At the foot of the snow mountain range, from east to west, there came a long migration procession. The column was mixed yet orderly, led by their guides, making its way slowly forward in a winding line.

For those traveling in this migration procession, the most difficult days were already behind them. If they continued on like this for several more days and joined up with the forces sent by Grand Empress Jin Xi of the Western Di to meet them, they would bring this long and winding journey to its end and reach their destination.

At dusk, the migrants set up camp for the night at a flat, sheltered spot at the foot of the mountains. Tents rose one by one, campfires were lit in clusters, and the fragrance of food drifted through the air. Everything seemed to be slowly turning for the better.

Yet Li Xuandu’s heart held not the slightest sense of ease.

His maternal uncle had initially been wounded by a stray arrow. While trapped and surrounded, he had done everything in his power, together with his warriors, to protect the people, with no time to tend to his own wounds. The injury had gradually worsened. By the time Li Xuandu arrived and they broke free, the wound had turned critical, the corruption spreading to the vital organs.

More than a month ago, he had sent someone back to pass word to his cousin. This migration column was moving slowly. By rights, if her illness had recovered and there were no incidents on the road, she should be catching up soon.

He knew that what his uncle most could not set aside before the end, in his heart, was surely his cousin.

If several more days passed and she still had not arrived, then there were only two possibilities.

Either his cousin’s condition still had not improved, or she had been delayed on the road.

Neither possibility was one he wished to see.

Zhang Ting came over and invited him to have dinner.

Li Xuandu had no appetite at all. He turned to glance at the tent where his maternal uncle lay and asked: “No news yet?”

Zhang Ting knew what he was asking and shook his head, saying that several days ago, as he had instructed, people had been sent back along the route. As long as they encountered them, they would bring them quickly.

Li Xuandu thought for a moment and was just about to tell Zhang Ting to send more people back, when a soldier suddenly came running from the distance, calling out loudly: “Your Highness! The Lady and her party have arrived!”

Li Tanfang had journeyed through all manner of hardship and finally caught up. When she appeared before Li Xuandu, she looked utterly haggard and worn. She called out “Eldest Brother,” and her eyes immediately reddened.

Li Xuandu came forward to meet her, asking with concern about her health and the journey.

Li Tanfang steadied her emotions and said her health was no longer a concern, telling him not to worry. She also said that on this journey she had benefited from the protection of Zhang Zhuo and Prince Weidichi, and was finally able to reach this place — for which she was deeply grateful. Having said this, she asked about her father’s condition. Upon learning that the wound was serious and he likely would not recover, tears burst from her eyes.

Li Xuandu consoled her for a few words, then immediately brought her inside. After leaving the father and daughter alone together, he walked out, his heart weighed with concerns. He saw Zhang Zhuo and Weidichi Shengde still standing outside and went up to ask: “How has Wang Fei been lately?”

Both men said in unison that Wang Fei was doing well in every way.

Li Xuandu nodded and asked for the full account of the recent defensive campaign.

Zhang Zhuo recounted the events from beginning to end. The northern-route combined army had been large in number, and at the time it was quite possible they had planned to split forces and attack both Yan City and Shuang City. The Protectorate forces were limited, and both fronts were in desperate need. Shuang Shi had proposed the strategy of using water to flood the enemy’s route, but then they ran into the difficulty of frozen ground that was hard to dig. It was Lady Li who had volunteered, leading the team to retrieve the fire oil just in time. With that, the channel was successfully dug and the floodwaters diverted to block the combined army outside both cities. The enemy was then utterly defeated, and the Protectorate achieved a great victory in the end.

Weidichi Shengde added: “Your Highness, Lady Li was truly admirable this time! If not for her, this battle’s outcome would have been hard to say. I heard that when she set out, her illness had not yet fully recovered. On the return journey, her old ailment relapsed — she was unable to walk and was carried back into the city lying down. If we are to apportion merit from this battle, she should receive the highest honor!”

Even Zhang Zhuo, who was never inclined to admire anyone, said not a word of objection this time.

Li Xuandu looked toward the tent where Li Tanfang was and said: “You have both worked hard on the road. Go and rest early.”

After the two departed, Li Xuandu did not leave, but stood alone outside his uncle’s tent, waiting.

The sky gradually darkened. After a long while, Li Tanfang came out, wiping her tears. Seeing Li Xuandu still outside, her steps faltered and she stopped.

Li Xuandu walked to her side and asked quietly: “How is Uncle?”

Li Tanfang said: “He has been sleeping, and has not yet awakened…”

As she spoke, her voice choked again, and tears surged once more from her eyes.

Li Xuandu comforted her again and then said: “This time you rendered great merit to the Protectorate headquarters — I know all about it. I am deeply grateful.”

Li Tanfang’s tear-filled eyes flickered. She shook her head: “Eldest Brother, please don’t say that. In truth, it is I who should thank Eldest Brother. If not for you, my Que people would have suffered great disaster this time. Compared to all that Eldest Brother has done for my Que people — what little I did amounts to nothing.”

Li Xuandu said: “Uncle is my own elder — how could I not act when he was in need? Don’t burden your heart with these thoughts. You’ve just arrived, and the journey has been hard. Go rest first — I will keep watch here for Uncle.”

His tone was very gentle, full of warmth and care. Li Tanfang looked at him through her tears, and just at that moment, a maidservant came running out from inside the tent and said the man had just awakened.

Li Xuandu hurried in at once.

Li Tanfang also rushed in, and seeing her father had indeed awoken with eyes open, was overcome with mingled grief and joy, throwing herself down at the bedside, taking his hand, unable to stop her tears from falling once more.

A faint smile crossed Li Siye’s face. He murmured a few words of comfort to his daughter, glanced at Li Xuandu standing nearby, gathered his strength, and told his daughter to step outside first, saying he had words to say to him.

Li Tanfang wiped her tears and walked out with her head bowed.

Li Siye sent the others out as well. When only Li Xuandu remained beside him, he gazed at him for a moment and said: “Your Highness — your uncle is afraid this time he is truly going to depart. Your Highness, do you know what your uncle cannot let go of most?”

“It is not the Que people. Your uncle knows that even without him, you, Your Highness, will still find a way forward for the Que people.” Without waiting for Li Xuandu to answer, he explained himself.

“What your uncle cannot let go of is Tanfang…”

Li Xuandu immediately said: “Uncle, please rest at ease. As long as Xuandu lives, he will watch over Tanfang. If Tanfang is willing, I and Zhuzhu will also seek out a suitable man for her and help arrange a good match so she may have someone to rely upon for life.”

Li Siye’s gaze gradually dimmed. He stared at Li Xuandu for a moment, and said in a low voice: “Your Highness — can you truly not take your uncle’s place in caring for her all her life?”

Li Xuandu was taken aback, and at last understood what he meant. He hesitated, then said: “Uncle may be under a misapprehension. At the time in the Que kingdom, my cousin returned the jade pendant that my late father had once given me, and also made clear that henceforth she would regard me as an eldest brother. I too regard her as a younger sister.”

Li Siye gave a bitter smile.

“Your Highness, that is because you do not know her nature. I, her father, know it better than anyone. From childhood she set her heart on Your Highness — not minding any title or rank, waiting with single-minded devotion all these years. It was simply that when Your Highness made that declaration before her maternal grandfather, a young girl, no matter how reluctant in her heart, would never continue to press the matter — so she returned the jade pendant and spoke those words, so that Your Highness need not worry about her…”

He let out a long, heavy sigh.

“If she had truly let go, your uncle would absolutely not be raising this again now. It is just that your uncle knows she has never been able to let go in her heart… She is a person of simple, wholehearted nature. Your uncle cannot bear to see her spend the rest of her life continuing to pass her days like this, one by one. That is why I shamelessly bring up this old matter again, in hope that Your Highness will look after her…”

Li Xuandu fell silent.

The tent was very quiet. The only sound was his uncle’s increasingly labored breathing.

He had no feelings for Tanfang of that kind. What he had for her was the love and care one has for kin — utterly different from the longing that consumed him in sleepless nights when he thought of another woman, a longing that threatened to drive him mad.

“Your Highness — could it be that you are concerned about Wang Fei?”

After a moment, Li Siye asked again with great effort.

At this moment, he truly was thinking of her — his Wang Fei.

Yet that Wang Fei of his, who had set her ambition on becoming empress — did she truly care whether he took another concubine or not?

Li Xuandu looked at his uncle lying on the sickbed, his face the color of old paper. His heart heavy with sorrow, a thread of indescribable melancholy also arose within him.

Seeing that he still had not spoken, Li Siye on the sickbed braced himself and tried to sit up.

Li Xuandu suddenly came back to himself. His hand rested on his uncle’s shoulder, pressing him gently back down. Then he stepped back several paces and knelt before him in a full, proper bow: “Uncle — if I had never taken a wife, and Uncle looked upon me with such regard and entrusted the one closest to you for life, how could I refuse? Cousin is a woman of exquisite virtue and grace. To take her as wife would be the fortune of any man in this world — and I am no exception. But now I already have a wife. Between her and me there is deep love and harmony. Even if I took Cousin in addition, I would not be able to give her my full heart. Cousin does not deserve to suffer such a slight, and I cannot allow her to suffer it. Therefore, Uncle’s words are ones I cannot comply with.”

After a long silence, Li Siye murmured: “Your uncle understands… It was your uncle who had been thinking wrongly all along… This too is well… This is well…”

Li Xuandu remained with him a little longer, then quietly withdrew.

As he came out, he sensed in a corner outside the tent, a figure standing there.

In the moonlight, that figure appeared solitary and slight.

He knew who it was, and knew she must have already heard the exchange between him and his uncle just now.

And perhaps that was for the best.

He did not slow his steps, continuing to walk forward. Just as he was nearly at the entrance to his own sleeping tent, he heard a sound of hurrying footsteps behind him.

He turned. He saw that Li Tanfang had caught up.

“Eldest Brother — wait!”

Li Xuandu stopped.

Li Tanfang was silent at first.

Many years ago, when he had been exiled to confinement in the Wuyou Palace, she had kept that jade pendant in her keeping on his behalf.

That was her small selfish wish. She had wanted to keep the thing most precious to him near her own side.

Later he married that woman. After he declined the marriage alliance in the Que kingdom, she finally returned the jade pendant.

But all those years, the love wound around the depths of her heart — how could it be cut off just because it was said to be?

She called him Eldest Brother, yet stubbornly, consistently, always referred to that woman as Wang Fei.

That was the last faint thread of her pride and her unwillingness.

Yet on this night, she had finally and completely understood.

Her Eldest Brother — that Prince Qin who had once ridden triumphantly into the capital — he would never be able to divide his heart and give any portion of it to her, not even the smallest corner.

She slowly lifted a face as pale as snow, her eyes fixed upon him, her voice trembling as she spoke in a low tone: “I know I should not come again — but if I do not ask clearly, I will not be able to let go for the rest of my life.”

“Eldest Brother — what is it about her that you like?”

“Her beauty? Her nature? The strength she lends you?”

Xuandu was silent for a moment, then said: “Tanfang, you may recall my old ailment — you even sent medicine for it in those years. And throughout all those years, no matter what medication I used, the fever never resolved. Others did not know, but how could I not know? It was not a physical ailment — it was an ailment of the heart.”

“After I met her, it healed without medicine.”

He pointed to the place over his heart.

“She is the medicine for what is here. How could I not love her?”

Li Tanfang was frozen. She stared at him, and after a long moment, a single crystalline tear slowly rolled from her eye.

Li Xuandu gave her a slight nod, then turned and entered his sleeping tent.

That night, he lay awake for a long time.

He thought of her — the one far away in the Protectorate headquarters — wondered whether she too missed him, and tossed and turned. He didn’t know how much time had passed when, in a haze, he found himself back at the imperial mausoleum where he had once kept watch for three years.

He climbed up to that high plateau and heard the sound of a woman sobbing in grief.

That voice was so familiar.

It was his Zhuzhu.

His heart clenched. He followed the sound of her weeping until he found her — sitting alone beside that boulder where he had once slept through the night, crying in sorrow.

He felt his heart ache unbearably. He rushed toward her, finally reaching her from behind. He bent down and reached out, wanting to draw her into his embrace and comfort her — but she suddenly vanished into thin air, without a trace.

“Zhuzhu!”

Li Xuandu cried out, and jolted awake with wide-open eyes. Only then did he realize it had been a dream.

Outside the tent, through the gap in the tent flap, a faint pale light filtered in.

Dawn had come.

He lay on his pillow, feeling his back soaked in cold sweat, his heart racing. He steadied himself with effort, slowly let out a breath, and was just about to rise when, from outside, came the sound of urgent footsteps.

“Your Highness! A messenger has just arrived from the Protectorate headquarters!”

Perhaps the shadow of that ill-omened dream had not yet fully cleared from his mind. Li Xuandu felt his heart, which had just barely settled, suddenly leap again.

He threw back his covers and rose, striding out in great steps. Coming face to face with him was Zhang Zhuo rushing over, waving a letter in his hand, his voice raised in alarm: “Your Highness, this is bad — Wang Fei has disappeared! They say Han Rongchang took Wang Fei away — she may have been brought inside the pass!”

Li Xuandu felt as though struck suddenly by a heavy blow — nearly unable to catch his breath. He steadied himself, snatched the letter from Zhang Zhuo’s hand, and tore it open.

The letter was from Ye Xiao. It said Han Rongchang had escorted Wang Fei to Shuang Shi’s manor. That same day, Wang Fei did not return — only one of Han Rongchang’s men came back, saying Wang Fei had been kept by Shuang Shi and wished to stay a few days, asking them not to worry.

Ye Xiao had thought that Wang Fei had been exhausted during the recent period and was now taking the rare opportunity to rest there — perfectly natural. At the time, he had not the slightest suspicion. Not until seven or eight days later, when Wang Fei still had not returned, did A’Ju and Luo Bao grow anxious, and Ye Xiao had Luo Bao sent to the manor to wait on Wang Fei. When Luo Bao arrived, only then did they learn that Shuang Shi had never invited Wang Fei at all, and Wang Fei had never been there all along.

Ye Xiao had felt as though struck by five thunderbolts at once. Only then did he know Han Rongchang had gone wrong. At the time, his heart burning with urgency, he and Shuang Shi together sent people searching in every direction — without result. They surmised Han Rongchang had very likely already brought Wang Fei inside the pass. He was about to give chase, when at that moment the two guards who had accompanied Wang Fei that day returned. Han Rongchang, reckoning they could not catch up, had released them — which also confirmed Ye Xiao’s suspicion. Ye Xiao immediately led men in pursuit, and before departing, dispatched someone to bring this news to him.

The date at the bottom of the letter was just over a month ago.

Li Xuandu stared fixedly at the letter, his eyelids twitching. His five fingers slowly crumpled the letter into a ball. He raised his head, gritted his teeth, and said: “Prepare to return.”