Li Gu gave Xie Yuzhang a mountain retreat in the Western Hills. Xie Yuzhang moved in, bringing Jia You and Lin Fei with her.

On the night of the nineteenth day of the sixth month, Li Gu arrived.

Lin Fei was not surprised. The following day was the ten-day rest day, and from Yunjing to the Western Hills was no more than an hour on a fast horse. Li Gu was who he was — a man who in the Hexi region had carried out rapid strikes over thousands of li for days and nights on end. A distance like this would likely take him less than an hour.

She told him, “She just finished dinner and is in the garden.”

Li Gu asked, “Why so late?”

Lin Fei said, “She had no appetite during the day.”

Li Gu asked, “What did she eat?”

Lin Fei said, “Only a bowl of lotus leaf congee and a few light side dishes.”

Li Gu frowned but did not immediately go to see Xie Yuzhang. He said, “Let me wash up first.”

He had ridden horseback to get here, and he was covered in road dust.

Lin Fei immediately made arrangements. By the time he went to find Xie Yuzhang, he was clean and refreshed.

Xie Yuzhang was lying on a reclining chair under the banana trees, half-asleep, half-awake.

When she was startled awake and opened her eyes to see Li Gu, she paused for only a moment and then sighed, asking, “Have you eaten dinner?”

Li Gu sat down nearby. “I ate on the road.”

Xie Yuzhang sighed again and called a maid over. “Go and ask Commander Hu and the others what they would like to eat, and have the kitchen prepare it. And bring a bowl of congee — lotus leaf congee is fine, easy on the stomach. Some light dishes as well.”

Li Gu said, “There is no need.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “What could one eat on the road? Nothing but dried provisions.”

Li Gu said, “I brought flatbread and cured meat.”

Flatbread and cured meat would be quite decent for an ordinary person; on a military march, it would count as a good meal.

But he was the Emperor, and for an Emperor, the meal was plain enough that Xie Yuzhang could not stop sighing.

Li Gu said, “Why do you keep sighing?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “I am perfectly fine here. You need not worry about me.”

Li Gu thought of how she had been lying in the reclining chair a moment ago, half-asleep — the way an old woman with white hair might doze through the day, listless and without spirit. His eyes were written full of disbelief.

Xie Yuzhang could only tell him, “Truly, there is nothing wrong. I have been through a great deal, and much of it was not easier than this time — yet all of it passed.”

Li Gu heard this and felt a pang of bittersweetness.

Xie Yuzhang had no way of telling him that her life had spanned two lifetimes, that she had witnessed rivers of blood flow through Xie Family Village. No matter what, this life could not be said to be worse than the last. Over these past few days in the Western Hills, she had gradually been recovering herself.

“It is only that for the moment I do not know what I ought to be doing,” she said. “Before, I always knew clearly what I should do, what I had to do. Even for things I disliked doing, I told myself I had to do them properly — and do them very well.”

Li Gu was silent for a moment and asked, “What kinds of things did you dislike doing?”

Xie Yuzhang smiled but said nothing.

Li Gu’s gaze dimmed slightly. He asked, “Does that include me?”

Xie Yuzhang swayed her round fan gently and said, “At first, it included you.”

Li Gu asked, “At first?”

“Yes,” said Xie Yuzhang, her tone reflective. “When I returned to Yunjing and saw this person, he was not quite what I remembered. He had come to resemble those men on the grasslands instead — sitting in a high position, able to give me beautiful clothes and pearls and jewels, and so naturally feeling entitled to hold me in his arms and have me undress for him.”

This was blunt enough that even Li Gu, with all his composure, felt the back of his neck grow warm. Because her account of his mindset at the time was a fairly accurate portrait of it. He managed to hold firm and say, “You were the one who threw yourself at me first.”

Xie Yuzhang hid half her face behind her round fan. “Yes, but the clothes for me to take off had been laid out and ready in advance. I spent the whole walk over to see him working up my emotions. And I must say — looking back, my performance on that day was truly quite good.”

On that day Xie Yuzhang had played Li Gu completely, turning him around in the palm of her hand. Thinking back on it, the warmth on the back of Li Gu’s neck grew worse.

Xie Yuzhang let out a quiet laugh. Her fingernail traced the stiff edge of the fan, following the curve of it slowly, lazily, and drawled, “As for me — I had been navigating men since I was fourteen years old. When it comes to men, I probably understand them a little better than the women in your harem. So I often used these little tricks to keep you dangling, yet never gave in to you. The truth is that I always feared there might come a day when Xiaoyao Marquis Manor needed saving, and I thought — when that day comes, I will surrender myself to you then. After all, I had nothing else left to offer you in exchange.”

Li Gu felt a pang in his chest. “And afterward?” he asked.

“Afterward… well, as you said — heart given for heart?” Xie Yuzhang replied. “That night when you sat across from me, I only wanted to cry. By the time it came to it, I realized what a fool I had been — I knew full well you would never do the wrong thing simply because I offered myself and flattered you. I also knew that if I spoke those words, I would be insulting both myself and you. In the end, I could not bring myself to say it.”

She raised her eyes, unhurried and languid. “But since I could not say it that night, do not expect to ever hear those words from me again.”

Li Gu said, “I hope you never say them for the rest of your life.”

“No need for the rest of my life,” said Xie Yuzhang. “I am turning twenty-four with the next birthday. In a few more years, my looks will fade. Your harem is full of new faces — girls who enter the palace at fifteen or sixteen, tender and fresh in their youth. Someone like me will naturally become the past. Only you are a man of deep feeling, and we have come to know each other well — you would not be unkind to me, in all likelihood. I would enjoy the treatment of a princess, clothed and fed without worry, exempt from kneeling before others, and I imagine I would go on living quite contentedly.”

Come to know each other well — four words that left something within him both stung and soft at once.

Was this the “future” she wanted? Something so simple it could be easily arranged.

Yet Li Gu’s throat and eyes both felt a kind of tightness, and that one word of agreement simply would not come.

Xie Yuzhang swayed her fan and waited for him.

Nothing came. The congee arrived instead.

A lotus-petal bowl of carved white jade, a cool and clear green lotus leaf congee — refreshing to look at.

Li Gu picked it up, and without bothering with the spoon, tilted the small bowl back and drank it down in two or three mouthfuls. He set the bowl aside, waved off the side dishes, and dismissed the maids.

He turned away from this topic and asked instead, “How long do you plan to stay here?”

After all, he was not willing to give her a clear answer. The words he had spoken had to be kept.

Xie Yuzhang turned the question back on him. “When will the hunt be this year?”

Li Gu said, “Autumn, I expect.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “Still so late again this year?”

Li Gu said, “Too many people — they would disturb you.”

Whether the imperial hunt was held in summer or in autumn, the moment the Emperor arrived, the noble families of Yunjing would all come streaming after him. The Western Hills would suddenly become as noisy as a busy marketplace.

Right now, Xie Yuzhang genuinely did not want to be disturbed by anyone. She accepted the Emperor’s thoughtfulness and said, “Very well.”

But she had similarly given no answer as to how long she intended to stay in the Western Hills. She simply swayed her fan and asked instead, “Will you be staying here tonight?”

Li Gu said, “I rode for over an hour to get here. Going back now, in the dark, on mountain roads at night — the footing is not safe for a horse.”

Without quite knowing when it had happened, this man had become very skilled at expressing himself.

Xie Yuzhang swayed her fan and said, “Understood.”

Li Gu was entirely satisfied with this answer.

Li Gu had formed the habit of early rising from long years of attending morning court. The next morning, he woke before dawn, knowing Xie Yuzhang would certainly not be awake this early. He spent some time in the courtyard going through a few sets of fist forms and doing his morning exercises.

When he came back and cleaned up and asked, Xie Yuzhang was already awake. He looked at the sky — it was still early — and knew at once that she had risen early because of him.

By the time he arrived, Xie Yuzhang’s main hall already had bowls and chopsticks being laid out.

Two congees, four types of wheaten refreshments, eight small side dishes. The portions were all small, but everything was finely prepared.

Xie Yuzhang had anticipated he would come. She was seated at the side position, leaving the main seat for him. When he came in, she looked up and said, “Come and eat.”

The scene had a familiar quality, as though he had lived it somewhere before. Li Gu walked over in something of a daze and sat down.

A maid ladled the congee and handed it over; Xie Yuzhang’s pair of slender white hands took it and set it in front of Li Gu. “Drink it slowly,” she said. “Do not down it in a few gulps like last night and miss all the flavor.”

Li Gu said “yes” and did indeed slow down.

When the meal was done, he asked, “What will you do during the day?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “Just walking in the garden.”

She was in mourning now, and in any case was in no position to engage in amusements. Descending the hill and continuing westward was the imperial hunting grounds, which was also off-limits at this time.

Li Gu said, “I will walk with you.”

The two of them walked side by side, slowly, at an unhurried pace.

Xie Yuzhang walked to the edge of the pond and pointed out to him, “That open pavilion facing the water has a beautiful view.”

When they walked over and went inside, it was spotlessly clean. Within the pavilion was a couch-platform; on the low table atop it, a chessboard; and hanging on the wall, a qin.

Xie Yuzhang got onto the couch platform and heated water for tea.

Li Gu had not been sent away yesterday and had shared an early meal with her today. Over the cups of tea, he grew ambitious and said, “I would like to hear you play the qin.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “Of course.” She did not refuse, for this was simply her daily way of life. These past several days had been spent in the Western Hills exactly this way — playing chess, brewing tea, playing the qin.

The maids cleared the chessboard from the table and set up the zither in its place.

Xie Yuzhang asked, “What would you like to hear?”

As she asked, she reached out her hands, and the maids moved to help her — one supporting her wrist, one drawing back her sleeve, one gently removing her jade bracelet.

Smooth and effortless, one motion flowing into the next. Her words, “What would you like to hear?”, had barely finished sounding.

Xie Yuzhang’s way of life was not one of extravagant splendor like Li Zhenzhen’s. It was refinement to the very bone.

Because she was a true princess.

Born of the central palace, of the highest bloodline.

The word “noble” was inscribed in her very blood.

Yet Li Gu thought also of how she had made herself agreeable to all the consorts in turn, managing every side with a deft and practiced ease.

She could speak the right language to any person. Whether it was Li Zhenzhen, or Deng Wanniang, or Cui Yingniang — not a single one of them said anything but good things about her.

From the moment she had returned to the Central Plains, he had given her the title of princess. He had always told her: with him here, no one would dare humiliate her.

Yet in truth — was it not he who had made her force her smiles and do the things she despised? Was it not he who had been humiliating her all along?