The Rise of Phoenixes Novel Translation #395

The inexplicable foreboding made her stop. She stopped on the wall, and for a brief moment, was unwilling to go any farther. 

It was as if the instant she stepped forward, something would shatter before her eyes, collapsing beyond all repair. 

She hesitated on the wall for a single moment, then immediately wanted to turn around. 

However, at the far corner of the alley ahead, someone had already emerged. Behind him, two others followed. 

It was Ning Yi. 

And Feng Zhi Wei’s gaze fell, at once, upon the bundle in his arms. 

Then her body swayed.

The cold moonlight fell, cold and bleak, a mournful greenish hue. Beneath the jade-green, like an ancient jade buried for a thousand years in the earth, underneath is a deep, vivid, blood-like crimson red. 

Within that crimson, a flash of light flashed, it belonged to the cold sheen of sharpened metal. 

A short dagger, it was buried in the infant’s chest. 

The child’s mouth hung slightly open, as though he had been crying only a moment before. His eyes were wide open, but the light in them had already faded, dull and lifeless as wooden abacus beads, with a dead black hue. 

His cheeks were still as delicate and soft as before, but they had already lost the previous rosy flush. All that remained was a pitiful, pale white that shimmered like a sheet of white paper in the moonlight. 

A tiny life that had ended only moments after it began. 

It did not end in his mother’s womb. Not at the hands of the midwife. But because of that person’s cruelty. Because she had let go just now. 

Under the moonlight, Feng Zhi Wei’s face was as pale as the dead child’s. 

Her eyes stared fixedly at the tiny corpse before slowly turning her gaze toward Ning Yi. Her eyes were filled with disbelief. 

What she could not believe was not the ruthless killing itself, but this certain knowing deception. 

Ning Yi, too, had lowered his head. His expression could not be seen. He seemed to be examining the little body as well. After a long moment, he let out a sigh and handed the blood-soaked bundle to the subordinate behind him. 

Then it appeared he gave an order. 

Feng Zhi Wei watched his lips intently. 

He was saying: 

“Don’t let her know…”

Feng Zhi Wei closed her eyes. 

In that instant, she became as still as a wooden statue, truly losing all breath and movement. Silent as death itself, she stood so still that Ning Yi, though he passed not far from her beneath the corner of the wall, failed to notice her. 

The soft footsteps of the three men receded down the narrow alley. Behind them, a single drop of pale red blood fell to the ground. 

Only after a long while did Feng Zhi Wei finally open her eyes. They were red as blood. 

She stood alone on the wall under the moonlight, her clothes fluttering slightly in the cool breeze. The fluttering fabric covered her eyes. Her face was white as snow, and the look in her eyes was one of utter collapse. 

What had shattered was not death itself. What shattered was the last trust she had summoned all her courage to give. 

It was a risky leap of faith. She had hoped to trust and believed that she had not entrusted her trust to the wrong person. Yet, the reality, so cold and merciless, told her that she was wrong once again. Foolishly, painfully wrong. 

Heaven knows how difficult this choice had been for her after that snowy winter night. 

It was a resolute abandonment, a drastic choice. It had meant overturning everything she had decided before. It meant she would have to endure even greater hardship to fulfill the oath she had written in blood. It also meant confronting the hesitation and conflict buried deep within her heart. Perhaps, one day, the tenderness that had slowly taken root deep inside her would truly move her enough to cause her to give up halfway. 

But whether it was heaven’s will or fate’s cruel hand, neither would allow her to shrink even the smallest step backward. 

Reality is a harsh teacher. Always giving her a ruthless strike at the moment she is most immersed in tenderness, delivering a blood-soaked wake-up call. Teaching her that being soft-hearted meant destruction, and yielding is nothing but irony. 

Feng Zhi Wei slowly sat down on the wall. Hugging her knees, she buried her face deep in them. The hair she had deliberately left in disarray spilled down around her, gleaming black and cold beneath the moonlight. 

She needs to think carefully about this death. 

She needs to think carefully about the road that lies ahead. 

The child’s death did not surprise her, but it did fill her with desolation. Desolation in the deception. She would rather Ning Yi had simply told her outright that this prince had to die. She might have felt helpless then, but she would have understood. 

No one understood the brutal life and death struggles of the imperial family better than she did. No one understood the hardship Ning Yi had endured thus far. 

She had chosen to entrust the child to him, partly out of trust, but also partly out of a desire to test. She wanted to know this man, who kept declaring his willingness to give up everything for her would, when the moment truly came, offer her even a shred of sincerity. 

Then she lost. 

One cannot make the same mistake twice. 

She, Feng Zhi Wei, cannot be that stupid. 

Because she is no longer simply herself. Behind her now stood many, many others, their fates bound to hers. A single moment of weakness, a single wrong decision, would bring ruin not only upon herself, but upon countless lives. 

Only now did she truly understand what Ning Yi had once told her— Once you have come this far, there is no turning back. Those who stand at the top have burdens that leave them no choice. 

This was a gamble of life and death. Her heart made her hesitate, but he had acted decisively. Then, in the end, what she got was total defeat. 

Beneath the moon, on top of the wall, the flowers exude a subtle fragrance. Wrapped in the mist-like fragrance, she silently hardened herself into a stone. After a very, very long time, she slowly rose to her feet and, step by step, walked away in the opposite direction from him. 

The moonlight stretched their shadows long across the ground, each claiming its own endless darkness. 

This was the greatest distance they would ever know in this life. 

It’s a pity. 

This time…

Neither of them knew it. 

—————————————-

In the eleventh month of the sixteenth year of Tiansheng, an imperial decree was issued: Wei Zhi, formerly Minister of Rites, is reassigned as Provincial Administrator of Jianghai Circuit Routes.

The moment the decree was announced, the entire court offered its congratulations. Though a Provincial Administrator was by definition a powerful regional official, the importance of the post depended greatly on which province the assignment was attached to. Jianghuai was the foremost route of Tiansheng, occupying a position of exceptional strategic and economic importance. Among the empire’s thirteen circuit routes, only the Provincial Administrator of Jianghaui held the first rank. For Wei Zhi’s very first appointment outside the capital to be Jianghuai, it was an extraordinary show of imperial favor, it filled the civil and military court officials alike with envy. 

Upon receiving the imperial decree, Feng Zhi Wei quickly prepared to leave the capital. Jianghuai is quite close to the imperial city, yet she packed as though she was embarking on a journey over high mountains and across seas from which she would never return. Everything that could be taken from her manor was sorted, packed, and loaded into an endless procession of trunks and chests, giving everyone the impression that once she departed, she would never be back again. 

Before setting out, she went to the imperial temple to bid farewell to the princess. Shao Ning personally came out and received her. Upon seeing her, Feng Zhi Wei immediately noticed that the princess looked unwell. She had grown thinner and haggard, there were even faint patches of discoloration along the side of her face. Having spent so much time with Zong Chen, Feng Zhi Wei had also learned some medical knowledge. Though it would have been improper to take the princess’s pulse, but judging by her complexion, she suspected that Shao Ning was suffering from illness…and it seemed to be one of gynecological illness. 

The thought puzzled her. 

Shao Ning had always been radiant, pampered, and accustomed to every luxurious comfort. By all rights, she should have been the last person to develop such an ailment. Could it be that the temple’s harsh conditions had left her undernourished and led to her illness? Or perhaps, after having her innocence deceptively taken from her, had she sunk into such grief and bitterness that she had deliberately neglected her own health? 

But that didn’t seem like Shao Ning either. 

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