The Emperor was not, by nature, given to extravagance. He was not deliberately austere either — it was simply the way he was. And the dynasty had only been founded just over three years ago; there was still much left to be done, and his mind was not on leisure.

Yet as those above go, so those below follow. Not only did it cause the consorts of the inner palace to follow suit in diligence and frugality, but the nobles of Yunjing also did not dare to be too openly excessive.

Yet this year, there was a noticeable change. And indeed, it was a year of many joyous events, and the Emperor had loosened the reins just a little.

Riding on the victory of the northern frontier, the ministers proposed a summer hunt: “In spring, the hunt is called a search; in summer, a survey; in autumn, a drive; in winter, a pursuit. To go forth from the capital in all four seasons is to demonstrate martial spirit to all under heaven.”

But by the later period of the former Zhao dynasty, “demonstrating martial spirit to all under heaven” had long since become nothing more than a summer retreat.

The Xishan detached palace had been under renovation since the previous year, and had always been prepared for just such an occasion. The Emperor approved.

For Da Mu, it was the first time since the dynasty’s founding, and the nobles of Yunjing were instantly fired with excitement and enthusiasm.

But the northern frontier still had far too many loose ends to tie up — dividing the spoils of war, establishing territorial boundaries, pacifying the various tribes, separating the Ashina and Ashide clans, and opening the frontier trading markets. The instinct of merchants to chase profit was frankly astonishing — while Jiang Jingye was still fighting at the front, merchants from the northwest were already pressing forward on the heels of the imperial army.

With the imperial army having pacified Mobei, the ancient Silk Road that had flourished during the former Zhao’s martial and civil emperors would soon flow freely and unobstructed again, and merchants were scrambling over one another to seize the first share of the feast.

There was so much to be done that the hunt was delayed until the eighth month before it could finally take place. In the days before the departure, Consort Qin Zhaorong was found to be with child — yet another joyous occasion.

On a fine, clear, and breezy day, three thousand imperial guards with banners filling the sky escorted the Emperor and the nobles of Yunjing in a grand and sweeping procession to the Xishan hunting grounds.

The detached palace had long since been made ready to receive the imperial party. Many nobles had their own villas in the Xishan area, and family members took up residence in them. Those without villas had to make their own arrangements.

But the greatest honor of all was to be invited to reside in the detached palace itself alongside the Emperor — a privilege available only to a small few.

Xie Yuzhang was among them.

Deng Wanniang said to her, “Thanks to Huiniang’s condition, those who were scolding me have let up a little. The best thing would be if Manniang and Runiang could also fall pregnant soon. I did suggest to His Majesty that he bring them both along, but His Majesty would not permit it.”

As she spoke, she sighed.

Xie Yuzhang said, “You look at yourself — you know perfectly well what the right thing to do is.”

Deng Wanniang said, “Of course I know. It is just that what I ‘ought to do’ and what I ‘want to do’ do not align. What choice do I have?”

“Your courage really is extraordinary,” Xie Yuzhang said. “I only meant to comfort you at the time, and now I rather regret it. I worry that if something comes of it later, you will resent me.”

Deng Wanniang said, “Am I that sort of person? You may have comforted me, but the decision was my own.”

“When I was young, I was raised by my grandmother. She told me: do not envy men for riding freely through the streets and living as they please, for they must face the wind and the rain and hold up their families; and do not take secret comfort in a woman’s sheltered life within the inner quarters, for we do not hold the reins of our own fate.”

“In my youth and pride, I thought I had understood. I felt rather pleased with myself, as if I alone were sober while all the world was drunk. It was not until later, when the family married me to Li Shiyi — that man who had sent fear through every great clan in the western regions — as some makeshift equal wife, that I finally jolted awake and thought I had at last truly understood my grandmother’s words.”

“Then when Yan Yan was gone, and Hu Tou too, I felt as if I had woken from another long, confusing dream. Now when I look at anyone, they are not quite the same as before.”

Deng Wanniang said, “Your comfort was indeed one of the reasons I made up my mind — but another was watching Lady Zhang of the Marquis of Beirong. She made me realize that a woman can live this way. That she need not scheme and toil within the inner quarters, need not be gentle and deferential and restrained, need not let all of these things bind her true heart.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “She has her own foundation. And who knows what the future holds.”

Deng Wanniang said, “The reason women scheme and toil in the inner quarters is precisely to have a good ending in the future. But Lady Zhang made me see — if I am offered a choice between ‘the future’ and ‘right now,’ it is actually possible to choose ‘right now.’ Even if the future is not good, I will have lived fully in the present. This one life I have given expression to my own heart. That is enough.”

Xie Yuzhang sighed. “You also have your own foundation.”

Deng Wanniang gave a cold laugh. “My family is simply greedy. What is their situation now, compared to what they had back in the western regions? It is incomparably better. They have had a taste of sweetness and only want more. They gave birth to me and raised me, but I bent myself in marriage as an equal wife, and then was demoted from wife to concubine. That debt is paid. From here on, I only want to live for myself.”

“Say no more,” Xie Yuzhang said. “I am so envious I could bite someone.”

Deng Wanniang laughed. Then, when the laughter was done, she also sighed. She reached out and took Xie Yuzhang’s hand, and said with sympathy, “You — you have been caught on that one surname of yours.”

If only the Xie family had been even a common family of minor scholars, a woman of Xie Yuzhang’s character could have broken free of all of this and lived with the open sky before her. But the Xie family was the former dynasty’s imperial clan. Without one or two generations passing, there was no shedding that chain.

“What can be done about it? It is fate,” said Xie Yuzhang. “I only cannot let this fate defeat me.”

On the way back to her quarters, Xie Yuzhang was still filled with envy for Deng Wanniang.

Deng Wanniang’s family was secure, and she had found in Li Gu a worthy man — so she could follow her heart, and simply be willful.

The world did not permit women to be “jealous,” yet who could truly feel not a flicker of it when facing a beloved? Deng Wanniang followed her heart and had not urged the Emperor to hold a consort selection.

Li Zhenzhen, on the other hand, wanted more women to dilute the favor already distributed among the present consorts, and so it was she who petitioned the most often for the consort selection.

And Cui Ying — Cui Ying was different still. She held the rank of one of the Four Consorts, had borne the Emperor’s eldest son, and what she set her eyes on was far more than just favor within the inner palace. An excellent reputation for virtue and worthiness mattered more.

As for the three imperial attendants, Xie Yuzhang had been coming and going from the palace so often that she had come to understand Li Gu’s inner palace very well. The three attendants were certainly of birth no lower than Deng Wanniang and Cui Ying, yet they had come later, when Li Gu’s position was already established and his heart had already hardened. From the very beginning, Li Gu had held a clear and unwavering line within himself between wife and concubine. Even after Cui Ying and Deng Wanniang had both been demoted from wife to concubine, that line had never shifted. And if anything, Li Gu, out of a feeling of guilt, treated Cui Ying and Deng Wanniang with even greater indulgence.

The three attendants had never once been given the chance to step inside Li Gu’s heart.

Li Gu was an Emperor of warmth and lasting affection — and yet an Emperor’s feelings were, in the end, limited. Just as with any person: feelings are always finite, and can only be given to those one truly wishes to give them to.

Xie Yuzhang was walking back with her maidservants when she caught sight of a familiar face. She brightened at once. “Third Elder Brother Lin!”

Lin Zi was not alone — he was accompanied by others, all of them young men of talent and promise who had caught the Emperor’s eye and been given the honor of attending the detached palace. Among this group, however, he was naturally the most brilliant, luminous as fine jade and a flourishing orchid. Even so — when he heard Xie Yuzhang call out and turned to smile, one felt as though the very space within one’s chest had opened wide.

“Your Highness,” he called out.

Xie Yuzhang walked over and greeted the assembled men. “Gentlemen.”

The young men all returned the greeting. “Princess Yongning.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “Third Elder Brother is also in attendance?”

“Indeed I am,” Lin Zi said. “I received Your Highness’s gift — it was a genuine and wonderful surprise. I have been looking for an opportunity to see you in person to thank you.”

Just a couple of days before, Lin Zi had become engaged to a young woman of the Yan family from Luozhou. Upon hearing the news, Xie Yuzhang had sent a betrothal gift.

Xie Yuzhang was delighted. “Third Elder Brother need not be so formal. As long as Third Elder Brother likes it — I thought about it carefully, and felt this was something Third Elder Brother would surely like.”

Lin Zi smiled, and it was as though jade blossoms bloomed all at once. “I could not like it more.”

The beauty of these two, side by side, was truly dazzling. Those around them felt almost too self-conscious to draw near, and had an instinct to quietly step back.

Yet the two of them exchanged only a few words. He offered his thanks, she gave her courteous reply, and Princess Yongning smiled and took her leave — all of it entirely bright and unclouded.

A colleague could not resist asking, “Zhongxun, what gift did Princess Yongning send you?”

Lin Zi said, “Zheng Yingzhou’s ‘Night Banquet at Liu Wang.'”

There was an immediate sharp intake of breath all around. This was an ancient painting of priceless worth.

Lin Zi said, “It was from the Princess’s former dowry. She and my younger sister are as close as if they were born of the same family, so she does not stand on ceremony with me.”

Everyone knew the story between Lin Zi’s sister and Princess Yongning. Lin Zi’s sister was also betrothed to Yang Huaishen, the second son of Grand Counselor Yang and Princess Yongning’s cousin — which meant they would before long be genuine family.

This only deepened the admiration and envy that surrounded this “not standing on ceremony” betrothal gift. Everyone declared that once the summer hunt was over, they absolutely must go and view the painting. Lin Zi agreed to each of them with a warm smile.

Beyond Xishan lay a plain that had been enclosed as a royal hunting ground since the time of the former Zhao. On this day, the party rested in the detached palace, and the following morning descended the mountain to begin the hunt.

The heavens were cooperative — the weather that day was gloriously fine and bright. Banners beyond counting snapped in the wind, and pavilion after pavilion stretched into the distance.

Xie Yuzhang had a fleeting sensation, as if she had been transported back to the steppe, and then laughed at herself — this place was barely a day’s ride from Yunjing, and if one rode hard, it could be reached in an hour or two.

She urged her horse forward and headed first to where the women of the noble families had gathered.

For this hunt, Li Gu had brought from the inner palace only Li Zhenzhen and Deng Wanniang, who naturally became the center of everyone’s attention among the women present.

It was rather amusing, in a way. Deng Wanniang’s reputation of late had been quite poor. Men and women alike, if the subject of Li Gu’s inner palace arose, would inevitably find fault with her in a few words, and the Deng family had been reproached along with her.

Yet no matter what was said behind her back, in person — Pure Consort Deng, who had lost her child, actually drew more attention than ever before. Many noble ladies clustered around her.

The reasoning was actually quite simple. Consort Deng had dared to fall out with her own family, dared to oppose the consort selection, dared to publicly refuse to bear children — what was she relying on?

Everyone knew the answer, plain as a mirror — the Emperor.

In three years since his accession, it was the first time the Emperor had shown such unmistakable favoritism toward any woman. In the eyes of all present, Consort Deng’s loss of her child had turned misfortune into fortune — she had won the Emperor’s pity and was being treated with extraordinary indulgence. Her standing now even eclipsed that of Virtuous Consort Cui, who had the Emperor’s eldest son.

The Emperor was only in his twenties. Questions of crown princes and the succession were decades away. In the here and now, Consort Deng — even without a son — was the favored consort.

The county magistrate is more useful than the distant king. Whoever is favored now is the one who matters now.

Xie Yuzhang had come to find Deng Wanniang, but seeing the scene, she tactfully held back. After all, she had no particular needs or interests that required her to go fawn on the two consorts — let those opportunities go to others.

She caught Deng Wanniang’s eye from a distance, exchanged a look of greeting, then led her maidservants and guards directly toward the hunting party.

Someone saw this and said in surprise, “Is Princess Yongning joining the hunt today?”

Today was the first day of the summer hunt, with the Emperor leading the opening. Because of the great numbers involved and the grand scale of it all, the women of the noble families were not yet participating. Starting from the next day, they would be free to hunt at their own discretion.

Deng Wanniang smiled slightly and said, “She fought her way back from Mobei. She has seen and experienced things none of us have. A hunt is nothing compared to battle — it is no great matter for her.”

Li Zhenzhen also said admiringly, “Yongning rides so beautifully. She grew up here in Yunjing, and yet she puts even the daughters of the western military families to shame.”

With both consorts speaking well of Princess Yongning, those who had been about to say something sour quietly swallowed their words.

Princess Yongning was a tactful and well-connected figure. She was close with the women of the inner palace and enjoyed the Emperor’s indulgence. She herself was a bold and spirited woman who had shot someone with an arrow in the open street. It was truly better not to provoke her.

And so these noble ladies and young women watched as that group of elegantly dressed women on horseback rode out and joined the men.