Because a cold front was approaching, it had been agreed the previous day that the wedding would be held in the evening, and the camp would break by the following morning.

Xie Yuzhang woke early, and heard the noise outside — many people already bustling about, taking down tents and packing up.

She called a ladies’ maid in and asked first, “How is Wanxiu?”

“Not too bad — the cold helped, as did the ice and snow outside.” The ladies’ maid said, “We applied medicine last night. The general had us wrap ice in cloth and use it to bring down Wanxiu’s swelling — goodness, ice compress, not a warm one! We just checked her now, and it really is less swollen. It still doesn’t look right, though — her mouth corner is all split.”

“Tell her to rest for a few days and not move about.” Xie Yuzhang said.

The ladies’ maid answered and began to help Xie Yuzhang dress. Others brought water in and helped her wash up.

In the middle of all this, another ladies’ maid poked her head in from outside — nobility kept to strict rules, and even among ladies’ maids there were ranks: this one outside did not have the standing to report directly before Xie Yuzhang. The first ladies’ maid went over, listened as the one outside murmured in her ear, then returned to Xie Yuzhang’s side with an expression of hesitation.

“What is it?” Xie Yuzhang sat on the round stool, having her hair arranged by her hairdressing maid, and caught it in the bronze mirror. She asked.

“Lieutenant Wang and Squad Leader Qian are kneeling outside, saying they wish to beg the princess’s pardon for their failing.”

Xie Yuzhang’s eyes grew cool.

Last night, Wang Shitou had disappointed her greatly. She said evenly, “I see.”

Yet she did not say to let them rise, or to come in.

Xie Yuzhang had always been generous and gentle with those beneath her — such coldness and severity from her was rare. But what had happened last night had been truly frightening, and all the young women had taken no small shock. Wang Shitou and Qian Fugui were supposed to be standing guard outside to protect the princess and all of them, yet they had allowed that terrifying barbarian Khan to enter the tent.

The image of Wanxiu being sent flying to the ground with a single blow, spitting blood — even now, just to think of it was enough to make them tremble.

How had anything like this ever happened back in Zhaoxia Palace? Even when discipline was meted out in the inner palace, it was always quiet and soundless — making a person suffer without a sound. When had anything ever been this savage and brutal?

If not for the general arriving in time, who knew what that rude, savage Khan would have done to the princess. Too terrifying.

Xie Yuzhang would not open her mouth to let those two men rise, and not a single ladies’ maid said a word on their behalf.

Xie Yuzhang kept her gaze on her own reflection in the mirror, feeling both defeated and adrift inside.

Since her rebirth, she had been acting always on the memories of her previous life, relying on her foreknowledge of what was to come. Yet last night she had asked Li Gu how he happened to arrive in time. Li Gu had answered: he was already on his way back to camp when, halfway there, he grew uneasy in spirit and turned back on a whim.

And so last night’s escape from disaster had been purely by chance. Every arrangement she had made had completely failed.

Had she been wrong? Should she not have elevated Wang Shitou to this position simply on account of the feelings she carried from her previous life?

As it was now time to break camp and move on, the ladies’ maid had arranged Xie Yuzhang’s hair into a simple, neat style. Someone brought in her morning meal. Part of the ladies’ maids attended to Xie Yuzhang as she ate; the other part had already begun deftly packing up.

Xie Yuzhang had only just finished eating when a ladies’ maid announced, “Prince Shou and the Fifth Highness have arrived.”

Xie Yuzhang nodded, rinsed her mouth, rose, and a ladies’ maid lifted the curtain as she followed into the outer chamber.

“Baohua.” Prince Shou saw her come out, rose, and looked her up and down. Seeing that she was neat and composed, her expression as it should be, he let out a great breath of relief. “You’re unharmed — good.”

He said, “I only heard this morning that the Khan forced his way into your tent last night. Were you frightened? Ah — men are like this when they’ve had too much to drink. Don’t take it to heart.”

Prince Shou was, as ever, the master of smoothing everything over. As a man, how could he not know what had almost happened last night? But his mission on this journey was to deliver Xie Yuzhang into Ashina’s hands and see the marriage alliance through — naturally he could not allow a small incident like last night’s to ruin so great an affair as the alliance itself.

The Fifth Imperial Prince, however, was flushed with anger, saying loudly, “Those barbarians are truly outrageous! To do something so improper while we were all under the influence — shameless!”

“And what a shame I was drunk last night!” He slapped his hand against his thigh in regret. “Had I not been, I would have confronted him and driven him back then and there!”

Xie Yuzhang had only just sat down. At those words, her lashes trembled, and she raised her eyes. “Fifth Elder Brother was drunk last night?”

“Yes — you have no idea how strong the drink here is. They toasted us cup after cup.” The Fifth Imperial Prince glanced around evasively, then asked, “I heard the Khan struck a ladies’ maid last night? Which one was it? Mingqing? Or Yuexiang?”

It was as though a cold front had already arrived — Xie Yuzhang felt cold all the way to the bone.

She had not known that the Fifth Imperial Prince had been drinking plain water the entire evening, and had had no need at all for that bowl of sobering medicine from her. But she knew: once he had drunk that bowl, he could not have been drunk.

A sobering medicine worthy of being called a Grand Shaman’s secret, passed down through generations of the tribe, was not so for nothing. In Mobei, where men were given to drink but also to war, every banquet required the medicine on hand. Taken before drinking, it kept a person sober; taken after, it cleared the head within moments, and the person could mount a horse and fight.

Last night, Abazha had in fact been drunk — but when Wang Shitou went to find him, Abazha’s student had poured a bowl down his throat and he had cleared immediately. He’d been able to come here and handle Li Gu’s demands, and clean up after the Ashina Khan’s mess.

Yesterday, Xie Yuzhang had poured an entire thick bowl of the medicine down the Fifth Imperial Prince’s throat. It was his first time taking it — and the medicine works best the first time; not like some among the steppe people who have taken it so often it gradually loses effect. Having taken it before drinking, there was absolutely no way he could have been drunk.

His tent was right next to Xie Yuzhang’s. Even if he had gone to sleep, his guards and attendants would not have stood by without reporting the commotion and noise.

He had been awake. He had known what was happening on this side. And yet — he had not come.

The Fifth Imperial Prince was speaking, but Xie Yuzhang’s gaze was fixed on him in a way that was, for some inexplicable reason, unsettling. He had a guilty conscience to begin with, and now he was all the more ill at ease. He forced a smile and asked, “…Which one was it? Badly hurt?”

Xie Yuzhang would never have thought that the first time in her life she understood the feeling of “wanting to kill someone” — it would be aimed at her own elder brother.

She stared at the Fifth Imperial Prince’s handsome face.

This person, in later years, had abandoned them and implicated many others. And yet even so — after her rebirth, when Xie Yuzhang saw him again, it was only because at this time, in this place, he had been the only one who had not told Xie Yuzhang to swallow her grievances and bury her tears, not told her to accept her fate and bow her head and serve Ashina — that she had never been able to treat him as a stranger.

But it turned out — it turned out that at this very time, her dear, beloved elder brother had already abandoned her once, even without the excuse of being drunk.

Xie Yuzhang closed her eyes. A cold spread through her whole body.

The Fifth Imperial Prince sensed that something in Xie Yuzhang’s expression was off. He hesitated and called her, “Zhuzhu?”

Xie Yuzhang opened her eyes. Both dark pupils were like shards of ice.

“It was Wanxiu,” she said. “I sent Mingqing and Yuexiang to attend to her.”

Even Prince Shou could not help asking, “Is the injury serious?” He hadn’t seen the Khan kill anyone last night, but had heard about it this morning, and felt a lingering unease.

“Not too serious. She kept her life.” Xie Yuzhang inclined her head.

Her eyes remained fixed on the Fifth Imperial Prince. He felt, for no clear reason, a sudden chill.

The Fifth Imperial Prince did not know that from this moment on, in his younger sister Xie Yuzhang’s heart, he had already become a dead man.

“Dead” — such a thing might have been very remote and unfamiliar to the Princess Baohua who had been raised in Zhaoxia Palace, coddled and adored. To the Princess Baohua who had lived through the steppe — through many seasons of battles, separations, and deaths — it was not unfamiliar at all.

Had Xie Yuzhang been at the great banquet tent last night and seen the Khan kill a man with such brutality, she could have watched without blinking — she would not have retched the way the Fifth Imperial Prince had.

In her previous life, she had seen far too much of it.

The Fifth Imperial Prince felt profoundly uncomfortable in his younger sister’s presence today. He badly wanted to make his exit, but Prince Shou still seemed to have every intention of staying and consoling this young niece of his a while longer.

Unable to find an excuse to leave, the Fifth Imperial Prince made conversation for the sake of it, asking, “What’s all that about — those two people kneeling outside?”

Xie Yuzhang said evenly, “They were the ones on watch duty last night.”

The Fifth Imperial Prince understood, slapped his knee, and said with irritation, “So it was them! Truly useless fellows! Failing to protect their mistress — they deserve a thorough punishment!”

He paused, then added, “But don’t be too harsh — you’re far from home now, and you’ll still be depending on them. Strictness and kindness must be balanced…”

Prince Shou, as the Emperor’s full brother — and as someone who had survived comfortably and with dignity for so long largely because he held “doing nothing” as his guiding principle in life — even now, as this nephew of his, who had not even reached adulthood, held forth at length to this even younger niece about the art of “balancing strictness and kindness” in front of a full room of ladies’ maids without a shred of self-consciousness, even now, Prince Shou simply smiled his easy smile and kept his silence, never inserting a single word.

The Fifth Imperial Prince had barely said a few sentences before a ladies’ maid entered to announce, “The general and the National Preceptor have arrived.”

The Fifth Imperial Prince was startled. “Which general?”

The ladies’ maid said, “General Li.”

Xie Yuzhang had already noticed — from early morning, her ladies’ maids had been saying only “the general.” No name, no title, and yet every young woman in this tent knew exactly who was meant when someone said “the general” — it was General Li Gu.

Last night he had stood blocking the entrance to her inner chamber, his hand resting on his sword hilt. That image had been carved into the hearts of all the young women.

At this point, who still cared whether his clothing followed fashion, or whether his skin was fair enough? As long as he was here, they felt at ease.

Li Gu and Abazha entered together. Abazha, seeing Prince Shou and the Fifth Imperial Prince, felt his head begin to ache all over again. Prince Shou and the Fifth Imperial Prince, seeing Abazha, naturally wore expressions that were far from pleasant. After all — they were the family of the bride.

Abazha could not avoid yet another round of apologies and courtesies. He had strong slaves bring in several boxes, and said, “The Khan woke this morning and thought at once of these gifts he had yet to deliver to his beautiful new wife, and specially sent me to bring them to the princess.”

Those were the words he spoke. But everyone in the room understood perfectly — this was Ashina, now sober, offering Xie Yuzhang a gesture of atonement for the previous night.

Prince Shou was just about to say something appropriately conciliatory when Xie Yuzhang pursed her lips and said with displeasure, “I don’t want them! Tell him to come and apologize to my ladies’ maid!” And with that, she rose, flicked her sleeve, and withdrew into the inner chamber.

Prince Shou and the Fifth Imperial Prince were stunned.

Xie Yuzhang had always known how to charm and win the Emperor’s affections in his presence — yet in important settings and before outsiders, when had she ever acted so willfully and petulant? How was it that now, having married, she seemed to have gone backward?

How could the Overlord of the Steppe possibly apologize to a ladies’ maid — what an utterly unreasonable demand.

Abazha was unfamiliar with Xie Yuzhang and, seeing this display of an ignorant young girl’s temper, felt rather relieved. He smiled broadly and said, “It’s all the Khan’s fault — he drank too much and upset the Khatun. I’ll go back and have the Khan come and soothe her himself.”

Only Li Gu kept his gaze lowered and said nothing throughout.

After the tai chi of words had been performed and the air was restored to pleasant harmony, Prince Shou and the Fifth Imperial Prince accepted the Khan’s gifts of atonement on Xie Yuzhang’s behalf and saw Abazha to the tent entrance. Li Gu followed along behind them.

Once they were done, Prince Shou said to the ladies’ maid who had followed them out, “Do try to speak to Baohua — that is her husband. She should rein in her temper somewhat. We’ll be starting the return journey today, and after this there’ll be no one to stand behind her. Sigh.” He sighed.

The ladies’ maid only lowered her gaze and answered, “Yes.”

Prince Shou and the Fifth Imperial Prince turned to go. But Li Gu still stood before the tent entrance, unmovingly solid as a pillar. The Fifth Imperial Prince looked at him in bewilderment. “What are you standing there for?”

The ladies’ maid said quickly, “The princess still has something to discuss with the general.”

Li Gu clasped his hands in salute. “This officer begs to take his leave.” And with that, he turned and walked back in.

Prince Shou and the Fifth Imperial Prince exchanged a swift glance. Just as Wang Shitou had seen that Li Gu was drawn to Xie Yuzhang, Prince Shou and the Fifth Imperial Prince were not fools either — they had caught at least some sense of Li Gu’s feelings. What they didn’t know was what Xie Yuzhang felt toward him.

Whatever Xie Yuzhang might feel — within another hour or so, they would begin the return journey. This Li Gu, Li Fuchen, would head south with them, while Xie Yuzhang would continue north with the Ashina Khan, further and further north.

Whatever there was between them — they, as the ones who had escorted the bride, had already completed their mission in full. At this point, in this moment, neither of them had the slightest desire to reach out and involve themselves in Xie Yuzhang’s affairs and bring trouble on themselves.

The two men each gave a vague laugh, and with a mutual, wordless understanding, each returned to his own tent.

As for the two people still kneeling outside the tent entrance — neither of them spared them so much as a glance.

Xie Yuzhang heard Li Gu’s footsteps. Without waiting for a ladies’ maid to move, she lifted the inner chamber’s curtain herself and walked out.

Li Gu looked at her steadily. Xie Yuzhang’s expression was calm, her gaze clear — nothing at all of the willful and petulant manner from just a moment ago.

In adversity, people grow with uncommon swiftness. That innocent girl who had once danced in mid-step on the path before the Qiangliang Hall, as though she lived in the clouds, unaware of the hardships of the world below — she felt almost like a dream he had dreamed.

The Xie Yuzhang before him now was real — close enough to touch.