Unyielding Spring Mountains - Chapter 106: Spring Waters

Chapter 106: Spring Waters

He asked her about the bloodstains on her body. She was shivering all over, drenched and utterly miserable in the rain, her eyes red as she lifted them and told him it was the blood of an assassin.

She had narrowly escaped violation; the assassin had tried to harm her, and the fresh, crimson marks at her collarbone were the proof.

He gripped his sword. Originally, he had meant to listen to her excuses and then immediately arrest her, but as soon as those words were spoken, he froze, his eyes meeting her frightened ones.

She loosened her collar and demanded that he search her for himself, using an almost perilously desperate act to prove her innocence.

Outside, the urgent voices called out that the assassin had been found. Qi Yan’s hand tensed on the scabbard, but he did not draw his blade. Instead, he helped her gather her robe back around herself, apologizing for his intrusion.

That search ended hastily, but he left with his doubts unresolved.

Back at the scene, he found a bloodied woman’s earring—his suspicions seemed confirmed.

The next day, he sought her out again, hoping to draw out more from her, but her old nurse told him she’d caught cold, running a high fever and unable to see guests. He understood her ploy: she simply didn’t want to see him.

The more he pieced things together, the more suspicious that night became. Jing Ke was infamous for debauchery—she returned covered in blood, claiming near violation, her story matching all too closely. He could mostly reconstruct how things must have gone.

Jing Ke was the beloved youngest prince of Chu. If the truth ever got out, she wouldn’t live to see another day.

So he sought her out once more. Only after some persuasion did her nurse pass on his request, and she consented to meet. Spring wind fluttered her skirts, the chimes on the eaves tinkled—her face was pale as she looked at him, wary and guarded.

Qi Yan softly said, “You don’t need to worry about the matter with Jing Ke.”

He decided to help her. She was not at fault—if it were any other woman, he might have shielded her all the same, especially as she was his friend’s older sister.

Their eyes met; he nodded, and, feeling her burning gaze behind him, left without another word.

Jing Ke would never wake again—the case was quickly pinned on the two other assassins, and thus the matter faded from the court’s memory.

Resolving all this cost Qi Yan much time, but he had no regrets.

As for this young woman destined to be the crown princess, he believed their lives were unlikely ever to cross again.

He could not have foreseen how soon he would be proved wrong.

One stormy night, at the empress dowager’s birthday banquet, the crown prince accused General Qi of treason and set an ambush for his own father’s return, then began a frenzied search to capture him.

He narrowly escaped from a distant palace, finally bursting through the window of a bedchamber.

By flickering candlelight, pounding on the door grew urgent—the beat of death. Looking down at her fear-stricken face, Qi Yan saw trickles of blood fall from his hair onto her neck, leaving a scarlet trail.

If she’d raised the alarm, he’d have killed her without hesitation, to keep his position secret.

She had no cause to help him—his crime alone was reason enough for her to turn him in.

He gripped his dagger, but when she spoke, she simply sent the guards away.

Not only that—when he stumbled weakly from the bed, she offered to bandage and medicate his wounds.

Perhaps it was fear that made her kind, or perhaps it was her nature. It no longer mattered—she had, at the end, helped him.

That night, he shrank into the darkness, wracked by pain like a drowning tide, gasping for every breath—he forced himself not to faint.

At dawn, jaw set and eyes bloodshot, he forced himself up. Before he left, he pressed the only valuable thing he owned, a jade pendant, into her hand, promising to repay her if ever they met again.

She refused, placing the pendant back in his hand. “No need,” she said.

Her eyes were pure, their depths burning with tranquil fire—he never forgot them, not even after he left for Jin.

He never understood why she sheltered him that night.

Just as he never fully understood why he himself helped cover up the matter of her killing Jing Ke.

But from the moment he left Chu, stepping into that rain-swept, endless night, he would not have any hope of turning back.

His first days in Jin were torment—a foreigner, alone, suffering suspicion and contempt from the royal family. The king despised him, giving him menial work as an imperial guard, yet he never complained.

Those who fall so low have no right to complain.

Step by bloody step, he climbed from the bottom, every advance paid in wounds, each battle a gamble for respect. Slowly, even the King of Jin began to trust him.

Soon, news reached him that the King of Chu had died, the crown prince had ascended, and she had become crown princess. The wedding was magnificent.

He had no blessing to send—he was, after all, destined to be her enemy. If one day he broke into the Chu capital, perhaps he would show mercy for their past and let her live.

Before that day, he merely hoped she lived peacefully in the palace of Chu.

Over the course of his year in Jin, he hid away every feeling, stripping off what had been brash and youthful. He grew silent and cold, his methods grimmer, his heart driven by only vengeance.

The only thing that ever moved him anymore was the king of Jin. In time, that king entrusted him with most of Jin’s military command.

But fate’s whimsy is cruel. Just as he finally savored a glimmer of familial warmth, a brutal defeat shattered all hope, dragging him back into darkness.

The king led an expedition and was killed at the front; Qi Yan, accused of treason and usurpation, was hunted even by his own men.

He fled into the desert, fell unconscious on horseback, wandering for days across endless sands.

He had lost his father in Chu and been called a traitor. In Jin, he was now an outcast again.

The world was vast, and yet he could find nowhere to belong—solitude and grief welled up from his soul. He was like a ghost with no resting place.

At last, even Starry Night collapsed. His last companion, the horse that had grown up with him, now gone.

Devastated, he forced himself to live on. For his father, the Dowager of Chu, the King of Jin, Starry Night—for all those who had given him everything.

The wasteland stretched forward, boundless. No water, no food. Torn inside, he finally turned to the only option left—his own horse.

It was agony, as though killing his own kin.

Blood on his feet, spirit hollowed out, he staggered, propelled only by the final thread of hate.

He would never admit defeat—why did fate itself drive him so? Yet somewhere deep, a last stubborn thread drove him on.

In two years, he rebuilt his fortunes, aiding Ji Wo’s ascent, confronting Ji Yuan on the field, pushing his armies to the Jin capital. When the south allied itself against him, he mustered his own army and marched south.

Jin’s armies stormed south; Chu retreated in terror.

Chu lost battle after battle, finally chased so far south that even the royal family fled.

And in this chaos, her carriage strayed during flight and was seized by Jin troops, delivered to his camp.

They presented her as spoils: a captive woman, intended as his reward.

He sat on the dais and looked at her—a much-changed beauty, worthy of her reputation.

He looked for a long while, not at her beauty, but at her eyes—a portal to that distant day in the palace where he had once spoken with her.

She was among the last of his old companions on earth.

“I’ll send you home,” he said, cutting her free. He repaid his debts that way.

But that night, an urgent message kept him delayed. Returning, he found her still in his tent.

An old illness flared. He collapsed, beads of sweat on his brow—until a woman’s hand gently touched him. He caught her wrist, met her eyes.

She looked just as she had on that distant, rain-soaked night. “General, are you all right? I saw blood soaking your chest. Forgive the liberty, but let me see your wound.”

He let her treat him. She was nervous, but gentle, carefully tending his injuries.

The candlelight illuminated her face, her long hair trailing like silk as she bent over him, fragrance filling his lungs. He wondered why she still helped him.

She spoke softly: “That night in the palace, accused of treason, you came to me—I never believed it of you. That’s why I sheltered you, and why you don’t owe me. I only did what was right.”

She returned to him the jade pendant he’d once given. “I kept your gift all these years to give it back.”

A faint smile brushed her lips, a fleeting illusion.

She added, “Thank you, too, for shielding me about Jing Ke. I was slow to comprehend your kindness.”

Fingertips brushed and parted—the warmth lingered.

He found himself unable to answer.

Throughout, she kept her gaze averted, shyness and caution plain in her every movement.

The next day, he escorted her out of the camp; watching her go, a strange emptiness arose.

Back in camp, his subordinates brought him a token left by the Queen of Chu—her jade pendant. He never imagined then how it would help him later, when petitioning for aid from the Wei King.

The king, desperately searching for his lost daughter, saw the jade and at once asked after its owner.

Qi Yan told the truth. The king thought in silence.

Wei and Chu had been enemies for generations. To expose her as the princess would be to endanger her life.

So Qi Yan offered: “If the king will help me, I’ll take Chu’s capital quickly and restore your daughter to your side.”

The king, without hesitation, agreed.

An alliance was made. Not long after, Jin was pacified, Qi Yan sat the throne. But old factions still plotted in secret.

About this time, Chu sent envoys to negotiate peace.

The audience was tense, riddled with crosscurrents—rumors abounded of scandal between the Queen of Chu and the King of Jin.

Qi Yan afterward overheard the King of Chu coercing her:

“Impossible, Jing Heng! I will never see the King of Jin, never stoop myself to ask for your favor!”

Watching her walk away, her silhouette melting into the blood-tinged dusk, he knew her uncompromising spirit would only make life harder in Chu’s palace.

Wei’s ministers urged him not to reveal her identity, and to place agents in Chu to protect her.

He agreed, but fate intervened.

Soon after returning, she was poisoned by her stepbrother, was saved but lost her sight.

Blinded, she spent entire nights in tears, then avenged herself and made a desperate bid to kill the king. Afterward, she was imprisoned in the palace, barred from the world.

From letters smuggled out of Chu, he learned her situation. He had thought she would lose hope—but found she was far more resilient.

War kept him on the front line, unable to go to her side.

At last, he learned she was recuperating at a border palace. He left everything, injured and against all advice, and slipped past Chu’s guards to see her.

He took another name, Jin Lan, and kept her company.

Doctors said her health was ebbing daily, but her spirit never failed to stir him.

He had never before met a woman so resilient, so broad-hearted.

She wanted to climb mountains and pick flowers, ride free. She wanted to see the places painted in scrolls, never letting blindness defeat her spirit even for a day.

So he read her poems and travelogues, took her out at sunrise and sunset to feel the vastness of the open fields, rode with her through the wide land.

One day, she asked him: If, after losing sight, her spirit feels numb and her heart blind, what’s to be done?

He replied—“Man is but a mayfly before the vast mountains; stretch your heart, and the world grows boundless.”

She smiled and thanked him for showing her this.

When they rode horses up a ridge and stood in the breeze, he looked at her in the gleaming gold light, her face radiant as a handful of spring sunlight.

He often thought—she hadn’t just inspired him. She’d shown him there was a wilder, kinder way to live.

He couldn’t deny that in those last days together, he was drawn to her, heart and soul.

It was as if his heart had been immersed in a warm, boundless pool of spring water.

(End of Part 1)