Huang Zixia listened to her trembling breath and opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t form a single word. She could only glare at him fiercely, breathing rapidly.

“I didn’t intentionally try to imitate Huang Zixia’s handwriting… At that time, I wanted to follow the prefect’s family in death, my emotions were so turbulent, I completely didn’t know what I was doing… writing in that style was entirely unconscious… perhaps, at that time in my heart, I was constantly, constantly thinking of… her. No one in this world knows her writing better than I do, I had copied articles for her countless times, I could even make the same mistakes she would make…” As he spoke, though his difficult voice remained dry, it became increasingly clear, “Also, you said earlier that I no longer needed to use my enemies, the Huang prefect’s family, so I moved out of the prefect’s mansion… That’s not it. At that time, I didn’t know… that the little girl whose single word had destroyed my family was Huang Zixia…”

He had become a beggar, following refugees south, later in Chengdu Prefecture was helped by several teachers at a school who introduced him to Prefect Huang Min.

Huang Min greatly cherished him, seeing that he couldn’t even remember his name clearly from his wandering life, gave him the name Yu Xuan, and brought him into his home.

In the blood-red sunset, he first saw Huang Zixia.

Like moss growing in the shade suddenly encountering a flower blooming recklessly in sunlight. He was dazzled by the young Huang Zixia, almost unable to look directly at her radiance. He knelt on the ground helping her pick up fallen lotus flowers, touching her skirt hem stained with pond mud, he couldn’t help but grasp it, looking up at her.

His face was reflected in her eyes, clear as a mirror. From then on, he determined to live his entire life in the gaze of her eyes.

The happiest time of his life lasted only three years. Although the day his mother hanged herself still often appeared in his dreams, he had new parents and an elder brother, had enough to eat and wear, had a roof to shelter from wind and rain, and had a small courtyard covered in ivy.

And he had that young woman he admired with all his heart, Huang Zixia.

Three years later he passed the provincial examination, returning triumphantly to his adoptive parents, thinking perhaps he finally had a chance, so he tentatively brought up to his adoptive parents the possibility of being with Huang Zixia.

However, he hadn’t expected that overnight, his adoptive parents would decide to have him move out of the prefect’s mansion to a house they had arranged for him in Shu Prefecture.

Compared to Huang Zixia who would passionately argue with her parents, he was respectful and grateful to his adoptive parents, so he had no choice but to move out of the prefect’s mansion to his small residence.

During the celebration of his moving to the new house, a group of friends invited him out drinking, carrying on until nightfall. Snow began falling lightly outside, and he left his stumbling drunk friends to walk home alone in the snow.

He deliberately took the long way, passing by the prefect’s mansion, looking up at Huang Zixia’s tower from the bustling market street.

The light in the small tower had gone out.

The woman he loved with all his heart had already retired for the night.

He stood in the snow with a smile, looking back at the market. The snowy night was cold, few people were out, and the merchants had all packed up and gone home. Only an old shadow puppet performer remained by his gauze screen, performing short plays.

He had already walked past but, feeling sympathy for the old man, turned back to place some money before the screen. He heard the old man sing about “Chang’an’s Guangde Ward,” and those distant memories were slightly stirred.

So he stood in the snow, watching the entire play.

Snow piled heavily on his hair and shoulders, but he felt nothing.

He watched as his family’s destruction, that tragedy of blood and tears, had become a street performance, become a story for others’ entertainment, only earning everyone’s praise of “young Huang Zixia’s wisdom.”

Huang Zixia.

The dazzling flower he had encountered, blooming recklessly in the sunlight.

His elder brother’s wife-murder case was about to be concluded. His family, having endured hardship, had finally seen the dawn of a better future—

But why did twelve-year-old she have to call out “Father”?

His mother hung from the beam, seeming to still sway gently. The newly rising morning sun slanted in through the window lattice, dyeing his mother’s entire body, their whole dilapidated house, and his entire world, blood red.

Just woken from sleep, his confused mind remained blank. He stood before his mother, numbly holding her legs, discovering she had already become completely cold and stiff.

After father’s death, Mother had woven cloth day and night to raise the two of them; though poor, she had still gritted her teeth to send him to school and buy him good brushes and ink; Mother had smiled and told him their family would be complete and happy together in the future; mother who had gone mad after his brother’s execution, had silently hanged herself while he slept.

He had no family left.

He took his mother down from the beam, dragged her to the bed, and carefully tucked her under the blanket. He closed his eyes, and leaned against her side, thinking he would be like falling asleep, never to open his eyes again.

But this night’s snow, pressing heavily on his body, made him seem to feel again that sensation of his whole body being so cold it was as if his blood had stopped flowing.

He didn’t know how long he stood outside the prefect’s mansion. Until dawn, when someone came out and was startled to see him, hurriedly brushing off the snow on his body, only to find the snow underneath had melted and refrozen, deeply frozen together with his clothes and skin.

In the hazy darkness before his eyes, he vaguely saw her face.

The woman he admired, the most dazzling flower in his barren life, his Huang Zixia.

His greatest enemy, his greatest hatred, his greatest love.

That night’s cold made him ill for a long time.

He didn’t want to see Huang Zixia again. When she came to visit him while he was sick, he pressed a book over his face, letting her chatter and try to tease him however she wanted, but he still didn’t say a word to her.

She naturally noticed his change, and sat dejectedly by his bed, asking what was wrong, why he had become so distant after moving out, why wouldn’t he pay attention to her?

He closed his eyes and said heavily, Axia, if only you hadn’t known how to solve cases.

She left angrily because with one sentence he had erased all her pride. And for the first time, he didn’t try to keep her, allowing that rift to exist between them.

Because he thought, perhaps this was how it would be for life.

When his body was somewhat better, he went to Guangdu Temple on Mingyue Mountain to listen to Buddhist teachings.

There, he met Qi Teng, who introduced him to Master Shan. For some reason, those things he had hidden in his heart for so long, originally planning to let rot there forever, all poured out in the face of Master Shan’s smile. He spoke of Huang Zixia, of Prefect Huang, of his mother.

Finally Master Shan asked, you have a poisonous dragon in your heart, since you cannot suppress it, why not let it display its might, to finally find peace in your heart?

He rose dazedly, walked out of Master Shan’s meditation room, and walked past the pink walls and corridors.

He saw written on a stele that line of poetry—

At dusk by the empty pond’s curves, in meditation control the poison dragon.

However, he had no way back. The poisonous dragon in his heart had already writhed out of his body, roaring as it stirred all the blood in his body, eagerly awaiting that bloody satisfaction.

When Yu Xuan’s narration reached this point, everyone’s gaze unconsciously gathered on Master Shan.

“Amitabha… Patron Yu himself could not settle his mind. This old monk had hoped to fight poison with poison, to destroy the demon in his heart in one stroke, who knew you would misunderstand, now only causing great disaster!” Master Shan lowered his eyes, pressing his palms together, saying, “When I first saw Patron Yu at Patron Qi’s home, this old monk thought you had not forgotten your previous hatred, thus attempted suicide, not knowing you had developed evil intentions to kill your adoptive parents to whom you owed such great kindness!”

Li Shubai saw how he immediately distanced himself completely, knowing he must have prepared his explanation long ago, there must be more to the story. But with Yu Xuan’s case not yet concluded, he didn’t expose this, only observed coldly.

Yu Xuan also paid no attention to Master Shan. A desperate smile appeared on his pale face, his blue-black lips still beautiful in shape, only making everyone who saw him feel desolate.

He left Guangdu Temple, bought a piece of jade, and went to curry favor with her again. While discussing the bracelet design with her, before his eyes, for an instant flashed the Agashne that Qi Teng carried with him.

Red as blood, ephemeral as smoke.

Agashne, transformed from a dragon maiden’s fleeting thought, often appearing beside those who died unnatural deaths.

“Let’s make it two fish,” he slowly said, drawing two circling small fish on paper. “You and I are like these two little fish, each biting the other’s tail, forming a cycle, unable to escape you, unable to escape me, together for all eternity.”

For all eternity.

He obtained the Zhen poison from Qi Teng, placed it in three small depressions inside the bracelet, dripped wax over it, and smoothed it flat, three barely visible pale yellow spots perfectly blending into the mutton-fat white jade’s color.

This inauspicious bracelet thus came to be worn on her wrist.

When he heard the Huang family intended to proceed with her marriage to Wang Yun, he made a bet with her, inducing her as usual to buy a package of arsenic. On the day the plum blossoms opened after snow, he saw her uncle and grandmother visiting, guessing they must be there to hurry the marriage arrangements, so while helping her carry an armful of plum blossoms, he squeezed her bracelet, inconspicuously finding the fish eye, using a flower branch to scratch open the wax in that spot.

She went hand in hand with her grandmother, intimate and affectionate, smiling like flowers.

He carried his armful of plum blossoms, walking out from her family’s garden, past the small tower where he had long gazed at her, past the withered lotus pond where they first met, out of the prefect’s mansion.

In the deserted back alley, he stood beneath the vast sky. The early spring snow wind swept through his entire body, he felt the cold, yet didn’t move his feet.

He just stood there motionless, looking up at the sky.

The plum blossoms in his arms fell along his powerlessly hanging arms to the ground. Red and pink, blood and rouge, all fell into the mud, their subtle fragrance perishing.

As if returning to that day, lying motionless beside his mother’s cold corpse.

He went to Qing Garden to attend a poetry gathering, both talking and drinking, how strange, he felt he could barely hold on, yet somehow no one noticed anything unusual about him. He wasn’t drunk, he just couldn’t pretend anymore, so he broke away from everyone in a frenzy, and went back to lie motionless in his residence, waiting for news of deaths to arrive.

By the next morning, his adoptive parents were dead, and Huang Zixia, they said, had become the only survivor of the Huang family.

He gathered the love letters she had written him days before, went to the Western Sichuan Regional Command Office, and submitted them to Fan Yingxi who held deep grudges against Huang Zixia. His son had been exposed to Huang Zixia multiple times, only saved by his desperate efforts, while his nephew had been exiled to a barren land with no hope of return, all because of Huang Zixia.

As he expected, Fan Yingxi, who had taken over Sichuan’s administration, could handle all matters in Sichuan without going through the central government. He immediately confirmed Huang Zixia’s crime of poisoning her family, and after her escape, reported to the court requesting a nationwide hunt for Huang Zixia who had poisoned Sichuan Prefect Huang Min and four relatives.

His wish was fulfilled, but after running about making arrangements and building proper tombs for Prefect Huang’s family, he wrote a suicide note and attempted to take his life before their graves.