Jing Hengbo had been living there for several days now.

Those patients rarely came out during the day. After their failed attempt at intimidating her, they cowered in their rooms. Only in the evenings would they emerge for their ghostly revelry.

During the day, someone would deliver three meals and medicinal soup. Hers was placed separately for her to collect herself. Qiu Jinfeng hadn’t examined her through observation, listening, inquiry, and pulse-taking, yet still prescribed medicine for her. But she didn’t eat those crude foods – Yelu Qi provided for her. According to Yelu Qi, this island had dense forests with plenty of wild rabbits and grouse, while the lake waters teemed with fish and shrimp. Occasionally he could even steal rice, oil, salt, and cured meat from Qiu Jinfeng’s courtyard kitchen. Qiu Jinfeng himself wasn’t highly skilled in martial arts but excelled in poisons and medicine. Though formations were set up outside the island, they were ineffective against Yelu Qi, who could only watch helplessly as entire bags of rice – the best quality refined rice – disappeared from his kitchen.

Qiu Jinfeng’s medicine seemed quite potent. Every day Jing Hengbo could see various horrifying things at the bottom of her bowl. After drinking it, she would often fall into deep sleep, feeling her body burning like a furnace in her dreams, waking up drenched in sweat. Each time she woke, she would find a basin of hot water on the table with snow-white cloth towels. She could only look up and smile toward the bamboo tower, listening to the quiet, elegant flute music drifting from there.

Yelu Qi rarely saw her. He had carved a bamboo flute and used it to signal her about meals or things to collect. She often woke from deep sleep to find new gifts. Sometimes it was a handmade wind chime hanging by her window, crafted from fresh flowers and bamboo pieces, with crystalline silk threads stringing them together in perfect arrangement. The petals were tender pink and yellow, the bamboo pieces emerald green and snow white. When the wind blew and they struck each other, there was no clear, musical chiming of bells, but the fragrance of flowers and the elegance of bamboo. That bamboo piece wind chime decorated her window, and even those madmen walking past would unconsciously look up and stare for a long time. Long afterward, light would appear in their eyes – like tears, like memories of past human life.

Sometimes they were various grass-woven trinkets, with enough variety to set up a theater stage, encompassing all the world’s exotic beasts and civil and military officials. Among them were three dolls: one riding a horse and wielding a whip, one standing by a stove with rolled-up sleeves, one sitting under a tree fishing. Jing Hengbo smiled at the three dolls for a while, placing them all on the table. When in good spirits, she would sit at the table staring at the dolls and muttering to herself; when in bad spirits, she would hang up the fishing doll and emit cold chuckles at it.

Sometimes it was a cluster of rare wild flowers, but the vase holding them sparkled with seven-colored light in the sunlight. Looking closely, the vase was an ordinary porcelain vessel, but covered with a layer of bright fish scales stuck on with glue boiled from swim bladders. Under sunlight it displayed seven colors, changing to different hues from different angles. That vase used over a thousand fish scales. She stared at it like looking through a kaleidoscope, thinking of that person with gentle fingers, not knowing how much time he spent on such intricate work that ordinary people couldn’t match. She imagined him collecting fish scales of uniform size left from cooking, slowly boiling glue on rainy days, bit by bit sticking the scales onto the earthen vase. The days themselves seemed to transform the ordinary into the miraculous through such ingenuity and devotion.

No one in this world was born knowing how to devote all their cleverness to others. What supported such devotion was deep, lingering affection. He was a noble young master amid worldly concerns – this worldly air didn’t stain him with mundane impurity, but only made his devotion more noble.

But Jing Hengbo was somewhat worried about his poison. Si Rong Ming’s prescription and those spiritual medicines treated symptoms but not the root cause. If time dragged on, who knew when they would lose effectiveness? Her mood was often contradictory – she feared Gong Yin would come looking, worried that if he came while she was still ill, he might catch her disease. Yet she also hoped he would come, because then Yelu Qi might have a chance to detoxify. In this contradictory mood, every day when she got up, she couldn’t help looking up at the skylight, then sighing, not knowing whether to feel relief or disappointment.

It must be said that Qiu Jinfeng’s treatment methods were strange but effective. After drinking that bizarre medicine for several days, her fever broke, the pimples on her face began to fall off, and her nausea and dizziness were improving. She was thinking of finding an opportunity to repair relations with Qiu Jinfeng, hoping to get him to help monitor her child’s condition long-term. But this fellow was very eccentric – he asked nothing, investigated nothing, and hadn’t come in person yet.

This courtyard remained very strange too. Every night she could see those generals, consorts, princesses, and princes swaying about like ghosts, as if they never needed sleep. During the day they stayed in tree shade, seemingly afraid of sunlight, often arranging themselves by rank to bow to each other. After bowing they would gather together and sob. The men and women all wore white robes, but she gradually discovered these people actually changed clothes daily, wearing different silks and satins each day – all white, wearing them for one cycle before changing again, but never washing them, so each looked about equally dirty. Jing Hengbo also discovered that while their manners were often poor, occasionally they displayed extraordinary deportment. She once personally witnessed a madman eating eggs – a golden cup placed before him, the egg placed in the golden cup, using a completely mismatched dirty iron spoon with extreme elegance to crack the egg, then scooping and eating two bites before setting down the spoon.

This was completely aristocratic behavior. For a period, the Imperial capital had also been fashionable about eating eggs this way, saying that holding eggs to peel them was really too undignified, while having maids peel them felt dirty. This method was once considered the most noble and elegant way to eat eggs, especially when the eggs were cooked to semi-liquid consistency and only two spoonfuls eaten – considered aristocratic behavior.

This perverted attention to eating methods naturally wasn’t limited to eggs, but reflected in all aspects of Dahuang aristocrats’ daily life. Often becoming habits, it was what they proudly called noble upbringing.

In the evening, Jing Hengbo discovered that the fellow who elegantly ate eggs had taken that egg he’d only spooned twice from under a hidden rock, hiding behind a tree with dirty paws, finishing it in two or three bites.

Jing Hengbo was speechless for a long time.

That eerie feeling in her heart grew stronger.

One morning she woke to smell medicinal fragrance from Yelu Qi’s bamboo tower. Looking at the still misty sky overhead, she suddenly realized that Yelu Qi seemed to be brewing medicine earlier and earlier.

She got up and pushed open the door, looking toward the bamboo tower. The tower door was closed. Though Yelu Qi should know she was up, there was no response.

She felt vaguely worried but didn’t try to enter the bamboo tower. If Yelu Qi wanted to avoid her, her intrusion would be useless.

Turning around, she saw a corner of black robes quickly disappearing behind the main house door.

That black-clothed youth was watching the bamboo tower again.

Jing Hengbo could be certain it was that same unfriendly gaze.

She frowned slightly, then suddenly heard movement behind her. Turning, she saw a young girl looking at her timidly. She remembered this girl being called some county princess by the others.

The girl also wore dirty but fine-quality white robes, but the robe had tears, particularly near the crotch area. This was already bad enough, but worse still, through those torn robes she could see a vague red stain on the girl’s inner pants.

The girl stared at the fish dumpling in her hand, constantly swallowing saliva while clutching her stomach with a slightly pained expression.

Jing Hengbo looked at her, then at the group of patients mumbling to themselves, sighed, and pulled her into the room.

Watching her sit on the stool she’d cleaned spotless while wearing blood-stained robes, Jing Hengbo couldn’t help sighing again. While sighing, she handed the girl the dumplings. As the girl wolfed them down, Jing Hengbo found a smaller outfit from her bundle, then cut up bedding and sheets to sew a long belt with buckles at both ends to fasten around the waist.

She handed these things to the girl: “Change into these.”

The girl held up her oil-stained fingers, staring at her blankly.

A hand suddenly reached up from below the window, slowly approaching the unfinished dumplings on the table.

Jing Hengbo slapped the window shut with a bang, and the hand quickly withdrew. Below the window, a mass of dirty faces looked up – those princesses, consorts, and such were all crouched disheveled under the window, longingly eyeing the dumplings.

“Look, look, look – what are you looking at?” Jing Hengbo raised her hand and knocked the forehead of the nearest woman. “Is eating all you know? Is the purpose of survival just playing house and eating? I know you’ve been abandoned because you’re seriously ill, and besides eating there doesn’t seem much else to pursue, but is your life really just about living like walking corpses?”

The group looked up stupidly with dull gazes, seeming not to understand what she was saying at all.

“Look at her, look,” Jing Hengbo dragged the girl away from the dumpling plate to face the group of women. “You got sick, went crazy, got thrown here – did you forget the instincts of being human, of being women? Don’t you see she’s menstruating? Don’t you see she’s about to be exposed? Even if you’ve forgotten everything else, have you forgotten the instincts of being women, being mothers? You just let her wander around those men like this?”

The group of women stared blankly, their gaze turning to the girl’s crotch area. The girl stood there foolishly, giggling softly and saying quietly: “My stomach hurts…”

“Then don’t just focus on eating!” Jing Hengbo handed her the clothes. “Take these and change! Especially change those pants! Use this thing with cotton padding for…” She demonstrated to the girl. “Later I’ll help you ask Qiu Jinfeng for cloth, or wash and cut up clothes you don’t wear. You need to change frequently, understand? Don’t touch cold water these few days, don’t eat random things, understand?”

The girl nodded obediently. Jing Hengbo directed her to use her own latrine to change clothes, then turned to the group of dirty women: “You know how to eat but don’t know how to wash clothes? You do know how to change clothes daily, but have the nerve to change into dirty ones every day? Don’t you know how to comb your hair? Just because you’re sick means you should abuse yourselves? When the good days are gone, you don’t know how to live like ordinary people? When no one treats you like humans, you stop treating yourselves like humans? Shouting ‘consort’ and ‘princess’ ten thousand times in these broken houses on this lake island while living worse than animals – do you have the face to shout?”

The group looked up at her with still-stunned gazes, but gradually light appeared in their eyes, moist and dewy.

Someone seemed to begin sobbing quietly.

Jing Hengbo went outside, randomly grabbed someone, and walked toward the well, drawing a bucket of water: “Take off your clothes and wash them.”

The woman who called herself an imperial consort slowly removed her outer skirt, then stared at the skirt in a daze, looking completely clueless.

Jing Hengbo threw the dirty clothes in her face: “Smell this!”

Then she took out her own sachet and held it near the woman’s nose: “Smell this!”

The woman’s eyes lit up as her nose followed over. Jing Hengbo had already quickly withdrawn the sachet and sneered: “Fragrant, right? Familiar, right? You’ve used it before, right? You miss it, right? Feel awful, right? Look at yourself now – do you deserve to use such fragrant things?”

The woman lowered her head and after a long while said quietly: “…I’m sick.”

“I’m sick too! And I’m pregnant! I don’t even know if there’s something wrong with the child in my belly!”

“…I… I used to…”

“I’m still a queen! Who the hell hasn’t lived good days – but do I act like you people? Look up at me!”

The woman raised her face. Jing Hengbo straightened her chest and put her hands on her hips: “I’m also sick, I’ve also fallen low. Look at me, look at you – do you have the face to cry to me?” She kicked the water bucket. “I wash my own clothes, clean up, cook, take care of myself. You have hands and feet just like me – why can’t you? Why can’t you take better care of yourselves? Wash clothes, hurry up – you’re stinking me to death!”

The woman looked at her for a long time, then squatted down. Without waiting for Jing Hengbo to teach her, she began scrubbing the clothes herself, and her movements were actually quite skilled.

After washing and hanging up the clothes, she suddenly said: “I used to work in the laundry bureau…”

“It’s not that you can’t do it, you just forgot. Nostalgia for the past while wallowing in the present.” Jing Hengbo sighed and drew a basin of water, reluctantly taking out her own wooden basin: “Take a bath.”

Seeing the woman show a frightened expression again, she gritted her teeth: “If you won’t bathe, get lost!”

The woman hesitated for a long time before stepping into the bathtub, while the others silently watched and automatically surrounded her to provide cover.

Jing Hengbo always carried personal hygiene and cleaning supplies. After sneaking away with Yelu Qi, she had specifically gone to a branch of her commercial complex in Luoyun to take a series of women’s products with her. Now she reluctantly took out half a set to help the woman bathe.

When the woman’s loose clothing was removed, Jing Hengbo discovered her belly was large as a drum, bulging with blue veins and blood vessels like a pregnant woman. Her belly also made gurgling sounds that sounded familiar. She stared and said: “You’re from the Fushui tribe!”

The woman didn’t answer. She turned to look at the others and finally realized that regardless of their external ailments, all these people had large bellies, just hidden by their extremely loose robes, making it unclear until now.

People from the Fushui tribe lived near the Fushui swamps and were affected by local swamp conditions, giving them special constitutions. The most obvious characteristic was these gurgling sounds. Later the Fushui royal family invited a famous physician – Si Rong Ming’s master – to change the royal family’s constitution, replacing the gurgling with hiccupping. Jing Hengbo had once privately criticized this because she found the hiccupping more disgusting.

She vaguely felt something wasn’t right about this. Could this group really be related to the Fushui tribe?

Bathing the so-called “imperial consort” took three large basins of water. The first wash produced black water and skin flakes all over the ground; the third barely qualified as clean water, costing Jing Hengbo half a bar of soap.

The hair was matted in clumps like pancakes. Jing Hengbo wore two layers of face masks like a gas mask to escape the lethal force of that “poison gas.”

The things Jing Hengbo used were all the finest products from her women’s commercial complex, more refined and exquisite than even royal items, with fragrance so rich it drew everyone in the courtyard to look over. No woman in the world could resist such temptation – that group of women’s eyes lit up as they crowded closer and closer.

Once clean, Jing Hengbo refused to contribute more of her own clothes. Fortunately, in the summer heat the previously washed clothes had nearly dried. After dressing the woman, Jing Hengbo helped her arrange her hair and handed her a mirror.

The woman took the mirror and looked – “Ah!” – tears immediately flowed down her face.

Jing Hengbo looked at her for a long time and couldn’t help sighing: “Now I truly believe you were once an imperial consort…”

A group of women stared at the clean woman, their eyes full of disbelief, as if unable to believe such a clear and outstanding woman could be the previously filthy and wretched patient. But behind such disbelief was more undeniably hidden sorrow – through the figure before them, they seemed to see their former selves: once amid flourishing flowers and brocade, once wealthy and leisurely, once wearing jade hairpins and bright pearl earrings with heads full of pearls and jade, once attending magnificent court banquets, enjoying spring outings and autumn excursions, admiring young men on the streets in full splendor…

Past events gone with the wind, scattering golden pearls and jade ornaments, red sleeves scattered on the ground. When fate’s great wind blew again, there was harsh winter frost and falling leaves of autumn sorrow.

“I know you’ve fallen into the mire,” Jing Hengbo’s voice was soft, like dreams, like whispers. “But the dignity of being human cannot be trampled by anyone. Even if others don’t treat you as human, you should still strive to live with human dignity.”

Tears flowed down the woman’s face as if trying to wash herself clean again with tears.

The other women silently walked away, some taking the remaining soap.

Jing Hengbo exhaled in relief, feeling her nightmare life surrounded by stench should finally be over.

Suddenly she felt a gaze and turned to see the black-clothed youth leaning against the doorway, watching her with complex eyes. Jing Hengbo still smiled at him. The youth didn’t smile back or avoid her gaze, but there was a strange weightiness in his eyes.

Above her head was a warm gaze. Jing Hengbo looked up to see Yelu Qi also leaning against his window, wearing light blue-green robes that echoed the color of the green bamboo flute in his hand. His naturally enchanting temperament, dressed so brightly, made one think of bamboo forests under moonlight – tall and straight, with shadows far and near, rippling silver radiance.

He smiled down at Jing Hengbo from his tower. Just as Jing Hengbo saw him as clear and natural, he saw Jing Hengbo as the most beautiful scenery in the world.

She was a richly colored and brilliant painting in this human world, brightening her own life and that of others. Wherever her radiance reached, heaven and earth gained color.

The girl who had gotten her first period timidly emerged, having changed clothes and even washed her head and face with water. She was also a pretty child with translucent skin – clearly someone who had once lived a pampered life.

Jing Hengbo explained menstrual precautions to her and attached a note to the food and medicine delivery, describing the girl’s condition and asking Qiu Jinfeng to prescribe medicine to regulate menstruation and supplement blood.

The next day there was indeed an extra packet of medicine, and even some cloth strips and such. Jing Hengbo was surprised and thought better of Qiu Jinfeng.

Since that day, after the women underwent their great cleansing, the courtyard was full of drying clothes for a while, looking like white banners from a distance. The dirty water from bathing killed two trees outside the courtyard. Except for those too seriously ill to bathe, most cleaned themselves up. In just a few days, Jing Hengbo suddenly felt the courtyard had brightened.

Once the women were clean, the men immediately felt their own filthiness. Environment always has suggestive influence, and gradually the men in the courtyard also became clean. Though these patients were horrifically diseased in appearance, their clothing materials were exquisite. Once washed clean, with long robes and wide sleeves, white clothes fluttering, the ghostly air suddenly transformed into immortal air.

These fellows whose ghostly air suddenly became immortal also gradually changed their attitude toward Jing Hengbo. Daily her medicine would be delivered to her window, her three meals were no longer fought over or stolen, someone would collect and neatly fold her clothes, sometimes with fresh fruit pressed on top.

People who had washed their bodies clean seemed to have also suddenly washed away their self-abandonment. Dignity and reserve quietly returned.

Jing Hengbo sat in the courtyard in the evening, watching those people. Once clean, they suddenly all appeared elegant in posture, peaceful in expression, with graceful movements. Though many were still grotesquely diseased, all ghostly appearance was gone. She couldn’t help sighing deeply and murmuring to herself: “Honestly, this group really looks more and more like actual princes, consorts, princesses, and generals…”

Just as she was speaking, she faintly heard what sounded like a crash from the bamboo tower behind the courtyard wall.

In the night’s quiet, this sound was clearly audible, as if something had fallen. Jing Hengbo was startled and turned to see a figure flash behind the courtyard wall.

She immediately flashed upright, and the next instant crashed into someone with a bang.

“Ow!” Jing Hengbo felt the person’s chest was hard and cold, painfully striking her nose. Her heart jumped wildly for a moment, almost thinking Gong Yin had come, but the next glance showed the person’s black clothing.

She exhaled a long breath and complained: “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Suddenly frowning and looking around: “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

Though the words were identical, the tone was completely different.

The black-clothed youth across from her still maintained his pale, rigid expression, pointing behind her: “I’m going to the latrine.”

Only then did Jing Hengbo notice there was a latrine nearby, seemingly also for individual use, as clean as hers.

But she really hadn’t noticed this youth using the toilet here before. This latrine looked very hidden, almost in the same line position as her latrine, also within the bamboo tower’s line of sight.

“Oh, well then, take your time.” Jing Hengbo smiled without embarrassment and turned to leave. The youth suddenly said: “What are you worried about?”

“Hm? Am I?” Jing Hengbo turned back to smile at him.

The youth’s gaze seemed to casually sweep across the bamboo tower before he turned first: “Let’s walk.” Not caring whether Jing Hengbo followed, he walked straight ahead.

“Such airs.” Jing Hengbo smiled and teased, but followed along.

The two walked a circle around the courtyard. This night the moonlight was dim, hazily reflected on the well platform and under windows, as if covering heaven and earth with a layer of misty white gauze tent.

In the white gauze tent, a group of white-clothed people with floating postures wandered silently.

The two walked past the well platform where the woman Jing Hengbo had helped bathe was washing clothes. Her dark hair cascaded down like water, her profile showing a nose ridge straight as a jade peak, her eyebrows arching up in black – blue-black like distant mountains lush and green.

Even Jing Hengbo couldn’t help but pause to look again at her beauty under the moon.

“Noble Consort Yun. The only palace lady in the Fushui tribe to hold the title of noble consort. The Fushui king made a special exception to request this title from the Imperial capital, showing how magnificent her favor was then.” The youth suddenly said behind her.

Jing Hengbo’s raised foot stopped as she turned back: “Noble consort?”

“Yes.” The youth looked directly into her eyes.

Jing Hengbo wanted to laugh, but after a long while reached up to hold her forehead, muttering: “Well, I’ll be damned…”

Passing the well platform, the girl who had gotten her first period was combing her hair by the window. She smiled when she saw Jing Hengbo, but blushed when she saw the black-clothed youth.

“Don’t tell me she’s really a county princess.” Jing Hengbo said.

A county princess wouldn’t be so miserable as to run around with menstrual blood on her pants.

Though noble consorts shouldn’t be covered in lice either?

“Princess Anhua,” the youth said. “The legitimate eldest daughter of the Fushui king’s younger cousin.”

Jing Hengbo sighed.

A woman’s sixth sense was indeed troublesome – what she didn’t want to happen still happened.

By the bamboo grove, a man whose face was half rotted away was practicing swordwork. Though his appearance was terrifying, his sword work was broad and powerful with hidden wind and thunder.

Jing Hengbo praised “impressive!” recognizing this as the one who had called himself Guardian General.

“General Dongchi the Divine and Martial,” the black-clothed youth said. “Famous in Fushui for his brave fighting and loyalty to the royal family. He once helped the Fushui royal family suppress rebellion and received the Fushui king’s promise of generations sharing honor and glory as sovereign and subject. His most famous deed was having half his face chopped up protecting the king, earning him the nickname Half-Face Demon.”

“This chopping was really thorough.” Jing Hengbo sighed.

“No, originally that half face only had a scar. This rotted half face was a gift from the king.”

Jing Hengbo raised her eyebrows, suddenly not wanting to hear more.

There was too much negative energy in this world. People who ended up here certainly all carried loads of negative energy, and she didn’t want to receive it.

The youth’s sleeves fluttered as he continued walking ahead, like a silent bat crossing the darkness.

Passing a room, he said: “Prince Yong, the Fushui king’s younger brother. It’s said the old Fushui king originally intended for him to inherit the throne, but he yielded it to his older brother.”

“Throughout history, how many who yielded thrones were truly willing?” Jing Hengbo smiled.

“Good that you understand.”

The black shadow floated past room after room with introductions. By the end Jing Hengbo was numb – those consorts, princes, princesses, and generals really were actual consorts, princes, princesses, and generals.

Calculating roughly, about half the Fushui royal family had been exiled to this lake island in a state worse than death – unable to leave, unable to die, living like corpses watching the four-sided sky.

Jing Hengbo’s palms felt cold as tree shadows cast deep, ghostly cover. Moonlight hazily shrouded those people’s faces. At some point, those people had stopped their activities and silently gathered around.

Under the cold moon of deep night, those white shadows of various heights cast long shadows on the ground. Jing Hengbo couldn’t even find her own shadow.

“Why did this happen?” Facing those gazes, she didn’t want to ask but finally voiced the question.

She caught a whiff of medicinal fragrance – that familiar scent. Yelu Qi was brewing medicine again. He’d been brewing medicine more and more frequently lately.

“Why did this happen?” Feeling somewhat irritated, she asked again. Those people didn’t answer but silently stepped forward, surrounding her in the center.

Jing Hengbo instinctively stepped back, her gaze sweeping around to suddenly discover the black-clothed youth had disappeared.

Her heart startled – she’d been too shocked earlier to notice when he’d left.

Suddenly another faint sound of something breaking, as if something had been shattered.

Jing Hengbo cried out: “Oh no!”

She immediately turned and flashed toward Yelu Qi’s bamboo tower.