Xie Yuzhang sometimes thought that Li Gu had come close to being a saint.

He clearly liked her — in the way a man likes a woman — yet the occasions when he let his desire show were far too few. He was never like the men of the steppe, whose eyes would burn with undisguised fire when they looked at her.

When he looked at her, his eyes held a longing for her. She had once fled from that longing; later she found the courage to meet it directly, and was willing to respond to it. And whenever the two of them could read each other’s hearts from each other’s eyes without a single word, there would come a kind of happiness that could not be put into words.

Yet he was always restraining his own desire, always being so careful with her.

Xie Yuzhang guessed that this was perhaps because in the very beginning, she had told him she had no wish to offer herself through the means of physical appeal.

Just now she had not done it deliberately. In the past she had consciously regulated the distance between herself and Li Gu, but since the Xiaoyao Marquisate’s destruction, she was freed from her burdens, and in his presence became fully at ease, doing as her heart dictated, with nothing to guard against. When she was slightly unwary, what was in her heart would flow out naturally into words.

Once spoken, she realized what she had done. But Li Gu had already caught hold of her hand.

People who often rode horses developed remarkably taut and powerful waists — true of both men and women. In Li Gu’s palm, he could feel the slender, supple quality of that waist.

Those rosy lips — he had tasted them only once, and a blink of an eye had passed in ten years. The last time he had wished to taste them again, she turned her head away in refusal, and he ended up kissing only her ear.

His throat burned with a parching thirst, and the most primal of drives urged him to bow his head down toward her.

Watching his face draw closer, Xie Yuzhang thought she ought to remind him — she was still in the period of mourning. But her throat was very dry, and she could not speak.

Li Gu’s forehead pressed tightly against hers, his breathing heavy — yet after that, he did not move.

Xie Yuzhang stood there in a daze.

She was at this moment in his embrace, and she had not deployed any clever words or tactics to refuse him. At this moment she was truly, genuinely yielding.

Li Gu had longed for Xie Yuzhang for ten years. His body ached to the point of pain.

Yet… he did not dare to kiss her lips. He understood deeply that the moment he touched her, it would be an arrow released from the bow, one spark setting everything ablaze — no pressing it back down any longer.

But he could not do that to her.

“Only we were left with tears, flowing through the night without cease.”

She had been married to two men from the same family, and the scholars had wept for her through the night. What were they weeping for?

She was a woman who did not even deign to want the position of Empress. So why was she tempting him tonight?

She was still in the mourning period — why was she not refusing?

Li Gu thought: it must be because he was the Emperor.

She had declined his invitation to become Empress, and so she wished to compensate him in another way. It must be so.

She was not acting from her own free will. She was simply living beneath the weight of imperial power, and ultimately had to offer something.

It must be so.

Li Gu’s body ached, but his heart ached more.

For his reason told him that perhaps in this lifetime, he would never see the day she came to him of her own free will.

At this moment he longed to claim her body. Yet to truly cherish a woman meant giving her a proper place as wife — not dishonoring her without name or title, for any reason under the sky.

All the more so since she was a woman who had not even been willing to accept the position of Empress.

“Yuzhang, you…” He forced the words out with difficulty, “You don’t have to do this.”

Xie Yuzhang was bewildered. She and Li Gu did share many moments of wordless understanding, but this was absolutely not one of them.

Li Gu’s palms were scorching hot, and his body was warm. His breathing was heavy — the unmistakable appearance of someone moved by desire.

Xie Yuzhang could clearly feel the tide of desire surging through his body, yet for reasons she could not understand, he had once again restrained it.

Xie Yuzhang found this rather puzzling.

But his careful, tender regard for her came through to her so clearly.

So — no need to think about it anymore; and it saved her the trouble of opening her mouth to refuse him. Xie Yuzhang softly murmured a sound of assent.

Li Gu thought: just as he had supposed.

He tightened his arms and held her in his embrace. Xie Yuzhang closed her eyes and savored the feeling — very close, very safe.

After a long while, Xie Yuzhang asked, “Has the date for the southern hunt been set?”

Li Gu said, “December.”

Xie Yuzhang gripped his robe front tightly.

Yunjing. The Lin Residence.

In his own study, Lin Zi felt along a hidden recess and drew out a sheaf of papers. He sifted through them and pulled out one sheet.

“…More than ten persons departed the residence in succession, leaving through the Golden Light Gate out of the city.”

On the nineteenth day of the sixth month, his people had noticed those dozen or so individuals, followed them all the way, and trailed them as far as the Golden Light Gate — at which point they found that these people had left the city and headed west. Judging it to be of no significance, they had not continued following.

Indeed, when this piece of information was reported on the twentieth day of the sixth month, even Lin Zi himself had not paid it any mind. Because if these were the people he suspected, whether they meant to take the Qu Jiang route or the Si River route, they had no business leaving through the Golden Light Gate and heading west.

It was not until the dawn of the twenty-first day of the sixth month, when the city gates opened and Princess Yongning’s people entered the city to report the news, that Lin Zi suddenly understood with a start — the Gao Clan’s people, apparently having developed a grudge against Xie Yuzhang, had not gone directly back south, but instead headed for the western mountain!

This single oversight of his had resulted in Lin Fei being abducted to the south of the Jiang River. Every time he thought of it, Lin Zi’s heart seethed with such hatred that he nearly wanted to crumple that piece of paper to shreds.

Yet Lin Zi knew the time to act had not yet come. The Emperor was about to conduct a southern military campaign, and it was certain he would not want disruptions at this moment.

It did not matter — he could endure. He had endured four years of seeing his enemy every day; this was nothing new. Lin Zi went through all those papers once more, carefully scrutinizing them for any further overlooked information.

For each of those pieces of information was bound up with his family’s vendetta, written in blood and hatred.

In the fourth year of the Kaiyuan era, Da Mu issued a proclamation to the great clans of the Jiang South, condemning them for failing to submit to the mandate of Heaven and yield to Da Mu, for leaving the south bank of the Jiang River mired in ongoing warfare and the common people in misery, and moreover for establishing a false court of the former Zhao — a thoroughly reactionary course. The Mu Emperor, bearing the mandate of Heaven, would set things right and restore peace and prosperity to the south.

Such political rhetoric was utter nonsense. The true reason for going to war was nothing more than the fact that, after pacifying Mobei, the young and vigorous Da Mu Emperor could no longer content himself with holding only the north, and he also wanted the rice-and-fish abundance of the south.

And now his ships were built — it was time to go south.

In the twelfth month, Da Mu’s Emperor Li Gu led his forces southward.

Marquis Anyi Jiang Jingye remained to defend the capital. Of the five Chief Ministers, Li Gu took three with him to be on hand for consultation — Zhang Gong among them. Imperial Tutor Mo and the other two Chief Ministers remained to oversee the central government.

This time, Li Weifeng — who had grown so idle he was nearly sprouting moss — set out in high spirits. And Yang Huaishen, who had already received a noble title for his military merits during the pacification of Mobei, went along as well.

Before their departure, Xie Yuzhang made a special trip from the western mountain to the residence of the Earl of Guangping.

“Second Elder Brother,” she said to Yang Huaishen, “no matter what state she is in now, please bring her back alive. Whatever the circumstances, we can deal with everything after she returns. All right?”

Yang Huaishen understood her meaning; his expression was deeply clouded, and he said, “All right.”

Xie Yuzhang expected that Li Gu would come to see her before his departure — the two of them had never experienced this kind of “parting” before. But Li Gu did not come.

This kind of moment was most prone to stir up feelings. Li Gu had deliberated at length, steeled himself, and did not go to see Xie Yuzhang.

Xie Yuzhang naturally had no way of knowing his reasoning. She waited through the day the armies set out and never received Li Gu’s visit — she was left in a daze of bewilderment.

“It will certainly be fine,” she muttered to herself.

Li Gu was a man upon whom fortune itself shone — in her previous life he had already swept the south bank clean and unified both shores. How could anything go wrong?

Though she knew it clearly, having not seen Li Gu and not been able to bid him farewell in person, Xie Yuzhang was restless and unsettled, unable to sit or stand still.

In the end, she took out a square of silk handkerchief and tied it to a branch of the magnolia tree outside the main chamber’s window. She instructed everyone in the courtyard: “No one is to remove it.”

The meaning: return safely.

In his proclamation, the Da Mu Emperor had condemned the southerners for establishing a false court. The great clans of the south all assumed that the first target Li Gu would strike would surely be the Lu Clan. In his previous life, Li Gu’s first southern campaign had indeed attacked the Lu Clan first. But in this lifetime, Li Gu’s chosen route diverged from the previous life — his first target was, surprisingly, the Gao Clan.

Had it not been for the valiant self-sacrifice of the Lin family woman, who took the blow in her place, the one abducted by the Gao Clan would have been Xie Yuzhang.

Every time Li Gu thought of this, his killing intent deepened by a degree.

Xie Yuzhang remained on the western mountain, waiting each month for the court gazette. If there was a victory announcement, it would be posted as a placard and distributed as a notice even before the gazette was published.

Li Gu had lain low in Yunjing for four years; this departure of his was like a tiger springing from its cage.

The court gazette each month, the posted placards and distributed notices copied and pieced together, could assemble the picture of how razor-sharp the blade of an Emperor on horseback truly was. Along the line of advance traced by those words, blood flowed and bodies lay.

Written in the history books, it would all become the achievements of an Emperor’s reign.

In her previous life, Empress Zhang had made Xie Yuzhang attend every banquet. She had sat at the very last seat, quietly listening to others marvel at the Emperor’s iron-blooded ferocity, at how many lives he had taken. The Emperor’s life and hers had only ever been parallel lines, never intersecting. All those marveling words — one listened and let them pass. The Emperor’s life needed no concern or worry from her.

In this life, Xie Yuzhang kept her mourning vigil at the Luo Garden on the western mountain — yet she would often push open the window and glance at that magnolia tree.

She watched it bear the falling snow, watched it form its flower buds, watched it grow its green leaves.

Both the Honored Consort and the Gracious Consort exchanged letters with her, but as time passed, even those grew fewer. It was just the way of people — without contact, feelings naturally faded.

In the sixth month of the fifth year of the Kaiyuan era, Xie Yuzhang’s mourning period came to an end.

In the seventh month, a victory report arrived: the Emperor had wiped out the Gao Clan to the last member.

Xie Yuzhang finally let out a long breath of relief, and brought Jia You back to the Princess Yongning Residence in Yunjing, where she waited with anxious, aching heart for news of Lin Fei.

By this time, the south was deep in the blazing heat of summer. Unlike the dry climate of the north, the south was swelteringly humid. The northern soldiers had great difficulty adapting, and all manner of summer ailments broke out. The heavy cavalry, too, was severely hampered by the terrain and the extreme heat.

Li Gu did not indulge in protracted battles. He decisively halted the southward campaign, absorbed prisoners, consolidated territory, appointed new officials, and stationed garrison forces.

The first southern campaign ended here, and the Emperor returned to the capital.

During the anxious days of waiting, those in the inner palace learned that Xie Yuzhang’s mourning period was over and extended warm invitations for her to enter the palace. Unable to decline, Xie Yuzhang went twice.

On her return, she told her trusted attendant: “Do whatever you can to decline any future invitations from the palace.”

When the attendant asked why, Xie Yuzhang sighed: “I was away from the capital for a year, and had no idea the inner palace had descended into such conflict. Gracious Consort Shu — oh, even Gracious Consort Shu has…”

She recalled the look on Deng Wan’s face as she spoke through clenched teeth.

“Everything I’ve done, they drove me to it. These women of theirs — they know exactly how to stab straight into my heart!”

In others’ eyes, the most favored person in the rear palace was Deng Wan. Her standing was so prominent that she had become a common enemy.

Deng Wan had one great weakness: every other woman had a son, but she alone did not. Aside from the Emperor’s favor, she had nothing.

While the Emperor was away, the women wielded their children as weapons and, with serene and composed expressions, drip by drip, day by day, infused poison into Deng Wan’s heart. And so Deng Wan’s heart gradually began to tilt out of balance.

Xie Yuzhang encouraged her: “Then try to have another — you’re still young.”

Having advised her against it once, that had only been to help her through the hardest days. Now that things had come to this, naturally the advice shifted.

But Deng Wan wept: “No. I won’t have another. My mother gave birth and four of them died. If I have one more, it will take my life. Yongning, even though you’ve never given birth yourself, I know you understand.”

Women could be so very different from one another.

Deng Wan was a woman born with an instinct for motherhood. She loved her children more than her own life. When one died, it took half her life with it. When two died, she had barely survived.

Xie Yuzhang could not help but think of Lin Fei.

When Lin Fei had abandoned Chijishe and Duobi, she had not hesitated at all. Looking back now, there had in fact been signs all along.

Those two children had been born by her side, raised in her tent, and all the small details of those days had long since proven that Lin Fei had never loved them.

She had given birth to them only because Xie Yuzhang’s body was broken and unable to bear children.

Because Xie Yuzhang was weak, because Xie Yuzhang was incapable, because Xie Yuzhang had scattered her people and lost her guard, was already without support, and needed to raise sons as security against old age, against fading beauty and lost favor.

Unfortunately, that day never came.

In the eighth month, Li Gu returned to the capital. Before that, she had already received his letter and knew that Lin Fei was safe and had been brought back.

That same day, Xie Yuzhang went directly to the Earl of Guangping’s Residence.

Yang Huaishen saw her first.

His expression was deeply clouded as he said, “Zhuzhu, go and persuade her. Get her to listen.”

As long as she would listen, she would still be the new wife of Yang Second Brother, the mistress of the Earl of Guangping.