A-Pan cried out in shock—the face beneath that mask was the face she knew best.
Her hand froze mid-motion, the dagger stopping abruptly in the air. In her panic, A-Pan broke out in a cold sweat and blurted out instinctively, “Master!”
This was not the Father of the King of Wei—it was her master, Xiao Yannian.
Her mind went blank with a roar. What a grand deception this was.
No—not a deception. This was a test, meticulously designed for her alone.
There had been no Wei Guo carriage, no general’s hidden guards, no stationmaster or laborers. From top to bottom, inside and out, it had been made to look utterly real—but everything was false.
And precisely because of King Hui of Wei’s decree, the all-night fireworks and firecrackers could cover any unusual sounds, which was why they dared to make such a grand production at Changcheng Yizhan, wasn’t it?
Thinking back carefully, even that first time she entered the Zhongjun Dazhang in Wei Ying, hadn’t she been thoroughly searched and inspected from head to toe?
The New Year’s Eve snow continued to fall. The sudden bursts of fireworks cast shifting, indistinct colors across Xiao Yannian’s face—flaring up, then fading back into darkness.
In her daze, she heard someone outside chuckle softly, “If she can’t even see through a little trick like this, what can we expect her to do?”
It was Lu Shang again.
No.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t see through it.
It wasn’t because she was foolish.
It was because she followed Qianjimen’s orders without question, with absolute faith—and because they had made this performance far too convincing.
She had never suspected Meng Yafu. She had never suspected Xiao Yannian.
Even Lu Shang—she had never suspected him either.
After a long moment, she heard the man before her ask, “What are you wearing?”
A-Pan looked down in a daze. Ah—during the struggle just now, half her robe had been torn away, revealing a length of red cord around her pale neck. On the cord, a piece of broken jade swayed gently, having slipped out from her chest.
It was the broken jade her mother had left her.
The man lowered his gaze, silently studying it.
So that was why he had stopped—because of this piece of broken jade.
A-Pan hastily covered her chest and smiled softly, “It’s a piece of broken jade.”
The man fixed his gaze on the jade for quite some time before asking, “Did you find it somewhere?”
“No.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“My mother left it to me.”
“You said your father was a schoolteacher.”
“Yes.”
“A schoolteacher—how could he have such a precious piece of jade?”
A-Pan shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Outside, the fireworks gradually subsided. The man was silent for a long time.
In that silence, his gaze was heavy, his expression cold and stern. For a long while, he said nothing—no one could tell what he was thinking.
Even without speaking a word, the oppressive authority of one in power was enough to make a person tremble like a cicada in autumn, not daring to make a sound.
A-Pan called out timidly, “Master, what’s wrong?”
The man—the master of Qianjimen, the sovereign of Zhongshan Guo—spoke coldly, without a trace of emotion, no longer mentioning the broken jade. He asked her, “Why didn’t you kill?”
He was clearly speaking to her, yet his whole demeanor seemed elsewhere.
How could she kill?
The short blade trembled in her hand, but she could never thrust it forward again.
Her wet robes clung to her body, already gone cold.
A-Pan lowered her eyes and murmured in reply—asking herself, and also asking him, “How… how could A-Pan kill her master?”
While she was still in a daze, she heard the man question her again, “Do you know what you really are?”
A-Pan raised her eyes and answered carefully, “A-Pan is a person of Zhongshan.”
But the man gave a cold, thin smile. “You are nothing but a blade.”
A-Pan’s heart seized in her chest.
The principle of sacrificing oneself for one’s country, of dying for righteousness—how could A-Pan not understand it?
But hearing him say the words “a blade,” her heart suddenly churned like a stormy sea, and she couldn’t quite say what she felt.
Was she truly nothing more than a blade?
The man continued, “When you’re ordered to assassinate, you assassinate. If the man here tonight had truly been the King’s Father, you would already be dead!”
A-Pan was stricken, unable to stop herself from trembling. Her face was deathly pale in the light of the fireworks.
For the first time, she argued with Xiao Yannian. For the first time, she spoke what was in her heart. She raised her head and looked at her master squarely. “I don’t want to be a blade. I want to be a person!”
Who would willingly be born to bow in servitude, only to end up as a blade for killing?
But her master’s brows pressed down, a cold light flashing in his eyes, and he raised his hand to strike her across the face.
He struck with tremendous force—the slap sent her sprawling to the ground. For a long while afterward, half her face burned with pain.
After the burning sensation passed, it went numb and tingling, seemingly beginning to swell.
The floor tiles in the twelfth month were bitingly cold. The short blade had been sent flying far away, clattering across the ground several times with crisp, ringing sounds.
And because he had struck with such force, he couldn’t suppress a fit of coughing himself.
He coughed for quite a while before it subsided. Then he let out a laugh—whether in disappointment or helplessness, it was hard to tell. “I taught you personally, and yet you turned out to be the most useless of all.”
Yes, everyone said she was useless. Lu Shang had said the same. But what did it mean to be useful?
To sharpen one’s teeth and drink blood, to kill without mercy—was that what it meant to be useful?
The man commanded, “Pick up the blade. Complete your mission tonight.”
The man’s presence was so dark and menacing that it was truly suffocating.
A-Pan knelt prostrate on the ground. “Master… A-Pan would never slay her master!”
Besides, he was still the sovereign of Zhongshan.
Beneath the fireworks, the man’s face was grim, his chest heaving violently. “Pick up the blade!”
Consumed by fury and rage, he broke into another fit of coughing.
A-Pan scrambled to her feet and knelt forward, gently patting his back in an attempt to ease his dry cough.
But the man shoved her aside. “Use the blade!”
She knelt prostrate on the ground. “Forgive me, Master. A-Pan is useless—she could never be a spy…”
The man’s brows were cold and distant, his voice sharp as ice. “Then what good are you?!”
A-Pan was dazed and lost. She murmured, “A-Pan wants to go home… wants to find her sister…”
She was soft-hearted by nature, never wanting to fight or kill. How could she ever live a life of life-and-death decisions, of licking blood from a blade’s edge?
All she had ever sought in this life was a small corner of peace—to live as a simple villager, to steal a moment of tranquility.
The man let out a cold, callous laugh. “Your kingdom is gone. What home do you have left?”
When the nest overturns, no egg remains intact—A-Pan knew this well.
A-Pan begged through her tears, “Master, keep A-Pan at Qianjimen. A-Pan will stay by your side and tend to your medicine. A-Pan can do anything…”
The person at the door kicked it open with a bang and drew his blade with a sharp ring. “Anyone who dares defy the Master must first ask if Lu Shang’s blade will allow it!”
Meng Yafu hurried to stop her. “Junior sister!”
A warmth spread across her neck—the man’s hand had clamped around it. His fingers traced a circle around her throat, then tugged at the red cord hanging there. “Take it off.”
The order was given lightly, but it brooked no resistance.
Oh—it was the broken jade.
She remembered that winter night in the Zhongjun Dazhang of Wei Guo, when someone had also traced her neck like this, also touched that piece of broken jade.
Tears welled up and swirled in her eyes. A-Pan clutched the broken jade tightly, refusing to let go, and begged in a low voice, “Master… this is the only thing Mother left A-Pan…”
But the man remained unmoved. His fingers tightened, and with a sharp yank, he snapped the cord clean off her neck.
A searing pain shot across her throat. A-Pan let out a shrill cry, and tears streamed down her face in an instant.
Her mind went blank.
Her ears rang with a roar.
Her throat turned bitter.
Her heart ran cold.
The cord had likely torn her skin and snapped strands of her hair as well.
The man glanced at her broken jade with the detached gaze of a stranger. After a long moment, he finally spoke. “You cannot even atone for your father’s sins, and yet you speak of staying by my side.”