Prologue

The past belongs to other people. She could keep her own to herself.

In a winter of drifting snowflakes, one could warm wine and admire plum blossoms, speak of all the world’s romance—but when the sky hung low and grey, breath turning to ice, and the snow swirled wild enough to bury a person alive, the only fitting thing to do was take an enemy’s life.

Tao Yao had stood on the bank of the Brocade Scale River for only a moment, and already her hair had gone entirely white with snow, her eyebrows not spared either. If she didn’t move soon, she’d become a snow statue herself.

In weather like this, running one’s mouth wasn’t going to cut it.

And yet here were two fools, one refusing to come out of the river, the other refusing to leave the bank, locked in argument.

“I heard your golden bell voice—you mean to kill me!” On the frozen river, the small, round, plump carp-spirit stood before a faint crack in the ice, looking up at Tao Yao on the bank. It was afraid, quite afraid, but it still had a scrap of last-ditch courage left.

“Since you know who I am, you should climb ashore honestly, confess your crimes, and accept death!” Tao Yao said angrily, her gaze sneaking down toward her own feet. She’d thought more than once about jumping onto the ice—but what if it cracked? She’d fall straight into the water, and in this cold, half her life would be gone before she even climbed out. Worse, she couldn’t swim.

Fortunately the fish hadn’t yet seen through her hesitation. It answered, trembling, “Why should I accept death?!”

Even more infuriating—it didn’t even know what crime it had committed, and death already at its door.

“Bewitching people with demonic arts, harming the innocent—if you don’t deserve death, who does!” Tao Yao scolded, even as she mentally sorted through her medicine pouch for something usable. Unfortunately, everything lethal she’d brought only worked at close range. She could, if she wished, turn the entire river to poison—but the other creatures in it were innocent too. Any bird or beast that drank from it afterward would die as well. That wouldn’t do at all. And if “that person” found out, she’d be guilty of harming the innocent herself. How infuriating—the great Tao Yao, stumped by a river.

“Where have I harmed the innocent!” the fish protested. “I haven’t hurt anyone—I’ve helped someone!”

“Your face is thicker than your belly, you know that?” Tao Yao snapped. “Isn’t Shen Feng dying because of you? I don’t even need to think hard to know it—you were born from this river, and as long as its waters don’t dry up, you live. So you deceived Shen Feng with lies, using her identity as a maple-born spirit to keep the river flowing and save your own life!”

“We both wanted it—how is that harm!” the fish argued back, even stamping its foot. “That foolish girl kept the river alive for me, true enough, but I didn’t take her kindness for nothing either. To ‘revive’ the whole of Huilong Village, and especially to give her back an entire Shen family—do you think that costs me nothing? Twenty years! She and I each got what we needed, a fair trade. Even if you are the notorious Tao Yao of Peach Capital, the one they call ‘leaves no armor standing,’ this is still absurd reasoning!”

Such disrespectful, fearless defiance sent Tao Yao’s temper flaring—her face nearly as white as her eyebrows with rage.

“Each gets what they need, a fair trade?” Tao Yao stamped her foot too. “What she risked her life to protect was your life. What did you give her? Nothing but false hope, bound to shatter in the end! And you have the nerve to call the two equal!”

“False hope is better than no hope at all.” The fish, it seemed, had decided to go all in. “You aren’t her—how would you know she hasn’t taken joy in it? If not for me, she would have withered away long ago.”

False hope… yes. A flower in a mirror, the moon on water, a mirage—always visible, never attainable. False as it was, the illusion of worldly prosperity and family happiness could hook a despairing soul all the same. That she’d “taken joy in it” was only because she’d never yet tasted the moment of thinking you’d gained everything, only to watch it turn to ash in the blink of an eye.

Tao Yao said nothing, though her teeth chattered—not from cold anymore, but from an anger that had finally broken past its limit.

Ice ahead or not, unable to swim or not, the demon Tao Yao meant to kill could not be allowed to live!

She leapt. Her last thought as she landed on the river’s surface was that she hadn’t managed to eat lunch yet, so she was probably a bit lighter than usual—maybe the ice wouldn’t crack. At least not until she’d finished off that monster. Don’t crack, don’t crack!

Seeing her leap down with such reckless abandon, the fish panicked. There was no outrunning her—its legs were too short, and the crack in the ice it might have hidden beneath was sealed by this cursed snowstorm. Everyone said Tao Yao of Peach Capital killed demons without blinking. Though it still believed, to this moment, that it didn’t deserve death, it had drawn this she-devil’s wrath regardless—its life was forfeit either way. Might as well go out together. It took a deep breath, and its body swelled even larger.

Angry as she was, Tao Yao called on the same skill she’d once used leaping into a tree to protect a bowl of fish porridge—light as a weightless rabbit, she bounded nimbly across the ice, straight for her target in the river’s middle.

Good thing it had the sense not to run anymore—just stay put and accept death. Though even facing its end, it puffed itself up like a ball about to burst. Was that the rage it had swallowed? Heh. What an ugly creature.

Just as the fish was within reach, at the same instant as Tao Yao’s final leap, the fish sprang up too—or rather, launched itself, its whole body suddenly wrapped in black mist spewed from its own mouth. A pair of small eyes, gone bright red, flashed with vicious, all-or-nothing light within that mist—and then it slammed down hard from midair.

A series of sharp cracks rang out—so loud it seemed the world itself had split.

Tao Yao landed. The ground gave way beneath her feet…

Damn it. Into the water.

She instinctively drew breath—only to find she’d inhaled not water, but… sand.

Wait. Hadn’t that dead fat fish just leapt up and shattered the ice? Where had this sand come from?

She shook her head hard and realized she was lying on a stretch of scorching, hard ground, cracked like a spider’s web from what must have been a long drought.

That thing overhead was the sun, she supposed—though it didn’t quite look right, too red, an eerie red, yet blazing bright, every beam of light seeming to want to burn you alive.

Tao Yao sat up, feeling her palms scald where they pressed against the ground.

This couldn’t be the world beneath the Brocade Scale River. She stood, eyes aching from the glare overhead, and it took a good while before she could adjust enough to look around. Aside from the cracked earth stretching in every direction, there seemed to be a walled city in the distance, grey and black, giving off a hostile air under that strange light.

Besides that, nothing—only endless wasteland, no boundary in sight. There was wind, but no coolness in it, just swirling gusts dragging dry sand and grit along with nowhere to settle.

She must have fallen for the fish’s ultimate technique. Heaven only knew what final trick the creature had unleashed before it died. Tao Yao steadied her breathing and forced herself calm, reining in even her initial fury. Much as she hated to admit it, this time she’d been careless—and reckless too.

This was surely the carp’s specialty—an illusion.

But Young Master Liu wasn’t here. A great serpent-spirit like him, who came and went freely even from the land of the dead, would have no trouble breaking through any barrier meant to trap him. Failing that, even pure-hearted Mo Ya chanting sutras might help—perhaps the illusion could be broken through sheer clarity of mind. Ah, though actually, better not—after the whole Wen Shanhai incident, he’d come off looking rather pathetic; best he stay out of this one. Then again… if Si Kuanglan were here, that unremarkable-looking sword of his seemed rather formidable—it had broken through the Shen family’s illusion in just a couple of strokes. But he wasn’t here either. Even if he were, he might not bother to help—that heartless man wouldn’t even let her eat grilled meat in peace.

Tao Yao shook her head hard. It had barely been any time at all—had the heat already fried her brain? What nonsense was she even thinking?

The greatest power of an illusion was to confound those caught within it, leaving no way out.

But she couldn’t just stand there. After some thought, she decided to head for the walled city.

Walking alone proved exhausting—mostly from the heat and dryness, every inch of skin seeming to dehydrate by the second. A person could survive days without food, but without water, death would come quickly. Yet as far as she could see, there wasn’t even a blade of grass. Besides herself, no other sign of life on the barren land. Food and water existed only in imagination.

The ground wasn’t just scalding underfoot—it was uneven too. She stumbled forward, nearly twisting her ankle several times. Once, her left foot slipped into a crack in the earth, and when she pulled it out, a stark white finger bone was caught around her ankle.

Tao Yao frowned and stamped her foot hard, scattering the bone fragments. Just then a gust of wind swept through, and amid the flying sand and stone, a few ownerless bones, light as chaff, were carried off to who knew where.

The wind was truly hateful, blinding her the moment she let her guard down. Tao Yao covered her eyes and crouched down, waiting a good while until it settled before uncovering them, blinking away tears, spitting out mouthfuls of grit that had blown into her mouth.

Who knew the fat fish had some real tricks up its sleeve—this illusion felt remarkably real.

She snorted, then instinctively glanced back at the crack that had trapped her foot earlier, sensing something wrong. She got down and pressed her face nearly against the crack—then sucked in a cold breath. Beneath the crack wasn’t soil at all, but something like a river wrapped in blood-red magma, flowing at an agonizingly slow, heavy pace, countless white skeletal remains tumbling and sinking within it. It looked scorching hot, yet it was in fact bitterly, bone-deep cold—utterly different from the ground’s surface temperature. At a glance it was impossible to judge how far this “river” lay below the ground—one instant it seemed close, the next impossibly distant, its depth, width, and length unknowable. She only knew that the longer she looked, the more a chill crept up her spine, growing more unbearable by the second.

Tao Yao snapped her head back and scrambled away, unwilling to look into that crack again. She, who never lost her composure before anything eerie, found a fine sheen of cold sweat on her forehead.

She breathed unsteadily, wiping the sweat away with her sleeve, then instinctively glanced around to make sure no one else was present before finally settling down. That moment just now—no one could ever be allowed to witness it, or the dignity of Tao Yao of Peach Capital would be gone for good.

She scrambled to her feet, took a deep breath, and pushed through the worsening heat and thirst, hurrying toward the walled city.

But the closer she got to the city, the stranger the ground beneath her feet became.

Pain. Growing worse by the step.

Tao Yao stopped and looked down. What had been merely uneven ground had begun, at some point, to sprout sharp, needle-like spikes of stone. At first they were short enough that stepping on one barely registered—she might have mistaken it for a pebble underfoot. But the longer she walked, the worse it grew; anyone thick-skinned and slow to notice would eventually find their soles pierced clean through.

She now had to place her feet carefully in the gaps between the spikes, while also studying the path ahead. The city was already in sight, and she could even faintly make out the tightly shut gate—but the path there grew increasingly difficult, the spikes growing longer and denser the further she went. One careless step now risked far more than a punctured sole.

This was truly bizarre. What kind of accursed land grew stone spikes like these? Furious as she was, Tao Yao didn’t dare lose her temper carelessly. She forced herself steady, picking her way through the spikes bit by bit, drawing closer to the city.

Her body felt as if a fire burned ever hotter inside it, while a chill still crawled up her spine—heat and cold torturing her in tandem. Several times she nearly misstepped, and in a haze of near-misses, she finally reached the city gate.

The two towering black wooden doors fit together seamlessly, their surfaces carved with patterns impossible to decipher—more like scrawled talismans than proper decoration. No telling how long this gate had stood here; every groove in its surface bore the marks of windblown sand, without a trace of sheen. Dark and mute, it seemed that even the brightest light could never illuminate it—an impression of bottomless depth.

Characters were carved atop the gate too, though whether from shallow carving or the heavy coating of dust, only the last character could be made out—prison.

Prison?!

Could this walled city be some kind of jail?

Tao Yao licked her dry lips, thinking that the strangeness all around did fit that word. If not to keep prisoners from escaping, why the sealed gate, why the dense spikes? She knew this place was an illusion, but illusions were born of reality—somewhere in the world there had to exist a place much like this. Looking again at the brutal weather and environment, this was clearly no dwelling meant for ordinary people.

That wretched fat fish—sending her into a hell like this out of pure spite!

Cursing it under her breath, Tao Yao steeled herself and, not without difficulty, finally reached the gate.

Truly enormous doors—craning her neck to see the top made it ache.

But there seemed to be movement behind the gate, sounds of considerable commotion, as if a marketplace were hidden beyond.

She walked up, placing both hands on the gate, meaning to press her ear against it—only to find something off beneath her palms. What had looked like a solid gate rippled like water the instant she touched it, and leaning against it felt like leaning into a formless current. Even the gate’s color shifted, from bottomless black to clear water—actual clear water, through which she could see everything beyond.

It truly was a marketplace, except every building was an unsettling blood-red, tinged with faint black mist, each one square and windowless. At a glance, they looked like giant boxes splashed with blood, stacked together in oppressive rows—unbearable to look at for even a moment. Anyone living in such “houses” would surely go mad sooner or later.

A road, equally blood-red, split the buildings in two, the ground uneven. Some people walked, some ran, some lay as if dead off to the side, each wrapped in cloth black as storm clouds, releasing what looked like black mist with every step, concealing them so completely that neither face nor gender nor age could be told.

The city was, in fact, quite “lively”—beyond those moving on their own, some were fighting. One person, being beaten, lay pinned to the ground, clutching something tightly to their chest, while a dozen or so others showed no mercy, fists and feet raining down like a storm. Some even held knives—had the one being beaten not managed to dodge in time, the blade would already have found their skull or throat.

“Save me… save me!!”

The one cornered with no way out finally let out a cry, voice breaking into sobs.

Huh. A girl’s voice, it seemed.

But what use was crying for help? Those people clearly meant to take her life.

Tao Yao watched as the girl finally fought her way free of the crowd, spending her last strength to run to the gate, pounding on it, screaming: “Open the door! Open the door! I want out! I can’t hold on!”

The black cloth hid her face, but it didn’t stop Tao Yao from feeling her despair and terror.

Truly unlucky—a young girl, surrounded and beaten by a mob. What grudge could warrant this?

“Save me! Please, I beg you! Whoever you are, save me!”

The girl’s sobs grew louder, genuinely pitiful to hear. Behind her, that vicious mob had nearly caught up.

Whoosh!

A vicious blade slashed toward her, and Tao Yao, though separated by the gate, instinctively flinched and stepped back.

She could have sworn she felt the killing intent stir the hair at her forehead. Strange—was this gate nothing but an empty prop, as far as she was concerned? Well, it was an illusion. Anything strange was possible.

She stepped forward again. By now the girl behind the gate had been kicked to the ground, her attackers all larger than her, showing not the slightest mercy—if anything, hitting harder than before. She fought back, but compared to the assault, her resistance barely counted.

The whole time, she clung desperately to something held against her chest. What could it be? Now Tao Yao was curious.

If the girl really were beaten to death, she’d never learn the answer. Illusion or not, she couldn’t help her own curiosity.

The thought had barely crossed her mind when, just as the girl inside was punched to the ground, her back against the gate with nowhere left to flee, Tao Yao suddenly held her breath, gathered all her strength into her right hand, let out a great shout like some martial arts master, and punched the gate—only to overcommit, her whole upper body lurching forward with the blow, and she found herself passing clean through the gate, half her body outside and half inside, appearing before everyone on the other side.

No time to think it over. She grabbed the girl’s hand and said, “Come with me!”

Then she silently prayed the gate would hold its earlier temperament on the way back—otherwise, if it turned solid again, she’d be stuck halfway through. Just imagining that kind of humiliation was unbearable.

Thankfully, no humiliation followed. She slipped back through smoothly, dragging the girl out along with her.

Judging by how poorly the girl must have been living, and though her build was hidden, she was clearly quite frail—it took almost no effort to pull her free.

The moment they escaped, several blades slashed through where they’d just been—only to strike nothing but the thick, solid wood of the gate.

Furious roars rose up from within. Those inside had no way to deal with this gate.

Tao Yao let out a breath, stood, and said to the girl still trembling and huddled on the ground before her: “It’s all right now. They can’t get out.”

“Thank you… thank you…” The girl kowtowed desperately. “Thank you, immortal, for saving me!”

“I’m no immortal, just a passerby.” Tao Yao reached to help her up. “Can you still stand?”

“Thank you, immortal, for saving me!” She seemed too shaken to say anything else, body still trembling, refusing to rise even when helped.

“Ugh, fine, fine, I’m an immortal then.” Tao Yao gave up. “Who are you, really? Why were they trying to kill you? And what is this place?”

“I can’t come here! I can never come here!” She shuddered, growing more incoherent. “Have to live, only by living can I get out! I must live!”

Poor thing, terrified out of her wits.

“You’re alive. Didn’t I just get you out?” Tao Yao patted her head, then teased, “Aren’t you hot, wrapped in all these thick clothes?”

“Did I get out… did I really get out?” The girl began to weep softly, then slowly stood, staring down at her feet for a long moment—before suddenly bolting forward without any regard for anything.

“Hey! Wait!” Tao Yao was nearly knocked off balance by the girl’s sudden burst of strength. The child must have gone mad—couldn’t she see the ground ahead was covered in stone spikes!

She truly couldn’t see, or simply no longer cared. Every step she took forward should have been agony, the spikes tearing straight through her ragged shoe soles.

Yet she ran as if she felt no pain at all, still racing with everything she had, away from the city.

Blood marked the ground behind her.

“She’s lost her mind!” Tao Yao winced just watching, but there was no time to spare—she rushed after her, picking up speed while trying not to get pierced herself, no easy task. In the end, unable to bear it any longer, she summoned all her strength and used the one skill she was actually good at, skimming across the spikes like a dragonfly touching water, finally catching up to the fleeing girl. Just before her feet gave out entirely, Tao Yao grabbed her hand and leapt high, carrying them both out of the spikes’ reach in flight.

It was truly exhausting—every demon in the world knew that Tao Yao of Peach Capital, however formidable, was only skilled with medicine; when it came to actual combat, she was rather embarrassing. This leaping, bounding “lightness technique” was about the peak of her ability, self-taught back in her Peach Capital days from play-fighting with Young Master Liu over food. As far as she was concerned, that one trick was enough—fighting wasn’t necessary. Anyone truly out to kill her would likely be dead before they got the chance; if she couldn’t win, she’d run. Running well mattered more than fighting well. Besides, there was always Young Master Liu.

But even lightness technique took effort, especially in her weakened state, hot and parched, throat practically on fire, and now dragging along a foolish girl besides…

Once safely away, Tao Yao sat down hard on the ground, panting like an ox, and looked at the girl beside her. “You… really don’t feel pain, do you… are your eyes blind…”

“I have to run, I can’t stay there anymore!” The girl knelt on the ground, still clutching whatever she treasured as her own life to her chest, repeating the same words over and over. “Have to live to get away! Live!”

“You’re alive now.” Tao Yao stared at her. “Were those people trying to take what’s in your arms?”

The girl clutched it tighter and nodded.

“What is it?” Tao Yao leaned closer. “Gold and jewels?”

The girl shook her head.

“Can I see it?” Tao Yao leaned in further, grinning. “I won’t take it.”

The girl hesitated a long moment before finally, slowly, loosening her grip, then carefully pulling out a filthy white porcelain bottle from her chest, its cracked mouth stopped with a blackened wooden plug.

Her first thought was that the bottle held some life-restoring elixir—but if it were truly such a treasure, would anyone stuff it into a shabby little bottle like this?

Tao Yao wanted to take the bottle, but worried that handling it carelessly might set the deranged girl off again, so she kept her hands still and asked curiously, “What’s inside? Something to eat?”

The girl shook her head again, then finally said, after a long pause, “It’s… water… this year’s… rainwater.”

“Water?” Tao Yao couldn’t hold back any longer and snatched the bottle away, shaking it first—yes, the sound of liquid sloshing—then pulling the plug and sniffing. It really was water, though not particularly clean, carrying an indescribable rotten odor.

What kind of treasure was this, worth guarding with one’s life? Just a bottle of foul water…

The girl sprang up at once, lunging to snatch it back. “Give it back!”

Tao Yao stepped away. “Tell me what this water actually is first. Once I understand, I’ll give it back.”

“It’s rainwater! Water that keeps us alive!” the girl said urgently. “Without it we can’t survive! Give it back!”

“Still not clear enough.” Tao Yao pursed her lips. “Do you mean the people where you’re from survive on this stinking water, and fight to the death over it?”

The girl went from anxious to furious, pouncing on Tao Yao like a small tiger, grappling with her.

Huh. Her savior, and already ungrateful?

Tao Yao found this quite amusing—getting beaten half to death for a bottle of rainwater, then turning around to attack someone else over it too…

In terms of skill, Tao Yao still had the edge.

“All right, stop it, stop it, or I’ll get mad!” Tao Yao shook her off several times, but the girl wouldn’t quit.

“You really don’t know when to stop, girl. I saved your life, and this is how you thank me!” After dodging once more, Tao Yao tossed the bottle back to her. “Here, take it. I’m done fooling around.”

The porcelain bottle arced through the air; the girl, seeing it, hurried to catch it. The moment it landed safely in her hands, a gust of wind swept through, suddenly lifting the cloth covering her face, revealing a dirty, gaunt face beneath.

With her experience, Tao Yao had seen the fiercest, ugliest of demons without ever flinching—yet the sight of this face, exposed now to the light, made her stumble back several steps, losing her balance and falling to the ground, her expression changing utterly, lips draining of color, trembling uncontrollably: “You… you’re… you’re…”

What she really wanted to say was—why are you me?!

That face, dirty and thin as it was, had features unchanged—this half-dead, mad girl, willing to fight to the death over a bottle of rainwater, this fool—why did she look exactly like her?!

Tao Yao’s breath and heartbeat both stopped in that instant. Why was she suddenly this afraid… a fear utterly beyond her control. She was the fearless-under-heaven Tao Yao!

Time passed, how long she couldn’t say, only the wind howling in her ears. Tao Yao’s vision refused to focus, seeing only that woman clutching her porcelain bottle with joyful relief—in her arms, not a bottle of water, but the only stake she had on staying alive.

“Who are you, really?” Tao Yao never thought she’d see the day she’d feel the same panic as the countless demons who’d fallen before her.

No answer came in the wind, only a voice repeating: “Have to live… must live.”

“WHO ARE YOU?!!” Tao Yao’s head suddenly split with pain, not just her head—heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, all aching, her body feeling as if it would tear apart.

Strange tremors rose from beneath her feet, worse than any earthquake, cracks racing outward in every direction. What had been safe ground was safe no longer—she felt her body go weightless, her heart plunging along with it, and she fell straight into a crevasse wide enough to swallow her whole.

So cold!

She must have fallen into that underground river she’d glimpsed earlier—looking like molten magma yet colder than ten thousand years of ice.

Though her shoulders remained above the surface, the surging sense of death had already seized every inch of her soul, followed swiftly by an inescapable suffocation.

Within the “river water,” countless skeletons drifted past, their hollow eyes empty of feeling or fear, flowing onward as if long accustomed to such sights, their unshakable calm seeming to say, “Don’t worry, soon you’ll be just like us”…

No, no, this wasn’t right, this was only an illusion—an illusion couldn’t actually kill her!

She summoned the last of her clarity, closed her eyes, and told herself: Tao Yao, calm down, this is all the carp’s trick, there’s no river, no bones, you’re still you—open your eyes, and everything will return to normal!

Deep breath. Open eyes.

Nothing had changed…

Tao Yao watched herself sink slowly deeper into the “river,” shoulders, then neck, forced to crane her head back just to breathe. Her feet felt weighed down by a thousand pounds, some invisible monster dragging at them, determined to take her down with it.

Her consciousness grew hazier, the skeletons drifting past and the glowing red water tangling together into strange, chaotic lines before her eyes.

But—what was that?

Was that a boat approaching in the distance? But why did its hull look like black stone—wouldn’t something that heavy sink?

How strange, everything else had gone blurry, yet this boat alone was perfectly clear.

It came steady and swift, as if nothing in the world could stop it.

Yet still she sank, the river finally closing over her head, leaving only one hand, refusing to yield, breaking the surface.

If fate hadn’t decided she should die, would someone, in this final moment, take her hand…

Someone did.

A long-missed warmth passed from another palm into hers, spreading from a point to a line, pulling her fully awake from the fog of near-death.

The tangled lines seemed to smooth out all at once, gathering above her into a gently rippling stretch of clear water—no searing red, no countless bones, just clean water.

Above the surface, someone leaned out from the boat, reaching down, gripping her firmly.

This person looked so familiar—she was sure she’d seen him somewhere before. The silver-white robe suited him beautifully, like an immortal descended from the heavens, even his hair seeming to shine.

She stared blankly up at the figure above her, feeling the strength in his hand. If this person had appeared, did that mean she wouldn’t drown after all?

It seemed so, and that certainty grew stronger by the moment.

She instinctively gripped his hand tighter, a smile tugging unbidden at the corners of her mouth.

Of course she’d smile. She was safe now, wasn’t she?

A rushing sound filled her ears; she felt herself rising, lighter than she’d ever been, and after a brief moment of floating, finally settled into a solid, steady embrace…

On the still snow-battered Brocade Scale River, the long silence of the frozen surface shattered with a sudden crack, ice fragments scattering and clattering in every direction as a man in silver-white robes leapt from the water, cradling the unconscious girl in his arms, and landed steadily on the riverbank.

Not far from them stood a figure in a bamboo hat and straw rain cape—though “stood” wasn’t quite accurate, since he wasn’t corporeal at all, merely a translucent apparition.

Setting Tao Yao down gently, Si Kuanglan checked her breathing, let out a breath, then glanced down at his own soaked clothes and murmured, “Always causing trouble.”

The apparition remained where it was, watching them in silence.

Si Kuanglan didn’t look at it either, simply spoke to the air: “My thanks. She’s got her life back.”

The apparition paused a moment longer, then vanished without a trace.

Si Kuanglan rose, retrieved his cloak from nearby, and wrapped the unconscious Tao Yao in it. Glancing back at the river, he saw that beyond the ice he’d broken through, the unshattered surface bore a scattering of black specks—remnants of something that had exploded, still giving off a scorched, foul smell.

He frowned in distaste and carried her away.

Mmm, so comfortable, this warmth, just right, like it was reminding her of spring in full bloom.

But something felt off with her body—she couldn’t quite move, and was she dizzy? The world seemed to be spinning.

Tao Yao struggled to open her eyes, and the first thing that met her gaze was tree shadows swaying beneath the night sky. From this angle, the weather seemed to have improved—the snow had stopped, and a thin, delicate crescent moon hung faintly behind gauzy clouds.

But she didn’t feel like she was lying on the ground—so why was her view at this angle?

And as her mind cleared further, why did the warmth on her back feel like a bit too much?

She twisted around to look and let out a startled cry—there was a roaring bonfire blazing right beneath her!

Wait—now she understood why she couldn’t move. Some bastard had tied her whole body to a thick tree trunk raised several feet off the ground, and worse, kept turning the trunk in its stone groove like a piece of meat on a spit, rolling her round and round to heat evenly.

“Si Kuanglan!!” she roared. “Do you not want to live!”

Sitting by another fire, Si Kuanglan didn’t even glance at her, simply pushed the trunk another turn with a flick of his palm.

“Ugh, no, no, I’m dizzy! I’m going to be sick!” Tao Yao shouted.

“Are your clothes dry yet?” Si Kuanglan finally turned his gaze to her.

“Forget dry—I’m about to be cooked through!” Tao Yao thrashed furiously.

Si Kuanglan nodded, picked up a sharp stone from the ground, flicked it at the rope binding her to the trunk, and simultaneously struck out with a palm of force.

Tao Yao let out a shriek as the rope snapped—and at the same instant, the fire beneath was snuffed out entirely by the gust from his palm. Poor Tao Yao fell hard into a pile of hot, blackened ash. Her wet clothes were dry now, at least, but when she climbed to her feet, she’d become a soot-faced spectacle fit to make anyone laugh.

“Have you lost your mind!” she snapped, brushing herself off furiously. “I’m not your deer meat!”

“Men and women shouldn’t touch so casually. I could hardly strip your clothes off to dry them.” Si Kuanglan said, perfectly serious. “This spot happens to have large rocks on either side with natural grooves—perfect as a frame. Fortunately you’re not too plump, or I might not have managed a better solution. In this cold, if you don’t get the damp out of you quickly, you’ll likely lose half your life at least.”

Only Si Kuanglan could describe such an outrageous act as “I was clearly helping you, and you should count yourself blessed instead of complaining that you didn’t kneel and thank me.”

Tao Yao was beside herself with fury, stalking up to him in two steps. “Si Kuanglan, if you find me so displeasing, you’re welcome to throw me out of the Si estate. No need to torment me by other means!”

“When have I ever tormented you?” Si Kuanglan poked at the fire before him.

“You… who roasts a person like meat on a spit!” Tao Yao stamped her foot.

Si Kuanglan smiled. “I’ve always had excellent control over such matters.”

“You…” Tao Yao nearly choked on his nonchalant reply, unable to find a sharper retort. Fighting him wasn’t an option either—she couldn’t win. The great Ghost Physician of Peach Capital, a figure ten thousand demons feared, reduced to helplessness by a mere young master of the mortal world—what kind of logic was that!

No, she had to vent this somehow!

Her expression shifted, and she suddenly lunged at Si Kuanglan like some vengeful spirit, rubbing her filthy clothes all over him from every angle without restraint. Wasn’t he always in white? Always spotless? Ha, not anymore.

Si Kuanglan neither dodged nor resisted, letting her vent until she ran out of energy herself, sitting down nearby, panting. Only then did he glance down at his own thoroughly ruined robes and chuckle. “Is this how they treat their saviors back home?”

“You call yourself my savior!” The words burst out before Tao Yao could stop them—only to immediately feel she’d misspoken. Caught up in arguing about the roasting incident, she’d nearly managed to forget that harrowing ordeal entirely.

The bonfire crackled and popped, sparks flying, stirring up the memory Tao Yao had briefly lost.

The eerie molten river, the drifting bones, the walled city marked only with the character for “prison”—and most terrifying of all, the girl who’d risked her life for a bottle of water, the girl who wore her own face.

She sat frozen, firelight dancing in her suddenly blank eyes.

The fear from before still lingered somewhere deep inside her—even recalling just a fragment of it made her heart clench with pain.

Noticing her sudden shift in expression, Si Kuanglan asked, “Can you die?”

Tao Yao snapped back to herself, distracted. “What did you say?”

“Can you die?” Si Kuanglan repeated.

Tao Yao blinked—by her nature she should have snapped back at him, but for some reason she fell silent for a long moment, then answered seriously: “Yes.”

Si Kuanglan smiled again. “Then, since you’re not immortal, my position as your savior stands firm.”

Tao Yao glared at him for a moment, then reluctantly muttered, “Earlier… in the river… what exactly happened?”

“By the time I reached the riverbank, you’d already vanished,” Si Kuanglan said, unhurried. “The frozen surface had only a single crack—wide enough, by my estimate, to fit your body through. Beside the opening was a scattering of something like minced flesh, quite foul-smelling.”

Tao Yao ground her teeth. “Who’d have thought that dead fat fish would be so vicious—unable to beg for mercy, it blew itself up to take me down with it. Hateful as it was, I suppose it had some spine. Pah, as if a fish could have spine.”

Seeing her puffed-up, indignant expression, Si Kuanglan smiled and reached out to poke her cheek. “Looking at you now, your bloated black face isn’t so different from that fish demon’s.”

“Don’t poke my face! Men and women shouldn’t touch so casually!” Tao Yao, too annoyed to think straight, swatted his hand away.

“Weren’t you the one who boasted that every demon under heaven fears you? And yet a mere fish got the better of you?” Si Kuanglan withdrew his hand, perhaps not even realizing himself why he’d made such a small, intimate gesture so naturally—probably because her face had looked too ridiculous.

Tao Yao didn’t argue back, instead looking rather deflated. “My own carelessness. I never expected that fat fish to be so fierce, willing to drag me down with its own life.”

She paused, then continued, “The illusions a carp-spirit weaves, their realism and their power over others, depend on their age and cultivation. This one’s cultivation was fairly low—otherwise its own life wouldn’t have been tied to the river. But I never expected that once it went mad and gambled everything, swelling its body to the extreme before exploding, the demonic power behind that final illusion would be so formidable.”

“Even you got trapped by it?” Si Kuanglan added a few dry branches to the fire. “You looked completely senseless in the water. Quite like a dead red fish.”

She doubted she’d ever hear a kind word out of Si Kuanglan’s mouth in this lifetime. She refused to believe she’d looked like nothing but a dead fish after falling in—surely, drifting there in her red robes, she must have resembled a graceful red flower falling leisurely instead! But none of that was the point. The point was, she really had fallen for the carp’s vicious trap, caught in an inescapable nightmare—if Si Kuanglan hadn’t come for her, she’d likely have suffocated twice over, in both reality and illusion. No wonder they said the carp’s illusion arts were unmatched under heaven—she’d been submerged in freezing river water the whole time without the slightest awareness, feeling instead unbearable heat. Its final goal had been to let her lose her life without ever realizing it—like someone freezing to death in the snow, drifting off into a dream that had nothing to do with cold.

But something didn’t add up. She sat up straight and stared at Si Kuanglan. “You found me the moment you entered the water? That’s not right—the carp’s power hadn’t dissipated yet, and I hadn’t broken free of the illusion. You’re just a mortal—by rights you shouldn’t have been able to see me. We were close together in that moment, yet in two entirely different worlds. Who exactly are—”

“Someone came with me,” Si Kuanglan yawned. “He said that without bringing him along, I might not have found what was lost.”

Tao Yao’s eyes widened in surprise. “There was a third party helping?”

“Not sure that counts as a ‘person’…”

The fire burned brighter, crackling steadily—perhaps the only sound capable of offering comfort in weather this cold.

Dawn was breaking; along the White Sparrow River, the wind wailed like weeping. This hour was surely the coldest of the day.

The figure in bamboo hat and straw cape still sat calmly on his rock, his fishing line cast into water that never froze—though whether there were any fish hardly mattered, since he’d never been fishing for that reason in the first place.

Tao Yao circled the stone fisherman several times, sniffing at him thoroughly before finally clicking her tongue. “So you really are a Water Warden—that same ancient, unchanging musty smell…”

Si Kuanglan stood three paces from the bluestone figure, studying it without speaking.

“You wouldn’t know what a Water Warden is.” Tao Yao glanced at Si Kuanglan. “Those in the Celestial Realm who commit minor offenses are sentenced to serve as guardian spirits in the mortal world, protecting a small patch of land—their term unfixed until served, forbidden to speak, made to reflect on their wrongs.”

“Guardian spirits?” Si Kuanglan smiled. “First I’ve heard of it.”

“Guardian spirit is just a general term.” Tao Yao pursed her lips. “Those sentenced to serve as guardians in the mortal world are almost always divine birds, spirit beasts, or minor celestial officials without much rank from the Heavenly Realm. Those sent to guard rivers become Water Wardens; those sent to guard mountains become Mountain Wardens; and the unluckiest ones end up guarding tombs. Whenever you see some unexplained stone beast or iron ox in the mountains or by the water, nine times out of ten it’s some unlucky soul serving out a sentence from the Heavens. Guardian spirits take many forms, but whatever form they hold, they cannot move on their own, nor can they speak. Imagine living like this for thousands of years—might as well just be killed outright and be done with it.”

Si Kuanglan just laughed and shook his head. “Perhaps not as you imagine. This Water Warden’s days look rather leisurely to me—sunlight, moonlight, mountains and rivers through the seasons, no need to struggle or compete with anyone, nothing but the peaceful passage of time. Many would envy such a life.”

Tao Yao shot him a look. “Almost forgot you’re cut from the same cloth as them—reading military texts for hours without moving a muscle. Might as well change your name to Household Warden.”

A soft laugh drifted out of nowhere.

“Who’s there?!”

Tao Yao spun around alert, only to see the stone fisherman—who had shown no reaction to their arrival this entire time—stretch lazily, and then a second apparition, identical to him, separated from his body and drifted lightly down before them.

“I had no wish to be seen, but as it is Lady Tao Yao, propriety demands I come out and offer thanks.” With that, the apparition dropped to both knees and bowed deeply to Tao Yao.

The sudden formal bow left Tao Yao rather flustered. “There’s no need for such ceremony. I should be the one thanking you.”

The apparition finished the full bow regardless, offered another word of thanks, then rose and said earnestly, “I’ve expressed my gratitude. If Lady Tao Yao wishes to thank me in turn, there’s no need for grand gestures—simply grant me one request.”

“Huh?” Whatever goodwill Tao Yao had felt toward him vanished instantly. Kowtowing in thanks apparently came with strings attached? And more to the point—why was he thanking her at all, when it should be the reverse?

She looked him over again. “Explain first why you’re thanking me. Aren’t we only just meeting now?”

The apparition gazed at the White Sparrow River flowing beside them and said slowly, “The Brocade Scale River’s waters have been drying up day by day—that was my doing. Feng Sheng tried to draw water to relieve the drought, and it was I who injured her flesh. A Water Warden’s power is limited; my true form cannot leave the White Sparrow River.” He paused, his tone turning suddenly cold and resolute. “If the carp were to face justice, it could hardly be accomplished by my strength alone. Had Lady Tao Yao not acted today, there’s no telling how much longer that demon would have gone on causing harm. Deceiving that foolish little maple-spirit Feng Sheng into wasting her life away praying for rain to keep the water flowing—it truly deserved death.”

Hearing this, Tao Yao said nothing.

If that were the case… then everything made sense.

A gust of wind happened to blow through just then, scattering the doubt from her mind.

Though Tao Yao felt somewhat embarrassed by the phrase “acted,” she supposed she hadn’t done it for nothing—had she not driven the carp to its final desperate end, the demon might not have died so completely.

“That carp wasn’t very old, was it,” Tao Yao said suddenly.

“Twenty years ago, after the entire village of Huilong perished from plague, all the bodies were burned to ash and scattered into the Brocade Scale River. The following year, that demon was born from its waters,” the apparition sighed. “Feng Sheng never had any intention of leaving Huilong Village. I often see her wandering alone along the riverbank, murmuring to herself—sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, sometimes dressing herself up as Ming Shan and stroking her own head. In those days, she was either by the White Sparrow River reliving the memory of Ming Shan carrying her to escape, or asleep among the wild grass by the Brocade Scale River. I thought time would eventually heal her, but I never expected the carp to exploit her vulnerability. That demon must have targeted her long ago, knowing exactly where her heart’s wound lay—a small illusion was enough to win her complete devotion, willing to exhaust her own life to preserve the already-drying Brocade Scale River. I watched it happen and could do nothing. Seeing Feng Sheng grow weaker by the day, I finally resolved that even at the cost of breaking Heaven’s law again, I would hasten the river’s drying—once the water ran dry, the carp’s foundation would collapse, and it would surely die. Only that could stop Feng Sheng from continuing to throw her life away.”

Si Kuanglan, listening, showed a look of admiration. “So it seems that carp was quite formidable after all—born only a few years ago, yet already capable of weaving illusions to bewitch minds, enough to nearly fool even outsiders like us.”

“Hardly that formidable!” Tao Yao shot him a look. “Without even thinking about it, I can tell that carp probably only managed to conjure a living, breathing Huilong Village for Feng Sheng alone. To make it visible to the two of us as well, it must have spent everything it had—how much vital energy would it take to affect us both at once? It went all out putting on this show, otherwise how could it fool us into dealing with the ‘river demon’ of the White Sparrow River on its behalf. Calling that formidable—if this counts as impressive, where would that leave the truly great demons!”

“But it very nearly cost you your life, Lady Tao Yao.” Si Kuanglan smiled.

“You…” Of all things to bring up. Tao Yao flushed red, wishing she could dig a hole and disappear into it.

Seeing this, the apparition hastily interjected, “Lady Tao Yao, there’s no need for anger. Small as the carp was, its harm ran deep—neither gods nor mortals could have easily guarded against it. There’s no shame in falling for its scheme.” He glanced toward Si Kuanglan. “I watched as you were trapped by the carp’s final trick, seen but unreachable—fortunately this young master followed close behind, and without a moment’s hesitation, entered the water to save you despite the bitter cold. If Lady Tao Yao truly wishes to thank someone for saving her life, it should be this young master. I merely pointed the way for him in the water—hardly the primary hero here.”

Entered the water without a moment’s hesitation… Tao Yao glanced at Si Kuanglan, who still wore that same unruffled expression, as indifferent to being thanked or not as if what he’d fished out truly had been nothing more than a half-dead fish.

“Probably just afraid I’d drown and there’d be no one left to feed his horses and do his chores…” Tao Yao muttered.

Si Kuanglan surely heard her; the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, though he said nothing either way.

Suddenly, the apparition knelt again. “Lady Tao Yao, I have never in my existence asked anything of another—but I beg you, heal Feng Sheng. That girl’s attachment runs too deep; without letting go of the past, she has no future.”

Tao Yao fell silent for a moment, thinking to help him up, but never quite extended her hand.

“She’s spent too much of herself. Her days are numbered.”

Speaking of this matter, Tao Yao finally recovered the composure and dignity of the Ghost Physician of Peach Capital.

“You always have a way.” The apparition refused to give up. “In matters of medicine, none under heaven surpass the Ghost Physician of Peach Capital. I don’t ask for eternal life—even ten or twenty more years, even just a few months, so long as her heart’s knot is finally undone, however long remains would be worth it.”

Tao Yao considered this, studying him again. “And what can you offer me? Since you know who I am, you know my rule. Only what has value can become my medicine—earn the right to be saved by me. You’re merely a Water Warden. To even venture nearby or speak a word, you need to project your spirit out of your body. Beyond weakly manipulating the river’s flow, you have essentially no other ability. Your true form is just a rock—no medicinal value whatsoever.”

The more she spoke, the more dejected things sounded—even the apparition himself seemed to lose heart, as if she wasn’t wrong.

“Why Feng Sheng?” Tao Yao asked suddenly. “You haven’t been here a short time. You must have seen no shortage of humans and demons with stories worth telling. Why is she the only one you’d protect with your life?”

The apparition raised his head, and after a long moment, answered, “She is Ming Shan’s sister—her daughter.”

Understanding dawned on Tao Yao. So the root of it all traced back to that woman who existed now only in memory—Ming Shan’s mother.

Had she not already passed from this world, Tao Yao would have been quite curious to meet her—someone who’d give a rock a bamboo hat and straw cape, thinking of its loneliness, even bringing it a fishing rod to pass the time, wasn’t someone you found often.

And likewise, a rock that would remember such a gift—a hat, a cape, a fishing rod—for so many years, willing to risk Heaven’s law again, drying out a river to save someone, wasn’t something you found often either.

“If the Heavenly Realm learns of this, you’ll likely be stuck here another ten thousand years at least.” Tao Yao pursed her lips, then turned to Si Kuanglan. “It’s nearly dawn. We should go.”

“Wait… Lady Tao Yao!” The apparition panicked, drifting forward to block her path.

“You can’t stop me anyway.” Tao Yao simply walked straight through his form, then turned back to stick out her tongue. “Farewell!”

“Lady Tao Yao!!”

Across the White Sparrow River, a seam split open in the sky, revealing a faint gold light.

The wind still blew strong, the cold still lingered—but today’s weather, at least, should be far better than yesterday’s.

In the carriage on the way back, Tao Yao clutched her medicine pouch, sighing repeatedly, occasionally pounding her chest in frustration.

“Giving it away and then regretting it—no different from gambling and refusing to pay up.” Si Kuanglan, flipping through his military treatise, didn’t even look up.

Honestly, this man—wherever he went, he had to bring along that military treatise he never seemed to finish reading!

“Do you know how much effort, how much time it took me to make that pill!” Tao Yao stamped her foot, heartbroken enough to want to roll on the floor. “And I just… just gave it away to that useless little demon with no value at all!”

“I saw with my own eyes you raised her hand and shook on it, clearly declaring that from now on she’d be your medicine—though not much use, if some day you need a rain-summoning ingredient, you’ll just have to accept it.”

Si Kuanglan looked rather elegant flipping through his book, but did he really have to talk while doing it? Every time he opened his mouth it was insufferable.

Tao Yao huffed. “I couldn’t break my own rule, could I. You know very well the condition for me to lend a hand is that you become my medicine.”

“I didn’t know that.” Si Kuanglan turned another page. “After all, you’re only a servant of my household. I only care whether you tend the horses and handle your chores properly—not who you choose to make your medicine.”

Tao Yao felt her status trampled on all over again, snapping irritably, “You don’t have the qualifications to become my medicine even if you wanted to.”

“Much obliged. I’ve no interest in that honor.”

Once everything had settled, Si Kuanglan returned to his usual self, and though Tao Yao remained irritated, she couldn’t help stealing glances at him. What stayed with her most, from the moment she’d escaped the Brocade Scale River—though she’d been unconscious for most of it—was the warmth she still remembered. Yes, warmth: whether it was the hand that gripped hers, or the chest she’d leaned against, both had been searingly warm.

And yet, only a day later, that person who’d dived without hesitation into the freezing river to pull her out, who’d tied her to a tree trunk to dry her clothes by fire, who’d naturally reached out to poke her cheek—that person seemed to have vanished along with the sunrise…

Warmth? What warmth…

Never mind. This was who he really was—the Si Estate’s second young master, the Little King of Hell of the Imperial Capital.

But she still mourned that pill—given to some other great demon, who knew what benefits it might have bought her! Instead wasted on that useless Feng Sheng.

Most humiliating of all was that the foolish girl had refused to take it at first, still struggling to go find the carp.

Tao Yao slapped her hard across the face.

“Someone was willing to be imprisoned another ten thousand years just so you could live. And you, chasing after a false hope, are throwing your life away instead.” Tao Yao looked down coldly at the stunned girl. “Everyone in Huilong Village is long dead, including your father Old Shen and your brother Ming Shan. You could have ten thousand carp weave you illusions, and they’d still be dead, not even ashes left. What you cling to so tightly was never really yours to hold in the first place.”

She froze, tears spilling over, both hands striking her own head hard, sobbing, “I want them back! I just want them back! Without them by my side, I don’t know what to do, every day alone, every day so hard!”

“Then get over it.” Tao Yao remained unmoved, looking down at her. “Before you ever met them, weren’t you living just fine alone?”

Her sobbing suddenly caught, red, swollen eyes lifting to meet Tao Yao’s.

“You can’t only gain and never lose—there’s no such thing in this world.” Tao Yao crouched down, meeting her eyes directly. “Ming Shan carried you all that way to save you, and it turns out you’re just a waste of his effort. The Shen family’s rice was wasted on you.”

She stood frozen a long while, then lowered her head, gripping her own clothes tightly, tears falling one by one onto them. “I just miss them so much.”

“Then you have to live to keep missing them.” Tao Yao remained cold, extending her hand, a red pill glowing faintly in her palm. “Eat it or don’t. Your choice. Once I leave, you can wait to die on your own.”

Dealing with such a simple-minded little demon took hardly any effort at all.

“Will I see them again…”

That was the last thing she said before swallowing the pill.

You won’t, Tao Yao thought to herself, but even if not them, there would be others—so long as you live.

Si Kuanglan had watched the whole exchange as a silent bystander, until he saw Feng Sheng drift into sleep, her body shrinking into a small maple sapling.

“Bury it?” he asked.

“Bury it,” she answered.

So it was carried to the bank of the White Sparrow River and buried not far from the Water Warden.

“Perhaps in ten years she’ll wake, perhaps a hundred. With enough rest, maybe her temper will improve, and she’ll look better too.” She spoke to the empty air.

In the bright sunlight, the apparition slowly descended from the bluestone, standing before the little maple sapling, bowing deeply toward her.

She glanced sideways at him, lips parting as if to ask something more, but in the end let it go.

She turned away, waving a hand in farewell, no need to see her off—best if they never met again, honestly, since this place was rather a humiliation for her…

From now on, with both stone and tree by the riverside, the scenery would be a little less lonely, at least.

But that pill—it really had been so valuable. Sigh…

The carriage rolled on, fast and steady, Tao Yao leaning deliberately with her back to Si Kuanglan, mentally calculating how much longer until they reached the Imperial Capital, back to the Si Estate with its food and comfort.

“You wanted to ask, but didn’t—what crime the Water Warden committed to be sentenced to the mortal world, and whether his feelings toward the Shen girl were truly nothing more than simple gratitude?” Si Kuanglan’s voice came from behind her.

Tao Yao didn’t move, taking a long moment before answering. “Asking or not makes no difference now. Perhaps they shared some bond long before. There are countless stones in this world—why would she come to feel such fondness for that particular one? A Water Warden, stationed at the White Sparrow River for ten thousand years, might have been waiting all along for someone to pass by again—even just to catch a glimpse would be enough to lay a lingering longing to rest.” She shrugged. “So who knows. The past belongs to other people. He can keep his own to himself.”

Si Kuanglan smiled, then changed the subject. “And the illusion that trapped you—will you tell me about that, too?”

Tao Yao’s breath caught for a moment.

The illusion that trapped you—won’t you tell me about it?

Trapped by…

Tao Yao, have you ever been through an especially difficult time?

It took her a good while to recover, and she still didn’t look at him, turning her body even further away instead.

“Nothing but some nonsense demon chaos. What kind of impressive illusion could a small carp really weave?”

“Oh…” Si Kuanglan nodded and went back to his book.

He had no intention of telling her that, as he’d carried her out of the Brocade Scale River, half-conscious as she was, she’d clung to him tightly, repeating over and over the same words—save me!

She’d said it right, though. The past belongs to other people. She could keep her own to herself.

Si Kuanglan’s gaze drifted from the page, settling without a trace on that slender back before him.

He found himself thinking, suddenly, that the girl who fought him over grilled meat was rather more interesting after all.

As noon approached, the sunlight grew ever brighter. In Muzhou, the snow was likely melting at last.