Li Gu had only two sons. He had a kingdom and a throne to pass down — how could he not cherish his own children.

Xie Yuzhang said: “Give him a formal name as well.”

Deng Wan wept and said: “Very well.”

Xie Yuzhang also said: “Giving birth is so agonizing.”

Deng Wan said: “Agonizing enough to want to lose consciousness.”

Xie Yuzhang said: “Everything looks double. And they keep telling you not to cry out — to save your strength.”

Deng Wan said: “All you want to do is cry out. The pain is unbearable.”

“And yet once he is born…” she said, her gaze distant, “…you love him just like that…”

Deng Wan as a mother, radiance across her brow, her whole body luminous — she was very beautiful.

Xie Yuzhang, having returned safely from the steppe, had come to cherish all that was beautiful. And it pained her most to see that beauty shattered.

Xie Yuzhang slowly reached out her hand and took Deng Wan’s hand in hers.

“Yongning,” said Deng Wan, “everyone is telling me to have another.”

Xie Yuzhang looked up at her.

Deng Wan said: “I do not want to have another.”

Xie Yuzhang said: “You hold the rank of one of the Four Consorts. If you have no desire for the highest position, you may choose not to.”

“What highest position,” said Deng Wan, “could be worth the agony of giving birth? Or the grief of losing a child?”

Xie Yuzhang said: “Then go and say so to him.”

Deng Wan’s tears fell: “Is that permitted?”

“If it were any other emperor, certainly not,” said Xie Yuzhang. “But you are fortunate — you married Li Shiyi Lang. He is someone you can rely on.”

Deng Wan tightened her grip on Xie Yuzhang’s hand, holding it firmly.

Xie Yuzhang returned to the Zichen Palace to report: “She has cried.”

After a long silence, Li Gu said: “…Thank you.”

Yet Xie Yuzhang did not take her leave. She stood there a moment, then said: “At a time like this, it would be impossible not to want to weep. She simply did not know how to weep before an emperor. Because what she needed — was not an emperor.”

Li Gu was silent for a long while, then said: “I understand. You may go.”

Xie Yuzhang curtsied and withdrew — and she did not offer any comfort to the emperor, who was enduring his own grief over the loss of his son.

A moment later, Li Gu turned to look at the doorway. Her retreating figure had already vanished.

On that same day, when Lin Zi learned of the Second Prince’s passing, he was on duty in the offices of the Secretariat Department.

His colleagues all sighed with regret, lamenting that the emperor had too few heirs and that it was truly time to hold a broad selection of imperial consorts. Someone then asked: “Zhongxun, what do you say — is that not so?”

Lin Zi replied a beat too late: “Indeed it is.”

Returning home, he went to find Lin Fei. Lin Fei had come back from the lotus-viewing gathering at the Princess’s residence that afternoon and said: “I already know.”

Lin Zi hesitated: “To think that you dreamed of this.” But in truth, young children always carried a considerable chance of dying young. And so Lin Zi hesitated.

Lin Fei said: “I know what my elder brother is thinking. But if my elder brother were to experience the same dream repeated over and over as I have, he too would know that this dream is far from ordinary. Rather than dwelling on uncertainty, elder brother would do better to think carefully about the Zhang residence matter.”

Lin Zi said: “I have already thought about it. A prime minister’s household being executed down to the last member — there are only so many possible causes. As for the man himself: either deceiving the sovereign, or treason. As for outside forces: it could be, like what happened to our family, the ruthless elimination of a rival in the political arena.”

Lin Fei said: “I don’t understand the affairs of the court. Which possibility does elder brother think is more likely?”

Lin Zi said: “Zhang the traitor is shrewd and adaptable, the kind of man who arranges many escape routes for himself. When he moves against others, he strikes without leaving any hope of retaliation. As with our family — had it not been for the upheaval of the times and the change of dynasties, I would still be nothing more than a fugitive today. I would never have had the chance to stand in the court. He is not the sort of man who would fall from a political rivalry.”

Lin Fei said: “Then suppose we know that in the future, he may commit treason or deceive the sovereign. Elder brother — what should we do?”

Lin Zi sighed: “It is extraordinarily difficult to plan for a real future on the basis of such a supposition.”

He said: “But however difficult… we cannot give up.”

When the fifth month arrived, the temperature rose sharply all at once.

Before the end of the ten-day interval, Deng Wan sent someone to invite Xie Yuzhang to the palace. Xie Yuzhang went in to see her.

Deng Wan said: “There is nothing much in particular — I simply wished to speak with you.”

Xie Yuzhang knew that the ones who said “nothing in particular” were always the ones with the most on their minds.

She was in no rush, and simply told Deng Wan: “On the first day of the month, I went to the Xianghe Temple to hold a memorial ceremony for Tiger Head.”

She was always able to dismantle Deng Wan’s defenses with a single sentence. Deng Wan shed tears and said: “Thank you.”

She then said: “His Majesty gave him a formal name — ‘Rong.’ His name is Li Rong.”

Xie Yuzhang said: “A fine name.”

After she said this, she spoke no more.

The room was quiet for a long while. Deng Wan dried her eyes, raised her head, and said: “Yongning, the reason I wished to speak with you is that there is something weighing on my heart, and I am unable to come to a decision.”

Xie Yuzhang said: “I am listening.”

Deng Wan hesitated for a long while still before she steeled herself and spoke: “I have no pride left to spare, so I will tell you plainly — my family… wishes to send a younger sister into the palace.”

Xie Yuzhang suddenly understood.

She did not know whether the concubines in Li Gu’s harem during her previous life had included this younger sister of Deng Wan’s. But she had indeed overheard the maids in Zhang Fen’s quarters saying behind her back: The Worthy Consort’s disposition has gone so twisted — she’s fallen out with her own family. Who will stand up for her in the future?

It was not difficult to imagine that the conflict between them had, in nine cases out of ten, been over exactly this matter.

Over all these years, Deng Wan had given birth to two children in total, and both had died in infancy. It was entirely reasonable that her family would want to send another woman in to secure their position.

From the standpoint of the family’s overall interests, it was of course the correct calculation.

But if one stepped into Deng Wan’s position and felt it from her perspective, one could grasp the piercing, gutting pain of it.

That Deng Wan would say this to Xie Yuzhang was, by any measure, sharing too much too soon for the depth of their acquaintance.

Yet even the palace maids she trusted most were all urging her to comply with her family’s wishes. Deng Wan was in real anguish, with no one to confide in.

And so she thought of Xie Yuzhang.

This strange young woman — she seemed to effortlessly find the most tender, aching places in a person’s heart. And she had a softness about her quite unlike anyone else’s.

“Your Ladyship tells me this — could it be that you are asking me whether you ought to do this or not?” Xie Yuzhang smiled slightly. “And yet Tiger Head has barely been gone for half a month, and the Deng family is already pressing Your Ladyship so impatiently — isn’t it precisely because they want to seize the moment while His Majesty’s sympathy for Your Ladyship is still at its fullest, and extract a word of approval from him? His Majesty would not refuse Your Ladyship anything right now. For Your Ladyship, managing this matter at this moment would be effortless.”

“And yet Your Ladyship has come to ask me, an outsider, about it. Your Ladyship’s own heart — can Your Ladyship truly not see it clearly?”

Deng Wan was quiet for a long while, then said: “You are right. I was only deceiving myself.”

Xie Yuzhang said: “Your Ladyship need not struggle and suffer over this alone. Perhaps my words last time did not fully reach you — so I will say them once more. Your Ladyship is a woman with a husband.”

Deng Wan raised her eyes and fixed them on her: “You trust him so implicitly.”

Xie Yuzhang smiled and said: “Yongning knows that all the ladies of the palace harbor a great many speculations about what lies between His Majesty and Yongning. So let me tell Your Ladyship something of it. His Majesty and I became acquainted in our youth. In truth, the time we spent together was quite short — only the stretch of road when His Majesty escorted me to Mobei.”

“It cannot be said that nothing happened along that road. Indeed, certain things did occur — things that allowed me to know what manner of person His Majesty truly is.”

“I trusted this person. And so afterward, even when the Zhao dynasty fell, when I heard that it was His Majesty who now held sway over half the realm, I never once gave up hope. That hope sustained me until I finally found my way back to Yunjing.”

“Only, the passage of time changes people easily — all the more so when His Majesty has already ascended to the highest throne. When Yongning first arrived in Yunjing, I too harbored doubts about him. But it turned out I was worrying over nothing. His Majesty has changed in many ways — but at his core, he remains that same trustworthy, dependable person.”

“While Yongning is in the palace, what I love most is to see His Majesty and all of you ladies living as one harmonious family. And the more I witness how His Majesty treats those close to him, the more at ease my own heart becomes — knowing that when the need arises, there is still His Majesty to lean on for shelter and protection.”

“Your Ladyship — Yongning can find peace of mind. Can Your Ladyship not, when you are right there beside him?” said Xie Yuzhang. “Your Ladyship — your pain, your wishes — take them to your husband.”

Deng Wan closed her eyes and exhaled a long, slow breath: “Very well.”

She fixed her gaze on Xie Yuzhang and said: “I know the Noble Consort wishes to bring you into the palace to keep us company. Now I truly understand why. To have you in the palace with us would indeed be a blessing.”

“I know Your Ladyship is only jesting,” said Xie Yuzhang, laughing. She raised her sleeve to half-cover her face, leaving only her pair of phoenix eyes visible — still as a deep pool. “Your Ladyship knows full well — if I were truly to enter the palace, there would be no ‘company’ left to speak of.”

Deng Wan laughed at herself: “You are right.”

She then asked: “Yongning — you who stand outside the palace looking in at us — do you find us laughable?”

“Not at all,” said Xie Yuzhang, lowering her sleeve and speaking quietly. “Watching others who have no choice in their own fate — one never manages to laugh at that.”

“I was born in the palace and raised in the palace. I have seen too many beautiful women who ended up utterly unrecognizable. Or worse — a hideous, frightening face lurking beneath a beautiful mask.”

“But which of them, in their girlhood, had ever imagined they would become that way. I too can only hope — if only everyone could remain as they were in their youth, unchanged forever.”

“That someone like me could still hold such thoughts is truly laughable,” she said.

Deng Wan looked at her steadily and said, in earnest: “Not in the least.”

Although it had been Deng Wan who invited Xie Yuzhang into the palace today, since she was already here, she paid a visit to Li Zhenzhen as well.

As it happened, Cui Ying was also there. The moment Li Zhenzhen saw her, she beckoned her over to sit, and then reproached her: “You came last time and somehow did not come to see me!”

Xie Yuzhang sat down at the lower seat beside her and spoke with the two of them: “Last time, His Majesty asked me to go and comfort the Worthy Consort. I went and comforted her — and ended up comforting myself right into feeling sad as well. So I did not come.”

“We all tried to comfort her, and nothing worked,” said Li Zhenzhen. “Thank heavens for you. They say that after you went, Wan-niang finally cried. What a relief.”

Cui Ying said: “The Second Prince was so dear…” and sighed.

Xie Yuzhang said: “I held a memorial ceremony for the Second Prince at the Xianghe Temple.”

Li Zhenzhen said: “How thoughtful of you.”

She then asked: “I have heard the Xianghe Temple is quite a fine place?”

Xie Yuzhang said: “His Majesty does not believe in such things — it is far less grand than it used to be.”

The Xianghe Temple had been an imperial temple in the former dynasty. But under the Great Mu, Li Gu was young and unyielding, and he paid no heed to monks or Taoist priests. Without the status of an imperial temple, the Xianghe Temple’s incense offerings plummeted.

Li Zhenzhen’s heart stirred with longing. Life in the palace was genuinely quite desolate — she did not even have a husband, which made it all the more so. But palace consorts could hardly go out at will.

Xie Yuzhang read her expression and said: “Would Your Ladyship also like to hold a ceremony for the Second Prince?”

Li Zhenzhen said: “Precisely so.”

Xie Yuzhang said: “Why not speak to His Majesty about it — and bring the Worthy Consort along to go outside and breathe some fresh air? It would do her good.”

She had offered up a plan. Li Zhenzhen was pleased: “Very well.”

At the Lin Residence.

Third Aunt Lin came to Lin Fei’s room for a talk.

“The Yang Family has sent someone to speak again today,” she said, covering a smile behind her sleeve. “How sincere they are.”

Having a fine daughter with many families seeking her hand was naturally a source of pride for an elder.

Lin Fei said helplessly: “I have no interest in the Yang Family.”

Third Aunt Lin asked: “Then tell your aunt — which family do you have interest in?”

Lin Fei said: “None of them.”

She said: “Aunt, I have my own savings. I can support myself.”

“Nonsense!” Third Aunt Lin clucked her tongue at her. “Do I look like I am afraid of you eating the family out of house and home?”

She made as if to pinch her.

Lin Fei laughed and pressed her aunt’s hand down, saying: “I genuinely have no desire to marry. We have only just been reunited as a family — what is the point of marrying and going off somewhere else?”

Third Aunt Lin sighed: “You foolish child. Your family is dear to you now, but your brothers will eventually marry too. Their wives may not be as close to you as all of this.”

“Aunt, I already said — I have my own savings. Enough to support myself,” said Lin Fei. “And if it truly comes to that, I can go and keep Yongning company. Things are far more free and easy there — and you would not be there to pull me by the ear and lecture me every day.”

Third Aunt Lin laughed and scolded: “You ungrateful thing.”

She said: “Don’t try to deflect with jokes. I ask you plainly: what of your future? Surely you cannot wander the earth as a lost soul, with no one to offer you incense.”

An unmarried woman could not be interred in the ancestral burial ground. To the people of this era, that meant becoming a wandering ghost after death — with no descendants, no one to offer sacrifices, and no incense to receive.

Lin Fei said: “I only concern myself with the living. Who cares about what happens after death? I won’t be able to see it anyway. What does incense matter?”

Third Aunt Lin said angrily: “If you think incense doesn’t matter, then let’s not make offerings to your great-uncle and your aunt-in-law this year. Just tell me — will you agree to that or not?”

Lin Fei was struck speechless.

It was a rare thing for someone to leave her at a loss for words. The truth was that her conviction — that she did not want to marry, would not marry — ran contrary to the world’s prevailing belief in clan continuity and the importance of a thriving family line.

Third Aunt Lin said: “Your aunt is not forcing you to marry without question. Your aunt wants good things for you. Don’t be willful.”

“Good things for a woman” naturally meant having a sweetheart, having a place to belong, bearing three or five children.

Lin Fei understood this. She understood her aunt’s heart as well.

But she still did not want to marry. The prospect of marriage — of being bound for a lifetime to a man she did not know, bearing him many children, and perhaps dying in childbirth one day — held not the slightest appeal for her.

But she was not the eldest unmarried person in the household. Lin Zi was nearly thirty and still a confirmed bachelor. Lin Fei decided to go seek her elder brother’s support.

She had truly reached her limit with her aunt’s relentless nagging.

When she arrived at Lin Zi’s quarters, the book boy was crouching in the corridor, taking advantage of the last of the setting sun’s light to wash the brushes and rinse the ink stones.

Lin Fei asked: “Where is my elder brother?”

The book boy said: “Third Master had someone call for him. It’s been about an incense stick’s worth of time.”

Lin Fei said: “Then I’ll wait for him in the study.”

She stepped forward, then stepped back again, and asked: “When did elder brother start painting again?”

The book boy had been washing painting brushes, it turned out.

The book boy said: “Just recently — and not often, only occasionally.”

Lin Fei gave a soft sound of acknowledgment and went into the study.

On the writing desk, a jade paperweight still held down a painting — evidently Lin Zi had been called away suddenly, and the ink had not yet dried.

Lin Fei leaned over to look. It was a portrait of a beautiful woman. Only the woman’s outline had been traced; no face had been drawn.

Lin Fei appreciated the brushwork and the lines for a while. Growing bored of waiting, she idly drew out the scrolled papers from the porcelain vase on the writing desk and unrolled them one by one — most were works of calligraphy. She pulled out another scroll and opened it: another portrait of a beautiful woman.

But this one, though it was a finished work, had the woman’s face left entirely blank. It was a beautiful woman with no face.

Something strange stirred in Lin Fei’s heart.