Regarding Dai Yuquan’s proposal of marriage — Qinglan had every intention of offering an explanation. About the blizzard, about sheltering in the carriage, about the proposal itself.

But Madam Shen could not afford to wait.

Between her and Cui Jingyu it was always like this — always no time.

“Madam Shen has fallen gravely ill. There is a prescription that may help, and I asked Steward Dai to search the Imperial Household Office for one of the herbs — it seems to have been sent to Qingyun Temple. We had originally intended to go there through the night, but the blizzard has stranded us here.” She could only explain in a few brief words, and trust that he would understand.

Because he was Cui Jingyu. And he would certainly understand.

“Luo Yong, come with me.” He directed his men coldly: “Wei Yushan, return to guard the city gate. With this heavy snow, things inside the city may not be peaceful either.”

Qinglan immediately realized he was on duty.

“I have Her Highness the Grand Princess’s token.” She quickly added: “The Shen household holds a Ministerial rank — the garrison guard can be responsible for its protection. It would not constitute an unauthorized absence from duty.”

Cui Jingyu did not even glance at the token in her hand.

He did not seem to want to look at her at all.

“Prepare an extra horse.” He instructed Luo Yong: “Treading-Snow is not as steady as Moonlit Night — wrap the horse’s legs. More reliable that way.”

Qinglan immediately understood that in weather like this, the horses could not see the road clearly either, and there was a real danger of them breaking a leg. She remembered him telling her once that when a horse breaks its leg, it is as good as finished — it cannot recover and must be put down. Utterly cruel.

She had always been so careful throughout her life, never causing anyone to go into her debt — indeed she tended always to give more. Only with him did she constantly fall short.

And the more impossible the moment, the more there was still something left to be dealt with. She had no choice but to get out of the carriage herself and speak with him. She saw him leading out Moonlit Night, preparing to mount, and so had to brace herself and approach: “I must go along as well — only I can identify the herb.”

He kept his eyes lowered and said nothing further, only: “Come up then.”

But she did not know how to mount a horse. She knew he was unwilling to deal with her, and yet the moment was too urgent to waste — she possessed a quality of quiet resilience that belied her gentle, composed demeanor, and she simply reached out and gripped the saddle, preparing to haul herself up.

Then her waist was suddenly encircled, and she felt herself lifted as lightly as though she weighed nothing — Cui Jingyu raised her as easily as if she were a leaf. In the midst of her startled confusion, she heard him say: “Separate your legs.”

Qinglan steadied herself and imitated the way she had seen Shen Biwei ride, settling herself into the saddle. Not knowing where to put her hands, she felt her body begin to tip forward — but by then Cui Jingyu had already swung himself up onto the horse behind her, catching her and drawing her back.

He took the reins in hand, holding her within his arms, and said: “Just grip the saddle.”

In the military, no one wore a great cloak in any weather — only a riding cape. He wrapped that cape around Qinglan, spurred the horse forward, and with Luo Yong and Kong Zhang following behind, set off at a gallop toward Qingyun Temple.

The path up the mountain was manageable enough — only bitterly cold. It was clear he had come in a hurry: no snow hat, no gloves, none of it. Shen Biwei had said long ago that riding was a rough business, and even the finest horse meant a bone-rattling journey. Qinglan sat within the shelter of his arms, the wind whistling past her ears, the fur trim of her Zhaojun headdress lashing at her face like blade cuts. She had always lived by the book — a proper young lady of the great families, who rarely rode and rarely walked long distances. By all rights this ought to have been a scene of terror. Yet she found, inexplicably, that she felt entirely at peace.

In truth he had once promised to teach her to ride, and to swim, and said he would take her to see the sea, the great rivers, the borderlands’ sunsets over the long river and the lone column of smoke rising from the vast desert…

How fate liked to play its tricks. Of all the promises made and abandoned, it chose this moment — to let him bring her along on this one ride.

Qinglan sat on the horse and did not speak to him, knowing that anything said would likely be lost in the wind anyway. She held the saddle with both hands, and then she saw that the hands gripping the reins had been chapped raw by the wind. Only then did she understand why he had told her to hold the saddle — so that his hands could be sheltered inside the riding cape, rather than exposed.

Cui Jingyu rode with Qinglan held before him and pressed forward. On horseback he often let his mind go quiet. Tonight’s snow, though heavy, was nothing compared to the frontier. He had been to Qingyun Temple once before with Moonlit Night and knew the road by memory.

All of this was simply what any ordinary day required of him.

If the person sitting in his arms were not his former betrothed.

If he had not just heard another man propose marriage to her inside that carriage.

He should have shot that Dai fellow with an arrow back in the forest when he had the chance — there was always some accidental injury or other during the spring hunt.

In the midst of Marquis Cui’s murderous ruminations, his hand suddenly felt warm.

He almost thought it was his imagination.

But it was not.

He had ridden through the worst blizzards at the frontier, fought in frozen rivers — that bone-deep cold had long since cracked his hands open with deep fissures. A little wind and snow like this was nothing to him.

And yet — the person sitting before him in his arms, the one with the soft fur-trimmed Zhaojun headdress, the one with skin as delicate as a flower that could not bear to be blown by wind or touched by snow, the one who had never received any wound — especially not when he was beside her — that Ye Qinglan had simply reached out her hand and laid it over the hand he held clenched around the reins.

Because of what she had done on the road, by the time they reached Qingyun Temple, Qinglan’s hand had already cracked open.

Cui Jingyu had not noticed at first. It was only after they hurried into the storeroom and the Taoist caretaker hastily lit the lamps, and they spread out to search, that he caught sight of it — the back of Qinglan’s hand, as she hurriedly flipped through ledgers, was covered in fine, raw splits at the knuckles.

“Bring badger oil,” he immediately instructed the Taoist.

Qinglan stopped him.

“Find the herb first — everything else can wait.” She was immovable, and immediately turned to another ledger. While she was searching, Luo Yong called out from across the room: “Found it!”

Qinglan leaned over to look — it was the record for the fifteenth day of the previous month, noting one case of cistanche. They immediately took up the lamp and went to search through the bundled medicinal stores. Cui Jingyu found first the large bundle from the fifteenth of the first month, drew his sword, and cut through the rope binding it. Inside were packets large and small. Qinglan’s eye fell on one immediately.

“This is it.” She crouched on the ground and tried to pull out a case. Cui Jingyu moved aside the heavy objects pressing down on top, and when she opened the lid, inside was indeed whole-root cistanche — dark as ink.

“Cut a section for me to look at.” She handed it to Cui Jingyu, then held the cut surface up to the lamp to examine closely, pressing her fingernail against it to see whether oil would seep out.

She was examining the cistanche. Cui Jingyu was examining her — the Bodhisattva face she wore when deep in concentration, eyes lowered; the fine tracery of raw splits covering her hands.

“It’s this one.” Qinglan was overjoyed. She immediately took from inside her coat a small medicine packet, weighed out a portion on the small steelyard, and as she placed it in the packet said: “Shihe cistanche is a supporting herb — three liang will be enough. Just slice it thin.”

But Cui Jingyu took the packet from her hand and passed it to Luo Yong.

“Luo Yong has the fastest horse and knows the road — he can deliver it to the Shen household in a quarter of an hour.” He asked Qinglan: “Is there anything else you need to tell him?”

Qinglan took out the prescription as well, wrapped it inside the medicine packet, and pressed it into Luo Yong’s hands. Then she separated out a larger portion of cistanche and saffron, gave it to him, and said: “Nothing more. The method of preparation is written on the prescription — three bowls of water decocted down to one, taken hot. One dose will relieve the pain; three doses will bring down the fever. If there is no effect, the problem is with the medicine itself. Take the cistanche and saffron with you; the Shen household should be able to source the remaining herbs on their own.”

Luo Yong immediately tucked everything into his chest, wasted not another moment, mounted his horse, and rode off at full gallop.

Only then did Qinglan’s heart settle at last. She put away the remaining cistanche. Cui Jingyu turned to Kong Zhang: “Go summon a few men and escort that carriage and everyone in it back home.”

Kong Zhang asked: “And you, General?”

“I’ll wait for the snow to lighten before coming down the mountain.”

In truth it made no real difference when Cui Jingyu descended. Kong Zhang, who now had a household of his own, was perceptive enough to read the situation — though he still addressed him by the military title of “General,” what he was really asking was: with the carriage gone, how was this young lady to get down the mountain?

But the young lady did not seem to mind at all. She had already reached out for a piece of paper that one of the Taoists had set out and was writing something on it.

“Wait a moment.” She continued writing as she spoke. “Take a letter for me — to Steward Dai, who is on that carriage.”

Her calligraphy was exquisite, but no one moved close enough to read what was on the paper. Kong Zhang quietly marveled at his own General: remarkable composure, truly.

When she finished the letter she folded it into an envelope, but her hands were not quite cooperating. “Allow me,” Cui Jingyu said, taking it from her, folding it in a few precise creases, and handing it to Kong Zhang.

Kong Zhang dared not linger further, and hurried down the mountain to carry out his General’s orders.

After Kong Zhang had gone, Cui Jingyu found the badger oil in the storeroom, and when he turned around, Ye Qinglan was nowhere to be seen. But Qingyun Temple was not large. He quickly found her in the main hall.

The hall was filled with tall, magnificent divine statues, their polychrome forms solemn and imposing. She stood before one of the shrines, incense sticks in hand, inserting them one by one into the censer, her expression grave and reverent.

“I remember you not believing in such things before,” Cui Jingyu said.

He stood in the main hall, still with that untamed, unyielding air — one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, the manner of a man who had returned from the battlefield. To call it a killing aura would perhaps be too crude a description; it was more like a cast-iron figure weathered by wind and rain until the hard core beneath was laid bare. His dark formal robe was covered in cloud embroidery — cloud dragons, a decorative motif the Emperor had specially bestowed upon the Cui and Wei families.

He did not know that Qinglan had begun to believe in divine things because of him.

He did not know, and Qinglan did not say so — she only finished offering the incense with quiet composure, and then replied: “Fate is beyond certainty, and what a person’s own strength can determine is so very limited. It is natural to pray to the gods and Buddhas for protection.”

In truth she had only ever prayed for a single thing.

Confucius had said he would not speak of extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder, or supernatural events. For those who had studied the classics, relying on divine intercession was not generally encouraged. Bone and sinew must be tempered; flesh must labor; hardship was endured by one’s own will alone. Difficulty and privation were the crucible in which excellence was forged.

But there were always things in this world that one could not obtain and could not relinquish. Even she — Ye Qinglan, who held herself to an almost ascetic standard — was no exception.

“Do you know the story of Prince Zhantuluo?” Cui Jingyu asked, one hand resting on his sword.

Here, in a Taoist temple’s great hall, he was choosing to tell a Buddhist story. It was very like him.

But Qinglan understood why he was telling it.

“I know it. Yueqi also told it to me,” she said.

A young prince, his country destroyed and his family lost, his betrothed married off to his enemy — he spent years consumed by hatred, and when at last he had fought his way back and reclaimed everything, he discovered that his betrothed had long since died, and that the hatred he had chased for years was nothing more than a shadow. Both the one he had loved and the one he had hated were gone from this world. And so he saw through all of it and attained sudden enlightenment.

“But when I later looked into it, I found another account of the same story.” Cui Jingyu stood before the divine statue — the soldier who had passed through the battlefield carried something that the word “ferocity” was too shallow to capture. He was more like a figure cast in iron, scoured by wind and rain until the hard grain beneath the surface showed through.

Yet the way he looked at her still resembled the young man of twenty who had led a horse through the Tonghua river crossing, carrying her on his back.

He said: “In that version of the story, when Zhantuluo climbed the tower and saw the remains of his wife’s body, he did not undergo a sudden awakening. Instead he gathered up her bones, ascended the throne of his kingdom, and became a very good king. The kingdom grew prosperous, the land filled with music and joy — and when every appearance suggested this was the most perfect of outcomes, one day he suddenly put out one of his own eyes, and so became a beggar who wandered the mortal world. His kingdom passed into new hands. He wandered for many years, and at the end of his life, a guiding Buddha came to release him from his confusion, and revealed to him what lay at the heart of his delusion… Does Qinglan know what it was?”

Perhaps it was the effect of all those divine statues gazing down from above, but Qinglan felt a kind of dazedness come over her.

He called her Qinglan. This too was exactly as it had been four years ago.

She should not ask. He was such a skilled strategist — lay out a feint, and the flanking force was certain to follow. In these four years, Qinglan had read countless books on military strategy because of him, and each one had brought her a little closer to understanding him.

Yet she still asked: “What was it?”

Cui Jingyu lowered his eyes and answered.

“That version of the story is called ‘The Three Things That Cannot Be Relinquished’ — an allegory for the three things in a person’s heart that are hardest to let go. His transformation from prince to bandit was the first: love is hard to relinquish. His climbing the tower to find his wife was the second: hatred is hard to relinquish. And at the end, putting out his own eye in order to live as a beggar — that was because new memories had slowly been overwriting the old, and if he went blind, he could hold onto the memory of his wife’s face, of his parents, of the old palace. That was the third: attachment is hard to relinquish. The guiding Buddha dissolved his confusion, and at last the three things were relinquished. And so Prince Zhantuluo became a Buddha.”

He finished the story and looked calmly into Qinglan’s eyes. “But I am only a mortal. Why should I aspire to become a Buddha?”

Qinglan realized what he was about to say. Her heart gave a thunderous lurch, and on instinct she stepped back.

The first time she had encountered him — at the Flower-Viewing Banquet — it had been like this too. He had been dressed in crimson, a strikingly handsome and aloof young man, standing beneath the flowering trees adjusting a horse’s bridle — Moonlit Night, it had been, then too. She had passed by with the crowd, and he had raised his eyes and looked across the branches at her for a moment. In that one glance, both of their hearts had been set into upheaval.

And so she had understood: his increasingly frequent presence at the Flower-Viewing Banquets was no coincidence. The archery competitions, the horse races, the polo banquets where flowers were tossed up to the upper floors — who had it been, Chen Yaoqing or the young Magistrate Liu, who had deliberately aimed the flowers to land near her? His gaze had gone cold in an instant.

She had known. She had always known. Until Han Yueqi had formally introduced them, and then the Lantern Festival, when they walked the whole route — so many men had admired her, and she had always remained serene and unmoved. Only he was different.

She had always felt herself pursued by him, like a rabbit with nowhere to hide on an open plain, frantically searching for some place to shelter. No matter how forward anyone else might be, she felt nothing.

Because she knew she would not surrender to anyone else.

Only to him.

Just as now, in the great hall, with all those divine statues looking down from above — he moved forward, and she stumbled backward in retreat, like a defeated general, her talk of courage suddenly meaningless. She retreated all the way to the temple doorway, nearly lost her footing, and only when he caught up and curved an arm around her waist did she manage to right herself. The moment she had steadied she immediately fled again — it was like the pursuit-and-flight described in the ancient songs, where the girl pleads again and again, asking only that he not cross over her wall.

Because she liked him, and so he naturally held the right to corner her in this dim temple and demand an answer from her.