Li Xuandu was gone—and Pu Zhu felt as though she had been struck square in the head by a heavy club.

She slumped down before the vanity table, staring at the wreckage strewn across the floor, feeling a heaviness pressing in on her chest, her breathing constricted.

She was angry and she was grieved, so much so that the hand still clutching the small brocade pouch was trembling faintly.

What had he just said? He had the audacity to say she was not even fit to carry his cousin’s shoes?

She stared blankly for a long time, then let out a cold laugh.

Indeed. How could she compare to the woman he would eventually marry in her previous life, the one his heart had longed for?

From childhood she had lost everyone dear to her, drifted to the frontier, and depended on Ju A’mu for survival. They had scraped by each day for food and warmth. Had it not been for Yang Hong later taking her in, she would long since have become just one more frozen, starved soul among the countless who had perished on the frontier.

She sat there in cold laughter for a moment longer, then felt her eyes grow swollen and stinging. She happened to glance at the entrance to the inner chamber where the gauze curtain hung—there was a shadow pacing back and forth behind it, hesitating to enter, as though wanting to come in but not daring. She knew it was Luo Bao.

Li Xuandu would certainly be spending the night in the meditation chamber tonight and not returning.

She said, “You go over there—I have no need of you here!”

Luo Bao responded softly and withdrew.

Pu Zhu wiped her eyes, crouched down, and began picking up the hairpins and ornaments that had fallen all over the floor, collecting them one by one and putting them back in the drawer. At last she stared at the small brocade pouch she had fought so fiercely to keep—the one holding their bound locks of hair—and fell into another daze.

She could not explain it herself—why she had fought with all her strength to keep this from him just now. Only that when she saw he meant to burn it, she had rushed forward on pure instinct to stop him.

Perhaps it was because she planned one day to produce it as a reminder of that night’s debt—to appeal to his sense of obligation at a crucial moment.

But if she truly sank to the point of needing something like this to salvage a sense of obligation, then a mere lock of bound hair would be of little use. It would more likely only sharpen his memory of that night—of how thoroughly she had deceived him.

A useless thing, like the bones of a picked-over fish. Yet she had guarded it with such desperation, even nearly having her arm brutally broken by him.

Pu Zhu rubbed her still-aching wrist and no longer wished to look at this thing. She tossed it into the vanity drawer and snapped the drawer shut.

The next day was the day of departure.

No matter what had happened the previous night, no matter how oppressed her heart felt—as long as she was all right, even if blades rained down from the sky, she would still have to set out with him on the road.

She put on her veil hat, covering her face. When she went to board the carriage, she saw Li Xuandu seated on horseback, gaze fixed straight ahead, his face blank—he did not spare her a glance.

She had no wish to look at him either. She got in the carriage and shut the windows and door. Except when they stopped for meals or rest, she did not open them again throughout the journey.

That night, the party lodged at a roadside postal station. Husband and wife shared a bed, yet not a word passed between them. They each slept on their own side.

Pu Zhu was afraid she might accidentally touch him in her sleep, so she lay there waiting, watching until he seemed to have finally fallen asleep, then quietly began stuffing pillows under the bedding on her side to create a barrier between them. While she was in the middle of this, she suddenly saw him open his eyes and look over coldly. Her hand froze. Then she also gave a cold laugh. “What are you staring at? Is this not for your benefit? Someone like me—not even fit to carry another’s shoes—if I were to accidentally brush against Your Highness in the night, would that not be a defilement of Your Highness’s nobility?”

Li Xuandu gave no response—as though he had not heard her—and shut his eyes again.

Pu Zhu stopped hiding it. With one forceful push she finished stuffing the barrier in place, rolled over onto her side with her back to him, and slept through the night in that disjointed way. The next morning she was up early and back on the road. They traveled like this for five or six days, crossing the Yellow River and entering Taiyuan Commandery.

The Kingdom of Que lay to the north of the Central Plains and south of Eastern Di, occupying a buffer zone between the two states. The specific route: through Taiyuan Commandery, out through Yanmen Pass, then several hundred li further north. A journey of no short length, even at a swift pace requiring at least half a month.

After another five or six days of travel, on this particular day, Yanmen Pass at last came into view in the distance. Once through the pass, another two or three days’ journey, and they would reach a place where two mountains flanked a path. Rounding through, there was a stretch of open plain—a land rich in rivers and fertile soil—and that was the territory of the Kingdom of Que.

Tomorrow they would pass through Yanmen, and the destination would soon be at hand. The accompanying party—Ye Xiao and the others—all wore expressions of relief. That evening, as usual, they lodged at a postal station along the route.

The season was turning to winter, and the further north they went, the colder the weather became.

In these past few days at the postal stations they stopped at, the postal station masters, eager to please the Prince and Princess Consort of Prince Qin, had without exception heated the inner rooms with charcoal fires until they were piping hot. If one wore thick clothing inside, one would inevitably break into a sweat within moments.

This particular postal station was no different. Pu Zhu had not yet fallen asleep when she saw him come in from outside. As had been the case these past few nights, after bathing and changing clothes, he had Luo Bao make up a separate sleeping pallet for him in the outer room, and spent the night alone.

Pu Zhu felt an inward laugh she could not quite suppress.

The closer they drew to the Kingdom of Que, the more Li Xuandu likely recalled the virtues of that cousin of his. On this journey, not only had he not so much as laid a finger on her—for these past several nights, he had actually preferred to go sleep in the unheated outer room on a makeshift bed rather than share a bed with her.

What was he doing? Saving himself for his cousin?

She saw that Luo Bao was standing to one side looking at her, his expression hesitant and unsure. She could not help but laugh coldly. “What are you staring at me for? Didn’t you hear His Highness’s instructions? Go make up his bed. Make it thick—if the bedding is not enough, there is more in the trunk. I’ll have someone bring it for you. Make sure he doesn’t freeze. If he catches cold and arrives at the Kingdom of Que looking ill, and someone asks what happened, it would be hard for me to explain.”

She tacked on this last remark.

Luo Bao, these past few days whenever he appeared before them both, had been walking on eggshells—not daring even to breathe too loudly. He knew perfectly well that the Princess Consort was unhappy about Prince Qin choosing to sleep alone in the outer room. Her words carried a pointed barb, and clearly she had misunderstood—but Prince Qin was too proud to allow him to reveal to the Princess Consort the lingering ailment he had acquired during his years of confinement.

He stole a glance at Prince Qin and saw his expression blank and indifferent, as if he had not heard the Princess Consort’s sarcasm. There was nothing Luo Bao could do. He lowered his head and went to the outer room to make up the bedding.

Lying alone in the inner room through the whole night, Pu Zhu could not sleep a wink—tossing and turning.

Li Xuandu had belittled her, saying she was not even fit to carry Li Tanfang’s shoes.

If he imagined she would spend the rest of her days grief-stricken and self-defeating over those words of his, he was very much mistaken.

What manner of person this Li Tanfang truly was—the closer they drew to the Kingdom of Que, the more curious she became. Her desire to see this woman with her own eyes grew more intense with every passing day.

As for Li Xuandu—let him do as he pleased for now. Everything she had to say, she had already said during that quarrel.

She had pushed him to make plans early, and yes, there was a degree of self-interest in it. But from his perspective, was it doing him harm? At the very least, if he was willing to listen, making early preparations would spare him the desperate scrambling of his last-minute response in the previous life—which had brought such ruin on both him and the Kingdom of Que. Forget it. She was in no mood to manage him now. Let him do as he liked. He could refuse all her advice, sit quietly and wait for the Emperor’s blade to fall, and she would frankly have nothing but admiration for him.

Pu Zhu spent the night thinking this way and that until her head ached. The next morning she was in the carriage with the shadows of mild sleeplessness beneath her eyes, setting out again with Li Xuandu heading further north. They passed smoothly through Yanmen Pass.

Beyond the pass, the scenery along the road gradually grew desolate. Reed catkins faded and withered, northern geese flew homeward. On one side, endless rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see, a river threading through the land. On the other side, a barren and precipitous mountain peak—the road winding and treacherous.

Beyond the pass there were no postal stations, but merchants had established overnight resting points of their own.

Li Xuandu had traveled this road several times as a boy, back and forth. He knew that once the mountain pass was behind them, open plains lay ahead—and there was a sheltered spot from the wind, a place where merchants and traders moving between the Li Dynasty, the Kingdom of Que, and Eastern Di had long camped overnight. He urged the group to stay alert, pick up their pace, and clear the mountain road before nightfall, so they could settle in and rest early.

Ye Xiao called out to the escort guards at the front to sharpen their attention, and himself led the advance. Coming to a section where the road narrowed at a bend, he heard singing drifting from behind the mountain—a traveler’s song of the frontier autumn, of cattle and horses across the land. The bold and free singing was accompanied by the appearance of a caravan rounding the bend ahead: a dozen or so people driving carts loaded with all manner of animal furs, slowly making their way toward them.

The mountain road was narrow. Both parties came face to face and each stopped.

Among this group of merchants were Han people, Di people, and others who appeared of mixed heritage. Seeing a party of Li Dynasty soldiers approaching from the opposite direction, they were greatly flustered, and hurriedly moved to the side to give way. The leader was an old man who told Ye Xiao that his group had long been traders moving between the three nations, and this trip had just collected several cartloads of furs from the Di people, and were on their way to sell them inside Yanmen Pass. He had not expected to block the path of soldiers, and offered repeated apologies.

Ye Xiao knew that beyond Yanmen Pass lived some impoverished herdsmen who had fled from Eastern Di, along with slaves who could bear the mistreatment no longer. Over time they had settled and intermarried with Han people, learned the language of the Central Plains, and made their living trading goods between the three nations. Encountering them on the road was not unusual.

These people had dark, weathered skin—clearly from years of wind and sun on the road. They carried short sabers at their belts, the kind commonly used by merchants for self-defense, which was consistent with their story. Still, out of caution, he had his men inspect the cargo, then singled out a few of the Di people at random, asked their names and ages, and made conversation. The ones asked turned out to speak the language of the Central Plains fluently and said they were all former slaves and herdsmen who had escaped.

Ye Xiao ended the questioning and ordered the entire group to pull all their carts and horses to the side of the road and wait while his party passed first. The old man agreed compliantly at once and ordered his people to do as they were told.

The road was cleared.

Ye Xiao rode at the front, continuing to lead the party forward. Out of habit, he kept an eye on the dozen or so merchants who had moved quietly to the side of the road. Something felt subtly off to him, though he could not quite put his finger on what, and his brow creased slightly.

He had already led the few guards at the head of the column past these merchants, and looked back toward Prince Qin on his horse. He moved forward a short distance more—and then, in a flash, it came to him.

These merchants were imposters!

Nearly all of them had bowed legs.

Common Di people and slaves could not, as grown adults, have developed legs like that.

Only Di warriors who had grown up on horseback from childhood could have such bow-shaped legs!

Ye Xiao spun around sharply. As he did, he saw one of the middle-aged men standing closest to Prince Qin make a slight movement with his arm. A dagger slid out from his sleeve and was seized in his grip.

Ye Xiao was horrified. He shouted, “Assassins!” The road was narrow—he had no room to wheel his horse around. He flung himself from the saddle and sprinted toward Prince Qin.

But it was already too late. The assassin moved with lightning speed and lunged toward Prince Qin.

The dagger was less than three chi from Prince Qin!

It looked as though Prince Qin would be cut down on the spot, and Ye Xiao could not reach him in time. The few guards nearby had not yet had a chance to react.

Just as Ye Xiao was gripped by despair, his courage shattering—Li Xuandu, still seated calmly on his horse, seemed to have been prepared all along. Without a sound he drew the sword at his side and brought it down in a single stroke.

Where the blade swept, the head and body of the assassin lunging at him with the dagger parted instantly. The head dropped from the shoulders, a column of blood erupting from the severed neck and shooting several feet into the air, falling like red rain—while the headless body, carried by its own momentum, continued to charge toward Prince Qin. The guards who had finally reacted fell on it with their blades, and only then did it collapse to the ground with a crash.

The old man’s face changed drastically when he saw the assassination had failed.

That assassin he had just sent in—his most formidable fighter, with extraordinary skill.

The plan had been considered thorough. He could not understand how it had come to this outcome.

He could not work out where the flaw in the plan had been, that the other side had seen through it.

The critical first strike had failed. Taking Prince Qin’s life now would be as difficult as reaching the heavens.

But there was a contingency plan. Whether it succeeded or not was now in the hands of fate.

He whistled. The men lying in ambush at the top of the mountain received the signal and immediately sent the prepared boulders and rocks rolling down.

In an instant, boulders of all sizes came tumbling down from above. Fires broke out along the narrow mountain road. Horses panicked and bolted out of control.

Pu Zhu had not slept well the night before. Sitting in the carriage, she had been half-drowsing in a daze when she was jolted awake by the sounds of combat outside. Before she could understand what was happening, she felt the carriage roof shudder—as though something huge had crashed against it from above.

She was greatly alarmed, and was just about to check what had happened when the carriage door was suddenly wrenched open from outside. A guard named Zhang Ting appeared, his voice urgent as he called for her to get out.

Pu Zhu knew it was an emergency. She jumped out immediately and saw boulders and rocks crashing down overhead in a continuous rain.

She followed the guard, dodging and ducking, running for a recessed ledge along one side of the mountain road where the rocks could not reach. They were almost there when, suddenly, another massive boulder—flat as a millstone—came hurtling down without warning from above.

Ahead, a startled horse came charging toward her, blocking the way. There was no room to dodge. The boulder was about to come crashing down on top of her. From behind, a figure suddenly burst forward in a sprint, shoved the guard out of the way, grabbed Pu Zhu, and together they dove to the ground, rolling several times rapidly.

With a thunderous crash, the enormous boulder struck the ground, smashing the horse on the spot—bones shattered, sinews broken. Sparks flew in all directions, the impact tremendous.

Only then did Pu Zhu recognize that the person who had embraced her and dragged her clear of disaster was Li Xuandu.

He still had her pinned beneath him, holding her tightly, shielding her. His face was covered in blood—she could not tell if it was his or someone else’s.

She was stunned.

The moment the boulder landed, Li Xuandu swiftly got up, lifted Pu Zhu from the ground, carried her to safety, ordered someone to come and guard her, then hurried away.

The barrage of boulders from above ended quickly. Not one of the fake merchants posing as assassins escaped. Besides those killed, the leader—after being surrounded by Ye Xiao’s men—had plunged a blade into his own chest and died without a flicker of fear.

Afterward, a check revealed that every one of the bodies bore a wolf’s-head tattoo on the chest.

Clearly, this was a group of assassins from Eastern Di.

But why had they moved against Prince Qin, who held no real power in the Li Dynasty? What benefit was there in killing him?

Ye Xiao could not work it out, and asked Prince Qin.

Li Xuandu gazed toward the direction of the Kingdom of Que ahead, and was silent for a moment. He gave no answer, but simply ordered everyone to rest and bind wounds, then get back on the road, and reach the safe camping ground ahead as quickly as possible.

After nightfall, the party finally made camp and settled.

Pu Zhu sat inside the tent, having sent away the maids attending her. She wrapped herself tightly in a thick fur blanket and thought back to the scene on the mountain road that evening: that boulder crashing down with a roar, the moment Li Xuandu had scooped her up and rolled clear. Even now, her heart had not fully steadied.

Much time passed. Night had grown deep. With still no sign of Li Xuandu returning, she finally could bear it no longer. She got up and stepped out of the tent, looking out into the darkness.

Luo Bao had been hit by a stone while trying to take cover, injuring his arm slightly. It was bandaged up, and now he crouched by a cluster of campfire outside the tent warming himself. He turned and saw Pu Zhu come out, and hurried over to her. “The Princess Consort has suffered a great fright today. Please rest early.”

Pu Zhu had already spotted Li Xuandu.

He was sitting alone by a fire pit ahead, a wine gourd in hand, taking occasional sips. He appeared to have been sitting there for quite some time.

She walked toward him and stopped close before him. After a moment’s hesitation, she said quietly, “Thank you for today—you saved my life.”

Li Xuandu’s gaze was fixed on the leaping flames, and he took another drink of wine without saying anything.

Pu Zhu waited a moment, feeling there was nothing more to do, and said, “I came only to thank you. I did not intend to disturb you. It is a debt of life, and if I did not say something, I could not be at ease with myself. I am going back to the tent.”

She turned to leave, and suddenly heard his voice from behind her: “Wait.”

Pu Zhu’s heart gave a faint flutter. She stopped.

Li Xuandu still did not look at her. His gaze remained fixed on the leaping campfire before him. Slowly he said, “I should not have said that you are not even fit to carry my cousin’s shoes. Do not take it to heart.”

Pu Zhu was completely taken aback. She had not at all expected him to apologize to her over this. A wave of grievance suddenly welled up in her heart. She bit her lip and said nothing.

He seemed not to expect a response from her either, and continued on his own: “Having married you, you have become my responsibility. I should do my best to satisfy you. It is only that I am truly a man without ability, and perhaps in this life, I may not be able to promise to help you fulfill your wish. The one and only promise I can make to you is that I will do everything in my power to protect you.”

He paused.

“If in the future, you find another suitable person—someone you wish to go with—you are free to go. I will not stand in your way.”

“I have said what I have to say. It is late. Go rest. Today many people were injured. Tonight I will personally keep watch.”

He drained the rest of his wine in one swallow, tossed the empty gourd into the campfire, stood up, and walked away.

From the moment he spoke and asked her to wait, to the final moment when he left her standing there and walked off—he had never once looked at her, not from beginning to end.

Pu Zhu did not know how she found her way back to the tent. She sat alone wrapped in her blanket for a long time, felt the coldness on her cheek, raised her hand and touched it—a streak of tears. She had been crying without even knowing it.

The night of their quarrel, the things he said had been so cruel, his treatment of her so harsh—yet afterward she had not wept.

Tonight, she could not explain why: hearing those last few words he had spoken to her in that calm and measured voice—she had wept.