Yin Huai · Conversa

Spring in Jiangnan was supposed to be warm and gentle. But on that day, there was no wind in the village. The treetops were completely still, the waterfowl had hidden away somewhere, and even the cicadas had fallen silent. A dense crowd of villagers knelt all over the ground, their foreheads pressed against the dirt, their backs bent into the most humble arcs. No one dared to look up, and no one dared to make a sound. The new emperor was touring the south in plain clothes, and his imperial presence arrived with a terrifying, prison-like majesty—to steal even a single glance was a capital offense. You knelt at the very back, curled up in the gaps of the crowd. Wearing coarse hemp clothes, your face smeared with ash, you hunched your back, shrinking yourself into the smallest possible ball. He chanted over and over in his heart: Don't see me, don't see me. Five years had passed; that face should have long since become blurry. Yet his heart was hammering like a drum, each beat crashing against his throat. The imperial carriage stopped. There were no carriage bells, no shouting, nothing at all. That silence was more terrifying than any sound—as if the entire entourage had been pinned down by some powerful will, even the horses holding their breath. That command to "rise" never came. Your cold sweat seeped out layer by layer, soaking the fabric of your back. He thought of the rumors—the new emperor was brutal and bloodthirsty, having executed over thirty former officials in a single day without even blinking. His fingers dug into the soil, one of his nails snapping. The pain shot up from his fingertip, but it was not even a ten-thousandth of the fear in his heart. Then, he heard footsteps. Light, steady, and unhurried. The sound of boot soles grinding against the bluestone pavement, step by step, like a predator deliberately slowing its pace before approaching its prey, savoring the prey's deathly trembles. The sound cut through the kneeling crowd, getting closer and closer, clearer and clearer—walking straight in this direction. You felt all the blood in your body freeze in that instant. The footsteps stopped. Right in front of him, so close that he could see the dark dragon patterns embroidered on the boots—black satin, with gold thread gleaming with a cold, eerie light. The tips of the boots stopped just at the edge of his vision, a mere inch away. He could even smell the ambergris incense clinging to the hem of his robe—crisp, stern, like deep winter snow, like the careless breath of an emperor looking down at an ant. The world went completely quiet. That silence was not natural; it was forcibly suppressed by a far more powerful force—like an invisible dome dropping down, sealing everything within a hundred yards under the emperor's suffocating pressure. A shadow fell over you. It wasn't the shadow of a tree, nor of a cloud—it was that person's shadow, tall and cold, like an unsheathed long blade, enveloping your entire being. The edges of the shadow were as sharp as a blade, cutting off all the light around you, trapping you in a darkness that belonged only to him. Your body began to tremble. That instinctive, uncontrollable shudder when a prey is caught by the scruff of its neck by a predator. His heart pounded frantically in his chest, vibrating so hard his eardrums buzzed. He didn't dare move, didn't dare look up, didn't dare breathe. The silence hung over your head for a long time, so long that you thought you would be burned to ashes under this gaze for the rest of your life. Then, the voice rang out. "Raise your head." Two words. Not loud, not even particularly harsh. But the voice seemed to come from the deepest depths of the earth, carrying a heavy, unquestionable authority that cut through the air and nailed itself into your heart. It was not a request, not an inquiry; it was a command—an imperial decree of life and death handed down from above. You clenched your teeth, the bones of your jaw making a faint grinding sound. The imperial command was absolute; you had no choice but to obey. He raised his face inch by inch, his movements as slow as if he were executing himself, every inch of rise accompanied by the crisp cracking of his spine. The moment the sunlight pierced his eyes, he saw that person. The black dragon robe fluttered slightly in the wind, making his figure look like an unsheathed long blade—sharp, cold, and impossible to look at directly. Five years had passed; he had grown taller, his face had lost its youthful innocence, and his features were as if carved by a knife, with every line written with sharpness and majesty. But those slightly upturned eyes—they were exactly the same as five years ago, yet not entirely the same. Five years ago, those eyes held fear, dependence, and cautious probing. Now, those eyes were as deep as a thousand-year-old icy pool, bottomless, lightless, devoid of any decipherable emotion. The moment your eyes met, the disguise you had meticulously constructed—the ash-smeared face, the coarse hemp clothes, the illusion of escaping to Jiangnan and living under an assumed name for five years—crumbled into dust under the pressure of that gaze. He was seen through, stripped bare, and the most secret fears and regrets in his vital organs were gouged out by those eyes and laid out under the midday sun. Looking at your wretched state, the corners of his mouth slowly curved into an arc. It wasn't a smile. Or rather, it was something far more terrifying than a smile—it was the satisfaction of a prey finally caught in the net, the last moment of mercy before the hunter retracts its claws. That arc was too shallow, so shallow it was almost invisible, but you saw it, and your entire heart sank into an ice cave. "Teacher, after all these years, you still haven't made any progress." The voice wasn't loud, but it felt like a dull knife, slowly and forcefully stabbing into your chest. At that moment, you finally understood—he hadn't passed by here by chance. He had come for him. For five years, he had never been forgotten. And the fate he thought he had escaped was now standing right in front of him, looking down at him, waiting for him. The sunlight was still so warm, but you only felt cold. A bone-chilling cold.