When Liang Chen came to wake Li Gu, he was still very startled. “I fell asleep?”

Liang Chen said, “For half an hour. I feared you might catch a chill, and only then dared to wake you.” Though the water in the pool was warm, Li Gu’s upper body was exposed above the surface.

He said, “Your Majesty should go back to bed to sleep.”

Li Gu dried himself, changed into fresh sleep clothes, and returned to bed — only to find he could not sleep again. He lay with his eyes open, watching the moonlight filter through the window paper, and stared wide-eyed until dawn.

When Liang Chen came in the next morning and saw the dark circles beneath his eyes, he knew immediately that he had again failed to sleep. He sighed inwardly and said, encouraging him, “Perhaps today Your Majesty should go to the Princess’s side after all.”

Li Gu gave a noncommittal sound.

Liang Chen did not dare press further.

Li Gu finished his morning meal, and then Fu Kang came.

He still held the position of head steward of the inner court, though the one who now regularly attended the Emperor’s side was his foster son, Liang Chen.

Fu Kang came to report, “The initial survey of the Yanshou Palace and Yanfu Palace has been completed over these past two days. The main hall beams and pillars are all intact, but a few of the side halls have fallen into disrepair over the years — the ceilings have collapsed, and the beams beneath them are damaged. As for the repairs, we will have to wait until after the new year.”

Li Gu said, “Understood.”

Fu Kang’s standing in the Emperor’s favor had fallen greatly these days. And with the eldest imperial son lost this last twelfth month, the two consorts fallen from grace — a dark cloud had seemed to hang over the Emperor without lifting. Fu Kang had not dared to push himself forward during this time. He cast one glance at his foster son Liang Chen, his heart a mixture of envy and wariness, and seeing that the Emperor’s expression was not particularly pleasant, he withdrew quickly.

The day passed swiftly, and as dusk began to fall, Liang Chen glanced at the Emperor who was reading, then went outside and checked the water clock.

When he returned, the Emperor had turned a page and asked, “What hour is it?”

Liang Chen said, “It is the hour of Xu.”

He paused, then said, “The Princess is nearly ready to retire for the night.”

Li Gu said, “Let her sleep. I won’t disturb her tonight.”

Liang Chen was surprised. After a moment of consideration, he said, “Only I don’t know whether the Princess might be waiting especially for Your Majesty. Going by the past few days, tonight would be the time to go.”

Li Gu paused, then said, “Send someone to tell her not to wait for me.”

Liang Chen bowed in acknowledgment and had just stepped back, not yet having turned around, when Li Gu set down his book and said, “Go yourself.”

Liang Chen bowed once more, and this time did turn around — but had taken only a few steps when Li Gu called out, “Wait.”

“Bring me my outer robe,” he said.

The Emperor’s mind had shifted three times in a single moment. In the end, he had his outer robe brought, took his attendants, and went to the Princess’s estate.

Xie Yuzhang had just finished bathing, and was in the middle of drying her hair when she heard the handmaid’s announcement. She was a little surprised. She had already changed into her sleep clothes. When Li Gu came in, he saw her sitting on the daybed, the hem of her clothes revealing a pair of fair, slender, snow-white feet resting on the fur rug spread across the footstool, and he said, “Why are you not wearing socks again?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “The underground heating is going.”

She pressed her foot into the fur rug to demonstrate. “Not even a little cold.”

Those beautiful feet, delicate and fair, half-hidden in the fur, made one’s heart heat with a peculiar warmth at the sight.

Xie Yuzhang said, “I thought you weren’t coming today.”

Li Gu said, “I was held up by something.”

Xie Yuzhang asked, “How were you last night? Are you any better?”

Her cheeks had a faint soft blush. Her long hair had been combed through by the handmaid and hung soft and loose over her shoulders, falling all the way to her waist.

Li Gu did not answer. He only stared at her in a daze.

When she had been moving freely above him in the dream, her hair had been let down just like this. Only her expression now was gentle and tranquil — nothing like the bewitching, free-spirited abandon of the dream.

That dream…

Xie Yuzhang asked, “What’s wrong?”

Li Gu said, “Tonight, you sleep in the inner chamber, and I’ll sleep in the outer room.”

Xie Yuzhang said with exasperation, “Stop being contrary. You sleep properly. Once you’re rested and well, you’ll go back to the palace to sleep in peace — would I be afraid of having no bed to sleep in?”

Li Gu’s expression was complex and hard to read.

Xie Yuzhang reached out with her foot to find her shoes.

Her snow-white toes stretched outward.

The handmaids had just withdrawn. There were only the two of them in the room.

Li Gu bent down and reached out to take hold of her ankle.

His palm was burning hot. By comparison, Xie Yuzhang’s fair foot was faintly cool. That warmth seeped through skin into body, and Xie Yuzhang trembled ever so slightly.

Li Gu slipped her shoes onto her feet and stood up.

That night, Li Gu was again given the inner chamber to sleep in.

After Li Gu fell asleep, she withdrew the sleep-calming incense and went back to the outer room daybed to sleep herself.

But she woke with a start in the middle of the night, for no clear reason. She opened her eyes. On the other side of the semi-transparent embroidered screen, in the moonlight filtering through the window, a silhouette in a robe stood there like a shadow.

Xie Yuzhang only lay with her eyes open, watching him.

After a long while, when that shadow suddenly began to move, she quickly closed her eyes, feigning deep sleep.

The figure came around the embroidered screen and walked toward her, sitting down on the edge of the daybed.

What does he want to do? Xie Yuzhang wondered, eyes closed.

Then her hand was taken hold of.

The man lifted her hand… and kissed it, lightly, softly, in a long series of gentle touches.

Warm lips pressing over the back of her hand — wet and reverent.

Xie Yuzhang kept her eyes tightly shut and bit her lip. Goosebumps rose along her arm all the way to the back of her neck.

Fortunately the room was dim. He had not noticed. Otherwise he would have known she was only pretending to sleep.

He kissed her hand gently, for a long time. At last, with reluctant tenderness, he set it down softly, and did not forget to pull up the covers to tuck them over her shoulder.

The room was still for a long while. He rose, went back around the embroidered screen — but he did not return to the inner chamber. He went out.

Xie Yuzhang opened her eyes and thought: Where has he gone?

She very quickly knew. Because once he went out, there would inevitably be some sound of movement outside, and those sounds grew more and more distant.

He had left.

Xie Yuzhang propped herself up.

Moonlight shone through the window, falling across the side table beneath the sill. The plum vase cast a long shadow on the floor.

Xie Yuzhang did not know the exact hour, but the moonlight was still so bright that it meant dawn was still a long way off. Why had he left so early?

The next day, the sun was already three poles high before she rose.

That afternoon, Liang Chen came in person to deliver a message. “His Majesty says, things cannot keep going on like this — Your Highness is not sleeping well either. He will not come again from now on. He asks Your Highness to have several blends of the sleep-aiding incense prepared and sent back with me.”

Xie Yuzhang already had some blended and ready. She told him how to use it and gave it to him.

After Liang Chen left, her closest personal handmaid looked as if she wanted to say something, but hesitated.

Xie Yuzhang said, “If you want to say something, say it.”

The handmaid said, “The sleep-calming incense keeps burning, so the person cannot wake, and moves as though sleepwalking. If he has to remember on his own without being told — isn’t that making things difficult for him?”

Xie Yuzhang instead said, “If it is not difficult for him, then it is I who will be made difficult.”

She leaned against the table, head propped in her hand, and said, “There is truly a decision in my heart that I cannot bring myself to make — I find myself in two minds. I very much want to simply throw a die and let it decide what I should do. What I’ve done is nothing more than hand that die to him, and let him throw it.”

“Watch and see — no matter what result he rolls in the end, it is my fate, and I will accept it gladly.”

Xie Yuzhang was simply curious what kind of result Li Gu would give her. Would he press onward with courage, or would he settle for half-measures?

Either way, she would accept.

In the days that followed, Li Gu indeed did not go to the Yongning Princess’s estate again.

But Liang Chen worried day and night. For Li Gu, even with the sleep-aiding incense burning in the Zichen Palace, he still could not fall asleep. This made plain that the incense only allowed him to sleep better once asleep — it was not the reason he could fall asleep at all.

On the fourteenth day of the first month, while taking advantage of a visit to the Princess’s estate to collect incense, Liang Chen told Xie Yuzhang about Li Gu’s situation.

Xie Yuzhang had not expected this. For Li Gu had been the one to say on his own initiative that he would not come anymore, and she had thought he was doing better.

She said, “Why did you not urge him to come here?”

Liang Chen said helplessly, “His Majesty refuses to come. He says he wants Your Highness to sleep well.”

Xie Yuzhang then thought of how he had crept to kiss her hand before leaving that night — both impulsive and restrained.

She sighed and said, “Go and ask him — on the night of the Lantern Festival tomorrow, would he be willing to go watch the lanterns with me?”

Liang Chen acknowledged the request and left.

The Lantern Festival of the fifth year of Kaiyuan was livelier than any year before.

The Emperor’s southern campaign the previous year had seized the territory of the Xin Prefecture Gao clan and reopened the trade routes between north and south that had been cut off for several years. Southern goods were now being transported north in ship after ship.

Things that had once been driven up to prices nearly equal to gold had at last fallen back to normal levels. The choices available to common people for their daily living had also grown much richer.

The only regret was that the Emperor’s firstborn son had been lost in the twelfth month. The Emperor was grieving and heartbroken, and this year had not stood on the city tower to scatter small gold coins to share in the celebration with the people.

On the night of the Lantern Festival, Li Gu arrived at the Princess’s estate as promised, to accompany her to the festival. The two went out onto the streets together to see the lanterns.

“Put this on,” Xie Yuzhang had bought two masks from a street stall and gave one to Li Gu.

Two people wearing masks could freely take each other’s hands and walk like any ordinary man and woman out to enjoy the lanterns.

Xie Yuzhang led Li Gu down three streets, stopping at a certain spot, and reached out to point at the place across the way. “Do you remember that place?”

Li Gu inclined his head. “That year, I stood there and found you.”

And Xie Yuzhang, turning at that moment, had recognized him in the crowd.

In the blink of an eye, two years had passed. He and she could at last go hand in hand, wandering freely through the river of lanterns.

Xie Yuzhang tugged his hand and began walking in that direction. Li Gu raised his hand to stop the inner guard escorts who moved to follow.

The spot where Li Gu had once stood watching Xie Yuzhang was a corner formed by a building and a courtyard wall. Because the position was unfavorable, no vendors had set up stalls there.

In the midst of the lively, bustling lantern market, this small patch of seclusion stood out — especially still and quiet.

“Just here,” Xie Yuzhang said. “That year, when I turned, I saw you — do you know why?”

Li Gu said, “Why?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “Because even with a mask on, your eyes were especially bright. The moment I turned, they seized hold of me.”

She looked at him and said, “I love how you looked then.”

Then she sighed. “Look at you now — your eye sockets are all sunken. Tell me — why can’t you sleep, and yet you still won’t come to me?”

Li Gu was quiet for a long moment, then said, “When I am at your place, my heart is restless and agitated, and all night I dream unsettled dreams. I have many impure thoughts toward you. I know you are the most tender-hearted person there is. If I were to reach out for you in that state, you would likely not refuse. But this — this is not what I want.”

Xie Yuzhang looked into Li Gu’s eyes, and thought of those soft, closely gathered kisses he had pressed against the back of her hand before leaving that night.

“You,” she said. She undid the mask and dropped it on the ground. “You really are a fool…”

Xie Yuzhang raised her hand. Lightly, she tilted Li Gu’s mask up. In the glow of the lanterns all around, his face was still as handsome as it had been all those years ago.

Xie Yuzhang rose on her toes, and her flushed, rosy lips found his.

The lantern market was full of flowing crowds, and everyone’s eyes were drawn toward those bright and brilliant places, calling out in admiration for the most inventive lanterns.

In this dimly lit corner, Li Gu held Xie Yuzhang’s waist and savored her lips to his heart’s content.

When they finally drew apart, Xie Yuzhang saw that Li Gu’s eyes, which had been somewhat dimmed these past days, were shining with starlight once more.

“Zhuzhu,” Li Gu called Xie Yuzhang by her childhood name for the very first time. “I have made you worry.”

“I will be fine. Tonight I will surely sleep well.”

“All these things, when we look back on them one day, they will be nothing but passing clouds.”

Li Gu said, “Zhuzhu, you need not do this. I don’t need you to… offer yourself as comfort.”

Xie Yuzhang gave a smile that Li Gu could not quite read, and said, “Good.”

In that smile lay hidden a roguish boldness.

Li Gu thought of that one vivid red point, leaping and dancing in his vision.