HCAW 16

Chapter 16 – Gazing Past the Heavenly Pass

That night, Fang Jingyu came down with a burning fever.

Though his body was forged of iron and steel, he was still only human. To drag a silver carriage so heavy that it normally took dozens to pull—all the way to the Penglai Immortal Palace—had sapped nearly all his strength.

Seeing him collapse, Qin Jiao was so anxious she spun like a wheel around his bed. Oddly enough, it was Chu Kuang who knew how to treat the fever. He brewed a pot of medicine with monkshood, dried ginger, and sweetgrass root, and fed it to Fang Jingyu. After an hour or two, Fang’s breath calmed, and his furrowed brows gradually relaxed.

Qin Jiao shot Chu Kuang a sidelong glance. “How is it that you know how to treat illness?”

Chu Kuang replied, “Just a chill. I’ve had this kind of little sickness plenty—I got good at curing it over time.”

Qin Jiao was half skeptical. She knew from experience he couldn’t even read a word—how had he suddenly turned into a miracle doctor? But her thoughts didn’t run deep; before long, the question slipped her mind.

Though the courtyard had a few side rooms, only one bed was available, and they’d given it to the fever-stricken Fang Jingyu. Qin Jiao brought out a cattail quilt and a tattered cotton pillow, laying bedding for her and Chu Kuang on the floor. Fearing he might escape, she tied one end of his iron chain to Fang Jingyu’s wrist. She still had writing assignments to do and needed to grind ink and handle paper, which was awkward with the chain in the way.

Chu Kuang curled up beneath the covers, forming a tight ball, while Qin Jiao wrote her copybook by lamplight. An hour later, Fang Jingyu awoke. Qin Jiao boiled water and poured tea for him, fumbling the copper kettle and losing the lid in the process. All the commotion roused the entire room, and soon the three of them were lying wide awake beneath their blankets.

In the dark, a dim flame flickered behind the lampshade like a lone ship adrift on a dark sea. The three huddled around the bed, greedily sharing what warmth remained in the brazier. Unable to bear the silence, Qin Jiao was the first to speak: “Tight-lipped gourd, what exactly happened today? You came back covered in snow and caught a fever too.”

Fang Jingyu, slightly recovered, slowly recounted what had transpired. When he described how the National Preceptor forced slaves to kneel and drag his carriage, Qin Jiao flared up like a firecracker. “Outrageous!” she cried. And when Fang spoke of dragging the carriage alone, she sighed with deep emotion. “They really made it hard for you.” In the end, her many feelings condensed into a single sharp rebuke: “Tight-lipped gourd, I think you were too reckless.”

“Reckless?”

“They say an official one rank above you can crush you like an ant. That Preceptor’s ten times your rank—shouldn’t he be able to crush you ten times over? Anyway, Penglai is like his own pigsty. He can stir up as much mess as he pleases.”

Fang Jingyu said, “I only wanted to uphold the right path. I want to be like my elder brother—able to face myself with no regrets.”

The firelight danced on his face. He stared into the void with a stony resolve, his features like a chiseled carving. Qin Jiao lay on her shabby pillow and said, “I’m nothing like you. I just want to be filthy rich—raking in gold daily, hiring ten private tutors to write my copybooks for me!”

Fang Jingyu actually chuckled. “If we’re talking dreams… I do have another one.”

“What is it?”

“To capture the King Yama, and trade him in for a mountain of silver. With money comes power, and with power—I could save more people.” As he spoke, Fang Jingyu stared straight at Chu Kuang, making the latter shiver.

Qin Jiao gasped. “Tight-lipped gourd, I didn’t know you were this greedy!” Fang Jingyu said calmly, “And you want to be a rich lady. Isn’t that greedy too?”

After those words, both their gazes shifted toward Chu Kuang.

“Handyman,” Qin Jiao said, “what’s your dream, then? But before that—why don’t you tell us where you really come from?”

Chu Kuang saw their probing eyes, especially Fang Jingyu’s—icy as knives cutting through winter wind—and couldn’t help a shudder. His eyes rolled and he stammered, “Oh, nothing much to tell. I’m a local Penglai boy, grew up doing chores at a brothel. One time a customer’s arrow went wild during a banquet, and I got shot in the head. The madam said I was useless after that and sold me off cheap.”

He turned his head and pushed back his tangled hair, revealing a scar on his forehead. The others could see it clearly—it was deep and jagged, proof of a serious wound. Qin Jiao nearly burst into tears. “Handyman, what a hard life you’ve had!”

Fang Jingyu remained skeptical. He turned Chu Kuang’s words over in his mind—it sounded half true, half lies.

Chu Kuang added, “My dream is to become… the morning star.”

“Morning star?”

“The one that hangs in the sky before sunrise… I think it’s called the herald star too.”

Qin Jiao blinked. “Why do you want to be a star?”

Chu Kuang scratched his head. Why, exactly? He couldn’t quite say. It felt like someone had once said something like that to him long ago—but he remembered none of it. So he made something up: “Well, don’t people turn into stars after they die? I just wanna be one of those, so when folks look up, they’ll see me—how glorious is that?”

Fang Jingyu said nothing. This bastard was spouting nonsense again.

The three of them chatted a little longer until Qin Jiao’s eyelids began to droop. She blew out the lamp, and the room fell into darkness again. Soon, her soft breathing could be heard.

Fang Jingyu, too, was tired and closed his eyes to sleep—but in that drowsy haze, he suddenly heard the rustling of clothes. Years of trained alertness made his hair stand on end. In a flash, he shot upright and grabbed the figure crawling into his bedding. That person carried a sharp, dangerous aura—and sure enough, a pointed weapon in hand. Fang Jingyu’s arm was grazed, and he responded with force, slamming the person onto the bed.

Though a loud thud rang out, Qin Jiao slept soundly, merely smacking her lips and turning over. Panting, Fang Jingyu looked down at the weapon that had fallen nearby. Upon closer inspection, it was just a sharpened stick.

Fang Jingyu was speechless. If this was an assassination attempt, what kind of weapon was that supposed to be? Then he looked down at the person he’d pinned—and sure enough, it was Chu Kuang.

“So you really do have treachery in your heart, sneaking in to kill me at night. But if that’s what you wanted, why didn’t you just poison the medicine you gave me? With something like Heart-Stopping Powder, I’d already be dead.”

Chu Kuang, pinned by the throat, had eyes that gleamed like a wild animal’s in the dark. His hair was usually such a mess it hid his face—but now those fierce eyes were plain to see. For a split second, Fang Jingyu was shaken. He had once pinned down someone else like this—on the ice of Yangshan Village. That man’s gaze had been much the same: equally murderous.

“I did poison you,” Chu Kuang said with a wicked grin. “I put numbing powder in your medicine. I didn’t expect you to still have so much strength left. Guess I went too light.”

“…Where did the medicine come from?” Fang Jingyu sighed. No wonder he’d felt heavy-headed and weak—it wasn’t the cold, but the drug. No wonder the bastard had been so eager to make the medicine himself.

“From your dear brother Young Master Zheng’s medicine box. Anyway, you win.”

With that, Chu Kuang rolled his eyes, unclenched his fists, and flopped back onto the bed. “Go ahead—kill me, gut me, have your way.”

“Why would I kill or gut you? You’re a servant I bought for two silver coins. I haven’t gotten my money’s worth yet.”

“So that means you’re going to have your way with me?” Chu Kuang drew a deep breath, shut his eyes, and said resolutely, “Fine. Trading my body for freedom—happens all the time. Go ahead and whip it out. Either way, my soul’s still free.”

Looking at his martyr’s face, Fang Jingyu could only remain silent. What the hell did this guy keep in that head of his? It was all filth and sleaze. He really did seem like a scamp raised in a brothel.

“So do you want to kill me, or escape?” Fang asked. “I know you stayed before to heal, not because you were loyal. And while I was gone, you had every chance to run. You even drugged me tonight—you could’ve slipped away. So why crawl into my bed and wake me up with a stick?”

Chu Kuang bared his teeth. “You guessed right. I didn’t come to kill or escape. I wanted to have a heart-to-heart. But I figured you wouldn’t listen, so I brought a stick.”

“A heart-to-heart? As in, if I refused to listen, you’d carve out my actual heart?”

Chu Kuang just grinned, his smile sharp as blades. He had a handsome face, but his eyes always glinted with bloodlust—enough to make anyone’s hair stand on end.

“You’re a suspicious criminal,” Fang Jingyu continued. “What are you really after?”

“I may be a criminal, but you’re not exactly clean either, Young Master Fang.”

Those words struck a chord. Fang Jingyu’s heart skipped. Chu Kuang pulled a small booklet from his robe and sneered.

“Take a look. This here’s a text from the heretical Da Yuan Dao. You Xian Mountain officials practically eat the Penglai Laws for breakfast—you should know exactly what happens when someone keeps such things in their home.”

Of course Fang Jingyu knew. Da Yuan Dao was the most dangerous sect in Penglai. They preached that beyond the Xian Mountain lay a paradise called “Peach Source¹,”Peach Source (桃源 or 桃花源, often translated as Peach Blossom Spring) refers to a mythical utopia described in Tao Yuanming’s fable The Peach Blossom Spring, where people live in peace, isolated from the outside world, untouched by war or corruption. and their followers would risk everything to escape the realm and cross the Heavenly Pass. He’d once seized this book from a disciple—but for reasons unknown, he never turned it in. If that were discovered, he would be guilty.

But his face stayed calm. “What happens? I get punished by the Penglai Prefecture? Who’s reporting me—you, a criminal?”

Rapid-fire questions left Chu Kuang speechless for a beat.

“Besides,” Fang Jingyu added, “I’m a constable. It’s not unusual to hold onto unprocessed evidence for a while. If someone really came asking, I’d just say this booklet was yours—that you’re a disciple of Da Yuan Dao.”

“…You!” Chu Kuang hadn’t expected the righteous-looking guy to be so cunning underneath.

“So while I was away, you rifled through my shelves just to blackmail me?” Fang Jingyu sighed, reached for the iron chain, and bound Chu Kuang’s hands again. “Sleep. Dreams have everything. In your dreams, you can escape.”

Chu Kuang gritted his teeth in fury—but after a while, he suddenly chuckled.

“Don’t sleep yet, Officer. Let’s read this book together.”

Fang Jingyu said, “Nice try. You just want to rope me into a crime.”

“So what if I do? If I shout ‘I’m the King Yama!’ outside your door tomorrow, the Xian Mountain guards will have you nailed for harboring a fugitive.” Chu Kuang shrugged. Then he rolled off the bed, fumbled for the lamp with his chained hands, and lit it. He flipped to the last page and held it open for Fang Jingyu.

It was a map of the Xian Mountain—but unlike any official map. This one depicted the world beyond Penglai. In this realm, private possession of history books and extra-territorial maps was a serious crime. Only in Da Yuan Dao’s texts could such things be seen.

On that yellowed parchment, Penglai—enshrouded by Immortals—occupied only a small corner. Beyond the black waters of the Ming Sea lay a vast unknown world. The Ming Sea Bridge stretched across four other immortal mountains. In the flickering firelight, Fang Jingyu followed Chu Kuang’s finger: beyond “Penglai” was “Yingzhou,” then “Fanghu,” followed by “Daiyu” and “Yuanqiao.” After those four, the bridge ended at the brink of a place called—

Gui Xu.

Those two characters struck Fang Jingyu’s heart like stones, stirring ripples across its surface. It was said that Emperor Bai’s campaign ended in despair there—the once-mighty prince retreating in defeat.

And beyond Gui Xu, after a long and treacherous route, another name appeared—the destination craved by all Da Yuan Dao followers, the mythical promised land:

Chang’an.

Legend said it was a land of warmth and sunlight, abundant and thriving, untouched by cold or hunger. But that was only a myth among Da Yuan Dao. Fang Jingyu trembled. Did such a place truly exist?

Suddenly, he seemed to glimpse his younger self—small, frail, standing atop a mountain, staring past fields of blood-red flowers and across the black Ming Sea, eyes fixed on the distant unknown.

He had looked beyond the Heavenly Pass more than once. That yearning, long buried, rose again now.

“Penglai’s been rotting for a hundred years. It’s no place to stay. I’ve had one mission all my life,” Chu Kuang said softly, eyes flickering like stars in the sky, stirring something inexplicable in Fang Jingyu’s heart. “It’s to take someone out of Heavenly Pass—to go far, far away.”

He raised a hand and pointed at Fang Jingyu.

“Will that someone be you, Fang Jingyu?”

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  ,”Peach Source (桃源 or 桃花源, often translated as Peach Blossom Spring) refers to a mythical utopia described in Tao Yuanming’s fable The Peach Blossom Spring, where people live in peace, isolated from the outside world, untouched by war or corruption.