The pain at the back of her neck slowly drew Shen Zhuxi back to consciousness.

As her senses reconnected with her body one by one, the first thing Shen Zhuxi became aware of, beyond the pain, was the cold and hard surface beneath her.

Close by came the sound of soil being dug up. Clumps of earth and loose stones were tossed out in a steady rhythm, landing softly on the ground.

She didn’t dare move. She held her breath against the rising panic and quietly opened her eyes.

In the dim light of the moon, a figure kept repeating the same motions — digging, tossing. Yufeng’s face was expressionless; before him, a pit in the shape of a human body was already beginning to take form.

That pit — both its length and its width — reminded Shen Zhuxi unmistakably of the size of her own body.

She forced down the terror rising inside her and swept her gaze rapidly across the surroundings — mounds of earth, large and small, filled her view.

A shriek of horror nearly tore itself from her throat.

She bit down hard on her lip and choked it back by sheer force of will.

A desolate wasteland. A dark, black forest. Countless grave mounds stretched to the horizon, without a headstone, without a wooden marker — nothing at all. Some of the mounds were overgrown with wild grass; some still had freshly wet soil; others had been dug up by animals, leaving a dark, gaping hole and a few scraps of tattered cloth…

Shen Zhuxi dared not look any further. She jerked her gaze away in panic — and met a pair of cold, watching eyes staring straight at her.

Shen Zhuxi’s instinct was to run, but her body refused to move. Only now did she realize that her four limbs had been bound with thick, sturdy hemp rope.

She tried to pull at it — the rope did not give at all, only scraped her skin raw and burning.

With no way up and no way out, Shen Zhuxi lay on the fertile, filthy ground of the mass burial ground and finally could no longer hold back a sob.

“Done pretending to be asleep?” Yufeng said coldly.

“We have no grudge between us. Killing me — what do you gain from it?”

Shen Zhuxi couldn’t make any sense of it. Was he not Fu Xuanmiao’s man?

“…As long as my sworn sister can be happy, that is gain enough for me.” Yufeng was quiet for a moment, then said, “So I can only ask your forgiveness, Your Highness.”

“Who is your sworn sister? Could this be some kind of misunderstanding?” Shen Zhuxi said. “Do I know her?”

“You do not know her, but your existence has been a constant source of trouble for her.”

“Can you tell me about your sworn sister —” Shen Zhuxi pleaded. “Even though I don’t know how I’ve caused her trouble, we can talk this through! I promise I’ll do whatever you say!”

Yufeng stepped down onto the shovel with his foot; the sharp blade sank deep into the soil.

He set the shovel down and walked toward Shen Zhuxi.

“There is no need to trouble yourself, Your Highness. As long as you can disappear quietly, my sworn sister will know what to do from there.”

Shen Zhuxi struggled up from the ground into a sitting position. A needle-sharp pain radiated from the back of her neck up through the back of her skull; she didn’t dare give it any attention. Using her bound legs to push against the earth, she kept scooting backward.

“Even if you simply let me go, I would disappear from your sight anyway!” Shen Zhuxi wept. “I had no intention of going back to begin with!”

“That’s different.” Yufeng crouched down before her and planted a firm grip on her legs as she pushed against the ground. “Your Highness may not wish to go back, but there are those who wish for you to return — and you will not be able to refuse them. Rather than having him find you later, I may as well settle this now and send Your Highness away for good.”

“Don’t do something you’ll regret — plotting to harm a member of the imperial family is punishable by death and the extermination of three clans! Are you not afraid of bringing ruin to your own kin?!”

“A crime that is never discovered is no crime at all.” Yufeng said without flinching. “New graves appear every day in the mass burial ground outside Pengcheng County. One more tonight is nothing to raise an eyebrow at. I only regret that Your Highness must rest here…”

Yufeng grabbed her by the ankles and began dragging her toward the pit.

Shen Zhuxi refused to yield. She fought back with all the strength she had. She had the braised pig’s trotter she’d forced herself to finish that evening rather than let go to waste to thank for lending her the greatest strength she had ever mustered in her life — with one kick, she sent Yufeng, who had been crouching low, stumbling sideways.

She herself was thrown backward from the force of it, and something fell from her hair and landed in her hand.

Yufeng quickly steadied himself and immediately seized hold of Shen Zhuxi as she tried to flee.

His face grim, he said icily: “Your Highness, do not struggle any further. I have no wish to make your end an ugly one — if you continue to resist, I will have no choice but to be less gentle.”

“As if I can have a dignified end by not resisting?” Shen Zhuxi wept. “Even condemned prisoners are not buried with their hands and feet tied. If I go to the underworld like this, how will I face my father and mother?”

“…Once your breath stops, I will untie the ropes myself.”

Yufeng reached his hand toward her throat. Shen Zhuxi closed her eyes and strained her upper body back as far as it would go, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face.

“Can you live with yourself, killing me — before the eyes of Fu Xuanmiao?!”

A moment passed. Yufeng’s hand still had not come down. Shen Zhuxi opened her eyes with trembling caution — his expression was conflicted, and the hand he had reached out hung suspended mid-air.

Shen Zhuxi saw the opening and pressed on at once: “You and I are strangers — naturally I cannot compare to your sworn sister. But Fu Xuanmiao has always valued and cultivated you highly. Can you face Fu Xuanmiao if you kill me?”

Her hope lasted only a brief moment.

Very quickly, the resolve in Yufeng’s expression returned.

“…Since time immemorial, loyalty and affection have rarely gone hand in hand,” he said. “I have failed the young lord this once — I will make it up to him in other ways in the future. You have no feeling for him. Even if I were to release you and let you return to him, the young lord would not find happiness.”

“How do you know I have no feeling for him?” Shen Zhuxi cried.

“If you do, that is all the more reason not to let you go back.”

Shen Zhuxi had no words left.

O heavenly mother!

She didn’t even know who his sworn sister was! Why did she have to lose her life because of her?!

Yufeng grabbed her by the ankles, dragging her toward him. Shen Zhuxi lashed out with her foot and screamed: “Help! Help!”

“…You refuse the wine of respect, so you must drink the wine of penalty.”

Yufeng’s expression darkened. He used one leg to pin down her flailing, kicking legs, and clapped one hand hard around her throat.

Shen Zhuxi’s cries for help died in her throat. She shook her head frantically and struggled, but the large hand Yufeng had locked around her neck did not budge. The agony of suffocation began to crowd out her thoughts; Shen Zhuxi’s movements grew weaker and weaker, tears washing over her pale and helpless face.

Yufeng watched as those eyes — made even more pellucid and clear by her tears — gazed back at him, and without knowing it, his expression softened.

“I am sorry… When the dust has settled, I will return to this place and find Your Highness a proper resting place.”

After that brief moment of softening, his expression hardened once more, and the grip of his hand tightened again.

Skritch —

Shen Zhuxi had finally cut through the rope binding her hands with her gold hairpin.

In the wake of that faint sound, barely louder than a grasshopper’s leap, Yufeng’s five fingers around her throat loosened of their own accord.

He stared at Shen Zhuxi in disbelief, his gaze filled with shock, astonishment, and confusion.

Warm blood flowed over Shen Zhuxi’s hand, soaking between all five of her fingers.

She looked at Yufeng in terrified bewilderment, her body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.

Yufeng’s tall frame swayed backward. With that expression of confusion still on his face, he reached a hand toward his own throat — but Shen Zhuxi had already pulled the hairpin out and driven it in again.

Blood splattered onto her face, burning hot as fire.

She recoiled as if scorched, jerking her hand back with the speed of lightning.

The look on Yufeng’s face shifted from disbelief to fury by degrees. He went rigid and toppled backward. His bulging eyes glared in Shen Zhuxi’s direction. The gold hairpin, now only half its length, protruded from his throat; blood stained the gold red, slowly spreading across the ground.

The full moon, its edges washed in the color of blood, hung low in the sky, gazing down cold and pitiless at Shen Zhuxi, who shook like a leaf in a sieve.

She heard the sound of her own teeth chattering.

“Shen Zhuxi!”

An urgent and frantic voice shattered the silence of the deep night.

Accompanied by the sound of pounding footsteps, and within the span of a heartbeat, Shen Zhuxi was gathered into a pair of firm, strong arms.

A familiar scent flooded her senses and called her back to herself.

Tears burst from her eyes all at once, and Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help but clutch at Li Wu’s back.

The sticky blood on her fingers clung like a curse she couldn’t shake. She gripped Li Wu’s back as tight as she could — as if holding onto the only lifeline she had — and through streaming tears, helpless and desperate, she called his name over and over:

“Li Wu… Li Wu… Li Wu…”

Those broken, ragged sobs cut through the air — and through Li Wu’s heart.

He took hold of Shen Zhuxi firmly by both shoulders and forced her panicked, tear-blurred eyes to meet his.

“I’m sorry I came late…” He freed one hand and patted her gently on the back. “It’s over now — I’m right here… Shen little fool, don’t be afraid…”

“Li Wu… Li Wu…”

She burrowed into his embrace and sobbed her heart out.

“What took you so long…”

That childlike reproach, carried on a wave of tears from within his arms, made Li Wu ache with such tenderness that he could have carved the glaring culprit behind him into a thousand pieces then and there.

“It’s my fault,” Li Wu said, patting her back. “I should have come sooner.”

“What do I do… I killed someone…” Shen Zhuxi wept, barely able to form words.

“You didn’t. I did.” Li Wu patted her back.

“I killed someone…”

“You didn’t. Look — he’s still alive.” Li Wu patted her shoulder.

Shen Zhuxi looked instinctively toward Yufeng. Li Wu freed one hand and swiftly pulled the gold hairpin from Yufeng’s throat. The man collapsed on the ground seemed to move his pale lips — and in the next instant, Li Wu calmly drove the hairpin back into Yufeng’s throat.

The tip of the hairpin emerged from the back of his neck in a gleam of gold.

Yufeng stopped moving entirely.

“See — you didn’t kill him,” Li Wu said. “I did.”

Shen Zhuxi was so stunned by this extraordinary sequence of events that she forgot to keep crying.

“Do you feel a little better? Can you manage on your own for one incense stick’s time?” Li Wu asked.

Shen Zhuxi hesitated for a moment, then nodded through her tears.

“Good.”

Li Wu gave her head a gentle ruffle.

He turned around and crouched down beside Yufeng, searching his body with practiced efficiency.

In less time than it would take to tell, his sleeves and the front of his robe were filled with Yufeng’s gold, silver, and valuables, along with several identifying tokens that might reveal his true identity.

“His sword —” Shen Zhuxi reminded Li Wu through her hiccupping sobs, just as he was finishing the search. “The blades Fu Xuanmiao gives to his attendants all have a distinctive mark on them.”

“…He’s Fu Xuanmiao’s man?”

Shen Zhuxi gave a tearful nod.

Li Wu drew the hairpin out and wiped the blood from it on Yufeng’s face, then tucked it into his own robe. Then he gave Yufeng a sharp kick in the face, sending the body rolling straight into the pit Yufeng had prepared for Shen Zhuxi in the first place.

Shen Zhuxi watched Yufeng come to rest in the grave he had dug with his own hands, and felt a great many complicated things.

With Li Wu beside her, she gradually steadied herself. The blood on her hands, sticky and wet, filled her with both fear and revulsion. She wasn’t even bothered by the dirt anymore — she had been scrubbing her blood-soaked right hand against the ground continuously.

That damp, clinging sensation reminded her of the time a rat’s tail had once brushed across her hand. The same revulsion. The same bone-deep chill.

Why did such things have to happen to her?

Shen Zhuxi felt like crying again.

She glanced over at Li Wu, still busy shoveling earth, and used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes, quietly swallowing the tears back down.

After kicking the body into the pit, Li Wu also kicked at the hands and legs, folding a man of considerable height into a grave that was far too small for him. Then he picked up the shovel that had been left nearby and began heaping the soil back in, one spadeful at a time.

Shen Zhuxi looked away.

“…How did you find this place?” she asked casually, trying to distract herself.

“A woman selling pouches pointed me here.”

The night wind swept past; she drew her body in tighter.

“Are you cold?” Li Wu was clearly occupied with shoveling, but seemed to have eyes on the side of his head — he noticed her small movement at once.

Shen Zhuxi’s voice was thick with congestion: “…Not cold.”

“Was the lantern festival beautiful?” Li Wu asked.

His untimely question had a strange power — it drew Shen Zhuxi away from the mass burial ground and the corpse that had only just died, and brought her back to the bright, bustling lantern festival.

“It was beautiful…”

“Beautiful. We’ll go again next year.” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi sniffled and gave a firm nod.

“Yes!”