Chapter 1

On the day the rebels slaughtered the city, the entrance to the secret passage Father had left us admitted only one person at a time.

My brother glanced at me, then gave my only chance of survival to his childhood sweetheart.

He pried my fingers from his arm, disgust in his eyes.

“Be good. Find somewhere to hide. Wan’er comes from a scholarly family. She is pure and innocent. We cannot let the rebels capture and dishonor her.”

“A-Yue, you’re a general’s daughter. Father taught you to wield a saber. You have a better chance of surviving than she does.”

After he left, the rebels captured me, disfigured my face, and gouged out my eyes.

Ten years later, in a small town in Jiangnan, I made my living telling fortunes by feeling people’s bones.

My brother, now a victorious general, stopped at my stall while traveling incognito.

“Young lady, you look very much like someone I knew in the capital.”

I touched the old scar on the back of his hand—the scar he had received shielding me from a blade—and calmly withdrew my fingers.

“You’re mistaken, my lord. I was born blind. I’ve never been to the capital.”

…

He reached out to touch the scar on my forehead. I had received it years ago, knocking my head against the ground as I prayed for his safety, until I bled.

His voice dropped.

“She had eyes just like yours, too.”

“Sadly, she died ten years ago.”

Xie Linyuan stood there a long time. At last, he left some silver and went away.

I closed my eyes. Memories from ten years earlier filled my head.

The rebels had breached the city. The sounds of slaughter were everywhere.

Linyuan pulled me toward the ancestral hall. Father had dug that passage himself. Only the two of us knew about it.

Just as we were about to climb inside, Shen Zhiwan suddenly scrambled down the wall beside us.

Linyuan’s face changed.

“Wan’er, what are you doing here?”

She seized his arm, sobbing.

“The rebels are inside the city! Father and Mother told me to find you!”

He looked at the entrance, then at her. Finally, he turned to me.

My heart sank. I knew what he meant to do.

The opening was narrow. Only one person could climb down at a time.

Someone had to remain outside to close the concealed cover, hiding the passage from discovery.

If her arrival hadn’t delayed us, my brother and I could have gone in together and used the mechanism to close the entrance. Even if there hadn’t been time to conceal it, so what? Staying alive mattered most.

The fighting in the front courtyard was drawing closer.

Linyuan abruptly pushed her toward the opening.

“Wan’er, you first!”

She didn’t protest. On hands and knees, she immediately crawled inside.

He turned back to me.

“A-Yue, find somewhere to hide.”

I stood frozen, sure I had misheard, and clutched his arm.

“Brother, you can’t leave me!”

He was impatient.

“Be good! This is your home. You’ll find somewhere to hide. Wan’er is a helpless woman. We cannot let the rebels capture and dishonor her!”

I remembered being little and afraid of the dark. He would carry me along the road at night, patting my back.

“Don’t be afraid, A-Yue. Your brother is here. No one will abandon you.”

Now he peeled my fingers away and left me amid the flames.

There was pleading in his eyes.

“Please. I’m begging you. Wan’er cannot defend herself. I have to protect her.”

“Father taught you to fight. Hide well. I’ll come back for you.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, he disappeared into the passage.

At that instant, rebel torches lit the courtyard outside the ancestral hall.

I looked around the empty space.

Where was I supposed to hide?

Footsteps drew closer.

I clenched my palm, still smeared with blood.

My brother’s blood. It had splashed onto me when he blocked a blade for me an incense stick’s time earlier.

Gritting my teeth, I crouched and pushed the stone slab back into place with all my strength, concealing the entrance.

I had barely finished when torchlight fell across my face.

“Boss! There’s a woman over here!”

The rebels approached with blood dripping from their sabers.

Their leader looked me up and down and grinned.

“Well, well. The Xie family’s legitimate daughter, perhaps?”

He reached for me.

I didn’t dodge.

There was nowhere left to go.

He slapped me hard. My ears rang, my vision blurred, and the rebels’ unrestrained laughter filled the air.

I kept staring toward the passage.

Brother, save me.

Once, the smallest scratch on me would distress you for hours.

Now I’m going to die.

Come out. Please save me!

But the passage remained silent.

The leader caught the hatred in my eyes and grabbed my hair.

Forcing my head up, he sneered.

“About to die, and you still dare glare at me?”

“If you like glaring so much, you won’t be needing those eyes!”

He drove his blade into my eye without hesitation.

I felt the hard steel dig into my eyeball.

For an instant, everything was red.

Blood ran down my face.

The pain was beyond speech. I could only open my mouth and gasp.

In that darkness, my brother never appeared.

Brother…

He had truly given up on me.

I snapped my eyes open.

The darkness remained. It would never lift.

Ten years had passed.

Whenever I remembered, my eyes still ached.

Without hesitation, I tossed aside the silver he had left. Then I turned, felt for my bamboo slips and fortune-teller’s banner, and crammed them into my cloth bag.

I couldn’t stay.

Ten years ago, my brother had discarded me without hesitation for Shen Zhiwan.

Now he had power and status. To conceal his old, despicable selfishness, to spare her discomfort—who could promise he wouldn’t try to kill me again?

If he could abandon me ten years ago, he could silence me forever ten years later to protect his splendid future.

I wanted nothing else.

Only to survive, as far from them as possible.

Being blind, I couldn’t move quickly.

I had to leave the city tonight.

But just beyond the gates, hoofbeats suddenly rang out.

Someone stopped before me, blocking my way.

“Young lady, where are you running off to in the middle of the night?”

My heart lurched. Before I could answer—

A chime.

A bell rang.

I went rigid.

I knew that sound too well.

When Linyuan had first led troops into battle, I had gone to Xiangguo Temple to pray for his safety. A bow every three steps, a prostration every nine.

I had knocked my forehead against the ground until it bled. Only then had I obtained a protective bell.

With my own hands, I had tied it to his saber with a red cord.

After ten years, it was still there.

Linyuan was here, too.

I tightened my grip on my cane and tried to sound timid.

“Forgive me, sir. My elderly mother fell gravely ill back home. I’m hurrying back to mourn her.”

I stepped aside to let them pass.

“Linyuan, why aren’t we moving?”

A frail woman’s voice came from the carriage behind him.

Shen Zhiwan.

A voice I could never forget.

My brother answered. The uncertainty he had shown toward me was gone. He reassured her gently.

“Just a fortune-teller I met earlier.”

Then, in that mild voice, he instructed his guards.

“If she’s going our way, give her a ride.”

Zhiwan softly agreed.

“Poor thing, having to travel home for a funeral at this hour.”

“We’re going to Hanshan Temple to pray for A-Yue anyway. Taking one more person won’t hurt.”

“She died so horribly. If she knows we remember her every year, her spirit will surely be comforted.”

I almost laughed aloud.

Who had crawled straight into the passage outside the ancestral hall, calmly taking the chance to live that should have been mine?

Linyuan sighed.

“It was my fault. I couldn’t protect her.”

Zhiwan sniffled at just the right moment.

“Don’t blame yourself. If A-Yue’s spirit watches over us, she would want us to live well.”

Listening to them mourn me in perfect harmony made my stomach churn.

During that terrible ordeal, drifting in and out of consciousness, I had once heard hoofbeats.

With the last of my strength, I crawled toward them, believing my brother had come back to save me.

Instead, it was another band of rebels.

The more I screamed and wept, the more cruelly they tormented me.

Zhiwan was still comforting him.

“You did everything you could. You went back for her and personally arranged her burial. Please stop blaming yourself.”

So my brother had really come back.

Had he even seen my corpse?

But after blinding and disfiguring me, the rebels had tied me to a horse’s tail and dragged me out of the city.

I hadn’t died in the ancestral hall.

Who, then, had he buried with such ceremony?

A guard’s impatient voice brought me back.

“We’re asking you! Do you want our lord to give you a ride?”

Suddenly, Zhiwan began coughing.

Linyuan was immediately alarmed.

“I told you to wear another cloak, but you wouldn’t listen. The wind in Jiangnan can make you ill. You’re frail enough already—how will you bear it?”

His voice was full of concern.

Everyone hurried to her side, fussing over her.

Hearing him attend to her every need stirred nothing in me.

The last trace of affection between us had died with the A-Yue of ten years ago.

“Thank you for your kindness, sir. I’m filthy. I wouldn’t dare soil your carriage.”

He hesitated, as though he had more to say.

Zhiwan spoke at just that moment.

“Linyuan, let’s get to Hanshan Temple. Tomorrow is the anniversary of A-Yue’s death. I want to reach the altar early and light a few more votive lamps for her.”

He hesitated no longer.

“Move!”

The carriage slowly passed me.

Though I could see nothing, I could feel it clearly.