The room was left with only Mu Fulan alone, and the air around her ears grew utterly still.

Beside the mirror, the candle set in the glass lotus holder suddenly burst with a snap, a flower of soot blooming in the flame.

The candle flame leapt once, then settled back to quiet.

The firelight projected into the depths of her eyes, flickering faintly. Her gaze fixed upon it, and after a long while, as though moving by instinct, she raised her hand, her slender fingertips slowly drawing near to the candle flame.

The skin was briefly singed by the flame.

A thin, yet sharp pain shot from her fingertip, spreading swiftly through her entire body.

Yet Mu Fulan seemed to feel nothing at all.

Only in the depths of her eyes did a shadow of anguish briefly pass through.

She thought of her Xi’er once again.

Her most beloved, her only child — when she had died, he had been barely four years old.

How could she bear to leave him just like that? Driven by deep longing and obsession, her spirit had not scattered; a single spark of her soul had attached itself to the perpetually burning lamp before his longevity memorial tablet.

Ten long years. Boundless darkness. Loneliness that gnawed at her bones.

She watched as he achieved everything he had ever desired, ascending the throne to rule all under heaven. She watched his imperial dominion grow — his civil achievements and martial exploits. She watched too as he filled three palaces and six courts with beautiful women like clouds.

Yet these things had long ceased to have any connection with her. Her heart had long since become still as water.

She had stubbornly refused to leave, held by one single attachment — to one day see with her own eyes her Xi’er grow into a man. Once that day came, she would depart in peace.

Yet in the end, what she had waited for, what she had finally witnessed — was that scene that had torn her heart apart and shattered her very soul.

What was this pain of a fingertip grazed by fire, compared to the pain of watching Xi’er draw a blade across his own throat before her very eyes?

Her chest clenched and twisted. For a moment, she felt she could not breathe.

She rose abruptly, lifted her hand, and flung the window open wide.

A bone-cutting cold wind rushed in to meet her face.

She stood before the window, eyes closed, face tilted upward, breathing in a deep breath of the icy air into the ink-black night sky above.

The memories she had deliberately refused to dwell upon seemed to erupt all at once, as though carried by that pain which had driven deep from her fingertip into her heart.

One by one, incident by incident — like densely packed needles, driving deep into her very organs and bowels.

……

Mu Fulan first met Xie Changgeng in the spring of her thirteenth year, during a trip of hers to Monarch Mountain.

After her mother passed away a few years earlier, her father’s health had declined steadily with each passing season. As a young girl, she worried about him constantly.

On that particular day, she crossed by boat to Monarch Mountain, seeking her master to inquire about matters regarding her father’s illness, and also to ask about a few questions she had concerning medicinal herbs.

When she arrived at her master’s medicine hut, A’Da informed her that her master was currently entertaining a visitor.

By A’Da’s account, the visitor was a young man. It seemed that some years back, when her master had gone out on a journey and encountered danger, this man had saved him, and the two had hit it off famously, forming a friendship that crossed the generations.

Her own business was not especially urgent, and the guest was a young man.

A girl of thirteen, just beginning to understand something of the world, was no longer a small child. She told A’Da not to announce her, and that she would come back the next day.

She descended the mountain, and as she passed by the legendary ancient cypress tree — said to have stood since antiquity — she paused.

The mountain winds that day were very strong. A nestling bird had been blown out of its nest by the wind and had fallen onto a tangle of old vines growing from a sheer cliff.

Monarch Mountain, apart from the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month when it was open to the public to ascend and pay respects to the great spirit of the mountain, was closed to visitors on ordinary days, because the mausoleum of Mu clan’s ancestors was built here.

When she had ascended the mountain, she had left her guards waiting at the base. At this moment, she had with her only a few maids.

Mu Fulan wanted to rescue the nestling. But that clump of vines was far too distant from the edge of the cliff — a full one zhang deep, more than ten feet. Even a grown adult maid could not reach it at all.

The nestling was very young: a sharp little yellow beak, a fluffy body, the feathers on its two little wings not yet fully grown. It lay in the vines, beating its feeble wings unceasingly, as though struggling desperately to take flight. But each flap of those wings only pushed it further toward the outer edge. Clearly, if even one more gust of mountain wind came, it would tumble over the cliff and fall.

The parent bird circled in a panic above the edge of the cliff, letting out a series of sharp, urgent cries.

Mu Fulan hurriedly sent someone down the mountain to fetch the guards. Before the guards could arrive, the nestling, exhausted by its futile struggling, had already rolled to the very edge of the vines — it was on the verge of falling.

Just as Mu Fulan was in an anxious panic, suddenly, from behind her, there came a sound of footsteps.

She turned her head and saw a stranger — a young man — descending along the mountain path.

He was about the same age as her royal brother, eighteen or nineteen, slightly lean, wearing a blue robe, his robes full of mountain wind.

He appeared not to have noticed the group of anxious girls beneath the old cypress. His expression was distant, his eyes facing forward, and he was about to pass by them along the stone steps.

Mu Fulan watched, and just as he had already gone past, she suddenly came to herself. She called out to his retreating figure: “Hey! You stop right there!”

The man stopped and slowly turned his face, looking at her.

“A little bird has fallen down there! Think of something — come rescue it, quickly — won’t you?”

She pleaded with him.

The man paused for a moment, and finally walked over. He came to the edge of that nearly vertical cliff face, leaned over and looked down, then reached out and grabbed a thick old vine, gave it a firm yank, then gathered his robe hem and tied it around his lean and sturdy waist. He bent down next, drew a brilliantly gleaming snow-white dagger from inside his boot,

He drove the dagger into the crevices of the rock face, his feet stepping on the vines clinging to the cliff wall, and climbed down. Very quickly he drew close to the nestling and brought it back up.

The parent bird followed, flying back up, circling around the treetop nest and chirping jubilantly.

He found his footing, looked up for a moment, then climbed the tree, placed the nestling back in its nest, and with that, leaped down from the treetop, landing firmly on both feet.

The entire time he had been climbing down, Mu Fulan had been watching with held breath, so tense she could hardly bear it. When she saw him successfully bring the little bird back up and return it to its nest, she finally let out her breath completely. She lifted her skirts and ran toward him.

He was very tall. She had only just turned thirteen, and although she was growing into a slender, beautiful girl, showing the lovely beginnings of a small beauty, at that time, standing before him, she barely reached the height of his chest — like a very young child.

She had to tilt her head back with effort just to see his eyes.

She tilted up a face as lovely as a flower in bloom, her eyes shining brilliantly, and looked at him, thanking him from the bottom of her heart with evident delight.

He seemed slightly startled, looked at her for a moment, and perhaps moved by that joy which came so purely from deep within her — the corner of his lips finally curved into a faint smile.

He gave her a nod, pushed the dagger back into his boot, let his robe fall, and turned away.

From the moment he was called to stop until his departure, he had not spoken a single word from beginning to end.

Yet in the instant when he had smiled at her, it was as though heaven and earth had suddenly fallen quiet — all sounds fading from her ears, leaving only petals drifting one by one in the wind along the stone steps up which he departed, drifting too across the girl’s heart, lingering there for a long while, refusing to scatter.

A few days later, Mu Fulan received word.

Someone had come to propose marriage, and her father had accepted.

Nanny Mu ordered the maids not to breathe a word of it in her presence. Her sister-in-law comforted her, saying she had seen the man who had come to propose with her own eyes. Though his background could not match the standing befitting a princess, he was nonetheless a distinguished young man, and a remarkably capable one at that.

Even her father himself, upon returning, had looked at her with a regretful expression, and told her he was not a good father and was putting her through hardship.

Mu Fulan smiled and said that a daughter’s marriage should naturally be decided by her father. Moreover, she was the Princess of Changsha — to marry for the sake of Changsha was also her duty as a princess.

Her father was greatly comforted, and assured her again and again that the reason he had accepted the man’s proposal, beyond considerations for the greater situation, was also because he believed in this person, and was convinced that following him, his daughter would not suffer hardship in her remaining years.

Mu Fulan thanked her father.

What the late Prince of Changsha did not know was that on that night, his daughter had secretly shed tears.

Those tears were shed for the blue-robed silhouette that had quietly imprinted itself upon her heart just days before — a silhouette she had not yet had time to see clearly before she could only erase it.

Her heart was full of the tender longings of a young girl; she lay sleepless all night, and never in her dreams could she have anticipated that the next day, things would suddenly take a turn.

Her father hosted a banquet to receive her intended husband.

Her sister-in-law, wanting to set her mind at ease, brought her along and quietly came to the side of the banquet hall.

From behind a curtain, she saw the man who was to be her future husband.

He sat beside her father, composed and at ease, conversing and laughing.

The moment she set eyes upon him, the world burst into birdsong and flowers, and the blossoms in her heart opened in wild, unconstrained bloom.

Her future husband was none other than that blue-robed young man she had encountered by chance beside the ancient cypress on Monarch Mountain that day.

The night wind poured in through the window, sending her robe hem whipping wildly, and behind her the candlelight flared and swayed in wild agitation, alternately bright and dim — her own shadow, too, rocked and shuddered without cease.

From outside came a sudden sound of Nanny Mu coughing. Accompanied by a vague, indistinct murmur of voices following close behind, it seemed as though someone was walking in this direction.

Mu Fulan’s eyes snapped open all at once. She pushed the window closed and turned around.

……

The evening banquet that Changsha had hosted for him had drawn at least a hundred guests, yet the atmosphere could only be described as cold and sparse.

After Mu Xuanqing took his seat, he rarely opened his mouth and did not so much as glance in his direction, his manner frigid and distant.

Among Changsha’s officials, apart from Chancellor Lu Lin, whose smile never wavered as he worked throughout to smooth things over, the rest dared not offend their Prince — naturally they also dared not offend him. For most of the time, they kept their heads down, eating and drinking in silence. When occasion required, they sent out a few ripples of echoing laughter, and that was sufficient.

This evening banquet was, perhaps, the most peculiar feast Xie Changgeng had experienced in his entire life.

What he had walked through to reach this point today — to call it licking blood from a blade’s edge would be an understatement. What great storms had he not weathered? How could he possibly take Mu Xuanqing’s cold treatment to heart?

This young Prince of Changsha was not only utterly incomparable to the late Prince — in Xie Changgeng’s eyes, he was no more than a prince’s son who acted on impulse and emotion.

Hot-blooded, yes. But short on ability.

To speak plainly, he had not expected, upon returning home this time, that the Mu clan woman would leave without a word before he got back. Nor had he expected that this journey to Changsha would go so poorly.

Even getting so much as a glimpse of his newly married wife was proving fraught with obstacles.

The Mu clan was using the pretext of his taking a concubine to seek the dissolution of the marriage and cut all ties with him.

That was certainly a reason, but it was likely not the only one when one thought it through.

His current self was already far removed from what he had been three years ago. Changsha too, from his perspective, now held considerably less value than before.

If all other considerations were set aside and he looked only at the most direct purpose for which he had originally sought the marriage — in truth, he was not entirely unable to accept such an outcome.

In the future, if there were changes in Changsha, he would do his utmost to help. That way, he would at least not have betrayed the purpose for which the late Prince of Changsha had agreed to give him his daughter, nor his gratitude for that man’s patronage and advancement.

Yet everyone knew of his ties to Changsha — including Empress Liu and the Liu clan behind her. The contest of forces on all sides had already formed, in shadow, a state of equilibrium. He moved through its midst, and at this critical period in his plans, it was all the more fitting to remain hidden and unmoving, responding to all changes with no change of his own.

If word of a broken marriage were to spread, it would undoubtedly set off various conjectures and suspicions, even shattering that equilibrium.

For him, this would be no small trouble.

And so, after weighing it all, he had decided it was still better to maintain this marriage tie, to resolve things as swiftly as possible, and bring the Mu clan woman home.

Xie Changgeng arrived at the doorway of the Princess of Changsha’s chamber — the chamber of the wife he had not seen since the wedding night. He looked at the servant woman beside him who had ostensibly led the way here, yet now stood unwilling to step aside.

Nanny Mu had half-guessed at the Princess’s intentions.

But she could not quite bring herself to believe that merely because the Xie Family had expressed an intent to take a concubine, the Princess would be so absolutely resolute as this.

She worried even more that the Princess would come to harm.

If necessary, even if it meant giving her own life for the Princess’s sake, she would not hesitate for a single moment.

But from the morning the Princess had left the Xie household, it was as though the Princess no longer needed her protection.

What she understood even more clearly was that she had no power to protect her.

Nanny Mu met the two shafts of gaze the man directed toward her. A tide of sadness mixed with unease rose within her heart.

She steadied herself, called out loudly toward the interior of the room that the son-in-law had arrived, and then retreated a few steps.

Xie Changgeng raised his hand, pushed open the door which stood ajar before him, stepped over the threshold, and entered.

The room was warm and cozy, lit with the glow of candles. In the outer corners of the room, one to the left and one to the right, stood incense tables. From the left, an incense burner exhaled a gentle breath of smoke; to the right, a jade vase held a spray of winter-blooming plum.

The fragrance of incense and the clean, cool scent of plum blossom mingled and twined together, refreshing and permeating, washing over him the moment he entered.

Xie Changgeng stopped near the doorway and stood for a moment. He heard no human voice.

He raised his eyes, and his gaze passed through the latticework partition door ahead, looking inward.

There, a fragrant tawny-colored canopy hung half-raised and half-draped, casting the inner room in a soft, hazy veil.

Still no figure was visible — only a cluster of candle flame, hidden behind the curtain, swaying faintly, as though beckoning him to come deeper inside.

Xie Changgeng stepped forward, came to stand before the canopy, reached out to lift it aside, and was just about to enter when his footsteps gave a faint, almost imperceptible pause, and he stopped again.

This was an inner chamber furnished with exquisite delicacy.

Across from the bed, a reclining couch had been set. Beside the couch, a silver lamp burned. On the couch lay a spread of snow-white felt.

A woman reclined there — her face like fine jade, her wrists white as frost — holding a scroll in her hand. She was half-reclining, half-seated against the reclining couch, reading the book she held by the light of the silver lamp, leisurely turning the pages.

She appeared to be no more than fifteen or sixteen, the look of a young girl, yet she was dressed in the manner of a young married woman. Over her shoulders was loosely draped a light gauze cape; around her waist was tied a pomegranate-red skirt; her long hair was gathered into a loose bun, yet the gold hairpin seemed unable to bear the weight of her hair, tilting and slipping downward — and so her full black tresses tumbled and piled in a dark cascade against the side of her jade-white neck.

She appeared not to have noticed Xie Changgeng’s arrival in the slightest. Even when he lifted the curtain aside and stood at the side of the latticework door, she showed no reaction whatsoever — not even the raising of an eyelid to glance his way.

She simply turned one more page of the book in her hand. The two bracelets on her jade wrists clinked lightly together with the motion of her turning the page, producing a delicate, pleasing chime.

Xie Changgeng had not anticipated that this was the scene that would greet him upon his arrival.

Nor had he anticipated that the Mu clan woman would present herself in this manner.

His gaze traveled from her face, swept across her form, and finally came to rest upon her feet.

Below the pomegranate-red skirt, her bare feet were revealed.

She was wearing no socks at all. A pair of small, snow-white bare feet lay fully exposed, nestled in the felt — like a pair of little doves resting quietly in snow. Beautiful as they were, to a man, they naturally also conveyed something else, faint and ambiguous, lurking just beneath the surface.

A somewhat dark and heavy look came into Xie Changgeng’s gaze. He stared at her feet for a moment, then finally drew his eyes back, walked over, raised a hand, and pulled the book from her grasp, setting it aside.

“Are you Mu clan’s daughter?”

He looked down at the beauty reclining on the couch and asked.

Mu Fulan still reclined there, raised her eyelids, and met his gaze for a moment — but gave no response.

Her manner was one of supreme indifference.

Identical in kind to that royal brother of hers.

Having come to Changsha and been subjected to every manner of cold treatment, even to having Mu Xuanqing heap verbal abuse upon him until spittle was practically flying in his face — Xie Changgeng had not grown the slightest bit angry, taking it all in his stride with calm composure.

Only now — only at this moment — when he saw this Mu clan woman directing that same attitude toward him. A surge of displeasure suddenly rose in his heart. Just as when he had first arrived home and learned that his newly married wife had left without a word — the same kind of displeasure.

Yet his expression became even more gentle.

He gazed steadily into the woman’s beautiful eyes and slowly sat down beside her.

“Mu clan, on our wedding night, I should not have left you behind and departed — but you know that imperial commands are not to be trifled with; I had no choice in the matter. Last month, I finally returned home, and yet you had already gone…”

Xie Changgeng paused, then continued in the most gentle tone he could produce:

“I know my mother angered you. As for the matter of the young woman from the Qi clan, there is truly no need for you to take it so much to heart. If you are unwilling, how could I possibly go against your wishes and bring her here by force? What’s more, I had no such intention to begin with. You and I are husband and wife — no matter what displeasure you feel, is there anything you cannot wait until I come home and tell me directly?”

Mu Fulan gave a small smile and still did not respond.

The room fell into momentary silence.

Xie Changgeng reached out his hand — the palm, slightly roughened with calluses — and pressed it down atop the bare foot she had extended beyond the hem of her skirt.

He slowly closed his fingers, wrapping around her snow-white little foot, and gently squeezed.

“Lan’er…”

He called her pet name in a low murmur.

Mu Fulan bent her knee. Her bare foot slipped from his grasp like a slippery little fish, drawing free in an instant.

She pulled her skirt hem downward, and both feet were tucked completely out of sight beneath the fabric, without the slightest trace showing.

Xie Changgeng watched her movement, the look in his eyes growing ever deeper. His throat worked slightly, and he withdrew his hand. Instead, he raised his arm and slowly drew out a golden hairpin from her hair bun.

Her full length of hair cascaded down like a waterfall.

He took advantage of the moment to gather that cool, silky handful of black tresses in his grip, drawing her half of her soft body into the crook of his arm. His handsome face drew closer, his lips near her ear, and he murmured low, “Lan’er, stop being angry. I truly owe you an apology this time. The moment I arrived home, I set out at once to come here — for the sole purpose of taking you back. Come back with me tomorrow. From now on, everything can be discussed.”

Mu Fulan suddenly exerted force, shoving him away with both palms, and let out a cold laugh, speaking aloud for the first time that night.

“Xie Changgeng, why don’t you take a look in the mirror? Who do you think you are, that I should want so much to be your wife?”

Xie Changgeng had only been perched at the edge of the couch, and, caught completely off guard, was pushed off the reclining couch entirely by both her palms, which was a rather undignified spectacle.

He slowly raised his head to find her face turned toward him, eyes looking down at him with disdain from above.

That face of jade, able to bring ruin to all who beheld it, requiring not the least exertion.