With those things secured, Huayue felt at ease, and went back to leaning against the soft pillows, eating plum candy.

Before long, the gatekeeper came to report that the gift sent over was a pair of gold phoenix hairpins.

Shuang Jiang took them, glanced them over, gave a cold snort, and was about to toss them aside when Huayue grabbed her hand and glared. “Are we so wealthy now that we can throw away something this fine? Go find a craftsman, melt them down into small gold ingots — we’ll have use for them later.”

Shuang Jiang: “…”

“Mistress,” she tried to reason, “we don’t even know who sent this. If we really keep it, aren’t we just giving her face? What could you possibly want that you don’t already have — why bother with this trinket?”

“People have status, but silver and gold don’t,” Huayue shook her head, picking up the hairpin to weigh it in her hand, smiling. “Since the young master already let us keep it, then we’re meant to keep it. At the very least it’s a few taels’ weight — enough to buy a good horse.”

Wanting to argue but holding back, Shuang Jiang felt wronged on her mistress’s behalf, but seeing how completely unbothered she was, she had no choice but to go find someone to melt the gold.

Li Yun had said that a woman in her eighth or ninth month of pregnancy was at her most irritable, so Shuang Jiang had specifically had someone inform Li Jingyun — the implication being, you’d best stay away, since coming here would only mean an argument anyway.

But this man was simply born contrary — the more he was told not to come, the more he insisted on coming, planting himself annoyingly in the room and saying, off and on, “Xu Changyi has taken a concubine.”

Huayue was startled and looked up at him.

Li Jingyun said with a snort of laughter, “The girl he took is an illegitimate daughter of the Duke’s household, only fifteen. He picked her out himself and courted her a long time before finally winning her over — you should’ve seen how besotted he looked, absolutely no dignity left.”

“And Madam Mingshu?” Huayue asked.

“She’s naturally still the principal wife,” Li Jingyun said. “She’s the one who shared his hardships from the start, after all — she can’t be removed from that position.”

Thinking of Mingshu, Huayue felt a pang of emotion. She was the woman who had grown up alongside Xu Changyi — at many banquets, she’d been the one at his side, offering him quiet advice on how to handle things properly. More than husband and wife, they were more like elder sister and younger brother.

And yet, the way Mingshu looked at Xu Changyi was not the way one looks at a younger brother. It was because she loved him that she had always helped and accompanied him.

Unfortunately, a dissolute young master like Xu Changyi would always be drawn to young, soft, tender girls — someone who could treat him as her pillar of support, rather than someone who made him feel he could never grow up.

“Aren’t you going to praise me a little?” Li Jingyun said out of nowhere.

Huayue came back to herself, puzzled. “Praise you?”

“Of all the men who come and go with me, aside from Wen Guzhi, every single one of them has a household full of wives and concubines,” he lifted his chin. “Only I am still holding to just the one — you.”

“Ah, that’s true, young master, thank you for the reminder.” Huayue seemed to suddenly realize something and rose to her feet. “This humble one should go light some incense for Madam.”

Li Jingyun: “…”

A string of curses exploded in his mind. He wiped a hand over his face helplessly, wanting badly to say that it wasn’t out of deference to the mourning period, he simply found her pleasing to look at and only wanted to keep her — but seeing her calm, indifferent manner, he was certain he’d only get talked back at for it, an entirely wasted effort.

After thinking it over, he decided to just let it go.

Ever since her belly had grown large, Li Jingyun had rarely shared her bed anymore. Huayue understood — after all, with such a big belly, even turning over was inconvenient, and lately especially, she’d toss and turn unable to sleep in the middle of the night, so it was just as well he slept on his own.

But for some reason, today Li Jingyun suddenly said, “Add another blanket. I’ll come sleep here tonight.”

Huayue looked at him as though he were some strange creature. “If you want — wouldn’t it be better to go to Qifeng Tower instead?”

He looked at her, puzzled for a moment, before realizing what she meant, and his expression darkened. “I won’t touch you.”

With a belly that big, even the sight of it made his heart lurch — how would he dare touch her? He’d been having nightmares lately, dreaming that her belly split open and blood poured out everywhere. He genuinely couldn’t sleep well, and thought that coming to watch over her might set his mind a little more at ease.

And yet, wouldn’t you know it, in her eyes he was never anything good.

“Don’t worry,” Li Jingyun said coldly. “If I really had such thoughts, I’d find someone else before I’d find you. Don’t waste your energy worrying about that.”

Huayue listened in silence, eyes lowered, and didn’t argue, only nodding slightly.

***

Jiangnan’s scenery was fine indeed — green waters, blue ripples, endless misty clouds for ten thousand li. Su Miao sat on a pleasure boat, clutching two letters just sent from the capital, thoroughly delighted.

Shen Zhiluo sat beside her, glancing at her again and again, lips pressed together as he toyed with his sleeve cuff.

“Were you about to ask what’s got me so amused?” Catching his expression from the corner of her eye, Su Miao laughed and fell into his arms, waving the letter in front of his eyes. “Just ask if you want to know — otherwise you might end up like my cousin.”

“Your cousin?” Shen Zhiluo raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a letter sent to your cousin’s wife?”

“Yes, but my cousin probably read it too — he wrote back asking how I managed to reconcile with you.” Su Miao shot him a coquettish glance. “I’m going to write back and tell him it’s because I’m so magnanimous, that I couldn’t bear to see you all alone and pitiful, so I generously forgave you.”

Shen Zhiluo let out a soft huff through his nose and turned his face away, unconvinced.

Not long after Zhou Heshuo’s death, someone had traced things back to him and thrown him into death row awaiting trial. Before he’d even figured out how to clear his name, this little thing in his arms had gone crying to Li Jingyun to find him a way out — even after saying she didn’t care about him anymore, didn’t want to see him again. And yet the moment he was in trouble, she’d been more anxious than anyone.

Shen Zhiluo had never known that being cared about by someone could feel this good — that even if he himself would give up on himself, she would still find every possible way to save him.

After getting out of prison, he had taken her away from the capital, and the two of them had traveled together to Jiangnan, taking in the sights along the way. Before he knew it, things between them had smoothed out. He tore up the divorce letter; she stopped bringing up the matter of the pregnancy, letting all the world’s affairs pass before her eyes as the old wounds slowly filled in.

Shen Zhiluo knew she still harbored resentment in her heart, so he reined in his own coldness and began learning to treat her well. What was past could not be pursued, so better to look ahead.

He didn’t know when exactly she would forgive him, but at least for now she was still willing to lean into his embrace — and just for that, he was far luckier than Li Jingyun.

“My cousin really is a fool,” Su Miao shook the letter and kept shaking her head. “My cousin’s wife is stubbornly single-minded, but if he’d just open his heart and plainly tell her he loves her, tell her he wants to spend the rest of his days with her, she’d surely let her guard down and reconcile with him. But look at him — all he knows is to treat her well without ever saying it, so my cousin’s wife just assumes he only cares about the child in her belly.”

Hearing this brought up again, Shen Zhiluo’s arm tightened slightly around her.

Su Miao pursed her lips and continued as if nothing were the matter, “What’s such a big deal about the child anyway? The Li family has so many uncles and cousins, it’s not like the line will die out.”

Finishing, she looked up and reached to tuck back a strand of ink-black hair that had fallen at Shen Zhiluo’s temple.

“How about roast chicken from Ruifeng Tower for lunch?”

His throat moved slightly. Shen Zhiluo held her and answered softly, “Mm.”

He didn’t particularly like chicken, but when Su Miao talked about good food, her eyes lit up — and that light was truly beautiful to see.

Su Miao was an unusual girl — anything dull and tedious came alive when it passed before her eyes. She would drag him to watch ants moving house, watch a couple quarreling in the street, watch wild geese flying south, watch fish leaping out of the lake.

Had anyone dared show him such things before, Shen Zhiluo would surely have chased them off and scolded them for being boring. But somehow, when she pointed these things out to him, he found them genuinely interesting — as though this whole pale, lifeless world had blossomed into color from the direction of her finger, vivid and bustling with life.

A world like this, Shen Zhiluo thought, would be worth living in for a few more years.

Ever since he’d donned the star-robe, his lifespan had simply been a bargaining chip to Shen Zhiluo, something to be spent. He had once used ten years of his own life to alter Yin Huayue’s fate, laying upon that child the great burden of saving the world.

At the time he hadn’t thought himself wrong. Watching over Yin Huayue as she grew, keeping her safe — that alone, he’d felt, was enough to make up for what he’d done to her, since if she hadn’t lived as she had, everything after would have been different. Great Wei would have fallen when the eldest prince turned twelve, and the world would have suffered twenty years of war, its people ground into misery.

Against all that, his own ten years and Yin Huayue’s years of hiding her identity truly amounted to nothing.

But now, Shen Zhiluo suddenly seemed to understand why Yin Huayue had disliked him so much. He didn’t understand human feeling — he had thought of mortals as mere pieces moved about by fate, never once considering that she too was a living, breathing person, that shouldering such a burden would bring her pain and sorrow.

Before, he’d kept coughing up blood, and thought it was because his own allotted fate was running out. But now Shen Zhiluo suddenly understood — this might well be the backlash of his own disregard for human nature. Heaven had been reminding him all along; he simply hadn’t grasped the lesson himself.

He had once thought that the end of the Dao was to be free of all worldly attachments, transcending the mortal dust — but never had he imagined that this final layer of understanding would come, instead, from Su Miao, a woman of the mortal world through and through.

A few days ago he had cast Yin Huayue’s fortune again, and the reading was still poor. He had sat in silence for a long while, then used more of his own lifespan to alter it once again.

This was a debt he owed her, and it had to be repaid.

Shen Zhiluo had no wish to calculate how much longer he himself had left to live, but as long as he was alive, he would stay by Su Miao’s side and let her teach him what this human world truly looked like.

***

After the chaos in the capital gradually settled, Li Shoutian fell gravely ill, and the emperor’s regard for Li Jingyun grew even greater. Along with it, the entire court began respectfully calling him “Third Young Master,” flocking around him wherever he went, no one daring to offend him easily — except that this young master’s temper grew stranger by the day, prone to sudden fits of anger, frightening several commanders into seeking out Wen Guzhi and Liu Chenghe to plead on their behalf.

Wen Guzhi found it amusing. “It’s his sister-in-law who’s pregnant — why is this young master the one who’s gone irritable instead?”

Liu Chenghe sighed. “Who knows. Those few under the Imperial Guard have had it rough lately, getting disciplined left and right. Nowadays just hearing the name ‘Third Young Master’ is enough to scare them into wetting themselves. They’ve been hauling crates of gifts to my house, begging me to arrange a banquet so they can invite the young master out for a drink and smooth things over.”

Xu Changyi nodded. “I heard about this too. They’ve put a lot into preparing, spared no effort — is the young master free?”

“Of course he’s free,” Wen Guzhi said with a curl of his lip. “He took five days’ leave from the palace, out of the blue, and has just been resting at home.”

This was supposed to be a busy time — what was there to rest for? Xu Changyi considered this. “Then we should still go invite him. Anyway, the young master doesn’t pay much attention to his sister-in-law these days, so stealing half a day’s leisure for a drink should be easy enough.”