Pu Zhu knew Cui Xuan meant to silence the witness.

In truth, the two of them had been speaking in vague terms—even if someone had heard, so what? Deny everything and that would be that.

She wanted to stop him, but Cui Xuan moved too fast—there was no time. She had barely taken a step before he had already rushed up to that person. Without a word, he swung the dagger straight at the man’s throat.

Ye Xiao’s father, eight years ago, had been the Right Commandant of the Hawk-and-Soar Guard—a rank-four officer of the North Garrison Imperial Army.

The North Garrison Army was the private army directly under the Emperor’s command. Its selection process was exceptionally strict—only those of good family could enter, and they often followed their fathers into service without the freedom to leave. But correspondingly, their status was very special, and even the court’s princes and ministers did not dare to lightly offend them. The former Hawk-and-Soar Guard had once been foremost among the four guards in prestige, its position all the more lofty, but it had been completely purged after being entangled in the Crown Prince Liang affair. His father had died in that purge, and he had barely survived.

The four guards were full of talented men. At the time he was barely past twenty, yet had already been viewed as the strongest contender for the next Guard Commander. He was naturally not someone to trifle with. Seeing this ruffian boy so savage and fierce—attacking without even exchanging a word, going straight for the kill—he felt a flash of anger, and even more concern about offending the master. He could not allow such presumptuousness. His reaction was swift as lightning: his elbow dropped slightly and he clamped down on the young man’s two wrists, then applied force. The young man let out a muffled grunt of sharp pain, his grip on the dagger failing, and it clattered to the ground.

His grip was like iron. Held by him, an ordinary person could not resist further, and following with a downward press, the ruffian boy was forced face-down to the ground, unable to move.

He kicked the dagger aside and turned to seek the master’s instructions on how to deal with this. Unexpectedly, the boy was as slippery as a hare—seizing the instant of his distraction, he suddenly tucked into a roll and wrenched himself free of the hold, slipping out from under his crotch. Almost simultaneously, he pounced back, snatched the dagger from the ground, and a flash of cold light—with a soft ripping sound—sliced open a gash in his sleeve.

If he hadn’t reacted quickly, he’d have been cut on the spot.

Ye Xiao was momentarily stunned—he hadn’t expected the ruffian boy he’d encountered tonight to have such reflexes and skill. He had underestimated his opponent.

Never mind an old hand getting bested by a young hothead—the master was a person of great value, and absolutely nothing could go wrong.

He immediately had murderous thoughts, just about to move decisively, when he saw two of his subordinates, Shen Qiao and Zhang Ting, come rushing from the direction of the relay station’s rear gate.

The two quickly blocked the young man’s path, one on either side, their weapons leveled at the ruffian boy.

Moonlight glinted off two crossbows, the iron arms of the bolts gleaming with a dull, cold light.

If the ruffian boy resisted even once more, he would be killed on the spot.

Shen Qiao reported: “Earlier, Your Subordinate was keeping watch inside the relay station and saw him scaling the wall, acting suspicious and seemingly with some intent. I was just about to shoot him down then, but he climbed back off the wall, so Your Subordinate followed.”

Ye Xiao nodded and looked toward the master, who was still standing in his original place.

All of this, in the telling, sounds lengthy, but had happened in just a few breaths’ time. The situation had already shifted many times over.

Cui Xuan’s nature was ruthless and he took life and death lightly, but he was born here, raised here—the farthest he had ever traveled in seventeen years was to the prefectural city. Whatever glory the Cui family had known in his grandfather’s generation, and the distant splendor of the capital, were things he only knew from the old household servant who had taught him to read and practice martial arts in his childhood. He had never encountered a scene like this—and he felt a chill like the breath of death blowing straight at his face.

He stopped immediately and made no further rash moves.

But he had already noticed: back there, in that place, there was another person.

This person still standing in the shadows was the real principal. If he could seize him off guard, the situation would instantly turn to his advantage.

His thoughts turned very quickly. Outwardly he stopped resisting, slowly crouching down—as if frightened, wanting to set down his weapon—but in reality he was waiting for an opportunity, planning to repeat his earlier trick, and at an unguarded moment rush straight at that principal. But the moment his shoulder barely shifted, Pu Zhu was already there in one stride, reaching out and grabbing him back. Then she turned toward Ye Xiao, whose expression had gone icy, and said in a trembling voice: “Who are you people? He and I had private business—that’s why we met secretly here at night, without telling our families. We really didn’t know you were here too. He lost both his father and his mother when he was little—he’s a poor orphan with no one to raise him properly. Growing up with people here indulging him, he’s used to charging forward recklessly. Just now he was afraid you’d expose what we were doing—that’s why he collided with you. I’ll make him apologize to you. Please, I beg you—let us go. We really didn’t mean any harm…”

This young girl seemed utterly terrified. As she spoke, her eyes blinked, and tears fell.

Ye Xiao, for all his usual coldness of heart, had never faced a scene like this.

A girl of barely a dozen-some years old, frightened and crying and weeping at him—he froze. Then he watched her snatch the dagger still in the ruffian boy’s hand and fling it to the ground in irritation, slap the young man’s arm to make him apologize, behaving entirely like a young girl throwing a small tantrum.

Pu Zhu’s lips moved close to Cui Xuan’s ear, speaking in a voice only he could hear: “If you don’t want to die, apologize right now. Swallow your pride and avoid calamity—can one person fight all of them? Can you?”

Cui Xuan slowly turned his face.

A beautiful face, pear blossoms wet with rain—lovely eyes full of tears, teardrops shimmering in the moonlight, deeply moving.

Though he clearly knew she was feigning her weeping, his heart still gave a soft tremor.

At any other time, with his temperament, he’d sooner have his neck broken than show weakness and beg for mercy.

A man of valor carries himself bold and proud, with blood and white blades all around—death itself is nothing.

But in this moment, he suddenly felt that even kneeling to beg for mercy would be all right.

He died—that was a small thing. If he implicated her, how could he bear it in his conscience?

At last, he slowly bowed his head and said in a low voice: “I was reckless just now, and gave much offense. I apologize now—I hope you can overlook it and not hold it against me.”

Pu Zhu had long since guessed that these people were the so-called “distinguished guests” who had arrived at the relay station tonight. The two sides running into each other like this was pure coincidence.

She and Cui Xuan were no one important. One was just a nameless local ruffian known only within the area, the other a small orphan girl that no one could recall. Far too inconsequential. Even if the two of them had just done something that couldn’t be spoken of openly these past two days, it was far too trivial a matter to bring down these people who clearly had other important business. What were they doing appearing at this hour? It couldn’t possibly be aimed at herself and Cui Xuan.

The reason the confrontation had escalated this far was entirely because of Cui Xuan’s reckless overconfidence at the outset.

Better not to make more trouble. These people were clearly not to be trifled with. So just now, when she saw things going wrong, she had immediately stepped in to stop Cui Xuan—otherwise dying here like this would be too unjust. Let them believe that she and Cui Xuan were a couple who had come here for a secret rendezvous.

She had faked her fear, played the role of a sheltered girl who’d never seen such a scene and been frightened out of her wits, and had also persuaded Cui Xuan.

He was willing to lower his head—she finally let out a long breath of relief.

After Cui Xuan finished apologizing, he saw this man still staring at him coldly, knowing he had given too much offense just now, and gritted his teeth—he slowly knelt down.

Pu Zhu was briefly taken aback.

From their few encounters she had begun to understand this young man Cui Xuan’s character—surely too proud for his own good. She had thought it would be enough if he was willing to lower his head and say soft words of apology, but she hadn’t expected he would actually kneel.

Ye Xiao then looked again toward where the master was standing.

He walked out from that ridge’s shadow.

Pu Zhu composed herself, angling her head slightly, and through the gaps in her fingers—as if wiping tears—stole a glance at the man. At first she only sensed the man’s figure was tall and slender. In the moonlight he appeared somewhat thin, but the moment he appeared, his entire person carried an indescribable sense of nobility—even Cui Xuan raised his head to look.

She soon saw the man’s appearance clearly.

He wore a blue-green cloak over black fur. The early spring moonlight of He Xi still carried a touch of snow-white, falling on his forehead and face like frost upon his brow, his eyelashes long and heavy.

In that instant, she froze.

He came close quickly, did not linger. His gaze swept over her—face still bearing teardrops—and over Cui Xuan beside her, then passed them by.

Pu Zhu caught a whiff of a faint, familiar scent of sunken-wood sandalwood.

It seemed not to be a fragrance emanating from the weave of his garments, but rather as if year upon year, night after night, in purple smoke and curling incense, it had seeped deep into every inch of this person’s hair and skin, fusing with him as one.

In her previous life, she had once inhaled this distinctive ceremonial incense in the Wanshou Taoist Palace of Changling’s memorial path.

How could she ever forget that scent.

For that place had been the last destination she had reached in her previous life.

……

Prince of Qin Xuandu—at sixteen he conspired with Crown Prince Liang, attempted a coup that failed, and after being imprisoned in Wuyou Palace for a full two years, received his late father Emperor Mingzong’s pardon on his deathbed. He was released, his princely title restored.

He returned to the capital to attend the mourning rites.

The new emperor overseeing the funeral was his former second imperial elder brother, Prince Jin.

It was said that the young Prince of Qin, after the two years of reflection that had preceded this, had at last come to regret and repent of his past. He had voluntarily petitioned to go to Changling to keep vigil at the late emperor’s tomb for three years, as atonement for the unpardonable crimes he had committed in his youthful recklessness.

Emperor Mingzong’s Changling mausoleum was built several hundred li to the northwest of the imperial city, deep within the Tachuan mountains, surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges and facing an ancient plateau. Great ancient trees rose to the sky; human footprints were few. Its bleakness was easy to imagine.

The new Emperor Xiaochang was devoted to filial piety toward his empress dowager, and cherished his young brother dearly, unable to bear letting him suffer such self-imposed punishment. He told the matter to his paternal step-grandmother, Grand Empress Dowager Jiang, hoping she would persuade his young brother to withdraw the petition. But Grand Empress Dowager Jiang gave her approval—to fulfill the Prince of Qin’s filial devotion.

And so, after the great mourning rites for Emperor Mingzong concluded, the Prince of Qin, Xuandu—who had just been recalled to the capital from Wuyou Palace—once again donned full mourning robes and moved into the Wanshou Taoist Palace within Changling.

He was eighteen that year.

It was said that from then on he kept vigil at the mausoleum and devoted himself to the Taoist way, not setting foot outside Changling. For three full years, his only conversation partner was a eunuch.

Curious people in the capital had wondered: the Prince of Qin Xuandu—once dashing and wild on horseback in his youth—after enduring two years of imprisonment and then going off to keep vigil at the mausoleum, what were his daily habits and conduct actually like? They quietly asked the mausoleum warden. According to the warden, in those three years, the Prince of Qin appeared only once. That one time, seen from a distance, he had climbed to the top of the ancient plateau at dusk, lying flat on the plateau’s summit. At the time the golden sun was sinking in the west, and a great flock of roosting birds filled the sky, cawing like dark clouds pressing down. He fell into a deep sleep, and didn’t return until sunrise the next morning—having slept outdoors on the plateau top the whole night.

In those three years, only that one time.

After three years, the Prince of Qin completed his vigil period, was summoned back to the capital, and Emperor Xiaochang once again wished to treat his younger brother generously. He had originally intended to enfeoff him in a prosperous inland region, but as it happened, the newly subjugated western frontier commandery of Xihai was still lacking a lord for pacification.

Xihai commandery lay to the south of He Xi and the west of Tianshui, wedged between the two—shaped like a funnel—a frontier territory of mixed ethnicities with sparse population, constant feuding, and unrest. No one in the court was willing to go to Xihai for an official post—they regarded that place as a perilous road. The previous Protector-General had died in office from the very troubles and chaos there. At this point, one court minister argued that since the Prince of Qin’s maternal ancestry came from the Que people, if the Prince of Qin were sent to pacify the frontier, the Xihai commandery’s people would feel close to him and gladly submit, making the work of education and civil integration twice as efficient with half the effort. The other ministers all voiced their approval.

Emperor Xiaochang was extremely filial toward the Grand Empress Dowager. The reign title he chose after ascending the throne carried its very meaning from this. Thus he asked the Grand Empress Dowager once again about this matter.

The Grand Empress Dowager approved once more, and so the Prince of Qin, Li Xuandu, was additionally conferred the title of Prince of Xihai and went to Xihai commandery. That was two years ago.

Everyone said that the Prince of Qin now wholeheartedly devoted himself to the Taoist way. In Xihai commandery, apart from conducting necessary princely affairs, he would often appear in a black ceremonial cap and plain robe, in clean unadorned clothing, unconcerned with worldly affairs, burning incense and cultivating the Tao.

But Pu Zhu knew that all of this was nothing but his disguise.

From the moment his conspiracy with Crown Prince Liang had failed, he had suppressed his ambitions, restrained his nature, and used the guise of devoting himself to the Tao with no worldly desires to conceal himself.

In her previous life, he had succeeded—this man whom she had called Imperial Uncle had eventually seized the throne from her husband the Emperor, Li Chengyu, and become the final victor.

Pu Zhu also had some recollection that in her previous life, a little later, when she returned to the capital, he too would be summoned to the capital.

But she had not expected to encounter him here and now.

Even though Xihai commandery and He Xi could be considered neighboring territories, at this point in time, by all reasonable logic, he should still be in Xihai commandery, acting as his Prince of Xihai.

How could he have crossed the border and come here? Had something in this life changed and brought about this, or had he originally come to this place during this period in her previous life too, and she simply hadn’t encountered him?

Her heart beat wildly as she stared at the figure swiftly swallowed by the night ahead, her mind churning ceaselessly through fragmentary shreds of memory from her previous life.

Ye Xiao of course did not know what was going through this young girl’s mind—the one who had been wiping her tears just moments ago—now standing motionless, not moving at all. He only assumed she had been frightened stiff by the scene. Knowing his master’s intent—not to pursue the matter—he ordered his subordinates to stand down and put away their crossbows. He gave the pair of young people one last glance, shook his head, and turned to stride quickly after his master.