Nanyi and Xie Sui’an stood beneath the covered walkway, watching helplessly as Qi soldiers brazenly moved through Wangxue Hollow. Xie Queshan’s takeover of the Xie family was now a foregone conclusion.
When Xie Queshan emerged from Xuanying Hall, Nanyi couldn’t stop Xie Sui’an—she charged directly forward. Not daring to face Xie Queshan directly, Nanyi hesitated before remaining in an inconspicuous corner.
Xie Sui’an blocked Xie Queshan’s path, her eyes crimson as she glared at him. In some corner of her heart lingered a trace of hope—hoping Xie Queshan would say something explanatory, explain his treasonous acts. But he simply gazed back at her quietly, self-righteous and detached.
Finally unable to bear it any longer, Xie Sui’an delivered a resounding slap across Xie Queshan’s face.
The Qi soldiers startled and moved to restrain Xie Sui’an, but Xie Queshan raised his hand to stop them.
“Xie Chao’en,” Xie Sui’an tried hard to control the trembling in her chest, but as soon as she spoke, tears streamed down her face. She had no choice—she only had that bit of uncontrollable anger, which also revealed her powerlessness. “However much you hate the Xie family, come at me instead, alright?”
No one saw how tightly Xie Queshan’s hands clenched into fists beneath his wide sleeves. He had to exert even more force to appear indifferent.
The year he was born, the late emperor ascended the throne and granted general amnesty. “Chao’en” meant gratitude for imperial grace. Since his betrayal of the country, this name had become a joke.
His birth name was like a curse—each time it was spoken, it carved another wound in his heart.
Xie Queshan paused, acting as if he hadn’t heard, and moved to leave. Xie Sui’an stubbornly blocked his path with reddened eyes.
“Just kill me. Let me pay for your mother’s life. Don’t hate anymore—spare third uncle, spare father, don’t destroy the Xie family, please?”
Xie Queshan’s face was cold as ice. He seemed angry too, not even looking at the pleading Xie Sui’an: “Xie Sui’an, this has nothing to do with you. Just stay put and don’t do anything. If you dare die, I’ll make your birth mother accompany you in death.”
Xie Queshan brushed his sleeves and departed, leaving Xie Sui’an standing futilely in place.
Xie Sui’an stared blankly at Xie Queshan’s retreating figure, not even noticing when Nanyi came to her side.
She murmured: “That year, father shouldn’t have made that decision… It would have been better for the entire Xie family to die in Lanzhou than this situation where relatives aren’t like relatives, and enemies aren’t like enemies…”
The fifteenth year of Yongkang, thirteen years ago in Lanzhou.
That year Xie Queshan was fifteen, and Xie Sui’an only ten.
News that the Qi people were attacking the city with heavy forces was secretly delivered to Duke Changning Xie Jun. The court had already decided to abandon Lanzhou to protect Dading Pass, while within Lanzhou city there was still unknowing revelry and prosperity.
After much hesitation, Xie Jun decided to relocate the entire family south.
But the court’s abandonment of Lanzhou was top secret information. The army had already been transferred to Dading Pass, leaving only some elite soldiers in Lanzhou to consume Qi forces while the main force defended the pass with everything they had.
If the Xie family made too large a movement, they couldn’t hide it. This would cause panic among the city’s military and civilians, creating chaos, and the Qi people would learn that Lanzhou city was empty and turn to attack Dading Pass instead.
In the end, Xie Jun used the excuse of a suburban excursion, taking only blood relatives in three carriages through mountain paths, leaving all servants at home to maintain the appearance that the Xie family remained normal.
This was tantamount to throwing all of Lanzhou city’s people and the Xie family’s servants under the Qi people’s blades and spears, but Xie Jun truly had no better choice.
In times of peace and prosperity, people could show sympathy even to street beggars, but in chaotic times when lives must be chosen, the hierarchy of closeness and distance became immediately clear.
The day they left home, the Xie manor was also chaotic. Everyone thought they had notified the courtyard of the unfavored Third Concubine, but no one actually had. When everyone discovered Xie Queshan and his mother were missing from the carriages, they were already a hundred li from Lanzhou.
Turning the carriages back was impossible. Xie Jun could only send trusted guards back to fetch Xie Queshan and his mother, but outside Lanzhou city, Qi forces had already arrived at the gates.
The Qi people spent three days breaking through the city gates, only to discover Lanzhou was merely an “empty city” existing in name only. Even more enraged, they carried out massive slaughter.
What exactly happened in the city, Xie Sui’an no longer knew.
Everyone thought the mother and son had died in the flames of war. They even prepared to build a cenotaph for them. However, a year later, Xie Queshan arrived at Wangxue Hollow in Li Du Mansion with his mother.
The pampered young master of a noble family had weathered great hardships, his clothes tattered and torn. What had happened in that year he never spoke of, but the wounds on his body testified to the suffering and trials of that journey.
At this point, things were not yet beyond redemption.
Xie Queshan was after all young and hot-blooded, inevitably harboring resentment toward his father, but his mother repeatedly counseled him not to hold grievances against his parents—being alive to return home was Buddha’s protection. With the Grand Madam mediating and having Xie Jun personally apologize to Xie Queshan, father and son reluctantly reconciled.
Xie Queshan ultimately felt uncomfortable staying in the Xie family. The journey of flight had also given him new insights and ambitions.
During his escape, he had received help from Shen Zhizhong, then the Yu Dynasty’s Privy Council Minister. Shortly after returning home, he joined Shen Zhizhong’s command to fight against the Qi.
He served in the military for three years, repeatedly achieving merit. For a time, his reputation as a young general was unparalleled. But when the court made peace with the Qi people and Shen Zhizhong was recalled to the capital, the hundred-year Yu Dynasty valued scholarship above all, promoting the belief that all pursuits were inferior except studying. Military officers were not highly regarded, so Xie Queshan planned to follow his mentor Shen Zhizhong back to Eastern Capital to take the imperial examinations and become a civil official.
At this time, rumors somehow spread in the Xie family that Third Concubine had been captured by bandits when Lanzhou fell and was no longer pure. Three people spreading rumors can create a tiger from nothing—the more it was described, the darker it became. On a pleasant spring day, Third Concubine swallowed gold to end her life and prove her innocence.
When Xie Queshan received news and returned home for the funeral, he only saw his lifelong gentle mother’s coffin. Suicide victims couldn’t be buried in ancestral grounds—only in lonely graves in the wilderness.
That year, Xie Queshan was only nineteen. In his rage, he split the Xie family ancestral hall’s plaque with one sword stroke, severing all relations with the Xie family from then on.
That same year, Xie Jun was mentally and physically exhausted. Knowing his sins were grave, he resigned from all official positions and entered the Buddhist path, devoting himself to worship.
At that time, Xie Sui’an still sided with Xie Queshan in her heart. She even secretly ran from Li Du Mansion to Eastern Capital Kaifeng to visit her brother, swearing he would always be her third brother. Xie Hengzai also repeatedly made the journey between Eastern Capital and Li Du Mansion despite his illness to drink and chat with Xie Queshan.
Xie Queshan also befriended two close friends—Pang Yu and Song Muchuan. The three often got drunk and composed poetry under the moon on Misty Rain Bridge, their reputation spreading throughout Eastern Capital. They were called the “Three Heroes of Misty Rain.”
Though Xie Queshan had severed ties with his clan, during those three years in Eastern Capital with his teachers, close friends, and siblings, he remained a high-spirited youth.
Everyone thought that with time, he would gradually forget his hatred.
But as the Qi people returned with renewed force, Xie Queshan, having just finished the provincial examination, couldn’t wait for the results to be announced before being urgently appointed to Youdu Prefecture to fight the Qi.
A month later, the Shocking Spring Incident occurred. News of Xie Queshan’s surrender to the Qi reached the capital. His name was personally struck from the palace examination list by the emperor. No one knew how this brilliant young man of letters and arms had performed, or what kind of life he might have had if he had returned to the capital safely.
The turbulent first half of the young man’s life thus unfolded before Nanyi in just a few brief strokes. The listener found it heart-stopping.
Nanyi looked up hazily—the sun was already setting in the west.
In the story Xie Sui’an told, she heard Pang Yu’s name. It was a tale of romance and kindred spirits, completely different from the tragic scene of close friends turning into bitter enemies that she had witnessed.
Nanyi felt an inexplicable ache in her heart. No one knew what was really in his mind during those three years of drinking and singing with lofty ambitions. How could he have abandoned everything he once possessed and become a treacherous rebel without looking back?
“Could he… have some compelling reasons?”
Nanyi asked uncertainly.