Because the groom’s legs were inconvenient, all the wedding ceremony rituals were simplified.

This suited Shen Lingzhen’s wishes perfectly. She wore a ceremonial gown adorned with floral hairpins and wide sleeves, topped with double-layered cloud-patterned ceremonial scarves and a dragon-phoenix floral hairpin crown—an extremely heavy burden. If the ordeal continued much longer, she feared she truly would not be able to stand any longer.

After leaving the green bower and entering the bridal chamber, the crowd dispersed in all directions. Only the servants Shen Lingzhen had brought from Bianjing remained in the room. The maidservants helped her remove the phoenix crown and ceremonial scarves, took away the excess hairpins and ornaments, and asked if she would like some tea and fruit to fill her stomach.

Huo Liuxing had gone to the hall to entertain guests. Even though he had said he would “return as early as possible,” with important personages like the Fourth Prince and the Minister of Rites present, the banquet would not disperse for quite some time.

Shen Lingzhen thus ate the tea and fruit at ease while surveying her surroundings.

This place Qingyang was far from as prosperous as Bianjing. Though the Huo manor was a large household locally, such a declining military family could not be considered wealthy. The furnishings in the room were very simple. Besides the yellow rosewood canopy bed she sat on and several storage chests nearby, as far as the eye could see there remained only a five-panel standing screen, a round table with a three-legged stool, and several raised-head side tables. It looked empty and cold, making her very unaccustomed.

Nanny Ji guessed her thoughts and said: “In a few days, this old servant will have people rearrange the bedroom and tidy it up to feel more lived-in.”

Shen Lingzhen shook her head: “I suppose the furnishings were deliberately reduced to facilitate the wheelchair’s movement and avoid collisions. Nanny must not consider only me alone.”

“This old servant was inconsiderate.”

Shen Lingzhen sipped tea, but her mind harbored matters, and she had no idea what flavor she tasted. After a moment, she asked: “Nanny, can Master Huo’s legs truly not walk even a single step?”

“I heard it is so.”

“Heard from whom?”

“When Master Huo had his accident, His Majesty once sent Divine Physician Huang Qi to treat him. The divine physician said that retrieving his life was already not easy. From the hip down, he has no strength and no sensation of pain or itch. These legs truly cannot stand again.”

Divine Physician Huang Qi was rumored to be Hua Tuo reincarnated. Shen Lingzhen had once met him in Bianjing in the past. If he said it could not be cured, then it could not be.

But she still did not give up: “But a full ten years have passed. Has Divine Physician Huang’s medical skill not improved even the slightest bit?”

“There has been some improvement. Otherwise, if it were an ordinary person who did not use their legs for so long, the flesh would have long since atrophied. But Divine Physician Huang devised a wonderful method, teaching the Huo family the supreme techniques of acupuncture and medicinal baths, having them maintain Master Huo’s two legs. All these years, at least they haven’t lost their appearance. However, by rights, legs and feet deteriorate more thoroughly the worse they get, and the less they’re used the less they can be used. Those that recover after many years have passed are extremely rare.”

In other words, recovery was quite unlikely.

Shen Lingzhen nodded in dejection, thinking it was probably just a similar voice.

Nanny Ji saw her weary appearance and urged: “Miss, why not rest in your clothes for a while? When the master arrives, this old servant will wake you.”

Shen Lingzhen had originally planned to force her eyelids to stay open, but thinking of the two remaining rituals of the nuptial cup and consummation, worried that forcing herself now would result in inadequate energy later, she nodded: “Then Nanny must wake me in time. Don’t let me fail in propriety.”

Marrying down had its advantages. With Shen Lingzhen’s distinguished background, even if she was somewhat lacking in propriety, how would the Huo family dare criticize her faults? Nevertheless, Nanny Ji promised: “Miss can rest assured.”

The moment Shen Lingzhen’s head touched the pillow, she lost consciousness.

Nanny Ji sent someone to watch the movements in the courtyard, but being newly arrived and unfamiliar with the Huo manor’s layout, she had not anticipated that Huo Liuxing would not take the main entrance but rather a side door specially built to facilitate wheelchair passage, deliberately constructed without threshold or steps. Thus she was a step too slow.

By the time Huo Liuxing reached the covered corridor, she hurriedly went forward to meet him, apologized, and indicated she would go in first to wake Shen Lingzhen.

“Nanny is too polite. She has endured the hardship of travel all this way. I am very understanding and sympathetic.” Huo Liuxing smiled gently. After Nanny Ji went inside, he wheeled his chair into the bedroom. Turning past the screen, he caught sight of Shen Lingzhen lying on her side on the bed.

She was curled into a ball, her brows tightly furrowed, fine beads of sweat dotting her forehead. She seemed to be having a bad dream. A pair of scallion-white jade hands firmly gripped a corner of the quilt. She looked pitiable, somewhat resembling… the lap dog he had picked up and brought back to the manor when he was young.

Nanny Ji bent down and gently called Shen Lingzhen’s name twice. She woke with a start. The moment she opened her eyes, they met Huo Liuxing’s gaze.

If Shen Lingzhen had been clearheaded at this moment, she might have noticed that this gaze was half sinister scrutiny, half indifferent appraisal—by no means friendly.

Unfortunately, she had not yet fully awakened and only looked at him hazily. The hostility in his eyes vanished in a flash. By the time one looked carefully again, it was no longer distinct.

Seeing that Shen Lingzhen seemed puzzled about who the visitor was, Nanny Ji quietly reminded from the side: “Miss, the master has arrived.”

Only then did she come to her senses. She hastily scrambled up, fumbling to find the silk fan.

By custom, she should hold the silk fan and wait for Huo Liuxing to enter, allowing him to perform the “fan removal” ritual.

But just as she grasped the fan handle, Huo Liuxing smiled and waved his hand: “Empty formalities—why be so particular?” He came before the footstool, leaned forward slightly, and asked with concern: “Did you just have a nightmare?”

Shen Lingzhen paused slightly.

The man before her had handsome features and refined bearing. His bright red wedding attire made his face appear powdered. He looked entirely different in temperament from the many rough and rugged men of the northwest regions.

As he looked at her this way, he suddenly reminded her of mutton-fat jade of the purest quality—warm, smooth, and fine, not ostentatious yet containing inner radiance.

Perhaps because he had drawn too close, the scent of wine entering her nostrils, Shen Lingzhen could not help but grow nervous. Her hand gripping the silk fan tightened forcefully as she answered in a small voice: “Yes, I had a nightmare.”

It should be because Huo Liuxing had reminded her of her savior. When she had fallen asleep earlier, she had again dreamed of that day fraught with danger.

Huo Liuxing glanced at her hands that had nowhere to rest and said gently: “Then go bathe and wash up first to recover.”

She nodded, then shook her head: “I haven’t yet drunk the nuptial cup with you, Master.”

“You just broke out in a sweat. Drinking cold wine will harm your body. We’ll perform the nuptial cup ceremony later.”

“Thank you for your consideration, Master. Then I must trouble you to wait for me.”

“No trouble at all. Go ahead.”

Huo Liuxing seemed not to plan on avoiding her, watching her movements from close by.

Shen Lingzhen felt embarrassed being watched. She awkwardly lifted the quilt. Seeing his gaze follow and fall upon her feet—unshod, wearing only socks—as if scalded by something, she immediately shrank back under the covers.

Huo Liuxing was startled, then laughed. He turned his wheelchair around, facing away.

Only then did Shen Lingzhen rest her hand on Nanny’s wrist and get down from the bed with light steps, stealing a glance at him, then another glance.

Naturally, the back of Huo Liuxing’s head had no eyes. But a bronze mirror on the raised-head table directly in front captured all her probing gazes and brought them into his view.

He slowly blinked, raised his thumb, and thoughtfully stroked his lower lip.

——

After bathing, Shen Lingzhen changed into a light, thin smoke-pink chest-high ruqun dress. When she returned from the washroom, she saw that Huo Liuxing had also finished tidying up. He wore a loose white inner robe and sat by the window, reading a Buddhist scripture by lamplight while his other hand leisurely fingered a string of bodhi seed prayer beads.

A medicinal fragrance faintly floated in the room—somewhat bitter but not unpleasant. She thought he must have just taken a medicinal bath.

Hearing the sound of Shen Lingzhen entering, Huo Liuxing methodically set down the scroll and instructed a servant nearby: “All of you may go. There’s no need to leave anyone to attend us at night.”

There were currently four servants in the room. This word “all” was used ambiguously.

The moment he spoke, the two who had been attending him immediately responded and left. But the two from the Shen manor, following behind Shen Lingzhen, lowered their heads without moving.

Shen Lingzhen felt somewhat awkward.

The servants had received orders from her father to be wary of the reportedly somewhat fierce northwestern Huo family. Even after entering the Huo manor, they only obeyed her commands and assignments.

But so far, this husband of hers had been impeccable in word and deed, completely incompatible with the word “fierce,” and had shown her nothing but attentive care. To thus contradict him made it seem as if the Shen family was bullying others with their power.

“You may also go.” Shen Lingzhen added a sentence directed backward.

Only then did the two maidservants withdraw, though they did not go far, standing guard in the outer room just beyond the door.

Shen Lingzhen deliberated what to say to ease the atmosphere, but Huo Liuxing considerately resolved her predicament: “Come here.”

He beckoned to her, still smiling gently, as if he had not minded the earlier incident at all.

Shen Lingzhen stepped forward and saw that on the small table before him were arrayed various bowls, dishes, plates, cups, and wine goblets made of walnut wood. Walnut was also called “hundred-year seed,” symbolizing auspicious health and a hundred years of harmonious union.

He picked up a wine goblet and personally poured the nuptial wine, saying as he did: “This wine is somewhat bitter. Just take a sip for the symbolism.”

Shen Lingzhen had read in books that the nuptial wine was bitter wine, signifying that the couple would henceforth weather storms together through thick and thin.

She waved her hand: “I’m not afraid of bitter.”

Huo Liuxing seemed not quite to believe her. When passing her the wine goblet, he raised his eyebrows slightly. After they drank with crossed arms, sure enough, he saw her unable to help furrowing her brows, swallowing with difficulty.

Setting down the wine goblet, he raised an index finger and lightly tapped her tightly furrowed brow, smiling as he questioned: “Not afraid of bitter?”

Shen Lingzhen looked up abruptly because of his sudden intimacy. Seeing his eyes so close at hand, she could not help but freeze.

If the similarity in voice was coincidence, then what about eyes that were also very similar?

That benefactor’s helmet had only revealed a pair of eyes, so she had paid particular attention. Now recalling them, they were almost identical to these tender peach blossom eyes before her.

Shen Lingzhen once again fell into doubt, staring at Huo Liuxing without blinking.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I feel Master looks somewhat familiar, as if I’ve seen you somewhere.”

“Perhaps in Bianjing. Before I was fifteen, I entered the palace several times with my father and encountered quite a few children from prestigious families. Perhaps you were among them. But you were still small then—you actually retained an impression?”

At that time Shen Lingzhen was only three years old. She truly had no impression. What she cared about was not childhood matters.

She asked: “Then Master has not been to Bianjing since?”

Huo Liuxing nodded: “I enlisted at fifteen. For the next two years I was constantly moving between battlefields. As for after seventeen…” He lowered his eyes with a faint smile. “With these legs, how could I travel far?”

Poking at someone’s sore spot was not Shen Lingzhen’s intention. Having already received his personal confirmation, she did not pursue the matter further, saying apologetically: “I was presumptuous.”

“No matter.” Huo Liuxing’s tone remained pleasant, yet his gaze fixed tightly on her expression, as if trying to discern some clue from it. “Only from your meaning, you’ve seen me somewhere else?”

Shen Lingzhen immediately shook her head.

News of her abduction spreading would inevitably invite speculation and damage her reputation. Since her family had taken great pains to conceal it from outsiders, and Huo Liuxing was not her savior, then one less trouble was better than one more—best not to explain it to him.

She said: “Perhaps it’s just an impression from childhood.”

Huo Liuxing did not ask further. He nodded and pointed at the bed: “Go there.”

“Is Master ready to rest?”

“It’s time to consummate the marriage. Aren’t you tired?”

“I… I’m still quite alert…”

Huo Liuxing laughed again, only this time it was not purely warm. Shen Lingzhen felt he seemed to be somewhat teasing her.

She said with embarrassed annoyance: “What are you laughing at…?”

“Laughing at how thin-skinned you are. What will you do in a moment?” Huo Liuxing put away his smile, furrowing his brows slightly as if somewhat troubled. “Did anyone previously teach you how to consummate a marriage?”

“They did not.”

Shen Lingzhen had seen her second branch cousin learning this and that from a nanny before her wedding, but when it came to her own marriage preparations, her days had passed quite leisurely.

When she asked about this matter, her father had said indignantly: “My daughter doesn’t need to learn those skills for serving people. Just marrying over as she is already represents a blessing Second Master Huo couldn’t cultivate in eighty lifetimes!”

She thus remained ignorant, only vaguely knowing that consummation was an intimate matter between men and women sharing a bed.

Huo Liuxing showed an expression of difficulty.

Shen Lingzhen ventured: “You don’t know either?”

“At least I’m older than you by quite a bit. I inevitably understand more than you. It’s just that my situation is rather special. Just me understanding probably won’t suffice.”

“Then Master, teach me. I’ll follow along and learn first.”

Though inexperienced in such matters, just knowing they must share a bed was enough to embarrass a young lady, not to mention that Shen Lingzhen and Huo Liuxing had only just met less than half a day ago.

She was deliberately delaying getting onto the bed, wanting to talk more so they could become better acquainted.

But Huo Liuxing knew this matter could not be learned well through armchair strategizing.

He laughed ruefully: “I’m afraid that won’t work. To truly learn, you’ll have to come onto the bed with me.”