With the heavy snow falling endlessly, Ying Qingyang figured this would be his last time coming to sweep the graves this year.
Before setting off for his secret base, he turned back to glance at this cluster of burial mounds.
Had they had no entanglements with the former dynasty’s imperial family, they could have lived openly and honorably in the sunlight, their souls able to return home to be constantly remembered and worshipped by friends and family.
Instead, they were stuck in this barren mountain, dying with resentment and regret, sleeping away in eternal silence where no one knew their names.
Ying Qingyang made his way upward along a winding sheep trail, skillfully identifying and carefully avoiding sections prone to landslides, looking every bit like an experienced expert at mountain hunting.
The most skilled hunters in the Qiong Mountain region might not even possess such seasoned proficiency.
The deeper he ventured, the taller the trees grew. Rows of intertwined, ancient trees stood erect, their branches stretching outward. Occasionally, drifts of snow tumbled down from the boughs, standing out vividly amidst the silent mountain forest.
The old trees in the deep forest all looked remarkably similar, making it easy for even hunters familiar with the terrain to lose their bearings here.
Ying Qingyang had long since marked the tree trunks along his route, knowing that following the markers all the way forward would lead him straight to his destination.
However, his secret base was also exceedingly easy to recognize. Looking ahead from quite a distance away, one would behold a remarkably peculiar sight.
Ahead, suspended in midair amongst the towering trees, were massive, fine nets woven from hemp ropes. The four corners of the nets were fastened to the tree trunks, wound tightly several times and tied with slip-not knots for reinforcement.
The giant nets were stacked layer upon layer, numbering around twenty or so, stretching from the heights of the tree trunks reachable by human labor all the way down to half a foot above the ground. They were laid out and expanded in the shape of blooming flower petals, looking deeply spectacular.
Looking upward from the edge of the giant nets, one could discover that this place was actually the base of another lofty mountain. A winding mountain path climbed upward from the opposite side, culminating at the highest turning point in a vertical, cliff-like precipice as if sheared apart by a broadsword exceptionally steep and perilous.
The layered hemp-rope giant nets at the bottom of this cliff were a shock-absorbing buffer device that Ying Qingyang had spent a great deal of time and personal savings to assemble himself.
And such an arrangement was not limited to just a single spot; there were roughly seven or eight similar locations along this cliff face.
With agile movements, Ying Qingyang climbed up a tall tree and gazed out toward the center of the giant nets. He found no sagging arcs, indicating that nothing had fallen onto them.
“Not even today…” he muttered with a hint of disappointment.
Why was Ying Qingyang going through all this trouble and effort here? Naturally, there was a reason.
The lame horse, Shadow, that Ying Qingyang had fed before heading into the mountains was a treasure he had picked up right from this very spot.
Shadow had originally been a warhorse. When Ying Qingyang found it, it still wore exquisite horse saddles, and its horseshoes appeared meticulously crafted. Its breed was also exceptionally striking at a glance, it looked nothing like something a horse farm in a small town could raise.
A high-specification warhorse like Shadow would also never appear in an ordinary household. Great Liang exercised extremely strict control in this area to prevent subordinates from raising private troops and pushing Great Liang back into an era of fragmented, rivaling factions.
Perhaps because the Grand Emperor Emeritus had raised his army from the northern borders and witnessed firsthand how ferocious nomadic cavalry could be, even after training a squadron of border-campaign cavalry troops that conquered north and south, he remained deeply wary of anyone imitating them.
At the time, Ying Qingyang had already guessed that Shadow likely came from an imperial court caravan.
Qiong Province was inherently a harsh, treacherous land, and the frontier region possessed an even more fierce and valiant folk culture. Bandits frequently roamed the Qiong Mountain region, and at the height of their arrogance, they even dared to intercept convoys transporting military grain for the Great Liang imperial court.
Shadow had presumably suffered from such violence and broken away from the marching troops. It was not uncommon for frightened warhorses to flee, though many cavalrymen would use whistles to recall their mounts.
Clearly, this horse had received no such call, leading Ying Qingyang to suspect that its former master had likely also perished in the riots.
After leaving the main force, Shadow had somehow wandered into the mountains, roaming about before losing its footing and plunging off the cliff edge.
Warhorses were robust, and since the fall from the cliff had occurred during the summer, the dense foliage of the old trees served as the finest natural buffer zone, leaving the warhorse still breathing when it hit the bottom of the cliff.
Ying Qingyang had indeed read many veterinary books, but unfortunately, while he possessed theoretical knowledge, he had zero practical experience. After hastily bandaging Shadow and dragging the warhorse down the mountain with immense regret, he discovered that this fellow was stubbornly clinging to life.
He fed and cared for it for several days, and the warhorse’s condition gradually improved. However, its fractured hind leg had missed the optimal window for treatment, leaving it with a permanent limp.
Ying Qingyang loved horses, especially warhorses they looked majestic and remarkably graceful and dashing.
Perhaps describing horses in such a manner was slightly excessive, but Ying Qingyang genuinely loved them to a near-obsessive degree.
Having tasted success with that precedent, he kept wondering if the exact same thing could happen again, which was why he meticulously set up this device here, increased the number of giant net layers as much as possible, and layered withered leaves and weeds across every single tier.
Though he knew the chances were slim, Ying Qingyang still did it anyway after all, opportunities always favored the prepared mind.
When destiny descended out of nowhere, it never bothered to check whether you were right or wrong.
Logically speaking, with the winter storm being so severe lately, the low temperatures, and the ice- and snow-covered official roads, the probability of horses getting startled and falling should have increased. Yet, the surprise Ying Qingyang anticipated had never materialized.
“What a pity,” Ying Qingyang muttered again, inspecting his rescue devices one by one. Not a single one showed any sign of having been disturbed.
Abandoning that thought, he decided to head over to try his luck where he had bagged a wild deer some time ago.
Brushing the fallen snow from his clothes, he was just about to turn and leave when a strange sound suddenly echoed from above. Large chunks of snow tumbled down, followed immediately by a sharp sound of breaking air.
Ying Qingyang raised his eyes to look upward. He caught sight of a black dot rapidly expanding in his field of vision, followed by fluttering white robes. It wasn’t until the figure made contact with the first layer of giant nets and received a slight cushioning moment that he saw it clearly, causing his pupils to instantly constrict.
There was no other reason than the fact that it was actually a person! a person wearing moon-white robes, with long, fluttering, disheveled hair, falling unconscious and completely unresponsive!
The next second, the figure crashed onto the giant nets, plunging layer by layer. The knots and bindings connecting the nets to the tree trunks were snapped one by one by the sheer weight at breakneck speed, stirring up a vast, blinding mist of snow.
Ying Qingyang’s pupils abruptly contracted.
Snowflakes danced before his eyes, blurring his vision into a dreamy haze. As the heavy object slammed into the ground, the displaced airflow ruffled the strands of hair at his temples. Without the slightest hint of panic, he instinctively stepped forward a few paces, gazing clearly at the person wrapped and entangled by hemp ropes in the middle of the giant net.
His white robes were in disarray, his long hair splayed out, and his pale skin revealed a grayish pallor tinged with the breath of death. His left lower leg was twisted at an unnatural angle. His collar hung open, exposing the upper half of his chest, and near his protruding Adam’s apple was a scratch left by a branch. Higher still, the flesh on the left side of his forehead was bruised and mangled, with bright red blood sliding down his cheek, lending his delicate, handsome features an even more absurd, dying sense of beauty.
In a fleeting instant, Ying Qingyang heard his own heartbeat abruptly shift its rhythm.
At this moment, it was as if an immortal had descended into the mortal realm, startled from a dream as he plunged into the net.
Roughly half a day earlier, Jiang Zhenyu had ridden a horse into the Qiong Mountain range entirely on his own.
He was not a native of the Qiong Mountains; born in the south and raised in the capital, these northern borderlands were fundamentally mismatched with him, even feeling utterly incongruous.
Yet on the day the capital fell, he was the sole lucky survivor rescued. His uncle, who garrisoned Qiong Province, brought him here, and subsequent events were explicitly recorded by historians and biographers.
Jiang Zhenyu didn’t particularly care to reminisce about this lengthy experience, even though it occupied nearly half of his lived life.
History is always written by the victors. Jiang Zhenyu was that person holding the brush; the moment his carriage rolled out of the capital, he had already instructed the Director of the Secretariat to write his personal ending into the unsealed imperial diary.
The carriage belonging to the Grand Emperor Emeritus entered the northern borders, vanishing into the boundless expanse of the hundred thousand great mountains.
Whether living or dying, it mattered not.
And his current bedraggled state indeed bore little resemblance to an emperor wielding supreme power.
With disheveled hair, a miserable appearance, and an arrow wound on his shoulder, his outermost white brocade robe was stained with splotches of blood. Annoyed by that sticky sensation, he simply untied his sash and discarded the soiled outer garment by the roadside.
The thin undergarment was pierced through by the bitter wind in an instant, sending a chilling cold straight into his bones and blood.
The toxins seeping from his wound left him somewhat numb, shielding him from being hindered by the bitter cold of midwinter.
The scent of blood drifted over on the wind and snow. Along the winding mountain path behind him lay a small squad of elite assassins who had pursued him to the death.
The whistling sound of arrows piercing the air had startled his horse, and the broadsword he had snatched to slaughter the enemy had been casually tossed aside. Relying solely on his own two feet and the gradually spreading poison, he figured he could no longer walk out of these mountains.
The urge to survive is an instinct inherent to human nature, and naturally, Jiang Zhenyu was no exception.
The assassins dispatched from the capital were not as ruthless as he had anticipated, possessing only about half the caliber of the Imperial Guards.
As expected.
Things had not deviated from his control, yet he felt no sense of elation whatsoever.
After observing the terrain, he determined the direction of his advance. If his memory served him right, from the top of this cliff face, one could catch a distant glimpse of the official road and Qiong Town at the far end.
Jiang Zhenyu had not waded through the snow for long before his vision grew blurry, leading him to estimate that the poison had already invaded his vital organs.
Yet his steps did not halt; instead, he felt a sense of relief and lightness. Rarely did he experience moments where careful deliberation was unnecessary.
Before leaving the capital, the only two people who knew of his plan both expressed fierce opposition. Fuhai even knelt for a long time in the heavy snow, stubbornly begging him to rescind his decree even after developing frostbite on both hands.
After all, plunging alone into danger was not something an emperor ought to do.
Yet, why bother?
Jiang Zhenyu thought thusly.
No single person’s existence in this world is absolutely indispensable. Emperors, generals, nobles, officials, common folk everyone is merely a tiny grain of sand in the torrent of an era, swept along helplessly by the currents of fate.
He had never been an exception.
Jiang Zhenyu walked aimlessly forward, his vision an absolute blur of sprawling, overlapping patches of color.
Perhaps due to the poison, his mind drifted erratically: for a moment he thought of the political situation in the capital, the next moment of the raging snow disaster, and then of the fierce questioning from his ministers…
Sometime later, Jiang Zhenyu felt the sounds around him gradually magnify. Then, his feet lost contact with the ground, and his body plummeted like a kite with a broken string.
However, death did not strike as he had anticipated. Instead, a dull pain racked his entire body as if he were being whipped—a total torture. Yet the impact to his head prevented him from clearly discerning his surroundings, and he quickly sank into a deep slumber.
Before losing consciousness, he heard approaching footsteps followed by an anxious query: “Hey, wake up! Can you hear me? Don’t fall asleep!”
Perhaps out of instinct, Jiang Zhenyu forcefully swiped away the hand reaching toward him.