After a barrage of questions, Shen Zhuxi finally understood what her situation was.

She had been shut inside a bookcase and adrift for an entire day, and without her realizing it, she had arrived at a place called Yutou County — more than a hundred li from the capital at the very least. News in the county was sparse and blocked off; the only thing known was that the capital was in chaos. Everything else was entirely unknown.

Shen Zhuxi sat blankly before a square table so dark it gleamed, not knowing what she ought to do.

The phoenix tablet was still hidden in her clothes, but what good did that do? If the rebel troops had taken control of the capital region, taking out the phoenix tablet would be nothing less than seeking her own death.

Was Yu Sha still alive? Was the Crown Prince still alive? Was her imperial father still alive? What had become of her mother consort’s body?

The wicker fence gate in the yard creaked open, and the tall, hulking man and the young man with half his face missing walked in. Shen Zhuxi quickly lowered her head.

The footsteps drew closer and closer, stopped across from her, and someone pulled back the long bench on the opposite side with a considerable racket and sat down.

A voice said: “How come you’re still here?”

Shen Zhuxi was so mortified she could have crawled into a crack in the ground — she had no wish to still be here either, but where else in this world could she go?

She pretended she had not heard the man’s words. He did not press the point either and instead asked: “What’s your name?”

Shen Zhuxi glanced at him quickly from the corner of her eye — a mountain-like frame, round and wide eyes, the person who had first stopped the bookcase.

“…Shen Zhuxi.”

The hulking man let out a happy chuckle. The flesh on his face bunched together, yet he did not look fierce at all — just blankly good-natured.

Shen Zhuxi had just begun to lower her guard at that harmlessly silly smile when he said:

“Well I’ll be — your dad had quite the sense of humor, giving you the name ‘bamboo mat.'”

“It’s Zhuxi, not bamboo mat,” Shen Zhuxi said. “My original name was Zhū Xī, meaning ‘blazing dawn.’ You know the line ‘In the scorching heat of the fifth month, the blazing dawn burns above the river dike’? My father feared that name was too forceful for me, so he changed one character and made it Zhū Xī — Zhū as in pearl.”

“Pig-pearl’s pig,” the hulking man said with a silly grin.

Shen Zhuxi had grown up in the imperial court. Even when her sisters mocked her with cold and cutting remarks, they had never been this crude and childish.

The fury rose to her head, yet the hulking man seemed entirely unaware of her anger and said with a continuing grin: “How old are you?”

Shen Zhuxi looked coldly to one side and kept her silence.

“Well I’ll be,” the hulking man pressed on: “You’re really pretty. Are you a princess?”

Shen Zhuxi’s heart lurched, and she blurted out: “No!”

The hulking man then asked: “Then are you a divine being? You came out of the water — are you a water spirit?”

Shen Zhuxi looked back at the hulking fool.

His lopsided posture, his guileless and mischievous eyes, his fingers that could not stay still on the table — this was nothing like how a normal adult ought to behave.

“…What is your name?” Shen Zhuxi said.

“Second Brother.”

“I am asking you what your name is.”

“Second Brother — Second Brother. You have to call me Second Brother,” the hulking man said with a grin. “And I’ll call you Fourth Brother.”

A burst of footsteps sounded outside the door. Li Wu came in carrying a basin full of steaming-hot things. The young man with the red pit on his face followed behind him, carrying a荷leaf bundle tied with string and holding several wooden chopsticks, with a stack of four earthen bowls in his other hand.

The smell of food instantly filled the entire main hall.

“What are you two talking about?” Li Wu set the ceramic basin on the table and sat down on Shen Zhuxi’s left.

Shen Zhuxi looked at the hulking man — she was still hesitating when he had already opened his mouth with gleeful enthusiasm: “I was teaching Fourth Brother how to talk!”

“Shen Zhuxi is not one of our brothers,” Li Wu said.

“She isn’t?” The hulking man looked utterly baffled: “Then why is she eating with us?”

Shen Zhuxi’s face flushed red. Embarrassed and flustered, she rose to leave.

Li Wu pressed her back down with one hand.

With a grave expression, he spoke in the manner that only thugs and ruffians in story-books spoke:

“If you walk out now — are you trying to make me lose face?”

“I…” Shen Zhuxi was nearly in tears from distress.

Li Wu turned to look at the silly hulking man, his gaze sharp as a blade: “Say another word of nonsense and I’ll hang you upside down from a tree for three days.”

The hulking man, who had been grinning and joking just moments before, wilted the instant he met Li Wu’s eyes — like a mouse who had spotted a cat, the effect was immediate.

“I… I was wrong. Shen… bamboo mat — don’t be angry at me,” the hulking man shrank back.

Looking at him like this, what more could Shen Zhuxi say? Making a scene at a fool would hardly be dignified.

“I am not angry with you.”

The hulking man flashed her a goofy smile — and just like that, the matter was considered settled.

When Li Wu stuffed the chopsticks into her hand, she accepted them half-willingly, half-not.

As the saying goes, one who does not eat will grow hungry soon enough — and she had gone without food for five or six meals already. If she did not eat something, she feared she would not even have the strength to walk out of this courtyard.

But before eating, she had one thing she still needed to do.

“Is there water to wash my hands?” she asked.

All three men at the table turned to look at her, as though she had made the most peculiar request imaginable.

“Wait there.”

Li Wu got up and went outside.

The young man set down his chopsticks to wait, and when he caught Shen Zhuxi’s gaze, smiled at her in a friendly manner. The hulking man did not wait for Li Wu to return and gleefully began to undo the paper-wrapped package on the table.

Inside the lotus leaf was a stack of white flour flatbreads piled high, pale and white — clearly very soft and fluffy. The hulking man picked up the top one and bit into it, and with a single bite, half the bread — face-sized that it was — was gone.

Shen Zhuxi stared, wide-eyed with astonishment.

Li Wu came back at that moment carrying a ladle of clear water. He had brought no bath powder, and she did not have the face to ask for any, so she stood outside in the courtyard, bent over the clear water he poured for her, and washed her hands carefully several times over.

With the last bit of water remaining, Li Wu casually washed his own hands as well. When they were done, the two of them went back inside the main hall together.

The young man was all smiles: “I hear Shen Zhuxi is from the palace — where were you in service before?”

Shen Zhuxi had already prepared an account in her mind and answered without the slightest effort:

“Cuiwei Palace.”

“What place is that?”

“The palace where Princess of Yue resided,” Shen Zhuxi said. “I was one of the Princess’s attendants.”

“So she was a palace maid to the Princess.” The young man exclaimed admiringly: “No wonder — just standing here, it’s as though ten thousand oil lamps were lit all at once in the room!”

Shen Zhuxi’s face went red: “Please don’t say such things…”

“Only someone of Shen Zhuxi’s looks and bearing could be worthy to serve His Majesty’s most beloved daughter. Her beauty is like the great flood that the sage-kings Yao and Shun had to tame — unless a sage were reborn, no one could withstand it…”

Shen Zhuxi’s face burned scarlet; her hands and feet curled in on themselves; she felt as though needles were pricking all over her back, and she did not know what to say.

“Enough,” said Li Wu. He picked up a flatbread and handed it directly to Shen Zhuxi. “It’s been so long — have you two been introduced or not?”

The young man said: “Second Brother and I both know Shen Zhuxi’s name now, but she likely doesn’t know ours yet.”

“He’s called Que’er,” said Li Wu. He raised a piece of bread and pointed it at the young man, then pointed toward the hulking man who was eating with single-minded devotion. “He’s called Diao’er.”

The bread in Shen Zhuxi’s hand nearly dropped. Que’er and Diao’er themselves looked perfectly at ease.

“…Do you have family names?” Shen Zhuxi squeezed out a smile.

“Same as mine,” Li Wu said. “Li Que’er. Li Diao’er.”

“Are you brothers by blood?”

“No,” Li Wu said.

He said nothing more, and Shen Zhuxi did not press further. The names were strange, yes — but they were not on her body, and even the people themselves did not mind, so why should she go sticking her nose in?

Shen Zhuxi picked up her chopsticks and studied with great caution the unidentified substance floating in the ceramic basin.

Its off-white color and faint ambiguous smell put her on her guard. The three men at the table had no such reservations and sent their chopsticks one after another into the basin.

No separate servings — everyone’s chopsticks, used and unused, going into the same communal soup… Shen Zhuxi’s stomach turned.

“Eat,” said Li Wu, setting down his chopsticks.

Shen Zhuxi had no choice but to extend her chopsticks, and with great care, pinched the gray-white thing nearest to her.

This was certainly not pork, beef, chicken, or mutton. Yet the texture was unmistakably that of meat. Shen Zhuxi brought the piece back to her bowl, unable to make the decision to put it in her mouth — but Li Wu’s chopsticks were resting in his bowl, unmoving, and he was evidently watching to see whether she would give him “face.”

Shen Zhuxi did not wish to appear rude. She steeled herself and put the thing — whatever it was — into her mouth and cautiously bit into it.

Soft. Smooth. A flavor that was hard to describe — but… actually, it was not bad.

Shen Zhuxi dropped her guard and soon was reaching her chopsticks into the basin a second time, then a third.

This soft, smooth thing had a kind of power to it. Humble-looking at first glance, yet once in the mouth, there was something inexplicably wonderful about it — a springy, yielding, satisfying chew that lingered on the palate, so much so that even when she felt the hulking man’s resentful stare, she found it difficult to put down her chopsticks.

After eating to about half full, Shen Zhuxi slowed her pace and began to think through her future path as she chewed carefully and swallowed slowly.

She certainly could not stay here for long. She needed to find her imperial father or the Crown Prince as soon as possible. Seeking out Fu Xuanmiao — that was her last resort. Shen Zhuxi had no wish to be the subject of gossip before they were even married.

She had no money on her, but she had a jade hairpin and a pair of gold-and-kingfisher-feather pearl drop earrings.

Li Wu and the other two had saved her. She would leave the jade hairpin with them as a gesture of gratitude. The pair of gold-and-kingfisher-feather pearl earrings were her wedding jewelry — the kingfisher work and the gold were both of the finest quality, and the money from selling them ought to be enough for food and travel along the way. As long as she was careful and thrifty, she alone should be able to reunite with the imperial family…

The “meat” in the basin had, without anyone noticing, been polished clean. Li Diao’er ladled himself a full bowl of hot broth, then picked up a flatbread, tore half into pieces and dropped them into the broth, and sent the other half soaking into the broth before popping it into his mouth in one go.

Shen Zhuxi watched him eat with such unconstrained vigor and felt an itch in her heart too. When Li Wu passed her the ladle, she took it, and for the very first time in her life, ladled herself a bowl of soup by her own hand.

The soup was piping hot. One sip, and warmth spread through every part of her.

Shen Zhuxi sipped the steaming hot soup, ate the flatbread dipped in the meat broth — warm in body and spirit, comforted and satisfied.

“I have never eaten soup like this before. What is it made from?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

Li Wu set down his soup bowl and looked up at her: “Pig offal.”

“What is pig offal?”

Li Que’er suddenly spoke up: “Pig heart, pig lung, pig kidney, large intestine, small intestine… and perhaps a bit of brain.”

Shen Zhuxi’s expression changed drastically. Every bit of “meat” she had eaten, every drop of broth, and all the flatbread soaked in both — it all surged violently upward at once.

She shuddered from head to toe, turned her head, and vomited all over the floor.

Chaos broke loose.

Two people at the table leapt to their feet — the third, who had not leapt up, was the fool.

“How did you —”

Li Wu grabbed her by the arm. In the next moment, she vomited all over him.

If Shen Zhuxi had any capacity for rational thought right now, she would certainly have wished she could dig a hole in the ground and bury herself in it. But she had long since been fled of soul and only left her body in this world to vomit without stopping.

If any sound could still reach her, it could only be “pig heart, pig lung, pig kidney, large intestine, small intestine… and perhaps a bit of brain.”

She was done for.

That was the only thought she had left — the moment she saw Li Wu’s contorted face.