Once they entered Hexi territory, Li Gu was always nearby, yet Xie Yuzhang had no opportunity to interact with him.

Li Gu also kept staying a step behind Li Qi at all times, speaking little and leaving every chance to speak to Li Qi. Yet the two hundred men he had brought with him gave those from Yunjing an enormous shock.

While on the march, aside from the sound of hoofbeats, not even a cough could be heard. Discipline was iron-strict, commands were obeyed instantly, and the two hundred men moved as one unified body, like a single person.

After settling in at the post station, the Fifth Prince clicked his tongue in admiration before Xie Yuzhang. “Look at that — Li the Eleventh was so quiet and unassuming back in Yunjing, seemed like a perfectly honest fellow. Yet I hear that when he kills in Hexi, he never shows mercy. And then look at Li Si Lang’s men — nowhere near the same level.”

“That’s the Flying Tiger Army, isn’t it?” Xie Yuzhang said.

The Fifth Prince looked surprised. “How did you know? That is indeed what they’re called — I found out by asking around.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “I heard it from Second Brother.”

It was quite plausible that Xie Yuzhang had heard it from Yang Huaishen, given that she was close to her maternal relatives and Yang Huaishen had been on close terms with Li the Eleventh.

The Fifth Prince said, “You couldn’t tell back in Yunjing, but this Li the Eleventh is a fearsome killing general.”

As he spoke, his eyes flickered with a hint of scheming calculation.

Xie Yuzhang said nothing. She had not known before that this fifth brother of hers was so easily read.

Great ambitions with meager ability — and unaware of his own insufficiency.

When the Crown Prince later drowned drunk in the garden pond of the Marquis Xiaoyao’s estate, and those people in the south were choosing among the surviving princes — had they chosen him precisely because he was so transparent and easy to control?

But the Fifth Prince had reminded her of something. Even if she could not conveniently seek contact with Li Gu herself, she had other means.

She sent someone to invite Li Gu to come.

Li Gu was with Li Qi at the time. Upon hearing that the Princess had summoned him, his expression betrayed no particular reaction, but Li Qi shot him a sideways glance. Constrained by the presence of the maidservant, he could not ask directly, and had no choice but to let him go.

The maidservant was meant to lead Li Gu along the way, but this General Li was tall with long legs and walked at a swift, determined pace. She found herself having to half-jog to keep up, and was still slightly out of breath when she went in to announce his arrival.

Li Gu entered the room and was met with a wave of warmth.

This was the finest room in the entire post station, prepared many days in advance in anticipation of the Princess’s arrival — Li Gu himself had come to inspect it. Yet now it had been entirely transformed.

Bed curtains, decorative screens, warming braziers, tea sets, cushions — every single item had been replaced with things Xie Yuzhang had brought with her. All of it exquisite, all of it refined and elegant, and carrying about it a soft, gentle warmth particular to women.

In that instant, Li Gu suddenly realized — this warmth washing over him was Xie Yuzhang’s life.

Yes. A person like her, Li Gu thought, was precisely the kind who was meant to live this sort of exquisitely beautiful life, the kind that made a person instinctively tread carefully upon entering — she was someone meant to be cradled in the palm of another’s hand, cherished and adored, tended to with the utmost care.

Yet someone like her was about to go to that old cur Ashina.

Xie Yuzhang could not understand why Li Gu’s expression was so cold and hard. He had come in from outside carrying an aura of icy severity that had shattered the warm, languid atmosphere so carefully coaxed into the room.

Standing there, he clashed with everything in the room — with her — utterly and completely.

Two people from entirely different worlds.

“Shiyi Lang.” She called to him with a smile at the corners of her lips. “Why do you look unhappy to see me?”

Li Gu stiffened and said stiffly, “Your Highness is teasing.”

Xie Yuzhang pressed her lips together and smiled, making clear she had indeed been teasing. “Come, sit.” She raised her hand to gesture.

In Hexi, many customs and habits of daily life were quite different from those in Yunjing, with a strong northern tribal influence. The furniture at the post station was largely high tables and northern-style stools.

Li Gu walked over and sat down at the seat below Xie Yuzhang’s position. “What matter has Your Highness summoned this subordinate for?”

Xie Yuzhang found, to her own surprise, that she rather enjoyed watching Li Gu in this tense, guarded state before her. When Li Gu was tense like this, she felt herself relaxing slightly.

This was probably what was meant by: when one side advances, the other retreats.

“The north is truly so cold,” Xie Yuzhang began, opening a topic of conversation. “Traveling all this way, I feel the cold seeping in sharply — it’s different from Yunjing, where the cold comes on gradually.”

It sounded entirely like idle conversation. She had come to an unfamiliar place and run into someone she once knew — perhaps she instinctively felt a closeness to him? The tight coil of Li Gu’s nerves eased slightly, and he followed her lead. “Even in summer, it’s not as hot here as it is in the capital. Your Highness has just arrived — you will gradually grow accustomed to it.”

“I’ll have no choice but to grow accustomed to it,” Xie Yuzhang said. “After all, from now on, the north is where I will make my long-term home.”

Li Gu glanced at her. Her expression was tranquil, her brow untroubled by sorrow. Li Gu could not say what it was he felt inside.

No violent emotion — more of a dull, slow ache.

“This subordinate is often stationed at the frontier. Should Your Highness need anything in the future, you may send word,” he said suddenly.

No grand declarations — spoken as casually as an offhand remark in conversation. Yet it gave Xie Yuzhang an inward start. Was Li Gu… hinting at something?

Xie Yuzhang dared not presume, could not be certain. She lowered her head and then raised it again, her expression restored to composure. She asked him: “From here, how much longer do I have to travel?”

If Li Gu were leading troops on a swift cavalry march, he could make it in ten days. But Xie Yuzhang’s convoy was laden with heavy provisions, and included women, young children, and even a small number of elderly. Li Gu estimated based on the pace she had traveled from Yunjing to Hexi and said, “Approximately another month and a half.”

Xie Yuzhang’s eyes did not blink. “Will Shiyi Lang escort me?”

The air around Li Gu seemed to solidify for an instant, but he replied immediately: “I do not yet know how Lord Li plans to arrange things.”

Xie Yuzhang sighed.

Li Gu paused, then asked: “Does Your Highness have something that troubles you?”

“The matter I mentioned before — my escort unit,” Xie Yuzhang said. “There is one man I trust greatly, and I have promoted him to the deputy position within the escort unit. But his highest previous rank was that of a squad leader. For detailed tasks he is thoroughly reliable, but having him manage five hundred men — I always feel there is something lacking. My thought was, if Shiyi Lang were to escort me the whole way, might you guide him a little along the road?”

As she spoke, Xie Yuzhang’s clear, bright eyes rested on Li Gu, her snowy white teeth resting lightly against her lower lip.

A look of disappointment and wistfulness — yet even that appeared delicate and soft, enough to stir a feeling of tenderness in anyone who saw it.

Several breaths passed before Li Gu said: “If Your Highness trusts this subordinate, then let this person follow alongside me for as long as we are on the road together — every day counts.”

Xie Yuzhang immediately let a smile bloom in her eyes, and said to the maidservant beside her: “Go and call Wang Shitou to come meet General Li.”

The maidservant acknowledged the order and left.

But Li Gu’s gaze had fallen on Xie Yuzhang’s lower leg — as Xie Yuzhang turned to speak with the maidservant, her hem shifted, and from above the cuff of her deerskin boot, a short length of a jet-black knife handle was visible.

It was the very knife he had given Xie Yuzhang.

Then his line of sight was suddenly blocked — Xie Yuzhang’s hand had gently smoothed out the folds of fabric, straightened her hem, and covered the small, delicate boot once more.

The young woman’s gaze rested on her own knee, her slender white fingers smoothing over the already perfectly smooth brocade — not once raising her eyes to look at him. Yet Li Gu clearly sensed that the temperature of the air in the room had indeed changed.

An indescribable, chaotic warmth was diffusing through the air.

Something strange and wordless seemed to have passed between them — an unspoken understanding.

This peculiar feeling arose and lingered for only a single moment before Li Gu forcibly reined his thoughts back in, and asked in a measured voice: “What is this man’s background? Why is it that, being only a squad leader, Your Highness considers him ‘trustworthy’?”

It was not that he was suspicious by nature — it was simply that the gap between a squad leader’s station and that of a legitimate princess raised in the depths of the palace was far too vast. Xie Yuzhang was still young, raised in the inner palace — how many men had she ever encountered? The five hundred guards were what she would have to rely on once she was out on the frontier. If someone were to coax her into handing over command of the troops, the consequences would be deeply troubling.

But Xie Yuzhang seemed to understand his concern. She was not the only one who had questioned how Wang Shitou had come to catch her eye. She nodded and said: “This man has a connection to the Duke of Xun’s estate, and is utterly reliable.”

With that explanation, Li Gu’s doubts were indeed resolved.

“Shiyi Lang,” Xie Yuzhang raised another matter. “The Emperor and the Khanate have agreed this time to restore the trade monitoring posts and rebuild the controlled markets. When that happens, will I be able to regularly hear news from Yunjing? And might I also be able to exchange letters with you from time to time?”

She asked this with a seemingly earnest air, while inwardly knowing that Li Ming had always stalled and delayed on this matter, and had never seen it completed even until his death.

As a peace-offering princess, she had not been able to bring Mobei the kind of swift and tangible benefits that the legendary Princess Shanqi of a hundred years ago had delivered. Naturally she would not be loved and celebrated by the northern tribes the way Princess Shanqi was said to have been.

Without the court-sanctioned trading posts, all border commerce was controlled by smugglers. The largest smugglers in the northwest were the Li family themselves.

This was an open secret. Li Gu, as an insider and a beneficiary of this arrangement, understood it more clearly than most.

The earnest hope shining from the young woman before him could not be realized.

“Even if the controlled markets are not established, there will always be some daring souls who defy the prohibition and move between the two sides, trading goods,” Li Gu said. “They will certainly carry some news along with them. If Your Highness ever has a need, you may also pass word through them. On this side of the border… everyone knows me.”

The promise he was giving her was concealed within what sounded like ordinary words. Had Xie Yuzhang not lived this life twice over, she likely would never have heard what lay beneath them.

Her original intent had been nothing more than to gauge what she understood of Li Gu’s later character — to appear a little pitiful before him, to draw his sympathy, and deepen her impression upon him.

She had not expected him to actually promise… that if she ever needed anything, she could come to him.

Xie Yuzhang was stunned.

In her previous life — why had she not encountered him at this moment? If she had been able to receive these words from him at this time, perhaps she would have found the courage to flee the Khan’s tent and find her way home.

But in that life, Da Zhao had fallen. Without a country, without a home, there was nowhere she could return to. She could only cower and tremble inside the Khan’s tent, weeping for the life that had collapsed around her step by step.

Wiping away her tears, then turning to offer the man who possessed her a seductive smile.

And yet — how had she dared, later on, to refuse Li Gu?

That time, she had paid her respects to Empress Zhang, been put through the customary ordeal for a very long time, and was finally released. The inner court attendant led her away, with two palace maids following behind.

And in the long corridor, she came upon Li Gu without expecting to.

What had he been standing there for? Gazing at the courtyard?

Only Fuchun was with him. Always hunched over slightly, which made his own tall frame appear even taller by comparison.

They bowed to Li Gu. Li Gu asked: just coming from the Empress’s quarters?

She said: yes.

Li Gu asked again: on your way back now?

She said: yes.

She did not dare say a single word more.

Li Gu was silent for a moment, then said: go on, then.

With the Emperor standing there, immovable as a mountain, they could only lower their heads, bow their bodies, and inch carefully past him.

They had barely passed by when she had just let herself breathe again — and then Li Gu suddenly reached out and caught her wrist, pulling her to a stop.

In that moment, the blood in her body seemed to freeze solid.

No one dared raise their head. No one dared steal even a glance.

The attendant bent low at the waist. The palace maids gathered up their skirts. Every single person became a wooden carving, not daring to move a muscle.

Even now, Xie Yuzhang could still recall the burning heat of her wrist being gripped in that moment.

Yet in such circumstances, with the Emperor having made his intentions perfectly clear, she had refused him with silence.

How had she been so bold?

Xie Yuzhang could not help but acknowledge something to herself inwardly.

Human nature truly is intimidated by strength and emboldened by weakness.

She would never have dared refuse Xia’erdan or Wuwei. Both of them were wolves — one nakedly ferocious, the other seemingly gentle. Had she refused them, she would have been torn apart and left bleeding, perhaps not even keeping her life.

But Li Gu?

Li Gu, who had unified the realm under heaven, was of course far more powerful than Xia’erdan and Wuwei combined.

Yet somewhere inside Xie Yuzhang… she did not fear him.

A woman’s intuition is too precise. In those rare, fleeting moments when her gaze had met Li Gu’s, though she could also sense in his eyes the warmth particular to a man looking at her — it was different from the naked, greedy hunger in Xia’erdan’s and Wuwei’s eyes. The warmth in Li Gu’s eyes was restrained. Proud.

And within that warmth, Xie Yuzhang had detected, with sharper perception, something that neither Xia’erdan nor Wuwei had ever shown — a thread of tender pity.

A powerful man, feeling compassion for a powerless woman.

It was this single thread of pity that had given Xie Yuzhang the courage to refuse him in silence.

And he had indeed been proud. After being refused, he had said nothing beyond “you are too thin,” and then calmly let go of her hand — no persistence, no taking by force.

He had let her go.

And it was this same thread of pity that, at this very moment, Xie Yuzhang wished to obtain from the young Li Gu before her — or rather, to say it plainly… to deceive from him.