The golden wind blew gently, and the parasol tree leaves fell one by one.

When autumn arrived in the capital, the night rain would come suddenly like sorrow. After one night passed, the courtyard of the General Commander’s manor would be covered with fallen parasol tree leaves.

Early in the morning, Duan Xiaoyan got up to feed Gardenia. She had just finished sweeping away the fallen leaves when a gust of wind came, startling half the parasol tree’s leaves to fall.

Xiao Zhufeng had just arrived at the General Commander’s manor and hadn’t yet entered the gate when a falling leaf drifted down from above his head, landing right on his shoulder.

He stopped walking and reached out to take the fallen leaf from his shoulder.

It was a complete parasol tree leaf. Its blue-green color had changed to a beautiful golden yellow, showing a hint of bright warmth in the clear autumn morning.

He carried the fallen leaf through the gate.

In the General Commander’s manor, several imperial guards were huddled together chatting and eating breakfast. When they saw him coming, they quickly fell silent and stepped aside, their expressions becoming serious.

Unlike Pei Yunying, who no matter what he was like in private, always loved to smile in public and could take jokes, making him well-liked everywhere, and whom the imperial guards of the General Commander’s manor loved to talk with, he was different. He had always been cold-faced and taciturn, and the imperial guards felt somewhat intimidated when they saw him.

He was used to this.

When he returned to his room, unusually there were no mountains of official documents piled on his desk. With the “Autumn Hunt” approaching, Pei Yunying was busy at the training grounds all day long, while he had leisure time—during the half year when Pei Yunying went to southern Su, he had handled all the affairs of the Palace Command.

With rare free time, he wouldn’t go looking for things to do for himself. After all, Pei Yunying was newly married, and being too idle would always make those floating alone in the sea of emotions feel jealous.

Xiao Zhufeng sat down by the window and picked up a poetry collection from the corner of the desk, placing the golden fallen leaf he had just picked up between the pages.

Between the pages of the book, there were already quite a few fallen leaves pressed, making the already thick poetry collection even more cumbersome and heavy, as if it held many autumn secrets.

Duan Xiaoyan had once accidentally flipped through this poetry collection and was shocked to see the withered leaves mixed inside. She couldn’t help but ask him: “Brother, what kind of hobby is this, pressing so many leaves in books?”

Scholars and refined gentlemen in the capital might have such elegant pursuits, but he was just a military man, not a cultured person, so this behavior was somewhat incongruous.

Xiao Zhufeng turned his head to look out the window.

The deep courtyard was empty, the parasol trees had withered early, and the rustling west wind made the bare branches outside sway chaotically.

He liked collecting fallen leaves.

It was because he had once received a fallen leaf.

A fallen leaf covered with a young girl’s innermost thoughts, written in delicate handwriting.

…

Xiao Zhufeng was an orphan.

A woman washing clothes by the river discovered him. When she found him, his whole body was wrapped only in a tattered garment, with no token left behind. The woman sent him to the Children’s Welfare Bureau, where he grew up.

The Children’s Welfare Bureau took in all the abandoned orphans of the capital. These children would leave the Bureau when they came of age to make their own way in the world, or if they were fortunate, be adopted. He stayed at the Children’s Welfare Bureau until he was five years old, without even having a name.

One day, a man came to the Children’s Welfare Bureau to select someone. The man had a hideous scar at the corner of his eye, and his gaze was as sharp and sinister as an eagle’s. When his gaze swept over all the orphans in the Bureau, the children were all intimidated by this fierce look, but only he didn’t avoid or hide, silently meeting his gaze.

The man was somewhat surprised, then pointed with his big hand, gave the Children’s Welfare Bureau ten taels of silver, and took him away.

After returning, the man asked his name, and he shook his head.

The orphans at the Children’s Welfare Bureau, those who remembered their names were called by their names, but he had been ignorant of his parents from birth, so he didn’t know his own name either.

The other person looked at him for a long time, then said coldly: “Desolate tears fall alone, fallen leaves follow the wind lightly. Since you have no name, from now on you’ll be called Xiao Zhufeng.”

Xiao Zhufeng.

He liked this name, which carried a sense of autumn grass dying together and leaves full of parting sorrow.

The person who took him away was called Yan Xu, who later became his teacher.

Yan Xu taught him to read and write, and also taught him martial arts. Yan Xu was an official in the Privy Council, but privately investigated old cases. He had adopted a group of orphans who worked for Yan Xu. These orphans had no ties or attachments behind them, and even if they died, no one would care, like withering autumn grass.

Among this group of orphans under Yan Xu, Xiao Zhufeng was the most outstanding.

He didn’t like to talk and always stayed silently to the side, but when he turned ruthless, he was more reckless than anyone else. Such a person was most suitable to be a death warrior. When he was twelve years old, he could carry out missions alone, and Yan Xu trained him as a trusted confidant.

When Xiao Zhufeng was sixteen, he received a mission.

This mission was different from the past—it didn’t require killing or taking risks. He was to go to Duke Zhaoning’s manor to protect someone.

That person was called Pei Yunshu.

Later, Xiao Zhufeng learned that his teacher Yan Xu had once had a beloved when he was young. Later, his beloved married another man but passed away early, leaving only a pair of children. The son had recently left the capital for distant places, and Yan Xu wanted him to find a way to disguise himself and enter Duke Zhaoning’s manor to secretly protect that lady’s daughter, Miss Pei Yunshu of the Pei manor.

So Xiao Zhufeng entered the Pei manor.

He disguised himself with a different appearance, changing to an unremarkable face that people would never remember after seeing once. After much effort, he finally became a guard in Pei Yunshu’s courtyard.

He saw Pei Yunshu.

Eighteen-year-old Pei Yunshu was raised in the inner quarters and looked like all the young ladies from noble families—boring, dull, and gentle. If there was anything special about her, it was that she had a very good temperament, never mistreated servants, and even when bullied by others, she wouldn’t talk back.

Pei Yunshu’s days at Duke Zhaoning’s manor were not good.

Although she was the legitimate daughter of the Pei family, Pei Di had married a new wife one year after Duke Zhaoning’s wife passed away. The new mistress Jiang Wan appeared kind but was cruel at heart, the concubine Concubine Mei was also no easy lamp to deal with, and Pei Di was even more cold and heartless. Although Pei Yunshu didn’t lack food or clothing in the Pei manor, her situation was very difficult.

Xiao Zhufeng had grown up in the Children’s Welfare Bureau and later traveled with Yan Xu, so he was much better at reading people’s expressions than others. Seeing how Pei Yunshu lived such days in the Pei manor, he felt emotional.

He had originally thought that the young ladies from wealthy families wouldn’t need to depend on others’ moods, but it turned out that no matter when or where, difficult circumstances would always exist.

However, Pei Yunshu herself was quite clear-minded.

Except for worrying about her younger brother’s affairs, most of the time she was calm and composed. She pretended not to hear Jiang Wan’s hidden barbs, deflected the concubine’s provocations with ease, and even her biological father’s cold indifference—she saw it but didn’t take it to heart.

She lived very earnestly and with great effort, as if waiting for someone to return, not wanting to hold them back, so she tried her best to do her best within her capabilities.

Once, Concubine Mei and a nanny from the new mistress’s courtyard got into an argument about something. Pei Yunshu was passing by, and during the dispute, the scalding sweet soup from the food basket was about to splash onto Pei Yunshu’s face. Xiao Zhufeng flew forward and blocked the scalding soup for Pei Yunshu.

His purpose in coming to the Pei manor was to secretly protect Pei Yunshu.

Later, Pei Di’s people came and resolved the matter. Xiao Zhufeng returned to the courtyard and continued guarding the courtyard gate. Unexpectedly, at dusk, someone came looking for him.

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” Pei Yunshu said. “Finally found you.”

Xiao Zhufeng was startled and almost instinctively reached for his face, thinking his mask had been exposed.

“Weren’t you injured?” The young lady extended her hand and pressed a bottle of medicine into his hand. “I saw everything just now. The soup was very hot, and your arm must be injured. It must hurt a lot and might leave a scar. This medicine is very effective. Remember to apply it.”

“Thank you for just now.”

She smiled and nodded to thank him, then lifted her skirt and left.

Xiao Zhufeng looked at the medicine bottle in his hand and pursed his lips.

He had been injured many times before, and that little scalding wasn’t anything. In the past when he was injured, no one would come to ask or show concern, much less care whether it hurt. His teacher always told them to be strong, saying that people who feared pain couldn’t move toward the future.

Only young ladies raised in inner quarters would care about whether scars would be left.

He sneered inwardly, but perhaps because this was the first time someone had given him wound medicine, he kept it.

Pei Yunshu was eighteen years old. Young ladies of this age in the capital, some had already begun discussing marriage arrangements.

It was said that Pei Di had also begun selecting suitable families for Pei Yunshu.

The leaves of the parasol trees in the courtyard turned yellow. Pei Yunshu had her maids collect many of them, wrote on them imitating scholars and poets, then scattered them from the small building and went down to collect them herself while holding up her skirt.

One day a leaf went missing and couldn’t be found no matter how she searched. Later, thinking that it had no signature anyway, she gave up.

Later still, when Xiao Zhufeng was passing through the courtyard at night, he found that leaf at the top of the courtyard wall. It should have drifted to the courtyard wall when Pei Yunshu scattered them and gotten stuck there by chance.

He looked down and saw delicate small characters written on the parasol leaf:

Wiping emerald green, she knits her brows, troubled by matters in her heart. Taking up the brush in the courtyard, she writes characters of longing…

These words are not written on stone, these words are not written on paper. Written on autumn leaves, hoping to rise with the autumn wind…

Those with hearts in this world all understand the death of longing. Those heartless in this world don’t recognize the meaning of longing…

Those with hearts and those heartless, who knows where they will fall…

He didn’t understand poetry, so he searched through all the classics before learning that this came from a minister of the previous dynasty who, while resting at a temple, suddenly had a parasol leaf flutter down into his embrace. When he picked it up, he found this poem written on it. The minister kept this leaf, and years later when he married, his wife turned out to be the one who had written the poem.

Perhaps Pei Yunshu, because of her marriage arrangement and thinking of the future, had deliberately written this on the parasol leaf.

He should have thrown this leaf away, but inexplicably, he picked up that leaf and pressed it in his book.

The Privy Council had a new mission, and he had to travel far. The Pei family assignment was given to someone else. When he left, it was at night, and he left hurriedly, not even having time to see her once. When he returned to the capital, Pei Yunshu had already married.

She had married into Prince Wen’s manor.

Xiao Zhufeng, who had always been taciturn and silent about everything, for the first time asked Yan Xu a question unrelated to his mission: “Teacher, why didn’t you stop it?”

Everyone in the capital knew what kind of person Prince Wen Mu Sheng was. What kind of good ending could Pei Yunshu have marrying such a person?

“How do you know I didn’t try to stop it?” Yan Xu replied coldly, the scar at his eye corner glaring in the firelight.

It turned out that originally, Pei Di had wanted Pei Yunshu to enter the palace.

Pei Yunying also knew about this matter, which was why he desperately went to find evidence left by Duke Zhaoning’s wife’s maternal family, trying to make a deal with Pei Di.

But no one knew what Pei Di had said to Pei Yunshu. Actually, thinking about it, the only thing that could threaten Pei Yunshu was Pei Yunying. In any case, Pei Yunshu accepted the arrangement. She didn’t enter the palace. Perhaps Pei Di also considered that an enraged Pei Yunying might do something mutually destructive, so in the end he settled for second best and married Pei Yunshu into Prince Wen’s manor.

Just like that, she married.

That woman who had written on a parasol leaf “Those with hearts in this world all understand the death of longing. Those heartless in this world don’t recognize the meaning of longing. Those with hearts and those heartless, who knows where they will fall” and had once had expectations for love, just like that married a not-very-good prince.

When Xiao Zhufeng opened his poetry collection and saw that pressed parasol leaf, his heart felt suffocated and stifled.

Pei Yunying returned to the capital, and the two of them went from finding each other disagreeable to finally reluctantly cooperating, then to becoming partners who depended on each other. He would always indirectly probe for news about Pei Yunshu from Pei Yunying—whether she had lost weight, whether she was ill, whether she had suffered grievances at Prince Wen’s manor.

Pei Yunying was shrewd, quite accomplished in human relations and worldly wisdom. He could easily glimpse traces from the smallest clues, especially since Xiao Zhufeng’s concealment wasn’t very skillful.

“You like my sister?”

“No.”

“If not, why did you go so far out of your way to buy lychees for her?”

“It was on the way.”

“Second Xiao, why didn’t you make your move earlier?”

He remained silent.

He actually hadn’t fallen for Pei Yunshu during those days at Duke Zhaoning’s manor. Even though he saw her every day then, he only regarded her as the mission target he needed to protect.

On the contrary, it was after she married that he constantly worried and couldn’t feel at ease, sinking deeper and deeper, only then realizing with shock that this was what it meant to be moved by love.

The person he liked already belonged to another, so he could only secretly protect and watch over her, just as he had at Duke Zhaoning’s manor.

Pei Yunying always asked him why he didn’t express his feelings to Pei Yunshu since she had already divorced. Each time he remained silent, avoiding this topic.

Those born with golden spoons, the favored sons of heaven, didn’t know what the Children’s Welfare Bureau was like. He had no parents, no relatives, and followed Yan Xu. Perhaps someday he would die under an enemy’s hidden arrow. How could someone who wasn’t even certain of his own future give someone else a future?

One must not indulge private desires for selfish reasons.

Outside the window, autumn wind gusted, making the windows rattle slightly. An imperial guard entered from outside and said: “Deputy Commander, the new recruits’ registry has been sent. The Commander asks you to go to the training ground.”

He put away the poetry collection in the desk drawer, got up, and left the room.

It was autumn, and the capital’s streets were bustling with people coming and going. He didn’t ride a horse but walked along the streets. When he reached an alley entrance, he suddenly heard a familiar voice.

“Mu Sheng, don’t go too far!”

Xiao Zhufeng stopped in his tracks and looked sharply into the alley.