“Li Wu……” Fang Shi’s face was drained of all color. Her bloodless lips trembled, and from between them seeped a faint hissing breath. “The Military Governor who fell from the cliff……”

“It is him.” Sorrow briefly crossed Shen Zhuxi’s face, though she quickly reined it in.

Through all these days, she had not dared to dwell too deeply on thoughts of Li Wu, forcing herself to direct all her attention toward how to escape and how to rescue him — because if she did not do so, the worst of all possible imaginings would crush her resolve entirely.

She ought to have been the only person in this encampment who truly feared for Li Wu’s life and death — yet upon hearing her confirmation, Fang Shi’s eyes rolled back and her whole body crumpled to the floor.

“Fang Shi?! Madam Fang Shi!”

Shen Zhuxi instinctively caught her collapsing body, and called out in a panic for the palace attendants to come and help.

Her cries rang out right beside Fang Shi’s ears — yet to Fang Shi, they were like the sound of a deafening thunderclap rolling in from a distant clear sky.

Dark lightning split open the sea of her memory, and dredged up a recollection dripping with fresh blood.

New Year’s Eve. Every household was gathered at the New Year’s Eve dinner table, filled with laughter and warmth. Yet from the side courtyard of the Chief Minister’s residence came a soul-wrenching, heartrending cry.

“Madam, Madam! Please stop crying — save your strength to bring the young master into the world!” the midwife said anxiously at the bedside.

Nanny Chen, Fang Shi’s personal maid who had accompanied her since her maiden home, gripped her hand tightly, her eyes filled with tears: “Miss, push once more — the child can already be seen!”

In her urgency, Nanny Chen had called out the name Fang Shi bore before she was wed, but at this moment, not a single person noticed the slip.

Fang Shi’s face was utterly white and drenched in cold sweat. Sweat matted her hair to her skin and soaked through her inner garments, leaving her looking utterly haggard, as though she were no longer herself. Her eyes stared into an empty void, their light entirely gone. She was like a person in freefall, her strength entirely spent as she plummeted into the dark — yet every spasm of pain that seemed as though it would rend her living body in two would snatch her back up from the air, only to repeat the process of falling and being torn apart, again and again.

She had never known that giving birth could be this agonizing.

A suffering that made one unable to die, yet unable to live.

When a woman is in labor, the birthing room is considered inauspicious. On top of that, today was New Year’s Eve, so the area outside her birthing chamber ought to have been empty of all people. Fu Ruzhi was in the main hall entertaining his clansmen. The servants were either busy preparing the family banquet, or eating their own New Year’s sweets in their own quarters. Only she — only she, alone, was being torn apart.

Every woman gives birth.

Every woman must give birth.

Giving birth seems to be a woman’s heaven-given duty. Heaven-given — something one is born knowing how to do. And so no one told her that beyond the nine deaths that attend the crossing of the threshold of life, the process itself would be this torturous.

If she had known earlier……if she had known earlier……

She could not have escaped this fate regardless……

Fang Shi’s eyes clenched shut, and a broken cry seeped from her raw throat; heavy, large tears streamed down a face where the traces of tears had dried and returned, dried and returned, countless times over.

“Madam, one more push! Think of the young master!” the midwife said urgently, checking on her again.

“I cannot do this anymore……” Fang Shi wept, “I cannot……”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Madam! One more push!” said the midwife.

Yet Fang Shi could push no more.

The tearing pain continued without cease. The pain radiating from her lower abdomen was like a blunt, rusted blade cutting from below upward, grinding and slicing her body in two. Yet her physical body had begun to grow numb — it was as though her soul and body had begun to separate.

“Fang Uncle! Why is my horse’s feed different from before! Have you been skimming off the household’s feed money?!”

A voice, urgent and loud, suddenly rang out beyond the door.

Fang Shi’s eyelids, which were on the verge of closing forever, gave a tremor, and with great effort she raised them. Nanny Chen’s expression filled with alarm, her hands and feet at a loss, as she looked over at Fang Shi, while the midwife and the maids frowned toward the sound coming from outside.

Separated by a courtyard wall, the faint sounds filtered through — the steward’s flustered denial, and the stablehand’s uninhibited bellow at full volume. One denying with all his might that the feed had changed, the other insisting with equal force that it had been switched, and voices carrying like drumbeats, utterly without restraint, as though intent on letting everyone in the household know.

“Where does this fool come from? Drive him away quickly, and do not disturb the woman in labor!” said the midwife.

“No……” Fang Shi suddenly seized Nanny Chen’s hand.

Nanny Chen gritted her teeth and said with urgent expression: “Pay no mind to him — the woman in labor is what matters now! How can we spare time for a stablehand!”

Nanny Chen’s words stopped the maid inside from stepping out to drive the noise away.

They exchanged glances with one another, puzzled at how the stablehand, who was always taciturn and easy-going, had suddenly gotten into a row with the steward — and at such a critical juncture, and in such a place.

Fortunately, it seemed as though misfortune had turned to blessing: Madam, because of the intermittent sounds of arguing outside, rallied her spirits and summoned her strength once more.

Fang Shi gripped Nanny Chen’s hand with all her might, and the violent pain from exerting her entire body drew from her a sound caught between weeping and moaning.

Fang Shi could not understand — was she alone in this suffering, or did every woman endure such tribulation? If every woman passed through this inhuman ordeal, why had she never heard any complaints about it? Why had no one ever warned a naive and ignorant young woman that this path required the most careful deliberation before being taken?

After several more rounds of pushing through the effort, a lightness came to her body, and the midwife lifted up a newborn still coated in amniotic fluid.

“It is a young master!” The midwife’s words brought shared joy to everyone in the room.

Yet Fang Shi could not share in their joy — the sensation of release lasted only a brief moment before the pain returned to her body with full force. By now she had no more tears to cry, and only silent, despairing tears rolled down her face in a torrent.

“Easy now! Easy!” The midwife noticed her condition and her expression suddenly stiffened. She bent to check, and her face went white: “There is another one!”

Another one.

Those four words rolled through Fang Shi’s mind like rumbling thunder, yet she could no longer find the capacity for despair — she was surrounded by despair on all sides. What remained was a numbed body and soul, following the midwife’s instructions, pushing again and again without cease.

The midwife directed Fang Shi while casting questioning and uneasy glances toward Nanny Chen beside her; Nanny Chen’s expression was equally troubled, and she said nothing.

At last, the second baby boy was also delivered safely.

The infant’s cries filled the birthing chamber; the maids’ faces were bright with joy, but the midwife and Nanny Chen could only manage expressions of forced happiness.

“This servant will go at once to deliver the good news to the Master!” one of the maids said happily, and walked out of the room.

Nanny Chen exchanged a look with the midwife and, using the pretext of placing the infant in the cradle, moved into the inner room.

“Nanny Chen, I am at a loss — I did not know Madam was carrying twins, and I only prepared one stillborn!” the midwife said.

Time allowed Nanny Chen no room for lengthy deliberation. She steeled herself and said: “Then only one can be substituted!”

“Which one?” said the midwife.

“……Let me ask Madam.”

Nanny Chen walked out quickly and bent close beside Fang Shi, conveying the current predicament in a hushed and urgent voice: “The elder or the younger?”

“I want to see……” Fang Shi’s expression was dazed, and her half-open eyes searched the emptiness for the fruit of her near-death struggle. “I want to see the children……”

“There is no time!” Nanny Chen could not stop herself from stamping her foot. “The Master will be here any moment — make your decision quickly! Do you keep the elder, or the younger?!”

Nanny Chen’s repeated urgings finally drew from Fang Shi a weeping cry of “Keep the younger……”

Nanny Chen was about to leave when Fang Shi, with a strength inconceivable for someone who had just given birth, suddenly grabbed hold of her hand.

“Give it to him……give it to him……” Fang Shi trembled all over and, reaching into her collar, pulled out a jade ring that she wore pressed close against her skin. She broke it in half, and pressed one half into Nanny Chen’s hand.

Nanny Chen understood at once and took the jade ring and hurried toward the inner room.

A half-circle of jade makes a jade ring pendant — a symbol of severance and resolve. Two jade ring pendants joined together make a jade disc, a ritual jade that can be bestowed upon a divine child.

Fang Shi knew that within moments, word would come of the death of one of the twins. The child she had sent away would be quietly conveyed to Zhangzhou, to be raised by a trustworthy family.

The other — could only remain as the firstborn son of the Fu household.

She had believed that there would still be an opportunity, unknown to anyone, to send away the remaining child……but she waited and waited, as the child grew day by day, and the opportunity never came.

She had believed that the child who was sent away would grow up in Zhangzhou in prosperity and peace……but that, too, she never lived to see.

The trusted person she had sent to escort the child encountered a band of mounted bandits along the road, and the entire convoy scattered in all directions. Her child’s whereabouts were unknown. The child’s father made several trips to the site of the mishap, searching through every household in the surrounding area — but still found no trace of the child.

Day after day she offered prayers for this child, wandering somewhere unknown — imagining, perhaps, that the child had survived, taken in by a kind and honest farming family, growing up happily and simply.

Perhaps he would climb trees to raid birds’ nests. Perhaps he would be mischievous enough to tear the roof tiles from the house. Perhaps he could not even read a single character……but that was all right……she only wanted him to be safe and at peace……

She only wanted him to be alive……

But why……

Why……

……

Shen Zhuxi stared in shock at Fang Shi, who lay unconscious, tears streaming endlessly from her eyes.

Even without consciousness, her face was etched with unbearable pain.

Her grief was so profound and so raw that without a single word spoken, it had deeply moved Shen Zhuxi, filling her own heart with the very same pain.

She had not yet had time to think much further, because the palace attendants, alarmed by her cries, came flooding into the tent all at once. Seeing Fang Shi collapsed on the floor, their expressions changed drastically.

In no time at all, the tent was crowded with people.

Palace maids moved about with visible unease, changing the water and towels, their gazes drifting from time to time toward the tent entrance.

At last, the curtain was raised by a guard, and Fu Xuanmiao, dressed in pale blue, walked in with the Imperial Physician who had once treated Shen Zhuxi.

The Imperial Physician set down his medicine chest and rushed toward the bed where Fang Shi lay. Fu Xuanmiao stopped in his tracks and clasped his hands toward Shen Zhuxi in greeting. Before he could open his mouth to speak, Ning Yu — Fang Shi’s personal maid — dropped to her knees with a thud.

“Young Master, please forgive this servant — this servant failed to take proper care of Madam……”

Fu Xuanmiao waved a hand, gesturing for her to rise. Shen Zhuxi had expected him to immediately ask her what had caused Fang Shi to faint, and was inwardly rehearsing what to say — yet after entering, Fu Xuanmiao said not a word throughout, and simply stood with a slight frown, his gaze fixed on Fang Shi, who had yet to regain consciousness, on the bed.

After a while, the physician withdrew his fingers from her pulse and his expression relaxed. He rose and bowed toward Fu Xuanmiao and Shen Zhuxi, saying:

“Madam’s constitution is not in any serious danger. However, the worry and sorrow that has accumulated in her heart, combined with deficiency of vital energy and blood, has made her body weaker than an ordinary person’s and unable to withstand violent swings of emotion. As long as she is not subjected to extreme grief or joy as she was today, such an episode will not occur again. This subject will prescribe several formulas to nourish her vital energy and blood, which can help bring about some improvement — however, to achieve a complete cure, Madam herself must untangle the knot in her heart and let go of her long-held sorrow.”

After the Imperial Physician wrote out the prescription and handed it to the maid responsible for decocting the medicine, he lowered his head, picked up his medicine chest, and quietly withdrew.

Ning Yu, reading the atmosphere, caught the eye of the others and led all the palace attendants out of the tent.

Only Shen Zhuxi and Fu Xuanmiao remained in the room. With fewer people present, Shen Zhuxi paradoxically felt the tent grow even more narrow and cramped — constricted by the low, heavy air pressing in from all sides.

“Xi’er, what happened just now?” Fu Xuanmiao said softly.

There was no anger, no suspicion — only the cold, probing gaze of a viper. He did not need to learn the truth from Shen Zhuxi’s mouth; he relied only on the truth he could determine by his own judgment.

For no particular reason she could identify, instinct made Shen Zhuxi choose to conceal things on Fang Shi’s behalf.

“I……” Under Fu Xuanmiao’s deeply pressuring gaze, she stumbled for a moment, then quickly found her footing and said, “I only said……that I had already married while among the common people, and that you had harmed my husband, and I would never submit to you……”

Fu Xuanmiao watched her for a moment, as though measuring her expression inch by inch to verify whether her words were true or false.

After a while, he seemed to have believed her account — for his expression cooled in response.

“The Princess’s past in the common world — it would be best not to speak of it again in future……” Fu Xuanmiao said slowly, “Regardless of who it is before you.”

Shen Zhuxi looked away, her heart in turmoil.

At last she understood — the source of that faint, elusive sense of familiarity she had always sensed about Li Wu.