Leaving the outskirts of Quecheng and traveling west for less than a hundred li, one arrived at Yu’an County — embraced on all sides by mountains, ranges folding upon ranges in layered green.

The rain of late spring came on fiercely, falling in fits and starts — sometimes light, sometimes heavy — for three full days and three nights, before gradually thinning into a fine, hair-like drizzle.

This was weather peculiar to Yu’an. From the start of spring each year through the onset of true winter, the moisture-laden clouds drifting down from north and south would be trapped within this bowl-shaped terrain. Over time, the vegetation here had grown lush and abundant, the forests cascading like waterfalls, and the birds and beasts encountered were without exception rare and wondrous. Every breath drawn in and out carried a sense of spirit and grace.

Yet for all that this land was nourished by gentle rain and soft breezes, it had now fallen into desolate ruin. Green moss covered the walls of the old town. Not a trace of its former prosperity could be glimpsed.

Yu’an: a name meaning a place of ample rainfall and lasting peace.

But since that battle where rebel armies shed blood here a dozen or so years ago, Yu’an Prefecture had existed in name only. Apart from the unusually heavy military presence stationed there — compared to other prefectures — only the rain that fell without cease across all four seasons remained, silently washing over this land that had been soaked through with slaughter.

The waterlogged earth could hold no more water. The official road was pooled with shallow puddles, and the carriages and horses passing over them turned those puddles into ditches of mud. Had the road not been mixed with river gravel and pebbles, the rear wheels might well have sunk in completely.

Jixiang’s temper turned foul again. It hated the feeling of its hooves sinking into muddy water — it reminded it of that cold spring rain on the road to Huozhou years ago.

Even with the best horses and finest carriages in the procession, the rain had slowed everyone’s pace somewhat.

The scenery around them grew indistinct. The sky ahead was an unbroken grey from first to last, with no visible end.

And from the very first night she entered Yu’an, Xiao Nanhui was woken by pain in her sleep.

At first she thought it was a nightmare, but after taking a few deep breaths, she realized the pain had not faded — it only grew clearer as her consciousness sharpened.

Both her legs felt as though they had been battered repeatedly with a wooden club. The joints of both ankles ached with a numbing cold. The skin over those old scars looked no different from any other skin — but beneath the surface, it churned and tormented her.

It was a pain that came from deep within the bone. Dense and clinging, following her like a shadow. During the daytime march it was still possible to endure, but in the dead of night, with no one around, it became increasingly unbearable — even breathing tugged at it.

These were wounds left from her time in Bijiang. Hao Bai had healed the sinews and bones, but could not heal the pain that had sunk into the depths of those sinews and bones. As long as damp air pervaded, it would pull the old wound open.

Xiao Nanhui understood now: this pain would likely accompany her for the rest of her life. In every season of overcast rain and drizzle, it would come to find her. A kind of oblique reminder: the souls adrift above that wilderness were not illusions, and the bones buried beneath a hundred million spans of sand would never decay.

She had been changed, in the end.

Body and heart alike.

She fished a half-depleted wine sack from Jixiang’s saddlebag, downed several mouthfuls of yellow wine, and the pain in her legs retreated somewhat. She drifted back into a heavy, groggy sleep — only to wake the next morning more dull-headed than usual. By the time she stirred, Xu Shu had already appeared right in front of her.

Xu Shu’s boot was planted on the hem of her robe, the sole still bearing a smear of fresh horse dung.

When Xiao Nanhui looked up at him, he put on an expression of mock surprise.

“Oh my — I didn’t see Xiao Canjun there. My sincerest apologies.”

Xiao Nanhui paused. She bent her right leg slightly — which ached somewhat — and with a sharp thrust, the hem of her robe slid free from under that boot, leaving a brown streak pressed down the center of her official garment.

Fortunately, the escort’s official attire, intended for riding and archery, was made of a dark, wear-resistant fabric. From a little distance it wasn’t too conspicuous.

She brushed casually at the smear, glanced at Xu Shu’s sneeringly mocking face, and got to her feet without a word.

In the past, she would certainly have unleashed a sweeping kick and followed up with a full set of punches to deal with this insufferable little pest. But today, perhaps because her energy was a shade below usual, she suddenly found she didn’t want to bother with him.

Xu Shu was obnoxious — but only obnoxious, no more than that. Compared to the life-threatening Yanzi, the never-disappearing Pu Huna, or the bloodless Bai Yun, he was nowhere near in the same league.

Xiao Nanhui walked straight-faced to the small stream beside the camp, leaving that expression — which had shifted from mockery to surprise — standing right where it was.

Xu Shu had anticipated many possible reactions from Xiao Nanhui, but this was the one he had not foreseen.

He concluded that the woman before him was holding herself back, and so he led his horse to the stream’s edge as well, positioning himself upstream of her.

Xiao Nanhui crouched by the stream to wash up. Xu Shu let his horse splash in the water above her. She acted as though she saw nothing, continuing to scrub away at her face, not a single word more than necessary coming from her lips.

After a while, Xu Shu’s voice finally drifted down.

“The escort on the right has always been a post for warriors of great strength and valor. I have heard that Xiao Canjun once suffered the shoulder punishment. That arm must now be of little use. If she cannot ride and shoot — how can she be fit for this position?”

A dog can’t stop eating filth. Xu Shu can’t stop making trouble for himself.

A summary of universal truth drifted through her mind. Xiao Nanhui felt like laughing — and then actually laughed.

That laugh completely enraged Xu Shu.

He raised an eyebrow. The scar at the corner of that brow rose with it, carrying a provocative air.

“I hear that a few days ago you stirred up trouble again at the Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion and got the Prince’s second son confined to quarters. It seems what happened at Jiaosong still hasn’t taught you anything — or is it that your good adoptive father, now that he has reconnected with an old flame, no longer wishes to manage you and is happy to let you fend for yourself?”

Xu Shu had always known how to pierce Xiao Nanhui’s inner core.

But this time, he had miscalculated.

Xiao Nanhui’s face was as still as still water. She even had the leisure to let her mind drift — to calculate how many more days that half sack of yellow wine would last.

To think she had been trading blows with Xu Shu all these years, yet had found clarity about so much in a single night.

Xu Shu didn’t hate her. He simply looked down on her.

Looked down on her birth. Looked down on her official rank. Looked down on the fact that she was a woman trying to make her place among the military.

In the past, a few words from him would send her into a fury, because she felt deep down that she truly wasn’t his equal — and so she was always desperate to prove something.

But she no longer needed any of that now. A single exchange of glances told her: Xu Shu was already nothing more than one of the grains of sand she had left behind when she passed through the Sanmu Pass.

She wiped the last drop of water from her face and made to turn and leave.

Xu Shu was about to say more, when the woman suddenly looked past him and made a salute:

“Greetings, Gentle Consort Cui.”

Xu Shu indeed went rigid all over. When he turned with some apprehension to look behind him, he found not even the shadow of a ghost.

It had never occurred to Xu Shu — the man who used this trick on Xiao Nanhui all the time — that one day he would be repaid in kind. He stared at the carefree, spirited figure of the woman already mounted and riding away in the distance, and for a moment he was rather dazed.

She seemed somehow different from before — and yet somehow still the same old her.

What a maddening day.

When the procession set out again, the left escort’s expression was still grim. The right escort, however, had brightened considerably, even beginning to hum a little tune.

The melody was a folk song from around Xuanmen Ridge that she hummed most often. She could only remember one line — so she repeated it over and over again, until Xu Shu was so irritated he spurred his horse away.

At the first hour after noon, the moving procession finally reached Yu’an Old Town.

The place the Emperor chose to stay was not within the Yu’an county seat, but at the newly constructed Yulin Secondary Residence. This site had once been the military camp of the former Yueze Army. Its overall construction and layout resembled a military camp in its essentials — only a few pavilions and towers had been added, along with some flowers, plants, and decorative rockery to soften its austere atmosphere.

Such a place, compared even to the Jiaosong temporary palace, fell far short in many respects. And yet Xiao Nanhui did not think this was owing to any lack of preparation on the part of the officials who had arranged the spring hunt.

Only when she truly set foot within the bounds of the Yulin Secondary Residence did she understand the reason the Imperial party had chosen to stay here.

The Yulin Secondary Residence had no obvious enclosing walls — and therefore its grounds were vast. The outlying guard posts and camps scattered around it numbered more than a dozen alone. Their defensive installations, maintained by permanent heavy garrison troops, were exceedingly solid: point connected to point, point to line, line to surface — forming an invisible wall that was far more secure than the more conspicuous old city walls.

Beyond this, the location of the Residence had also been chosen to take full advantage of the terrain. Yu’an itself was enclosed by mountains on three sides — easy to defend, hard to attack. And the site of the Yulin Secondary Residence was the most topographically complex within Yu’an. It commanded the upper reaches of the streams, owned ten thousand spans of fertile land — monopolizing the water security of the entire Yu’an region, while also being self-sufficient through its own abundant harvests.

All of this was owed to the original site selection by the Yueze Army.

Each of Tiancheng’s four armies had its own specialty. Beizhi excelled at cavalry; Guangyao at heavy armor; Yanchi at blades; Black Feather at archery. But Tiancheng had once possessed a fifth army.

Two words — Yueze — summarized that once-secret force. In battle, they excelled at reading the terrain, selecting strategic positions and natural strongholds as their foothold. At rest, they excelled at engineering waterworks and construction — capable of raising fortifications and producing provisions in the space of a single day and night. They were a unit small in number but of the utmost importance.

Yet this army — capable of such things — had fallen entirely to the rank of banditry during the Bai family rebellion of that year. And the two characters “Yueze,” which had once been borne with the greatest glory, had since been draped in ash.

On the afternoon of the second day, the spring hunt procession officially arrived at the heart of the Secondary Residence.

The rain drizzled on. The sky was overcast. By dusk there was already no light to be seen. The stone walls unique to the Residence had their edges worn smooth by the dim murk, becoming vague and indistinct as distant mountains.

After a half-day on the road, Xiao Nanhui’s legs had begun to ache dully again. She was beginning to understand the pattern of this pain — roughly: better during the day, worse at night, and most severe on overcast, rainy days.

When entering through the main gate, everyone was required by protocol to dismount.

As she dismounted, her disobedient ankle made her stumble. She quickly stole a glance around, and only let out a quiet breath of relief when she saw no one seemed to have noticed.

If word spread back to the military that the escort had nearly fallen while dismounting, she would have nowhere left in any camp to show her face.

Yet in the very next instant after she had righted herself, that person’s voice came from behind her.

“Slippery roads on a rainy day — Xiao Canjun’s boots seem to be letting her down. Come to the tent later and swap them for a better pair.”

She had righted her posture and turned to look, just in time to see his already distant back — he had left the carriage and taken his seat on the palanquin, and was moving away alongside Cui Xingyao.

She blinked, genuinely unable to tell whether he truly intended for her to come change her boots, or had simply been teasing her with a passing remark.

She wanted to catch up and say something in her own defense, but she lifted her foot and stepped squarely into a puddle of mud. She turned to find Ding Weixiang’s omnipresent gaze on her, and in her vexation she had no choice but to give up.

The muddy boots grew heavy with every step, weighing her aching legs down further.

Perhaps Heaven itself was reminding her: remember the fate of one who stands in muddy water. Do not covet things that do not belong to you.

Xiao Nanhui stamped her feet hard twice, but the muddy muck clung to her boot as if it had grown there, immovable. The frustration rose up in her, and without waiting for Xu Shu to come over and mock her, she simply untied her boot wrappings and wrenched that boot off altogether — ignoring Xu Shu’s unconcealed gaze — and walked on barefoot on one side, limping slightly.

There were fewer than a hundred civil and military officials combined. Most had come lightly equipped, and no one dared put on a show of grandeur at this moment. But Xiao Nanhui had noticed the long caravan during the journey. Aside from the formations surrounding the Imperial carriage, the accompanying vehicles seemed to number in the hundreds and thousands.

At the stops for rest along the way, the occupants of those vehicles had also seemingly never stepped out of their carriages. And upon reaching Yu’an County, they had all disappeared together into the outer grounds of the Yulin Secondary Residence.

The Yulin Secondary Residence stretched as far as the eye could see — like a deep-bottomed cloth sack, capable of swallowing any number of people who entered and making them vanish without a trace.

The various courtyards within the Residence were built in the configuration of the character meaning “return” — without distinction of principal or side rooms, without differentiation of front and back or left and right. Countless such courtyard units were then joined in a configuration resembling the character for “product,” forming a layout connected in all four directions, each part also covering for the others.

The civil and military officials and their attendants were scattered throughout the various parts of the Residence. The division was based on closeness to the Emperor, civil versus military rank, official grade, and the role to be played in the spring hunt. Dozens of eunuchs led hundreds of palace attendants and fanned out in separate groups, and it took two or three full hours before all those many people had been properly settled.

By the time the last candle in the courtyards was extinguished, it was already midnight.

Having changed into a pair of soft, light cloth shoes, Xiao Nanhui felt her way out of the courtyard in the dark.

On the last night before departure, when she had taken a detour past the Black Feather Army’s covert camp on her way home, she had indeed encountered Lu Songping.

Lu Songping, as the Black Feather garrison’s commander, would certainly be responsible for the security of the marching procession and the Yulin Secondary Residence in Yu’an. And if she wanted to know whether a certain person would be among the traveling party, the best contact was Lu Songping.

Lu Songping was not someone easily fooled. She had already prepared thoroughly to cope with him — yet the other party had told her what she wanted to know in barely a few exchanges, with almost no difficulty.

Yes. Zong Hao would accompany the Imperial carriage procession to Yu’an.

The moment she learned that, a premonition suddenly arose in Xiao Nanhui’s heart.

The answer she had been chasing for so long was going to reach its conclusion in Yu’an.

From the day they set out, she had been looking for an opportunity at every turn. During the day, as an escort, she could not stray too far from the Imperial carriage for long. She had first used spare moments to mark the wheel ruts of the various vehicles with white chalk, and planned to wait until they were settled in the Residence and the night was deep and still before slipping out to search.

Dragging her somewhat painful legs, Xiao Nanhui managed to scramble over the moss-slick courtyard wall. She felt her way along, using the chalk marks she had left on the wheel ruts to go from door to door in search, hoping to find Zong Hao’s courtyard before daybreak.

The night air in Yu’an carried a peculiar smell — like the mingled fragrance of a hundred kinds of flowers and fruits, blended with the rotting, putrid scent of countless dead insects and plants.

Xiao Nanhui’s nose began to itch again. She pulled her neckcloth up higher to cover her mouth and nose, and felt her way forward along the stone steps, which were coated in moss and slippery underfoot.

In the overcast and rainy dark, with moon hidden and stars sparse, the ancient stone buildings grew cold as the temperature dropped. Mist had risen within the Yulin Secondary Residence.

The terrain here was flat with slight undulations. As the fog drifted and shifted, she found herself bewildered, no longer sure of her bearings. Even the surrounding stone courtyard walls all looked identical — no telling front from back, left from right.

Xiao Nanhui dared not go further after half an incense stick’s worth of time, and couldn’t help but silently marvel at the brilliance of the Yueze Army’s formations. Even setting aside her current fear of exposure that had kept her from lighting a lamp — even if she were to carry a lamp, she suspected there was little to be gained in this maze.

Just as she was about to turn back and retrace her steps, a sound reached her from somewhere in the mist ahead and to her right.

Xiao Nanhui tensed, afraid that her “night wandering” had been discovered.

But listening closely, the sound seemed somehow unusual — four beats in all, each of equal weight. It didn’t sound like a person moving about, but rather like a four-hooved animal — the kind of sound cattle or horses made when shifting position.

Had some general’s horse gotten loose from its tether and wandered out?

She had sacrificed sleep, dragged her aching legs, and come all this way — she had no real desire to deal with this stray business.

But then she thought: if Jixiang were to go missing, she would probably worry too much to sit still. So she changed direction and moved toward the sound.

She walked a few dozen steps. The mist thinned before her, revealing a small patch of soft grassland.

Several shadows of roughly waist height moved across it, occasionally accompanied by the soft sound of breathing.

Deer.

Xiao Nanhui let out a breath of relief.

But then immediately, she realized something — and looked, not quite believing what she saw, in the direction the deer were facing.

Standing at the center of the herd was a person.

He was still in that same brown robe. Because he stood there completely motionless, he appeared like a withered old tree — blending into those ancient trees that had grown for who knew how many centuries.

Two birds — snow-white of body, with red crests — were perched on his shoulders. In his hands he held two bundles of green wheat. A few young deer crowded around to fight for the food, wagging their tails with delight.

A fine portrait: keeper of birds, keeper of deer.

Who could possibly have imagined: that the man before her was once the ruthless shadow guard who had stood at the late Emperor’s side?