◎With eyes swollen like this, this love must be even more frightening than usual◎

Yu Qingwu hadn’t spoken at all.

Nanny Qian kept making eyes at Lan Shanjun: What’s wrong with him?

Lan Shanjun hesitantly shook her head. Yesterday she hadn’t paid too much attention to him, only knowing that something was definitely amiss with him. She asked, “Was there something not handled properly at the Eastern Palace?”

Yu Qingwu lowered his head to eat, saying softly: “Everything was handled properly.”

Lan Shanjun: “But we can’t catch Prince Qi’s weak point this time?”

Yu Qingwu: “The Grand Imperial Grandson is not an incompetent person.”

Lan Shanjun: “But will the Grand Imperial Grandson’s Consort’s illness have lingering effects?”

Yu Qingwu: “There are no lingering effects.”

Lan Shanjun didn’t understand: “Then what else is wrong?”

Yu Qingwu’s head lowered even further. “Everything is fine.”

Everyone is fine.

Only you are not.

Dian Tianguang—

His stomach churned violently, his heart felt like it was being sliced by knives, every inch of his bones ached with pain, and he couldn’t swallow a single mouthful of food.

He finally understood the Grand Imperial Grandson’s feeling of being unable to eat.

But he didn’t dare let Shanjun and Nanny Qian worry. He forced himself to shovel rice into his mouth, steeling himself to swallow it down despite the nausea. When the food reached his stomach, he only felt his ears begin to ring, the bones near his ears hurt terribly, so painfully that his vision kept blurring, his body grew weak and feeble, and he couldn’t eat another bite.

So, using all his strength, he gently set down his bowl and chopsticks. While lowering his head and slowly breathing out, he said: “I’ve finished eating. I’ll go to the study first to handle some documents.”

He walked straight out.

He shut himself in the study.

He took out his notes, sheet by sheet, until he found that page with the three characters “Dian Tianguang” written on it.

Outside the window, the sky was clear, white snow piled high.

Yu Qingwu remembered two years ago—it had also been a snowy day like this. Shanjun had accompanied him in arranging his elder brother’s funeral, holding a white flatbread in her hand, asking him: “Do you know of a certain punishment—”

“This punishment is very particular. They lock a person in a small room, where they see no daylight all day long.”

“In the pitch-black room, no one speaks to you, nor does anyone bring you clothing, water, a chamber pot…”

“Living inside, one loses all dignity.”

“But they give you food. Even if it’s cold dishes and spoiled rice, with these, if you want to live, you can live—only living becomes… extraordinarily difficult, like a trapped beast struggling at death’s door.”

Later when the sky cleared, also on a sunny day like this, he had rushed to find her with a historical reference he’d discovered: “Beyond all this, they also send light.”

“Not by opening the door, not by opening the window, but by using a needle to poke a tiny hole at the top of a high window.”

“When the weather is good, a thread of light penetrates into the room.”

“And then, the person develops the will to live.”

“It says above that the name of this punishment is called Dian Tianguang.”

—Dian Tianguang.

Yu Qingwu’s hands slowly curled up. His eyes grew hot, and finally he couldn’t help but weep silently in anguish.

His fist pounded on the table, again and again, until his hand was bloodied, yet he felt no pain.

Shanjun… how desperate must she have been at that time.

He remembered how she had stumbled to search for a blade after hearing those three words. He remembered her trembling body, her despairing eyes. He remembered… her endless nightmares night after night, the celadon lamp that never went out through the nights.

So, until the very end, Shanjun probably never knew that ray of light was part of her punishment.

Did she, right until her death, still believe that ray of light was redemption, a gift of grace, a lamp in the endless dark night?

She endured, she waited, believing this was what it meant to eventually be saved.

She—how long did she endure? When did she die?

Was it a warm spring day, or could she only feel warmth on the winter day before her death?

Yu Qingwu closed his eyes in agony, pounding the table through gritted teeth: “These beasts! Beasts who should descend to the eighteenth level of hell!”

He would definitely kill this pack of beasts!

He gripped his brush tightly, deducing Shanjun’s life on paper.

“Yuanshao Year 31, abandoned before a desolate temple in Huailing.”

“Yuanshao Year 43, closest kin passed away, descended the mountain alone to make a living.”

“Yuanshao Year 47, first entered Luoyang, Duke Zhenguo’s household forced her to change her surname.”

He carefully speculated, recalling the many things she had said, combining them with this life, writing word by word: “In the following ten years, first recognized by the Grand Imperial Grandson through the precept blade, her identity known, he selected the Song family as her husband, married… Song Zhiwei.”

“Later the Grand Imperial Grandson’s Consort should have passed away, the Grand Imperial Grandson lost power, feared Prince Qi’s growing influence.”

“Yuanshao Year 57… trapped in Huailing, enduring and waiting for that ray of light.”

She always spoke of ten years—she should have been in Luoyang at most ten years.

After he finished writing, he broke out in a heavy sweat, only to discover it was merely one sheet of paper.

But this thin sheet of paper, these few short sentences, encompassed all the hardships of her entire life.

His hand loosened, and the brush fell to the floor. He bent down to pick it up but couldn’t reach it no matter how he tried. His head pressed against the edge of the table, veins bulging on his forehead.

Then slowly, slowly, his whole body slid down until he sat slumped on the floor, murmuring: “Born in Yuanshao Year 31, if she died in Yuanshao Year 57…”

Shanjun had lived only twenty-six years.

—

Night fell.

Lan Shanjun, carrying a lantern in one hand and a string of candied hawthorn in the other, crossed the arched bridge and stood on it, knocking on Yu Qingwu’s study door.

Her voice was gentle: “Nanny Qian says I should come bring you to eat.”

Yu Qingwu’s eyes were swollen, his voice hoarse, so he dared not open the door, dared not make a sound.

For a moment, he didn’t even know what face he could use to see her.

In her life of such difficulty, what kind of person had he been?

He feared he had once stood by and watched her die. He feared he had once passed her by. He feared he had committed sins.

She was so reasonable, so perceptive, so kind—if he hadn’t saved her, perhaps she wouldn’t be angry or resentful, but would think that between the two of them there was no debt, and thus forgive him for not saving her.

But having deduced those four characters “enduring and waiting for light,” he could not forgive himself even slightly for such sins.

He was uneasy and fearful. He had deduced the relationships between others and her, but no matter what, he couldn’t deduce his own past with Shanjun.

But he was certain they had been acquaintances in the past.

So he dared even less to open the door.

The two were separated by the door, one inside the room, one on the bridge.

The person inside leaned against the wall, the person on the bridge cast a shadow.

After a long standoff, it was still Lan Shanjun who spoke first.

She said, “Yu Qingwu, are you—hiding something from me?”

Yu Qingwu’s body went rigid. He pretended to be asleep.

Lan Shanjun smiled slightly, lifting the lantern to shine it toward the window, illuminating his long shadow inside the room.

She said: “Since you’re at the door, why not open it?”

Yu Qingwu said in a muffled voice: “I… my appearance is disheveled.”

Lan Shanjun: “It’s fine.”

Yu Qingwu: “I… my face is unbearable to look at.”

Lan Shanjun: “It’s fine.”

Yu Qingwu murmured: “Shanjun…”

Lan Shanjun: “Yes?”

Yu Qingwu: “Have we met before?”

Lan Shanjun was startled, feeling somehow that these words seemed familiar.

She hesitated and shook her head. “No.”

Yu Qingwu’s eyes gradually brightened with hope. “At the post station—that was our first meeting?”

But Lan Shanjun heard the hope and pain in his words.

He was becoming increasingly strange.

For a moment, she didn’t know whether to speak the truth or lie.

So she chose half truth, half falsehood.

She said softly: “Yes. But I… I once read your notes.”

Yu Qingwu spun around sharply. “Notes?”

Lan Shanjun nodded. “Yes. Notes. Your notes from age six to seventeen.”

From meeting Wu Qingchuan to leaving Duancang Mountain.

She said gently: “I once… after the old monk passed away… went through a painful period. I struggled to stay alive…”

“At that time, I found your notes.”

“I saw your great ambitions, saw your lofty aspirations, saw how you felt you were a blade that would eventually strike at the world’s turbidity—Yu Qingwu, I once relied on your soaring ambitions, relied on your vigorous vitality, to survive.”

But Yu Qingwu remembered how she had previously asked him what the scenery outside that room on Duancang Mountain was like.

He had told her there was a peach tree grove, a little stream.

Bamboo groves, beautiful scenery.

She had said, “So outside there was such wonderful scenery.”

Yu Qingwu closed his eyes, took a deep breath, swallowing down all those choking sounds, then said softly: “I see… In that case, we are also old acquaintances.”

But Lan Shanjun felt increasingly that his words were wrong. She frowned in thought but couldn’t recall anything, so she could only say again: “Can you open the door now?”

She said: “Yu Qingwu, I’m very worried about you.”

Yu Qingwu’s heart caught. He didn’t dare, yet couldn’t bear not to open it.

He opened the door. Just as he was about to lower his gaze, he saw her eyes look straight into his.

With her looking at him like this, he couldn’t turn his eyes away.

After a long while, he heard her, almost as if fleeing in panic, hastily pressing both the lantern and the candied hawthorn into his hands and turning away, saying: “Nanny Qian is still waiting for us.”

Yu Qingwu smiled bitterly.

In the end, it still overflowed from his eyes.

He walked forward a few steps. The water under the bridge rippled and swayed. He lifted the lantern to look—his appearance was indeed unbearable.

—With eyes swollen like this, this love must be even more frightening than usual.