Water was prepared quickly. Xie Changgeng went into the bathing room.
Mu Fulan remained in the outer room.
From inside came the faint, muffled sound of water stirring. A moment later, Mu Fulan suddenly heard another sound from within — “Come in.”
Mu Fulan hesitated briefly, then walked slowly to the bathing room door and stretched out her hand to push it open.
Beneath the floor tiles of the bathing room, too, ran an underfloor heating channel, stoked very hot. Inside, steam rose and warm mist hung thickly in the air.
Mu Fulan stood at the doorway and saw him rise from the water, stepping out.
“Bring me my clothes.”
His tone was flat, as though this were the most natural thing in the world — as though she helped him with this as a matter of routine.
His clothing hung on the rack by the door.
Mu Fulan paused a moment, then reached over, took it, and walked a few steps inside.
His back was toward the door as he dried himself.
In the daytime, dressed and composed, he seemed slender of build — but stripped of his clothes, his shoulders were broad and his chest and abdomen solid. With his back to her now, as he dried himself, the clean, sharply defined muscles across his shoulders and back seemed to ripple beneath the surface like a slow, dark swell.
Mu Fulan walked behind him and held out the clothing.
He dropped the drying cloth, took the clothes from her hands, and pulled them on.
“I didn’t know you’d be back tonight, so I had someone told to add a couple more dishes. Let me go see if they’re ready.”
Mu Fulan said this and turned to go — but heard Xie Changgeng’s voice behind her: “Mu Fulan, do you very much wish to return to the Kingdom of Changsha at once?”
Mu Fulan’s heart gave a small start. She stopped, and slowly turned her head.
Xie Changgeng had already finished dressing. He had turned to face her.
The candlelight in the bathing room was dim. Through a gauzy veil of pale mist, Mu Fulan saw his gaze settle on her face, his eyes deep and dark.
It was a question that was very difficult to answer.
She said, “I remember that before we left the capital, you promised that after arriving here, you would let me return after some time had passed. I will not hide it from you — I do wish to return, though naturally only when it is convenient for you.”
He did not respond. Silence settled around them.
The bathing room was close and small on four sides, the underfloor channel burning fiercely. Mu Fulan felt the air grow hotter and hotter. Whether it was steam or perspiration, she could not say, but something was slowly gathering against the skin she had just washed clean, and her clothing seemed to grow damp and clinging against her.
Even her breathing gradually began to feel somewhat labored.
“You must be hungry — I’ll go and hurry the dinner along…”
She hesitated, then said softly, and made to leave. Her steps stopped again.
A pair of hands reached around from behind her. They encircled her waist, holding her in place.
Her two feet then left the ground.
Xie Changgeng lifted her from behind, cradling her across both arms, and carried her outside.
His feet were bare, his collar loosely open, his chest exposed. His hair was still wet — the ink-dark roots clung against his temples, and water droplets dripped continuously from the ends of his hair as he walked, spattering across her face and body, quickly spreading and soaking in.
Nanny Mu and the maidservants arrived at the door just then, knocked briefly, and pushed it open, carrying the food box inside, ready to set the meal out on the table — only to be met with the sight of Xie Changgeng striding out of the bathing room with the Young Princess held in his arms in precisely that state, and they all froze.
“Get out.”
Xie Changgeng’s expression was dark. He issued this in a low, sharp voice without slowing his steps in the least, passing directly in front of the still-stunned women and carrying Mu Fulan straight into the inner chamber.
He set her down on the edge of the bed. His hand closed around a jade hairpin holding up her hair, and he drew it out and tossed it onto the small side table at the head of the bed.
A faint thunk — the jade pin struck the hard teak wood, bounced several times, and snapped cleanly into two pieces.
Xie Changgeng bent his head and looked at her face, which was gradually changing color, as though studying her features at his leisure — and yet the expression on his face carried nothing superfluous.
One by one, slowly, he pulled out the remaining hairpins fixed in her hair to hold it in place.
When the last pin had also been flung broken onto the side table, her entire length of dark hair tumbled loose like a waterfall.
Xie Changgeng closed his hand around a fistful of it, squeezed it slightly, bent down, and breathed it in.
Her freshly washed hair carried a full, floral fragrance. He released it — then his hand traveled along her face, until at last it closed gently around her chin, tilting it upward, making her look up at him.
Dark hair fell scattered across her cheeks. The color had drained slightly from her face.
“Be sensible.”
He brought his face slowly toward hers and said in a low voice:
“When I find it convenient, you may return.”
His gaze was utterly opaque, yet his tone was exceedingly gentle. If one did not look at his face and only listened, one might think he was coaxing her.
Mu Fulan suddenly rose to her feet.
Before she had fully straightened, he caught her by the shoulders and pressed down — her knees buckled, and she collapsed back to sitting, then fell backward onto the bed.
She sank into the soft bedding and quilts, watching as he slowly pulled loose the sash at his waist, his eyes fixed on her, and said, “Don’t be afraid. In a little while you’ll feel better.”
Nanny Mu stood frozen in the outer room, caught between advancing and retreating, her expression deeply troubled. She stood rigid for a moment, then from somewhere within the bed-curtains came the sound of a woman’s muffled, restrained sob — low and stifled, yet audible. She glanced quickly at the nearby maidservants, whose faces had flushed crimson, and immediately gestured for them to leave.
The maidservants hurried out, carrying the food box with them.
Nanny Mu’s brow remained furrowed. She cast one last look toward the inner chamber, pressed down the worry in her heart — for there was truly nothing she could do — and withdrew as well, pulling the door gently shut behind her.
There was no longer any trace of what Xie Changgeng ordinarily showed the outside world. Not the handsome, graceful exterior, nor the seasoned authority and dignity of an official.
His lawfully wedded wife. The daughter of the King of Changsha — Mu Fulan.
His eyes flushed red. He clenched his jaw. His handsome face, slick with sweat, was slightly contorted. His movements were fierce and relentless, violently urgent — and then for a long while he gripped her waist in a desperate hold, pouring out through that overwhelming, soul-shattering surge of pleasure every last drop of the restless heat, the rage, and the festering indignation that had accumulated over these past days — as though emptying it in a stream without end.
At length he let out a slow breath. He picked up a piece of clothing and wiped himself and her cursorily, then held her in his arms and fell straight into sleep.
The candles in the room guttered lower inch by inch, slowly shortening. The light dimmed, flickered — and then went dark.
The man woke. He did not open his eyes. In the darkness his hand reached out, found a stretch of soft, warm, smooth skin beside him, and he lay stroking it for a moment in silence. Then, without a word, he rolled over and pressed her down again.
The night was deep and dreamy. All was still around them. The low, rhythmic sound of collision seeped through the walls of the room to the door outside.
Nanny Mu did not sleep for the entire night. In torment and waiting, she endured until dawn came at last.
The moment Xie Changgeng had gone, she rushed into the room and through to the inner chamber.
The windows were tightly shut. A pale grey morning light seeped through the paper window panes, casting itself across the room.
Half the bed-curtains had been torn away and hung crookedly. One of the golden hooks at the bed’s head had snapped and dropped to the floor below. At the bed’s edge, a woman’s clothing was draped in disheveled disarray.
The air was slightly stale. In the breath one drew, there seemed to float the faintest ghost of a warm, musky fragrance — there and almost not there at all.
Nanny Mu rushed to the bedside, turned back the badly crumpled and disordered quilts, and a snow-white back covered in vivid red bite marks rose to the surface like the belly of a fish.
Nanny Mu drew in a sharp, silent breath. She carefully turned her over. Exhaustion was written across her face — pallor, hollowness — her eyes closed, her disordered hair threaded with sweat that had dried and dampened again and again through the night. From head to toe, her arms, her chest, even her waist and hips and legs — everywhere bore small scattered marks from teeth and fingers. It was devastating to look upon.
On the night she had met Xie Changgeng storming out of the room with fury on his face to leave in the night, the next day, the more Nanny Mu thought about it, the more something felt wrong. She quietly went and asked Danzhu, who should have been in the room attending to the Young Princess that night — and only then learned that when Danzhu had been about to bring the Young Princess her robe in the bathing room, Xie Changgeng had just come in, ordered her out, and taken her place.
The Young Princess and he had been a marriage in name only before now, sleeping apart, with none of the substance of a true husband and wife. But having heard from Danzhu’s own mouth the truth of that night — the truth she had not known before — and connecting it with what she had witnessed the following evening, her heart had grown deeply uneasy.
She recalled how Xie Changgeng had last night held the Young Princess and bellowed at her and the maidservants to get out. Why he was treating her this way, she understood with terrible clarity — her heart ached to its core, and her eyes reddened in an instant. She covered her in the quilt and said in a trembling voice, “Young Princess — just let me go and tell him that you…”
“No.”
Mu Fulan’s lashes stirred. She opened her eyes, which were slightly red and swollen, slowly.
“I forbid you to mention even a single word.”
“Not even half a word.”
Her spirit seemed to return to her all at once. She looked at the woman before her and spoke, one word at a time.
Nanny Mu could not hold back a choked sound. “Young Princess, why must you do this… I truly don’t understand…”
“Nanny Mu, remember what I say.”
“I am tired. I want to sleep a while.” She closed her eyes and rolled over to face the wall, her voice low.
Nanny Mu stared blankly at her turned back, and could only wipe away her tears. She gathered the disordered clothing and the scattered objects from the floor, and moved as quietly as possible on her way out.
After this, she kept a quiet watch — and found that after that night, Xie Changgeng never again slept alone on the couch in the room.
Fortunately, after that night, Nanny Mu did not observe him treating the Young Princess with such savagery again. Though she would sometimes still notice marks from the night before on her body, they were not so extreme as before.
To all appearances, the two of them now resembled a couple newly wed. And what brought Nanny Mu the greatest comfort of all was the Young Princess’s own demeanor.
Though she could not begin to fathom why the Young Princess had reversed so completely in her attitude toward Xie Changgeng — turning from apparent warmth to apparent coldness in a single night — she now seemed to have accepted the reality of sharing a room with him, and showed no signs of grief or resentment, carrying on each day with her usual composure.
Nanny Mu finally breathed a tentative sigh of relief.
And so the days passed, one after another. In the blink of an eye, the Young Princess had already been here for over a month. The full first month was done; the second month had come. On this day of Awakening of Insects, the farmers began their spring ploughing in accordance with the calendar.
In the local customs of Hexi, this was a day of great importance. Everywhere, people offered sacrifices to the God of Agriculture and the Goddess of Silk, praying for favorable weather and a good harvest in the year to come.
In Guzang, it was customary for officials and common people from within a hundred li in every direction to gather at the Temple of the Gods to the west of the city, where the Military Commissioner would preside over the sacrifice to the God of Agriculture and the Military Commissioner’s wife would lead the offerings to the Goddess of Silk.
The local people regarded this ceremony as a great occasion. According to ritual texts, those who presided over the sacrifice were required to observe a fast for three days beforehand. Not only must they bathe and change their garments, but three days prior they were not to drink wine, not to eat meat, and as for husband and wife — they must refrain from sharing a bed, as a demonstration of sincere reverence.
In previous years, when the Military Commissioner’s wife was not present, the wife of a prefectural official had substituted for her. This year, with her here, it was naturally the Lady herself who would preside.