“The Grand Princess?”

“Yes. She and Li Rouyi seem to be at odds with each other. She saved me in passing.” Chen Baoxiang quirked the corner of her mouth. “My luck is still pretty good.”

“Pretty good luck?” Zhang Zhixu’s anger flared all at once. “You have clearly fallen into terrible misfortune. Now that the Grand Princess has saved you, you and Li Rouyi are enemies to the death.”

“You’re criticizing me, but who exactly is this all because of?”

Chen Baoxiang hugged her head and crouched down in misery. “Either way it’s bad luck all around. Better to die later than sooner.”

She did not want to die. She hadn’t wanted to when she was in the dungeon; she hadn’t wanted to when hired thugs were hunting her; and she didn’t want to now.

Zhang Zhixu narrowed his eyes slightly. “Are you blaming me?”

“I wouldn’t dare.” Her voice was muffled. “I am simply explaining the sequence of cause and effect to you, and because I find myself wronged, I am a little indignant about it.”

“You feel wronged?”

“Of course I do!” Chen Baoxiang’s voice rose. “She says I was bewitching you — heavens have mercy on me, what happened at the Temple of the Four Gods was all a calculated act of convenience! If something had actually happened, I would accept it. But all you did was hold me. And that counts as me bewitching you?”

“You……” Zhang Zhixu was left speechless.

Chen Baoxiang looked up at him. Her breathing was heavy, as though she were deeply indignant. She stared at him for a moment — and then simply launched herself upright, tilted her chin, turned her head aside, and pressed her lips against his with perfect aim.

Her soft lips parted and closed gently. The breath that was uniquely hers invaded past his teeth without restraint or hesitation.

Zhang Zhixu’s pupils contracted. He instinctively moved to step back — but she reached up and hooked her hand behind his neck, pulling him in, rough and insistent.

“Chen……Baoxiang.” He forced out a few words with great effort, his fingers trembling with fury.

How could anyone be like this — acting impulsively before things between them had even been sorted out. He was not some outlet for her to vent at, not some person to be summoned and dismissed at her will—

“I’m sorry.” She pressed her forehead against his. Her voice was rough and carried the edge of tears.

Zhang Zhixu was stopped cold.

His hands were still raised halfway, still reaching to peel her away. The residual anger had not left his face. Yet his body went suddenly rigid, and he stood there unmoving, let her press against him again, and forgot entirely how to act.

Chen Baoxiang fumbled about, unhooked the belt pouch at her own waist, and pressed it into his hand.

“What is this for?” he asked.

She drew back a few inches from him and looked into his eyes with a serious expression. “The gold, the silver, the properties and the shops I swindled — I am returning all of it to you. Will you stop being angry with me?”

“Is that all you swindled?” Zhang Zhixu was furious again.

Chen Baoxiang threw all caution aside and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. “Inside there’s also two months of my salary — twenty-seven taels, three qian, and six copper coins. It’s everything I have left.”

“……”

If anyone else pulled something like this, he would have hurled the pouch right in their face. Did they think he would desire their gold and silver trinkets? Did they think he needed to be offered conditions?

But the person standing before him was Chen Baoxiang.

The Chen Baoxiang for whom money was the sky itself — who slept with her belt pouch on — who could in an instant calculate that twenty-three taels and five qian equaled fifty-six thousand four hundred copper coins.

He could not stop his mind from pulling up the memory of the illicit workshop in Heyue Lane, the heavy ear-pull cords, and that bun knocked to the ground.

Zhang Zhixu looked down, pressing his lips together lightly. “What do you want now?”

“You.” She looked at him with blazing eyes, her fingertip resting lightly against the front of his collar. She asked in a coaxing voice, “Only you — will that work?”

There she went again. Wanting to coax and deceive him without explaining anything clearly.

He swept his sleeves back, turned, and mounted his horse.

“Hey—” She chased after him two steps. “You’re just leaving like that? You haven’t even answered me — will it work or not?”

“In your dreams.” The hoofbeats rose and faded into the distance, leaving behind only two furious words drifting back.

Chen Baoxiang this time truly cried. He wouldn’t keep the pouch or her — not a thing had he left. She’d been tossed back and forth all day, and by now she still hadn’t eaten anything.

She watched that lone rider and horse vanish at the far end of the official road, her neck stiff, not daring to look over at Biqiong.

“He and I are on good terms normally — it’s not always like this…… can you maybe not go report this to the Grand Princess just yet?” she asked.

Biqiong stood behind her, hands clasped, and said calmly: “I’ll be honest — when I first saw you, I thought Her Highness had put her faith in the wrong person. Someone with no backbone or integrity who can’t even read would find it very difficult to attract Zhang Fengqing.”

“That’s what you’d think too, right?” She laughed dryly. “What if we both go back together and plead our case to Her Highness?”

Biqiong shook her head. “I’ve changed my mind.”

“What?”

“Let’s go back first.” Biqiong turned to leave. “Your chances are very good.”

Chen Baoxiang barely managed not to faint right there on the street. Her legs went weak, and she crouched back down at the roadside.

“What’s wrong?” Biqiong had walked a few steps and turned back. “Are you worried there are still Imperial Guards in your little courtyard? Don’t be. You are the Grand Princess’s person now — not even someone from the palace would dare touch you lightly anymore.”

“That’s not it.” She buried her face in both hands and said in a muffled voice, “Could you buy me a couple of buns?”

“What?”

“The kind with meat filling. Five wen each.”

“……” Biqiong felt this person was a little embarrassing. She was a female official of some standing — how was it she couldn’t even afford buns?

But in the fading light, this person was crouched into a small, tight bundle — her hair slightly loose, her official uniform torn in several places — and she looked a bit pitiable.

Biqiong exhaled silently, and turned toward the bun stall at the edge of the street.

·

Chen Baoxiang returned to her small courtyard and slept for a very long time.

She dreamed of familiar faces gathered together — Granny Ye holding the arm of Wang Gengfu, whose leg had healed, and beside them the hunched figure of the bad-tempered Elder Liu. Even someone she had never met, yet somehow recognized, was there — Ye Qionglian.

They talked and laughed, walking in the light toward a road with no visible end. Then they turned back, and called toward her: “Han Xiao — why won’t you catch up?”

Chen Baoxiang startled, turned to look, and saw Elder Sister Huaizhu holding Han Xiao by the hand, striding toward them.

“No.” She moved quickly to hold them back. “You cannot go.”

Han Xiao and Elder Sister Huaizhu looked at her in bewilderment. And from up ahead, Granny Ye also asked with confusion: “Baoxiang, don’t you miss your grandmother?”

She did. She missed her so very much — so much that many times she had wanted to follow her away. Then she would no longer be lonely.

But the great enemy was not yet avenged. She could not die. Han Xiao and Elder Sister could not die either.

They had to live well. They had to live well in place of those who were already gone.

……

The sharp pain of biting through her own lip shocked her awake. She sat up with a start.

Chen Baoxiang stared blankly at the gold thread embroidery on the bed canopy for a long time before coming back to herself, and reached up to wipe her face.

Biqiong was right. Compared to others, her chances were already considerable — at the very least, she had kissed Zhang Zhixu by force and had not been chopped into pieces. She had already beaten nine-tenths of nine out of ten people in the capital.

As long as she kept trying—

But two people who had survived life and death together and still come away with nothing between them — how were they supposed to simply fall in love all of a sudden?