On the road back to Yuzhou, Gui Yuanshu did not feel the lightness of the journey there—even though he had set out with a heart half-resigned to death, and now returned with what could only be called a mission accomplished and merits fulfilled.

He did not dislike Yun Xiaozao. He simply found it all absurd.

Love at first sight existed only in the tales of storytellers—where the man and woman, at the very first glance, knew with certainty that this was the right person. If things had been like that, it would have been fine enough.

But that was not what had happened between them.

They had been traveling for more than a day since leaving the city, putting considerable distance between themselves and Daxing City. Everyone had relaxed. Even Old Sun’s smile had grown steadily warmer.

For him, going to Yuzhou was naturally a fine thing—because the woman he held in his heart had gone to Yuzhou.

Another twenty or thirty li ahead lay a resting point along the road, a place called Leiming Post Station.

The post station had come first, and over time people had gathered and settled around it, gradually forming a town of considerable scale.

What made Leiming Post Station remarkable was this: many things that could not be openly traded in Daxing City were available here, in broad daylight.

War horses, for instance.

One might wonder—how could war horses possibly be sold openly in broad daylight?

If you were to walk through Leiming Post Station yourself, you would see it—some traders were too lazy even to change out of their Dachu garrison soldiers’ uniforms as they stood there selling horses without the slightest attempt at concealment.

Their boldness had grown, but only in these past few years.

As the court grew steadily poorer and military pay ceased to arrive on schedule, these soldiers had begun by stealing small things from their camps and selling them, cautious and fearful of discovery.

But before long, it had become the custom—more and more garrison soldiers found things they could carry out and bring here. When they recognized each other, they would pretend not to see, keeping a mutual, wordless understanding.

If they were on good terms, they might sell their goods and then sit down together in one of the little taverns for a couple of drinks.

And where did those regulation-issue weapons in Daxing City’s underground channels come from?

In earlier times, they had been supplied by those who stood behind the underground factions. But now, even factions of no great size could equip themselves with straight-bladed swords and even crossbows—all purchased at Leiming Post Station.

“Be careful when we get to the next stop.”

Yun Xiaozao looked at Gui Yuanshu, who was lost in thought: “When you came, did you pass through Leiming Post Station?”

Gui Yuanshu of course knew what made Leiming Post Station peculiar. On the way here, they had gone around it rather than passing through.

He shook his head: “No. On the way back, let’s go around it too.”

Because he had said *let’s*, Yun Xiaozao seemed to brighten noticeably—though she also understood that Gui Yuanshu had only said it without thinking.

Yun Xiaozao said: “But we have to make a stop there.”

Gui Yuanshu: “Why?”

Yun Xiaozao said: “The business I run is at Leiming Post Station. This business is not the Shanhe Seal’s, not my aunt’s, not even the Cao family’s—it’s mine alone.”

Gui Yuanshu understood: she was going to Leiming Post Station to collect the earnings from her years of running this operation.

He was beginning to understand this young woman a little better now. She simply did not want to rely on anyone else—for anything at all.

She had been born into extraordinary privilege, yet had been content to hide herself away in Yunshu Pavilion. It was because she felt that everything she had been given at birth was not truly hers—and could be taken away at any moment.

The largest pawnshop in Leiming Post Station was hers. She rarely visited in person; it was the two handmaidens who had left Daxing City with her—Tingyun and Tingyu—who handled all the communications.

The pawnshop in Leiming Post Station was called Yunyu Pawnshop—Cloud and Rain Pawnshop.

Because Yunyu Pawnshop had ample capital, an excellent reputation, and strict confidentiality, many people were happy to bring goods acquired through irregular means and convert them to ready cash there.

Pawnshops necessarily offered low prices on what they accepted—but they paid in hard silver, immediately, without delay.

Yunyu Pawnshop would then sell what it acquired at high prices to underground networks or merchants. The business thrived.

“When we get to Yuzhou, everything has to start from scratch—and I need silver in hand to do that.”

She seemed to be talking to herself.

Gui Yuanshu could not resist: “Your brother is in Yuzhou. Your family is in Yuzhou. The Cao family’s holdings may not be what they once were, but they’re still immeasurably vast. When you return, your brother won’t see you go without?”

Yun Xiaozao answered with a note of pride: “My brother would never see me go without. If I were willing to accept it, he’d give me everything he has. But I won’t take it.”

She lifted her gaze to Gui Yuanshu’s face and suddenly posed a question he had no way to answer.

“Tell me—is everything in this world fair to women?”

With that question, Gui Yuanshu felt himself drawn into a heavy and sobering truth.

Perhaps the future would grow fairer toward women. But in an era like Dachu’s, women did have it harder. That was undeniable.

“You think I’m using you.”

Yun Xiaozao said quietly: “I did think that, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But I will take responsibility for every choice I make. I will be faithful to my choices.”

Gui Yuanshu did not know how to judge this, how to respond to it. So he simply chose silence again.

He found himself thinking—perhaps Yun Xiaozao and the Princess Consort of Prince Wu were too alike.

Why so similar? Perhaps because women shaped by the same circumstances, given the same teachings, tend to become alike.

After the Princess Consort of Prince Wu married Prince Wu, her identity had changed. She was no longer the eldest young mistress of the Cao family. Every consideration she made had to be made from within the identity of Princess Consort of Prince Wu.

And yet Yun Xiaozao and the Princess Consort of Prince Wu were not quite the same—because she did not have her own Prince Wu.

Thinking this, Gui Yuanshu said in a subdued tone: “I am not someone like Prince Wu. And perhaps I will never be.”

Yun Xiaozao said: “Why should you become someone else?”

She held Gui Yuanshu’s gaze, with great seriousness: “I don’t want to become someone else. And I wouldn’t make it hard on the man at my side by asking him to become someone else either. When a woman says to her husband, *you fall so far short of another woman’s husband,* she has already lost—lost completely.”

A light entered Gui Yuanshu’s eyes.

He truly had not expected that a young woman like Yun Xiaozao could think this way.

Yun Xiaozao said: “I don’t want the man at my side to spend his days trying to imitate another man. If he did, I would find myself deeply contemptible—because it would prove that what I actually want is the man my husband is imitating.”

Gui Yuanshu was silent for a long time, then nodded: “If it’s possible—I wouldn’t ask my future woman to model herself after anyone either.”

Yun Xiaozao smiled.

Even if the woman in his words did not necessarily refer to her.

By midday or so, the group arrived at Leiming Post Station. For safety’s sake, Yun Xiaozao had intended to ask Gui Yuanshu to wait outside—but somehow, Gui Yuanshu decided to go in with her.

When he said *let’s go together*, something clearly glimmered bright in Yun Xiaozao’s eyes.

Yunyu Pawnshop stood in the most bustling part of Leiming Post Station. Over the years, no one here had ever known who the owner was—but everyone knew that Yunyu Pawnshop was not to be trifled with.

Once, a garrison military officer had apparently decided he carried enough weight to throw it around. When he came to Yunyu Pawnshop to pawn something and the price offered was lower than he liked, and the staff not quite deferential enough in his estimation, he had flown into a rage and ordered the several dozen garrison soldiers he had brought to smash the place up.

At the time, the people of Yunyu Pawnshop had simply stepped back—politely, without a word, standing to the side like spectators watching the shop be demolished. No one tried to stop it. No one even spoke.

The officer left after the smashing, declaring as he went that if he heard the pawnshop dared to reopen its doors, he would come back and smash it again.

At the time, the people of Leiming Post Station had largely concluded that Yunyu Pawnshop was all appearance with no real backing.

But the very next morning, people arrived to find dozens of men kneeling at the entrance of Yunyu Pawnshop—the same garrison soldiers who had carried out yesterday’s destruction, and among them, naturally, the officer himself.

These men were covered in wounds. Every one of them was stripped to the waist. Across each man’s back were the welts of a whip—every back the same, raw and mangled.

Not long after, a general emerged from within Yunyu Pawnshop, and with the most solemn yet utterly bewildering gravity declared: “These men have violated military discipline. They are to be strictly punished.”

Who would believe these men were being punished for violating military discipline?

The general announced that, under Dachu’s military code, those guilty of stealing military supplies were to be executed—but the people of Yunyu Pawnshop had interceded and pleaded for mercy, and so these dozens of men were spared.

From that day forward, Yunyu Pawnshop’s position in Leiming Post Station became unassailable.

Yun Xiaozao’s carriage stopped behind Yunyu Pawnshop. She put on her veiled hat, then stepped down with her two handmaidens Tingyun and Tingyu.

The pawnshop’s people recognized Tingyun and Tingyu, and hurried, bowing deeply, to invite them inside.

Yun Xiaozao’s intention was to take all the hard silver in the shop and leave at once. But the moment she walked through the door, she understood—she had been too naive.

There in the pawnshop, the Princess Consort of Prince Wu sat drinking tea, surrounded on all sides by guards dressed in red brocade robes.

Yun Xiaozao immediately turned to leave—and then she saw a group of people, also dressed in red brocade robes, leveling crossbows at Gui Yuanshu.

These men in red brocade robes were called the Binding Spirit Guards—an elite force Prince Wu had personally handpicked from among the finest warriors in the army, assembled to protect his wife.

“Why leave without a farewell?”

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu set down her teacup, looked up, and posed the question to Yun Xiaozao.

Yun Xiaozao smiled: “Didn’t Auntie agree? I was worried they might run into some trouble, so I was in a hurry to leave.”

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu asked: “The trouble you feared—was that me?”

Yun Xiaozao opened her mouth, but found no reply.

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu said, with a trace of sorrow: “The Cao family once had a woman who, for the sake of the man she had chosen, disregarded even her family. Now there is another. Why are the women of the Cao family all like this?”

She was speaking of herself.

Yun Xiaozao took a deep breath, then answered with gravity: “Auntie, this is my choice—just as Auntie’s was her choice, long ago.”

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu: “But you are still young. You don’t know whether the choice you’ve made is right or wrong. Even if it is right—how could you leave without a farewell?”

Yun Xiaozao knelt: “Zhao’er knows she was wrong.”

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu said: “In those days, I could disregard my family because the Prince treated me as his most cherished. For a woman to encounter a man like that—is it so much to throw aside everything for him?”

She raised a hand and pointed at Gui Yuanshu: “Is he that man?”

Yun Xiaozao said: “Zhao’er has confidence in herself. Perhaps he is not that man yet—but he will be.”

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu said: “Only yesterday I counseled you—once you reach Yuzhou, you have every opportunity to choose a better man. Among the great generals under Prince Ning’s banner, with your looks and your character, any man you set your eyes on would be a stronger choice than this one.”

She paused briefly, then continued: “What I can do for you, I will do in your place. Here in Leiming Post Station I will have all of them killed. You go on your own to find your brother—he will naturally take care of you. Then choose someone who may one day become one of the founding nobles and marry him. Wouldn’t that be better?”

Yun Xiaozao said: “Auntie knows—once I’ve made a choice after careful deliberation, I will not change it.”

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu: “What if I were to have him killed right now?”

Yun Xiaozao: “Then I will resent Auntie. Once I reach Prince Ning’s camp, I will do everything in my power to see Prince Wu defeated.”

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu’s expression shifted. Her eyes went cold: “What are you saying? Do you have that kind of standing?”

Yun Xiaozao shook her head: “I don’t. But I will try.”

The Princess Consort of Prince Wu’s expression shifted and wavered, and for a long time she said nothing. At last, she pointed to the table before her, where two cups of wine had been set.

“I cannot leave your future unguarded. At the very least, his courage must be tested. These two cups of wine—one of them is poisoned. One each for the two of you…” She paused. “Originally I only intended for him to choose one cup and drink it himself. But since you just threatened to resent me—I’ve changed my mind. You will both drink.”

Before she had finished speaking, Yun Xiaozao had already risen to her feet, walked over with long strides, and gripped both cups—one in each hand.

“The man I chose myself—however inadequate he may be, however much he may fall short of your man—is still *my own choice*. He was not arranged for me by someone else. Auntie, I have said it before: a choice made after careful deliberation is not one I will walk back.”

She raised the cups and tipped both toward her lips at once.

Who could know—what she was defying was fate itself.

With a sharp sound, Gui Yuanshu seized her hand.

Gui Yuanshu said: “The wine may be poisoned. I won’t drink it for you, and I don’t want you to drink it for me—but I want to try…”

He took Yun Xiaozao’s hand in one of his, and with the other drew the blade at his hip: “Whether I can cut a way out of here and take you with me.”

—