The midnight tidal flat was so quiet you could hear the sound of storks wading through the water. Shen Linlin’s shouts hung in the air above, and for a long time no one responded.

Xiao Nanhui glanced at Shen Linlin’s somewhat twisted expression and suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for him.

Was there really anyone in this world who came home and couldn’t get through the door?

Shen Linlin himself found this deeply difficult to make sense of. He pulled out his soft whip and gave it a fierce crack against the ground. The tip carved up a large chunk of mud from the water-soaked sandy rock and sent it flying accurately toward Shen Yangyang not far away.

An instant before the mud was about to strike the young woman, the deer beneath her suddenly moved — a light flick of its raised antlers deflected the mud clump to one side.

“How rude.” Shen Yangyang’s voice was languid, and her manner equally languid. She sat with both legs dangling casually, a luminescent pearl fastened to her toe tips glinting in the darkness. “Since when does a younger brother speak to his elder sister this way? Never mind that your words are unpleasant — you even go so far as to strike someone.”

The younger brother in question showed not the slightest trace of guilt on his face, only wishing he had thrown a big man’s blade instead.

“You started it. This is something grandmother assigned to me — if it gets held up, will you take the responsibility?!”

The young woman called Yangyang tilted her head and looked over the few people standing on the tidal flat, then shifted her position and leaned back against the deer.

“You are so useless. The five or six people you brought back before were all wrong. And now you still want me to open the door for you? If grandmother questions it, who bears the responsibility?”

The young lad heard this and was immediately red-faced and purple-necked with rage, and with no regard for the outsiders present, he launched into a tirade on the spot.

“You lazy, shameless wretch! Every time grandmother asks, don’t you always claim all the credit and push all the blame onto me?! I’ve been squatting in that stinking, filthy hole of a Yueyuan for three whole months without a proper bath, while you’ve been lounging here in comfort all this time!”

Shen Yangyang laughed instead of getting angry, and even the deer beneath her seemed amused — its nose gave two snorts in quick succession.

“It was you who wanted the spotlight and grabbed this thankless task. I kindly let you have it, and now you’re biting the hand that fed you.”

“If you hadn’t kept stirring the pot, how would I have ended up in this predicament?! Grandmother is getting old and has gone soft in the head, listening to your words and leaving me to suffer like this! If Father were still alive, he would never have stood by and done nothing!”

With such intense emotion, Shen Linlin’s spittle flew far — and landed squarely on the eyelid of Xiao Nanhui, who was standing slightly to his side.

She raised her hand and wiped it off with a blank expression. The nerve above her eyelid, already twitching from lack of sleep, now jumped with even greater enthusiasm.

To think that she had given up chasing after that bastard Yanzi and come all this way to Huozhou looking for someone — what a sacrifice. Being unable to sleep was one thing, but to stand here in wet shoes on a muddy tidal flat in the middle of the night, listening to these two inexplicable siblings bicker and squabble.

At this thought, Xiao Nanhui’s patience finally snapped and she stepped forward.

“I don’t care about your fathers and mothers, your in-laws and brothers and sisters! Does your Shen Family want to see someone or not? Give us a straight answer!”

Shen Yangyang finally shifted her gaze to the others, though she only gave a light glance, apparently not bothering to look closely.

“There is a ceremony of offering prayers at the residence tonight. I promised grandmother I would not let even a single fly through.”

She could have said she would not let a single person through — but she had to mention flies.

Whether these words were said for Shen Linlin or for her, Xiao Nanhui only felt that perhaps the one before her was the genuine article among the Shen Family. Even without fine silk garments and a fragrant carriage, she exuded from head to toe the arrogance that comes with wealth and power.

She found herself thinking that Shen Linlin was not so bad after all. At least he still retained some trace of what a normal young man is. In a few more years even that would be gone.

As for fighting — no one present was necessarily a match for her and Ding Weixiang.

But in the face of power, force is merely a tool to be put to use. To make power bow its head, one can only press it down with greater power.

“Since the household head is indisposed, we shall take our leave for now.” The man beside her said at an unhurried pace, without the slightest discourtesy. “My surname is Zhong, given name Li. I would ask the young lady to please relay this to the household head at her convenience.”

Having said this, he did not look at Shen Yangyang again, and gently took her hand to turn and leave.

“Wait a moment!”

The young woman on the deer finally sat upright. She looked at that young man she could not quite read, weighing something — and in the end gave the deer’s head a pat, murmured a few words, then unfastened the bell at her waist and stood up on the deer’s back.

The deer lifted its head and let out a long, drawn-out call. At the same moment, the bell in Shen Yangyang’s hand gave out a low, muted sound — and instantly, the entire herd of deer withdrew its collective gaze and began to stir. Thousands upon thousands of hooves rose and fell on the sandy rock, the fine friction of fur against fur mingled with the breath expelled from deer nostrils, disturbing and shaking the air itself.

In no more than a moment, the herd split into two, parting to reveal a small path leading deep into the cedar forest. At the path’s end, spanning between two rocky hills, was a single-arch gate. Above the gate rose a solitary beacon tower; its four corners held firelight, casting long, sharp shadows from the bronze arrow points mounted on the gate, which had gone rusty with age.

But Xiao Nanhui’s astonishment at this moment did not come from the spectacle before her — it came from a vague resonance stirring somewhere deep in her memory.

If the first time she had seen Shen Linlin drive the herd at Yueyuan and that feeling had been indistinct, then seeing Shen Yangyang’s actions and the bell in her hand made her far more certain of the quiet, restless unease within her.

The same bell — she had seen one once before, and heard one once before.

The first time was in Seqiu, when she had gone out alone in search of food. The Pu Huna man who was together with A’Lu had a bell just like this one fastened to his wrist.

The second time was at Changmi Tower in Jiaosong County, when Yanzi attempted to steal the secret seal and the Black Feather forces surrounded the venue. Amid the crowd of onlookers, a faint bell sound had guided him to his escape route.

If it were only this much, she might not have been on guard to this degree.

What she truly cared about was the runic characters inscribed on the bell.

Back when she and the Emperor were in the wasteland west of the ridge, evading Pu Huna’s pursuit, they had encountered a wolf pack.

The lone wolf that came drawn by the scent of blood bore a blood symbol on its head, and the characters on it were very strange. At the time she had only thought it was some southern Qiang secret technique — but thinking back now, she had never, during her time in Bijiang, encountered such techniques, nor seen any similar characters in food, clothing, shelter, or travel.

Even earlier still, the catalyst for the surprise attack on the warlord’s tent that snowy day had been Su Pingchuan’s black horse. That black horse bore blood-written runic characters on its head — and those characters were the very same script.

The sound of the bell, and those ancient characters whose origin could not be traced — all of it pointed to some unknown connection between the Shen Family and Pu Huna.

Perhaps that secret technique had not originated with the southern Qiang at all, but came from the north.

And those legendary descendants of the Guyi clan — said to be able to commune with beasts and birds — had in truth entirely left the western ridgeline in the wake of that catastrophic flood, and resettled in the north.

The ability to control animals — this art was small when small, and great when great.

Considered at its smallest: it concerns only the way of beasts, far less than moving mountains or reversing the very turning of the heavens.

But considered at its greatest: in all this world, aside from flora and trees, living creatures are the most numerous of things. Wherever there are living creatures, there is a place where one might stir the winds and move the clouds.

The more she thought on it, the more genuinely unnerving it became.

Shen Linlin, five steps away, naturally had no idea what was passing through her mind. He was still mired in the shame of having lost ground to his elder sister, and was looking impatiently for some pretext to vent his frustration on someone else.

He gave one of the Zou Mansion guards a kick, then glared ferociously at Zhao Ximei.

“What are you standing around for?! Go clean out the deer enclosure. If you aren’t done before daybreak, I’ll have you all trussed up and sent to the Xiong Family in Mu Er He.”

At these words, Zhao Ximei’s face went as white as though she had seen a ghost. She moved with the wind — leading those several big men — and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Xiao Nanhui stood watching, overcome with a bittersweet feeling.

To think that the Zou Family had made their fortune off the medicine known as Lingqianxue — and that Lingqianxue had been plundered from the blood and flesh of countless wild deer. Now Zou Sifang was nowhere to be found, and the entire Zou household was enslaved to the Shen Family, put to work tending deer. Even Zhao Ximei — once the pampered, imperious mistress of the household — had to bow her head and tend to creatures with four hooves. Anyone who heard this tale would have to say: truly, heaven’s justice turns.

Taking a deep breath, she followed behind Ding Weixiang and kept trying to find a chance to drift to that man’s side and tell him all the inferences she had just made about Pu Huna. But hindered by Shen Yangyang, who was following almost step for step, and worried that her insufficient evidence would only alert their quarry, she had no choice but to press these heavy thoughts down, and with the others fell into silence, moving toward that solitary gate between the two rocky hills.

The ground underfoot was still the damp, wet tidal flat. What was called a path was less a path than a stretch of ground that had been outlined into the shape of one. Without the deer herd, no trace of this path could be found on the tidal flat. As for whether the other small trails hidden in the darkness among the trees held other dangers, Xiao Nanhui could not say.

Passing through the cedar forest brought them to the gate. The road inside the gate was still narrow, with high rocky walls rising on either side. Occasional passages wide enough for only one person to pass through appeared in the walls — it was impossible to tell whether these were cracks formed naturally in the rock or channels carved out by human hands.

The left half of the rocky cliff had been hollowed out, everywhere marked by the enormous black cavities left from coal mining. The right cliff face rose like a surface cut by an axe, sheer and clean. The long wash of rain over the years had formed a towering vertical wall of bare rock with not a blade of grass, and into this wall had been scooped out numerous cavities, large and small. At first glance they looked like grottoes that former people had carved for Buddhist statues — but looking closely, one could see there were no images inside, only empty stone platforms.

She had never seen such a strange residential structure before, and deliberately slowed her steps to look more carefully.

The bases of those stone platforms had a petal-like form — it seemed to be the shape of lotus flowers. Due to their great age, the patterns carved on them had worn away, and the craftsmanship and era of the work could no longer be made out.

Xiao Nanhui kept her eyes fixed on them, until a great cavern appeared ahead.

This cavity, set deep into the cliff wall, was unlike all the others she had seen. By rough estimate it could hold several hundred people at once. Its inner walls were carved with rune patterns, densely covering the surface from ground up to the towering ceiling, finally converging at a small opening at the very top — which was dripping some kind of black liquid down. Where the liquid fell was the only stone platform inside the entire cavern.

Several gray-clad guards walked past carrying torches, and the firelight illuminated the back wall of the cavern. Xiao Nanhui noticed a wide swath of charred black spreading outward from the wall — it had clearly not formed naturally, yet did not look like any pigment had been applied.

The air carried a sharp, acrid smell, still quite strong even after the night’s rain.

It was the smell of coal oil.

She looked toward the circular stone platform and finally understood what was carved upon it.

Those petal-like forms were not lotus flowers at all — they were flames. Between the flames and the grooves of the stone platform ran flowing black fuel oil. It was not hard to imagine what kind of scene this cavern would become once a spark set it alight.

The man beside her seemed to sense her gaze, and spoke in a very low voice near her ear.

“That is the place where the northern Xishen tribe performs their cremation rites.”

Xiao Nanhui was taken aback.

Cremation — that is to say, burning the dead.

Aside from eminent monks of temples who often use cremation rites, the practice is rare among common people, let alone among princes of the first rank or the imperial household. Whether the soul garment or the longevity coffin, all exist to keep the body complete, so that the soul can ascend to paradise and be reborn whole in the next life. If the body is incomplete — or if there is no body at all — it is considered a great calamity.

“The Xishen people believe that the soul is indestructible. After death, the soul can become a ghost or spirit, or take up residence within the living creatures and plants of the world, guarding those whom they loved in life.”

“But what does that have to do with cremation rites?”

“If a person has already died, the soul has already departed. The body they inhabited in life is like a vessel that has been emptied out. At that point it must be burned away quickly — otherwise other things will come to occupy it.”

What other things?

Xiao Nanhui still wanted to ask, but ahead of them Shen Yangyang had already stopped.

“I can only bring you through one gate. To pass the second gate, you must first have been received by Grandmother.”

One small regional clan, and yet they set two gates for the compound — truly an impressive show of grandeur.

Only, deep in these barren hills, what grand display could be put on for anyone to see? Or perhaps this was not a show of wealth and power at all, but a genuine defensive arrangement.

Whether it was the three walls of Quecheng’s imperial capital or the layered, interlocking courtyards of Yulin Lodge — at their core, all were means of defense. As for against whom they were defending — that was a matter with many answers.

Her attention was still wandering when several fully-armed gray-clad guards carrying torches came walking straight toward them from within the cavern.

Xiao Nanhui’s gaze fell on the scabbards at those figures’ backs.

Those blades were not the goose-wing swords or straight swords that ordinary guards habitually used — they were curved, and pointed, like a new moon on a clear night.

She withdrew her gaze, and it met Ding Weixiang’s. The two exchanged a brief glance and then looked away, both pretending to be unconcerned.

Of all the wretched luck.

When she had been returning from Mu Er He to Chizhou, she had crossed blades with several curved-knife assassins on a broken bridge. Had she not had Pingxian in hand that day, the weeds above her grave would likely be three feet tall by now.

The heat of the torches pressed close. Those several gray-clad fighters were upon them in an instant — and behind them followed one more person.

It was an elderly woman simply dressed, who at first glance was not much different from old ladies in Quecheng who dote on their grandchildren. But when she raised her head, one could see that on that aged face were set two eyeballs as white and clouded as a dead fish’s belly. Her two thin lips were sunken deep into her chin, like a knot of scar tissue on an old elm.

They say that aging is the common lot of all people — yet for some reason, the marks that time had left on this face looked like a terrible punishment.

“Greetings, Grandmother.”

Shen Yangyang bowed respectfully.

The old woman opened her mouth toward Shen Yangyang. The two parting lips became a dark, hollow tree hole in a trunk.

“How many people?”

Shen Yangyang answered clearly.

“Three people.”

“Truly three people?”

Xiao Nanhui frowned. She genuinely could not fathom why this question was worth any deliberation whatsoever.

Were the Shen Family people so addled from digging coal in these barren hills that they had lost their minds? Three people — not thirty, not three hundred — and they still might count them wrong?

Yet Shen Yangyang clearly did not see it this way. In an instant her expression became one of alarm, and even her proud neck seemed to sag somewhat.

“Yangyang’s skills are too poor. Please punish me as you see fit, Grandmother.”

The old woman said nothing more. Those clouded white eyeballs rolled and came to rest on Xiao Nanhui’s group.

Wait — her eyes — could she not see?

Or perhaps she truly could not see with normal vision, but could perceive things ordinary people could not?

She thought of the blind priest who had placed the ritual horse-mask on her at the Zhuming Sacrifice, and then of the gazes that had come from the deer herd on the tidal flat.

If all living things and creatures in heaven and earth are truly just vessels, then who or what inhabits each soul and spirit within them — was this not something impossible to contemplate too deeply?

Those deer who had stared at her on the tidal flat might have had human souls dwelling within their bodies. And the palace attendant who had attempted to assassinate her that night at the Jiaosong detached palace — as well as Zou Sifang, who had clearly already been dead yet appeared again in broad daylight — were the souls inhabiting those shells truly human souls?

Xiao Nanhui shuddered involuntarily.

Then she saw the old woman extend a withered hand and beckon in the air.

Behind her, Shen Linlin gave her an impolite shove.

“Grandmother is calling for you.”

(Sneaking in a side story)

Side Story: The Paper Kite

The young A’Shan had often felt, since he could remember, that his life had ended before it truly began.

He no longer remembered anything about his birth father or birth mother, nor did he remember why he had been given the name A’Shan. Perhaps the one who gave him this name had hoped he would be a kind person. But his circumstances had made this name a joke from the moment it was given.

Just as he himself was.

From the earliest days of his memory, he had been raised to serve as a stand-in for someone else.

He had met many people, and imitated many people.

From reading the surface to reading the bones — and then from reading the bones to reading the soul.

Those souls, beautiful or ugly, hidden beneath their varied shells, were complex and stubborn, heartless and greedy. He endured the torment of those souls, and from that torment forged the sharpness of his sight.

Ten years. A discipline cultivated into craft. He believed there was no shell he could not see through, no soul he could not see into.

He could read those people — and so it was that imitating them came naturally to him.

When he was needed to be a crown prince, he was a crown prince. When a prisoner, a prisoner. Ugly or beautiful, tall or short, male or female — he could always become whatever others needed him to be. He was like a lump of clay, kneaded into round shapes and pressed flat, changed at will into any form — but never allowed to be his own.

He had never imagined that in his lifetime he would ever walk under the sunlight wearing his own face.

The first time he saw that person, the man was still only a prince. A prince who was about to be cast out because of a fatal flaw.

The late Emperor had secretly brought him along with more than ten others into a dark chamber, for that person to select a future puppet stand-in.

There are no secrets in the imperial household. A prince could only have one stand-in. The rest — were to be discarded.

The moment he saw that person’s face, he lowered his head in despair.

His own features were too different from this person’s. He would not be chosen. And if he were not chosen, there was no possibility of walking out of that room alive.

The Emperor designated three children to step forward — and was refused by that person, one by one.

He did not know how much time had passed when he felt those footsteps stop in front of him.

“Raise your head.”

The boy’s voice still held a trace of youth, yet was very firm.

He was too tense, too afraid. Hearing the command, he could not make his rigid body respond.

A cold hand took his hand — it did not use too much force, but carried a steadiness that pulled him up from the floor.

His line of sight rose gradually from the dust, until it was level with that young man before him.

In the brief moment before he had not looked closely enough — now he could see that the boy’s eyes were dark and bright, seemingly clear and defined in their black and white, yet holding a depth that did not match his age.

“Royal Father, I have made my choice.”

The Emperor considered for a moment and stated the fact.

“This person does not resemble you.”

The boy nodded, unhurried in his manner.

“That is precisely why I chose him. Appearance can be changed — but if the true face too closely resembled mine, I would worry that even Royal Father might one day be unable to tell the real from the false.”

The business of a stand-in replacing the true master — it was not as if it had never happened.

Yet those masters still chose stand-ins who looked very like themselves. That was a kind of arrogance. Also a kind of foolishness.

He had believed no one else had seen through this as clearly as he had.

He stood there in silence, the blankness on his face shifting into a kind of bewilderment.

He suddenly felt that behind those black eyes was a soul he would never be able to fathom — and for a moment he did not know whether to feel fortunate or afraid at having been chosen.

He was brought through three palace walls.

Among all the stand-ins under heaven, he was the one with the highest standing.

He was the most beautiful mask, the most perfect puppet, the most brilliant paper kite.

But his face was not his own. His hands and feet were not his own. And the direction he wished to go was not his own.

“The happiest moment for a paper kite is the moment just before it flies into the sky. Because in that moment it can see the sky — it believes it has infinite possibilities ahead, an infinite future — not knowing that there is a string tied to its body, and the other end of that string is in someone else’s hand.”

This was what the half-mad female official who had dressed him when he was still in the slave camp had once said to him.

He had always remembered the paper kite in that woman official’s hand — tattered and torn, half a wing missing, never to fly into the blue sky again.

Just like him, as he was now.

Though he wore fine clothes, he would never be able to walk out through those three palace walls.

At first, he gazed at the blue sky every day.

Later, he only watched the treetops.

Still later, he learned to keep his gaze forever lowered.

His world was only those square stone slabs inside the palace, one after another, without end.

Several years later, that boy finally came back.

By now he had changed from a boy into a young man. His form and features were greatly different — only those eyes remained the same: dark, fathomless black.

“Does A’Shan know why I chose you back then?”

Because I don’t look like you — so I’m easier to hold in your hand afterward.

“This one is slow-witted and does not know the mind of Your Highness.”

“You do know.” The cool, clear voice carried a touch of amusement as it sounded near his ear. “I chose you because you understand me. From the moment you raised your eyes to look at me, I knew: we are the same kind of person.”

A’Shan’s thoughts stilled at these words.

Many people had said he resembled them — eyes alike, nose alike, mouth alike — but no one had ever said they were the same kind of person.

He was only a lowly descendant of condemned criminals. How could he be the same kind of person as a prince?

This must be a test.

“Your Highness flatters this one — this one —”

He arranged his most meek and subservient manner, but was cut off.

“Do you like your own face?”

He shook his head in confusion, then again, not knowing what to do with himself, lowered his head.

He had not looked in a mirror for a very long time. He no longer remembered what he himself had originally looked like.

“Whether you like it or not is not what matters. What matters is that you must remember your own appearance.”

Why?

What he looked like, no one cared about. Even he himself had long since stopped caring.

“A person who no longer remembers their own appearance — does it not follow that every morning when they wake, they have even forgotten who they are? A person who cannot even play themselves well — how can they go on to play anyone else?”

He froze. His gaze rose from those large stone slabs on the broad lit corridor, and fell on the face he had once thought of trying his best to imitate.

The other party was observing him — his gaze held a composure and tranquility that was difficult to put into words.

“You’re somewhat older than Weixiang. Do you still remember your paternal or maternal family name?”

He shook his head lightly.

“Answering Your Highness: this one is an orphan. The names of father and mother are both unknown.”

“The character ‘shan’ is too costly a name for you — better to use it as a surname.” The young man looked at the glazed tiles on the palace wall, where a young magpie was preening its feathers in the gray-blue light of early morning, preparing for the moment the sun rose and it would spread its wings to fly. “I am fond of everything that has not yet begun. You shall be called Dan Jiangfei.”

Everything has not yet begun?

Or is it that something, in this moment, has begun anew.