Fuchun had never imagined that one day he would die at the hands of Princess Baohua, Xie Yuzhang.

When the white silk cord wound around his neck, he cried out in terrified desperation, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Your Highness! This servant has never done anything to wrong you!”

That incident at the spring banquet in the fourth year of Kaiyuan did not count! Princess Baohua had clearly forgiven him for that! His very life and position had been preserved by her hand!

Xie Yuzhang gave a cold laugh. With a flick of her wrist, she sent something flying. It dropped to the floor, fell open, and unrolled.

The painting spread itself out before Fuchun.

The color drained from Fuchun’s face. Clawing at the silk cord around his neck, he wheezed, “That’s only — that’s only — Your Highness, please let me explain—”

Xie Yuzhang looked at him and said, “Did you truly think I would give you a third chance to sell me out?”

She glanced at the stocky eunuch gripping the white silk. The two eunuchs, receiving her silent command, pulled the cord tight—

Xie Yuzhang did not stay to watch Fuchun die. The contortions of a dying man held no interest for her.

She turned and walked out, coming to stand beneath the covered walkway.

The shadow of the eaves cut through the summer morning light. Xie Yuzhang stood within that shadow.

She had come so far along the path of this life that she had long since left her past existence behind, never looking back. She had not expected that one day she would reach back into those old memories and pull out yet another person who had to die.

How agonizing it had been when her tendons were severed.

Yet even reduced to such a state, even then, she had refused to become a dancer who performed for emperors and served as a plaything for their amusement. She had endured that agony willingly rather than be sent away by her own father.

Someone had presented an incomparably beautiful dancer to the Emperor, and the Emperor had said, she cannot compare to Princess Baohua of former years.

That Emperor had been Li Gu. Li Gu was not a man who spoke carelessly. Such a sentiment could only have escaped him in an unguarded private moment, heard only by the person closest to him.

So how had words so intimate reached the ears of the Marquis of Xiaoyao?

Who had it been? Who had whispered into her father’s ear that he should sell his daughter for advancement?

In the face of all the great matters and significant people Xie Yuzhang had been forced to confront after being reborn, this incident and this person had been utterly insignificant. With her position and power in this life, she had never thought to seek out whoever it had been.

Li Gu had told her he possessed a portrait of her, and he had said the same in their past life — that there was a portrait of Princess Baohua within the palace. Curiosity had stirred in Xie Yuzhang, and she had wanted to see it.

What she had seen instead was a brushwork style achingly familiar to her. The painter was accomplished in all the elegant arts to a degree that could only be called masterful.

On the painting there was also a signature: Yun Zhong Jun — Lord of the Clouds. The moment she saw that signature, something sliced through her heart like a blade.

For the woman in the painting was her as she was now, fully grown. Li Gu had said it captured her likeness to perfection because the graceful, assured bearing in it was something only her present self possessed.

This painting had been made after her return. It was created in this very lifetime.

Standing beneath the covered walkway, Xie Yuzhang’s thoughts turned once more to that night when the Marquis of Xiaoyao’s household fell. Her father had begged her to go and plead with the Emperor.

He had said, you often enter the palace — does the Emperor favor you greatly?

Prince Shou, her uncle, had been too frightened to leave Xie Family Village for years. He and her father were born of the same mother and were truly very alike. Her father was equally fearful and had not left the Marquis of Xiaoyao’s residence in many years. He passed his days in a stupor of elixirs and pills — so from whom had he learned that she frequently entered the palace and was favored by the Emperor?

When Xie Yuzhang had seen this painting last night, everything from her past life and her present one had snapped together at last.

Someone had built their fortunes by selling her out, found the taste to their liking, and could not bring themselves to stop.

But since his life had once been preserved by her hand, it was now time for her to take it back.

In his final moments, images from years long past flashed through Fuchun’s mind — vigorous young generals, a beautiful princess.

How good the Princess had been to him. She had not taken him to Mobei and had given him gold instead. In his heart at that time, she had truly seemed the embodiment of all that was beautiful in the world. He had even set up a longevity tablet for her. Only when a bunkmate saw it and mocked him mercilessly had he finally put it away.

And yet how had things come to this?

He had not even done anything yet. The Marquis of Xiaoyao’s household had collapsed before he could act — everything had unraveled before he had the chance.

How had it come to this?

His whole life — he had risen by Princess Baohua’s hand, and fallen… by Princess Baohua’s hand as well.

Liang Chen remained in the room and watched Fuchun die with his own eyes.

The two years of traps his godfather had laid for him, the hooks set and the deep pits dug in secret — all of it was over now. When a person dies, they dissipate like smoke. It was all over.

Liang Chen bent down and picked up the painting, slowly rolling it back up.

He walked out of the room and saw the Empress standing beneath the covered walkway, her beautiful face expressionless.

Liang Chen walked over and, bowing, said quietly, “He’s dead.”

“I know,” said Xie Yuzhang. “You may tell it as it was.”

Liang Chen did not raise his head. After a long moment, when he looked up again, the Empress had already left.

On the first day the Empress entered the palace, news of her loving bond with the Emperor spread throughout the inner palace.

On the second day, the head eunuch and chief steward of the inner court, Fuchun, died — and the cold ruthlessness she shared with the Emperor spread throughout the inner palace as well.

Everyone in the inner palace was filled with trepidation. The four Accomplished Ladies tucked themselves in further than ever and conducted themselves with extreme caution. The female officials and eunuchs attended to their duties with painstaking diligence, not daring to be negligent in the slightest.

Li Gu listened to Liang Chen’s straightforward account and was silent for a long while.

Liang Chen drew the painting from his sleeve. “Your Majesty?”

“Burn it,” Li Gu said.

However much he had once treasured this painting, he now detested it that same measure. He cursed himself for bringing it up before her without cause — even with the man already dead, he had made her suffer one more wound.

When Xie Yuzhang had been utterly spent in mind and spirit, swallowing her own feelings and desires, swallowing her own self-contempt, preparing to offer herself up like a commodity for the sake of the Marquis of Xiaoyao’s household’s survival — that very household had already been calculating her price.

What bitter irony.

Li Gu felt, in truth, that the fire that had burned that estate had been deeply satisfying.

For Xie Yuzhang, it must have been pure pain. But only by cutting away the rotting flesh of a wound could a person begin to truly heal.

Liang Chen went to find a brazier and burned the painting. Li Gu went to Danyang Palace.

Xie Yuzhang was reclining against a couch cushion and had already begun reviewing the various records and registers of the inner palace accumulated over these past years. The low table beside her was stacked with a thick pile of volumes — no fewer than the memorials that covered the writing desk in the Hall of Purple Light.

Li Gu paused, then walked over and sat down beside her. “Why are you reading these already? These past few days have been exhausting — rest a few days more before worrying about all this. There’s no urgency.”

Xie Yuzhang propped her chin on her hand and looked up at him. “Don’t wear me out too badly at night, and I won’t be tired.”

Li Gu laughed, pulled the register from her hand and tossed it back on the table, then lifted her onto his lap.

Xie Yuzhang said, “The inner court cannot be left without a chief eunuch steward. Appoint one as soon as possible.”

Li Gu said, “Liang Chen is young, but he’s steady and reliable. He can do it.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “He’s a good choice.”

Li Gu stroked her hand and was quiet for a moment, then said, “Yuzhang, I didn’t know.”

Xie Yuzhang waved her hand indifferently. “There’s no need to bring it up again. He’s been dead two years — I’m not grieved over it.”

But when she looked up and caught Li Gu’s expression, she let out a slow breath. She turned her hand over and gripped his, lowered her voice, and said, “He and I — perhaps our father-daughter bond was only ever meant to last those first fourteen years. What came after is best left unspoken.”

If only it were truly that simple. But remembering the summer night two years ago when she had knelt in plain mourning clothes, hair unbound, to beg forgiveness, Li Gu knew that what she said was not the whole truth.

Her grief was simply something she refused to speak aloud, because speaking it would only make the grief worse.

Li Gu held her hand and tightened his grip.

Xie Yuzhang rested her head against his chest. “I’m all right. Truly. You know what kind of person I am — stop treating me as though I might shatter at any moment. I still have family. I have two younger sisters, and they are both doing very well.”

The news that Xie Yuzhang’s other sister had been found before the wedding was a genuine joy.

Li Gu said, “Let me give your brother-in-law an honorary post.”

Xie Yuzhang refused on the spot. “No.”

She said, “People of humble origins who come suddenly into wealth and status often make a sorry spectacle of themselves — perfectly good people, changed beyond recognition. He was nothing but a woodcutter before. Now he’s clothed in silk and fed on fine food in my household. He has no cause for complaint. If he does have complaints, then he’s simply not worth much to begin with. Let us observe him first. If he turns out to be someone who can stand on his own two feet, with you as his imperial brother-in-law, is he going to lack for an official post?”

Li Gu agreed readily. “All right. Whatever you say.”

The weather was hot, and Xie Yuzhang had gone barefoot.

Li Gu took one of her small, white, delicate feet in his hands and idly stroked it. Her hands and feet were elegantly made; on the arch of her foot there was the faint mark of a bite.

Li Gu said, “Yuzhang, I plan to go south again this year.”

Xie Yuzhang had been trying to reclaim her foot, but at that she let it go and asked, “When?”

Li Gu said, “After the autumn harvest.”

A full year after the great southern victory, Li Gu was to campaign south once more.

He was a man of vast ambition, not content to hold only the land north of the river — what he wanted was the whole world.

Xie Yuzhang wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against his chest. “You will return in triumph. I’m certain of it.”

Li Gu’s thoughts turned to the fact that there were still several months before the campaign — it would be best if Xie Yuzhang were to become with child before then.

His hand thus moved from the graceful arch of her foot, sliding along the delicate ankle, traveling steadily upward—

And yet Li Gu was disappointed.

The Emperor and Empress went on the autumn hunt at Western Mountain in the seventh month of summer.

On this occasion, the Emperor was a newlywed, and his Empress was the greatest beauty in all of Da Mu. The noble ladies looked at themselves in their mirrors, made their peace with the situation, and simply enjoyed the hunt and the outing. There were no further incidents of “chance encounters” or “coincidental meetings.”

The eighth and ninth months that followed were the busy season of the autumn harvest. When the harvest was done and the imperial army set out on the southern campaign once more, not the slightest sign had appeared in Xie Yuzhang’s womb.

About the southern campaign, Xie Yuzhang had no anxiety. She trusted in Li Gu’s military ability, and she trusted in Li Gu’s fate.

As before, it was Marquis of Peace and Steadfastness Jiang Jingye who held the capital while the Emperor was away. He had accumulated great merit on the northern frontier and had entered a period of quietly consolidating his position, no longer competing for the glory of the south.

He was an old acquaintance of Xie Yuzhang’s. He was also a man Li Gu trusted deeply — together with Li Weifeng, he was considered Li Gu’s right hand and left arm.

There were also several chancellors remaining in the capital, so even with the Emperor absent, both the court and the city remained settled and orderly.

By spring of the eighth year of Kaiyuan, the Empress, with the Emperor away, presided over the Silkworm Ceremony for the noble ladies of Yunjing all the same, and was received with great acclaim.

Whether in the inner palace or in Yunjing at large, none of these matters were difficult for Xie Yuzhang. She handled them all with ease.

She was now the wife of the man she loved, and she had found her sister again. Everyone was safe and well. To Xie Yuzhang’s eyes, her life had come close to something like completeness.

Yet when had the world ever granted every wish a person could desire?

In the third month of the eighth year of Kaiyuan, Lin Fei’s son died.