Overnight, the winds of fortune shifted dramatically.

Although Qinglan had kept Lingbo company and slept beside her through the night, Lingbo had not closed her eyes even once. Xiao Liu’er served her from the warming couch nearby, and she faintly sensed that her young mistress’s demeanor had suddenly turned dangerous.

She seemed to be plotting something perilous and grave.

At breakfast, Xiao Liu’er stood at her side, watching her — pale-faced, the corners of her eyes tinged red. She looked as though she had shed several pounds overnight, yet her gaze burned like flames, fierce and frightening.

And yet she was unusually calm, even trying to persuade Qinglan to leave and return to Taohua Stream to look after Cui Jingyu.

“Don’t worry, I won’t go about recklessly mending red threads anymore.” She earnestly urged Qinglan: “After all, he saved your life — if you rushed back here overnight, Lady Wei and the others won’t know the full story, and they’ll likely take issue with it. It’ll make our household look irresponsible. Besides, Yanyan and A’Cuo are still there. Yanyan is fine, but A’Cuo is the most timid of all — and that fellow Wei Yushan has such a terrible temper. What if he bullies her?”

Qinglan was easily taken in, and immediately felt embarrassed: “A’Cuo and Wei Yushan — you already know about that?”

In truth, Lingbo had only been seventy percent certain, but seeing her reaction, she was now fully confident.

“How could I not know? Shen Biwei and Yang Niangzi both let things slip, and then there was that scene at the Water Pavilion yesterday…” She even smiled as she coaxed Qinglan: “Go on back to the Han household quickly. I’ll tidy things up here and head over too. That little scoundrel Wei Yushan — he’s truly unworthy of our A’Cuo.”

She half-cajoled, half-persuaded, clearly wanting to send Qinglan away — obviously intending to do something momentous. Xiao Liu’er felt deeply uneasy in her heart, wanting to ask Qinglan to stay, but not knowing how to bring it up. Fortunately, Qinglan was the elder sister after all, and though she didn’t think as quickly as Lingbo, she had a firm mind of her own. She said: “It’s all right. Yanyan and A’Cuo have Lin Niangzi looking after them, and Yueqi is there too. When we were their age, we were already making our own decisions. He’s not someone with a narrow heart either. Today I’m going nowhere — I’m staying home with you.”

Xiao Liu’er let out a quiet breath of relief, but Lingbo caught her at it. Knowing that her thoughts had been seen through, Xiao Liu’er couldn’t help but call out uneasily: “Young Mistress…”

But she had no chance to say more, for the maid at the side gate came to announce a visitor at once. From the maid’s bashful expression, it was obvious who had come. But with Qinglan present, she didn’t dare say plainly, and only said: “Second Young Miss, the person you sent for has arrived.”

“What person?” Qinglan didn’t understand.

“Just someone from the shop.” Lingbo deflected her, then said: “Oh, that’s right, Sister — where did you put the property deeds for those shops near the Great Baoen Temple? I need to cross-reference them.”

“All right, I’ll go fetch them for you.”

No wonder Xiao Liu’er’s heart was in a panic — the moment Qinglan turned away, the expression on Lingbo’s face became so composed it was frightening.

The young maid still didn’t understand, thinking it was merely the handsome young general who had caused the rosy flush on her mistress’s face. Once Qinglan had gone, she chirped eagerly: “Second Young Miss, the guest is General Pei.”

“I know. Please invite him to wait beneath the plum tree. I’ll change my clothes and then go speak with him.”

Xiao Liu’er’s heart was in turmoil. She followed Lingbo to help her change, watching as she stood before the mirror in a brief daze. Lingbo glanced at the dressing table full of hairpins and ornaments, then suddenly gave a self-mocking smile.

She had nearly forgotten — she was nothing but an orphan girl picked up from the marketplace, of unremarkable appearance. And yet she had nearly reached for her finest clothes to go and meet him this one last time.

“Is that little phoenix hairpin from last year’s Lantern Festival still here?” she asked softly.

This was the hairpin she had made to wear at the Lantern Festival the year before — her second year formally attending the Huaxin Banquet. She had selected someone too, a young man surnamed Zhang or Wang, she couldn’t quite remember. But at first sight, that man had set his eyes on Lu Wanyang, and in the end became nothing more than another stepping stone beneath the name of that celebrated beauty. Naturally, the hairpin had never been worn.

This was her earliest girlish sentiment — and her last. It was then that she had decided to become the most capable Ye Lingbo, rather than the lovesick maiden at a Huaxin Banquet.

Xiao Liu’er found the phoenix hairpin. Lingbo held it up to the mirror, and pinned it at her temple. The small phoenix held a pearl in its beak, and the pearl trembled gently at the edge of her forehead — like a teardrop.

She and Pei Zhao — the timing had simply never been right; it could not be forced. But she put on the hairpin she loved best, and went to meet him this one last time.

The February morning was very cold outside. In the narrow lane, Pei Zhao stood quietly beneath the plum tree, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, dressed in a blue-gray robe, gazing up at the tree that had already shed all its blossoms.

Four years ago, when Cui Jingyu and Qinglan first met at the Huaxin Banquet, they had encountered each other a few times in this very same lane — both of them thinking she didn’t know. In truth, she had once brought Xiao Liu’er and Yang Niangzi along and secretly watched them. She had seen them standing beneath the tree, still keeping a respectful foot of distance between themselves, conducting themselves with perfect propriety, speaking of nothing of consequence: whether his cough had gotten better, that the next day’s clear weather would be good for riding, what color bird feathers she might like. She hadn’t understood what the point of it was.

And yet she too had once wondered — would she ever encounter someone? Whether he would be tall or short, what he might look like, what his name might be, whether he might care for her the way Cui Jingyu cared for her elder sister.

Then Pei Zhao came into her life, and he exceeded every one of her expectations. So clever, so beautiful — standing beneath a tree, he was as magnificent as a wild horse. The moment she arrived, he sensed it at once, turned his head, and smiled at her. Because he was standing beneath the tree, even the plum tree that had shed all its flowers seemed to bloom again.

What a pity.

How fate loves to toy with people.

Yesterday in the carriage, when she had been thinking about marrying him, he had probably been walking through the peach blossom grove — angered by her words about “not marrying a man of no rank.” And now today he came smiling, and she had changed her mind once again.

Lingbo stopped where she stood.

She did not feel very much pain — only a dull ache, like a hand squeezing around her heart, like a toothache that you probe with your fingers and it throbs the moment you touch it, and yet you cannot help yourself. Because that pain was always there, and never left.

Had Qinglan once felt this way too? She said she had no regrets — but if the pain never stopped, who could truly claim to have none?

Fortunately, she was Ye Lingbo — always resolute, always able to let go. If she had no power, she would amass great wealth. If she had both power and wealth, she would make those she hated pay the price.

And Pei Zhao was the sole unexpected detour on her otherwise perfectly clear-cut path — like a tree in full bloom, magnificent, beautiful, and tender. When she thought of him, even the scent of flowers seemed to drift to the tip of her nose, softening her heart.

But in the end, it was a peach blossom carried on flowing water — with a beginning, but no end.

“It’s snowing, Young Mistress,” Xiao Liu’er said suddenly.

February often brought this kind of snow — a late cold snap. When the great snow fell from the heavens and covered everything, no flower could withstand such cold.

Lingbo looked up at the snow, while Pei Zhao looked at her. He recognized her expression.

“Miss Ye has come to bid me farewell,” he stated calmly. He was a man who rarely lost his smile, and so it was all the more striking when he did — the upward curve of his lips fell, and his crinkled eyes too. He stood in the snow, and the air around him became like an unsheathed sword.

Cui Jingyu’s bearing was often like that as well — like a sword in fury, ready to wound anyone who dared draw near.

“Pei Zhao, why is it that when you men take a liking to someone, you immediately assume she belongs to you?” Lingbo asked him just as calmly.

“Because I know you like me too,” he answered her, his gaze earnest and sincere: “Come with me, Lingbo. Everything you want — you’ll have it.”

But go where? Was there any place in this world without the hierarchy of people, without the gradations of status? Where was the paradise beyond the world that needed neither power nor wealth? Where could one live freely and still protect one’s family, without the eyes of those who circled like tigers closing in from all sides?

Things were fine now — but what of three years hence? What of five?

And besides, her heart was full of fury. She was in no state to be someone’s bride with only him on her mind.

“My childhood name is A’Chan,” she told Pei Zhao suddenly.

“What?”

“The girls in our family — our formal names all carry the character for water: Lingbo, Qinglan, Lianyi. Our childhood names are all creatures — birds and beasts and insects and fish. So mine is A’Chan.” She asked him: “What is your childhood name?”

She wanted to know his name — because it was his childhood name, even a single character of it would be different, the way that time she was reading poetry and came across the characters of Pei Zhao written together in a line of verse, her heart had lurched.

She asked for his childhood name because she was unwilling to go with him. This was her answer.

Pei Zhao gave a self-mocking smile.

“A’Chan won’t marry a man of no rank — is that it?” Those words spoken in the mountain cave had clearly wounded him. He cared for her, and she cared for him — but that was far from enough. She wanted power and wealth, and everything but him. The pain Cui Jingyu had once felt — he now understood it. And so he lowered his eyes and said: “I understand.”

The snow fell heavier by degrees, yet neither of them moved to shelter. Lingbo watched him with something almost like hunger — as though tracing every inch of his face with her gaze, memorizing it. So this was how his hair looked with snowflakes caught in it. She could almost picture him with white hair. When he was fifty years old — would he still look at her this way? As though his very heart had been torn apart by her. As though she held absolute power over him. As though all the mountains and rivers across the land, all the thousands of households in the capital, meant nothing to him — only her.

If he no longer looked at her that way, how was she to live through her own fiftieth year?

He said: “My childhood name is A’Liao — it’s a kind of bird.”

What happened afterward that day, Lingbo could barely remember. She had always lived with great effort and great clarity, but that day she moved through it all in a kind of haze. She remembered the sight of Pei Zhao’s retreating figure. She remembered that an extraordinary snow had fallen that day. She remembered Xiao Liu’er bringing an umbrella, calling out to her anxiously over and over again — yet she only stood in the snow and said nothing.

Of course, in the end, she did say one final thing.

She said: “Please invite Master Dai to come and call upon us.”