Fu Xuanmiao supported the sightless Fang Shi and slowly crossed the threshold of the great hall.

“Mother, mind the threshold,” he said.

With every step, he attentively warned Fang Shi, who could not see.

“Mother, the Buddha statue is straight ahead of you.”

“Enough —” Fang Shi’s face was ashen. From between her trembling lips came a voice made rigid by the effort of restraint. “Before the face of the Buddha, there is no need to keep up your pretense.”

Fu Xuanmiao, who had been bending down to arrange the prayer cushion, paused for a moment. Then he straightened again, his expression as calm as before:

“Mother, the cushion is at your feet.”

Ignoring Fang Shi’s resistance, he supported her and slowly helped her kneel onto the cushion.

The enormous Buddha statue, nearly twenty feet high, sat enthroned upon its dais — one hand resting flat upon its knee, the other raised to chest height — wearing an expression of serene repose, as though in peaceful slumber.

Fu Xuanmiao knelt upon the cushion beside Fang Shi.

The incense sticks, nearly fully burned, smoldered quietly in the censer. Grey-white smoke curled upward from their pallid tips.

The compassionate Buddha gazed down at the two people beneath the dais.

After pressing her palms together, Fang Shi silently murmured her prayers. Her eyes, which had been gazing sorrowfully in the direction of the Buddha, gradually grew bright with tears.

“This is a sacred ground of the Buddha — why, Mother, must you defile the Buddha’s ears over a single mistake made in the past?”

Fu Xuanmiao echoed Fang Shi’s earlier words back to her. His calm voice flashed with a cold, cutting edge, like an icy blade pressed against Fang Shi’s throat.

Fang Shi seemed not to hear. With a carefully controlled expression, she continued to gaze at the Buddha statue, reciting her sutras and prayers.

She prayed for the beloved one who had already passed on, and repented for the mistake she herself had made. She prayed separately for each of her children — for safety, and for forgiveness.

She recited the clear, ethereal sutras again and again. Her heart and eyes, however, were filled with the murk of the mortal world. Anguished tears welled from her eyes and streamed unceasingly down her pale face.

As the sun began to set in the west, the band of light at the hall’s entrance slowly contracted. From outside the windows came the faint sound of shouts, and panicked footsteps rushed past. The commotion caused Fang Shi to open her eyes. She turned her head and searched through her blurred, clouded vision until she found Fu Xuanmiao’s figure.

He sat with eyes closed, palms pressed together at his chest. Though she could not make out his expression clearly, she could imagine that in this moment, his face was utterly calm.

Just as it had been on that rainy night — when he had held the dagger stained with his biological father’s blood, and looked at her with calm and cold eyes.

Her eyes had still been able to see in those days. She would never forget that tranquil, freezing gaze.

“What is Mother thinking about?”

As though sensing her gaze, Fu Xuanmiao spoke softly without opening his eyes.

“…I was thinking,” Fang Shi said with a sardonic expression, tears not yet dry on her face, “do you also have a wish you want the Buddha to grant?”

Fu Xuanmiao opened his eyes and looked at Fang Shi’s dimmed gaze. “Your son prayed to the Buddha, asking that Mother’s sight be restored. In exchange, your son would willingly offer up his own eyes.”

“…The Buddha will not grant the wishes of sinners.”

“If that is so, then what is the point of Mother’s futile prayers?” Fu Xuanmiao looked at her and said slowly. “…The Buddha will not grant the wishes of sinners.”

The words nearly struck Fang Shi down.

Her whole body trembled, her face white as paper. Her quivering lips could not produce a single word; one could only see her chest rising and falling in rapid, labored breaths.

Fu Xuanmiao’s expression remained gentle. He lightly adjusted the fox-fur cloak on her shoulders.

“Mother, do not agitate yourself. Chanyu spoke carelessly, without any deeper meaning. This Anxi Temple is an ancient temple of great renown — have you not long wished to come here, Mother? Now that we have made it all the way to Xiangyang with such difficulty, why let a small exchange of words between mother and son spoil a perfectly good mood?”

“…In front of the divine, do you truly feel not even the slightest remorse?” Fang Shi said in a trembling voice.

Fu Xuanmiao withdrew his hand and regarded Fang Shi with a calm expression. “Would Mother kindly make clear — for what should Chanyu feel remorse?”

“All these years — the people who lost their lives because of you — do you feel not even the slightest guilt?”

“Would Mother kindly make it clear,” Fu Xuanmiao repeated once more.

His expression, neither sorrowful nor joyful, neither servile nor arrogant, would have looked perfectly suited to conveying an untroubled conscience in any other setting.

Only here — in this vast, empty hall of the Buddha — only on this composed face — was what showed through the still, cold surface nothing but a quiet, absolute madness.

Fu Xuanmiao said: “Toward whom should Chanyu feel remorse?”

“Nanny Lu, my personal attendant, my wet nurse. My dowry maid Xiao Guo. The coachman Wang Tie…”

Fang Shi drew a breath and named many people in a single stream. At the end, her voice, nearly broken, spoke the name of the one she had loved.

As Fang Shi named each of those who had died, Fu Xuanmiao listened in unbroken silence — always composed, always courteous, always unmoved.

His expression mild, he spoke softly:

“Nanny Lu absconded with Mother’s valuables and fled in fear of her crimes. Xiao Guo slipped out in the dead of night for a secret rendezvous and fell into a well by accident. Wang Tie became entranced by the view from Jinda Pavilion and leaned too far over the railing and fell…” He paused briefly, his expression perfectly calm. “And that coachman — had he not crept into your son’s room in the dead of night with a blade, why would your son have accidentally killed him?”

“In all these cases, it was either their own doing — or an unfortunate accident. What does any of it have to do with Chanyu?”

“Very well, very well…” Fang Shi was so furious that even her fingertips were shaking. “Since you say none of this has anything to do with you, then answer me before the face of the Buddha — the hundreds of thousands of people who were left homeless and ruined when the Shang River Weir collapsed — does that have anything to do with you?!”

A cracking sound suddenly came from behind the great Buddha statue.

Fang Shi still glared at him, but Fu Xuanmiao looked toward the source of the sound behind the statue and slowly rose from his cushion.

The compassionate Buddha sat high upon its dais, its all-seeing gaze looking down upon him.

Fu Xuanmiao took one step toward the statue.

A calico cat with matted, tangled fur leaped out from behind the yellow curtain beside the Buddha statue, glanced once at Fu Xuanmiao, then raised its tail and padded to the window, where it leapt up nimbly and sauntered away.

“You don’t dare answer my question?” Fang Shi had not heard the sound just now. Receiving no response from Fu Xuanmiao, she pressed him once more.

Fu Xuanmiao drew his gaze back from the great Buddha statue. As the statue looked down on him from its lofty height, so too did he look down calmly upon Fang Shi, kneeling on her cushion.

“Why does Mother suddenly bring up the Shang River Weir? Has someone been whispering in your ear?”

“My eyes may be nearly blind, but my ears can still hear. A hundred-year-old weir suddenly crumbles. Four prefectures suffer flooding simultaneously. A million innocent people are made homeless in a single day, losing their loved ones and friends. An event of such magnitude — how could I not know of it?” Fang Shi mustered all her strength to contain the fury and grief that raged within her. To keep these overwhelming feelings from bursting forth, she could only compress them into her chest, which ached as though a thousand claws were tearing at it, and endure. “The Shang River Weir stood without incident for five hundred years — why did it happen to collapse precisely when you were stationed with the army? Why was it precisely those who stood against you who were swept away?”

Fu Xuanmiao said: “Is Mother lamenting that your son was not swept away along with them?”

“Answer my question!” Fang Shi’s long-suppressed tears broke through her eyes. She pointed at the towering divine image upon the dais, tears streaming down her pale face. “If you still regard me as your mother, then answer me before the face of the Buddha — did the collapse of the Shang River Weir have anything to do with you?!”

Fu Xuanmiao looked at her for a long moment without speaking.

“Answer me!” Fang Shi urged furiously.

Fu Xuanmiao parted his lips and finally spoke.

The burning sunset cast its light across half of his face, yet it could not melt the coldness on his features — cold as a deep, bottomless abyss. Those jet-black eyes concealed every feeling within him, leaving only stillness and cold, as though even if the heavens were to fall, not a single crack would appear in this impenetrable mask.

“Mother was mistaken in what she said earlier.”

“What is known to others is sin. What no one knows — is no sin at all.” He said. “The only sinner in this hall of the Buddha is Mother.”

“And if I were to speak of all this openly?!” Fang Shi’s face was filled with grief and fury.

“And who would Mother tell?” Fu Xuanmiao smiled faintly. “Does Mother think anyone would believe a sickly woman confined to the inner quarters — over the most celebrated young lord under heaven?”

He walked to Fang Shi’s side, disregarding her resistance, and forcibly helped the trembling woman to her feet.

“But Mother may rest easy,” he said gently. “Chanyu has already petitioned the Buddha, and is willing to offer up his own eyes in exchange for the restoration of Mother’s sight. He would spare nothing, even if it costs him that.”

“Amitabha —”

A Buddhist invocation drifted in from outside the hall.

The abbot of Anxi Temple, robed in his kasaya, bowed in greeting toward Fu Xuanmiao and Fang Shi at the entrance to the hall.

“The filial devotion of this benefactor is admirable — virtue and bearing combined. Truly worthy of the title of the foremost young lord under heaven.”

Fu Xuanmiao used his sleeve to wipe the tear stains from Fang Shi’s face, then turned to face the abbot and returned the bow in a measured manner.

“There are talents beyond count in this world — what virtue or ability do I possess, to have claimed the title of foremost young lord? It is nothing more than the undeserved praise of the world. The abbot need not take it at face value.”

The abbot looked at the jade-pure, courteous young man before him, and the admiration on his face grew even more evident.

“The benefactor is too modest,” the abbot said with a smile. “Of all who have climbed the one thousand and fifteen steps of this temple, the one who carried a blind mother up on his own back — Fu Xuanmiao is the first. On this merit alone, this poor monk can attest that the young master’s fine reputation is by no means unearned.”

“The madam need not worry overmuch, either,” the abbot said, turning toward Fang Shi, who stood slightly behind Fu Xuanmiao, her head bowed to conceal her tear-streaked face. “Birth, aging, illness, and death are the common lot of humankind. As the saying goes, what seems a misfortune may yet prove a blessing. Heaven’s law moves in cycles, and cause and effect work themselves out in time. If one can regard all things as trials set by the Buddha, one may sooner escape the sea of suffering.”

Fang Shi stood in a daze and said nothing.

“When you two were offering incense just now — did you happen to see a female worshipper dressed in lotus-root purple?” the abbot asked.

“We did not,” Fu Xuanmiao said.

“A female worshipper in the temple has gone missing. If either of you happen to see her, please pass along the word —” The abbot looked at the faintly swaying yellow curtain behind the statue’s dais. “Her friends and her attendant are waiting anxiously in the side room. Please tell her to come quickly.”

“The abbot may rest easy,” Fu Xuanmiao said.

“The temple has prepared a simple meal for the two benefactors. You have come from afar — please stay to take the vegetarian fare before leaving.”

“We thank the abbot.”

“Amitabha,” said the abbot. “If the two benefactors have finished your offerings, please come with me to the south side room.”

“We shall not trouble the abbot further.”

The abbot turned and walked out. Fu Xuanmiao supported Fang Shi and slowly left the hall.

The sound of three sets of footsteps gradually faded into the distance.

A breath of wind drifted into the now thoroughly silent hall. A length of ash broke off from the half-burned incense sticks and fell, crumbling into powder on the base of the censer.

The yellow curtain swayed gently in the breeze, and from behind the Buddha statue, a terrified, ashen face appeared.

Shen Zhuxi was leaning against the Buddha statue’s base, collapsed on the cold ground. Panic and dread crashed against her soul like waves.

She had harbored doubts about the collapse of the Shang River Weir — but she had never imagined that someone had deliberately sabotaged the dam.

That there was someone who had knowingly and willfully destroyed a weir that had protected four prefectures and their living beings for more than five hundred years — fully aware that the result would be a million people left homeless, their families shattered.

She could not have imagined that anyone in the world could be so utterly depraved. Still less could she have imagined that this person would be her original intended — the foremost young lord under heaven, Fu Xuanmiao.

She could not deny that she feared him. But it was the fear of a drowning person afraid to lose the last straw to cling to — the fear of a puppet suspended in mid-air, afraid that the last thread holding it aloft would snap. She feared him, and she could not say why. But it was certainly not because he was a wicked man.

Quite the opposite: in her eyes and in the eyes of the world alike, he had always been flawless beyond reproach.

She had never imagined that Fu Xuanmiao — held up as the paragon of manhood throughout the realm — was in truth someone who would stop at nothing to achieve his ends. Someone who would not hesitate to destroy a great dam and leave four provinces and a million lives in ruin, just to get what he wanted. A demon wearing the face of perfection.

She should leave immediately. But her legs felt as though they had sunk into icy mud, utterly unable to free themselves.

She thought of the little purses, waterlogged and heavy, that had been brought to her. She thought of those sleepless nights, when she had sat by lamplight, weeping while struggling to decipher the words on sheets of paper soaked soft as pulp. She thought of the childlike cries — still heard at the gates of Xiangyang after the Shang River Weir collapsed — small voices searching for their mothers and fathers. She thought of those gaunt, sallow faces, and of the laborers who had died working on the dam repairs. She thought of so much, so much more.

So many people had died.

So many people had lost their families and friends.

So many people — to this day, still did not know whether they were alive or dead.

The four prefectures swallowed by the floodwaters had yet to be fully cleared. Countless fields lay submerged, and countless people were going hungry because of it. Countless more had fallen sick with plague in the wake of the flooding.

The one who had knowingly brought about this catastrophe — fully aware of what it would cause, yet who had done it anyway — was the radiant, moonlit foremost young lord under heaven.

She could not have conceived of it. And neither could the world.

“Does Mother think anyone would believe a sickly woman confined to the inner quarters — over the most celebrated young lord under heaven?”

No one would.

Shen Zhuxi sat in a daze, her mind a tangled knot.

A set of hurried footsteps entered the hall, paused briefly, and then came directly toward the dais.

Shen Zhuxi raised her head, and in her dazed state watched Li Wu vault up onto the dais. The tears she had been holding back for so long spilled freely from her eyes.

“Li Wu…” she sobbed.

Li Wu crouched before her with a solemn expression, yet pulled her into his embrace with a hand that was gentle and patient.

His tone was impatient, but his large hand patted her back softly and with care.

“I’m already here — what’s there to keep crying about?”

Shen Zhuxi was just about to tell him what she had overheard, when a low and familiar voice rang out at the entrance to the hall.

“Magistrate Li — I did not expect you to be a man of faith as well.”