Nanyi did as she said. The next day she continued coming to Huachao Pavilion to find Zhang Yuehui. She would appear before him with her questions constantly until she forced out his answer.
Zhang Yuehui was such a powerful person that when he saw Nanyi again, he had already returned to normal, as if nothing had happened. Laughing and joking, surrounded by attendants, he took Nanyi around Huachao Pavilion to play and feast, enjoying grand song and dance performances.
Nanyi felt somewhat uncertain inside, but she still kept a stern face and followed him closely. No matter how Zhang Yuehui tormented her, she remained unmoved by eight winds.
On the third day, Nanyi came again.
A contest of wills was taking place between them—to see whose conscience would give out first.
However, on this day, a small incident occurred. A fisherman came looking for Zhang Yuehui. Zhang Yuehui’s expression became unnatural for a moment, and he hurriedly had someone take the man away.
All of this fell under Nanyi’s observation.
On the fourth day, Nanyi didn’t come, only sending Zhang Yuehui a note.
Written in wild, ugly characters that revealed Nanyi’s anger: “Zhang Yuehui! You can’t hide it anymore!! I already know where he is!”
Zhang Yuehui immediately became nervous, thinking at once of yesterday’s fisherman—a hidden guard who traveled the river daily, delivering three meals to Xie Queshan while also serving surveillance duty to confirm the man stayed properly on the boat. Every three days he would report the situation to Zhang Yuehui as routine, and yesterday he had happened to encounter Nanyi.
Could Nanyi have guessed Xie Queshan’s hiding place from this person’s appearance? He hadn’t expected Nanyi to have become so perceptive, able to deduce so much from so little.
Given that he had underestimated Nanyi several times before, this time he didn’t doubt his judgment much.
Zhang Yuehui panicked. He hadn’t expected things to spiral out of control so quickly. These past few days his heart had been frying in an oil pan, not knowing what to do.
No one didn’t want to fulfill their beloved’s wishes, but her wish was to fly like a moth to flame toward another man.
He thought he could delay a bit longer, but she had suddenly broken through and was rushing headfirst toward that cage.
Every time, he was one step behind. This time he didn’t want to make the slightest error.
He quickly dispatched people to intercept Nanyi.
…
In reality, Nanyi had no idea what that fisherman’s background was. She had only sensed Zhang Yuehui’s guilt and bluffed him.
Now, she just needed to follow the two hidden guards he sent out, and she would know where Xie Queshan was.
Nanyi concealed herself all the way, following them to the riverbank. But the bamboo raft’s direction wasn’t toward Hugui Mountain—her heart couldn’t help but drum. Could the person be on the river?
Was Zhang Yuehui playing tricks on her?
But whether real or fake, she had to see for herself.
Nanyi silently slipped into the water, following the small boat the hidden guards rode. Taking advantage of the two men’s lack of vigilance, she surfaced unexpectedly and struck. Nanyi dragged one person into the water, leaving one on the boat.
Nanyi flipped onto the boat and efficiently placed her blade at the man’s throat: “Lead the way.”
For Xie Queshan, the mood of waiting for death between mountains and waters was somewhat subtle.
This isolated cage actually had some poetic charm. He wasn’t even entirely certain whether this was Zhang Yuehui’s kindness, ensuring his final time alive wouldn’t be too bleak.
The shackles on his hands constrained his movement—he couldn’t leave the room, but through the window he could see the scenery outside.
He watched as day and night alternated, spring climbed the cliffs, ten miles of peach groves bloomed in the mountains, and spring wind carried fallen petals to fill the river.
His life had rarely had such moments of abandoning schemes with an empty mind. He remembered many past events.
He too had once endured a period of imprisonment, when he first arrived in Great Qi. If he surrendered too easily, it would be suspicious. The Qi people liked principled Han people, but not too principled—this balance was very delicate. He had to play the stubborn bone for a while, letting the Qi people use eight hundred methods of threat, temptation, and persuasion on him to seem authentic.
To wear down his spirit, Han Xianwang deliberately had him captured by Yu Dynasty troops. The border soldiers hated him to the bone, subjecting him to all manner of torture before imprisoning him in a cellar where no daylight reached, awaiting transport to the capital. Xie Queshan stayed in that cellar for over ten days without seeing a single day of sunlight, living neither human nor ghost—he truly wanted to go mad.
What tormented him wasn’t enemies, but his own countrymen, his comrades. He had to grit his teeth—he couldn’t reveal a single word.
This was where the Qi people’s viciousness lay.
But he knew he had to endure this trial, making the Qi people believe he had been broken both physically and spiritually before they would believe he could be reforged by Great Qi.
When he was barely alive, Han Xianwang finally arrived late to rescue him from fire and water, displaying imperial grace. Like a dog, he knelt before Han Xianwang, saying shameless words like “Those who save my life are like reborn parents—I am willing to serve you like a loyal dog or horse.”
So when that day of heavy snow came, when Nanyi knelt before him begging him to spare her life, saying words like “How much does dignity weigh? It can’t compare to a human life,” he had probably already begun to pity her.
He knew Pang Yu would certainly tell her what to do, and for survival she put on disgusting weakness. He felt sorry for this courage that abandoned dignity, like pitying his younger self from years ago.
He had never dared recall those days. He too had once been an incredibly proud person. When his teacher Shen Zhizhong hoped he would infiltrate Great Qi, he naively harbored the passionate blood of a solitary hero, even underestimating the task’s difficulty. But once on the road, there was no turning back.
His relationship with Great Qi began with imprisonment and would end with imprisonment. This mission—he should have completed it fairly well.
If there was still something he couldn’t let go of…
No, there couldn’t be anything left to let go of.
A crescent moon had already climbed the cliff, reflecting in the water like a sickle cutting through waves.
He gazed at the river surface in a daze, casually picking up a pebble from the flower pot and throwing it at the water. With a splash that mixed with the wind like an auditory hallusion, the moon shattered then quickly reformed.
Stubbornly insisting on staying there.
Xie Queshan seemed to be competing with that reflection, picking up another pebble. Just as he was about to throw it, he suddenly saw a small boat drifting with the waves on the river surface.
Clatter—his hand loosened, the stone fell to the floor, rolled a few times and stopped.
From afar, Nanyi spotted the painted pleasure boat on the river surface. Under the cover of night, it looked like a black, abandoned behemoth.
A few scattered lights swayed in the river wind on the boat, flickering as if about to die but never extinguishing.
In an instant, she had imagined many possibilities in her mind. Xie Queshan was on that boat, wasn’t he? This cage suspended alone on the river—how could she rescue him?