“Whether the woman in Shouping Village who pawned the jewelry is indeed Princess of Yue remains unknown — there is no need to make a great show of it,” Fu Xuanmiao said quietly.

“Worthy of the Deputy Chief Administrator! Truly steady and sure in all things, unlike someone like me—” Li Wu let out a sigh. “If I had been separated from my woman for a year and then reunited with her, even if there were ten Shang Rivers between us, I’d take a running leap and fly right across.”

Fu Xuanmiao’s gaze dropped from the empty air and came to rest on Li Wu, a flash of mockery passing through those deep and still eyes:

“Which woman is Li Prefect referring to?”

“Which woman else — naturally my wife, Lady Li née Shen!”

Li Wu said this openly, without the slightest unease, as if this Lady Li née Shen were truly some perfectly ordinary Lady Li née Shen, and not the Princess of Yue — the original betrothed of the man seated beside him, the first gentleman under heaven. The one speaking showed not the least discomfort; the one listening from across the carriage, Bai Rongling, felt instead a desperate urge to leap from the moving vehicle and flee.

Li Wu’s wife bore the surname Shen — Fu Xuanmiao had heard some rumor of this.

“What a coincidence — Li Prefect’s wife also bears the surname Shen.” He paused, then said: “Had it not been for the palace coup of those years…”

Fu Xuanmiao’s voice grew lower and lower, and in the end the words left unspoken collapsed into silence.

Bai Rongling knew what he had left unsaid: if there had been no palace coup back then, the wife he had today would also bear the surname Shen.

At the thought of this, Bai Rongling felt the helpless sense that the world had made sport of everything. If there had been no coup back then, if his cousin had proceeded smoothly with her descent from the palace and married the first gentleman under heaven — would she have been happier than she is today?

This was a question he had never had cause to doubt before, but ever since the day his cousin had posed her question, he could no longer feel certain of the answer.

“For Li Prefect to be willing to leap across ten Shang Rivers, it would seem the affection between you and your honored wife runs very deep,” Fu Xuanmiao said.

The words carried a faint note of sarcasm — only someone who had been present that day in the temple hall could have caught its deeper meaning.

Fu Xuanmiao intended it as a barb, but the person to his left nodded without the slightest self-consciousness: “My woman is someone who has weathered hardship alongside me — our feelings are naturally out of the ordinary. Whatever stray cats and dogs have ideas about causing trouble between us are simply dreaming.”

“If that is so,” Fu Xuanmiao said, “then why, that day in the temple hall?”

Li Wu chuckled: “Well… didn’t I commit the kind of mistake every man commits?”

“Li Prefect is wrong about that,” Fu Xuanmiao said coldly. “Not every man commits such a mistake.”

Bai Rongling looked left and right, unable to make sense of the riddles the two of them were trading.

“Has the Deputy Chief Administrator himself never committed an error of the moment?” Li Wu put on an expression of sincere, humble inquiry.

In the depths of his heart, however, he was rubbing his palms together, at every moment ready to commit each word of whatever revelations might be forthcoming to memory, then go back and serve it up with embellishments to Shen Zhuxi.

Let her see for herself — this is what men are like, all crows black beneath the feathers!

Of course, he, Li Wu, was different.

Others were all crows. He was a vigorous, upright, full-of-spirit yellow duck.

“…There was,” Fu Xuanmiao said quietly.

He gazed into the empty space before him, and on his face appeared a trace of wistful melancholy, as though he had drifted into memory.

“When was it? With whom?” Li Wu wanted to pull his own ears off and press them up against Fu Xuanmiao’s throat.

Bai Rongling frantically made eyes at him, wishing desperately he could clap a hand over that audacious duck-billed mouth.

“This error of the moment is not the same as that error of the moment,” Fu Xuanmiao said. “Li Prefect, you ask too much.”

Fu Xuanmiao leaned against the wall of the carriage, closed his eyes amid his cool and detached expression, making his refusal unmistakably clear.

Taking advantage of his closed eyes, Bai Rongling drove his knee hard into Li Wu’s side. With his eyes, he said without a sound: “If you want to get yourself killed, don’t drag this young master into it!”

Li Wu didn’t hesitate and knocked right back, nearly making Bai Rongling cry out in pain.

…Fine. He wouldn’t stoop to arguing with this country duck!

“Li Prefect.”

Fu Xuanmiao’s sudden voice brought both Li Wu and Bai Rongling’s silent struggle to a halt.

Bai Rongling watched nervously as Fu Xuanmiao sat with eyes still lightly closed, fearing that their covert little skirmish had been noticed by him.

“You said a moment ago that if you were separated from your wife and then reunited, even with ten Shang Rivers between you, you could cross them…”

“That’s right, I said it — what of it?”

“Crossing ten Shang Rivers is not so difficult,” he said slowly. “What is difficult — is crossing oneself.”

“What does that mean?” Li Wu frowned.

But Fu Xuanmiao did not speak again.

Before his eyes rose a face — warm and gentle, lovely and full of life, like a small creature peering out from its burrow, harmless and cautious.

A peony raised in a hothouse, tumbled into the cold and merciless mortal world. Even if it had seized hold of the earth and survived, it would no longer be as it was before.

The dread one feels approaching one’s hometown is not truly dread of the hometown.

What one dreads — is finding things changed while the world remains the same.

This road he hoped would stretch on without end finally, as day gave way to night and east showed the first faint light before dawn, reached its terminus.

A light cavalry detachment from the Xiangyang garrison joined their party midway, and a local guide familiar with the terrain rode on horseback at the front, leading the carriage onward without pause.

The further they went, the more remote it became, and the carriage that had grown ever more jolting finally came to a halt after cresting a hillside. After a brief silence, Yanhuai’s hesitant voice drifted in from outside: “Are you certain this is Shouping Village?”

“Reporting to my lord,” Li Que’s unruffled voice followed, “this is indeed Shouping Village, without mistake.”

Bai Rongling, who had been letting out a faint snore with his chin drooping, jerked awake: “We’ve arrived already?”

“Young Master…” Yanhuai’s voice came pressed close to the carriage door. “They say Shouping Village is here.”

Fu Xuanmiao finally opened his eyes.

The apprehension in Yanhuai’s voice made him realize that what lay outside the door might not be the scene he had hoped to see — yet he himself could not easily say what scene he had hoped to find.

After Yanhuai’s voice fell, Fu Xuanmiao sat motionless, and Bai Rongling watched him with open eyes, the air around them utterly quiet.

Far too quiet.

The crowing of roosters, the barking of dogs, the coarse and hearty shouts of farmhands that a village ought to have — Fu Xuanmiao heard none of it.

Only dead silence flowed through the air.

Fu Xuanmiao’s face was without expression, but his heart was slowly coming undone. A strange feeling crept up into his chest — as though countless threads of spider silk were spinning out of the darkness, winding silently around his heart.

Fu Xuanmiao remained still for a long while. Bai Rongling, guilt-ridden and uneasy, was just about to open his mouth and say something to break the tension when Fu Xuanmiao at last stretched out his hand and quietly pushed open the carriage door.

He rose from the carriage cabin, bent at the waist, and stepped through the door.

Li Wu sat inside the carriage without moving, his sharp gaze unwavering as he watched the straight and motionless silhouette before him.

The window was right beside his hand — he did not need to look to know what lay outside.

It was the world Fu Xuanmiao had made with his own hands.

Fu Xuanmiao stood at the head of the carriage. He said nothing. Even the breathing of Yanhuai below the carriage dared not relax.

A cold wind swept past. The wide sleeves hanging at Fu Xuanmiao’s sides rustled faintly.

He descended from the carriage with measured steps, his deep and still gaze sweeping across the desolate and ruined scene before him.

“Where is Shouping Village?” he said.

“Young Master…” Yanhuai answered with a trembling voice. “This here is Shouping Village…”

“This is Shouping Village?” Fu Xuanmiao murmured the words back in question.

No one answered him.

There was only the decayed and collapsed ruins of a village, winding muddy paths threading between one crumbled house and the next, signboards that had fallen and sunk halfway into the mud, and occasional scraps of cloth that appeared here and there amid the mire.

Li Wu jumped down from the carriage at that moment. He looked left and right, then called out loudly: “Li Que! You have some nerve — I told you to bring us to Shouping Village, and what godforsaken place have you brought us to?!”

“Reporting to my lord, this is Shouping Village.” Li Que bowed his head and clasped his hands, and said with calm: “…Shouping Village after the Shang River dam broke.”

After a long silence, Fu Xuanmiao spoke: “Are there any survivors in the village?”

Li Que kept his head bowed throughout, his gaze fixed on his clasped hands held before him.

“Shouping Village lies in a low valley. After the Shang River dam broke, it became a vast expanse of floodwater. To this subordinate’s knowledge — there were no survivors.”

Bai Rongling, like everyone else, instinctively held his breath, watching Fu Xuanmiao in fearful suspense as he stood in silence.

The frozen air had been suppressed to its breaking point, as though it might explode at any moment.

Fu Xuanmiao’s expression remained as calm as ever. It was only now that Bai Rongling discovered that calm itself could inspire fear.

Because it was a calm that violated human nature.

In this moment, he suddenly understood why his cousin had chosen a rough and dirt-stained man over returning. In this moment, he felt the weight and thickness of the disguise Fu Xuanmiao wore — a disguise so heavy and thick that even human feeling had been concealed beneath it.

From Fu Xuanmiao, he could not feel any of the wavering or heartbreak that ought to have been there in such a moment.

“Li Prefect—” Fu Xuanmiao’s voice fell as though weighted with frost crystals.

“Your subordinate is here.” Li Wu lowered his head to conceal his expression and stepped out with clasped hands.

“The men you have brought — may I borrow their use?” Fu Xuanmiao said quietly.

“Of course — the Deputy Chief Administrator may give whatever orders you see fit.”

“I want you to turn Shouping Village over completely — search for any evidence that could prove Princess of Yue’s identity. If Princess of Yue lived here—” Fu Xuanmiao paused, then said in a flat and unwavering voice, “If she is alive, I want to see her; if she is dead, I want to see the body. Whoever can find any trace of Princess of Yue will be rewarded ten thousand taels of silver.”

Fu Xuanmiao’s words sent the silent detachment of soldiers into a stir.

Ten thousand taels of silver — to military households, this was an enormous windfall, and almost at once someone could hold back no longer, charging ahead into the muddy ruins of the village.

Those remaining feared falling behind, and one after another they rushed in as well.

Fu Xuanmiao turned and returned to the carriage. He did not look at anyone. The carriage door closed quietly on its own.

Bai Rongling cast a helpless, pleading look at Li Wu — this country duck hadn’t told him what came next, and now that Fu Xuanmiao had returned to the carriage alone, he was at a complete loss as to what to do. If he were to follow him inside and share that confined space with Fu Xuanmiao in his current state, he would rather be killed.

And yet the country duck ignored his silent plea for help, sauntering off after the soldiers into the ruins of the village without so much as caring whether that thick, sticky mud would dirty the black boots on his feet.

Bai Rongling had just opened his mouth to call out to him when he saw Yanhuai, standing beneath the window, receive some command from Fu Xuanmiao that he could not hear, and head off into the village as well.

Bai Rongling looked down at his brand-new brocade boots, which had not yet touched a speck of dust, gritted his teeth, hiked up his robes, and charged after them:

“Wait for me, wait for me — won’t you all wait for this young master?!”

The clamor outside grew further and further from the carriage, leaving only the two swift horses pulling the carriage pawing at the moist earth, snorting loudly through their nostrils.

Occasionally a bird in the mountain woods let out a single cry. Inside the carriage, even the air seemed to have congealed.

Fu Xuanmiao leaned against the carriage wall, eyes closed, the five fingers resting on his knee slowly curling inward, crumpling the robe beneath his fist.

It could not be such a coincidence.

A cold voice inside him was saying.

By ordinary logic, after fleeing the palace coup, one ought to escape toward the regions outside the capital, away from the control of the false Liao. The six prefectures of Zhenchuan were adjacent to the capital region — by no means a safe place to hide. What was more, though the late emperor and Noble Consort Bai had perished, the Bai Family itself still lived.

No matter how he thought about it, Shen Zhuxi’s escape route ought to have been toward Yangzhou.

Yet from the capital all the way to Yangzhou, no matter how many men he had dispatched, not one had brought back any stirring news.

She had vanished like the morning dew after sunrise — without a trace.

The peony he had raised with his own hands had perhaps already withered. He had told himself this more than once.

He had believed he could accept this fact with equanimity.

Until the fact was placed before him.

An iron box still coated with river mud was set in front of him.

The dark red rust on the lid was like dried blood, clinging to the iron surface in a way that shocked the eye. River water that had seeped into the cracks had soaked the several bound volumes inside — the topmost one, with a cover from which only a single character, “thousand,” could be made out. Beneath the books lay a hidden compartment with a round lock on it, which could only be opened by inserting the right key.

Fu Xuanmiao picked up that volume and slowly opened it, discovering it to be a handwritten copy of the Thousand Character Classic.

Every single character was familiar to him, engraved into his very bones.

Those spider silk threads he had been deliberately ignoring slowly tightened — strangling his breath, seizing hold of him as he plunged downward—

Plunging into a bottomless, ice-cold abyss.

Even the wind went still.

The fireball rising from the east had climbed to the highest point of the sky. Its fierce yet frigid light scorched mercilessly down on the bleached white bones piled across this stretch of earth. In the mountain woods on every side there was not a sound — birds and beasts had taken shelter without exception — and even the sound of wind through the trees had turned harsh and grating.

“…Where are the bodies?”

Fu Xuanmiao’s voice was like a wisp of morning mist drifting without direction, swallowed up by the wind without a trace.

Li Que, kneeling before him with both hands raised, presenting the iron box, bowed his head and said:

“There are many bones in the village, and most have been torn and damaged by wild animals… It is difficult to determine whether Princess of Yue is among them.”

“Search—” Fu Xuanmiao said. “Bring out every female body that matches Princess of Yue’s height.”

The gathered soldiers started, exchanged glances, and stood without moving.

One with a bolder spirit stepped forward and asked: “Those buried beneath the river mud underground… are those to be found as well?”

Fu Xuanmiao stood beneath the fierce winter sun, yet a cold that would not dissolve seemed to envelop him from all sides.

“Dig three feet into the earth…” he said without expression, his voice light. “Spare no effort.”