On the final day the coffin lay in state, word finally came: someone had been seen moving about Beishan late at night, shifting several massive boulders and burying them beneath the snow.
"Looks like they went with Plan B," Yu Wanyin said. "Are our people in position?"
"They've been lying in wait in the mountains for days," Xiahou Dan said. "On the day of the funeral procession, the palace guard will also seal off Beishan. They won't get a chance to move."
They finalized the operational details with the shadow guards, and then Yu Wanyin brought up the matter of Xie Yong'er. Xiahou Dan raised no objection and arranged for a carriage to see her off.
Even with everything in place, Yu Wanyin felt a growing unease, as though some crucial detail had slipped past her.
She ran through the plan again and again in her head, and the more she thought about it, the more dangerous it seemed.
"Don't spend all your worry on other people," Xiahou Dan said. "What about you? Maybe you should go with Xie Yong'er and get clear of this first..."
Yu Wanyin cut him off. "I'm going with you to Beishan."
Xiahou Dan blinked. "What."
He frowned. "No."
"I can disguise myself as a guard again, like before."
"You coming along won't help."
"It will. Why do you think I built the gun in the first place? Don't forget my aim is better than yours."
"One more person won't make the difference!" Xiahou Dan caught himself and softened his tone. "Listen to me. This time it's genuinely dangerous. I thought this wasn't even something we needed to discuss. Didn't we already settle this when you were made empress?"
"Settled what?"
Xiahou Dan said nothing.
Yu Wanyin pressed him. "Settled what?"
"Settled that you'd let me go with an easy mind," Xiahou Dan said flatly. "Do you want me carrying one more worry with me at the moment of life and death?"
Yu Wanyin turned and walked off.
She wasn't sure what had cut her more, the way Xiahou Dan had spoken as if leaving a final testament, or the sense of foreboding she couldn't shake from her own chest.
The shadow guards glanced warily at Xiahou Dan.
His expression stayed calm. He waved them off and knelt back down before the memorial tablet alone, waiting for the next round of officials to arrive to pay their respects.
Footsteps approached from a distance. Yu Wanyin came storming back and said irritably, "Get up, what are you still kneeling for? Their people are already planning to strike at Beishan and you're thinking of spending New Year's with the empress dowager?"
She set her face, hauled Xiahou Dan to his feet, and called loudly for the attendants. "His Majesty is unwell. Help him back to his chambers to rest."
Xiahou Dan slipped into the role at once, saying with tragic weight, "But Mother..."
Yu Wanyin urged him earnestly, "Your Majesty, your health matters most. Don't let it interfere with tomorrow's procession."
"Well," Xiahou Dan said, "that's true too."
So they returned to their chambers, shut the doors, and sent all the attendants away.
"Shall we make dumplings?" Yu Wanyin asked.
Xiahou Dan looked at her, a little surprised by her expression. Yu Wanyin swallowed down the restlessness in her chest and turned her head aside. "Let's make them. It's the New Year after all. I'll go get Uncle Bei."
The thought that today would pass, and that no one knew what tomorrow would bring, made every minute feel more precious than she had ever known. She couldn't even bring herself to be angry.
Xiahou Dan smiled. "Good."
Beizhou accepted the invitation gladly and immediately brought over a full set of kitchen tools, showing off his skill at kneading dough.
Xiahou Dan took off his mourning robes and helped chop the filling nearby, though the space between each cut of his knife was as unpredictable as human fate. Yu Wanyin watched for a while, then finally snatched the cleaver away, unable to bear it any longer. "Move aside."
Xiahou Dan refused to leave and insisted on offering commentary. "You're really in no position to laugh at me."
"Still better than you. Switch jobs. Do you know how to wrap dumplings?"
Beizhou cut in. "How would he know how to do that? Let me handle it, you two go have fun."
Beizhou's hands moved with practiced speed, flashing up and down, worth ten pairs of hands on his own. Yu Wanyin found no opening to help and decided to go do something else instead.
The palace had already prepared decorations for the New Year, but with the empress dowager's untimely death, everything had been packed away again. Yu Wanyin searched for a while and dug out two lanterns painted with dragons and phoenixes bringing good fortune. Since she couldn't hang them outside, she hung them by the bed instead, just for her own amusement.
She went to the side hall to call Xie Yong'er. "Want some dumplings?"
"...Sure," Xie Yong'er said.
Xiahou Dan, of all things, picked up a brush and wrote a pair of Spring Festival couplets.
Yu Wanyin looked at the characters, startled. "Your handwriting?"
"How does it look?"
"Was your handwriting always this good?"
Xiahou Dan didn't look up, finishing the last stroke with the corner of his mouth curling slightly. "I've been practicing."
Yu Wanyin tilted her head, studying the strokes, still puzzled. They'd practiced writing together, and yet somehow he'd leapt ahead of her by leaps and bounds, suddenly miles beyond her reach.
"Stop puzzling over it," Xiahou Dan said. "I've had a breakthrough. As for you, you're simply left in the dust, and there's nothing to be done about it."
Yu Wanyin stared at him.
Her fists clenched. "Are you twelve years old?"
Xiahou Dan laughed.
Xie Yong'er coughed. She cleared her throat politely to remind them that there was still a third wheel present in the room. "Is there anything I can help with?"
"Now that you mention it, there is," Xiahou Dan said. "Where's that guitar of yours? Bring it over and play us a New Year's song."
Xie Yong'er froze.
Centuries seemed to pass before Xie Yong'er finally understood what had happened to her.
"You... the two of you..." Her fingers trembled. "When I was playing guitar..."
Xiahou Dan nodded. "Your Canon was quite good."
"There was also the Love Story theme," Yu Wanyin added.
"You hit a few wrong notes," Xiahou Dan said, "but I held it in and didn't laugh."
Xie Yong'er had nothing to say to that.
"Don't be like that," Yu Wanyin said, trying to keep a straight face as she poked him. "It really wasn't that bad."
"Right, right."
Xie Yong'er still had nothing to say.
The dumplings came out of the pot. The four of them gathered around the table and poured themselves a bit of wine.
Outside the window, night had fallen and snow drifted down thick and steady.
Xiahou Dan made a small "huh" of surprise. "Something's hard, it's hurting my teeth." He spat it out and looked, then froze.
It was a copper coin.
Beizhou raised his cup with a laugh. "Dan'er, may everything go your way, may every year bring you peace." The New Year's meal had been such a relaxed affair that he hadn't given a thought to court etiquette. It was simply an elder's blessing for someone younger.
Xiahou Dan paused, then suddenly rose to his feet.
Before Beizhou could react, he sat frozen in place, watching Xiahou Dan lift both arms, raise his wine cup level with his brow, and bow to him.
It was the gesture of a son to a father.
Beizhou startled and scrambled to his feet in a fluster. "Dan'er, you mustn't."
Yu Wanyin pulled him back down, smiling. "It's fine, it's fine. Uncle, just accept it." She thought to herself that Xiahou Dan had captured the bearing of the gesture remarkably well, though she had no idea when he'd practiced it. It was quite something to watch.
Beizhou returned the bow awkwardly, his eyes reddening slightly.
Xiahou Dan filled another cup and turned to Yu Wanyin.
She felt something coming and rose to her feet to face him.
Xiahou Dan gazed at her without blinking, the wine light catching the deep lines of his brow, a shimmer rising in his eyes as well. He slowly lifted the cup level with his brow, then lowered his eyelids with solemn weight.
Yu Wanyin mirrored his motion and bowed back to him.
It was the gesture of husband and wife.
The tips of her ears began to burn, and the ordinary cup in her hand suddenly felt scalding, as though it carried the weight of a wedding toast.
Xie Yong'er and Beizhou quietly picked up their pace eating dumplings.
The snow eased. Over the capital, the clouds slowly parted, revealing a clear night sky.
Li Yunxi had gone to visit Cen Jintian and stayed to share the New Year's meal with him. On the way back, he sat silent and lost in thought the entire ride. Yang Duojie, sharing the carriage with him, asked curiously, "What's wrong with you?"
"Tell me," Li Yunxi said, looking as though the words pained him to say, "isn't Erlan a bit too devoted to Cen, if you know what I mean?"
Yang Duojie leaned back. "Ah, so that's what's bothering you. I thought you'd figured it out ages ago."
Li Yunxi blinked. "What?"
Yang Duojie gave a light snort. "I noticed Erlan's tastes ran that way a long time back. I assumed you knew too, since otherwise why would you have taken such a dislike to him at first? Though honestly, the man grows on you the longer you know him..."
Li Yunxi sat dumbstruck.
Yang Duojie waved a hand in front of his face. "Why aren't you saying 'what is this world coming to' anymore?"
A thousand li away, the snow fell like a curtain.
Lin Xuanying stood on a rise above the riverbank, his gaze lowered as he watched his soldiers break the river ice to draw water.
"Deputy General." One of his men hurried over and handed him a sealed letter.
Lin Xuanying tore it open and scanned it. "Prince Duan makes his move tomorrow. Once the chaos breaks out, we won't need to hide our movements anymore. The other two armies set out earlier, they may already be close."
"So we..."
Lin Xuanying looked up at the distant city walls, their lights flickering faintly through the wind and snow. "Get ready. We march straight in."
Back in the palace.
Having eaten their fill of dumplings, Xie Yong'er excused herself to her room to pack.
Before she left, she called Yu Wanyin outside the door and took a letter from inside her robe. "After I leave tomorrow, can you pass this on to Xiao Tiancai?"
"Sure. It's not a rejection letter, is it?"
Xie Yong'er said nothing.
That Xie Yong'er had been able to leave freely was thanks to Xiao Tiancai's competence at his post. The lovestruck man had originally meant to keep it from her, but she wasn't foolish, and it hadn't taken much for her to work it out on her own.
"Really, is it a rejection letter?" Yu Wanyin asked. "You worded it gently, right? Don't wound the man so badly he goes on strike."
Xie Yong'er let out a helpless laugh. "You don't need to worry about that."
She watched Yu Wanyin tuck the envelope carefully against herself, and seemed to feel a stirring of emotion. "I never expected, in the end, that the one I'd entrust this to would be you."
Life could feel like a drama, and the story had galloped forward like a runaway horse to reach this point. The two of them had traded schemes and countered each other for so long that they still couldn't quite call it a true meeting of hearts. And yet, when Xie Yong'er made this gesture, Yu Wanyin found she wasn't surprised at all.
Perhaps they could both laugh and chat easily enough with the other beauties of the palace, but their origins and circumstances set them too far apart from everyone else, and there were some things that words simply couldn't carry across that distance. There were times when Yu Wanyin felt that even Xiahou Dan didn't fully understand her.
But the fear, the ambition, even the tangled, hopeless mess of feelings she couldn't sort out, Xie Yong'er understood all of it without needing a single word explained. In this particular world, the two of them were each other's only mirror.
Having someone in the world who understood her so completely was a threat, but it was also a comfort.
Yu Wanyin patted her shoulder. "What do you want to do once you're out of the city?"
"Travel around for a while first, see this world properly. And then..."
"Retire somewhere quiet?"
Xie Yong'er laughed. "As if. Once the two of you have settled the realm, I'm coming back to pull in some royal investment and build a business empire."
Yu Wanyin was impressed. Truly a chosen heroine, thriving on every setback.
"Have any specific direction in mind for the business?"
"I'll start city by city, build up a food delivery service."
Yu Wanyin's eyes lit up. "Excellent. I'm investing."
"Courier services too, why not. Oh wait, we'd need to fix transportation first. Want to invest in cars with me?"
Yu Wanyin laughed. "Might as well go all the way and build a maglev pipeline system."
"Huh? What's that?"
Yu Wanyin froze.
What year had The Devil's Favored Concubine even been published? She couldn't remember when she'd checked the release date.
Could this possibly be an old novel? Did the concept of maglev pipeline transport even exist when this book was written?
Her pause was too obvious, and Xie Yong'er looked over at her, puzzled. Yu Wanyin panicked for a couple of seconds and hastily made up an excuse. "It's nothing, I saw it in a science fiction story once. I can't really explain it well."
"You're suggesting I go build something out of a science fiction story?"
"It was just a joke..."
But Xie Yong'er kept staring at her, a glimmer of dawning realization slowly rising in her eyes. "By the way, you mentioned before, where were you from in your original world?"
Yu Wanyin thought, why did I open my mouth in the first place.
"The north. A small county town, you wouldn't have heard of it."
Her heart sank with dread. They were already on the verge of parting, and if Xie Yong'er pressed further this time and spiraled into an existential crisis over it, that would be entirely her own doing.
But to her surprise, Xie Yong'er simply blinked, and that spark of light died out at once. "All right."
For a moment, Yu Wanyin felt strangely as though she recognized something.
The shift in Xie Yong'er's expression just now had been subtle in a way that was hard to describe, from hesitation, to something suppressed, to an easy release, all within the span of a few seconds. But somehow, Yu Wanyin understood exactly what it meant.
It was as if the other woman had stood before some vast, invisible door, hand outstretched for a long moment, only to turn and walk away in the end.
One step forward was a bottomless abyss. One step back was a dream within the mortal world. Xie Yong'er looked a little dazed, then smiled. "Once I get the delivery business going, remember to teach me a few specialty dishes from your hometown."
Yu Wanyin came back to herself. "Sure."
Why, just now, had it felt so familiar?
Xie Yong'er went back to her room. Yu Wanyin still stood outside the door, tilting her head back to breathe out a puff of white mist.
In the night sky, the lone moon had dimmed for a moment, and the stars had come out. Yu Wanyin had only glanced up idly at first, but the moment she looked, she went still.
A little while later, footsteps sounded behind her, and Xiahou Dan came to stand at her side. "Aren't you cold? You've been out here so long."
"I finally figured it out," Yu Wanyin said, lifting her hand excitedly to point. "Those stars there, aren't they nearly in a straight line?"
One summer, A-Bai had once pulled Xiahou Dan out to look at the sky too, saying something about how the stars were about to line up.
"I went back and checked A-Bai's prophecy afterward," Yu Wanyin said. "'Five stars converging' refers to exactly this kind of formation. The old texts say it's an omen that the sovereign will face an assassination attempt."
"That's fairly accurate, then," Xiahou Dan said.
Yu Wanyin shook her head firmly. "No, look closer. The tail's already starting to curve. It's not a straight line anymore. What does that mean? It means the omen has passed. After you defeated Tuer, you already changed your fate!"
She said with rising energy, "Things have turned for the better. Tomorrow will definitely be fine."
Xiahou Dan gave a short laugh. "A modern person starting to believe in celestial omens?"
"Believe and it exists, don't believe and it doesn't. Either way, I believe it. Tomorrow, let me come with you." Yu Wanyin brought it back around without warning.
Xiahou Dan let out a barely audible sigh. "Wanyin."
"I know. You've already said everything you're going to say. But these past two days, you've been acting strange. Saying your morale is low doesn't even begin to cover it. It's like you've been preparing to settle your affairs!"
Whatever Xiahou Dan had been about to say was cut off entirely.
Had he really been that obvious about it?
Yu Wanyin saw the change in his expression and felt her heart clench tighter. "I just want a little peace of mind too, you know. You go risk your life while I just stand by and watch. Think about how that feels for me..."
"So you'll only feel at ease if you're right there risking it with me?"
Yu Wanyin steeled herself. "Yes."
"And the position of empress? You're giving that up?"
"If we can't take down Prince Duan, this title is nothing but decoration anyway. I don't want to spend my whole life playing a role."
Xiahou Dan went still.
After a long moment, he asked quietly, "So you're saying you'd rather die with me?"
Yu Wanyin drew a breath. She could tell he was asking in earnest.
She didn't understand why he was so pessimistic, but she knew, without quite knowing how, that this answer mattered to him a great deal.
So she thought it over carefully for a moment. "Coming here was, in a way, already dying once. I thought I'd go to heaven after death, and instead I ended up in some kind of hell-mode side story. There were a few times in the middle when I was so exhausted, body and soul, that I wanted to quit. But because I had you on my team, somehow, without even noticing, I've made it this far."
Xiahou Dan turned his head quietly, watching her without blinking.
"We've done so much," Yu Wanyin went on. "Preventing the drought, defeating the empress dowager, forming an alliance with Yan. Even if it ended here, I'd still tell myself I did well. Of course, there's still so much unfinished, so much I still want to do. Xie Yong'er's business empire idea, I'm actually pretty interested in that too. But this road has just been so exhausting. So exhausting."
Her throat tightened, and only then did she realize she was choking up.
She reached out and took his hand. "You promised me. No matter what, living or dying, you wouldn't let me be alone. Are you going to break that promise?"
Xiahou Dan smiled. "All right." He pulled her into his arms. "Then let's go together."
How wonderful, this must be what the old line meant, that in life and death, come what may, we made our vow. Pity that such an ocean of devotion had been given to nothing but a heavy mask.
But if tonight was all that was left...
Xiahou Dan lowered his head and kissed her. After the snowfall, the palace lay in complete silence, and this kiss had no witness but the stars scattered across the sky, quiet and gentle.
He curled a finger and led her toward the warmth inside.
Let the mask stay on until dawn, he thought, low and unworthy.
The lamplight flickered, their bodies entwined. Yu Wanyin let herself sink into it, and just before her thoughts dissolved into blankness, a flash of clarity struck her, and she found the answer.
She had understood Xie Yong'er so clearly, as if looking into a mirror, only because she too stood before a door she didn't dare push open.
To keep herself from thinking any further, she wrapped her arms tightly around Xiahou Dan's neck and let herself plunge with him into the tide of pleasure.
At Prince Duan's estate.
Xiahou Bo knelt on the ground and finished burning a stack of paper money for his late mother. He rose and said calmly, "Go take your positions."
His trusted men dispersed at the words, leaving only one figure still kneeling in place.
Xiahou Bo looked down at him. "I said before, to avoid having them foresee our plans through their heavenly eye, I'd add one small contingency at the final hour. Now's the time."
"Please instruct me, Your Highness," the death soldier said.
Xiahou Bo handed him a scent pouch and several sheets of letter paper. "I'll dictate. You write it down."
Across the frozen, silent city, a lone watchman's drum sounded in the distance.
The new year had arrived.
The next day, the sun rose high and the auspicious hour arrived. The emperor, dressed in mourning garb, performed the sacrificial rites and listened as the ministers read the eulogy. Then, leading the civil and military officials, he escorted the empress dowager's triple-layered coffin in a grand procession out toward the city gates.
Xiahou Bo rode along in the procession, lifting his gaze slightly toward the front.
Today there were far more guards accompanying the imperial carriage than usual, clustered so tightly around it that they forced a wide gap between the emperor and his officials. Behind the officials marched several hundred palace guards as a rear formation.
It seemed the emperor had taken precautions after all. But the beauty of their own plan was that unless the emperor had some way of foreseeing the future, no number of guards would make any difference.
Unless he could foresee the future.
As they neared the base of the mountain, An Xian stepped up beside the imperial carriage and bowed. "Your Majesty, please walk beside the coffin up the mountain." Custom demanded that the emperor walk this final stretch on foot beside the coffin, to demonstrate his filial devotion.
The mourning music swelled at once. Xiahou Dan stepped down from the carriage and walked alongside the vehicle bearing the coffin, continuing forward on foot. Ahead, a section of the mountain had sheared away and collapsed, forming a sheer rock face more than ten zhang high. Above it, snow lay undisturbed and silent. Facing the rock face stood a dark, dense forest.
Xiahou Dan walked with solemn steps, eyes fixed straight ahead, drawing closer step by step to the base of the cliff.
Fifteen steps left.
Xiahou Bo quietly reined in his horse, causing a ripple of disorder in the procession behind him.
Ten steps.
Several screams rang out from up the mountain, followed by a sharp cry: "Assassins!"
The officials broke into an uproar, instinctively scrambling backward while craning their necks upward to try to see what was happening.
Xiahou Bo, still in the procession, watched with wide eyes as the emperor calmly came to a stop and turned around.
For a single instant their eyes met, and the emperor's mouth curved faintly upward.
A clash of metal rang out from above the cliff, though no figures could be seen, only the trees shaking and great masses of snow and earth crumbling loose. Then came a burst of shouting, someone crying out hoarsely, "Your Majesty, move!"
A dark, massive object came plunging down from above.
Everyone scrambled backward in a panic, one man tripping into the next, bodies falling in a tangle across the ground.
The object dropped straight down and struck the earth with a tremendous crash, gouging a deep pit before their eyes. Only then did they see clearly that the rock stood taller than a man. Falling from such a height, it could have crushed a person to pulp.
And the spot where the boulder had landed was no more than ten steps from Xiahou Dan.
Had he taken a few more steps forward just now, today's funeral would have gained a second lead role.
The guards rushed forward in a crowd to shield the emperor and pull him back. Xiahou Dan looked as though he'd been frightened half to death, scrambling back a short distance before erupting in fury. "Who dares attempt an assassination? Seize them at once!"
Above the cliff face, dozens of figures appeared. At the head of them was the newly appointed commander of the palace guard, Grand Commandant Gao. "Your Majesty, forgive the fright. My men have eliminated the assassins and captured their leader alive. We're coming down now."
The words had barely finished when, in the snow-hushed silence of the mountain forest, figures began to move.
Xiahou Bo strained his eyes to look. A dark mass of palace guards was closing in from the mountainside toward the base. Farther off on the main road came the sound of marching troops as well.
The palace guards who had come to Beishan today were far more than the few hundred at the rear of the procession. And the remaining boulders still poised on the cliff face hadn't moved at all, which meant the ambush stationed near them had already been wiped out entirely.
Foreseeing the future? In Xiahou Dan's camp, that particular skill seemed to be in surplus.
Xiahou Bo knew the emperor was watching him. He also knew exactly what performance was about to unfold once the palace guard finished encircling this ground.
His expression didn't change in the slightest. He even leaned over kindly to help a few tripped officials back to their feet.
Xiahou Dan's mouth pressed into a hard line.
Grand Commandant Gao soon had the captive dragged down the mountain. The guards beside Xiahou Dan stepped forward and gave him a routine interrogation and a rough pat-down, and finally one of them called out loudly, "This subject found a token from Prince Duan's estate on the assassin's person."
You could have heard a pin drop across the entire field.
Every official present, civil and military alike, turned as one to stare at Xiahou Bo.
An assassin should have had the sense not to carry a token from Prince Duan's estate on his person. But whether he'd actually carried one or not made no real difference. Xiahou Dan needed the guards to find a token, and so the guards found a token. That was all there was to it.
No one present was a fool. Seeing this unfold, there was no mistaking it: the two brothers of the imperial house were about to have their final showdown, right here, right now, before everyone's eyes.
"Prince Duan!" Li Yunxi roared, striking up a war drum of passion in his own voice. "How dare you—!"
But Xiahou Bo's eyes went wide with disbelief, and he cried out toward the guard, grieved and furious, "You, you're lying!"
Li Yunxi had nothing to say to that.
What kind of act was this old fox putting on now?
Xiahou Bo dropped to his knees with a thud. "Some scoundrel must be framing me. I beg Your Majesty to investigate carefully and clear my name!"
Xiahou Dan played his own part right alongside him, glancing between the guard and the assassin as though torn, and then said in a strained, aggrieved voice, "Mother's coffin was nearly smashed apart. We must find out exactly who these assassins were working for, and get to the bottom of it thoroughly. Brother must be shaken too. Why don't you go back to the city to rest for now. Someone, escort my brother home."
At the order, palace guards on every side surged toward Prince Duan.
Xiahou Bo went along quite cooperatively, offering an elegant bow before turning to walk toward the guards himself, the fingers at his side lifting slightly as he did.
Just then, a voice rang out from the crowd. "Reporting to Your Majesty, this subject recognizes this assassin. He's a servant from Minister Yu's household."
The official who spoke was one of Prince Duan's faction, and he pressed further, loudly. "Minister Yu, why don't you acknowledge your own servant when you see him?"
The crowd erupted.
Following Prince Duan, Minister Yu now got his own taste of being the center of attention. He handled it far worse than Xiahou Bo, his legs going weak on the spot. "N... nonsense, I've never seen this man before."
"How could he possibly be one of Minister Yu's men!" Li Yunxi protested. "Everyone knows Minister Yu is a man of virtue and integrity, careful and upright..."
"How odd," a clear, cutting voice joined in. "Minister Yu just became the father of the empress, with wealth and glory waiting for him, and instead he'd choose to conspire with Prince Duan to murder the emperor? Has he lost his mind?"
Li Yunxi choked on his words.
The one backing him up was Erlan. Her sharp, biting comment carried the weight of ten of his, and it pinned the accusation firmly on Prince Duan at the same time.
"Ex, exactly," Li Yunxi managed.
Seeing this, Prince Duan's faction wasn't about to sit still, and another man stepped forward. "Your Majesty, this old servant went to celebrate Minister Yu's birthday not long ago, and I did indeed see this very servant there. Minister Yu, how did your servant end up with a token from Prince Duan's estate? Something is clearly amiss here."
Minister Yu, thoroughly terrified by now, stumbled and dropped to his knees. "This, this, this..."
The officials loyal to the emperor watched his guilty, panicked manner and felt a chill settle over them.
Those few men from Prince Duan's faction might not truly remember the face of some minor servant, but the fact that they dared speak up at this critical moment meant they'd already known, well beforehand, that this assassin really was connected to the Yu household in some way. All it would take now was a thorough investigation, and the blame could be pinned squarely on Minister Yu.
Had the new father-in-law of the empress truly lost his mind?
The moment Minister Yu had laid eyes on the assassin's face, he'd felt as though he'd plunged into an icy pit.
The servant really was his, no question there. But he had no idea, none whatsoever, when this man had become an assassin working for Prince Duan.
But how could he possibly say that out loud? And even if he did, who would listen to the second half of that sentence?
Put simply, in this whole scene today, the truth was the least important thing of all. Minister Yu had always had shallow roots in the court, never quite fitting in with either faction. Now that his daughter had risen to become a phoenix among the flock, there were more people who envied him than courted his favor. Looking at how things were unfolding, this group had clearly agreed in advance to push him forward as the scapegoat!
Prince Duan, oh, Prince Duan. Just how long had he been plotting against him?
More and more of Prince Duan's faction joined the chorus, and Minister Yu, sweat pouring down his face, kowtowed in despair. "Your Majesty, this old servant has been wronged! This man, this man is a spy sent by Prince Duan!"
"Hahahaha." The assassin leader, blood at the corner of his mouth, suddenly laughed. "Funny, isn't it, that everyone assumes I must be acting on someone else's orders. Minister Yu, why don't the two of us settle it plainly, which of us was giving orders to which?"
Minister Yu nearly fainted on the spot. "What nonsense are you spouting, I never—"
Xiahou Bo sneered inwardly. Pushed onto the stage now and wanting to run, was he? He'd have to ask his lordship's permission for that.
The servant let out a crazed, cackling laugh and reached into his robe, pulling out a bloodstained scent pouch. "Didn't you search me just now? How did you miss this?"
The shadow guards had nothing to say to that.
They only ever found exactly what they'd been sent to find.
The pouch was crudely made, its bright red fabric embroidered in stark black thread with a man and a woman riding together on a great winged eagle.
Xiahou Dan's pupils shrank, and he glanced instinctively to his side. Among his personal guards stood a slightly smaller, thinner figure.
Xiahou Bo caught the flicker of that glance, and his eyes narrowed slightly.
"Who embroidered this pouch," the servant said, "I'm sure His Majesty the Emperor can guess perfectly well, can't he?" He laughed uproariously, pleased with himself. "I'm dead either way today, so I might as well speak my mind before I go, so you lot can't just quietly bury this as some secret palace scandal!"
The night before.
Xiahou Bo had handed him a scent pouch and several sheets of letter paper. "I'll dictate. You write it down."
The death soldier had taken the letter and looked it over. It was written in a woman's hand, not particularly graceful, filled with vague, ambiguous words of love, all of it lines Yu Wanyin had once used to fool Prince Duan while she was confined to the Cold Palace.
"You'll carry the pouch on you," Xiahou Bo had said. "The letters go hidden in the Yu household, waiting for someone to find them during a search. Right now, everyone suspects Empress Yu is pregnant, and that the emperor deposed the crown prince to make way for the child she's carrying. But once you're captured, you'll confess in front of everyone that the child in Empress Yu's belly is yours.
"You'll say she was already exchanging glances with you before she entered the palace, and that even after entering, she kept seeking you out, and the two of you conceived a child together in secret. When Minister Yu stumbled upon it, you brought him in to help scheme with you. Since a secret this size can't stay hidden forever, you decided that with the emperor and Prince Duan already at each other's throats, you might as well go all the way and kill the tyrant while you had the chance. Minister Yu lent you some of his men, you set the ambush at Beishan, thinking that if it failed, you could pin it on Prince Duan.
"But you were recognized, and the plot fell apart. Knowing you're already dead either way, you decided to mock the tyrant one last time before the end."
The death soldier memorized every word, then asked, puzzled, "Your Highness, will the emperor actually believe any of this?"
"Whether he believes it or not doesn't matter," Xiahou Bo said. "What matters is that every official present, civil and military, will hear it."
That way, Yu Wanyin would never wash away the name of a wicked seductress for the rest of her life, and if Xiahou Dan dared shield her openly, he'd brand himself a tyrant blinded by lust.
"What if the emperor never took any precautions at all," the death soldier said, "and we strike him down in one blow, send him straight to the western paradise instead?"
"Then you won't confess to any of it," Xiahou Bo said. "Just let the child in Empress Yu's belly become Xiahou Dan's posthumous heir."
"...Empress Yu isn't actually pregnant," the death soldier reminded him.
Xiahou Bo smiled.
The death soldier's mind caught up then. No matter. Once Xiahou Bo held power, she would be, soon enough. And in time, the child would become the young emperor, with Xiahou Bo as regent.
Everything they'd schemed for came down to four words: legitimate and proper.
Prince Duan wanted more than power alone. He wanted the praise of ten thousand people, virtue reaching every corner of the realm, achievements crowning the world. He wanted a court united in purpose, working tirelessly toward a glorious new age.
Which meant he could never carry the name of a man who had murdered his own emperor to seize the throne.
He wanted to be a sage ruler. And a sage ruler was always worth dying for, again and again, for however many men it took.
The death soldier ran quickly through his lines in his head one last time, then spoke calmly. "Yu—"
That was the only word he managed to say.
There came a sharp crack, and the last thing his eyes ever saw was the emperor raising some strange object at him, a dark, gaping muzzle trailing wisps of smoke.
The death soldier collapsed, his body convulsing several times, blood spilling from his mouth, and then he moved no more.
Xiahou Dan shot him with one round and turned at once, aiming for Prince Duan.
Legitimate and proper. Who didn't need that? They'd held themselves back this long precisely so they could bring down Prince Duan with a just cause behind them. But all of it rested on one crucial premise: events had to unfold according to their own script.
Clearly, more than one person held a script today.
The instant Xiahou Dan turned, his heart sank.
In the span of a few breaths, he'd already lost his line of sight on Xiahou Bo.
Xiahou Bo had already vanished behind a wall of palace guards. The distance had been calculated with perfect precision, countless officials and soldiers standing between them, placing him just outside the weapon's range. It was as though he'd known beforehand exactly what weapon the emperor was carrying.
And the soldiers who moments ago had been surrounding Prince Duan had, at some point without anyone noticing, shifted into a protective formation around him instead.
The newly appointed Grand Commandant Gao's expression changed, and his repeated shouts to stop went nowhere. He roared, furious and desperate, "Are you all planning to rebel?"
No one answered him. Silently, invisibly, the thousands of palace guards on the field had split into two groups, each gathering into formation, facing off against the other.
Between the two camps stood the unarmed officials, trembling in fear.
Beizhou's ear twitched, and he said quietly, "There are more than just these soldiers. There's an ambush waiting in the woods too, probably his private troops, or else the border army has already arrived. Dan'er, he never expected a few boulders to kill you. He has far more backup plans than I anticipated."
Even now, Xiahou Bo pressed on, calling out earnestly and loudly, "Your Majesty! That assassin said the word 'Yu' before he died. Why were you in such a hurry to kill him? And that scent pouch he carried, who embroidered it? Doesn't Your Majesty want to look into that?"
The officials had long since shrunk into themselves like frightened quail, not daring to make a sound. In the crowd, Li Yunxi stiffened his neck, ready to shout back, but Yang Duojie clapped a hand over his mouth. Yang Duojie leaned close to his ear, urgent. "Don't say anything. The war of words is already over."
The arrow was already loosed and could not be called back. A full battle was now unavoidable.
"Your Majesty would turn against his own brother, blood of his blood, all for the sake of one woman, and refuse to see reason?" Xiahou Bo pressed on. "What kind of sorcery does Empress Yu wield over people's minds, that she could offend the empress dowager and walk away unscathed, only for Mother to die so suddenly afterward..." He suddenly turned to look at the small, slight guard. "Empress Yu, do you have nothing left to say?"
The small guard flinched violently.
Xiahou Dan kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. "Shut him up."
Grand Commandant Gao gave a furious roar and declared it outright. "Seize the rebels!"
At the same moment, Xiahou Bo cried out his own rallying call. "Remove the wicked woman! Purge the corrupt from the emperor's side!"
The two sides charged each other with blades drawn, and the ground shook beneath the force of it.
The officials trapped in the middle suddenly found themselves caught between two fronts, with a rock face on one side and only a single way out left, that dark, forbidding stretch of mountain forest.
Li Yunxi and the others were shoved by the crowd toward the trees, but no sooner had they run a few steps in than they were driven back out again.
The ambush hidden in the forest had made its move.
These men had hidden among the trees moments earlier, masking their presence so thoroughly that only a master as formidable as Beizhou could have detected them. Now they charged out in a vast, sweeping wave, a force so massive its ranks seemed to stretch on without end.
Their leader gave a single order, and the soldiers drew their swords as one. Even before they closed the distance, a killing aura like a black storm cloud pressed down over the field, utterly unlike the ragged, scattered palace guard.
Li Yunxi swore under his breath. "The border army..."
Only men who'd been forged on real battlefields, blades licking blood, could carry themselves like that.
How could this many border troops possibly be here? Whether they'd come from the northern or southern frontier, marching all this way to reach the capital without a single alarm being raised seemed impossible.
The only explanation was that when General Luo of the central army, or General You of the right army, had returned to court to report, they'd left men behind without bringing them back. Those men had lain hidden nearby ever since, waiting only for Prince Duan's signal.
This turn of events clearly hadn't been part of Xiahou Dan's calculations. The half of the palace guard positioned ahead of him was caught completely off guard, and the moment they clashed with this demonic force, their defenses shattered almost instantly, falling back in defeat step by step.
The officials wailed and scattered in every direction.
Both sides cared about their reputation and made some effort to avoid the officials, but blades and swords had no eyes, and the officials scrambled and stumbled in terror regardless.
Li Yunxi, sturdier than most of the civil officials, ran while pulling several fallen men back to their feet along the way. The sound of killing thundered on every side, and somewhere in the distance came a few more sharp bursts, seemingly from the direction of the emperor. He had no idea what the sound was, only that it sounded deeply ominous.
Suddenly a horse whinnied, and a panicked mount broke from its path, charging straight toward them. Li Yunxi's reflexes were quick. He shoved an old official stumbling nearby out of the way and threw himself into a roll, narrowly dodging the hooves.
"Brother Li!" Yang Duojie bent down and pulled him up. "Are you all right?"
Li Yunxi choked on the dust in the air. "Never mind me, get to somewhere clear. Where's Brother Er?"
"I haven't seen him!"
Li Yunxi lifted his head anxiously, scanning the crowd for Erlan, and his gaze swept across one direction and froze.
"Brother Li? Brother Li, where are you going!"
Li Yunxi took off running, dashing straight through the tangle of blades and swords.
Far off, along a forgotten mountain path, a thin figure was climbing desperately upward. Even as Li Yunxi watched, the figure darted behind a tree to hide.
What could Erlan possibly want with the rock face? Li Yunxi thought of the massive falling boulder, glanced at the direction the two armies were pressing and retreating, and immediately understood the answer.
But if they could think of this, then of course others could think of it too.
Caught off guard by such a formidable enemy, the palace guard's morale collapsed at once. They'd never been more than a ragged patchwork of self-interested men, and now, their fighting spirit gone, their formation began to disintegrate.
Xiahou Bo hadn't mounted his horse. He stayed calmly hidden behind the wall of soldiers, watching from a distance as strange bursts of sound kept erupting from the emperor's direction.
But it wasn't the emperor firing.
Once the fighting had broken out, the weapon in the emperor's hands had vanished.
Perhaps to avoid drawing attention, the small guard hadn't stayed hidden behind the emperor, but had charged out to fight alongside the other guards instead. But "he" moved with unsteady footing, clearly not someone trained in combat.
After a brief scuffle, "he" was soon overwhelmed and forced to pull out that strange weapon in self-defense.
Seeing this, Xiahou Bo pointed toward the guard from a distance. "Go take that guard down."
At that moment the guard was firing without missing a single shot, dropping men in a heap beneath the muzzle, keeping the rest at bay.
If Xiahou Bo hadn't investigated the bullet craters left in the memorial hall at Beishan, and hadn't sent his death soldiers to observe the shape of Yu Wanyin's weapon, he might genuinely have found himself helpless in this moment.
Xiahou Bo raised an arm, and six or seven death soldiers converged on the guard together, using their own bodies as bait, charging straight into the line of fire.
The guard, just as expected, fell into a panicked scramble, firing wildly and taking down two more men, when without warning a great net dropped from above, sweeping over "him" completely.
The guard thrashed violently, but the death soldiers seized the ropes of the net and hauled together, cinching it tight, pinning the arms and legs down so firmly that not the slightest movement remained possible.
The guard fell to the ground, writhing uselessly, and finally went rigid when a death soldier pressed a blade to the throat.
Only once he confirmed "he" could no longer raise an arm did Xiahou Bo give the order. "Take her weapon. Tear off that human-skin mask. Hang her from a tree where everyone can see clearly."
Then, using her as a hostage, he would force the emperor to sound the retreat and return obediently to the palace, to be placed under guard.
The emperor couldn't die today, couldn't die here. He needed to be driven mad, bewitched by the wicked empress Yu Wanyin, and die of madness within the palace instead.
Li Yunxi ran up, gasping for breath. "Stop!"
"Don't worry about me," Erlan said.
"There's no way there isn't anyone up there. Going up alone is just throwing your life away." Li Yunxi gritted his teeth and chased after her, always a few steps behind, and could only stretch out an arm, trying to grab hold. "I'll go, let me go instead, that's fine, isn't it?"
Erlan gave a short laugh. "What are you saying? Brother Li, don't you want to become a great pillar of the court someday?"
"I joined this court to die a death worth remembering in the history books, don't steal my chance from me—" Li Yunxi lunged forward and finally caught Erlan's wrist, yanking hard and pulling her behind him. "Look at your thin arms, at least I'm sturdier and stronger—"
"I'm a woman."
"—strong enough to push that rock—" Li Yunxi's voice cut off abruptly.
While he stood frozen, as though struck by lightning, his footsteps faltering for just an instant, Erlan slipped past him again. "Go back, Brother Li. I've never fit in at this court anyway."
The scene on the rock face was brutal.
Prince Duan's rebel forces pressed forward relentlessly, quickly driving Xiahou Dan's palace guard back beneath the cliff. If the boulder fell now, even if it missed the emperor, it would take out a great swath of the guard.
Prince Duan's death soldiers had thought of this too, and had charged forward the moment the fighting began, trying to seize control of the boulders.
Xiahou Dan's shadow guards, stationed there to hold the ground, tried to hold them back with arrows partway up the slope. The enemy answered in kind, arrows raining down like locusts from both sides.
By the time the fighting reached this point, bodies lay scattered around the boulders, and only three or four shadow guards remained alive, all badly wounded, barely holding on with the rock's cover to shield them.
The moment Erlan showed herself, an arrow struck her shoulder, the pain so sharp she nearly cried out.
She dropped flat to the ground at once, biting down hard against the pain, tore a suit of armor off a nearby corpse, threw it over her back, and began crawling slowly toward the boulders.
A shadow guard, startled to see an unarmed civil official running toward them alone, cried out, "Who are you?"
"Look down there," Erlan said. "Where has Prince Duan's side reached?"
The guard blinked, confused.
"If I were the emperor," Erlan said, "I'd deliberately retreat quickly, drawing them right underneath the rock."
A shadow guard, an arrow in his back, his face white as paper, risked leaning out to look down, then snapped back quickly. "It's true. His men are all down there now. No wonder they're pushing so hard..."
He loosed two more arrows at the approaching enemy, but too weak from his wounds, the shafts fell short of their mark.
"They're coming up," the guard said, his voice hollow with despair.
He looked over at his companion, still struggling to hold on, took a deep breath, turned, and set his shoulder against the boulder.
Erlan crawled up beside him and pushed with all her strength. "One, two—"
At the base of the mountain, several death soldiers moved in on the captured guard, one prying at the fingers gripping the gun, another tearing at the human-skin mask.
The mask tore at one corner, revealing the features underneath.
The death soldier's hands froze mid-motion, his mouth opening to cry out, but the figure inside the net suddenly surged upward, bones cracking with a series of dull pops, the body swelling in size, and in an instant tore the net binding him to shreds.
Everything happened in the span of a few breaths. The death soldiers all went down at once, and the man beneath the false face rose into the air like a great bird spreading its wings, soaring to an impossible height, raising his gun toward Prince Duan behind the wall of soldiers.
He left himself completely exposed, countless hidden weapons flying at him from below, but he didn't so much as flinch, simply pulling the trigger.
A crack rang out.
Xiahou Bo had to dodge.
He dodged fast, but the gun was faster, as though it had already predicted his path. Two more shots followed in near succession, barely a breath apart.
The instant Xiahou Bo's feet hit the ground, he felt something fly off him.
Half his face suddenly felt wet. It was his own blood, streaming down.
What had flown off was his ear.
Erlan and the guard were both wounded, pouring everything they had into it, and still managed only to shift the boulder a few inches.
She let out a desperate shout and threw her whole body against the stone.
The boulder moved.
Erlan's heart leapt, and only then did she notice someone had joined her.
"Together," Li Yunxi said.
"You'll die!" Erlan said.
Li Yunxi looked at her, a fire burning in his eyes unlike anything she'd seen from him before, and repeated himself. "Together."
With no time left to hesitate, Erlan called out again. "One, two—"
A fourth person slammed into the rock beside them.
"Together," Yang Duojie said.
Li Yunxi had nothing to say to that.
Beizhou, airborne with no way to escape, took several hidden weapons to the body. As he began to fall, in a flash he fired twice more.
Xiahou Bo fled like a dog.
This time he was truly running for his life, and just as he broke free for a stretch, his heart lurched, and he looked up on instinct.
A tremendous crash sounded, and every soldier locked in combat froze for an instant.
Only Xiahou Bo's upper body remained visible above the boulder now. He struggled fiercely to claw his way out, but his legs were pinned firmly beneath it, and in his desperation his fingers dug deep into the mud.
Beizhou landed, staggered, and raised his gun once more.
No ammunition left.
A sharp shout rang out through the crowd. "Keep going, take the emperor!"
The one who called out was the leader of the border army's ambush force. With Prince Duan down, they should have been left without a commander, but the leader clearly carried real authority of his own, and he seized command at once. "Left flank, go save Prince Duan! The rest of you, go after Empress Yu!"
The rebels knew there was no turning back now. Today would end in either victory or death, and they charged at Xiahou Dan with even more reckless abandon. Another group split off, riding hard in the opposite direction, heading for another city gate to hunt down Yu Wanyin.
Beizhou, half his body drenched in blood, fought his way back to Xiahou Dan's side and said only one word. "Retreat."
He said it and, without waiting for a response, hoisted Xiahou Dan onto his back and ran.
Caught off guard, Xiahou Dan struggled against him. "Uncle, wait, I can't just—"
"I don't care!" Beizhou said, unyielding. "We can't hold this ground. Do you still want to live or not? Come on. Forget being emperor."
While Erlan and the others fought their way up the mountain, Yu Wanyin abruptly woke.
She realized at once that she was in a jolting carriage, and that Xiahou Dan wasn't beside her.
The night before, Xiahou Dan had agreed to go to Beishan together with her, and then they'd grown intimate. She had no memory whatsoever of how she'd ended up falling asleep afterward.
"Xiahou Dan..." Yu Wanyin gritted her teeth and pulled back the carriage curtain to look outside. The carriage had clearly already left the city, but the road beneath them wasn't the main highway, just a narrow path through the woods. A group of shadow guards rode escort at the sides.
"Stop the carriage!" Yu Wanyin shouted.
No one paid her any attention.
"Stop now, where's His Majesty?"
A shadow guard finally spoke. "This subject has orders. We are to protect Your Highness to the death and cannot turn back, no matter what happens."
"Don't waste your breath," someone said coolly from across the carriage.
Xie Yong'er sat facing her, watching her with a helpless expression. "We've been out of the city for half an hour and you're only just waking up now. Looks like Xiao Tiancai's sleeping draught works pretty well."
"Xiahou Dan put me in here? And you knew about this?"
Xie Yong'er raised her hands. "I had no idea. I was supposed to leave first thing this morning, and he stuffed you in here at the last minute. He probably kept it secret to the very end just to make sure nothing leaked out. Don't be angry, he only did it because he cares about you."
Yu Wanyin dug into her robe and pulled out her pistol.
Her mind was full of bad feelings. "What's happening at Beishan?"
"There's no way to know yet, is there? We'll have to wait until we reach another city, disguise ourselves, settle down, and then find someone to ask around." Xie Yong'er's tone actually sounded cheerful. "Which city do you think we'll reach first?"
Yu Wanyin had nothing to say.
"Sorry, I just got a breath of free air and I'm a little intoxicated by it—"
Xie Yong'er's voice cut off abruptly.
The next instant, Yu Wanyin felt the world spin, her whole body lifting off the seat, the anguished scream of horses ringing in her ears.
"A trip line!" a shadow guard shouted.
Yu Wanyin hit the ground hard, and everything went black for a moment.
The whistle of arrows cutting through air.
The clash of fighting.
The sound of shadow guards falling.
Yu Wanyin rubbed her forehead and sat up, only to find she was sitting on what used to be the carriage wall. The whole carriage had overturned. Xie Yong'er lay half sprawled beside her, clutching her own arm tightly, her face twisted with pain.
"How bad is it?" Yu Wanyin whispered.
"I think it's broken..."
An arrow shot through the window, skimming past Yu Wanyin's ear, and lodged itself in the seat.
"Empress Yu, why not spare us the trouble and climb out yourself?" someone called out, dripping with mockery, from a distance.
Xie Yong'er's head snapped up. "That's Mu Yun's voice."
Mu Yun stood well back, watching his men clash with the shadow guards. "Prince Duan wants you alive, but dead will do too."
Inside the carriage, Yu Wanyin reached into her robe again and found nothing there.
"Just come out yourself," Mu Yun called. "Don't make me set the carriage on fire. If you're burned beyond recognition, I won't be able to explain it to Prince Duan properly either."
Flames were drawing closer. Mu Yun wasn't bluffing.
Yu Wanyin fumbled desperately around herself, the more frantic she grew, the less she could find the gun.
A hand pressed her shoulder. "Don't panic. Take your time."
Xie Yong'er raised her voice. "Such a shame. You've got the wrong target."
Yu Wanyin looked up in shock. Xie Yong'er was already crawling toward the window. She reached out to grab her and missed.
"Surprised?" Xie Yong'er said. "It's me in here."
The moment she climbed out of the carriage, she was seized and dragged in front of Mu Yun.
Mu Yun blinked, then laughed instead of scowling. "Well, look who it is. If it isn't Consort Xie."
Xie Yong'er's hands were pinned behind her, the movement wrenching the break in her arm, and she held back the pain with cold sweat pouring down her face, speaking in broken bursts. "You've already... been dismissed anyway. Might as well... turn against him with me. Prince Duan... isn't a good master either."
Mu Yun sneered. "True enough. Waiting here is my own last gamble anyway, betting that the emperor would send Empress Yu away, and betting again that he'd choose some obscure back road. I always prided myself on reading people well. In time, I should have become Prince Duan's most trusted man. And now I'm forced to scheme this hard just to earn back a scrap of his favor. Tell me, whose doing is that, exactly?"
Xie Yong'er strained to soften her tone, trying to placate him. "You don't understand..."
"Of course it's your doing!" Mu Yun's eyes flashed with malice.
The man behind Xie Yong'er suddenly applied pressure, forcing her down onto her knees. She cried out in pain, and then a series of slaps struck across her face one after another.
When Mu Yun finished, he watched her face, savoring her forced composure for a moment, then suddenly laughed. "Did you really think this little trick of yours could protect the one in the carriage?"
"What are you... talking about?"
"Don't worry, neither of you will be left out." Mu Yun drew a dagger, stabbing down as he spoke absently, "Burn the carriage."
Those were the last words he ever spoke in this world.
Then came a string of sharp cracks.
He stopped mid motion, looking up in a panic, and could only watch as, one after another, his men fell, drawing closer and closer.
A memory surfaced in his mind, something he'd heard before his dismissal. "The memorial hall was left with several holes the size of bowls, and no one knows what weapon caused them..."
Then he couldn't think anymore. Because that very hole had just appeared in his own skull.
With their leader dead, the rest of his men scattered, and the surviving shadow guards chased down and finished off what remained.
Yu Wanyin ran to Xie Yong'er.
Mu Yun had worked efficiently. Before he fell, he'd already carved several wounds into her.
"It's fine, it's fine, we just need to stop the bleeding," Yu Wanyin said, her hands shaking as she pressed uselessly against the bloody wounds, her voice cracking. "Where's Xiao Tiancai?!"
Xie Yong'er smiled. "Don't you remember? He stayed in the palace, that's how I got my freedom."
"We're going back, we're going back to find him, just hold on a little longer..."
"Listen to me." Xie Yong'er caught her hand. "Don't tell Xiao Tiancai. If he finds out I died, he might just go on strike."
Yu Wanyin's eyes burned with tears. "Shut up!"
With Beizhou carrying Xiahou Dan and fleeing, the palace guard's fighting spirit had collapsed entirely, and their defeat spread like a landslide.
Prince Duan's faction had no intention of letting him escape. There was no point taking prisoners now, and hidden weapons and arrows fell like rain, yet somehow never managed to graze even the hem of their clothes.
But Beizhou was bleeding all over, and after a stretch of running, his pace began to slow.
Xiahou Dan could tell he couldn't keep this up much longer, and said, "Uncle Bei, put me down. Save yourself."
Beizhou let out a short, sharp laugh, as though he'd heard the biggest joke in the world. "Even if the sky falls, I won't abandon you."
"I'm already not long for this world anyway."
"Nonsense! Once you're free of this wretched crown, you'll live a long life. I'll go find medicine for you..."
Xiahou Dan lay quiet against his back for a moment. "I'm not the son of your old friend."
Beizhou's feet never faltered, but his mouth suddenly went silent. It wasn't clear whether he'd understood.
"I'm not Xiahou Dan," Xiahou Dan said. "I'm just a stray soul borrowing this body. Everything before now, I lied to you about all of it."
Silence.
"Uncle?" Seeing that he still hadn't put him down, Xiahou Dan's voice grew more urgent. "Did you understand what I said? I'm not—"
"I heard you. You're not her son." Beizhou's voice suddenly turned hoarse, as though he'd aged a lifetime in an instant. "But she wouldn't want to see you suffer either."
He drew in a deep breath and let out a long, roaring cry toward the sky, the sound shaking the mountain forest.
"Prince Duan's men are coming up," Erlan said, hiding behind the last remaining boulder, looking at the others beside her. "Being able to face death alongside all of you is one of the great fortunes of my life."
Li Yunxi's face twisted with conflict, and finally, as though steeling himself, he clenched his fist. "Brother Er, actually, I—"
"Ha, how about this. Why don't we swear brotherhood here and now, and be brothers again in our next lives!" Yang Duojie declared grandly.
"Wonderful," Erlan said.
Li Yunxi had nothing to say to that.
"Live well. Build that business empire," Xie Yong'er said, her gaze beginning to unfocus. "Don't be sad. I'm going back... to the world outside the book."
Yu Wanyin's tears finally spilled over.
For a character made of paper, was there ever really a world outside the book?
"Once I'm back in modern times," Xie Yong'er said, "I'll go visit your hometown, try that... beanish drink you mentioned..."
"Douzhir," Yu Wanyin said, her tears falling one by one onto Xie Yong'er's face. "And chao gan, zhajiangmian, roast duck, steamed duck, steamed lamb..."
Xie Yong'er closed her eyes slowly as Yu Wanyin's list of dishes went on.
At that moment, the ground began to shake.
The chosen heroine's sudden death sent a tremor through this entire world, the mountains and rocks trembling and swaying as though the whole world were about to collapse.
Yu Wanyin clutched Xie Yong'er's body tightly, trying to shield her from the dust and falling debris.
Her mind went completely blank, holding only a single thought: why hadn't she been able to find that gun sooner?
The tremor lasted a full quarter hour before the earth finally quieted.
Yu Wanyin still sat there in a daze, until a shadow guard pulled her to her feet. "Your Highness, we must keep moving. Can we bury Consort Xie's body here?"
Silence.
"Your Highness?"
Yu Wanyin took a deep breath. Only five shadow guards remained alive before her, and even they were lightly wounded.
She patted her own cheeks, forcing her mind back into motion. "Bury her. Try to erase all traces of us, or leave some traces elsewhere to throw off anyone chasing us."
So they left one man behind to handle things, while the remaining four escorted her onward. Their horses had been killed, leaving them to travel on foot, following a path that avoided all signs of habitation, moving farther and farther away.
By sunset that day, Yu Wanyin had nothing left in her. They found a mountain cave to spend the night in, not daring to light a fire, and simply divided up some dry rations to eat.
Yu Wanyin managed only a few bites before losing her appetite entirely. She withdrew into a corner, hugging her knees, staring blankly ahead.
So much had happened today, and her mind kept turning over the same two questions again and again.
Why hadn't she seen through Xiahou Dan's lie last night?
Why couldn't she have found that gun sooner?
Perhaps because her state was so clearly dreadful, the shadow guards kept glancing at her, and eventually whispered among themselves before one of them pulled a letter from his robe. "Your Highness."
Yu Wanyin slowly lifted her eyes.
"His Majesty left this letter for this subject before we parted, saying it was to be given to Your Highness once you were safely clear of danger. This subject took the liberty of bringing it out early... Your Highness might want to read it now."
Yu Wanyin snatched the letter and tore it open roughly, reading urgently by the last thin light of dusk.
The letter was written entirely in simplified characters, but the strokes were elegant and free, nothing like the handwriting Xiahou Dan usually showed her. It looked, if anything, a bit like the Spring Festival couplets he'd written the night before.
The first line read: "My wife, Wanyin."
The second line read: "My name is Zhang San."
My wife, Wanyin,
My name is Zhang San.
Go ahead and laugh if you want. People used to ask me all the time if my parents got the name from some phone credit promotion. Actually it was the opposite. My parents were thrilled with the name, thought it was so unconventional it was bound to make me stand out in any crowd.
And honestly, it worked out that way. Growing up, I never once met anyone else with the same name. From elementary school through middle school, I was always the first student the teacher learned by name. Aside from that one cool name, though, I really didn't have much else going for me. My grades were middling, never great, never terrible, except in physics, where I actually came in first twice. As for English, my multiple choice answers were basically decided by dice roll.
Oh, and I was pretty good at sports too. At school sports day, my class always pushed me into signing up for the long distance races.
You're probably wondering by now why I'm going on and on about middle school of all things.
It's because in our world, I don't have any memories past that.
The year I was in ninth grade, I was messing around on my phone during class and got pulled into this book by some pop-up ad (which just goes to show, you really should pay attention in class). By the time I first became Xiahou Dan, this body had already grown to about six years old.
That was sixteen years and eight months ago now.
Doing the math, I've actually been Xiahou Dan longer than I was ever Zhang San.
These past couple of years, I've sometimes found myself suddenly doubting whether the world "outside the book" really exists, or whether it's just some delusion my mind cooked up because something in my head had gone wrong. After all, a world where air conditioning and the internet and health insurance and aspirin all exist at once sounds more and more unreal the longer I go without it.
Funny thing is, when I first arrived here, it felt like falling into a nightmare with no end. But looking back on it now, I can barely even remember the name of my middle school anymore. Everything before feels more like some hazy dream than anything real.
Until you asked me that "how are you."
Then I knew it had all been real. That I really had lived once, flesh and blood, that I really had parents, friends, a future ahead of me.
I'm a shameful person. You saved me in that one instant, and in the very next, I was already plotting how to deceive you. Win your trust, become your ally, turn the script you held in your hands to my own use. Only that way could I secure victory through the safest possible means, and make the empress dowager and Prince Duan pay in blood for what they'd done.
In front of you, I didn't just gloss over my past, I controlled even my every word and gesture, forcing myself to play the part of a modern person you'd recognize and feel at ease with. I couldn't let the blood on my hands scare you away.
It wasn't until I actually started playing the role of Zhang San that I was forced, bit by bit, to remember just how far I'd drifted from who he used to be. All these years, I'd dreamed night after night of demons dragging me down into an endless hell, so often that it became routine, something I simply grew used to. A month after you arrived, I suddenly dreamed one night that a classmate passed me a note, calling me to skip out after class and run to the cafeteria together. When I woke, I smashed several cups and bowls, just wanting to fill these four palace walls with a bit more noise. In that moment, I truly wanted to burn everything down and put an end to it all.
You came too late, Wanyin. There's no one left here who's like you. All you got stuck with was me, half mad, running out of time. I'm sorry, for being someone who's stopped being human.
Did you just smile a little, reading that? Smile more. You haven't been happy enough lately.
I couldn't tell you exactly when I fell in love with you. As Zhang San, loving you would have felt like the most natural thing in the world. As Xiahou Dan, it feels closer to a curse. All I know is that from that point on, I was even more afraid of being found out.
A drowning man will grasp at any floating piece of driftwood he can reach. But when he's drifted too far from shore, when there's no saving him, and he still clings tight to that driftwood, all he does is drag it down into the water with him.
I hoped, at the very least, I could keep you from getting blood on your hands. I hoped that somewhere in this dark, sinful sea, there could be one place where you could sleep soundly at night. I hoped to put off, for as long as I could, the moment I'd see fear and wariness in your eyes. And more than anything, I hoped you'd stay forever burning bright as fire, luminous as the moon, forever the same fearless girl who charged through everything without a trace of hesitation, just like when I first met you.
If, for a while, you feel afraid or unsteady, and you need someone like yourself to give you strength, then I'll play that role for you. I'll keep playing it, all the way until the day I die.