“Dragon meat in heaven, donkey meat on earth—this stuff really smells divine.”
The jailers excitedly set up a large pottery basin, throwing fist-sized chunks of raw meat into boiling water. Before long, the bright red meat pieces tumbled and changed color.
Outside the prison door, waves of nauseating meat aroma wafted through.
Having been dragged along the ground, Bao Zhu had lost her jade comb, and her elaborate hairstyle had come undone. With disheveled hair and vacant eyes, she leaned against the cold, damp stone wall, watching them light fires, boil water, and cook meat. When the meat was done, they couldn’t wait to fish it out, shoving the scalding meat into their mouths.
“Guanzhong donkey meat tastes so much more tender and fatty than Taihang donkey,” said a jailer with a birthmark on his face, licking the meat juice from his lips while deliberately glancing sideways at Bao Zhu. “Women from Guanzhong are also more voluptuous and beautiful than those from Hebei, hahaha.”
“Tomorrow we have to transfer these two to Zhengding—the Military Commissioner wants these people, so don’t get any ideas. You have meat to eat your fill, isn’t that enough?” said an elderly jailer.
After being captured, Bao Zhu and Wei Xun had been escorted by those soldiers to a nearby prison at the foot of Fenglong Mountain. This prison was converted from an abandoned stone cave temple, built against the mountain wall. The inner side of the cells were semi-recessed stone caves, still containing Buddha statues carved from the mountain a century ago. The ceiling was high and spacious, with old, damaged tiles that had fallen away, leaving a washbasin-sized “skylight” exposed.
Cold moonlight filtered through, making the cell damp and moldy with a musty smell. Fenglong Temple—that was its original name.
“Has that man in blue confessed yet?” asked a pockmarked jailer.
“Not yet. That fellow might not be mortal—shot clean through with a ballista bolt but still not completely dead. We’ve tried every method, severed his hand and foot tendons, but he won’t make a sound, even jokes around with people. Very strange indeed.”
“I heard he used a dagger less than eight inches long to kill over thirty foot soldiers. If we hadn’t taken a hostage, we really couldn’t have caught him.” The pockmarked jailer couldn’t help but shudder. “What does this treasure the Military Commissioner wants actually look like?”
“You ask me, who should I ask? Anyway, we searched them—aside from that dagger which seems like some rare antique, nothing else looks special. No matter how we interrogated him, he only admits to ‘the crime of stealing pearls.’ Did you see anything like pearls in their luggage?”
Everyone shook their heads.
Spies from Luoyang had brought rumors that this divine artifact capable of “overthrowing the Tang Dynasty and bringing chaos to the world” was now spreading throughout the Central Plains martial world. Wang Chengwu, as Chengde Military Commissioner, had ordered secret investigations of travelers at checkpoints, not hesitating to kill even court officials to obtain it—his ambitions were now crystal clear. Unfortunately, no one could guess what kind of object this divine artifact actually was.
The most suspicious item was a seven-treasure glazed box inscribed with “Your servant Cui Keyong respectfully presents.” Cui Keyong was the Weiwu Military Commissioner, leader of the powerful Huaixi faction—this luxurious container clearly looked like something for presenting tribute. However, disappointingly, the box was empty, containing only a few dried flowers.
Besides the empty box and dagger, they had also found a stack of blood-soaked paper fragments of various sizes on the man in blue, apparently his treasured possessions. Except for one line reading “arrows never miss their mark, vengeance never waits past nightfall,” the rest were well-known poems that hardly looked like treasure hunt clues.
Surprisingly, among these four people—three adults and one child—they had found two fish tallies. However, with the emperor far away and strong dragons unable to suppress the Hebei tigers, even if the court knew, what could they do?
The pockmarked jailer looked at the other prisoner in the cell, thinking: An innocent man suffers for possessing a jade disc. Who would have thought that such a beautiful young woman, known in the martial world as “Donkey-Riding Lady,” could hit targets at a hundred paces and fight ten opponents single-handedly. If scouts hadn’t gathered intelligence about the pair’s formidable martial skills, leading to dispatching a full battalion of armored soldiers for the ambush, the number of men she might have felled would probably be no less than that blue-robed wanderer.
The birthmarked jailer still harbored evil intentions, asking: “How about we try interrogating this woman?”
But the old jailer shook his head decisively: “That man in blue is nearly finished. If we accidentally torture this woman to death too and lose the treasure clue, then we’ll be the ones heading to our graves. Tomorrow they’ll be transferred—let the people in Zhengding worry about it.”
The jailers knew he was most experienced and didn’t want to invite such trouble, so they focused their attention on fishing meat from the pot and feasting heartily.
Bao Zhu’s expression was wooden as she listened to them casually discussing, eating, drinking, and scheming outside the cell.
When the moon reached its zenith, the interrogation team, exhausted, no longer wanted to continue staying up all night. They dragged the bloody and mangled Wei Xun back to the cell.
As soon as the cell door opened, Bao Zhu dragged her shackles and rushed forward to embrace him.
They had been so frightened—terrified that this supreme master might still violently attack people despite his severe injuries—that they had severed his hand and foot tendons early on and shattered his limbs before daring to imprison him with peace of mind.
Now this lynx had been completely declawed and defanged. Whether it was the invincible Remnant Lamp Hand or the ghostly Mirage Steps, neither could be performed anymore. He lay like a docile cat, obediently resting on her knees, his breathing already barely perceptible.
Bao Zhu’s tears fell like rain, mixing with the blood on his face as they dripped down.
Wei Xun slightly opened his eyes, his blurred vision catching her face. He forced out a weak smile, saying haltingly: “It’s… raining tears… from heaven…”
“Does it hurt terribly?” she asked in a trembling voice. Though she knew the answer, she had to keep talking with him.
“Not at all… just a little thirsty…” he replied softly, his face showing no expression of pain.
His once bright and sharp gaze had now become dazed and scattered, his lips pale and cracked, completely bloodless. The fatal wound in his abdomen was too severe, bleeding continuously, his blue robe soaked through with dark red plasma.
Bao Zhu gently laid down the dying man, stood up and walked to the cell door, calling out: “Give me a bowl of water.”
Though imprisoned with tearstained face and disheveled appearance, her bearing remained proud, her words seeming to possess some innate magic that could command others. The pockmarked jailer instinctively stood up immediately, about to follow her instructions to fetch water.
The birthmarked jailer pressed him down and asked the girl: “Everything in this prison costs money. What benefit will you give us?”
Bao Zhu said: “Take whatever you want from our luggage.”
The birthmarked jailer let out a harsh laugh: “That’s already our property. How can you buy things with other people’s money?”
His gaze crawled over the prisoner’s body like a venomous snake, finally settling on her silk-like thick black hair. He said greedily: “Nice hair—could sell for several strings of cash. You can trade this for water.”
Hearing this suggestion, everyone praised his cleverness—extracting the last bit of value from a condemned prisoner without harming their life.
Bao Zhu didn’t hesitate: “Give me a knife to cut my hair.”
“Do you think we’re stupid? Give weapons to a major criminal? Turn around and press against the bars—we’ll do it ourselves.”
She complied readily. The jailer pulled out a meat-cutting knife, grabbed the girl’s long hair through the cell door, and sliced off this beautiful hair reaching four feet in length right at the nape of her neck.
“Give her water.” Having obtained this unexpected windfall, the birthmarked jailer beamed with joy. “After we sell it, we brothers will split the money.”
The pockmarked jailer lifted the water tank lid. In the deep night, a thin layer of ice had formed on the water’s surface. He used a chipped broken bowl to scoop out most of a bowl of water, passing it through the bars to the girl.
Bao Zhu frowned: “It’s cold water?”
The pockmarked jailer said impatiently: “This is what we drink normally. Do you think there’s hot soup available in prison?”
Bao Zhu stopped arguing with them, took the bowl, turned back to cradle Wei Xun on her knees, and prepared to give him water.
However, as soon as the bowl’s edge touched his cracked lips, she felt several malicious gazes watching gleefully.
She looked up, puzzled, at the jailers outside the cell door. They stood there with great interest, as if expecting a good show to unfold.
“You poisoned the water?!”
The old jailer said unhurriedly: “Not quite—this is our own drinking tank. But…” He coughed twice and stated the facts: “He feels thirsty because of massive blood loss. For someone with severe bleeding, drinking water is like taking poison—he’d die immediately from blood depletion.”
The jailers smiled as they watched the girl, as if her pain were delicious seasoning.
Holding the bowl, Bao Zhu asked: “It seems you have experience. In such situations, how should one quench thirst?”
“Salt water, or meat broth—anything thicker than plain water will do. But it’s only the difference between quick death and slow death. No matter what you try, he won’t live until dawn.”
The birthmarked jailer showed a malicious smile: “Right now, there happens to be a pot of hot, fragrant donkey meat soup, but you no longer have hair to trade. Tell us where the treasure is, let him drink to his heart’s content before dying, and go on his way as a well-fed ghost—how about it?”
Bao Zhu suddenly understood. These villains had deliberately cooked Lushan Duke in front of her, dragged the tortured Wei Xun into the same cell, forcing her to witness the broken body of her beloved with her own eyes—their hearts were utterly vicious. They wanted to torture her mentally, crush her will, and push her into the abyss of despair.
What was the treasure? It was loyal blood, it was Lushan Duke, it was flowers in a box, it was a chivalrous hero whose word was worth a thousand gold pieces and was unmatched under heaven. These blind fools couldn’t recognize true treasure even when placed before their eyes.
“Forget it, I don’t accept the trade.” Bao Zhu’s tone was cold and emotionless. She raised the broken bowl, brought it directly to her own lips, tilted her head back, and drained the cold water in one gulp.
The jailers were stunned—they hadn’t expected her to trade a head of magnificent hair for a bowl of water, yet be so resolute and cold. Not having witnessed the collapse they’d anticipated, they felt disappointed and bored, returning to the pot to continue eating and chatting.
Bao Zhu turned her back to the cell door, cradling her dying lover in her arms, using her embrace to build a final barrier against malice.
Hot tears with a salty-bitter taste burst from her eyes, dripping steadily onto his lips and into his mouth. Tears poured down like torrential rain, endless and inexhaustible.
“Drink, I found hot water,” she said tenderly.
The weathered stone cave Buddha, like an elder who had experienced vicissitudes, silently gazed down at everything.
A hundred years ago, when this chaotic era was still called the Flourishing Tang, an Empress who claimed to be the reincarnation of Maitreya built Buddhist temples throughout the realm. The most magnificent places could receive the grace of having statues carved in her own image—dragon eyes and phoenix neck, the height of nobility.
Wei Xun slipped into his final moments. Having suffered from terminal illness since childhood and wandered for half his life with blood on his hands, he had occasionally wondered what death would taste like. Probably painful and lonely, he had thought then.
But at this moment, held tightly in her arms, he felt infinite peace and warmth. Death was an embrace with all one’s strength, trembling kisses, tears of Guanyin.
They say that in one’s final moments, one sees visions of all the familiar people from life. But what appeared in his mind was a completely strange woman from a mass grave many years ago.
That mother held the remains of her young child, weeping silently. He had stood in the distance quietly observing then—as a grave-robbing wild dog who dug up corpses, he had inexplicably envied that dead child.
Now, that distant and secret wish had come true. He was no longer a stray dog—someone held him, giving him love and tears without reservation.
Born alone, dying with belonging.
Through the hole in the roof, a silver light flashed by in the distance, like a meteor crossing the night sky.
Wei Xun felt at peace. With his last bit of strength, he earnestly instructed: “Don’t seek revenge… go to Youzhou…”
Go to Youzhou. Go to Youzhou. That way she could receive care and protection, living safely and smoothly through many seasons.
Having said this, he slowly closed his eyes, falling into deep sleep, never to open them again.
Bao Zhu’s vision was completely blurred by tears. Still not enough—these tears were far from enough. As long as it was thicker than plain water—she remembered Zhou Qingyang’s words that human flesh and blood were no different from cattle and sheep. Even with nothing left, she could still provide other nourishment.
Using damp straw as padding, Bao Zhu quietly broke the water bowl, using a sharp porcelain shard to cut open the blood vessels in her wrist. Dark red blood gurgled out as she brought her wrist to his mouth, feeding it to the thirsty man.
Whenever the blood was about to coagulate, she would put her wrist in her own mouth and suck hard, making the wound continue bleeding.
The long night stretched endlessly.
No matter how tightly she embraced him, trying to nourish him with her own body heat, hot tears, and fresh blood, repeatedly kissing his cold lips and cheeks, it was all in vain. This originally light and graceful body in her arms gradually, bit by bit, became cold, stiff, and heavy.
This was the fastest runner in the world, but death had caught up with him.
Dark red blood, blue clothes, pale face. She had cried too long, too fiercely, lost too much fluid, so that everything before her eyes lost its original color and shape, the entire world becoming a gray chaos.
The last breath of life faded from her arms. In the deeper night hours, blood exhausted and tears dried.
Suddenly, this hoarse-voiced prisoner began talking to herself.
“What a coincidence—I remember an ancestor who, when young, was also trapped in a temple, had her long hair cut off, and cried until she couldn’t distinguish vermillion from blue-green.”
The night-duty jailer, listless, heard this ghostly whisper and chuckled twice, mocking: “Poor thing, did she later become a nun? Or was she sold off?”
“You’ll find out.”
Bao Zhu slowly raised her stiff neck, gazing at that huge, silent Buddha statue in the stone cave, meeting its gaze across a hundred years of time.
“You’ll all find out.”