The weather was suddenly warm then cold again. Overnight, fierce winds and sudden rain caused the spring flowers to wither hurriedly. Wangxue Valley quietly donned white mourning banners.

Another name was added to the new tombstone. The entire garden wept aloud.

At this moment, Xie Queshan was still in the government office discussing affairs. Nanyi walked dazedly through the streets, her steps wandering. It took her half a day to walk the distance of one street. She realized she simply didn’t have the courage to tell him the news of Xie Xiaoliu’s death.

Perhaps she was still hoping for something—maybe if she just delayed a bit, news would come that this was all a misunderstanding, and Xie Xiaoliu in fine clothes and spirited horse would return triumphantly the next moment.

Or perhaps this was all just a nightmare?

The surrounding clamor drifted uncertainly when suddenly a bright and clear voice appeared.

“Sister-in-law!”

Nanyi suddenly turned to look around. In the vast sea of people, pedestrians hurried past, but she couldn’t see that familiar face anywhere.

Yet the hallucination grew more intense.

It seemed like a young woman was linking arms with her, looking worried yet extremely serious: “Sister-in-law, the tasks ahead will only be more difficult.”

Then she rushed in front of her with the momentum of leading the charge: “No one can bully my sister-in-law!”

Then turning with bright, flirtatious eyes, shy and timid: “When the world is at peace and the new emperor ascends the throne, we’ll get married.”

Suddenly, Xiaoliu looked back at her in confusion.

“Sister-in-law, why are you crying?”

Nanyi touched her own cheeks and somehow found them already streaked with tears. She reached out toward the Xiaoliu in front of her, but with effort, the hallucination disappeared. She was suddenly back in this noisy human world, but without Xiaoliu’s voice and smile. Her legs finally gave out, and she crouched by the roadside crying bitterly.

Nanyi couldn’t accept it. She hadn’t even said thank you to Xiaoliu. Her wretched life had only begun to rebuild under Xiaoliu’s kindness. She also hadn’t had time to confess to Xiaoliu that she had deceived her in the beginning—she wasn’t Yan; Yan was the brother she had hated for so many years.

She had always been afraid of being exposed, not daring to get too close to Xiaoliu, which was why they lost so many opportunities for intimacy. They should have held each other and cried, should have shut themselves away to whisper about girls’ private thoughts, speaking of love and hate under a warm candlelight, with flickering teardrops smoothed away amid laughter and scolding.

Xie Xiaoliu was the fullest stalk of rice in the field. Sunshine and sweet rain found concrete embodiment in her. When people saw her, they would believe that the prosperous age of harvest would surely come.

But how could that stalk of rice disappear first in the wind?

Nanyi cried heartbreakingly, drawing sideways glances from passersby. But people only glanced once before walking on. In chaotic times, tears were the cheapest thing—such weeping was performed countless times on the streets every day.

Separation by life and death seemed to have become an ordinary matter.

Suddenly, the sound of galloping hooves swept past, with pedestrians’ cries of alarm rising and falling as they dodged.

Nanyi looked up as if possessed by spirits. Tears still gathered in her eyes, but she saw what seemed to be He Ping rushing home anxiously.

He Ping also saw Nanyi and yanked the reins to stop abruptly.

“Lady Nanyi—”

“What happened?” Nanyi wiped her tears, sensing something was wrong.

He Ping looked extremely anxious: “After the young master learned at the government office that Sixth Miss had been ambushed by Qi assassins and fell into the cliff at Zhejiang Ridge with no remains to be found, he said not a word, seized a horse, didn’t even return home to the mourning hall, and rode straight out of the city gates. No one could stop him!”

Where would he go? Where else could she go?

Nanyi had a guess and rushed through the night to Zhejiang Ridge, where she indeed found Xie Queshan’s horse.

He wanted to bring Xiaoliu home.

This was a precipitous cliff where the river, blocked by towering peaks, suddenly turned sharply—hence the name Zhejiang Ridge.

If someone fell from this cliff into the torrential waters, they would almost certainly be smashed to pieces with no trace to be found.

As dawn was breaking, faint footprints remained in the shallow sand by the shore. Xie Queshan had already waded from the narrow bank into the water, searching inch by inch alone.

The dead wood on the shore, the reefs in the river, the caves carved out by raging waves—like a madman, he missed no trace or clue.

Although she had mentally prepared herself, Nanyi was still stunned. She rarely saw Xie Queshan in such a desperate, obsessive state. After experiencing his teacher’s death, she thought he had already developed the ability to cope with death.

It turned out that people were still vulnerable before life and death, only using long years to prepare, repeatedly envisioning the worst scenarios, placing themselves in mortal danger to be reborn.

But what about those parts he wasn’t prepared for?

Xie Queshan absolutely never expected to receive news of Xie Xiaoliu’s death.

He could die, but those he desperately protected… how could they die?

His younger sister had always been a lucky and brave woman. She possessed absolute kindness, believed in fairness and justice, had never wronged anyone or done anything wrong, and was still in the best flowering season of blooming in the wind. She should never have been the first to go.

He was even wondering if his change of identity had made things difficult for her—she didn’t know whether to hate him or forgive him, so she simply used a decisive method to make the choice. She had always been someone without middle ground.

He had never been good at expressing himself. Many words he had never said and didn’t plan to speak aloud. But he regretted it terribly. That day he should have gone to coax her.

He should have shamelessly reconciled with his sister that day, letting bygones be bygones.

Then he wouldn’t be pinning his hopes on the four words “no remains to be found” at this moment.

Without a body, might there still be hope of survival?

The living must be seen, the dead must have corpses.

Nanyi watched Xie Queshan’s searching figure and felt her chest swell with intense sourness, immediately followed by burning hope, her heartbeat growing faster and faster.

She also rolled up her trouser legs and waded into the river.

Her sense of powerlessness suddenly had a place to rest. Maybe they didn’t have to face this cruel separation. Whether it was called avoidance or the madness of a dying person grasping at driftwood, what if—what if they could find something?

Even though she was rational and knew the court must have already sent people to search to no avail, even though she knew several days had passed and such searching would be utterly futile, at this moment all of that was cast aside. They only focused on the flowing river before them, gaining a bit of strength to stand up through mechanical searching.

In the past, they had also experienced moments of being favored by heaven, turning danger into safety.

Xie Queshan saw Nanyi. They already had a mutual understanding—to search for miracles in every abandoned moment. He said nothing, just walked with her one in front, one behind, searching wordlessly.

The river water slowly receded, exposing more shallows, but still nothing could be found.

Xiaoliu, stop hiding.

Come home.

Xie Queshan had an illusion that his body was numbly and hopelessly going through the motions of searching, but his real self had drifted to a distant place, looking down at them below the cliff. Before the mountains and rivers, people as tiny as mayflies, no matter how they cried out, received no answer.

Suddenly, an unexpected large wave crashed over. Xie Queshan nearly lost his footing too. He instinctively turned back to look but could no longer see Nanyi.

A certain fear of loss suddenly gripped his heart. He didn’t even have time to think before frantically wading toward where Nanyi had been.

Splash—when he got close, he heard the sound of splashing water. Nanyi shakily stood up from the water. Xie Queshan quickly grabbed her hand, afraid she too would be washed away by the river.

He wanted to say something, but seeing her particularly sorrowful eyes, he paused.

“I think I saw something,” Nanyi said in a daze.

The last wave quietly receded as they spoke. Xie Queshan looked toward this exposed rocky beach. In one area, the stones were shattered, faintly revealing a shallow pit that had been smashed out. Among the scattered rocks was inserted a broken arrow—only the shaft remained, the arrowhead was gone.

Xie Queshan crouched down and carefully, almost trembling, picked up this arrow shaft remnant. This was a weapon used by the Qi people, carved with patterns unique to the Black Crow Hall.

It had been forcibly broken in the middle, and bloodstains that had seeped into the wooden core were still visible at the break.

That brutal and silent scene could be glimpsed here.

Xie Queshan’s rationality began returning to his body inch by inch, gradually becoming clear.

This might be where Xie Xiaoliu had fallen. Her body had already been washed away by the river, leaving only half an enemy arrow by strange coincidence.

The other half, the sharpest part, had forever remained in her body. She would use flesh and blood to make it rot, to make it disappear.

That was her determination.

Xie Queshan knelt on the shallow beach, holding that half arrow shaft, bowing his head in sorrow. His sister was too decisive—she had become rolling river water flowing east, and he could never find her again.

Nanyi came forward to comfort and embrace Xie Queshan. He gripped her tightly and never moved. The tide washed over his trembling back again and again. He seemed to want to gain a bit of certainty from this enormous emptiness and loss.

The things he could grasp were becoming fewer and fewer.

…

On the return journey, they both lost the strength to ride and just slowly led their horses forward.

Halfway there, someone came galloping from ahead with an anxious expression.

The newcomer was Song Muchuan. He dismounted and hurried several steps toward them.

Xie Queshan had already detected urgency in his expression.

“Chao’en, urgent report from the front lines: the Qi army with Han Xianwang as commander-in-chief—fifty thousand troops have already passed Shangyang Pass and are pressing toward Hugui Mountain, half a month earlier than we expected.”

Xie Queshan and Song Muchuan had already guessed that the Qi people’s next move would be to press with their army and had begun preparing for siege warfare. But calculating that it would take the Qi people over twenty days to march from Kaifeng, they never expected them to arrive so quickly.

Most likely, when Wanyan Pujo learned that Xie Queshan hadn’t been eliminated, she anticipated changes in Li Du Mansion and had already prepared a second plan.

After the Bingzhu Bureau’s great victory over Qi forces at Li Du Mansion, Wanyan Pujo killed Shen Zhizhong and quietly left Jinling. The final battle to intercept the emperor afterward was all her feint to the east while attacking west, creating confusion. She used various methods to keep the southern new dynasty too busy to quickly assemble a large army while dispatching her own troops to march south.

Speed is essential in war—she quickly found a way to break the deadlock from her disadvantage.

Xie Queshan slowly raised his head, all the grief in his eyes transforming into sharp hatred. For the first time, he revealed such direct killing intent.

A sword that had drunk its fill of blood, only awaiting unsheathing.

New grievances and old hatreds would be settled in this one battle.

Word by word, he declared his resolve: “Heaven and earth share this hatred—her destruction brings swift satisfaction.”