Ye Qi’s mother said that from birth he had been a child who loved to laugh. Each time he finished crying while being force-fed bitter herbal medicine, just one piece of candy could make him beam with joy again.

But he was thoroughly a sickly child—couldn’t withstand wind or rain. His mother was a concubine, extremely favored by his father, so Madam He naturally couldn’t stand their mother and son. Though she didn’t dare openly make things difficult, she wasn’t kind either. None of the He family children were willing to play with him. When they saw him, they would circle around him laughing, calling him “Little Plague God,” singing nursery rhymes that mocked him as a child the King of Hell had deposited in the family.

He could only hide in his room daily, keeping company with books and medicine, or squat alone in the courtyard watching flowers, birds, and pond fish. Over time, he spoke less and less, smiled less and less. When his father returned from long campaigns and saw that the tenacious, bright little child from his memories had become a taciturn boy, it was unbearably heartbreaking. To cheer him up, Father specially had people bring him some leisure books and story collections, only hoping he could be a bit happier.

Ye Qi still remembered—it was a winter morning, with snow piled outside the courtyard. He had finished reading a collection of strange tales with great interest when he happened to see a handwritten verse tucked into the book’s last page. One line read: “A burst of flutes and pipes, a graceful fairy descends from the celestial pool, one fragrant essence washes away all worldly dust with endless meaning.” He didn’t quite understand it and couldn’t help reading it aloud, asking his mother, “Why can one fragrant essence wash away all worldly dust?”

His mother, who was sewing clothes, was so startled she nearly pricked her finger with the needle. Unable to explain the true meaning of this “erotic verse” to a six-year-old child, she made something up: “This poem means… if one day a celestial fairy is willing to lightly kiss you, then you… won’t be sick anymore. Everything will become better.”

For a long time, he remembered this verse, hoping that one day he could receive a fairy’s kiss. Later, when he grew a few years older and knew this was just delusional words written by some impoverished scholar, he no longer kept it constantly in mind.

Until he saw the fairy stand up in the hot spring pool water in Taixing City. Until eleven years later, when she lightly kissed his lips. Her eyes held playfulness, while his heart’s waves followed hers.

At this moment, several mischievous children came running down from the bridge. They had probably intended to look at the vendor’s goldfish, but caught sight of this scene instead. One boy exclaimed “Oh my!” and covered his eyes, saying, “How embarrassing! That sister over there is actually taking the initiative to kiss that brother!”

Pedestrians who had been hurrying to and fro couldn’t help but turn their heads at these words—this made Changling somewhat embarrassed. She instinctively wanted to turn around, but Ye Qi grabbed her wrist in one motion, encircling her entire person in a strong embrace.

Changling immediately felt her ears burn. “With so many people watching, you still…”

The next moment, water from several tanks at the nearby vendor stalls suddenly shot upward like spurting springs, sending the koi carp flying into the sky, forming a curtain of water that blocked everyone’s view—the vendors cried out in alarm, while astonished pedestrians shifted their attention to this sudden spectacle.

In an instant, he leaned down, his deep eyes gleaming with light. “Since the fairy has started, how can we stop just like that?”

Fairy what now?

She opened her mouth, but her unspoken words were drowned in this tender, stirring moment. Warm breath brushed against her face, tickling her heart. Between the sucking and caressing of lips, both of them were somewhat dazed, only separating when the water splashed back down into the tanks.

A few drops of cool water splashed onto them, unable to extinguish the burning intensity. The “fairy” who had failed to coax and instead been teased couldn’t stand his triumphant smile, so she viciously stepped on his foot, pulled her little red horse around, and fled without looking back.

This time, on the way home, it was the young marquis’s turn to eagerly ask, “Are you embarrassed?”

“No.”

“Then why are you rushing so fast?”

Changling didn’t answer.

“So you must be embarrassed…”

“I said no. Don’t push your luck.”

The young marquis, pushing his luck to the limit, floated through his family’s main gate as if in a daze, sighing, “If I’d known, I would have kept saying I wasn’t appeased. That way, you might have kept on…”

Before he could finish, Changling slammed him against the courtyard wall with a thud, saying lightly and softly, “I was rushing back because someone was following us. Didn’t you even notice?”

“I noticed.” Ye Qi also lowered his voice. “No need to guess—it’s definitely someone Shen Yao sent to monitor us.”

“Then you still…”

Regardless, Ye Qi cupped her face, squishing her lips into a pout, taking the opportunity to kiss her. “Let’s talk inside.”

“…” She suddenly felt a bit regretful about having taken that initiative.

As soon as they entered the room, Changling saw steaming hot dishes already set on the table. Seeing her surprised expression, Ye Qi pulled her to sit down, saying, “I had them prepare this before I left, so you wouldn’t have to wait when you came back.”

Changling didn’t stand on ceremony, gulping down several mouthfuls of hot soup before saying, “If those were Shen Yao’s people, then wouldn’t he know about me delivering medicine to save Fu Yangui?”

“So what if he knows? Whatever we do right now, he doesn’t dare easily move against me. When he waits for his opportunity, he definitely won’t show mercy either.” Ye Qi scooped a ladle of braised meat sauce to pour over her rice. “Try it. Mix it in—it’s super delicious.”

Changling felt his reasoning made sense, so she stopped dwelling on it. Tempted by the savory aroma, her appetite opened wide. Just as she was about to eat, she suddenly remembered the folding fan in her bosom. She hurriedly pulled it out and handed it to him. “I almost forgot the important matter. Quick, look—is this one real or fake?”

Ye Qi took it and opened it, carefully turning it over twice before nodding. “It’s real… When Young Master Yue gave me the folding fan back then, I carelessly rolled down a hillside while escaping and knocked a chip in the fan head… It’s this one…”

Only then did Changling breathe a sigh of relief. “I was worried Second Fu was deceiving me…”

“Wait a moment.” Ye Qi spread open the fan, staring at it against the candlelight for a while. “The blue ink line diagram on this seems to be missing two sections…”

His fingertip pointed toward the bottom of the fan. At the connecting area, there were indeed two missing sections of the outlined lines, as if a map had two thumb-sized holes…

“Could it be that Fu Yangui…” Changling slammed down her chopsticks on the table, anxious to get up. “What devious scheme is he plotting now?”

Ye Qi fanned himself twice with the fan, then brought his nose close to smell those two blank areas. “The vinegar smell is still strong here. The old fox’s current critical condition probably isn’t his doing. I’ll accompany you to the Prime Minister’s residence to ask Second Fu and we’ll know.”

“This fan, well, when I found it on my brother’s person, I saw there was some fresh blood on it, so I used vinegar powder mixed with saltwater and carefully wiped it clean with cotton balls, bit by bit…” Fu Yanyang had been busy all day and had finally pulled his elder brother back from the gates of death. Before he could even sit down to catch his breath, both masters came knocking on his door. Scratching his head, he asked, “What… what’s wrong?”

Hearing this, Changling’s heart, which had just settled, sank again. Seeing her face frozen cold enough to crush someone at any moment, Fu Yanyang instinctively moved closer to Ye Qi’s side. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing.” Ye Qi had already guessed most of it. This trip was just to confirm. “How is your elder brother’s injury?”

Fu Yanyang stared at Changling as if facing a great enemy, asking softly, “Are you going to… kill him again?”

Ye Qi patted Second Fu’s shoulder. “If we wanted to kill him, why would we go through you? I heard about your three proposals. If your elder brother survives, besides this half of the folding fan, the first two conditions can’t be disregarded either, right?”

Hearing the flexibility in his words, Fu Yanyang’s mouth became flowery. “Of course, of course. After I saved my brother, I’ve sold myself to both masters. From now on, whatever you command, I’ll do without hesitation.”

“Good.” Ye Qi arranged his sleeves. “Since you gave us the fan, when your brother wakes up he’ll surely not forgive you. However, blood brothers won’t take each other’s lives. Remember to keep your mouth sealed tight. The matter of using vinegar powder to remove blood—just act as if it never happened. Understand?”

Fu Yanyang nodded vigorously like pounding garlic. “Yes, sir.”

After Ye Qi finished speaking, he glanced at Changling’s gloomy expression. Afraid that staying longer would expose flaws, he bid farewell to Second Young Master Fu and left the residence.

The two shared one horse, yet Changling remained silent throughout the journey.

Upon returning to the He residence, she had lost her appetite entirely. She had always been accustomed to concealing her emotions. At this moment, sitting by the doorway gazing at the courtyard, she revealed a hint of dejection.

How absurdly ironic fate was.

If she hadn’t impulsively struck with that sword, the fan wouldn’t have been stained with blood, and those two sections wouldn’t be missing, would they?

If she could have been calmer and pretended not to have recognized Fu Yangui’s identity, wouldn’t she have avoided today’s bitter fruit?

“If Fu Yangui hadn’t been injured, given how cautious he is, we couldn’t have easily obtained this fan.” Ye Qi used that half-broken fan to fan her. “So this is already a very good result.”

“I don’t see what’s good about it.” Changling lowered her eyes woodenly. “He just wants us to beg him. Now he’s the only person in the world who knows what the diagram in this fan looks like.”

This “he” naturally referred to Fu Yangui.

“Who says so?” Ye Qi held the fan up toward the full moon. “Have you forgotten that this marquis is the Purple Star descended to earth, capable of ascending to heaven and diving into earth, omnipotent?”

Changling froze.

At a spacious, sturdy sandalwood desk, a sheet of rice paper lay spread out.

A soft brush dipped in ink wandered back and forth across the paper. With flourishing strokes, points and lines interwove. In just the time it takes to burn an incense stick, a sketch identical to the one on the fan leapt onto the paper, even the two missing white sections perfectly matching.

Seeing the entire diagram in black ink on white paper made it much more intuitive. Changling stared at it carefully for quite a while before she couldn’t help saying, “It really is a map…”

“The two missing sections may not necessarily be the critical parts, but it’s still not very clear looking at it like this,” Ye Qi pondered. “If we could completely piece together the other half of the drawing, perhaps it would be much clearer at a glance.”

Changling suddenly raised her head. “That’s right! I forgot to tell you—I hid that half on the roof beam of the inn room in Anxi Town. I’ll go get it right away.”

She had just stood up when Ye Qi’s arm looped around her shoulder, making her continue sitting side by side with him. “No need for unnecessary trouble. The pattern from the other half is all here.”

As he spoke, his hand reaching around her shoulder pointed to his own head.

“You memorized it all?” Changling was truly surprised now. “In Yanling Village, you only looked at it for those two glances, didn’t you? It’s been so long, and you still remember?”

“Heaven worked so hard to afflict my body—if it didn’t give me a good memory on top of that, wouldn’t it be too much of a bully?”

Ye Qi smiled, took up the brush again, and as if wind had been born in his sleeve, he completed it in one flourish. In the blink of an eye, he had fully sketched the blue line diagram from the other half of the folding fan.

This was a map without any annotations. At first glance, it resembled the topographical maps of many places.

Changling was somewhat bewildered. “This… can you tell where this is?”

Ye Qi stroked his chin and pondered for a while, saying thoughtfully, “It looks a bit familiar…”

Seeing her look over with some hope, he completed the second half of his sentence: “…but I can’t say where.”

Changling: “…”

Ye Qi pondered to himself for a while longer, then said, “My father once had a journal that recorded quite a few famous river and terrain maps. Wait a moment—I’ll go look for it.”

He rushed to the study and climbed up and down for quite a while before finally finding that antique journal album. The album was twice as wide as ordinary books, looking more like an account ledger. Changling saw the book was as thick as a brick and couldn’t help but stare. Ye Qi rolled up his sleeves, ready for a night of studying by lamplight. “I’ll search slowly. You should get some rest first.”

“I’ll still accompany you…”

“No, no. I read fast—you may not be able to keep up.” As Ye Qi spoke, he glanced at a few pages and had already turned one page. Changling knew his words were true. Since she couldn’t help, she simply sat beside him watching without disturbing him.

Under the flickering candlelight, his fingers swiftly swept across the complex diagrams, his eyes full of focus and seriousness, as if at this moment he had already placed himself within the various worlds depicted in the albums, not even noticing when the candle was about to burn out.

Changling lit two new candles for him. She leaned on the edge of the table, studying his profile, and couldn’t help but become absorbed—the arc of his nose bridge, the arc of his lips, the arc of his chin—all looked just right to perfection.

She discovered for the first time that when he wasn’t smiling, he lost a bit of his frivolous charm but gained several degrees of elegant refinement.

Changling didn’t know when she had fallen asleep.

When she woke, a fur blanket covered her shoulders and back, and a thin soft cushion rested under her cheek—she didn’t know how he had placed it there for her.

The sky was dimly brightening. The sound of turning pages still came from the desk. Changling raised her head and saw that the journal had been turned to the very end.

Ye Qi still stared intently at the pages, not noticing that Changling had awakened. Only when he reached the last page did he stretch lazily and discover Changling was watching him.

She pressed her lips together without speaking, but her eyes involuntarily cast an inquiring look.

Well? Did you find it?

Ye Qi’s eyes were bloodshot from staying up. “The two missing white sections really are the critical parts of the terrain… So there’s no way to distinguish the specific location…”

Changling’s eyes dimmed, but she saw a smile bloom at the corner of his mouth. “But just because there’s no way to find it doesn’t mean there’s no way to deduce it.”

Originally holding no hope, when Changling heard this sentence, she first froze, then suddenly stood up, slapping both hands on the table, shaking the brush rest three times. “Can you please speak clearly all at once?”

Ye Qi was startled by her reaction, then rubbed his nose. “There are three places with terrain similar to the fan.”

“Three places?”

“Mm. One is in the East Sea, one is in the Central Plains,” Ye Qi said, “and the other is in Great Yan.”

Author’s Note:

Azhou: Can you sense the atmosphere that I’m about to appear?

Laifeng: And me too…