The dim moon had climbed above the treetops, and the stench of decay drifted through the frigid air.

In the open space before what had been Shouping Village, six female bodies of similar build lay arranged one after another. The pallid, whitened moonlight fell like a layer of gauze over those faces that were half bone. Both faces and bodies had become utterly unlike what they had been in life; even the fabric on their forms, after long submersion or burial, was tattered and so deteriorated as to be barely recognizable.

More than half of those present had turned their gazes away involuntarily.

They were military household soldiers, not the corpse handlers of a mortuary. The milky-white maggots that appeared and disappeared among the dry, blackened hair of the female bodies were testing the limits of their endurance with every passing moment.

Even soldiers who had licked blood from the edge of a blade turned away — and yet Fu Xuanmiao, born of a noble clan, watched without blinking.

He walked slowly past one female body after another, his gaze lingering long on their faces and forms, which had decayed to varying degrees.

Silence encompassed all things. The wind, too, had been extinguished. The winter night was like a tomb where all sound had died.

Li Wu and Li Que stood on either side, their gazes meeting in the darkness, conveying things left unsaid.

Bai Rongling, who had already retched twice during the removal of the bodies, stumbled to Li Wu’s side in a daze. Forcing himself not to look at the female bodies on the ground, he asked in a faint, nearly breathless voice: “Which one did you prepare?”

“…None of them,” Li Wu murmured, barely moving his lips.

Bai Rongling’s complexion changed drastically. His eyes went wide and round. He could not believe that Li Wu had dared to take the field with such hasty preparation.

Heavens above!

This pirate ship seemed to be leaking — was it too late to jump ship to Fu Xuanmiao’s grand, luxury vessel?

Li Wu paid no attention to the wide-eyed stare, his gaze falling on Fu Xuanmiao, who was still examining the bodies.

Time had been too short — he had only managed to prepare the iron box and the copy of the Thousand Character Classic that Shen Zhuxi had written for him. Given Li Wu’s nature, if it hadn’t been for the lack of time to prepare a body, never mind the Thousand Character Classic — even if it had been something Shen Zhuxi had used as toilet paper, he would not have wanted to hand it over to the number one dog under heaven.

The preparation he had thrown together in a moment of desperation — could it deceive Fu Xuanmiao?

A resounding growl suddenly broke the stillness of the night.

A soldier whose face was flushed scarlet with mortification went red to the roots of his hair — that sound had come from his own stomach. They had been out for a full day and night now. Losing sleep was manageable, but in that entire day and night, they had been occupied either searching for keepsakes of Princess of Yue or digging up her remains. They had not had so much as a bowl of gruel — not even a single mouthful of water.

Yanhuai furrowed his brow, just about to speak, when another voice rang out first.

“What are you all standing around here for — have any of you actually seen Princess of Yue?” Li Wu’s breezy, careless voice was entirely unaffected by the heavy, suffocating atmosphere around them. “Those of you with water, go and drink. Those of you with something to eat, go and eat. Those with nothing at all, close your eyes and get some sleep — otherwise when we head back to Xiangyang, you’ll fall off your horses and turn into a meat pancake.”

Upon hearing this, the soldiers let out a collective sigh of relief and dispersed toward their horses, reaching for the water skins and dried rations hanging from their saddles.

Seeing this, Yanhuai decided to say nothing more, only thinking inwardly that the newly appointed Military Commissioner was truly a one-track-minded person who could not read the room to know what ought to be said.

Just at that moment, Fu Xuanmiao stopped walking before one of the female bodies.

It was a young female body dressed in a pale grayish-rose garment. From outward appearance, its degree of decomposition was on par with the other bodies — yet Fu Xuanmiao had stopped his steps only when he passed this one.

Li Wu could not help but hold his breath, fixing his eyes steadily on Fu Xuanmiao’s every movement and gesture.

He stepped over two strips of mud-covered skirt hem, came to stand before the female body dressed in pale grayish-rose, bent down, and drew out from the cuff of her sleeve a handkerchief that had been partly visible.

Hanging from the handkerchief were a few scattered items, and among them, a small rusted key.

Fu Xuanmiao applied a gentle force. The already rotted silk thread snapped immediately, and the rust-red key fell into his pale clean palm.

“Bring the box.”

Yanhuai immediately took the box from Li Que’s hands and brought it in person before Fu Xuanmiao.

Fu Xuanmiao passed the key to him. Yanhuai took it in hand, wiped it vigorously against his clothing several times to remove some of the rough rust, and aligned it with the keyhole and inserted it.

The key was heavily rusted, and Yanhuai tried several times without being able to push it in fully. Under Fu Xuanmiao’s watchful gaze, the pressure on Yanhuai redoubled. He bit his teeth, gathered his strength, and drove the key in with a single forceful push. It slid in completely.

He paused, instinctively glanced at Fu Xuanmiao — the latter’s face was expressionless.

Yanhuai carefully turned the key—

A soft click. The hidden compartment sprang upward.

It matched! He looked toward Fu Xuanmiao with a mixture of shock and dread, and the iron box in his hands felt suddenly as heavy as a thousand pounds.

Everyone had stopped.

Those eating their rations, those drinking their water, those resting with closed eyes — all of them, in that unusual silence, had turned to look at Fu Xuanmiao.

Li Wu straightened his body. The playful expression on his face faded, and the deep black of his pupils locked tightly onto that unmoving figure.

Fu Xuanmiao reached in and drew from the hidden compartment a single earring.

“Bai Rongling—” he suddenly spoke.

Bai Rongling nearly jumped out of his skin: “I’m here!”

“Come and look — is this one of your Bai Family’s tribute pieces?” Fu Xuanmiao said quietly.

Bai Rongling hurried forward.

What Fu Xuanmiao held in his hand was something Bai Rongling knew intimately — he had come all the way to Xiangzhou following this very pair of earrings. After Li Que had searched him, however, the earrings and jade hairpin he had intercepted had disappeared without a trace. What Fu Xuanmiao now held was one of that pair.

Bai Rongling looked carefully, then confirmed with certainty: “That’s right! This is one of the earrings our Bai Family presented as part of the princess’s dowry for her descent from the palace!”

“…Are you certain?” Fu Xuanmiao’s voice was low.

“I am certain, because—”

Bai Rongling reached into his sleeve and drew out a small pouch, tipped out its contents in a few shakes, and held it up beside the earring in Fu Xuanmiao’s hand for comparison.

Two identical earrings gleamed in the dim moonlight.

“I have already had experienced craftsmen of the Bai Family examine them, and questioned the palace maids who had the fortune to escape the palace coup alive — Princess of Yue was wearing this very pair of earrings when she descended from the palace!” Bai Rongling kept his mind fixed on the two hundred thousand bushels of grain drawn against his own name, and further imagined the family punishment his grandfather would mete out upon him when he learned of it. Heartfelt tears welled up in his eyes. With a face contorted in grief, Bai Rongling threw himself toward the body on the ground: “Cousin, we came too late!”

He had already flung himself forward when he remembered that he was hurling himself at a body that had been rotting for several months.

The overwhelming stench of decay and the maggots writhing across the corpse made his scalp crawl. Bai Rongling called on the most acute reflexes he had ever possessed in his life, and at the last moment performed a full prostration before the female body, his forehead slamming hard into the cold, damp earth.

“Heaven is blind!”

The powerful waves of decay washing over him made Bai Rongling’s tears and mucus flow freely, his expression of anguish so convincing it could have passed for grief at the loss of both parents.

But no matter how pitiful his howling, the gazes of everyone else never settled on him.

The first gentleman under heaven was famed throughout the world, and news of Princess of Yue had frequently appeared in street-corner gossip alongside him.

Those present could see plainly in their hearts — the young master of the Bai Family had never laid eyes on Princess of Yue in his life; how deep could any feeling between them truly run?

The one who truly ought to be stricken with grief was her childhood companion and betrothed, Fu Xuanmiao.

Yet no matter what everyone had expected, Fu Xuanmiao’s expression remained unchanged throughout. He stood motionless, looking at the female body in the grayish-rose garment on the ground, as though he still could not bring himself to connect it with Princess of Yue.

Fu Xuanmiao was indeed lost in thought — trying to find any connection between the rotting body on the ground and the cautiously smiling face in his memory.

Under the gaze of all eyes, he slowly crouched down. Unmindful of his wide sleeves falling and becoming soiled, he passed both hands beneath the female body, and amid Yanhuai’s panicked cry of “Young Master!” he gathered the body in his arms and walked toward the carriage.

Maggots fell from the corpse one by one. He seemed not to see them, carrying the body as though oblivious, walking toward the carriage.

“Young Master! Let me — let this subordinate take over—”

Yanhuai rushed after him in alarm.

Fu Xuanmiao said nothing, skirted around the anxious Yanhuai, and in a silence so complete a dropped needle could be heard, carried the body into the carriage.

River mud and decay fluid dirtied his hands. He picked up the new handkerchief lying in the cabin and used it to wipe away the soiled water that had slid from the body’s hair onto his face.

The body had long since decomposed. The remaining flesh detached at the lightest touch.

Fu Xuanmiao gripped the blood-stained handkerchief, staring without blinking at the grotesque face before him, while before his eyes rose the image of their last meeting.

She had personally seen him off at the palace gate. Beneath a brilliant, blazing sunset, her face and the jewels she wore had glittered equally radiant. Those limpid, bright almond-shaped eyes, innocent and unknowing of the world — like a silver river poured from the vault of heaven, ethereal, noble, and without a speck of dust.

He had once believed that the next time they met would be on the day of their wedding.

What he had believed was only what he had believed.

“Has the Deputy Chief Administrator himself never committed an error of the moment?”

The greatest regret of his life was that he had underestimated her.

He had not anticipated that the pure and sincere heart she was born with would move Yu Sha — placed at her side as a spy — to give her life to keep her safe, though he had reiterated again and again that Yu Sha was to do nothing beyond what she had been ordered.

He had underestimated her.

He had never imagined that a girl raised in a hothouse could take root in the barren soil of the common world, living under a false name in hiding.

Every careful scheme, every step taken according to plan, had gone off course from the moment she fled the palace.

And in the end, at this moment, it had all come apart completely.

“…Let us go back,” Fu Xuanmiao’s voice came barely above a murmur.

“Yes!”

Yanhuai responded immediately.

“Li Prefect—” Fu Xuanmiao said suddenly.

Li Wu said, unhurried: “What are the Deputy Chief Administrator’s orders?”

“Have you ever heard the name Li Wu?”

That one offhand remark from Fu Xuanmiao made the breathing of three people in the vicinity catch.

Li Wu and Li Que managed to maintain basic composure, but Bai Rongling’s heart was already nearly leaping out of his throat.

Li Wu stared at his profile, his expression unchanged:

“I haven’t. Who is this person?”

The cold wind driving in from outside was like a blade — every gust stabbing into his body, a dull ache spreading with no respite.

He could see through everything else clearly — only when it came to one person was he unable to make out his own true feelings.

Whether she was present or not, the mere thought of her name was enough to cleave him in two.

He had once believed what cleaved him was hatred. Only later had he discovered it was the flowering branches that had taken root within that hatred — branches that had mended the already shattered fragments of him by growing through them.

Every place where those flowering branches spread had once held a warm sliver of light shining through. Now there was nothing left but a handful of ash.

“Li Wu… is the one who stole my most precious thing.”

In Fu Xuanmiao’s hands, the blood-stained handkerchief slowly twisted out of shape, tendons rising sharply beneath the skin over his whitening knuckles.

“He should also be in Shouping Village. I want you to find him—”

Frost-white moonlight shone on that figure inside the carriage.

He spoke with deliberate slowness, one word at a time:

“And grind his bones to dust.”