Though Nanyi hadn’t yet seen any figure on the boat, she already felt her heart pounding violently in her chest, like resonance from approaching him.
She withdrew her eager gaze and looked coldly at the hidden guard on the boat: “You know what to tell your master when you return?”
“This humble servant knows. This humble servant saw nothing, only came to patrol.”
The small boat had already approached the large ship’s hull. Nanyi sheathed her blade, grabbed the rope on the ship’s rail and climbed onto the deck.
She was completely soaked, water droplets still falling from her clothes. The vast moonlight draped over her seemed to bring the moon’s reflection from the water up with her.
A few flamboyant peach blossoms drifted on the wind. Across the deck, they gazed at each other from afar.
Xie Queshan suspected this was his illusion. He had struck the water sprite, and it had transformed into human form to bewitch him.
The water sprite threw herself into his arms with her wet body, speaking with her voice.
“Thank goodness, you’re still alive.”
This was long revenge indeed.
Revenge for how he had saved that dying girl from the water at first sight, giving her a warm fur coat. Now she would drag him down to the mortal world, intoxicate him with the seven emotions and six desires, and when he willingly drowned, ferry him a breath of life.
But he was just a dying shell.
He didn’t respond to her fervor, finally hardening his heart to push her away, stammering out a few words: “Why did you come?”
“I came to help you,” her eyes were startlingly bright, “you are the wild goose, you’re from the Bingzhu Bureau. Just as you turn the tide to save others, I want to save you too.”
In the vast world, tiny as she was, she spoke these grandiose words shamelessly, with steep cliffs and rushing deep waters behind her.
He raised his shackled wrist, iron chains rattling: “Tell me, how do you save me?”
“If I can’t do it alone, then I’ll go to the Bingzhu Bureau for reinforcements.”
“Do you want to get Song Muchuan killed?”
“Master Song came to ask me. He’s already suspicious of your identity, but I haven’t told him yet. Have you considered that he would also hope you’re one of his own, that you could fight side by side? The Qi people already suspect you so much—your identity can’t be hidden. Why not tell him so everyone can think of ways to break through together? Being alive always offers more solutions than being dead—”
“Don’t say it,” Xie Queshan immediately stopped Nanyi’s words, violent emotions surging in his eyes, “never say it.”
“Why?” Nanyi truly didn’t understand, her tone becoming urgent, “Right now, besides the Bingzhu Bureau, who else can save you? Do you want to wait here to die?”
Yes, he was waiting to die.
But facing Nanyi’s eyes that so treasured him, he couldn’t say such cruel words.
“The current situation is the safest. Don’t act rashly. However you came, return the same way. After things are accomplished, we’ll meet again.”
Nanyi stared blankly at Xie Queshan as a confused thought became clear in her mind.
She felt she was losing him, in this cool wind, under this incomplete moon.
She was unwilling, she wouldn’t accept it.
She frantically grasped his hand, “Xie Queshan, you’re not allowed to lie.”
Xie Queshan instinctively tightened his grip on the cold hand that had slipped into his palm. These subtle movements betrayed him. He remained silent, trembling almost imperceptibly.
“You’re a hero who saves the dynasty from crisis. You should clearly be praised, not die silently. Don’t you want your sacrifices to see daylight again? Don’t you want everyone to understand?”
These words—in the crisis-ridden Li Du Mansion, she had never dared say them.
Because they were too false.
But now Nanyi was desperate. She could only clumsily try to awaken his beautiful vision.
Xie Queshan looked at her faintly, as if his whole person had detached: “And then? Will everyone come to forgive me?”
Nanyi caught a trace of strangeness. She had spoken of understanding, but he spoke of forgiveness. They seemed similar yet vastly different.
How could anyone in this world have no selfish motives at all? She asked herself if she could do it—she felt it impossible. She truly didn’t understand what other hidden circumstances he had.
“What’s wrong with that?”
He was clearly calm, yet his expression looked extremely pained: “But Pang Yu is already dead. Which of you can forgive me in his place?”
Like thunder on flat ground, illuminating all the past.
So the sword that killed Pang Yu had always been thrust in Xie Queshan’s chest, turning day and night, never ceasing.
She had occasionally ignited his heart’s fire, but couldn’t soothe his guilt.
Even she had forgotten in daily life what it felt like to witness a dear childhood friend die before one’s eyes. But at that time he had only sat calmly on that blood-stained dead wood, staring blankly.
He disguised himself too well, making people think he was naturally so good at pretense.
He had forcibly killed part of himself in that heavy snow too. That part of him wasn’t worthy of being buried with Pang Yu in the plum grove, so day and night he knelt before Pang Yu’s lonely grave.
No one saw, no one knew, no one came to say: I forgive you.
He couldn’t let Song Muchuan face even the slightest danger.
This was his righteousness, this was his selfishness.
So he remained on this ship sailing toward death, unwilling to leave. He had already planned the meaning of his death.