Qinglan was absent from the main hall where Her Highness the Grand Princess presided because Han Yueqi was there to manage things in her place — and also because she had her own matter to attend to.

Madam Wei had received her message and ought to have come earlier, but had only arrived now; naturally, because the matter had not been easy to arrange. Still, she had come in the end.

Compared to the cold reception Qinglan had experienced at the Wei household, her treatment of Madam Wei and the women from Yanlin Town bordered on warmth — knowing their free and casual natures, she had arranged to receive them privately in the Wutong Courtyard, extending the courtesy one reserved for family. They recognized the gesture and felt their shame, Wei Shānhú most of all. When she saw Qinglan arrive, she immediately said: “Elder Sister Qinglan is here — congratulations, congratulations.”

Qinglan replied: “Many thanks to Madam Wei and all the ladies; every gift was received, and I am truly grateful.”

“Not at all,” Wei Shānhú said, having by now learned the polished phrases ladies of the capital used in social exchange.

Just as they were speaking, Madam Wei arrived, bringing Cui Jingyu and Wei Yushan with her. This was also why Qinglan had chosen the Wutong Courtyard to receive them — these women didn’t observe the usual rules of male-female separation, and while they didn’t mind it, others seeing them together might not understand.

Without Madam Wei’s help, she doubted she could have gotten Cui Jingyu to come at all.

This was the first time they had met since his injury. One could tell the palace medicines had been of the finest quality — he had only grown a little thinner. Barely recovered from the wasp stings, and she had already summoned him here. Anyone who knew the full story would have had words for her.

She always placed him last. It was the argument Lingbo had had with her in their childhood, when their mother, Madam Ye, was still alive: You always attend to what’s right first, to your important affairs, you always put your own people last. I never want to be your own person again!

And he no longer wanted to be her own person either.

She knew it, which was why she had not asked him herself but had let Madam Wei bring him — because what she had to do could not afford the slightest misstep.

The courtyard was full of women, and not one of them knew the real situation unfolding here. They were all still back at the day of the peach blossom banquet, at the moment when he had risked his life to save her and she had waited at his bedside in a daze. They didn’t know that the two of them were sometimes like a pair of drunkards — utterly unguarded when drunk, but sober again afterward, refusing to acknowledge a thing.

This moment was no different. When the women saw Cui Jingyu arrive, they immediately started teasing, with Wei Shānhú leading the charge. She was probably trying to make amends for the coldness shown to Qinglan at Madam Wei’s banquet; she came right out and said: “Oh! Marquis Cui is here — I knew the Marquis was magnanimous, certainly not one to hold a grudge. Elder Sister Qinglan has been so busy these past days with Lingbo’s engagement; now that it’s all done, you two can finally have a proper talk.”

“Exactly — after everything that happened, what is there that can’t be resolved?” The women from Yanlin Town knew nothing of capital customs, which only made them more willing to speak freely. “By the rules of the capital, Marquis Cui owes Qinglan a great responsibility. I’d say we’ll be drinking their wedding wine before long.”

“That’s right — by the logic of the operas, Qinglan should pledge herself to him in gratitude. This is a life-saving debt, after all.”

Amid the chorus of voices, the two of them simply looked at each other in silence. Moon Braid and Lingbo had, in fact, thought the same as these women — that after such an ordeal, all old grievances and debts would yield to the question of life and death. And even if they hadn’t, with the intimacy of that moment in the water and the debt of a life saved, surely both parties would have to soften.

But neither of them would soften.

Qinglan did not respond to the teasing. She simply offered a word of redirect: “Her Highness the Grand Princess has already been seated in the main courtyard — ladies, please go pay your respects quickly; it won’t do to be late.”

“Of course, let’s go at once.” The women fell for it readily and began gathering themselves to leave, with the thought that they could come back and tease the two of them afterward. Ever since the affair of the divorce, they had followed no lead but the Grand Princess’s.

Only Madam Wei, having lived long enough to have seen some things, watched Qinglan with some concern. Qinglan reached out and took her hand in a reassuring squeeze.

And then the company withdrew. The Wutong Courtyard was left with just the two of them. This was probably the first time he had stepped into the Wutong Courtyard in four years, she realized. She still remembered the sight of him standing beneath that tree once as a guest, that air of easy magnificence that was so characteristic of Cui Jingyu — making his first ever awkward impression, with the maids and matrons immediately picking up on his flustered state and teasing the bridegroom-to-be, as was the tradition in the capital…

All of that was long past now.

She too had once been proposed to, and she knew what it was for a woman to have her engagement settled with someone she cared for — which was precisely why she had asked him to come here today.

“How is the injury?” she asked quietly.

“Thanks to your concern — much better,” he replied, his voice even.

It sounded almost like an irony. If she had truly been concerned, she wouldn’t have left for home before he even woke.

But then it was always “urgent matters at home to attend to.” Four years ago, it had been that. Four years later, it was still that.

“That day, in the water — thank you…” She was aware herself of how awkward this sounded, especially standing before the man who had been injured saving her at the very same banquet. But she was, after all, Ye Qinglan. She pressed her lips together, cast her eyes down, and finished what she had to say: “There is no need to think about any question of responsibility. I am already making preparations to become a female court official; in the future… there will be no need for anyone to take responsibility.”

What she was saying was that she did not intend to marry. But he didn’t know about the Grand Princess’s plans for her, didn’t know that she — who never lied — had told a small lie just now, overstating the likelihood of her becoming a female official.

She only wanted to put his mind at ease. To let him know she would not use this as an occasion to latch onto him.

Cui Jingyu returned the gesture in kind: “The talk of repaying a debt is just their teasing. It was nothing more than a trifling effort; don’t think on it.”

If, over these four years, they had accomplished one thing together, it was this effortless readiness to settle all accounts between them — a tacit understanding that they could part cleanly at any moment, each going their own way until the end of their days. After returning home, Qinglan had sent a handsome gift to the Cui family, though she knew he had no need of it.

With those matters cleared away, it was time to speak of the real business. She came directly to the point: “I would not normally trouble you with this, but I have heard that within the Northern Border Army there is a young general by the name of Pei Zhao, who has always been on close terms with you…”

“My relationship with Pei Zhao is not particularly close,” Cui Jingyu interrupted her. His eyes, looking into hers, were black as ink. “If you are asking about his relationship with Ye Lingbo — yes, they are very close. Pei Zhao appears to genuinely care for her, but has been constrained by his station and unable to attend the flower-viewing banquets often. At the Lantern Festival, they were already together; at the peach blossom banquet, Ye Lingbo was most likely with him as well.”

He never let her down. Even after all this time of not meeting, when they did meet, he remained someone who held nothing back.

“Was he injured after the peach blossom banquet?” She was aware herself of how ironic the question was, especially directed at the man standing before her who had been injured saving her at that same banquet. But she was Ye Qinglan. She pressed her lips together and saw it through to the end: “I searched for him for an entire day and could not find any trace of him.”

“He comes and goes like a phantom. If he truly wants to disappear, no one can find him,” Cui Jingyu said.

He always knew what she wanted to ask and what she needed. But with habitual perverseness, he always waited until she finally said it aloud. For all the years that had passed, he had never managed to rid himself of that bad habit.

He was clearly already a captive, yet he always had to deliver one final, hopeless thrust — less for the pleasure of watching her show discomfort, and more to extinguish the last trace of her guilt.

And true enough, she raised her eyes to look at him. It was still the same gaze as when she was twenty: eyes deep and heavy, able to see straight to a person’s heart, making it impossible not to feel a burning anxiety on her behalf.

“Can you find him?” she asked immediately.

“Oh,” Cui Jingyu said — the sound less meant for her than for himself. As though he were saying: Of course it comes to this.

But he asked: “Why find him?”

What he was actually asking was what reason she would give Pei Zhao upon finding him. But Qinglan had evidently misunderstood. She assumed he was saying: Why should I help you find him?

The clamor of gongs and drums from the main courtyard continued, like a drumbeat calling the performers onstage. This was the critical moment — not a single instant to waste. A woman’s most important decision of a lifetime; one misstep and every step after would go wrong. And Dai Yuquan’s ceremonial gifts had already been carried to the outer courtyard; after today, everything would settle into its final form. No one understood the weight of this decision better than she did.

And Lingbo had always been first in her heart.

So she looked into his eyes and implored: “Consider it as being for the sake of the you and me of years past.”

Everyone said Ye Lingbo was formidable, but Lingbo used the most direct of methods — words sharp, manner resolute, winning her victories cut by cut. Not like her. Most of the time she was the gentlest, most proper Ye Qinglan, the one who seemed incapable of stepping on even an insect. She only revealed the other face when she deemed it necessary — and then she put a blade straight through your heart.

On the day the great battle at Mingsha River ended, the river itself had run red. Cui Jingyu had stood in the bone-chilling water, sword planted in the ground, head tilted back to look at the sky. No snow had fallen; the sky had been a dull, heavy pewter grey. It was at that moment that he had thought of Ye Qinglan.

Throughout four years of war, through countless moments of mortal danger, he had held on with a single breath — wanting to survive, wanting to return to the capital, wanting to see her one more time. It had nothing to do with love or hatred anymore; it was simply an obsession.

He had always felt she owed him something, yet could never name what it was. The engagement, the breaking of the engagement — both had been by mutual consent. What was owed, and what was not?

So this was what she owed him. This look. This one sentence.

She owed him a resolution.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go find him.”