Tick-tock, tick-tock—the rhythmic sound of the clock echoed steadily. Ye Can’s gaze swayed back and forth with the pendulum, and she didn’t know how much time passed before her consciousness sank into utter darkness.
Deeper. A little deeper.
What do you see, Ye Can?
A cold voice sounded nearby. Amid the darkness, Ye Can followed the faint light, slowly making her way to the end. She halted her steps and tilted her head, staring blankly at everything before her.
The cold voice asked again: “What do you see, Ye Can?”
Ye Can tilted her head, gazing at the woman lying on the couch. She knelt her small body down and answered in a daze: “I see a woman.”
“A woman? What kind of woman?”
Ye Can stared at the woman on the bed and murmured blankly: “A young lady. She’s wearing pale deep robes, her hair in disarray, her face deathly pale… but she’s very beautiful…”
Ye Can’s voice grew softer and softer… until it faded away entirely. Her consciousness slipped into slumber, and in her hazy daze, she felt a pair of exceedingly delicate hands stroking her head. A voice as faint as a thread whispered: “Can… Can…”
Ye Can opened her eyes and looked up at the woman caressing her. The woman lay on the couch, lifting her frail, powerless hand to stroke Ye Can’s cheek, revealing a beautiful yet illusory smile. “Mother has to go now. I can’t stay with you anymore. You must grow up strong… and live free and unfettered.”
Bewilderment filled Ye Can’s face as she clutched the woman’s hand and pressed her cheek into its palm. Puzzled, she asked: “You’re leaving? Where to?”
The woman smiled faintly, stroking her head with affection. “To a place of eternal slumber.”
The little Ye Can didn’t understand. “What’s that like?”
The woman answered gently: “It’s a place without worries. No troubles, no sorrows—just pure bliss.”
Little Ye Can grew curious. “Can I go too?”
The woman shook her head. “Not yet, Can-Can.”
Little Ye Can looked up at her, her big, clear black-and-white eyes full of confusion. “Why not?”
The woman raised her weak hand, stroking Ye Can’s soft locks, a pale smile on her lips. “Because you haven’t yet seen the world’s beauty. Without knowing beauty, you can’t find the path to the place of eternal slumber.”
“I hope you live well, all the way until…”
Ye Can blinked in confusion. “Until what?”
The woman whispered softly: “Until the end of your life, free to revel in joy.”
Little Ye Can didn’t fully grasp the words. She knelt by the woman’s side, chatting with her in fits and starts. The woman’s voice flickered like a candle in the wind—rising and falling, faint and shallow—until it vanished entirely.
She didn’t know how much time passed before Ye Can reached out and nudged the woman on the couch. “Mama… Mama…”
The woman on the bed didn’t respond. Ye Can tilted her head and rested it on the woman’s chest. She lifted her tiny hand to her mouth and bit down on it, murmuring: “Mama…” Talk to me, please?
But from that moment on, the woman could never speak to Ye Can again.
Ye Can lay on the woman’s chest, feeling her body grow stiffer and stiffer. Her hunger-addled mind, dim and unclear, heard a faint snap.
From that instant, everything around her lost all flavor.
Two days later, the negligent palace servants finally discovered the woman dead on the bed. As they wrapped her corpse in a mat of straw, the numb, dazed Ye Can erupted in a flash—like a rabid dog, she tore into every servant who dared touch the woman, biting them madly.
The noisy scuffle drew a passing glance from a royal priestess from the Central Plains, who noticed the scene and rescued Ye Can.
Afterward, Ye Can followed her and trained in swordsmanship for two years.
Ye Can, still like stagnant water, showed astonishing talent in swordplay. But as her skills neared mastery, her mind burned with pain and heat that plagued her constantly. Whenever it struck, the priestess would gaze at her with deep regret.
In her eyes, the uncontrollable Ye Can was perhaps a failed experiment.
Even so, the woman asked: “Will you come with me to the Royal Capital, serve the divine spirits, and become a sword guardian of the gods?” Even a mad dog had its uses.
But this mad dog refused to leave the place where the woman had died. She shook her head, turning down the priestess’s offer.
The priestess sighed deeply, rubbing her head with a hint of regret. “Then fare well on your own path.”
Soon after, the royal priestess left the Yan Kingdom.
Clutching her sword, Ye Can continued to crouch in the ruined courtyard, guarding the woman’s eternal resting place.
As years passed, Ye Can’s beauty grew ever more alluring. Some lecherous servants took notice and, one midnight, broke into the dilapidated palace—only to die under her blade.
Ye Can’s sword was swift. After slaying the first intruder, she strode out and massacred every patrolling servant in the two palaces.
In the night of slaughter, when the Old Yan King’s guards dragged her before the throne amid his fury, Ye Can said coolly: “I am the Old Yan King’s heir, nobility of this world. No one may tarnish my radiance.”
Her mother had told her: neither her soul nor her body could be violated by others.
The Old Yan King laughed and clapped, then shoved Ye Can into the Yan Kingdom’s Imperial Academy.
She had killed so many in one night that the noble scions of the academy feared and shunned her. But to Ye Can, it was all trivial. Hugging her sword, she wandered alone through the vast Royal Palace, becoming the Old Yan King’s mad dog.
The longer she stayed in the academy, the more she learned and saw, the more numb she became.
She often heard of some noble youth racing his chariot through the city, crushing commoners underfoot. Or some older noble lad spotting a pretty maiden, abducting her in broad daylight, then dumping her corpse in the wilds the next day—just because she bit him.
The books said: Heaven and Earth show no mercy, treating all creatures as straw dogs.
In reality, hierarchy ruled, and lives were cheap as grass.
These people reeked of decay, nauseating her. Ye Can kept her distance.
She sometimes recalled her mother’s words, yearning to see the world’s beauty. But everywhere stank of rotting flesh, absurdly laughable. How could she find any beauty?
People gossiped about her too.
Ye Can was a madwoman, or a bastard spawn.
Once, an arrogant noblewoman shoved her, calling her a bastard. Ye Can’s mother had been the Old Yan King’s consort, but she’d supposedly cuckolded him to bear Ye Can.
Amid the whispers, Ye Can realized the truth: the Old Yan King wasn’t her father. It was his Second Prince—her nominal second brother.
The Second Prince lusted after women and forced himself on Ye Can’s mother, conceiving her.
Another rumor claimed more than one man was involved, leaving her paternity unknown.
Ye Can didn’t care. Royal blood or not, she was supreme in this world. She carried her mother’s blood, and her mother was the noblest woman alive.
Soon after, the Old Yan King died, and her Eldest Brother ascended. He locked the mad dog Ye Can deep in the palace.
Ye Can squatted at the palace gates, eavesdropping on guards: Eldest Brother issued new policies, Eldest Brother was confined, Eldest Brother was slain.
Then her second brother took the throne.
His days blurred into outings, snatching beauties, returning to palace. Petting actors, killing for them, granting them titles.
Ye Can sat on the mottled palace walls, sword in arms, gazing at the grand yet desolate palace. He’ll die soon enough, she thought.
Sure enough, her second brother perished not long after.
In the coup, Ye Can leaped from the walls and slaughtered everyone rumored to be her father.
Her blade’s blood barely dry when the legendary actor arrived with a throng, welcoming her to the throne.
He claimed she bore her second brother’s blood, his sole heir—Yan’s crown belonged to her.
Ye Can asked: “Is being king fun?”
He replied: As king, you claim the world’s beauties. Wield your sword to slay all who displease you.
It was a game of playing king, and Ye Can saw it clearly.
Everyone should be their own king—why be another’s? The contradiction amused her, so she agreed.
But disliking him, on coronation day, she had him die by his own sword.
As the traitor’s blood dripped from the blade onto the white altar, the game of playing king was doomed to be drenched in gore.
After another coup, Ye Can sat firmly on the throne.
She donned the king’s ceremonial robes, wore the king’s crown, rested the king’s sword on her knee, and coldly watched the performances below.
Praise or curses, loyalty or treachery, honesty or deceit—these contradictions formed her court. The nobles gripping the kingdom’s lifelines were mere tools or clowns in her eyes, reenacting history’s follies to draw her cold laughs each day.
Ye Can watched with icy detachment, like a lofty king—or a puppet playing one—observing it all.
She figured the play could run until the dynasty crumbled.
Until that night, in the snow, she found another woman of pure nobility. A thought stirred: Perhaps my downfall will come before Yan’s ruin.
For on that night, she discovered the “place of eternal slumber” her mother had described.
Deep within that woman’s body.
Soft, scorching, enveloping her tightly—utterly blissful.
