Xie Yuzhang left the imperial garden, and with every step she took, it was as though she could still feel the pain in her right ankle.

It had truly hurt so much at the time. A blade severing the tendon, blood flowing freely.

By the time Lin Fei found her, she had already lost consciousness. When she woke again, the wound had been bandaged, and what she had to face was Lin Fei’s eyes, swollen red from weeping.

Don’t cry, Xie Yuzhang had said, smiling instead. Now it will be quiet.

She walked with a limp after that. She could no longer dance for anyone — and no one would think to ask her to dance any longer.

She had not wanted to dance. In Mobei, she had danced far too many times. For the old Khan, for Xia’erdan, for Wuwei.

She had long since had enough of dancing.

Having barely made it back to Yunjing, granted life by the new Emperor and given a path forward, she wanted only to live in quiet and peace.

Even if it meant eating rough food — that would have been fine. What was more, although Xiaoyao Marquis Manor was under strict watch, the former imperial family had never been denied in their clothing, food, or shelter. Even if only for the sake of a few favorable lines in the history books, one could see the new Emperor’s benevolence.

If sacrificing one tendon meant she could live quietly and peacefully, tucked away in Xiaoyao Marquis Manor, Xie Yuzhang was willing.

Xie Yuzhang strode quickly into Zhaoxia Palace, and at the sight of Lin Fei’s porcelain-fair face and softly curved, smiling eyes coming toward her, the emotions that had been slamming and twisting inside her chest all along the way suddenly stilled.

She stared at Lin Fei.

Lin Fei’s cheeks were still full and rounded, her skin still carrying a healthy glow. Nothing like the later days when, in caring for and protecting Xie Yuzhang, she had poured out her heart’s blood until she was nothing but bone.

None of it had happened yet! Neither of them had yet suffered those injuries, endured that pain!

No, no — those were things from a previous life! She had been reborn, given a fresh start. Why would she have to live through it all again? Was she going to sit with her hands folded in her lap just because she already knew the direction fate was heading?

No — that would never do!

“What is wrong? Why did you come in so quickly?” Lin Fei asked in surprise.

Xie Yuzhang followed her gaze back and realized only then that the delicate palace maids were slightly breathless from trying to keep pace with her.

“Too hot. I wanted to get back quickly,” Xie Yuzhang said, brushing it off.

Lin Fei reproached her gently: “Why did you not take the palanquin?”

Back in the cool room with its ice basins, Lin Fei said: “The Fifth Prince came by earlier. The glass beads you mentioned before — he has had someone make them and specially brought them over, but you were out.”

She called a palace maid to bring over a sandalwood box, lifted the lid, and inside lay a full box of glass beads in every color.

Glass was difficult to make, and producing a full box of nearly perfectly round beads must have required a great many failures and rejects.

She had only glanced at the Emperor’s glass cup and said offhandedly to the Fifth Prince that glass would look just like precious stones if made into beads — and the Fifth Prince had actually had it done.

That had been seven or eight months ago.

“Fifth Brother…” Xie Yuzhang said absently.

Since the day she was reborn three days ago, she had been huddled in Zhaoxia Palace. She had even pretended to sleep when the Emperor came — let alone seeing anyone else.

Beyond the people of Zhaoxia Palace, today was the first time since her rebirth that she had stepped outside and encountered others.

Xie Yuzhang lowered her eyes. “I will go thank Fifth Brother later.”

But Lin Fei said: “The Crown Prince also sent someone to ask after you. I replied that you were ‘feeling better.’ Your Highness should go thank him when you have the chance.”

Xie Yuzhang understood Lin Fei’s intent.

Compared to the Crown Prince, she had always been closer to her fifth elder brother — and in her earlier years, without a shred of scheming in her, she had probably made it far too obvious. In Lin Fei’s view, the Crown Prince was the one who would one day inherit the throne, and no matter how deeply the Emperor doted on Xie Yuzhang now, for the sake of her future, how could she afford not to remain close to the Crown Prince?

And these people…

Xie Yuzhang let her eyes fall.

Don’t think about it, she told herself. None of that has happened.

No — more accurately, all of that was the business of a “previous life.” She had been reborn this time around — she absolutely could not let everything remain unchanged.

Xie Yuzhang raised her head and smiled. “All right.”

Lin Fei, pleased that she had taken the advice, brightened and asked about Li Ming’s two adopted sons.

“Both quite tall,” Xie Yuzhang said. “One sturdier, one leaner.”

“Northern men naturally tend toward height,” Lin Fei said.

“Ah-Fei,” Xie Yuzhang asked, “is the Military Governor of Hexi the one with the most troops?”

“He is,” Lin Fei said.

She said it, and then sighed.

Lin Fei’s grandfather had died over a disagreement with Chancellor Zhang on military reform — a man of unyielding integrity, he had crashed his head against a pillar in the golden hall to remonstrate with the Emperor in the ultimate act of direct appeal.

In doing so he had infuriated the Emperor, and overnight the Lin Family of Yunjing City became prisoners.

“The central forces should command two hundred thousand troops, and the ten military governors together should hold another four hundred thousand — that is the full extent of Da Zhao’s military strength,” Xie Yuzhang said.

And of all of it, Hexi was the strongest. It was because Li Gu seized Hexi first that he had the resources to contend for the realm.

“Does the central force truly have as many as two hundred thousand?” Xie Yuzhang asked.

But Lin Fei said: “Why are you asking about this? It is not something we should be concerned with. What do you want to eat tonight?”

Xie Yuzhang grabbed her sleeve. “Ah-Fei, tell me.”

Lin Fei let out a sigh. “No.”

“Then how many does it actually have?”

“No one knows,” Lin Fei said. “No one knows.”

Phantom soldiers filling payrolls were beyond counting. In the old days when Lin Fei’s grandfather had tried to investigate and verify, there was not a single regiment at full strength — they would “borrow” troops temporarily from other units whenever a superior came to inspect, stuffing the ranks with borrowed bodies.

A chill spread through Xie Yuzhang’s heart.

That was why, later, when the military governors one after another raised their flags in rebellion, they swept aside the Da Zhao dynasty with a speed that seemed almost incomprehensible — as if pulling up a dead stump. Because this dynasty had endured for over four hundred years and seemed to be in full flower, yet beneath the surface it had long since rotted through to its very roots.

Princess Baohua Xie Yuzhang, for reasons unknown, was again downcast and dispirited. As evening came, she had not even changed her clothes — and this from a woman who changed her dress three times a day.

“I knew I should not have said those things to Your Highness,” Lin Fei said, regretting it. “Affairs of court are for His Majesty and the ministers to handle. Why should Your Highness, a princess, burden herself with any of it?”

“You are right,” Xie Yuzhang said flatly, nodding. “These are matters of the nation and the state — hardly something a small, powerless woman like me could change.”

Lin Fei brightened. “Exactly! Come, it is time for the evening meal — shall we change clothes first?”

Xie Yuzhang was quiet for a moment, then asked: “Ah-Fei, why do I change my clothes three times a day?”

Lin Fei looked puzzled. “Why? There is no why… Is that not just how it has always been in the palace?”

Xie Yuzhang said nothing, gazing at the burnished golden light falling on the inner courtyard.

The extravagant and indulgent customs of the court, radiating outward from the palace, blanketed all of Yunjing City. She had never thought anything was wrong with it before.

She suddenly sat up and called for someone: “There is a little eunuch beside Father called Fuchun — go and give him a gift.”

When the palace maid acknowledged the order and withdrew, Lin Fei asked curiously: “Who is Fuchun? I have no recollection of the name.”

The Emperor’s attendants — no one among those with any standing had been mentioned by that name.

“Just a minor eunuch,” Xie Yuzhang said.

Palace eunuchs were a numerous and sprawling lot — just those of the fourth rank and above numbered in the thousands — and for anyone among them to rise to the top was exceedingly difficult. Fuchun had no doubt remained buried and obscure among them until the day Military Governor Huang Yungong had led his troops into the capital, stormed the palace, and carried out a mass slaughter of the eunuchs while violating the palace maids and the consorts.

Later, when Li Gu had crushed Huang Yungong and taken possession of Yunjing City, Fuchun — who had somehow managed to survive by hiding in some corner or crevice — had caught Li Gu’s eye and risen rapidly to become the great chief eunuch superintendent of the entire palace.

Having seen him now, how could Xie Yuzhang remain unmoved and do nothing?

In a single day she had encountered the future Emperor, the future Grand General, and the future chief superintendent — and that night, Xie Yuzhang slept extremely fitfully.

These figures of destiny — it seemed that from the beginning they had been tied together by threads of fate. And she? Was she someone fate had abandoned?

Even with a second life, the great tide of the world was not something she, a weak woman, could alter. What on earth could she do to change her own destiny?

Xie Yuzhang’s heart was full of bewilderment.

She tossed and turned like a fish being fried, and so Lin Fei could not sleep either — ever since the day Xie Yuzhang had been seized by that nightmare, Lin Fei had been sleeping in the same bed with her these past days, afraid she would have another bad dream.

“What is wrong?” Lin Fei held Xie Yuzhang close and patted her gently, the way one soothes a child.

Xie Yuzhang stared at the dim overhead of the bed canopy, and then said abruptly: “I want to ask Father to arrange a marriage for me.”

Lin Fei was suddenly wide awake. She raised her head and looked at Xie Yuzhang, smiling. “Who has caught Your Highness’s heart?”

Xie Yuzhang felt herself truly foolish — why had she not thought of this on the very first day she was reborn? She should have gone straight to her father and begged him to settle a marriage for her. A princess who was already betrothed — surely no one would send her away to a political marriage.

She only did not know… whether it was too late.

“Anyone. It doesn’t matter who,” Xie Yuzhang said, turning on her side to face Lin Fei.

If she were truly given the power to choose, she would actually want to choose Li Weifeng. He was the great general Li Gu would place his deepest trust in — Li Gu had even been known to say, “Ten thousand li of rivers and mountains, held together with you.” Marrying him, the next twenty years would be safe and stable.

But Li Weifeng at this point was no more than a lower-ranking frontier officer of common birth — it was simply not possible.

As for Li Gu — Xie Yuzhang did not even consider him.

By the time Li Gu later ascended the throne, the women in his life had all come from significant backgrounds. His alliances before he became Emperor — even just as formal secondary wives he had taken on, there had been three. Every union had been not about affection but about the consolidation of political resources.

He was the center of the entire political storm. Xie Yuzhang had been far away in Mobei and had not witnessed it firsthand, but she could well imagine how complex the situation had been in those years. A fallen dynasty’s princess carried no leverage whatsoever in such a political contest. Going to Li Gu’s side was absolutely not a wise choice.

The reality, however, was that regardless of whether it was Li Gu or Li Weifeng — it was not simply a matter of her wishing to choose whom she pleased.

Xie Yuzhang tried to recall the prominent noble sons of Yunjing City at this time, only to find that most of them had later been scattered to the winds — dead or lost. Those who survived and continued to live well in Yunjing City… there was not even one among them she could identify as someone worth trusting with her life.

Anxiety gnawed at her again.

“What kind of thing is that to say,” Lin Fei said with reproach. “Marriage — when has anything about it ever been ‘just anyone’?”

She pressed: “Is there truly no one you have feelings for?”

Xie Yuzhang sighed. “No.”

“If there is no one, then what is all this nonsense.” Lin Fei pressed a hand to her forehead.

Xie Yuzhang was silent for a long time, then said: “I have heard that Father is thinking of sending a princess to Mobei Khanate in a political marriage.”

Lin Fei sat bolt upright and stared at her. “Your Highness — who told you this?”

“Never mind who told me,” Xie Yuzhang said. “The information is true, is all.”

Lin Fei thought for a moment, then said: “Even if it is true — they would never use Your Highness for the political marriage.”

“Political marriages are usually just a woman from the imperial clan given a princess title,” Lin Fei said, her tone very certain. “And even if they wanted to send a true princess — how could they possibly send Your Highness? Forget that Your Highness was born of the late Empress herself; by birth order alone, there is Princess Anle, born of Noble Consort Shu, who comes before you.”

But Xie Yuzhang said quietly: “What if they specifically demand a legitimate-born princess?”

Lin Fei was taken aback. “How could that possibly be?”

Indeed — how could any of the women deep in the palace, surrounded by songs and dances and prosperity on every side, have imagined that the mighty Da Zhao dynasty had already been brought so low that it would need to offer its Empress-born legitimate princess in a political marriage?

Or rather — that the Emperor and the central court had been brought so low.

“How could it not be possible?” Xie Yuzhang countered.

“Da Zhao commands six hundred thousand troops…”

“You yourself said today that no one knows the true number of the court’s military force anymore. I would guess that even Father and your grandfather did not know for certain.”

Lin Fei faltered, then argued: “Even so, there are three military governors holding the north. Their armies are no mere decoration. What fear is there of any barbarian state?”

“What if what Father fears…” Xie Yuzhang asked quietly, “is the military governors themselves?”

Lin Fei’s expression changed entirely. She lowered her voice. “Your Highness — just what have you heard?”

In all this world, if there was anyone who had remained by her side from beginning to end, never leaving, it was Lin Shi Fei Niang.

Lin Fei was three years older than Xie Yuzhang, and had been her reading companion — the eldest among all the reading companions. In the old days when everything had been peaceful and serene, Xie Yuzhang had not been particularly close to Lin Fei in particular.

Among all the companions, she had been the quietest one, not the sort to press forward and draw Xie Yuzhang’s attention. Xie Yuzhang’s focus was always drawn away to those who were more spirited and lively.

Then one day, the entire Lin Family was convicted of crimes.

Lin Fei’s grandfather died crashing his head against a pillar in the throne hall. Her father was thrown into prison and dead within days. Her uncle who held an official post in another city, and her elder brother and cousins away on their studies, all received word and immediately went into hiding and fled.

The Lin Family members remaining in the capital bore the brunt of it — the men condemned to execution, the women sentenced to be sent to the frontier armies as camp entertainers.

Chancellor Zhang’s methods, one could not say, were anything less than vicious.

Some people — when they are present, they are too quiet, and you do not notice them. Only when you lose them do you suddenly realize all they were worth.

After Lin Fei disappeared from Xie Yuzhang’s side for a while, Xie Yuzhang only gradually noticed the sense of discomfort and unease — and traced it back to Lin Fei’s departure.

That person was quiet, but meticulous. She did not contend for anything, yet she attended to everything. All those unobtrusive acts of care, all the quiet, invisible guidance — over those years in the palace, she had helped Xie Yuzhang avoid many a mistake without making a show of it.

Xie Yuzhang knew the Lin Family had met with disaster, but had not imagined the Zhang Family would strike so brutally. It was only when she heard Chancellor Zhang’s granddaughter, Zhang Fen, say to someone: “She was always one step ahead of me — let’s see how she enjoys that filthy place she is going to” that Xie Yuzhang learned what had become of Lin Fei.

Zhang Fen was also one of her reading companions, always saccharine-sweet to her face and endlessly calling Lin Fei “Elder Sister” — but behind her back, she wore a face like this. Xie Yuzhang was utterly disgusted.

At the time, Xie Yuzhang had been so furious she had lashed out with the riding crop in her hand at Zhang Fen — though of course she was not truly that cruel; the crop had only come down on Zhang Fen’s arm.

And then she said: “Go home after this. You are no longer my reading companion.”

Later, after her tendon was severed, her ankle would ache whenever it rained. Empress Zhang would always choose days like those to summon her to the palace.

But all of that was for another time.

She dropped the crop and barged into Zichen Hall to beg the Emperor to pardon the Lin Family.

She had been too foolish then, acting without thinking — she barged in and begged for the pardon of “the Lin Family.” The Emperor could never have agreed to that.

She was reprimanded and driven out. She learned from an attendant that the Lin Family’s women were being sent away that very same day. Acting on impulse, she mounted her little horse — White Hooves on a Snow Field — and galloped outside the city walls, pulling Lin Fei out from the column of prisoners.

Lin Fei’s mother knelt on the ground and knocked her head in kowtow before her. “I entrust my daughter to Your Highness!”

Later, Lin Fei’s mother took her own life on the road.

Xie Yuzhang brought Lin Fei back to the palace. The Emperor reprimanded her and confined her to her quarters for half a month, but never again mentioned what should be done with Lin Fei. That was his tacit permission for Lin Fei to remain at her side — though whenever Xie Yuzhang tried to have Lin Fei’s lowly-status mark removed from her name, the Emperor refused.

And so Lin Fei stayed.

She followed Xie Yuzhang all the way — from the deep palace, to the barren desert, to the endless steppe, drifting through the tents of the barbarian khans — and survived to come back to Yunjing with her.

When Xie Yuzhang died, it was Lin Fei who kept vigil at her side, Lin Fei who held her hand to the very last, and never let go.

Now Xie Yuzhang sat up. The two women faced each other in the dimly lit bed canopy.

“Ah-Fei,” Xie Yuzhang said, “do not ask me how I know. I am only asking you this: before long, Father will be sending me to Mobei Khanate in a political marriage. What… should I do?”