He opened his eyes and coldly ordered, “Take him away. If he dares to attempt assassination again, kill him without mercy!”
Ji Qingyang was driven out of the palace. Full of indignation, he continued to seek opportunities to enter the palace and assassinate the Emperor, but Daming Palace was too heavily guarded for him to enter.
After wandering outside the palace for a year, one day, drunk, he recalled Li Ying’s words. Before her death, Li Ying had told him to be a good person whom everyone respected.
Not to waste his time and life trying to assassinate her father.
Ji Qingyang had a great awakening. From then on, he traveled alone with his sword.
As for Jin Ni’s confession in the Chashi prison thirty years later, claiming that Ji Qingyang had killed Li Ying and he had killed Ji Qingyang—that was a false testimony, merely an attempt to drag Cui Xun down with him before his death.
Ji Qingyang had gone far away, but in Daming Palace, Emperor Taichang was heartbroken by Ji Qingyang’s words, “fulfilled.” Daily guilt caused his health to deteriorate steadily, leading to his death in Shenlong Hall ten years later.
His soul returned to the netherworld, where he learned from the Ten Kings of Hell that Li Ying, for causing the Taichang Blood Incident, had been eternally trapped in the cycle of rebirth. To rescue his beloved daughter from this cycle, instead of becoming an immortal, he willingly became the ferryman of the Naihe River, atoning for Li Ying’s sins.
Thinking of Li Ying alone in the Lotus Pond, Emperor Taichang begged the Ten Kings of Hell to allow him to return to the mortal world once.
By then, Li Ying had been trapped in the pond for ten years, tormented daily by endless darkness and eternal silence. He deliberately changed his voice when calling her name.
Li Ying, at the bottom of the pond, was overjoyed: “Who are you?”
“I am… a ghost official from the netherworld.”
“If you’re a ghost official, can you take me away?” Li Ying pleaded desperately: “I don’t want to stay here anymore. It’s too dark. I want to be reincarnated.”
He hesitated, then said: “You cannot be reincarnated.”
“Why can’t I be reincarnated?”
Li Ying’s voice was already tearful, showing she could no longer bear the darkness and loneliness at the bottom of the pond.
Emperor Taichang was silent for a moment, then spoke the explanation he had prepared: “You died unjustly. Until your murderer is found, you cannot be reincarnated.”
“I died unjustly… I need to find my murderer before I can be reincarnated?”
“Yes. One day, you will leave the Lotus Pond. Then, if you find who killed you, you will be reincarnated.”
His explanation kindled a small hope in Li Ying’s heart—once she found her murderer, she could be reborn.
Emperor Taichang had come this time to give Li Ying, trapped at the bottom of the pond, a hope. With hope, she could endure.
He understood his daughter and believed in her.
Indeed, Li Ying was no longer as desperate as before. She said to him, “Can you stay and talk with me a while longer? I’m so lonely.”
“Yes.”
Emperor Taichang sat by the pond and talked with Li Ying for a long time. Li Ying spoke of her mother and her father. She loved her parents so deeply, her words full of reluctance to part from them. By the pond, Emperor Taichang was already in tears.
Suppressing his emotions, he told her many things—what the City of Wrongful Deaths was like, what the netherworld looked like, how Mount Meng was the entrance to the netherworld. When dawn approached, he had to leave.
Li Ying eagerly asked: “Will I see you again?”
Emperor Taichang was silent for a moment, then said: “Perhaps.”
He called out: “Mingyuezhu.”
Li Ying was startled.
After a pause, he said: “You are your mother and father’s best daughter. One day, your wishes will be fulfilled.”
After leaving the Lotus Pond, Emperor Taichang went to Shenlong Hall. Jiang Lingye was there with the Buddha’s Protection, seemingly preparing to bring it to court. Shenlong Hall was already lit with candles. The door gods posted on the hall doors jumped out, but when they saw Emperor Taichang, they hesitated and didn’t dare stop him.
But Emperor Taichang didn’t enter. He looked at the candlelit Shenlong Hall from a distance, then turned and left.
Afterward came twenty years as a ferryman.
And he saw his daughter again. Mingyuezhu had escaped the cycle of rebirth and been reincarnated with her beloved. He remained on the banks of the Naihe River, poling his ferry. This ferrying continued for another sixteen years.
Emperor Taichang seemed to hear footsteps. He removed the bamboo hat covering his face and stood up.
The funeral bells of Daming Palace rang out. On the banks of the Naihe River, white hair turned back to black. Jiang Lingye walked step by step toward the ferryman of the Naihe. With tears in her eyes but a slight smile on her lips, she said: “Third Lord.”
Emperor Taichang stared at her, his throat moving slightly. He also smiled faintly: “Lingye.”
Four syllables, worth more than countless sentences.
Over sixty years of gratitude and grievances dissolved in their gaze.
Whispers by the riverbank.
“Third Lord, where is Buddha’s Protection?”
“In… the Blood Basin Hell.”
After a sigh, Jiang Lingye picked up the bamboo pole: “Do you need a ferry woman here?”
“Yes.”
“Is this how to pole it?”
“Yes.”
“What are we waiting for?” Jiang Lingye gave him a sly smile, as she had that day when burning memorials in Shenlong Hall: “The ferryman and the ferry woman are going to carry souls across the river.”