I told Xiao Qi about Song Huai’an visiting Yuxiu, treating it as casual everyday conversation.

“Though Yuxiu is of humble station, she is after all a loyal and steadfast young woman. But in terms of her appearance and gifts…” Xiao Qi said, thinking it over, “is she truly a good match for Huai’en?”

I turned away, avoiding Xiao Qi’s gaze, and smiled faintly. “Station is easily remedied. Where there is mutual affection, what question of being a match or not could there be?”

“Among all my officers, the one I value most is Huai’en,” Xiao Qi said with genuine feeling and a smile. “The brothers who have followed me in campaign for so many years have for the most part missed their chance at marriage and family. Now that we are back in the capital, I hope they will each find themselves a beautiful bride. A man of Huai’en’s talent has a limitless future before him — the woman who can capture his regard must be fortunate indeed.”

I turned to look at Xiao Qi, a smile that was not quite a smile on my lips. “So you too have such conventional notions.”

Xiao Qi smiled without answering and drew me onto his lap. “That is correct. Ordinary people should naturally follow ordinary conventions. If I had once been nothing but a minor garrison guard, would Princess Shangyang have condescended to marry me?”

I let my smile fall, looked at him steadily, and knew that what he said was the truth — and yet it still made me feel bitter.

Seeing my expression change, he could not help but laugh. “No wonder people say one should never speak the truth to a woman. I was clumsy with words — call it a slip of the tongue, and do with me as the Princess Consort pleases.”

But I could not manage even half a smile. I lowered my eyes and was still for a moment, then said quietly, “You are not wrong. Only now do I understand — no one ever deceived us. It is only that no one was willing to hear the truth. We always refused to open our eyes and look at the real world as it is, preferring to believe that if we closed our eyes, we could still be floating somewhere above the clouds.”

“We?” Xiao Qi frowned. I nodded, smiling faintly. “Me, mother, elder brother — those born of golden branches and jade leaves, those of great families and noble houses — all of us the same.”

Xiao Qi’s gaze deepened as he looked directly at me and said softly, “You are no longer.”

I leaned against his shoulder without a word, saying nothing.

“You have been downcast these past few days,” Xiao Qi said with a quiet sigh, his fingers threading through my long hair, sliding through it strand by strand.

I let my eyes drift half-closed and lazily smiled, “I thought you would not notice.”

He smiled. “If you do not want to tell me, I will not ask. A little girl always needs some secrets of her own.”

I raised my hand and struck at him. “Who are you calling a little girl!”

“Only nineteen years old…” Xiao Qi kept shaking his head with a rueful laugh. “An old man with a young wife — what can one do?”

“You yourself have only just passed thirty — and here you are already playing the decrepit elder!” I was caught between amusement and exasperation. My heavy mood dissolved into nothing as we jostled and laughed together.

The warm fragrance of the chamber was like incense, the crystal lamplight swayed, and in the painted screen the shadows of two figures overlapped.

Two days later, Song Huai’an came to see me. I received him in the main hall of the Prince’s residence, dressed in full palace ceremonial robes.

He was wearing plain everyday robes and had not expected me to be so formally attired. He was caught off guard for a moment, and looked somewhat ill at ease.

A maid brought tea. I lightly tapped the rim of my teacup and said with a mild smile, “General Song, please sit. There is no need for ceremony.”

He sat without a word, did not speak, did not drink the tea. His expression was grave and serious.

“Has the General come on some matter?” I looked at him with a smile.

“Yes.” He answered decisively. “This subordinate has a request.”

I nodded. “Please speak.”

Song Huai’an rose and knelt on one knee before me, his voice measured and unruffled. “This subordinate humbly requests permission to take Yuxiu as his wife, and entreats the Princess Consort to grant her approval.”

I said nothing and looked steadily at him. His face was expressionless, his thin lips pressed into a tight line, his eyes fixed downward on the floor — as though he meant to stare a crack through that Han jade-carved tile. Anyone looking at his expression in that moment would never imagine this young man was in the middle of seeking a bride, but would think rather that he was bracing himself with grim resolve, about to ride out into a difficult and desperate battle.

I looked at him in silence for a long while. He remained there, kneeling rigidly, without the slightest movement.

“Is this spoken from your true heart?” I opened my mouth at last and asked him quietly.

He knelt with straight and steady posture and did not raise his head. “It is.”

“Willing and without regret?” I asked slowly.

“It is.” He answered with clanging resolve.

“From this day forth, with a single heart devoted to her alone, without any other thought?” I asked the final question with gravity.

He was silent for a moment, as if forcing the decisive word out from between clenched teeth. “It is!”

Three questions, and three answers of “it is” — everything was said that needed to be said. I had long understood his intentions, and I had given him two choices: marry Yuxiu, or refuse.

Yuxiu was my most trusted confidante. To marry her was to form an alliance with me — from that point he would be both Xiao Qi’s most valued subordinate and my closest ally. In public and in private, in the army and at court, no one would be able to compete with him. In the contrary case, I equally required him to put aside all other notions, to regard me as his mistress, to devote himself loyally, and to treat Yuxiu well. A man of Song Huai’an’s ambition and aspiration would never be content with rank rising steadily through military merit alone. If he wished to advance rapidly, the best means was to obtain the sponsorship of the powerful and well-positioned.

This was the promise I extended to him, and the covenant between us.

He wanted power and fame — I would give him sponsorship. He wanted a good woman at his side — I would give him Yuxiu.

I, too, needed to draw more people to my side — not only Pang Gui, Mou Lian, and Yuxiu. To stand at the pinnacle of power, one must hold tightly to one’s own strength, and only then can one stand firm at the center of the whirlpool.

Yuxiu had probably never imagined, even in her dreams, that one day she would be married off to him in grand and proper style as his principal wife.

She had given her life and her loyalty to me, and I would repay her with the things she most longed for — giving her rank and position, giving her a brilliant and beautiful marriage. But what I could not give her was that man’s heart.

That was not something I could control. No one could control it. That, she could only fight for herself. To gain it was fortune; to fail was fate.

It was like a fair exchange — they would become my chess pieces, yet I had given them what they wanted in return.

I went to my aunt to request the imperial decree and the bestowal of the marriage. My aunt approved everything without exception. As I watched her personally affix the seal to the decree, my aunt smiled with quiet gravity.

I understood the sentiment beneath that smile — once, I had resented her for manipulating my own fate. But today, I too had stretched out my hand without hesitation to redirect the fates of others. Perhaps this was the destiny of power, driving us down the same road.

I bowed to take my leave. My aunt asked lightly, “A’Wu, do you feel any remorse?”

I lowered my gaze and thought for a moment, then asked my aunt in return, “When you arranged that marriage for me all those years ago, did you feel remorse?”

My aunt smiled. “I have felt remorse ever since.”

I raised my eyes and looked at her directly. “A’Wu feels no remorse at all.”

The imperial decree was issued: Prince Yuzhang, moved by gratitude for Yuxiu’s selfless devotion in saving her mistress and her protective service to the royal household, hereby adopted her as his sworn younger sister, bestowing upon her the name Xiao Yuxiu and the title of Lady of Manifest Righteousness, and decreed her marriage to the General of the Tranquil Guard, Song Huai’an. Song Huai’an was elevated to General of the Right Guard, Earl of Su Yi, with a grant of land of seventy li.

With all matters proceeding smoothly and keeping me without a moment’s rest, in the blink of an eye the day before my birthday arrived.

Elder brother came to take me to the Ci’an Temple. Seeing him arrive alone, I asked after father. Elder brother did not answer.

It had been elder brother who had spoken up on my behalf, and only after considerable persuasion had father agreed to accompany us to the Ci’an Temple to bring mother home. Yet at this moment, there was no sign of him. I was annoyed by his broken promise, but with Xiao Qi present, it was not convenient for me to say anything.

The luan carriage started off. Without realizing it, we were already at the foot of the mountain. I sat there expressionlessly, rocking gently with the carriage, and the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous and infuriating it seemed. Before I knew it, I was laughing through tears.

“Stop!” I called the carriage to a halt, pushed open the curtain, and ran straight up to elder brother’s horse. “Give me your horse!”

Elder brother was startled and jumped down to stop me. “What is the matter?”

“Let go!” I pushed him aside and said coldly, “I am going to find father and demand an explanation.”

“What are you doing?” Elder brother grabbed hold of me, his beautifully arched brows slightly knit, his voice low and suppressed.

I could not wrench free. I looked up and straight at him, and suddenly felt that elder brother’s face was strangely distant and unfamiliar. Even when startled, he maintained the flawless composure of his bearing, always smiling no matter the moment, seemingly never capable of showing genuine feeling. “I also want to ask you, elder brother — what is it that we are doing?” I looked at him and laughed at myself.

Elder brother’s expression shifted. He glanced around at those nearby, raised a hand as though to stop me.

I pushed his hand away hard and said coldly, “How long do you plan to go on pretending everything is fine? Father and mother have turned to hatred, yet we are going about cheerfully preparing for a birthday, waiting for tomorrow evening’s banquet at the Prince’s residence — song and dance lasting through the night, everyone wearing a forced smile. And watching helplessly as mother retreats into a Buddhist life…” Before I could finish, elder brother suddenly yanked me up onto his horse.

“Be quiet. Come with me.” Elder brother had never spoken to me so fiercely, never looked so flustered. He galloped ahead without looking back, leaving a trail of alarmed attendants behind, and took me along a small path through the trees.

We galloped for a long time until a mountain stream blocked our way. The four directions were still and deserted.

Elder brother dismounted and walked slowly to the bank of the stream, not saying a word, his figure solitary and bleak.

Just a moment ago it had been as though a fire was burning in my chest; now all that remained was a sheet of cold ash. I walked to elder brother’s side and gazed in silence at the water below. Within those clear and shimmering ripples, the faint reflection of two figures in flowing robes appeared.

“A’Wu…” Elder brother said quietly. “Since you already know, why must you say it all out loud?”

I laughed bitterly. “Would you rather let everything rot inside and keep up the appearance of noble tranquility?”

He would not turn around, would not answer — which made me feel all the more desolate. So desolate I could barely breathe. “Elder brother, when did we become like this? Were all the things from before nothing but illusions? The harmony between husband and wife we witnessed from childhood, the deep love between parent and child — were they all false?”

Elder brother still would not answer me, but his shoulders were trembling faintly.

“I do not believe that father is that kind of person…” I muttered, biting my lip, with so many tangled feelings I did not know where to begin.

“What kind of person do you think father should be — and what kind of person should mother be?” Elder brother suddenly spoke, his voice quiet and distant. “As you yourself said, they are only ordinary people.”

I looked at him blankly. He only gazed at the flowing water, his expression empty and lost. “A’Wu, ask yourself honestly — how much do either of us truly know about our parents?”

Elder brother’s words were like a basin of cold water poured over my head. As children, how much did we truly know of our parents? Before mother told me, I had never thought once about what sorrows and joys they had known — in my eyes, father had simply always been this way.

“Who does not have some foolishness in their youth? Who can know, years later, how those who come after will see them?” Elder brother smiled with a wistful air. “Even if our parents both made mistakes, those things are all in the past.”

“Are they in the past?” I laughed bitterly. If they were truly in the past, where had decades of resentment come from?

Elder brother turned and looked at me steadily. “Do you truly believe they hate each other?”

I hesitated for a long time, then sighed: “Mother thinks it is hatred. But I cannot believe that father is such a petty and narrow man. To say everything he has done was only for the sake of hatred — ” I could not go on. I could not even bear to hear the words myself, let alone believe them.

Elder brother looked at me, a faint sorrow in the depths of his eyes. “Mother has never understood father’s ambitions. Unable to release her own guilt and regret, she could only attribute everything to hatred.”

I raised my eyes sharply to look at elder brother. “Whose words are those?”

“Father’s.” Elder brother looked quietly at me, as though a layer of mist had settled in his eyes. So it turned out that mother’s love and grievance and sorrow and joy — father had seen all of it. Everything was clear to him. And the one person who saw father’s suffering, who understood and made allowances for him — it was not mother, and it was not I, but elder brother, who always seemed so carelessly indifferent to the world.

“All these years — who has ever known father’s suffering?” Elder brother’s voice gradually grew quieter, his expression bitter. “Do you remember that year, when father and I got completely drunk together?”

Of course I had not forgotten. The one and only time father and elder brother had drunk themselves senseless together was not long after my sister-in-law passed away.

“Father said a great deal that night…” Elder brother closed his eyes and said slowly, “The matter of me and Huan Bi filled him with guilt and remorse. He spoke of his own foolishness in his younger years, said he had wronged mother. In those days he too had been proud and wild, deeply resentful that his fate was controlled by others. Even as a man of noble family and honored birth, he was still subject to the will of the imperial house — never free to live by his own choices. The Wang family had served the imperial house faithfully through generation after generation — beneath hundreds of years of unbroken glory, who knew how many hidden bitternesses were buried. Father saw further than his predecessors. He refused to go on bowing his head beneath anyone. He was determined to climb to the very highest point, to carry the family’s power to its peak — so that even the imperial house could no longer dictate the fate of the Wang family!”

These words fell upon me like ice water poured from above.

Yes — this was my father. This was his ambition.

For a man such as my father, what weight could personal sentiment carry? To achieve what he had set his will upon, he had already sacrificed so much — even elder brother and I had been pushed by his own hands down this path from which there was no turning back.

After a long silence, I could not help but ask elder brother at last, “When you married my sister-in-law — was it truly of your own accord?”

“Yes.” Elder brother answered without a moment’s hesitation.

But I could not believe it. “Father seized a prince’s intended consort and gave her to you — surely it was because he coveted Huan family’s military power?”

Mother may have believed that father had forcibly taken the Second Prince Zidan’s intended consort and given her to elder brother as a way of asserting his dominance over the imperial family — as revenge for the humiliation he had suffered years before. But I could not be so naive. The Huan family’s prestige and reputation, though it could not stand equal with the Wang family, was nothing compared to the military power that the senior General Huan held over the armies of Jiangnan in those days.

Elder brother was quiet for some time, then said mildly, “Father was certainly interested in the Huan family’s military power — but he never forced me in the slightest. To marry Huan Bi was my own will.”

I was struck speechless. Thinking of elder brother’s coldness toward my sister-in-law, thinking of her death in depression and sorrow, and then of the Huan family’s swift collapse afterward — I felt in that moment nothing but helpless desolation.

Elder brother was quiet for a long time, his expression vague and distant, as though he had sunk into the past.

Neither of us spoke again, each unwilling to raise those old wounds of grief. The soft murmur of the stream flowed past our feet. Now and then a bird’s shadow crossed the surface. Fallen leaves drifted without sound.

All those old grievances — they were already the past. For those of us here in the present, there were still many more difficult roads ahead.

“Let us go back. Mother is still waiting for us.” I took elder brother’s hand in mine, and with a smile I tried to chase away his melancholy.

When we set out, the sky had still been early. But elder brother and I had lingered by the mountain stream for half a day and lost all track of time, and without realizing it, it was now close to dusk.

The carriage and attendants were still waiting in place, not daring to follow and disturb us. We were just about to set off when we heard the sound of hoofbeats coming fast behind us from the main road, as though riders were approaching at speed.

When I could make out who it was, elder brother and I froze for a moment, then looked at each other and smiled. We had been gone so long without sending word back, and father, waiting alone and growing anxious, had come looking for us himself.

When asked why we had been delayed so long and had still not made it up to the temple, elder brother and I looked at each other in speechless confusion.

Father raised an eyebrow and looked at me. In a moment of desperation I blurted out, “Elder brother took me to play by the stream for half the day…”

Elder brother had nothing to say in his defense, and could only smile ruefully.

“Outrageous,” father said, shooting elder brother a glance — yet he did not actually lose his temper. He only frowned and said, “Your mother must be getting anxious waiting.”

Elder brother and I exchanged a look, and both understood at the same moment without a word being said — the one who had been anxious waiting was probably not mother at all, but father himself.

“I caught a chill by the stream just now, and my head is aching,” I said to father in a tone of gentle complaint. “Fortunately father has come in person — then I will not go up the mountain after all. Let elder brother see me home.”

Without waiting for father to reply, I turned and seized a guard’s horse, and galloped off. Elder brother, in a rare moment of disregarding father’s expression, cracked his whip and rode at full speed to catch up with me.

“He clearly wants mother to come home and yet will not say a single word — I truly cannot understand what is going on in their heads!” I let out a deep sigh.

Elder brother suppressed his amusement and burst out laughing.

“So amusing to you,” I said, giving him a sidelong look — both irritated and helpless. “I did not notice it before, but now I see that all of you are this incomprehensible!”

Elder brother was still laughing. After a long while he finally contained his amusement and said gently, “We have not changed. It is only that you have grown up.”

Something in my heart stirred. I was struck into silence, unable to say a word.

“A’Wu, you have grown up — and you have changed too.” Elder brother sighed with a smile.

I looked back at him. “I have changed?”

“Do you not notice yourself growing more and more like a certain person?” Elder brother gave me a meaningful sidelong look with raised brows.

I was taken aback, then suddenly understood — he meant Xiao Qi.

“A bride follows her husband — naturally, marrying a man of the military makes one a shrew.” I looked at elder brother with a smiling yet unamused expression, and without warning brought my whip slashing down on the horse beneath him. “That will teach you to dare take liberties with me in the future!”

The horse, stung by the whip, bolted forward in a wild gallop, sending elder brother into a frantic struggle to rein it in.

Watching that man and horse charging ahead in wild abandon, I could not help laughing until I could barely contain myself.

Then I gazed back toward the depths of the mountain. I wondered — had father made it to the temple gate?

The following day, the birthday banquet was held at the Prince of Yuzhang’s residence.

I had expected nothing more than a family gathering, and was completely unprepared for how magnificent and grand it turned out to be. Beyond family, all the nobles and aristocratic families of the capital attended, a full assembly of the great houses, as grand as a proper imperial banquet in the palace.

This was Xiao Qi’s arrangement. He had always disliked ostentation and pomp — yet today he had spared no extravagance in celebrating my birthday. Others might think he was demonstrating the limitless power of Prince Yuzhang, and showing off the honored and cherished status of Princess Consort Yuzhang. Only I understood — he simply wanted to make up for the debt he owed me from our wedding day.

Mother wore full court dress with her hair dressed high, smiling as she sat at father’s side. Though her manner toward father remained cool and composed, she was at least willing to speak with him now.

Elder brother brought two of his favorite concubines with him, yet before father he dared not show even a trace of his usual easy manner.

When the Crown Prince arrived and saw father, there was a touch of awkwardness. But Wanru brought along their small daughter, and the little girl — pretty as a piece of carved jade, taking her first unsteady steps — immediately drew all eyes in the room to follow her.

Elder brother joked that the little one had stolen the spotlight from me, the birthday honoree. But mother said, “A’Wu was even more lovable as a baby. I wonder if my future granddaughter will look just like her.”

I immediately turned scarlet. Father and Xiao Qi also laughed and said nothing.

In the midst of chatting with my parents, Wanru came over with her daughter to offer birthday congratulations. I reached out to take the child, but she giggled and lunged straight at Xiao Qi.

Xiao Qi froze helplessly, not sure whether to hold her or move away. The little one had already flung her arms around his neck and begun planting kisses on his face, sending the great general’s expression through a sudden and obvious transformation.

Everyone present was set laughing by Xiao Qi’s flustered look, and the Crown Prince in particular laughed until he was doubled over. After considerable effort, the wet nurse finally carried the child away, and Xiao Qi was at last able to collect himself.

The one regret was that my aunt could not attend. She had been improving in recent days, but today she happened to feel unwell again, and sent only the Crown Prince bearing her gifts.

In the hall aglow with lanterns, I looked around at everyone seated nearby and gazed quietly at each face in turn. Only at a moment like this were they simply my family — my nearest and dearest. Tonight the father and son-in-law and brothers sharing wine and laughter might tomorrow, once they stepped into court, be at each other’s throats with daggers both seen and unseen. Yet I would no longer expect too much. To have this brief banquet tonight was already an unexpected and immense joy.

In this moment, I was willing to forget Prince Yuzhang, to forget the Left Chancellor, to forget the Grand Princess — to remember only that one was my husband, and the others were my parents. That was enough.

The finest hours always pass in a flash. In the blink of an eye the night was deep, the banquet over, and the guests dispersed, all the brilliance vanished.

By the time I had seen my parents and elder brother off, the wine had left me pleasantly light-headed. I felt as though I were floating on clouds, drifting and hazy. I seemed to vaguely recall Xiao Qi carrying me back to the room.

He helped me undress. I was limp with exhaustion, and languidly wrapped my arms around his neck, murmuring, “So you are afraid of small children.”

“I am afraid of you, this little wretch!” Xiao Qi said, laughing despite himself.

Half-drunk and half-awake, I reached out to touch his brows and hair and temples, sighing to myself: “If there were a tiny little one who looked exactly like you, what would that be like?”

He held me in the circle of his arms, considered the question with a serious expression, and finally sighed: “If it were a girl, and she looked exactly like me — I am afraid she would never find a husband.”

I lay against his chest and laughed lazily. I had never especially liked children before, but now a vague curiosity had begun to stir in me — to think of a small little person sharing features with both of us, how strange and wondrous that would be.

I drifted off to sleep, groggy and muddled, and slept deeply and dreamlessly through the night.

Around the fourth watch of the night, I suddenly startled awake and returned to consciousness. I opened my eyes to find all was still and quiet. In the midst of my restless turning, it seemed I disturbed Xiao Qi. He immediately pulled me into a tight embrace and gently stroked my back. Looking at his face, calm and resolute even in sleep, a tenderness spread through my heart — I felt only that the night was still and the hour was good. Feeling overcome with affection, I raised my face dreamily and let my fingertips gently trace his thin, well-cut lips. He woke from his sleep — not opening his eyes — but his hand moved inside my night garment, sliding down my bare back, and responded to my tenderness.

As the fifth watch came, daylight was already beginning to show.

I pretended to be fast asleep, pressing my face against his chest without moving. He carefully raised his arm, afraid of waking me. I could not help but laugh, and reached around to hold him tightly.

He was helpless — he knew full well that another moment and he would be late for court, yet he was caught, pulled back despite himself, and bent down to kiss me again. Just as we lingered in that sweetness, the sound of hurried footsteps came from outside, and someone knocked at the chamber door.

“Your Highness Prince Yuzhang, someone from the palace requests an urgent audience.”

Xiao Qi immediately rolled to his feet. I too was shocked still. If it were not something of great consequence, the guards would never have dared to disturb us so abruptly.

“What has happened in the palace?” Xiao Qi demanded.

The person outside said in a trembling voice, “At the fourth watch this morning — His Majesty the Emperor has passed away.”