Lu Ying had dressed meticulously today, wearing a large red gold-woven phoenix-and-peony full-sleeved robe paired with a green shimmering satin horse-face skirt sprinkled with gold. Beneath the skirt was a horsehair bustle imported from Korea, puffing the skirt out like a green lotus pod.
This audacious color scheme, dazzling and enchanting at first glance, was clearly Wang Daxia’s personal handiwork. Lu Ying found it overly gaudy and chaotic, wanting to switch to a plain skirt, but Wang Daxia stopped her: "Trust me, men love this. No one understands men better than I do."
Lu Ying thought, given Wang Daxia’s "glorious years" of unparalleled success in women’s attire and winning countless men’s hearts, his words were probably reliable. Fine, she’d endure it for now.
Wang Daxia studied Lu Ying’s face and produced a sharp razor blade.
Lu Ying’s professional instincts kicked in as she raised a Western hand mirror to block him. "What are you doing?"
"Trimming your eyebrows," Wang Daxia replied. "Don’t tell me you’ve never done this before?"
"Of course I have," Lu Ying set the mirror down, though she actually hadn’t.
Wang Daxia saw through her but didn’t expose the lie. He shaved the stray hairs from her brows, then brought out over a dozen eyebrow inks from the shop, swatching each on his hand to compare with her natural brow color. Selecting the closest match, he carefully filled them in.
Lu Ying’s skin was tanned from years of exposure to wind and sun. Wang Daxia tested numerous powders, but all were too pale, making her face look like a doll’s painted mask. He gave up and applied a thin layer of almond cream instead. Well, she’d been merely dark before—now she was dark and gleaming.
Wang Daxia produced a needle. Lu Ying raised the mirror again. "Now what?"
"Piercing your ears. Don’t worry, I’m quick—it’ll feel like a bee sting. I did my own ears myself. Back in Fengcheng, all the girls came to me for piercings. With Caiwei’s salve, none of them ever got infected or festered. It was my specialty in Fengcheng."
Wang Daxia had sacrificed much for undercover work, becoming self-taught. By accident, he’d stumbled into a new vocation.
Lu Ying had braved countless dangers, but a mere embroidery needle made her balk. "No, I don’t wear earrings."
Unyielding, Wang Daxia cut a piece of breath-activated resin—a sticky substance softened by exhaling on it, used to adhere floral decorations to the cheeks. He skillfully attached two pale golden pearls to the resin and pressed them onto Lu Ying’s earlobes, creating the illusion of pearl earrings without any piercing.
After three years of running a cosmetics shop, Wang Daxia had finally refined his once-dreadful aesthetic of treating the head like a flowerpot crammed with random accessories. He styled Lu Ying’s hair into a bun and crowned it with a lotus hairpiece.
Lu Ying checked her reflection: the lavish robes paired with elegant, understated hair ornaments... looked rather nice.
Wang Daxia admired his handiwork. "Go on now. May Commander Lu achieve swift victory today and soon win her handsome man."
Lu Ying’s mind reeled. "What do you mean?"
Wang Daxia thought, We’ve seen through your three years of exchanging glances with my brother-in-law, Caiwei and I. But marriage is your own affair—we shouldn’t interfere.Lu Ying suddenly sought Wang Daxia's help. Wang Daxia knew perfectly well that he had dressed Lu Ying according to matchmaking standards, so there was no need to pretend ignorance now.
Wang Daxia said, "Quickly take my brother-in-law away, so my wife won’t keep thinking about him. Once he’s in your hands, she’ll feel at ease and retire with me."
So, Wang Daxia’s enthusiastic effort in dressing Lu Ying today was driven by personal motives.
Lu Ying was twenty-eight, and Ding Wu was thirty—already at the age of establishing oneself. At their age, some were already grandparents, yet they remained unmarried.
Ding Wu had feelings for Lu Ying, but given his well-mannered and principled nature, he would first need to bring his father, Ding Rukui, from Yunnan to the capital, inform him, and then gradually arrange for a matchmaker to propose marriage step by step, navigating all the intricate and cumbersome rituals without skipping a single one.
Lu Ying, however, was like an arrow shot straight from the bow—direct and unwavering. For her, it was a simple yes or no, with no room for hesitation.
Outside the window was the execution ground at Caishikou, where Zhao Quan, Li Zixin, and nine other leaders of the White Lotus Sect had just been executed by slow slicing and beheading. The air reeked of blood, separated only by a thin layer of window paper. Yet, Lu Ying took the initiative and asked Ding Wu if he wanted to marry.
Lu Ying, truly, you are something else.
As if struck dumb by Lu Ying’s words, Ding Wu’s mind went blank. It felt like tinnitus, with at least a hundred cicadas chirping in his ears, "Zhi liao, zhi liao!" (I know, I know!)
But in reality, he did not know! Flustered and panicked, Ding Wu had no idea how to respond.
Ding Wu sat frozen in place. As a man, he always felt he should be the one to broach such matters. Lu Ying had taken the words right out of his mouth, leaving him speechless and unsure how to react.
Ding Wu was stunned at first. When his thoughts finally returned, his first impulse was, "If only Wang Daxia were here, I could ask him what to do. With all his tricks, he can handle anyone, man or woman, with ease."
Ding Wu shook his head, trying to rid himself of this absurd thought.
Lu Ying had sought Wang Daxia’s help, and now Ding Wu wished to do the same. But Wang Daxia was not around, leaving them both stranded and helpless, as if time had frozen.
Lu Ying waited and waited but received no response from Ding Wu. The fire in her heart gradually extinguished, cooling into self-doubt: Had she misinterpreted his earlier glances and feelings? Had she been conceited?
She was a straightforward person. If he felt nothing, she would let it go. At worst, she could remain unmarried for life.
Though filled with reluctance, Lu Ying stood up, clasped her hands, and said, "I’m sorry for putting you in an awkward position. I won’t bring this up again. Let’s carry on as before. Farewell."
As Lu Ying turned to leave, Ding Wu finally snapped back to reality. In his urgency, he cast aside all propriety about men and women not touching and reached out, placing a hand on Lu Ying’s right shoulder to stop her.
But who was Lu Ying? She had been practicing horse stances since she could walk—a martial arts prodigy who had long honed her instincts. For a trained fighter, a sudden touch on the shoulder was extremely dangerous. Turning around would expose her most vulnerable neck to attack.
So, without looking back, Lu Ying instinctively grabbed the hand on her shoulder, crouched, pivoted at the waist, and executed a flawless hip throw, slamming her assailant to the ground.Ding Wu had no recollection of what happened—one moment he was standing, the next he was pinned to the floor by Lu Ying, unable to move. Their eyes met, faces barely a fist's distance apart.
Lu Ying’s reflexes had moved faster than her mind. Only after subduing the assailant did she realize who it was. She released him, saying, "Remember, never tap a martial artist on the shoulder from behind. If it were someone accustomed to using weapons, you’d already be dead."
Ding Wu’s head had been knocked dizzy from the fall, and he couldn’t get up right away. "I’m sorry," he said. "I needed to speak with you urgently and accidentally touched your... shoulder."
Seeing how badly he’d been thrown, Lu Ying felt a pang of sympathy and reached out to help him up. "I know what you want to say, but... please don’t. Being rejected once was hard enough—I don’t want to hear it again."
As Lu Ying turned to leave, Ding Wu instinctively reached for her wrist but stopped himself, remembering the earlier lesson. He withdrew his hand and hurriedly explained, "It’s not that... I mean... I never imagined I would marry a woman in this lifetime. I always planned to live alone, to wander the world after completing my mission to dismantle the White Lotus Sect—to fade away quietly, my deeds unknown. I thought I didn’t deserve love or a family."
"When I was ten, my family fell from grace. My father was imprisoned on death row, and Yan Shifan deliberately tormented us. He exiled my mother to the far south, to Jiaozhi, where she fell ill and died on the journey. I was sent to the northernmost region, Tieling. Separated by distance and death, we were torn apart. Fortunately, a loyal servant couple cared for me along the way, and we met Banxia, a wandering girl. Together, we reached Tieling and relied on each other to survive, so I didn’t end up like my mother, dying of illness."
"Burdened by the grudges of the past generation and enduring the fall from noble son to exiled convict, I’ve always lived under great strain. In truth, I’ve never been happy or content. But to reassure my adoptive parents and comfort my sister, I’ve always pretended to accept my fate—to be calm, cheerful in hardship, deceiving even myself. The brighter my facade, the darker my inner self. I’ve lived wearing a mask. I often wished for death, but if I died, my adoptive parents and sister would grieve. They are the only ones in this world who care about me. My soul has long been twisted beyond repair. I am, in fact, a bad person. I’ve had many terrible thoughts, so dark they frighten even me. I—"
Ding Wu had never revealed his hidden, shameful side to anyone. But when it came to marriage, he didn’t want to deceive her; he had to confess everything. "When my adoptive parents passed away one after another, I didn’t feel sorrow—I felt relief. I even once threw all the long-sleep mushrooms into the chicken soup, intending for Banxia and me to eat it and die in our sleep, so I could depart without attachments and free myself."
Though Ding Wu stood alive before her now, and she knew Wei Caiwei was still alive, Lu Ying felt a chill run down her spine. The Ding Wu before her seemed like a stranger, no longer the refined, courteous man she knew. His gaze was shadowed, fragile, as if the slightest touch would shatter him.
Seeing Lu Ying’s reaction, Ding Wu retreated to a chair and sat down. "You’re afraid, aren’t you? You should go."Lu Ying did not leave; instead, she sat beside him. "You didn't actually do it—you only thought about it. You've always treated Banxia well, and she has always regarded you as her own elder brother."
Ding Wu shook his head. "It wasn't just a thought—I really did it. At that time, I had read many books but couldn't take the imperial exams or pursue an official career. Others at the academy, far less learned than I, passed the exams and were selected for further studies at the prefectural school. Meanwhile, I was left with nothing but a belly full of poetry and books, only to become a minor clerk organizing household registrations in Tieling County. I was trapped in Tieling for life, and I couldn't accept it. I wanted to end it all."
"That day, I stewed a pot of chicken and mushrooms, keeping it warm on the stove. After burying my adoptive parents with Banxia, I planned to return in the evening to eat it and fall asleep forever. But a bear, drawn by the smell, broke into the kitchen, overturned the pot, and ate everything inside before dying in its sleep. Banxia thought she had mistakenly added poisonous mushrooms to the food and was overwhelmed with guilt, apologizing to me repeatedly. Yet, I lacked the courage to admit it was my doing. I..."
Ding Wu hung his head. "I am worse than a beast. I owed her too much. So, I used the little authority I had to register her as a Female Household, exempting her from taxes and corvée labor. She could rely on her medical skills to survive, and when I eventually sought death alone, I wouldn't have to worry about her. When she proposed leaving Tieling to become a traveling doctor, I pretended to dissuade her but was secretly glad she could escape this place I saw as a prison. Once she settled elsewhere, I could die in peace."
"Actually, when you Embroidered Uniform Guards came to Tieling to bring me to the capital for questioning, I had already found the eternal sleep mushrooms again in Xiangya Mountain. I had stewed them in an iron pot and was about to eat when the Embroidered Uniform Guards arrived. That was when I learned Banxia was in trouble in the capital—a suspect in the double murder case of Thousand Household Chen and his son—and I was needed to confirm her identity."
"Once again, I didn't die. I followed the Embroidered Uniform Guards to the capital, cleared her of the murder suspicion, and thought I would be escorted back to Tieling to end my life. But on the Dragon Boat Festival, Yan Shifan's men captured me, using my life to force my father to commit suicide. From then on, one thing led to another: I met you, had the chance to personally destroy the White Lotus Sect, and never returned to Tieling, embarking on a completely different life."
"This is the real me," Ding Wu said. "When I belittled myself, cursed Banxia, severed ties with her, went mad at my father's suspected grave, denounced his former friends and students, ruined my reputation, defected to Anda Khan, and accused the Ming dynasty of injustice toward my family—it wasn't all an act. Much of it was my true feelings, half-truths and half-lies, which made it seem especially genuine and fooled many. It wasn't that my deception was particularly skillful, but that I truly have a devilish side. A person of truly noble and upright character couldn't be an undercover agent, much less succeed at it."
After years in officialdom, Lu Ying had matured considerably and no longer judged people in black-and-white terms. Everyone has a dark side, but she never imagined Ding Wu's could be this dark.
That Wei Caiwei had survived to this day was truly a stroke of luck.
After unburdening himself of the truths he had suppressed for twenty years, Ding Wu felt the ever-present pressure vanish. Removing the mask felt wonderful, like being reborn."I've actually had feelings for you since you rescued me from the bottom of the Waterwheel Lake, but I've always felt inferior, unworthy of your righteous spirit. I deliberately ignored my own emotions, afraid to touch them. Now that everything has finally ended, I'm no longer a prisoner trapped in Tieling, and I can stand side by side with you."
"The person sitting before you was once a devil." Ding Wu straightened his clothes and sat upright in the chair. "To become husband and wife, we should be completely honest with each other. You still have time to take back what you just said."
This time it was Lu Ying's turn to fall silent. Her mind retraced everything from the present Ding Wu back to their first meeting, reacquainting herself with the man before her.
Seeing her remain silent for so long, Ding Wu stood up. "I understand what you mean. I'm sorry to have disappointed you. Goodbye."
Ding Wu turned to leave. Was she disappointed? Yes. Did she regret it? No. She deserved a better man.
"Wait." Lu Ying stood up and quickly grabbed Ding Wu's hand. "When someone who became a devil ultimately chooses to become a Buddha, and we spend the rest of our lives together, you won't have the chance to fall back into darkness."
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