◎ The Letter ◎

Gao Yunyue had settled the little beggar girl who delivered the letter at an inn beside the Bian River. Time was pressing, and she had no chance to arrange anything else, so she asked Qu You and her husband to come and see the girl themselves — it was also a kind of entrustment.

The messenger was a young girl, thin as a rail, but with a pair of eyes both large and bright. She had hidden behind the door, asking several cautious questions before she was willing to let them in.

Gao Yunyue had prepared a great deal of food for the girl, and the table was soon in disarray. When Qu You saw the girl’s ragged clothes, she immediately sent someone to buy her a new set.

Gnawing on the third cheese bun within reach, the little girl said quietly, “My name is A’Luo. Sister Liu gave me that name.”

“A’Luo,” Qu You said, glancing at Zhou Tan beside her, who seemed at a loss for what to say to a child, and smiled, “can you tell me how your Sister Liu came to have you deliver this to us?”

“Sister Liu said I could only tell the two sisters surnamed Gao and Qu,” A’Luo said, casting a faintly hostile glance at Zhou Tan. “He can’t listen.”

“He’s my husband,” Qu You said, patting her head helplessly. “He and I are of one heart and body. Don’t worry, A’Luo.”

A’Luo hesitated a good while longer before finally speaking. “…I met Sister Liu outside a medicine shop. It was deep winter then. She kindly asked a physician to prescribe medicine that saved my brother’s life — though in the end he didn’t make it. He passed away last year.”

A’Luo looked to be about eleven or twelve. Though her voice was timid, she spoke clearly and with good order.

“But I remembered her kindness, so I often went to wait outside the Du residence gate for her to come out, to bring her flowers I’d picked. Sister Liu once said that if her household weren’t such a pit of misery, and if she had any money of her own, she would surely have taken me in… Ever since she started helping me, my days grew much easier. But that day, when I went as usual to bring her flowers, I saw her step down from her palanquin covered in wounds.”

Liu Lianxi had indeed found herself powerless after marrying into the Du household. The two of them had met at the start of the year — A’Luo, drifting among the street beggars, a lone young girl who had managed to survive on her own until now, was clearly no fool.

“She seemed terribly frightened, and couldn’t say much to me, only telling me to come secretly, in the middle of the night, to the canal outside the Du residence — that she had something to give me. She told me to keep it safe, and that if anything ever happened to her, I should go to the mountain road at Tingshan and wait for either Sister Gao or Sister Qu, and give it to them.”

Hearing this, Qu You understood a little more. Liu Lianxi had told her to wait at Tingshan in order to avoid watching eyes within the capital.

Still, it had truly been a gamble. She had handed over the box and swallowed the key — if anything at all had gone wrong, the two items would never have made their way safely into her hands. That Liu Lianxi had entrusted them to a beggar child was, aside from having no one else she could trust, also a bet she’d been forced to make.

Qu You studied the box in her hands. Zhou Tan had already told her earlier — even if this object were snatched from the little beggar’s grasp, it likely couldn’t be forced open. If someone tried to burn or hammer it apart, whatever was inside would go up with it.

Once A’Luo finished telling her story, she went back to eating what was left on the table. She had already washed her own face — round, bright eyes, a slightly upturned nose, actually rather pretty features. That she’d smeared herself with soot before must have been for her own protection.

Zhou Tan and Qu You exchanged a glance, and just as they were about to say something, the girl at the table suddenly began coughing violently. Qu You started, rising at once to pat her back. “A’Luo, what’s wrong?”

A’Luo clutched at her mouth and nose, gasping for breath, her eyes rolling back. She seemed to be trying to rise and leave the table, but nearly collapsed to the floor instead. Qu You caught her, and heard her say, brokenly, “This is… a weakness from birth… Sister, don’t worry…”

With the girl suddenly taken ill, the two of them had no choice but to send her first to Bo Ying, and it took the better part of the day before they returned to the residence. Zhou Tan had Nanny Yun clear every servant from the area around Pine Wind Pavilion, then led Qu You into the inner chamber behind the bookshelves of the pavilion.

So there was a hidden room in this residence after all. Qu You rarely came to Zhou Tan’s Pine Wind Pavilion, and had never noticed it before.

Zhou Tan’s hidden chamber was quite bare. Just inside the door stood a dust-covered curio shelf. Qu You gave it a cursory glance and saw several scrolls of books, a few finely made wooden boxes, and an exquisitely carved long sword resting upon it.

Seeing where her gaze had lingered, Zhou Tan lit a candle and said in a low voice, “…That was my sword, from before.”

“You know martial arts?” Qu You asked, quite startled, as she sat down with him at the desk. She’d wondered this once before, back on Jinghua Mountain, when Zhou Tan had drawn a bow and shot an arrow at Liang An.

“A little,” Zhou Tan answered simply.

Qu You took out the key she’d hidden in her sleeve, and sure enough, it fit the lock of the box. After a series of clicking mechanisms, the box finally opened, and Qu You let out a breath. “I never expected this key would actually find its use.”

“What does the letter say?”

Zhou Tan sat across from her, holding the candle for her, but could only make out the contents dimly. Seeing his difficulty, Qu You simply picked up the box and moved to sit beside him instead.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two of them began to read the letter together.

Qu You unsealed the oil-paper envelope at the top and read carefully. This letter, she was certain, had been written by Liu Lianxi — the handwriting somewhat hurried, but still elegant and neat.

“…To be opened personally by You You and Yunyue. My life has drifted without ever finding a true friend, until I was fortunate enough to receive your kindness over a cup of wine. Knowing my days are numbered, I have only this to entrust to you. If this letter is fortunate enough to be read by you, I will die without regret.”

“Since entering the Du household, I have lived in fear I dared not voice, merely clinging to a thread of life. Father and son of the Du family are neither peaceful nor upright, and I have long wished to find proof of their crimes, but never had the chance. One day, in a fit of drunken rambling, one of them spoke of holding something that could grasp the chief minister by the throat. I searched and found this object — though I do not understand its meaning, it still struck fear into my heart. After much thought, I can only entrust it to the two of you. If it proves useful, I will smile even in the underworld; if it proves useless, burn it so it implicates no one… I cannot say all that is in my heart. I pray you take care of yourselves, and hope we may again share a bond in the next life. My best wishes to you both.”

What secret could this be, that merely seeing it had told Liu Lianxi her life was near its end?

Qu You set down the letter, frowning, and found that the pages beneath it were also in Liu Lianxi’s hand — though written in fits and starts, clearly recorded from memory after she had read something else.

“The third day of the first month… Sent to Worthy Nephew Gongshu Duan. I have already seen it, and count the days until I reach Bianjing.”

“Duan, I have learned the hidden truth of your father’s death — it all stems from the renovation of the Zhenru Hall within the palace… Zhao Yin is a cruel and ruthless man. The craftsman who had no part in it saved me, and left behind a written account that can be brought to the capital for you to see… For the sake of our friendship, I am willing to help even at the cost of my life.”

“Duan has seen the rough sketch and gone to investigate… It truly is as I feared… I await your arrival.”

Some ten-odd pages were filled with such broken, disjointed words. Qu You read through them in confusion, but she noticed that the hand holding the letter beside her — Zhou Tan’s — had begun to tremble faintly. The hidden chamber was dim and quiet; she held her breath slightly, and heard his breathing had gone ragged.

She turned to look and saw Zhou Tan gripping the pages in his hand as though his life depended on it, his throat working as if a thousand words were caught there, though none came out. He flipped through the pages almost frantically, his face draining of color. Catching her gaze, he looked back at her — in his eyes, something like ice seemed to well up, then shatter piece by piece.

Qu You watched, startled, as Zhou Tan fought desperately to hold himself together, and still failed. Tears slid down the high bridge of his nose and fell, with a soft sound, onto the pages. He turned the sheets over and over, reading them again and again, murmuring shakily to himself, “How could this be…”

His eyes had gone red-rimmed, his gaze faintly unfocused. He even reached, unconsciously, to touch his own forearm. When Qu You saw him turn to look toward the sword on the curio shelf, she made an instant decision and threw her arms tightly around him from behind. Zhou Tan struggled once or twice, almost without awareness, and the two of them tumbled together from the desk to the floor.

Even as he fell, he instinctively twisted to take the impact himself, cushioning her beneath him. The gust of motion blew out the flickering candle, and the hidden chamber was plunged at once into total darkness.

Qu You released her hold, meaning to get up and relight the candle, but she suddenly heard him give a low, pained grunt, and felt his hands come up tentatively from behind her back, pulling her tightly into his arms.

“Zhou Tan…”

She called out, startled, and sensing the fragile emotion in him, awkwardly changed how she addressed him.

“Xiaobai… husband!”

The words seemed to strike some hidden mechanism within him. Zhou Tan buried his face against her shoulder, saying nothing, but she felt her shoulder growing damp, and through the haze she caught a few broken words from him.

“So it was… like this!”

After a long while, she felt the trembling body in her arms gradually grow calm. Kneeling on the floor, she stroked his back without thinking. “You didn’t bring that celadon vial with you today?”

Zhou Tan said nothing for a long moment. At last she heard his voice, clear but slightly hoarse. “…Since you ask that, you must already know what’s inside it.”

Qu You helped him half-sitting, half-standing, and found the fire striker he’d dropped nearby, relighting the candle. Its light illuminated Zhou Tan’s ashen face. He looked up at her — the faint redness in his eyes had not yet faded, and he looked, for a moment, rather pitiful.

“When I left the Ministry of Justice, His Majesty wasn’t at ease about me.”

He said only this much, and Qu You understood that her earlier guesses had been correct. She let out a sigh.

“So the vial also holds ‘Guwu’?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to be controlled by it?”

“No, I don’t.”

She recalled the celadon vial he had once smashed viciously to the ground, and He San’s practiced handling of the wound, and still she was puzzled. “If you don’t want to be controlled by it, why carry it on you at all?”

Zhou Tan gave a low, mocking laugh.

“If I don’t carry it with me, how can I say I’m not controlled by it? Only by being able to take it and choosing not to — only then can I truly cut off the danger for good.”

Qu You drew in a sharp breath.

Those who broke free of addiction were usually bound, confined, kept apart — never allowed near the substance at all, so that even the thought of it made them shudder, until, over long years, the craving finally died. But Zhou Tan was cruel to himself in a different way — determined to quit, and yet carrying it with him at all times, fighting an overwhelming desire from a distance of mere inches.

No wonder he hurt himself the way he did… without the pain to hold it back, there was no way he could have endured this long.

Zhou Tan braced himself against the desk and stood, pressing his cold hand to her forehead, his voice cool and composed. Listening to him, Qu You found it utterly impossible to imagine that only moments ago, this same man had been trembling like a leaf under the combined weight of the drug and the letter, curled in her arms like a small beast seeking warmth.

“There’s no need to worry. I know my limits.”

“How could I not worry, after what happened last time—” Qu You caught herself, though a note of embarrassed anger crept into her voice. “Surely there’s some way besides hurting yourself. If you won’t say anything, aren’t you the least bit afraid you’ll collapse because of this?”

Whether from guilt or from being caught off guard by such rare concern, Zhou Tan silently withdrew his hand, but said nothing for a moment.

Qu You gathered up the letters scattered across the floor, sighed heavily, and asked, without much hope of an answer, “Why did you lose control like that? Can you tell me?”

She looked up, box still in her arms, and met Zhou Tan’s damp, lowered gaze. His lips trembled, and he gave a bitter smile. “If you learn of this matter, there will be no turning back — we’ll walk together through storm and over a bridge with no return, from now on…”

“This is a tangled, treacherous business. Do you truly wish to hear it?”

Author’s Note:

Let’s see if I can manage a double update tomorrow — if not, just pretend I never said anything (not really—

Thanks to the little angels who dropped bombs: Madam Yi, 427543211;

Thanks to the little angels who watered with nutrient solution: One Chubby Da x, Shuiyan 20 bottles; Alice 5 bottles; Little Cloud 1 bottle;

Thank you all so much for your support — I’ll keep working hard!