When the gratification born of that retaliatory release faded, what followed in its place was remorse, disgust, and indignation.

It was with precisely these feelings that Xie Changgeng walked out of that door.

From the moment he had thrown down his brush and taken a life at the age of fourteen — taking a desperate, irreversible gamble — the boy who had once read by lamplight on rainy nights in the mountains of Ba and risen at the fourth drum-watch to practice sword-play at the first cock-crow was gone, never to return.

He would never forget the day he returned home from the imperial examinations, only to be met with the sight of his father being carried in, vomiting blood and dying. That memory was carved into his very bones. He would carry it to his grave.

His father had been nothing more than a postal station keeper, yet he was a man of integrity and great learning. Even now, Xie Changgeng remembered when he was small and his father taught him to write his name, telling him: in the morning the star shines as the dawn herald, and by evening it becomes the long geng — the evening star. With the Northern Dipper scattered across the sky, the long geng heralds the birth of the noble. He had been born in the hour when the evening star rose into the heavens, and so his father had named him accordingly.

His father was the one person he held in the greatest reverence in his entire life.

And the man who had been able to commit violence so brazenly and swagger off without consequence afterward — he was nothing more than a Military Preparation General. A mere fifth rank official. Yet that rank alone was enough to make him so insufferably arrogant.

From that day forward, the law of the strong devouring the weak, and the ambition to rise above all others, became everything. The refusal to be beneath anyone that ran in his blood and marrow destined him for this path. His desires and ambitions swelled with every ascent made by standing on the corpses of his enemies. The Yangtze River waterways, the shadowy underworld forces — however extreme they grew, they could no longer satisfy him.

He wanted to stand at the summit of the light, to be the chosen son of Heaven, to trample everything beneath his feet and make the people of the world prostrate themselves, unable to even raise their eyes to look upon him. Only then would he have not lived this life in vain.

It had taken him five years to rise to master of the Yangtze.

In those five years, he stained his hands with blood. Those who died at his hands included enemies — and those who had once been his own. He himself had likewise come close to death multiple times, surviving by a hair’s breadth. Those who wished to kill him were not only enemies, but also his own people.

Betrayal after betrayal, conflict after conflict — every last remnant of vulnerability in that young man was ground into armor of iron and a shield of blades. Beyond himself, Xie Changgeng no longer trusted any living soul. Everything was something that could be used and exchanged — including his marriage.

When he was nineteen and had secured his position at the head of the Yangtze, having amassed enough capital, he turned his eyes toward the Dongting Mu clan, whose territory bordered his own sphere of influence.

When this marriage alliance was struck, he had not the slightest personal interest in the Mu woman herself. Tall or short, fat or thin, a great beauty or a plain face — it made no difference to him.

He would marry her. Afterward, he would give her everything she was due, and she would give him heirs. That was sufficient.

He had not anticipated that from the very day he set out for the Kingdom of Changsha to bring her back, things would, without any warning, veer entirely off the course he had imagined.

And now it had come to this — a state that left even him in a wretched disarray.

In his youth he had been known throughout the region for his scholarly brilliance, and carried within him an inescapable pride and arrogance. No woman had ever caught his eye. His betrothal to the Qi family had been his parents’ arrangement, and he had simply complied. But after the age of fourteen, when fate turned upon him violently and he found himself licking blood from a blade’s edge, even the rare youthful fancies of a beauty to keep him company in the lamplight — those too had long since evaporated entirely. By the time he was sixteen, having watched a leader who had recognized and promoted him die at the hands of a woman sent by his enemies, he had taken it as a stern warning and imposed upon himself strict self-discipline from that point forward. This Mu woman held no interest in him, was bent on leaving, and what was more, had already long since lost her chastity and was by nature wanton and licentious — why should he spare her a second glance?

He was remorseful. He regretted that he had been deceived by this woman’s outward appearance and her posture of submission, and that just now he had allowed himself a moment of indulgence — bringing nothing upon himself but shame.

He was disgusted. Disgusted with this woman’s dissoluteness and cunning, and even more disgusted with himself. In the study in the capital that day, he had clearly known she had come to play at false cordiality — yet when he heard her say “In this entire world, the only person who can protect me is you,” he had, against all judgment, been somewhat moved by it.

And he felt an indescribable, seething indignation.

Not only because she had indeed lost her chastity — but because at the moment when he still harbored that last small hope, when he had been willing to believe that perhaps she had only been deceiving him that first time, and had been prepared to set aside her past slights and treat her somewhat better — what she returned to him was yet another humiliation.

In the eyes that met his, there was not the faintest trace of guilt or remorse.

Even if she had lost her chastity — had there been even a thread of shame, he would not have been driven to such fury.

That very night, Xie Changgeng braved the bitter cold, treading through ice and snow, and made for Xiutu.

Xiutu was not large, yet it was a vital garrison town on the frontier, serving as the gateway to Guzang, and its strategic position was crucial.

Not long before, it had been struck by a sizable force of northern steppe cavalry. The deputy general Liu An had led the defense through several engagements. When the enemy learned that Military Commissioner Xie Changgeng was on his way back from the capital, knowing there was nothing to be gained, they withdrew without result.

When Xie Changgeng had arrived at Xiutu at that time, he had immediately set about reinforcing the existing fortifications. He remained occupied with this for several days, and only once everything was in order did he depart and return to Guzang.

He had only been gone a short while when he now returned, not sparing himself the cold or the snow, arriving in the dead of night with ice crystals even in his hair and on his eyebrows. Liu An assumed he had come because he had not been at ease leaving things in his hands, and was deeply alarmed. After Xie Changgeng had rested briefly, Liu An immediately led him on another full inspection of the city’s defenses, and again gave his most solemn assurances, vowing he would hold Xiutu fast and offering to make it official in writing as a military pledge.

Xie Changgeng used the inspection of the defenses as his pretext and stayed in Xiutu for a few days.

It was not that he genuinely needed to be here. It was that on the night he had left in fury, he had no idea where to go, and thought of Xiutu, so he came. Several days had now passed, and there was nothing here that truly demanded his attention. Staying on any longer was becoming somewhat contrived. He had been about to leave and continue on to other towns, and Liu An had led the troops to see him out of the gates. Once he was on the road, he gradually reined his horse in, slowing to a halt.

And yet — why should he be the one to leave her behind at the Military Commissioner’s residence, allowing her to cause him all this inconvenience? The night he left he had been in too great a hurry, and the various affairs of the residence had not been handed off. By now, several days later, they had no doubt piled up.

To think that because of one woman, he now found himself unable to return to his own home — that was truly beyond all reason.

When she had first arrived in the capital, the Empress Dowager Liu had summoned her to the palace repeatedly, probing her from all sides. It was nothing more than fear that she might gain a hold over him and whisper things in his ear to drive a wedge — did he not know that perfectly well?

This time, in a moment of carelessness, he had risked incurring the suspicion of Empress Dowager Liu and gone to the trouble of bringing her out here. Now that she had arrived, and they had been seen together by the outside world for some time — he would send her back to the Kingdom of Changsha on the grounds of incompatibility. When word reached Empress Dowager Liu, it would not contradict the reputation he wished to maintain, and it would lead the Empress Dowager to believe that her original assessment of the Mu woman had been correct.

Looked at from another angle, in the end it was he himself who had done this woman a favor.

Xie Changgeng thought with cold detachment.

This time, he would simply count it as having taken a fall and learned a lesson. He would go back, speak plainly to her face-to-face, and tell her to get herself back to the Kingdom of Changsha — and tell her and that royal brother of hers to behave themselves. If in the future the great matter came to fruition, he might, out of regard for the late King of Changsha, spare the need to pursue them to the very end.

He turned this over briefly, reached his decision quickly, wheeled his horse around, and set off back toward Guzang.

The two places were several hundred li apart. He rode hard for a full day, and by the time dusk fell, the sturdy horse beneath him was drenched as though pulled from water, its four hooves still trembling. At last he passed through the city gates again and arrived before the great doors of the Military Commissioner’s residence.

The steward was standing at the entrance with a page boy, checking over the lanterns that illuminated the gateway. Suddenly catching sight of the master of the house returning, he was pleasantly surprised and hurried forward to welcome him.

Xie Changgeng swung down from the horse, ordered someone to lead the horse to the stable for feed and rest, and walked inside. After a few steps, as though making casual conversation, he asked the steward who had followed him in, “In the days I’ve been away, what has the Young Princess been doing?”

The steward replied, “People have been coming to seek medical treatment, so the Young Princess has been seeing patients. When wives of subordinate officials came to call, she received them. Other than that she has remained in the residence. Much the same as before.”

Xie Changgeng gazed straight ahead and said nothing in reply.

The steward smiled and offered some flattery. “My lord, please go on in. This humble servant heard from his son that in order to come here sooner to be reunited with my lord, the Young Princess was unwilling to rest even briefly along the way, pressing on without pause, and arrived so many days early as a result. What a pity that my lord has had so much to attend to and has frequently been out of the city, often gone for days at a time. The Young Princess must miss my lord deeply. Now that my lord has returned, she surely doesn’t know how glad she’ll be.”

The steward’s son had been one of the escorts who had brought Mu Fulan here. The steward, having observed that Mu Fulan had impressive medical skill and was a warm and approachable person, had worked up his courage to mention that he himself suffered from an old cold ailment in his legs, which when it flared up caused aching and swelling that was difficult to bear. She had taught him a moxibustion method, saying that regular treatment would certainly ease the discomfort. The steward was deeply grateful, and also hoping to speak well of her in front of Xie Changgeng, he now deliberately brought up something he had heard from his son some time ago.

It did, however, prompt a thought in him.

The reason this woman had driven herself so relentlessly to arrive here early was because she had kept firmly in mind something he had said before — she had been thinking about getting here sooner, so she could leave sooner.

A cold smile crept onto his face. He told the steward there was no need to follow and to go attend to his own affairs, and made his way toward the inner quarters.

He stepped into the courtyard and was met head-on by a maidservant coming out of the room. He recognized her as the one who, several days ago, had been about to bring a robe to the Young Princess in the bathing room — the one he had, in a moment of impulse, sent away, taking her place himself.

Danzhu was on her way out when she nearly walked into Military Commissioner Xie, who had returned after several days’ absence. She startled, then quickly came forward to salute him.

“The Young Princess is in the room — I’ll go announce your arrival at once…”

“Don’t bother.”

Xie Changgeng’s steps did not slow. He reached the foot of the steps, mounted them, and pushed the door open.

The room was brightly lit with candles. Mu Fulan was wearing only a thin violet gauze inner robe, seated before the mirror, wiping her still-damp long hair herself. At the sound of the door being pushed open behind her, she assumed it was Danzhu returning, and said with a smile, “Why are you back so soon? Did you speak to Nanny Mu? Tell her not to make too many dishes — she’ll tire herself out, and besides, I can’t eat that much…”

She turned her head and saw the suddenly appearing Xie Changgeng. She was taken aback. The smile on her face stilled, and her words stopped.

The room was warm as spring inside, and she had just bathed. Added to that, she had not anticipated his abrupt return at this hour — her single layer of inner robe was rather thin, unsuitable to face a man with — even though that man was technically her “husband,” and even though, just a few days ago, something had occurred between them of that nature.

She rose, took the outer robe hanging nearby, and put it on over herself. She turned to face him, a smile on her face, and greeted him. “You’re back?”

He did not react.

Mu Fulan glanced quietly at the man across from her who said nothing, and a sudden flicker of unease passed through her heart.

On that night three days ago, he had clearly departed in the grip of resentment afterward.

Mu Fulan knew that in the moment he had looked at her, her reaction had struck him more deeply than the lack of chastity she had already disclosed to him.

Proud as Xie Changgeng was, in these past few days, the thing he would regret most above all else must certainly have been touching her.

In truth, on the night before they left the capital, acting on a kind of intuition, Mu Fulan had known that he had developed a small degree of interest in her.

A small and inconsequential interest, perhaps — but if things were left suspended in this state of uncertainty, she truly had no idea when she might be able to return home.

What could not be avoided was better to come sooner than later.

If her assessment was correct, now that he had confirmed firsthand that she was not chaste, he would certainly send her away.

So on the night he left, and throughout these past few days, her spirits had been quite good. She had simply been waiting for him to return and speak the words.

But now, facing this Xie Changgeng who had returned so unexpectedly, she found herself suddenly not quite so certain.

She felt a trace of doubt and unease.

Xie Changgeng’s gaze shifted away from her and swept toward the corner of the room.

There stood several stacked trunks and cases.

These cases had been brought by her from the capital. Since arriving, they had remained in that spot, never once unpacked or put in order.

He had noticed them long before. Only never had they struck him as they did now — entering his eyes like something sharp.

His gaze drifted slowly back from those trunks and came to rest again on her face — the face that just a moment before had clearly been full of smiling warmth. All the words he had rehearsed on the road back today, turning them over in his mind — the ones about telling her to get herself back to the Kingdom of Changsha the moment he saw her — he suddenly had no desire to say.

He said expressionlessly, “Tell someone to bring water and send dinner. I’m tired.”