Xie Yuzhang’s tone seemed somehow different, but Li Gu was in high spirits and did not notice. He pressed his heels into the horse’s flanks, drew away from the others, and the two of them rode into the mountains together on a single horse.

The terrain around Yunjing was flat, and though there were hills in the surrounding area, there were no steep or towering peaks — the scenery here could genuinely be called beautiful, with clear mountains and gentle waters. The mountains were exactly as Li Gu had described: not a single person in sight, and utterly quiet.

“Just now when we went to fetch water, we found a small stream over that way. Follow it along and there’s a little stone pool — there are fish in it,” Li Gu said. “I’ll take you to see it.”

By the water, then? That would do well enough, Xie Yuzhang thought.

The breeze that met them carried the fragrance of flowers. The figure nestled in his arms had a slender, graceful waist, and a light, ethereal presence. Li Gu felt something within him begin to drift, as if lifted on air.

Since their last encounter, he had not returned to the Princess’s manor. Xie Yuzhang had also stopped timing her visits to coincide with the end of each ten-day period, though she still came to the palace from time to time. She got along well with all three of the senior consorts, and there was not a person who did not speak well of her.

Each time she came, she would always stop to see him. But spending time together inside the palace was, in the end, entirely different from this moment here.

Back when Li Gu had escorted Xie Yuzhang to Mobei, riding on horseback alongside her carriage, he had imagined countless times what it would be like to share a horse with her the way they were doing now — to imagine the two of them riding side by side with the whole world empty, nothing but him and her, and no one else at all.

But fate had its own designs. By the time she finally returned from Mobei, so many things had come to stand between them — so many events, so many people. Those events, those people, could not simply be made to disappear. They stood between Li Gu and Xie Yuzhang, likely forever.

Li Weifeng had asked him why he would not hold a selection ceremony for consorts. He could not explain it — to say it aloud would truly sound too absurd.

Yet, as Li Weifeng had said, he had married and he had taken concubines, and she had never seemed to care in the slightest about anyone in the rear palace. Even so, Li Gu had a clear and certain feeling: nothing new could be allowed to come between them. Every additional thing that appeared would push her one step further from him.

This so-called “feeling” could not be put into words. It had no logic behind it, and saying it aloud would sound ridiculous. Yet it was a near-animal instinct — the kind of instinct that had saved his life many times on the battlefield. He trusted his instincts.

When they reached ground too rough for the horse to run, Li Gu dismounted, and the sovereign of an entire nation personally led her horse by the reins. This was a privilege no other person in the world could claim, Xie Yuzhang thought — and worth everything.

The stream and the little stone pool were serene and lovely, and there were fish in the clear water. At the pool’s edge was a wide, smooth boulder — perfectly sized for a person to lie on — but it was covered in green moss, inevitably slick and damp.

“While we were fetching water over here, a roe deer came running through,” Li Gu said. “We chased it over that way and caught it in the end.”

So it was not here? Xie Yuzhang thought.

Li Gu led her horse away from the stream and the little pool, and guided her along the trail they had followed while pursuing the deer, until at last they reached the spot where they had caught it. Fresh blood still stained the ground there.

Xie Yuzhang looked around. The grass here was certainly thick and soft — this would do better than the stone.

But Li Gu did not stop here either. He led her horse onward, continuing further.

Where exactly are we going? Xie Yuzhang was puzzled.

Yet Li Gu simply went on leading her horse, pointing out the mountain ahead, the stones by the water’s edge, the flowers at their feet, and a rabbit that suddenly darted out from a clump of grass.

He was in such good spirits that he had no desire to draw his bow. He let the rabbit go.

Xie Yuzhang’s brow furrowed a little more with each passing moment.

Li Gu led her horse in a wide loop through the mountain valley and then began heading back.

“Yuzhang,” he said, “I have been looking forward to this day for many years.”

“Just the two of us.”

“I lead your horse, and wherever you wish to go, I take you there.”

“Today, I have finally had my wish granted — just this once.”

Xie Yuzhang was silent for a long moment. At last she said: “When you said you wanted to have your way — you meant this?”

“Yes.” Li Gu turned to look back at her, the smile still at the corner of his mouth.

But then he went still, because the look on Xie Yuzhang’s face was something beyond description — layered and intricate in a way that defied easy reading.

The two of them held each other’s gaze for a moment. Then Xie Yuzhang glanced away.

Li Gu was silent for a breath. Then understanding, at last, arrived.

“Xie Yuzhang!” he said, his voice sharp with indignation. “What exactly were you thinking?!”

Xie Yuzhang put on her most unshakeable expression: “I was thinking that it would not be very proper for His Majesty to lead my horse for me — if anyone were to see it, it would be unseemly. Fortunately, there is no one here.”

Li Gu stopped walking. He gripped the reins and looked up at her with a direct, accusing stare. “You misread the situation — and still you agreed?”

Xie Yuzhang’s embarrassment curdled into indignation. She was very nearly scratching the gemstones off the saddle in her agitation. “You said, in front of that many people, that you wanted to have your way just once — what was I supposed to do? You are the Emperor!”

On the grasslands, she had grown accustomed to seeing men and women of the nomadic peoples ducking into tents or diving into the tall grass together. Sometimes it was only a matter of going for a gallop, and even in wide-open spaces that appeared completely deserted, you might still startle a pair of people in a state of complete undress. With the manner and tone Li Gu had used when he told her he wanted to have his way, it really was not fair to blame Xie Yuzhang for drawing the wrong conclusion.

Imperial authority was a blade suspended over her head, one she had no power to defy. Just as she had once told him — she had to rely on staying in the Emperor’s favor in order to survive.

And so, in that moment, with so many people watching, she had been unable to refuse him.

All of this — the long circuit through the valley, all of those heartfelt words — had been thrown away for nothing. She had made eyes at someone who could not even see them.

Li Gu thought of how she had stood with her head gently lowered for a long while before finally murmuring that quiet word of consent. A surge of irritation rose in him, followed immediately by a pang of something softer, something that ached.

He was too vexed to speak. He turned away, gripped the reins, and pulled the horse along. Xie Yuzhang sat stiffly in the saddle, her face set, and neither of them said a word to the other.

It was only when the mouth of the valley appeared ahead of them, with the faint outlines of the guards visible beyond, that Li Gu’s footsteps suddenly halted.

“You are allowed to refuse,” he said.

Xie Yuzhang gave a dismissive sound. “I do not have the nerve to refuse the Emperor.”

“You do. From now on — you may refuse the Emperor.” Li Gu turned to look at her. “Because the Emperor is me.”

Xie Yuzhang looked at him for a moment, then turned her head away. “Hurry up and go back,” she said, irritated. “We have been out here so long — who knows what all of them are imagining.”

“Let them dare,” Li Gu said, swinging up into the saddle. “I’ll have their heads.”

Xie Yuzhang said in exasperation: “You see — the Emperor can have anyone’s head he likes. Who would dare refuse you?”

Li Gu closed his arm around her waist. “I say you may, so you may.”

“The Emperor commanding me to refuse the Emperor — that is truly absurd,” Xie Yuzhang said. “Very well, I refuse him now. Remove your arm.”

She reached down to pry his arm from around her waist. It was like iron — there was absolutely no shifting it. She twisted and struggled, and Li Gu suddenly pulled her closer, tightening his hold, and said in a low voice: “Stop moving!”

It was broad daylight, and there were so many people around — Li Gu had harbored no such thoughts at the outset. But Xie Yuzhang had managed to stir them to life all the same.

Summer garments were thin. Their bodies were pressed together, and Xie Yuzhang felt the change in him with perfect, unmistakable clarity. She understood a man’s body well enough; in an instant she went completely still. She gripped the horse’s mane and dropped her gaze.

Her neck was white as snow — long, slender, exquisitely formed.

Desire, once ignited, rises fast.

Li Gu stared at the back of Xie Yuzhang’s neck. Xie Yuzhang heard his breathing grow heavier, and became all the more careful not to move, letting her head drop lower still.

Then there was a sudden sharp pain at the back of her neck. Li Gu had bitten her there — gently, just enough to leave a faint impression.

He held her in his arms and said, low and quiet: “I will not touch you. Not now, and not in the future. You need not be afraid.”

“Only — in such matters, a man’s self-command is unreliable,” he said. “Do not tempt me. If I am moved, you may refuse me.”

Xie Yuzhang drew a breath. “I have never tempted you.”

That time he had forced his way into her upper rooms did not count — she had been berating him, not tempting him.

“Your existence,” Li Gu murmured close against her ear, his voice low and soft, “…is temptation enough.”

Something like an electric current shot through her body. Xie Yuzhang bit her lip, dug her fingers into the saddle, and curled her toes.

“Let us go back,” she said. “Quickly.”

Li Gu’s warm breath lingered at the back of her neck and ear a moment longer, before he finally withdrew a little. His arm loosened from around her, and he pressed his heels into the horse’s flanks, moving toward the valley’s mouth.

When they rejoined the rest of the group, he swung down from the horse and said, “Ride on your own from here.”

Then he added, “This is a Hexi horse. Consider it yours.”

Hu Jin gestured to one of the guards, who immediately dismounted and gave his horse to the Emperor, then doubled up with another rider.

The group began their return journey.

Only Hu Jin, watching discreetly from the side, could not make sense of it.

The Emperor was always inscrutable — he never let his moods show. But why was the Princess also wearing that taut, unreadable expression?

The two of them both looked as though they were in a somewhat less than pleased frame of mind… Could it be that things had not gone well?

Li Gu cast a glance at Xie Yuzhang. Her lotus face was carefully composed, serene as carved jade.

He looked away.

I will not touch you… unless you are willing in your heart.

Yet Li Gu understood, somewhere deep and quiet within himself, that as long as imperial authority hung over Xie Yuzhang’s head, there could never truly be a day when what she gave him could be called genuine willingness.

His gaze moved forward. In the distance, a faint silhouette of mountains was visible, and upon them, the detached palace with its pavilions and towers traced a faint outline — far enough away to look, from here, like something from a realm of immortals.

For the next two days, Xie Yuzhang kept to the detached palace entirely. When Li Zhenzhen and Deng Wanniang invited her to go out hunting, she found reasons to decline.

On the evening of the third day, the Hexi Commandery Princess came to find her, carrying her zither. The two of them played and talked together, from dusk until the sky had turned fully dark, before the Hexi Commandery Princess finally departed.

Spending time with a young woman of such an uncomplicated, pure-hearted nature left Xie Yuzhang feeling genuinely at ease and cheerful. After seeing the Hexi Commandery Princess out, she found the courtyard pleasantly cool in the night air. She had someone arrange a spread of fruits and melons, lit incense to keep away insects, and lay back in the reclining chair in the open courtyard to gaze at the stars.

The River of Stars swept across the night sky in a sweep of radiant splendor. Looking up at it like this, one could easily be overtaken by a sense of one’s own smallness.

She was still lost in thought when a shadow fell over her. Xie Yuzhang startled, and the round fan in her hand slipped to the ground.

The person bent to pick it up for her.

Xie Yuzhang quickly sat up and reached for her shoes, her voice carrying a note of complaint: “Why do you walk without making any sound?”

She paused a moment, then added with a tone of reproach: “And again without sending anyone to announce you.”

Li Gu said, “I haven’t gone inside yet.” He was still in the courtyard, after all.

His gaze fell on Xie Yuzhang’s delicate, fair feet. “Why are you not wearing your socks?”

Xie Yuzhang scrambled to recover her composure, and hastily reached for her shoes and socks herself, not waiting for her maid.

It was entirely normal for women on the Mobei grasslands to go barefoot in summer to keep cool, and she had picked up the habit. Besides, this was her own courtyard — the detached palace did have ministers staying within it, but they had their own designated quarters, entirely separate from the residential areas occupied by the women here.

In short: who could have predicted that Li Gu would simply materialize out of nowhere, soundlessly, in the middle of the night?

She said with just a trace of irritation: “What brings Your Majesty here?” This was not a simple statement, nor a genuine question — in truth, it was an accusation.

But Li Gu evidently could not tell the difference. He settled himself onto the stone stool nearby and said, “I was just out walking. Why haven’t I seen you out and about these past two days?”

Xie Yuzhang had been keeping herself in after the misunderstanding three days ago, too embarrassed to face him, and had been using that as an excuse to stay indoors. Li Gu knew perfectly well why — he was clearly asking a question he already knew the answer to.

Xie Yuzhang smoothed her skirt down over the tops of her shoes so he could not see them anymore, but then noticed that he still had a riding crop in his hand, and asked with genuine curiosity: “Has Your Majesty only just returned?”

Li Gu, however, extended the riding crop toward her. “For you.”

Xie Yuzhang asked, puzzled: “What would I do with a riding crop?”

“I gave you a horse,” Li Gu said, “so naturally you should have a whip to go with it.”

What a completely baffling line of reasoning. Could there be some significance hidden in this riding crop? Xie Yuzhang held it up to examine it by the light of the glass lantern.

The whip was ordinary — nothing remarkable at all. A wooden handle, without a single gemstone inlaid, which could fairly be described as rather plain. And yet, it was in keeping with Li Gu’s general aesthetic. He preferred things that were simple and functional, and had little taste for anything too ornate or elaborate.

So what was the point of bringing her such an unremarkable riding crop?

Xie Yuzhang glanced at Li Gu with a questioning look.

There was something off about his expression. He was visibly trying to maintain a blank, impassive face — but his eyes seemed to hold some expectation.

Her gaze returned to the riding crop.

Looking more closely, she noticed it was more than just ordinary. The pattern carved into the wooden handle — the workmanship was truly rough, was it not? Not at all the kind of thing a skilled craftsman would produce. It looked more like…

A flicker of light sparked through Xie Yuzhang’s mind.

She looked up, and with practiced dissatisfaction said: “Today is my birthday, Your Majesty, and you give me a riding crop — no gold inlay, no jade setting. Is that not rather miserly?”

Seeing that she had understood, Li Gu’s composed facade dissolved, and he broke into a wide, open smile.

The young, poised Emperor told her with evident delight: “I carved it myself.”