The day after spending the night “breaking into and picking locks” in her own home, Xiao Nanhui unsurprisingly slept through the morning.

The blood-soaked garment she had unexpectedly glimpsed the night before crept into her dreams, coming alive as if animated, gnashing its teeth and clawing as it chased her through the dream.

She felt somewhat listless, yet had to force herself to seem alert.

In a little while she would be following the imperial procession to Yu’an, and the time she had left to investigate while still in Quecheng was running short. Yet those fragmented clues still left her with nothing but a fog.

Thinking of that strip of cloth from the night before, she grew curious again. She had intended to take advantage of the daylight to have another look, but the moment she stepped out of her own courtyard she was blocked at the door by Dujuan.

Xiao Nanhui felt the guilt of someone with a guilty conscience, assuming her movements had been discovered, and was just preparing to make a full confession, when unexpectedly the other party took the initiative to plop two roast geese on the stone table.

Dujuan’s culinary skill was exceptional — if Xiao Nanhui were to judge, it was even a match for more than half the restaurants in Quecheng.

For this reason, the household seldom purchased ready-made food from outside, beyond fresh vegetables and poultry eggs.

Take these roast geese from Xinheng’s as an example: the craftsmanship was indeed refined, and the flavor had been consistently authentic for ten years running. But Dujuan regarded them as an affront to her own cooking, and could not stand to see these geese appear in the house.

There was only one exception.

And that was when Dujuan had some troublesome matter on her hands.

The last time Dujuan had proactively invited her to eat roast goose, she had been compelled to queue outside Xiangluo Fabric Shop for an entire day and night for a bolt of limited-edition patterned satin.

Xiao Nanhui stared at the two packets of roast goose on the table with their red paper wrappings, and felt her mouth go suddenly dry — and all her appetite abruptly vanished.

“Dujuan-jie, that bolt of fabric from last time — haven’t you used it up yet…”

“What fabric? What bolt?” Dujuan’s large eyes blinked, as though she had completely forgotten the business at the fabric shop, and even more completely forgotten the “prior offense” of having bought roast goose before. “What I want to tell you is something serious.”

Very well — so it seemed one roast goose was sufficient to send her on a small errand to fetch some fabric, while two roast geese meant she was to handle something genuinely serious.

Not far away, Bolao had already tracked down the smell and was now unpeeling the oiled paper from the roast goose with eyes shining bright.

An expression of gloom began to show on Xiao Nanhui’s face.

She had not noticed it before, but now she was truly beginning to envy this great blockhead of a person.

No head for trouble, no worries — Great Master Yaoyi had not deceived her after all.

“This matter — big or small, it depends on how you look at it. For you, it’s nothing more than a little errand.”

Dujuan bowed her head, pretending to be occupied with her needlework, bringing the matter up as though it were a passing afterthought she hardly cared about.

Yet the more she acted this way, the worse Xiao Nanhui’s premonition became.

It felt like a huge boulder hanging over her head that had already come loose, and she simply did not know when it would fall.

Sure enough, the very next moment, the other party dropped that “boulder” squarely on her.

“The Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion has a new little prince. They are holding a full-moon birthday banquet. I have already prepared the gift — you will take it shortly, on behalf of the Marquis Mansion, and make the visit.”

Dujuan spoke of this matter lightly and casually, as though the person to be visited was not some imperial prince of the royal family, but the sesame flatbread stall on Dingyu Road.

Yet the moment the words “Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion,” “little prince,” and “birthday banquet” entered her ears, she was struck rooted to the spot as though by lightning.

She had always believed that the memories of children were not so tenacious.

But when Dujuan uttered those few words, the image that appeared before her mind’s eye was almost instantaneous: herself standing in the rear garden of the Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion all those years ago, lunging forward with one leg to throw a punch that knocked out one of Su Pingchuan’s teeth.

“No, no, no.” She retreated again and again, feeling as though her tongue had swollen in her mouth. “What standing do I have? It is not appropriate for me to appear at this sort of occasion. It would be better not to go…”

She had barely taken half a step back when Dujuan’s pair of claws shot out and dragged her back without ceremony.

“Your standing is just right. You don’t know what it’s like at those gatherings — there are any number of tactless and gossipy inner-household women. The Marquis’s situation is delicate right now, so he naturally needs to avoid this sort of thing — we absolutely cannot give people a foothold to exploit.”

Thinking back to all the people she had encountered at the Yan Family gathering, Xiao Nanhui found herself nodding involuntarily — then realized that something about this didn’t quite add up.

Wait — if they were all tactless gossips, what made Dujuan think she would be able to handle them?

She suddenly recalled that woman called Lady Bo whom she had met at the Yan Family gathering, and her whole body wilted.

“Dujuan-jie, I think this matter really ought to—”

The weak second half of Xiao Nanhui’s sentence was forcefully cut off.

“It is settled. Take Bolao with you — the two of you will have each other for company, and can look out for one another.”

Xiao Nanhui glanced over at a certain someone not far away who was drooling while comparing the two roast geese to determine which one was fatter, and formed grave doubts about Dujuan’s reasoning.

“It’s only half a day at most — you’ll be back after the evening meal at the latest. You have faced battlefields — are you afraid of entering one prince’s mansion?”

She would rather face ten more battlefields than enter one prince’s mansion.

Xiao Nanhui felt like weeping but had no tears. After sulking for half a day, she could only rise indignantly, step forward, and snatch back the roast goose that was rightfully hers.

If she was going to be “sent to the execution ground” regardless, she had better eat her fill before setting out.

Half an hour later, Xiao Nanhui was already standing before the gates of the Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion.

Staring at the threshold that was higher than her own shin, the regret in Xiao Nanhui’s heart was almost overflowing.

If it were anyone else, even a hundred taels of gold might not be enough to bring her here, yet Dujuan had managed to dispatch her with a single roast goose.

Unfair. Truly, hopelessly unfair.

The steward who came to receive her into the mansion appeared exceedingly capable — commanding the entire scene single-handedly from one spot. But perhaps precisely because he was so efficient, having courteously accepted her invitation card, he vanished without a trace.

It was not that the other party was being neglectful of a guest; it was simply that Xiao Nanhui rarely participated in this sort of occasion and was poorly versed in its ways. Aside from the Xiao Family Mansion and the Yan Family Mansion, she had barely set foot in any other prominent household’s inner courtyards. The Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion seemed to expand before her eyes all at once, vast and boundless in every direction.

The men who had entered the mansion around the same time as her instantly found their way to one another and began exchanging pleasantries, utterly abandoning their wives and daughters without so much as a backward glance. As for the women, they seemed long accustomed to this sort of thing, and each of them navigated the scene with practiced ease. Even those from different households who had not necessarily met before needed only to chat briefly about the jewelry at Qingcui Pavilion or the rouge at Baoyue Studio, and within a round or two of conversation they would become as familiar as long-lost sisters.

Xiao Nanhui stood at the entrance and watched for quite some time, and still could neither advance nor retreat.

She could neither blend in with that crowd of posturing officials spouting refined talk over pale tea, nor could she possibly wedge herself into that cluster of soft, fragrant, painted women.

People of every description drifted past her eyes, yet she felt as though she stood alone on an island.

Bolao had long since disappeared, most likely having followed her nose toward food.

She rubbed her slightly aching wrist and resigned herself to fate, picking up her two large gift boxes and walking forward, trying first to find someone from the prince’s mansion who could relieve her of these troublesome birthday gifts.

After wandering aimlessly along the covered corridors for a while, she finally spotted two figures, one of whom wore the attire of a prince’s mansion servant — exactly the person she was looking for.

“Excuse me, young gentleman—”

Before the words were even out of her mouth, the servant had yet to react, but the person facing him turned around. It was Su Pingchuan.

Xiao Nanhui was taken aback. She had anticipated that if she came to the Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion today, she might encounter Su Pingchuan — but she hadn’t expected to run into him quite this quickly.

“I pay my respects to the Left General.”

The moment Su Pingchuan turned his head and saw it was her, his expression immediately soured.

The servant nearby read the atmosphere and accepted the birthday gifts, swiftly retreating.

Once the servant had gone far enough, Su Pingchuan muttered with a dark expression:

“Why is it you who came?”

Xiao Nanhui felt a flash of displeasure. She thought the question was rather grating. Why couldn’t it be her? Was she so utterly beneath dignity that she couldn’t even show her face at a small infant’s full-moon banquet?

But then, thinking that the person before her had very thin skin and a strong sense of pride, and that he was probably afraid of the business about his missing tooth and his trousers coming to light and losing him face—

The more she thought about it, the more it seemed exactly that. She raised her left hand to the side of her mouth and deliberately lowered her voice.

“Pingchuan-di, rest assured — a person must always learn to look forward. That old grievance between the two of us, I promise I will not breathe a single word of it.”

As she said this, her voice was very low, which naturally meant she had to stand closer to Su Pingchuan.

Having finished speaking, she waited a good while without hearing any response, and turned her head to look — only to meet a pair of ears that had gone completely red.

He was wearing a white gown embroidered with silver thread today, and the silver color ordinarily suited his unusually fair complexion quite well. But at this moment, it only served to make the flush on his face stand out all the more vividly.

Xiao Nanhui felt a brief moment of startlement, and before she had time to puzzle over the meaning behind what she was seeing, Su Pingchuan’s gaze fell on the space between her brows — and the instant it met hers, he averted it as though scorched.

He stepped back a few paces, stood in place for a moment, then turned his back to her.

“Have these days been treating you well?”

Well now — since when had this pig-headed young lord learned to exchange pleasantries?

“Well enough, well enough.” These days she was decidedly not well, but Xiao Nanhui had no desire to bring up all those vexing matters at the moment, and could only brush it aside with a light laugh. “Congratulations, Pingchuan-di, on the new addition to your family—”

The pleasantry died on her lips halfway through.

Before she had met Lady Bo, she might have been able to convince herself: Su Pingchuan was young and hot-headed, and in some things he was perhaps being a bit extreme.

But ever since meeting Lady Bo, she suddenly found she had both understanding and sympathy for Su Pingchuan.

He was not extreme at all. If anything, he should be even more extreme.

The words she had not spoken turned over once on the tip of her tongue. Xiao Nanhui patted the person before her on the shoulder.

“Regardless of anything else, you are now something of an older brother. When you think of having a little brother you can boss around from now on — that’s actually not so bad.”

Having said that, she gave a dry laugh.

She had never been very good at comforting people, and every time she tried she would regret it afterward.

Sure enough, Su Pingchuan was silent for a long while, and when he finally spoke again, his voice had resumed that tone of his — proud and aloof with an undercurrent of awkwardness.

“What I meant earlier was — I didn’t say you couldn’t come. It’s just that today was not the right day. I assumed that given your personality, you wouldn’t enjoy this sort of occasion, so I was surprised you chose today of all days to come and join in the commotion.”

Watching the way the person before her spoke, Xiao Nanhui found it rather amusing, and suddenly felt that this young man actually bore a certain resemblance to the Emperor: there was something innately lofty at his core, yet he was inexplicably drawn to curiosity about the affairs of the common world.

But come to think of it, it was not entirely without reason — after all, these two could be considered relatives…

Relatives? When had it become her place to speak of the Emperor’s relatives?

And just like that, in the span of a single moment, Xiao Nanhui gave herself a sudden jolt and came back to her senses.

She had been thinking of the Emperor far too often lately. This was not a good sign.

She cleared her throat and took the initiative to steer the conversation.

“Today is just a full-moon banquet, isn’t it? Even if the imperial family’s rules are more elaborate, I’ll just stand to one side and watch — nothing can go too badly wrong.”

“You didn’t know?” Su Pingchuan was evidently a little puzzled by Xiao Nanhui’s reaction. “The Su Clan has a rule passed down through the generations: whenever a new blood member is born into the imperial family, the venerable guardian of the imperial ancestral tombs must come to bestow a blessing. At that time, everyone present must receive the rites together.”

The roast goose in her stomach seemed to be crowing at the top of its lungs at that very moment. Xiao Nanhui felt that it was the worst-value roast goose she had ever eaten in her life.

She was just about to ask what manner of thing this “receiving the rites” business was, when a figure appeared without warning at the head of the covered walkway.

“I was just wondering — Chuan’er is not the type to lose track of what matters and miss the right moment. It turns out he was chatting and laughing with a beauty, and forgot all about the time.”

Lady Bo smiled warmly and walked straight toward Su Pingchuan.

“Master Zong is about to arrive. The master of the house is waiting in the ancestral hall. Chuan’er, you had best make haste.”

Su Pingchuan had not spared Lady Bo a single glance from start to finish. Only just before he left, he leaned close to Xiao Nanhui’s ear and said quietly, “Be careful,” then turned and left with a stern expression.

With Su Pingchuan’s departure, the smile on Lady Bo’s face faded somewhat. She looked at Xiao Nanhui and spoke unhurriedly.

“Today is indeed not a suitable occasion for swords and spears, which leaves Miss Xiao rather without a place to put her skills to use. However, I have set up a target-guessing game in the side courtyard. It is only a pastime for the young ladies — rather humble entertainment, but better than nothing. If Miss Xiao does not mind, you are welcome to come watch the fun.”

The way this was phrased — as though she could possibly dare to mind anything in the Prince’s Mansion. She only minded — she only minded the person standing before her.

The smile on Xiao Nanhui’s face looked more like a grimace.

“Well… then let us take a look.”

Lady Bo had long since anticipated that she would not refuse, and turned and walked ahead in a composed and unhurried manner. Xiao Nanhui had no choice but to follow.

The other party took small steps and walked slowly at a natural pace. Xiao Nanhui was unaccustomed to this kind of gait and shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.

After finally making it through the long corridor, a small garden came into view.

Xiao Nanhui was growing bored of walking, so she raised her head and looked around — and that raising of her head was what caused her to notice the tree.

It was a plum tree, evidently of some age. At this time of year it had grown full of green branches and leaves and blended in entirely with its surroundings. Yet for some reason, Xiao Nanhui recognized it at a single glance.

The very next moment, Lady Bo’s voice came from up ahead.

“Your eyesight is keen. That is indeed the Yingshui Chonglou.”

If before, Xiao Nanhui had harbored some small fondness for this precious variety of plum blossom on account of Mei Ruogu, now, having gone through the matter with Bai Yun, she did not have half a shred of affection for it left.

She said nothing, making it plain she had no wish to engage on this topic.

But Lady Bo acted as though she had not noticed, speaking in the manner of someone who had casually recalled some amusing anecdote in the middle of idle conversation, and insisted on drawing out this thread of talk further.

“Before this, Chuan’er had instructed the household not to trim the branches this year — he intended to do it himself. It seems he wanted to save some of the most beautifully blooming branches to personally send to someone.” The other party’s voice paused, and when it resumed it carried a few notes of regret. “It is only a pity that he moved too slowly — the blossoms could not wait, and in a single night more than half of them had already fallen. Perhaps, as those great masters often say, the timing simply was not fated.”

The woman’s voice remained soft as ever, yet it carried a sensation like a spider’s thread — fine and sticky, making the hairs on one’s neck stand on end.

And yet, once bitten twice shy — having had dealings first with Bai Yun and now with Lady Bo, she had begun to see through the methods these women used to make others feel ensnared. Her heart was actually considerably calmer.

Taking a deep breath, she replied in a steady voice:

“Madam worries needlessly. This plum tree is thick with new shoots and lush green growth — it looks to have another hundred years of life in it, and will long outlast both you and I. Why grieve so deeply over a single season’s bloom and fade?”

Lady Bo’s figure paused, then, as though she had not heard the remark at all, continued forward with small, unhurried steps.