Through a slow blink, the flames in Feng’s eyes roared to life.
“I will never forgive the emperor who burned my clan and the mountains, extinguishing the hopes of two peoples. Everything is gone. My family, my homeland. Even newborn infants were there. I tried to save at least the hawks, but most were consumed by the smoke and fell. Unforgivable… I will never forgive him.”
Feng’s voice trembled like blood being spat out.
It was impossible not to understand. That was the same fire of resentment that constantly burned in Fei Ling’s heart.
“But it was an accident. The emperor—”
“No,” Feng interrupted. “Even without the fire, the emperor would have carried out the ethnic cleansing of the Hao people.”
Feng spoke with certainty.
“Through the emperor’s involvement, the already strained relations between the Kun and Hao people were shattered beyond repair. The Hao will never forgive the Kun for siding with the emperor, and the Kun, emboldened by their newfound backing, increased their oppression of the Hao.”
“It’s all over,” she said. “The emperor ended it all.”
“I escaped from the burning Hao villages by dyeing my hair and pretending to be a Kun, blending into one of their nomadic settlements. While the Hao live together in one village, the Kun are a nomadic people, spread across many settlements. It was easy for me to hide among them. All for the sake of taking revenge on the emperor. And soon enough, the opportunity came.”
By a twist of fortune—or misfortune—she was chosen as a tribute to the emperor and brought into his harem.
“When I entered the harem, the emperor summoned me immediately… but I couldn’t kill him. That emperor was a coward, always keeping guards even in his bedchamber.”
“So you targeted the empress instead?”
Did she want the emperor to feel the same despair of losing someone precious, burned to ashes?
Feng’s cheeks twitched, hardening.
“Ha! Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a monster.”
The unexpected word made Fei Ling doubt her ears.
“What do you mean?”
“Even if I explained, you wouldn’t believe me,” Feng replied resignedly, brushing the hair clinging to her face aside.
“So what will you do? Condemn my crime and sentence me to death?”
“That is not for me to decide,” Fei Ling said calmly.
“Then why are you here?”
“I am a healer. I came to detoxify you.”
Fei Ling took out a medicine hidden behind a birdcage. In the ornate box was fried avocado. Feng’s slight fever was clearly caused by poison, though it hadn’t yet progressed to the point where she would destroy everything she touched.
“Hatred is the strongest poison one can carry. While all poisons can be turned into medicine, hatred cannot—it will only consume and destroy the one who bears it.”
Fei Ling, too, sometimes felt on the verge of being consumed by poison.
That was why she didn’t want Feng to succumb to it.
“Would you even offer medicine to a criminal?” Feng asked, frowning with a sad smile as she accepted the box. Her heavy hair dripped murky droplets as she lowered her head.
But the regret on her face lasted only a moment.
With a sweep of her wide sleeve, Feng flung the medicine box away.
Fei Ling made no sound. She had expected this outcome. She only narrowed her eyes and observed Feng’s choice.
“Those who poison should themselves be poisoned. I don’t need medicine.”
Her voice was serene, yet at the very end, she raised it with heart-wrenching strength.
“I will hate for all eternity—!”
The authorities stormed the bridge, surrounding it. Someone had reported Feng. The officers hesitated when they saw her hair.
“Lady Feng, you are under suspicion for the assassination of the empress. Please come with us.”
It was then that Yi Yi, who had been hiding a flute, began to play. A sudden gale tore through the area, making the officers falter. Through the burning clouds of twilight, a massive hawk with enormous wings appeared.
The giant hawk seized Feng’s robes and soared into the air.
Feng was bewildered by the unexpected turn of events. Yi Yi, restrained by the officers, cried out:
“Lady Feng, please escape! You are my only hope—!”
Yi Yi’s voice trembled with desperation. Feng was not just the last survivor of a fallen tribe but Yi Yi’s only source of hope.
Suddenly, Feng began to burn.
For a moment, no one understood what was happening.
Only Fei Ling mourned silently.
(Ah, the poison of fire.)
The flames gradually engulfed Feng. As the ties in her hair burned away, her crimson hair unraveled and rose with the hot wind. It was as if she were a firebird, slowly falling from the sky.
It resembled the death of a phoenix.
Feng did not scream. She had accepted her punishment, just as she had said: those who poison should be poisoned.
Yi Yi’s anguished screams, filled with despair, echoed mournfully like the cry of a hawk.
The giant hawk refused to release its master. Even as its wings burned in the heat, it continued to beat them.
The summer bloom burned to its end, like a hibiscus wilting after a single night of splendor.
The fire’s reflection on the water was dazzlingly vivid.
And so, the case of the fire poison came to a close—or so it seemed.
