Cang Lan Dao – Chapter 1

The winter of the thirteenth year of Changshun was exceptionally cold. The bitter wind howled through the windows above the holding cell, blowing fiercely into the prison, forcing everyone to huddle together for warmth. Only one young woman remained apart, head bowed, watching as a middle-aged woman ladled water from a bucket to clean the bloody wounds on her arm.

She was extraordinarily beautiful, appearing to be eighteen or nineteen years old, with delicate features and fair skin. When she lowered her eyes, she carried the fragile grace of a willow swaying in the wind—exactly the type of woman most favored in those days.

But this beauty failed to soften the woman tending her wounds in the slightest. Though the woman’s hands were gentle, her brow was furrowed with anger, and she scolded the girl incessantly: “What did I usually teach you? Those who understand the times are the wise ones. Don’t you know what kind of person Wang Qiniang is? She’s a notorious street ruffian who’ll fight tooth and nail over a copper or two. Why did you lose your mind and argue with her? If she wants to slander me, let her slander me. What’s there to fuss about?”

Upon hearing this, the young woman pressed her lips together slightly, seeming unconvinced. The woman wrapped her wound with gauze and glared at her: “Luo Wanqing, speak up!”

“I had my considerations,” Luo Wanqing replied, suppressing her unease as her mother scolded her, speaking in a low voice. Originally, she was the one who couldn’t bear the medical fees and refused to continue treatment. Now she’s claiming that your medical skills are poor and that you harmed her hand. If we don’t refute this, and people spread such words, what if others start questioning your medical expertise? We’re living tolerably well in this holding cell only because you treat the minor ailments of those jailers. If these jailers stop trusting you, how will we survive?”

“How will we survive?” Her mother, Yao Zelan, was completely unconcerned and scoffed. “Does my reputation depend on her mouth?”

“But…”

“We won’t be staying here much longer anyway,” Yao Zelan knew what she wanted to say and interrupted her, her tone becoming gentler. “Once Shaoyan finds connections outside and clears the Luo family’s name, we’ll be released. This Wang Qiniang is only here for street fighting—she’ll be out in a while too. We can settle accounts with her then. What good can come from arguing with her here? Look at your hand!” Yao Zelan tugged at the bandage, making Luo Wanqing gasp from the pain. Yao Zelan’s heart ached, and she glared at her again, her scolding voice involuntarily softening: “I don’t even know when you learned to fight with people. If you hadn’t dodged quickly, that pottery shard would have slashed your face!”

Hearing Yao Zelan’s words, Luo Wanqing fell silent. She knew her mother made sense, but she couldn’t help herself—she was too frightened.

Ever since the Luo family was imprisoned on charges of selling illegal salt, she, Yao Zelan, her sister-in-law Su Hui, and her niece Luo Wenshui had all been assigned to this holding cell.

The prison separated men and women. The holding cell was used to detain suspects whose crimes hadn’t been confirmed yet, as well as petty criminals and street ruffians. Compared to a proper prison, the holding cell’s conditions were much worse—hundreds of people crammed together, and when it was crowded, there wasn’t even a place to lie down and sleep.

Moreover, with hundreds of people eating, drinking, and relieving themselves all in one large room, conflicts arose easily. Many thugs came in with their associates, forming gangs and bullying those who were weak and powerless individually.

Especially those wealthy officials, they could never normally access—these became targets for extortion and exploitation by any means necessary.

The Luo family was wealthy merchants from Yangzhou, and her mother was a famous local physician. Upon entering the holding cell, they became a piece of fat meat in everyone’s eyes. Fortunately, her mother read the situation wisely and established good relationships with the jailers early on, making their family’s circumstances slightly better.

But this was only “slightly” better. The winter was cold, the holding cell conditions were terrible, and they hadn’t even changed clothes since entering. For Luo Wanqing, this was already a form of torture.

But at least she still had one glimmer of hope—her fiancé, Jiang Shaoyan, was still outside the prison.

Jiang Shaoyan was a young man the Luo family had rescued on the outskirts of the Eastern Capital five years ago when they moved to Yangzhou. When they brought him back, he had lost his memory, so he stayed with the Luo family. Later, he and she fell in love over time and became engaged, planning to marry next spring after this year passed.

He was capable and had learned excellent martial arts from her father. The Luo family had always conducted business properly and lawfully—this time, they were surely framed by someone. With Jiang Shaoyan’s abilities, being outside, he would sooner or later find a way to clear their family’s name and rescue the Luo family from this crisis.

Because of this hope, the prison days weren’t so unbearable for her—she just needed to endure it all. All she had to do was be patient and wait.

She waited and waited, waiting for over half a month. Then last night, she suddenly had a dream.

She dreamed of her future.

Many things happened in the dream. Essentially, Jiang Shaoyan never came in the end. He only sent his servant Elder Zhang to tell her that he could not save them, that the Luo family was finished, and that the only thing he could do was offer her a convenience—presenting her with either a sharp dagger that could cut through iron, or a bottle of deadly poison that killed upon contact with blood.

Elder Zhang said that although they weren’t married yet, in Jiang Shaoyan’s heart, he already considered her his wife. The road to the frontier was long and arduous, and he hoped she could preserve her chastity for him.

In the dream, she believed these words—she had no choice but to believe them.

She was weak and cowardly, completely unable to face the possibility of betrayal. So she took the poison, not forgetting to ask Elder Zhang to convey that she would never betray him and would always wait for him.

Then she was exiled to Lingnan. On the exile road, she lost her father, mother, elder brother, sister-in-law, and her little niece, who was only five years old that year, one by one.

Finally reaching Lingnan, of the entire Luo clan, only she remained.

Looking at the barren mountains and wilderness of Lingnan, she finally heard that the Eastern Capital had gained a prince found among the common people, named Li Guiyu.

This prince was reportedly discovered by Zheng Biyue, daughter of the Minister of Justice Zheng Pingsheng.

This noble lady had originally been his childhood sweetheart. Later, when the prince went missing, Zheng Biyue kept searching for him. When the court required her father to investigate the illegal salt case in Jiangnan, she accompanied him to relax and finally saw the prince, who had lost his memory, in Yangzhou.

The prince had been adopted by a wealthy merchant and, to repay his kindness, had become engaged to the merchant’s daughter. His Majesty, moved by the merchant’s benevolence, decided to bestow a marriage. But unexpectedly, the Luo family was greedy and of poor character, daring to sell illegal salt in enormous quantities.

How could such a family be a suitable match for a prince?

In consideration of their merit, changing the sentence from total execution to executing only the main criminals and exiling the family members was already tremendous imperial grace.

So the merchant died in prison, his family was exiled to Lingnan, and the prince and noble lady—these lovers—finally became a married couple.

This was originally an extremely beautiful story. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that the merchant’s surname was Luo, and the prince’s common name was Jiang Shaoyan.

The night she learned of this, she awakened as if from a dream.

What powerlessness, what lack of options—it was all Jiang Shaoyan’s doing to harm her!

Zheng Biyue had arrived, and he wanted to live intimately with Zheng Biyue. Yet he dared not resist His Majesty’s bestowed marriage, nor did he want to taint his and his beloved’s reputation. So he used the entire Luo family as his blade—if the Luo family was guilty, then they would be completely innocent.

That night, she wailed in anguish in the empty room, taking out the bottle of poison Jiang Shaoyan had given her, nearly drinking it down.

But the moment her lips touched the bottle’s mouth, a surge of rage suddenly rose within her.

Why should she die?

Why should she be the one to die?!

So she stopped and began using her remaining life to try to escape Lingnan, return to the Eastern Capital, find that ungrateful, heartless beast, and ask him—

Why?

How had the Luo family wronged him?

Just to be with Zheng Biyue, just for his reputation, he had to use the blood of the entire Luo family as a stepping stone for their marriage?!

Why?!

Unfortunately, she never succeeded.

She spent ten years trying every possible method, listening as he became a prince, then crown prince, even ascending the throne to become emperor. She heard how he had Xie Heng—who had helped him ascend to the throne—subjected to death by a thousand cuts, how he was dragged into the imperial prison by the second Chief of the Supervision Department, Qin Jue, and after several power struggles, abdicated to become an idle retired emperor. Through all of this, she never managed to leave Lingnan.

Until the end, when she was riddled with illness, clutching the bottle of poison he had given her, she died on a hot summer night in the rain.

Before she died, she even hallucinated, vaguely hearing his voice calling her softly as in the past: “Miss.”

The moment that voice appeared, pain and shame surged together.

Her mind was filled with only one thought.

Kill him.

Come back to life, stand up, and kill him!

This dream was too vivid. When she woke up, she even felt like Zhuangzi questioning whether he was the butterfly, wondering if she had truly lived through all of that.

She clearly remembered things she had learned in the dream—like farming, like picking locks, like fighting with people.

Even her personality had changed somewhat.

This change frightened her greatly. She kept comforting herself that it was just a dream, a nightmare that wouldn’t happen. Jiang Shaoyan would come, and she just needed to wait as before.

But today, when Wang Qiniang entered the holding cell and saw Yao Zelan, she said the same words as in the dream.

Although ten years had passed in the dream and many details were forgotten, when Wang Qiniang spoke the words “If you hadn’t ruined my hand with your treatment, making it ache whenever it gets cold so I can’t work, would I, Wang Qiniang, be in this situation today?”, she immediately remembered!

She not only recalled Wang Qiniang saying this, but also remembered every word Wang Qiniang would say next. She knew that what followed wouldn’t be as her mother expected—they wouldn’t be released, wouldn’t leave, and no one would question her medical skills.

Quite the opposite!

Very soon, this very afternoon after Wang Qiniang finished speaking these words, Elder Zhang would arrive. Everyone in the holding cell would know that Jiang Shaoyan had abandoned the Luo family, that no one would stand up for them anymore. Soon the jailers would also begin to doubt her mother’s medical skills because of Wang Qiniang’s words, blaming her mother for any slight problem and deliberately making things difficult for them.

The Luo family’s situation would become extremely difficult. It was precisely this extreme hardship that would leave them without food or medicine on the exile road, subjected to all manner of humiliation.

Faced with such a future, terror filled her entire body. So when Wang Qiniang opened her mouth to slander Yao Zelan, she couldn’t help but loudly refute her, getting into an argument with Wang Qiniang. Wang Qiniang immediately used a pottery shard hidden in her sleeve to slash her arm.

When Yao Zelan and Su Hui pulled her back, she kept trembling.

They all thought she had been frightened by Wang Qiniang, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t afraid of Wang Qiniang—she was afraid of this reality that was identical to her dream.

She was terrified that it would truly be like in the dream, that Jiang Shaoyan would abandon them, that her relatives would all die on the exile road, leaving only her alone.

But she couldn’t voice any of these thoughts. She could only calm herself down slightly and keep comforting herself.

Everything was a coincidence, all coincidence—just a nightmare.

Persuading herself this way, Luo Wanqing closed her eyes to steady herself, trying not to be too afraid.

That was her Brother Shaoyan. She couldn’t use a dream to doubt their feelings for each other.

The gentleman does not speak of strange phenomena, supernatural forces, or spiritual beings—the words of the sages that she should remember carefully.

Luo Wanqing took a deep breath, steadied her mind, and lowered her head to blow the dust off her bandage.

Beside her, Yao Zelan looked at this beautiful, delicate daughter who seemed ignorant of worldly affairs, her eyes full of helplessness.

Just then, urgent footsteps sounded nearby, and Su Hui’s voice rang out eagerly: “He’s here! Mother, Wanqing! Shaoyan sent someone to see us!”

Hearing these words, Luo Wanqing’s movements froze. Yao Zelan quickly stood up, saying happily, “Who? Who did he send?”

“Luo Wanqing!”

From the holding cell entrance came a jailer’s loud shout: “Someone wants to see you.”

Luo Wanqing dared not move. She sat rigid, her mind filled with scenes from that dream.

In those scenes, Elder Zhang looked at her with a face full of apology, saying helplessly, “The young master says the judgment has been passed, and he is powerless to help. Though you are not yet married, he already considers you his wife. The road to the frontier is long and arduous—he hopes you will preserve your chastity for him.”

“Wanqing! Hurry! The jailer is calling you!”

Su Hui’s voice rang out urgently. Yao Zelan also stepped forward to push her, saying busily: “Wanqing? What are you spacing out for? Go quickly!”

Luo Wanqing said nothing. She controlled her trembling and used all her strength to force herself to look up toward the main gate.

At the gate, a worried face appeared before her eyes, the same as in her dream.

Her lips trembled slightly as she called out in disbelief: “Elder Zhang?”

Author’s Note:

[Mini Theater]

Luo Wanqing: “I spent a lifetime trying to escape Lingnan.”

Guangdong person: “??? Are our Guangdong lychees not delicious or something?”