Just two days prior, the Crown Prince and General Zhao Dong had gotten roaring drunk together and stumbled out of the Eastern Palace in a drunken stupor, going so far as to blunder into the palanquin of the Shu Consort, who happened to be on her way to the Emperor’s bedchambers. The two of them, drunk and babbling, crashed into her conveyance and grinned shamelessly about it, frightening the Shu Consort into such a state that she fled to the Emperor in tears with a long account of the incident.
The Emperor doted on the Shu Consort above all others, and hearing that these two had made such a disgraceful scene, flew into a towering rage. The Crown Prince was punished with a prolonged kneel before the imperial ancestral shrine, and Zhao Dong received transfer orders sending him back north to drill his troops.
Just as relations between the Emperor and the Crown Prince were growing increasingly strained, Empress Zong finally summoned her father and younger brother for an audience.
Zong Qing had recently been newly enfeoffed as a marquis and wore an expression of smug satisfaction. But his visit to the palace to call on the Empress was not simply a family reunion — he also had a most pressing matter to discuss with his daughter.
Now that his son-in-law had become the heir apparent of the realm, Zong Qing himself had been elevated to the status of the Emperor’s father-in-law. But the tenure of a father-in-law was brief. Once Han Linfeng ascended the throne, these honors and privileges would pass to a different family to enjoy.
With court and country alike attacking the Crown Prince for deficiencies in personal conduct, and with the Emperor and Crown Prince at odds, this was naturally the moment to make proper plans for his scatterbrained daughter — lest she end up doing all the work for someone else’s benefit.
At first the Empress only listened as her father leaned close and spoke quietly in her ear. But the wider her eyes grew the more she heard, until at last she gave him a startled shove: “Do you know where you are? Do you think this is the provincial Beizhen estate back in Liangzhou? How dare you say such things — presuming to meddle in affairs of state!”
Zong Qing looked at his daughter’s alarmed expression and thought, as he had always thought, that women were simply incapable of getting anything done.
“The legitimate son of the Emperor should always have been Xiao! If not for your soft heart back then, what would he have amounted to? He is, and will always be, a concubine’s son of low birth — he would never have risen to prominence. But from what I hear, he is now talking about giving up the throne for a woman, and the Emperor likes him less and less by the day. If it comes to that and he steps aside, Xiao becomes the natural successor — with every claim and right. If you do not seize this opportunity to make your move, and one of those favored consorts bears another son to compete for the Crown Prince position, you will not even have the luxury of tears!”
The Empress had always been too easily swayed by those around her, and her father’s words set her heart rocking back and forth.
In the days that followed, the wives of various noble family ministers dropped by in conversation to express, in circumspect terms, where the sympathies of those families lay — the distinguished gentlemen all felt that the Second Prince was studious and humble by nature, and had earned the deep regard of all the esteemed ministers. By this point, the Empress was thoroughly persuaded.
After all, Han Linfeng had declared he would sooner give up the Crown Princehood than give up Su Luoyun — he could hardly blame others for what followed. If he would not hold the position, then naturally it would pass to his younger brother. Just as her father said, while the favored consorts had not yet produced heirs, it was better to settle things quickly before anything could change.
Thinking this, she summoned her son for a secret discussion of the matter.
Han Xiao ordinarily appeared proud and aloof, but he had in truth never been through any real trials. When his mother put it to him in these terms, his composure crumbled — and for a moment, imagining himself one day seated on the dragon throne and commanding the assembled ministers, his heart floated with elation.
When he returned to his own chambers, he could not contain what was churning inside him, and in a moment of giddy indiscretion, casually mentioned it to his wife Miss Zheng.
Miss Zheng’s eyes grew wider and wider as she listened. After a moment’s silence, she asked Han Xiao: “And what does the Second Prince himself think of this?”
Han Xiao said: “Mother says those ministers are privately endorsing me, and that perhaps within a few days at morning court, one of the remonstrating officials will petition the Emperor to depose the current heir apparent and install me as Crown Prince instead. What can I do? Naturally I will simply do as my father the Emperor and my mother decide.”
Miss Zheng looked quietly at Han Xiao’s face, on which joy was plainly impossible to conceal. She first made a deferential bow: “Then allow this wife to offer her early congratulations to the Second Prince on his elevation…”
Having said this, she turned to the writing table, laid out a sheet of paper, ground the ink, dipped the brush, and began to write with a steady, sweeping hand.
Han Xiao, knowing that his wife was truly a woman of refined cultivation, thought to himself: perhaps she is composing a verse to mark the occasion and add to the celebration?
He sat down with an eager, expectant smile and waited.
When Miss Zheng had finished writing and presented the paper to Han Xiao, he looked at it closely — and nearly went crooked with indignation. What she had written was a letter of marital separation, requesting to leave.
“Are you taking after my sister-in-law now? What is the point of writing this sort of thing for no reason? Is this supposed to be some great masterwork? Do my elder brother and I each need to receive one?”
Han Xiao had long suspected that this woman possessed genuine learning and inwardly held him in low regard. But having it confirmed in this way, even a dignified prince could not help leaping up on the spot in fury.
No wonder his elder brother had been so despondent these past few days. To be handed a letter of separation by a woman — as a prince, no less — was absolutely maddening.
Miss Zheng looked at the fuming Second Prince who had leapt to his feet, and said in a grave voice: “When I first heard my grandfather speak of the Second Prince, he told me you were a man of singular integrity, proud and upright, with no taste for scheming and self-advancement. It was on that basis that I set aside my reservations and agreed to this match — because I felt that to spend one’s life with someone of your character, even if the days were quiet, would at least be peaceful at heart. But now, swayed by nothing more than a few days of self-interested rumormongering among others, you have already lost your composure — going so far as to dream of surpassing your elder brother and seizing the succession. Your aspirations reach far higher than mine. The Zheng family has produced no chancellors, no men who prop up kingdoms — but we have kept ourselves, generation after generation, in devoted scholarship, far from the struggles of court politics. When the path diverges, there is no point in walking it together. I do not measure up to you, and so I ask to leave. I hope the Prince will grant this request.”
The Second Prince felt he understood: “Ah, I see — you simply look down on me. You think I lack my elder brother’s talent and am unfit to be the nation’s heir apparent.”
Miss Zheng was usually gentle and agreeable, but now that things had been said this plainly, she decided to speak without fear of offending: “The Crown Prince excels in both civil governance and military command. He swept and pacified eighteen regions in the north — his merit and distinction are exceptional. Beyond that, he has taken the lead in implementing the new policies and cutting away the longstanding ills of Great Wei’s administration. And yet even a figure of such iron resolve has faced a storm of condemnation from the assembled court ministers. I ask you plainly — what accomplishments, what prestige, do you have to stand in so precarious and isolating a position? Do those court ministers truly believe you possess some world-shaking brilliance? Or do they simply believe you would be easier to manage than the Crown Prince? You told me just now, and I felt not a flicker of joy — only a dread that if you truly follow those ministers’ lead, the road ahead will be drenched in blood, and once you step onto it… there will be no way back.”
By the time she reached the end, Miss Zheng was sobbing, tears streaming down her soft cheeks.
They were newly wed, and their affection for each other had only recently begun to deepen. Since the wedding, Han Xiao had come to understand, slowly, just how deep a well of talent his wife concealed. She was accomplished not only in seal engraving and stone inscriptions, but in poetry, verse, song, and dance — her mastery was complete in all of it.
No wonder Miss Zheng’s grandfather had found his own poems worthless. Compared to this genuine talent, he was barely a fumbling student who had just learned his letters.
And now, with her voice breaking and tears falling, Miss Zheng’s words hit him like a bucket of cold water over his dreaming head.
He had been following his elder brother’s example, learning to handle state affairs, and had sat through countless sessions of bitter verbal battle between the veteran ministers and his father at court. Every time he watched his father seethe with fury at the old ministers, yet force himself to hold it all in and move with extreme caution, Han Xiao had thought to himself: being Emperor was actually quite a miserable business.
In the past, Han Xiao had lived at ease behind his father and elder brother, and after practicing with documents he could return to the palace to carve his seals, feed his fish, and tend to his caged birds — life had been most pleasant.
But once he became Crown Prince, he would have to do as his father and brother did: match wits, day after day, against a hall full of old ministers who were wolves and foxes in human skin.
He might consider himself well-read and accomplished — but the grinding, mundane business of governance was truly something he could not manage.
Thinking this, the elation he had felt hearing the news of the succession change from his mother evaporated by more than half.
In the midst of his agitation, Han Xiao could not help asking Miss Zheng: “But if my elder brother is not willing to remain Crown Prince, it will have to fall to me — Father has no other sons. If they insist on roasting me over this fire, what am I supposed to do?”
When Miss Zheng saw that the Second Prince was actually willing to listen to her, her tone softened. She rose, leaned close to his ear, and began to speak to him in careful detail…
* * *
In those days, nearly every time the Emperor encountered the Crown Prince, it was with a look of profound disappointment — and invariably ended in a thorough dressing-down.
Then reports came in that there had been a violent brawl in Yan County over land disputes among the displaced settlers. Han Linfeng went there himself to investigate the situation in person.
It served as a convenient excuse to escape his father’s scolding, and gave him reason to leave the capital.
After Han Linfeng left the capital, the atmosphere at court began to grow peculiar.
One day, the ministers again launched into their earnest counsel and remonstrance — and this time someone raised the matter of Han Linfeng’s bloodline and origins, stating openly that compared to the First Prince, the Second Prince, as the legitimate son by the principal wife, was in truth the more appropriate candidate.
The Emperor sat in silence listening, then turned to look at his Second Prince.
After all, today the ministers had spoken in perfect unison — this was clearly no spontaneous impulse, but a speech coordinated in advance. What he did not know was how his second son would react.
Had he not been counseled by Miss Zheng, Han Xiao would likely have listened with respectful deference, and if the Emperor had been swayed by the ministers, he would have simply gone along with the current.
But now, when his father’s scrutinizing gaze landed on him, Han Xiao felt, for some reason, a faint shiver.
He looked around at a hall full of veteran ministers — every one of them a devil in human skin, staring hungrily, calculating how best to stew, fry, steam, and roast this young and inexperienced lamb.
At that thought, he suddenly broke from his position, rushed forward, and flung himself to his knees before the Emperor, crying out at the top of his voice: “I beg Your Majesty to see clearly! These ministers, under the guise of concern for the welfare of the realm, seek to discard all regard for the brotherhood between myself and my elder brother — it is pure scheming and slander! Their hearts deserve the gravest punishment!”
Not one of the assembled ministers had anticipated this reaction from the Second Prince. For a moment, they all stood frozen.
Han Xiao echoed the words Miss Zheng had spoken to him and enumerated his elder brother’s glorious achievements one by one. His voice cracked as he continued: “My elder brother has accomplished such towering deeds. Simply because he has been somewhat despondent of late and made a few small errors, this pack of ministers uses it against him. Do they think the blood and sweat he shed on the battlefield counts for nothing, like water splashed on the ground? I am young and without a shred of merit to my name — how could I possibly compare to my elder brother? Oh, perhaps these people believe that a bookish weakling like me, who cannot even tie up a chicken, would be more easily manipulated than my vigorous and decisive elder brother? The struggle over the succession in the previous dynasty nearly brought Great Wei to ruin — that lesson stands right before us. Your Majesty! If anyone dares speak such words again, please punish them severely! Such villains are the very root of ruin for our nation! Their livers and hearts are blackened through!”
By the end, the veins on the Second Prince’s neck were standing out, his voice raw with intensity, his eyes blazing with contempt at the assembled demons and monsters filling the hall.
This had backfired spectacularly on the ministers who had recommended the Second Prince. They had come in good faith to advance a candidate for the succession — and this Second Prince had not only failed to show gratitude, but had turned on them in a frenzy and accused them of harboring malicious intent.
In all of Great Wei’s decades of history, there had never been such a scene — brothers of such harmonious virtue, so utterly and bafflingly in accord.
The ministers who had led the recommendation were so furious their beards quivered, their fingers pointing and shaking at the Second Prince, yet unable to produce a single word.
Han Yi, seated high above it all, burst into a broad, gratified smile.
He had not actually expected this reaction from his younger son. The way Han Xiao had spoken had obviously made enemies of the entire assembled court — a complete, uninhibited burning of his own bridges as a potential heir. And yet in so doing, he had shown those court ministers that his two sons were both made of fine stuff — far superior to the scheming, backstabbing sons of the late Emperor Weihui, and not by a small margin.
A father beamed with pride, and when Han Yi looked at his younger son again, his eyes were full of approval. In the critical moment, the boy had finally not let his father down.
Since the Second Prince had spoken thus — practically offering to cut open the ministers’ own chests and inspect whether their hearts were truly black — the proposal to persuade the Emperor to change the succession could no longer be performed.
The Empress heard afterward that her son had apparently cursed his way through the entire assembled court, and slapped her knee in alarm, summoning Han Xiao and giving him a thorough scolding.
Han Xiao, reflecting on how he had nearly been talked onto a pirate’s ship by his own mother, shot back with a glare and chided the Empress for her shortsighted, womanly perspective.
Then, just as he had frightened his mother on the journey back to the capital, Han Xiao cited one historical precedent after another — every prince throughout history who had plotted to seize an elder brother’s throne had been remembered with infamy for a thousand generations. Even if his mother had read little, surely she knew the old tale from the Spring and Autumn period, of the Lady of Zheng who favored her younger son, leading her to swear never to see her elder son again until they met beneath the Yellow Springs?
By the time he finished, the Empress felt she had been only a single step removed from becoming the consort of a treasonous, throne-stealing villain.
When it came to arguing historical precedents, the Empress had never been a match for her younger son. And with Han Xiao’s mind freshly illuminated by his talented new wife, his reasoning was especially sharp. By the end of the exchange, the Empress herself was regretting that she had let her father talk her into it.
After all the court turmoil had settled, when Zong Qing sought an audience again, the Empress simply took to her sickbed and refused to see him — sparing herself the risk of having her soft ears talked into something she would regret again.
Just as her younger son had said: with a great tree to shelter under, one could enjoy its shade. The business of men — she wanted no part of it.
Thinking this, the Empress found herself missing her elder daughter-in-law, who had left the palace. She had no idea how she was getting on. In the past, she had found her difficult and irritating, always saying things that rubbed her the wrong way — but whenever she herself could not make up her mind, that young woman had always been able to steady her and help her think things through. After not seeing her for so long, she found she actually missed her rather.
* * *
Meanwhile, You Shanyue on Xianyin Mountain was now seated aboard a boat heading for the capital.
Ever since Han Linfeng had coolly rejected his request for a tax exemption, the policies restricting money-lending operations had followed in quick succession, and several of his other ventures had been knocked about repeatedly. It was plain enough what was coming: fattening the pig before the slaughter.
At the time of Han Yi’s accession, You Shanyue had considered pulling his business out and leaving — but at that point he had held no strong cards. If the Han father and son turned against him, he would lose without question.
But things were different now. Through years of carefully cultivated connections, the dozens of persuaders he had dispatched had successfully made contact with the noble families in the capital.
The regional princes with military power were few in number now, but they were still watching and waiting. As long as the capital erupted, they would move with the tide.
Most crucially, gold and silver can open any door — even the gods bow to money. Though the capital’s garrison troops were all Han Linfeng’s trusted subordinates, there was always a greedy man or two among them.
You Shanyue had already bought off two of the commanders at the Western Palace gates. Once a small gap was opened in that vast palace wall, it would allow men to pour straight through.
He had also, earlier on, incited people to persuade Zong Qing, hoping to watch the Han brothers tear each other apart in a struggle for power. But the pity was that Han Yi’s younger son had had his head ruined by too much book-learning and was utterly useless — with not the slightest inclination to compete.
Still, the father and son in the palace were now at odds. According to the reliable eyes and ears he had inside the palace, before Han Linfeng left for Yan County, he had fought fiercely with the Emperor yet again, demanding that the Emperor permit Su Luoyun to return to the palace. The Emperor had not relented, and so Han Linfeng had stormed off to Yan County in a fit of anger to avoid the confrontation. By the look of it, he would not be back for at least a fortnight.
You Shanyue, who had spent a lifetime immersed in the gambling table, felt in his bones — with the instinct of a seasoned gambler — that the moment to play his hand had arrived.
Thinking of how Han Linfeng had recently grown increasingly blunt in his words and dismissive in his contempt, You Shanyue had not felt this suffocated and seething in a long time.
Was there anything more satisfying than watching an ungrateful wretch receive his just punishment before your very eyes?
At his age, surrounded by wealth, having manipulated powerful ministers and titled nobles like chess pieces in his palm, there were very few things left in the world that could make him feel genuine pleasure.
But the thought of toppling another Han emperor — the blood that had grown sluggish and slow in his old veins began to quicken and simmer with the faintest, long-suppressed heat.
Everyone assumed that being Emperor was the highest pleasure under heaven. How little they knew — he, the emperor beneath the surface, was the one who truly controlled the pulse of Great Wei.
Who lived and who died — all of it lay within the calculations of his mind.
Standing at the prow of the boat, You Shanyue smiled a cold, dark smile. People all said Han Linfeng was a man with a hard fate — that the King of Hell had refused him repeatedly. He had once escaped a flood in Yan County against all odds, and people still marveled at it. He could only wonder: if the dyke at Yan County were to burst this time, would that man be lucky enough to survive again…
* * *
News of the new dyke at Yan County bursting once more reached the palace in the middle of the night. The Emperor jolted upright from the imperial bed, and immediately commanded the capital’s garrison troops to race to Yan County to assess the situation and bring the Crown Prince to safety.
Several days later at morning court, there was still no news of the Crown Prince, who remained somewhere in the floodwaters at Yan County.
Reports indicated this breach was even worse than the previous one. Because there had been no warning — the embankment had simply exploded — most of Yan County’s people had been asleep, with no chance to flee.
According to the dispatches from the relay stations, the heir apparent Han Linfeng and his attendants had been in the lowest-lying area of Yan County when it happened, swallowed by the rising flood. There was virtually no hope of survival.
When this news arrived, the Emperor leaned back and collapsed straight into unconsciousness. The assembled ministers panicked, frantically calling for the imperial physicians.
Those who could read the situation understood: the Emperor had been struck by a sudden rush of anguish and grief. As the Emperor was carried back to his chambers, the palace consorts wept until their faces were streaked with tears.
Yet perhaps because the Emperor’s heart was consumed with grief for his eldest son, he had no mood for the company of his consorts. When he came to, he waved them all away and kept only his long-wedded wife the Empress Zong by his side.
The Lu Guo Gong returned from court, closed the doors of his room, and said to his daughter in a grave tone: “How does that You Shanyue have such extraordinary abilities? That dyke in Yan County had only just been repaired — how did it explode again?”
Fang Jinshu’s expression was blank and cold: “Because he brought over a large number of Qiu Zhen’s former men. Qiu Zhen was expert in saltpeter and explosive compounds — if he could blast apart a city wall in Jiayong Region back then, blasting a dyke is nothing.”
When she heard that Han Linfeng’s whereabouts were unknown and the chances were poor, Fang Jinshu did not shed a single tear.
Ever since she learned that the letter Han Linfeng had written to her in the past had been nothing but a stratagem to provoke a response — a trick played on the late Emperor — every last drop of the love she had felt for Han Linfeng had curdled completely into an endless and boundless hatred.
Only, she had not expected that You Shanyue would take in Qiu Zhen’s men and secretly send them to Yan County to blast open the dyke, killing Han Linfeng in this way.
Unable to see his face before her, filled with regret and prostrating himself in remorse — Fang Jinshu felt now only a tangle of wild weeds knotted in her chest, nothing clean or gratifying about it, just a suffocating pressure that left her breathless.
But she had no time to attend to her own feelings. Because tonight, the capital was descending into chaos.
You Shanyue had already bribed the guards at the rear palace gate — they would allow Qiu Zhen’s surviving men to slip inside. And within the palace, someone was prepared to guide them smoothly all the way to the Emperor’s bedchambers.
The Han father and son would both die at the hands of the traitor Qiu Zhen’s remnant followers — a respectable enough death, as deaths went.
After this, the noble families assembled in the capital would support the late Ninth Prince’s orphan to inherit the great succession.
And her first act as Empress Dowager regent would be to abolish every last one of the new policies the Han father and son had implemented. This was the condition the noble families had set for supporting their mother and son’s rise.
The undercurrents in the capital had been building for a long time. All the parties had weighed their stakes and interests carefully enough — now it was time to act.
The Lu Guo Gong had in truth never been fully convinced by You Shanyue. He knew the man had remarkable abilities, but the talk of raising his daughter to the position of Empress Dowager had seemed almost supernaturally ambitious. You Shanyue had been eager to display his skill, and had let the Lu Guo Gong witness the full extent of what this earthly god of wealth could accomplish. The flood returning to drown Yan County had finally dispelled the Lu Guo Gong’s last remaining doubt.
It was not that he harbored treasonous thoughts of his own — it was simply that the Han father and son had shown not a shred of respect for the noble families. Left unchecked, these two men would eventually be toppled by the noble families regardless. Now that You Shanyue had paved the way with gold and silver and arranged their deaths with such careful calculation, all that remained was for the matter to be settled — after which the Fang family could ride the current naturally, keep their hands clean, and retake control of the court.
With this thought, the Lu Guo Gong that very night convened the senior members of the clan, along with his most trusted subordinates and students, and instructed them to use their connections to seize control of the streets surrounding the palace.
Zhao Dong had taken his army north. Han Linfeng was dead, unable to return. Though the palace guards were numerous, once the gates were opened, they would be like soft flesh pried from a clam shell — no cause for concern.
The winter hunt had just begun, giving every noble family a pretext: under the name of mustering hunters to protect their households, a considerable number of armed men had already gathered outside the city.
Once the palace coup began, these forces stationed outside the outer city would have accomplices secretly open the gates, and they could pour into the inner city.
The Lu Guo Gong had already made secret contact with the Wang family and other noble families with soldiers at their disposal. When the deed was done inside the palace and the signal was given, they would rush in under the banner of rescuing the Emperor.
At that point, Empress Zong and the stubborn Second Prince — not one of them could be left alive. All of them had to be eliminated.
Only then would the legitimate succession return to the line of the Ninth Prince’s orphan — all perfectly reasonable and proper.
Everything was now in place. The only question was whether the final gust of wind would come in time.
That night, the Fang family stood on the tall tower in their compound, gazing in the direction of the imperial palace. The palace was swallowed in dense, heavy darkness, nothing visible.
Just as the waiting crowd was beginning to lose heart and their spirits sank — a glow suddenly began to bloom slowly from the direction of the palace. Then a tongue of flame grew from small to large, gradually piercing through the clouds, and in one blazing surge dyed the clouds overhead a deep, sweeping crimson.
Fang Jinshu, who had entered the palace many times, narrowed her eyes and studied it carefully, and said in a low voice: “It looks like the high tower behind the imperial ancestral shrine is on fire…”
Behind the palace’s ancestral shrine stood a tall tower erected by the dynasty’s founding ancestor, housing the relics of the meritorious generals who had fought beside him in the conquest.
Now that the tower was burning, change was certainly afoot within the palace.
Just then, a red smoke signal burst into the air from within the palace, blooming into a sky full of brilliant sparks. This was the signal agreed upon between You Shanyue and the noble families: when the flares rose, it was the day the Emperor Han Yi had “passed from the world.”
The Lu Guo Gong could barely contain his excitement. He turned to speak to his daughter — and found that Fang Jinshu had already vanished without a trace.
Seizing the advantage inside the palace first was the most urgent priority now. Otherwise, who knew whether the other noble families might not be calculating their own angles and striking their own deals with some regional prince.
With that thought, the Lu Guo Gong could wait no longer. He mustered his forces and headed for the palace in haste.
* * *
As for Fang Jinshu — she led her household’s men, along with the several dozen skilled fighters You Shanyue had assigned to her, and headed in the direction of the Shizi residence.
The scramble for power and position had never been something that could set her blood racing. Now that the affair inside the palace was settled, there were others — her father and the rest — to handle what came next.
What Fang Jinshu most wanted to see, right now, was the face inside that Shizi residence — weeping like a wilting flower, sick with regret.
That wretch. It was all her fault that Han Linfeng had died. At the most precarious moment, when the court was on a knife’s edge, this worthless blind woman had only ever dragged Han Linfeng down, driven him to distraction, and led him straight into someone else’s trap.
Fang Jinshu did not for a moment acknowledge that she herself had conspired with others to bring about the death of the man who had once been the object of her love. Instead, she shifted every particle of that guilt — which she could not bring herself to own — directly onto Su Luoyun.
If Han Linfeng had not married such a blind, ill-omened woman, with no powerful family connections to support him and no way to offer him any advantage — how could he have ended up so utterly abandoned and besieged?
With that thought, hatred seeped into Fang Jinshu’s face. If tonight she could not put this woman to death with her own hands, then for Fang Jinshu, this entire palace coup would have been utterly meaningless.
The mouth of Qingyu Lane — Fang Jinshu knew this place as well as she knew her own hands. In the most carefree days of her girlhood, she had stood at this lane’s entrance countless times, waiting quietly for the tall, handsome man to walk out from within.
He had always worn that look on his striking face — three parts careless and unhurried amusement, a dark brow arched, eyes slanted sideways as he asked her: “You are here again?”
Now Fang Jinshu came again to the lane’s entrance. The night was deep and pitch-black. Behind her were soldiers armored and armed, weapons in hand.
Fang Jinshu walked slowly into the lane. With every step, a memory rose — all of them achingly bitter.
When she stood at last before the somewhat worn and weathered gate of the Shizi residence, she let out a quiet, broken laugh: “I… am here again.”