Many of the older residents of Yunjing still remembered how Princess Baohua used to look.

Yunjing had always had an open and free-spirited character. The noblewomen of the city loved to go out and about just as the young men did. They wore finely-tailored riding clothes, brought along maidservants and attendants and guards, and rode through the streets of Yunjing — a sight that was itself one of the many charms of the city.

In those days, if word went around that Princess Baohua was passing by, everyone would drop whatever they were doing and rush out to the street for a glimpse.

The shining jewel of Yunjing, beautiful as drifting clouds, would drift past before them with a smile.

If the horses of the inner guard accidentally knocked over a street vendor’s basket and damaged the goods, she would always stop and have her people make restitution, her face still carrying a smile — and in that smile, an apology.

Her smile — that smile was a witness to the boundless and splendid life of Yunjing.

And so when, all those years ago, this empress-born princess had been sent to the steppe people, some of the people of Yunjing had wept. Some old people said, “This is an ill omen.”

As it turned out, those words proved prophetic. Not two or three years after the princess departed for Mobei, Yunjing was plunged into blood and fire.

Only when the new emperor entered the city and the Da Mu dynasty was founded were the people of Yunjing finally freed from their suffering. The loved ones who had died could not be brought back. The hardships they had endured were now scars buried in their hearts — but gradually, little by little, they had recovered their vitality.

Then suddenly news arrived that the Da Mu emperor had defeated the Mobei Khanate. The royal army pushed north relentlessly, pressing the offensive against Khan Chuluo of the Tianshan, vowing to pacify the northern lands entirely.

Even more unexpected was this: the emperor was bringing Princess Baohua home.

In all the centuries of the Former Zhao dynasty, had a single one of the princesses sent to Mobei ever been able to return to her homeland and rest in native soil? It had never happened, not once.

The new dynasty was truly different!

The new emperor was truly a sovereign of great power!

From the day the news arrived, people had been waiting in anticipation — through the New Year, through the Lantern Festival — and finally this day had come. And on this particular day, they had been waiting since early morning. How many swift horses had ridden into the city since that morning alone to bring the news ahead.

Finally, people heard shouting in the streets: “Coming — she is almost here!”

Everyone dropped what they were doing and rushed out to the imperial avenue. Since the founding of the Da Mu dynasty, Yunjing had not once seen a sight of streets so completely emptied of people.

“Ah,” someone sighed. “I wonder what Princess Baohua looks like now.”

That one sentence gave voice to what was in everyone’s heart.

The girl who had once gazed in admiration at the princess’s beautiful skirts was now cradling one child and holding another by the hand, with yet another growing in her belly.

The young man who had dreamed of the princess’s face more times than he could count now bore the dust and weariness of years on his face, his youthful innocence long gone.

The old people who had lost sons and daughters and grandchildren in the chaos of war wept openly and said, “As long as she came back — as long as she could come back, that is all that matters.”

Such a delicate and beautiful little princess — no matter what misery she had endured in the lands of the barbarians, no matter what she looked like now, the fact that she had survived and returned to her homeland was already an extraordinary piece of fortune.

It seemed to suggest that they, too, like her, would from this point forward be settled and safe, no longer subject to suffering.

It truly made the heart feel at peace.

They waited a long while, and at last heard the rhythmic sound of hoofbeats.

First came the princess’s guard detail, clearing the way ahead.

The guard had been drawn from the capital garrison all those years ago, and people still remembered what they looked like then.

But the men who came back were different from before. They might not have been an elite fighting force, but the slack and careless look had long left their brows; in its place was the sharp vigilance honed on the steppe. Their skin was darker, their bodies more powerful, and their horsemanship — improved beyond measure.

Following behind them was the princess’s ceremonial procession.

The new emperor’s own princess was still a child and had not yet made any solo public appearances. No one could have imagined that the first person to have a princess’s ceremonial procession lead through the city under the Da Mu dynasty would be a princess of the Former Zhao.

These ceremonial articles were all bright and new, making it plain that not a single detail of this receiving ceremony had been treated with anything less than full sincerity.

When the entire procession had passed through the gate and nothing else immediately followed, those watching nearby could not help but hold their breath involuntarily, waiting for the princess’s carriage.

A moment later, there was no sound of carriage wheels — but instead, the crisp sound of a horse’s hoofbeats rang out, and a woman emerged from the shadows and appeared in the sunlight.

She had her eyes closed, her face tilted very slightly upward, as though savoring the sunlight for one instant — then she opened her eyes, and a pair of phoenix-tipped eyes swept over the crowd before fixing directly on the palace city in the distance.

Then she pressed her heels to her horse’s flanks and rode on ahead.

The imperial avenue fell utterly silent.

The countless onlookers could hear nothing but the sound of their own breathing.

All the chatter and guesses and sighs from before had gone quiet.

Before today, every person had wondered: what would Princess Baohua look like now? Each person’s imagination was perhaps different. A thousand people — a thousand different versions of Princess Baohua.

But no one had imagined that Princess Baohua, who had spent eight years on the steppe, had been married in succession to two Khans, and had passed through the fires of war and hardship — no one had imagined she would look like this.

The woman who emerged from the shadows rode a tall and powerful horse. Her fur-lined cape stirred in the breeze, and the slender line of her waist appeared and disappeared.

She sat with perfect posture, her spine straight as a ruler. Her eyes were like black gemstones, bright with luminous light.

Perhaps she was no longer innocent, no longer unaware of the world’s ways — but she had grown. She had split through wind and frost and blood and fire, and she had ridden her horse back to Yunjing.

Between her brows lay a composure that was open and vast, nothing like the dispirited and worn-down bearing people had imagined. The hardships that had ground away at her had been trampled into dust long ago; all they had left behind was a radiance that outshone all around her.

Behind her, a beautiful woman wore her hair in braids in the fashion of an unmarried girl, her expression cool and reserved, her bearing refined and graceful.

Close behind her came twelve riders, all women.

Every one of them was an unmarried young woman, their eyes dancing with curiosity. When they had left Yunjing as children, they had each been no more than seven or eight years old, and the city had grown genuinely unfamiliar to them.

Yet every one of them was full of spirit, her horsemanship polished and skilled, and from head to toe she radiated an exuberant and vigorous vitality.

Facing the awestruck crowd, the beautiful and dazzling princess gave a small smile and rode forward. The beautiful woman and the handmaidens followed with ease and composure.

A long time passed before the stillness of the gate was broken. In everyone’s ears came the sound of one long, drawn-out exhale after another — from themselves, from the people around them, from every single person there, regardless of age or sex.

The beautiful jewel of Yunjing had not been worn away by the years.

In the way that Princess Baohua had once stunned the steppe, so today she stunned Yunjing.

The wine houses lining both sides of the imperial avenue had been fully occupied since morning. The private rooms upstairs with windows facing the street had gone for several times their usual price today and were still impossible to find. Those guests were just as the crowds on the street below — when Xie Yuzhang passed by, every one of them was struck speechless by her appearance.

After a long while, someone slowly exhaled and remarked with admiration: “Both beautiful and wise.”

The person beside him asked, puzzled, “How so?”

The first person said, “She is wearing steppe dress.”

Not only Princess Baohua, but she and every woman behind her were all wearing steppe garments.

Someone objected, “Does she no longer wish to be a woman of the Central Plains?”

The first person said, “No — she simply no longer wishes to be the person she once was.”

Someone suddenly understood, and struck his palm with his fist. “Of course!”

Seeing the uncomprehending looks from those around him, he smiled and explained: “This princess has come in steppe dress — meaning she departed in accordance with her husband and returns in the capacity of a Mobei Khan’s consort. What she is doing is… casting off the identity of a Zhao dynasty princess!”

Everyone understood at once. In that light, it made perfect sense, and no one could fault her for it.

She had rendered such great service besides. From this day forward, she would make her way in the new dynasty on the strength of her own merit. Indeed, she no longer needed to live under the identity of “a Zhao princess.”

Only some could not help but say with a smile: “This Khan’s consort has a face that could overturn cities and nations — I wonder how the reigning emperor intends to settle her situation?”

In all those popular storytellers’ tales, the love and enmity between a fallen-dynasty princess and a new-dynasty emperor had always been the kind of thing that made people both eager and restless to hear more.

The Forbidden Palace.

Through one palace gate after another, Xie Yuzhang finally arrived before the Hanyuan Hall.

The Hanyuan Hall was immense and commanding, looking down over Yunjing from above. It was the place where the emperor held court and conducted affairs of state. On a day as fine as today, Xie Yuzhang stood below the steps and looked up, feeling that this great hall was even more magnificent than the memory she carried of it from before.

Hearing that succession of voices calling out “Receive—!”, Xie Yuzhang ascended the white marble steps, one at a time, each step perfectly steady.

She crossed the high threshold of the great hall. Countless gazes from the assembled civil and military officials turned toward her.

Xie Yuzhang looked at the man seated on the high imperial throne.

That man also looked at her.

They had traveled a thousand li. They had passed through the long years. She and he — at last — had met again.

But the man was different from the young man in her memory.

His face was harder than that young man’s, bearing evidence that he too had weathered wind and frost. His bearing and presence were not to be compared with that young man of former days.

Xie Yuzhang knew that the one seated upon the imperial throne was in truth a man she had known for many years — Li Gu, the founding emperor of the Da Mu dynasty.

She had crossed through her previous life and this one, and at last stood before this man again.

“Your servant,” Xie Yuzhang walked to the center of the hall and lifted the hem of her garment. “Mobei Khan’s consort, Ashina Xie of the Xie clan, pays her respects to His Imperial Majesty.”

As for that young man who had watched over her from the snowy ridge, who had stood guard before her tent to protect her.

……

Let it go. Just let it go.

The Khan’s consort who had returned from Mobei lowered her knees to the golden bricks of the great hall floor, raised her hands above her brows, bent her slender waist, and prostrated herself in a full bow —

“Ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand thousand years.”

Was that woman truly the person he held in his memory? Li Gu felt for a moment as though he were dreaming.

Just like every common person of Yunjing, he too held in his heart a one-and-only Princess Baohua, Xie Yuzhang.

But the moment this Xie Yuzhang — who named herself Ashina Xie of the Xie clan — walked into the great hall, the Xie Yuzhang in Li Gu’s heart became indistinct.

Clearly, he had remembered every smile and expression of hers from before with perfect clarity. Yet almost in an instant, that bright and gentle girl’s face rapidly blurred.

The moment she knelt, Li Gu wrenched himself free of this trance. He heard clearly the sound of chains shattering.

All these years, no matter how others feared him, no matter how they praised him, there had always been a voice inside Li Gu asking himself: Am I — strong enough yet?

Before his wives and concubines, he would ask himself: can I protect them and keep them safe their whole lives?

Before his soldiers and generals, he would ask himself: can I lead them all the way to final victory?

Even now, wearing dragon robes and seated in this vast and imposing palace looking down over Yunjing, he still could not be certain whether he was truly strong enough.

If he was — then why was that slight and slender girl still enduring hardship on the steppe?

Why was she still there, using her beauty to serve others?

These questions he asked of himself — it was hard to say when they had begun to wrap around him like chains, binding him fast. Time and again he struggled and could not break free, and in those moments he truly felt his own smallness.

But today, the moment the woman before him lowered her knees to the ground, Emperor Li Gu heard the chains snap and shatter.

He stared at the spine of the woman as she bowed herself down, and he rose to his feet.

With that rising, the chains that had bound him for so many years crackled and fell apart, piece by piece, scattering on the ground.

The emperor stood, and felt his body unburdened beyond anything he had known before, filled to the brim with strength.

He had brought her all the way back.

In that moment, he knew — he was indeed strong enough now to reign over all under Heaven.

The emperor looked at the woman prostrated in obeisance below, and said in a low and steady voice, “Rise.”

At those words, the woman rose with composure.

She stood, and lifted her face slightly — looking directly toward the imperial countenance. And giving the emperor the opportunity to look at her properly in return.

Compared with the dreamlike, misty quality of who she had been before, the woman before him seemed to have solidified into something more substantial.

Her face had changed somewhat. Her brows and eyes were open and clear, her pupils bright and luminous. As a girl she had already been a beauty beyond compare in the mortal world; having now grown to full maturity, the resolute steadiness between her brows and her fierce and brimming vitality were nothing like what he had imagined — but that did nothing to diminish her power to overwhelm cities and topple nations.

She — was Xie Yuzhang, beyond any doubt.