Shen Zhuxi had not quite registered what she was seeing — but her instincts had already told her to turn around.

“Where are you hurrying off to, little miss?”

The beggar closest to her, the one whose rags were in the least poor condition, sprang from the ground and crossed in front of her in a single bound. The stench rolling from between his blackened, yellowed teeth made Shen Zhuxi take an involuntary step backward.

That step brought her right back to the entrance of the shelter.

A clatter of disorderly movement broke out, and the beggars rose to their feet one by one. In no time at all, eleven or twelve of them, reeking and rank, had surrounded her.

“Little miss, what brings a young woman wandering about all by herself at this hour of the night?” The beggar blocking her way grinned.

Fear sharpened her wits. Shen Zhuxi dared not let a flicker of fear show, and kept her composure as she met the gaze of the disheveled old beggar before her.

“I was sent to deliver a message.”

“A message? Here?” The old beggar grinned with unmistakable ill intent, every wrinkle on his face packed with grime. “We’ve got more than a dozen brothers here — are you delivering a message to one of them, or to all of them?”

Shen Zhuxi suppressed the urge to recoil and said steadily, “I was sent by Li Wu.”

The moment Li Wu’s name left her lips, Shen Zhuxi felt the air around her go perfectly still.

“…Li Wu?” The beggar in front of her looked uncertain.

“Li Wu wanted me to let you know — meet him below the Gold and Silver Pavilion at this time tomorrow. He has something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll have to come and hear it from him yourself.”

The old beggar’s two clouded eyes rolled about in their grimy sockets. He said with suspicion:

“…Little miss — you didn’t just make this up on the spot to wriggle free, did you?”

Shen Zhuxi said sharply, “If you don’t believe me, shall you come confront Li Wu about it in person?”

The old beggar went quiet, his half-disbelieving gaze still moving over her.

At that moment, a younger man — bare to the waist except for two strips of cloth — leaned in and murmured something in the old beggar’s ear.

The old beggar looked back at Shen Zhuxi, his face creasing into a cold sneer.

“You think dropping Li Wu’s name means I’ll be afraid? Does Li Wu know what kind of place this is? If he had a real message to send, he wouldn’t have sent a pretty little thing like you to deliver it.” The old beggar took a step toward Shen Zhuxi, smiling darkly. “I’ve been swallowing Li Wu’s foul tempers for years and had no way to vent it. You stumbled in here tonight — you couldn’t have known that. Since Li Wu doesn’t know you’re here, there’s no reason for me to let good fortune walk away.”

Shen Zhuxi backed away. She was terrified inside, but her mouth kept trying: “If you dare lay a hand on me, Li Wu will not let you go!”

Twisted, eerie laughter came from all around her. The old beggar sneered in her face: “Little miss, you are far too naive. Once my brothers have had their fill of you, a handkerchief over your face and it’s all wiped clean — nothing left to see.”

Shen Zhuxi was truly afraid now. In all sixteen years of her life, sheltered within the palace, the worst she had ever suffered was her father’s indifference and the cold mockery of her siblings. She had never imagined that people like this existed in the world.

But being afraid did not mean she would simply surrender.

She suddenly screamed toward the back of the old beggar: “Li Wu! Come save me, quickly!”

The old beggar startled. In the instant he turned to look, Shen Zhuxi summoned the fastest she had ever run in her life and shot through the gap beside him like a gust of wind, not daring to look back, racing away from a torrent of furious cursing behind her.

Shen Zhuxi ran with everything she had. If she could escape tonight, all the better — and if she could not, she would bite through her own tongue before suffering any indignity, and she would gouge out someone’s eye before she died. She refused to be victimized without fighting back.

Lane after lane, she ran through them all. She had long since lost count of how many she had passed through coming in. She wove through one after another, and at last — she saw the main street she had come from.

The street was pitch dark, but to Shen Zhuxi in that moment it might as well have blazed like daylight. Once she reached the street, she was safe — she would scream, and the night watch would come running.

With that hope carrying her forward, Shen Zhuxi shot out of the alley like an arrow.

“Stop right there—”

A filth-caked hand lunged for her arm. The scream had already risen to the top of her throat — when a flying kick came out of nowhere and sent the pursuing old beggar hurling through the air.

“Who told you to shout for your old man!” Li Wu grabbed Shen Zhuxi and pulled her behind him, then strode toward the old beggar who had been sent flying several zhang away, brought his right foot — still in its cloth boot — down squarely on the man’s abdomen, and stamped with savage force. “You dare touch what’s mine — you have a death wish?!”

“Li Wu…”

The beggars behind the old man froze at the sight, every one of them grinding to a halt almost simultaneously, and without a word of discussion, turned and bolted back the way they had come.

“Misunderstanding… it’s all a misunderstanding…”

The old beggar clutched his stomach, face ashen, forehead drenched in the cold sweat of pain.

Li Wu paid no attention to his pleading. Before Shen Zhuxi had even made sense of what was happening, he had already fixed on his mark and kicked the man a dozen or more times, until blood was drawn, until the hands clutching the man’s stomach went limp and dropped away.

Shen Zhuxi was frightened by the ferocity of it. It took her a long moment to gather herself.

“Li Wu…” She did not dare draw close to him now, and called his name in barely a whisper.

Against her expectations, Li Wu turned at the very first call.

The two of them looked at each other in silence. Li Wu was breathing hard; the cold fury in his eyes slowly dissolved.

“…Are you all right?” he asked, his voice hard.

Shen Zhuxi shook her head, then quickly realized that might be misunderstood, and hurried to speak: “I’m fine.”

Li Wu delivered one final kick to the old beggar, who no longer had the strength to resist, then crouched down beside him.

Shen Zhuxi stared as Li Wu patted around the man’s chest and tapped along his waist, and in no time at all came away with a jangling pouch, a jade archer’s ring of modest quality, and a reasonably sharp small knife.

“You’re…” Shen Zhuxi started.

Li Wu stood up, weighed the pouch in his hand. The sound of silver fragments and copper coins rang together.

“Since we’re already here,” he said.

Li Wu took a couple of steps forward, then stopped and looked back at Shen Zhuxi, who had not followed.

“Coming or not?”

Shen Zhuxi hurried to catch up.

Li Wu, who argued with her at every turn, said not a single word the entire way home.

Back at the familiar small courtyard, with the familiar osmanthus tree in sight, the tension Shen Zhuxi had been holding finally released. She stepped forward and stood in Li Wu’s path.

“Are you angry at me?”

Li Wu stopped walking and looked at her coolly. After a moment, he said:

“Did I not tell you before — no wandering off after dark?”

She had acted rashly tonight, and she knew it. She was somewhat in the wrong. Li Wu had said those things about the Emperor Father without knowing that the Emperor Father was her father — he could not be blamed for that.

She said quietly, “But you made me angry too. We’ll call it even.”

“Who said anything about calling it even?” Li Wu said coldly. “I spent the entire evening searching the streets for you. If I hadn’t come, do you know what would have happened?”

“But I did get away…”

“You call that getting away? If I hadn’t arrived when I did, there wouldn’t have been a scrap of you left!” Li Wu’s eyes were blazing. “Do you still think you’re living in the palace? The Great Yan has fallen. The Princess of Yue you served is dead. If you don’t start being more careful, sooner or later you’ll—”

A stab of pain struck Shen Zhuxi through the chest. She stared at Li Wu in a daze, and Li Wu, in turn, went very still as he watched a tear fall suddenly down her face.

“…The Princess of Yue — is dead?” Shen Zhuxi murmured.

Li Wu looked away and said, “I was talking out of my head. You worked me into such a state I lost my senses.”

Shen Zhuxi stepped in front of him again as he tried to move past her, and repeated: “The Princess of Yue is dead?”

“I told you, I was just—”

“Tell me!”

Li Wu fell silent in the face of her rare and uncharacteristic forcefulness. After a long pause, he met her eyes and said quietly:

“She is.”

“…How do you know?”

“Word came from the capital.” He hesitated, confirmed that she wanted to hear the rest, and continued in a measured voice: “The male members of the imperial family and the women of the court were all taken and slaughtered. Among them, the Princess of Yue took her own life at the Stargazing Pavilion. Of the Great Yan’s imperial line, only the former Crown Prince now remains.”

Shen Zhuxi’s ears filled with a dull roaring. Her legs nearly gave way beneath her. Li Wu caught her as she stumbled, and a moment later she pushed his hand aside.

She said nothing. She turned and went back to the bedroom.

Shen Zhuxi could not think. But tears required no thought — they fell steadily from her chin, soaking through her collar before she knew it.

The cold, hard bed was colder and harder than usual, freezing her heart solid and then grinding it to pieces.

She had known the likelihood of Yu Sha surviving was small. The worst possibility was not one she had never considered — yet knowing it for certain was still a grief that threatened to swallow her whole.

Not knowing, she could still deceive herself. Perhaps Yu Sha had been rescued. Perhaps she had gone to seek out Fu Xuanmiao or the Crown Prince. Perhaps they would find each other again someday, and when they did, she would see Yu Sha again too.

But that dream could no longer be dreamed.

Yu Sha was dead. She had died for her sake. This life she was living had been exchanged for Yu Sha’s.

And just tonight, she had nearly thrown that life away herself.

If something had truly happened to her, she would owe more than just herself — she would owe Yu Sha.

Li Wu had followed her in without her noticing. He sat without a word at the foot of the bed, watching her tears fall one by one.

“…Here.” He held out a handkerchief.

Shen Zhuxi did not take it. Who knew what this cloth had been used for.

Li Wu seemed to read her thoughts as if he could see right into her, and said impatiently, “It’s clean.”

She took it then, pressing her eyes into the dry cloth.

“Were you that fond of the Princess of Yue?” Li Wu said. “She was just someone who fed you. You can get food anywhere.”

Shen Zhuxi did not answer him.

Li Wu was quiet for a long time, then said in a low voice, “I’m going to say something from the bottom of my heart.”

She still did not respond. He nudged her arm and said with more weight: “Shen Zhuxi—”

“I’m listening!” Shen Zhuxi said crossly from beneath the handkerchief.

“I’ve lived my whole life like a seed fallen in the dirt — no one to look after me, no one to teach me, just muddling along however I could. Maybe my parents weren’t good people, so I never turned into a good person either. I’m not like those scholar types who go around in long robes — I don’t know how to say pretty things.”

Shen Zhuxi had mostly stopped crying, with only the occasional shuddering breath remaining.

Li Wu continued: “…If what I say is too rough to hear, just pretend I passed wind. Don’t bother taking offense.”

“You pass wind every day,” Shen Zhuxi said, her voice muffled.

“Would I be in such a panic passing wind if you hadn’t gone wandering about in the middle of the night?”

Shen Zhuxi lifted her face from the handkerchief and blinked her tear-bright eyes.

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“…Yes, yes, I’m talking nonsense,” Li Wu said. “Do you think you can stop crying now?”

“I wasn’t crying,” Shen Zhuxi said, wiping away the last of her tears and holding to her dignity.

“You promised you wouldn’t disappear without a word, and tonight you ran off again. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“…”

“Say something. Are you telling me breaking a promise has no consequences?”

“…”

Li Wu nudged Shen Zhuxi, whose eyes had glazed over and seemed to have floated far away somewhere.

“Don’t play dumb on me,” Li Wu said. “If I don’t get an answer from you tonight, I’m sleeping here.”

Shen Zhuxi was startled into focus, her gaze snapping back to his face. “It won’t happen again — not three times! I won’t do it again!”

“And how will you guarantee that?”

“What do you want as a guarantee?”

“Simple.” Li Wu said. “Marry me.”