Chapter 21#
Firelight#
Yin Yuheng had studied under Li Guanghan for five years.
In Li Guanghan’s memory, his eldest disciple was gentle but never fragile — steady, patient, calm, and warm. No matter what came, he could always look up with a faint smile and say: it’s fine, I’m here.
Like green bamboo standing unbroken through northern snow. Like a soft drift of cloud over a spring mountain.
But now — blood mingled with tears had soaked through his thin clothes. The young man lay with his eyes closed in Li Guanghan’s arms, so fragile it seemed as though he might come apart at any moment.
The bamboo broken. The mountain undone.
A cool tear fell against Li Guanghan’s fingertip. His breath caught, inexplicably. The still waters of his heart — undisturbed for so many years — broke, just once, into a brief and nameless turbulence.
In five years, Li Guanghan had never once seen Yin Yuheng cry.
…
Yin Yuheng was Li Guanghan’s first disciple. He had always been easy.
The highest truth needs no words; the greatest path leaves no trace. Li Guanghan was not gifted with explanation, and had little sense of how to teach — so he had thrown Yin Yuheng into the sword formation and left him to find his own way through.
The sixteen-year-old boy spent two days and two nights trapped in the formation before he finally broke free — his whole body soaked in blood. Terrible wounds covered his back. He couldn’t walk steadily; he had to use his sword as a crutch and drag himself forward one step at a time. It was brutal enough to make even Li Guanghan’s heart flinch. But Yin Yuheng’s eyes had shone like stars, and he still had the energy to smile up at Li Guanghan and say: I’m fine, Shifu — I’m just too injured to go back to the palace. Can I stay at the Guoshi Manor tonight?
I’m fine — Yin Yuheng said it constantly.
Bloodied and torn by the sword formation, he said: I’m fine.
After traveling a thousand li to gather a Netherbloom, feeding it with his own blood all the way, handing it over to Li Guanghan, he said: I’m fine.
Leaning against a wall, coughing up blood, he said: I’m fine.
Said it so many times that Li Guanghan had come to believe it. And so he noticed less and less, cared less and less.
But tonight, with a blade buried in his chest, Yin Yuheng had not said I’m fine.
He was half-conscious, his robe pulled slightly open, baring the long pale line of his neck. His whole body trembled with pain, and tears still clung to the corners of his eyes.
Li Guanghan stared at him, stricken, and wiped the tears away again and again. In a heart that had been still as deep water for decades, something stirred — something with no name.
Before he knew what he was saying, the words had already left his mouth: “That’s enough for today.”
He paused, then gathered Yin Yuheng up. “We’ll continue tomorrow.”
Li Guanghan carried him to a bed and administered the finest medicinal pellets he had.
…
Yin Yuheng didn’t know how long he was unconscious. When he finally surfaced, the first thing he felt was a tearing pain in his chest.
He forced his eyes open. The canopy of a bed met his gaze.
…This was Shifu’s room. Shifu had carried him here.
Any other time, being this close to Li Guanghan would have filled him with a secret, quiet gladness. But now he only gripped the bedclothes under his hands, his expression stiff. Inside him, there was nothing but pain. Nothing else.
As if whatever hidden, unspoken feeling he had carried for so long had flowed out with the blood and was simply gone.
He found he couldn’t be bothered to dwell on the memory of being held in Li Guanghan’s arms. Instead, his thoughts drifted, oddly, to the lotus pond outside Li Guanghan’s quarters.
He had planted those lotuses five years ago. They were a rare spiritual variety, impervious to the Guoshi Manor’s endless cold, blooming vivid and lovely even in the snow. He had dropped the seeds into the water one by one back then, and thought to himself, quietly: when Shifu sees these flowers, will he think of me?
…Li Guanghan’s gaze had never rested long on anything.
He didn’t care about flowers. He didn’t care about Yin Yuheng.
The room was empty. Li Guanghan wasn’t here — he had taken the blood and gone to Zhu Anning. Yin Yuheng pushed himself upright with great effort, breathing hard for a moment, then struggled out of bed and made his way to the window.
Such a short distance. He arrived drenched in cold sweat.
He reached out, unsteady, and pushed the window open. Cold air rushed in. Yin Yuheng shivered, and looked out.
The lotus pond was there, just as he had known it would be — blazing red even through the snow, the flowers swaying in the cold.
He looked at it quietly for a while. Then he laughed at himself, a single short sound.
What was the point.
Fire broke out over the surface of the water without warning. It spread quickly, scorching its way across the pond until the entire surface was ablaze. The lotus blossoms burned to ash.
In the firelight, Yin Yuheng turned and walked away.
…
Outside the Guoshi Manor, night had fallen.
The sky was dark and heavy — no stars, no moon. Layer upon layer of clouds pressed downward.
Shen Liyuan sat in his wheelchair, half-hidden in shifting shadow and light.
He rubbed his wrist over and over, compulsively, lost in some private thought. A bleak smile spread across his face.
Behind him, his attendant pushed the chair with careful hands. “Young Master — it’s quite late. Should we keep waiting?”
“Of course we wait.” Shen Liyuan couldn’t contain the roiling, feverish emotion in him. He brought a fingertip to his mouth and bit down gently. Blood seeped through almost immediately. “I’ve put in all this effort, planned all this time, rushed all the way from Junzhou to Chaoge — isn’t this exactly the day I came for?” He laughed, entranced. “I’m about to get what I want most.”
The attendant drew a quiet breath. “That would be… His Highness the Crown Prince?”
Shen Liyuan smiled in silent acknowledgment.
Soon now…
My Highness. When your beloved teacher abandons you, when your trusted junior brother betrays you, when your foundation is ruined and your cultivation path severed, your pride ground to dust and your position stripped away… when you have lost everything — will you finally belong to me?
Shen Liyuan was intoxicated by the fantasy. He trembled, eyes narrowing, biting down harder.
Pain kept him lucid.
Not yet. The moment hasn’t come.
“He must be in so much pain right now. So alone.” Shen Liyuan smiled beneath lowered lashes. “The person who appears at someone’s side to comfort them in their lowest moment — that person is different. That’s how it works.”
Step by step. Gaining his trust inch by inch. Walking into his life. Taking it over entirely…
Shen Liyuan knew that Yin Yuheng traveled with hidden guards. He had already made arrangements beforehand to draw them away. Now Yin Yuheng was isolated and badly wounded — he would have no choice but to wait for rescue. The thought made excitement pulse through Shen Liyuan’s chest.
The attendant glanced toward the gates of the Guoshi Manor in the distance. Hesitantly: “Young Master, aren’t we rather far away? If His Highness is injured, walking this distance might be difficult.”
Shen Liyuan gave a low, satisfied laugh, the corner of his mouth curling.
“I know. He can barely walk.”
“That’s the point. Let him hurt. Let him crawl to me —”
“A rescue at someone’s darkest moment. Isn’t that the most moving kind?”
Shen Liyuan was deep in his calculations, savoring the vision, when he looked up toward the distant gates of the Guoshi Manor.
A creak. The gates swung open. A thin silhouette appeared in the gap — braced against the door, bent forward, trembling with pain, unable to take a single step.
Shen Liyuan’s smile spread. He watched his quarry with cold satisfaction, calculating when it would fall into the net he had spread —
And then, in the thick dark, a bright point of light moved.
A lantern.
A young man in black appeared from nowhere — lantern in hand — and ran toward the gates in three quick strides.
“Yin Yuheng! What the — what happened to you?!”
From a distance, Shen Liyuan watched the young man in black wrap his arms around Yin Yuheng in alarm.
The smile on Shen Liyuan’s face went rigid.