Hard and firm, with a faint scent of osmanthus lingering in the air—like tangled spider silk—soft yet stifling, pressing down so heavily it made it hard to breathe.

The impact when Fang Linyuan hit the edge of the bed had been severe, yet he didn’t feel a trace of pain.

Lost in a haze where all his senses were heightened and numb at once, he heard the sharp clang as the golden beast-shaped mask hit the floor.

Fang Linyuan lifted his head in a daze.

In the dim light, he saw Zhao Chu lowering his gaze to look at him. Soft strands of hair fell to the sides of his cheeks, and the only flicker of light in the tent danced quietly in his eyes.

The next moment, a cool and light hand came to rest on Fang Linyuan’s waist, pressing gently there.

Fang Linyuan froze.

It was as if a cold snake was slithering and coiling in that spot, its hissing breath seeping through flesh and skin, burrowing straight into his bones—and into somewhere even deeper than bone and limbs.

Then, Zhao Chu’s voice sounded beside his ear.

"Be careful," he said, pressing down slightly with the hand at Fang Linyuan’s waist. "Did you hit here? Does it hurt?"

It did seem like he’d hit that area, but Fang Linyuan found himself completely unable to move.

He stared at Zhao Chu, watching as a slight crease appeared between his brows, and his gaze dropped downward.

He was looking at precisely the spot where Fang Linyuan had struck the bed’s edge.

But that gaze… it was like a snake flicking its tongue—sliding from Fang Linyuan’s face all the way down, tracing along his skin and flesh, coiling downward as it went…

Fang Linyuan was so startled he nearly jumped up.

He abruptly broke free from Zhao Chu’s embrace, but the venom left by that snake-like trail didn’t seem so easily shaken off. It felt as if his body no longer fully obeyed him—his movements turned clumsy and flustered, revealing a rare kind of disarray.

He got to his feet and turned back to look at Zhao Chu.

Zhao Chu hadn’t tried to stop him. At this moment, he merely lifted his gaze calmly, still half-sitting upright. The hand that had rested on Fang Linyuan’s waist was still suspended in midair, fingers long and jointed like bamboo, slightly curled.

Such a well-formed hand—how could it resemble a snake?

For a brief moment, Fang Linyuan felt like a scholar who had broken free from the boundaries of a painting, unable to tell illusion from reality.

But as soon as he met Zhao Chu’s eyes, he suddenly came to his senses.

What was he doing?! He had nearly stumbled and fallen from being startled—Zhao Chu had caught him and was just trying to check whether he was hurt.

And yet… he had… he had…

This was so strange.

Fang Linyuan’s heart was pounding heavily in his chest. It took him a long moment to find his voice. Still panting, chest rising and falling, he said, "Are you alright? Did I press on your wound?"

Zhao Chu paused slightly, then shook his head.

"I’m fine," he said, pushing up the pillow behind him and propping himself up. "Did I scare you?"

Fang Linyuan quickly stepped forward to help him. "No, I was just afraid of…"

At this point, he paused slightly.

Afraid of what? He had known Zhao Chu for so long, and there was nothing in Zhao Chu’s actions just now that had suggested any intent to harm him.

It was he himself who had gone stiff and frozen, his skin even tingling with numbness.

For a moment, Fang Linyuan couldn’t find any words. He could only watch as Zhao Chu sat up.

Though injured, Zhao Chu still moved with strength and stability. He supported himself as he rose, leaning against the pillow behind him with ease.

"You just came back from the prison?" Zhao Chu fixed his eyes on him for a moment before changing the subject. "How’s the situation?"

"I noticed something off back when you caught that leader," Fang Linyuan replied, his mind finally clearing a little.

Seeing Zhao Chu nod, he continued. "After I settled things there, I went to test Jiang Huaqing. As expected, those men were raised by Jiang Huaqing on someone else’s behalf. I suspect today’s action was his own desperate move—something he did without orders, just to save himself."

“You guessed correctly,” Zhao Chu nodded.

“But there’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Fang Linyuan said, frowning slightly.

“What is it?”

“Raising death-sworn is a capital crime punishable by execution of one’s entire clan. For an official to dare help someone do such a thing, that person must have the means to guarantee his survival. Whatever he’s done, it must be of utmost importance to that person,” Fang Linyuan said.

“But it’s just a few dozen men—why go to such lengths to hide them in Yanzhou? What purpose could it serve?”

Zhao Chu was silent for a moment, then spoke.

“Do you still remember where those Han men, disguised as barbarian bandits in the capital, fled to?”

Fang Linyuan’s gaze faltered as he looked at Zhao Chu.

After a moment, his lips moved, but no words came out for a long while.

…Yanzhou.

The direction those assassins had fled—was Yanzhou.

*

The next morning, Fang Linyuan went to the prison again.

The evidence recovered from the merchant’s residence was overwhelming—so much so that Heng Feizhang hadn’t slept all night, and had sorted everything out by dawn.

Illegal grain trading, price manipulation, collusion between officials and merchants, and tax evasion—all these charges were now solidly pinned on Tan Ji and Jiang Huaqing. There was no longer any need for interrogation.

Fang Linyuan went to see the leader of the assassins from last night.

The man had injuries on his shoulder and leg—not life-threatening—and had been properly bandaged by the army physician.

When Fang Linyuan came to interrogate him, the man was tightly bound inside the cell, his mouth tightly gagged.

The prison guards, knowing he was a death-sworn, were on high alert, terrified he might bite his tongue and kill himself.

Fang Linyuan sat outside the cell and signalled for the guards to untie him. One of them hesitated. “General… if he bites his tongue…”

But Fang Linyuan simply looked at the man, smiled faintly, and said, “It’s alright. I know he won’t.”

Hearing that, the guards didn’t insist. Following Fang Linyuan’s command, they unbound the man and then withdrew from the cell.

Only the two of them remained.

“How do you know I won’t kill myself?”

The man couldn’t stand—his leg was injured—so he remained seated on the floor of the cell, looking up at Fang Linyuan.

Fang Linyuan replied bluntly: “You failed the first time. After that, it’s hard to find the courage to try again.”

The man looked at Fang Linyuan, silent for a while.

Fang Linyuan knew he had guessed right.

He smiled and said, “I’ve long known you’re not really a death-sworn.”

A flicker of surprise appeared in the man’s eyes. “How did you know?” he asked.

“I also know your brothers did well. After setting fire in the capital, the uproar even reached His Majesty.”

The man’s eyes widened at once. He stared at Fang Linyuan for a long time before finally regaining his voice, hoarsely asking, “How do you know all that?”

“I also know they haven’t come back,” Fang Linyuan said. “Do you want to know where they went?”

The man stared at Fang Linyuan. After a long pause, he finally trembled and asked: “…Aren’t they in the capital, at the lord’s residence?”

This time, it was Fang Linyuan’s turn to be surprised. He forced down the shock in his heart, and after a while, asked the man to tell him everything he knew.

As it turned out, these so-called assassins had originally been soldiers in the army. They had been selected through several rounds of rigorous screening—a group of the most skilled fighters, supposedly chosen to form a hundred-man special raiding unit that would be stationed at the border.

But after they were taken away, they were brought to Jiang Huaqing’s residence instead.

Jiang Huaqing told them that he was choosing men on behalf of a high-ranking lord in the capital. These men were to be sent to the capital to serve as personal guards for the lord—and even the Emperor. Their families would be moved to the capital as well, and the paiement they’d receive there would be five times that of Yanzhou. But before that, they had to undergo another round of training and selection.

Only fifty would be allowed into the capital.

After more than a month of drills, an urgent letter arrived from the capital. The high-ranking lord there claimed that the capital was in crisis and requested those fifty men immediately. The man before Fang Linyuan—the assassin leader—was the fifty-first, the one who didn’t make the final cut. Naturally, he was left behind to assist Jiang Huaqing in managing the remaining men.

He had done many things for Jiang Huaqing.

Secretly escorting him on outings, delivering letters to merchants throughout the city, and even going out to receive intelligence sent from the capital.

He also knew more than the others.

At this point, the man gradually fell silent and looked at Fang Linyuan.

Fang Linyuan understood what he was hesitating over. “Since you know the trouble in the capital was caused by them, then you should also be able to guess where they are now,” Fang Linyuan said to him.

“What they did was obstructing the alliance between Great Xuan and the foreign tribes—it was an act against the imperial decree. No matter which lord was behind it, it would be a crime punishable by death. Since they chose to act, they were destined to be silenced. That lord in the capital never planned to keep them alive. In fact, they likely died on the road back to Yanzhou.”

He looked at the man, watching his pupils tremble, his face go pale, and continued: “Jiang Huaqing kept you all not to prepare you for service to that lord in the capital. If you were men on the ‘official path,’ you’d have died along with the others. He kept you as his own private blades, raising you under the name of that lord, but using you for his own purposes.”

At this point, Fang Linyuan looked straight into the man’s eyes. Though it was a gaze cast from above, there wasn’t the slightest trace of condescension in it.

He seemed to carry a kind of deep-seated compassion that could not be washed away, and it was precisely this quality that made others feel a sense of conviction and reassurance when facing him.

“You were originally soldiers of Great Xuan. Even in death, you should’ve died gloriously, with honour and dignity,” Fang Linyuan said.

“But even your names have been erased. Those fifty men died labelled as foreign bandits. And you—up to now, you’re still just Jiang Huaqing’s death-sworn, a disposable blade in his hand. If you’ve been deceived to such a degree and still insist on keeping their secrets, then I have nothing more to say, and I won’t ask again.”

The man let out a choked sob and raised his hands to cover his eyes.

“It was Lord Sang,” he said. “I accidentally saw one of Lord Jiang’s letters—it was sent by a lord with the surname Sang.”

“…Sang?” Fang Linyuan’s brows drew together. “He ordered you to sabotage the treaty between the two nations? Why?”

“Lord Sang said… he said… he was doing Heaven’s work. He told Lord Jiang there was no need to worry.”

…Heaven.

Fang Linyuan’s pupils contracted as he stared at the man.

The myriad gods above, when manifested in the mortal realm, were all just statues of clay—none could speak to the living, none could command mortals...

Between Heaven and Earth, the only one who could be referred to as Heaven—was just one person. Only one.

And yet...

The Emperor—it was the Emperor himself who had approved the treaty and marriage alliance, the one that promised decades of peace for Great Xuan. Why would he turn back and destroy it?

To the point of creating chaos, even setting fires and killing people in his own capital.

Fang Linyuan looked at the assassin. In that moment, not a single sound could come from his throat.

He had always been loyal, sincere, devoted to the countless common people of the world—and he revered the monarch who sat upon the throne, ruler of all under Heaven.

But now, the image of that monarch no longer seemed as clear as it had been in his memory.

That face once filled with kindness, the gentle and upright Sang Zhixin, the smiling yet treacherous Jiang Huaqing… all began to take shape into a singular likeness.

For the first time, he felt lost. He felt like a stranger in his own world.

 

--

Author’s Note:

Zhao Chu: (wagging tail) Wife, don’t I seem way more human than the rest of them?!

Fang Linyuan: ?? Why are you so complacent all of a sudden?!

 

Translator : DarNan