◎A Spring Night◎

After the cup of union, the guests raised a clamor and dragged Zhou Tan out to drink.

Heiyi, standing at the very back, lingered behind after everyone else had left, and under Nanny Yun’s puzzled gaze, knelt down and bowed properly to Qu You.

His voice, as always, was hoarse. “This one wishes my lord and lady a lifetime of harmony and lasting peace and health.”

Ever since coming to Zhou Tan’s side, he had followed him like a shadow, utterly loyal, never leaving no matter the circumstance.

Touched, Qu You said warmly, “Get up, quickly.”

She heard him rise from behind her fan before continuing, “I know how good you’ve been to my husband. In his heart, he thinks of you as a brother—we’ve faced death together more than once, and by now we’re practically family. Today is our happy occasion, so you should drink a few more cups too.”

Heiyi let out a soft, choked sound, but seemed unwilling to let her hear it, and composed himself a moment later. “I will.”

After Heiyi left, Qu You didn’t have to wait long in the room before she heard the door being pushed open.

Zhou Tan was never much of a drinker, but today, in his happiness, he’d had a few extra cups. As he pushed the door open, Qu You caught only the faintest hint of mellow wine on his breath.

He turned to close the door behind him, then stood still where he was, his throat working nervously.

Seeing him hesitate, Qu You spoke up from behind her fan, teasing, “Why doesn’t my husband come over?”

Only then did Zhou Tan approach, somewhat nervously, taking her hand and gently moving aside the fan that shielded her face.

Looking into her autumn-water eyes, he felt all his old composure and detachment fly out the window, leaving only the frantic pounding of his own heart.

Qu You had taken great care with her makeup today, even a delicately painted butterfly ornament adorning her forehead. Zhou Tan’s gaze traveled upward, brushing lightly against the space between her brows. “Beautiful.”

It wasn’t clear whether he meant her or the butterfly.

Though they were already as intimate as two people could be, in a moment like this, the two of them found themselves blushing at the sight of each other, at a loss for what to say.

Qu You instinctively fanned herself, and seeing Zhou Tan’s gaze skitter away, she steeled herself, tossed the fan aside, and reached out to grab his collar instead.

She hadn’t meant to pull quite so hard—caught off guard, Zhou Tan toppled forward against her.

Qu You fell backward onto the bed, the phoenix crown atop her head sliding loose and mussing her carefully arranged hair. Zhou Tan quickly reached out to cushion the back of her neck, keeping her from getting hurt.

She simply reached up and pulled out the last hairpin holding her hair in place, letting her long black hair spill out like flowing clouds, brushing against Zhou Tan’s face.

He caught the scent of quiet apricot blossoms, mingling with the still-water fragrance he always wore—an unexpectedly harmonious combination.

Zhou Tan felt his heart burning hot all at once, and murmured against her ear, “You You…”

Qu You let out a soft laugh, curious. “Why aren’t you calling me A’Lian anymore?”

Zhou Tan answered, muffled, “But everyone else calls you You You.”

“That’s right, everyone else calls me You You.”

She’d never had a courtesy name before—not until coming to this world. Aside from her mother, almost no one had ever called her by it.

Thinking this, Qu You tightened her arms around his neck and whispered, “…but only you call me A’Lian.”

Zhou Tan cupped the back of her head and leaned down to exchange a deep, damp kiss with her.

“Actually, before Xiaoyan led those five thousand elite troops out of the city, I… imagined countless different outcomes,” he said hoarsely once the kiss ended. “If we truly couldn’t hold Ruozhou, Uncle Xu and I would have led the old Lingxiao forces into battle ourselves.”

She had noticed how restless he’d been during that time, but she hadn’t had any solution back then either, so she’d asked fewer questions, hoping not to worry him further.

It had been her first time experiencing war this closely—every day at the makeshift medical tent, she’d seen severed limbs and mangled bodies. To keep everyone else calm, she’d forced herself to appear composed, but at night she’d sometimes had nightmares.

Waking up drenched in cold sweat, she would get out of bed, open the window, and look at the lamp hanging outside Zhou Tan’s door—only then could she manage to calm herself.

What she hadn’t known was that on countless nights, Zhou Tan too had sat behind his own window, drawing comfort from that same hazy lamplight, as though as long as it stayed lit, there was still hope.

“I know. If you’d led the old Lingxiao forces into battle yourself, win or lose, an army that large appearing at the western frontier would surely have been noticed by the Emperor,” Qu You continued for him. “Your plans for Ziqian would have come to nothing.”

But Ruozhou had to be defended, no matter what.

He would never have used the lives of an entire city as a bargaining chip for his own advantage.

“I told myself over and over back then that there would surely be some other way—that I could persuade Old General Chu, or get hold of the tiger tally… but I also knew these were all far too vague. At the very least, the moment the Emperor learned the old Lingxiao forces still existed, he’d surely summon me back to the capital,” Zhou Tan said slowly. “His tolerance of me has always been because I posed no threat. If I ever held real leverage, he’d make sure I died quietly in some ‘accident.’ I understand him far too well, after all these years…”

Back then, the choice Zhou Tan faced hadn’t been only about the Prince of Jing’s cause—it had been about his own life as well.

He said only a few words, but Qu You understood his meaning at once, and felt a sting behind her nose. She tightened her arms around his neck even more. “It’s all in the past now. Heaven’s been kind to us. Whatever happens, we’ll always find a way through.”

“Mm,” Zhou Tan said, pressing his forehead to hers. “Before I met you, everything that happened to me turned out worse than I’d expected. But since you’ve been by my side, I’ve always felt… things turn out better than I imagine. Even in the most dangerous situations, we somehow find a way to survive.”

“When I heard the sound of cannon fire in the city, I was afraid too. But then I thought of you up on the wall, and somehow I didn’t feel afraid anymore,” Qu You murmured, resting against his arm. “War really is cruel. People in the capital could never imagine such a thing in their whole lives. Thankfully, we have Xiaoyan here. Once we return to the capital and everything settles, it truly will be an age of peace and prosperity.”

She wasn’t lying. During Song Shixuan’s reign, the realm would know peace and the people prosperity, with no factional strife at court and no war at the border. Though the Begonia Decree would eventually be abolished, its underlying provisions would leave a profound impact on the laws of the great Yin.

The golden age Zhou Tan hoped for would arrive, just as promised.

The only ones who would break that promise were the two of them—because they would both die in days gone by, never living to see it with their own eyes.

Listening to Zhou Tan’s heartbeat, Qu You thought, trembling, that she had never held any urgent wish since coming to this world—but if she truly could change history, she would give anything for Zhou Tan to live a long, full life.

“An age of peace…” Zhou Tan repeated the words softly, as though they carried boundless hope, and laughed once before leaning in to kiss her again. “Good. Everything—everything will go well.”

Her heavy wedding robes slipped weightlessly to the foot of the bed. This bridal chamber was Zhou Tan’s own room, its bed curtains made from the water-caltrop-and-moonlight gauze Yan Fu had brought back from the capital—even fully drawn, candlelight still filtered faintly through, shimmering like moonlit shadows.

Qu You suddenly felt a flicker of fear.

Since coming to this world, though she had both parents living, siblings by her side, close friends and confidants, she had always, in the end, been alone—everything belonged to the original owner of this body, who had drowned that day and left everything behind to her.

By whatever thread of fate had summoned her across the pages of history to land here, she owed it to Qu Yilian to be worthy of everything she’d left behind—so she had honored her parents and cared for her family.

Then, in a daze, she had married, and found her way to Zhou Tan’s side.

—Only Zhou Tan truly belonged to her, truly belonged to the Qu You who had saved his life, who had slept in his arms atop the misty mountains above the capital, who had lit a lamp outside his door every night.

What he admired was the version of her that had struck the drum before the palace without fear, the one who had pierced through the fog of history to truly see him.

And so he had given her the last, meager remnants of his attachment and trust. From the moment he decided to love her, he had laid bare every secret vital to his life, without ever holding anything back.

But in truth, she too was, in this world, utterly alone—a pitiable soul who needed his love just as much.

Traveling across ten thousand ages, meeting at dawn or dusk, and yet feeling as though they were reuniting after a long parting.

It wasn’t only Zhou Tan who was fortunate.

Zhou Tan kissed away the tears at the corner of her eye and asked gently, “Why are you crying?”

Qu You laughed through her tears. “I’m happy. It feels like you’re finally really mine.”

Her fingers traced over his bare shoulder, finding the faint mark left by her bite from before. She couldn’t help opening her mouth again, meaning to leave a fresh mark—but couldn’t bring herself to bite down, and it became a light kiss instead.

The wind stirred the moonlight gauze, brushing softly across the back of her hand. Qu You grabbed hold of the bed curtain and pulled herself upright, then, seized by a sudden playful impulse, nipped at Zhou Tan’s ear and asked, “I remember you said last time you weren’t very skilled yet, and needed more practice. I wonder—have you studied since then?”

Zhou Tan was very close to her now; she could almost smell the warmth radiating from his skin. His voice, hoarse, made her ears tingle. “No studying needed.”

Qu You looked doubtful.

So Zhou Tan set out to demonstrate his natural talent in person.

Sometime near dawn, Qu You, feeling a bit stifled, pushed aside the floating bed curtains and tried to get up to open the window, only to find her legs too weak to move.

Zhou Tan reached out from behind and pulled her back, earning himself a glare from the beauty, tinged with mock anger.

He laughed, casually threw on the bright red wedding robe beside him, and padded barefoot out of bed to open the window.

The moon hadn’t yet set, and its light clearly illuminated the garden of apricot blossoms outside the window. Since moving here, she had already watched two springs’ worth of apricot blossoms bloom—somehow, without her noticing, she’d spent more time in Ruozhou than she ever had in the capital.

And yet, it always felt as though time moved so slowly here.

Zhou Tan sighed at the window and turned to look at her. “Apricot blossoms on a spring night, fragrant and pristine white—such a rare sight.”

Qu You gazed at him, dazed, standing there at the window with his hair loose and the wedding robe draped over his shoulders, just as he’d looked that first time she’d woken behind the screen. Only now, bathed in moonlight, with the apricot blossoms and shadows reflected in his eyes, she felt for a moment that there could be no more beautiful sight in the world than him.

The desk happened to sit right beneath the window. Zhou Tan gazed at her, lost in thought for a while, then suddenly picked up a brush and wrote a line at the desk.

Once he’d finished, he carried over the small writing table along with the brush and ink. Qu You, gathering up her long hair, realized she actually knew this poem he’d composed on a whim by heart.

It was one of his most widely circulated poems.

She had once speculated that this poem had been written in Ruozhou, perhaps dedicated to a close friend—but he had no such confidant recorded in the history books, let alone one described with such lofty, autumn-hardy integrity as the poem suggested. No matter how she tried, she had never been able to figure out who the poem’s subject might be.

Zhou Tan dipped the brush in ink for her and said with a smile, “Come, wife—write the next line for me.”

She took the brush from him, laughing softly.

So it turned out this poem had been about himself all along—and it suited him remarkably well.

Without hesitation, she wrote—

Zhou Tan set down the brush without continuing, staring blankly at what she’d written for a long while before finally looking up, tears glimmering in his eyes—whether moved by how well she understood him, she couldn’t say.

The unfinished poem was set aside for the time being, not to be picked up again until half a year later, at the season’s first snowfall, when Zhou Tan happened to rediscover it and continued writing.

She, too, added the final line.

The days in Ruozhou passed slowly and peacefully. Xu Zhi and Yan Fu drilled the Lingxiao Army out in the desert wastes, while Zhou Tan and Qu You each attended to their own duties in the city—Qu You, who had always had an interest in solving cases, simply took up a legal-affairs post under Vice-Prefect Zhou, handling old backlogged cases and civil disputes.

She never dressed as a man; instead, she wore the deep blue official robes and cap directly, and being slender, the jade belt hung loose and graceful on her, giving her an air of refined elegance beyond the ordinary.

At first, some had scorned her for her beauty, but Qu You had read extensively in criminal law and precedent, and though she wasn’t exactly a seasoned expert on rural crime, she could think of no shortage of clever breakthroughs. The constables working alongside her soon dropped their condescension, and in time, along with the common people, they came to jokingly call her “the Female Justice.”

Drawing on her case-solving experience, in her spare time she compared notes against the great Yin’s criminal code and drafted several proposed corrections—rough and unorganized, never quite finished, always meant to be compiled properly someday, though she kept putting it off and never got around to it.

Because whenever a rest day or festival came around, she found herself terribly busy.

Sometimes she’d go riding with Zhou Tan out in the desert; other times, when Yan Fu happened to be back, she’d learn archery and basic martial arts from him.

Or else, she and Zhou Tan would simply sit together atop the city wall and watch the sky—from the rising sun to the evening’s spreading glow, from the clear blue sky to the bright moon and stars, the drifting clouds ever-changing—and never tire of the sight, always finding endless things to talk about.

Occasionally, letters would arrive from old friends in the capital, mostly full of concern from her parents and siblings, and greetings from old friends.

Gao Yunyue often sent bolts of fabric and jewelry through messengers, drawing a tiny moon as her signature. Qu You sent her frontier grape wine in return, teasingly drawing a cloud back to her.

And so the New Year’s Eve of the seventeenth year of Yongning arrived.

The new year was approaching, but Qu You felt only aversion and unease toward the eighteenth year of Yongning—an unease she couldn’t share with anyone.

Because she knew that this was the year Zhou Tan would return to the capital.

The carefree, dreamlike days in Ruozhou were, in the end, bound to come to an end.

Shortly after the Flower Dawn Festival, Zhou Tan caught a chill. Though it seemed minor at first, he’d neglected it early on, and it dragged on until he was confined to bed for a while.

That day, with nothing pressing to attend to, Qu You was reading documents in the prefecture office when Heiyi suddenly entered in person to report. “My lady, someone came to the city gate to report that they’d caught two people trying to force their way in without proper travel documents, a man and a woman, who said they wanted to see you and my lord. Something about it struck me as off, so I went to see for myself… they’re old acquaintances from the capital. My lord is unwell, so perhaps my lady should go see for herself.”

She hesitated for a long moment before rising to her feet.

The fine spring weather of the third month had only just arrived, yet already it seemed about to end—thunder rumbled faintly on the horizon, and a chill wind blew beneath a sky heavy with the promise of a coming storm.

There would always be some turn of fate, Qu You thought.

But she never imagined the turn would come like this. Following Heiyi to where the two were being temporarily detained behind the city gate, she froze the moment she looked over.

The woman, hearing footsteps, turned to look at her—a jarring streak of blood still visible along her cheek, her hair disheveled, her clothes tattered, not a trace of her former self remaining. But the instant she caught sight of Qu You, her eyes suddenly brightened, and tears spilled down her face. “You You—”

Qu You ran toward her instinctively, calling her name in disbelief.

“Yun… Yunyue…”