After the first ray of light from sunrise fell on the high tower, a few newly fledged swallows beside the balustrade were fluttering their feathers and chirping about their southward journey.
Before long, the light of day would fully break.
The old man sitting cross-legged on the soft couch startled awake from his doze, his nostrils flaring.
“Did you get it?”
“I got it.” Qu Xingzi took the steaming fried dumplings out of the food box and gently arranged them on the small table before the couch. “The first batch from Xu’s shop in the east city after it opened, as you instructed — double portions, with rich broth.”
The old man nodded in satisfaction and began eating in small, unhurried spoonfuls.
No one knew how much time passed, but the dark-faced man had still not left. The old man finally spoke.
“Do you have something else?”
Qu Xingzi hesitated a moment, then told him truthfully.
“Miss Xiao went to Black Feather Camp and got herself a horse. She left through the West City Gate half an hour ago.”
The old man nodded, still not pausing his eating.
“Anything else?”
“Master Yikong brought Qu Mo to Wancheng. Last night they passed the Minghu boundary marker.”
The old man nodded again.
“Anything else? Don’t keep making me ask — say it all at once.”
Qu Xingzi was silent for a moment, then shook his head gently.
“That is all.”
The spoon clanged down back into the bowl. The bowl that had been full just moments ago was now empty.
“If there is nothing else, go out and clear your head. Stop hanging around with this half-dead old man all the time. If you still haven’t found a good match this year, you might as well just go ask the abbot of Dacheng Temple to shave your head, to save Qu Mo from picking up your bad habits and bringing the name of loneliness and old age upon my Qu Family.”
Qu Xingzi smiled silently to himself, knowing there was nothing to argue with the old man about, but still stood there without leaving.
“Xingzi has one thing he does not understand, and asks Grandfather to enlighten him.”
“Speak.”
The dawn atop the high tower was very quiet — only the sound of the wind and a few noisy swallows, nothing else. But Qu Xingzi still carefully stepped half a pace closer, lowering his voice.
“Grandfather clearly does not wish to get involved in this matter — then why did you give that Xu’e to Miss Xiao?”
“Of course I don’t want to get involved! But am I not still getting involved?!” The old man blew his mustache and widened his eyes, his voice booming loud enough to startle away the whole nest of swallows. “That old fox of the Xie Family produced a little fox cub whose words are finer than a song — and in the end, did he not dig up this old mountain ginseng by the roots to drag me all the way here?”
Qu Xingzi sighed and poured a fresh pot of tea for the old man.
“Even so, if Grandfather were truly resolved not to get involved, His Majesty would not force us. Do you not often teach us that the workings of Heaven’s will are not to be defied?”
The old man stared at the tea leaves swirling in the boiling water, his voice suddenly dropping.
“When a house collapses, one can still find another thatched cottage and preserve oneself apart from the disaster. But when Heaven itself collapses, where could you or I possibly hide?”
Qu Xingzi finally said nothing more. The surroundings fell quiet. The old man slowly closed his eyes.
Two hours earlier, the woman’s parting words from the stone chamber still seemed to linger there.
She had said she did not believe in so-called fated tribulations. Without even trying, how could one know it was impossible?
Perhaps because she had drunk wine, her words sounded especially uninhibited — one could not tell whether it was the foolishness of the ignorant and fearless, or the courage of one with steadfast resolve.
He, having lived so many more years than her, should by all rights not quibble with her.
But he still wanted to quibble, just this once.
Today was the first time he had met her, yet a premonition he had not felt in a long time spread through his heart.
She was perhaps a variable.
A variable was sometimes a turning point, sometimes a complication.
That “thing” which had lived as long as he had surely understood this principle too, which was why it had earlier tried to kill her by borrowing the body of a palace attendant.
She had narrowly escaped and been swept up in this whirlpool touching on the fate of the nation and the people ever since. From that time on, he had sensed that she might not simply be a variable.
She was the very thread of this destined sequence itself.
“I have said all I have to say. If you still wish to go find him, I have nothing more to say.”
He had told her his conclusion — in truth, only out of curiosity about her reaction, with no intention of actually doing anything.
She had indeed been stumped by what he said.
But only stumped for a moment.
“I have taken note of the elder’s words. But I made a promise to him that I would not leave him.” In the dim stone chamber, the woman’s eyes shone with a bright light; within the depths of her pupils, the reflected points of candlelight burned and leapt without ceasing. “Perhaps fate is fixed by Heaven, but without having fought with everything one has to the very last moment, how can one know this is all that fate amounts to?”
“Just to meet once more, to say a farewell — that alone may cost a price you cannot imagine. Even so, you still want to go?”
“He told me that being together is itself very difficult. I am not thinking about things that are further away — just what is in front of me. What is in front of me is that I must honor my promise.”
The woman slowly rose to her feet. She glanced at the wine jar and jade册 on the low table, and carried off that empty jar.
“If the elder has nothing else, Nanhui will take her leave.”
After a long while, he raised his hand and pressed the mechanism. The stone chamber door opened.
But the moment she was just about to step out of the stone chamber, he called out in annoyance.
“Wait.”
He hurriedly got up and went into the inner room. In a moment, he came out carrying a small grass-woven cage, and pressed it into the woman’s hands without ceremony, giving her a few quiet instructions.
The woman seemed somewhat surprised, but in the end did not ask further questions.
Before leaving, she drew a well-worn old册 from inside her robe and held it out to him.
“I am grateful for the elder’s assistance, but I came in haste and had no time to prepare a proper gift. This is the only thing I have to offer.”
The old man was not at all polite about it — he reached out and took the册, opened to the first page, and his finger paused. Then a worn old ribbon fluttered out and was snatched up by his quick hand.
But then the moment he understood what was in his hand, he instantly regretted taking it.
He naturally recognized that ribbon. It was precisely because of that recognition that he regretted it.
The woman’s eyes glanced at the ribbon, then at his expression, and she gave an easy smile.
“As I thought — this thing is more in harmony with the elder after all. It has no use with me. I leave the册 and ribbon to the elder as a witness to the words exchanged between us just now. Perhaps it will not be long before everything comes to light.”
With that, she looked at him no more, and turned to walk out of the stone chamber.
Another autumn wind passed through. The old man opened his eyes, and abruptly rose to his feet and walked into the stone chamber. Behind him, Qu Xingzi followed close on his heels.
Inside the stone chamber, the mushroom hot pot was nowhere to be seen. In its place were scattered bamboo slips and ancient texts, and a thick stack of paper with rough edges. On those papers were many crooked written symbols and divination marks, covered in ink blots and corrections.
Amidst the cluttered table, a few slender hemp threads and half a blackened bone tablet could be made out. And on the small bamboo board before the tablet, which had always been empty, four lines of small characters had now appeared.
The red dust pass holds the general; a rusted sword lies buried between tombs. The divine rests at the three-tiered heavens; the dream-guided one sheds the bone dais.
An expression of disbelief spread across Qu Xingzi’s face.
“Grandfather — could it be that you have already deciphered it?”
His eyelids, which had not closed in three days, were twitching uncontrollably. The old man pressed a hand to his brow and let out a trembling sigh.
“The discussion of fate has, from the beginning, no solution.”
“But you have clearly already solved it — how can it have no solution?” Qu Xingzi’s expression grew even more puzzled. He moved closer to those four lines and thought carefully. “The Three-Eye Pass was known in ancient times as Red Dust, which is paired against the two characters of Bijiang — ‘holds the general’ should refer to Tiancheng’s troops descending and retaking Bijiang. ‘A rusted sword lies buried between tombs’ refers to the Jiějia sword in Miss Xiao’s hands that has just now emerged. ‘Sheds the bone’ means to transcend mortality and become immortal — the place where cultivators achieve spiritual transformation is Buxu Valley in Wancheng — and ‘the divine rests at the three-tiered heavens’…”
Qu Xingzi could not continue.
The old man stretched out a finger and gently picked up those fine hemp threads, placing them one by one on the bone片.
“Burning bone, weaving silk — ancient secret arts of the highest order. Even one of them alone would be difficult to come by, let alone both manifestations appearing together. Since Tiancheng was established, aside from the punishment officer of the Andao Institute, perhaps no one has ever witnessed even one of them. Over time, they were passed down as myths, believed to be things that simply did not exist in the world. Prophetic verse — prophetic verse — it is only in the moment of its fulfillment that one can have any enlightenment. Before that, even a sage reborn would only find it utterly without clue, with no point from which to begin calculation.”
Qu Xingzi pressed his lips together and let out the words he had not been able to say a moment ago.
“Is it truly that there is no point from which to begin, or that the calculation has been made but you dare not state it plainly?”
The old man picked up the bone片, along with the fine hemp resting on it, and threw it into the brazier beside him.
“A very long time ago, the gods flourished in their brightness. People obtained power by making offerings to various divine beings — this was called ‘divine blessing.’ In exchange, the divine beings would leave a mark in the blood of those people, so as to claim their bodies — this was called ‘the descent of a god.'”
The flames in the brazier devoured the hemp threads swiftly, then began to gnaw at the charred bone tablet. The bone crackled and split into ash under the burning, as if some ancient spirit were groaning and whispering in the blaze.
“For certain unknown reasons, some people’s bloodlines were born with the gift to receive divine beings and obtain power — these people, who were closer to the so-called divine than ordinary people, became the great family lines and held one another in check for hundreds of years. The former ruler of Niexuan was one such lineage.”
The flying sparks were reflected in Qu Xingzi’s eyes, burning bright and luminous.
“For those in positions of power, even without the blessing of gods and spirits, they hold the authority of life and death — they should be all the more guarded in their words and deeds.”
“That principle is correct, yet it is a pity that people differ in quality, and so do divine beings — there are good and evil ones. If an evil god descends only into the wilderness, it can harm only a hundred miles. But if it is reborn beneath the three-tiered heavens, it can seize the world and bring catastrophe to all living beings.”
The last fragment of the bone tablet also vanished in the firelight. The old man clasped his hands behind his back and rose, gazing out at the skyline beyond the stone chamber.
Since ancient times there have only been nine tiers of heaven — there was never any talk of a three-tiered heaven. Yet the number that had been deciphered was precisely three and not nine.
To the side of Jingbo Tower, the three palace walls stood silent in the morning light, unmoved and unchanging by spring, summer, autumn, or winter, by the rise and fall of dynasties.
Qu Xingzi looked at the old man’s back, and a trace of quiet worry appeared in his usually clear eyes.
“Miss Xiao is ultimately only one person. Can she truly turn all of this around?”
The old man picked up the tea, now half-cold, and drained it in one swallow.
“Throughout history, heroes have competed for gain. Only the solitary, ordinary person saves the world. What is more — she possesses that single measure of red-blooded courage more than either of us. Does she not?”
On the long, straight road across the plains, there was only one person and one horse heading southwest.
The bleak autumn wind rose to meet her, carrying dust and scattering it along the way.
Jixiang had grown quite fat. When she ran, one could see the belly swaying left and right from the saddle.
The fodder in Black Feather Camp certainly would not have been poor, and this crafty horse had always been used to throwing tantrums and making scenes. Those soldiers who tended to her must have had no end of trouble, and could only feed her well and keep her comfortable. With no owner to drive or whip her, the beast had spent each day in luxurious idleness at the paddock — until layers of fat had built up on her belly, and the fine warhorse had begun to take on something of the air of a farm animal.
Xiao Nanhui let out a low command, and Jixiang huffed and puffed her way into a faster trot, finally recapturing a little of her former bearing from the battlefield.
In the distance, the great disk of the sun rose from the horizon. The border between day and night was slowly moving across the land, pressing toward the silent western frontier ahead of her.
Quecheng had already been left far behind her. She had not once looked back.
Before setting out, she had wondered whether to pay a visit to Wangchen Tower or return to Xiao Manor — but on reflection she suddenly understood: even if she went, there would be few people waiting for her.
The only person she could possibly rouse in the middle of the night was probably only Yaoyi. But she was not the least bit worried about him — she knew Yaoyi was someone who, no matter the time or place, could live well on his own.
In the end she went nowhere, only slipped in through the back courtyard of Xiao Fu Ju on her way past, filled her wine pouch with two jars of wine, and left two silver ingots behind.
She knew she was not without attachment to this city. Otherwise, why would she not even give herself the time to wait for daybreak and eat a bowl of noodle soup before leaving? She knew that once she saw sunlight illuminating the city and people going busily about their lives again, once she sat down at Old Guo’s stall in the east of the city and had a bowl of bone broth noodles — her heart would waver once more.
Whether such days could ever belong to her again, she would leave it to Heaven to judge.
The sun rose and the moon set, then the sun rose again. Her cloak was soaked in dew, frosted over, the frost dissolved back into cold dew, and finally dried in the sunlight.
She had left Zhongli in early autumn. By the time she crossed the border into Wancheng territory, it was already late autumn.
On Minghu Lake, fishing boats crisscrossed back and forth. The waters were cold and the fish were plentiful. The fishing folk were all racing to haul in the last catch of river fish before winter came and the lake froze.
Xiao Nanhui set down her chopsticks, regretting slightly that she had not ordered an extra fish when she ordered the fish soup.
Leaving a few coins of silver, she took Jixiang — now fed and content — and led her toward the waterfront dock.
Minghu was as vast as a lake on the northwestern plateau. Along its shores were many ferry docks and piers: some were large docks for merchant vessels, but more were small piers built by the nearby fishing villages, incapable of accommodating any large boats.
The occasional lone traveler could pay a few copper coins to get passage on a small fishing boat across the lake — though on days when the wind and waves were bad, one simply had to wait.
Today the lake was relatively clear, but the clouds to the west were pressed very low. The distant horizon was tinged with black. Fishermen with experience had already hauled in their boats early.
Perhaps a heavy rain was coming.
Xiao Nanhui led Jixiang to the dock and looked around. A small boat that was airing its fishing nets drifted over. The fisherman aboard called out across several other boats.
“Miss, where are you headed?”
She answered truthfully.
“Buxu Valley. How much is the fare?”
But the man, upon hearing this, shoved his pole and instantly glided away.
She asked three or four more boats in the same way. The moment she named her destination, every one of them either shook their heads or simply ignored her.
Xiao Nanhui was somewhat surprised, and was wondering whether to simply commandeer a boat and set off, when a voice came from a small punt not far away.
“You will not find a boat asking like that.”
The fisherman speaking looked no more than about thirty years of age. The ramshackle little punt beneath his feet, however, looked as if it were older than the two of them combined, and would likely fall apart before many more years had passed.
Seeing she was not speaking, the man lowered his voice and moved closer.
“A few days ago, several official boats passed through from that direction, and nobody wants to cause trouble. On top of that, bad weather is coming. If it weren’t for needing those few coins to put rice on the table, who would want to take this risk?”
Buxu Valley, then — this confirmed it.
Xiao Nanhui thought for a moment. She untied the bag at her waist and counted out five round, plump silver ingots.
“Surely this much buys more than one cup of rice?”
The fisherman only had to glance at them, and his expression changed immediately.
“The waters around Buxu Valley are shallow and full of reefs, with hidden shallows and dangerous currents everywhere. The bigger the boat, the more trouble it runs into.”
He said this, then paused deliberately, before meaningfully patting his punt.
Xiao Nanhui looked at Jixiang’s plump rear end, then looked at that rocking, unsteady little boat. Ten thousand terrible premonitions flashed through her mind, but in the end she steeled herself and boarded.
“Please hurry — I am pressed for time.”
“Understood, hold on tight!”
A sweep of the oar, and the little punt nimbly left the dock and headed out onto the vast expanse of the lake.
The waters of Minghu were cold, the surface cloaked year-round in a layer of mist. The punt headed steadily northward. Every boat that passed in the opposite direction was heading back to port, with few going the same way.
She said nothing, only sat at the bow tending to the cricket cage, watching the water split apart and close seamlessly back together.
She was not truly unwilling to speak — she simply had a weight pressing down on her heart. Her leg had started to ache dully again, but that ache, compared to the suffocating feeling in her chest, could hardly be called anything at all.
The fisherman at the stern could not see her expression, and was the chatty sort. He kept muttering away in a desultory fashion.
“There’s usually no rain this time of year, but this year I don’t know what’s got into it — it’s been raining non-stop since autumn started. Just look at that stone pavilion over there, it’s half-submerged. And look at that cloud over there — my guess is this rain will fall today if not tomorrow, and once it starts it’ll go for at least ten days to half a month…”
The other man was speaking in the local Wancheng dialect. She could only understand half of it, and knew he was complaining about the weather, so she let it go in one ear and out the other.
Two hours later, no other boats were in sight anywhere on the lake. All around was so quiet that the only sound was the splash of the punt’s oar.
Mist still blanketed everything ahead. The punt slowed down. Xiao Nanhui noticed, stared at the cricket cage in front of her, and without turning her head pointed toward the left front.
“Over there.”
The ferryman was visibly surprised, and after a moment steered the boat in the direction she had indicated.
“So miss is not from out of town after all! Buxu Valley rarely has visitors — are you coming to see family, or for the ancestral rites, or…”
Xiao Nanhui sighed and felt for the Jiějia sword at her waist.
“My man ran off with someone else. I heard he ran this way. I’ve brought my sword to find him, and I plan to cut off his legs.”
The chatterbox of a ferryman was instantly struck silent. In the mist, only the woman’s monotone navigational directions could be heard.
After another half hour, the sounds of the water around them became complex and varied. A faint breeze skimmed across the lake surface, dispersing some of the mist and revealing for a brief moment the turbulent, rapid-strewn water ahead.
The fisherman suddenly refused to go any further, and stood at the stern looking at the sky.
“It’s getting late. I need to head back. Otherwise it will be dark and I’m afraid the boat will capsize.”
Xiao Nanhui rose and looked into the depths of the mist. She could already make out the faint sounds of lake water striking against rocks.
“We should be not far from shore. Just a few more steps — can you make an exception? Besides, you have already taken the silver, so how can you go back on your word?”
The ferryman clearly had no intention of making an exception, rooted in place without moving.
Other people could take the road back. She could not.
Xiao Nanhui’s gaze slowly dropped. The ferryman sensed her intent and gripped his oar more tightly, backing away two steps.
“It’s only a few steps anyway. Why not swim over?”
“Swim over?!”
This was exactly what she had feared.
“I’m not a strong swimmer…”
Her words were barely out before — whether the ferryman truly had not heard, or heard and pretended not to — the punt tipped to one side in the next instant, and she and Jixiang tumbled into the water with a splash.
The bone-chilling, swift-flowing lake water immediately swallowed her whole. Her feet could find no bottom. She could only flail desperately, while her other hand raised the cricket cage high overhead to protect it. It was not long before she swallowed several mouthfuls of murky lake water.
The water was full of silt and sand, burning into her nasal passages. In the confusion, she grabbed hold of whatever was nearest and refused to let go, until that something slowly rose and lifted her above the surface.
Cold air entered her lungs. She gasped heavily and coughed sharply twice, wiped the water from her face, and then made out the familiar saddle beneath her.
Jixiang snorted, only half a horse’s head and two nostrils showing above the water.
All around, the currents were fierce. She had nearly been swept away just now, but Jixiang’s plump body stood firm in the water and could still move her hooves forward.
All right — she took back what she had complained about earlier. The horse being a bit fatter after all had its benefits.
Looking back, the small punt was long gone.
Holding on to Jixiang’s thick mane, Xiao Nanhui moved slowly forward through the crashing waves.
Through the swirling mist, something began to take shape, its outline gradually revealed.
Xiao Nanhui looked up, and her expression involuntarily stilled.
This was not the far bank of Minghu. She was still in the middle of the lake.
She had never imagined that the legendary Buxu Valley was not a mountain valley at all, but an island.
An island in the heart of Minghu Lake, appearing and disappearing with the rise and fall of the tides.
No wonder the Qu Clan was so mysterious — even successive emperors had rarely been able to visit it.
Finally making their way out of those treacherous rapids and shoals, the person and horse hauled themselves up onto shore. Xiao Nanhui tumbled ungainly from Jixiang’s back, and the first thing she did, before worrying about anything else, was check the cricket cage.
Inside the cage, a small gray-white insect lay curled at the bottom, long since drowned.
She slammed her fist hard onto the gravel shore, as if pouring out into that one blow all the grievance and confusion that had been lodged in her chest for so long.
So close. Just a little bit more, and she would have found him.
The medicinal pill he had swallowed in the Shen Family secret passage had been made with some effort by Hao Bai. In addition to causing a person to fall into a long sleep and shielding him from Pu Huna’s invasion, it also contained a small amount of Xu’e wing-scale powder. It was a powder that emitted a distinctive fragrance undetectable to humans, yet a Xu’e moth could sense it from a thousand miles away.
The Qu Family Elder had given her one. She had been relying on this little moth — not much bigger than a honeybee — to find her way here.
She had something of a bond with this small creature. Once before, it had saved her life.
The fabric woven from Xu’e cocoon silk was called Dieluo — it was renowned for its toughness like spider-silk and its unwavering color. Even a butterfly that had merely rested its feet there would leave behind the sweet scent of flower nectar.
A single Xu’e chrysalis was priceless, and a foot of Dieluo was beyond market value.
Legend had it that the Xu’e silkworm waited from the day of its birth for the day it could transform and break free from its cocoon. But for the Xu’e to form its cocoon required great drought and dryness, while to break free from the cocoon required abundant rain — the process often took many years. In truth, out of a hundred, scarcely one would ever become a moth; and even upon becoming a moth, it could find no companion, could not breed, and could only pine away and perish.
The one she had been carrying had been so alive, fluttering ceaselessly up and down the whole way.
Yet the moth did not know that the other Xu’e it sought had long since ceased to exist — only a trace of wing-scale powder was left, still emitting its fragrance. It simply kept hurling itself toward the source of that fragrance without stopping, until the moment death came.
When all was said and done, even such a small creature struggled so hard just to exist. What grounds does a human being, born into the world, have to claim they can live their life to their heart’s content?
To meet you was already like having been trapped in a cocoon for a thousand years, then breaking free after ten thousand more.
To weave silk as repayment — the silk is fine yet strong. It cannot be severed unless one lets go of all attachment.
Let her press forward, forward, until she breaks through this cage of fate — or until death comes — and only then will it end.
Xiao Nanhui silently wrung out her dripping hem, picked up the dripping cricket cage with one hand, and took Jixiang by the rope with the other, walking along the gravel shore toward the interior of the island.