Li Rong galloped on horseback all the way back to the residence. While still on the road, she encountered people Pei Wenxuan had sent to meet her. Li Rong didn’t ask many questions and directly led them back to the Princess’s residence.

As soon as she arrived at the Princess’s residence, she saw people coming and going inside, seemingly extremely busy. Li Rong led her people into the bedroom, seeing basins of bloody water being carried out. She lifted the curtain and entered directly: “Where is Pei Wenxuan? How is he?”

As she spoke, she saw Pei Wenxuan sitting on the bed. The physician was helping bandage his wound. His complexion was somewhat pale. Seeing Li Rong enter, Pei Wenxuan’s face showed some surprise: “Your Highness? How did you return so quickly?”

Seeing Pei Wenxuan was fine, Li Rong’s expression eased somewhat. She walked to the bedside and looked toward the physician: “He’s all right?”

“Your Highness can rest assured,” the physician said respectfully. “The wound did not injure any tendons or vessels, nor was there poison. Rest for some days and he’ll recover.”

Li Rong nodded and stayed to the side waiting for Pei Wenxuan’s hand to be bandaged. Then the attendants withdrew, leaving only the two of them in the room.

Pei Wenxuan looked up at Li Rong and smiled: “Standing so long—aren’t you tired?”

As he spoke, he patted the bedside and said warmly: “Sit.”

Li Rong sat beside him and sighed: “How did you get injured? You’re not some inexperienced child—how could you be assassinated?”

“It’s my fault,” Pei Wenxuan watched as Li Rong examined his wound, saying softly: “On the way back, there was a child submitting an imperial petition. Turned out it was a specialized assassin. A momentary carelessness. But don’t worry—I’ve already sent people to investigate. There should be results soon.”

Li Rong acknowledged. Pei Wenxuan saw her lower her head. After pausing for a moment, he raised his hand and tucked her hair behind her ear, saying warmly: “I’ve made Your Highness worry.”

“Be more careful from now on.”

Li Rong spoke in a low voice, then remembered: “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet,” Pei Wenxuan smiled. “What about Your Highness? Have you eaten?”

“Not yet either,” Li Rong stood up and naturally extended her hand to help Pei Wenxuan. Pei Wenxuan lowered his eyes, concealing the emotion in them, and allowed Li Rong to help him up. As Li Rong supported him out the door, she couldn’t help asking: “Besides your hand, where else are you injured?”

“No other injuries,” Pei Wenxuan smiled. “Just got frightened. My heart is a bit scared.”

“You can get frightened too?” Li Rong was somewhat skeptical. She looked up at Pei Wenxuan: “You should be used to it by now.”

“Your Highness, matters of life and death—one never gets used to them.” Pei Wenxuan shook his head. “It’s just that one must face them, so one pretends to be accustomed.”

Li Rong thought about it and felt Pei Wenxuan was right. She helped Pei Wenxuan to the table, had him sit down, then had food brought up.

Li Rong asked Pei Wenxuan in detail about the entire assassination process. Pei Wenxuan answered carefully. When the food was served, Pei Wenxuan extended one hand to pick up food with his chopsticks, but the soup beside him remained untouched. As he elegantly ate, he observed Li Rong, who was drinking soup lost in thought. Seeing her eat absentmindedly, he hesitated for a moment, then said: “Don’t overthink it. Many people resent me now. This kind of thing is inevitable. I can protect myself. Just leave this matter to me to investigate, all right?”

Hearing this, Li Rong came back to herself and nodded: “Mm, fine.”

As she spoke, her gaze fell on the hand Pei Wenxuan held chopsticks with, then shifted to look at the untouched soup bowl beside him. She paused in her movements, then put down her chopsticks.

“Your Highness?”

“Let me feed you.”

Li Rong took the soup bowl from the side, gently blew on it, then brought it before Pei Wenxuan. Pei Wenxuan was stunned. Li Rong urged him: “Drink.”

Urged on, Pei Wenxuan came to his senses. He lowered his eyes and took the white porcelain spoon Li Rong brought to his lips.

He liked to drink soup first before each meal. He thought Li Rong never paid attention to these things. He hadn’t expected Li Rong actually knew.

Knew he liked to drink a bowl of soup first, and knew that in front of her, he didn’t want to lose composure, so lacking one hand to hold the bowl, he simply didn’t drink the soup at all.

Fed soup by Li Rong, Pei Wenxuan smiled: “I can eat the food myself. Your Highness shouldn’t go hungry.”

Li Rong acknowledged, took a cloth to wipe her hands, then ate a few bites herself.

After Li Rong finished eating with Pei Wenxuan, she heard Shangguan Ya had arrived. She helped Pei Wenxuan back to bed, had Pei Wenxuan rest first, then returned to the main hall.

Shangguan Ya was waiting for Li Rong in the main hall. Seeing Li Rong emerge, she bowed: “Your Highness.”

“Any leads?”

“I’ve confirmed Su Ronghua’s whereabouts throughout. When the incident occurred, he hadn’t yet made it back to the Su residence. His movements shouldn’t have been that fast.”

“It’s not him.” Li Rong said with certainty. “The Su family wouldn’t do such things. Su Lin is only demoted, and no other Su family members are implicated. They wouldn’t assassinate Pei Wenxuan over such a small matter.”

“Is the Prince Consort all right?” Shangguan Ya glanced toward the back courtyard. Li Rong nodded: “The blade had no poison. They were only warning me. If they wanted Pei Wenxuan dead, with poison on the blade, he’d probably already be in trouble now.”

Listening to this, Shangguan Ya couldn’t help frowning. Li Rong closed her eyes. She sat in her chair and paused for a while: “After interrogating people this afternoon, in the afternoon they used a kite to intimidate me, and in the evening they moved to kill Pei Wenxuan. I’m afraid there are their people in the Constabulary Bureau tipping them off. Investigate all personnel comings and goings from this afternoon. Re-examine everyone’s background.”

“Yes.”

Shangguan Ya was deep in thought. Li Rong looked up at her: “You seem to have something to say?”

“Your Highness,” Shangguan Ya considered her words and said slowly: “Actually, having reached this point, what they want is nothing more than to preserve their lives. Right now it’s only a warning, but it already directly targeted the Prince Consort. If they were determined, today the Prince Consort might have…”

“Speak directly.” Li Rong’s voice was flat. Shangguan Ya pressed her lips together: “I fear too much rigidity leads to breaking. Why not take a step back?”

Li Rong said nothing. She looked up at Shangguan Ya. Shangguan Ya was now only approaching twenty years of age. Encountering such matters and feeling apprehensive was only natural.

“If they hadn’t made a move, I could still leave them a way to live.”

Li Rong stood up, only saying: “Now, either I die, or they die.”

Shangguan Ya was stunned. Then she understood Li Rong’s meaning. She no longer tried to persuade her, only saying: “Then what does Your Highness plan to do?”

Li Rong pondered for a moment, then said slowly: “They’re in the shadows, we’re in the light. This ultimately isn’t sustainable.”

“Then Your Highness’s plan is?” Shangguan Ya tilted her head, quietly awaiting Li Rong’s instructions.

Li Rong thought for a long time before finally saying: “You investigate first. If you can’t find results, we can only lure the enemy in deep, then catch them in the jar.”

Hearing this, Shangguan Ya showed some confusion: “Lure them with what?”

Li Rong looked up calmly: “Me.”

“Your Highness,” hearing this, Shangguan Ya immediately said: “You cannot. This is too dangerous.”

“Isn’t it dangerous for them to kill me?” Li Rong scoffed. “If they have the guts, don’t I?”

“Are they the same as you?” Shangguan Ya grew anxious. “What status do they have? What status do you have? Your Highness, the Prince Consort would absolutely never agree to this idea.”

“Did I tell you to tell him?” Li Rong looked over coldly. “Is it his place to make decisions about my affairs?”

Shangguan Ya was momentarily speechless. Li Rong couldn’t be bothered with her and waved her hand: “Fine, you go back first. Investigate first. If you can find evidence and handle them directly, that’s best. If not, we’ll discuss it then.”

Shangguan Ya said nothing. After a moment of silence, she turned to walk out, saying impatiently: “I have to go tell the Prince Consort.”

“Stop!” Li Rong called out to Shangguan Ya. “Why would you tell him?”

“He can’t control you anyway,” Shangguan Ya smiled. “Can’t I have a casual chat with him?”

“Shangguan Ya,” Li Rong scoffed. “I’m lending you some courage.”

Shangguan Ya stared at Li Rong. After a moment, she grew somewhat irritable and waved her hand: “Fine, fine. Do whatever you want. It’s not my life on the line anyway.”

After Shangguan Ya finished speaking, she waved her hand and walked out. Li Rong drank tea in the main hall to calm down for a moment. After rising to bathe, she finally returned to her room.

In the room, Pei Wenxuan hadn’t yet gone to sleep. He wore a white undershirt and blue outer robe, sitting properly at his desk, head lowered as he looked through memorials.

Li Rong walked to the doorway. She didn’t move, just stood at the entrance, quietly watching Pei Wenxuan. When that person didn’t speak, he was like a painting, a landscape—quiet and gentle, waiting there, giving her the courage to return.

Pei Wenxuan held his brush and wrote two lines. Then he became aware someone was at the door. He raised his head and looked toward the entrance, seeing Li Rong standing at the door with the courtyard’s night light behind her, silently watching him.

Pei Wenxuan gazed at Li Rong. After a moment, he put down his brush and beckoned to Li Rong, saying softly: “Your Highness, the doorway is cold. Come sit here.”

Hearing this, Li Rong came to Pei Wenxuan’s side. She followed his gesture and sat down, smiling warmly: “What are you writing?”

“Just casually looking at news reported by informants,” Pei Wenxuan observed her. “Did you quarrel with Shangguan Ya?”

“When will you change this habit of exposing people’s secrets?”

Li Rong sat down and lazily leaned on the table, settling her gaze on Pei Wenxuan’s hand: “Does your hand still hurt?”

“If I said it hurts, would Your Highness help blow on it?”

Pei Wenxuan raised his hand. Li Rong smiled and raised her fan, pretending to hit him. Pei Wenxuan didn’t move, watching Li Rong with a smile. Li Rong’s fan fell to half an inch above the wound but couldn’t come down. Pei Wenxuan extended his hand a bit closer to her and continued: “Your Highness, blow on it and it won’t hurt anymore.”

“Are you a child?”

Li Rong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Pei Wenxuan sighed: “Ah, Your Highness truly doesn’t feel sorry for this minister.”

As he spoke, Pei Wenxuan withdrew his hand. Li Rong glanced at him, seeing Pei Wenxuan’s face show resentment. She laughed aloud and raised her hand: “Give me your hand.”

Pei Wenxuan extended his hand. Li Rong placed his hand in her palm, examined it carefully, then looked up at him: “You vulgar person—your hand is beautifully formed, with some ethereal quality.”

Pei Wenxuan smiled without speaking. Li Rong hesitated for a moment. Pei Wenxuan was puzzled what she was hesitating about when he saw her lower her head and gently blow on his hand.

The breath she exhaled was somewhat warm, spraying onto his palm, then traveling upward to his wounded area.

That temperature tingled numbly across the area. Pei Wenxuan’s eyes darkened. He quietly watched Li Rong with her head lowered for him. Seeing Li Rong blow on it as if for a child, then raise her head to look at him with some innocence: “Is it better?”

Pei Wenxuan said nothing. His gaze first fell on Li Rong’s eyes, then slid to the tip of her nose, finally stopping at her lips.

Li Rong was somewhat puzzled: “Pei Wenxuan?”

Hearing this, Pei Wenxuan smiled: “I didn’t think Your Highness would actually do it.”

As he spoke, he withdrew his hand from Li Rong’s side. Li Rong straightened up and said casually: “When I was small and bumped myself, my mother would blow on it like this. After blowing, it truly didn’t hurt as much.”

“That’s natural.”

Seeing Li Rong stand up, Pei Wenxuan also followed suit. Hearing him rise, Li Rong turned back and helped him.

Pei Wenxuan had never been cared for like this by Li Rong. He kept his expression neutral and followed behind Li Rong, saying in a low voice: “When someone is willing to blow on your wound for you, it represents someone caring. Whether the wound hurts or not, the heart is always happy.”

“You speak so pitifully,” Li Rong turned back to glance at him sideways. “As if I treat you poorly ordinarily, like you lack affection and care.”

“Your Highness treats this minister extremely well, naturally.” As Pei Wenxuan spoke with her, they arrived at the bedside. Li Rong helped him remove his outer garment, then went to bed first. Pei Wenxuan watched Li Rong burrow under the covers, walked to the bedside to extinguish the lamp, and got into bed as usual.

His left hand was injured, but his right hand was still fine. After Li Rong lay down, after a while, she heard Pei Wenxuan say: “Your Highness, actually sometimes I can’t help wondering—what would you be like as a wife?”

Li Rong remained silent. Pei Wenxuan continued on his own: “Your Highness should also be a good wife and loving mother. After all, although Your Highness appears decisive in killing, you’re actually quite gentle. Just now when Your Highness cared for this minister, I felt as if I had a home.”

As Pei Wenxuan spoke, he secretly glanced at Li Rong.

Listening to Pei Wenxuan’s words, after a long time, Li Rong said slowly: “Probably not much different.”

Li Rong spoke while staring at the bed canopy with open eyes: “I don’t like things that affect me. Regardless of whose wife I am, I’d probably be about the same as now.”

“How could that be?”

Pei Wenxuan turned to look at her: “Your Highness, if you liked someone, everything should be different.”

Hearing this, after a long time, Li Rong laughed softly: “But I don’t understand what ‘like’ means. I also don’t know how to like someone. Of course,” Li Rong turned over, her back to Pei Wenxuan, lowering her voice, “I also don’t expect anyone to like me.”

Pei Wenxuan was stunned. He found this somewhat difficult to understand: “Why doesn’t Your Highness expect others to like you?”

“As a person, when it comes to emotions, I have an odd temperament,” Li Rong closed her eyes. “Liking me is difficult. Liking me long-term is even more difficult. I have self-awareness, so I don’t think too much about it.”

“How can Your Highness think this way?” Pei Wenxuan comforted her. “This minister… didn’t I like Your Highness very much in my previous life?”

“Your ‘like’ and mine are different.” Li Rong spoke flatly. “The word ‘like’ is too heavy for me. For you, perhaps that kind of feeling is ‘like.’ But for me, to truly like someone is too difficult.”

Pei Wenxuan listened quietly. In that moment, he seemed to find some difference between himself and Li Rong. Somehow, he thought back to when they married—Li Rong was still eighteen.

Back then Li Rong was much more expressive than now. She wouldn’t hide many emotions. Now over thirty years had passed. Somehow, listening to Li Rong talk about these things, he suddenly felt Li Rong was no different from that eighteen-year-old.

She seemed still to be that young girl, walking with him through the inner palace, telling him about her past.

“Everyone in the palace calls me Princess, but I know—they all say I have an odd temperament. They don’t like me.”

“But I don’t care for their liking either. If they don’t like me, so what? Do I need to care about them?”

“Do you see that North Yan Tower? Father built it for Mother. They say Father loved Mother extremely, but I don’t think so. That’s just a momentary good feeling between a man and woman, unable to withstand any storm. How can that be called liking or love?”

…

When Li Rong said these things, he was only in his early twenties. He actually didn’t understand the true meaning of Li Rong’s words at all. He only followed behind Li Rong, quietly listening to her speak, smiling and comforting with a few words: “Your Highness, it’s all in the past.”

He thought Li Rong just liked telling him about the past. But thinking about it now, this was actually just Li Rong asking him for help.

The eighteen-year-old Li Rong was telling him what kind of affection she wanted, what kind of person she was. She was carefully holding herself out, telling him: Pei Wenxuan, please learn how to love me.

These words might sound somewhat domineering, but being able to give her most vulnerable part to another person—this was already Li Rong’s greatest sincerity.

But he didn’t understand.

Thirty years of life taught him to understand people’s hearts. Looking back now, he felt a piercing pain.

He had thought that after so many years, Li Rong truly was as she said in prison—no longer caring about anyone. But slowly becoming familiar, making contact, touching—he finally understood that proud, phoenix-like indifference to everything was actually another kind of abandonment after extreme disappointment.

After all, in Li Rong’s previous life, she had never received a complete and whole affection.

Whether from him or Su Rongqing, in the end both had let her down.

Yet she had never shown it in the slightest. Whether love or hate, she had never truly imposed them on him or Su Rongqing.

Realizing this, Pei Wenxuan’s heart suddenly surged with tremendous pain and sourness. He couldn’t help moving closer to her, gently placing his hand on her body. Disregarding the pain in his wound, he pulled this person into his arms.

Being embraced like this by him, Li Rong lowered her eyes and laughed softly: “Is this winter too cold, so Lord Pei is using me as a warming stove? Hugging me from time to time—you’re not as reserved as before.”

Pei Wenxuan held her without speaking. After a long time, he finally said: “Your Highness, it’s not difficult.”

Li Rong was stunned. Then she heard Pei Wenxuan say in a low voice: “Your Highness, having someone wholeheartedly like you—it’s not difficult.”

Li Rong said nothing. Listening to Pei Wenxuan’s words, she first felt it was laughable, then felt an indescribable regret, finally transforming into confusion and an anticipation she was almost unaware of.

She instinctively wanted to speak.

She very much wanted to ask: something she’d never obtained in an entire lifetime, a person she’d never seen—how could it not be difficult?

But she didn’t speak. In her youth she would still ask such questions. Now she no longer asked.

It wasn’t important.

She didn’t care.

Li Rong’s silence was, in Pei Wenxuan’s heart, a slow execution delayed by thirty years.

Not because Li Rong rejected him, but because he only now realized—he had allowed Li Rong to walk alone like this, so utterly alone, for thirty years.

He suddenly felt an overwhelming impulse. He should tell her, just as she told him that Pei Wenxuan was good, that Pei Wenxuan could go like someone else.

He also wanted to tell her—whether she refused or accepted, he wanted to tell her.

Li Rong, there is someone. He likes you. He likes you very, very much.