Nanyi did as she said. The next day she continued coming to Huachao Pavilion to find Zhang Yuehui. She would appear before him with her questions constantly until she forced out his answer.

Zhang Yuehui was such a powerful person that when he saw Nanyi again, he had already returned to normal, as if nothing had happened. Laughing and joking, surrounded by attendants, he took Nanyi around Huachao Pavilion to play and feast, enjoying grand song and dance performances.

Nanyi felt somewhat uncertain inside, but she still kept a stern face and followed him closely. No matter how Zhang Yuehui tormented her, she remained unmoved by eight winds.

On the third day, Nanyi came again.

A contest of wills was taking place between them—to see whose conscience would give out first.

However, on this day, a small incident occurred. A fisherman came looking for Zhang Yuehui. Zhang Yuehui’s expression became unnatural for a moment, and he hurriedly had someone take the man away.

All of this fell under Nanyi’s observation.

On the fourth day, Nanyi didn’t come, only sending Zhang Yuehui a note.

Written in wild, ugly characters that revealed Nanyi’s anger: “Zhang Yuehui! You can’t hide it anymore!! I already know where he is!”

Zhang Yuehui immediately became nervous, thinking at once of yesterday’s fisherman—a hidden guard who traveled the river daily, delivering three meals to Xie Queshan while also serving surveillance duty to confirm the man stayed properly on the boat. Every three days he would report the situation to Zhang Yuehui as routine, and yesterday he had happened to encounter Nanyi.

Could Nanyi have guessed Xie Queshan’s hiding place from this person’s appearance? He hadn’t expected Nanyi to have become so perceptive, able to deduce so much from so little.

Given that he had underestimated Nanyi several times before, this time he didn’t doubt his judgment much.

Zhang Yuehui panicked. He hadn’t expected things to spiral out of control so quickly. These past few days his heart had been frying in an oil pan, not knowing what to do.

No one didn’t want to fulfill their beloved’s wishes, but her wish was to fly like a moth to flame toward another man.

He thought he could delay a bit longer, but she had suddenly broken through and was rushing headfirst toward that cage.

Every time, he was one step behind. This time he didn’t want to make the slightest error.

He quickly dispatched people to intercept Nanyi.

…

In reality, Nanyi had no idea what that fisherman’s background was. She had only sensed Zhang Yuehui’s guilt and bluffed him.

Now, she just needed to follow the two hidden guards he sent out, and she would know where Xie Queshan was.

Nanyi concealed herself all the way, following them to the riverbank. But the bamboo raft’s direction wasn’t toward Hugui Mountain—her heart couldn’t help but drum. Could the person be on the river?

Was Zhang Yuehui playing tricks on her?

But whether real or fake, she had to see for herself.

Nanyi silently slipped into the water, following the small boat the hidden guards rode. Taking advantage of the two men’s lack of vigilance, she surfaced unexpectedly and struck. Nanyi dragged one person into the water, leaving one on the boat.

Nanyi flipped onto the boat and efficiently placed her blade at the man’s throat: “Lead the way.”

For Xie Queshan, the mood of waiting for death between mountains and waters was somewhat subtle.

This isolated cage actually had some poetic charm. He wasn’t even entirely certain whether this was Zhang Yuehui’s kindness, ensuring his final time alive wouldn’t be too bleak.

The shackles on his hands constrained his movement—he couldn’t leave the room, but through the window he could see the scenery outside.

He watched as day and night alternated, spring climbed the cliffs, ten miles of peach groves bloomed in the mountains, and spring wind carried fallen petals to fill the river.

His life had rarely had such moments of abandoning schemes with an empty mind. He remembered many past events.

He too had once endured a period of imprisonment, when he first arrived in Great Qi. If he surrendered too easily, it would be suspicious. The Qi people liked principled Han people, but not too principled—this balance was very delicate. He had to play the stubborn bone for a while, letting the Qi people use eight hundred methods of threat, temptation, and persuasion on him to seem authentic.

To wear down his spirit, Han Xianwang deliberately had him captured by Yu Dynasty troops. The border soldiers hated him to the bone, subjecting him to all manner of torture before imprisoning him in a cellar where no daylight reached, awaiting transport to the capital. Xie Queshan stayed in that cellar for over ten days without seeing a single day of sunlight, living neither human nor ghost—he truly wanted to go mad.

What tormented him wasn’t enemies, but his own countrymen, his comrades. He had to grit his teeth—he couldn’t reveal a single word.

This was where the Qi people’s viciousness lay.

But he knew he had to endure this trial, making the Qi people believe he had been broken both physically and spiritually before they would believe he could be reforged by Great Qi.

When he was barely alive, Han Xianwang finally arrived late to rescue him from fire and water, displaying imperial grace. Like a dog, he knelt before Han Xianwang, saying shameless words like “Those who save my life are like reborn parents—I am willing to serve you like a loyal dog or horse.”

So when that day of heavy snow came, when Nanyi knelt before him begging him to spare her life, saying words like “How much does dignity weigh? It can’t compare to a human life,” he had probably already begun to pity her.

He knew Pang Yu would certainly tell her what to do, and for survival she put on disgusting weakness. He felt sorry for this courage that abandoned dignity, like pitying his younger self from years ago.

He had never dared recall those days. He too had once been an incredibly proud person. When his teacher Shen Zhizhong hoped he would infiltrate Great Qi, he naively harbored the passionate blood of a solitary hero, even underestimating the task’s difficulty. But once on the road, there was no turning back.

His relationship with Great Qi began with imprisonment and would end with imprisonment. This mission—he should have completed it fairly well.

If there was still something he couldn’t let go of…

No, there couldn’t be anything left to let go of.

A crescent moon had already climbed the cliff, reflecting in the water like a sickle cutting through waves.

He gazed at the river surface in a daze, casually picking up a pebble from the flower pot and throwing it at the water. With a splash that mixed with the wind like an auditory hallusion, the moon shattered then quickly reformed.

Stubbornly insisting on staying there.

Xie Queshan seemed to be competing with that reflection, picking up another pebble. Just as he was about to throw it, he suddenly saw a small boat drifting with the waves on the river surface.

Clatter—his hand loosened, the stone fell to the floor, rolled a few times and stopped.

From afar, Nanyi spotted the painted pleasure boat on the river surface. Under the cover of night, it looked like a black, abandoned behemoth.

A few scattered lights swayed in the river wind on the boat, flickering as if about to die but never extinguishing.

In an instant, she had imagined many possibilities in her mind. Xie Queshan was on that boat, wasn’t he? This cage suspended alone on the river—how could she rescue him?

Though Nanyi hadn’t yet seen any figure on the boat, she already felt her heart pounding violently in her chest, like resonance from approaching him.

She withdrew her eager gaze and looked coldly at the hidden guard on the boat: “You know what to tell your master when you return?”

“This humble servant knows. This humble servant saw nothing, only came to patrol.”

The small boat had already approached the large ship’s hull. Nanyi sheathed her blade, grabbed the rope on the ship’s rail and climbed onto the deck.

She was completely soaked, water droplets still falling from her clothes. The vast moonlight draped over her seemed to bring the moon’s reflection from the water up with her.

A few flamboyant peach blossoms drifted on the wind. Across the deck, they gazed at each other from afar.

Xie Queshan suspected this was his illusion. He had struck the water sprite, and it had transformed into human form to bewitch him.

The water sprite threw herself into his arms with her wet body, speaking with her voice.

“Thank goodness, you’re still alive.”

This was long revenge indeed.

Revenge for how he had saved that dying girl from the water at first sight, giving her a warm fur coat. Now she would drag him down to the mortal world, intoxicate him with the seven emotions and six desires, and when he willingly drowned, ferry him a breath of life.

But he was just a dying shell.

He didn’t respond to her fervor, finally hardening his heart to push her away, stammering out a few words: “Why did you come?”

“I came to help you,” her eyes were startlingly bright, “you are the wild goose, you’re from the Bingzhu Bureau. Just as you turn the tide to save others, I want to save you too.”

In the vast world, tiny as she was, she spoke these grandiose words shamelessly, with steep cliffs and rushing deep waters behind her.

He raised his shackled wrist, iron chains rattling: “Tell me, how do you save me?”

“If I can’t do it alone, then I’ll go to the Bingzhu Bureau for reinforcements.”

“Do you want to get Song Muchuan killed?”

“Master Song came to ask me. He’s already suspicious of your identity, but I haven’t told him yet. Have you considered that he would also hope you’re one of his own, that you could fight side by side? The Qi people already suspect you so much—your identity can’t be hidden. Why not tell him so everyone can think of ways to break through together? Being alive always offers more solutions than being dead—”

“Don’t say it,” Xie Queshan immediately stopped Nanyi’s words, violent emotions surging in his eyes, “never say it.”

“Why?” Nanyi truly didn’t understand, her tone becoming urgent, “Right now, besides the Bingzhu Bureau, who else can save you? Do you want to wait here to die?”

Yes, he was waiting to die.

But facing Nanyi’s eyes that so treasured him, he couldn’t say such cruel words.

“The current situation is the safest. Don’t act rashly. However you came, return the same way. After things are accomplished, we’ll meet again.”

Nanyi stared blankly at Xie Queshan as a confused thought became clear in her mind.

She felt she was losing him, in this cool wind, under this incomplete moon.

She was unwilling, she wouldn’t accept it.

She frantically grasped his hand, “Xie Queshan, you’re not allowed to lie.”

Xie Queshan instinctively tightened his grip on the cold hand that had slipped into his palm. These subtle movements betrayed him. He remained silent, trembling almost imperceptibly.

“You’re a hero who saves the dynasty from crisis. You should clearly be praised, not die silently. Don’t you want your sacrifices to see daylight again? Don’t you want everyone to understand?”

These words—in the crisis-ridden Li Du Mansion, she had never dared say them.

Because they were too false.

But now Nanyi was desperate. She could only clumsily try to awaken his beautiful vision.

Xie Queshan looked at her faintly, as if his whole person had detached: “And then? Will everyone come to forgive me?”

Nanyi caught a trace of strangeness. She had spoken of understanding, but he spoke of forgiveness. They seemed similar yet vastly different.

How could anyone in this world have no selfish motives at all? She asked herself if she could do it—she felt it impossible. She truly didn’t understand what other hidden circumstances he had.

“What’s wrong with that?”

He was clearly calm, yet his expression looked extremely pained: “But Pang Yu is already dead. Which of you can forgive me in his place?”

Like thunder on flat ground, illuminating all the past.

So the sword that killed Pang Yu had always been thrust in Xie Queshan’s chest, turning day and night, never ceasing.

She had occasionally ignited his heart’s fire, but couldn’t soothe his guilt.

Even she had forgotten in daily life what it felt like to witness a dear childhood friend die before one’s eyes. But at that time he had only sat calmly on that blood-stained dead wood, staring blankly.

He disguised himself too well, making people think he was naturally so good at pretense.

He had forcibly killed part of himself in that heavy snow too. That part of him wasn’t worthy of being buried with Pang Yu in the plum grove, so day and night he knelt before Pang Yu’s lonely grave.

No one saw, no one knew, no one came to say: I forgive you.

He couldn’t let Song Muchuan face even the slightest danger.

This was his righteousness, this was his selfishness.

So he remained on this ship sailing toward death, unwilling to leave. He had already planned the meaning of his death.