◎Destination◎

Qu You froze for a moment, only to hear him continue: “You don’t know—perhaps even Zhou Tan himself doesn’t know—that in the afternoon before the night banquet at Qionglin, Zhou Tan was still just a poor, struggling scholar, having only just met Gu Zhiyan, walking with him through the streets of Bianducheng. It seems it wasn’t long after the Flower Dawn Festival—spring in Bianducheng was so beautiful then, girls everywhere holding flowers in their arms. You and Gao Yunyue had only recently become acquainted too, and the two of you had gone gathering flowers together, drinking on the second floor of Fanlou. Caught up in the mood, you tucked the apricot blossoms you’d picked into the window frame.”

She listened, stunned, to these events that felt as though they’d happened an eternity ago, and yet felt so close she could see them the moment she closed her eyes.

“One of your apricot blossoms fell. Zhou Tan happened to look up just then, saw you, and lost himself for a moment.”

“He quickly looked away, and you noticed someone was watching too, and shut the window in flustered embarrassment. But that one glance—Gu Zhiyan saw it, and so did I. He sought you out soon after, read your poetry, and I knew then that Gu Zhiyan would surely go about finding a fitting match for his beloved disciple. He must have mentioned it before His Majesty—otherwise, why do you think the Noble Consort would suddenly arrange a marriage for you, a daughter of a scholarly family?”

So that was it.

So that was really how it had happened.

Qu You thought, startled—even in her previous lives, when Gu Zhiyan had wanted to arrange this marriage for Zhou Tan, it must have all begun with that one glance.

Perhaps even Zhou Tan himself didn’t remember it, but it had truly been a glance that stunned him, a glance that shook his world.

Just one glance.

A faint smile rose to the corner of Qu You’s lips. Not far away, Zhou Tan seemed to sense something too, and turned to look deeply at her.

“Youyou, ah,” Bo Ying leaned close to her ear, whispering with intimate breath, “There’s something the little Emperor doesn’t know about Zhou Tan. Once he finds out… hah, the two of you won’t have an easy time of it either… No, no, that’s not right—Zhou Tan already made his plans back at Linfeng Pavilion, so what does he have left to fear? He’s not afraid, because he knows he’s going to die. He’s going to die…”

Bo Ying rambled on, disjointed and incoherent, until Qu You could no longer follow what he was saying. Then he tightened his grip once more and said to her, smiling, “You’re quite moved, aren’t you? You think you and Zhou Tan are both good people, that you can move me to change, don’t you? Saying I’m not purely evil… hahaha. There’s one more thing—why don’t you guess. Guess where Zhou Tan’s illness came from?”

He brought this up so suddenly that Qu You truly froze. It was only after a moment that a chill crept up her spine as realization dawned on her—ever since the day she’d married Zhou Tan, it was Bo Ying who had been tending to his illness!

But Bo Ying, apparently not finding this cruel enough, insisted on finishing what he had to say. “You’ve guessed it, haven’t you! Though he suffered punishment and assassination attempts, he was young—his body shouldn’t have deteriorated this badly. While in Lin’an, I didn’t want him to return, so I made sure he grew sick enough that he couldn’t rise from his bed. If I’d been ruthless enough back then to stop trying to win him over, he would have died long ago. It was I… I who, year after year, treated his body worse and worse, until it reached a point where, even without today, he wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway!”

Qu You, disregarding the arrow he still held, turned her head sharply, viciously. Bo Ying pulled back in time, only leaving a shallow, bloody scratch across her cheek.

“You—”

Her expression had changed entirely now, twisted almost beyond recognition in the faint light. Seeing her face, Bo Ying burst into laughter and, without hesitation, shoved her violently away from him.

“Bo Ying!”

Seeing this sudden turn, the group rushed forward. Zhou Tan reached out and caught Qu You, holding her tightly in his arms.

Bo Ying, meanwhile, spread his arms and ran heedlessly deeper into the passage, which, having been triggered by the earlier explosion, was still shooting arrows out haphazardly in every direction.

Several feathered arrows sank into Bo Ying’s body, blooming patches of red across his robes. He ran the full length of the passage, struggled to find the switch beside the door, and then, just before it opened, turned back to look one last time, across the flames, at Li Yuanjun’s body.

One of the soldiers caught an unusual smell. “General! He… he might still be carrying gunpowder on him. We’d best get away from here!”

Yan Fu made his decision at once and immediately led his troops back the way they’d come. Zhou Tan lifted Qu You into his arms and took a couple of steps, then stopped, meeting Bo Ying’s gaze across the darkened passage.

“All my kin have abandoned me… To be buried in the imperial mausoleum today—I suppose that’s my destination after all… This world is but a wayside inn. Take care of yourselves.”

Zhou Tan said nothing more, only bowed his head slightly toward him in acknowledgment, then turned and walked briskly away. Qu You gripped his robes tightly, feeling tears fall freely, soaking her cheeks.

Both of them could hear, from somewhere far off in the darkness, the sound of a tuneless song drifting toward them.

“I drift upon the waters of the great river, by day I climb to the capital, to the nine-layered phoenix mountains… The immortals gave me the Song of Eternal Peace, sending me on my way like a cold star…”

A muffled explosion sounded behind them.

Everything that had come before seemed, with that sound, to be buried forever in the darkness beneath the earth.

At the same time, at the foot of the mountain, in a simple pavilion, Song Shixuan finished the last cup of tea in his hand, now gone cold.

He rose to his feet and glanced toward the distant sound of the explosion, a trace of worry hidden in his eyes.

Luo Jiangting didn’t understand what he was waiting for, and dared not press him, so she only clutched the handkerchief in her hand and, with some concern, wiped the sweat from his brow. “Your Majesty needn’t worry.”

Song Shixuan held her hand back and gave her a gentle, reassuring smile. “I’m fine.”

Some unknown time later, a soldier, covered in mud and reeking of gunpowder, came galloping down from the mountaintop. He leapt off his horse, bowed hastily, and reported to Song Shixuan in a few concise words: “The traitor is dead. The mission was not disgraced.”

Song Shixuan finally let out a breath of relief, then asked, “Are my teacher and Little Yan both well?”

The soldier answered, “They are unharmed.”

Luo Jiangting sensed something was off in the way the two of them spoke, but all she could do was probe gently, following Song Shixuan’s lead. “Now that Your Majesty has word, you can finally set your heart at ease… Though I still don’t know who this traitor was. Your Majesty had originally only come to ask the Chancellor why he’d led troops out of the city—who would have thought this traitor was truly so formidable that Your Majesty had to consider the Chancellor’s safety as well. Truly, the bond between teacher and student runs deep.”

Song Shixuan let out a soft, gentle hum of agreement and pulled her into his arms.

Luo Jiangting’s heart pounded like a drum. After all she’d just said, Song Shixuan showed no reaction at all—she couldn’t tell whether everything today had gone according to their plan, or whether something had gone wrong. It sounded as though Physician Bo and Li Yuanjun had failed, so then…

She was still lost in thought, eyes lowered, when she suddenly felt a chill at her neck. Disbelieving, she looked down, only to find that Song Shixuan had, at some point, drawn the short blade at his waist and drawn it across her throat—gently, yet with precise, deliberate accuracy.

Luo Jiangting reached up to touch her neck and found her hand covered in blood.

Her eyes stayed open as she toppled straight down. Song Shixuan, who only moments ago had been all tender affection toward her, now crouched before her with a face like frost, not even reaching out a hand, as though afraid of dirtying it.

She heard his voice, mocking and cold: “I treated A’Luo like a sister of my own blood. What you all did is an insult to me.”

Luo Jiangting’s throat let out a rasping, hissing sound, but no words came. She struggled to bite down on her lip, trying to ask: “Your Majesty… treat me…”

But Song Shixuan had already risen and walked away, urgently instructing the guard at his side: “My teacher has always been frail—is he truly unharmed? How is his wife? I’ll go up the mountain myself to meet them.”

After a few steps, he seemed to remember the body behind him, paused briefly, and casually instructed, “She had a hard fate too. Find some auspicious plot back in her home region and bury her there.”