High-quality oilcloth covered the top of the tent, blocking every drop of rain.
Inside the tent, everything was quiet. Water boiled on the stove, warming the air. The bedding remained dry, giving off a faint scent of incense.
A pot of warm, clear pu'er tea sat quietly on the table, waiting for someone to drink it.
Shen Changyin sat on the edge of the bed with her eyes closed. The book rolled up in her hands had been crushed and wrinkled by her grip.
The rain on the tent roof had not stopped. The dense downpour felt as if it were not striking the oilcloth above, but pounding directly on her heart, tangling her thoughts into chaos.
"My lady." Old Jin lifted the tent flap and entered. "The orders have been passed down."
"The empress is hiding in her tent, clinging to life, unwilling even to step into the rain once. Naturally, the news had to be delivered by us."
"The news of the Third Princess going to disaster relief has been strictly sealed. We're only saying that an unknown minor official volunteered to lead people there."
Shen Changyin nodded.
The water on the stove bubbled vigorously, yet the pu'er tea beside her had already gone cold.
She waved her hand. "You may go."
Then she closed her eyes again.
On this noisy, rain-soaked night, she was the only one inside the tent. Eyes closed, she silently recited Daoist scriptures she didn't truly believe in.
She finally understood why some people clung to faith—because it wasn't that they truly believed, but that there was nothing else they could do.
By the thirty-seventh repetition, dawn arrived.
The humidity in the air eased slightly. It no longer felt suffocating. The rain above grew thinner, even showing signs of stopping.
Shen Changyin opened her eyes, exhaled, and stood up, intending to lift the kettle and brew a fresh pot of pu'er.
A soldier stumbled in from outside the tent, covered in mud, collapsing onto the carpet. She looked up, panic-stricken.
"General Shen—something happened to the Third Princess!"
The world spun violently.
—
Tiger's Foot Village — after Xie Yu was swept away.
The flood roared through, arriving fast and receding just as quickly.
The soldier Xie Yu had pushed away and swam with the child on her back to the vicinity of the camp once the strongest surge passed.
The camp Xie Yu had chosen sat on higher ground. The soldier waded ashore, holding the child tightly, step by step approaching the bustling crowd.
Other soldiers had already brought children back and were standing in a circle while the military medic and apprentices examined the children's injuries.
Someone spotted her return and shouted.
Immediately, a group rushed over, faces bright with relief.
"You brat, you're back so late—are you hurt?"
The first person to reach her took the girl from her arms and looked behind her with the others.
"Where's the Third Princess? Why didn't she come back with you?"
The soldier hadn't smiled at all. Her face was completely smeared with mud, only a few rain-washed streaks revealing the wheat-colored skin beneath.
Her eyes were bloodshot, veins crawling through the whites.
"The Third Princess… the Third Princess was swept away by the flood."
All sound vanished instantly.
The military medic rushed out from the rear tent. "What exactly happened?"
Soldiers crowded in. Lightly injured villagers followed, while those too badly hurt to move stretched their necks to look.
The soldier clenched her teeth, trying not to cry. When she spoke, her voice still broke. She wiped her eyes fiercely with her forearm, knowing now was not the time to cry, forcing herself to organize her words.
"The Third Princess shoved me toward the tree and got swept away herself. She wouldn't have died—but a stone struck her head."
Her voice cracked again.
"In the blink of an eye, she was gone. The waves took her. I only saw blood—so much blood."
In the storm, the camp fell deathly silent, filled only with the sound of rain.
The military medic swallowed and wiped her face.
A tall, broad-shouldered, dark-skinned soldier suddenly cursed aloud.
"Then go look for her!"
She grabbed a shovel with one hand and jammed a bamboo hat onto her head, immediately moving to leave.
Dozens of soldiers moved with her, heading toward the direction where Xie Yu had vanished.
Rain drowned heaven and earth into a vast swamp as the soldiers prepared to enter the water.
The military medic charged ahead, standing in the floodwater, arms spread wide, shouting:
"No one is allowed to go!"
"The rain is still falling! The mountain is unstable! What are you going there for—death?!"
The imperial guards weren't inclined to listen to a medic from the mighty army.
The dark-skinned leader shoved her aside. "The Third Princess said she'd be with us—then I'll be with her. This life of mine belongs to her."
"That's right! I'm not afraid to die!" others echoed.
The next instant, the charging leader was slammed into the water by the medic gripping her shoulder.
The usually refined, scholarly-looking medic had already stripped off her outer robe, revealing short working clothes and well-defined arm muscles. Hands on her hips, she shouted:
"Who else dares ignore me?!"
She glared at them all.
"She was swept away—not buried. With the flood this violent, what do you think you'll find if you go now?"
She forced her voice to calm.
"If we're going to find her, the best chance is when the rain lessens. We search together, following clues and the river's flow, dividing directions properly."
"If you rush out now, wandering blindly, you'll find nothing. And when the rain stops, there won't be enough people left to search."
She pressed her hand downward.
"Wait. You have to believe in her. Believe she won't die so easily."
The soldiers remained agitated, but they knew she was right and forcibly suppressed it.
"Go back and wait. Rest properly. We still have to go find her," the medic urged, driving them back.
Under the shelter, mud-covered soldiers sat on the ground. No one spoke. They gripped their shovels tightly, like a silent black cloud pressed to the earth.
The soldier Xie Yu had saved was named Lin Yuanzhi. She had a baby-faced appearance and round eyes. Since earlier, she'd sunk into a numb haze, leaning on her shovel to stay upright, her hand trembling violently.
Why wasn't it me?
How could it not be me?
Everyone said a foot soldier's life was cheap. Everyone said soldiers were meant to die.
She'd known long ago that one day she might die blocking an arrow for some noble—maybe a princess, maybe a general, maybe even the empress.
She had accepted it.
But since when did a princess save a foot soldier?
Why was I the one who lived?
Why was she the one swept away?
Her trembling worsened. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably, clacking together.
So cold.
The next moment, someone pressed a bamboo tube filled with hot water against the back of her hand.
It was a lightly injured villager. There was no smile on her face, only concern as she gestured for Lin Yuanzhi to take it.
"Drink some hot water. We still have to go find her."
The soldier lifted her head in a daze and saw several villagers distributing hot water among the soldiers. Nearby, two more villagers were continuously boiling water.
She loosened one hand from the shovel, wiped her face with the back of it, accepted the bamboo tube, and rasped,
"Thank you."
The villager nodded and moved on to the next person.
As she held the tube, warmth slowly returned to her icy hands. Strength gradually returned to her grip on the shovel.
She stared into the curtain of rain beyond the shelter, praying silently, over and over again.
Heaven, please stop the rain.
Please, stop it.
The violent drumming of rain finally began to weaken.
The military doctor sent someone to check the riverbank. Only after confirming that the floodwaters had mostly receded did she lead the soldiers to the place where Xie Yu had disappeared.
They followed the riverbed for a while when they suddenly discovered a large amount of blood splattered across the branches of a tree.
The military doctor compared the height of the branches, trying to reconstruct what had happened there.
"This isn't blood from a head wound. Head wounds don't bleed this much. After she was struck by the rock, she must have reached this spot while still conscious. She clung to this tree and even tried to climb higher."
She made a few motions in the air as she spoke, simulating the scene.
"But she was probably cut by something carried in the flood… most likely her thigh was slashed. The blood sprayed onto the tree. Then she lost her strength and fell back into the flood."
Her expression was grave.
"She lost too much blood, and her head was injured. There's a strong chance she passed out and couldn't hear us calling. She may also be buried under mud."
"When we search, we'll have to rely entirely on ourselves. Not a single patch of ground can be missed."
She divided the soldiers into several teams, attempting to mark out search zones, but quickly realized the flood's affected area spread outward like a fan, growing wider the farther it went.
The dark-skinned soldier said anxiously, "My hometown's had floods before. The farther out you go, the larger the area. With just us, there's no way we can search it all."
The military doctor was anxious too. "Then we search anyway! Alive, we find her alive. Dead, we find her body. No matter how many days it takes, we dig her out."
She looked around at the soldiers, knowing that at this point, all hope rested on them. After holding back for a moment, she still said:
"She was about to get married. Her good days were still ahead of her. We can't let her lie alone in the mud and water."
The soldiers tightened their grips on their shovels.
The atmosphere remained heavy. No matter how strong their determination was, the reality was that there simply weren't enough of them.
"You're right. She's my boss. I'm not planning to change who feeds me."
A young woman's voice suddenly rang out.
Everyone turned toward the sound.
Jiang Fang trudged forward through the mud, appearing before them.
Behind her was a group of people dressed in black short uniforms. They varied in height and build, but all moved with practiced efficiency and solid footing. Each of them carried a shovel.
About half of them had their faces covered.
Old Li—the woman who had taught Xie Yu how to hunt in the village—walked at the front.
Jiang Fang said to the military doctor, "I went to find you early this morning. The innkeeper said you were called away by the Third Highness, so I went to get reinforcements."
"This is Old Li. She used to lead the death-squad camp. Now she's the head of our special unit," Jiang Fang introduced.
Old Li gave the military doctor a brief nod.
Old Li said, "Enough talk. Divide the zones. We're finding her."
The military doctor immediately used a branch to draw a rough outline in the mud, splitting the large fan-shaped area into many smaller sections.
Frowning, she said, "The problem is still the same. She may be unconscious and unable to respond. She could also be buried in mud. We need to search inch by inch."
"This isn't flat land—it's mountainous terrain, full of rocks and fallen trees. Searching will be extremely difficult. And the flooded area is massive."
She shook her head and pointed to the far end of the fan shape.
"Even with your people added, by the time we reach here, we'll still be short-handed."
"And she's very likely lying somewhere in this area."
"Stop talking like that. Search first," Old Li said briskly, already dividing her people into four teams.
Together with the soldiers' original six teams, a total of ten teams moved off in their assigned directions, heading deeper into the forest, checking every possible place where someone might be buried.
They shouted again and again:
"Third Highness—!"
"Third Highness—!"
The voices overlapped, chaotic and loud, becoming the strongest sound in the forest after the storm.
But no matter how hoarse their voices became, there was no response.
Gradually, the calls of their companions turned into echoes of their own voices, like shouting into a cliff and never hearing an answer.
She was nowhere to be found.
About half an hour later, the military doctor and Jiang Fang met again. Both of their faces were ashen.
"We're too slow. There aren't enough people. At this rate, even if she's already gone, I might not even find her body!" Jiang Fang shouted hoarsely—she had already wrecked her voice from yelling.
They tried to come up with a faster search strategy, but had no ideas.
The soldiers were regrouped, standing together in exhaustion, seeing the same frustration on each other's faces.
Everyone knew—the search had failed.
Despair and silence descended together.
Just then, rustling sounds suddenly came from the bushes in the forest.
Everyone was already here—who was making that noise?
They all looked up urgently, but only saw an ordinary young farm woman stepping out of the undergrowth, a straw hat on her head.
No miracle appeared.
The hearts that had been hanging high sank again.
But the rustling didn't stop. Moments later, several more people emerged behind the young farm woman.
"We're from nearby Tiger Head Village," the farm woman said. "Do you still need people?"
One of the soldiers stared at her, then suddenly pointed and shouted, "You're the one who came from the neighboring village last night to scout things out! The Third Highness told me not to interfere with you."
The farm woman nodded. Though she wasn't from Tiger Foot Village, she still bowed deeply to the soldiers.
"Thank you, generals, for being willing to save us villagers."
The soldier choked up. "You should thank the Third Highness."
The farm woman and her companions stepped aside, revealing nearly a hundred villagers behind them. They had no shovels, so they carried all kinds of farming tools instead.
Most of them had spent their lives bent over fields. Even the smallest official could make them tremble with fear.
Facing so many soldiers for the first time, most of them looked nervous—but none of them turned away.
"We're here to help find the Third Highness."
The farm woman nodded to the military doctor. "General, command us however you like. We know the mountain paths better than you."
The military doctor froze for a moment.
Then she reacted, nodded, and shouted loudly, "Groups of ten! Each group send one leader forward—listen carefully to which areas you're searching!"
The villagers began choosing leaders. Before they even finished, another woman suddenly emerged from the trees in a different direction.
"We're from Tiger Tail Village. We're here too."
"People from Riverside Village should be on the way as well. Their village is right next to ours."
"We're all here to help find her."
The small forest was now packed with people. Everyone held tools, their expressions varied, but every single one of them was determined to find her.
Watching these villagers—people who normally had nothing to do with her—the soldier Lin Yuanzhi finally broke down and cried loudly, tears streaking down her face and soaking the mud that had nearly dried there.
The military doctor and Jiang Fang discussed briefly and changed their strategy.
They decided to split into multiple routes.
One group would continue searching forward from their current position, while another group would rush quickly to the middle of the fan-shaped area and search toward the tail end.
The first group would be commanded by the military doctor. The second by Jiang Fang.
The villagers led Jiang Fang and the soldiers along small paths, moving quickly toward the middle of the fan.
After searching for a while, Jiang Fang discovered that the flood's reach included Fang Family Village.
That village lay upstream from Stillwater Village. When Stillwater Village and Li Family Hamlet had fought over water before, Xie Yu—using the alias Jiang Yu—had gone to Fang Family Village to negotiate, asking them to stop using water wheels and release some water downstream.
Fang Family Village was already at the lowest point of the flood's reach. The damage there wasn't severe. The flood had swept over the land and been absorbed by nearby lakes and rivers, leaving only a thin layer of mud behind.
The village head had no idea what was going on. Like many villagers, she came out to watch as soldiers filled the area, shouting "Third Highness" again and again.
As ordinary farmers who had never been protected by local troops—and still had to pay them grain—they kept their distance, saying nothing, offering no help, and having no idea what had happened to this Third Highness.
Until the village head recognized Jiang Fang.
She waved her over. "Aren't you from Stillwater Village? What are you doing searching here too?"
Pulling her closer, she lowered her voice. "I'm telling you, when nobles get into trouble, the officials and imperial guards handle it. Why would a commoner like you get involved?"
Jiang Fang said, "It's Jiang Yu."
The village head frowned. "Da Yu? Isn't she your distant relative? She…!"
Realization struck her.
Jiang Fang nodded. "She is the Third Highness."
The village head fell silent, clicked her tongue, and said, "Da Yu is a good woman."
When Xie Yu had first come to stop them from using water wheels, she had threatened them with force—but the village head understood it was to ensure the downstream villages wouldn't lose their irrigation.
Not to mention how Xie Yu later helped suppress bandits. Which village around here hadn't gained peace because of that?
"Tell us what you need from our village. Just say the word."
The village head sent several people to Li Family Hamlet and Stillwater Village to spread the news.
"As long as they know we're looking for Da Yu, they'll all come."
Jiang Fang's throat was dry as she assigned them search areas.
She looked at the countless soldiers and villagers searching for Xie Yu.
She looked at the wheat in the fields—after the flood, still trembling as green shoots pushed up through the mud.
She thought that Xie Yu might never know that, without meaning to, she had scattered so many seeds throughout her life.
Now, those seeds were slowly taking root and sprouting.
—
Not long after the villagers joined the search, the two soldiers who had been sent to notify Shen Changyin finally reached the spring hunt camp.
After the flood, the roads were slick and the terrain had changed drastically. The two of them slipped on the way and nearly tumbled down a mountain slope. Only after suffering many scrapes and abrasions did they manage to reach the camp—yet they were still badly delayed.
One of the soldiers, covered in cuts and bruises, rushed into Shen Changyin's tent.
"Minister Shen, the Third Highness… the Third Highness has had an accident!"
Shen Changyin shot to her feet—then the world spun violently, and she nearly collapsed, staggering several steps.
A sharp pain stabbed through her heart for an instant. She gasped for breath, gradually realizing she couldn't draw air in at all. She had to cover her mouth and nose with her hand, only lowering it after dozens of breaths.
Now was absolutely not the time to be weak.
She immediately summoned Old Jin and Zhu Ting.
"Something has happened to Xie Yu. This matter absolutely—absolutely—cannot reach the empress. You two keep a close watch. Do not let any message that shouldn't be delivered reach her tent."
After issuing the order, she began mobilizing the imperial guards, ordering the soldiers to assemble in the open ground.
Officials from various households poked their heads out of their tents, exchanging curious glances and quietly probing for information.
Shen Changyin moved with decisive efficiency. She had already changed into riding attire suited for movement and stood before the soldiers.
Her lips were pale, and dull waves of pain continued to pulse through her heart.
She felt as if she had been torn apart—one enormous part of her mind was screaming in anguish, while a much smaller fragment still retained reason, barely holding her together and driving her actions.
The heavier the pain grew, the colder and calmer she became.
Because calm and reason were what Xie Yu needed now.
She looked over the soldiers.
She wasn't someone who could give impassioned speeches, so she spoke plainly.
"Six months' pay for each of you. Find her."
"Move."
—
At the same time, inside a mountain cave.
The flood had carried massive amounts of mud and sand into the cavern. Water droplets still dripped steadily from the stone walls.
Xie Yu lay at the deepest part of the cave, half her body buried in mud and sand, groaning painfully in unconsciousness.
Her eyelids trembled violently as she struggled to open them.
Everything before her was pitch black. From her forehead down, half her face felt dry and sticky.
Her nostrils were filled with nothing but the smell of blood.
She tried to move her hand, but it pulled at the wound on her thigh. Pain surged like an electric current, flooding her entire body in an instant.
She screamed in agony—but only her own echo answered her from the stone walls.
It hurt.
It hurt.
It hurt.
It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt…
No matter how much pain she endured, there was no response.
The entire universe had forgotten her in this corner, leaving her alone with the pain.
Sweat beaded again and again on her forehead. Adrenaline no longer worked.
Even moving a single finger brought searing agony.
Xie Yu threw her head back, the back of her skull sinking once more into the mud.
It hurt. It really hurt.
She lay in the warm cradle of earth, her eyelids growing heavy again.
Darkness swept in once more—but this time, she felt warmth.
It hurts too much. I don't want to open my eyes again. Let me die here.
It hurts too much.
—
T/N: Apologies for not posting yesterday; I was very tired, fell asleep unintentionally, and forgot to post the chapter.
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