The window paper rattled and shook in the wind, on the verge of being torn through, while outside the howling grew sharper and more piercing by the moment.

By my count, seven days had passed. I had no idea what place this was — even in the fourth month of the year, wind was a constant companion here, and over the past two days the gusts had intensified into a squalling rain. Cold air seeped in through the cracks; the window frame had worked loose. I reached out to secure the window, but my sleeve caught on a protruding sliver of wood and snagged there.

I tugged sharply, carelessly knocked against a splinter, and a shallow cut opened along my little finger.

“Don’t move.”

Before I could turn around, a pair of arms closed around me from behind, worked my sleeve free of the snag, and took hold of my hand.

The warm breath of a man grazed my skin. I startled and quickly pulled away to one side.

“You can’t manage even a small thing like this. A true princess born and bred, I suppose.” He gave me a cold sideways glance, the words edged with mockery — but he had already caught my hand and brought it toward his lips.

My heart clenched. I pulled back instinctively, and my hand made contact with his chest, covered only by a thin undergarment.

My flustered, indignant expression drew a loud, open laugh from him.

“Young Master — is something the matter?” The curtain at the door shifted, and Xiao Ye peered inside, alarmed by his laughter, her expression uncertain and anxious.

I seized the moment to step back and put distance between us — only to hear him shout furiously, “Get out! Who asked you to come in?”

Xiao Ye froze in the doorway, her face a mask of startled confusion.

His temper erupted. He snatched up the medicine bowl and hurled it straight at the doorway. “Scram!”

Tears welled in Xiao Ye’s eyes. She turned and fled.

I retreated to the far corner of the room, unmoved, watching him with calm detachment.

These past few days, his injury had been healing with surprising speed. Though he was not yet fully recovered, his spirit and vitality had largely returned.

This Helan lord had a deeply peculiar temperament. During the fragile vulnerability of his illness, there had been something almost pitiable about him — but the moment his strength returned, he became more erratic and unpredictable than ever: hot-tempered and moody, volatile without cause. Sometimes he would go an entire day barely speaking a word, looking through everyone around him as though they were invisible; other times he erupted in fits of fury with no apparent reason.

He had driven Xiao Ye away, yet his temper remained unsatisfied, and he grew increasingly restless and agitated.

I rose and moved toward the doorway.

A sudden pain shot through my arm. He had seized it and dragged me back.

“Did I say you could leave?” he said coldly.

“I was going to find another bowl. You’ve just broken one.” My expression remained blank.

He stared at me for a long moment, then gripped my jaw and tilted my face up.

“Let go.” I said, anger sharpening my voice.

“You’ve never waited on Xiao Qi like this, have you?” He pressed closer, his expression somewhere between a smile and something else entirely.

I froze, the furious retort dying in my throat, and found that I could not speak.

In that instant, something bitter and sharp flooded up inside me — a thousand grievances, ten thousand helpless sorrows, all surging up at once.

First had come the marriage decree, like a bolt from a clear sky. Then the bridal chamber abandoned without a word of farewell. And now this — abducted, trapped in desperate peril. Every one of these senseless calamities had been brought upon me by that husband I had never so much as met. I had been shamed because of him, and yet where was he now? Did he know what I had suffered? Did he spare even a moment’s worry for me? Most likely — not even half a moment.

I had been held captive for more than ten days now. My parents were far away in the capital, beyond reach. Yet he was the great general, the guardian of the northern frontier — and even he could not protect his own wife. I had endured every indignity, waiting for rescue, and yet not a single glimmer of hope had appeared.

The contempt of others I could bear. But I could not endure being abandoned — again and again.

“I find myself wondering,” he said, tightening his grip on my jaw and leaning closer, “whether you, a princess in name only, have remained untouched to this day.”

Fury rose in me, and I raised my hand and struck him across the face — a sharp, ringing slap.

He recoiled from the blow, then looked at me with scorching rage, the red imprint already rising on his cheek. With one sudden, vicious motion, he struck me back — a blow that sent me stumbling.

The world went white before my eyes. My face burned with agonizing pain.

He looked down at me coldly, and the smile on his lips sent ice crawling through my veins. “Let’s see whether Prince Yuzhang’s princess is truly as virtuous and untouchable as they say.”

My collar went tight around my neck, and then there was the screech of tearing fabric — he had wrenched my outer garment open with one sharp pull.

My whole body was shaking. “I am Xiao Qi’s wife. If you are any kind of man, meet him on the battlefield, openly and with honor. To violate a woman — what kind of vengeance is this? If the ancestors of the Helan clan could see you now, they would be ashamed of you.”

His hand froze against my chest. The clean lines of his face slowly contorted, and the fury in the depths of his eyes blazed until they went red.

“The ancestors know shame!” He let out a wild, bitter laugh. “The Helan clan has been ashamed of me for twenty years already. What does one more time today matter?”

He tore away the inner garment at my chest, his hands sliding down along my bare skin.

“Shameless—” I struggled through tears, my hair coming undone, hairpins scattering — and then, quite suddenly, my fingers closed around one of the hairpins. In my shame and despair, without a thought, I gripped it tight and drove it downward at him with every ounce of force I had.

The gold pin sank into flesh. I could feel the give of muscle beneath my hand — and then I could push no further. My wrist had been seized and twisted with brutal force; the pain ripped a gasp from me, and the pin fell from my fingers.

The hand gripping my right wrist tightened and tightened, and the killing intent in his eyes blazed to its peak.

A pain like shattered bone tore through me, and cold sweat broke across my entire body.

He pulled the gold pin from where it had lodged in his shoulder and neck. Blood wound in a slow thread down his throat.

“You wanted to kill me?” His voice went low and rough, and gradually the killing intent in his eyes dimmed.

“I regret that I did not kill you sooner.” I held his gaze.

The pupils of his eyes slowly contracted. In their depths there was nothing but cold, as though there lived within them an endless grief, a boundless and irrecoverable loss.

I closed my eyes. A tear slid freely down my face. If death came for me in this moment, I would receive it with composure.

A sudden heat at my neck — followed by sharp pain. He had bent down and bitten me at the side of my throat.

He straightened, wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, and smiled — coldly, with burning eyes.

“As you have wounded me, so I repay you in kind.” His hand rose to my throat, stroking lightly. “This mark is my brand. From this day forward, your master is Helan Zhen.”

The wound at my neck was not deep, but it still pulled painfully with every movement.

For two full days and nights after that, I was locked in the cellar once more. No one came — except to deliver meals — and no one entered.

When I thought of Helan Zhen, I still felt a cold dread move through me. I had narrowly escaped his violation that day, only to be bitten at the throat — the man was utterly unhinged. I had no way of knowing what method he would devise to torment me next. He hated Xiao Qi, yet he poured all the poison of that hatred onto me.

His enemy was Xiao Qi — yet he had abducted me. If his sole purpose was violation and venting spite, why go to such lengths to conceal me and spirit me away?

I feared there was a far larger scheme at work.

But what use could I possibly be? Unless he intended to use me as bait — to coerce Xiao Qi.

If that was truly his plan, Helan Zhen was likely to be disappointed. My life and death — I doubted Prince Yuzhang gave it any thought at all.

At that, I could not help but smile a bleak, hollow smile — and gradually the smile gave way to tears.

If I could escape from this place alive, and live to meet that Prince Yuzhang in person, I thought I would ask him for a letter of divorce.

Better to spend my life alone than to go on being Princess Yuzhang.

In the night, a commotion of sounds jolted me awake.

The cellar door opened, and Xiao Ye slipped inside without a sound, tossing a bundle of clothing onto me.

“Change your clothes.” She glared at me with fierce intensity, as though she wished to bore two holes straight through my face.

After the incident with Helan Zhen, the clothes on my body had been torn beyond use. Only a loose outer robe was left to cover me.

I picked up what she had thrown — a gaudy set of clothes in the style of the northern frontier peoples.

Once I had dressed, Xiao Ye herself combed my long hair into two braids that hung down over my shoulders, then draped a brilliantly colored head covering across my face, concealing more than half of it.

She pushed me out of the cellar and led me to the door.

I had been in too great a panic the last time I tried to flee to observe my surroundings clearly. Now, though it was night, the place was lit up brightly. Through the uncertain glow, I could make out what appeared to be a fairly large encampment — two or three bonfires burning in the distance, simple earthen buildings all around, several wagons parked nearby, people moving back and forth with hurried purpose.

The sky was beginning to take on the first faint light of dawn. A pallid luminescence crept through the darkness, and the cold cut to the bone. It was probably just past the fifth watch.

Most of the people around me were dressed in the manner of those beyond the frontier passes, and some were even arrayed like northern peoples, as I was.

Two large men stood waiting outside the door. Together with Xiao Ye, they escorted me toward one of the wagons — a vehicle hung with a thick curtain, clearly already prepared for departure. Then a woman’s sobbing and wailing broke through the air, followed by the sounds of cursing and the crack of a whip.

“Have mercy, great sir — my child at home is still nursing. Without its mother it won’t survive. Please let me go home, I beg you — I’ll kowtow to you…”

“Stop your noise. Your husband sold you to me and pocketed good silver for it. You’ll do as you’re told and work for me like a proper woman. Maybe in ten or twenty years I’ll think about letting you go home. Otherwise, I’ll kill you right now.”

Before one of the wagons, a young woman clung desperately to the wheel-shaft and refused to climb in. A man behind her lashed her with a whip, and her cries were sharp and harrowing.

A chill crept through me, and I instinctively drew my shoulders inward — and then a hand closed on my arm.

Behind me stood Helan Zhen, dressed in the clothing of the frontier peoples, his expression impassive, watching me with cold eyes.

“This wagon is full of private prostitutes. Today they set out for Ning Shuo — to be sold to the army as camp followers.”

I felt a jolt of alarm.

“Get in. Don’t make me reach for the whip as well.” He gave a half-smile and dragged me up into the wagon.

The curtain fell behind us, and the wagon rolled forward with a rhythmic clatter.

I leaned against the side panel, listening to the quickening beat of hooves. As a hundred scattered fragments fell into place, the truth suddenly crystallized — sharp and cold — in my mind.

They had disguised themselves as brokers trafficking in private prostitutes and buried me among this group of camp followers. They intended to smuggle themselves into Ning Shuo City.

Who could ever imagine that after abducting Prince Yuzhang’s princess, they would openly, boldly send her right back under Prince Yuzhang’s own eyes?

Camp followers dispatched to the army were, by convention, transported behind the grain and military supplies. To ensure the uninterrupted flow of provisions to the front, the Ministry of War issued special transit passes all along the route — no inspection required.

What safer way to smuggle a woman than to conceal her among a convoy of camp followers?

What a cunning scheme. This Helan Zhen — perverse in temperament, deep in calculation — was a truly formidable figure.

This journey to Ning Shuo — their aim was never me at all. It was Xiao Qi.

Helan Zhen. What was he planning to do to Xiao Qi…

A strange unease rose unexpectedly in my chest.

Whatever else, that man was still my husband.

Perhaps Helan Zhen was no match for him — perhaps he would be defeated and I would be rescued. He was a general whose power spanned all under heaven; if anyone could save me, it was only him.

I buried my face in the crook of my arm and curled my knees to my chest, smiling a bitter, helpless smile.

“What are you thinking about?”

Helan Zhen reached over and tilted my chin up. Inexplicably, his tone had gentled.

I turned my face away, unwilling to answer him.

“Going to Ning Shuo — reuniting you with your husband — aren’t you glad?” He said.

His cold fingers traced slowly along my cheek, and I shuddered.

I said nothing, and simply closed my eyes, resolved to ignore him entirely, whatever he might say.

He too fell silent at last, ceasing his needling, and merely watched me without speaking.

All at once, the wagon lurched hard, and I was thrown violently forward, crashing against the far panel with a cry of pain I could not suppress.

Helan Zhen reached out quickly to steady me.

I pulled sharply backward and shrank away from him.

His outstretched hands hung frozen in mid-air. A faint, bitter smile twisted the corner of his mouth.

I braced myself against the side of the wagon and sat upright, watching him with full vigilance.

“Am I truly so repugnant to you?” He bowed his head and gave a self-mocking laugh.

“When I was young, they all despised me, feared me — chased after me and beat me whenever they had the chance.” A dazed, distant smile drifted across his face, and he murmured, “Every time, Mother would hold me and weep as she dressed my wounds. Sometimes, I almost wanted to let them keep hitting me. If I was hurt, Mother would take me in her arms.”

I stared at him, uncertain why he had suddenly begun to speak of his childhood, yet as I listened, something ached quietly in my chest.

He raised his eyes to look at me, his gaze unfocused. “That day, when you fed me the medicine… I thought for a moment it was Mother who had come back.”

Heat rose in my face. I looked down, at a loss for what to say. “Your mother — is she in Ning Shuo as well?”

He was silent.

After a long pause, his voice came back, cold and flat. “My mother has been dead for a long time.”

I stiffened.

“What did your mother call you?” he asked suddenly.

“A’Wu.” The name came out before I could stop myself, and I regretted it the instant I said it.

He smiled — a genuine smile — his long brows lifting faintly, and the shadows in his eyes dissolved in an instant into a shimmer like spring water catching the light.

“A’Wu…” He called the name softly, his voice as gentle as warm wind on a spring night.

I dropped my gaze and said nothing, hiding my face in the crook of my arm and closing my eyes, feigning sleep.

Then warmth settled over my shoulders — he had draped his outer robe across them.

“Sleep. Don’t catch a chill.” He too leaned back against the side of the wagon, legs stretched out lazily, eyes drifting shut in rest.

I was left staring blankly ahead, unable to separate the gentle man before me from the brooding, volatile, unpredictable young master he was at all other times — unable to tell which of the two was the real Helan Zhen.

Along the way, only Helan Zhen and I shared the wagon, and for the time being, an uneasy peace held between us. The man with the long, thick beard drove the wagon out front, while the others followed in the wagons behind. At every waystation where they stopped to rest and water the horses, Xiao Ye — disguised as one of the camp followers — stayed close to me and never left my side.

I watched constantly for an opportunity, yet I found no way to signal for help or alert anyone, let alone make any attempt at escape.

Day by day, we drew further north. Ning Shuo grew closer.

Ning Shuo — a name I had traced countless times across the imperial maps, following the contours of mountains and rivers.

I had never imagined that when I truly set foot upon that land, it would be under circumstances such as these.

This frontier stronghold had not always borne that name.

Xiao Qi — Ning Shuo General at the time — had once shattered the Turkic forces here in a single decisive battle that made his name across the realm, ending years of war and devastation along the northern border. The people of the region, in gratitude, renamed the city Ning Shuo in his honor.

This city held within it too many legends written in blood and tears.

Xiao Qi commanded an army of four hundred thousand, and had garrisoned Ning Shuo for years, fortifying the entire northern frontier until it was as solid and unbreakable as iron. Not even the iron cavalry of the Turks had managed to shake it by so much as a fraction.

Yet Ning Shuo — which had withstood even the Turks — was now being walked into openly by Helan Zhen and his party of no more than a dozen.

What kind of sinister scheme had he devised to take his revenge on Xiao Qi?

The closer we drew to Ning Shuo, the more anxious and unsettled I became. I did not dare to think ahead — did not dare to imagine what awaited me once I set foot there.

Xiao Qi. Would we meet each other under circumstances such as these?

How would he respond to the revenge of these Helan survivors?

And how would he treat me…

As night fell, a thick fog rolled down across the mountain road, making it even more treacherous for the heavily laden wagons to navigate. The entire party had no choice but to stop and make camp at the Changfeng way station ahead.

Once past this stop, half a day’s journey remained to Ning Shuo.

The moment we descended from the wagons, Xiao Ye had me confined to a room, watching over me without a moment’s absence.

Over these past few days, I had adopted an attitude of quiet compliance, making no resistance, and I had on occasion spoken to Helan Zhen with a degree of warmth.

Whenever I smiled and spoke lightly to him, Helan Zhen would show a rare brightness — and would even be somewhat more temperate in his dealings with the others around him.

Only Xiao Ye’s hostility toward me had grown sharper with each passing day. She lost no opportunity to lash at me with vicious words.

If I was not mistaken, she was in love with Helan Zhen.

The evening meal was brought in — today it was rice porridge with minced meat and chives. I walked to the table and had just picked up the wooden ladle when Xiao Ye struck it out of my hand.

She threw two cold steamed buns at me. “Who do you think you are, eating meat porridge? Steamed buns — that’s what’s for you.”

The buns bounced off me and rolled across the floor under the table.

I slowly raised my eyes to look at her.

“What are you staring at, you shameless wretch? Keep staring and I’ll gouge out those eyes of yours.”

“Please, go ahead.” I smiled. “You could present my eyeballs to Helan Zhen as a gift and see how your Young Master chooses to reward you.”

She shot to her feet, her face scarlet, quivering with fury she could barely contain. “You brazen harlot — you’re on the verge of death and still deluding yourself that you can seduce the Young Master?”

“Is that so? What a pity you weren’t there to see it yourself — you’d know perfectly well who was deluding whom.” I looked at her with cool indifference.

Xiao Ye was too furious to form words. Her face had gone so red it looked as though it might bleed.

“Shameless — you’re shameless…” She trembled from head to foot. “In three days, I’ll be watching to see how you die.”

Three days. My heart lurched. Were they moving that quickly?

“Helan Zhen may well have changed his mind by then,” I said with a light smile, raising an eyebrow. “You might as well go ask him — whether he is still willing to kill me.”

She burst into shrill laughter, her face twisting almost beyond recognition. “You think you alone can derail the Young Master’s great cause of vengeance? Xiao Qi destroyed our homeland — he and the Young Master have a blood feud that cannot share the same sky. You and your husband — that pair of vile creatures — will both pay with your lives, and repay your debt to my Helan people.”

I turned away, my face going pale, fighting the chill that rose despite my best efforts to suppress it.

Xiao Ye’s laughter rang out sharp and piercing, filled with the savage pleasure of anticipated revenge.

It seemed then that in three days — once they were inside the city — they would make their move.

The oil lamp on the table flickered unsteadily. Not far away, the bed was half swallowed in the shadows pooling along the wall, a cotton quilt heaped carelessly across it.

This was the last chance. I had no more time for watching and waiting. There was nothing left but to stake everything on a single desperate move.

Silently, I bent down and picked the steamed buns up from the floor.

Xiao Ye gave a cold scoff. “No backbone at all — so much for pride.”

I ignored her, brought the buns close to the oil lamp, and carefully brushed the dust from them.

“What a waste. Such perfectly good steamed buns.” I turned and smiled at her — then in one swift motion, seized the oil lamp and hurled it with full force at the cotton quilt piled on the bed in the corner.

The lamp struck the quilt and shattered. Oil spilled out, and the quilt erupted into flame.

Xiao Ye screamed and lunged forward, beating furiously at the burning quilt.

The air in the north was dry — cotton and wool caught fire instantly and could not be easily smothered. As she beat at the flames, fire licked up to the hem of her own clothing, and her skirt began to burn. She flung the quilt away in a panic, and the fire leapt free, reaching the tables and chairs. In moments, the blaze had roared into a full conflagration.

While she was driven back by the spreading fire, I spun around and lunged for the door.

Helan Zhen and the others were lodged in the rooms on the left side. I sprinted down the corridor to the right without a second thought.

Someone shouted, “Fire! The building’s on fire!”

In an instant the waystation courtyard erupted into chaos, a churning mass of people. Some came running past me; others came charging toward me, carrying buckets and water.

I kept my head low and ran with everything I had.