Chapter Six - Crimson Thread, Flowing River
864 Words
A sudden downpour fell in the night, as if to wash away the dust of the mortal world. But amid the biting cold rain, a trail of vivid red blood stretched from the study’s threshold all the way to the west corridor.
Trạm Dư stood in the shadows, his hand gripping a long sword. Blood still dripped from the blade, drop by drop onto the green stone floor.
The assassin in black lay collapsed, but in his grasp was an insignia from the Censorate.
“They’ve begun,” Trạm Dư murmured, his eyes cold as ice.
Just moments earlier — in the study.
Mộ Cẩn Du had been copying a memorial to the Emperor on behalf of the General when a sudden chill crept down his spine. He turned, only to meet the bloodthirsty gaze of a stranger. A blade swept past his neck; he barely dodged in time, tumbling backward.
At that very moment, Trạm Dư appeared.
No one knew how he arrived so swiftly.
But with a single strike, the assassin was subdued.
Cẩn Du gasped, clutching the wound on his shoulder. He looked up at Trạm Dư — his gaze now no longer held only admiration, but suspicion. For the man who came to kill him… carried a badge that only someone from the imperial court could possess.
The next morning, the gates of the General’s residence were shut tight. Word was sent out that “a thief had entered.” All traces were wiped clean.
But whispers had already spread.
That very night, Nhược Mai’s close maid, Tiểu Khê, discovered an intruder in the main courtyard. She was struck unconscious. When she awoke, the study had been ransacked — and a handwritten letter from Nhược Mai’s mother, kept since childhood, was gone.
Nhược Mai said nothing, but her face turned pale.
That letter… was the key to uncovering the truth about her real father.
In a secluded corner of the rear garden.
Lục Tô Yến, having collapsed from high fever, was saved by Trình Diệc Thanh — a young court physician summoned from the capital. Though reserved and courteous, when he gently examined her pulse, his gaze lingered on a faint scar along her wrist.
A scar… from an old blade wound.
“You once… tried to take your own life?” he asked softly.
Tô Yến opened her eyes, lost in exhaustion. She said nothing. But the tear at the corner of her eye… could no longer be held back.
“I never thought… anyone would notice that scar,” she whispered.
Diệc Thanh asked no more. He simply left her with one quiet line before standing to go:
“If someone like you wishes to die… you should at least wait until there’s someone left to weep for you.”
That day, the sunlight pierced through fallen leaves, casting shadows of two lonely souls — one proud and cold as ice, the other calm and steady as flowing water. And yet, their wounded hearts… seemed to quietly echo one another.
At Thính Tuyết Pavilion — where Nhược Mai now stayed — she sat before the bronze mirror, hands trembling as she opened her mother’s journal once more.
A single line stood out:
“If you find this letter missing, believe this — someone now knows who you truly are.”
Nhược Mai’s heart clenched.
Her mother had not been a fool. She had set a trap.
And the first to touch that letter — aside from the injured Tiểu Khê — was only one other: Lục Tô Yến.
On the night of the sixteenth — plum blossoms bloomed in full across the courtyard.
Trạm Dư stood beneath a tree, waiting.
He did not call her name, nor speak a word. He simply watched from afar — just like he had ten years ago, when she first stepped into this estate at her mother’s funeral, eyes red with tears, her back so small and fragile.
From that moment… he had never looked away.
But this time, Nhược Mai walked forward. She stopped before him and asked directly:
“When you were young… did you lose someone dear to you?”
Trạm Dư faltered for a moment.
“Yes,” he answered.
“It was your mother… a servant once in this very household.”
He pressed his lips together, then gave a faint nod.
“She died in the back garden… the one sealed off after that winter.”
“…”
“I know now,” she whispered. “I know the truth — both of your birth… and mine.”
Trạm Dư said nothing.
The night wind blew, scattering plum petals across her shoulders.
Nhược Mai gave a bitter smile, her eyes deep as a still lake:
“I am the daughter of the one who killed your mother.”
“And you… are the son of the man who made mine die with hatred in her heart.”
Silence. Cold wind. Two souls standing in the storm of fate.
Neither spoke another word.
Because the truth was already too painful to bear.
Because love… had reached a point where neither continuing nor turning back was possible.
- Writer
