Yet Xie Wei ultimately didn’t ask. He only replied: “I’m not tired.”

Jiang Xuening went to sit across from him, bending down to pull over several branches from the side, muttering: “I’ve already slept for a while. I’ll watch the fire. Judging by this snow’s momentum, it won’t stop anytime soon. Even if you’re not tired, sir, you should go rest for a bit. In this kind of weather, the less rest you get, the easier it is to fall ill. If you collapse, won’t I be the one in trouble?”

These words came out awkwardly.

With a hint of embarrassment at losing face.

She herself knew this, so after speaking she only buried her head and added kindling to the fire, not raising her eyes.

Xie Wei inexplicably let out a low laugh, watching the wood she added, lightly reminding: “It doesn’t burn well—add it slowly.”

Jiang Xuening: “…”

Her heart seized for that instant. Lifting her eyes, she caught sight of that barely perceptible arc of a smile at the corner of Xie Wei’s lips. The “do I need you to remind me” that had reached her lips was swallowed back down. She hummed softly under her breath: “I know. Just go to sleep.”

Xie Wei watched her for a long while, but in the end still slowly closed his eyes.

He didn’t go lie down on the pile of dry grass.

He only folded his arms, tilting his head back slightly to lean against the rock wall behind him, dozing.

Xie Wei had no intention of falling asleep.

Yet this kind of night was destined not to be peaceful.

Almost the instant he closed his eyes, that endless bloody torrent from the past swept toward him like a nightmare, as if crashing into towering thousand-foot cliffs, destroying lush towering trees, carrying him away…

Even using all his strength, he could not break free.

He tumbled into an uneasy dream.

In the morning light, the glazed tiles of the nine-layered palace stretched one after another, magnificent and imposing.

Fresh snow lay white and clean, reflecting such joyful expressions on the faces of the palace servants coming and going.

The young woman stopped to straighten his sleeves, smiling gently as she said to him: “Auspicious snow heralds a bountiful year. With snow falling this winter, next year’s crop harvest will be good, and the common people will be even happier.”

That face should have been beautiful and radiant.

Yet no matter how hard he tried, he could only remember some blurred details, piecing together an indistinct outline.

Only the temperature of the palm leading him forward was deeply branded into his memory.

Step by step entering the palace gates, walking through long corridors, ascending staircases, then bowing down alongside her.

People in magnificent robes toasted and conversed merrily.

Crown Prince Shen Lang came in with several other study companions, pulling him to a side hall to play chess.

After playing a few rounds, he grew tired.

That young woman came and had palace servants bring him to a warm chamber to sleep.

He had a dream.

He dreamed of summer, of the newly planted cherry tree at his uncle’s manor bearing bright red fruit; dreamed of sitting under the eaves playing the qin, with the melody that he could never play well suddenly flowing smoothly; dreamed that the manor’s cook finally made a plate of especially delicious peach pastries, and smiling, he picked up the plate and was about to run outside…

Then he tripped and suddenly woke.

When he opened his eyes, it was already dark outside, and there wasn’t a single serving palace attendant in the warm chamber.

Only low crying sounds drifted in.

He rose from the bed and walked out to see several young palace servants huddled together, tears constantly streaming down, choking with sobs. That young woman sat very close to the woman wearing the phoenix crown and magnificent palace robes, her face unable to hide its worry. Yet when she saw him, she still showed a smile, beckoning him over.

He asked what had happened.

She said nothing had happened, that it would be fine.

Though the child wasn’t very old and didn’t understand many things yet, he still vaguely caught the scent of fear floating in the air.

Only no one dared speak of it.

At midnight, a general he had seen guarding the palace gates before burst in, wearing blood-stained armor. He knelt before the Empress, kowtowing and crying: “The capital is about to fall. Please, Your Majesty, open the secret passage and enter the underground palace to protect His Highness!”

So they were blindfolded.

In the darkness, only that woman’s hand tightly gripped his.

When the silk cloth covering their eyes was removed, they had already reached an underground chamber. Faintly, they could hear heavy footsteps passing overhead and the sounds of clashing swords, continuing for almost two full days and nights.

He could hear it before falling asleep.

When he woke and opened his eyes, he could still hear it.

Not until the third day did the sounds gradually diminish and disappear.

The people hiding in the chamber had already grown haggard, nearly weeping with joy.

Yet the Empress sternly rebuked them, telling them not to cry.

The young woman held him in her arms, saying that Uncle and Father were both great generals commanding a hundred thousand troops. They would soon receive word and rush back to bring them out from here.

Though he listened, his heart harbored a persistent confusion: What if they couldn’t make it back?

But seeing Empress Aunt’s dark and gloomy expression, in the end he didn’t voice it.

Time wore away in waiting.

Later he could no longer distinguish hours or day from night, only opening his eyes to listen to them speak or closing them to fall into tangled nightmares.

But that day, he unusually didn’t fall asleep.

He vaguely heard someone go out to scout.

Not long after returning and reporting, a shrill voice rang out. Something shattered, followed immediately by tearful arguing. One of the voices was extremely familiar.

He didn’t put on shoes but quietly walked out.

Pearl curtains concealed his form.

Drawing closer, he heard more clearly.

“Your Majesty, the Heavenly Doctrine and Prince Pingnan come with fierce momentum, inherently harboring wolfish ambitions and crazed with slaughter. If they don’t find traces of the Crown Prince, those three hundred children might still be saved—perhaps they can hold on until reinforcements arrive! But if we follow Your Majesty’s words, no matter who goes, those three hundred children will likely meet more ill fortune than good! If it’s real, they’ll slaughter them all to prevent future troubles; if it’s false, they may still fly into a rage. How can we substitute one for another?”

“The rebels have already issued an ultimatum to the entire capital! If no one appears, won’t it incite civil unrest? Even if we then drive out the rebels and quell the rebellion, who knows if it won’t trigger court instability and censure from the pure-minded officials?”

“But Your Majesty, he hasn’t even passed his seventh birthday yet…”

“The Crown Prince is only how old? Would you dare let my son go to his death?”

“Then by what right should it be my child?!”

“Because my son is sovereign and he is subject! A subject dies for his sovereign—there is distinction between high and low, noble and base are not equal!”

Because Shen Lang was sovereign and he was subject.

Because there was distinction between high and low, noble and base were not equal!

A subject should die for his sovereign.

He stood quietly behind the pearl curtain, watching that young woman cry her tears dry, collapsing dejectedly to the ground as if bleeding from the heart, covering her own face.

The stern woman said: “Go summon the young heir.”

The eunuch beside her bowed in acknowledgment and came this way to lift the pearl curtain. Upon seeing him standing behind it, he was so frightened he cried out and fell sitting to the ground, shouting in a trembling voice as if seeing a ghost: “Young heir, how—how are you here?”

Empress Xiao, wearing her phoenix crown, stiffened for an instant, the vicious energy on her face not yet dissipated. Yet upon turning to see him, she hastily changed to her usual intimate warmth, even smiling at him: “What’s this, can’t sleep? Perfect, Aunt has something to discuss with you.”

He stood there without walking over.

But Empress Xiao walked to him, crouching before him: “The teachings of the sages say one should be loyal to one’s sovereign. Right now, bad people outside want to capture the Crown Prince. You are His Highness’s study companion—are you willing to pretend to be the Crown Prince and go out?”

He raised his head to look toward the corner.

Shen Lang, of similar age, sat there cowering. When their eyes met, he seemed somewhat evasive, yet in the next instant glared back viciously at him, abruptly standing up to scold: “If the sovereign commands a subject to die, do you dare refuse?”

Empress Xiao grew angry and scolded him: “Be quiet!”

When she turned back to him, she was all smiles again: “This Palace knows that the young heir has been precocious since childhood, is most sensible, and should understand priorities.”

The weeping woman finally broke down, rushing this way and wailing: “No, don’t go!”

Empress Xiao waved her hand.

The eunuchs standing in the darkness came forward to restrain and hold her at a distance. He only felt these people seemed to have grown from that darkness itself—when they emerged, it was as if they had been peeled bloodily from the darkness, yet moved silently like walking corpses.

Empress Xiao’s fingers, adorned with enamel armor, lightly rested on his shoulder. She pointed back at that woman, smiling as she said: “See, your mother has been hiding here these past days until she’s nearly suffocating, going mad. She loves you, and you protect her too, don’t you?”

The guards gripped their swords.

Somehow they had already been unsheathed, their pale cold light glinting in the gloom.

They restrained that frail woman.

Making her unable to speak or move, only able to let out mournful whimpers.

Her tear-filled eyes seemed to plead.

He blinked, slowly withdrawing his gaze. With a calm beyond his years, he answered: “I am willing to take His Highness’s place; the subject is willing to take the sovereign’s place.”

The woman closest to him smiled with satisfaction.

The woman farthest from him covered her face and collapsed in tears.

He walked over.

Someone blocked him.

Empress Xiao watched him for a long while, then waved her hand, and those people withdrew.

He came before that beautiful woman and embraced her, saying softly: “Mother, don’t be afraid.”

Yet she only cried harder, clutching him and refusing to let go.

Until someone forcefully pried her fingers apart.

He watched them pull her down and aside. He heard Empress Xiao say behind him: “Aunt will look after her properly.”

Eunuchs stripped off the clothes Shen Lang wore and put them on him.

From shoes and socks to jade pendant.

Before being blindfolded again, he knelt before that woman and kowtowed three times, quietly and calmly. She struggled with all her might as if mad, yet no matter what, could not break free.

Darkness at this moment seemed to become a bottomless abyss.

He walked and groped within it.

Upon hearing a mechanism sound and the secret passage opening, a chill rushed toward him.

Removing the blindfold, he emerged from beside the vermilion steps of the Qianqing Palace, descending the stairs step by step. Palace servants’ corpses lay everywhere. In stone crevices and low places, frozen blood resembled deep red amber.

Snow was still falling from the sky.

He didn’t know if the snow had been falling continuously since the day he entered the palace without stopping, or if it had stopped in between and started falling again. He only felt very cold, so cold his fingers ached.

The dreamscape tumbled and fell as he walked.

Black night, white snow—all transformed into fierce ghosts, shrieking at him with all their might.

Suddenly countless strange faces overlapped before him.

Gloomy, ferocious, coldly sinister.

Someone asked, are you Shen Lang?

He said, I am.

Then he heard long blades unsheathed, snow swords ringing, and a bone-chilling cold laugh: “Kill!”

Kill—

Before his eyes, attacking wind and snow suddenly obscured his vision. He trudged with difficulty through what seemed like a river.

From the snowy mist came the cries of cats.

He rushed in, shouting loudly: “Where are you?”

No one responded.

His foot caught on a stone and he fell to the ground. Upon rising, he discovered his entire body and hands were crimson red—it turned out what lay beneath his feet wasn’t a river but endless flowing blood; what tripped him wasn’t a stone but a small arm.

Terror seized him in that moment.

He stepped back.

But the great wind swept in precisely then, clearing away all obstructions to his vision, revealing a small mountain piled with countless children’s corpses. Broken limbs pressed against cold, rigid bodies; slit throats lay against shattered skulls…

Several cats crouched atop it, heads buried, eating something.

They were filthy all over, thin as skin and bones, seemingly without any flesh at all. Their skulls appeared oddly angular. When they turned to look at him, every muscle tense, the bones of their ribs protruded visibly beneath their thin, dry fur.

Pairs of hungry eyes glowed in the darkness.

Even their cries carried a low, sinister horror that made one nearly retch!

“Meowrrr!”

A cry full of sharp hostility.

A black shadow lunged toward him like lightning!

“Mother…”

Xie Wei awoke with a start, his fingertips trembling. Opening his eyes, the fire still burned, yet he could barely feel any of its warmth. Because of that surging nausea, he could hardly move.

Yet when he turned his head, he saw at the cave entrance—

Pairs of eyes glowing in the darkness!

They were over a dozen wild mountain cats. At some unknown time they had gathered at the cave entrance, their forms visible through the piled branches, staring toward them with predatory intensity!

Almost simultaneously, the foremost mountain cat viciously bared its teeth.

A fierce cry issued from its mouth as it instantly transformed into a black shadow, rapidly lunging into the cave!

Jiang Xuening had been adding kindling for half the night. By the latter half of the night as dawn approached, she finally grew drowsy, nodding off intermittently.

Xie Wei vaguely spoke some sleep talk, startling her suddenly awake.

This time she happened to see that group of mountain cats gathered at the cave entrance with arched backs and raised fur. Terror instantly seized her, a chill shooting from the soles of her feet up her spine to the back of her skull!

Xie Wei’s short blade, cleaned and set aside, rested on a nearby rock.

In that split second, with no time to think further, Jiang Xuening snatched up the blade. As the mountain cat lunged, she stood before Xie Wei and slashed at the cat with the knife.

Completely without any technique.

Slash!

In the wind and snow of night there seemed to be the sound of tearing silk. The sharp blade cut through the cat’s eye and tore open half its belly. Filthy fresh blood immediately splattered onto her body. The cat fell, landing in a mess, shrieking pitifully!

Jiang Xuening’s action had been purely instinctive. She hadn’t expected to draw blood, much less to see such a bloody and horrifying scene. Her scalp exploded with terror and she nearly buried her head to vomit.

In that moment she wanted to throw away the blade in her hand.

She almost stepped back.

Yet mysteriously, images from the past surfaced. A voice told her she couldn’t retreat. So that force drove her to grip the blade tightly again with force. She forced herself not to look down even once, suppressing the urge to retch, only quickly kicking the now-silent mountain cat corpse out with one foot.

The mountain cats outside immediately let out another round of shrill screaming!

Xie Wei was extremely cold, his face pale. He could neither see her expression nor read her emotions—he could only see this silhouette, panting and heaving from extreme fear.

Her trembling fingers still gripped that blade tightly.

Like a fool, Jiang Xuening stubbornly shielded him behind her, using a barely audible hoarse voice to say to him: “Sir, I’m here.”