The air seemed to freeze just a fraction away. Xie Jing nearly questioned whether his own sense of touch was misleading him, or if his memory of the Hotan jade longevity lock, a piece that had stayed with Lu Shuqing for twelve years, was mistaken.
But almost instantly, a reply came; carried in a voice, and tone Xie Jing knew all too well. He could even envision Lu Shuqing’s astonished expression, his almond-shaped eyes widening in sheer disbelief:
“…Mother?”
Xie Jing was so choked by that single call that he couldn’t speak. Thousands of thoughts rushed into his mind, all tangled together, blocking his throat. He lifted his hand gently, letting his thumb graze Lu Shuqing’s jaw. The soft, plump flesh of his cheek yielded under the touch, still retaining the youthful contour of undeveloped bone. His ring finger brushed against the boy’s long, curled eyelashes, which twitched faintly; reminiscent of the delicate, trembling wings of the butterfly he had once caught and given to Xie Jing as a child. Then, Xie Jing rested his index finger on the tip of his nose and tapped it, a game they used to play often many years ago.
Finally, he opened his arms and tightly embraced Lu Shuqing. At that moment, he heard the sound of a heavy object dropping inside his chest; he thought it was his heart settling back into place.
Xie Jing left all his questions unasked. In the end, he simply rubbed his chin repeatedly against the top of Lu Shuqing’s head and asked, “Are you cold?”
Only after speaking did he realize his mistake. It was clear that he felt cold. With his naturally cold constitution and having just come out of the water, he trembled in the wind. Worried he might make Lu Shuqing catch a chill; he hastily tried to loosen his hold and pull back.
Lu Shuqing, however, did not let go of him, only shaking his head, “Mother is very warm.”
It was nearly an hour later before they truly warmed up. They found some twigs and dry leaves near the ventilated cave entrance and lit them with a tinder tube, allowing them both to regain some body heat. Lu Shuqing was wearing spring clothes, which were a bit thin. While Xie Jing sat against the stone wall of the cave entrance, he had Lu Shuqing curled up in front of him and covered them both with his semi-dry cloak.
According to Lu Shuqing, not long after Xie Jing left, the emperor’s carriage got stuck in a mud hole. He was originally riding with Lu Lingcong, but the latter had to go forward to inspect the situation, so he was left alone in the carriage.
A short while later, he suddenly heard Yi Yun neighing outside. When he lifted the curtain to look, he came face-to-face with several men wearing the armor of the Yulin Guards. They held identity plaques and demanded to take him away but refused to say who had summoned him.
The Hewei had limited personnel who could infiltrate the procession, and most were guarding Lu Lingzhen’s and Lu Shuning’s carriage. As a result, they didn’t notice Lu Shuqing’s condition in time amid the pouring rain.
He refused to cooperate, so the men immediately tried to restrain him. Seeing things go awry, Lu Shuqing quickly untied the rope binding Yi Yun to the carriage and dashed forward with the Yulin Guards close behind, not so much chasing as methodically steering him toward this area.
Soon after, he also heard the tiger’s roar. He immediately let Yi Yun go, telling her to return and report the news while he proceeded on foot to hide from his pursuers in the mountain stream. However, he unexpectedly slipped on the wet ground and fell down the hill, rolling all the way to the outside of this cave below the slope.
Because Xie Jing was washed onto the bank by the water, the movement wasn’t very loud. Lu Shuqing initially couldn’t confirm if it was a person or something else and could only hold his breath and wait attentively in the darkness.
Later, he heard Xie Jing’s footsteps, and only then did he tentatively walk toward the sound, yet he truly had not expected it to be his mother.
Fortunately, Yi Yun seemed to have escaped. He had also left markers along the way before falling, which would presumably provide some clues for Lu Lingcong and the Hewei.
After Lu Shuqing roughly finished recounting the events, both fell silent for a moment. Xie Jing gently rubbed his knee, which had been scraped by the gravel, and then asked, “So where did you get this tinder tube?”
Lu Shuqing gestured for him to look at a small, gray linen bundle placed nearby: “Father prepared it for me. Besides the tinder tube, there’s also a dagger, a rope, some medicine for injuries, and dry rations inside. It’s usually hidden inside Yi Yun’s saddle, and Father told me to always take it whenever I ride out. When I separated from Yi Yun, I thought it might be useful, so I took it along.”
Xie Jing froze briefly at the words, then suddenly became aware of a distinction between himself and Lu Lingcong. In the current situation, if it were him, he would probably “forbid eating for fear of choking[mfn]To avoid the risk entirely.[/mfn]”, directly preventing Lu Shuqing from leaving the palace walls to eliminate all potential dangers. But what Lu Lingcong did was “prepare for danger in times of peace”, meticulously warning Lu Shuqing about the potential risks he might face, teaching him how to save himself in such circumstances, and then letting him go.
“That was back on Mount Tang as well. We ran into assassins and had to take refuge in the water. I lost my shoe and twisted my ankle. Your father carried me on his back, and we snuck into your maternal grand-uncle’s manor late at night to stay.”
Lu Shuqing had never heard this story: “What happened next?”
“Then I overslept and slunk home the next day well after noon and your maternal grandfather scolded me severely.”
“And then?”
Xie Jing thought for a moment, lowered his head, and smiled at him: “And then, not long after that, we had you.”
He adjusted his posture so that Lu Shuqing could rest more comfortably on his chest: “When we were in Yongzhou, I saw the letter you wrote to your father. Why did you want to practise the Quxia script?”
Lu Shuqing lowered his voice: “After Mother left, Uncle Zhou instructed that all your letters and manuscripts be burnt. I didn’t understand then, and I cried and screamed, trying to snatch them from the fire. Father stopped me and we even had a fight.”
Xie Jing laughed lightly and asked, “Since they were all burnt, where did you find the original copy to follow?”
“The horizontal plaque in the study was still there, so I used the characters ‘Pine Wind and a Cup of Snow’ to learn from. But I didn’t dare practice on paper. I either dipped my brush in water and wrote on the ground or simply practiced writing in the air. For strokes not found in those five characters, I had to grope my way based on memory, which is why I learnt so slowly. As Mother saw, I only managed to barely mimic seventy or eighty percent by last autumn.”
In the firelight, the tiny downy hairs on Lu Shuqing’s face were clearly visible, carrying the soft fuzziness of a newborn, just like a kitten. Xie Jing smoothed his hair and said, “You write very well, so similar that Mother can barely tell the difference.”
That night, the two talked around the fire until midnight. Later, Lu Shuqing fell asleep and curled up in his arms. When morning light filtered in, Xie Jing noticed that they were enclosed by stone walls on three sides with water on the fourth. The wind from the previous night hadn’t come from inside the cave; it had swept down from the slope above. However, the rock walls were difficult to climb, so they could only pray that the mountain caves were connected and that they could find a way out.
They shared some dry rations and set off. As they pressed deeper, the air grew thinner. To avoid suffocating, they couldn’t keep the tinder tube lit constantly, only lighting it at intervals to inspect the path.
The cave was silent as If cut off from the world. Only the slow, steady dripping of water from the stalactites marked the passage of time. Lu Shuqing had a decent foundation in martial arts but was still a child. Xie Jing was an adult but truly powerless. Together, the two of them weren’t strong enough to match even one of Lu Lingcong’s hands, so their progress was slow. After three days of walking and stopping, their dry rations were nearly exhausted. Fortunately, underground rivers occasionally ran through the cave, so drinking water wasn’t an issue, and they could sometimes catch a small fish or two as well.
Late at night on the fifth day of the fourth month, Lu Shuqing was fast asleep. Xie Jing laid the cloth bundle under his head as a pillow, wrapped him snugly in the cloak, and sat beside him, holding one of his hands and pressing the area between thumb and index finger to boost circulation and warm him a little. Gradually, his own fatigue set in, but the tension in his mind kept him from sinking into deep sleep, leaving him suspended between wakefulness and dreams.
This continued for several hours. He suddenly heard a rustling sound coming from a place both near and far in a daze. It was faint and indistinct, unlike the sound of the underground river flowing through these past few days; it sounded more like forest leaves being swept up by a strong wind.
He suddenly opened his eyes. However, their resting spot was in a very narrow corridor connecting two caves. Although he could hear the sound, he couldn’t confirm if it was truly the wind.
Silently, Xie Jing bent down, retrieved the tinder tube from the cloth bundle, stood up, braced one hand against the cave wall, and carefully felt his way forward.
This pitiful bit of experience came entirely from the casual chatter he and Lu Lingcong shared at their bedside over the years. Lu Lingcong spoke offhandedly, and he listened in the same manner; neither treated it seriously, yet today it unexpectedly came in handy.
Xie Jing searched cautiously. The light from the tinder tube was limited, illuminating only the area immediately ahead and under his feet. He also had to mark the path with pebbles along the way in case Lu Shuqing woke up and panicked in his absence.
However, the sound of the wind was intermittent, forcing him to stop and discern the direction every so often. After an unknown period, the firelight revealed a fork in the path. Xie Jing stood between the left and right openings. Instinctively recalling his bandaged right hand and the right arm concealing the “Bone-stripping Strings,” he bent down without hesitation and crawled into the cave on the right.
The cave was extremely narrow. Fortunately, he was thin and agile, and the crawling was relatively smooth. After crawling about a dozen steps, he reached the end. Xie Jing propped himself up on his elbows and raised the light source only to see a shadow jutting out diagonally ahead as if it were something solid.
He felt a pebble in his pocket and tossed it outside. He heard the sound of it hitting the ground almost instantly, followed by a few bounces. After a moment of silence, there was the sound of it entering water—the cave exit was very close to the ground, and there should be water not far away.
Xie Jing moved to the edge of the cave and tentatively tried to place one foot on the ground. Fortunately, he only extended his leg slightly before touching the rock. He settled his body slowly and steadily, then half-squatted. He lifted the tinder tube to light the space and was immediately struck dumb by what he saw.
He was now in an unexpectedly open, flat area outside the cave, but it was not large, with no walls surrounding it, suggesting it was similar to a cliff’s edge. The shadows he had seen earlier were a cluster of wooden stakes haphazardly hammered into the ground at the edge of the flat area with thick knots tied to them. Following the light further, there was a long, swaying rope extending toward the opposite bank. The distance was not far, but the vertical drop was immense. Looking down, there was only the deep, pitch-black water of a pool.
Just then, the sound of the wind rose perfectly, causing the long rope to sway. Judging by the direction, the wind was coming from the opposite bank.
Xie Jing’s brow furrows little by little. He knew that if he waited a bit longer for dawn, he might be able to determine the location of the exit by the light from the opposite side. However, the wooden stakes and rope before him, which bore too many signs of human intervention, clearly and undoubtedly confirmed his premonition: things were not going to be that easy.
He moved forward a few steps before carefully approaching the cliff’s edge and held the firelight closer to examine the knot. At a glance, something seemed off: the wooden stakes were mottled with mold, showing they had lain underground in the damp, sunless conditions for years and were badly decayed, but the rope knot showed almost no signs of wear. Xie Jing, who frequently dealt with military supplies like this in Yongzhou, was quite certain that the rope had been tied there no more than a month ago.
They had not seen any signs of human habitation these past few days. The mountain folk who collected lingzhi mushrooms likely didn’t use this path; or if they did, it was long ago, leaving behind nothing but the decayed stakes.
Yet, in the not-too-distant past, someone had come here and tied up this rope.
Xie Jing silently recalled the events of the past few days, gradually connecting the fragments into a single thread in his mind. Bringing Lu Shuqing and Lu Shuning along for the spring hunt was the first step in this chain of traps; the second was drawing snakes into the tent; a rehearsal of sorts. Even though Yi Yun interrupted it before it was fully carried out, it didn’t derail the larger scheme either. The third step was guiding him and Lu Shuqing separately to the mouth of the karst cave, funneling them onto a single path that ultimately brought them to this precipice.
With that in mind, the left fork may have been entirely blocked, leaving them no choice but to take the right path, which inevitably led to the same endpoint.
But what did this mean? All this painstaking effort is just to make them walk through this cave, and even going to great lengths to guide them toward a path of survival and an exit?
Xie Jing’s gaze slowly settled on the rope. The firelight was extremely limited; he could only clearly see the closest small section. He had no idea about the condition of the middle and far ends.
Or perhaps there was no need to look at the rope at all. This pile of rotten wooden stakes had already clearly written the answer for him: this path of survival might not have enough strength to support both him and Lu Shuqing crossing over.
In other words, this was truly a survival path, but one meant only a single person. As for who that person would be, the decision lay between him and Lu Shuqing.
At that instant, Xie Jing felt a chill throughout his body. He knew what the fourth step was—
He would have to make a choice: his own death, or the death of his son.
More than an hour must have passed, because Xie Jing could vaguely see specks of light filtering through the rock’s face on the opposite bank without needing the tinder tube. A calling sound suddenly came from behind him, suggesting Lu Shuqing had woken up. He must have followed the pebbles along the path and not knowing whether to turn left or right, called out for his mother.
Xie Jing wanted to answer him, but when he opened his mouth, he realized that his voice was terribly hoarse. He could only raise his voice as much as possible, telling him to come to the right.
Lu Shuqing crawled through the passage faster than him and as expected, immediately noticed the daylight on the opposite side before exclaiming joyfully, “Mother, we found the exit!”
Xie Jing was silent for a moment, then nodded and said, “I was afraid you were too tired, so I didn’t wake you. Does your knee still hurt? When we get back, be sure to find Imperial Physician Qin to examine it carefully so you don’t develop a lasting problem.”
Lu Shuqing replied, “I know, Mother has reminded me several times already.”
“Yes,” Xie Jing gave a self-mocking smile, “Did you bring the bundle?”
“I brought all of it,” Lu Shuqing said as he handed the cloak to Xie Jing. “Mother, you wear it.”
Xie Jing took the cloak, paused, and said in an understated tone, “Why don’t you go ahead and scout the path? If everything goes smoothly, we’ll be out of here.”
Lu Shuqing was stunned, “Aren’t we going together?”
Xie Jing gave a short laugh and softened his voice: “I think I might have twisted my ankle just now, and I want to rest for a bit. You take the things across first, and Mother will follow later.” Hearing this, Lu Shuqing immediately came forward, wanting to check his ankle, but Xie Jing waved him off, only saying, “It’s nothing.”
“Then wait for me, Mother. I’ll cross over, put the bundle down, and come right back.” Lu Shuqing had no choice but to find the rope, tie a slipknot to the long rope to secure the other end firmly around himself under his ribs, and position his body in a fetal curl to minimize pressure on the rope.
“Are you afraid?” Xie Jing stood behind him, lighting the path and watching Lu Shuqing’s practiced movements, and suddenly spoke.
“No,” Lu Shuqing replied with a smile, his tone quite confident, “I heard that when the Tiger Division was in Xichuan back then, the vanguard used this exact method to seize the cliff paths, so I asked Father to teach me.”
“Then that’s good.” Xie Jing stepped forward slightly, fastened the bundle tightly onto his back, and handed him the tinder tube. Then, he slightly lowered his head, kissed Lu Shuqing lightly on the forehead, and said, “Go now.”
The thread of light quickly became distant and faint as Lu Shuqing’s figure slid down the long rope. Everything unfolded in an instant. Xie Jing froze, gauging Lu Shuqing’s position solely by the shifting point of light. In the pitch-black darkness, he caught the mournful creak of termite-eaten wood giving way under the strain. The strain from the weight on the long rope reached its breaking point, and at last, with a sound of inevitable decay, the entire structure ripped free from the rock crevice.
At that moment, the firelight was about to merge with the light of dawn on the opposite bank. Lu Shuqing let out a brief cry of surprise, but the point of light flickered rapidly, and he nearly instantly ascended the rope to the precipice on the opposite side.
Xie Jing could hear the panic and fear overflowing from the darkness in Lu Shuqing’s shout: “Mother, the rope broke! What should we do! Should I see if there’s a rock face nearby that I can use to climb back?”
He waited a moment until Lu Shuqing, sensing no reply, suddenly he went quiet. He knew the boy had understood the issue.
“Qing’er, you just said you were ‘not afraid,’ remember?”
Xie Jing steeled his heart and continued in one breath: “I checked last night; there’s still a little food left in the bundle. Eat all of it now, then turn around and follow the light all the way out. If I’m not mistaken, there should be people from the Prime Minister’s Mansion waiting outside, and they will send you back to your father.”
What the Wang family wanted was not necessarily their lives, but the result of a choice. Xie Jing’s “words” could not fully earn their trust, so they used a method to test his “actions” to see if they could truly feel secure in using him.
And as long as they saw that Lu Shuqing was the first to emerge… they would have their answer.
An oppressive silence, endless as night itself, descended. Everything seemed frozen and motionless. After what felt like an eternity, Lu Shuqing let out a gut-wrenching wail, frantically crying out, ‘Mother’: “I’m not leaving! I don’t want to be separated from you! I never want to be separated from you again! There must be a way… there must still be a way out!”
In that instant, Xie Jing’s head split with pain. Similar memories from three years ago aggressively invaded his mind. When he looked back, Lu Shuqing had stubbornly clenched his teeth, forced a smile to vud farewell and refused to shed a single tear. But as he turned and closed the door, the child’s uncontrollable sobs stabbed through him like a sharp awl.
“Mother… please, I beg you, don’t leave me alone again…”
Xie Jing sank to his knees, covering his eyes with his hands while trembling violently. For a long while, he could only force out broken words through his gritted teeth:
“…Qing’er, listen to me. I have never forced you to do anything over the years. I don’t ask you to achieve great things or build grand accomplishments. I don’t want those things, I don’t want anything… I just want you to live.”
Lu Shuqing kept shaking his head in refusal. His hoarse, broken sobs continuously struck Xie Jing’s ears, driving his sanity to the brink of collapse. Finally, Xie Jing sharply yelled:
“Lu Shuqing, listen to me! Swear that you will live well, and then get out of here right now!”
The sky on the opposite bank seemed to brighten further, but the boy fell silent. After a long moment, he received Lu Shuqing’s choked reply: “…I swear to Mother that I will live well… and I will definitely rescue Mother as well.”
As the words ended, the tinder tube flickered and gradually merged with the daylight. Xie Jing exhaled deeply, leaned back against the cave wall, and gradually slid down to the ground.
The remaining time was completely muddled and vague. Xie Jing didn’t know how many days he had waited, but the only thing he could confirm was that the seventh day of the fourth month had passed, because the Bone-stripping Strings in his right arm began to ache faintly at a certain moment. He stumbled and groped his way back to the cave entrance where he had encountered Lu Shuqing and the shallow bank beneath that cliff. He did his best to curl up into a ball, hiding himself with the cloak to minimize body heat loss.
He didn’t know how to describe his feelings, nor did he know if that was the typical state before death—after all, he had never been this close to dying. But one thing was certain: he did not see his life flash before his eyes the way many people claimed. He even tried, consciously struggling to recall certain fragments and scenes, but failed completely. The only memory he could cling to in the end was that very first time in Qinhuai Chun, when he had flipped a table, spun around with arrogance, glared at Lu Lingcong, who had been watching the commotion, and told him to “get out of the way.”
Or perhaps he hadn’t even looked at Lu Lingcong? Xie Jing genuinely couldn’t recall, so he could only ponder and reminisce repeatedly, reviewing this scene again and again until he was almost hallucinating as if Lu Lingcong had truly, tangibly appeared before his eyes.
Xie Jing found it both amusing and entirely natural. He had never doubted that the last person he would think of before he died would only be Lu Lingcong.
