick-faced cunning and crooked reasoning. “This junior is only speaking honestly. If Senior does not help me this time, there is a seven or eight in ten chance I will be hacked to death by random blades because I have no weapon in hand. At that point, with me gone, I naturally will not be able to honor my promise and tend to that tree.”

Her words fell, but when no response came for a long time, she realized she had probably played the wrong hand, and had no choice but to stand up.

Xiao Nanhui turned to leave, but before long she came back, cradling several gray, roundish bundles.

She crouched down and set what she was carrying onto the ground — those few lost hens had finally found their way home, and dashed toward Li Yuan Yuan in a streak.

On the rigid face of the blood-and-dirt-smeared old sword master, a faint smile finally appeared — but it cooled again when her gaze shifted to Xiao Nanhui.

“Take it.” Li Yuan Yuan counted the surviving hens and herded them into a temporary pen. “I knew the moment you laid eyes on it.”

Xiao Nanhui stood there dumbfounded, almost unable to believe her own ears.

“You know what I am requesting?”

Li Yuan Yuan let out a cold snort.

“Living in this wretched wilderness, this old woman has nothing that can be taken from her except her martial arts — only that piece of scrap iron remains. Or could it be that you have your eye on these few frightened chickens?”

Xiao Nanhui waved her hands repeatedly, and was about to say something more when Li Yuan Yuan had already clasped her hands behind her back and walked toward the devastated rear mountain. She had no choice but to follow.

The forest that had been lush with grass and birdsong just yesterday was now a scorched wasteland. Li Yuan Yuan walked along, using her feet to stamp out sparks still smoldering in the embers, her expression growing colder and harder.

Without the cover of undergrowth and trees, the sword tomb now looked all the more stark — at a glance, nothing but a solitary grave.

“Wood governs benevolence, and can reduce the sharp aggression of metal’s cutting energy. I hid it in this forest for many years, yet now a great fire is sending it out into the world.”

Xiao Nanhui glanced at the somewhat silent profile of Li Yuan Yuan, and, wanting to offer some comfort, said:

“A madman once told me: wood becomes charcoal, charcoal becomes earth, earth gives rise to forest. The ten thousand things of this world are nothing but this endless cycle.”

“Gone is gone. You would believe the words of a madman?” Li Yuan Yuan kicked aside a half-burned log, crossed her arms, and stood before the sword tomb. “Those who cultivate the sword are, for the most part, solitary souls. This sword even more so — from the day it was forged, it has been driven by the spirit of solitary courage. They say a weapon is like its wielder. Have you truly thought this through?”

Xiao Nanhui said nothing. She only stepped forward a few paces and gently took hold of the hilt, which had grown somewhat darkened from wind and rain.

The hilt was slender and narrow, cold to the touch, and indeed, as Li Yuan Yuan had said, it carried a certain resolute energy of one who stakes everything on a single cast.

They say there is a kind of invisible bond of affinity between a martial artist and their weapon. In the moment she grasped that sword, she seemed to hear a soundless cry and vibration emanating from within the blade.

She drew the sword in one clean motion.

In the eighth and ninth months, Quecheng’s winds were high and its clouds light — it was a fine time of year.

Xiao Nanhui looked out through the window of the carriage. The Dinyu Road at dusk was lively and bustling — a street vendor selling hot fish soup lifted the lid of their pot and a billow of steam rushed out to the middle of the street; red lanterns hung under the eaves like strings of ripe persimmons, casting a warm glow on every face they touched.

Spring gave way to autumn and back again, and people’s lives here had always been this way. Time flowed here, and yet also stood still.

If she could, how she longed to simply leap from this carriage, grab two jugs of wine, and dash off to Wangchen Tower — to return to those unhurried days. But she knew that this time, she would not be staying here long.

The carriage rolled slowly onward for about half an incense stick’s time, finally stopping in the alley before the West Drum Tower. The new moon had already been hung from the turret at the southwest corner of the Imperial Palace not far away. Lifting the carriage curtain, the cool night air came drifting in.

Xiao Nanhui had a rough idea of where she was headed.

“Miss Xiao had best put her hat on.”

Xiao Nanhui paused, then realized what he meant.

Lu Songping had prepared a hooded cloak for her early on. She had initially assumed it was to keep out the deep night chill, but now she understood — it was actually to conceal her face.

It seemed the present-day Quecheng was not as peaceful and serene as Dinyu Road made it appear.

With the Emperor’s whereabouts now unknown, had the court already caught wind of something? During the time of his absence, had anyone seized the opportunity to stir up trouble? If something had truly happened to him, would the entire city of Quecheng descend into a storm of bloodshed?

Her heartbeat sounded all the more chaotic in the quiet of the night. After a long moment, she spoke.

“We have reached the place — can you now tell me why I was summoned back to the city?”

Lu Songping’s half-shoulder appeared intermittently outside the carriage door, his voice low and measured.

“This time, Miss Xiao has been summoned back to the city for two matters. The first is that an item needs to be delivered to you, and the second is that there is a person you need to meet. May I ask whether you would prefer to first receive the item, or first see the person?”

Xiao Nanhui thought it over briefly, then spoke calmly.

“Going to see someone while carrying an item would seem a bit awkward, so I will trouble Deputy Lu to take me to see that person first.”

Lu Songping slowly stepped aside and handed the palace lantern that had been hanging at the head of the carriage to Xiao Nanhui.

“Miss Xiao, follow the West Passageway north, and someone will be waiting for you outside the West Gate.”

Xiao Nanhui was somewhat surprised. She looked up at the silhouette of Jingbo Tower in the night not far away, then took the lantern and stepped down from the carriage.

Lu Songping drove the carriage away. The sound of carriage wheels clicking on the stone-paved road faded into silence. Xiao Nanhui held the lantern and walked slowly eastward along the palace wall.

In the long passageway, not a single palace attendant or eunuch was to be seen — not even a guard. After walking about a hundred paces, she could see someone standing at the far end of the path, who turned around as she drew near — it was Su Pingchuan.

Today he wore a court uniform that was neatly tailored and looked particularly sharp, his hair properly bound into his official cap — a completely different person from when she had last seen him.

When he saw her come, there was still an undeniable brightness in his eyes, but the moment she called out to him, that light went out.

“General of the Left.”

Su Pingchuan steadied himself, then returned the greeting.

“Greetings, Official Xiao.”

Her official title had changed again and again until even she herself could not keep track, but he still preferred to call her “Official Xiao” rather than “Miss Xiao.”

He was honoring his own promise, and she had no reason to break it.

“I was told by Attendant Dan that someone wishes to see me. Could it be the General of the Left himself?”

Su Pingchuan looked at the open and direct eyes of the woman before him. The words of admission sat right on the tip of his tongue, but in the end he swallowed them back.

“No.” He shook his head gently. “The person you need to see is someone else. I have come to show you the way.”

Xiao Nanhui still had questions in her heart, but since the other party had not volunteered any explanation, she was unwilling to press further.

The two of them walked one behind the other, exchanging no words along the way.

They passed through the first palace wall and headed toward the side gate guard post at the northwest corner, until they came in sight of the dungeon gate, at which point Xiao Nanhui finally had a reaction.

She had been wondering just moments earlier who she could possibly be going to see, that it required the young master of the Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion to personally come and lead the way — now she understood.

A death row prisoner.

And moreover, one held in the dungeons under the command of Xuanyuan Wang’s Bright Standards Camp. These dungeons were situated between the second and third palace walls — only a serious criminal, or someone connected to the imperial family, would be kept here.

The guards greeted Su Pingchuan with a proper salute and opened the heavy iron doors one by one, allowing the two of them to pass deep into the pitch-black dungeon.

There were twenty steps leading down to the dungeon level. She walked to the nineteenth, then suddenly stopped.

She heard a coughing sound.

The person who coughed did not speak, but even so she recognized that voice.

She would recognize that voice even if it were mixed in among the noise of hundreds of people in a busy marketplace.

Su Pingchuan ahead of her noticed something was wrong and stopped as well, then after a moment spoke.

“He was brought back personally by Master Zong. With His Majesty absent and no one else daring to take responsibility, he is being held under my father’s command for now. Everything that needed to be asked has been asked. If there is something you want to know—”

“You should not have let me come to see him.” Xiao Nanhui’s fist clenched until it crackled, her voice almost trembling. “The moment I see him, I will certainly kill him.”

Su Pingchuan seemed to have expected her reaction all along, and simply took the palace lantern from her hand.

“His Majesty already signed the execution order for him early on — once captured alive, he was to be handed over to you for disposal. Whether to go in or not is your decision.”

He had arranged all of this in advance again? What was this supposed to be — his final arrangements?

She stood on that last stone step, staring at the intermittently lit and shadowed reflections on the ground, momentarily silent.

No matter. She would walk the bridge he had built for her one step at a time, and then cross the river she herself had to ford.

The last jailer guarding the cell unlocked it, and as he stepped past Xiao Nanhui to leave, she yanked the sword from his waist in one motion.

“Borrowing your sword for a moment. It will be returned shortly.”

The jailer was startled, then quickly glanced at Su Pingchuan’s expression and immediately acknowledged and stepped back.

Su Pingchuan looked long and deep at the woman’s retreating back, then also withdrew.

The enormous three-story dungeon now had only two people remaining.

Xiao Nanhui finally descended the stone steps, passed through the empty cells, and stepped into the only cell with firelight seeping out, looking down at the figure seated on the stone platform.

He was no longer wearing that detestable purple garment. Like all condemned prisoners, he had been dressed in rough hemp cloth.

She stared coldly at that face. She had a thousand words of accusation ready, yet in the end could say none of them. She only felt a burning heat trapped in her chest, searing her with unbearable intensity.

Clang.

She threw the jailer’s sword down in front of him.

“Pick it up.”

He did not move, did not even open his eyes.

That fire of fury finally erupted, surging from her core all the way up to her throat. She drew the Jiějia sword from her waist and pressed it to his throat.

“I told you to pick it up!”

She shouted herself hoarse, her ragged voice reverberating through the dungeon.

The person before her finally moved — but he only slowly opened his eyes, using those proud, wild eyes hidden behind disheveled hair to stare at the cold blade before him.

“A common mortal’s sword — unworthy of use by me. Kill if you wish. What pity is there in dying at the hands of the legendary Jiějia sword?”

Xiao Nanhui laughed.

Whether she laughed at his near-foolishly brave words, or found it ridiculous that he clung to a famous sword even at the brink of death, she was not sure.

She strode forward, grabbed the front of his collar, and slammed him to the ground. Her fingers curled into a fist, already swinging down with full force — but her swing stopped half an inch from his face.

Her gaze fell to the collar of his prison clothes, and only then did she notice that both of his collarbones had been shattered. He could not have lifted a sword, let alone held a spoon.

Yanzi coughed up a mouthful of blood, and looked at her sideways.

“You will ultimately not be able to defeat me fair and square. And I will not be able to put on a proper performance of vengeance served with justice. What’s this — disappointed?”

The fierce fury in Xiao Nanhui transformed into grief and rage.

She could not comprehend how someone like this could exist in the world — utterly indifferent to the lives of others, and equally unconcerned about his own.

“In your eyes, beyond victory and defeat, martial arts, and famous swords — is there anything else?!”

“And is that not enough?” The prisoner coughed twice more and continued, with a kind of near-obsessive earnestness. “As a martial artist, one’s soul should belong solely to the weapon in one’s hand. Yet you have squandered your bonds on those irrelevant people. Is that not foolish?”

A sense of powerlessness rose from the depths of her heart. She clenched her jaw.

“You only have those you are loyal to — but no one you are close to. You would not understand.”

“And what good did it do you? In the end, are you not equally alone?” Yanzi began to laugh, the sound rattling and clucking, as though he found it tremendously satisfying. “Your aptitude is impure — you have ample recklessness but lack focus. The only thing of any interest is that shred of solitary courage you show when you want to kill me. But looking at you now, you are nothing but mediocre.”

The wind stirred the flickering firelight in the dungeon, and the two shadows on the ground also swayed.

Xiao Nanhui’s profile was hidden in shadow, but her raised fist slowly unclenched.

“I see. So that is what you fear most.” She paused, then said each word deliberately. “You fear mediocrity.”

The expression on the man lying on the ground finally twisted. He struggled to rise, but was pressed back down by the woman.

“Mediocre? My entire life has been accompanied by excellence alone — how could I be mediocre?!”

“If you had truly reached the pinnacle of martial arts, how is it that you were rendered powerless by a single move that crippled your abilities and brought you to this state?”

“That was — that was—” The once imperiously proud swordsman now howled in the filthy dust of the prison floor. “That was injustice! Besides, that Xie Li is already a candle in the wind — I need only wait a little longer, and he will no longer be my match! Just wait a little longer, and I will certainly kill him—”

“You have no time left to wait.” Xiao Nanhui finally released her grip, letting his figure struggle where he lay. “I did indeed hope to fight you a proper battle and avenge Bolao. But there is no need for a reason to kill you, nor any need to wait a little longer.”

She slowly sheathed the Jiějia sword.

“You are not worthy of dying by the Jiějia sword.”

With that, she hooked the jailer’s sword up from the ground with the tip of her foot, caught it in her hand, and executed the most ordinary of level sweeping strikes. A line of blood bloomed at his throat.

“Let this mortal sword see you off. In your next life, remember not to provoke ordinary folk like us. After all, ordinary people have no grand pursuits of excellence in their hearts — they only understand the principle that murder must be repaid with life.”

Fresh blood ran slowly down the blade. Her heart was calmer than it had ever been before.

Yanzi had been right. She was not particularly special — the only thing she had to rely on was this shred of solitary courage.

But the gates of the underworld were already open, and the person she loved was on the other side. Even if the darkness had no end and the perilous road stretched on without limit, and her only company was a guttering lamp and half a moment of light — she would walk onward alone.

Xiao Nanhui raised her sleeve to wipe the blood from the blade, and without looking again at the writhing figure on the ground, turned and walked out of the dungeon.