◎The Journey Back◎

Zhou Tan had been visiting the Ministry less often of late, so his sudden departure drew little notice. The two of them returned to the residence, found a plain, unremarkable carriage, brought along a newly hired manservant, and left the city gates using Bo Ying’s household registration papers.

Bo Ying had, in the past, escorted impoverished patients afflicted with seasonal plague out to the medical relief camps in the countryside, and using the same pretext made it easy enough to slip past the registration checks at the gate.

Once outside the city, the two of them abandoned the carriage and switched to horses. Qu You had made a point of practicing riding since the last time, but she was still far from skilled and dared not act alone for now.

Zhou Tan held the reins, holding her in an embracing posture. Qu You sat upright, turning her head to study the side of his face. He had been entirely focused, but after being watched for a while, his breathing grew, inexplicably, somewhat uneven.

The two of them galloped along the official road, stopping now and then to question a few farmers on the capital’s outskirts.

Peng Yue, uneasy, had brought along a substantial escort with Liang An, plus two junior Ministry clerks to see him off on his journey. Their party had traveled in an impressive procession, but upon passing through the paddy fields outside the capital, Peng Yue apparently felt they were drawing too much attention and sent back part of the escort, choosing instead to cut through a narrow path in a dense forest, hoping to reach the first post station outside the capital as quickly as possible.

Though stripped of his rank and title, he had accumulated considerable savings over his years in office, along with a handful of loyal confidants, and had bribed Ministry officials into leaving him without shackles. According to a few farmers who recalled seeing him, he had looked no different from any wealthy, finely dressed official.

Jolted along by the ride, Qu You asked, puzzled, from behind Zhou Tan, “I thought exiled officials were always shown in prison garb and shackles, utterly disgraced—how did Peng Yue manage otherwise?”

“The Three Judicial Offices’ joint hearing, once submitted to the Emperor, did not strip him of his family’s assets,” Zhou Tan answered simply. “He gave half his fortune to Grand Chancellor Fu; the remaining half is enough to ensure a comfortable rest of his life at the frontier. Besides, Peng Yue was originally promoted to the capital from Ruozhou, in the western borderlands—his roots there run deep. This place of exile was one he arranged to have chosen himself.”

“Then isn’t this journey, in name an exile, in truth a homecoming?” Qu You exclaimed. “Why would Fu Qingnian go to such lengths to shield him? He admitted outright to the matter of the Fragrant Heart Pavilion during the joint hearing, and the Three Judicial Offices simply stopped there, without digging any deeper. Could it be…”

“Mm, your guess is correct,” Zhou Tan said gravely. “He must be holding something over Lord Fu’s head that makes him afraid. Otherwise, Peng Yue would never have lived to see the day of the hearing at all. I need to see for myself what it is he’s holding—that’s why I’m going out of the city in person.”

The official road west of the capital had to cross Jinghua Mountain; the mountain paths were rugged, and the official road difficult to maintain. The smaller trail was quicker, but couldn’t be traveled on horseback and required cutting through a stretch of dense forest.

The two of them tied their horses to a tree and followed the narrow path a short way before noticing the footprints on the ground had grown sparse.

The party seemed to have been ambushed somewhere here, scattering into the surrounding forest from this point.

The vegetation on the mountain grew unevenly—sparse near the foot of the mountain, but thick and dense here. Fortunately, it was already autumn, and the foliage had begun to thin, so it wasn’t so dense as to block out the sky entirely.

Zhou Tan glanced at her with some hesitation. “You needn’t come any further. Wait here. Boss Ai’s men will surely come—following the official road and the mountain path, they can reach at most this far. If they go into the forest itself, it will be nearly impossible to find them.”

A faint rumble of thunder rolled overhead—there had been signs of rain coming by evening as it was, and now the sky had darkened further still. Qu You glanced into the dense forest and suddenly asked, “Did Miss Yan come alone?”

Zhou Tan understood what she was really asking. “Miss Yan comes from a family of military officers in Ruozhou, and has practiced martial arts since childhood—she’s a rare talent, capable of holding her own against a dozen opponents single-handed. It’s only that there were simply too many of them, and they’d clearly prepared in advance. I don’t know how things stand now, either.”

Qu You said, “Let me come with you. If she’s injured, I can help bandage her wounds.”

Zhou Tan had already been torn over whether leaving her here alone would truly be safer. Hearing this, he hesitated only briefly before tearing a strip from the hem of his robe and binding it around her wrist. “Stay close to me. If we get separated here, it will be extremely dangerous.”

“As long as it doesn’t hinder your movements,” Qu You said, tearing a strip from her own skirt as he worked and tying it to his. “This should make it easier.”

Yan Wuping felt thick, warm blood trickling down from the top of her head. She could barely lift the blade in her hand, but forced herself upright and staggered toward Peng Yue.

Thunder rolled overhead; the early autumn rains stretched on, long and unbroken.

Peng Yue dragged his badly wounded left leg across the ground, crying out in pain again and again. Liang An stood in front of him, shielding him.

Liang An too had been wounded, though only lightly. Half an hour earlier, as their party crossed the midpoint of Jinghua Mountain, this woman had suddenly ambushed them alone.

Neither he nor Peng Yue had imagined that a single woman could prove so formidable—the elite guards accompanying them had been nearly wiped out, and it had taken over a dozen men just to wound her to this degree.

Even so, he did not dare let his guard down for a moment.

Liang An himself was skilled enough with a blade, having spent some years in the military in his youth, but after joining the Ministry he had gone long without real combat. He had only been sent, at Fu Qingnian’s request, to see Peng Yue safely out of the city, and had truly not expected trouble of this magnitude. If this woman held no intent to kill him specifically, he had little wish to fight her to the death.

Gripping the hilt of his blade, Liang An glanced down at the ground and asked, “Who exactly are you? Why must you have his life?”

Sensing the hesitation in his voice, Peng Yue seized his leg, wailing, “Brother Liang, Brother Liang! Save me!”

Yan Wuping gave a low, murky laugh from her throat and did not answer him. “Step aside.”

Seeing Liang An take a step back, as though genuinely considering retreat, Peng Yue turned toward her instead, babbling incoherently for mercy. “Yan Two—ah, no, Miss Yan, Miss Yan! Where did I ever wrong you? I’ll change, I’ll change everything! I… I’ll pay you, all right? The women of the Fragrant Heart Pavilion—I’ll go apologize to them! I’ll give them every last coin I have! Spare my life!”

Yan Wuping raised the blade and, without a flicker of expression, severed his other leg.

“AHHH!!”

Peng Yue let out a scream like a slaughtered pig. Seeing that pleading had done no good, he began cursing viciously instead. “Ungrateful wretch! I treated you well enough in the past! When you had nothing, not a single coin to your name in this capital, I took you in, gave you work—I even trusted you enough to hand you my own business…”

“Lord Peng,” Yan Wuping laughed, blood foaming from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away without concern. “Do you really want to know who I am?”

A chill ran down Peng Yue’s spine. That look in the woman’s eyes—he’d found it familiar the moment she’d first beaten the drum, but could not for the life of him place where he’d seen it before.

Seeing her footing grow unsteady, Liang An stepped forward to block her path. “You’re gravely wounded now. Do you truly intend to—”

Almost simultaneously, he heard the sharp hiss of an arrow cutting through the air.

Qu You and Zhou Tan, following the traces of the struggle through the dense forest, caught the unmistakable scent of blood hanging in the air.

Zhou Tan was highly sensitive to such a smell. Following it for only a short distance, they came upon the sprawled bodies of several guards. Bloody footprints, chaotic and scattered, stretched onward toward the distance.

The last time, at the Fanlou tower, she had only viewed a corpse from a distance—this was the first time in her life Qu You had seen a body up close. A wave of nausea rose in her stomach; her face went pale at once. She forced the discomfort down and stayed close behind Zhou Tan.

Zhou Tan seemed to sense her distress. He paused mid-stride, turned back, and swept her up into his arms, carrying her sideways.

Qu You yelped in alarm. “What are you doing?”

Zhou Tan said nothing, carrying her swiftly past the bodies underfoot until the trail of blood on the ground had nearly run dry before setting her back down. Qu You steadied herself against his arm, staggering a few steps, and suddenly felt a burning sensation behind her ear.

She had no spare thought to examine it just then—Zhou Tan’s brow furrowed, and he pressed a finger to his lips to signal silence, then crouched down and, almost without a sound, retrieved a bow and arrows from one of the fallen bodies.

Qu You crouched in the underbrush and glanced out.

Yan Wuping’s long hair had come loose in the fighting. Women of this era prized long hair, but hers reached only to her shoulders and neck—clearly deliberately trimmed. It was now matted with blood, clinging thickly to her cheek.

Her entire body was soaked in thick blood, the original color of her clothes entirely obscured. Even the plain sword she’d casually taken from the Ministry had grown dull and nicked along its edge.

Liang An stood across from her, hesitating as he drew the long blade at his waist.

Thunder split the sky, echoing on and on. Qu You watched as Zhou Tan, without hesitation, nocked an arrow to the bow. His draw was practiced and skilled, powerful and steady.

The histories had never recorded this—she’d never known Zhou Tan had any martial skill at all?

She had assumed him a thoroughgoing civil official, and had wondered, in fact, why he’d spoken with such confidence earlier.

The thunder drowned out the sound of the bowstring snapping taut; it was only as the arrow flew that Liang An sensed something was wrong.

But by then it was already too late. Zhou Tan’s blunted arrow struck precisely at his side, piercing through the strap of his armor and burying itself in his lower abdomen. Liang An clutched at the wound, eyes wide with shock, and collapsed unconscious to the ground without so much as a cry of pain.

The sky finally broke open with rain, the light darkening further still.

Qu You wiped a hand across her rain-soaked eyes and ran toward Yan Wuping. Zhou Tan, still tethered to her by the strip of cloth binding them together, followed close behind.

Yan Wuping, dazed by what was unfolding before her, only seemed to wake as if from a dream at the sight of the two of them, calling out, “Lord Zhou…”

The blade slipped from her hand, and she pitched forward, collapsing straight to the ground.

Qu You rushed forward and caught her, falling to the ground alongside her. “Miss Yan, where are you hurt?”

Zhou Tan had changed out of his official Ministry robes and now wore white, the hem embroidered with a spray of unfurling bamboo leaves. He lowered his head and said simply, “You’ve suffered greatly.”

He rarely wore such flowing scholar’s robes; even now, stained heavily with rain, they still lent him an air of cool, otherworldly elegance.

Peng Yue, as though seeing his salvation before him, forgot all his earlier suffering and crawled desperately toward him, crying out incoherently. “Lord Zhou! Save me! Lord Zhou, please, save me!”

Zhou Tan walked over, expressionless, and crouched before him, reaching out to press down on the wound in his leg.

His long, slender fingers, which usually looked frail and weak, now carried a strange, formidable strength. Peng Yue howled and thrashed on the ground, unable to speak another word. Nearing his fiftieth year, writhing on the ground like this, he looked pitiable and grotesque all at once.

Qu You noticed that Yan Wuping’s underclothes were entirely soaked through with blood, and felt a jolt of alarm. “Zhou Tan, carry her—let’s find somewhere to shelter from the rain.”

The autumn rain fell fine and thin, not yet enough to soak through her clothes entirely. Zhou Tan rose and took a few steps toward them, but Yan Wuping suddenly grabbed Qu You’s hand, coughing twice against the ground. “No need…”

She bent forward, and only then did Qu You see the long gash along her back—the wound looked terribly deep, the flesh beneath curling back, an angry red, still steadily bleeding. Qu You fumbled frantically at her clothing and produced a vial of wound powder—she had specifically brought it with her when she’d gone back to the residence earlier.

She hurriedly sprinkled the powder over the wound, but it was far too deep; the medicine could do nothing for it. Yan Wuping gripped her shoulder, her voice trembling. “My lady!”

Qu You’s hand shook; the emptied vial slipped from her fingers and fell onto the rain-soaked ground.

Zhou Tan pressed a hand to Yan Wuping’s arm, as if wanting to say something, but in the end could not bring himself to speak. His lips trembled, and it was a long while before he finally said, hoarsely, “You shouldn’t have come. At the very least, you shouldn’t have come… alone.”

Yan Wuping smiled at him. The rain washed over her sun-browned face; Qu You brushed a hand across her cheek, sweeping away a lock of hair matted to her skin.

“I was suddenly summoned. The day I was released from custody, I waited at the Ministry as you’d asked, and then… I saw the verdict posted.”

Yan Wuping spoke haltingly, her voice growing faint and distant amid the sound of the rain.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come. I also knew… that my lord is in a difficult position now, and I mustn’t cause you more trouble. The day I casually took a blade from the Ministry, I never intended to return to the capital alive.”

Qu You pressed both hands over the wound, feeling a salty wetness rising in her own eyes. “Was it truly worth trading your life for a man like this?”

Peng Yue lay sprawled on the ground as though already dead. Zhou Tan walked over, seized him by the collar, and dragged him closer. “Peng Yue. Kneel and confess your crimes.”

Yan Wuping looked at Peng Yue’s twisted, agonized face, a flash of cold fury passing through her eyes. “Are you still wondering, even now… why I had to kill you?”

Peng Yue struggled to lift his head, gasping and wheezing, unable to speak.

“You may not even remember, but in the sixth year of Yongning, you were still a minor magistrate’s clerk in Ruozhou when the Xishao people invaded. My father—General Yan Zhi—cared deeply for the common people, and opened the city gates to meet the enemy without first seeking permission from his superiors. You knew the full circumstances, yet you reported every detail to your superiors without omission. My father was punished under the Great Yin’s military code, stripped of command and reduced to commoner status, and died half a year later. And you—you climbed to your official rank on the back of his downfall.”

Peng Yue blinked, seeming to strain his memory, and after a long moment finally recalled it. “General Yan… yes, General Yan. I did impeach General Yan. But—but so what? He acted on his own, without seeking orders from his superiors, and rushed recklessly into battle. If you must blame someone, why not blame the Great Yin’s own laws?”

“Yes! And so, even after I was reduced to the lowest caste because of it, I never once blamed you for that!” Yan Wuping stared at him, her eyes bloodshot. “But you—it was you who would not let me go!”

“Do you remember a certain murder case, just before you left Ruozhou? A young scholar. His name was Jin Xiu.”

Peng Yue’s face went utterly blank. Yan Wuping pushed Qu You’s hand away and dragged herself a few painful steps closer to him. “You surely don’t remember. You can remember the general you secretly destroyed—how could you possibly remember someone as insignificant as an ant, like him?”

Qu You listened to the sharp change in Yan Wuping’s tone, as if she were touching upon a story both distant and terribly close.

“He was nothing more than a humble young scholar, born on the frontier, who had never once been to the capital in his life… He and I had known each other since childhood, and even after I fell into the lowest caste, he never once looked down on me—he worked tirelessly, from every corner, just to earn enough to come see me. That day, he came to the pleasure quarters to find me, and sat in my room studying for his examinations—do you know? The very next day he was set to leave for the capital, to sit for the imperial examination.”

Tears streamed down Yan Wuping’s trembling lashes, gathering into large drops that fell, scalding, into Qu You’s palm. “And you—you had always been lecherous and dissolute. That day, drunk, you came looking for the woman you favored, threw open the door, and found another man in her room. Blind with rage, you drew your sword and killed him on the spot—not a single word exchanged, just drew your sword and killed him.”

“You had simply walked into the wrong room. You’d simply had too much to drink! With a snap of your fingers, you buried the whole matter without a trace—and when the scholar’s family came to your door begging for a little silver, you cursed at them for bringing you bad luck… And what had he ever done wrong? Ten years of devoted study, and he was about to set off for the capital to sit the examinations—on the eve of his departure, filled with hope, he’d come to see the woman he loved…”

Yan Wuping’s voice trembled as she broke into laughter, wild and unrestrained, laughing until she could barely draw breath. “Lord Peng, you were about to leave Ruozhou for a higher post at the time—do you know who the woman he loved was? Do you remember the woman who knelt for three days and three nights before the yamen gate, cradling an urn of ashes, and what she said to you then?”

“It was me!”

“I told you—that one day, I would have your life!”

Faced with her ragged scream, Peng Yue broke out in a cold sweat, stammering his response. “That—that was entirely an accident on my part! Miss Yan, Lady Yan, I truly didn’t know you were… I didn’t know we’d ever met before, I truly meant no harm…”

“‘No harm,’ indeed! I only wanted a quiet, peaceful life. You climbed to your rank on my father’s very bones, treated my beloved as worthless as grass, you—a man of power, able to crush an ordinary person with a mere gesture—while I, because of your endless ‘accidents,’ had my entire life destroyed! I concealed my true name, disguised myself as a man for years, learned every one of your habits, swallowed my rage and served as your subordinate. I had countless chances to kill you—do you know why I insisted on laying this entire scheme instead?”

“Because you could not be allowed to die by some ordinary assassination—could not die and still be granted higher rank, still be honored and remembered by others afterward. I had to see you utterly ruined, your name disgraced, dragged down to hell carrying nothing but infamy and curses upon it! Peng Yue! Today—today is the day you die!”

She dropped to her knees, reaching for the blade that had fallen beside her feet, but the pain from her wound left her too weak to lift it. Qu You gathered her tightly into her arms, feeling her own tears streaming freely down her face as well.

Zhou Tan closed his eyes deeply and, after a long moment, opened them again. He reached down, picked up Yan Wuping’s fallen blade, and gently placed it back in her hand. “Before you act, I have a few questions for him.”

Yan Wuping, stiffly, bowed her head to him in acknowledgment. Zhou Tan then seized Peng Yue by the collar and said, “I can grant you a death with less suffering—but you must first answer me a question.”

Seeming to realize by now that his death was inevitable, Peng Yue no longer bothered with courtesy toward him either, spitting out venom even in his half-dead state. “So you’ve been in league with this woman bandit all along! I knew it—this case had your hand behind it from the start… Fu Qingnian is a coward, too timid to dare kill you! A man as ruthless and vicious as you—how are you any different from me?”

Zhou Tan ignored this entirely, pressing only, “What do you hold that keeps Fu Qingnian from daring to kill you?”

“Hahahahaha, what do I hold…”

Peng Yue looked at him sidelong, laughing in a fit of near-madness. “What do I hold—I could tell you. But would you dare to hear it?”

Zhou Tan’s expression darkened; his grip tightened without his quite meaning it to. “Why wouldn’t I dare?”

“That’s strange—you should know even more than I do…” Peng Yue muttered to himself, brow furrowed, seeming half-mad. He lifted his eyes, and a flicker of manic excitement crossed his face. “Zhou Tan, surely you learned a good deal during your time in the Ministry’s prison, hm? Why was the Candlelit Tower really built… If you don’t know, how could you possibly have written that line, ‘the year purity first began’?”

“You…” Zhou Tan’s face changed drastically. As if he’d seen a ghost, his grip went slack. Qu You had never once seen such an expression on his face before. “How much do you know? What is it you have? Tell me!”

“Something even Fu Qingnian couldn’t find—you’ll never find it either!” Peng Yue cackled madly. “Seeing you like this… you must already know something. Do you think Song Chang will let anyone who knows live for long? Zhou Xiaobai—even if I go down to the eighteenth level of hell, I’ll be waiting there for you…”

“Wuping, now!” Zhou Tan cried out before he could finish, his voice ragged. Before Qu You could even react, Yan Wuping had already staggered to her feet, blade in hand. Summoning every last ounce of remaining strength, she raised her arm and brought it down with vicious force.

Qu You collapsed to her knees in shock. She heard the dull sound of a blunted blade cutting into flesh, and at the same moment, a familiar scent settled heavily around her.

She didn’t know when Zhou Tan had knelt down before her—he reached out and pulled her into his chest, blocking her view, shielding her from the blood spraying behind him. The autumn rain hung soft and misty in the air, and it did nothing to dilute the quiet, still-water scent that clung to him—if anything, the rain-damp air made it clearer still.

His hands were trembling, Qu You thought. This embrace carried no other meaning at all; in a daze, she felt that it wasn’t only herself who needed comforting—perhaps he needed her warmth just as much.

“Don’t look,” he said.

Qu You reached up and embraced him back. Zhou Tan started, his chest rising and falling twice, a redness rising at the rims of his eyes—but he couldn’t bring himself to let go.

In the midst of such bleak wind and rain, an embrace like this was like a pair of arms in a drowning dream—gently lifted from the crest of an overwhelming wave, where even breath itself felt like a luxury; loosen your grip, and the dream would shatter entirely.

Yan Wuping knelt in the bloodied water, as though every last ounce of strength had drained from her. Qu You peered out from beside Zhou Tan and reached to steady her. “Wuping, can you still hold on?”

She shook her head weakly, a faint smile rising in her eyes, and in it, Qu You could just make out a shadow of her former beauty. “My lady… my wish has been fulfilled. There’s nothing left for me to worry over.”

“There is,” Zhou Tan said, his voice, rare for him, catching with emotion. “I—I found your younger brother.”

“My brother… he’s still alive?”

“He’s doing well. He’s still in Ruozhou. When he couldn’t join the army before, he was working as a tenant farmer, cultivating reclaimed land. I had someone arrange for him to join the garrison commander’s camp, where he can draw a soldier’s pay… He’s been looking for you too.”

A brief flash of light passed through Yan Wuping’s eyes—but only briefly. “Good. Good. As long as he’s alive and well, that’s better than anything else… Lord Zhou, I fear I won’t have the chance in this lifetime to repay what I owe you. I have a letter for my brother—it’s beneath that folding screen at the Ministry. Please… please help me send it. Send it to Ruozhou…”

“I will see to it that it’s delivered into his hands personally,” Zhou Tan promised solemnly, then softened his voice. “Wuping… you must hold on. Don’t you want to see him, just once more?”

The rain had begun to ease. Yan Wuping shook her head gently, not answering the question, and instead suddenly gripped Qu You’s hand. “My lady… I remember, that day we talked, you suddenly said you were worried my lord wouldn’t look after me anymore…”

She had nearly forgotten those words herself, yet Yan Wuping had held onto them all this time.

“My lady, why did you think of my lord in that way? There may be some misunderstanding between the two of you.” Yan Wuping, her head resting against Qu You’s lap, forced the words out with great effort. “Three years ago, Lord Zhou served as an official in Lin’an. He rescued me from a canal transport boat and helped me all the way to the capital, where I infiltrated Peng Yue’s household. He was already investigating Peng Yue’s trading of power for sexual favors, only he lacked evidence…”

“While I was in the Peng household, I met Xianghui for the first time… That day, she was utterly hopeless, meaning to drown herself in a well. I saved her, and learned of what had happened to the women of the Fragrant Heart Pavilion. Later, I let Peng Yue believe he could trust me with the matter entirely, so I could plant my own people inside… Later, Xianghui told me she’d contracted a venereal disease and had little time left, and that we couldn’t afford to delay any longer.”

Gu Xianghui had carried a terrible illness?

That fall from the tower, then—so it had been… Qu You felt her mind reeling into confusion, and instinctively looked toward Zhou Tan. But Zhou Tan turned his gaze away.

“I’d gathered a great deal of evidence against Peng Yue, but without a foolproof plan, how could I dare hand it over? I brought Xianghui to see Lord Zhou. He promised on the spot that he would seek justice for us—and then, the very day I left the Ministry, he was ambushed and nearly killed the next day… My lady, why do you suppose that happened?”

“I already had a plan in mind, and was only waiting to discuss it with the two of you,” Zhou Tan said, eyes lowered, his voice shaking badly. “But my injuries were severe at the time, and by the time I woke and learned you’d gone to Jinling with Peng Yue, and that you’d just returned to the city, I wanted to go see you at once—but that was the very day my lady accompanied me to the Fanlou tower.”

“Xianghui and I turned it over and over, and could think of only this one way. We knew you’d never agree to it, and since you happened to be recovering at home, we kept it from you. I sought out Chun Niangzi and learned the Crown Prince would be at the Fanlou tower that day as well.” Yan Wuping gave a bitter smile. “But even Xianghui never imagined it would be quite so much of a coincidence—that you yourself, my lord, would happen to be there that day.”

Qu You already knew the rest.

Gu Xianghui had gone up to the tower wearing a wide-brimmed hat, deliberately marking herself with injuries so that everyone along the way would remember her clearly. As she stood hesitating, gripping the railing, she had looked up and seen Zhou Tan.

Thinking back on it now, the reason she’d trusted Qu You enough to press the hairpin ornament into her hand was likely because she’d seen Zhou Tan there—and those final, murmured words, moving her lips without sound, had likely been, “Lord Zhou, I’m sorry.”

The person was gone now; there would never be a chance to know for certain what those last murmured words had truly been.

She guessed that Zhou Tan had persuaded this pitiable woman to trade her life for justice, and had mocked him afterward for his ruthless methods.

But now… it was no wonder he had lost his composure so completely that day. Every night she had spent doubting him, Qu You could now recall, with perfect clarity, the bewildered, profoundly guilt-stricken look on his face as he’d failed to catch hold of Gu Xianghui’s sash in time.

Her hand, guided by Yan Wuping, was placed into Zhou Tan’s. This time, both their hands were equally cold—neither could feel the other’s warmth at all.

“My lady beat the drum on the Imperial Way, and Lord Zhou has schemed and planned on our behalf all this while… Wuping has been fortunate indeed, to have met the two of you. It’s taught me that heaven’s justice still shines, that there is still fairness in this world—and that as long as there’s fire in it, it can never be entirely without hope.”

Her voice grew fainter and fainter, fading in time with the falling rain. Blood had soaked entirely through Qu You’s inner robe by now.

“I never meant to make it back alive. My brother—I entrust him to your care. Lord Zhou… please, bury my ashes together with Jin Xiu’s. The capital is such a lively place… there’s no curfew there, and at night, walking along the Bian River, the whole way is lit with lantern flowers. He always loved a bustling scene—surely, there’ll be a chance to meet again there…”

The woman in her arms fell entirely, completely still.

The rain suddenly grew heavier. Amid the rising mist, Qu You heard Zhou Tan say, “Wuping’s true name was Yan Hua. Hua means gentle and delicate—she should have grown up sheltered beneath her parents’ wings. She had remarkable talent, and ambition besides. She might have become a great female general, given the chance.”

Qu You gently reached out and closed Yan Wuping’s still-warm eyelids. Zhou Tan bent down, lifted the body into his arms, and together they made their way into the forest. Neither of them could descend the mountain just yet; they would need to find somewhere to shelter from the rain first.

She heard Zhou Tan suddenly speak. “I understand now why she chose to change her name. When we bury her together with Jin Xiu, we should carve this line onto the gravestone.”

Zhou Tan fell silent, tightening his grip on the strip of cloth that still bound them together.

On the day she’d resolved to come seeking revenge, she had bound her name and her very life inseparably to her betrothed husband’s.

From now on, let no letters be sent. In the painted chamber, the clouds and rain hold no promise left.