# Chapter 102: Ripple Patterns Like Crushed Snow
Ji Xuan's eyes snapped open.
He could not believe that today—here, now, in the withered autumn of his years—Song Hengjiang would dare to speak such words, to make such a demand!
He knew well enough Song Hengjiang's overbearing ways. He had also, once, sifted through the rumors of Song Hengjiang's might.
But how had it come to this?
That he would presume to humiliate Ji Xuan?
Not even the Chancellor of State, not even the Grand General, had ever faced him in such a tone.
For a single instant, he could not believe it was real.
But he looked into Song Hengjiang's eyes.
Those eyes that had seemed murky, drowsy, had abruptly blazed with sharp light.
And he had no choice but to believe it was real.
These were Song Hengjiang's terms.
Because he was Song Hengjiang!
...
Within the borders of Zhuang, Zhuang Chengqian ruled the land, and Song Hengjiang ruled the water. Such was the covenant upon which the Zhuang Kingdom had been founded!
In theory, the Lord of the Clear River Water Estates stood level with the sovereign of Zhuang.
The whole of the eight-hundred-li Clear River was Song Hengjiang's domain. Both banks of the Clear River fell under his governance.
By seizing upon this overstepping of bounds, Song Hengjiang could rightly and lawfully put Ji Xuan to death.
Ji Xuan understood that the Governor of Qinghe Commandery would not step forward, the Lord of Wangjiang City would not step forward, the Lord of Fenglin City would not step forward—not even anyone within the Zhuang court itself would come forward.
For if they did, the very nature of the affair would change. What was now a matter of Ji Xuan personally overstepping his place would become the Zhuang court bullying by force. The great war between the human-clan and the water-clan within the Zhuang Kingdom would then be unavoidable.
The Zhuang Kingdom could absolutely not bear such a cost—not merely the enormous losses of internal strife, but all the contradictions between the water-clan and the human-clan of this present age that would spread from it, or be detonated by it.
Zhuang could not shoulder that responsibility.
Did Song Hengjiang want to kill him?
Plainly, no. For otherwise he would have had no need to waste words—he could simply have struck. However far Ji Xuan had risen, he was still a high official of the Zhuang court. His death would mean that the rift between the Clear River water-clan and the Zhuang court could never be mended.
The Clear River Water Estate was, least of all, willing to be the one to provoke war, for the Water Estate remained the weaker party.
But would Song Hengjiang dare to kill him?
This question needed no imagination either.
No weighing of profit and loss, no reckoning of cause and effect.
The red of the Lan River had never faded to this day. It was Song Hengjiang's answer to every opponent.
Then—could Song Hengjiang still kill him?
Ji Xuan's Five Prefectures were entire, and he stood at his peak, only a step from the fourth-grade Outer Tower realm.
Centuries ago, Song Hengjiang's power admitted no doubt. But centuries later, now that everyone knew his life was ebbing—how much combat strength remained in him?
After an unbearable silence.
"Smack!"
"Smack!"
"Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!"
A full ten sounds, not one fewer.
Ji Xuan held nothing back. Since he had resolved to accept such a shameful thing, he would not be half-hearted about it, futilely inviting mockery.
To strike his own face yet still leave others dissatisfied—he would not do such a foolish thing.
As the slaps ended, Ji Xuan's gaunt face visibly swelled, taller and taller before the eyes.
He simply stared silently at Song Hengjiang, awaiting his response.
Song Hengjiang drooped his eyelids, seeming to have lapsed once more into the old frailty of one whose candles gutter at the end. He seemed to find even speaking difficult, and only lifted his hand.
"Go."
Then he turned away.
He was not one to dwell and nag. Since Ji Xuan had yielded and accepted the punishment, he would not heap further humiliation upon him.
With this night's journey, his attitude had been made more than clear enough. Now it remained to see how the master seated high in the deep recesses of the palace—the sovereign of Zhuang—would react.
A wave carried him back into the Clear River, and the surface closed over him.
So the startled billows calmed, the great breakers subsided, and the whole Clear River returned to stillness.
Moonlight spilled over the water, as though nothing had ever happened.
The evening wind blew past, and the ripples scattered like crushed snow.
...
From first to last, Ji Xuan did not dare speak of the Office of Inquiry cultivator whom Jiang Wang had pierced to death, nor did Song Hengjiang speak of the shell-maiden who had been seized and then escaped.
Though Ji Xuan had come precisely because of that subordinate of his, and Song Hengjiang had arrived precisely for the sake of the shell-maiden under his governance.
But in the surging of those eight hundred li of the Clear River, with one accord they maintained some balance beneath the surface.
That was the unspoken red line that had run, these centuries, between the Zhuang court and the Clear River Water Estate.
When the storm had blown over, Ji Xuan stopped in place.
No one appeared at the scene, because no one was willing to face Ji Xuan's wrath face to face. But Ji Xuan knew that the humiliation he had suffered today must already have passed before certain eyes.
Among those great personages on his own level, he had made a fool of himself as though in broad daylight. There was simply no hiding it.
Yet he showed no great mortification, but only took his bearings and pressed on toward the spot where White Lotus had earlier been sent flying.
What had happened had happened; face could not be restored. What he had to do was keep his gains from slipping away. That bizarre white flame, that woman of no mean strength—once captured alive, they could not fail to yield a harvest satisfying enough for him.
And he was certain that under the circumstances of tonight—the confrontation between the Zhuang court, which he represented, and the Clear River water-clan, which Song Hengjiang represented, so taut it could snap at a touch—whatever forces lurked behind that woman would not dare show their heads.
So he still had hope of finding the woman who lay half-dead.
And he flew back and forth across a hundred li, to come, of course, upon nothing at all.
...
As for White Lotus, struck flying by a single fist, she hurtled backward through the air, the white flame veiling her body beaten out, every Dao art shielding her shattered.
She understood she had no further chance, and was about to use her last shred of strength to end her own life.
But then she felt a kind of warmth.
Her backward-flying body was enclosed by a warm embrace.
Someone had caught her.
But this person was far too weak—he could not even bear the residual force that Ji Xuan had struck upon her. Not only did he, the instant he caught her, go tumbling backward with her in his arms, he also at once spewed a mouth of blood into her neck.
That blood was scorching hot.
Through the blur, White Lotus felt the two of them crash to the ground and tumble through many more rolls. But that person was always beneath her, and there was always a cushion of flesh beneath her body.
Otherwise this old woman would really have fallen to pieces, she thought.
This person really was weak.
White Lotus felt herself quickly lifted again, and then this person was, presumably, running. From the rhythm of his gasping breath, and the fierce beating of the heart she felt through the contact of their bodies, she knew he was giving it his all.
But the whistling wind told White Lotus the speed was far too slow.
Going on like this, they'd both die, wouldn't they? There was simply no way to escape.
All it meant was one more person going to his death...
Who was this person?
How did she have such a stupid subordinate?
No, that wasn't right. Not one subordinate of hers would be here.
They—those people—were all very clever. Very clear-headed.
So who was this person?
It was as though leaden weights hung from her lids; White Lotus found that opening her eyes had become such a difficult thing.
But she held a stubborn breath within her, and she must do what she had to do.
So she opened her eyes.
White Lotus forced her eyes open, her vision swaying in a blur.
It was the jarring caused by running.
She forced herself to focus, to gather her sight. Looking up from the angle of his jaw, she finally made out this person's face.
The chin was slightly rounded, not pointed. His blood-flecked lips were pressed tight, his nose stood high and straight, and a pair of clear bright eyes looked straight ahead.
It's Jiang Wang, she thought.
And then she sank into utter unconsciousness.