Chapter 49

The inside of the room wasn't entirely dark; there was dim, yellow light all around. No one was in there, and there was no horrifying sight to behold, either. Yan Xiaohan walked a few steps inside, and then his nose flared as he suddenly caught whiff of an unusual fragrance that came out of gods- knew-where.

He paused for a second, immediately after which an indescribable sense of joy rose all the way to the crown of his head, the rush instantly making him dizzy and unstable on his feet. The aroma subsequently shot out stronger. Like a ladle of warm oil had been poured onto a fire, the blaze exploded outwards and heat rose into the air. All the blood inside him was boiling over. Several wisps of veins crept into his eyes in a split second. A circle of raging flames roasted in his dantian, broiling all of his meridians. His coat was instantly drenched in cold sweat.

The knife fell from his hand to the floor with a clang.

His body teetered like a broken basket, no longer able to shut off the restlessness and infinite heat. He bit the tip of his tongue and sprinted staggeringly to the side of entrance, only to find that the door he had just pushed open had been securely locked by someone from the outside. All of his muscles were continuously spasming, his fingertips trembling as they disregarded his commands, and he was inflamed all over, yet he didn't even have the strength to bust it open.

This was an out-and-out snare. The 'mute kid' leading the way was simply to set up a trap for him.

The fragrance wrapped around him as if it were alive, twisting, wandering around his limbs and bones. The darkness before him transformed into the picture of a grotesque, kaleidoscopic dreamland. In his final trace of sobriety that was being burnt by karmic fire, he suddenly recalled that on the inspection of whitedew in the Golden Crow Guard's murder case, it had infected every Flying Dragon Guard in the courtyard. Shen Yi'ce had once said that a drug like that could make one feel bliss beyond bliss.

Why was there whitedew in an off-the-beaten-path mountain village thousands of li away from the capital?!

That bone-chilling idea wasn't sustained for very long, however, before he swiftly was no longer able to think. His thoughts were a chaotic mess. He flew through clouds one moment and dropped through fog the next. Ultimately, he leaned his back against the wall and slowly slid into a sitting position on the floor, eyes shut and chest heaving violently, his gasps for air becoming more and more hurried.

He clenched his teeth hard as he resisted the groan that almost came out. The backs of his hands bulged with several wicked blue veins. Great beads of sweat dripped along his temples and straight into the outer corners of his eyes. Even so, the drug defeated him in an instant, and he could eventually no longer take it, trembling as he called out "Jingyuan".

Meanwhile, on the other side of the village.

Ren Miao woke up from his sleep to find everyone was completely gone. His legs were soft from hunger, so he dizzily went to look for a steamed bun on the stove, nibbling on it with some cold water. After finishing, he wiped the crumbs off his hands, then went to Yan Xiaohan's courtyard to lead away his horse. Just as he was about to give chase to Kuangfeng County, his heart suddenly twinged for a reason unknown to him.

It was hard to clearly describe what kind of feeling that was. It was as if he had some kind of premonition, like an ineffable tremor had gone through the string the world beyond was leading him along by.

He turned his head around tentatively, hesitating as he took a few steps toward the interior of the village. He had hardly left the backyard when he caught sight of a not-fully-grown child coming out from behind a building.

The two met face-to-face, eyes boring into each other. Ren Miao hadn't made a move yet, but the kid was already swiveling around and running away in a panic.

If he didn't run, he'd be fine, so doing that immediately portrayed that he was guilty of something. Ren Miao did indeed have much speedier skills than Yan Xiaohan, as he unhurriedly picked a little rock up off the ground, then casually flicked it from his fingertips. All that was heard was the whooshing sound of sliced wind. The kid was hit on the inside of his knee and fell on the ground face-first, like a dog eating mud.

Ren Miao reached behind him and took out that fire iron he was so good at using. He picked up the kid with it, who swayed back and forth as he hung in midair. "What were you running for?" he said in a way he himself believed to be amicable.

The kid trembled like a sifter. Ren Miao beamed at him. "Go ahead and say. You're looking at me like you saw a ghost. What misdeed are you up to?"

The boy was unable to say anything, two blobs of tears quickly welling up in his eyes. It was quite a bit pitiful, but who could've anticipated that this hard-hearted man wouldn't be moved in the least? Seeing his lack of

answer, he hefted him up and walked over to the side of nearby well, thus suspending him over its mouth. "Not saying? Then you can stay down here. No one's in the village now anyways, so when they get back, you'll probably be nice and swollen…"

The child looked at him dumbly, then at the dark well under his feet, then broke out in a loud wail.

"You being good now?" Ren Miao spoke, satisfied. "Where did everyone go? Tell me the way."

The kid was bawling; Ren Miao meant where all the villagers had gone when he asked, but the boy ended up not hearing him clearly. He thought that Yan Xiaohan's colleague had come looking, so he thereupon guided him all the way to that building, sobbing the whole time.

Ren Miao flung him off the fire iron and roughly measured the rod up against the door's lock. Soon after, without another word, it struck downwards. The sharp sound of a gust was accompanied by an earth- shattering kaboom. The heavy brass lock, along with half the door panels next to it, were split in half all in one go.

The mute child stared at all this, suspecting that the black, unremarkable fire iron might have been a unique divine weapon that could split gold and break jade.

Once the door was broken, the odor in the room promptly came wafting out. Ren Miao raised his sleeve to shield his nose. Due to his mentality of being willing to sacrifice another for his own gain, he nabbed the kid and tossed him inside.

The half-grown boy couldn't stand such a strong concentration of whitedew and passed out on the spot. Ren Miao dared even less to act rashly upon witnessing that. He covered his nose and stood apart from the wind's draft. Only when the smell had mostly dispersed did he cautiously step past the fractured entrance and go inside.

The moment he did, he caught sight of someone curled up at a corner, in an immense amount of pain.

Moonlight streamed through the broken door like white muslin, illuminating the entirety of the mess inside. Yan Xiaohan was startled by the loud noise and responded by sluggishly raising his head. He bore with all of his baking blood; his skin was abnormally suffused with red and warmth from the neck down, and his gaze had since become not very sharp. Cold sweat rolled down from his temples without cease, flowing over his cheeks to line up with his scarlet eyes, resembling splotches of tear stains.

The newcomer stood backlit, his face hidden in the dark night. That slender silhouette matched up with a shadow in his memory. He thought he was looking at a hallucination. "Jingyuan…" he fuzzily uttered.

Ren Miao swore soundlessly and strode over.

Against prediction, he hadn't even touched Yan Xiaohan yet when the man abruptly jolted, like he'd recognized his face all of a sudden on top of getting sobered up by the blowing evening breeze. His slackened gaze tightened up once more, and he waved the other's hand off with a vigor that came out of nowhere.

"Go away…" He panted hard, voice hoarse. "Don't touch me…"

Having taken back the knife from off the ground at some unknown point in time, Yan Xiaohan held the piece of silver light between his fingers, brandishing the blade to go stick himself on his right arm.

In the span of a spark, Ren Miao finally realized what was going in the scene before him. He hastily used one hand to reach over and press the acupoint on the man's wrist and wrest the small knife from him, then used the other to make a diagonal chop against his neck. Yan Xiaohan's head cocked to side, shortly after which he lost consciousness, falling limply into his arms.

That knife from right then was about to be stabbed into his heart.[1] Ren Miao let out a sigh of relief, wiped the sweat off of his face, then bent down

to carry Yan Xiaohan over his shoulder. Who would've imagined that right when he did so, that shoulder would suddenly bump against a certain object.

"This motherfucker…"

He awkwardly removed him from the building, then dumped him on his horse's back before quickly mounting it himself. Holding the man to his chest, he spurred his horse to ride like the wind towards Kuangfeng City.

Kuangfeng County, Pleasant Visit Inn.

The old doctor that Ren Miao had forcefully dragged out of his home finished his pulse examination. Stroking his beard, he enunciated with a calmness about this bizarre happenstance. "It's not a serious illness, he just used too much of a drug. You don't need to worry, either; if you go to a bordello and find someone to relieve him, the drug's properties will naturally be dissipated."

"What drug did he take?" Ren Miao asked.

"Fallnight white."[2] The doc shook his head. "I've seen this sort of patient many times. They'd only been seeking a moment of rejuvenation… this drug is immediately addictive when it's taken, and will be very difficult to deal with in the future!"

Now what the hell was this fallnight white crap? Was it something like whitedew? Why was it also addictive?!

He was filled with questions, but it was too late to ask them in detail, as there was a pressing matter still on the bed. Ren Miao didn't have the spare time to listen to him lament about how today's generation was degrading in morals, a headache brewing. "Alright, I get it… I'll do that tonight, then, and tomorrow I'll take him to come see you for a checkup."

The old doctor took the consultation fee, leaving with a teeter. Ren Miao looked at Yan Xiaohan, whose brows were tightly knit as he was unable to bear the pain, and sighed in mental exhaustion. He sat at the table, drew out

a small medicine bottle from within an inner pocket in his clothes, and carefully applied it as he faced a mirror. After the time it'd take to make a cup of tea, he slowly peeled the human skin mask[3] off of his face.

The young General's frosty, handsome features reflected in the bronze surface.

He set the mask down in front of the mirror, got up, walked to the bed's side, and then pressed the acupoint on Yan Xiaohan's chest. The previously unconscious man choked out a few coughs, coming back to himself after a long, drawn-out time.

Fu Shen hoisted himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, then moved his robes to the side, revealing a pair of long, black boots that went to mid- thigh. These had been produced by the Northern Yan Army's Munitions Department; the openings, knees, and ankles were all fastened with special mechanisms. It braced the calf with six dark iron 'bones', and iron plates were conjoined under the sole, both linked together by elaborate pinions. They relieved strain on the legs and feet after being put on, and all the mechanisms from the knee down could be used to walk in their stead.

This was a walking apparatus specially developed by the Munitions Department following his injury. Even if he genuinely had been handicapped up to a lack of perception below the knee, he would still have been able to walk as usual when wearing the boots – to say nothing of the fact that Fu Shen had since recovered to being thereabouts half-disabled. He had accepted the boots from the person Yu Qiaoting had sent while he was in the mountain villa; thinking himself to have nothing to do anyways, he decided that going to mess with Yan Xiaohan would be better. Therefore, in a moment of whimsy, he changed his appearance and took on an alias to pursue him to Jing Prefecture.

He really should be grateful to the Iron Cavalry's skilled craftsmen and his own sudden impulse. It was fortunate that he had come after him, as otherwise, when this royal assignment trip was over, their family would have been broken apart.

He opened a few of the latches and kicked the boots off. Taking a hand towel out of the water basin at the side, he stuck it against Yan Xiaohan's face. "That's enough now, come wipe your tears. So pitiful."

A single scalding, trembling hand grabbed his wrist.

Yan Xiaohan suspected himself to have gone completely mad. He stared at him unwaveringly and didn't dare believe it, nor did he even dare to blink, as if he were afraid that he'd disappear the next instant. "Jingyuan…" he mumbled.

"Mhm." Fu Shen had finished wiping his face for him and went on to his hands and neck, voice warm. "It's me."

"Am I dreaming…?"

Fu Shen flicked a certain, unspeakable area with ill intent, sending the other into a fit of shudders. "Maybe it's a spring dream, hm?" he smirked evilly.

He wasn't especially angry at Yan Xiaohan, but he did have some disquiet when recalling the decisive energy the man had used to try and stab himself in the arm, and that, mixed together with indescribable distress, entailed a hatred for the entire village of Brook Hill. If no one had come to rescue him, and he stayed in that damned place the whole night, he would very likely be impaired after he came out; if he had managed to escape, how he could've found an antidote afterwards would have been a big problem. Thankfully, Fu Shen had scrambled over in time, and with him by his side, this bullshit occurrence could barely be considered a type of play when it fell between a husband and wife.

"How did you get here…?"

Fu Shen let down the curtains on either side, flipped over onto the bed, and then started taking off his clothes for him as he talked. "Do you really still have time to gossip with me about this boring stuff?"

His fingertips accidentally met the skin exposed outside of Yan Xiaohan's clothes. The man acted like he'd been burned, shivering from head to toe. A certain incorporeal cage smashed apart with a crash soon after, a vicious beast letting out a long hiss. There was a tightness at Fu Shen's waist, and then he was drawn towards him and rolled onto the pillow, a hot, messy kiss pressing down upon him overwhelmingly.

"Jingyuan, I'm going to lose it…" His rationality in its death throes, Yan Xiaohan leaned over Fu Shen's ear, his repeated rough gasps breaking off one sentence into three segments. "If I hurt you… you have to remember to push me away…"

Fu Shen tilted his head to kiss his face, reaching up to massage his sweaty nape. "It's okay," he said under his breath, consolingly. "Don't be scared. I'm here."

Translators note:

[1] TCM states that each arm has a 'Heart Meridian', starting from the tip of the pinky and going to wrap around the heart. Damage to this meridian is equivalent to direct damage to the heart, and severe enough damage will kill.

[2] 秋夜⽩ – lit. autumn night white

[3] 'Human skin masks' are an old wuxia trope used for flawless disguising. Sometimes they're made out of phlebotinum, sometimes they're literally human skin.