Early the next morning, a thin mist hung over the land, and the sky was somewhat overcast and dim.
After breakfast, the party continued their journey north.
Qingfeng was driving the carriage that day. Seeing Feng Yi approach, he lifted the curtain and spoke respectfully, “Madam, please step inside.”
Feng Yi could only sigh. The guards had taken to addressing her this way lately. She had corrected them several times, and each time they would bow and answer “Yes, Madam,” yet go right back to the same form of address the next time.
She turned her head and called, “Lingyuan, tell Qingfeng and the others to change how they speak to me.”
“Why change it?” Jiang Xingzhou said with a smile as he walked over. He naturally reached out to feel her hands; the air had turned cool, and it looked as though rain was coming. She was still recovering and could not afford to catch a chill. “We have performed the marriage rites together. What is wrong with calling you ‘Madam’?”
Indeed, they had gone through the ceremony.
Only there had been no guests, no witnesses, no official marriage certificate, and no record filed with the authorities.
Back then, she had foolishly believed that it made them husband and wife, and given him everything she had.
Thinking about it now, she did not feel she had come out of it empty‑handed. After all, he was handsome, strong, good in bed, and faithful—was he not?
If one day he stopped being faithful, it would probably mean he no longer felt such a fierce attachment to her.
And when that day came, she would finally be free.
“Have it your way,” Feng Yi replied, turning away calmly. If he did not care how his future legal wife might feel, there was no reason for her to concern herself with it.
“Why the long face again?” Jiang Xingzhou caught her wrist gently. “Is your stomach bothering you?”
“Not at all,” she said, lowering her eyes. “My back just feels a little sore. I would like to get in the carriage and rest.”
Once they were inside, Jiang Xingzhou fastened a cloth pouch filled with warm ginger, heated up by the station maids at his order that morning, around her lower abdomen. He spoke in a soft, low voice, “I have other matters to attend to today and cannot ride with you. Do not drink cold water; there is brown sugar tea kept warm in the insulated pot. When you stop to rest at noon, have Qingfeng boil a fresh batch to refill it. And if the ginger pouch cools, ask him to have it reheated and wrapped again.”
His fingers brushed back stray strands of hair from her face. “Remember to pull the blanket over you if you fall asleep in the carriage—do not catch cold.”
Feng Yi stared at him without blinking. In this moment, he looked exactly like a caring, devoted husband.
“Where are you going?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.
Jiang Xingzhou smiled. “Just to see something. I will catch up with you before nightfall.”
“It looks like rain. Take your straw cape along.”
“I will.” He leaned down and kissed the center of her forehead. “I shall be back before you know it.”
As he stepped down from the carriage, he reminded Qingfeng once more, “Drive smoothly and slowly.”
Ziyuan Temple stood deep in the mountains, about forty li northwest of the relay station. The peak was called Big Foot Mountain. The temple itself was small, housing only a single main hall, and had very few residents: one elderly priest whose age no one could guess, and two young disciples still learning the ways of the Tao.
Even so, it was considered a sacred place by the people of the southwest. It was said that as long as what one asked for did not violate the laws of heaven and earth, and as long as one’s heart was true and sincere enough to climb the mountain kowtowing every step from the foot, one’s wish would surely be granted.
Furthermore, it was rumored that bandits who had once tried to rob pilgrims had all met with strange and terrible retribution.
From that time on, Big Foot Mountain became known as a holy mountain.
Jiang Xingzhou tied his horse at the foot of the path and began to climb up the stone steps one by one. Worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, the cracks between the stones were now lined with patches of green moss.
As he walked, he tried to picture how she had made the journey three years ago—kneeling, bowing, and rising again, all the way up this endless path. Every time the image formed in his mind, a dull ache would throb in his chest.
He could not put into words how shaken he had been the night before, when he first heard of this. The eighth day of the fifth month, three years earlier—that was the very day after he had been struck down and left unconscious from a grave wound.
Three years ago, he had truly believed her dead.
When the body was brought before him, he had refused at first to accept it as hers. Yet there was no mistaking the clothes she had worn, the jade pendant he had carved himself hanging at her waist, the finest white jade bracelet he had spent hours selecting resting on her wrist, and the red mole on the inner side of her left arm.
The shock had been so great that he coughed up blood and collapsed. When he woke, he went mad with grief, standing guard over the coffin with sword drawn, refusing to let anyone bury “her.” Whoever dared to come near was met with the blade. For three days and nights, his sword, the Silent Abyss, drank more than its share of blood.
Yueming could bear it no longer and slapped him hard, knocking him to the ground. “Jiang Xingzhou, she is gone. What is the point of putting on this show of devotion? She must have been cursed with terrible luck to have ever met you. Bury her and be done with it. From now on, let her walk the road of reincarnation, and you go and marry your proper bride. Do not cross paths again in the next life.”
Seeing him lying there empty‑eyed and lifeless, Yueming sighed and knelt beside him. “She loved you. Wherever she may be now, she only wants you to live well. Lingyuan, pull yourself together—do not let her rest in unease.”
He finally agreed to the burial, but not without leaving a threat carved into the headstone: “Feng Yi, do not enter the cycle of rebirth. Wait for me at the Bridge of Forgetfulness, and I will join you to walk into the next life together.”
Then he abandoned the carefully arranged, politically advantageous marriage his family had planned and went to the Minister of Personnel’s household—the Zhao family—to call off the engagement, accepting full blame for the breach.
It was at this same time that the Liao tribes invaded the northern border, capturing several cities in quick succession. Duke Ningguo, Yue Dingjiang, commander of the imperial army, had suffered a serious injury to his lower back and could no longer lead troops into battle. For a moment, the whole of Great Zhou could find no suitable general to take his place.
Jiang Xingzhou went to visit Duke Ningguo and spoke with him long into the night. The next day, the Duke went before the Emperor. The day after that, Jiang Xingzhou was appointed commander and marched north.
The campaign was long and brutal, but ended in total victory. Yet in the final battle on the seventh day of the fifth month, he took an arrow straight through the chest and fell, mortally wounded and unconscious.
In the haze of his fading mind, he ignored all the voices calling him back to wakefulness and walked steadily deeper into the dark.
For months before this, she had haunted his dreams almost every night. Once, he had even seen her in a vision, bleeding heavily, crying out for help while he stood helpless, unable to reach her.
So he thought: Let it be so. Feng Yi, I miss you more than words. I am coming to find you.
Just as he was about to step fully into the void, he saw Feng Yi rushing toward him through the mist, her forehead streaked with blood. He smiled—the first genuine smile in months—and hurried forward to meet her, taking her hands in his. “Feng Yi, have you come to fetch me?”
Seeing him covered in blood and wounds, her eyes filled with tears. “Lingyuan, go back. Live well.”
With that, she dragged him toward the direction from which the voices were still calling. He did not want to go, but found he could not pull free. She seemed to possess superhuman strength, dragging him along as if she had been granted help from above.
Perhaps, in truth, she had been helped.
Jiang Xingzhou tried to force a smile, but it would not come. He counted the steps: nine hundred and ninety‑nine in all.
That woman was usually so delicate and pampered; even a small bump or scrape would have her moaning for ages.
How much pain must every one of those knees have endured?
Entering the temple grounds, he saw a somewhat older young disciple sweeping the courtyard, while a younger one ran about flying a kite.
At the stone table to the left, an elderly priest with hair and eyebrows as white as crane feathers sat arranging his go pieces. Looking up as Jiang Xingzhou approached, he smiled and said, “Since you have come, good sir, would you care to join me for a game?”
“I would be honored,” Jiang Xingzhou replied. He walked over and sat opposite, laying his sword aside. “May I ask the venerable priest’s name?”
“I go by the name of Hebai.”
“Master Hebai, please begin.” Jiang Xingzhou gestured courteously.
The priest did not stand on ceremony. He picked up a black stone and placed it on the board.
Jiang Xingzhou followed with a white stone. “I have come to ask about something that happened three years ago.”
“Concerning the young lady who came then?” Master Hebai asked as if he had already guessed. He glanced toward the green peaks rising behind the temple, his smile knowing and mysterious. “As for her story, it may not be appropriate for you two gentlemen to hear—seeing as she comes from beyond the heavens…”
In an instant, the air around Jiang Xingzhou turned sharp and fierce. His fingers drifted casually toward the hilt of his sword, and his gaze became as piercing as drawn arrows.
He remembered how she used to mutter to herself: I must hide it well, or else they will call me a monster and burn me at the stake.
“There is no need for alarm,” Master Hebai said calmly, placing another stone. “If I had wished her any harm, she would never have walked out of this temple three years ago.”
His words carried a hidden meaning as he continued, “She arrived here as a guest. As long as she did no evil, this place would always open its doors to her.”
Jiang Xingzhou motioned for Qingfeng and Qinglan to withdraw, but kept his left hand resting close to his weapon. With his right, he played his next stone and asked, “What was her condition when she arrived?”
Master Hebai wrinkled his nose slightly. “Not well at all. Her face was deathly pale, the skin of her forehead torn and crusted with blood, and she could barely stand upright. It was clear she had only just recovered from a severe illness, then traveled a long way exhausted, before forcing herself to kneel and bow all the way up this mountain.”
He shook his head. “I felt nothing but pity for the poor child, looking at her like that.”
Whether the priest had felt pity or not, Jiang Xingzhou’s heart certainly ached. It felt as though it were being pounded repeatedly by a heavy mallet, a dull, suffocating pain spreading through his chest. As he listened, he pictured her in his mind—thin and worn out from the stress of preparing for the civil service exams, only to push herself further and suffer this journey as well.
“Did she…” Jiang Xingzhou’s voice was barely a whisper, “say anything?”
Master Hebai studied the game board, wondering how such a young man could carry so much suppressed killing intent in his bearing.
“She did. I asked her why she had come all this way.”
“And what did she say?”
“She told me that around nine o’clock the previous evening, she had suddenly felt a terrible pain in her chest, enough to make her nearly faint. Then her heart began to race and flutter, and it did not stop even after sunset. Fearing that the man who lived in her heart had met with disaster, she had traveled through the night to climb here and pray for his safety.”
Jiang Xingzhou’s chest felt as though it were burning up; he had to draw in a slow breath to steady himself, his voice trembling. “And then?”
“And then she crawled on her knees all the way into the main hall. No sooner had she lit her incense than she collapsed unconscious right before the statue of the Ancestor.”
“Two months later, news spread of the great victory in the northwest. People spoke of the young general who had led the army, how he had suffered a life‑threatening injury that the imperial physicians thought could not be survived—yet against all odds, he had opened his eyes and recovered.”
Master Hebai looked up at him. “Not long after that report reached the area, the young lady returned here to give thanks for her answered prayer.”
“What price did she pay?” Jiang Xingzhou asked bluntly. Nothing in this world ever came free.
“Ten years of her lifespan.”
Clack.
The white stone Jiang Xingzhou was holding slipped from his fingers, bouncing and clicking across the board until it came to rest in a dead‑end position. His heart felt as if it had been plunged into boiling water, churning and surging so violently he thought it might burst through his ribs.
“You have lost this game,” Master Hebai said.
“I have,” Jiang Xingzhou replied, the corners of his eyes turning red. He swallowed hard, his voice thick and damp with emotion. “I have indeed lost.”
Forcing himself to maintain composure, he stood and bowed. “Thank you for your honesty, Master. I shall take my leave now.”
“There is no rush,” the priest said. “When she returned to fulfill her vow, she carved a peace plaque. Since there was no way to send it to its intended recipient, she hung it in the Hall of Blessings here. Would you like to take it with you?”
“Of course I would.”
Jiang Xingzhou walked over to the small Hall of Blessings to the left of the main temple. The room was lined with wooden tablets and ribbons, hanging in rows; a breeze drifting through the open windows set them swaying and rustling, sounding like the soft whispers of a thousand devotions.
As if drawn by an invisible thread, his eyes found the one he sought immediately. She had hung it from the highest beam. He stepped lightly, pushed off the floor, and lifted it down with ease.
The plaque was carved from plain sandalwood, simple and unadorned, with not a single decorative pattern. He smiled faintly—truly, this woman had no sense of style.
On the front, the character Peace was neatly carved. On the back were written his exact birth year, month, day, and hour. In one corner, there were faint traces of a deep red stain, as if something dark had been smeared there.
The moisture he had held back for so long finally spilled over. Leaning against a pillar, he slowly slid down until he sat on the stone floor, running his thumb repeatedly over that reddish mark. Feng Yi, Feng Yi… if you loved me this much, why did you leave me? What wrong did I do to make you walk away from me?
He held the plaque up and turned it this way and that. It still looked plain and ugly to him. But ugly or not, carving the words alone must have cut deep into her hands—if she had tried to add flowers and scrollwork as well, how much more pain would it have caused?
He took out his embroidered pouch, carefully slipped the plaque inside, pulled the drawstrings tight, and tucked it securely against his chest, as if this most ordinary‑looking token were the most precious treasure in existence.
From a nearby table, he picked up a blank wooden plaque and took up the carving knife. Quickly and skillfully, he worked patterns of lotus flowers, swirling clouds, and immortal deer along the edges before beginning to cut the characters. When he turned it over to inscribe the birth details, however, he hesitated. He did not know her true date of birth—or rather, the one he knew belonged to Mianmian, not to her.
After a moment’s pause, he carved only two words: Feng Yi.
He hung the new plaque on the highest beam of the Hall of Blessings, then walked into the main sanctuary. Taking three sticks of incense, he lit them and knelt reverently on the cushion—something he had never done before in his life. Closing his eyes, he spoke silently in his heart: Divine Lords of the Three Pure Heavens, if there truly is a higher power, I, Jiang Xingzhou, beg that those ten years of life she gave up be returned to her. Grant her safety and health, and let me pay any price required.
When he stepped back out into the courtyard, the young disciple was still flying his kite.
Jiang Xingzhou, in an uncharacteristic gesture of kindness, called out, “She once said that flying kites on overcast, rainy days draws lightning and invites a strike from heaven.”
Master Hebai burst out laughing, stroking his long white beard. “I cannot say whether flying kites brings lightning or not—but I do know that if one ignores a true and sincere heart, retribution is sure to follow.”
“I have never wronged her,” Jiang Xingzhou said, frowning.
“Is that so?” Master Hebai’s gaze drifted toward the distant peaks. “From the perspective of this world, that may be true. But I would remind you, good sir—she does not belong to this world.”
He swished his whisk gently and spoke a final riddle: A foreign soul crosses the stars to this place, only to bring deliverance to Xingzhou. If Lingyuan fails to understand, the soul shall fade and all sorrow remain forever.