It was getting late into the night. A moonless rainy night. Only the boat’s shattered shadow was shifting and drifting in the water. Feng Zhi Wei shook the last wine flask hard, staring blankly ahead as she muttered, “Huh? How is it…already…all gone?”
Ning Yi was slumped over the table, his elbows almost resting in one of the dishes. They actually hardly touched most of the food. Instead, they had filled their belly full of wine. Drinking on an empty stomach almost brought down Feng Zhi Wei, who usually can hold her liquor quite well, let alone Ning Yi, who really had never been able to hold his liquor and usually relied on sobering pills to survive banquets.
He appeared to be completely drunk yet stubbornly forced himself to keep drinking with Feng Zhi Wei. Upon hearing her complaint, he managed to raise his head halfway and said, “….you…drunk…”
Feng Zhi Wei stared at him steadily for a long moment before letting out a laugh and said, “You are the one…drunk…but you are telling…me…”
Resting his forehead on one hand, Ning Yi stared back at her. Feng Zhi Wei almost always had a smile on her face, but she had never truly laughed. Her smiles were always restrained and composed. The corner of her lips would curve slightly upward, gentle yet perfunctory. Anyone could see the gentleness, but only he understood the indifference in them. Every time he saw that smile, a dull ache would spread through the depths of his heart. The pain was like a thousand paper cuts, small and relentless, as though invisible fingertips were tugging mercilessly at all the helpless regrets in his life.
However, at this moment, her laugh was finally unrestrained for the first time. Her brows were flying high, the corners of her eyes lifted, and her eyes, slightly narrowed, were dancing with light. Her lips were partly slightly parted, revealing the gleaming white teeth between soft crimson lips. A dazzling sight. That radiant smile swayed before him like the mist, water, and rain whirling together in endless motion before rushing straight into his heart.
Losing himself in the dizzying swirl, he started to reach out a hand in a daze, but his arm suddenly gave way, fell forward, and was about to plunge face-first into a bowl of soup. Still retaining a sliver of clarity, Feng Zhi Wei caught his arm before he could fall. However, the moment she caught him, her own strength also gave out. As the two of them swayed, about to collapse onto the table together, she sent the dining table off the skiff with one swift kick.
With a loud splash, the table crushed into the river, but no one came out to investigate. The little black canopied skiff rocked violently for a moment, then gradually settled. It didn’t settle completely though. The skiff continued to sway ever so gently, trembling along with the curtain of midnight rain.
All around them was silence. The small skiff floated in the shadow of the big boat, rising and falling softly with the current. At some point, the lamp aboard had gone out. Within the enveloping darkness, slowly came the faint voices.
The voice belonging to Feng Zhi Wei came first, slightly breathless and tender, softly asking after a brief pause, “…How…is the child…”
Once the question was asked, everything seemed to fall silent again. Even the small skiff seemed to stop moving. After what felt like a very long time, Ning Yi’s voice drifted through the darkness.
“…He’s fine…sent him away…”
In a daze, someone uttered a soft “hmm”, shattering the sound of the rain once again. The covered skiff’s gentle rocking gradually subsided, yielding to a deep, dark stillness. Then, from somewhere within the darkness, there came a sudden flash of steel.
Like a bolt of black lightning, it pierced through the strange atmosphere within the small skiff, threatening to tear apart the fragile warmth that had just been fostered.
Yet, in the end, it halted in midair. The black lightning faded away.
A long, long time passed.
The little skiff moved again. From the bow, Feng Zhi Wei emerged, her steps slightly unsteady. Standing at the prow, she drew her robe tightly around herself and remained motionless for a moment. Then, without a sound, she leaped lightly into the air and landed on the large ship.
It was equally silent on the big ship. She was about to slip quietly back to her cabin when a figure in white slowly approached from below deck.
His gaze on her was calm and knowing, as if he knew everything with a single measured sweep of her from head to toe. The instant Feng Zhi Wei met his eyes, she averted her eyes with some embarrassment.
After a while, she turned around and rested her hands on the bow of the boat. Through the fine misting rain, she watched the small skiff drifting quietly upon the water. The hem of her robe fluttered against the ship’s side with a long, monotonous rhythm. Her rows were slightly wet, and her eyes were also wet like the rain, just like the slanting curtains of rain that were crisscrossing the night river, painting the whole in loneliness and desolation.
The skiff was so close, seemingly within reach, yet her gaze was far away, so far that it pierced the tranquil veil of rain into the future. She saw drawn blades and charging warhorses, rivers and mountains awash in blood, crimson battle banners snapping in the wind, and the ringing clash of weapons sending brilliant golden sparks into the air.
After a while, she closed her eyes and made a small gesture to give the order to set sail.
The big ship silently glided across the river, slowly pulling its clumsy, heavy form away from the still silent skiff. In the shifting shadow, the water shimmered and rippled, carrying the big ship further and further away until it dwindled into a single dark speck against the horizon.
The wind howled and raged from all sides, but Feng Zhi Wei never looked back.
Behind her, Zong Chen asked quietly, “Have you caught a cold? Shall I make you a bowl of …medicinal broth for you?”
After a moment of silence, Feng Zhi Wei slowly replied, “Yes, please.”
———————————————-
At the beginning of the seventeenth year of Tiansheng, only a few months after Feng Zhi Wei took office as the Provincial Governor of Jianghuai Circuit, the Changning Prince of the Changning vassal state, in alliance with Xiliang, revealed the claws he had sharpened for years—–In the third month of the seventeenth year of Tiansheng, Changning formally swore his army into rebellion in Puzhou. His forces swept southward into the thirteen counties spanning the seven prefectures of Longbei and Minnan. At the same time, Xiliang deployed troops to the border, also taking the same posture that suggested an imminent invasion of Minnan. Tiansheng Emperor urgently dispatched the southern army to meet the threat and appointed the Seventh Prince as Supervising Commissioner of the troops, sending him personally to oversee the war in Longbei and Minnan. Minnan, which had just emerged from the devastation of war a few years earlier, was once again plunged into bloodshed.
In truth, Changning had been preparing for a rebellion for many years. After forming an alliance with Xiliang in the fifteenth year of Changxi, the plan was to launch the uprising early the following year. However, a change of regime in Xiliang pushed back their plan. The delay was, in fact, what Feng Zhi Wei wanted. Before leaving Xiliang, she had reached an unwritten understanding with Lu Rui. After all, Tiansheng Emperor had expressly ordered her to keep a close eye on Changning’s movements. Yet despite discovering the crucial alliance between Changning and Xiliang, she had deliberately withheld the information from the imperial court. Had Changning risen in rebellion immediately after her return, she would inevitably have gotten in trouble.
Lu Rui and Lu Zhiyan were shrewd men. They deduced from Feng Zhi Wei’s action of withholding her information from the imperial court that she had other plans of her own, and were more than happy to play along. While quietly lulling Tiansheng into complacency, Changning continued to submit requests for the young prince to be permitted to travel to the capital to pay his respects to the emperor, all the while secretly expanding his army and stockpiling supplies. So that when the time was ripe, they could strike in a single decisive blow.
Once war broke out, it became the moment for capable generals to distinguish themselves, and Hua Qiong, stationed in Minnan, quickly rose above the rest. The female general was every bit as fearless and fierce as any man. She often cast off her armor and charged into battle at the head of her troops. Inspired by their commander’s courage, the women under her command fought with a ferocity that surpassed the male soldiers.
Minnan had always been a land of fierce and hardy people, yet women there occupied the lowest social status. Most of the women who enlisted had tragic backgrounds, enduring much misery and abuse in their lives. On the battlefield, they fought as though they had nothing left to lose, each woman was worth ten ordinary soldiers, an unstoppable force on the battlefield. The Fire Phoenix Army’s fame was soon noised throughout the realm. Hua Qiong’s military achievements quickly earned her promotion to the third-rank, as the General of Glorious Valor.
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Ps. Well, here is THE scene we have been waiting for. Reading it again this time, I think I was more tuned into the sadness and the desperation in our heroine. It’s difficult to judge if our heroine took that last step with Ning Yi as a final goodbye or as a planned assassination attempt. What was obvious was that even if it was a planned assassination attempt, she still couldn’t bring herself to do it. Her willingness to take the “morning after medicine” from Zong Chen though, does show a resolution she really had made up her mind regarding Ning Yi.
So were you guys disappointed at the scene since it was so understated?
It was sooo understated! Gosh I was hoping for something much more romantic and intentional between them two LOL!
Haha, I was not even sure about the whole thing until I read your comment. It really was too understated and not romantic at all. Although it does give me closure that way.