◎Qixi Festival◎

Wang Yiran and He Yuankai’s wedding was set for the end of the seventh month.

Once she learned what was on Zhou Tan’s mind, Wang Yiran took it upon herself to arrange for his wedding banquet to be held on the same day as her own. Since Qu You had no relatives in Ruozhou city, it was decided that she would be married off from the Wang residence instead.

As soon as the seventh month began, Qu You moved into Wang Yiran’s residence to stay for a while.

It was only then that she realized just how simple their original wedding ceremony had truly been. Even accounting for the fact that a frontier region wouldn’t place as much emphasis on these formalities as the capital did, going through every proper step in the process would still take at the very least two or three months.

The kind of situation Zhou Tan had once been in—getting married within three or four days after the assassination attempt—was probably only possible because it had been an imperial decree.

By Ruozhou custom, a bride could not see her husband-to-be for a full month before the wedding. Qu You found this utterly bewildering.

She had already spent every day with Zhou Tan before, and their affection for each other was at its peak, but Wang Yiran insisted it would bring bad luck, and so it wasn’t until Qixi Festival that Qu You finally found an opportunity to slip out of the residence.

Zhou Tan took her on horseback into the streets, the evening breeze lifting her loosely pinned hair back from her face, giving her, for a moment, the disorienting sense that they were eloping together.

Qu You toyed with the gauzy sash of her robe and had a sudden whim. “Do you think we look like a young scholar and a young lady sneaking out to meet in secret, defying their parents’ wishes?”

Zhou Tan replied leisurely, “We’re just missing a matchmaker.”

The two of them wandered the streets for a while, then climbed up onto the walls of Ruozhou.

On Qixi Festival, men and women in the capital would typically set lanterns afloat on the Bian River to pray for good fortune, while lovers in Ruozhou more often lit sky lanterns atop the city walls and made their wishes there.

Zhou Tan had recently taken over the day-to-day affairs of Ruozhou, opening the prefecture gates to hear lawsuits and complaints, and many people recognized him by now. As he led Qu You by the hand along the top of the wall, quite a few young men and women greeted him with delighted bows.

“Lord Zhou…”

“Lord Zhou and his lady really are so devoted to each other—even coming here on Qixi to release lanterns.”

Zhou Tan was clearly still unused to this kind of warmth, nodding stiffly in response.

Qu You, all smiles, greeted everyone cheerfully. Before long, someone had pressed two sky lanterns made of oiled paper into her hands, and an enthusiastic young woman came over to teach her how to write her wish on the lantern before releasing it together with her husband.

She’d thought it all a bit childish at first, but once she took up the brush, she couldn’t help herself. Turning her back to hide what she wrote, she quickly scrawled a line—

“May Zhou Tan never again be alone and without support in this life.”

Lately she had found herself growing more and more anxious about the future, and this wish had come to her almost instinctively. Before he met her, Zhou Tan’s life had been lonely and desolate, and he himself was the kind of person prone to dark thoughts. If she should one day leave this world, then her greatest wish was simply that he never be alone again.

Thinking this, Qu You felt a faint sting behind her nose, and continued writing.

“May he be understood, remembered, and cherished by many, and may he always have true friends by his side.”

When she finished, she tossed the brush aside and quickly covered up what she’d written, then leaned over to see what Zhou Tan was writing. Caught off guard, he couldn’t stop her from seeing it—

“May the great Yin dynasty know lasting peace, and may my wife live a hundred years.”

Somewhere nearby, someone was singing a song in a language Qu You couldn’t understand. The songs of the western frontier were entirely different from those of the capital—not only was the language heavily influenced by Xishao, but they also lacked the delicate, graceful charm of the capital’s tunes entirely, sounding instead distant and ethereal, even carrying a touch of something sacred.

A woman on the wall was singing along. By the moonlight, Zhou Tan noticed that Qu You’s eyes looked a little red, and couldn’t help but ask, “What’s wrong?”

Qu You shook her head. “Nothing.”

She reached up to rub her eyes, then gave him a smile. “Let’s release our lanterns together.”

Zhou Tan agreed, releasing his own first. When it was her turn, he tried to see what she’d written, but she stopped him. “If you see the wish, it won’t come true.”

Zhou Tan grumbled softly, “But you already saw mine.”

Qu You protested unfairly, “That doesn’t count, it doesn’t count, doesn’t count—ptooey, ptooey, it’ll definitely come true anyway.”

The sky lanterns drifted slowly upward before them, the candlelight within catching the light in Zhou Tan’s eyes just so.

Qu You suddenly realized that ever since coming to the western frontier, the icy, distancing coldness that had once lived in Zhou Tan’s eyes had melted away entirely. Now his gaze was bright and alive, full of ease and joy—a look that would have been utterly impossible to see back in the capital.

If only he could remain like this forever, free of all his burdens.

Zhou Tan wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and together they gazed out from atop the wall into the distance, where the Gerila mountains stood hazy and indistinct beneath the moonlight, and here and there, faint firelight from the primitive tribes living in the mountains could just be made out.

Song echoed across this land. Following Zhou Tan’s gaze, Qu You saw their two lanterns drifting together, entwined, floating slowly away into the darkness beyond.

The Crown Princess had just personally brought back a warmed dish from the small kitchen when a maidservant, eyes lowered respectfully, pushed open the door to announce that His Highness the Crown Prince had returned to the residence.

The rules within the Crown Prince’s residence were exceptionally strict. The maids all wore soft-soled satin shoes and walked almost without a sound, terrified of making any misstep heavy enough to displease His Highness.

The Crown Princess nodded slightly at her and took the visibly drunk Crown Prince from the guard who had escorted him in. Neither the guard nor the maids dared look a moment longer than necessary—after setting him down, they closed the door and withdrew at once.

Song Shiyan caught the faint, tranquil scent of sandalwood in the room, which sobered him somewhat. Narrowing his eyes, he looked at the dutifully composed Crown Princess and the dish waiting on the table, and let out a scornful laugh. “Why is this meal still sitting here? Were you waiting for me to come back?”

“Today is the Qixi Festival,” the Crown Princess answered, lowering her eyes. “This humble consort had you in mind, and waited for Your Highness to return to dine together.”

Song Shiyan sat down at the table, vaguely recalling that ever since their marriage, he’d come home late eight nights out of ten—either handling state affairs, or hosting banquets, and the rest of the time he was often at Fan Tower.

Normally, the Crown Princess didn’t wait to eat dinner with him. But last Qixi, Emperor De had told him he wished to dine with the various consorts of the harem, and sent him back to spend time with his primary consort instead. On a whim, he had gone home, only to be told by the servants that the Crown Princess had already eaten dinner and gone to bed early.

He had walked into the bedroom with a cold sneer and slapped the woman on the bed three times. The Crown Princess had fallen ill for a long stretch of time afterward because of those three slaps, not daring to show her face outside for a full two months.

So this time, she’d learned her lesson from before.

Thinking of this, Song Shiyan felt somewhat more at ease. He sat down at the table and took a sip of the lily soup before him.

The soup wasn’t to his taste—too bland, much like the woman before him, equally dull and uninteresting. After a few sips he set the bowl down, losing interest, closed his eyes, and raised an eyebrow.

The Crown Princess came forward immediately to help him out of his outer robes, showing an unusual degree of attentiveness. “Where did Your Highness go tonight? You seem to have enjoyed yourself.”

“Dined with some gentlemen, listened to moon lute music all evening,” Song Shiyan answered lazily, then suddenly opened his eyes and looked at her closely. “Strange, come to think of it—Chun Niangzi isn’t even a great beauty like the twin belles of the capital, so why does every smile and frown of hers captivate people so? Your face is passable enough, and yet not a moment of looking at it fails to turn my stomach.”

The Crown Princess lowered her eyes, having long since grown numb to such insults. “This concubine has troubled Your Highness.”

Compared to being likened to a courtesan, this was an insult that even an ordinary woman would find hard to bear—let alone a Crown Princess from a distinguished noble family, raised to follow every rule of propriety. And yet not a trace of anger showed on her face.

Song Shiyan had once found this kind of deference quite pleasing. Tonight, perhaps because he’d had too much to drink, her calm composure irritated him instead. “Is it that no matter what I say, your face always looks like this—like a corpse?”

The Crown Princess said, trembling, “This concubine is terrified, Your Highness.”

“The same tired words again,” he said, stretching his stiffened back, then suddenly changed to a mocking tone. “You don’t even get angry at being compared to a courtesan—what if I asked you to become sworn sisters with one?”

The Crown Princess’s expression stiffened for a moment, but she quickly forced a smile. “Has Your Highness taken a fancy to some renowned beauty in the capital?”

“I’m talking about you,” Song Shiyan said impatiently. “My teacher’s eldest daughter can befriend Chun Niangzi without the slightest reservation, just like Zhou Tan’s wife. It’s only you noble ladies who pride yourselves on propriety and decorum, and in the end it all amounts to nothing but tedious, stifling rules. I used to think there was no real difference between marrying the Gao family’s daughter and marrying you—turns out I was wrong…”

At this point, he abruptly changed the subject. “Speaking of which, that Gao family’s daughter has been having her marriage discussed lately, and she’s rejected several sons of noble families already. She holds herself too high and has no sense of political calculation at all—who knows who she’ll finally settle on. Come to think of it, I’ve always preferred women with a bit more intelligence. A clever woman has real pride, real backbone—otherwise, she’s nothing but a fool putting on airs of nobility…”

The Crown Princess had no idea whom he might be thinking of as he drifted off like this, but she went along with what he seemed to want, quickly forcing a placating smile. “If Your Highness has taken a liking to someone, simply bring her into the household… this concubine is incapable—having been married in for this long, I’ve been unable to bear Your Highness an heir, which is truly shameful. If my younger sister could bear children for Your Highness instead, I would treat her with the utmost care.”

It occurred to him that marrying a wife like this wasn’t entirely without its benefits, after all—she was respectful and dutiful, and would never even grow angry at his debauchery and indulgence.

Song Shiyan, seated in his chair, reached out to stroke the chin of the Crown Princess kneeling at his feet, smiling with neither warmth nor coldness. “Such magnanimity from my consort truly puts my heart at ease.”

Seeing him show a rare hint of approval, the Crown Princess seemed to take heart from it and continued, “Does Your Highness perhaps favor that Chun Niangzi from the Chunfenghualiu establishment? This concubine has heard her moon lute playing is unmatched in the entire capital. If she could come to play for Your Highness alone, that would certainly be wonderful—only, His Majesty keeps a close watch on such things these days. I wonder if it might displease him?”

Song Shiyan laughed dismissively. “Father is in poor health lately—I doubt he has the energy to concern himself with such matters.”

Having said this, he recalled the Crown Princess’s earlier words and felt a flicker of surprise, realizing after a moment that she’d misunderstood him to be infatuated with Ye Liuchun.

Too lazy to correct her, Song Shiyan simply continued stroking her chin, smiling with some self-satisfaction. “If I were to bring someone into this household, I certainly wouldn’t leave any grounds for gossip—even if it meant helping someone fake their death to leave their profession and fabricating a new identity for them, I could manage it so that even those stubborn old fools in the Censorate couldn’t find a single fault to pick at. It’s just that Chun Niangzi… already has someone she cares for.”

The Crown Princess raised her eyes to look at him. Song Shiyan caught sight of his own reflection in her fear-tinged gaze, paused for a moment, and then something flickered across his brow.

“But I… enjoy nothing more than watching lovers torn apart.”