"Why can't we?"
"You'll lose all your martial arts and become a cripple!"
"So what?" Yun Lang lowered his head, gently brushing away the stray hairs on her forehead. "As long as she's alive, that's enough..."
Qin Yiru roared in fury, "Is that what you call 'alive'? Have you forgotten your parents?!"
Yun Lang's eyes turned blood-red in an instant. "I have no father! Don't mention him to me!"
But at this point, Qin Yiru couldn't hold back anymore. He grabbed Yun Lang's wrist and snapped, "Fine, you refuse to acknowledge the Prince as your father—but what about your mother? Don’t you recognize her? She was also saved by your father... by the Prince using that very method. And what was the result?"
"Devoid of awareness, devoid of emotion, her soul scattered, her spirit lost—aside from eating and breathing, how is she any different from a corpse? Fourteen years! The Prince has searched every corner of the world, but has he found a cure? No! Yun Lang, think of your mother, think of what she’s become now. How could you bear to let your sister follow the same fate?!"
Yun Lang’s gaze went blank.
How could he bear it?
Every time he visited Peach Mountain, he couldn’t sleep for days. Watching his mother sit there like a puppet, only eating what was handed to her, drinking what was fed to her, never responding no matter what was said—it tore his heart apart. He wanted nothing more than to kill the person who had reduced her to this state.
Yet now, faced with the same life-or-death choice, he found himself making the same decision as that man...
"But at least she’d be alive... at least she’d still be breathing..."
Yun Lang clutched his head in agony, his voice fading to a whisper.
Qin Yiru sighed heavily, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Boy, fate has its own designs. Think of this girl—if she were conscious, would she choose to live like that?"
Yun Lang covered his face, tears slipping silently between his fingers.
She would never want it...
"Enough. This old man has said his piece. Stay with her now, Yun Lang. You have, at most, half an hour left." With that, Qin Yiru turned and stepped out of the carriage.
Yun Lang lowered his eyes, his heart pierced by a thousand arrows as he gazed at the face so like his mother’s.
How cruel fate was—to let him find his sister only to lose her again.
If this was how it would end, perhaps it would have been better never to meet at all...
Half an hour later.
"Yun Lang? Why are you out here?"
Qin Yiru was startled to see the figure in red robes and white hair leap down from the carriage. Then, expressionless, Yun Lang asked, "Do you have Grandmother’s books on witchcraft?"
"I do, but... what are you planning?"
Without looking back, Yun Lang strode toward Qin Yiru’s carriage. The old man chased after him, flustered. "I know you’re searching for another way to save her, but those Western witchcraft techniques are all life-for-life curses! And there’s no time to—"
Bang!
The carriage door slammed shut, nearly hitting Qin Yiru in the face.
He turned away, grumbling, "The old ones were like this, and now the young ones too! Do they think this old man hasn’t tried everything? There’s only one way to save her, but can we use it?"
To strip away all emotion and sensation, leaving a person to live as a walking corpse—such a method defied the heavens. He couldn’t fathom how Yun Lang’s grandmother had ever devised it.
Meanwhile, Hongxiu quietly approached Chu Ruoyan’s carriage.
She lifted the curtain when no one was looking, only to be grabbed from behind. "What are you doing?"
Hongxiu turned. "Old Du? Ha! Didn’t you hear the Master and the old physician? She’s about to die!"
Shopkeeper Du frowned. "So what?"
"So what? She has the Prince’s Frostblade—the very sword stolen by that traitor! Fourteen years we’ve spent chasing the truth, and even with the Hundred Knowledge Pavilion’s spies everywhere, we’ve found nothing. She’s our only hope now. She cannot die!"
Her eyes burned with desperation. Shopkeeper Du averted his gaze. "What do you propose...?"
"Save her! You heard the old physician’s method—"
"Are you mad?" Shopkeeper Du recoiled. "The Princess Consort still hasn’t recovered from that technique, and the Master just refused it!"
"Refuse it, and she dies! Old Du, think of why we’ve spent years building this network—to uncover who betrayed the Prince, who left the Princess Consort near death and the Eldest Young Master missing!"
Shopkeeper Du fell silent.
Hongxiu pressed on, "The Prince was undefeated in battle. If not for the ambush on his way back from the Western Border with the Princess Consort, would the Murong Family have dared rebel? Would our Great Sheng Dynasty have fallen? Old Du, if I recall, your wife and children also died in that chaos, didn’t they?"
Agony flashed in Shopkeeper Du’s eyes. After a long pause, he muttered, "How can I help?"
Hongxiu brightened. "I was there when the Prince saved her. I know the method. Just buy me time—one incense stick’s worth. That’s all I need to plant ‘Butterfly Dreams of Zhuangzi’ in her!"
Butterfly Dreams of Zhuangzi—alive, yet not herself.
This was the witchcraft Yun Lang’s grandmother had devised to defy death.
But the price...
"Are you sure? You’ll lose all your martial arts..."
Hongxiu smirked, lifting her chin. "So what? If it means uncovering the truth for the Prince, I’d give my life without hesitation!"
She slipped into the carriage. A muffled groan followed.
Soon, tiny black insects crawled from the carriage door, plump as if gorged on blood.
But they collapsed after a few steps, their bodies bursting with a sickening pop, oozing black fluid.
"Those... are the parasites of Butterfly Dreams..."
Shopkeeper Du shuddered. It struck him then—aside from the Prince and Yun Lang, Hongxiu, born in the Western Border, might be the only one left who could perform this ritual.
Just then, Qin Yiru wandered over, yawning. "Little Du? What are you doing here?"
Shopkeeper Du stiffened, glancing nervously behind him.
The incense hadn’t burned out yet!
"N-Nothing... Old Physician, weren’t we heading to Yangzhou? Why the sudden stop?" he asked, feigning ignorance. Qin Yiru waved a hand. "Forget Yangzhou. Heaven mocks us—who’d have thought this girl was your Master’s sister, the Third Miss?"
Though he and Hongxiu had already overheard this, Shopkeeper Du pretended shock. "What? She’s the Third Miss?"
Qin Yiru nodded but didn’t linger. "Step aside. I need to give her painkillers, so she passes peacefully..."
"Old Physician, wait—"
Before he could finish, thunderous hoofbeats erupted in the distance.
A voice, cold as ice, cut through the air:
"Yun Lang! Stop right there!"
