Feihong Zuoxue Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Life and Death

At Si Shi San Ke, snow was falling heavily.

A sudden kick to the back of his knee sent Ji Miao stumbling, and he heard cheers erupting all around him.

He raised his head, looking vaguely at the crowd of people moving in the wind and snow.

The commoners holding umbrellas, whispering to each other—he didn’t recognize any of them; those wearing cloaks or riding in carriages—he recognized several familiar faces from a distance. But whether he knew them or not no longer mattered; the murmuring voices were all there to witness his impending death.

It was already winter, and the sky over Yandu grew increasingly gloomy. Snowflakes fell onto Ji Miao’s eyelids, melted, and then streamed down from the corners of his eyes, feeling very cold.

But he could no longer feel it.

The Executioner stood waiting, holding his blade; the snow-white edge was mere inches from his side, leaning over him as if in threat. Ji Miao seemed completely unaware, standing straight and looking down at the sharp weapon. He stared at the keen edge for an unknown amount of time before hearing a thin, high voice call out from above.

“Noon has arrived—”

The voice was not loud, but it brought sudden silence to the surroundings. The gazes of the onlookers converged on the center of the execution ground. A few dull thuds echoed through the snow, followed by three people collapsing to their knees, all with disheveled hair, bare feet, and skeletal frames.

Yet Ji Miao had not fallen. The two execution eunuchs beside him panicked, and two long staffs struck the back of his knees heavily at the same time.

The blow landed solidly. Just as Ji Miao’s knees hit the paving stones, the staffs fell again onto his back, nearly forcing him to the ground.

Ji Miao finally knelt on the Execution Platform. His crown and sash were stripped away, his hair loose, devoid of any of the spirit he once possessed. It was laughable; just a month ago, he had been by the side of the new Emperor, Ji Yu, helping his own younger brother resolve his worries. Who knew the change would come so quickly? The great crime of rebellion was firmly pinned on him, and Ji Miao understood immediately what had happened.

When the hares are dead, the hounds are cooked.

In the 25th year of Changzhi, in the spring, the Crown Prince died in the south while managing flood control. Since then, Yandu had been turbulent, the struggle between aristocratic families grew sharper, and the new scholars from the imperial examinations gained influence. In the 28th year of Changzhi, Prince Suyuan, Ji Mingyuan, raised troops and declared independence, joining forces with the Wen Clan of Suzhou and the Li Clan of Jinzhou to rebel. After two years, they succeeded.

Ji Mingyuan, suffering from an old illness, passed away after the Final Battle of Yandu. His youngest son, Ji Yu, ascended the throne, changed the reign era name to Yuanxi, enfeoffed Ji Miao as Prince Zhao, and kept his domain in Yangji, Cangzhou.

Ji Yu had always been humble and kind since childhood; Ji Miao had always regarded him as a beloved friend and relative. He had intended to return to Yangji once the situation stabilized after the new king’s ascension and the general unrest, to once again serve as the shield of the Great Jing’s northwest, never harboring the slightest defense against Ji Yu.

And now, Ji Yu wanted him dead.

“…We rely on the Emperor’s vast grace to grant you and the Wen Faction a swift end.” The execution eunuch sighed, “Prince, is there anything you wish to say?”

The eunuch paced to Ji Miao’s side, not even bothering to bow, condescendingly bestowing pity. The attendant eunuch helped his godfather put on his cloak and swept away the fallen snow, which mixed with dirt and soaked Ji Miao’s long robe.

Ji Miao had no need for such condescending pity; he only felt irony.

He kept his eyes lowered, and the eunuch assumed he hadn’t heard clearly, so he slowly squatted down, cleared his throat, and prepared to ask again.

Suddenly, Ji Miao turned his head, and their eyes met instantly, startling the eunuch—this condemned man’s eyes held no terror, no desperate grief of resistance, just a gaze that seemed to look upon an inanimate object with contempt.

Ji Miao narrowed his eyes during the exchange, then shifted his gaze past the other man toward the distant palace walls. The lanterns under the eaves of the palace were blurred in the snow, segmented into mottled, aged red, like splattering blood.

He remembered the days in the grand halls, remembered the new Emperor who was majestic on the Sumeru Seat but still called him “Brother” in private. He remembered the crisp bells and chimes under the corridor of the side hall—just last month, he had been sharing warm wine and playing chess with Ji Yu, believing Ji Yu, like him, had not forgotten the vast grasslands outside Yangji City.

But now, the white fluff swirling in the blood-colored palace walls had become a thick, greasy net, strangling and binding him within it.

Nothing would ever be the same.

Hate?

But what could that change?

After a long pause, Ji Miao lowered his eyes and simply said, “Execute me.”

The execution eunuch snapped back to reality, stood up straight, and, as if steeling himself, shouted loudly, “The time has come, execute—the—sentence—!”

In the heavy snow, the Offender Tablet was thrown before Ji Miao. The long slip was inscribed with “Offending the superior and causing chaos” in Cinnabar. Before he could examine it closely, his head was forcibly pressed down.

They would not allow him to look anymore, would not allow him to hate anymore.

Ji Miao let out a breath and slowly closed his eyes.

As he waited for the blade to fall, he remembered many things—things he cared about, things he didn’t—all flashing by like fleeting flowers. The grasslands outside Yangji City, the bright moon over Prince Suyuan’s residence, the lights of the Wen Clan of Suzhou, transforming into impassioned court officials, and the silent new Emperor.

Twenty-five years, a fleeting moment. He had traveled from Cangzhou to Yandu, having possessed nothing, having experienced splendor and glory. Perhaps this life was not lived in vain.

Thinking this, the blade fell. The edge was sharp, instantly severing the neck bone. But amidst the intense pain and the surrounding exclamations, he could not stop thinking of Ji Yu, of his father, Ji Mingyuan.

How could he not hate!

His heart suddenly plummeted, his head rolled off, forced to shed the pain and end this absurd, dreamlike life.

The white snow buried the bloodstains on the ground, freezing everything that flowed into solid ice.

A faint light broke through the clouds, coldly illuminating his gradually dissipating pupils—Ji Miao had never imagined that after death, one’s eyes would still be struck by sunlight.

But in the next instant, all his lost senses returned. A sharp pain shot through his chest. As he coughed, he instinctively reached up to cover it, only to find his hand covered in warm blood.

He froze for a moment before his trembling hand reached for the back of his neck. The protruding bone was clearly nestled beneath the flesh; there was no trace of a blade cut.

Ji Miao’s expression instantly shifted to shock. As if refusing to believe it, he squeezed hard.

The sharp pain of flesh and bone would not lie; the pain was as biting as the wind on the snowfield. Ji Miao’s breathing grew heavier, gradually becoming ragged, and his face grew hotter, until he could bear it no longer. He suddenly buried his face in his icy-cold palms.

Snow filled the gaps between his fingers, and his mouth and nose were filled with the smell of blood. Only when the red and white mixed all over his face did he let out a low laugh.

It hurt so much. Could a dead person still feel pain?

He trembled as he laughed, the movement pulling at the wound on his chest, making his lungs swell. Yet Ji Miao seemed not to feel the pain at all. As he laughed, his eyelashes and brows were coated with blood, but his features were pale as paper, reflecting the cold, piercing winter sun. He looked like a terrifying ghost from Fengdu, stealing souls, stunningly beautiful.

This pain, this blood, this daylight—everything reminded Ji Miao—

He had actually lived again.

He couldn’t believe it, but the uninjured back of his neck and the soreness throughout his body forced him to accept it.

He had been given a second life.

But where was he now? And was he still himself?

The wound on his chest was still bleeding. Ji Miao touched his forehead; it was alarmingly hot in the freezing snow. He pulled his hand back, wiped the bloodstains from his palm, and saw no old scar in his palm lines—in the 25th year of Changzhi, he had been pierced by a stray arrow while saving Ji Yu, leaving a scar on his left hand. Now, the flesh was perfectly intact, and the memories of the past felt like a chaotic dream.

The cold wind rushed down his throat, choking him into a fit of coughing. Ji Miao’s consciousness was still hazy. After catching his breath, he pushed himself up to look around.

Bodies lay everywhere.

At a glance, the surroundings were no different from a mass grave. Corpses were piled up as far as the eye could see, all wearing black clothes and short knives, fallen beside carts and horses. The closest corpse had half a tablet hanging from its waist. Ji Miao pulled it out; this small wooden plaque had “Shun Yuan” carved on one side and “Zhang Chongjiu” on the other, presumably the man’s name.

Ji Miao pondered for a moment, then reached for his own waist. Sure enough, a similar wooden plaque fell out. One side read “Shun Yuan,” and the other was inscribed with the characters “Si Cheng,” completely soaked in blood.

Si Cheng.

In that instant, fragmented memories belonging to Si Cheng surfaced.

The host body’s original name was Si Cheng.

Si Cheng’s origins were unknown. As a child, he stumbled into the Shun Yuan Escort Agency, where escorts traveled north and south, making a living on the edge of a blade. Half a month ago, the agency took a major job escorting goods from Cangzhou in the northwest to Jinzhou in the southeast. However, just as they reached Chaotian Que in Cangzhou, they were ambushed by the Cuo Yuan people.

The Cuo Yuan people wielding curved blades severed the Chief Escort’s head. Not long after the head rolled into the mud, an arrowhead pierced Si Cheng’s chest, knocking the blade with a rolled edge from his hand.

The sky was low, and the smell of blood lingering in the mountain mist would not dissipate. The dead man could not see the light break through the clouds. By the time the cold light pierced the fog, another soul finally awoke in this body.

Ji Miao stood up and became Si Cheng.

No.

Not Si Cheng.

He looked at the small wooden plaque, then picked up the blade with a rolled edge. The edge was dull, and Ji Miao had to exert considerable force just to scrape off tiny slivers of wood.

His breathing was heavy, his fingertips trembling. He worked quietly in the falling snow, but his eyes gradually grew cold and sinister.

—Until the wind scattered the wood shavings, and the blood on his palm soaked the newly carved mark. The wet character “Cheng” was revealed, the wild King radical harboring ambition.

Si Cheng.

From this moment on, he was the newborn Si Cheng.

Si Cheng’s hands were still shaking. He couldn’t fight the cold, nor could he stop the trembling of excitement. He clenched the wooden plaque and heard the sound of horses neighing and long whistles growing closer through the heavy snow.

A small support team was approaching him.

Si Cheng was not unfamiliar with this sound. The whistle belonged to the Cangzhou Suyuan Army, his father’s subordinates from the previous life.

In his past life, before the age of twenty, Cangzhou was his dearest homeland. His father, Ji Mingyuan, was enfeoffed as Prince Suyuan, and the residence was built in Yangji City, Cangzhou. This was the Great Jing’s northwest border, where Chaotian Que, Shayan, and Feng’ai Gorge defended against foreign incursions. As the heir apparent of the Prince’s residence, he had accompanied his father in the army since childhood.

Every time they cleared a battlefield, the Suyuan Army would blow this kind of long bone whistle.

And trespassing into the military fortress of Chaotian Que was a capital offense.

Should he hide?

He was so badly injured that he couldn’t possibly conceal himself before the Suyuan Army arrived. Lying down and playing dead was also impossible; a squad leader would discover it with a single probe, and dragging the corpse back to camp could still cost him his life. It was better to feign innocence, to appear pitiful, and fight for a sliver of survival.

Si Cheng’s mind raced, and within moments, he shrank back, hugging himself in feigned panic.

The whistle sounded mournfully behind him, soon reaching just a short distance away. The galloping hooves kicked up snow dust, and a long spear arrived against his spine—then, a questioning voice rang out from behind him.

“Who are you?”

Si Cheng did not answer. He stiffened for a moment as the spear approached, then began to shake violently. He trembled for a while before coughing in panic, hastily dodging the hilt of the sword, and saying, “I, I am just…”

“Centurion Xu!” A squad leader waded through the bloody water, several wooden plaques hanging from his waist. When he reached them, he snatched them down to show, “They are all escorts. They violated the ban and trespassed into Chaotian Que, ambushed by the Cuo Yuan people on this small path. There are no other survivors.”

Centurion Xu cracked his whip. The horse circled Si Cheng once, and he sneered, “Lift your head and let this soldier see you. You call yourself an escort?”

Si Cheng cautiously raised his head. He still looked panicked, his face half-caked with dried blood, concealing a pair of eyes that shimmered with flowing water.

“I just need to earn a living,” Si Cheng pursed his lips, and when he spoke again, his voice was choked with sobs. “The military officer is kind-hearted. Now that all my brothers and relatives are gone, only I remain. Why must you…”

As he spoke, he tremblingly spread his palm, holding out the blood-soaked wooden plaque.

“If you spare my life, I can cook meals, chop wood, patrol the mountains, and transport grain,” Si Cheng continued to weep, stealing glances at the squad leader beside him. “Whatever the military officer asks me to do, I will do it.”

Centurion Xu’s eyes darted back and forth, and he hooked his finger out to snatch the plaque.

“Si Cheng,” he tasted the name, then used the plaque to nudge Si Cheng’s chin, “You are indeed pitiful. The 23rd Battalion lost a cook two days ago; they are in need of hands.”

He tossed the plaque to the squad leader, who shrewdly collected it, then licked his ink brush and wiped Si Cheng’s existence from the battle report.

Si Cheng had just managed a sound of assent when Centurion Xu leaned in close and said, “You are badly wounded. Come to the Centurion Xu’s quarters tonight to get medicine.”

He understood the dirty implication in those words. The Centurion’s scrutinizing gaze was like a tongue, greedily licking his face. But who could say who the true prey was in the end?

Si Cheng showed no emotion on his face. He pushed the blade with his fingertips, concealing it entirely in his sleeve. Looking up, he offered a smile. “Thank you, sir.”

He said softly, “I will certainly come to the appointment tonight at Hai Shi.”

Chapter 2: Reunion