Warm Lamps, Cold Hearts
From that morning onward, everything in the manor remained exactly as before.
And yet from that same morning onward, nothing inside either of them was the same.
By daylight, Biyue Manor looked even more like a good place than it did by night.
The wind came off the lake and crossed the embankment, but by the time it entered the gates it had already been sifted fine by tree-shadow and covered walkways. The flowers and shrubs in the front court were still kept in immaculate order. The white rabbits on the grassy slope in the rear garden still bounded about in soft little clumps. At mealtimes, the porridge was warm, the medicine was warm, even the last breath of steam curling from the rim of a cup seemed measured beforehand by someone's fingertips—not too hot, not too cool. If one looked only at such things, one would have taken this place for nothing more than a well-run lakeside manor: orderly, attentive, deeper and larger and quieter than most, perhaps, but not truly frightening.
But once one knew what lay beneath it, all that careful kindness changed its taste.
Those bowls of hot broth no longer seemed meant only to warm the stomach. They felt instead like things meant to soften a person first, to lull and wear them down until even caution grew dull. And those gentle warnings—The wind is strong today; don't stand too long by the embankment. The stones are slick; don't go too far in—no longer sounded caring. They sounded like soft cords looped lightly around the ankles: painless, but always enough to keep one from going far. Even Mama Yao's unhurried habit of leading them through the manor each day, showing them the lake, the flowers, the paths, seemed different now in memory, as though invisible boundaries had lain everywhere all along.
The manor was still white-walled and black-tiled, still quiet under drifting blossoms and shadow.
But to them, it was no longer a place where one might stop and rest.
It had become a well.
Flowers were laid over its mouth. Lamps were set above it. From every side it looked steady, even warm beneath the feet. But the moment one lowered one's eyes, one knew the depth beneath was black.
And if one did not wish to fall, then one had to stand steady too—so steady that no one could ever see the weakness in one's footing.
So the two of them learned to pretend.
Wang Yan had always been bright-eyed and quick-tongued, the sort who could not keep much hidden. Whether she liked something or hated it, whether she was pleased or annoyed, most people could read it at a glance. Yet after that night, even she began little by little to press things down and bury them inside herself. When Mama Yao had a rabbit brought over, she still took it into her arms, still stroked its ears, and could even smile and say, "It's better behaved than yesterday." When one of the young maids brought pastries dusted with sugar, she still thanked her. Only, whenever she lowered her head to take them, her fingers would tighten ever so slightly first—as though her body remembered before her mind did that there was nothing in this manor one could touch without caution.
Fang Yingjie was quieter by nature. Because of that, his pretense drew less notice.
He still rose early to regulate his breathing. He still drank his medicine on time. When someone asked after his injured leg, he still answered softly, "Much better." Sometimes Madam Wen would sit by the little table in the front court and casually ask, "Did you cough badly again last night?" He would still lower his head a little when he answered, speaking with the same unhurried gentleness as before, so that anyone watching would think the boy was just as meek and honest as ever.
Only he knew better.
Now, each time a medicine bowl was placed in his hand, his mind would first turn over the question—was it only medicine, or something more? Each night, when lamplight from outside seeped through the window paper, he would listen first for where the footsteps beyond the door came to a halt before he dared truly lie down.
They never spoke of anything aloud.
But in silence, both had already begun to remember.
When they had once followed Mama Yao merely "to look around a little," many places had seemed no more than scenery they passed through. Which carved flower window gave the best view of the lake. Which moon gate led out toward the front embankment. Which stretch beyond the grassy slope overlooked the little landing place and the shallow creek. Such things had once been no more than passing impressions.
Now they settled one by one inside their minds, solid and precise.
Wang Yan had always been quick to notice details. She remembered that if one left by the western side courtyard and passed the second corridor, there was a narrow bamboo-lined path that few people used in daylight, yet it led straight to the embankment. She remembered too that beyond the rockery behind the manor there ran a line of low flower walls, and behind those walls was not a dead end but a stone path curving out beside a shallow channel. And she remembered best of all that a little landing place lay slightly east of the rear garden slope, so inconspicuous that it was easy to overlook. In the daytime it was usually empty. A small boat carrying vegetables or firewood might sometimes put in there briefly, but once dusk fell, even fewer people came near it.
Fang Yingjie's leg made him slower. He could not move about as freely as she could, and perhaps because of that, he saw another layer more clearly.
He watched people.
Which guards most often rotated duty at the front pier. Which two older women went to the front court in the afternoon to report matters. Which group of young maids delivered meals earliest, and which were the last to lower the lamps at night. Which lanterns under the corridors stayed lit until the third watch, and which were shifted half a foot farther away when new people took over the watch. If a boat arrived from outside, which clapper on which side sounded first, and who inside the manor went out to receive it.
Others might never have paid attention to such things.
He remembered them all in silence.
But remembering was one thing. Truly speaking the word escape was another.
It was not that they did not want to flee.
It was that they did not dare.
The stone chamber underground, the white skeleton half-buried in damp mud, the eyeless woman whose life still trembled by a thread in her throat—those things remained in their minds like a needle, slender and icy-cold. In daylight, while walking beneath the shadows of flowers and bamboo, with the lake glimmering beyond, it almost seemed to fade. But once night came and the lamps were put out, the needle would rise again.
Every time they thought that if they failed to escape—or worse, were caught halfway and dragged back—what awaited them might not be a beating or a scolding but that stone chamber beneath the earth, a sheet of cold seemed to pour over both their hearts.
They were only children.
Knowing one ought to run and truly daring to do it had never been the same thing.
There had been two or three moments when the thought had nearly made it to their lips.
Once, in the afternoon, the wind was light outside the front embankment and the water lay smooth. A small fishing boat drifted past the shallows in the distance. Wang Yan stood beneath the corridor watching it for a long time, then said in a voice so low it was almost nothing, "If there were a boat like that at night, do you think we could also—"
She stopped before she finished.
Because at that moment there flashed through her mind again the stale, wet stench that had struck her face when the hidden door opened. And with it came Li Ying's calm, easy voice: They're all still in my hand. What is there to fear?
The tone had been too light, too assured. It made the two of them feel like no more than toys resting in someone's palm.
It was enough to make even perhaps dangerous.
Another time, near dusk, Fang Yingjie had finished regulating his breathing and was leaning by the window when he noticed the guards changing shifts near the little landing place behind the manor. There was a brief gap—very brief—between one set of watchmen and the next. His heart jumped so hard that he almost went to Wang Yan at once to say, Tonight might be our chance.
But the words stopped in his throat.
Though his right leg could now manage slow walking over short distances, if he truly had to vault a wall, scramble down the embankment, or seize a boat and force his way out, then the slightest exertion done too quickly would reopen the ache deep in the bones. If his leg failed him halfway, not only would he fail to escape—he would drag Wang Yan down with him.
So each time, the thought was forced back down.
And each time it was pressed back, their hearts only grew heavier.
It was like standing at the mouth of a well, seeing clearly in the distance a narrow road that could be taken, yet knowing one was not steady enough even to take the first step. All one could do was keep standing there, pretending nothing was urgent.
And so, outwardly, they became more and more as though nothing were wrong.
When Mama Yao called them to the waterside pavilion in front, they went. When Madam Wen said the wind was calm today and they might stand by the embankment for a while to watch the water, they stood. Sometimes a little table would be set beneath the flower trellis in the rear garden, with cakes, honey water, fruit dishes, and a white rabbit. Wang Yan would still reach out and gather it into her arms. Fang Yingjie would still lower his head and feed it.
Seen from a distance, the two of them looked little different from a few days before—like frightened children who were now gradually being soothed by the manor's quiet, gentle life.
Only they themselves knew that every walk they were taken on these few days was no longer a matter of "getting some air."
They were measuring.
Measuring how many steps it took to cross a corridor. Measuring how long it took to climb out through the western side courtyard window and reach the rockery in the rear garden. Measuring which stretch between the grassy slope and the landing place best concealed a human figure. Measuring too whether the small store of courage inside them had yet reached the point where they dared truly put the word go into action.
And the more they measured, the more they understood that they still lacked one thing.
It was not a road.
It was not a boat.
It was not the right hour.
It was resolve.
Without resolve, even a familiar road was only a road. Even a boat lying close at hand was still someone else's boat.
Both understood that much.
So neither pressed the other any longer. They only forced that urgency down into the deepest part of the heart and waited for it to burn there on its own, until the day came when it could no longer be pressed down at all.
In those days, they were not without encounters with Feng Wuji and his disciple.
Those long robes the color of bamboo did not look especially striking in daylight, and yet the moment they entered one's sight, one instinctively wanted to avoid them. Feng Wuji himself did not appear often. Most of the time he was glimpsed only occasionally in the front court or over by the eastern lakeside, moving like some respectable guest of the manor, his expression cold, his pace unhurried. Looking at him, one would never have guessed there had ever been anything of that obscene abandon from behind the bed curtains that night.
And that only made the skin crawl more.
Because one knew perfectly well what he was, and yet anyone else looking from the side would still think him some stern and dignified senior of the martial world.
As for Feng Tengyun, he appeared rather more often.
He always looked like a man unable to keep down his own restless temper, and even when he tried to hide it, the vulgar lightness in his eyes never vanished cleanly. Whenever Wang Yan spotted him in the distance, she almost always slowed instinctively—either slipping aside behind a flower trellis, rockery, or corridor corner, or else simply pulling Fang Yingjie along another way. Fang Yingjie never needed it explained. He only followed.
The two of them never spoke of it, yet their steps grew more and more practiced together. The moment they glimpsed that bamboo-green robe in the distance, they turned away first. If they could scatter, they scattered. Better to go around half a corridor more than let him come near.
So they went on pretending, watching, remembering.
Several more days passed.
The flowers still bloomed. The lamps still burned. The lake wind still drifted in over the embankment.
But beneath that soft, warm-seeming life, the mute fire inside the two children kept burning until, little by little, it thinned out their fear.
Only not yet enough for them to throw themselves forward at once.
Then, two days later, something appeared in the manor that should not have been there.
And it was that very trace that finally drove the resolve in their hearts—so long held down and never fully fixed—suddenly into the open.
A Returning Shadow
It was near midday.
The wind on the lake was not strong, and the little landing place outside the western side courtyard, beside the shallow creek, lay quiet as usual.
Mama Yao had said there were guests in front and told them they need only sit somewhere near the rear garden, without lingering long by the embankment. Wang Yan answered obediently, but as always she still carried the white rabbit in her arms and wandered with Fang Yingjie toward the far end of the corridor. It was not defiance. Over the past few days she had come to know the nearer parts of the manor well enough to know that if one went around that way, beyond the bamboo shadows and low wall, one could glimpse half of the landing place.
By day, the landing place was usually empty.
At most, a small boat bringing vegetables or firewood would tie up for a moment and be gone again, leaving nothing behind.
But that day a little covered skiff was moored there—a narrow, low black-canopied boat.
It was very small. The canopy was pressed low, and the craft had been tied up close. Seen from afar, it might easily have passed for some common supply boat resting a moment after making a delivery. Yet the instant Wang Yan's gaze swept across it, something in her sank.
The first thing she saw was the rope.
The end had not been wrapped carelessly. It had first been looped back, then laid flat, then wound half a turn around the post, tight and clean and efficient. She had seen that manner of tying once before, on Madam Wen's boat a few days ago. At the time, when Chief Steward Zhou's men had hauled in one of the small craft, one of them had gathered the rope in exactly that way.
Wang Yan slowed.
The rabbit in her arms seemed to sense the stiffness that had suddenly come over her, and one ear twitched lightly.
"What is it?" Fang Yingjie asked in a low voice.
Wang Yan did not answer at once. She stared at the little boat a moment more before whispering, very softly, "That knot... it's wrong."
"What do you mean, wrong?"
"It looks like Chief Steward Zhou's men."
Fang Yingjie's chest tightened sharply, and his eyes dropped to the boat as well.
He did not know rope knots. But he recognized something else.
A strip of old blue cloth hung by the edge of the canopy, serving as a curtain against the wind. Pressed into one corner of it was a faint pattern, almost invisible unless one looked closely, like moonlight reflected on water. The design was so delicate it would have gone unnoticed by most eyes, but over the past few days he had seen it too often, in too many places in the manor and on its boats, to mistake it now.
It belonged to the manor.
Yet only days ago, Madam Wen had said in front of them that Chief Steward Zhou was still at the mouth of Taihu, looking after matters for Wang Yan's family and would not be free to leave for some time yet.
Fang Yingjie felt his throat grow taut.
"Maybe... maybe it's only someone else from the manor."
But Wang Yan did not answer.
Still staring at the boat, she suddenly noticed a string of fresh footprints in the wet mud by the stone edge of the landing place. The prints were not large, but they were pressed deep, showing the person had disembarked in haste and with force. More importantly, the front edge of the right sole had a small notch missing. Where it had stamped into the mud, the print came out with a slight bite taken from the curve.
Wang Yan's eyes fixed.
"It isn't someone else."
Her voice was very low now, but her fingers had already clenched tight.
"What?"
"The morning my father was taken down to the boat, I saw Chief Steward Zhou's shoes."
She pressed her lips together and lowered her voice further.
"He stepped down in a hurry, right foot first onto the deck. The front edge of the sole was worn away at one corner, so the wet print came out a little shorter than the others. I noticed it then and even thought to myself—he looks so proper, and yet even his shoe sole is worn through."
She drew in a slow breath.
"It's him. I know it is."
At those words, the palm of Fang Yingjie's hand turned cold.
Just then, the half-shut bamboo door behind the water gate moved softly.
Both children shrank back by instinct, pressing themselves at once into the narrow slit of shadow between the flower wall and the bamboo grove. Neither dared breathe too hard.
The next instant, a figure slipped quickly out from behind the bamboo door.
He wore the ordinary colors of a manor steward, with a faded blue outer jacket thrown over them to make him less conspicuous. Had the thought not already been in their minds, they might truly have taken him for no more than some household servant on an errand. But he moved too quickly, too surely, and when he lowered his head passing the threshold, the side of his face that showed was enough to make both their hearts sink in unison.
It was Chief Steward Zhou.
A sheen of cold sweat broke out across Wang Yan's back at once, and she nearly cried out before forcing the breath back down.
Was he not supposed to be still at the mouth of Taihu?
How was he here?
And not entering openly from the front court, but slipping ashore by this hidden little water gate at the rear of the manor?
Chief Steward Zhou did not pause.
The moment he came ashore, he cast a swift glance to either side, gathered the faded blue jacket more tightly around himself, and headed off along the narrow path beside the wall toward the front side of the manor. The path was extremely narrow and seldom used. Bamboo shadow and piled rock hid it further ahead. Had the two children not spent these days memorizing the roads with desperate care, they would never have known such a path even led forward.
Only after his figure vanished into the bamboo did Wang Yan slowly let out the breath she had been holding.
When it left her, her back was drenched in sweat.
"She lied to us," she whispered.
The words were light as dust, but they crushed the last scraps of hope they had still been trying to preserve.
Fang Yingjie said nothing.
Because he knew Wang Yan was right.
Those earlier assurances—There has already been word from your family. Chief Steward Zhou is still at the mouth of Taihu. The road is still open—had already begun to chill the mind the more one thought on them. Now, with Chief Steward Zhou standing before their own eyes, the last thin skin had been ripped away.
What had happened back at Taihu, they did not know.
Whether Wang Afu, Qian-shi, and Wang Shun were alive or dead, trapped or escaped, they did not know.
And the reason the two of them had been allowed these past days to eat and drink and take their medicine in peace, to look at the lake and hold white rabbits, was simply because someone wanted them calm and settled here first.
At that thought, the fire that had been burning inside Wang Yan all this time—always there, always just short of hardening into decision—suddenly leapt upward.
It was not that she was no longer afraid.
It was that her fear had been driven so far that something ruthless had begun to rise beneath it.
She stared hard at the direction Chief Steward Zhou had gone and, after a long moment, said in a taut whisper, "I need to know who he's gone to meet."
Fang Yingjie turned to her at once.
"That's too dangerous."
"I know." Her voice was tight. "But if we don't even dare follow this much, then all we'll ever do is stand here and guess."
She paused.
There was heat in her eyes now, but it was no longer only fear.
"I kept thinking maybe if we waited a little longer, maybe news would really come, maybe someone would really come for us. But now..." She swallowed. "Now I don't dare wait."
When she said it, even she seemed startled by her own words.
Because only at that moment did she truly realize that the resolve she had been unable to force into shape had already been driven up against her face.
Fang Yingjie looked at her, a dull tightness stirring in his chest and under his ribs. But in the end he did not stop her. He only said in a low voice, "Not too close."
"All right."
"If anyone turns around, we split at once."
"All right."
One behind the other, they slipped after him, hugging bamboo shadow and flower walls as lightly as they could.
The path itself was rarely used. Fine gravel had been spread underfoot, and it made little sound when trodden on. Farther ahead, beyond a stretch of low flower walls and two corners, it gradually left behind the part of the western side courtyard where children might ordinarily wander and entered a quieter cluster of buildings to the east. Here, people were rarely seen. The corridors were deeper, the foliage thicker. Even the wind seemed half-caught beneath the eaves and in the corners of the walls.
Chief Steward Zhou walked like a man completely familiar with the way.
Clearly this was not the first time he had taken it.
He never looked back. Only now and then, before a turn, he would slow briefly as though listening for movement before or behind him, then continue on. Wang Yan and Fang Yingjie did not dare press too close. They advanced one hiding place at a time, using trellises, moon gates, and the shadows of rockeries for cover. Wang Yan's steps were light to begin with. Fang Yingjie, though hindered by his leg, was holding himself together with a single thread of concentration and managed not to drag it badly.
Thus they passed through two more corridors, and suddenly a small side court appeared ahead.
It was not a large court. Two old osmanthus trees stood outside it, and beneath them a carved flower window was set into the wall. There was little light inside, save for one wind lantern hanging low beneath the eaves, its yellow glow faint but sufficient to illuminate the small patch of stone steps before the door. The gate stood half-open, as though someone was already within, waiting only for a familiar visitor to come and go.
When Chief Steward Zhou reached it, he did not knock. He only paused lightly beside the door.
The next moment, someone inside opened it for him.
The movement was quick, almost too quick, as though the person within had known precisely when he would arrive and by which road.
The children's hearts sank again.
They did not dare creep any closer, but flattened themselves motionless in the shadow beneath the outer flower window.
Once the door shut, there was silence for a moment inside.
Then, faintly, there came a woman's voice they knew all too well.
It was neither loud nor hurried. It remained warm and gentle, exactly like any of the times she had asked in the front corridor whether they had eaten, whether they had taken medicine, whether they had slept well.
"You're back?"
Wang Yan's fingers convulsed. Her nails nearly cut into her own palm.
It was Li Ying—the woman who had stood before them all this time in the guise of Madam Wen.
And yet by daylight she had been so calm when she said Chief Steward Zhou was still far away at the mouth of Taihu.
Then came Chief Steward Zhou's low reply.
"Madam."
Silence settled again in the room.
It sounded as though someone had sat down. Or perhaps something had been set lightly upon a table. Then Chief Steward Zhou's voice came again, muffled and low. Through a door and a court, the words could not be caught whole. Only fragments drifted through, broken and incomplete—and somehow that made them colder.
"...on the Taihu side, everything has been contained as Madam instructed..."
"...what needed erasing has been erased..."
"...nothing there will be allowed to stir up trouble for now..."
"...in any case, they won't be able to pull matters back here any time soon..."
By then Wang Yan's fingertips had turned utterly cold.
She tilted her face instinctively, trying to catch more clearly, but all she could hear near her own ears was the heavy thudding of her heart against her ribs.
There was another brief silence inside.
Then Li Ying made a small sound of acknowledgment.
"Mm."
Her voice remained mild and soft, no different from the voice with which she asked after meals and medicine in the front corridor by day.
"And there?"
Chief Steward Zhou answered even more quietly.
This time not a full sentence could be made out, only broken pieces slipping through the cracks beneath the door like frayed threads in the wind.
"...still being kept under control..."
"...the ones that need watching are being watched..."
"...for now no one can spare attention for anything else..."
"...there's no need to leave more people there..."
Wang Yan's vision whitened.
She did not know who those words—kept under control, being watched, no one can spare attention elsewhere—were meant to describe. But the less she knew, the more desperately her heart tried to lean toward the one possibility it wanted to believe.
So long as there were still people there—so long as not everyone was gone—then there was still a reason to go back and see with her own eyes.
Li Ying seemed to laugh softly.
The sound came through the door in that same gentle, soothing register, but in the ears of the two children it was colder than the stench of the underground chamber.
"...good."
That part came clearly enough. Something had come before it, but the words had been swallowed by the door and the wind.
A moment later, Li Ying said lazily, "Since that side has been dealt with, all that remains is this side here."
Another silence followed.
Chief Steward Zhou's voice dropped even lower. Only one line escaped clearly enough to be heard:
"...has everything in the manor remained steady these past few days?"
"Steady," Li Ying said lightly.
Then she paused, and the next line came clearer still, as though she had leaned a little nearer.
"The two little ones are still behaving themselves for the moment."
After that, the voices dropped once more. Pressed beneath the window, the children could catch only scattered words and phrases—
"...the worst thing is not crying or making trouble..."
"...it's when they still carry thoughts of the old road in their hearts and refuse to give up hope..."
"...if they can be soothed and tied down securely..."
And then one final sentence fell with terrible clarity into both their ears.
Li Ying's voice was very light. There was even the hint of a careless smile in it.
"Give it a few more days."
"When their spirits have softened a little more, and their roads have been cut off a little more firmly, they'll be much easier to use."
The moment those words were spoken, the blood in the children's bodies seemed to freeze.
Use.
Not keep.
Not protect.
Not shelter.
Use.
So the medicine they had swallowed, the porridge they had eaten, the lakeside views they had been allowed, the white rabbits they had held, every gentle warning not to stand too long in the wind or go too close to the damp stones—every bit of it had only ever been meant to keep them here, keep them docile, soften them a little further so they could be handled more easily when the time came.
Inside the room there was silence again.
It did not last long, but it was more grinding than the broken conversation that had come before. It was as though someone had deliberately lowered their voice further, so that even the faint touch of a teacup against a tabletop seemed suddenly nearer. Then came the whisper of clothing brushing once across itself, as if Li Ying had risen to her feet—or perhaps had already moved slowly to stand close before Chief Steward Zhou.
His breathing did indeed grow uneven.
He seemed to be trying to suppress it, but failing. That mixture of respect, fear, and a warmth he should not have dared feel could be heard even through the door.
Li Ying gave another low laugh.
"You have had a hard journey, Chief Steward Zhou."
She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was softer still, and slower.
"You handled this matter neatly. Tonight, I shall reward you properly."
Reward you.
The words were neither heavy nor light, but their meaning could not have been clearer.
There was a brief silence inside. Then Chief Steward Zhou's breathing broke for a beat, and when he answered, his voice was low and heated with something he did not dare put into words.
"This subordinate... does not deserve it."
Li Ying's laughter deepened.
"You say you do not, but your heart may think otherwise."
She spoke the line slowly, softly, like fingertips drawn over someone's chest with deliberate ease, enough to make the bones themselves burn.
But outside the window, the two children heard it and felt only their stomachs twist while the blood in them turned colder by the moment.
A few more words were exchanged inside, but by then nothing that followed truly mattered.
Because the deepest layer of truth had already been revealed, and it was enough.
At that point, the thing in Wang Yan that had still been shaking, still hesitating, slowly settled.
It was not that she was no longer afraid.
It was that fear had brought her all the way to the end, and beyond that end there was no other road left.
If they ran, they might still die.
If they did not run, they might not even be allowed a life left with which to gamble.
She bit down hard, breathing so softly she could barely hear herself, and for the first time she forced the word she had never dared set down firmly into place in her own heart.
Run.
Fang Yingjie had gone rigid beside her.
His palms were soaked with cold sweat. The breath in his chest would not sink and settle; it kept threatening to turn upward again. Yet he no longer had room in his mind for the ache of old injuries or the heaviness beneath his ribs. He felt only as though he were standing on the thinnest possible skin of flowers spread across the mouth of a well, and the ground beneath him had suddenly vanished.
If they waited any longer, they would not be waiting for a road.
They would be waiting for the net to draw tight.
He did not know how much time passed before there came the faint scrape of a chair inside, as if someone were about to rise.
Wang Yan snapped back to herself. She seized Fang Yingjie's sleeve in a sudden grip and forced the word through clenched teeth, barely above a breath.
"Go."
The sound was light. It trembled.
But its meaning could not have been clearer.
Neither of them dared remain even for another heartbeat. They retreated at once the way they had come, step by step.
Back past the flower window, past the osmanthus trees, back through two corridors, until at last they had wound their way once more to the shallower reaches of the rear garden. Only when they heard the faint rustle of the white rabbit worrying at the grass by the slope did it seem to them that they had clawed their way back from somewhere inhuman into the world of the living.
And just then, Mama Yao's voice came from the corridor ahead.
"Miss? Young Master? How did you end up over here?"
Both children tightened at once.
Mama Yao had already come around the bend in the covered walk. Seeing them there, she first let out a breath of relief, then said with mild reproach, "Didn't I just say you were only to sit somewhere nearby? I turn around for a moment and you've gone this far. I thought you'd gone all the way to the embankment and was about to send someone to look."
The sweat on Wang Yan's back had not yet dried. Her face was still pale. That, at least, made it easy to look as though the wind had simply gotten to her. She lowered her head at once, wrapped her arms around herself, and said in a soft voice, "We didn't go far. I only felt a little stifled when we came around this way."
Then, after a beat, she added, "I'm a little tired. I want to go back and rest."
Fang Yingjie took his cue and set a hand against the nearby trellis, saying quietly, "My leg is aching a little too."
Mama Yao looked from one to the other. One was pale-faced. The other was bracing himself against the trellis. They truly did look like children who had stood too long outside and been worn down by the heavy afternoon air. She thought nothing more of it.
"If you're tired, then don't walk anymore," she said. "Go back and rest. You weren't meant to sit long in front today anyway."
And with that, she led them back toward the western side courtyard.
No one spoke on the way.
Once they reached the courtyard gate, Mama Yao gave them a few more instructions—if you feel dizzy, don't read for now; I'll have the medicine sent over later—and urged them each back to their rooms. Wang Yan responded softly and returned first to her own. Fang Yingjie, one hand on the doorframe, went into the room opposite.
Mama Yao stood beneath the corridor a moment longer, reminding them of one thing and another. When both answered from inside, she finally turned away.
Only after her footsteps had truly receded—after even the faint shadow of her robe at the corridor corner had disappeared—did Wang Yan's door fly open.
She half ran across the short covered passage, reached Fang Yingjie's door, pushed it open, slipped inside, and shut it hard behind her.
The moment the door closed, it was as though all the strength had been pulled out of her at once. She leaned back against the wood and could not speak for a long moment.
Fang Yingjie stood in the middle of the room, his face no less pale. He had forced himself the whole way back not to show anything, but now that they were here, the breath in his chest began turning over again in rough waves, leaving the place beneath his ribs faintly tight. Yet he had no mind to regulate his inner force.
He only asked in a low voice, "How much did you hear?"
Wang Yan lifted her head.
Her eyes were red, but she had not let the tears truly fall.
"Enough."
Her voice was taut.
"Enough to know we can't wait any longer."
The words fell, and the room went still.
Setting Aside Hope, Settling the Plan
The daylight outside the window was still bright. The white rabbits on the grassy slope were still nibbling quietly at the grass. Farther off, wind came off the lake and stirred the flower trellises, and even the shifting shadows of the blossoms still looked warm.
But inside the room, both children understood.
From this moment on, every extra day they stayed would not be one more day spent waiting for a chance to turn things around. It would be one more day given to others to coax them softer, tame them more thoroughly, and tie them down more securely.
Wang Yan spoke first.
"We run tomorrow."
It was not a suggestion. It sounded like words that had long been lodged in her throat, words she had never dared truly say aloud, finally forced out in one breath.
Fang Yingjie looked at her. He was silent for a moment before answering in a low voice.
"Tomorrow?"
"Yes. Tomorrow." Wang Yan bit down hard on the words. "We can't wait. Today is already too late."
As she went on, the shock she had barely kept under control a moment ago hardened, little by little, into something fiercer and more solid.
"You heard them too. 'A few more days.' 'When their hearts are softer, when their roads are cut off more completely.' They don't mean to keep us here. They mean to raise us tame. Two more days, two more rounds of coaxing, and we'll really become things in her hands."
Each sentence pressed harder than the last. By the end, even her throat had gone slightly hoarse.
Fang Yingjie said nothing.
Because she was right.
If they did not run, then sooner or later they would simply wait for others to make use of them.
The room fell silent for a while.
Wang Yan forced herself to steady her breathing first. Then she lifted a hand and tapped the corner of the table lightly.
"We can't just bolt blindly. And we can't make it up on the spot. We have to fit together everything we've seen these past few days."
As she said it, she seemed, all at once, to become again the girl who had grown up by the lake—not because she was unafraid, but because she had reached the far edge of fear and could think of nothing now but how to stay alive.
"First, the manor."
She bent her fingers one by one as she sorted it out.
"If we leave the west side courtyard, cross the second corridor, and take the side path, it leads to the embankment. Hardly anyone uses that route in the daytime, and fewer still later on. But if we really tried to get out that way, we'd either have to climb over the bank or wade down the shallows. Too exposed. That won't do."
"That little landing on the east side of the back garden slope is usually empty in daylight. Once in a while a small boat bringing vegetables or firewood will stop there. But after dusk, there's even less traffic. It's close to the water, and the boats there are light. That's the best place to make our move."
"As for the small water gate at the back of the manor, where it meets the shallow channel—Chief Steward Zhou came in through there today. If it can be used to enter, then it can be used to leave. But someone watches it, and in daylight we still can't tell how the latch is worked. If we force it, we'll most likely run straight into someone."
She looked up.
"So the safest choice isn't to try the water gate. It's that little landing."
Fang Yingjie had been listening in silence all along. Only then did he add quietly, "There's a small skiff moored there too. I saw it once three days ago, and I saw it again today. It's not the one that brings vegetables every day. Low awning, light hull, shallow draft. Most likely it's a boat the manor keeps for going back and forth close to shore."
Wang Yan looked at him at once.
"You noticed too?"
He nodded. "I did. It comes and goes around the same times too. Either early in the morning or later in the afternoon. Quick in and quick out. Not like a delivery boat. More like something used to pass messages or carry small items."
Then, after a brief pause, he added the part that mattered just as much.
"It's light, which helps us. But because it's light, if the wind rises or the water turns rough, it won't hold steady."
At that, Wang Yan's fingers curled slightly. It was the one part she least wanted to touch, and he had laid a hand on it all the same. But she knew it was the truth. She gave only a low hum of acknowledgment and went on.
"Then the people."
"The hardest thing in this manor is that we can't trust anyone. But if we can't trust anyone, then all we can trust is when certain people aren't there."
Her eyes steadied as she spoke.
"Mama Yao stays with us all the time. If we don't shake her off, we won't get out."
"The front courtyard and the main gate are guarded too tightly. If we try to force our way through there, someone will see us at once. But that little landing in the back garden isn't meant for outsiders to use. Because of that, it isn't watched as closely as the front."
"The most important thing is that tomorrow we have to get out of the manor first—and we have to walk out openly. We can't wait until night and start climbing out windows and groping for a path. We already ran into horror once doing that. Next time we may not come back alive."
She raised her head and looked straight at Fang Yingjie.
"So tomorrow, while it's still daylight, we have to find a way to make them let us go out for a walk."
A faint heaviness settled in Fang Yingjie's chest.
"She may not agree."
"She will," Wang Yan said. "She just won't let us go far."
There was something almost ruthless in the brightness of her eyes now.
"These past few days she's been loosening the leash little by little. Letting us hold the rabbits, look at the lake, walk to the front courtyard, walk to the back garden—it's all been done bit by bit, to make us trust her. If tomorrow I say that staying inside the manor so long has left me feeling stifled, and that I want to go outside near the embankment to look at the lake, maybe stop near the landing and buy a few sweet pastries, she probably won't refuse outright."
She lowered her voice even further.
"She may not answer herself. Most likely she'll leave it to Mama Yao. But so long as they don't block the road from the start, then we can still work on the rest."
At that, Fang Yingjie understood.
They were not going to charge their way out.
They were going to make use of that lingering thought in Li Ying's mind—that she was still in the middle of coaxing them—and slide along the rope she herself had slackened, all the way to the water and the landing.
The room was silent again.
The fear in them had not faded. If anything, as the plan slowly took shape, it became more real. The moment they began truly sorting routes, watchers, and boats, escape stopped being a word and became something they would soon have to stake their lives on.
After a long while, Fang Yingjie said quietly, "Even if we can make it as far as the little landing, there are still two things left."
"What two?"
"First, how to draw Mama Yao away. Second, once we're out, which direction do we row?"
Wang Yan pressed her lips together.
"Mama Yao... we'll need confusion."
"You can't just try to lure her over to look at one thing. That would be too obvious. Better if she's thrown off balance first, and then we move in the middle of it."
As she spoke, her eyes drifted to the sliver of sky beyond the window, and her voice fell lower.
"These past two afternoons the clouds have hung low. If tomorrow's the same, the people in the manor will likely start bringing in the trellises, the laundry, the baskets of herbs laid out to dry. The waterside will be in more disorder than usual. That'll be the easiest time to find a gap."
Fang Yingjie followed the line of her thinking.
"If she looks away even for a moment, you go first and loose the mooring line. I'll keep her off you."
Wang Yan turned and glared at him. "You think you can?"
The look caught him short. His ears even warmed a little despite everything.
"Not for long," he said under his breath. "But for a moment or two, I can."
She looked at his face—still pale with lingering injury, yet harder now than it had been days ago—and her heart tightened. The rebuke that had risen to her lips—What are you trying to prove?—did not come out at once. After a moment, she said softly, "You can't stop her by force. Your leg still isn't well. If she gets one hand on you, neither of us will escape."
"Then not stop," he said. "Delay."
Wang Yan thought for a moment, teeth clenched, and finally forced herself to sort through even the most dangerous part.
"If we really get out tomorrow, I'll first make some excuse to go look at the boat by the landing. If she refuses, I'll say I want to buy sweet pastries, or go look at the fish market outside. Anything—so long as it gets us into that stretch near the landing."
"When we get there, if people happen to be busy bringing things in and the weather is turning, I'll deliberately pull her attention to something else—a lamp, a basket, a bundle, a handkerchief, anything. The moment she turns even a little, you get on the boat first and cast off."
"I'll jump aboard after you."
"And if someone sees us—"
She broke off, and the fear rose at last, plain in her eyes.
"If someone sees us, then we gamble everything and shove the boat off first."
The room was very quiet. Quiet enough that from far outside they could hear, faintly, the sound of one of the white rabbits scratching at the grass under the trellis.
After a long silence, Fang Yingjie asked the final question.
"And after we get out?"
This time Wang Yan did not answer at once.
She lowered her head and ran once more through everything she had watched over the last few days—the water, the wind, the channels, the shadows of passing boats—before she said slowly, "First, get away from the manor. Then turn north."
"If the water stays manageable and the wind doesn't turn too vicious, we follow the shallow channels back as best we can. If we can make our way toward Taihu, that's best. If we can't, we still can't stay anywhere near Biyue Manor."
"We're not going to save anyone right now. First we have to get out alive."
She said the last words very softly, but there was no softness in their truth.
At that moment, they both finally understood. If they really meant to go this time, then it was not to look around, not to search for help, not to seek anyone out.
It was only the most basic and most desperate thing in the world:
to climb out of this well alive.
After that, they went over everything else they could think of in painstaking detail.
If there was rope in the boat, should they cut it or untie it? If there was a water scoop, should they bring it? If someone gave chase halfway out, should they hug the bank or head toward open water? If the wind truly rose, should the bow meet it head-on or slant across it? If Fang Yingjie's right leg flared in pain halfway through, would his hands still be able to manage the oar? If they could no longer keep the boat moving, then Wang Yan would take the oar while he bailed water, balanced the gunwale, and kept their bearings.
The more they talked, the more dangerous the road ahead seemed. Yet the more they spoke, the more clearly they knew that dangerous or not, it was the only road left to them.
At last, neither of them spoke again.
The sunlight edged westward a little at a time, and the shadows of the blossoms shifted slowly across the window paper. Outside, everything remained quiet. Even the birds in the manor seemed hushed in the afternoon stillness. But inside the room, the hearts of those two children had been forced into another shape over the course of that one afternoon. Wait a little longer had become If we do not leave tomorrow, we may never leave alive at all.
No one knew how much time had passed before Wang Yan suddenly asked in a low voice, "If the boat really overturns... will you blame me?"
The question came so lightly it was as though she herself had not meant it to be heard clearly.
Fang Yingjie stared for a moment, then slowly raised his eyes.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because if we don't run, we die anyway."
His voice was not loud, nor heroic, and there was even a trace of that rough awkwardness peculiar to boys his age. But because of that, it rang all the truer.
He paused. The tips of his ears warmed a little, as though what came next was harder to say than what had come before.
"Besides... you're not the only one gambling."
"We are both in it."
Wang Yan looked at him steadily for a long moment. Her eyes stung. Then she turned her head away at once, as though afraid that if she did not, something too soft might show on her face at the wrong time.
"You little blockhead," she muttered under her breath. "Most days you can smother a person to death with how little you say. But when it comes to a moment like this, suddenly you'll say anything."
Fang Yingjie's ears were still warm, but he said nothing.
And yet it was precisely at that moment that the wordless understanding between them—which until then had been no more than both of them standing together over the mouth of the same well and pretending to be steady—was pressed into something deeper.
If the boat overturned, if they went into the water, if they were caught, then neither would be running for himself alone any longer. They had already tied their lives together.
Outside, the daylight was slanting west.
The manor remained warm and quiet, as though nothing at all had happened. But in the hearts of those two children, the word tomorrow had finally been driven in like a stake.
After that, only one thing remained:
to walk, in truth, the road they had just wagered with their lives.
Wind over the Heart of the Lake
The next morning broke under an ugly sky.
At dawn there had been only the thinnest veil of gloom, but by the time the day drew toward noon, the light over the lake had turned steadily grayer. The bright ripples that had been scattered over the distant water seemed at some unknown moment to have gathered and sunk into one broad sheet of dull blue-gray, as though something beneath the surface were slowly dragging the whole sky downward. Even the drooping branches of the old willows by the front of the manor hung lower than they had the day before, their leaves turned pale underneath, a sure sign that the wind had shifted in secret.
Any child raised by the lake would have known at a glance that weather like this would not stay quiet.
Wang Yan had seen it from first thing in the morning, and strangely enough her heart had settled a little at once.
Because the rougher the weather turned, the easier it would be for the servants of the manor to fall into disorder. Things that needed bringing in would have to be gathered in. Anything that needed shielding from rain would have to be covered. The areas by the embankment, the landing, and the waterside pavilion would not be watched in the slow, careful way they were on clear days. In disorder lay their one chance.
And things unfolded almost exactly as she had guessed.
At breakfast both children looked no different from usual.
The porridge was warm as always, and the little flat cakes had just come off the griddle, their edges thin and crisp with a faint fragrance of grain. Mama Yao sat nearby keeping an eye on them, reminding Fang Yingjie not to let his medicine cool before he drank it or it would be hard on his stomach. Wang Yan kept her head lowered and ate in small bites, perfectly quiet, as though she had spent no sleepless hours the night before and had risen only to go through another ordinary morning. But while a maid turned away to refill the hot water and Mama Yao glanced aside to ask about the medicine, Wang Yan swiftly wrapped two small sweet cakes in a handkerchief and slipped them into her sleeve.
She did not take much, and she hid them lightly—only enough to stave off hunger for a little while on a hurried road. She dared not take more. Too much, and someone would notice. Yet if she prepared nothing at all, then once they were on the lake, if the wind rose and rain began and there was no shore ahead and no village behind, they would not have so much as a mouthful to quiet the emptiness in their stomachs.
Fang Yingjie had not been idle either.
Such furtive little acts of hiding and tucking things away did not come naturally to him, but he had been ready for it since dawn. So while he bent his head to drink the medicine, he quietly tucked the half of an untouched cake beside his hand into his robes. It was still warm. Pressed against his chest beneath the fabric, it left him unable for a moment to tell whether the heat at his heart came from the cake or from the thudding of his own unsteady pulse.
Not once did the two of them look at each other.
But those little cakes hidden in sleeve and breast said more clearly than words ever could:
today, they were truly going to run.
By late morning, young maids had begun hurrying outside to gather in the trays of herbs laid out to dry. In the front courtyard, the two light trellises draped with flowering vines had been tied down with extra cord, plainly for fear that a sudden afternoon gust might overturn them. Even Mama Yao seemed busier than usual, moving back and forth several times. Her voice remained composed, but her steps were half a beat quicker than before.
A little after noon, Wang Yan pressed her fingers lightly to her brow and let herself look a little listless before Mama Yao.
"What is it?" the older woman asked at once. "Is your head heavy again?"
"I've been shut inside too long. Everything feels dull and close," Wang Yan said softly. "The wind is bad today, I know, but I'd still like to go out and walk a little. The more I stand by the window and look, the more stifled I feel."
She paused, then added lightly, as though trying not to sound troublesome:
"We wouldn't need to go far. Just around the embankment nearby to look at the lake. If we happened to pass the landing too, that would be even better."
Mama Yao frowned at once.
"In weather like this, what is there to look at by the landing? If rain comes down in earnest, it'll be trouble enough getting back."
Wang Yan pressed her lips together and said no more. She only lowered her head and wound her fingers around the corner of her robe. She was a lively girl by nature. With that brightness withdrawn, she truly did look like someone who had been withering a little from being shut in too long.
At the right moment, Fang Yingjie added quietly from the side, "My leg makes me slow. If it's too far, then of course we won't go. But staying penned up in the manor all day is stifling, and Yanzi didn't sleep well last night either."
He said it neither stubbornly nor pleadingly. He made it sound like the simple truth, offered in passing.
And that simple truth pressed down on Mama Yao just enough.
Over the past few days, she had seen it herself. The two children had grown steadier on the surface, but beneath that steadiness the old fright had not fully gone. Biyue Manor, however secure, was still not their own place. Keeping them shut up indoors without relief might not truly be for the best.
After a moment's thought, she said, "Then only nearby. One turn around to look at the lake, and then straight back. You are not to linger by the landing either. If the weather turns, we come back at once. Do you hear?"
Wang Yan nodded immediately, as though afraid the little opening might close again if she did not seize it at once.
"I hear. We won't go far. Just look at the lake. And if they happen to be selling sweet pastries by the landing, I might buy a little to bring back."
Mama Yao gave her a look that seemed to say the girl still had food on her mind after all, but in the end she only shook her head with weary indulgence.
"You child."
Then she called one of the young maids and told her to send word ahead that she was taking the two children out for a short walk beyond the near embankment, and that if the wind rose, they would return at once.
The moment Wang Yan heard that, her heart tightened—and then eased by half an inch.
They had permission.
That was all they had needed.
Once they left the west side courtyard, the wind outside had already strengthened.
The leaves beneath the flower trellises, which had whispered so softly before, were beginning to rasp. The light over the lake was gray, and farther off one could already see one uneasy band of waves after another. Yet because of that very change in the weather, both front and back courtyards were busier than usual. The old serving women, young maids, and household men they passed were all carrying something, hurrying one way or another, bringing things in, tying things down. Fewer people than on an ordinary day truly spared the three of them a second glance.
They went along the corridor, crossed the embankment, and made for the little landing beyond the back garden.
Wang Yan remained quiet the whole way, quiet enough to seem genuinely dispirited by the weather. Fang Yingjie followed as he usually did, always half a beat slower, his injured right leg keeping his pace from quickening. To anyone watching, they were simply two children taken out to relieve the oppression of being shut in for too long. No one would have guessed that inside them both a single taut string had already been pulled to its limit.
The little landing was still there, just as before.
Moored beside it was the very same black-awning skiff they had marked down days ago. Small hull, low cover, half-new mooring rope. Inside lay only a water scoop and half a coil of old line. It looked exactly like one of the manor's utility boats, something used to carry vegetables or make short trips close to shore. Beyond it, the lake wind had begun to wrinkle the near water in earnest, and the sky had sunk another shade darker.
Mama Yao had still meant to take them a little farther along the embankment. But the moment she saw the sky, she grew uneasy herself.
"That's enough," she said. "One more look, and then we go back."
And in that instant, at the corner of the corridor ahead, a young maid came hurrying past carrying half a basket of freshly gathered herbs. Just then a slanting gust caught the oilcloth laid over the top and flipped it back. Several packets of half-dried medicinal herbs spilled over the ground at once.
The girl cried out and lunged to gather them up.
Mama Yao recognized them at once as some of the damp-drawing herbs the medicine room had been rushing to bring in. Seeing one of the packets already rolling toward the embankment—another moment and the wind might carry it straight into the water—she reacted without thinking and hurried over to pin it down.
"Quick, hold the cloth!"
It was only the briefest opening.
Wang Yan's heart slammed against her ribs. Almost without thinking, she hissed, "Now!"
Fang Yingjie was already moving.
His leg was bad and he could not run fast, but this time he threw nearly all the strength in his body into it. He lunged to the skiff, dropped to a crouch, and seized the mooring line. The knot was tight, and his palms were slick with sweat. The first pull failed, and the rope bit painfully into his fingers. But in the next instant Wang Yan was beside him, yanking one side of the live knot free.
"I've got it!"
The words came out urgent and low, but her hands were steady. A child raised by the water knew ropes and moorings far better than Fang Yingjie did. In two quick motions the line was half loose.
And at that exact moment, Mama Yao heard enough to know something was wrong.
She wheeled around. The instant she saw the two children down by the boat, her face changed.
"What are you doing?"
The cry was not shrill, but it struck like thunder all the same.
Wang Yan did not stop moving. Teeth clenched, she flung the final loop clear and snapped, "Get in!"
Fang Yingjie gave the skiff a fierce shove. The hull slid half a foot from the landing. But he had driven too hard and too fast, and the old injury in his right leg flared like a knife in the bone. He nearly pitched sideways into the water. Wang Yan caught him at once and practically dragged him into the boat.
The skiff lurched violently. Both of them staggered, almost tumbling back onto the landing stones. But in the next moment the boat, carried by the force of that shove, had drifted another foot from shore. The water took it underneath and pushed. It was afloat.
By then Mama Yao had already rushed forward. Her hand came within a hair's breadth of the stern, but the skiff was light and small, and a gust helped it slide along the quick-running water. It drifted half a zhang farther out. She grasped at empty air and froze on the landing, real shock and fury breaking through her face for the first time.
"Come back—!"
This time she could not keep it down.
The shout rang out, and all through the manor people answered at once. Two household guards who had been gathering the frames by the embankment jerked up their heads. Farther east, a patrol skiff already posted on the water moved immediately. Figures came running toward the landing from several directions at once.
There was no road back now.
Wang Yan snatched up the short oar from inside the boat and drove it hard against the water.
"Sit steady!"
Fang Yingjie's breath was in chaos, and his right leg felt as though a blade were carving through it, but he knew that if panic took hold now, neither of them would live. He threw himself down toward the opposite side of the skiff, forcing his weight low to keep the wind and chop from overturning it at once.
The little boat shot out along the shallow channel.
At first it was terrifyingly fast.
The wind had risen, but the rain had not yet begun. And the channel by the landing was narrow enough that the manor's heavier boats could not swing into it at once. That gave the skiff the briefest lead.
Both hands locked on the oar, Wang Yan's face had gone white. The fear in her eyes had been driven into hardness. And somehow she truly did keep the bow pointed toward the shallower northern water beyond.
Behind them, the manor had erupted into shouting.
Voices cried to launch boats. Others shouted for poles. Someone yelled, "Don't let them reach the outer channel!" and already people were racing along the embankment, trying to cut them off farther ahead.
Fang Yingjie kept one hand on the side of the skiff for balance and looked back once, only to feel his heart leap into his throat.
"They're coming after us!"
"I know!" Wang Yan shouted back through clenched teeth.
The wind tore at her voice, but she would not slow even a little.
And by then the sky had worsened to the point of menace. The distant clouds, which had been merely gray before, had turned a full dark blue-green overhead. The wind came harder and harder across the lake. What had earlier been no more than wrinkled water had begun to show white edges. Farther off, thunder rolled, muffled behind the thickness of the clouds, not yet fully breaking over them, yet already pressing the breath from the lake.
The wind truly turned vicious just as they were leaving the shallows and beginning to cut across a wider stretch of water.
A slanting gust struck first from the right rear. The skiff tipped sharply, and a wave slapped cold water over half the side. Wang Yan felt the short oar go light in her grip, almost torn from her hands by the wind. She wrenched it back with all her strength and barely managed to right the bow. But once she had done it, the water before them was no longer the kind where one could still read the line of the shallows. It was a broad, leaden chaos of broken chop, the waves not terribly high, but rising from everywhere at once.
"It's going to rain!" she said through her teeth.
Fang Yingjie could see that too.
Not going to. It was already above them.
The next instant the horizon flashed white. Thunder rolled over them like a blow. Then the rain came down in great hard drops.
The moment the rain fell, everything became confusion.
The lake smoked under it. The skiff, so light before, became like a leaf spinning in broken water. Wang Yan's hands were slick in an instant. Her back and shoulders were soaked through. Yet she still clung to the oar with all she had. She knew that in weather like this, fear only made things worse. So she forced the bow to slant into the wind—not straight against it, but never broadside to the waves either. Yet for all that, she was only a young girl. The boats she knew how to handle were small fishing craft close to shore. She had never truly faced a storm like this while men were chasing her through it.
Worse still, the pursuers were gaining.
The manor's patrol skiff was longer than theirs and far more stable. Once it cut into the outer channel, it began to take shape through the rain behind them. It had not yet closed completely, but it was heavier, and its pole was longer. If it drew near and a single wave struck at the same time, then this little black-awning skiff would have no hope left except to overturn.
Rain streamed into Fang Yingjie's face and eyes until he could barely keep them open. He could do nothing now but bail with the battered scoop and keep his weight pressed low against the boat.
The water in the skiff rose steadily. Each scoop he flung out was answered by half another wave slapping in. The old hurt under his ribs and the injury in his right leg had both flared up savagely in the chaos, until his vision whitened at the edges with pain. But he did not dare let go.
"A little more left!" he shouted hoarsely.
"There's a shoal to the left!" Wang Yan shouted back. "If we hit it, we'll overturn faster!"
The words had barely left her mouth when the skiff behind them surged forward another stretch, driven by the force of wind and water. Through the rain they could not make out faces. They saw only a figure standing low at the bow, driving a long pole into the water. The patrol boat lunged like a dark shape over the surface.
Wang Yan felt her heart almost leap out through her throat. Teeth clenched, she rammed the oar hard to the right. Their skiff barely slipped clear, but the move exposed them to a crosswave, and the whole boat pitched violently sideways.
"Hold it down!"
Her voice nearly tore itself apart on the cry.
Fang Yingjie reacted by instinct. He hurled his whole body toward the opposite side. The skiff came back by half a measure—
—and in that same instant a larger wave struck head-on through the rain while the pursuing boat, close behind and to one side, threw up a slanting wake of its own. The two forces met beneath them.
The world lurched.
Wang Yan heard only the crack of a plank somewhere underfoot as the short oar was ripped clean out of her hands. In the next instant freezing water smashed over her from head to toe and the sky and lake wheeled together so wildly that she could no longer tell one from the other.
Fang Yingjie felt the breath driven from his chest in one blow. Water filled his nose and ears. Something seized at his right leg, and he went straight down.
Wind, rain, waves, shouting—everything dissolved into chaos at once.
The skiff overturned.
The two of them—the low-shaded little gauze lamp, the half-flooded cabin space, the broken oar, the snapped rope—all of it was swallowed together by the black water.
Only the rain remained, lashing like whips, and the thunder overhead.
In the space of a heartbeat, the lake wiped everything clean.
Poetic Coda
Low hung the sky above the lake;
rain drummed on the awning's skin.
In hidden nets beneath soft shelter, two lonely shadows fled.
One stolen skiff slipped past the manor's gate,
Yet half a thread still trailed back to the mouth of the well.
Before their hands could steady on the oar, hard wind and crosswaves drove the hunters on.
They looked back only to see the lamps all shattered—
then the two children were gone into the eastern lake.
(End of Chapter Thirty)