The year was ending, the sky cold, auspicious snow falling in profusion.
Fu Ying wore a full set of mourning white, her eyes lowered toward the decree spread open before her, silent in thought. Yet the fingertips she clenched tightly exposed the fierce struggle in her heart.
Outside, the howling north wind passed through the window lattice, shaking the candle flame so that it flickered, casting her exquisite, delicate profile onto the screen, shattered into pieces.
“The Great General… has already become the new Khan?”
Her maid Bi Luo, seeing the imperial decree bearing the golden seal, was momentarily speechless, her face full of disbelief.
The eunuch who had delivered the decree paid no attention to Bi Luo. He nodded to Fu Ying and said, “Just as the Princess sees. The Northern Di cannot go a single day without a ruler. The assembled ministers have put forward your foster father, Great General Maolin, to act as Khan of our people in the meantime. I hope Your Highness understands.”
His tone slowed, and he bit down hard on the final words, mixed with a mockery that could not be plainly named.
Fu Ying’s mind went blank, her pupils trembling in disbelief.
A month ago, on a night of violent snowstorm, the Northern Di Khan, Fu Zhaoxing, had been assassinated.
As the Khan’s only daughter, Fu Ying had at the time still been studying medicine in Nanyang, a thousand li away. Upon hearing the terrible news, she had rushed through the night to the capital, Yunzhou.
Her father, who had once smiled kindly as he saw her off from the city, had in an instant become a cold corpse in a coffin. Grief-stricken, she had fainted on the spot, and for half a month afterward had wept all day, confined to her sickbed.
After the state mourning, the memorial hall inside the Yunzhou traveling palace had been taken down. Fu Ying had insisted on leaving, retreating to a private residence a hundred li outside the city, to observe mourning for her father.
Today, her body had recovered somewhat, but this sudden decree violently crushed what little resolve remained in her heart.
“If Your Highness has no other business, this servant will take his leave.”
The eunuch’s suddenly impatient words called Fu Ying’s drifting thoughts back to the present.
Not long after Fu Zhaoxing’s death, the assembled ministers had pushed Great General Maolin, Shang Zhi, into the supreme position of Khan.
She, the sole heir to the throne, had only been informed of this momentous event three days later, how ironic.
Grief, resentment, and humiliation twisted together into peals of thunder, exploding and rumbling in her ears.
Now that the die was already cast [1]the die was already cast (mu yi cheng zhou, 木已成舟) Idiom, what’s done is done and cannot be undone jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3189294_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3189294_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, what objection could she possibly raise?
In the span of a morning and evening, her father had died and power had changed hands. In this world, it would be hard to find a second person who had lived through such a bleak and turbulent life as hers.
Fu Ying’s nails dug deep into her palms, suppressing the dull pain surging in her chest. “My foster father took on this heavy burden at a moment of crisis, shouldering a great responsibility, he is a benefactor to the Northern Di. Once my mourning period is complete and my body is better, I will go to the traveling palace to pay my respects to him.”
The eunuch, remembering another matter, wore a mocking smile. “Your Highness, yesterday you sent someone to the traveling palace saying you needed a carriage to go pay respects to the old Khan. But this servant must report back at once, the wind and snow are heavy, and only by carriage can he return to the palace. Please understand.”
“What?!”
Upon hearing this, Bi Luo’s eyes went wide and she scolded angrily, “The wilderness stretches on and on, and it has been snowing for nights without stopping, are you telling the Princess to walk up the mountain?”
Fu Ying took a deep breath, frowned slightly, raised her hand to stop her, and told Bi Luo to give the eunuch a gold melon seed [2]gold melon seed (jin gua zi, 金瓜子) Slang, a small gold nugget shaped like a melon seed, given as a discreet tip jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3189294_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3189294_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
“It’s fine. You may go back first.”
The eunuch, smiling obsequiously, accepted the gold melon seed, gave a perfunctory word of thanks, and swaggered away.
Bi Luo, wronged to the point of tears, could no longer suppress the indignation in her heart and cried out unfairly, “Young lady, you are clearly the rightful heir to the throne, yet those old ministers dared to install someone else on their own authority. And that eunuch just now was so disrespectful, what kind of conduct is that!”
Fu Ying’s face was drained of all color. Gone was her usual gentle appearance, a bone-deep chill radiated from her entire body, and those amber eyes of hers were like an abyss, bottomless.
With her father no longer there to shield her from the wind and rain, she was now utterly alone in this world, and only now did she truly feel what it meant for the world to turn cold to misfortune [3]what it meant for the world to turn cold to misfortune (shi tai yan liang, 世態炎涼) Idiom, people’s warmth turns cold and fickle once one’s fortune declines jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3189294_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3189294_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
“They have steeped themselves in court politics for half their lives, deep in cunning and experience. If they truly meant to install me, why would they act first and report only afterward?”
Her brow was filled with dejection as she shook her head and sighed, “Given the current situation, even if I sat in that seat, I would only be a puppet manipulated by others.”
“My foster father and I still have some bond of affection. Only by yielding to the situation and avoiding their edge will they have no reason to eliminate their opposition in so short a time.”
Even weighing the lesser of two evils, Bi Luo still could not accept it, and sighed with a heavy heart, “It’s only that, young lady, if the master knew you were being treated this way, how sad he would be…”
Fu Ying’s lowered lashes trembled slightly. She raised her eyes toward the offering table. Inside the pear-wood shrine, her father’s memorial tablet stood solemn.
The case of Fu Zhaoxing’s assassination was far too tangled and unclear. The assassin had killed himself on the spot, leaving no clues at all. The Bureau of Punishments had pursued the investigation for a full month without any progress, and the mastermind behind it still remained at large.
Having missed the best time to catch the culprit, uncovering the true killer afterward would only be all the more difficult.
Fu Ying’s eyes brimmed with tears as she looked at the tablet, her gaze turning heavy and resolute.
As the only surviving member of her family, no matter how great the hardship, she would surely find the murderer, avenge her father, and reclaim everything that rightfully belonged to her, so as to comfort her father’s spirit in heaven.
But this was a matter of great importance, and she, now a lone orphaned girl, still needed to plan carefully for the long term.
“Bi Luo, help me change my clothes. Today is Father’s fifth seven-day rite. I will go see him and Mother, and pay what small filial respect I can.”
The Northern Di had, since ancient times, practiced tree burial. Fu Ying’s parents’ coffins lay five li west of the residence, up in the tall branches of a stand of white birch trees.
The morning was cold, and Bi Luo carefully dressed her in items to guard against the chill. Just before she left, Bi Luo also draped a thick sable fur cloak over her.
Mistress and servant took a bronze censer and incense sticks for the offering, left the residence, and stepped into the vast wilderness of the northern land.
The sky was about to brighten, wild wind sweeping up drifts of white snow like scattered jade fragments, cold mist swirling, and auspicious signs falling one after another.
Winding along the path, Fu Ying’s gaze happened to sweep across the distance, and her attention was drawn to an abrupt patch of black far off.
That dark shadow was like a drop of thick ink, soaking into the hazy snow scene.
Fu Ying narrowed her eyes, but could not see it clearly.
A faint, sweetish, fishy smell drifted into her sensitive nose along with the cold wind.
Fu Ying had practiced medicine for a long time. Others might not know it, but she was all too familiar with this smell—
It was the particular reek unique to blood.
“Bi Luo, come with me to take a look.”
Her brow grew heavy, and she suddenly grew alert, rushing forward in great strides.
“Shua!”
Under a force weighing a thousand jun, a sharp saber pierced through the chest of the last black-clad assassin, driving deep into the ground.
“Since you’ve struck so ruthlessly, then this prince need not leave you alive either.”
The tall man in a black brocade robe looked down coldly at the person who had just expired beneath his blade, his cold and sharp eyes utterly devoid of feeling.
Corpses lay scattered all around, a scene of tragic devastation. Blood splattered everywhere had dyed the thick, snow-white ground crimson, like red plum blossoms blooming furiously amid ice and snow.
He slowly raised his hand, pinched a bit of snow from a branch beside him between his fingertips, and used the melted water to wipe away the flecks of blood on his face. The ferocity and disgust in his eyes faded only slightly.
Hanging from the belt at his waist was a hollowed-out black jade pendant carved with hornless dragon patterns, marking this man’s noble and eminent status—
The Prince of Wei of Great Yong, Wen Zhuo.
At dawn, he and more than ten attendants had been secretly deploying troops along the northern border. Passing through this stand of white birch on the outskirts of Yunzhou, they had been ambushed by numerous assassins lying in wait.
The two forces had clashed fiercely, and for a time the withered forest had been filled with the flash of blades and swords, plunged into a bloody struggle.
In less than a quarter hour, both sides had suffered heavy casualties. Only Wen Zhuo had barely managed to survive, but his left shoulder had been struck by a poisoned hidden weapon thrown by one of the assassins.
The unrelenting pain, together with the dizziness brought on by heavy blood loss, made it hard for him even to remain standing.
“Thump—”
His tall, pine-like frame fell straight backward onto the soft, mud-like snow.
The snow around him melted from his body heat, then pierced through his clothes into his back like sharp needles, the cold instantly soaking into his very bones.
The vicious poison on the hidden weapon was gradually spreading through his meridians, numbing his body, tormenting him ceaselessly with cold and pain.
If the assassin organization sent reinforcements, or if he were captured by the Northern Di side, what awaited him would be the utmost humiliation and abuse, and a torment worse than death.
The howling wind pierced his eardrums, yet his world had gone utterly silent, leaving only his own faint heartbeat.
The night sky was like a torn net, leaking a few threads of orange-red dawn light from the east.
A new day was beginning, and his life was about to come to its end…
“Whoever is hiding behind that tree, come out.”
Wen Zhuo’s tone was slow and calm.
He had already sensed someone behind him earlier. Now that he was at the end of his strength, there was no harm in calling this person out to see who it was.
After a moment, a rustling sound came from behind a thick tree in the distance, and a slender figure slowly stepped out from behind it.
Wen Zhuo forced open his frost-encrusted eyelashes and fixed his gaze on her.
Beyond the dense, falling snow was a young woman of delicate build, wrapped in a thick white cloak, carrying the fallen snow with her.
A scarf and felt hat covered her face tightly, leaving only a pair of eyes as alert as a fawn’s exposed.
Once he saw clearly that the one who had been hiding behind him watching for so long was only a soft, delicate young girl, the wariness in Wen Zhuo’s eyes gradually faded.
“May I ask, young master… why are you here in this desolate wilderness?”
Her question carried a hint of caution, like a thin thread of warm wind brushing across the heart.
Wen Zhuo’s heavy, ragged breathing paused slightly.
This woman was rather interesting, faced with a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, she had not shrunk back, and had spoken to him on her own initiative, yet she still stood far off, unwilling to step even half a pace closer.
He seemed not to have heard what she had just said, and asked instead, on his own, “You… what is your name?”
“This lowly woman’s unworthy name might sully your noble ears, young master. There is no need for you to know it.”
Fu Ying answered without a moment’s thought, her voice as clear and cold as the gradually whitening light of the sky.
Seeing the other party dare to refuse him so flatly, Wen Zhuo’s eyes narrowed slightly. As a prince of high standing and great power, no one had ever dared refuse a question of his.
Wen Zhuo took a deep breath, slightly raised the hand buried in the snow, his fingers curling faintly, his voice low and hoarse: “Miss, come closer…”
Fu Ying did not move at all, but her lowered lashes trembled slightly in the shadow of her felt hat, and beneath her cloak, her ten fingers clenched tightly at the fabric of her skirt.
Seeing her hesitate, Wen Zhuo parted his lips lightly: “I no longer have the strength to rise… I will not harm you in the slightest.”
With fingers trembling slightly, she lifted the hem of her skirt and carefully stepped over the sprawled, gruesome corpses one by one, coming to stand before him.
Wen Zhuo lay in the snow looking up at her, and deep within his dark eyes flickered a faint, barely perceptible ripple.
She was dressed in plain, pure white, and amid the wind and snow she seemed almost like a banished immortal, standing apart from the world, utterly out of place with the dark, brutal scene around her. In those clear, peach-blossom eyes of hers there showed a faint, quiet concern for him.
Such a holy, vibrant force of life was like a mountain spring, without a trace of impurity, pure and flawless.
Compared to her, he, covered in blood, his breath weak, unable even to stand, was a world apart, like cloud from mud [4]a world apart, like cloud from mud (yun ni zhi bie, 雲泥之別) Idiom, an extreme gulf in status or circumstance between two people jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3189294_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3189294_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
“Do you know where the heart is located? Lower left of the chest cavity, between the third and fourth ribs.”
Fu Ying was somewhat bewildered by this sudden question, and only nodded.
Wen Zhuo’s brow relaxed with relief. From his side he drew out a lacquer-sheathed dagger and, gathering all his remaining strength, handed it to her with trembling hands, his breath as ragged and chaotic as a jumble of discordant strings.
“My saber, the valuables on my person… all of it is yours… I only need you to do one thing—”
Although he was at his last breath, his gaze remained firm and forceful, staring directly into her eyes, his words steady and resolute: “Use this dagger to kill me.”
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