The sun gradually moved westward from its zenith. As the golden crow descended in the west, the entire water pavilion was bathed in the golden-red sunset, enveloping everything in an ethereal glow.

Zhuyue had urged her countless times, saying Young Master Shen must be enjoying himself too much at the gambling house to remember that today was the day to change his bandages.

Pei Xueqing continued to quietly hold her medical book, feeling certain that he wouldn’t miss their appointment for mere amusement.

Since Shen Yuance had agreed to come to the water pavilion to change bandages, he had arrived on schedule every time. Though he would simply extend his arm, wait for her to finish bandaging, and then leave—appearing annoyed by her nagging and unwilling to waste a moment there—if he were truly so fond of gambling and untrustworthy, how could he repeatedly tear himself away from the lavish gambling houses to keep their appointments?

Moreover, based on the condition of his wound, she had set different dates each time, from every other day at first, to every three days, then every five days. A person who seemed careless about everything had remembered these changing dates precisely. He was not the crude person he appeared to be on the surface.

“I would just be reading at home anyway, so reading here is the same. Let’s wait a bit longer.”

Pei Xueqing continued reading with her head down until sunset faded and dusk fell, making it too dark to see the words. She asked Zhuyue to light the lamps.

After lighting the lamps, Zhuyue worriedly said, “Miss, we should go back. It would be troublesome if we missed the closing of the city gates.”

“It takes two quarters of an hour for the carriage to return to the city. Let’s wait until three quarters before the gates close. If he comes braving the darkness and I’m not here, I would be failing him. I’ll wait until the last moment so I can be at peace knowing he truly isn’t coming.”

“Are all you scholars so stubborn?” a young male voice suddenly sounded from not far away. Pei Xueqing turned her head to see the elegantly dressed young man walking across the wooden bridge step by step.

His steps seemed casual and leisurely, but as he came closer, she could see his chest heaving up and down, as if he had rushed all the way here.

Pei Xueqing hurriedly stood up and poured him a bowl of tea.

Shen Yuance seemed genuinely thirsty and, unlike previous times when he ignored her courtesies, accepted the tea bowl and drank it all in one gulp. “You waited all afternoon, and it never occurred to you to send someone to ask about me?”

“I was worried that seeking you out rashly might cause you trouble,” she explained while pouring him another bowl of tea. “I almost left just now on impulse. Young Master Shen, if you’re going to be late next time, you can send someone to let me know, and I’ll wait no matter how late it gets.”

“You want one more person to know that we meet here?”

No wonder he always came to their appointments alone, without even his closest servants.

Though he was thoughtful and meticulous when dealing with matters, he always pretended to be rough and careless, disregarding propriety.

Pei Xueqing opened her medicine box and asked him to sit on the beauty chair, changing his bandages as she had done in previous visits.

Shen Yuance lowered his eyes to watch her movements. “Miss Pei is quite patient, not even asking why I was half a day late.”

“Young Master Shen must have had important matters to attend to.”

“How do you know I didn’t simply forget, or deliberately play a trick on you?”

“Young Master Shen isn’t that kind of person.”

“You do think I’m a good person.” Shen Yuance crossed his legs and shook them, once again putting on that appearance of being the most slovenly and worst person in the world.

Honestly, if she didn’t know his true nature, seeing his improper sitting posture and rakish manner, she would have found him somewhat annoying.

He seemed somewhat restrained in her presence. Though not friendly, he didn’t say anything too offensive. She had heard that he was extremely offensive around Princess Yongying, with a mouth that couldn’t produce anything but vulgarities.

While applying medicine to his wound, Pei Xueqing thought for a moment and said, “Young Master Shen, since I already know your secret, you don’t need to put on those insincere gestures or say those insincere words in front of me.”

Shen Yuance turned his head to look at her.

“Young Master Shen is already constrained outside, forced to say things against your heart. I change your bandages wanting to help you, yet I cause you to continue pretending and lying in front of me, which makes me feel very guilty. Earlier, I didn’t ask why you were late today because I didn’t want you to trouble yourself with fabricating excuses.”

“You and I have formed a connection through misfortune, and I genuinely want to know what the real Young Master Shen is like.” After hesitating for many days, Pei Xueqing finally spoke what was in her heart.

Shen Yuance’s gaze showed a slight ripple of emotion as he looked at her, and his shaking leg stopped.

She finished treating his wound and looked directly at him: “If I were to tell people that Young Master Shen possesses martial skills, no one would believe me. If I were to tell people that Young Master Shen is a brave, kind, and considerate person, they would believe it even less. So Young Master Shen need not worry about being himself in front of me.”

Shen Yuance stared at her for a long while, as if he had heard some joke, then glanced away: “What nonsense are you making up about me?”

“Young Master Shen, every time you leave here, you don’t immediately go away, but wait for me to get in my carriage, then follow my carriage back to the city, right?”

Because she knew Shen Yuance didn’t want to publicize his injury, she only brought one carriage driver and one personal maid when going out. The route back from the suburbs passed through the forest, and remembering the wolf from that day, she did feel somewhat fearful. But since discovering that Shen Yuance followed on horseback, she was no longer afraid.

Shen Yuance, caught in his unmasking, seemed finally at a loss for words. He pulled down his sleeve and stood up to walk out: “Then today you can see exactly how I leave.”

Pei Xueqing watched his departing figure, disappointed that after all she had said, he still refused to be honest. She lowered her head dejectedly and quietly began to pack up her medicine box.

After slowly organizing for a while, she suddenly heard the distant footsteps returning.

“Since you knew, what was the meaning of lingering here reading for two quarters of an hour last time?”

Pei Xueqing looked up in surprise to see Shen Yuance striding into the pavilion with an accusing expression. It seemed his curiosity had finally overcome the pretense he had maintained for so long.

She hesitated briefly, then told the truth: “I just wanted to see if Young Master Shen would wait for me…”

“So the one playing tricks and making others wait was you, Miss Pei?”

“I—I just wanted to know what kind of person Young Master Shen truly is. I’m sorry, Young Master Shen.” She apologized with lowered eyes.

“What kind of person am I, even I don’t know anymore.”

Pei Xueqing suddenly raised her eyes to see a fleeting loneliness in his eyes as he murmured.

That smiling “I don’t know” sounded like a sigh, and also like self-mockery.

She thought that he probably didn’t have a single close friend in Chang’an. If a person wears a mask in front of everyone, perhaps the false eventually becomes the true.

Shen Yuance sighed and pointed at the medicine box in her hand: “It’s already so late, can you hurry?”

“Didn’t you say you wanted me to watch you leave first?”

“Didn’t you say I was brave, kind, and considerate?”

In the silent exchange of glances that followed, Pei Xueqing came to her senses and hastily packed up, smiling at him: “I’ll be ready right away.”

*

Later, Pei Xueqing learned that on that day, Madam Shen had suffered from a migraine, and Shen Yuance couldn’t leave. He thought she would probably not wait for him and would leave, but once Madam Shen’s acute condition improved, after much consideration, he still decided to come and take a look. He thought it would likely be unnecessary, but to his surprise, he truly saw her still in the pavilion in the darkness.

After that incident, Shen Yuance seemed to realize she was stubborn enough to wait until the very last moment, and he was never late again.

It was as if he had accepted that his true nature had been exposed and could not be hidden again. He no longer deliberately put on a careless demeanor or spoke with thorns in his words. He no longer came and left in a hurry but would rest his feet or take a nap in the pavilion and chat casually with her.

As they became more familiar, Pei Xueqing discovered that when he wasn’t putting on an act, he wasn’t a prickly person. He was like an ordinary young man with much curiosity, asking what herbs she gathered in the mountains, what her medical books taught, and why she was interested in medicine.

Sometimes he would play childish jokes on her, bringing a plant from outside and telling her he had found a poisonous herb described in her medical books.

Seeing the plant looked quite convincing, she studied it for a long time. He then said, “Why study it so much? Just try it and you’ll know,” and put the herb directly in his mouth to chew it. She was terrified out of her wits, only to learn later that it was just a common weed that could be found anywhere.

There were also serious moments. Hearing that her mother was unwell, he recalled his birth mother, who had died early from illness. He said he could no longer remember what she looked like, and couldn’t even dream of her outline.

Speaking of dreams, he digressed, telling her about a strange recurring dream he’d had since childhood. He dreamed of suffering in the mud and rain at the border, where his father trained him like a death soldier. Yet he felt that the person in the dream only looked identical to him, but wasn’t him.

She asked, if his father wasn’t by his side, how did he learn martial arts?

He said he would memorize the essentials at the academy and practice secretly at home. But secretly practicing martial arts wasn’t convenient, so he couldn’t become too skilled. That arrow that saved her that day was truly a stroke of luck in a desperate situation.

Rather than actual weapons, he spent more effort studying military texts.

Generals who lead armies in battle are of two types, he explained: those who lead from the front lines and those who command from headquarters. He said if one’s martial skills weren’t strong enough to be the former, being the latter wasn’t bad either.

“So your ambition is to fight on the battlefield someday?” she asked him.

“If one day Hexi needs me, of course I’ll go. But right now, Hexi has my father, and there’s no war. If I spend my whole life preparing but never become a general, that wouldn’t be so bad either.”

On days of beautiful spring sunshine, enjoying the gentle breeze and basking in the sun was a pleasant thing. As they talked about everything under the sun in the water pavilion, slowly, it seemed he had made her—who had accidentally discovered his mask—his only friend in Chang’an, telling her all the heartfelt words he hadn’t been able to share with friends over the years.

The Prime Minister’s daughter, who had always been well-behaved and obedient in her inner chambers, and the young noble who was keen on cockfighting, dog racing, and gambling houses—they made a strange pair of friends indeed.

But this strange friendship had begun with an accident, and accidents must eventually come to an end.

Shen Yuance’s wound slowly scabbed and began to itch. As a healer, she knew this was a sign of imminent recovery.

Once his wound healed, everything would likely return to normal. He and she would no longer have any connection. She would continue to stay in her inner chambers, while he would continue to swagger about outside, playing the role of the detestable young noble.

No one would ever know that his heart was soft but also contained his rock-solid aspirations.

As days passed, she grew increasingly reluctant to part, but she still had to honestly tell him that after checking the scab’s condition next time, barring any unexpected developments, he would no longer need to come to the water pavilion.

Shen Yuance said with evident relief that the evidence would finally be erased.

How could she, feeling downcast at that moment, have imagined that a few days later, she would see Shen Yuance arrive at the water pavilion, grimacing and clutching his bleeding arm—

“I fell on my way here, and the healed scab broke. Does this wound need to be treated all over again?”