—— “Shiyan. Lu Shiyan.”
Hearing such soft whisperings, Lu Yan could not help but cover his heart with his hand.
Left in a trance, he did not feel the gust of cold wind that roared by. Nor did he hear the creaking above his head. Thus, when the plaque bearing the words Baixiang Pavilion decided to fall, he was right underneath it.
However, Shen Zhen had quick eyes. As soon as she saw the plaque was about to crash down, she took two steps forward, grabbed onto Lu Yan’s wrist and pulled as hard as she could.
“Your Lordship be careful!”
The two people ended up standing side by side, listening to the deafening sound the plaque made as it fell to the ground.
Snow swirled all around them, engulfing them effectively.
Lu Yan’s soul slammed right back into his body after bearing such a shock and his eyes cleared instantaneously.
Looking down at the thin, white fingers that convulsively held onto his wrist, his whole body stiffened. In a swift movement, he shook her hand off.
Shen Zhen was left stunned. But not for long. Soon enough, a deep, crimson flush crept up her cheeks and embarrassment choked her.
She would have wished to explain him that she had only acted out of good intentions and had in no way wished to offend him. However, she knew that getting embroiled into a long explanation would only bring her more embarrassment so she gave up before even trying.
Remembering etiquette, Shen Zhen just bit her lip and bowed her head to the man, thanking him for his help in a low voice.
The pain in Lu Yan’s chest had not dissipated. Hearing that voice of hers, he could not help but furrow his brows while trying to calm his breathing. In the end he simply brushed her gratitude aside with a few words.
“There is no need for such words. This official has only been doing his duty.”
After saying as much, he rubbed at his wrist subconsciously, exactly at the place where Shen Zhen had touched him.
As soon as she saw what he was doing, her blush deepened further, going all the way up to her hair roots. She was not at fault for her actions. However, here she was, being so blatantly despised for them. She had been treated with cruelty, but never with such disgust.
She opened her mouth, yet did not make a sound. In the end, she just swallowed what she had been about to say.
They had just met by chance. Their paths would never cross again. What would hers feeling wronged achieve in the end?
After a while, Lu Yan and his guards turned around and left while Shen Zhen and Qingxi went back to their shop.
Dusk came fast enough, dying the clouds in the sky red.
Seeing Lu Yan returning to the ducal estate, a door-keeping steward rushed forward to bow at him, receiving a dignified nod of the head in response. After a few words were exchanged, Lu Yan walked with a confident stride into his Suning Hall.
He sat himself at a desk and observed the wrist Shen Zhen had grasped. Recalling the strange vision he had experienced, the look in his eyes deepened.
It had been a coincidence. Nothing but a coincidence. At least, so he tried to persuade himself.
Yet … that dazzling, white skin, that mole on the nape of her neck he had seen in that strange hallucination. As well as the scorching feel of Shen Zhen’s fingers against his wrist. All of that lingered in his mind.
An incense burner spread its seductive aroma in dense curls of smoke through the room.
It smelled like the tips of her fingers.
After an instant, Lu Yan caught himself laughing derisively.
Indeed. That poor Third Miss of the Shen family was truly a beauty. But how many beautiful women were there in the world?! And none of them could elicit the slightest emotion in him. She, however, was definitely of the more moving type. One would have likened her to a fine day, something along the lines of a blue sky and a bright sun.
Lu Yan thought about it for a long while but still could not put a finger on what had happened to him back at the marketplace.
His cold, mathematical mind only believed in solid proofs and unquestionable evidence. He did not appreciate being confronted to anything that pertained to the world of dreams and other nonsense.
In the end, he attributed that beautiful illusion to the fact he had been sitting up late at the Supreme Court recently. Either he was overworked or the energy of his young body has been left unspent.
Thinking like this, he got up and headed to the bathing room. When he returned, the night had engulfed the estate.
He blew his candle and prepared for a long night’s sleep.
Unfortunately he was caught in yet another dream.
(Beginning of dream)
He slowly opened his eyes and found himself standing on a terrace in the ducal estate.
The moonlight did not dissipate the darkness surrounding. It only made the estate look all the more desolate and sad.
Turning his head, he took a look on his left.
At the end of a hallway, Yang Zong was grabbing the lapels of a man’s long robes, slamming a body against a wall and angrily bellowing.
“Bai Daonian, are you not a reputed doctor who makes miracles happen?! A miracle doctor, indeed! How dare you imply our Young Master cannot be cured?!”
The man under attacked waved his hands to break free.
“Does anyone dare think I would not save the Lord if I were able to? The arrow that has injured the Young Master is not the problem. Rather the poison on it is what is killing him. I have lived in the Western Regions for a many years. I have crossed ways with this poison called “Yao” once before. It is rare and only produced by the royal families in the Western Regions. Once the poison enters an individual’s body, it cannot be removed. After three years, it generally has dried up all the body’s blood, effectively condemning the individual to death.”
Yang Zong trembled miserably at those words.
“And there truly is no antidote?”
The doctor had no choice but to nod.
“Even if there were an antidote somewhere in this world, by the time it were found, it would be too late. After three years, the poison has already penetrated every pore of the Master’s body. The end result would be the same.”
Yang Zong lifted his fingers to his forehead, letting himself fall on his hunches, nothing but pain etched on his face.
Lu Yan, standing on the side, did not understand a thing they were saying. He frowned heavily and wanted to demand an explanation from Yang Zong.
What arrow wound were they talking about?!
He had never been as much as grazed by an arrow.
As he tried to step forward, his whole person seemed to sink into a hole. The scene in front of him changed at once.
He was inside his Suning Hall. The main room seemed to be filled with the pungent smell of medicine and a heavy smoke. He waved his hand, trying to dissipate it. As his sight cleared, his eyes widened.
He looked at a figure lying on his deathbed. A man, his eyes clouded, his face pale and his hair as white as if he were one hundred years old. It was himself Lu Yan was looking at.
He approached the bed and examined himself with intent. There was a white purse in his lying form’s hand.
On the purse, nothing was embroidered but a small character. Zhen.
Looking at the lone character, something flashed like a thunderbolt through his mind.
Ignoring conventions and the rules his master had set for him, Yang Zong knelt by the bedside and choked on his words.
“Although the Young Master has never mentioned it, this subordinate knows well that, though three years have passed, the Young Master has never forgotten Miss Shen. This being the case, why does he not read the letter she has left him?”
As soon as Yang Zong had said his piece, Lu Yan saw his dying homologue laughing with the last bit of strength in his body.
Lu Yan seemed to know what the lying figure wanted to say. Had she written something he had wanted to read, he would have read the letter long ago.
Nothing but farewell words. Only meant to further increase the pain in his heart.
He had believed that as long as he knew she loved someone else, he would be able to rid himself of her shadow.
Well, he had failed up until the very last moment of his life. And dying as he was, he did not wish to see the words she had once spoken to him —— if ever there be another life.
They would only set him up for disappointment. Because Lu Yan knew there was no such thing as rebirth. Those words of her were nothing but an empty promise that would never come to fruition.
Before he closed his eyes in weariness, he recalled his life for a short split of an instant.
He recalled his grandmother’s warm hands. The earnest teachings of his parents. His coming of age ceremony. The fact he had never married.
To some, twenty seven years were a very short period. To others, they represented a lifetime.
As the dying man’s vision started gradually blurring, he hoarsely gave Yang Zong his last instructions.
“Have all my belongings thrown out of the estate without my mother knowing.”
“As for that letter … dispose of it as you see fit. As long as you do not burn it.”
He was afraid that as he boarded his journey to hell, these words of hers would haunt him if her letter were to be burned. If he were to see her face in such a moment, he knew his soul would be crushed beyond repair.
It was late autumn when a plain, white mourning veil was hung up above the Zheng Ducal Estate’s gates.
The Lu Yan who had been sucked into this strange dream saw his mother, the proud Princess Jing’an, kneel in the middle of Bai’an Hall, her head bent in anguish, her eyes filled with tears.
His father helped his mother up and whispered in an inaudible voice:
“The arrow that had brought our lad Yan glory has caused his demise in the end.”
Seeing this, Lu Yan felt the air around him becoming lighter and lighter while the pain in his chest become more intense. Not only was his chest on fire, but his loins started aching dully.
In the end, he could not hear another sound.
Everything in front of his eyes disappeared at once.
(End of dream)
Lu Yan gasped for air, feeling like he was about to suffocate. Suddenly he sat up, his breath heavy.
He looked down on his trembling hands and tasted something new. Nervousness and fear. It took him a few deep breaths to finally calm down and have the capacity to think back to what had just happened.
He remembered a detail in all of this. That white purse with the Zhen character embroidered on it.
It wrenched a laugh out of his throat.
Dreams truly had a way to be absurd.
He wouldn’t even discuss that arrow wound or the ludicrous concept that by the venerable age of twenty-seven he had been without wife and children, but those low, disgusting displays of melancholy at the idea he was missing a person, a woman no less, were truly too much for him to digest.
This dream had been a perfect synonym to the word preposterous.
Here he was, denying the very essence of it. However, that feeling of suffocation had been real indeed. So real he felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
Getting out of his covers, he walked towards the window.
A heavy snowfall engulfed the morning. And that is when he realized. These strange scenes had started assailing him as soon as he had met her at the West Market.
And everything made sense at once.
She was at the heart of this problem. That powder that had been flying all around Baixiang Pavilion must have been the problem. He had very likely inhaled some of that powder which had caused him hallucinations.
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was. He would not wait an instant longer. Shrugging into the uniform of an official, he called Yang Zong to find a pair of doctors.
Not knowing what had occurred, Yang Zong quickly asked:
“What has happened to the Young Master?”
Frowning slightly, Lu Yan answered in a deep voice.
“I want to investigate something.”
Seeing his master’s irritated appearance, Yang Zong was more convinced than ever that something must have occurred. Just that he did not dare to ask. Rather, he busied himself with finding the aforementioned doctors.
During the third quarter of the lunar year, Lu Yan took a group of people to the West Market, only stopping when they reached that Baixiang Pavilion.
Its plaque had been repaired and hung up again.
Standing outside, Lu Yan took a good look woman sitting in the shop. She truly looked as harmless as some small animal, fiddling with an abacus and caring for her accounts. Taking that scene in, a fire rushed into Lu Yan’s heart. If he were to find something suspicious, he promised to take her to the Central Judicial Office personally.
At the same time, Shen Zhen felt an ominous shiver travel down her spine. The hand that had been working on the abacus stilled and she looked up slowly, afraid of what awaited her.
At the sight of him, she clenched her little fists. A man was staring at her as coldly as a falcon would have.
Their eyes met. Lu Yan’s calm voice sounded to her ears as he simply told the doctors he had bought along:
“Investigate without causing damage.”
