Pitch black, jolting, suffocating — amid the steady clatter of hoofbeats, I awoke in a panic to find my entire body immovable, my mouth stuffed with something, and no sound able to escape. In the darkness, I strained with all my might to open my eyes, yet could see nothing at all.

This is a dream. It must be a nightmare.

I mustered every ounce of strength I had, yet my limbs held not a trace of power — I could not lift even a single finger.

All that remained was the frantic pounding that thundered from within my chest, echoing through the suffocating blackness, threatening to burst free of my ribs.

At this moment, the only things I could still discern were sound and a dim, hazy awareness.

In my ears, the hoofbeats clattered on steadily, punctuated by the occasional crash of a carriage board.

This had to be a carriage flying at full gallop — a narrow, elongated box… Could it be… a coffin?

Only the dead lay inside coffins, yet I was still alive. A chill shot up my spine, and cold sweat seeped through my skin.

Who would dare plot against my life?

Could it be my father’s political enemies, old adversaries, or rebels against the court… But what use could I possibly be to them as a hostage?

A thousand thoughts swirled and tangled in my mind. My body stiffened and went numb, and a sudden sting pricked the bridge of my nose.

No. I will not cry. I must not cry.

I bit down hard on my lip, but the tears still slid from the corners of my eyes into my hair, and fear and loneliness crashed over me like a wave without end.

For the first time in my life, I understood what that feeling truly was — fear.

I did not know where I was; I did not know who surrounded me. Not a single one of the handmaids or guards who ordinarily attended upon me could be seen now.

This time, I was truly alone, without any hope of aid.

What awaited me ahead? A bottomless abyss, a dragon’s lair, a tiger’s den — or perhaps a cold and silent grave?

In a state of dazed confusion, I trembled with fear and dread, tormented by cold and hunger alike, drifting in and out of unconsciousness time and again, only to be jolted awake each time by the lurching of the carriage.

The carriage drove on without pause, hurtling forward at full speed. In the lucid intervals between my fainting spells, I strained to make sense of what I could hear — the sound of water, the clamor of a marketplace, even the howling of wind and rain. I had no idea how much time had passed. I grew colder and colder, hungrier and hungrier, and in my stupor, I felt as though I were on the verge of death.

With a tremendous crash, I jolted awake. The harsh light that flooded in was nearly blinding.

Through shifting shadows, I was seized by someone, dragged out, and every bone in my body ached as though it were splitting apart.

“This woman looks half dead — get Old Tian to take a look at her. We can’t have her keel over just when we’ve gone to all this trouble to bring her here.”

“Old Tian is busy treating the Young Master’s wounds. Who has time to bother with her? Toss her in the cellar. She won’t die.”

The one who spoke had a thick accent, nothing like that of a capital native. The second voice, cold and harsh, sounded like a woman’s.

My eyes adjusted slightly to the dim light before me. I could just make out sagging rafters and a crude, dilapidated doorway — it appeared to be some decrepit, rundown dwelling.

Before me stood several people, of varying heights, all dressed in the garb of northern plainsmen, their faces hidden beneath felt hats, impossible to discern.

I had no strength left in my body. My throat was parched and cracked. A burly, stocky man seized me and shoved me, stumbling, through a doorway.

The man untied the rope at my wrists, pulled the wad of tattered cloth from my mouth, and threw me down onto a pile of dry straw.

A second person entered, set something on the ground, then turned and walked out alongside the first. They pulled the door shut behind them.

I lay sprawled across the straw, without the strength to push myself up.

Yet a strange smell reached my nose — familiar, carrying an exotic fragrance — and it ignited a sudden, unbearable hunger in me.

Before me was a rough earthen bowl left by the one who had come and gone, filled halfway with something grayish and murky.

That fragrance — the exotic fragrance of grain — was drifting up from that very bowl.

I strained to push my body upright and crawled toward it with every last bit of strength I possessed. My fingertips fell just short — I could not quite reach the bowl.

At that moment, had anyone been present, they would have seen a princess of royal blood — a girl raised in gold and jade — lying flat on the ground, exerting every ounce of effort, crawling forward like a dying creature, struggling only to reach that bowl of coarse rice gruel.

At last I reached it. I gulped the gruel down in great mouthfuls. The rough husks of grain scraped my throat, leaving it faintly raw, yet the taste surpassed the finest delicacies a hundredfold. A thread of saltiness touched my lips — my own tears had fallen into the bowl.

I swallowed the last mouthful of rice gruel, and silently, in the depths of my heart, I made a vow to myself: I will live. I will live, and escape from this place, and live to return home.

Father and my elder brother will certainly come to save me.

At last, I understood — there is nothing in this world more important than being alive.

The cellar, compared to the coffin before it, was already far better.

At least there was a dim light, a dry pile of straw. No more jolting, no more cold.

Exhausted and spent, as drowsiness settled over me, I curled myself into the straw.

In that moment, I yearned for home with an intensity I had never known before — I missed my parents, my elder brother, I missed Zidan. With each person I silently called to mind, my courage grew a little stronger.

I even thought of Xiao Qi.

I had a husband of unrivaled heroism. He could pacify the entire realm — surely he could make any outlaw tremble at his name.

Drowsiness pulled me under, and I fell into a dream — the first dream I had ever had of my husband. That general, sword at his side, astride his horse, came riding toward me from far away and reached out his hand to me, yet I could not make out his face. Prince Yuzhang — have you come to save me…

How much time passed, I could not say. Then a lock rattled at the door, and someone came in, grabbed me, and led me out of the cellar.

In the run-down wooden shack, I saw again that woman in yellow who had posed as “the Wu family’s daughter” that day.

The woman before me now wore a bulky padded gown and a felt hat, dressed in men’s clothing. Her features were delicate, but her expression was merciless, and she looked even more dangerous than the several large men standing beside her.

I smiled at her. She stared coldly back, then muttered a curse under her breath: “Shameless wretch — you don’t know what’s good for you.”

Behind her stood three men, all broad-shouldered and powerfully built, wearing high boots and carrying blades, with the look of men from beyond the passes.

Inside the room, doors and windows were tightly shut. It was sparse and bare, the tables and chairs askew, dry straw and hemp sacks piled carelessly in the corners. To the right, a side door was covered tightly by a hanging curtain, and from behind that curtain drifted a faint smell of medicine.

I was just beginning to suspect that we must be in the north, close to the frontier passes, when someone gave me a sudden shove, and I stumbled toward that side door.

A stooped old man with a long beard lifted the curtain and called softly into the room: “Young Master, the person has been brought.”

“Come in.” A clear, cool male voice replied.

The light inside was even dimmer. All I could make out was a figure reclining on a brick bed across the room.

The dense scent of herbal medicine poured from a medicine pot — pungent and acrid, enough to make one choke. Behind me, the old man withdrew without a sound, and the curtain fell back into place.

The figure appeared to be wounded or ill. He lay tilted against the brick bed, gazing at me with cold intensity.

“Come here.” His voice was low, his tone unreadable.

I raised my hand to smooth back my hair, then stepped steadily toward his bedside.

In the faint light filtering through the crack of the window, my gaze met a pair of pitch-black, fathomless eyes.

He was remarkably young — his face deathly pale, with sharply sculpted features, long brows that swept upward at a slant, and tightly pressed lips utterly drained of color. Yet those eyes were razor-sharp, piercing, concealing a glittering, blade-like intensity.

I was taken aback, and for a moment could not believe that a person such as this could be the leader of the bandits who had taken me captive.

That face, as solitary and cold as frost and snow — there was something about his gauntness that invited pity, yet his indifference seemed to hold the whole world at arm’s length.

His gaze seemed to want to cut straight through my face.

“A beauty, as expected.” He smiled coldly. “Xiao Qi is a fortunate man.”

I had no sooner heard him mention Xiao Qi than I was caught off guard — but already he was propping himself up, reaching out to grip my chin.

I startled and pulled back sharply. “Conduct yourself with propriety,” I said.

“Propriety?” He pushed himself up to lean against the edge of the brick bed and laughed openly, his white clothing disheveled, stained with streaks of vivid red blood.

“I would be most grateful if Your Highness could instruct me — what, precisely, is ‘propriety’?” His complexion was ashen, the pallor of illness still upon him, yet that searing gaze remained entirely unchecked as it studied me openly, full of contempt and amusement.

“You are quite right — I was foolish.” I looked at him with quiet composure. “A young lord who is willing to mobilize such a force in order to abduct a mere woman has clearly never troubled himself with trifling formalities. It would indeed be absurd to speak to you of propriety.”

His eyes sharpened, and something like suppressed anger flickered within them. “Your Highness has considerable courage,” he said with a cold smile.

“You flatter me.” I met his gaze with perfect composure.

He was still smiling, but the smile grew gradually colder. “The fish is on the chopping block, Your Highness — can you truly regard life and death with such indifference?”

I was silent.

A sneer tugged at the corner of his lips.

“No — I am very much afraid of death.” I let out a quiet breath and looked up at him with a slight smile. “But you will not let me die.”

The cold smile froze on his lips, and for a moment he seemed lost.

“I am still useful to you, am I not?” I walked unhurriedly to an old chair nearby, brushed off the dust, and sat down with an easy smile.

He narrowed his eyes at me, his gaze keen as a blade, like a wolf appraising its prey.

Beneath that gaze, my skin gradually turned cold, and an almost intolerable unease welled up from somewhere deep inside me.

“Useful — yes, you are useful.” He smiled with studied casualness, looking me over from head to foot. “But it depends on how I choose to use you.”

I went rigid, a chill spreading through my core — and then a surge of fury rose up to meet it. Never in my life had anyone dared to be so openly brazen with me, to speak such blatant impropriety to my face.

“If Prince Yuzhang, a hero of unmatched renown, were to learn that his princess had been dishonored by a remnant of the Helan clan…” His eyes blazed, and his smile turned cold and menacing. “What do you suppose the great General Xiao would think of that?”

My head snapped up — I felt as though I had been struck by lightning.

Helan. He was of the Helan people.

The Helan clan — a tribe that most of the world had nearly forgotten.

More than a hundred years ago, the Helan tribe had gradually risen from a small nomadic clan, carved out its own territory, and established the nation of Helan. They paid yearly tribute to our dynasty and maintained trade relations with us. Many among the Helan people had intermarried with those of the Central Plains, and over time they were assimilated into Central Plains customs — their language and manners had become indistinguishable from our own.

Later, during the Seven Years of Turmoil, the Turks seized upon the chaos to invade. Helan, seeking to protect itself, submitted to the Turks and turned against our dynasty.

The Turks occupied the northern frontier for many years, until Xiao Qi shattered them decisively at the Shuo River. After three years of stalemate, they were driven back into the desert at last.

At the time, the Helan nation had followed the Turks in opposing our dynasty — they cut off the only route our army could take, burned our grain and provisions, and drove the Ning Shuo General Xiao Qi to such fury that he launched a siege of Helan City, forcing the Helan King to take his own life. The Crown Prince of Helan then led the entire city out in surrender and swore an oath of loyalty to Xiao Qi.

Xiao Qi left behind a garrison force to hold Helan and continued north with his main army to pursue the Turks.

What no one anticipated was this: the moment Xiao Qi departed, the Helan royal clan still within the city rose again in rebellion, killed the garrison commander, and launched a pincer assault on Xiao Qi’s forces in concert with the Turks. In that battle, our army suffered devastating losses, and it was only after two days and nights of fierce fighting that the enemy was driven back. The Helan forces were nearly annihilated, and the royal clan retreated behind the city walls and refused to emerge. When the Helan Crown Prince came to surrender a second time, Xiao Qi refused to accept it. He led his army to break open the city and had all three hundred and more members of the Helan royal clan put to death, with the Crown Prince and his entire family beheaded in the marketplace.

“Your Highness — do you know how your husband came by those celebrated achievements? Behind all the glory that adorns your family’s name, how many wronged souls lie buried, how many bones remain uninterred?” He leaned forward, pressing closer, his gaze cold as a blade, his face frighteningly pale. “On the day Helan fell, the royal clan — over three hundred people — were slaughtered to the last. Not even newborn infants were spared. The common people were crushed beneath iron hooves, ground down like so many ants…”

I bit my lip and sat rigid and still, unwilling to let even a flicker of distress show on my face before him. Yet slowly, the warmth drained from my chest, even as hot blood rushed up from behind my ears to flood my cheeks.

He straightened abruptly, and deep within his eyes, two ghostly flames seemed to flicker and leap, driving straight into my heart. “Have you ever seen widows and orphans freeze and starve to death, collapsing by the roadside, their bones left to the gnawing of wild animals? Have you seen white-haired elders bury their own butchered children and grandchildren with their own hands? Have you seen entire villages consumed in an instant by a sea of fire — all because they were not people of the Central Plains, and that alone was reason enough for such a fate?”

I clenched my eyes shut. I could not bear to keep listening, could not bring myself to think on it — yet before me, vivid and unbidden, rose image after image, each washed in blood-red light.

This isn’t true. He is deceiving me. A voice within me protested, stubborn and unwilling to yield — Prince Yuzhang is an unrivaled hero. He cannot be the brutal and lawless tyrant this man describes.

Yet though a thousand doubts and agonies warred within me, I clenched my jaw and said nothing.

My throat constricted without warning, and then a searing pain tore through it.

He had seized me by the throat with brutal force. His eyes had gone red as blood. He pinned me down against the chair, the hard armrests driving into my back so fiercely I felt my spine might snap.

I could not even cry out in pain.

“Don’t put on that pretentious expression — let me see how noble you truly are, let me see how long you can endure!” In a fury, he wrenched me upright and dragged me toward him.

His knuckles were gaunt and bony, but his grip was astonishingly powerful. I was yanked forward and pitched toward the edge of the brick bed, tumbling against him.

In my terrified struggling, I found strength I did not know I had, and drove my elbow sharply backward into his chest.

A low grunt, and the grip restraining me released all at once. I fell to the ground — and looked up to find him clutching his chest with one hand, a vivid red stain spreading across the wound.

He stared at me with rage and hatred, his face ghastly pale. He shuddered suddenly and, with a muffled sound, began to cough violently. Flecks of blood spattered from his lips, a shocking and alarming sight.

I pressed a hand to my mouth to hold back a cry, my heart hammering with shock and confusion.

My gaze flew to the window beside the brick bed — it was half open.

The curtain blocked the watchful eyes beyond the door. No one outside had heard the sounds within. The man on the bed had suffered a relapse of his injury. Here, now — this was my chance to escape.

Setting aside all propriety, I hastily climbed onto the bed, stepped around his curled body, and pushed the window open. A blast of northern wind came sweeping in.

Outside lay a vast, wind-battered stretch of yellowed, disheveled grassland. I steeled myself, crouched down, and was on the verge of slipping through — when a faint, plaintive moan sounded behind me.

I turned to look. The man was clutching his chest, trembling, as though enduring tremendous pain, his hand reaching desperately toward the medicine bowl at the side of the bed — falling just short.

That slender frame was curled in on itself like an infant’s, his throat producing low, hoarse groans, his face so pale it was nearly translucent. He looked as though he might cease breathing at any moment.

I was already halfway out the window, yet in that instant, I faltered.

He was only an inch from reaching that medicine bowl. If he could not reach it, the illness might very well kill him on the spot. The blow I had struck with my elbow — I had never intended for it to reopen an old wound and cost him his life.

Before me was a living person, and through my own doing, he now hung at the edge of death.

Yet he was a remnant of a foreign clan. My thoughts were in turmoil, and it felt as though the difference between one choice and the other was the difference between life and death itself.

Could it be that today, a perfectly whole and living person would die at my hands?

But then he opened his eyes and looked at me — and in that instant, I thought I saw Zidan. In the days of his illness long ago, Zidan too had been this frail and helpless, had looked at me with this same plaintive gaze, unwilling to let me leave his bedside even for a moment.

That same beseeching look bored into my heart, and something inside me seemed to quietly give way, collapsing gently inward.

So be it. In the end, it is still a life.

With a resolute inward breath, I stepped back down from the bed and lifted the medicine bowl.

He no longer had the strength to raise his hand. There was nothing for it but to bring the bowl to his lips and pour the medicine in slowly, drop by drop.

He drew a ragged breath. His face was still deathly pale, but he fixed his eyes steadily on me, his gaze hazy and lost — as helpless as a child’s.

That gaze — for reasons I could not explain — made the hand holding the medicine bowl tremble faintly.

He leaned against me entirely, brows furrowed, breathing in shallow, unsteady breaths.

I raised my sleeve and wiped the blood from the corner of his lips.

There was no time to lose. I glanced back at the door, laid him down, and turned to go — when something caught at my sleeve. He had seized hold of it.

“I’ve saved your life now, at least once. Let me go.” I sighed quietly, drew my sleeve free, bent low, and slipped out through the window.

I landed on the soft pile of straw just beneath, stumbled upright, and broke into a run.

I had sprinted no more than a few dozen paces when something snagged my foot — my sash had caught on something — and I fell, striking my knees on the ground hard enough to send pain shooting through them.

Then light flooded my vision. Blade-bright, snow-bright light.

I slowly ground my teeth and sat up. My heart plummeted as though into an abyss.

“Did you think the dozen men out here were blind — that you could just run off whenever you liked?” A man’s coarse, rough voice burst into loud laughter.

A pair of large, dark hands reached toward me. I twisted sideways to avoid them and said coldly, “There is no need to trouble yourself. I will walk back on my own.”

“Hah, what a feisty woman!” The man reached out to grab me again.

I raised my head abruptly and swept him with an icy look.

The man startled, cowed by my gaze. He stood there staring blankly as I got to my feet, composed myself, straightened the tangled sash about my waist, and walked back to the building with him trailing behind me.

I stepped through the door and was immediately met with the word “Wretch.”

Before I could so much as take in who was before me, a figure moved, there was a sharp crack, and my face erupted in searing pain.

The girl in men’s clothing had slapped me — and was already raising her hand to strike again. “Wretch! How dare you lay hands on the Young Master — and then try to run!”

Everything went dark before my eyes, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. The shame and the pain together brought tears rushing unbidden to my eyes. I clenched my jaw, turned my face aside, and forced those tears back by sheer will.

The girl raised her hand once more — but a sharp reprimand rang out: “Stop — Xiao Ye!”

The stooped old man with the long beard swept the curtain aside and emerged, his voice measured and unhurried. “The Young Master has given orders — Her Highness the Princess is not to be mistreated.”

“What has happened to the Young Master?” The girl forgot all about me and seized the old man urgently.

The old man gave me a brief, indifferent glance. “The medicine was administered in time. He will be all right.”

The others hurried off to tend to their Young Master, and I was escorted back to the cellar once more.

This time — likely to prevent another escape attempt — they bound my hands and feet with hemp rope.

The cellar door closed heavily behind me, and in the darkness, I gave a bitter, wry smile to myself.

It is fortunate I showed a moment of kindness, or heaven knows what they might have done to me. Had I known the escape would come to nothing, I might as well have earned more goodwill from the Young Master from the start.

I could only hope that good deeds bring good fortune.

As it turned out, good fortune did arrive.

I woke from sleep to find the girl Xiao Ye come to collect me. She undid my ropes, led me out to the back courtyard, and without a word, pushed me into a felt tent.

Inside, to my surprise, was a tub of hot water — and a clean set of coarse cloth garments.

I drew in a long, deep breath, sank my entire body into the water, and cast aside all thought of their intentions, all awareness of the danger surrounding me. I thought only that to have a tub of hot water to bathe in was the greatest blessing the world could offer.

After changing into clean clothes and pinning up my damp hair, I stepped out of the felt tent, refreshed and clear-headed.

Without a word, Xiao Ye came forward and tied my hands again, drawing the hemp rope tight — and then tighter still.

I bore the pain and offered her a smile. “Male attire doesn’t suit you. Your Young Master ought to have a woman’s dress prepared for you.”

Her face flushed scarlet, and she pinched me viciously in the ribs.

My late aunt once told me: when women torment other women, they are crueler than any man.

I was brought once more to the Young Master’s room.

He was still reclining on the brick bed, that deep, fathomless gaze lingering over my face for a long moment before drifting down to my hands.

“Who tied you up like this?” He frowned. “Give me your hands.”

He pushed himself up and reached over to untie the rope at my wrists, his fingers slender and bony, cool to the touch with just a faint trace of warmth at the center of his palm — a little like Zidan’s.

Zidan’s hands were pale as white jade, yet warm and gentle.

“Bruised all over,” he said, wrapping his fingers around my wrist.

I withdrew my hand and stepped back one pace, watching him quietly.

He too looked at me in silence. After a long while, a faint, lazy smile crossed his face. “Do you regret saving me?”

“It was a small thing. There is nothing to regret.” My tone was mild.

He was quiet for a moment, then gave a cold laugh. “Xiao Qi kills without remorse, yet he has taken a princess with the compassion of a bodhisattva for his wife — how absurd. How utterly absurd.”

I smiled as well. “If a general does not kill his enemies, must he take up the physician’s bag instead and go about healing the sick?”

He snorted. “You are very good at defending your husband. A pity that Prince Yuzhang has no appreciation for a fine woman — to leave such a beauty neglected in an empty chamber for three whole years.”

I pressed my lips together and suppressed the shame and indignation rising within me with great effort, refusing to let him see even a trace of embarrassment, and said coolly, “The affairs of my household are hardly worth speaking of to an outsider.”

“The whole world knows of your grievances, Your Highness — why insist on maintaining this facade?” He smiled, but the words were laced with venom.

“You are not me — how can you know whether I am grieved or not?” I said with composure. “Whatever Xiao Qi’s failings may be, he is the husband of Wang Xuan, and it is not for an outsider to speak ill of him.”

He said nothing, only regarded me steadily. After a long silence, he let out a quiet sigh.

“Wang Xuan.” He said my name in a murmur, as though turning it over in thought, then raised his eyes to look at me. “Why did you not take the chance to kill me — and come to save me instead?”

Why did I save him? Because of some faint resemblance he bore to Zidan? Or because of my woman’s weakness, unable to let a person die? I could not answer that question even for myself.

“All people possess the impulse for compassion.” I said quietly, turning my face slightly aside.

Then I heard him let out a sudden, sharp laugh. “Compassion!”

His eyes went bright and cold, fury rising in them, his smile turning faintly vicious. “Since you are so full of compassion, why not offer your own life — to atone for Xiao Qi’s sins in your stead?”

I did not know what I had said to provoke such anger in him. I straightened at once. “Have you ever heard of a person from the Langya Wang family who feared death?”

He stared at me, his chest rising and falling, as though he were struggling to contain an enormous rage. “Get out. Get out of my sight.”

After that, I was still kept in the cellar, but each day I was brought out to attend to him.

“Attending to him” amounted to little more than bringing his medicine and water, sitting nearby while he spoke — and occasionally enduring his insults.

I accepted this with silent compliance and made no pointless resistance, biding my time and watching for any opportunity to escape.

When he was lucid, he would make idle conversation with me and occasionally allow a faint smile to cross his face. Beyond that, he spent the greater part of his time snapping harshly at his subordinates, his moods wildly erratic, his punishments heavy and swift at the slightest provocation.

Only when he slept did the tension ease from his face, leaving his expression serene and delicate — nothing like the brooding, quick-tempered man he was when awake.

Gradually, I came to see that this man was proud and sensitive to an extreme degree. What he hated most was being pitied or sympathized with. If anyone — even out of genuine goodwill — showed him a touch of extra care or concern, he immediately became convinced that person was looking down on him, and his temper would flare at once.

Yet his subordinates were unswervingly loyal to him. No matter how fiercely he berated them, they remained respectful and unquestioning, without a word of complaint.